T R A V E L • J O U R N A L: A N • E X P E R I E N C E

      A journal, is a book or a notebook, in which we write our personal experiences and thoughts. As part of a class assignment, we were supposed to keep a Travel Journal. This journal was not our typical "diary". In this Travel Journal, we had to follow a few guidelines, given to us by our professor from the book Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. We were meant to follow these rules, which were called "The Anti-Rules"; this prompted us to do the following:

1. Keep your hand moving

2. Don't cross out

3. Don't worry about spelling, punctuation or grammar

4. Lose Control

5. Don't think, don't get logical

6. Go for the jugular (which basically means to "go into difficult emotions")

At first, these rules were really hard to follow, specifically rules #2 and #3; at least for me. I'm a person that strikes out misspelled words almost automatically, because I'm what you call a grammar freak. I like my writings and works to be properly written and punctuated, and since we had to write without thinking and just flowing with whatever thoughts popped into our head, these two rules were hard to follow at first. 

     As the weeks passed, these two rules that gave me so much of a hard time to follow, got progressively easier to overrule. I slowly but surely, learned to just ignore my misspelled words, and if I wrote something as it wasn't supposed to be written, I would just stop writing the word, and just keep on writing. Another strategy that I found useful for myself, was that when I would write a word and I knew that it was spelled wrongly, I would write a dash (–) and keep writing after it. This experience was something interesting, since I had never done something like this before. 

      Another part of the journal, was to do an activity where we had to do draw something called a "Life Compass." The drawing is as follows:

As one can see, it's very similar to a normal compass, but instead of North, South, East and West we have S, M, E and P; each letter means spiritual, mental, emotional and physical, respectively. According to what we were feeling in that moment, we would appoint a number with 3 being the maximum and 1 being the lowest to each letter. When all the letters had a number, we would sum all and obtain a total. This was our "number" and with this, as we progressively did more compasses, we could compare the results and see the areas where we had been lowest and try to reflect upon this and try to see if we could make a change so that the numbers went up, instead of down. 

      

      For me, I noted that the days when I obtained the lowest of numbers were the days where I was sleep deprived from staying up until late in the night to study, thus affecting severely the numbers on some compasses. Over all, the experience of the Travel Journal is something I may keep on doing in the future. It really helped me ease my stress over the things that were bugging me on particular days. This experience is something I will encourage some friends to do also, while following the "Anti-rules" because it's like a form of therapy that really helped me relax and keep on going through out the day, and I'm confident it will do the same for my friends. 

Travel Journal: Front Cover

Travel Journal: Back Cover

L I F E • I S • A N • E T E R N A L • "C A M I N O"

    During the course of our lives, we change paths quite often. Most probably when we were little kids, we didn't realize the paths or "caminos" that we were heading into. As life goes on, our paths keep changing and changing with our experiences and our environment. The book: Life is a Trip: The Transformative Magic of Travel writer by Judith Fein recounts precisely this.How travelling to unknown places, made her understand and see that of which as foreign to her. On a more personal thought, we should all aspire to do precisely this. Is by travelling that we open ourselves to the unknown, which can greatly propel us into a more cultural and wise being. 

     While reading some of the chapters, I felt most compelled with Chapter 13, The Other Side of the Pilgrim's Road in Spain, which talked about the "Camino de Santiago de Compostela". Santiago "El Mayor" or James "The Greater" was one of the Apostles of Jesus of Nazaret. Santiago was the one of the Apostles who took it upon himself to go and spread his gospel thought Israel and subsequently "finis terrae", or what was considered the end of the world int hose times. Later on, Santiago went back to Jerusalem where he was beheaded by Herodes. Santiago was one of the first Apostles to die; later after his death as a martyr, his followers gathered his remains and brought them back to Compostela, Spain. While reading this chapter, I was so deeply moved by the accounts of the author. I've heard of el "Camino" and have also heard from a friend and family members that have gone, and how incredibly hard and painstaking walk that have to be endured for days. But while reading, I felt transported to the surroundings and accounts that the author was describing. I felt this urge to go grab a suitcase and leave.

