Remembering/Reflecting/Being Sentimental

I was not confident coming into Millbrook freshman year. I knew one person from my middle school and I was separating from my brothers for the first time. I was lonely and unsure of how I would get through high school. I was awkwardly tall, too smart for my own good, and didn't have many people to confide in.

It was amazing on the first day of junior year. I was in Math Studies with Mrs. Kohler and sat at a table with my current best friends. Throughout these last two years, I have found a family. We laugh, we cry, we complain, we fight, but we love each other. I would do anything for my IB fam (and I hope y'all know that). 

It was hard. IB was hard. No sugar coating it. But, it has pushed me to become a better student, writer, organizer, time manager... (the list goes on and on). Through IB, I have found what I am passionate for and I have found a career that I want to pursue. 

I will miss IB, as much stress as it has put me through. I will miss seeing everyone all day everyday. But I know that we have made bonds that will last a lifetime. 

I will be going to my dream college next year learning about the things that I love. I will be super prepared, and that is  all thanks to what IB has taught me. IB has changed me for the better. I was challenged, but I overcame everything (and will hopefully make it through exams lol). 

(Memes to lighten the mood because I honestly started crying trying to write/rewrite this blog. It brought up all of the feels trying to reflect upon everything that we have done and I had to keep changing what I was writing. I guess I am too sentimental for my own goo lol. Basically, I love y'all and I am so proud of all of our accomplishments together!!!)  

           

Whitman is an IB Theatre Student

The first page of the journal looks like an address book. It  looks like faded names with numbers addresses beneath it. For example, toward the bottom of the page, it says "Mrs. Price 330 (something something) 7th and 8th white marble (something)". It is hard to read the entries because the handwriting is very faded. The second page looks like it is a an idea for a poem. The top of the page says "Brochure- two character as a dialogue between...". The next couple of pages looks like drafts of his poem as he has writing and it is crossed out with edits made above it. The poem seems to be about a president possibly. Afterwards, there are hand drawn pictures of possibly the president(s) he is writing about. This is significant because this journal gives insight about Whitman's creative process and how he creates his poems from start to finish (basically he is an IB theatre student doing his collaborative project). It gives insight to Whitman's underlying political message and themes of his poem.

When looking through the next link, I was right that this had addresses, but it wasn't a random address book. These addresses were of people that had died in the war, which gave more personal meaning and more of a message to his poem. We also find out that Whitman had a connection to Lincoln because he saw him on the way to DC. This establishes a political theme. The tabs showed that Whitman discussed ideas deeper than who had died and politics like I had thought. He discussed religion, language changes, storms, and ships in his drafts while still maintaining a liberty theme. Sadly it is established that Whitman most likely didn't draw the pictures himself, but this journal is still evidence for Whitman's creative process. He started with something that was meaningful to him such as the addresses and his meaning to Lincoln and developed it into the poems. Too bad he would get malpractice for not drawing the pictures himself!!

How Can I Achieve the American Dream Without Sleep??

I would define the American Dream as "everyone having the ability/opportunity to work hard to achieve their goals through self sufficiency". Basically everybody having the equal chance to do what they love and prosper from that. Prosperity doesn't have to be a monetary value like many people believe. 

Our society is very monetary driven. Some people get the jobs that they do, just for the money that they will make, despite the fact that they will be miserable. Some people are so infatuated by money that they are willing to go into jobs that they don't enjoy because they have high paying salaries. However, others get jobs because it is what they are passionate about. They might not make a lot of money, but they are driven in their chosen profession.  

These two mindsets are also correlated how people help others and donate to others. The people that are in careers simply for the monetary gains are less likely to donate their money to people that are less fortunate. But, people that are more passionate about their careers are more likely to donate. (Hence the Gatsby meme). People that have more money might not want to donate it to others...which just increases the wealth/poverty gap. 

Despite most people defining wealth as a monetary value, I define it as something that makes working worth working (if that makes sense). Wealth is the benefits that you get from working. It might be monetary. It might be the happiness/good feelings you get by helping people. But I believe that it is what you gain from working.

Who I am: Job-wise, I work in retail purely for a monetary gain. I need to put gas in the car and I need to go to college. I don't despise my job, but I definitely don't love it. Who I want to become: I want to create a career for myself that I will be passionate about and that I will love. I want a job where I can make people happy, which in return will make me happy. To me, improving somebody else's life is the ultimate gain. 

Practice IOC

I tried to directly add the video, but technology doesn't like me. Here is a link to a video that I made that has my practice IOC. I hope I don't sound like I am repeating myself too much!!!
https://youtu.be/ELlKqk7H7uo

Grading:
Criterion A- 7 because I pulled a lot of in text citations from the passage, but I didn't analyze parts that were outside of the passage.
Criterion B- 6 because I feel like I could have used more literary examples and I could have explained my examples better and done a deeper analysis of them
Criterion C- 5-I believe that I was very organized and structured in my IOC because I didn't jump around from section to section and I tried to transition between my different points
Criterion D- 4 because I felt like I repeated things a lot, but I tried not to say 'um' and 'like'

2nd Semester Freebie

Stories and Remembering

The TED Talk that I chose was “Once upon a time my mother…”by Carmen Agra Deedy. Carmen starts her talk by telling the story of calling her parents and asking what she should talk about for the TED talk (how many times can I type talk in one sentence?) She transitions into the art of good storytelling. Carmen briefly tells the history of storytelling and how storytelling is all around us. She then starts telling a story about her mother, who is a horrible driver and continually embarrasses her. The story itself is not important, but the purpose and the message of the story is. When watching this twenty-some-minute TED Talk, I found myself wondering what the point of the story was, but in the last minute this talk was impactful and relatable. At the end of her story about her crazy mother, a random brother and sister come up to her and say “she reminds us of our mother…God, I miss her”. To which Carmen’s mother says to Carmen "I'm going to drive you crazy probably for about 14, 15 more years, if you're lucky, but after that, honey, you're going to miss me."

Carmen’s purpose is to emphasize the importance of storytelling.  We tell stories to recall and to remember the time we spent with loved ones. Carmen’s purpose is furthered by her use of pathos, imagery, and general storytelling skills (ethos). Carmen utilizes pathos is used throughout the whole performance to make the audience feel a connection with Carmen because she plays off of their emotions. Carmen uses imagery throughout her story as well to captivate her audience so they are more invested into her stories. As a storyteller, Carmen knows which parts of a story to emphasize by slowing down her speaking patterns and which to race through by talking quickly. She also places different accents to her different characters to provide a stronger effect on the audience. All of these components are mixed together in order to bring the audience in the story, and to make it more relatable so that the message at the end is more impactful. The audience relates their own family stories to Carmen’s so they realize that they should value the time and stories of their own family members.

I was first interested in this talk because I thought it was cute and funny, but then I realized how applicable it was to my life now. Recently, my Great-Grandparents visited from California for Christmas. During their stay, my Great-Grandma kept saying that this was their last time visiting North Carolina, which was, and still is, very hard for me to digest. I think in order to compensate, I have been telling a lot of stories of my Great-Grandparents. We tell stories to remember. If I don’t see my Great-Grandparents again, I still want to remember what it was like to have them here. Playing card games, baking, making dinner. I want to remember. One of the reasons I really liked this talk was that Carmen didn’t have to stand on stage and explain the message of her story. Everybody can relate to it because we all know someone that we don’t want to forget, so all we can do is tell stories of the times that we spent together.