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Pinterest is a platform for all things DIY and any other interest you might have. It is a fairly simple concept, you search through pins that you like and things that you want to buy or ideas that you want to try later, you can pin ideas on boards that may have on different topics and genres. It was a cool fall night and I was trying to find the perfect outfit for my fall birthday. My eyes were squinted trying to block out the blinding light, still shining under the dimmed brightness. My finger was sliding through the thousands of pins of white women modeling fall fashions, and pins that are used to execute that perfect fall smokey eye for blue eyed girls. At first I didn’t think anything of it, so I went to the search: fun fall looks. What came up was pages and pages worth of blond women, with intricate updos meant for long thick flowing hair. I searched for ten minutes and nothing came up. My tired fingers typed, black hair, to see if I would have any luck. The next five minutes were spent trying to weed out fair skinned women with long fine black hair. Finally I typed in natural hair, and black women filled the the screen, black women with all different hair types and skin tones. I was overjoyed, I thought I’d hit the mother load, my very own lookbook right at my fingertips. Only now do I realize what a despairing day it was.

I can’t expect to walk down the street without being a novelty and someone outside of the norm. My hair, lips, nose, eyes, and skin tone have never been seen as regular, regardless of how long people with similar features have been around in this country. Everytime someone stares at the kink in my curls I want to scream/ I wonder what a world would be like without black people? Whenever I look on TV, social media, and media in general I am conditioned to think that the world would be so much better and simpler without me in it. I started analyzing my favorite shows, Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and Modern Family. All three of these shows demonstrate different types of white people and families. There’s so much diversity between these shows, but only within the white race. “The problem is there's nowhere near the diversity that our white counterparts have. We're still not allowed to be fully human in the ways they are." (Ariel Cheung, USA Today) Fortunately, in the past couple of years black people have started to be seen more frequently on our screens, but at what cost?

“Younger Black women are more exposed to the extremes. They are more likely to see the negative typologies due to their higher media consumption in general, their higher tendency to look into popular culture for cues and their interest in broad self expression.” (Krissa Thompson, Washington Post) Fortunately for us people are eating up the few representations of melanin that they have been seeing on screen, but unfortunately we are only seeing the single story. When the influx of black skin reached mainstream media it only showed, back talking, loud mouthed, sassy, booty shaking black women, and aggressive and defensive men. Only recently have the people showing up onscreen been an accurate representation of all the different types of black people in reality, such as Black ish, Scream Queens, and Empire.

However I am afraid that it may be too late. After years of being ignored by the media and forced to conform into a box constructed by men who have never walked a day in our shoes, black people are really suffering. Colorism and interracial discrimination is an increasing issue in the black community and some things just can not be reversed. Since media is seeming to turn a corner and put complex black characters on the screen, there may still be a chance for black people to claim a place in this country’s story.

The Board game title “Who killed King Duncan” is a fun, challenging, and  mental game for all ages. This board game is 4 players minimum. My partner, Lauren Matthews, and I decided we wanted to do a board game because a board game is the best way to find out about Who killed King Duncan . In out board game, the main objective is to use the quotes from the book as clues to find out King Duncan’s killer. The first person to guess the right killer with all the clue cards gone from in the center of the board, wins the game. The board game uses quotes from all over the the book, including the “suspects” quotes,  provided in the game. The suspects in the board Lady Macbeth, Malcolm and Donald, And Macbeth as himself.

There are four stages in the board game. Stage one is King Duncan’s  room, Stage two is the Ballroom, Stage three is Malcolm and Donalbain room, and Stage four is Lady Macbeth and Macbeth’s room. Just like in the book, all the suspects that was named, was in the house with King Duncan when his death was announced. Each player rolls the die on their turn and move on the board to the number which was roll. If the player who has the turn rolls on a  square “goblet” they pick up a clue card with the goblet in the center of the board. On the card there is certain quotes chosen from the book to that help determine who is King Duncan’s killer.

When the player at least has four of the clue cards, they have the opportunity to guess the killer or continue to gather more clue cards. If the player guesses the killer wrong twice, they automatically lose the game. To make the game just a bit challenging, there are “hot spots”. The hot spots are spots on the board where the player either moves forward or moves backward. For example on of the hot spots could be “move three space back” this prevent the player from winning.

Working with my partner has been a great way to over look Macbeth in a fun game form. Some things we had found challenging was finding time and creating dates to do the project. There wasn’t no lack of communication in this project. We found it really easy to make the board and the design of the board. We really wanted to base the board off of the game “Clue” but it was hard because we didn’t want to steal the idea . So we came together and we kind of used the layout of the board.

Game rule!

• 4 players

• - Pick a character figure.

