Marc's Experience with Cultures and Ideas

 It's now the end of our 20 weeks together in Literatures of the World. What for you was the most unexpected thing about this course? What changed you, or surprised you?

This blog post was a difficult one to write. I can't believe that it's already been twenty plus academic weeks since my first day in University and my first day in cultures and Ideas. Time truly went by too fast -- even if we were online for the entire quarter. When reflecting back to this second quarter, I think the thing that changed me the most was now understanding how to approach University.

I have a confession to make, my first quarter of online university was a nightmare. It was my first time having virtual classes and the first time I'd learn something new in six months -- my high school closed down in March and didn't pick up virtually. This long break would be to my detriment when class final began and I was introduced to the workload. The amount of work expected of a college student was really hard for me to accept and I remember breaking down near the end of my first week at university.

I told myself though that I'll change and adapt, that I won't succumb to university and strived to change. This led to my second quarter and last ten weeks in cultures and ideas to be different. I set up a resolution for myself to do my work as best as I could and not stress as much as I did before. At first it was hard for me to approach this mindset, but I eventually did it.

I learned of ways to optimize my time and better my learning. This meant spending much more time with Professor Burnham and other professors rather than shouldering the work all by myself and being lost for hours, managing my free time better, and never giving up.

Through my journey becoming a better student, I was extremely lucky to be welcomed by such a loving culture and ideas class. I had so much fun with everyone here and looked forward to every lesson. I'm going to miss seeing your friendly faces every Tuesday and Thursday. I look forward to starting the next journey in my life and hope to see you guys all when we return on campus.

That has been a wrap for Marc's Experience blog posts, I hope you've enjoyed it!

Marc's Experience with Digital Humanities

Many of you commented after the print symposium on your surprise to see computer science and poetry being combined by one of the speakers. This is one of many ways in which digital humanities creates new opportunities for humanities learning and creation by integrating digital knowledge and tools. While we haven't done anything as complex as coding (although that is simply a language that's used to create worlds and environments, much as our literary texts use language in this way), you have all learned and been exposed to multiple digital tools and platforms. Reflect on the digital humanities component of this course and if/how it has impacted your learning.

For the winter quarter in Professor Burnham's class, us students were introduced to new digital humanity tools to use. This option was a first for many, myself included, which gave us the opportunity to share our knowledge in a new format we didn't know much about. Through my time working with the digital humanities tool, I believe that I've developed a unique skill set that I'll use for the rest of my professional career.

The hardest adjustment when using these digital humanity tools was having to balance more than just words. What I mean by this, is that for most assignments before this, when I had to share my knowledge I was required to write a paper explaining my thoughts. However, when using the digital humanities tool, the writing component is only half of the whole product. When using a digital humanity tool, you have to visually sell your website to captivate your audience all the while keeping them informed on the topic at hand.

This meant having to learn how to balance between portions of writing and parts where images are shared to make the assignment unique and eye opening. At first this balance was hard, and for my first digital humanity project I struggled to maintain this fine line. However, practice makes perfect, and I wish to master this skill as I can see this concept be necessary in the business world I hope to enter -- through the use of creating projects to sell customers / buyers.

As such, even though this class is coming to an end, I'll continue to work on this skill. I believe it's crucial, and look forward to sharing my current understanding of it on my final -- as my final will be using a new digital humanity tool.

Marc's experience examining the relationships in Pachinko

Noa's girlfriend Akiko "would always believe that he [Noa] was someone else, that he wasn't himself but some fanciful idea of a foreign person; she would always feel like she was someone special because she had condescended to be with someone everyone else hated" (307).

As we continue on our literary journey through Pachinko, us readers have seen the growth of Sunja's family and read how they have approached the Korean versus Japanese conflict going on in the background. While viewing this conflict unraveling through the continuation of the story, the readers have been introduced to Akiko -- Noa's girlfriend. Akiko is Noa's peer at school who's studying sociology -- the study of human society. This subject she's studying has made her well aware of the conflict between the Korean and Japanese cultures, an interest I believe is found through Noa --  with Noa being an embodiment of this conflict. I believe that Akiko's interest in Noa is a representation of the Japanese colonization of Korea -- as an individual who self deems themself as superior and feels pity for the other.

My perspective in this matter came from how Akiko described her relationship with Noa. Instead of describing their partner on equal footing, she describes herself as someone who has to descend herself down to his levels to be with him -- something that she feels she should be thanked for. A genuine relationship shouldn't have such a dynamic where one person views themself on top of the other -- no matter the situation of social class as seen in this story's colonization process.

I believe that Akiko is interested in Noa not for the human being he is, but for the person he's trying to be. Akiko refers to her special as special due to her nurturing of Noa into the Japanese culture -- representative of the conflict between nations.

Marc's Experience with Pachinko and Life

We talked about the game of Pachinko in our class discussion, and how it relates back to the structure of the book: life based on chance, based on personal choice, and / or based on odds rigged against the characters. Do you think your personal life is like a casino game, based on chance and luck, or is it based on free will? Do you feel that the odds are stacked against you and unchangeable? Did this novel influence your perception or change your understanding of life?

After our class discussion on Tuesday, I took some time to reflect on life and see how the topics we talked about on Tuesday relates to our present day world. This introspection of mine led me to believe that life is a gamble and that certain individuals do have an advantage in the world, however at the same time, I do believe that those dealt with a poor hand can still work their way up if they work really hard.

It is undeniable that wealth plays a role in this advantage certain groups of people have. As the wealth gap continues, so does this level of advantage. The role money has is applicable throughout all of time and space. In the context of Pachinko, it is seen through Hansu being able to pay fully for his son's tuition, his ability to learn of an attack before it arises, and the influence it has in the politics of the story allowing the Korean individual named Sunja to come to Japan. Wealth grants individuals to do things many other people in the world can't do.

In the present day world, the upper class contains a significant portion of the wealth. In a topic I learned from my business calculus class, I learned of the gini index. This index is meant to illustrate the distribution of wealth in the country. In a range from zero to one, this indicator shows where the distribution falls: the closer to zero, the more the population owns the country's wealth; the closer to one, the less the population owns the country's wealth. In the United States from 2014-2018, the Gini index was 0.4822 as reported by the population reference bureau. It's disheartening to see how much of our wealth is in the hands of a select few individuals.

I believe though, that the people can strive to reach new economic heights. Us students are attending university, for the prospect of an improved financial future. We're seeing the hand we're given, and are working in hopes to make it better. I think that people that aren't in the top one percent of wealth can reach those heights, if they work hard and have some luck.