Day 210 - No more Spanish

The following three entries were drafted on the 8^th, 9^th and 11^th April respectively, however remained in draft form since then until now due to a heavy workload.

Last quarter when enrolling in my classes for Spring, I made sure I was enrolled in four so that I had the option to drop one of the classes after realising it didn’t live up to my expectations. This week, the second week of the quarter, I have dropped one of these classes. Unfortunately, the class that I decided to drop was one that could have potentially improved my Spanish to a new level of fluency. Spanish 150 ‘Topics in Contemporary Studies’ is a class that focuses on short story literature from Cuba in the early-mid 20th century. The professor, who lectured about technical terms in literature for an hour and 50 the very first day of class, had a dialect from Colombia which was interesting as his pronunciation of words were different to what I have been exposed to thus far. I decided to drop this class because the reading requirements were rather strenuous and I felt that a background understanding of the history of short stories was necessary, something I didn't have. The gap in difficulty between Spanish 25 and Spanish 150 was one I felt would have been too difficult to bridge. This isn't all bad however as it has allowed me to take an extra geography class this quarter on Spanish South America, a region of the world that, if I haven't made clear already, fascinates me. After exposure to first lectures of this class it is clear that it is very broad and that it won’t go into much detail or specificities, keeping the study on a broad regional level in term of politics and economics for the region. Dropping my Spanish class was a big decision for me as I felt that it was very important for me to take some sort of Spanish class through the year so I can maintain and build upon my current level of fluency. However, the content of the class just didn't fit what I wanted to get out of the language, and wouldn't carry a useful amount of real world applicability. When I studied Spanish in the UK at UCL, the second term would have come to a close by now and I wouldn't practice much Spanish until the final exam came around in May. This huge gap between March/April when classes end, and September when I would take a new class proved to be detrimental to my fluency in the language as it is extremely easy to forget a lot of the language if nothing is done to maintain it whilst not having classes. Thus it is very important for me to avoid this issue, and I intend to by reading the short stories assigned in the class I dropped, watching TV shows, and mainly by reading the book I have on the socioeconomic and political development of Colombia (Jimenez, 1985). I have been reading this book for a while now and I have found it very useful in learning important terms related to geography. In addition to this, the book will help me in my Spanish South America class, which is essentially identical to the content of this publication. However, most importantly I need to maintain my oral proficiency, by conversing with Daisy and the other Spanish-speaking people I know on my dorm floor. If I stick to this, I will be able to maintain my fluency I’ve build up over a long period of time.

Jimenez, M (1985) Historia Del Desarollo Regional en Colombia, CIDER: Universidad de los Andes.

Day 207 - Spring Break: Yosemite

I write this post the week following my first and only experience of Spring Break in the United States. The main activity for my spring break, besides spending time with my friends, was to visit the captivating and significant National Park ‘Yosemite’ located in Northern California. The history of this site and context behind its designation as a National Park has always been very interesting to me. During my first two years at UCL, I acquired a lot of knowledge around conservation ethics, and John Muir in particular. For those reading this blog post, Muir was a preservationalist, claiming that the psychospiritual use of nature is far superior to its material societal uses. (Callicott, 1991). In his lifetime, Muir strived to make sure that many national parks around the US were left untouched, one of significance was Yosemite. Most importantly, he wrote many articles popularizing the area and theorized that the most significant landscape features of the part were created through the energy of large alpine glaciers (Schaffer, 1999). Through Yosemite, Muir was able to pave the way for the United States National Park service that thrives today. The park which covers an area of 747,956 acres attracts almost 3 million visitors per year and holds significance in terms of its biological diversity, its geological stature and history of human inhabitance (Harris, 1998). 

Upon visiting this wonderful place, it appeared to me just why people like Muir saw this landscape in such a spiritual and romanticized way. It was a hot Thursday afternoon when we arrived at the outer barriers of the national park. Despite arriving, it was another hour or 35 miles until we reached the valley where the main views, hikes and tourist complex was located. In Yosemite Valley there was a wealth of infrastructure, parking, shops, information points, cabins for overnight stays and a shuttle bus route around the park. The extent of this infrastructure was surprising to me, the natural area wasn’t as undisturbed as I expected. After collecting maps, we embarked on a few hikes around the valley, visiting the lower and upper Yosemite falls, seeing Half Dome, and hiking up by Vermal and Nevada falls (Figure 1.). These breath-taking hikes consumed our whole afternoon, leaving us exhausted yet fulfilled. The place lived up to my expectations, and upon arrival I could not help but smile at how beautiful and serene the place was. My only regret was that I could not stay there the night and do an all day hike the next day, getting close to the infamous Half Dome peak.

