Throughout the semester we have discussed various topics like bias, othering, equity, oppression, empathy and many more. In the beginning of the semester I watched a video entitled “How languages shape the way we think” by Lera Boroditsky. This Ted talk was about how communication is different depending on the dialect that a person spoke. For example, in the video she showed a picture of a person bending down to take a picture of an artifact and in the process he accidentally pushed back a vase that was behind him. In the English dialect we would say that the man broke the vase. However in Spanish that it be phrased differently. It would be the vase broke. As you can see in English we added the reason for the vase breaking, this is a person or an event to blame. In Spanish, there was no blame the event was described. Another thing is a how she talked about is how events are ordered. For example In Arabic, we write from right to left. So if we were to get an arabic speaker and told him to order events in order from old to new, they would most likely to palace the oldest event on the right. Other dialects might place the oldest in top and as you go down it gets more recent. All this was was very interesting but  it got me think has the an event that took place in human history that was lost in translation. Stories and legends that we were told as children be had been different to what really happened. Is this why some history books are different to others. Could this be a reason for a war to start  just because a pice of information was lost in translation . https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=RKK7wGAYP6k

Another video that I watched which I found to be very interesting was a video called “Diffusing Bias” by Binna Kandola. In this video it talked about how everyone is biased whether it is intentional or not. It is a default setting in everyone, however we can limit it. For example he talked about in conference that he was attending he found himself sitting next to another person from the same ethnicity without noticing. I related to this part of the talk. I spent 4 years of my life living in Kuwait. During the first day of school I was sat with the Egyptian kids. However my actions were intentional. I believe that it is a part of human nature to find palace were we can feel safe and belonging. In my case this was the closest thing to feel back home. Sometimes we find ourselves doing that without intentionally thinking of it. For example if you were going out to a hangout were there are some people you know and the majority you do not. Without thinking you would approach the people that you know. I do not believe that is a bad thing. I it a natural instinct that is a based on survival. The early man used to hunt and live in groups (tribes).  As human that one thing that we fear is change. change of settings or people. The more we do not understand something the more we fear it. This can relate to islamophobia, people fear muslims because of the misinformation they are fed and a great deal of missing information they have on the religion its self. https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/day-learning-2013-binna-kandola-diffusing-bias

Another video which I actually quite enjoyed was about microaggression. In the video a man was the woman where she is from because her facial features had resembled what an asian person would look like. When he started to talk to her he realised that she was fluent in English. So out of curiosity he was asking her where is she from, and she said San Diego. The point is that he tried to make her say something like China, Korea or Japan. Then when she said Seoul, he tried to create common ground by telling her that he enjoys Chinese food. When I watched this video I could place my self in both of the characters’ shoes. The man was trying to create common ground the woman to spark conversation, but he was naive. Even thought it came like “I am not racist and love diversity”. From her perspective she was fed up of people trying to figure out where she is from based on how she looks. Since some people can come off as racist. This made me think have I ever done this without knowing. Since some people have really good intentions but the way words come out may sound different to how it was in their head. One question that kept circling my mind is that how can person try to find a common ground with a person with a different ethnicity without coming off as racists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWynJkN5HbQ

Another video that I related to was the “How is your heart?” video. The video talks about how students experience trauma and how it impacts the way perform academically. In the video Dr. Mays Imad talked about how she blanked during a test because her family was in Iran during the gulf war. I have personally blanked on a midterm once. It was my thrid year in university and I was overloading in my courses. My crosses were a mix of heavy mathematics courses and engineering courses. It was a very stressful period since I would be having two midterms per week. During the midterm, as I was solving the problem I stoped and did not know how to solve it. It was problem that I solved before on my assignments. But when came to the midterm, I forgot how to solve it. I remember going back home feel that I may have not studied well and feeling stupid. Later on I found out that this happened due to the stress I was experiencing during that month. It is very crucial for a person to go easy on themselves and not to be to harsh on themselves. This video was eye opener.  https://onehe.org/resources/trauma-informed-pedagogy/

I feel Soliya will cover all these subjects since every single one of us have expirance one of these thing that I talked about. This can help people feel that they are not alone in this world, for the cases of trauma. For the other topics it would be intersting to listen to different view about how people view bias and how each dialect describes events.

I learned that the world is a very diverse place where different ethnicities have their own way to approach life. This can go back to how their dialect is structured to describe events. I can use Soliya to learn more about other cultures. For example, one of the cultures that I would want to know more about is the Japanese, since its culture is based on respect and honor.

from my various interaction with people who are different from me I have learned that not everyone will have the same story to tell to an event that have happened to you both. How can I reduce my carbon foot print so that I can do my part and help reduce global warming is the question to how can I become a better global citizen.

If the topic of Palestine came up during the Soliya talk I feel that we need to address the fact, and by that I mean the real facts. The fact that Israel has no right to victmize themselves and say that the arabs are the ones who are responsible. I would also back up my facts with videos of Israeli soldiers going to mosques and killing innocent people for not reason.