• - everyone is a victim

• - Place the character figure on the start

• - Roll the dice

• - If you land in the same room too long you are automatically assumed to be the killer

• - Take a clue when you have guessed it right

• - Take the space as an advantage

Rationale

One of the main reasons why we chose to do a playbill is to be able to show our creativity and our take on Macbeth. We wanted to be able to change it to how we would imagine it in modern day times. We felt like the playbill would be the best option to do since we would be able to work on it over winter break without having to work through our schedules and see if we can meet up one day. Most of our work was completed outside of class. We would meet up during lunch in the library to finish what we could. One of the things we had to do when we first decided to do a playbill was to plan what was going to go on each page. We planned it out first so that we could know what we wanted to put in our playbill and then change up the pages without having to make major edits.

In order to get our playbill to look just like any other playbill that you would get when attending a play, we looked at different examples online of real playbills. We tried to make sure our playbill looked as realistic as possible by also including pictures of our actors and the different costumes they would wear in our modernized version of Macbeth. The pictures of our actors were pictures that we took during work periods, lunch and also advisory.

When we first started the project, we settled on making our version of Macbeth more modern than the original Macbeth written by Shakespeare. We thought this way because it would then be opened to a bigger audience. Not just the typical adults coming to see them, but we would have kids our age more intrigued about Macbeth and would like to learn more about it after watching the play as well.  As we were working on this, we also learned a lot. We learned that the right collaboration is a big part of working together. We also learned that playbills are not as simple as you would have thought. We worked very hard on this and we are proud of our final product. A lot of time went into making it and putting all the parts together. For example, trying to convince a bunch of teenagers for pictures was probably one of the hardest parts. You would think they would just do it but no that's not the case at all. After a while we got all of the pictures we needed. Another hard part was trying to figure out the ages we wanted to use and who we wanted to play each character. Overall, we agree that this was one of the best projects we have done because we enjoyed working on it. It was not stressful at all because we could be as creative as we wanted and we had plenty of time to do it. We hope you notice all of the hard work we put into this creative project.

My partner is Genero Accooe

As the son of an immigrant, I always feel like a little something special. I don't have the right to; I didn't brave a new world, leave my family behind, and live a new life. I have been settled peacefully in America for my whole life, and I always have felt connected to America, but I've also felt connected to Germany. My mother spent a year abroad, and spent that year in America from Germany. That same year, my father spent his year abroad in Germany from America. They got married and attended college in the US, eventually settling down in sweet, sweet Philadelphia, and raising a family. Now my mother has lived here for more time than she has lived in Germany, and I wanted to investigate how she feels about national identity.

My mother has always seemed like the perfect immigrant (I know this sounds strange, but let me explain). Theodore Roosevelt said “Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.” My mother learned English within that time, and after 20+ years of living here, she has barely the whiff of an accent, and can speak English flawlessly and fluently. Often times I will forget a word (in English!) and she will remind me what that word is. She came here legally, got a green card, and kept it, meaning she didn't commit a SINGLE crime. How many Americans can say that much after 20+ years? No DUIs, no pirating music or movies, she's not a rapist or a murderer as Donald Trump would like to suggest. She obtained her citizenship just last month. She has been the model immigrant.

She spoke with me recently to help with this project, and I asked her to describe how she felt about national identity, being someone with multiple nationalities and coming from multiple national backgrounds and experiences. She told me about how she will always be a German, even though she now has both a German citizenship and a US citizenship. She said she was reluctant to get the US citizenship, and would only become a US citizen if she could keep her German citizenship. A quote from Ronald Reagan perfectly applies to this situation: “[A man said] you can go to live in France, but you can’t become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Italy, but you can’t become a German, an Italian. He went through Turkey, Greece, Japan and other countries. But he said anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American.” - Ronald Reagan. She is still, in her heart, a German, and can never give that up or become something or someone else.

I also spoke with her about her “belonging,” meaning how she felt in the new world of America, and whether she felt like she belonged. She immediately snapped back, “Never. I never feel at home, like I belong.” She then went on to talk about her recent trip back to Germany to see her mother one last time, and then to arrange and go to her funeral. She said how, even after all these years of being away from home, she felt at home in her mother’s house. We all feel that way when we come home, like no matter what, we feel welcome. My mother has never really, truly belonged among Americans, but when she went home she felt like she belonged. Her national identity will forever and always be German, and while she feels at home in our house, with us, she really feels at home at her childhood home, in her childhood country, with all of the faces she has known since childhood.

Reaganomics was during the time period from 1980-1988 in which Ronald Reagan was president. Ronald Reagan is considered, by some, to be one of the greatest presidents America has ever had. However, this was far from the truth when it came to minority groups. Reaganomics included the “Trickle Down Theory” in which Ronald Reagan gave tax breaks to the upper class, believing that the extra money the upper class saved would trickle down to the lower/working class. However, Reagan also conveyed the idea of  the “Welfare Queen”. She was portrayed as a lower class black woman living off of the government and as a result, many upper class people refuse to give money to minorities. However, the harsh reality was that the Black unemployment rate was at a devastating 22% and by 1983 the Black poverty rate reached 25% . It was during the time of Reaganomics that Blacks went through a time of change on both the East and West Coast.

