Wow, World Politics with PTJ has come and gone. What an experience! Honestly, this was my favorite class of the semester. I feel like I learned the most and was the most genuinely engaged in this class than any of the others I was taking. I love the activities and the sense of community that this class brought to our cohort. I'm genuinely going to miss the class and PTJ as a professor.
The final paper is coming up quickly and I'm almost positive that I know what I'm going to tackle in answering the prompt. I'm not excited to write it because it is a final and I am pretty exhausted at this point, but I am looking forward to the experience that it will bring because I will be able to craft an essay about something I care for and feel passion for. Also, can't wait for the last game of Diplomatic Risk and donuts!! One last Global Scholars World Politics get together. <3 Thanks for a great class and semester, all of you.
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On p. 245 of the novel Horizons, Ahni Huang declares: "The only way to keep them safe is to be separate. A nation with the power to protect its own." Do you agree with her?
Upon reading this quote, I thought of Israel. The establishment of Israel as an independent Jewish state in 1948 was a way for the Jewish community to feel as though they had a safe haven following the second world war. Although controversial, Israel has served as a safe haven for millions of Jews, housing them in a country that allows for freedom of their religion and cultural tradition. The sanctity of Israel helped the Jewish people recover from the trauma and persecution their people faced through out the majority of human history. Jewish people are constantly at risk of anti-semitism and attack, so having a state like Israel was deemed necessary for their community to survive and thrive. However, Israel has not put an end to anti-semitism in the slightest. The idea of separation for security is something that has been thought of various times in history. Communities crave security and homogeneity; they want to be safe and amongst their own people. Israel has, for the most part, granted that to its people. They have the means to protect their own and maintain and unified community of Jews. Israel is obviously pretty different from the situation in Horizons, but I thought it was relevant enough to draw a comparison between the two. In Horizons, the Upsiders and Downsiders maintain an “us” versus “them” mentality throughout the entirety of the book, and that mentality is also applied to the “evolutionized” people, like Koi. At one point in Horizons, Dane even states that the Upsiders will get used to people like Koi, but the Downsiders never will. Since this mentality is maintained in the novel (and in real life!) it seems like keeping different people separate from one another to guarantee safety is a good idea, but in my opinion, it only leads to further conflict. This further conflict would arise because separation allows the idea of difference and segregation to manifest, leading to people believing the differences are wrong and bad and reason enough for complete division. If people think in such a way this could lead to radical reactions if the separation that was put in place to protect them was ever disturbed. So, with that, I both agree and disagree. I agree because it is true that in being separated, safety will ensue. However, I disagree because it adds another level of foreignness to the difference between people and could later lead to extremely unsafe conditions for those who are different and need to be separated for safety. HAPPY CHANUKAH Y'ALL!!!
Reflection 14 is here!!! And so is our second to last class! That's crazy. Last class was the first half of our final simulations. Last simulation, I represented the environmental grass roots organization The Sierra Club. However, this simulation I represented Shell Oil. Although I was not particularly elated about representing an oil company, I was happy to change my view so drastically and prove to the class and PTJ that I can accurately report and present many types of information, even opposing viewpoints and topics that go against my personal bias. I thought that my presentation went extremely well and I am very confident that my group performed well. I thought that this simulation was a lot more organized and that everyone felt more prepared and generally more confident about their presentations. My group last time worked well together, but this time especially, my group collaborated very efficiently together. I wish I had had the opportunity to work with everyone in the class on a level like this. It really brings you closer to your peers and allows you to better understand them on a personal and academic level. Outside of world politics reflection, I formatted and designed the entirety of the FIRST EVER Her Campus print magazine by myself!! It was tiring, but rewarding. It will be printed this weekend and be premiered at the media release party in SIS Founders on Saturday. In return for my hard work, the Her Campus E-Board has awarded me an E-Board position and I am now the Design Director for the print team! Exciting!!! |
Hey there! I'm Halle Jaymes and I'm a first year SIS student from Southern California. I'm hoping to focus on Europe as my region of study and hone in on sustainable fashion and general fashion in International Relations. Archives
December 2018
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