Figure 1. Map of Yosemite Valley

Without the hospitality of Daisy’s parents, this trip would not have been possible. Allowing a large group to stay with them for a few nights, providing food and pleasant company was an amazing experience in itself. My few days with Daisy’s Mexican family, exposed me to authentic Mexican food, which is one of my favourite cuisines. In addition to this, I was able to improve my Spanish with her parents mainly communicating with me in their native tongue. Overall, it was an experience definitely worth remembering, one that I would love to replicate in a few years time.

My upcoming blog post shall briefly talk about the beginning of my final quarter at UCLA, and initial impressions on my last set of classes.

Below are a few photos from my visit to Yosemite.

Figure 2. Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls

Figure 3. Hike Gang and Half Dome

Figure 4. Yosemite 

Harris, A. G. (1998). Geology of National Parks Kendall, Iowa: Hunt Publishing. 

Callicott, J. B. (1991). ‘Conservation ethics and fishery management,’ Fisheries, 16(2), 22-28.

Schaffer, J. P. (1999). Yosemite National Park: A Natural History Guide to Yosemite and Its Trails. Berkeley: Wilderness Press.

Day 203 - End of Winter Quarter

Winter quarter came to a close with my final examinations in Political Geography and Hydrology. The busy period began with a Spanish oral presentation on the economic situation of Columbia in the 1970s and 80s, and how that affected their ability to exercise sovereignty over their territory. My 10-minute presentation analysed the effects of drug cartels such as Cartel Medellin, the largest and most notorious, on the Colombian government’s inability to have influence over its people. This is a topic that has interested me for a long time, I have been reading a book published in the 80s on the economic trials of Columbia in the decades leading up to publication, it talks about economic development and the struggles to thrive in an increasingly globalised world (Jimenez, 1985). My abilities in Spanish now enable me to read books like this and look at the world through the lens of Spanish speaking geographers, economists and policy makers. My presentation and linguistic abilities were acknowledged by being graded an A. On top of this, on the Monday of finals week the other form of assessment, a 2000 word essay on a topic relating to the oral presentation had to be submitted. In this essay on the assimilation of indigenous cultures of the Amazon rainforest due to gold miners in the 1980s, I also managed to attain a high A grade.

My Political Geography final examination which was the first of my rapid succession of finals was rather straight forward, much more simple than the midterm that Professor Agnew set. The study guide fitted the format of the exam, so good preparation of the guide would be enough to get a good grade. As it turned out, the preparation I made managed to get my 96/100, a result I was very pleased with.

As I emphasised through much of this quarter, the most challenging class by far had been hydrology, this was the last exam I sat before spring break. The structure of the exam was similar to the previous two Professor Lettenmaier set, but included all information that we learnt over the duration of the course. Despite the earlier worries I had about being able to succeed in the class, I managed to rank high in the class and finish with a solid B, a result I’m very much pleased with.

Overall I would regard this quarter as another successful period of time for me personally and academically. I feel I have explored more, enjoyed more and thrived more in Los Angeles, something I felt was important for me to do at the end of the first quarter. Looking ahead, I aim to set more personal goals for me to achieve and reflect on once I’m back in the UK. Firstly I’m setting out to complete a half marathon on Huntington Beach in Orange County in May, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and finally feel physically able to do. In addition to this, I want to balance my studies here in the US with those in the UK, focussing more on work that I will be completing for my last year at UCL. In the upcoming quarter I am going to commit a significant portion of time to working on my dissertation and making significant progress to relieve the workload for when I’m back. Hopefully in 10 weeks time, when I write my post on final reflections before returning to the UK, I will have achieved all these goals enabling me to leave the US with good memories, and feeling like I have made the most of my experience developing significantly as an individual.

Up next… Spring Break!

Jimenez, M (1985) Historia Del Desarollo Regional en Colombia, CIDER: Universidad de los Andes.

Day 179 - The case of the Jimenez family

One of my favourite pastimes since arriving in LA is sharing life-stories with my new friends, a wonderful group of people that come from different backgrounds, of varied ethnicities and whom each carry a unique history. One of my main reasons for embarking on this year abroad was to integrate in a different environment and listen to unique stories, anecdotes and learn about the world-views and ideals important to different individuals. Indeed, my friends are also interested in my opinions, stories and world-views. The inspiration behind this entry was a conversation me and my other British friend had with Daisy, our entertaining Mexican friend. What was uncovered in this conversation surprised me, something I never considered or believed would be the case: that at one point, Daisy her sister, brother and mother were illegal immigrants. The story is truly inspiring, revealing the lengths to which a mother would go to secure a strong future for her children. In this blog post I’m going to tell this story and reflect on how I felt when I heard it, how it has changed my views slightly on immigration.

