Blog Feed

My experience with art is very vague. I usually don’t have a particular reason to draw what I draw. So with that in mind, as an expression of myself, I like to keep things simple most of the time.

Everything you will see in this slide-show was drawn either with simply a pencil or a brush. There’s no special techniques that need to be known, my artist-progress if very much just drawing whatever comes to mind, and if that usually doesn’t require anything too complex.

None of this means I don’t think much of my art. The problem is simply that I’m not very good at it, which means my ability to bring what I draw to life is severely limited.  Everything you will see in this slideshow is best, more sincere effort, and even if it doesn’t look like it, I put a lot of myself into almost all of these works, one way or another. It’s why many of them are so vague, they only mean something to me. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I haven’t decided yet.

Hola, mi nombre Kamil Kielar. Tengo catorce años. Soy de filadelfia pero viva en Poland. Soy de decendencia europea.   

Soy alto, perezoso, y simpático. Mis padres dicen que muy intelligente.

Me encanta dormir y comer. Odio la tarea porque es muy difícil. Cuando tengo tiempo libre ver la películas y jugar videojuegos. Me gusta escuchar música. Tambien me fascina música rock sin embargo no me gusta nada musica electrónica.

¿Que tipo de musica te gusta?

1. The video that we watched in class was about a boy who was being bullied in school and cyber bullied at home. In this video we had to click the Eye (I am a witness) to help the boy.

2. Bullying should be stopped because if it isn’t it only gets worse. 

3. When I search my name nothing comes up.

4. Nothing comes up.

5. Their goal is to bother people and hurt their feelings because they think it’s funny.

6. Positive results are that you can say whatever you want. Negative is that you think you can get away with it, and that you can’t be tracked but you can.

Hola, yo soy Meeghan Kersten. Tengo 14 años. He nacido en Filadelfia y tambien  vivo en Filadelfia, Pennsylvania.

Soy comica y deportista. También  puedo ser bastante tímida.

Mi amor es dormir y comer. No me gusta nada hacer la tarea. Me gusta ir de compras.  No me gusta nada a ir loca pero yo sera con mi cerca amigos y familia. Me encanta jugar al fútbol, sin hacer jugar como mucho yo seria como a.

¿Te gusta jugar fútbol?

Hola, yo soy Mindy Saw. Tengo 14 años. Soy de filadefia y vivo en filadelfia, Pennsylvania.

Soy bastante simpática y de costumbre perezosa pero algo deportista. Mi amigos dicen que soy timida.

Mi familia es de Asia. Me fascina música y soy bien talentosa en música. No me gusta nada hacer la tarea. Me encanta ir de compras.  No me gusta nada descansar, soy preferir yendo loca con mi familia y amigos. Me encanta correr, sin embargo ello muretes yo mucho.

¿Té gusta escuchar música?

Hola, Yo soy Zahira Tucker. Tengo catorce años. Soy de Harrisburg pero vivo en Filadelfia.

Me Baj@,extrañ@ y muy talentos@. Me moy hermos@.

Me encanta cantar y bailar. No me gusta Nada estudiar.Prefiero leer y dormir.Me gusta escuchar música.Me fascina Taylor Swift y Justin Beiber sin embargo  no me gusta nada la música de Meek Mill. Me moren@. Me Africano-American@, Chin@, mexican@, de decendencia europea.

Everyone gets made fun of for something, even if that something is precious. You can't please everyone because someone will always have a problem with what you do. The Japanese culture interests me. I don't understand why people have a problem with my taste, it has nothing to do with them.I don’t owe anyone an explanation as to why I love the Japanese culture. Anyone can make fun of me as much as they wish, but my love for the culture will never change.

Ever since people in middle school found out I had a thing for the Japanese culture, I've been teased for it. Non-anime lovers somehow found out about the word weeaboo, and started labeling me as such. That...is not a good thing.  A weeaboo is a person who has a serious mental condition. They think they are characters in an anime living in japan, etc.This term was coined  in Japan to make fun of manga and anime lovers. It is considered to be an insult. Weeaboos in Japan are highly frowned upon. In the past, if you were considered a weeaboo, you were even disowned!

