Hope for the Future

I have just rounded the corner into my last month of high school, and all I can think about is how quickly it has all gone by. When I think about myself as a freshman and how I have changed since then, I wonder if my high school experience has been all that I thought it would be. Have I become who I thought I would? Have I accomplished everything that I wanted to? I also think about my future and what it will be like to be that scared little freshman once again. However, this time I would like to start things off a little differently. I am going to make a list of various things that I hope to accomplish and who I hope to be by the time I graduate from college. This way, I will be able to look back and see how similarly or differently my life has turned out from the way I thought it would.

-Be someone my friends and family can always count on

-Study abroad

-Become fluent in Spanish

-Remain close with my current good friends

-Make a plethera of new friends in college

-Travel to Greece

-Get better at making decisions

-Learn to dance

-Take a class for fun

-Join a volleyball team

-Learn to drive a stick-shift

-Learn to sail

These are just a few of the many things I hope to do and become in college. I know it will be a unique experience full of different opportunities for me to grow and learn; I just hope I will take advantage of all of them and become someone I am proud of.

The Graduation Song- Vitamin C

My *like* Blog Post

Yesterday morning I was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, my future college, taking placement tests for this upcoming fall. The test was comprised of three parts, mathematics, English, and a foreign language (in my case, Spanish). In the few days before this test, I attempted to cram my brain full of mathematical concepts I had learned during my freshman and sophomore years of high school but haven't thought about since then. I also tried to memorize how to conjugate Spanish verbs in what seemed like millions of different tenses, although in reality there were probably about ten. I stressed over the amount of information I needed to know for these two subjects, but I didn't give the English test a second thought. For some reason, grammar has always been something that comes easily to me. It probably started in my eighth grade English class where we would begin each day with a grammatically incorrect sentence on the board which we would all have to correct and identify the different parts of speech found in that sentence. Ever since then, I've been kind of a stickler for grammar and often find myself correcting my friends and family for misusing certain words, such as "good" and "well." I haven't been exposed to as many grammatical lessons in high school as I had been in middle school, however just practicing through writing and speaking has kept my memory somewhat fresh.

About two weeks ago in my senior English class, my teacher announced that she would be paying special attention to the way that we present ourselves in the classroom, specifically taking note of our grammar usage when speaking. At first, I thought this would be a breeze because I have been practicing proper grammar usage for years. However, I had forgotten that I, like many others, struggle with one of the most common speaking mistakes: improper and perpetual usage of the word "like." Because using "like" as a filler-word isn't usually a problem for people when they write, but occurs almost unconsciously when they speak, most people don't even realize how much they say it until they are consciously trying not to say it.

After paying close attention to the word "like" for the past two weeks, my classmates and I have begun to notice how difficult it really is for us to speak without it. We have also started to notice who the people are that say "like" exponentially more than others. The purpose of this activity in our English class is to break our bad habits of speech before we go off to college, so that our intelligence isn't undermined by the way we present our ideas. Before I started listening for how many times people say the word "like", it wasn't as obvious to me. However, I can now see how distracting it is and understand that its frequent usage can easily diminish an intelligent idea.

The average person says about 20,000 words per day, so what we say is a big part of who we are. Pay attention to what you are saying. Are the words you choose to use saying what you want them to? Are they saying what you want them to say about yourself? My challenge for you this week is to really listen to yourself when you speak and identify a personal speech problem. Make yourself aware of this problem and take the time to correct it. It won't be easy, but the challenge is well worth the positive effect it will have on your identity.


Say- John Mayer

Sweet Tooth : ]

Last night, I walked into a cupcake bakery that recently opened in a local shopping center. There were about a dozen different flavors to choose from, each looking delicious in its own way. My friend and I each picked out a flavor, I chose red velvet and she chose carrot cake, and then we brought them back to my house to eat. However, it felt wrong to enjoy such delectable treats without the proper entertainment. We decided to watch DC Cupcakes so that we could watch professionals make amazing cupcake creations while we enjoyed our desserts.

As we watched, I began to think about the different ways that desserts bring people together and help form relationships. For example, my friend and I bonded over our common love for cupcakes as we ate them together while the sisters on the show bonded as they ran their company together. Families pass down dessert recipes through generations and, at least in my family, often bake and eat them together. My best friend and I have a tradition of finding a new cupcake place to try each time we go on a vacation together, which is one of the yummiest traditions I have. Today is your lucky day because I am going to share our findings and some of my other favorite dessert places with you!

