Macbeth BM Creative

For the third quarter benchmark our English 9 teacher had us do a quote analysis write up for Macbeth. This was meant to explore our abilities we learned on quote analysis and to be standardized on it too. Basically, the better the better you soaked up the lessons for the quarter would be the better you do on the project There was a catch though because this write up would only count for 50% of our grade. We also needed to do a creative project!
The creative portion of the project had to reflect on our quotes and our thesis. In my project I really wanted to show the evidence on how my quotes proved my thesis correct. My thesis revolved around the idea that Macbeth had healthy ambition and curiosity his whole life but when his fate was made known it all became quite nefarious. To do that I needed to incorporate every stage of downfall into the creative portion presented by the quotes. 
I soon came up with the idea of making a clay Macbeth and quote weights. As the story progressed, each quote weight would be added to Macbeth to show the struggle he endears on his journey. By the final quote Macbeth is no longer able to hold up the weights and therefore falls. This is supposed to show how in the end all of Macbeth's choices finally kill him. 

In the beginning the process was tremendously easy and had no challenges or annoyances. I always thought of myself as a pretty creative person and knew myself well enough to see that I could get anything done. It did not all go so good though for when I sat to brainstorm ideas I only found that I was sitting there for thirty minutes with nothing. To figure out what to do I stopped thinking of creative projects and started thinking of things that could be used with my quotes. That is when I came up with my project idea.
It did not get better from there unfortunately. I had to use clay for my project and because of that I went to the store and bought clay. Simple enough but I was terribly wrong. The amount of clay balls I had to create for different combinations of quote weights were in the fifties. There was only one right combination of sized balls where the statue of Macbeth would fall on the last quote and not the others. The process even got more tiresome after cooking the balls and seeing that it didn't work when cooked. Inevitably I had to go buy more clay and do it again. Crafting the Macbeth dolls was a pain for he never stood up on his own which lead to toothpick supports. During the whole thing I was constantly thinking about how this makes sense compared to my written portion of the project. I would stop and plan out everything. Most of the times the plans did not go so well and I had to go back and just plan something different. 

It's difficult having good ideas that you really enjoy but having to scrap them because in reality they are terrible. That was something I encountered many times. Surprisingly though a majority of the ideas weren't bad but just out of my capability of doing. Now I usually believe that anyone can do anything but sending Macbeth to the moon was a bit over exaggerated. 
I am seriously proud of my dexterity, endurance, and effort. I never gave up and multiple times tried to do better. After hours of tiresome work I did not go for the B but went up and beyond to get the A. I fought my own "furies" and pillaged on through lack of sleep and tired, clay filled hands. In short, it was all kind of amazing.
In thinking about it now I honestly don't know what I would change in this project. If given time then I would have hundreds of answers. If I could change the project maybe I would spend more time on brainstorming and decision  making. I want the best ideas possible and the greatest decision made. Although I see perfection as an infinity, making it impossible to reach. You can always approach perfection but when you try to grab it then it will just ran miles away with harder possibilities trailing away. It is this idea though that pushes you to do better each time. Which makes a college student generally better than a high school student, which makes a C student into an A student. 

Many things were learned from this experience, which was intended. First, I saw things that I would never even guess that some of my colleagues could achieve. Next, I found out somethings about people that I wouldn't know from not being social with them which will make me more apt to change so. I also learned that even though we all see ourselves as great and invincible, you should never over estimate your abilities. I struggled more than I thought I would but something I did not need to learn was that I amazing and therefore fought through the struggle. 
If I could acknowledge anyone it would be Ms. Dunn for teaching me well, my friends for listening to my presentations and presenting fantastic projects themselves, and my family for putting up with all the clay in the house.