When Daisy was the tender age of 4, her mum planned a trip to Daisy's grandmother, a trip that didn’t involve her father. Calculated and planned meticulously, her mother took Daisy and her sister to embark on the most dangerous journey of their lives, to cross the US-Mexico border, one that has been hotly contested for many decades and nowadays has very extreme border crossing prevention systems (Ackleson, 2005). Her mother knew that she was being dishonest with Daisy’s father, and risking all of their lives in the process, however she was driven by the dream of her children living a much more prosperous on the other side of the border. In doing this, her mother paid an intermediary (human trafficker) to get her and her small children across, a risky investment that fortunately paid off. Daisy now has papers, gets reviewed every few years but is not allowed to leave the US until she gains full citizenship, a process that could take another five or more years. Needless to say, she is eternally grateful for the risk her mother took and it has driven her to prosper, gaining a place at UCLA under difficult circumstances adjusting to American culture and way of life. Her father later joined the three women, reconciling and living in Nevada before eventually settling in Central Valley, a region of California with a high proportion of Spanish speaking inhabitants. Upon hearing this story, it was truly inspiring learning of such a courageous narrative and it certainly altered my view on immigration. Everybody deserves a chance to succeed in life, and Daisy’s mother among many others that have made the perilous journey only ever want just that. A lot of people in the UK, are blind to these kinds of stories, immigrants are so often perceived in a negative light, but rarely are people open to these narrative, nor care for the courage that is involved and the sheer, sole desire to make a better living for themselves and their family. Being exposed to such stories are exactly what this year abroad experience is meant for, crucial for development of ones exposure to people of different histories, cultures and lifestyle. Experiences like this can completely change ones view on the world, alter perspectives and inspire, as has this story of the Jimenez family with me.

Ackleson, J. (2005) ‘Constructing security on the US-Mexico border, Political Geography, 24(2), 165-184.

Day 173 - Virunga

This post is a significant first break from my biweekly routine of blog posts, and I believe it is for good reason that I do so. My free time in the evenings usually leads to me watching something on Netflix that seems interesting, be it a documentary or a generic American TV show. Last night however I decided to follow up on a suggestion to watch an interesting documentary about the case of the Mountain Gorilla in the biggest national park of eastern Congo, Virunga. The documentary, that lasted around two hours, captivated me and remained intriguing throughout. The documentary is an emotion evoking investigation into the reasons behind the poaching of some of the last mountain gorillas in the world. In this wild yet enchanted environment a small group of rangers, put their lives at risk daily to take care of orphan gorillas in collaboration with a Belgian conservationist against the prevailing issues regarding armed militias and foreign forces attempting to seize control of the area for the extraction of Congo’s natural resources. Beyond the heroic story of the park rangers attempting to protect these important mountain gorillas, the underling narrative of the movie was what provoked me to dedicate a post to the documentary. It was clear the idea of the movie was to highlight the different actors that are involved in the potential destruction of this national park. The M23 rebel group who today have seized control of much of this area, and SOCO international, an oil and gas extraction company that have vested interests in the area. Transnational interests, the potential for significant revenue caused an informal relationship between SOCO and the M23 rebel group, whom both wanted the Gorillas removed from the national park to enable oil and gas exploitation. The really interesting observation that I took from this documentary was: where is the Congolese government in all this? What role do they have in this conflict? And why is coverage of their position so obviously omitted from this documentary? 

Many interesting theories and concepts that I have learnt this quarter in my Political Geography class informed my analysis of this documentary, and allowed me to disentangle the different narratives and polities involved in this conflict. I would classify my analysis of this movie a modernist political economic analysis, trying to get at the different interests of these actors and what is fundamentally the foundation to this conflict (Agnew, 2012). A political theory that really interested me and that I believe applicable to this case is the idea of ‘Matrix Governance’ and ‘Cruciform Sovereignty’ proposed by Carmody (2009). This is the idea that in the ‘global north’ sovereignty is shared evenly between countries horizontally like in the example of the EU, whereas in the global south sovereignty is shared vertically where sovereignty is not exchanged for claims elsewhere, but is traded for aid. In their article they look at the case of the Chad-Cameroon and Sudanese oil pipelines and how Chad is a multi-scalar proxy conflict between western powers and China over access to oil. As with the Democratic Republic of Congo, the lure of oil contributed to rebel attempts to dislodge presidents Deby and Bashir of Chad and Sudan respectively. Although the case is not a mirror reflection of what has been happening in Congo, for me the theoretical insights provided by Carmody applies to that shown in ‘Virunga.’ Congolese sovereignty is consistently threatened by factions and rebels and interests from foreign sources. The control of the government is made out to be weak and ineffective by the documentary and the role of these other actors deemed to be significant. This is exactly what Agnew (1994) means when he criticizes international relations theory, how its umbrella ‘one size fits all’ nature overlooks the complexity within a country, and how states are not equal, that not all can exercise power over their territory and very few can actually be considered securely sovereign.

