Lord of the Flies Essay

Camren Jones

Ms. Pahomov

English 2

25 March 2019


In the novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, he tells a story about how a group of young boys are stranded on an island due to a plane crash and create their own society to create peace among them, or so they thought. As more and more time passes the young boys' structured society slowly begins to fall apart. Their society quickly becomes total chaos as violence and disputes are prevalent. As a result of their society quickly they divide themselves, which ended up backfiring Characters such as Piggy who appeared weak were often belittled leaving them to feel abandoned. While never explicitly being revealed, many scholars argue William Golding utilized symbolism through Lord of the Flies. Furthermore, upon reading this one can make the case Golding used the boys' interactions to draw comparisons to the real world such as Uzbekistan governed by Islam Karimov.

One of the earliest moments in Lord of the Flies introduction of a chubby young boy. He later was referred to as Piggy as an insult and called this for the rest of the novel. Piggy eventually grew close to Ralph, the original leader. They bonded over the feeling of alienation from their peers. However, once the boys began to form different opinions they drifted apart. The ridiculing of both Ralph and Piggy begins once Piggy says, “What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think?”(91). Following this, a hunter Jack created a division between the other boys and Ralph. Maintaining his loyalty Piggy stood his ground with Ralph despite what others thought. Compared to the others Piggy’s ideas weren’t as drastic. Piggy says “Just an ordinary fire. You’d think we could do that, wouldn’t you? Just a smoke signal so we can be rescued. Are we savages or what?”(174). Even though a lot of Piggy’s actions were motivated by the desire of being accepted it didn’t stop him from making valid points. He knew that they weren’t going to be able to stay on the island forever so he thought ahead. Piggy was very methodical with the way he moved and how he thought things out, and since many of them were young it stops them from looking at the bigger picture causing them to ridicule the first person who thought differently. Piggy and Ralph lost all power in their society because they didn’t agree with others which later led to his death.

Similar to Piggy and Ralph, a writer named Hamid Ismailov was cast out due to his debatable beliefs. Ismailov was a writer who lived in Uzbekistan once he was recruited for a controversial freelance job with BBC. He later was informed that the government wasn’t too happy with his choice of work. He knew he had to leave but what he didn’t know is that it would result in him never coming home again. He was aware of the vile acts committed by dictator Islam Karimov he understood in order to remain safe the best choice was to leave his home. After he left there was no trace of him ever being there. People were desensitized to Karimov’s cruel actions and neglected the injustice Ismailov had received. According to the Guardian, Hamid Ismailov was completely removed from the Uzbek culture. His work is no longer published nor are the people allowed to use the words “Hamid Ismailov” in print without suffering the consequences.

Both Piggy and Ismailov feared for their lives because of their choice to speak in opposition to their leadership. In Lord of the Flies, Piggy was killed and Ismailov would’ve been too if he had stayed. They weren’t afraid which caused their leadership to feel threatened and attempt an assassination. Without fear Jack and Islam Karimov were powerless and he knew which resulted in their resentment towards Ismailov and Piggy. It was their only leverage over the others. After the death of Piggy, the young boys' hands were no longer clean. Golding illustrates this by saying “Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy”. Unlike the death of Simon, which was accidental, the death of Piggy was done with intent to kill. Throughout the book, Piggy was somewhat a balance that kept them from turning completely savage.

The difference between the two societies is that Ismailov knew what his people were capable but in Piggy’s case, he didn’t.  Piggy was aware of the fact that not everyone on the island would be to avoid the temptations of savagery but he didn’t know that his death would also relate to the death of their humanity. The risky thoughts of both Piggy and Ismailov caused them misery because their leader felt challenged.
Many ideas emerged from the Lord of the Flies such as one not being allowed to express how they feel. In the real world scenario, I related it to Piggy’s death due to their similarities. They both were removed from their environment one more drastic than the other but it was because of their leader feeling challenged. The fact that their leaders weren’t fond of their beliefs they dismissed.






Works Cited

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies, New York: Penguin, 2006.

M., Morris. “10 Tragic Tales Of Modern People Forced Into Exile.” Listverse, 29 Dec. 2018,

listverse.com/2015/06/24/10-tragic-tales-of-modern-people-forced-into-exile/.

“Hamid Ismailov.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Mar. 2019,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamid_Ismailov.



Lord of the Flies

From the moment Piggy meets the boys on the island he is made fun of. He was still getting bullied in the moments leading up to his death which means. Through the entirety of the novel, Piggy, a contributing member of the group is constantly being bullied. Piggy is constantly bullied through the entirety of the novel. This takes a significant toll on his well-being.  In Lord of the Flies, Golding uses Jack’s treatment of Piggy to represent how Piggy would be treated for the rest of his life. From that first moment, he was bullied by Jack for his weight, that predetermined how he would be treated for the rest of his life. 
      It’s no secret that Jack and Piggy don’t get along, it started from the very first moment that they met. At the beginning of the novel, while the boys are grouping up, Jack became annoyed by Piggy and decided to speak his mind. Jack says, “You’re talking too much, shut up Fatty.” (Golding 21) This scene sets the tone for how the boys would treat him for the rest of his days. According to a source at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, “Children who are obese are less liked by their peers, and picked on and made fun of more often than peers of healthier weights, the study found. In response, heavy children are more likely to be withdrawn and show signs of depression.” Piggy is arguably the least liked person on the island.  He is bullied because of his weight and starts acting more withdrawn as the book progresses. He is showing all the signs of a child being bullied. Although Ralph sticks up for him at that moment, this would mean nothing for the long term future. Jack picked up on the power dynamic of the boys and used that to his advantage to build power for himself. He understood that Piggy could be walked over with little to no consequence.
     As humans, we all have a breaking point.Jack tried to get Piggy to reach his numerous times. Piggy was pretty resilient for a while before this occurrence caused everything to take a turn for the worse. During another group meeting, Piggy tells the boys that he is scared. And of course, Jack teases him because of it. Piggy tries to defend his right to speak, but his defense was of no use. And the situation becomes increasingly funny to the boys on the island.  “A pall stretched for miles away from the island. All the boys except Piggy started to giggle; presently they were shrieking with laughter. Piggy lost his temper.” (Golding 45) Piggy has finally lost it, he’s reached his breaking point.  San Diego Therapist Ann Steele says,” It is actually emotional harm that lasts much longer than physical harm. Especially during childhood, when bodily damage heals readily, the victim’s self-image may be permanently maimed:” We must remember that all the boys have at this point, is each other. There is nobody else actively in their life. Having the only people in your life constantly make fun of you is not good for anyone's mental health. His mental health has gotten to the point where he is not able to make sensible decisions and is acting irrationally (losing his temper).  Now this will only make the situation worse because Jack has gotten what he wants out of Piggy, a reaction. Piggy’s reaction to the bullying will only encourage more bullying to the future.
The effects of bullying on Piggy has reached its peak. After the constant emotional abuse perpetrated by the boys on his island, he finally understands how things work on the island. Piggy says, “You got him over the fire; an’ you’re chief an’ he isn’t… He can’t hurt you: but if you stand out of the way he’d hurt the next thing. And that’s me.” (Golding 81) Piggy is predicting his murder. He has opened his eyes up to what the future will unfold, and that it won’t be good for him. The tension between Jack and Ralph is at an all-time high, and if Jack can’t get to Ralph. He’ll get to whoever’s closest to Ralph which in this case is Piggy. Lecturer in Psychology, Calli Tzani-Pepelasi says, “For many victims who are trying to overcome the experience, the loss of trust is perhaps the most challenging consequence.” He can’t even trust the boys on the island to not kill him. The loss of trust held by Piggy is apparent.
     In conclusion, the rest of Piggy’s life was set out for him the first time he was bullied on the island. Jack picks up on how things run when first meeting the group and elevates himself by pushing down Piggy. Jack got Piggy to his breaking point by getting almost everyone on the island to laugh at him. And eventually Piggy was able to predict his early death.


Works-cited

Steel, Anne. “The Psychological Effects of Bullying on Kids & Teens.” Masters In Psychology Guide, mastersinpsychologyguide.com/articles/psychological-effects-bullying-kids-teens/.

Tzani-Pepelasi, Calli. “Childhood Bullying Can Cause Lifelong Psychological Damage – Here's How to Spot the Signs and Move On.” The Conversation, 7 Jan. 2019, theconversation.com/childhood-bullying-can-cause-lifelong-psychological-damage-heres-how-to-spot-the-signs-and-move-on-100288.

Yu, KwiYun. “Fat-Shaming Begins Early in Childhood, and It Hurts.” Swedish, 25 Jan. 2019, blog.swedish.org/swedish-blog/fat-shaming-begins-early-in-childhood-and-it-hurts.

Effects of Mental Illness

Michaela Berger

Ms. Pahomov

English 2

25 March 2019

Effects of Mental Illness

How does trauma affect everyone in different ways? In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, a group of boys experience a series of events that lead to chaos among them. After a devastating plane crash, several boys aged 6 to about 12 must learn to survive on an island with no adults and thus no authority. From this crash, the boys’ emotions change and their behavior begins to reflect it. Their experiences on the island caused the boys to become vulnerable, crude, and even violent. A traumatic event can lead to mental and emotional illnesses, which may affect their relationships with other people.

To begin, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a mental illness where a person has behavioral or emotional issues recovering from a traumatic event. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in an article about PTSD in children, symptoms of children with PTSD include acting helpless, hopeless or withdrawn, and nightmares and sleep problems. If they have PTSD, performing tasks, like interacting with others or doing something independently can become difficult. This is especially if they do not have access to treatment. A world health report done in 2001 by the World Health Organization (WHO) states that only one-third of all of the people diagnosed with mental disorders seek treatment. The majority of the time, it is because of the stigma of having a mental illness. People affected with illnesses like PTSD do not want to be judged or have others know that they go to therapy because of a mental illness they have. Other times, it is due to limited access or not being able to afford treatment. If people are not treated or do not have access to treatment, their symptoms will only worsen. Their mental and emotional health could deteriorate. In children, their actions and relationships with both adults and other children can take a drastic, negative turn.

In Golding’s novel, the boys begin to experience symptoms of PTSD from their plane crash. Specifically, their behavior reflects several of the more common ones as told by the CDC such as sleepwalking, nightmares, and vulnerability. For example, the younger boys on the island who are around six years old, show signs of sleep issues. This is witnessed by Jack, Ralph, and Simon, “They dream. You can hear ‘em… They talk and scream. The littluns,” (Golding 52). When Ralph says this, he demonstrates how the “littluns” are showing a common symptom of PTSD. Since the littluns are very young, they have a limited understanding of the severity of the plane crash compared to what the older boys know. Another consequence of their young age is that they have a different perception of the intensity of events. The littluns’ upset behavior and vulnerable actions show they are experiencing anxiety because of what happened in the plane crash.