On the East Coast, there was a sense of equality at night clubs. “ More than anything the Roxy embodied a certain vision of what New York could be”(Chang,177). Night clubs, such as the Roxy, became ground where everyone came with nothing to hold back. People from all different backgrounds came to nightclubs on the east coast without any sense of danger. People were just allowed to let loose and not have to worry about their troubles. “ But the Roxy night always opened into a Reagan morning that was much more than a comedown” (Chang, 178). After the dancing was over for the night, classes returned and lower class citizens, which included a majority of Blacks and Latinos, had to return to their struggling reality. With Reagan’s Trickle down theory not being proven and Black unemployment and poverty rates soaring, minorities had to be able to work longer hours. This then made Hip hop need commercialism because more people had found a way to gain more income. In contrast to nightclubs gaining more popularity, graffiti was being more attacked transit police and “ On May 12,1989, the MTA declared that it achieved the ultimate bluff” (Chang 203). The MTA had stripped almost all trains from graffiti. In symbolism it was stating a stripping of Hip-hop branching out of where it started. Graffiti, being one of the pillars of Hip-hop, allowed people to make a name and let others see it. It was an art, but the rest of the world believe it was was just vandalism. If upper class people were riding trains with graffiti, there wasn’t a sense of safety, so the MTA made it a crime. Later on in Reagan’s America, there was an increase in police brutality. People like Michael Stewart became influences for the East Coast to say enough and fight back. This entire time, minorities fought back even harder with every step taken against them. They voiced themselves through graffiti and protest.

On the West Coast, students at U.C Berkeley were raising awareness of apartheid. “ The anti-apartheid movement represented the climax of a century” (Chang,215). All over the West Coast, students were creating protest to Reagan’s support of apartheid. The movement resembled what was happening here at home. Many students started to see the connection between themselves and the Blacks in South Africa. In addition, the West Coast was seeing a rise in drug use. As soon as cocaine or freebase was introduced to a community, there was little time available before entire families were destroyed and it became dangerous to walk around the corner. Drugs, being basically authorized by the government in secret ways, became widely available. However, the genre of Rap was on its own rise with  rappers like Ice T and Kid Frost. “ This was a new breed of renegades. The hip-hop generation had reached childhood’s end” (Chang, 211).

The Board game title “Who killed King Duncan” is a fun, challenging, and  mental game for all ages. This board game is from 2-4 players. Me and my partner, Benjamin Seing decided we wanted to do a board game because a board game is the best way to find out about Who killed King Duncan . In out board game, the main objective is to use the quotes from the book as clues to find out King Duncan’s killer. The first person to guess the right killer with all the clue cards gone from in the center of the board, wins the game. The board game uses quotes from all over the the book. Including the “suspects” quotes,  provided in the game. The suspects in the board Lady Macbeth, Malcolm and Donald, And Macbeth as himself.

There are four stages in the board game. Stage one is King Duncan’s  room, Stage two is the Ballroom, Stage three is Malcolm and Donalbain room, and Stage four is Lady Macbeth and Macbeth’s room. Just like in the book, all the suspects that was named was in the house with King Duncan when his death was announced. Each player rolls the die on their turn and move on the board to the number which was roll. If the player who has the turn rolls on a  square “goblet” they pick up a clue card with the goblet in the center of the board. On the card there is certain quotes chosen from the book to that help determine who is King Duncan’s killer.

When the player at least has four of the clue cards, they have the opportunity to guess the killer or continue to gather more clue cards. If the player guesses the killer wrong twice, they automatically lose the game. To make the game just a bit challenging, there are “hot spots”. The hot spots are spots on the board where the player either moves forward or moves backward. For example on of the hot spots could be “move three space back” this prevent the player from winning.

At some point, we've all been labelled something by society. Society tells us that we are one thing, and that is it. We are allowed no dimensionality. In this paper, I wanted to explore why that is. I wanted to create an in-depth look at how society treats people, and how they identify themselves. I also look at how we identify ourselves and how society identifies us effects where we feel we belong.

We’ve all been there. We’re talking with someone about something, and they say something controversial, something that goes against a tightly held belief. In that situation, we have to make an instant decision: do we speak up and risk starting a fight, or do we stay silent, and feel guilty but free of a confrontation? It’s a verbal fight-or-flight reaction. Either choice feels like a bad one. On the one hand, we want to stand up for our beliefs, but that could result in a loud, possibly explosive argument with the other person, whom we might really like. But, if we don’t stand up for those beliefs, we begin to question how dearly we hold them, even if we have believed in them since we were children. In some cases, mainly when we don’t like the person we are talking with, the choice is easy: we fight. We argue and defend our beliefs and allow passion to take us over. But what happens when it’s your childhood friend? Or a family member? We often choose to stay silent.

