video assignment

1. Cultural preferences:

I'd say that I definitely have western European and especially American cultural preferences when it comes to both reading and writing. I am very focused on the American experience in my own writing, because for western civilization, the Americas were literally the last frontier--the ends of the earth--for exploration and colonization. I don't condone any of the travesties that were committed by settlers here, but the idea of a "new," lawless, far-western continent appeals to me, and I think that Americans today are still very different from Europeans, and that a lot of these differences grow out of the land we call "America." I see myself distinctly as an organic product of this land, and it has shaped my self while I have grown in its soil.

Besides that preference, I also have a strong interest in Japanese culture, because I lived there for a few years. Living overseas at a young age was a very powerful experience for me, and Japanese culture has some very beautiful and striking differences--and similarities, if yr willing to look deep enough--to American culture.

I also have an interest in American Indian culture, but I cannot call it more than an interest because I have not spent enough time learning about it.