A person diagnosed with PTSD often experiences emotional management issues. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs notes that a common symptom of PTSD is stress and anger. Having this accumulated anger can affect other people. Anger is reported to be a very common response to trauma. Temperament helps release some of the negative feelings a person with PTSD may have and helps them cope with stress. However, using anger as a main coping strategy will rarely help in the long run. Someone who resorts to solving problems with anger will use this method more often, which can lead to longer and more intense rages. It will affect other’s opinions of that person because they use their temper as an outlet. For example, U.S. veterans often experience PTSD, especially symptoms of anger. A helpguide.org article notes how anger corresponds to the fight or flight response veterans get (Smith et al). The rush of adrenaline gives them energy, so they need to blow off steam or become rageful. They are on guard at all time, which especially causes this irritability. It can prevent veterans from getting jobs, which can later lead to homelessness. Not only does this anger affect other people, but it affects how they live.

Using anger as a coping mechanism is a common trait among the boys in Lord of The Flies. Jack, the self-designated head of the hunters, often uses the rageful coping method to deal with some of the stressors of being on the island. Golding describes Jack’s angry actions, “Then Jack leapt to his feet, slashed off a great hunk of meat, and flung it down at Simon's feet. ‘Eat! Damn you!’ He glared at Simon,” (74). This quote reveals some of the aggression portrayed by the character Jack. He was angered by the actions of the other characters, but also faced some internal struggle. Although he uses yelling at the boys to show them the kind of power he has, he is really doing it because of the trauma he experienced from the plane crash. Jack releases his frustration on the boys as a way to cope with this stress. His anger affects his fellow hunters in order to get them to work together, even if it is intimidating. Early in the book, he asserts his dominance with sternness, which leads to him having some power over the boys. Contrary to what the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says, using this assertiveness causes people to want to follow him. Although it does intimidate the boys and come off as rude, Jack is able to form a cohesive group of boys with similar, angry motives.

To conclude, a traumatic event can really affect one’s actions and relationships. It can have a negative impact on their mental and emotional health. When a traumatic event happens, the ones who experience it can have impacted behavior and even sleep issues. It affects the people surrounding the victim and can eventually hurt the environment they are in. Mental illnesses like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder impact so many individuals, yet very little is done about it. Only a fraction of the people diagnosed yearly is treated. Mental health issues are so often overlooked when it really affects so many people today.


Works Cited

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. Penguin Books, 2006

“Mental Disorders Affect One in Four People.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 29 July 2013, www.who.int/whr/2001/media_centre/press_release/en/.

“National Center for PTSD.” PTSD, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 3 Aug. 2018, www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/related/anger.asp.

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Feb. 2016, www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml.

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Children | CDC.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 12 Mar. 2019, www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/ptsd.html.

Smith, Melinda, et al. “PTSD in Military Veterans.” HelpGuide.org, Oct. 2018, www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/ptsd-in-military-veterans.htm/.



Advanced Essay #2

Introduction:
The purpose of this essay was to explore different ways social media has affected the identities of the youth and how they act socially. In this essay I am most proud of how I was able to integrate the quotes into my essay to show a point. Something I would like to improve on is going deeper into my ideas.


Email, done. Facebook, typed. Sign up, clicked. I was 10 years old, and I was ready to join the social media world with my brother and cousins. I felt like I was missing out on all of the good things, and yes YouTube had great content to keep me entertained, it still wasn’t enough. I wanted to see what other people that were just like me were up to, and by just like me, I mean not rich and super famous. It felt like the new main way to communicate with people. It was my opportunity to talk to people that weren’t on my block. I had access to the world. But with that were also risks that could’ve affected who I am if I wasn’t blessed enough to have the family I have.  Social media has greatly affected how the youth are in the world.
Today teens are less likely to open up to an adult because it is less comfortable for them. The NBC News tells it’s readers: “Not surprisingly, they found that many teens and young adults are using digital tech. They are using social media as a stand-in for a therapist — not so much for feedback, but as a way to vent.” What I understand from this quote is that it is teens are less social and willing to speak out about their problems compared to the past. Back when there were no social media, people had to physically talk with each other or be on the house phone, texting was not an option. So, because of this, teens actually had stronger relationships with people because they weren’t afraid to vent to them. Texting and talking with your voice are two totally different things and a lot of teens choose to text.

But this is not the only thing social media is doing to teens; it’s also making them feel insecure about themselves. It’s not that teens weren’t insecure before social media, but now it is definitely more common and frequent that you see someone who doesn’t like something about their physical appearance. It’s out in the open now and models and celebrities are really influencing the youth more than ever because of their online presence. In a certain study called #StatusofMind, by Royal Society for Public Health in the UK, results showed that Instagram had the most negative effect on teens and young adults in the US, most notably among women. CNN reported, "Instagram easily makes girls and women feel as if their bodies aren't good enough as people add filters and edit their pictures in order for them to look 'perfect,' " an anonymous female respondent said in the report.” When you get on Instagram, if you follow teenage girls or young women, you are most likely going to see a picture of someone with a filter on themselves. It makes them feel acceptable and presentable to the world.

Along with these things, social media has also significantly changed the way we communicate with each other. Families don’t even talk to each other the same anymore because everyone is so focused on being in the loop online. People have grown too accustomed to talking to someone digitally, so when in person, they can’t hold a conversation very well. In an article called Stop Googling. Let’s Talk, posted on New York Times by Sherry Turkle, she explains things she has found from interviews and studies on how phones influence conversations in real life. In the article, she tells us about a college student she interviewed, and this is what he said: “One college junior tried to capture what is wrong about life in his generation. ‘Our texts are fine,’ he said. ‘It’s what texting does to our conversations when we are together that’s the problem.’” Phones are ruining how well we are able to communicate and hold a conversation with the people around us. A group of people can be together and not say a word to one another because they are on their phones looking at something on social media or texting someone who’s not around them. It gives people a way to escape having to socialize with the ones around them, which could be awkward or intimidating to some. Conversations are just no longer the same because of social media and it is most prominent in the youth.


Advanced Essay #2: Internally Inferior

Introduction: The goal of this essay was to touch on the universal feeling of not being good enough when we compare ourselves to people more successful than ourselves. I am most proud of my scene of memory and the way it flows with my larger idea. I think this scene of memory provides solid evidence for my theme. For future essays, I would like to allow for more time during the revision phase, so I can better pinpoint the details of the essay and make sure that everything connects more smoothly and flawlessly.



Everyone has people whom they look up to. People whose lives they wish they lived, people whose dreams came true, people who seem to be comfortable with themselves and well-liked. But sometimes by looking up to someone, we find ourselves comparing ourselves to them and putting ourselves down. Growing up, I never felt the desire to be anything that I’m not. As time has passed, the expectations that existed for me became increasingly apparent. The notion that I should be more successful than I am, more beautiful, and more talented is deeply embedded in my mind as I continued to see other people as those things.

In a Ted Talk by Thandie Newton, she speaks about identity and her sense of self in relation to others, stating, “The self likes to fit, to see itself replicated, to belong. That confirms its existence and its importance … Without it, we literally can’t interface with others. We can’t hatch plans and climb that stairway of popularity, of success” (July 2011). The idea that people yearn to see themselves replicated shows that this is an instinctual need that we have to find common ground with others while being successful. This is significant because although this feeling is human nature, we continue to put ourselves down and feel inferior when we fail to belong. I often wish I could climb this stairway of success faster when I see those close to me near the top step.

My brother is two years older than me, and I’ve begun to live in the shadow cast by his superiority. Having an older sibling hasn’t always caused me so much anguish. I’ve always looked up to him, but I didn’t expect that childish admiration to haunt me into adolescence. The day he received his ACT score was a happy day for our family. He came home and announced to my parents his near-perfect score, that would later see his acceptance to almost every college he applied to. Quietly, he said, “I got a thirty-five.” The message was delivered with modesty, but my parents escalated the situation. He isn’t one to gloat. Eyes wide, smiles began to spread across my parent’s faces as they embraced my brother, congratulating him. Reluctantly, he joined in the celebration, even showing a smile himself; a rarity for him to let us see his own pride. I stood in the corner, knowing that my congratulations would mean little to him, but I risked being reprimanded if I didn’t express my support. “Congrats, Victor,” I said. The words came out dryly, almost killing the joyous moment. “Thanks,” he replied; this safe response acting as a shield between him and me. At that moment, his success meant something much different to me than it did to him or my parents. To them, it was a moment of sheer pride and elation for him and for their progress in parenting. For me, however, this moment brought about a sinking fear in my head, telling me that I would never live up to my brother. That I would never make my parents nearly as proud as he had, try as I might.

This feeling of inadequacy is ubiquitous and it brings about the questions, will we ever overcome it? Will we ever be satisfied with who we are? In the same Ted Talk, Newton speaks about the formation of identity. She states, “At some point in early babyhood, the idea of self starts to form. Our little portion of oneness is given a name, is told all kinds of things about itself, and these details, opinions, and ideas become facts, which go towards building ourselves, our identity…But the self is a projection based on other people’s projections. Is it who we really are?” This idea that self is simply a projection is important to note because it not only shows that the expectations that others have for us make us strive to be a certain way. It also relates to the need we feel to compare ourselves to people who are more successful in meeting these expectations.

This instinct to want what others have and to be what others are is universal, and it functions as a sort of cycle. Using my brother’s success and my feelings of inferiority as motivation has allowed me to recognize my own different forms of adequacy and success. In order to maintain peace of mind, we must unlearn the inclination to compare ourselves. By focusing not on what others require of us, and instead striving for what we see as important, we can create our own stairways of success.

Advanced Essay #2: Identity and Belonging

Introduction:​
The purpose of my essay is to explore the ideas of identity and belonging and why it matter so much to people. In this essay I am most proud of the way I used different sources and still could relate it to my topic. Something I would like to really improve on is flushing my ideas out in a way that does not sound repetitive. 

A journey that everyone goes through is figuring out who they are or in other words figuring out their identity. Identity is made up of many different things like experiences , people around you, and social medias. Identity is a combination of many things. And it’s not just made up in one day.  There is inputs by different people about who you should be and what you are meant to be , but the most important thing is being your true self.

As stated by Bonnie Tsui in the article “Choose Your Own Identity”  I hate to admit it, what they choose to be won’t necessarily have to do with me. Because my sons are going to be the ones who say who — not what — they are.” The idea Tsui brings to the attention of people is that the identity of other people is not something that you can decide , even if that person is someone that you really care about. In many different families people disguise them creating someone else's identity as wanting the best for them. Wanting the best for someone you care about is a normal thing, but what is not normal is creating an identity for them is something that is detrimental in the long run. Figuring out who your own identity is a form of being your best self and staying true to who you are and not who people want you to be. Family can have an huge influence on what you want to be put it should never be what your family wants you to be over what you want to be.

As you get older you feel more obliged to figuring out your identity. A major process that you figuring out parts of your identity is the college process. Eleventh grade is where things really start the process. A distinctive memory I have is going to my first college fair. The college fair was after school so I made my friends get tickets with me. As we get to the fair before we walk in we see a lot of kids. Instantly stunned because I didn’t imagine all these kids my age wanting to go to college. Moving through the crowd trying to stay connected to my friends who are somehow more concerned about who is at the college fair and not the actual colleges that are there. The lines To talk to the colleges were so long, but we figured it we just wait the line would go faster. Being in line all I hear are other students being excited about getting on cite acceptances. I never did anything like this without my mom, so I wasn't sure how things like this work. When it was my turn at the Hampton table the first thing the representative asks is if you know what you want to major in. My usual answer when my family ask me is “something with math” , but I knew I had to be more specific. When the man asked what I wanted to major in the first thing that shot out my mouth was business and financing. I always think about what I actually want to major in but there is so many options I get really overwhelmed. So many different options make me feel like it very easy to choose the wrong one. Never in my life have I been pressured to decide what I wanted to be and now that it was happening so quickly it feels as though my timer is running out.