That silence is not a compromise of your beliefs. Humans, as a species, are designed for adaptation. We adapt to whatever situation we are in. This knack for adaptation applies also to our identity and how we display it. Though everyone will always display a few core values, our identity, as a whole, is a fluid thing. We allow different environments to pull different feelings and connections out of us. We pick and choose certain aspects of ourselves for certain situations. But that does not make the parts we did not choose any less a part of our identity. Human identity is built on a series of contradictions. Just because you are religious doesn’t mean you can’t believe and fight for gay rights. Just because you are a feminist doesn’t mean you can’t wear makeup and dresses. The thing is, society is often the thing that causes the different parts of our identity to clash. According to Dimitrov and Kopra:

Society prefers to operate with fixed identities - they help to divide people into groups, to 'push' the groups into separate "boxes" and computer files (hierarchical or nested into one another), to label these boxes and files with names, numbers and codes, and then to do with them all sorts of manipulations.

These fixed identities, which are often based in stereotypes, make it harder to find belonging in multiple places. Society wants everyone in boxes, because that makes us easy to categorize and deal with.

This categorization also leads to things like the hierarchies of race and the patriarchy that we deal with everyday. “Part of understanding our identity, therefore, means understanding how we fit in (or don’t) with other groups of people. It also means being aware of the fact that some groups have more social, political and economic power than others.” (The Critical Media Project) Because we have been sorted into boxes, each box must have a certain value, and that value comes in the currency of privilege. And American society has chosen to give the rich, straight, white man the most value, and, therefore, the most privilege. And with this privilege, they decided in what boxes other people belong in. Because I am a woman, I have less value than a man, but because I am white, I have more value than woman of color. And that is absolutely ridiculous. I am worth no more or no less than anyone else, and everyone else is worth no more or no less than me. But, because gender and race have come to correlate with value within our society, that is how we are perceived in our boxes.

Because society is constantly pushing us into boxes, we constantly feel conflicted about our identity and where we belong. According to Giddens:

Even those who would say that they have never given any thought to questions or anxieties about their own identity will inevitably have been compelled to make significant choices throughout their lives, from everyday questions about clothing, appearance and leisure to high-impact decisions about relationships, beliefs and occupations.

Society is constantly asking us to choose between various aspects of our identity. Are you girly or feminist? Do you believe in religion or evolution? But those choices are often impossible to make. Human identity and belong are robust, complex, and multifaceted. It can change, shift, and disguise itself, but it is alway full to the brim and bursting with societal contradictions. In the end, identity cannot be defined by anyone, and especially someone who is not you. Where you belong and how you define yourself are solely decisions that you can make. We were not meant to be put in boxes. And we really can’t let those boxes define us.

Works Cited

Dimitrov, Vladimir, and Kalevi Kopra. Dynamics of Human Identity. Dynamics of Human Identity. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2016. <http://www.zulenet.com/vladimirdimitrov/pages/identity.html>.

Giddens, Anthony. "Www.theory.org.uk Resources: Anthony Giddens." Www.theory.org.uk Resources: Anthony Giddens. David Gauntlett, 2002. Web. 18 Jan. 2016. <http://www.theory.org.uk/giddens4.htm>.

My goal in this paper Is to focus on how you see yourselves vs how other people see you. they view literacy. I focused more on a personal experience to better express what I know and inform everyone real life issues people are going through. I am proud that I get to talk about an experience that I have struggled with personally. This paper is something that is very common nowadays and I wanted to get the point across that we live in a place where you get judge no matter what you look like or how you are their is always someone there to bring you down but you just have to ignore the others on what they say because you know who you are and that's all that matters.

“She is really shy,” are words the stick on me like glue. I hear it often, almost everywhere, especially inside my house or school. These words attack me like a monster who taunts the mind of a little kid watching a scary movie. How can people start rumors like this when they don’t even know the truth about me? In middle school, I was judged for being that kid who always raised their hand. They would try to discourage me by saying things like: “Stop being a teacher’s pet,” or “Stop being a nerd!” I tell people all the time to don’t judge a book by it’s cover, but they  do it anyway. No matter what I said they always continued with their abusive words they seem to mentally affect me.

“We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us,” said Virginia Satir who was an american writer who was known for her approach to family therapy . Yet I have seemed to allowed other people’s limited perceptions to define me. I stopped being the “nerd” and “teacher’s pet” and became popular because I changed my appearance. Once I did people wanted to know  who I really was as a person. It’s funny how words from another person can have such a huge impact on you and make you change the way they viewed yourself as a person. Often people do not allow you to express yourself without  judgement before you can even introduce yourself.