In addition to all this, there can also be links drawn between this case and Emily Yeh’s (2012) article on Transnational Environmentalism and the case of the Bengalese Tiger in the Himalayas. Briefly put, the article uses a post-modern take on the different actors contributing to fight against the poaching of the Bengal Tiger for its attractive pelts, an important cultural commodity to Tibetans. The article discusses the issue from the perspective of the Indian, Chinese government and the influence of foreign environmentalists and the Dalai Lama on changing inside cultural meanings (Carney, 2011) of Tibetans. Instead of having different actors putting at risk the endangered mammal in question, the actors in this article are attempting to save the Tiger and enforce conservationist wishes over those cultural. The interesting message with this article is, although China considers itself to be sovereign over Tibet, it was the least effectual actor to convince Tibetans to change their ways. Like the Congolese government, sovereignty is not effectively exercised over the region, and other actors, in this case the Dalai Lama, were more influential upon changing Tibetan cultural ways.

I would highly suggest the documentary to anybody whom is interested, it is highly critically acclaimed and for good reason. Whilst watching it, I’d be interested to know if people read the narratives and perceive the political situation in the Congo like I did.

Agnew, J. (1994). ‘The Territorial Trap: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory,’ Review of International Political Economy, 1, 1: 53-80.

Agnew, J. (2012) Making Political Geography, Maryland: Rowman and Littlfield.

P. Carmody, “Cruciform sovereignty, matrix governance and the scramble for Africa’s oil: insights from Chad and Sudan,” Political Geography, 28 (2009), 353-61

Carney, J. A. (2002) Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas, Harvard: University Press.

E. T. Yeh, “Transnational environmentalism and entanglements of sovereignty: the tiger campaign across the Himalayas,” Political Geography, 31 (2012), 408-18.

Day 168 - Two more eventful weeks!

The past two weeks have been very eventful. Midterm results were pleasantly surprising, despite the difficulties faced in my Hydrology midterm I managed to rank 9th in the class and get a respectable grade on the curve. Political Geography was a good grade as expected, however there is plenty of room for improvement for my final exam as it became apparent that I underestimated the value of the short answer questions. Despite only asking for brief definitions, these questions were worth 6 points each, something I find rather unnecessary considering the lack of space provided for the answer.

Beyond my midterm results, last week I was interviewed for a promotion at the UCLA store to become a supervisor, I felt eager to take on more responsibilities and to become promoted after only one quarter of working there. I found out later that same week that my manager was impressed by my interview and wanted to offer me the promotion. I now feel much more confident and motivated with this promotion, I’m excited to build on my experience with delegation and managing responsibility. 

The weekend following my promotion I embarked on a hike up to the Hollywood sign with two other UCL friends. We arrived mid afternoon, catching an Uber which is a popular mode of transport in a city that has a defunct public transport system (Wachs, 1993). Figures 1 and 2 show some of the sights we saw whilst up there, the view was breath-taking and the hike itself was enjoyable, a chance to catch the sun in the late afternoon and watch the sunset on our descent. The hike gave the best vantage point to see over the whole of LA, its true extent is truly staggering, and the very different areas of the city are clearly visible. Once again, moments like this and those in Santa Barbara and Malibu as reflected in my previous post make me feel very fortunate for the opportunity to have embarked on this year abroad.

Figure 1. Me, Sarah and Tristan at the Hollywood sign

Figure 2. Breathtaking view from above the Hollywood sign

At this point in the quarter, mid way through 8th week, final exam preparation has commenced and selection of classes for my final quarter here is well underway. This time around I have chosen four classes to take with the option to drop one of them if it does not live up to my expectations. As I have in the previous two quarters, once again I will be taking a Spanish class that this time emphasises contemporary Spanish literature, a class I believe will be challenging since it is an ‘upper division’ class. I’m at the point in my journey to become bilingual in Spanish where I am no longer learning grammar, structures and how the language is formed, from now onwards my classes will involve learning in Spanish and acquiring new vocabulary to be applied in the real world.