Like stated, identity is not something that could be made up overnight. In a big world where you can be anything and anyone it’s overwhelming. As said by Hush Puppy, the main character of “The Beast of the Southern Wild”, “When you're a small piece of a big puzzle, you gotta fix what you can.” The world is a big place and finding where you belong is a huge journey. The journey of finding where you belong can be very long because there are so many different places you may think you should belong but actually don't. Belonging is when you can be your true and honest self, while feeling comfortable. Though you may think that you belong in one place your true ambitions may tell you that you belong somewhere else. Your identity and belonging go hand and hand. Your identity directs you to where you belong. You decide where you belong by finding things that you most relate to or categorize yourself  under because it makes you feel like you have a place. Having a place to belong is what people yearn for. Even if that means belonging to a certain social class, college, or culture. In a sense having so many different things that you belong to or identify to keeps things in order. People are afraid of being lost and not knowing things. For instance when someone gets lost there is a quick panic because they don't know where they are going and don't know how they will find their next destination. Luckily when someone gets lost on the road they have the gps to help them find the way, but there is no life gps that can tell you how to get to your next life destination. Early on in life the responsibility of figuring out what you want to do as a career, or what you identify as is placed so that when you get older you have a sense of where you are going.

The bigger idea to this is that no matter what you choose to identify as or belong to it should be the most honest things about you. Pretending to be something you are not just for the satisfaction of your loved one will make you a miserable person inside. Life is about living your best life to the fullest extent and the people who lo9ve you should love you for who you are and not for what they want you to be. People can not live your life for you so they should not dictate whom you have to be. A big issue that people struggle with is impressing the people around them to seem as though they have everything under control but the hard truth of everything is at one point of time nobody has everything figured out and there is no rush on your story because it only belongs to you. You and only you should be the main character of your story and everyone else should be supporting characters.





Advanced Essay #2

When I was young I lived in a neighborhood where no one struggled for money. For a while that was my family too. I lived in a two parent home with two incomes, we were not rich but we were okay. When I was three years old my father left my family. My mom had money she had saved and she thought we would be okay. In the span of one day we had gone from a stable family to having nothing. My father drained the bank accounts and took all the money my mother had worked hard to save. We had nothing left. Living in the suburbs of northern virginia I knew we didn’t have as much money as everyone else. This gave me a sense of feeling out of place. Everyone had the video games and they had name brand food in their lunches. I know my mom did her best to make me and my siblings not feel like we were on the outside.

Other kids in the same grade as me wore name brand clothing while my clothes came from the thrift store up the street. My mom did her best to hide that we were broke. I remember days where we would walk or the neighbor would bring us to school because the car had a boot on it. The lights went out many times because my mother couldn’t pay the bill on time. At the time I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know we had as little as we did.

I’m not going to say my early childhood was hard for me , it wasn’t it was harder for my mom. I knew that everything could have been a lot worse. Sure we had to empty the change jar we kept by the front door to buy food, and the lights did get turned off a few times. My mother worked so hard to make sure we had everything we needed. She made sure we were fed, clean, and dressed well everyday. Your upbringing is a main part of the way you turn out and who you are. Being broke, being comfortable  or being rich has an effect on who you are. There are people you can tell have never struggled for money or people who have never heard the words “we can’t afford it” before. There are people who you know had some struggle or are still struggling to make ends meet. All of this shapes who you become. Similar to how Gatsby put on this fake persona to get people to like him, that's what I was doing. I acted like we could afford all the same things that other kids in my gadre could. I tried so hard to fit in with the wealthy kids, i wanted the sense of belonging that came along with being wealthy.

The people with money turn out many different ways, humble, snobby, or entitled. The people who you know didn’t grow up with this cushioned lifestyle where they didn’t worry about paying rent know about the struggle of having to worry about how you’re going to eat or how you're going to pay the bills. Those people could turn out another variety of ways.  They could come up from having no money to being comfortable and gain that entitlement that comes along with wealth, or they could know where they come from and stay as they were.

I myself, have had and still have my fair share of struggles in my life. When people look at me they think that I am a white girl who had had everything handed to me and life has been easy. I know in my heart that everything has not been easy for me and that I have had to work harder than half of the people who look at me and tell me I have had everything handed to me. I

Being so young when this happened definitely made it much easier for me. Eight year olds didn't care so much about the clothes you wore or if you had fancy shoes. What got to me the most was the fact that I saw the hurt in my mother. I knew she was trying her best and doing everything she could to keep us happy. Beloning was important  to me. I began to belong less and less and this truly took a toll on me. The person I am was majorly shaped by living where I did when my family lost everything.


What Was Expected...

Introduction:

The purpose of my essay was to not only explain my emotions during this time period but to be able to explain to myself what happened in this situation. I am very proud of myself for just even getting the paper done because this was a very stressful thing to write and not a very easy process. But also my analysis and how in-depth I went. In the future I see myself getting way better in my writing process by asking for more peer edits because that's what really helps the essay, by one getting more than one opinion.

I´d consider myself raised in a respected home and as my mother would say ¨ We had good home training¨. We were very traditional in many aspects. My parents wanted us to know where we came from a part of that was knowing the language. I was thankful for that even though sometimes it didn't show. One thing that they wanted us to know was there was a God and he was above any other. We were Christians. But we were also Nigerian. We were Nigerian Christian. Christians that went to church each Sunday and they made sure we were rooted in the word of God. I was considered a good Christian child up until a certain point. Then I decide to be different, I decided I didn't want to be this idea of Nigerian Christian. Where the thought are going to church seem more like a punishment instead of something to look forward to.

I became  less interested in my culture and an even more hatred for my religion. When the topic of culture was brought up I would always switch it up, or when they would call on me to pray I´d say I didn't want to. Three was a disconnect. With those around me telling me that I had to pick side, I started to believe it. In the novel Americanah written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, she speaks about the judgment foreigners receive when they migrate to America. In the sections she explains her move to America and the different situations she had to endure to order to aline with the social norms. She writes, “Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I'm Jamaican or I'm Ghanaian. America doesn't care.¨(187). With this, we start to see a larger idea of how immigrants of really viewed in society. We are often called a boiling pot but in reality, we are more like a salad because everything goes separately, each group has a group of their own. You can either find a middle ground or just or just lose part of yourself in order to gain from another. People feel the need to do this for acceptance; If they don't act like everyone else than can they really belong. This is very important because everyone wants to belong even someone like me. We live in a society that forces you to leave your own ideas in order to conform to the ideas of others. Society is afraid of the possibility that someone can ever be different so they stripe your labels, your identity and try to give you new ones.

It started to feel like I was living a double life. I was a different person depending on who was around. Like any normal teenager, I was going through a ¨midlife crisis teen edition¨. In the novel The Lies That Bind Rethinking Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah, he speaks on the practice of his religion and the stages in which there are beliefs or even doubt in your faith. He says, “Every religion can be said to have three dimensions. Sure, there is a body of belief. But there’s also what you do-- call that the practice,” (36). This was the problem with religion and the reasons so many people stray from it because of these things called rules. There was a rule for everything there was a guildless you had to follow in order for you to even call yourself a Christian you have to live a certain lifestyle. The word half Christian is what I was. I began to pick and choose with rules I would follow and which rules to break. When we begin to break down this quote we see that you can't do one without the other. Yes, I would say I was Christians when people asked but I wasn't living the life a Christian would. This is where it hit me if I wanted to live a certain life I would have to make changes.

To end my story, it wasn’t easy on the journey to find not only who I was but also who I wanted to believe in. There was a process of self-discovery. In not only who I wanted to be but what was allowed of me. See that's the thing with the society we are so afraid of being different that we feel the need to be put into a box and if that box doesn't find correctly we find another because that's just the way society is. Society tells you, you are not normal until you have a label because we are so afraid of being different we feel we have to listen to them. But with knowledge comes understanding with that, I was able to understand that I didn't have to conform to these beliefs. It was only then that I was able to see why I was a Christian. A Nigerian Christian.

 

 

 

 


Masculinity Challenged// Kyle Thomas

It was a cold Saturday night, the wind was blowing so hard you can hear it. It was December 30, 2017, and I was coming home from dance practice. I was in the car with my mom, dad, and one of my sisters. The car was so quiet, I decided to put my headphones in and listen to some music.

When I was jamming to my music, I notice that my mom had tears coming down her face. I quickly paused my music and asked, “Mom, why are you crying?”  

My dad said, “Wait until we get in the house.” When we got in the house, my mom sat on the couch and told me and my sister to “come here.” This is when my whole life had changed forever. My dad said: “Pop-Pop Kenny had died.” My heart stopped and I fell into my mom's arms and said: “Why it had to be him?”  Then I went upstairs and just sat in complete silence.

The following day was   I had to come to school and put on a mask to show that I wasn’t hurting or depressed. But that didn’t work because people kept asking if I was ok and I would respond, “Yes,” and kept on moving.

Because I was raised to be a man, I was taught to hide my emotions cause it shows weakness. I knew that this was tough for me cause when someone who you love dies then your emotions are raised really high. But my dad only said don’t show your emotions in public when your alone cause people will start to make fun of you.

Lenard Sax wrote in his New York Times article titled Many Boys Today Define Masculinity Negatively challenges us to think about how gender and masculinity affect our identity and how we express our emotions: “Being a real man means doing things that girls don’t do.” This quote is significant because it highlights the way that boys are being raised and raises questions if parents should change the way they raise their kids? I can relate to this quote because I have personal experiences on the way my parents have raised me. My dad specifically wouldn’t let me do anything a girl does and he always made sure that I only do what boys normally do.

Another idea related to boys and the idea of Masculinity is raised by Tim King. He wrote a New York Times article titled  Encourage Boys to Embrace Individuality, So They Can Respect It in Others and it is challenging the idea of how parent raised their kids: “When we mold our sons in the image of unrealistically rugged masculinity, they are encouraged to view girls through the lens of some idealized version of femininity.” This quote is significant because it highlights the reason why boys think and do things a certain way.  Also, it makes a realization of why the parents raise their children like this. Like for example when was growing up my parents always told me to respect everyone. And they said when you look at/talk female just know to be cautious of what you say because they will show you their emotions. So my parents taught me to respect all genders equally.

These ideals our young men short-sighted ad lost. What I mean by that is that we can't keep making boys think one-sided. As a society, we need to make sure that young men and children can accept who they are and what that means is that they don’t have to think of life as one thing when there are many aspects of life.  Masculinity isn’t formulated. You can mold and shape your kids the way you want to, but if you want them to become a better ma let them define what Masculinity for themselves.