Cupcakes Across America:
Cup of Cake- Glenview, IL
Sprinkles- Los Angeles, CA
Sweet Mandy B's- Chicago, IL
Crumbs- New York City, NY

Other Delicious Treats:
Dairy Bar- Glenview, IL
Berry Moon- Chicago, IL
Yogurtopia- Los Angeles, CA
Tiggani's- Granada, Spain
Ghiradelli- South Beach, FL

Satisfy your craving for sweets, give these a try! Bring somebody with you, it may just become your new tradition.

The Taste of Tradition

All families have traditions. These traditions may be big or small, but either way they are a part of that family's unique identity. In my senior peer group, we have our own tradition that celebrates a certain type of family tradition: food. Each of the seniors in my group was assigned a certain month of the school year to bring in a "memory food" that means something to them or their family. By doing this, we have learned something about each of our group members and their families that we probably would not have otherwise.

Because the school year is nearing its end, we have gotten through most of our group. Each person has brought in a delicious food with a personal story to go along with it. Something that I have found very interesting is that none of us have brought in foods that are similar to anybody else's. Each different memory food is as unique as the person who brought it. I didn't get to bring my food in until recently, but I discovered that choosing what food to bring was more difficult than I imagined. I discovered that sharing a tradition with people who aren't a part of it can be frightening because you're afraid of what they may think. Especially within a family, traditions are very personal, so opening them up to possibly being criticized is a scary thought because that tradition has become a part of your identity. I never really realized that something as simple as a dessert that my grandma makes at her cabin could be such an integral part of who I am until I decided to share it with people outside of my family.

Eventually, I decided to bring in one of my favorite desserts, Special-K Bars. I worked up the courage to share that tradition with my senior peer group and it went over well, so now I've decided to share it with you. Ever since I was a little girl, I have been going up to my grandparents' cabin with all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. My grandma would make us all Special-K Bars and I would eat about half of them all by myself. As we got older, she taught my older cousins how to make them and then they were able to bring them to the cabin. Eventually, my mom put together a family recipe book and that recipe is one of the ones we put in. Now I have learned how to make them and can share them with my entire family.

The Art of Life

This past week, I was given the opportunity to interview eighth graders applying to be one of the thirty incoming members of a program in my school district called the Academy of International Studies. Being on the other side of an interview was a unique experience that taught me a lot about how to present myself when I am the one being interviewed. However, what I found to be the most interesting part of the experience was learning about all of the different people I interviewed and seeing how they all answered the same questions in very different ways. As interviewers, we were given a list of questions we were supposed to ask. One of the questions that I most enjoyed asking was, "What is a book you have read that has inspired you to think about yourself, others, or the world in a new way?" Hearing all of the different responses to this question got me thinking about how I would answer it. After much thought, I couldn't narrow down my choices to one book, but rather a number of books, movies, and songs that have inspired me to think about myself, others, and the world in a new way. In my previous blog post, "Through the Looking Glass", I discussed the effect that the way you think about life can have on your identity and how important it is to try to see things in a different way. So, I want to share my list of books, movies, and songs that have inspired me to think differently with you so that you can hopefully have a similar experience.

Books:
In My Hands- Irene Gut Opdyke
Color Me Butterfly- L.Y. Marlow
Blink- Malcolm Gladwell
The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini

Movies:
World Trade Center
Voces Innocentes
127 Hours
Saving Private Ryan
Tsotsi

Songs:
If I Die Young- The Band Perry
Let It Be- The Beatles
Life Support- Rent
Travelin' Soldier- Dixie Chicks
Perfectly Lonely- John Mayer

I highly recommend all of the above : ]

Through the Looking Glass

As I mentioned in my previous post, Showtime!, we are currently reading Hamlet in my senior English class. In order to enhance our study of the play, we have been learning about different critical approaches that one can utilize while reading a work of literature. Several of these approaches include feminist, formalist, psychoanalytical, mythological, Marxist, and new historic. We have learned that reading a text from a certain approach can greatly affect the way you perceive the characters and events within a story.

