Intendere è potere

(Title is an Italian proverb, roughly meaning "Learning is the eye of the mind" which literally translate as "To understand is power".)

Throughout this semester, I've been able to learn about many different cultures than my own. Not only through Collaborations along, but also learning Italian through the university (of course, I'll only need to talk about Collaborations, but I might switch to talking about Italian here and there). The actual course itself has helped me understand a lot of things and when I came into this class I wasn't all that enthused about what was going on, as I had a vague understanding of what will happen I just know I speak to a student from Hong Kong - which is still pretty exciting in of itself. 

While I wasn't too excited on the topic at hand, I was able to build excitement and understanding, and through my own research I was able to understand more about Hong Kong through Vox's short 5 episode documentary on the city, and eventually through talking to my counterpart from Hong Kong I was able to get an understanding of the place, especially the politics which I found the most interesting part. Considering in Australia, we don't have to worry much politically, we're not worried of an American or English take-over, and we're not worried about either country implementing a pro-America/pro-English member of parliament (though, I guess Tony Abbott could be a close contender to that), whereas many in Hong Kong do worry, as China was slowly trying to take back the city they once lost through the government. 

The readings I did for the eventual oral presentation had my eyes open to a lot of things, especially language. Language isn't something I think of really, I was lucky enough to be taught English because I live in a country where English is the national language (not the official language) and I had parents who both have English speaking backgrounds. Whereas for students in Hong Kong learn English to further their studies or careers and I don't have to worry about that. I'm learning Italian, and there are people in the class who are learning it because they have an Italian background but was never taught it as kids, whereas there are people (like myself) who are learning Italian because they're interested in the language itself. 

While studying this course, I learnt of the word habitus, which is a word I didn't think of before, and it makes a lot of sense, and when making a follow up about my habitus I didn't think I would change that much throughout the semester, I mean I got older, I (probably) got a bit wiser, and mostly I got a bit sassier. Though through thinking about my habitus I notice that it's okay to write characters who are white, I don't need to always make my main character as a person of colour, though it's always a good idea to have them in it because people of colour do exist. I've always written somewhere that is elsewhere, something that isn't necessarily Australia or Melbourne, but somewhere enough that I don't even try to mention it as Australia or Melbourne. 

There's a lot of other things throughout the semester I've learnt, and I think it helps because everyone has such different ideas, and views too. Which is good when you're talking about a lot of ideas and thoughts that people who say something helps you run with an idea. I often tried to think about my place and where I am at, where I am currently, who I am. Thinking of the readings, especially when we read on habitus and where Bourdieu says not every one of the same class will experience the same thing at the exact same way. I thought about my place and who I am, the way my parent's divorce - I took it a lot harder, whereas it didn't seem to affect my sister as much, other people her age might've found harder and people my age might've found it easier. People who moved a lot found it harder, people who came out as pansexual/genderqueer, people who have the same learning disability as me. While they might've had the exact same experience as me (maybe not all of them but hey, that would be interesting wouldn't it?) they wouldn't have the same emotions as me, or view it like I did. 

Interviewing my partner from HKBU was interesting in the end, and it makes me realise that we're all similar, of course, we're all not exactly the same, but the worries and troubles that we all have as people will always be roughly similar. And through interviewing her and creating a piece I think I've come to realise I can't write short stories? Maybe I can and I just need to find my niche but for the most part every time I write short stories they've always been connected to my longer pieces. Though short pieces I can write creatively non-fiction wise, and I know it feels weird, but when talking to her she said that it was cool and she's interested in reading about it. Maybe throughout this whole course, I'm knocking down things I thought I could write, I thought I'd like screenwriting, found out I didn't last year. I thought I'd like short stories, found I didn't this year, what will I find out next year. 

Overall, I think this learning experience has been good, I do have to say I initially didn't want to write a blog (after being in three other courses where this was a requirement I absolutely can't stand another blog post assignment) but the prompts were interesting and I was able to get my thoughts out there so in the end, maybe the blog entry assignment wasn't like pulling teeth but pulling weeds out of the dirt. It didn't hurt in the end, but it was tough. Though I think I'd rather try to do it on the day I get assigned the blog post, and not be lazy... like I've always been. 

While the semester has been fun and stressful, I did learn a lot about other cultures that I wouldn't get if I didn't do this course, though it then begs the question, what would've happened if I didn't take the couse, what would my understanding be now?