Advanced Essay #2 - The Darker Side of Social Media

Introduction

This essay is to show parts of social media that we never truly think about and to introduce how it can affect us from being human. I can’t say that I am happy or unhappy with this essay as I struggled with this hard and at the time this whole assignment was announced I was having a personal problem I couldn’t control at all so yeah. If anything I would want to just look back at this and just change my writing process entirely as I was not under my normal in-school influence and more personally distracted then normal.


Social media and online life is something we get easily hooked with. We use social media to listen to our favorite musicians/singers, we use it for personal pleasure, and we use it to interact with one another from very far away differences. It would be surprising if there was something we never use social media for. The only thing I have to say I was surprised to find out about the internet that people use it to make a memorial that should’ve been about a few days into an eternity.

We “find ourselves” online through either anonymous identities or names we either think are funny, representative, supportive, or realistic to ourselves and our interests to the internet forces us to makeup to use their services. We find those similar to us via filters and search bars that guide us to groups with other people that share our own believes, interests and culture. This one I am against doing for personal reasons but we also use social media to try and find our “Soulmate” for multiple reasons. We also use social media to quickly transfer money by using something like paypal or make money by streaming or uploading videos for the world to watch and donate if they wanted on Youtube and Twitch. Youtube and Twitch are more than ways to make money online but they are more easy to do, their bigger reason is to let people express themselves and their interests or (mostly)whatever its users want to show.



So this is when I learned social media was a unending memorial and these were two bits that I felt were quick to the point in “Ghosts in the Machine” by Jenna Wortham about her views of death and the internet. “Perhaps the most profound side effect is that death no longer obeys any laws of finality... When funneled through social media, death lingers longer than a traditional mourning period might call for”. So when I read this article and specifically these parts I was both surprised and confused. I was only surprised as I did not expect it and I was initially thinking that there was no way this was real. What confused me was why did people do this so long after the death of someone? There's no reason to keep going they’re gone, the time of grief is over, time to move on in life and let them rest. Not go to their twitter or facebook page every month and writing something about the person.


Now, this quote from Sherry Turkle in her article “Stop Googling. Let’s Chat” I understood apart of me that I didn’t expect to see and learn from me constantly using the internet whenever I can for personal entertainment “In 2010, a team at the University of Michigan led by the psychologist Sara Konrath put together the findings of 72 studies that were conducted over a 30-year period. They found a 40 percent decline in empathy among college students, with most of the decline taking place after 2000. Across generations, technology is implicated in this assault on empathy”. I just didn’t know what to think of me as a person as I have multiple different things of me that could be reasons of my own lack of empathy but I never thought about social media being a factor in it. When I think about it now I can think about bits and pieces of my life where I can see it visibly the lack of empathy but it was mainly for other reasons not just social media.


When it comes to the death of a relative I don’t feel anything for myself or for my family as the relatives that did die were those I either never heard of/forgotten about or those that I never had a true connection with but to try and think if that lack of empathy was because of my constant use of technology I just can’t think or just be in a complete mess in my head.


If I had to compare our use of social media I want to say smoking because it’s something we get addicted to thinking were fine as everyone else is doing it, that it’s legal in the nation, it relieves stress (to those that believe that). The one thing we never understand until it’s too late is how it affects us negatively. Sucking us of being human in the real world while we socialize on our phones even if we’re a few feet from each other.


Advanced Essay #2: The system of identity

The goal of my essay was to analyze the way other people affect ones sense of identity and how an individual is affected by the opinion of a mass. I am proud of some of the descriptions in my essay and finally expressing how I felt about this process in detail. I had never explained to myself why I wanted locs it just happened and I went with it. I feel like this essay starts to explain other aspects of my personality that might change with time.


In Beasts of the southern wild, everyone in The Bathtub was happy with the life they had, they still lived in fear of those who were superior, they had nowhere to go but where they were. They knew that people would tell them where they lived was unsafe, or how they lived was disgusting but they were adapted to that lifestyle so outsiders would not understand. The way they lived worked for them, it was not meant or made to work for anybody else. Anyone coming into a community will not understand how that community works if they have already had exposure to another one, there is an immediate bias.

¨I´m apart of a big big universe and I make things right¨Hushpuppy says this all throughout the movie, she is saying her people created balance and variety and without that the community would fall apart because everything has an equal or opposite reaction. When they left, everything went out of control and everyone was forced to adjust in a way that did not necessarily work for them. Everyone had an opinion on what they should be doing but for everyone´s well being everything has to fit together just right so it does not matter if something is different it is necessary.

¨When you ask me am I really a woman, a human being,

a coherent identity, I’ll say No, I’m something else

like that though. ¨

A poem by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza speaks to people finding one aspect of a person then assuming their entire identity. Everyone is a combination of different traits, and a product of their environment. No black person has all the stereotypical traits, you can be black but be articulate or have no rhythm. It does not make you less black. In this poem the artist is separating herself from a group and becoming an individual. She is defining herself before going out into the world, if this happens then no one can tell you who you are or are not.

Sweatpants sitting on my thighs while my converse hugged my toes. My two aunts pick up pace behind me. The soles of my shoes shed rubber against tar, I reach the sidewalk and open the door. The wide salon greets me with aerosol clouds and clumps of hair sitting on the floor. Two brown skinned women with butterscotch locs smile and look to me. ¨Are you ready?¨ They each ask one after the other. They were beautiful no doubt, earthly goddesses but is their hair journey right for me? I forced a laugh and flashed a smile to my aunts, I had already asked for this as a birthday gift. The appointment was made, money ready to be spent, in about two hours there would be no turning back.

My feet found their way around and next thing I knew I was sitting i the waiting room. The salon was beautiful, the hair dressers were gorgeous, but only two had locs. Sza sings in the background as I constantly replay my mothers words,

¨You look awful, from now on you will either loc your hair or wear extensions¨

I never liked extensions or the feeling of artificial on natural. I loved my lions mane no matter how many times my grandmother unsuccessfully tried to tame it.

I don´t think I realized what was happening while it happened, I only went through motions.

I stand up. My feet led my legs somewhere. I sat down. Hands rushed through my hair, met with water. Everything stopped. I look up.

A lady with long brazilian bundles in a ponytail grasped my curls

¨So why do you wanna get locs?¨

My eyes started to dart around the salon, the bounced off the lights, away from her, onto the wall, over to the shampoos, I was seemingly searching for an answer to her question. It shouldn´t be that difficult I´m already here, my heart speeds up, I stutter,

do I actually want to be here? It doesn´t matter I already am I flush out fear and push words out.

¨Oh yeah, ummm my aunts have locs, and they look nice.¨ Honestly at that point I knew I sounded stupid, but that was the only other reason other than

my mother wanted me to. Brazilian bundles set out a soft breath with a smile, I guess it was imitating a laugh.

¨You have beautiful hair.¨ She wasn't the only person who had told me that. Less than 24 hours ago my older cousin pleaded with me not to get locs.

¨You´re so pretty why would you want locs?¨ I greeted but not welcomed her question with silence. Countless people had opinions about my hair, one boy had texted me ¨don´t get locs, it will mess up your curl pattern¨ as if he was an expert on hair types, he uses Cantu on his hair so his current curl pattern is already messed up, but moving on. I guess I would just get locs then end up loving them on me.

I followed Brazilian Bundles to a salon chair, as a woman a little taller than me slides into my peripheral vision. Her locs came to her clavicle, she had been growing them for some time. Her overall energy was welcoming, I felt more at ease starting my locs with someone who had them, but not all the way.

Sitting in her slippery salon chair, my feet dangled reminding me that it would be hard to escape this. So there was the artist, the stylist, with a tangled mess before her, my hair. Before she begun, I saw three different tools, loc styling gel, a fine rat tail comb, then scissors. My stomach tightened, turned rock solid no one has ever cut my hair before. Sure it was not super long because of how I brushed it and how my hair always shed, but scissors were never put to it. In a matter of seconds my hair went from shoulder length (with shrinkage) to earlobe length.

Why did you need to cut it? I steadily repeated in my head. I did not know what to do with short hair. My stylist, LaRhea took the rat tail comb, parted a section, then completed it by twisting the comb. She was careful but quick.

¨Please don´t revert this process¨ she said to me when she had finished. Meaning follow her instructions to maintain my hair until the next time we met. And I did. I saw her every month for the next year to retwist my locs until I found someone new.

¨Oh my gosh¨ squealed my aunt and my older cousin in unison as they walked into the salon to pick me up. ¨You look so cute¨

I smiled at the compliment longing for inches of my hair, not completely believing it.

For days I had wanted to untwist my starter locs, but day after day I became more accepting of them until my hair was fully locked.

In a TEDTALK Thandie Newton proposes this thought ¨We each have a self, but I don´t think we´re born with one.¨ The idea here is that we grow into ourselves as time goes on. When we are born, we each have a physical body but as we get older we start to make choices for our own concept of self, from those decisions comes a personality then that´s where you come in as a self. Everyone has some sense of who they are or want to be but no one ever has the concrete knowledge. People project certain energy and everyone is a product of their environment. Often we change to please others.

If we challenged the system more maybe it would not reject us as much, we would not be outcasts or forced to fit in a box. If we were to fight against the dominant culture all the time we would be exhausted so we should question who we are but choose in which ways we challenge the system/expectations when necessary.




Advanced Essay #2: Masculinity is a Myth

Introduction
The purpose of my essay is to question what masculinity truly is and it's validity as a measure of a man.
I'm most proud of my conclusion about masculinity it took me a while but I hope I did the topic justice.
I think looking for outside sources more early and often because they gave me different perspectives that helped me reach my conclusion.

I’ve been masculine my whole life. I’ve never really struggled with that part of my identity. But when thinking about this essay I realized that it's never been something I thought about. I just was. Everyone I hung out with was. Since I was a kid I’ve always loved basketball and a lot of my closest friends are ones I met while on various different teams. All of us trying to look like our heroes, the ones that do what we do on Tv. Men, who are strong, dedicated and completely masculine. Star athletes who never have their masculinity questioned in any way. And isn’t that funny? Athletes get accused of thievery, rape, murder, but never of having wavering masculinity. Never of falling short of what a man “should” be.

In an article written by Steve Almond for The New York Times, he questions if “watching sports, and later attempting to fashion [himself] into an athlete, also served as a kind of inoculation against the more elemental fear that [he] was insufficiently masculine” (9/11/15). There are a lot of different ways to to interpret this quote. Does being an athlete in our society automatically make you more masculine? And why? How can something such as the essence of your manhood even be quantified? Those are really tough questions and yet in our society they are made simple. Workout so your body looks good. Date a lot of girls, that’ll improve your status. Degrade other men to show your superiority over them. Read a book? Why would you ever do that? These are some of the ways that masculinity is approached and seen in America. Being a boy who’s grown up in the public school system of course of I’ve seen this in my own life as well.

Earlier this year I got into a shouting match with my friend. We had gotten into it about something but it had devolved into who could say the words that cut deepest and the topic of basketball was his weapon of choice.

“I heard you don’t play. You don’t get no minutes. What happened you were supposed to be on the best on the team?”

A lot of the things he was saying weren’t true but the perception of them had manifested itself in his mind and made me less of a man in his mind. For the the first time in my life, my masculinity had been questioned.

