Entry #2

So this week in Truth in Society we have been researching the Rwandan genocide. This is a result of choosing the article from CBC.ca about the Rwandan- Canadian man on trial for war crimes committed in Rwanda, but being tried for them in Canada. So far I like this assignment enough to pursue it, I must admit that I am getting a little bored with it, but I think it's important to following through with it.

I have learned a lot about academic resources as well as the most appropriate way to use sites like "Wikipedia". I was not aware that it is best used as a starting point. I have been using until now as a reputable source while researching for school projects or if I just wanted a more clear picture of what something is. It makes a lot of sense that using the citations in Wikipedia is more useful than just using the presented contents. I guess I have just not really questioned where the information was coming from I was always just happy to find it.

I like that I am learning that questioning things helps you better understand the world I live in. I knew that asking questions was really the only way to get answers, but I am now seeing that I haven't been asking the right questions. If had just re-framed my questions I may have found the answers I was looking for.

Entry #1

What I have learned since September 10th is that I am not as off beat as I thought I was. In the last few years I have been questioning a lot of things in my life and in the world of which I lived. Whenever I would talk about these questions I would almost always be blown off or told 'not to worry about it so much' or to 'just go with it'. That wasn't good enough for me. When I heard about this course I was effectively stoked, and I rightfully so. The day that we all went over prompt #4 three different people commented on my passage as being the one with the most impact for them that made me feel really great for a few reasons first that I was so scared that what I had written was meaningless when I was it on the prompt I was shocked. Then after that I chose someone else's because I didn't want to use my own I still felt insecure about it. After I spoke three other people talked about my section that taught me to not be so insecure and showed me that maybe insecurity was my 'fatal flaw'. In high school I usually didn't participate in discussions in fear that something I said would make me look stupid. After that discussion I went home and thought about what a disservice I did myself and my class by not sharing my opinions. I made a decision that night to start telling people what I think and not being afraid of developing my own ideas and concepts. I found that I learned when we worked on the articles in groups on Thursday Sept. 17th. In my group all the articles were so diverse we had the most interesting discussion that I had ever taken part in. And that was the key I really explained what thought and was prepared to back it up as was everyone else it made it so dynamic I learned not only about the evolution of fairy tales, someone who went to jail for throwing his shoe, and revolutionary sight technology. I got to see from the perspective of someone other than myself I got to see how my colleagues had interpreted their articles and mine. When Justin told our group about how ill his half brother was the entire group was even more engaged and it exposed some more issues about society then illness it brought up questions like "Why aren't there more medical innovations like this one?" and "Where is all the funding going if not to the people who can't pay for there medical treatments?". And that is what I have learned so far in Truth in Society.