Today many people, maybe even most, talk to other people saying one thing about about you that is not true without you being able to tell them about yourself. “It’s taken my entire life to negotiate how to identify, and I’ve done a lot of research and a lot of studying,”  says Rachel Anne Dolezal during an interview. “I could have a long conversation, an academic conversation about that. I don’t know. I just feel like I didn’t mislead anybody; I didn’t deceive anybody. If people feel misled or deceived, then sorry that they feel that way, but I believe that’s more due to their definition and construct of race in their own minds than it is to my integrity or honesty, because I wouldn’t say I’m African American, but I would say I’m black, and there’s a difference in those terms.” She changed her appearance because that is how she defines herself. I look up to her in this way, she was judged by that but she did not let it get the best of her unlike how I let people’s judgement get the best of me.

“Research shows that we normally try to work out how we are viewed by others by thinking about how we view ourselves, then extrapolating from that. The problem with this approach is that to varying degrees we all suffer from an ‘egocentric bias: we think we’re at the center of the world and everything is about us. We shouldn’t be blamed for this — it’s a natural consequence of the fact that we’re locked inside our own head.” said Jeremy Dean from a blog on psychcentral.com. I tried to work out how I was view by changing my appearance to attract more attention, just so people could see the real me and what I was on the inside before I had glasses and I would always raise my hand so I changed that. I stopped wearing glasses even tho I could barely see, I started wearing makeup and stopped raising my hand. That’s when people began to notice me. More popular people began talking to me and suddenly I was one of them.

One day I went to my Aunt Carol’s house because she was having a block party for my cousin’s graduation party. I never met this her until that day because my immediate family didn’t know she existed until she contacted my dad. She told him that  since my grandpa had another kid after he and my grand-mom split up they never told my dad about it because they didn’t want him getting hurt because he was young and did not understand about them being apart. We got to her street and I noticed a lot of my friends from around my neighborhood were there, so I knew it was going to be a fun party. We went in her house, where she was cooking in the kitchen. When I walked in her living room, she rushed over to me before I could even say “Hello.” I didn’t really say much to her because I didn’t know what to say to her. As my dad introduced us, he said, “She is really shy.” I passively disagreed, because I’m really not a shy person. I just can’t start conversations with people I don’t really know, but this is not the only time people tell others I am shy.

A lot of people think I’m “shy” person, or a goody two shoes, because I like to get my work done in class and not talk during the process. However, that was before and this is now the way I define myself, which is totally different to how others define me. In middle school, I used to agree with the kids that didn’t have any idea who they were. I defined myself as a somewhat independent person, who just likes to get my work done on time. At school now, I’m known as a social person, but don’t often participate in class. I have this fear of getting judged of saying something stupid or wrong, so, instead, I just keep quiet. We live in a place where you get judge no matter what you look like or how you are their is always someone there to bring you down but you just have to ignore the others on what they say because you know who you are and that's all that matters.

Introduction:

This essay centers around how cartoons can be used as a tool for self discovery. Here I asked myself were some key factors in my development and how these same factors may play a role in the development of others. I’m very proud of the evidence used in this essay. I would like to further my analytical ability in future writing assignment.

Advanced Essay #3:

When I was ten, I loved weekends. Saturday mornings were filled with the  color and noise of children’s cartoons.  My Saturday nights were spent hanging out with my dad. I would pick his brain for hours on the nature of existence. On Sundays I would wake up around ten o’clock. I would do anything to fill the time. Two hours before sunset, I would open up my brick of a computer and watch anime for hours.  The world seemed to be quiet and peaceful  in the warmth of that orange spotlight and for brief moments it allowed for me to immerse myself in that cartoon world. I saw these strange, giant eyed, animations as very real. Intellectually I knew that they were just drawings projected in pixels on my screen, but I could empathize with them. The connection that I felt towards these characters was founded on a sense of belonging. I could identify traits in myself that also lay in these characters.
I’m now sixteen and proud to say that I am still a cartoon enthusiast. There is a broad constituency of people who find themselves engaged in cartoons. The diversity of the cartoon fan base has recently been growing. In 2006 “Cartoon Network ranked #1 among boys age 9-14 during early primetime hours” according to anime news network, but as of 2015 “Ratings among girls in January spiked more than 50% from the previous year.” according to Variety.
In American animation, cartoons are becoming more real, characters have deep seated flaws and are more like real people rather than superheroes and this has only added to the popularity of cartoons.
Take for example, one of my favorite shows, Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe. It’s  about a boy named Steven who is half human and half “gem”. The gems are aliens, their bodies are projections of light that come from stones that hold their consciousness. Steven’s mother fell in love with his father and gave up her physical form to give birth to Steven. Steven’s mother was the leader of the Crystal Gems, a team of four gems who fight to protect mankind. The Crystal gems also deal with real issues that affect real people like body image and grief. One thing that makes Steven Universe so groundbreaking is that all gems identify as women and even though it's never actually said it's evident that some gems are lesbians.
This attracts a demographic that has never been targeted by the cartoon industry, the LGBT community. It allows an LGBT viewer to closely identify with these characters. By being aligned with these characters one is given the chance to embrace that piece of their identity.
“Expert after expert says that when kids see people like them positively portrayed in the media they consume, they are positively impacted, .... Especially when we’re still developing, and especially when we are still discovering and exploring our genders and sexuality” says Mey, a transgender, lesbian, writer for Autostraddle in her article “Steven Universe and the Importance of All-Ages Queer Representation”  