In the dictionary masculinity is defined as “qualities or attributes regarded as characteristics of men,” but what does that truly mean? The Washington Post covered an “intimate panel discussion” regarding that same question of “what does it really mean to be a man?” and during it Mark Greene, the Senior Editor of The Good Men Project said that “the rules of being a man… aren’t just handed to us on a piece of paper. They’re pounded into us daily. Until we open up our definition of manhood much broader to include as many versions of manhood as there are manhood as there are men, men are going to continue to confront this question of ‘Am I man enough?” (Date N/A).

This is the quote that really clicked for me. Masculinity as defined, are the traits and attributes that are deemed as characteristics of men. In our society, this is taken too far in many cases and the definition can be misinterpreted as to meaning that masculinity makes up traits and attributes that to be a real man you must have. That’s why not having the best season made me less of a man to my friend. Because as a man if you’re going to be an athlete you should be a good one. And I believe that is where the biggest problem lies. Masculinity shouldn’t exist because it tries to simplify and minimize the essence of so many different types of people, living so many different types of lives that are similar in only one way and that is that they are male. To have a term like masculinity that has become restrictive, being used as a measuring stick as you’re value and status as a human, is toxic really. A universal checklist of what a man should be can’t be applied when the men who are checking the boxes are men who’s individual make-ups are anything but.

Masculinity has become a way to make all boys feel that they have to look and act a certain way to be accepted, when really we should be telling these kids that being themselves is the most important thing. Because if masculinity is a term that doesn’t integrate all men within its boundaries then it contradicts its own definition and shouldn’t be used at all.



Advanced Essay #2: Steer Clear of the Herd

Intro: This essay was written with the purpose of exploring the reasons behind group identity, and how I personally have tried to separate myself from that. I opened up a lot during this essay and talked about things that I normally would not want to talk about. However, since the the topic was so personal I felt a compulsion to speak openly and honestly. I definitely will run my next essay by more people and make the most out of the peer review phase.

Identity is an extremely powerful concept. People fight every day for their identity and their right to be themselves. However, there are other people that choose to stick with the heard and do not separate themselves as an individual. This is one of the biggest tragedies that can happen to someone. Everyone should be given the opportunity to grow as their own person and create their own set of values.

My parents have always had a huge impact on me. The way I speak, the way I present myself, and the opinions I have. However, it was very important to me to have my own opinions and my own thoughts, and not just regurgitate what my parents were saying. This happens most frequently in the realm of politics, which can make things a bit heated at times. My parents lean towards the left, and can sometimes add to the idea of having beliefs just based on party lines. So when I started to question some of the ideas that have always been presented to be in my household it wasn’t received very well. I’m not saying I’m a republican though, not even close, however, I wouldn’t vote for a reality TV personality if they decided to run on the Democratic ballot either. The ideals and values that I have about this make an impact on my identity.

These values are what makes up the majority of who we are. Kwame Anthony Appiah, author of The Lies That Bind, wrote that “having these ideas at hand will help us chart our way through religion, nation, race, class, and culture as sources of identity” (Appiah, 31). Being able to successfully sort through our identities is the only way we can truly be 100% ourselves. Appiah points out that in order to truly be confident in who we are we have to thoroughly investigate our values and how they tie together. This quote ties directly into my ability to differentiate my own opinions and ideas from my parents and be my own person. I was able to do this because I took the time to go through all of the sources of my identity. This is something everyone should be able to do in order to be more confident about the things that make them up.

There was one night where we were sitting in the living room and were watching the news. And there was a reporter that brought forward a point that was borderline conservative. As soon as the words left the woman’s mouth, my parents were going crazy. Immediately were upset and started to attack the point, as if trying to beat it out of existence. I was taken aback at first. I didn’t realize that it didn’t have anything to do with the actual point that was made but instead the side that was presenting the point. That didn’t sit well with me and I began to question why one side was automatically right, and the other didn't deserve to be listened to. This experience stuck with me whenever I was confronted with an idea that simply followed a group mentality.

A sense of personal identity is one of the greatest things someone can have. The ability to know who you are apart from everyone else is something that everyone should try to achieve. I have spent a majority of my recent years trying to become my own person, separate from the hurricane of ideas and beliefs swirling around me, and I believe I am better for it. It’s because of this firsthand that I believe separation from group identity is necessary.

Advanced Essay #2: [Puberty in a World of Judgement]

The purpose of my essay is to give reason to all of the embarrassment and shame that you feel when growing up, I want to show the readers that there is purpose in the periods of pain you go through. And to do that I want to give them a look into my own life and experiences with feeling the need to conform, and how it shaped who I was and who I am today. I am proud of my descriptive scene, I think I use unique language and I do a good job balancing humor and seriousness. I am also proud of my general thesis, I think it is an interesting topic to discuss and a good addition to a conversation on adolescence. Next time I write a paper I want to focus much more on structuring my writing, and making it well thought out from the jump. This paper felt very loosely pieced together, and like it didn’t have a clear direction. I wish I would have thought more about what I wanted to say before I found and analyzed quotes. I know this paper could be a lot stronger but I felt lost within my own ideas, so for sure next time I will want to map my process more clearly.


The years of being a pre-teen are coined as the most painful, embarrassing and vulnerable times of our lives. But through all of the awkwardness, comes a period of growth. When we are young, we are blissfully ignorant. We don't understand the judgements the world places on us, and therefore we feel free to be ourselves. When we are older we understand the criticisms of society, but we have built up enough defenses that allow us to separate ourselves from the harshness of the world. But as a pre-teen you are just being exposed to people judging, criticizing and having unrealistic expectations for you, and you don't yet have the tools to handle it. Therefore, in addition to the physical changes of adolescence, comes the emotional change of learning to deal with the pain of being judged.

Before the wrath of judgement, comes the freeing and positive experience of childhood. In Heather Burtman’s essay, My Body Doesn’t Belong To You, she describes the freedom of childhood innocence by telling a story about a time when she was younger, and buried herself naked in the dirt. She writes, “I liked being that way: a bare, muddy torso with a handful of seeds that I thought might grow carrots and yield a future in which my body was my body. And your body was your body” (Burtman, 2017). This quote shows that you are the most free you will ever be as a child, that you are the happiest with yourself and your body before you learn about the world. Meaning that as a child you have an obscured view, you are hopeful, and naive. When you view the world with a childlike ignorance, you have the idea that the world revolves around you, and that you are special. This mindset, while self centered, is positive because it enforces a confident self image. The purpose of this quote is to show that ignorance is bliss, that you will love yourself the most truthfully when the world doesn’t have eyes on you, and you don’t have eyes on the world. Burtman’s intent was to show the readers that when we grow up, and become exposed to the truth, we are no longer comfortable in our bareness and our bodies, but afraid. Being ignorant isn’t the key to being happy, because when you are, you miss out on the complexities of the world and the opportunity to learn from your experiences. This is why that that fear is necessary. It allows us to grow and experience life as well rounded people, and not naive children.

In order to become those well rounded people, we have to let the world beat us down. I was 13, with glowing pink skin, sun kissed by the anger, and acne brought on upon by adolescence. I stood in front of my chipped mirror, my face distorted from the split open glass, picking at every part of myself. I ran my fingers through my crispy, dried up hair, strands falling away as my nails got caught in the tangles. I frowned. My eyes glanced downwards to my body, I stood on my tippy toes, sucked in my stomach and put my hand on my hip in order to bare my appearance.

My mom called down for me and I walked out of the house and into her car, squinting at the harsh sky. I thought I was too cool for summer. We drove to the hairdresser, we entered and I trailed behind her slowly. I was led by a flamboyant man to the sinks in the back. I sunk into the water, letting the cold wash over me. When I sat up I was once again met by a mirror. But now I saw a soaking wet rat, god, could I look any worse?

He pricked and pried at my hair, making sly comments. “What happened to your hair? Ooof! How many times did you dye it again?” I sat, nodded politely and gave short answers. I then showed him a picture of how I wanted my hair. He said “Really? That's pretty short, are you sure?” I once again nodded my head and then he began to cut. Clumps of my hair fell to the ground from his scissors, they sprawled out around me like loose feathers. My eyes didn’t leave my own gaze. And then I heard the buzz of the razor, it tickled as it travels up and around the shape of my skull. I felt the cool, shrinking breeze on my bare neck for the first time, my shoulders lifting higher and higher trying to hide my exposed skin. He stopped the clippers, and I finally looked up above my own eyeliner, not recognizing who I was. My hair gone, shaped and shaved to look like a little boy.

I got up and said “Thank you so much, I love it.” I held back the tears and fought off the fear, fear of how the world would see me differently, fear of how I would be treated, fear of being myself. My mom met me at the car “Ah I like it!” She said in a high pitched voice. I sat back in the car, looking down at my body, then up at my face in the side mirror. “I think I have to start dressing more femininely.” This version of myself was not who I was, she was torn and tattered by her hurtful peers, she wanted to be like everyone else so desperately. She just wanted to be included.

As a pre-teen all you want to be is accepted by the masses, and to feel wanted because you don't know how to want yourself. You are so insecure in yourself that you wish you would be like all the others. Jennifer Bartlett contemplates with this idea in her essay Longing for the Male Gaze. In this paper she describes her experience living with cerebral palsy and the idea that when you are different you are dehumanized, left out or forgotten. While this source discusses the author's personal struggle and how she is more often harassed for her disability than for her sexuality, she discusses how not being cat called, makes her feel excluded, because women are now expected to be sexually harassed. She writes “I like it when men look at me. It feels empowering. Frankly, it makes me feel like I’m not being excluded”(Bartlett, 2016). While this quote is written from the perspective of a grown woman, the feelings present heavily apply to the experience of adolescence. As tweens we long to be accepted, and to be treated like everyone else, no matter the consequences. This quote shows that the insatiable need to be liked can be hurtful, it can lead to you wanting things that aren’t good for you. In Bartletts case that is wanting to be cat called or objectified for the sake of feeling included. This shows how harmful expectations can be to impressionable young adults, they make them want to change themselves in order to fit society's ideals. In my case, I felt I needed to dress more femininely because I was afraid of sticking out, or not looking pretty enough. While painful, and heartbreaking this period of life allows people to experiment with changing themselves for others, which in turn allows them to see how much happier they are as themselves. We need to get to that low point of feeling the need to conform before we can feel comfortable expressing our own individuality.

In conclusion, when we are pre-teens we live in a constant state of fear and longing because we haven’t yet learned how to love ourselves from our own life experiences. And it is the very pain and embarrassment of being a tween that allows us to build the tools that help us separate ourselves from the judgmental world. Society will always be filled with expectations and cruel judgements, but as we get older we learn from our past mistakes and insecurities in order to better handle the fear of being different. Those who are confident and secure in themselves, were awkward and self-conscious at one point too.  


Advanced Essay #2: Madison Siegel

Ever since I was little, I have had to get used to being a twin.  My parents would always refer to us as “the twins,” but let’s get something straight, we are entirely different. My twin, Justin, has always been known to catch onto things more quickly then I have been. I have always had a hearing problem that has dentified me to struggle more than Justin has. I have to try harder than Justin, but we usually end up achieving the same goal. I don’t think I struggled more than Justin has at all, but the thought that other people thought that had taught me to learn how to work harder. My past experiences have created my identity, including my self-worth, learning from other people’s mistakes, and accepting the fact that everything isn’t always going to work out the way I want it too.

