GVSU Honors Blog!

I agree with you, Joe! This week was a very fun way to end the semester, when my other classes are fairly stressful. It is definitely harder to understand Spanish words when they are put to song - I just gave up trying to understand them and focused instead on keeping my balance. When the professors translated those couple of songs for us, though, seeing the underlying message in the lyrics was extremely interesting.

I really enjoyed leaning about music and dance in class this week. Being fairly musical already, I like trying to compare the different genres of music and seeing if I can tell them apart. Professor Serrata had us do the same thing - he would play part of a song, and we had to tell him if it was merengue or bachata. It is extremely interesting to me how the merengue is always identifiable by its rhythm. What is also interesting is how different this music is from what I am used to. I play both the piano and the organ, and I have almost completely limited myself to classical music. There is a day-and-night difference between what I play and what I heard in class this week. Thank you, Professor Serrata and Professor Stark, for introducing me to Latin American culture and helping me expand my horizons! I enjoyed it immensely. 

Hi Kamrin! I never thought of Mackandal's actions that way before, but I think you are completely correct in your interpretation. Mackandal was highly successful in his life in spite of setbacks (like losing an arm); this should inspire us to continue striving for our goals, even when things get in the way of them.

The last two weeks, we have talked much about revolutions in Haiti and Venezuela. In both of these discussions, I have been surprised by the history surrounding the leaders of these uprisings. In grade school, the little I learned about Touissant L'ouverture and Simon Bolivar almost deified them, as if they never made any mistakes. In this class, though, we learned that almost as soon as he took power, Touissant essentially became a dictator. All I knew before this semester was that Touissant was a slave who led a successful revolt in Haiti. And Simon Bolivar, as I now know, spent so much time away from home trying to conquer new lands that his economy collapsed, his popularity tumbled, and his empire completely fell apart. Somehow, I never learned that before - my high school history classes only taught me that Bolivar led South America to independence, and that all South Americans love him now. Historical figures deserve accurate biographies. Without them, our perspective on hist...