I theorize that cartoons make it easy to explore the depths of one’s identity. When presented with a cartoon character it’s easy to find qualities that resonate with the viewer. That is because what makes the cartoon characters different from those of books or movies is their limited dimensionality. Although this could be thought of as the result of bad storytelling; often the objective of cartoons is to be simple. In this new type of American animation, characters often are limited to one dimension which makes thinking objectively easier. This mixed with the passive nature of watching television makes coming to an unconscious conclusion about one’s own character and identity seem fluid.   
As a toddler, I had a mild obsession with the Powerpuff Girls. The Powerpuff Girls are a group of girls who battle the forces of evil. Each is powerful in their own right. I easily identified the qualities of each character that I too had. As a toddler, I identified with  Bubbles, the kind and gentile member of the group and Mojo-jojo, the super genius monkey. I recognized things that we had in common and wanted to cultivate those parts of myself.
Childhood is a very tender time for the development of self, where every little thing could be internalized. Cartoons are useful tools for the discovery of not only social identity but also self identity. Self discovery is a key part of growing up and giving children tools for that purpose is important.

Most of us are born into families where life is quite simple. We having a loving or two loving parents, who are attentive to our needs as we grow and expand in the world. Some of us have siblings, who immediately become discouraged at our birth with the realization that there is a new thing in town to be more prominent in our parents’ eye. We grow up normally. Eating three well balanced meals a day, enjoying playing and talking with friends, and learning from everything around us inside and outside of our schools. We try our entire lives trying to figure out who we are.

Yet, there are few whose lives have been written in the history books for them. The monarchs, those whose bloodline ranges from some of the most prominent and high-ranking leaders of their nation's history. The House of Saud, House of Bourbon, House of Windsor, simply to name three of the 26 principal royal families worldwide. Acknowledged across many nations, few still have a reigning, single family in charge of the country politically. Compared to the 18th Century, royal families have severely died down due to conflicts regarding their power and society's outlook towards them. The question remains as to why after so many deaths, problems, and public outrage across the history of our world, why countries (both internationally leading and minor) continue to have these families incorporated as either the nations head of state and/or head of government.

The most universally recognized royal family today, is the House of Windsor. The Queen (or the reigning monarch at the time) is the head of state for the United Kingdom. In the case of the UK, the royal family does not play a role politically. However, they have the opportunity in recognizing treaties, in addition to lesser roles in the government. The royal family gets their funds from the people, to note the cash that goes to the royal family is not a large amount at all. That is in the case of the UK however, for Saudi Arabia where the royal family rule the government of the country and which includes thousands of members, the taxation numbers are much greater. For the UK, the royal family receives over 40 million pounds each year from taxation (in many ways their salary for doing very little), while the Prime Minister who runs the country and is elected by the people of the UK only gets a salary of 142,500 per year.

Not all royals are good people. King Juan Carlos I of Spain, last summer abdicated his throne to his son a 39 year reign. The King was a celebrated liberal, peacemaker who created and developed democracy in the country. As good of a man and well liked domestically and internationally King Juan Carlos was, his family wasn’t as appreciated. His daughter and 6th in line to the Spanish throne, Princess Cristina and her husband have dealt with severe fraud charges in recent years. Due to the negative press involving the scandal, King Juan Carlos I of Spain had to abdicate his throne to his son Prince Felipe (a much more favorable, public figure) and his very much loved wife Princess Letizia, in hopes of saving the monarchy. For now that stands, but the Spanish people are still not sold on the monarchy anymore.

Most of us have been in a position at some point in our lives where we’re nervous, and someone tells us, “just be yourself,” as if it is so simple as to just do it. But it’s almost never that clear. It’s more than likely that there is something in the way of that, whether you haven’t had enough time to develop those ideas clearly, or you’re being influenced by something else outside of the current scenario. Bottom line, you are being influenced by something else in your life. From the start, from the moment you’re born.

After all, the only point of reference you have in life is what you perceive. In the words of Emile Durkheim, “Man is only a moral being because he lives in society, since morality consists in solidarity with the group, and varies according to that solidarity. Cause all social life to vanish, and moral life would vanish at the same time, having no object to cling to.” So the conclusions that you make about yourself and your identity are always influenced by something. Thandie Newton talks a lot about, “The self”, or in this context self identity, in her TED talk. I kept waiting for some evidence to back up all the claims she was making, because many of them had serious implications about human nature and were spoken so matter of factly, but I was never given any.

