My first ever blog post was my original definition of globalization.  I defined globalization as the domination and evolution of one central culture, and the science of how that culture spreads throughout the world.  I remember strongly disagreeing with the class definition; I thought the class definition was too complex and contained too many components.  During the first couple of weeks of class, I thought globalization was a lot simpler than everyone was making it out to be. However, after reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman and having great class decisions, I now realize that globalization is extremely complex.  My blog postings reflect my evolution of thought over the course. 

In the beginning of the semester, I was mainly concerned with the relationship between globalization, its components, and happiness.  I felt that people our class and even Professor Greenlaw believed globalization and wealth were more important than happiness.  If a culture or society is perfectly happy being isolated from the world, I did not think that was a problem.  Our culture does not have the authority to judge or change other cultures.  I personally believe happiness can only come from within and globalization cannot increase other’s happiness.  I found it ironic that the United States of America is one of the most depressed and unhappy countries in the world and yet is the wealthiest and most advanced.  After reflecting on happiness and globalization, I started thinking about technology and its role in enabling globalization.  I eventually started to analyze the relationship between happiness and technology.  Everyone in our class seemed to praise technology; however, I became curious as to whether technology improves people’s standard of living and happiness.  To me globalization and technology are worthless if they make people less happy, but improve living conditions.

About half way into the course I finally understood globalization’s complexity and influence.  My posts, but more importantly my thoughts, started to analyze every aspect of the world that globalization touches.  I started asking myself more questions, relating to more components of globalization.  Economics really started to interest me, as well as what the future will unveil.  I realized how manipulative the nature of globalization is; companies, individuals, governments and even the United Nations are all competing with each other, battling each other with trade, treaties, resources and even the environment. 

I personally found blogging interesting and even fun, however, the fact that I had never blogged before made it harder for me to blog consistently.  Since blog posts were never graded or due at any point during the course, I easily forgot to blog.  I naturally reflect about class decisions and globalization, however, it was surprisingly hard for me to blog about my thoughts.  If our blogs were graded or incorporated into our class decisions, I believe other students as well as myself would have blogged in greater quantity and more consistently.  If I ever have a class similar to FSEM100J, I know I will be better prepared for blogs and respond positively to blogs.  I think the most influential, thought changing and helpful experience in this class was not my blog, but my expert study.  The expert study assignment opened my eyes to the complexity and uncertainty of globalization, but even more importantly it taught me a lesson on how to formulate and defend an argument.