Humanities Find Portfolio 2013

Do you remember that first time you did something outside of your comfort zone? That time when you probably thought, “What am I doing here”? Or that time when you thought, “Hey, that wasn’t that bad’? Ever had those feelings, well if you did than you and I already have something in common.

        At first I never knew stepping out of my comfort zone would make me feel like  a new person. It allows me to have more exposure to the world around me and understand everything much better. It also made me feel really accomplished. This year in Mr. Blocks English and History class I have crossed many comfort zones. Those comfort zones have created originality, which has pushed me beyond my personal boundaries. Also by challenging myself, I am bettering myself.

I remember writing a description of an artwork. I was told to look at a piece of artwork and describe every detail of it. I picked a picture of Radha and Krishna; I had no idea where to start, but I had to start somewhere. Now that I look back at my work I realize that I could have given the artwork a totally different meaning and that I should have been more creative. But I didn’t do that I just described it the way I saw it. That was the first step to writing my descriptive essay, in the essay I described things much better. “I looked as the sweats from his hair slowly moved down his forehead, to his cheeks and then one by one dripped down to the carpet floor,” in this slowed down the action and used more detail.

A while after that we learned about how much language can really affect your everyday life. I wrote a language autobiography describing how different languages, I know, play a key role in who I am. Doing this allowed me to create something original with the way I speak. It allowed me to take three different languages I speak and turn them into one amazing piece of writing. “Language has such a big role in my life, how knowing three different languages has it advantages and disadvantages.” By writing about how language impacts my life it pushed my personal boundaries to make me more comfortable.

We read many books in both English and History from that I created a Prezi about how reading has changed my life. At first Prezi was very complicated for me, it was a new website that I was not familiar with. But I challenged myself to step out of my comfort zone and create something original. In the Prezi I wrote “Reading is an advantage for me. Reading takes me to places I have never been before.” By doing new things it made me realize that I am capable of doing more then things I‘m use to doing in my everyday life.

There are also other assignments that made me take the next step. Creating a museum exhibit gave me a huge change to be really creative. And doing everyday journal entries also helped me step out of my comfortable zone. Two majors one that really connect to me are English Journal 8 and History Journal 4. The last assignment that I believe has really given me the opportunity to push my limits is the the Hidden City assignment. I never thought I would be taking a normal alleyway and create it into an artwork.