Jesus Jimenez - Humanities Portfolio 2011

I have many beautiful memories of this past year. My knowledge of the world has not only expanded, but my views of what goes on in planet Earth have changed as well. During my year in both English 2 and World History, I was introduced to many subjects that I could’ve ignored if it wasn’t for school. One of them was inequality. Inequality is defined by Dictionary.com to be a “Difference in size, degree, circumstances, etc.;”. I find this to be an accurate definition for the world we currently live in. An Op-Ed I wrote earlier in the year has a lot of the points I thought to be very important when pitching ideas to make the world a more equal place. 
    Here’s one quote from that Op-Ed: “We could go for a social-political view like Marxism or such, that can give the people actual power in their government. Many of them are possible solutions to inequality in the world. Too many beliefs and righteousness is in jeopardy for other people for them to agree with this.”
    A year ago I couldn’t see myself writing about things like this. After reading through some of my stuff from this year, I can’t help but think that some of the reason the world is like this is my fault. I try to be the best person I can possibly be. When there are moments in life where I think I did something wrong or unacceptable, I usually try to fix it. But things like this, that affect the world or a society, I want to take the blame for it because I’m not doing anything at all. I could be making a change in the world or have an interest in something. 
    A few more things, the 2010 - 2011 school year has been an excellent one for me. I have not only grown in age, but in experience. Experiences from opportunities given to me from events, work, and especially people. "We have to be simple minded when it comes to changing personalities slightly. Think too much, and we might change the character completely." this quote is from my Literary Lenses Explanation. We took the book: “Their Eyes were Watching God”, and looked at it through different views (Feminism, Marxism, etc.).

The biggest message I took away from this year's classes was that there will always be inequality in the world. Yes, we can try to make it a better place and all that stuff, but there will always be an opposition with it's followers going against the point that both you and I know is right. Then I learned another thing, just because I'm just one person doesn't mean I should stop doing something I know is right. Many people in history have done magnificent things on their own and with the support of people. I'm positive I'll be one of them one day, if something ever comes up in the world that I strongly disagree with, I will make my voice be heard. Not only that but I would've been part of something way bigger, and that's how you fight something bigger. You fight it with support and numbers (amounts of people).