Journal

 ♦ Through storytelling we can learn about things we never would have known about before, that might have gotten lost or erased over the years. We also get the chance to hear from different perspectives which is important to fully understand more of the bigger picture.

 The story “The Headstrong Historian” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gives us a peek into Africa, specifically in southern Nigeria.

Parts of it reminded me of a book I read in high school called “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, which also explores Nigeria in the time of colonization. It was pleasant to see a story set in a similar setting but with a different set of characters. The text, seems to be a story about Nwamgba’s complete and utter love for her husbend– Obierika. Her determination to marry him, undying loyalty, fierce attitude, patience, and her inseparableness to him even after death, all amount to show just how much she loves him. Even if Obierika dies, Nwamgba is still left with her son Anikwenwa. 

The second part of the story fades away to something a little darker after Obierika dies, and the white men come to Africa. At first Nwamgba is hesitant about the white men, but as situations reveal themselves Nwamgba realizes she can use her son and the white men's teaching to get what she wants. She sends her son to the white school where her son slowly starts to reject the culture he was raised in and turns to Christianity. The spirit of Obierika and the culture of the people lives on in Grace/ Afamefuna– Anikwenwa’s daughter.  

I also found the recurring quote about who has the better guns rule intriguing. Throughout history and today, countries with better militaries are seen as stronger than those with weaker ones. 

We also learn how tragedies or erasure of culture can happen and how stories can help us identify if we start seeing the same things going on in our world today, and we can take steps to keep it from happening. ♦

♦ “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it” ♦

⎗ I had been anticipating this author visit for a while. While I knew nothing about her before my mom saw the event scheduled over the summer, I love any opportunity to listen to an author talk about their life, writing journey, and life goals– as I am an aspiring author and book lover. My mother is an ELL teacher and in previous years read some of Alvarez’s books in her class so she knew more about her then I did and was thrilled when she found out Alvarez was coming to SMC. 

I didn’t know what to expect from this event but I absolutely loved going and hearing her speak. I found it truly honoring that even though she had stopped doing a lot of speeches and school visits, that she chose to come to SMC and talk. 

One of the things she said that was most inspiring to me– and I don’t know if this quote is one hundred percent correct but something she said was “Don’t ask what the world needs, but what you can do for the world and go out and do it”. I absolutely loved this quote. As a young woman who wants to make a difference in the world but doesn't know where to start. Knowing that I can make a change by doing what I can, and that's enough is truly inspiring. Everyone can make a change in the world no matter how small.

Another part that inspired me was when she talked about always being yourself. That can be applied to the wider world and to everyone no matter who they are and where they come from. As someone who has always struggled– hiding parts of my identity, my style, or opinions, this has made me feel more confident. While college, the change of people, the welcoming community, the all girls aspect has made me feel more comfortable about being true to myself, there still is a part of me that is hesitant. You can’t live your life as someone you are not though so I found this truly inspiring. 

Overall I loved the experience. Getting to hear from an author with so many wise and compelling words was truly great. ⎘ 

⚑ When looking through the National Archives website there is a lot of things going on that it was a little overwhelming at first and still was hard to navigate. It was very in your face about the core American documents, stuff about the military, and teaching resources. When I went to search about things that were of more interest to me the results were few and far between. The records for LGBTQIA+ section, while there is a decent amount of information, there still is so much more that could be added, lots of rich history and even more recent news. The next thing I searched up was about ADHD in America and there was literally one result. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and someone with ADHD I found the results lacking and left me thinking if America thinks we are unimportant. Another thing I did was search up my dad and moms last names. My fathers last name and mine is Murphy, which is quite common and even after adding more to the names there were still a lot of pages which I figured since it’s such a common last name. When I searched up my mothers side of the family name there were pretty much no results. My grandpa served in the Vietnam War so I thought I’d find something but alas I didn’t. This also poses the question, was my moms side of the family, my grandpa, not important in the eyes of America?

When connecting it to the text we read, he brings up a lot of questions I myself have while I was looking at the archives. Who decides what gets kept as history and what gets forgotten? Who dictates how important something or someone is? They say that only 1-3% of the information taken in is kept because the rest is unimportant. Who chooses that and who gives them the right to say for all of America's records that one thing is more important over the other. Access is another thing I think about from the text. While accessing some things were easy such as political documents and such, other stuff like family relations and more personal stuff you really had to dig for and it became daunting at times. Overall this website excludes a lot of information and makes finding certain things harder than just searching it up on the general web. ⚑

❣ I found the sections of the book called “Blood” by Dr Jen Gunther to be quite interesting. I never knew that there was so much to learn, so much hidden, and so many lies about periods. I also found it really surprising that there are more than 5,000 different names for periods. I can’t even think of 100 different names for a period. I found the part about when women are on their periods they have “polluting powers” and can cause flowers to wilt, frankly both funny and also makes me wonder how dumb some people are. It was also interesting to see the change in period products throughout the years. I had never given much thought to how they dealt with it in the past and I’m glad I’m alive in a day where there are so many options. It was also interesting that some of the first pads were made by men, also one of them made it because he was tired of women having to go through that and his wife happily helped him test them out. It was nice to get a slightly deeper look on what they can use our information for on period tracker apps. Also one of the ones they mentioned I had seen ads for where they claimed it was made by women for women, and that it was completely safe, but here it says that they were selling data and not having any restrictions on what the third party companies were doing with the data. It makes me rethink a lot. Also it mentioned how data tracking for periods can be used in court cases against a woman who wants to get an abortion, which I found sad. All in all, it was a very enlightening read and I might read more on the book. ❣