Throughout my years of education, Justin was always placed in higher classes even though I  always had to spend a lot more time studying. Since I knew that my brother was able to catch onto things more easily when I was little, I have always been eager to get to the same level as him. In the article Twin Study the author says, “I knew what Samantha was going to say before she said it, and I knew which boys she’d like before she met them, and we always got up at the same time in the night to pee, among other uncanny similarities.”  In this article, we learn about a girl who is a twin and is identifying the specific things that she realizes her sister does. Samantha and her sister are a great example of twins growing up together, and it was clear that they would become close and know each other really well. That relates to Justin and my relationship because just as Samantha was able to recognize certain things that created her identity from being a twin, I have too by understanding the things that Justin has done well. Justin and I also know how to handle each other when we're angry, whether it's us trying to get each other angrier or trying to make each other feel better. For example, when Justin is furious at me I know to not answer and give him a few minutes to think about the situation. My brother had always known when I was upset about something that I might not even have any control over and has always tried his best to cheer me up. These are just some of the many things that my brother and I have learned to get into the habit of, to help us be there for each other no matter how mad we could get at each other.

Growing up people always referred to my brother and me as if we were a set, meaning that one always went with the other. They automatically assumed that since we are twins, we are similar. My brother and I both have different skills that make us who we are. As we got older, that became more clear. Justin was able to be mature in ways that I didn’t know how to be when we got older, but the same went for me. National Geographic’s, Eve Conant, explains to us the way kids create an identity based on their gender by saying,  “Many readily admitted that it could be hard—frustrating, confusing, lonely—to fit into the communities they call home and the roles they’re expected to play.” The author points out that this was the view 9-year-old girls had since they knew at a young age that it would be harder for them to find a job then it would be for a male. When it was time for Justin and I to get our first jobs, Justin was just offered one. I had to work hard to find one. In New Jersey, you can get a job at 14, but most businesses won’t hire anyone under the age of 16. When we moved to Philadelphia, we worked at the same place. Justin was able to work well carrying heavy things and knowing how to answer customers questions without any help, whe Even though I was struggling with the job at first, I eventually learned everything to help customers have full satisfaction. That helped me to learn that I can succeed at anything I set my mind too.

My identity overall has been influenced by the actions of my brother and how it shaped my own character, as I’m sure it also helped to develop his identity. I learned not to argue over unnecessary things, and to get along with my brother in the easiest way possible. That also helps me to have good habits too. In the article, What Is the Self? It Depends, Julian Baggini says, “Conceptions of self are usually assumed to be attempts to describe the objective reality of what a self is, and this is indeed what thinkers around the globe have often thought they were doing.” With that saying, every action of my past has shaped who I am today. When I think about the past mistakes I have made, I am not just thinking about mine, but also the mistakes that my brother has made. I prefer to go with the flow and hope that time will figure things out, and if they don’t? What’s the worse that can happen? Justin has taught me that everything doesn’t have to be done perfectly correct and that it is okay to make mistakes because they should always work out.

As much as I wouldn’t like to admit this since Justin and I have experienced so many of the same events, it has caused us to not only be brother and sister but know each other more than anyone else on this planet. My brother has always known when I am lying, just like I always know when he’s annoyed. Since Justin has always caught me in a lie, I now prefer to tell the truth because what’s the worse that can happen? Whenever my brother ever gets angry or upset, I can always understand why better than anyone else can. We handle things differently and are both just trying to figure out a way to get through life successfully. We also know that just because something doesn’t work out, that we would always have each other's back because let's face it, we’re stuck with each other. Just because my brother and I have been through many similar life experiences, we are our own human beings, and are completely different from each other.  


Advanced Essay #2:The place we have in Society

Introduction: This is my essay that I wrote about the impact society has on our identity. In my essay I talk about the place that people have in different societies, and the way the society they live in affects their identity.

Often times we think about our place in society, and how our society forms our sense of belonging. I think it is necessary to define “our society” first. Whether it be American society as a whole, or just the 500 people that make up the SLA community. The difference between the two is significant in my eyes, but could be subtle in someone else’s. 

When I was younger I lived in a suburban republican-friendly neighborhood. I would consider it to be a spectrum of different societies in my life. Each of which I have to put on an identity mask in. By identity mask, I mean a lens that people will see me through depending on how I would like to be perceived. I always considered who I was with, and it seems everyone is like that to an extent. In a teenager’s life, you could say there are four different lenses. The “I want to be cool around my friend’s” lens, “I want to be respectable around my teachers and authority figures” lens, “I want to be myself” lens, and “I can do whatever I want online” lens.

Although people filter themselves so that society will perceive them a certain way, society is filtered so that they will perceive it a certain way. I formed my own opinions, due to the people, places, and things that I have interacted within my life. Everyone has been influenced, but someone who stayed in a suburban town all of their life, has not been influenced the same way that someone who has traveled around the world. It is possible that the use of cell phones and social media has had a huge impact on this. People can do anything, they can track their friend’s location, talk to them in an instant, and even send and receive money. People tend to form an online identity, and this can be very similar to who they are, but it can also be different from who they are. Some people post superficial versions of themselves online Often times people feel less vulnerable, and often times they feel so much more vulnerable online. 

Before social media existed, people had to go out in order to see or talk to people. Now you can press a few buttons on your phone and be on a live video chat. The reason people are kept from certain parts of society is because their identity is independent. In the article “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk.” The author talks about the effect social media and technology has on society. “In conversation, things go best if you pay close attention and learn how to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. This is easier to do without your phone in hand. Conversation is the most human and humanizing thing that we do.” The ability to spend your free time watching TV, or going on social media like snapchat adds a new aspect to everyone’s identity. You’re able to connect with people you haven’t seen in years online, while at the same time you don’t need to be connecting with other people in your current life. 

I’d say my identity has been totally flipped upside down and inside out in the last three years. In 2016, I was living in a suburban town where the majority of my day revolved around playing ball outside, and hanging out with a couple of friends. Now I am working, or going to school, in an urban environment. Moving to Philadelphia had an instrumental effect on my identity, belonging, and trajectory in life. I remember how different my life was. By no means was my life worse in any way, but it couldn’t have been more different. I went to a traditional school that was very different from SLA and its project-based learning style. Living in two such different societies throughout my life, I think it would be reasonable to claim that they have formed my identity, as a person, as a friend, and as a student.

 An article called “1 MILLION WORKERS. 90 MILLION IPHONES. 17 SUICIDES. WHO'S TO BLAME?” was written about Foxconn, a computer hardware company in China, talking about workers who are isolated from having a normal life. “Still, after years of writing what is (at best) buyers' guidance and (at worst) marching hymns for an army of consumers, I was burdened by what felt like an outsize provision of guilt—an existential buyer's remorse for civilization itself. I am here because I want to know: Did my iPhone kill 17 people?” These workers had been affected because of this, and the lack of social interaction had caused them to become mentally sick. There are things like our phones that have an impact on our everyday life, and people work in terrible conditions overseas to make that possible. It seems as if some people in society are more aware of this than others. The people making these cell phones live in a totally different society then we do.

Overall it seems as though identity and belonging are very complex things to figure out, perception by other people seems to play a big role. The way people act is typically dependent on the society they are in. I first talked about the difference between different societies, and the impact living in such different places had on me. I then began to talk about an article called “Stop Googling. Lets talk.” written about the way social media affects people, and society. Finally I wrote about Foxconn, and foreign workers unnoticed relationship with society. Overall it would be fair conclude, the idea that everyone has a place in society is a complex concept to figure out.

Advanced Essay #2: Masks and Identity

Introduction:

The purpose of my essay is for my audience to learn about identity, what

influences identity and how it can change due to their surrounding. Something I’m proud of in this essay is having the courage to write about a personal experience that was painful but I learned a lot from it. Next time, I will use more quotes and connect them to my thesis. I also plan on writing an outline for my next essay so it would be more organized.

Advanced Essay:

I remember when my parents, my brother and I visited Algeria in 2016 to spend our summer vacation there. I was excited to see my family again because I haven’t seen them for 5 years and I miss them very much. We will have a great time as we did in 2011. My cousin and I planned to do many things once I get there, from bean boozled challenge to playing Uno with the family to filming some movies on my Ipad.

It was still Ramadan when we went on the plane, and we had to stay there for 21 hours. I was so excited I didn’t want to sleep. I watched movies most of the time while my brother sat next to me drawing and coloring. After what felt like forever, we finally made it to Algeria. But I never realized that this time everything was going to be different.

After a long day, my family and I finally arrived at my aunt's new house. It was bigger and better than her old tiny apartment. It was in the middle of nowhere. As we walked down the hill, it took us a while to spot the house, due to the tall grass covering it. After a couple minutes of walking, we entered her new home. First thing I noticed was that the house was huge. The house was still disorganized because it needed a while to put everything in place. We entered the living room and there I saw my favorite cousin sitting on the couch waiting for me. I was so happy and I went to give her a hug.

“Your new house is really nice!” I exclaimed excitedly as I embraced her tightly.

“Yea I know we’ve been building this house for 6 years.” She responded with a hint of pride.

After that moment, we went to have dinner. It was couscous with chicken which is a really popular food in Algeria. Some of us had to sit on the floor due to the lack of chairs. I felt uncomfortable but I had no right to complain.

After dinner, we all prepared the mattresses on the floor so we could go to bed.

“She’s acting different,” I thought to myself.

And I was right. Ever since that day, I noticed that she was wearing a mask. A mask filled with kindness and love, but I noticed it slipping off. I sensed her true feelings. Envy, pride, and greed. I was shocked, to say the least, after 5 years of being in America, I came to be treated like that. I realized her jealous facial expressions when I would talk to my other cousins, and how she would be angry when I gave something to them. I sensed her pride aura while she was walking around her new home, and how she felt like she is better than me. I remember when she told me that I didn’t give her anything while wearing my clothes that I gave her the day we made it to Algeria. She was never like this, she was always very sweet and loving. She would call me every day and sometimes we would talk for hours. We would always talk about the great moments we had together when we were younger. Moments that most likely won’t happen again. After understanding her true intentions, I still stayed positive because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. In other words, I wore a mask as well but behind my mask is pain, sadness, and frustration. I felt like I didn’t belong there, and I wanted to go back to America. I was wondering, what made her change?

People wonder what shapes an individual's identity, and what makes them act the way they are. According to Rorty, “The contrast between the inner and outer person becomes the contrast between the individual and the social mask, between nature and culture.” (Brainpicking). This quote gives us a good explanation of the complexities of one's identity. This quote really helped me understand why a person’s identity will suddenly shift. From his point of view, we see that it’s the environment that shapes a person's actions. This is why we are all different in everything, and sometimes these changes in life will make us change our entire identity to either better or worse. A person has an inner and outer personality, that they show at different times. For example, some people might show more of their inner personality around the people they are close with such as their friends and family members, while their outer personality might be used towards strangers or social media.