All that being said, I think it’s safe to say that I am NOT a weeaboo. I am simply a big fan of the japanese culture, and strive to immerse myself in the language. One day I hope to become fluent in Japanese. One day, I hope to learn the language, and become fluent in it. I also want my house to be rich in cultural artifacts and encourage  my children to  explore cultures other than their own.

They say high school can be a pain.  This past summer, a girl who goes to school with me went to the same girl scout camp. We are in her tent reading a letter that her boyfriend sent her.  At some point during our letter reading, she read out loud, “Oh yeah, tell your weeb friend I said hi.”

I look at her puzzled. “What? Who's he talking about?”

She smiled at me and said, “Yeah he knows that you like anime, but he couldn't remember your name.”

I folded my arms with a curious expression and said “Well, does he even know what a weeb is? Do you? That's totally not what it means.”

She made a defensive and worried face. “Well yeah I know a weeb is suppose to be a bad thing, but you do love anime a lot, not that there's anything wrong with that,” she said.

“According to the Japanese it's an insult!” My face become flushed from anger.“It’s a big deal to people like me. It’s an insult in Japan. It means I’m mental and think that I live in an anime world. I’m not that crazy, or am I?” I smirk to try and play off my anger and she playfully smacks me.

I’ve had many experiences with this, and it’s the same thing over and over again. People really don’t know the meaning of the word, and how hurtful it can be. It’s very hard sometimes telling people I am in to the Japanese culture. If someone brings it up I will admit to liking it, but I will never bring it up on my own. Being weighed down by the insult, I am too shy to admit my love for the culture. My friends in middle school didn't know I liked anime and manga until years after I met them . I've known my best friend for 5 years, and she didn't find out till last year. It’s a shame that insults hide people. I feel like I need to lock my thoughts up in a cage and throw them in a dark room so nobody can find them.

“Yo, there’s some crazy jawn that’s over in the city! Let’s slide thru real quick and make this the move!” Okay, whatever, let’s go. “ard, let’s dip!” is what comes out my mouth. “Zahirah, how was school?” it was ard i guess. “It was good, I hung out with some friends, and had a good day. How was work?”

I am one of those people that when it comes to language, I have two different personas. I can be completely formal, mostly around adults, and polite- or in other words, I talk like I have ever picked up a book before. I can’t speak a certain way in front of my grandmother, and expect to not get slapped or lectured about my grammar. The way I was brought up in my family, improper grammar and slang, is just simply not acceptable or tolerated. I was always told to “speak like a lady, like you are talking to the president of the United States”, and in turn there is always an expectation that I follow in front of my elders. “Don’t use the word ain’t in my house. Don’t refer to things as jawns in my presence! I know I raised you to know better than that young lady.” These are the rules in which I had based my childhood off of in my home, and it has benefitted me so much. My vocabulary was forced to expand, and I am able to surprise adults when I speak to them for the first time because they’re used to hearing a child of color talk with a drawl, or improper English.

However, when I am around my friends, or people my age, speaking the way that they do, or sounding like I come from the streets, and know all this slang is more beneficial than isn’t. Part of that is society’s fault because it made teenagers my age think differently of anybody who “talks right”. I’d get called stuck up, or uppity, and looked at in a weird way if I actually name objects instead of saying jawn, or saying isn’t instead of ain’t. My entire persona switches up really quickly when I get around my friends, and I curse more than usual. I go against everything that I was taught as a child.

“How are you doing?”

That’s too proper.

“Wassup, how you been?”

Acceptable.

For awhile I often felt really conflicted because I was being put in situations when I had to constantly switch up the two different ways I talked. It caused me to often stumble upon my words, and that resulted in me being insecure to speak sometimes.

Growing up with the two different dialogues I was being taught, and also influenced to say have made me into an individual that I hope stands out with her voice. I used to be so confused and conflicted over which kind of speech I could use around which kind of people, and after a while it became an everyday struggle trying to switch up the two. As time went on, I realized that there was no need to keep changing myself to fit the situation. I came up with my own way of how I communicate combining both dialects I’ve grown up around. It’s helped me really be more comfortable with my own voice, and has helped me communicate to people better when I feel comfortable with the way I sound.