For phase 1 we had to look at and research 4 topics of interest to us. For that reason, I created a Jamboard with all the topics I wanted to explore and read about. As this is just quick initial research I wanted to branch out as much as I could and see where it takes me.
The cold war has always been of interest to me, especially since I am a little bit of a history nerd. In fact, last year while I was undergoing my year abroad with an American university, I choose one of my classes to be “The cold war history”. Because of that and all my previous knowledge, I did not dedicate a lot of time to the topic for reading and reflection. I mainly just reviewed my old lecture notes and the two essays I have written on the Cold War. I already had reflections and analyses on the topic so I felt there was no point to repeat what is already written.
That though doesn’t mean I didn’t do any research whatsoever - in fact, I went and actually watched some old Bulgarian movies from the era of the cold war. I wanted to explore and revisit how the cold war was represented in them.
Week one for me was getting used to the rhythm of being in university again. With all that we have talked about, I am looking forward to working on projects again, especially if they are inspired by our own interests. I loved going back to read my old notes on the Cold War and I am looking forward to presenting the topic
Another thing is that I feel that I could present this topic in a different light from the conventional way. Especially because the Cold War is something that recently happened (from the point of view of history) and people seem to forget that. With the political situation nowadays it seems that people have forgotten that only a generation has passed since the end of the war. Everything is still fresh and it’s normal for the world to shake and tremble. The important though is to make people see that this will change, this is just a phase towards a better future if we try hard enough.