     As many people embark on the long and strenuous "Camino" wether to do it as a pilgrimage, to explore something new, to find ones inner self, or just to see what so many people talk and recount, this is sure to be the trip and experience of a life time. I'm baffled by how many people decide to do the "Camino" each year, and hopefully I will join all those people who have experienced this marvellous journey someday. But the "Camino" is not just done in that particular place, because we are forever enduring a "Camino" throughout the course of our lives. Life is a "Camino" just as hard as the "Camino de Santiago" itself. Life is full of many lessons that shape into who we are, just like the "Camino" does each year to the many people that walk it every day. This being said, we must embrace each and very opportunity that life gives us, and make the best of it, whether it be good or bad. Every experience is a lesson needed for the improvement of our selves, just like the "Camino" was for the author.

  

"Pocas cosas hacen falta, para el Camino de Santiago. Pocas, como realmente pocas son las que necesitamos para ser felices en la vida. Una mochila, con lo que creemos que utilizaremos en nuestro día a día, y un bordón, que nos ayude a caminar en momentos difíciles. Los paralelismos con nuestra vida son inagotables en este Camino de Luz." 

 –Victor Nuño

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"Few things we need for a "Camino de Santiago". Few as what we really need to be happy in life. A rucksack, with what we think we need in daily life, and a walking stick, a help for walking in difficult moments.Parallelisms with our life are endless in this Path of Light."

– Victor Nuño

W H A T • E X A C T L Y • I S • A • P U E R T O R I C A N?

Puerto Rico, a little island in the middle of the Caribbean. We are taught in school that we Puertoricans are a mixture of composed of Spaniards, Africans and Taíno (aborigine), this may be partially true, but on my opinion it isn't. We are not just a mixture of those three great cultures, but we are a mixture of a whole spectrum of cultures and races, and that is something we are proud of. Being a Puerto Rican, we have the outmost pride in our culture, our island and ourselves. Were ever we go, we are proud to call our selves Puertorican. We are caring, lovable, hospitable and loud people, but that is what makes us so incredibly unique. We celebrate anything and everything we can, thus making us one big happy country.

We have great landmarks and places that make our little island wonderful. For example, we have the Tropical Rainforest, El Yunque, filled with waterfalls, cold waters great for the summer heat, and green trees everywhere you look. Also we have El Morro, a very old fortress build by the Spaniards to be in the look out for any enemy ships that would be visible from the horizon. We also have great beaches that we can visit year round. We are a island filled with great culture; a culture we embrace to the very core of our being. The Christmas time on the island is one filled with joy, parties, friends and most importantly food.

Puertorican food is also a big staple of our island. Some foods like "arroz con gandules" can be eaten year round, but is basically the main dish during the Christmas time. Around this time of year, is where most of the festivities of the island take place. We celebrate the The Three Kings Day and after all the little kids (and some grown ups like my self) put out shoe boxes filled with grass for the camels, to wake up the next day to see our presents, we usually go to other family member's houses to enjoy the rest of the day. After this, we celebrate something that is called "Las Octavitas" which starts the 7th of January (the day after the Three Kings Day) and culminates 8 days later with "Las Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastian". This event is an event that gathers people from all around the island and tourists from all around the world. It's in this event that we let our culture, loudness and happiness break free (not that we don't do it round the year). Here you get to see the typical dances ("Bomba y Plena") and also Salsa and many other. We enjoy the event with family, friends or both.

Needless to say, for me, what characterises my island, my people and myself is our ability to make the best out of any situation, whether it be good or bad. Puertoricans are naturally happy people, and this is something we carry wherever we go. Care to visit? You won't regret it!