For example, when reading from the mythological approach, King Hamlet’s ghost fulfills the archetype of the “wise old man.” By identifying the ghost as the “wise old man” of the play, the ghost takes on the role of the savior or guru who represents knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom, and cleverness. If the reader had been looking at the ghost from a different approach, that meaning would be lost and the ghost would just be the spirit of the dead king.

Taking the Critical Approach to Life
Similarly to studying texts using one of these critical approaches, people often view life though a lens, skewing the way that they perceive themselves and others. I’m not saying that everybody looks at life through one lens and can’t ever see things a different way, but people often have certain biases that unconsciously affect the way they think and act, like a reader who has chosen an approach to read through. These lenses can come in different forms, just like critical approaches do, and are shaped by a number of things such as a person’s religion, ethnicity, upbringing, socioeconomic status, and education.

Sharing Lenses
Your identity is largely dependent on the lens that you view life through because as you saw with the ghost in Hamlet, you may perceive a person or event in a way that is completely different than the way somebody else does. There is no “good” or “bad” lens to view life from, it is just important to recognize that not everybody perceives life in the same way. Often times arguments arise because of these differences in perception. One of the best ways to solve these conflicts is to attempt to understand what lens the other person is looking through and try to see things their way, or “take a walk in somebody else’s shoes.” Similarly, it is important to look at a text through a number of different approaches because you never know what you may be missing by looking at it in just one way.

Valentine's Day: It's All In The Way You Celebrate

Today is a Monday. Usually on Mondays I roll out of bed, throw on a pair of sweatpants, and head to school still half asleep. However, this morning was different. When I woke up I was in a fairly good mood (which is much better than I can say for most Mondays), I dressed in red and pink, and I walked into school to see many other people dressed in the same colors. If you haven’t figured it out already, today is Valentine’s Day!

Valentine’s Day means something different to everybody. Most commonly, it is a holiday during which two people in a romantic relationship express their love and appreciation for one another through cards, candies, and gifts. In my family, Valentine’s Day is a holiday for expressing familial love as well. My mother always gets my sister and I Valentine’s Day gifts to show us how much she cares about us. There are also some people who find this holiday to be pointless because they feel that love shouldn’t be more important on any one day than on others.

Although initially the way that you perceive Valentine’s Day may seem unimportant, it actually reveals information about your identity. They types of relationships you choose to celebrate on holidays such as this one show which relationships are the most important to you. For some people, the most important person in their life might be a boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse, so they choose to celebrate their relationship with this person. Some people are more family oriented, so they choose to have a nice dinner with their whole family or call their parents to tell them how much they mean to them. There are also some people who are less comfortable expressing their emotions than others, so even if they have relationships to celebrate, they don’t do so with big, loving gestures. Valentine’s Day can also be a holiday for celebrating friendships, so some people choose to just go out to dinner with some of their closest friends. However we choose to spend our holiday, we are revealing which relationships are the most important to us and how comfortable we are with expressing this importance.

Showtime!

Currently, in my senior English class, we are reading Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Before starting the play, we learned a little background on the Globe Theater in London at which many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed. While learning about the Globe and the way that shows were performed there, I began to think about the advancements that have been made in theater productions between Shakespeare’s time and now. But regardless of these advancements, the general idea of theater performances remains intact, making it a timeless art form.

Now and Then
I am currently participating in my high school’s variety show, which is a huge production that showcases the many talents of the students at my school. Our tech crew spends weeks creating different lighting cues for all of the acts and our stage crew builds a beautiful set made specifically to fit the theme of the show. At the Globe, shows could only be preformed during the daytime when weather permitted because there was no ceiling and the only light came from the sun. Special effects were limited to things such as people speaking from under the stage or appearing on a balcony. The audience often had to rely on their imaginations and the descriptions of the scenery given to them verbally by the actors to figure out what was happening on stage.

Some Things Never Change
Despite some advancements made in special effects or scenery, the concept of performers being on stage and entertaining an audience with their talents has remained the same. Performances are still put on at the Globe Theater in London without the many special effects of contemporary theater, and they are well-received by modern audiences. People still read and enjoy Shakespeare’s plays hundreds of years after they were written because the themes within the plays such as love, loss, victory, and tragedy are universal and timeless.