That’s not to say I disagreed with everything either, she talks about the function of self identity in society and communication, but in general, she spoke about the self and “oneness” as if they were concrete. Fact. But the way she describes, it’s hardly concrete. I’ll admit a lot of the claims I will make in this essay are opinions, and are completely debatable. She was being more idealistic than anything. But, I don’t disagree with that.

Even if the things she was saying didn’t have a solid base, they make sense in the way that they can be used to better yourself, and give someone satisfaction over who you have chosen to be and the choices you have made in life. Even if you never will get to a 100% uninfluenced self identity, that doesn’t mean trying to won’t help. Even though having 100% self identity won’t be realized, it makes sense as an ideal. A good example of this is Muhammad Ali, who before he converted to Islam was named Cassius Clay.

He says, “I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”  Is he 100% free of society’s influence? No. And I don’t believe anyone or anything ever will be. But he is certainly deciding for himself, and taking at least some control of his self identity. He won’t get there, but that doesn’t mean that chasing after it is a pointless endeavor. He has control in some way, and from his perspective, he bettered himself. He was presumably happier in life than he was with the name Cassius Clay and even know that isn’t uninfluenced, it payed to off to chase it. Just because something isn’t realistic doesn’t mean it’s not worth chasing.

Kayla Cassumba

English 3

Identity & Belonging

“It’s in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips,   

The stride of my step,   

The curl of my lips.   

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,   

That’s me.”

In the mirror we see our truth. The curve in our hips. The thinness of our waists. The stride in our step. We strive to love  ourselves to the maximum of our ability. However,  most people do not understand how difficult it is for women to love themselves.  But how can women and how can  I love myself in a society that continues to degrades me?

In the documentary titled Beyond Beats & Rhymes, director Byron Hurt discusses the problems that hip hop music faces in regards to social changes in society. The director interviewed an up- and- coming artist named “J-hood”, for a section of the film named “Sisters and Bitches.” Hurt asked the artist to describe the difference between the two words that are used to describe women. He pointed to women in their bikinis on Daytona Beach and stated that they were “bitches.”

This quote raises a conflict about how women are viewed. On one hand, a woman has the right to wear what she pleases, especially since the environment mentioned above allowed her to do so, without suffering the backlash of men. But on the other hand, when viewing what they wore OFF the beach,  the “invitation” became clearer. This by no means gives men the right to objectify women, but we have to realize that humans are sexual beings."’ We live in a culture in which we constantly see women objectified in interactions on television and in the media. When you turn your own lens on everyday, ordinary women, we focus on those parts, too,’ says lead author and social psychologist Sarah Gervais of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.”  As human beings we rely on what we see, that's how arousal occur. However, the natural attraction that occurs between human beings has been exploited. This saturation in media and other outlets  compels us to view one another as objects or representations.

On the contrary, as women we need to respect ourselves and realize that how we dress is a reflection of our self love, morals, and style. We should respect our bodies and know that some things are better left as a mystery. Everyone does not have to see what God has blessed us with. We should carry ourselves in a manner that reflects who we want to attract.  In truth, we should dress for ourselves first. We need to get past what we see being represented in the media.  Let us humanize ourselves and understand that every women should develop a love for themselves before loving anyone else. We can't expect someone to love us unconditionally if we don't love ourselves unconditionally.

Fierce strides were made toward the trolley stop.  I walked alone, blocking everyone and everything around me, until I felt someone's eyes on me like an itch that I just could not scratch. We make eye contact.  Ahead of me stands a tall, pale man whose eyes reflect the sea. The bluest of blues. He stops, stares at me and says , “Wow, your eyes are beautiful.” My eyes are beautiful. And he continued to make his way down the trolley steps.

Men who are genuinely interested in a female are attracted to natural beauty and the way they carry ourselves.  People can identify if confidence radiates out of our bodies. And even though I see myself as fairly confident, when a non-African American man complimented me, I subconsciously held it to a higher standard than when an African-American man gives me the same compliment. I’d won a prize, the validation prize.  Still, questions began running through my mind : does this validate my beauty any more than a compliment from a black man? Does a compliment from a non-black man make me any more beautiful? Do “they” also see beauty in me? But more importantly, do I see the beauty within myself? Finding yourself was never a straight road, and it will never be.

  My goal for this paper was to try and explain that you don’t need a high education level to succeed in life or to achieve that american dream the way that society tries to tell you,  through my great grandmother. It’s taught the only way you will evey and or do anything important in life in must go to college and if you don’t you will automatically be a failure in life and i think that i explained pretty well that that’s not necessarily true all the time.