Another quote from the same source and author states, “Many identities are relational in the West, such as those of parent, child, group member and so on. What we think of as different notions of self are largely a matter of differences in what aspects of self are expressed where and when.” (Brainpicking). This quote gave me a good understanding of how the people around you can affect your identity. This articles even explained how parents can shape their children’s personalities, as he shows us an article about the differences in children who are raised by Asian and Western parents. It suggests that all children everywhere can benefit from being brought up to think more about effort and their relations to others than their own abilities and personal development. In this case, it’s possible that my cousin’s parents or friends influenced her to act that certain way.

In conclusion, our identity is an important aspect of everybody's life, in other words, it shapes up who we are. Our identities can be influenced by our parents, culture, and people around us. Which makes it possible for our identities to change. Sometimes people’s identities can be interpreted through their actions, even if they don’t say it clearly and decide to wear a mask to cover it.

How Toxic Masculinity Pollutes More Than Just Men

In this essay I explore the confines of toxic masculinity and propose it is something that can affect anyone. If I were to write it again, I would like to spend more time on analysis to better support my thesis. I would also have liked to create a better flow, because I feel the essay can be choppy at times. However, I was ultimately proud of the format of my essay, because I tried something new in terms of the format, and how I introduced the topic. In the future I would like to further explore the ways in which I could rearrange my writing.


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I could not have been further from familiarity buried deep in the Yosemite National Park, but I felt right at home, hard to find in the forest. A soft chill fell over the evening air. The smell of smoked wood served as a distraction so the sun could sneak away discreetly.

I did not know everyone there, and the new-faced adults were intimidating. All I knew was that I was older than the other kids, and consequently more level-headed. Jeromy, a family friend, was quickly conjuring up flames to cook a campfire meal on, but the guests were getting hungrier than the fire.

“Hey, does anyone want to help me out choppin’ logs?” Jeromy spoke cheerfully. His smiley tone indicated he was addressing the kids table. He was offering the handle of a small axe to any willing to accept his challenge.

Being the boisterous leader of the younger ones, I stepped up to the plate. With my fabricated confidence, noodle arms and all, I undeniably announced myself as a viable candidate. But my self-assured stance soaked in anticipation would not even savor the satisfaction of acknowledgement. My efforts went largely unnoticed, and Jeromy’s eyes cut through me like a knife through sad butter and landed instead, on some other, younger boy slumped absentmindedly behind me on a log. This little boy got to chop the logs.

So as I watched him barely heave the hatchet over his head, I was counting the ways in which I could have done a better job. I critiqued his form spitefully, but my mind was more heavily milling over my flaws. What was it that took my offer out of the running? Was I too small? Was I too stupid? Not trustworthy with an axe? How could I possibly prove myself capable of cutting wood? I was angry that something about my superb stature squashed my chances of wood chopping. In that moment, and in many to come, I compared my own strength to those who stole my missed opportunities. Over time, I picked up the pattern that my femininity was racing ahead of me and kicking opportunities out of the way like unlucky pebbles.

There are a million things I could have done once I discovered my femininity. I could have embraced it with its bright colors and pretty pieces, and used it to propel me towards opportunities. I could have hidden it; I could have accepted it. I chose to crumple it up small and swallow it whole. In order to finally have hatchets handed to me, I needed all the muscle mass I could get.

But why did I choose to suppress it? How is it possible that, in that moment, the system imprinted on me, a girl, that the right thing to do was rid myself of femininity?

The concept of toxic masculinity being something capable of affecting people other than men is explored in the Telegraph’s article Violence Does Not Come Naturally to Men and Boys: “Contrary to what Fox News and faulty science would say, it takes a huge effort to turn boys and men into killers. From primatologists to evolutionary anthropologists, we know that neither women nor men are killers by nature” (June 2015). We live in a society which heavily promotes organizations like the NFL, or encourages men to follow careers in the military or in construction. These are all jobs which require their participants to, more times than not, put on a brave face, and fight through physical and emotional afflictions. More importantly, some of these organizations do not even allow women to participate. Our society is riddled with systems which impose toxic masculinity onto men, and evidently these philosophies do not come naturally to them. The article continues, “Extreme trauma, humiliation, shaming, social isolation and intense indoctrination are nearly always part of the making of men who kill.” There are intense and rigorous factors at play which aim to make men this way, and if these ideas were imposed on women, they would be changed just the same. Jared L. Skillings, Phd, emphasizes this point in CNBC’s article Gillette's toxic masculinity ad earned a mixed response—but research supports the message. “There are also ways in which men can be unhealthy — just like women. And so it's important for us to try to highlight and accentuate the areas that are positive and try to identify and fix the ones that are not” (January 16, 2019). In this severely indoctrinating system, it is perfectly possible for women to inherit the same ideas. They can be unhealthy in the same ways as men. In many cases, their environment makes that possibility a reality.

My example of chopping firewood is not an isolated incident. For years to come, I spent hours of my time working tirelessly to look and feel more masculine. Habits of self hatred and an incessant need to feel tougher were probably picked up from the boys with whom I spent a lot of time. Although I will never really go through it, I know how much energy it takes out of a person to truly embody masculinity. I am well aware of fearing femininity being a full time job. In middle school, I even spent a few years forcing myself to be a tenor in a capella because I feared those around me associated lower octaves with a higher IQ. I wore big, baggy t-shirts because I believed that being small would hold me back, and I wore a thick skin and an angry face because I thought if I was too nice I was too weak. I associated coldness with coolness, bigger muscles with a bigger brain, and femininity with negativity. Ask me anytime and I will gladly tell you the story of a parasite called toxic masculinity using a woman as a host.



Works Cited:

  1. Barker, Gary. "Violence Does Not Come Naturally to Men and Boys." The Telegraph. June 05, 2015. Accessed January 18, 2019. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11652352/Violence-does-not-come-naturally-to-men-and-boys.html.

  2. Hess, Abigail. "Gillette's Toxic Masculinity Ad Earned a Mixed Response-but Research Supports the Message." CNBC. January 16, 2019. Accessed January 18, 2019. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/16/scientists-agree-with-the-message-of-gillettes-toxic-masculinity-ad-.html.

Advanced Essay #2 Under Pressure

Advanced Essay #2 Under Pressure​

Peer pressure is everywhere. If you make a decision based on any opinions, ideas or advice from anybody but yourself, that's peer pressure. Peer pressure is seen as a child’s issue and although it is most common in teenagers, peer pressure can happen to people of all ages. Peer pressure is seen as negative but it can be positive as well. Being vulnerable to peer pressure is a big part of one's identity. It’s about being true to who you are but also learning from others to become the best you can be.  Here's an example of how I handled peer pressure.

“Bro I didn’t know you were about that life?”
“What you mean?” I said back.
“Bro that’s no regular Brownie”
When he said that I caught on. I was holding an edible in my hand. I looked around and noticed all my friends chowing down on the brownies and I debated. I mean everyone else was enjoying themselves why can’t I?  I contemplated heavy. 
“Jay, you gonna eat that jawn or you finna hold it like it has sentimental value?” my friend says with a mouth full. My other friends laugh at his joke.  I chuckled too to hide my worry.  I mean drugs?! That’s not me but what do I know. I’ve never tried it. Plus all my friends say it’s fun and I should try it. I decide to just hold it and walk around with it, pretend I been eating them the whole time when it’s the same piece I had an hour ago. I felt like I was one of them. My one friend saw me and was like
“Jayden if you don’t stop playing and eat that brownie we know its the same one. If you don’t want it just put it back you don’t gotta pretend with us.”

So I put it back. I remembered that I don’t have to be high to have fun and I didn’t want to do something that wasn’t me. My friends tried to convince me but I stood my ground, staying true to myself.
    At that moment, I faced a conflict between seeking acceptance from my friends and staying true to who I was. While this is one form of peer pressure, there are many other forms. One form is Dares, most of the time a dare is something you don’t really want to do but people convinced you to or made fun of you because you didn’t want to. The main thing that makes peer pressure work is our desire for acceptance. Serenity Lawrence talks about the peer pressure and how it works in her Ted Talk. She says, “By doing things to fit in you get this feeling of acceptance which is like an award to your brain” (Lawrence April 2018). From this point, we can see that as people we value acceptance. Nobody wants to be separated or considered different. We would much rather be considered normal or cool, “good enough” for society. Now I know what your thinking. Being Different is good, but what you don't realize is that being different is today's normal. We follow the norms unconsciously and mistake action for our own ideas when we actually do it sometimes just to fit in. We succumb to peer pressure without even knowing.
    Teens are the most common group to be affected by peer pressure. There was an article about watching the people you surround yourself with. It says, “teens may find it more difficult to control impulsive or risky behaviors when their friends are around”(Schoolistic 2008).   Submitting to someone else’s idea or opinion makes you a victim of peer pressure. This is most common in teens because between the ages of 14 and 17 most people go through the identity phase. That awkward phase where you are learning what kind of person you are. You are developing your individuality. For most adults, they are already firm in their identity so it is harder to pressure them into doing or thinking something out of their character. Peer pressure is everywhere. Just by talking to someone and sharing opinions, you are introduced to peer pressure. That’s not always a bad thing. Let’s say you been dressing a certain way your whole life and go to high school and now you update your look after seeing other kids. Boom: peer pressure and there’s nothing wrong with a new look. It’s not always bad.
    Although conformity isn’t always bad, there are times we need to stay true to ourselves; there are ways to resist conformity. You don’t have to give in. It depends on your personal strength.  In this article about dealing with peer pressure, it said, ”Inner strength and self-confidence can help you stand firm, walk away, and resist doing something when you know better”(Dealing Peer Pressure). You control peer pressure. It’s more than just surrounding yourself with good people it’s also staying true to yourself. Know yourself, know your worth(that's Drake). This doesn’t necessarily mean don’t listen to anybody, listening to your peers can also be positive and help you grow as a person. You have to pick and choose how you respond to the new ideas and opinions. You are in control of how it affects you. 
     Peer pressure is a powerful thing. It can make or break you. You have to spot it and decide if you are going to conform to its ways or do you and follow your own path. That’s life, a big long journey full of different paths and roads leading to new things. Make sure you're the one choosing the path for yourself and not someone else.

Advanced Essay #2: New Roots

​Introduction
This essay explores how basic identity is rooted in the physical practices and rituals. It looks at how the change in environment affected my young mind. How I still struggle with the concepts today. I love this paper because it helped me sort out thing I'm still trying to figure out but I know in my next one I want to be more diligent in my analysis and buckling down on my thesis.


The words “Dear Lord” use to roll off my tongue like breath in and out of my lungs. There was no effort associated with my faith. My family attended church daily not weekly. The energy of my hope in the world was unwavering even bad days saw a thick silver lining. I went to private school so my weekdays were filled with the good book too. This was until my family stopped attending church and my private school life shifted in to a public school one. When our car radio was tuned to hits 1 instead of christian radio. When I’d fall asleep at night without requiring a prayer. When religion was stripped out of my life I felt lost, with no ability to gain my bearings. The straw that broke the camel's back in us attending church was an incident with my sister. One day at church my sister fell into a fit of distress during service. She asked for my parents while the pastor's wife told her it was just the holy spirit speaking through her.  When my parents found out about this they were furious. They yelled and like a shield their words protected my sister. We all left that day me a confused child who longed for the understanding that comes with age. Now when I think back I see that the church had a toxicity, they didn’t care to give my sister what she needed. So the thought of going back to return to an old identity feels off. Why go back to something when I've moved so far forward? Regression doesn't feel like the right course of action.

