In June 2007, I was invited to attend my Uncle’s wedding to my now-aunt Inday in the Philippines. Driving through the town Inday grew up in (Bacolod in Linao Del Norte), I soon saw the house I was to stay in: a nice, new, sturdy red brick building. It was far better than any other house on the street—nay, far better than any house within many blocks. And when I went to Camiguin Island, I stayed in a fairly decent hotel. However, there were little mini villages consisting of about 15 – 20 buildings on each side of the road. There was nothing but forests between the villages. It is within these “mini-villages” that I witnessed what I thought was extreme poverty. The houses were incredibly small and not built well. Most of the children were wearing minimal clothing. One thing’s for certain—they didn’t have much.
I came back from the wedding a changed man—or so I thought. My intent was to be thankful for what I have, and to not want the next best thing…, that what we had was more than enough, and that perhaps I should get rid of what excess material wealth I have. It lasted maybe a week…
Fast forward 3 years.
In my cultural geography class, we watched a movie about the Kibera slums located just south of Nairobi, Kenya. This place was by far the worst place I have ever seen. How hundreds of thousands of people can live in these conditions is just mind-boggling. Running water is virtually non-existent, the equivalent of $4 per day (or maybe it was per week) was considered good pay. Here’s the worst aspect: there is one toilet per 1,100 residents—with no running water or sewer system. Indeed, people are hired to manually clean out them out with buckets.
When my family first moved into the apartment where we’re still residing, the water pressure would drop so that our showers would consist of a little dribble. I’d complain and say things like, “Really (I can’t get a true shower)?!” You will never hear me complain about low water pressure ever again.
When I have the ability to leave the college life and afford to go elsewhere, I pray to God that I will be able to make a change for at least one family living in poverty. Not just by way of donating money to an organization, but to physically go to those places and help out. Until then, I’ll pray for us all…that we would choose to become more aware of what’s happening elsewhere on our planet, and not just within our own lives.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
ECCE: Cultural Geography (GBL 331)
When signing up for my final ECCE requirement (another topic which shall be discussed soon), I found a class which would fit my schedule, but was a little hesitant to sign up for it.
GBL 331 is taught by Dr. Frost-Kumpf. At first glance, I thought SHE might be German, and that her accent would be nearly impossible to decipher. Normally I enjoy trying to break down communication barriers, but in a class where your grade is dependent upon understanding the material, I haven’t the foggiest as to how I’d fare with a thick-accented professor. As it turned out, it was her married name (whew!). Professor Frost-Kumpf is a woman of short stature who, through her abounding energy and wealth of knowledge pertaining to the subject, keeps the topic of cultural geography at least interesting.
The hard part is reading the textbook. Nearly every chapter in the book consisted of 30+ pages. This may not sound like much, but if you have other classes with the same type of textbook, you’ll probably be spending the bulk of your semester reading. And to most students, reading textbooks is not a fun task. Furthermore, the 5 themes of the course (region, mobility, nature-culture, globalization, and cultural landscapes) are repeated so often, there were times when I didn’t know where to look in the textbook for key terms.
Another difficult aspect of this class was the midterm…but not for the reasons you might expect! The midterm offered by Professor Frost-Kumpf encompasses everything learned from the first day of class—from lectures and textbook readings to videos and audio files watched and listened to both inside and outside of class. If you simply pay attention, you’ll do fine. Prior to the test, we were given a full class day to review and get us geared up for the impending exam.
The difficulty was that most of the questions required short, short essay, or long essay answers. My problem was that I tended to write slowly, and I only had an hour and fifteen minutes to complete the test. However, she stated at the top of every page exactly what she expected answer-wise. I ended up getting 78%, but had I completed the three questions I didn’t get to, I conceivably could have had a 92%. Point is: write fast! NONE of the questions on the midterm or final are worded to trick you—they are all straightforward. Plus, there are opportunities to get a good 5 points or so of extra credit!
The papers required (a 1-2 page video recommendation and an 8-10 page current-events paper) are not that difficult to write if you allow yourself time to do the work. Get started early, FOLLOW THE RUBRIC, and there is NO reason why you should end up with anything less than an A.
While I felt at times that the course material tried too hard to show that cultural geography is relevant and necessary in life, a video watched during class has forever changed my life. But I will write about that tomorrow. For now, as long as ECCE is required, I’d recommend this course.
GBL 331 is taught by Dr. Frost-Kumpf. At first glance, I thought SHE might be German, and that her accent would be nearly impossible to decipher. Normally I enjoy trying to break down communication barriers, but in a class where your grade is dependent upon understanding the material, I haven’t the foggiest as to how I’d fare with a thick-accented professor. As it turned out, it was her married name (whew!). Professor Frost-Kumpf is a woman of short stature who, through her abounding energy and wealth of knowledge pertaining to the subject, keeps the topic of cultural geography at least interesting.
The hard part is reading the textbook. Nearly every chapter in the book consisted of 30+ pages. This may not sound like much, but if you have other classes with the same type of textbook, you’ll probably be spending the bulk of your semester reading. And to most students, reading textbooks is not a fun task. Furthermore, the 5 themes of the course (region, mobility, nature-culture, globalization, and cultural landscapes) are repeated so often, there were times when I didn’t know where to look in the textbook for key terms.
Another difficult aspect of this class was the midterm…but not for the reasons you might expect! The midterm offered by Professor Frost-Kumpf encompasses everything learned from the first day of class—from lectures and textbook readings to videos and audio files watched and listened to both inside and outside of class. If you simply pay attention, you’ll do fine. Prior to the test, we were given a full class day to review and get us geared up for the impending exam.
The difficulty was that most of the questions required short, short essay, or long essay answers. My problem was that I tended to write slowly, and I only had an hour and fifteen minutes to complete the test. However, she stated at the top of every page exactly what she expected answer-wise. I ended up getting 78%, but had I completed the three questions I didn’t get to, I conceivably could have had a 92%. Point is: write fast! NONE of the questions on the midterm or final are worded to trick you—they are all straightforward. Plus, there are opportunities to get a good 5 points or so of extra credit!
The papers required (a 1-2 page video recommendation and an 8-10 page current-events paper) are not that difficult to write if you allow yourself time to do the work. Get started early, FOLLOW THE RUBRIC, and there is NO reason why you should end up with anything less than an A.
While I felt at times that the course material tried too hard to show that cultural geography is relevant and necessary in life, a video watched during class has forever changed my life. But I will write about that tomorrow. For now, as long as ECCE is required, I’d recommend this course.
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