A class I'm particularly excited about is ‘Humid Tropics’ which is taught by Professor Thomas Gillespie, a professor well known for his teaching abilities and accolades. I’m fascinated by the tropics and the forests that lay along the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), regions of the world that contain the highest levels of biodiversity, forests which provide many of the worlds ecosystem services. It will be interesting to see how he approaches teaching about the microclimates of tropical forests and their future in the midst of climate change issues. In addition to this class my fascination in Latin America has led me to take a Spanish Latin America class, which will be led by an unknown professor. I’m hoping that this class builds on my current understanding Latin American economy and the problems they faced developing in the period where neoliberalism prevailed. My final class choice is a step outside of the geography department, but is a class that I believe has strong links to contemporary geopolitical issues that I have learnt about in my political geography class so far. The communications class ‘Terrorism in Journalism’ taught by Nushin Arbabzadah, an important writer for the guardian on contemporary Afghanistan I believe shall be a very interesting class. The idea of this class is to analyse journalism in the Middle East to understand their views on ‘terrorism’, which is so commonly discussed so frivolously in Western media. In taking classes like this I feel one can gain a more rounded view on contentious situations and balance biases that are influenced by ones paradigm. I’m very eager to attend these classes and share what I’m about to learn.

Wachs, M. (1993) ‘Learning from Los Angeles: transport, urban form and air quality’, Transportation, 20, 4, 329-354.

Day 154 - Malibu, Santa Barbara and Midterms

As promised, in the three weeks since my last post I have enjoyed a good balance between studies and my keen desire for more exploration. Firstly I will discuss my midterms that took place last week, which only consisted of two this quarter since my Spanish class is assessed through essays that I complete every three weeks through the quarter. On Tuesday, my midterm for Hydrology proved to be extremely challenging, to the extent that it was possibly one of the hardest most complex structured exams I have ever taken. Since Professor Lettenmaier is a new professor at UCLA, it has been evident he is understandably out of touch with the ways exams are taken here. The exam was structured into five problems, these didn't relate a lot to knowledge acquired in class but resembled the weekly assignments he has been consistently setting. Despite the structure of the exam being unusual per se, it proved a challenging but interesting deviation from the normal structure of exams and vigorously tested the practical skills that the class aims to teach. My issues with this midterm however were not in the structure of the midterm or the skills it tested, most of which I am comfortable in using. These issues were in the units used throughout the exam. Despite in earlier assignments using the metric system I’m accustomed to, the exam professed to use ‘feet’ instead of 'metres' and 'gallons' instead of 'litres', for example river discharge in cubic feet per second, with the answer requiring units in mm/year. Completely baffled by the units I was unable to do the conversions as none were provided alongside the questions. Interestingly, the homework assignments based on data from USGS required metric units, measuring river discharge in 'cumecs' (USGS, 2015), one can only assume that Professor Lettenmaier is more comfortable using these units in his field of expertise. This did provide me with the most unfortunate and clear difference between hydrology in the US and UK. My issues with this exam continued with the second question as it relied on good knowledge of the geography of the US. Three rivers were given, and in order to answer the question I had to know the climates in each of the regions where these rivers were located. Despite being a geographer I unfortunately do not know the geography of the US in that much detail, thus I suffered on this question. Thankfully the consensus from the other students was that they also found the exam challenging overall and it is likely the results are to be curved.

My second midterm, for political geography contained significantly less surprises with the structure and content of the exam fitting the study guide provided the week before. A similar set up to exams I have taken at UCLA thus far with short answers and mini essays to fill up the 75 minute exam time.

The Friday before my midterms the opportunity to hike the coast of Malibu was presented to me by my friends, an offer I couldn't refuse. On this late afternoon hike I watched the sun set over the west coast in the warm heat before going for a swim in the wonderfully clean waters swashing upon the pristine sands. The sight was magnificent and truly made me realise how fortunate I am to have embarked on such an amazing year abroad. It further made me appreciate the great friends I have made thus far in the US, friendships of which I will take with me back to the UK.

Figure 1. Sunset in Malibu

The following day I then travelled to Santa Barbara with three of the same friends. Despite the weather being overcast and rather rainy, it was nice to see a different area of the west coast of California. Santa Barbara is an idyllic small American coastal town. The clouds were very low lying with the peaks of the mountains overlooking Santa Barbara piercing through them (Figure 2). It was also nice to see how this small location had a pocket of English culture, with a few English food stores, pubs and fish and chip shops evoking nostalgic emotions on my visit. Overall, despite being a short stay it was evidently a lovely place that hopefully I can visit again in the near future on a day where the weather is more welcoming!

Figure 2. Day in Santa Barbara

Until next time…