Throughout the film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, the characters discuss the universe and how it affects them. Hushpuppy a young girl expresses in the film, “If one piece [of the universe] bust, only one piece, the whole thing busts” Hushpuppy acknowledges her understanding of the position she occupies in the universe as a whole. She believes that on some level she serves a purpose. With religion the ideal of serving a purpose is an easily obtained. Removing the consistency of enforced organized religion in my life made the idea of serving a purpose a dissolvable concept. It was hard for me to understand why anything I did, or anything I would come to do would matter.

In a TED Talk detailing the feeling of losing one’s identity, Jeannie Woller says this about her struggle ending her soccer career, “I lost the institutions, the external platforms for which this identity, could be validated by others.” In public religious rituals, going to church, youth group, and attending christian school I had something reinforcing my religion. I felt lost without them. I felt as though I wasn’t enough without constant validation of God; I began questioning everything from my sexuality to the basic instinct of praying every night before I went to bed. COnfusion towards  identity was normal for someone of my age, but losing a complete sense of self was like a plant being ripped from the ground, like living without my roots. I had to figure out how all the pieces fit together. It was like putting a two separate puzzles together trying to make them create a cohesive image.

With the loss of religion in my day to day life, I lost a sense of self and purpose. Regaining that sense of self was something I struggled with. To this day I miss the oneness and faith I have lost with the loss of religion but there is a part of me that associates that feeling of faith with my juvenile self. Children believe deeper , they see colors brighter, so maybe the my physical growth has something to do with the loss.  I miss feeling always protected as I did before. Now I have to find a new place where I can feel that shield. Looking for a new environment to nourish and help me grow as a person. Realizing that when a plant is taken from the ground and planted somewhere else it still keeps some of its original root when being planted in a new place. Seeing myself as a plant that will be replanted gives me more optimism toward the future.


Advance Essay- Keyonne Johnson

In my essay I talk about what kids have to do in their life but how some kids do not have the same problem. Sometimes does not have any one there to take there hand and help them through their life as a little kid.

My first time was that worst time for me, but I did not think that is would impact me so much later in life. I did not know that the people around me could care so much about one person that they just meet. Not give up on them even though they did not think that is was going to work and everytime I would go back there I thank them and work 120% harder because of what they did because of how they helped me get through a hard time in my life. “In the Congo, you grow up thinking about escape. When I was little, no one asked me what I wanted to become. They asked me where I wanted to go”. In some cases a lot of people do not go through some of the things that this kid has to go through and when I think of this it makes me remember the time were I was in a bad place at school and did not know how to go about things. I was breaking lot of things and doing whatever I wanted but then I found a gym with people that care about how I am feeling and that made me feel whole like I had lost something and after a year I have found it again. There is another thing that made me think of what other things that people or kids go through that not a lot of other kids go through.

There is a movie called beast of the southern wild and that has a kids perspective of them living in an environment that could flood at anytime. They have parties all the time and the school environment is not that good. There is this part were the father of a girl named hushpuppy is dying and he tells his daughter “No Crying” and for me that real hit me because sadly in this world things are taken from us and that will make us hurt but was have to be strong for the people that left us as my grandma said before she died “ boy you better not let anyone make you cry like that again because if they do I am beating your ass and then they ass” when he told hushpuppy that that is what it made me think of and that is one of the reason that I work so hard for everything I do even though sometimes I do not know what I am doing.

Advanced Essay #2: Stromy

Introduction

With this essay, I was trying to accomplish the after effect confusion and feelings of someone being blinded with feelings. When asked to apologize for hurting one’s feelings, we don’t really mean it, so we lie and apologize for something we don’t really mean. I am proud of the way I structured this essay. At first, it was very difficult to organize my thoughts accordingly, but after awhile of preserving, I feel as though I connected the paragraphs in a way that’s unique. One thing I would like to improve for my next essay is my use of descriptive language. I feel like I lack in that department, which is not good. Hopefully, I can get better.


Stormy

Why can’t I help myself? There’s always something wrong with you. You need to stop this. Get better. You have to get better. There’s always something going on. It’s so ironic. The people who don’t care about what’s going on and fool around are the ones who aren’t depressed, but the ones who do their work and try and try and try are the ones who are. Maybe I should slack off. Maybe I shouldn’t care. My family will never understand.


This is boring. This is boring. This is boring. Why are we doing this? I don’t understand. Nothing is exciting to me anymore. What’s wrong with me? They say it’ll get better when I’m an adult. But will it really though? I don’t think so. I always ask myself, “What’s the point of life?” We’re born, we grow up, stress over grades, get into college, are in debt, work until we literally can’t anymore, and then die. Eventually, everyone is going to die. It’s inevitable. I heard someone say one time, “What’s the point of living if you can’t feel?” That’s exactly how I feel. What’s the point? Sometimes when we’re feeling a certain way, what we say and do reflect off of that. It’s like we let our emotions get the best of us. One minute everything seems to be fine, and the next, you’re seeing the effects after the stormy hurricane has hit.


I’m at the table eating dinner. We’re talking about our lives and how our day was. It’s only my mom, Micheal (my stepdad), and me. My sister is at work. I think to myself, “I wonder how she’s doing. I’m excited for her to get off soon.” Suddenly, my own storm hits as we start talking about SEPTA bus stops. “No, no!” said my mom. “Let me tell you something. You can’t talk to people like that. If I’m talking to you a certain way that isn’t disrespectful, then please don’t talk to me with disrespect. It’s a two-way street. Push out the same respect you pull in.”


Everyone in my household is sad except for my stepfather. Of course, that makes sense though. He’s not the result . He’s not my father's seed. Depression is hereditary. I don’t ever want to have children because I want to save them from feeling the way I am. Why would I want to pass this on to them? Why did my mom and dad pass this on to me? Questions, decisions, actions.


Things took an abrupt turn from talking about bus stops to being disrespectful. I instantly apologized for raising my voice and getting an attitude, but at that moment, it didn’t mean anything. Andrea Mathews from Psychology Today writes, “If we didn’t mean what we said, or what we did, who did? Because someone or something within us meant for us to do or say what we did or said, or we wouldn’t have done or said it.” Humans tend to deny the meaning of what they say. “I didn’t mean it” really means “I meant it, but now after saying it, it sounds bad, so let me try to soften the blow.” More times than we can count, we say things to make other people feel better, even though we know it’s not true.


In Beast Of The Southern Wild, the people living in Montegut, Louisiana are being forced out of their home by nature. Hushpuppy, the main character, is no more than six years when she is forced to fend for herself. Wink, Hushpuppy’s father, tries to reassure Hushpuppy and their community by telling them that he’s “coming to get you storm.” The community is already stressed out about what’s going on. Some people are leaving, and others don’t know what to do. Wink is trying to calm everyone down by telling the storm he’ll catch it. The problem is, a storm can’t be caught. You can catch the remaining of what the storm did and you can catch the feelings that people are throwing at you from the storm, but you can not actually catch a storm.


Hurting someone’s feelings is never the way to go, so we use cover-ups as an excuse to cover something up. In the long run, people’s intentions aren’t always what they appear to be. Anger, longing, obsession, all taken over by the storm. Sincerely apologizing for something you can’t control is rare. We thought it, we did it, and we meant it.

Advanced Essay #2: Under Pressure

Introduction:

In my essay I wanted to convey the pressure finding your own path with different influences around you, to succeed in America as a first-generation. I’m proud of showing my side of the story and journey of becoming the person I am now. On my next paper, I want to be able to let my audience feel the experience that I’m in, let them feel like they were in the story with me.


Advanced Essay #2: Under Pressure

Acceptance from others is important, especially from yourself, self-acceptance. I had a hard time accepting myself as an Indonesian-American. It was harder when I was bullied because of my race, my self-esteem was low. I didn’t want this as my identity. It became difficult to find confidence in myself. I was Indonesian in my home, but outside I was American. I couldn’t find the middle ground. The motivation I had for myself was not there. I didn’t want to succeed and I was terrified. As the first generation in America, I did have a lot of pressure to do so. I didn’t want to make a mistake and look down on. I had to keep going and find acceptance for myself. My parents worked so hard to prove they do belong here, and people who believe they don’t, they prove them wrong. My parents were my motivation, they made me move on and succeed. We worked (together) alongside each other. I looked up to my parent’s motivation.

As a child, I always felt out of place and wasn’t able to relate to anyone. At school and on the bus I used to get bullied. They would tease me and took advantage of me. When I cried, it would satisfy them. I questioned myself if this is who I want to be or if it’s better to hide. I was ashamed of my ethnicity. I wanted to be someone else. I would reach out to my teachers and principal, and they would tell me to ignore them. It hurt when they would say that. I was growing and still learning, I needed the reassurance and help and they didn’t fulfill that. I had to defend myself and I took that as independence. I wanted them to stop, and I realized they won’t stop. They will see that they won’t affect me, they aren't worthy. I can hear them say “ching chong” and see pulling their eyes apart. I looked at them like fools because I found worth in myself. They saw me grow my confidence in my ethnicity.

I know my parents didn't come to America to see their child hurt and fail. With that understanding, I knew I had the power to love myself and fulfill my parent's wishes. I am first-generation I know that I am here to succeed. I took that and I ran with that. I fully embraced it, I would say to myself, I’m proud of being an Asian-American and I love my home country. No one can ever take that away from me. I had to figure out my own my own path with the different influences around me.

Adam Davidson, the author of the article Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrants, talks about how society looks at immigrants and that they steal jobs. Davidson proves them wrong saying, “Immigrants increase the size of the overall population, which means they increase the size of the economy. Logically, if immigrants were “stealing” jobs, so would every young person leaving school and entering the job market; countries should become poorer as they get larger. In reality, of course, the opposite happens” (2015). Davidson demonstrates immigrants are the future. Immigrants take jobs that no one else wants and it keeps America moving. My parents came here to keep their lives moving, they knew they have a purpose here. To create a family and give opportunities they never had in Indonesia.  

Laura Pappano, the author of the First-Generation Students Unite, tells the story of Ana Barros and first generations. In her article, she says, “Many first-generation students, with their histories of self-sufficiency and staring down obstacles, see seeking help as a sign of failure... While most students “feel entitled” to academic and emotional support, first-generation students, said Stanley Stewart, a Brown junior, “feel really guilty about taking advantage of resources” (2015). I believe that first-generations feel obligated to be independent or we feel as if we can’t get help. So when we ask for help, it feels like defeat. We are pressured to be successful, but when asking for help it feels like we have given up and we aren’t doing any work. Our family came here to create a new life, but when asking for someone for help, it can feel like failure.

Self-embrace and self-acceptance have shown that it’s the main key to success. This has given me independence and self-determination. My race is apart of my identity and it has impacted my life in many different ways. Born into a family that works hard every day and living through high expectations is difficult, but I must push and work beside my family. At first, it’s not an easy journey to find pride and the confidence in my ethnicity. But it’s a learning and growing experience.