Journeys

When I enrolled in this class, Journey through Literature, I thought I was going to read books about different types of journeys. I don't know why, but the type of journey that I thought about the most was science fiction. This was not the case at all. In reality, the type of journey that I learned about the most was my classmates'. I've been in the UPR for three years now, I've taken classes with a lot of people and I never think about how they have their own problems and struggles that they have to deal with. In this class, however, since we sat in a circle and shared details about our lives and our opinions, I realized that the people I take classes with are real people with problems just like me. Don't get me wrong, of course, I already knew they were real people, but I never stopped to think about how they also have problems that they struggle with. Life isn't easy, so it's common for people to be so invested in their own lives that they don't think about what the people around them are going through. I had never taken a class where people got so personal and shared such intimate aspects of their lives. In this class, I also realize how different people are from one another. At the beginning of the class, we had to decorate our journals with pictures of our inner and outer journeys. While everyone was sharing their pictures and the reasons why they chose to put them on their journals, I realized how different everyone's tastes are. Some people like anime, others like traveling, some like beauty and makeup, and many other different things. It was an eye-opening experience to see how diverse a group of people taking the same class can be. At the end of the day, I'm glad I took this class. Sometimes I get too caught up in my own problems and I make a bigger deal out of them than I should. This class helped me realize that some of my problems are not that bad and some might even be considered insignificant compared to other people's. It helped me appreciate the good things I have in life since some of my classmates don't have the same privileges as I do. I also realized that, yeah, life sucks sometimes, but what's really important is that you and the people you love are well and healthy.