C A R L • J U N G : M E M O R I E S, D R E A M S & R E F L E C T I O N S

Carl Jung, was born in Switzerland, and was one of the people responsible for the creation of what we know today as the modern depth psychology.  Jung in his book "Memories, Dreams and Reflections" specifically, the chapter IX, Travels, speaks about his encounters with different countries, different cultures, and his individual and internal journey and dreams. Is necessary to mention, that this book was published after his death, but also, was written almost 30 years after these travels had taken place. Which makes the reader doubt or think that the events are slightly exaggerated, since one can't actually remember with great accuracy the events of that occurred nearly 5 years ago, imagine having to remember or attempting to remember 30 years, some stories may or may not be written accordingly as the events occurred. But nonetheless, Jung with the help journals and memory perhaps, makes a great account of his travels, indulging the reader with his inner personality and the finding of himself during his travels. 

Nonetheless, though our dreams, we remember things that were deeply buried with ourselves, or discover new things influenced by what we have lived or are currently living though. With traveling, one opens their boundaries and experiences a lot further, and this is something Jung embraced and wanted to happen, since he wanted to explore that part of him that as "unknown" even to himself. Jung got to see this "unknown" and began to experience it though dreams. Although, Jung's dreams seem to be greatly described, even to uttermost detail, as I mentioned before, since this was written 30 years after the events occurred, some of them may be exaggerated. I personally can't remember most of the dreams I have, and if I can remember them, I just remember parts; and usually remember them when I wake up, as the day goes on, I tend to forget them. 

This is why I tend to infer that he kept journals, thus helping remember his dreams better, but it's still not the same. In "Memories, Dreams and Reflections" in chapter IX, Travels , part iii Uganda and Kenya he mentions in this quote: “I took this dream as a waning from the unconscious; it was saying that the primitive was a danger to me. At that time I was obviously all to close to “going black”.” In his journey, Carl Jung saw himself as immersing too far into the country and his unconscious kept on reminding him that he was European, thus impeding himself from actually becoming this “Negro” or “going black” as he mentions in the quote. He as a traveler, he was immersing himself too much into the country, its people and the culture, and wasn’t so sure at what was happening to his inner persona. Thus inferring that he wanted to explore his innermost self, not was scared of turning into something or someone that he wasn't. This is the kind of influence our dreams and our experiences have upon us, although we may not remember them all dreams, up so some extent, they shape us into the person we currently are while having a direct influence from experiences. 

"Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity."

                                                       – Carl Jung

A B O U T • M E

Hello, my is Bianca Paola, I'm 22 years old. I was born in May 19th, 1993 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At the present time, I'm studying at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus and I'm majoring in Cellular Molecular Biology. I have my eyes set upon becoming a Geriatric Doctor someday. You may be wondering, what does a Geriatric Doctor do? Well, basically, they are the doctors who focus primarily on the health and care of elderly citizens. Another question I get asked frequently is why do I want to be that. Well, I come from a family where almost everyone is involved, one way or another, with health related professions. Also, I live and have lived with my grandmother for as long as I can remember. Also, thanks to her, I've also have had the opportunity to travel from a very young age. Since I was about 2 years old, I went with her and my grandfather on weekly trips with an association for teachers all around the island. I was usually the youngest among all of the attendees, since most of them were elderly people.

From a very young age I've spent most of my time with the elderly, and is something I found greatly gratifying. Until about two years ago, I really didn't know what I wanted to study or become in the future, until one day I was sitting in a physical therapy room (I was receiving a parafine treatment on my hand) and I started a conversation with a gentleman that was beside me. As the conversation went on, he made me realise that wanting to care for the elderly was something I wanted to do professionally. Also, as I mentioned before, the love I have for new cultures, and travelling I owe it all to my grandmother. It is thanks to her (and my mother of course) that I've been able to see places that I've never even dreamed of going. China, Turkey, Greece, Rome, Israel, Egypt, just to name a few. I have meet great people and encountered great cultures, and I'm always after my new adventure. Hence the name for this blog, (URL actually) Suitcase Nostalgia; I'm always nostalgic as to where I'm going next or what place I yearn to visit again. As for the actual name, Walking Question Mark, is well, because I really am a walking question mark, I question everything around me. I like to know the reasons for everything and if I doubt something, I will not hesitate to ask; making me a really curious and outspoken person. Nonetheless, I love making new friends and getting to know the unknown. So please, any doubts on anything, don't hesitate in the least to comment and/or ask me anything.