Love What You Do, Do What You Love
People involved in theater productions have always been and still are very passionate about what they do. It is common for people involved in theater to invest so much of their time and effort into their passion that they consider performing a part of their identity. After being in the variety show for four years, I have discovered how much work truly goes into putting on a show such as that one and I have gained a lot of respect for people who are involved in theater. It is difficult to really understand how a passion can become part of your identity until you have found a passion of your own. However, there is a danger in letting your life’s passion overcome you. It is important to remember to balance doing what you love with the many other wonderful opportunities life has to offer you.

Time for a Change

This past week, I took my first semester of senior year final exams. Once the last test was over, seniors flooded out into the hallways with smiles on their faces and the same words were on everybody’s lips, “ We’re second semester seniors!”

Many people associate the second semester of senior year with relaxing and slacking off, but it actually can be a stressful time for many seniors as they attempt to make one of the biggest decisions in their lives thusfar. Deciding where to go to college is a daunting task for many people because it is the first time they will be living on their own. Although that may be exciting, it makes me a little nervous.

Where to go?
When I first began my search for colleges, I didn’t think that I had many preferences when it came to distance from home, religious affiliations, or the sizes of schools. However, as college is becoming more of a reality, I’m starting to get a better sense of what I want. I’ve come to realize that I prefer larger schools within the Midwest with no religious affiliations. Realizing this about myself was an important step in my selection process because it has helped me narrow my list of ten down to three, The University of Michigan, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Indiana University.

Bring on the Change
Making any sort of life changing decision, such as where to go to college, can be very difficult because people often feel that change threatens their identity. It’s true that being put in entirely new surroundings and living on your own can affect the person that you are, but that is just a part of maturing. How you adapt to change says a lot about your identity. Some people are naturally more comfortable with change and freely accept it, while others are scared by even the thought of change. I’ll admit that I’m one of the people who is easily frightened and stressed out by the thought of change and it takes me a little longer than some people to adapt to new situations. However, I’ve learned that change is never actually as scary as I anticipate it to be and adapting to change doesn’t have to be a huge struggle.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...
If you are similar to me and struggle with making big decisions or adapting to change, it’s okay, there are ways to work through it. I’ve found that talking to a family member or close friend about the decision I’m trying to make and getting an outside opinion on the matter can be a big help. Also, you need to understand that making a big decision takes time. So, if you find yourself becoming overwhelmed or struggling to make up your mind, go do something else for awhile, clear your head, and come back to the decision later. Don’t be afraid to take chances or make changes in your life just because you feel like it will change who you are. Your identity can change and grow just as your outer appearance can. Change can be good.

Color Me Butterfly

One of my favorite pastimes is to go to my local bookstore, pick out several books I know little or nothing about, and purchase them. I think that stories are more fun to read if I have no preconceived notion of what to expect from the book. Recently, I picked up a book called Color Me Butterfly, and had a very hard time putting it back down.

This book, written by L.Y. Marlow, is about three generations of African American women struggling with abuse and racism. Their stories were both heartbreaking and inspiring because the women had to deal with the men they loved most in their lives causing them immense amounts of physical and emotional pain, while keeping a strong face for their children. Reading of the hard times these women went through was unsettling because it seemed that every time they would take a step forward, their lives would take two steps back with the loss of a child, the arrest of a husband, or a deadly disease caught by their mother. Every page brought a new challenge. However, the most surprising part of the whole book didn’t come until the very end, on the “Acknowledgements” page, where it was revealed that every part of this story was true, as it was composed of the life stories of the author, her mother, and grandmother. Knowing that all of the difficulties I read about were actually faced by a family gave me a great sense of respect for these women and their incredible strength.

What really stood out to me about this book were the immense limitations to identity that the women in the story faced. Being treated like a piece of worthless trash both physically and verbally is extremely detrimental to one’s identity. Many people who are in abusive relationships are not able to overcome the physical and mental pain, and often end up depressed or with very low self-esteem. Being able to look beyond the abuse and see that you are an important person who deserves to be happy can be difficult, however the women in Color Me Butterfly prove that with the help of family and friends, it is possible to overcome these hardships.

L.Y. Marlow is a talented author who writes in a way that captivates her readers and really pulls them into her story. She did a wonderful job of filling the pages of her story with real emotions that could be felt by the readers. It feels as if you get to know and understand the characters in the story as you read about their thoughts and feelings. I would recommend Color Me Butterfly to all readers who are looking for an emotional and inspirational true story that touches your heart.