Success comes in many different shapes and forms, but success all depends on what you want it to be it could range from owning a big house to being able to buy yourself a pair of sneakers as long as you know your goal is obtainable there should be no doubt that you can achieve it , but  Society tries to tell you a lot of the time that the only way you can live a great life or try to achieve the american dream of becoming rich is by having a high education, that’s the only way that you will be rich and be happy in life but, I say other wise.  My great grandmother was a prime example that you do not need a high education to achieve that American Dream. She had no more than a fourth grade education and had her first of three kids when she was fourteen also getting married at sixteen years.  When you hear something like this you would think that her life would be HELL. People would automatically assume that she set her life up for failure, that there was no way she could succeed yet alone achieve the american dream most would  assume that, that is out of the question.

Let me tell you first off my great grandma  came a long way Richard Island in North Philly she is a short woman 5”2  and most would say she was a beautiful young lady but she says most people doubted her, that all she would be was a beautiful dummy flash forward  She now lives in condo in Plymouth Meeting that she owns, and lived in what I would say not a mansion but a very large house in Germantown , also was a property owner multiple properties  . She also owned a business a video store the store boomed and the the only reason for her closing the store was because that there was a another video store that opened up right across the street that took most of her customers called Block Busters. These are  some of my great grandma's achievements throughout her life still keep in  mind she never went to college and never graduated from high school.       

This situation is like a chapter ripped right out The Great Gatsby. The man Gatsby went to college for two week just two! He decided that college wasn’t something for him but instead of sitting on his butt waiting for something to happen good in his life he went out and was searching for that one great thing to happen to him and it eventually did. He went out and introduced himself to a man that would change his life forever. He was taught how to look and act like a business man even though he knew we was no such thing and eventually he would become one the most know wealthiest men around a town called East Egg. The moral of the story is that you can come from nothing and make something of yourself to achieve that American Dream. Not necessarily having an education defines your true potential all you really need is some determination in yourself, recognizing your true identity and not falling into society’s arms trying to be another somebody else to achieve your dream.

My grandma explained to me that she had to grow up fast. She had three kids by the age of 17 , her mom no longer wanted to deal with her and her father died so she had to fend for herself but had no money. she first worked at a candy so  from there she learned how to deal with money. working at a candy store wasn’t doing enough for her family. flash forward two years she is a case  worker making enough and know is married to a man she would spend the rest of his life with. Throughout her life she had a lot of  people talk to her about life things to give  her that right guidance because she needed it nobody who was a big father or mother figure was in her life. She told me Bill Cosby gave her some good advice on how to approach life and what the correct steps she should take to be successful in life, and she told be it was good advice and it looks like it was b

Because the way she is living right now looks like her life is great she never complains about anything. All of this success without a high education, just a little guidance, hard work, and dedication if you have those three things you can have your life any way you picture including achieving that american dream.

We chose to do a Playbill for a few reasons. First, it’s an element to the play that can’t be forgotten. Every time a play is scene, the audience receives a Playbill. Therefore, we believe it’s more connected to reality than doing a game or other formats. Second, it’s a straightforward way to explain the play and everything we have learned from it. Third, the creativity that can be expressed in a Playbill really appealed to us. There were so many ways to make it our own and it was fun to organize and format every included element.

Every element of our playbill relates back to the ideas and elements of Macbeth. First, our cover says that our version is shown at The Globe Theater. We decided on this theater because it was one of the main theaters that Shakespeare's plays were performed. As this is a Shakespeare play, we thought it would be a suitable stage. The image on our cover has an outline of Macbeth’s face. But there are more elements to the cover. First, there is a floating bloody dagger to represent the bloody dagger hallucination from act 2 scene 1. Second, there’s an image of a crown in the window to represent Macbeth’s longing to become king and how it is within reach. Third, in the other window there is a star and a fire. This represents the quote from Macbeth in act 1, scene 4 when he says “Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

Next, we chose the actors to play the characters. All of the actors were chosen based on the roles they typically play. Some actors are known to play leads well, so we chose them for Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and Banquo. Some actors are also good at playing certain types of roles. For instance, Donald Sutherland is playing King Duncan due to his past experiences of playing kings and because he looks older and wise. The actresses to play the witches were chosen due to their past experiences of playing witch-like roles.

Our ads were based on common things of the time. For example, one of our ads is for the “best ruffs in England”. A ruff is a piece of clothing, somewhat similar to a scarf, that both men and women wore in Elizabethan times. The second ad is for another Shakespeare play called, The Tempest. Typically playbills have ads for similar productions so we thought The Tempest would be perfect.   

Every act summary was written based on notes taken for each act. The main events were explained so that the reader can follow along through the play if they find themselves lost. We also explained crucial elements that could be easily missed. Costumes were chosen based on typical costumes in Shakespearean plays. Macbeth has an outfit for the beginning when he was a soldier, as this doesn’t require royal garb. When he is king he wears a crown and more royal looking capes. Lady Macbeth wears a gown the whole play, as this is common for a wealthy woman of the time. King Duncan wears a crown and royal cape for the extension of his life in the play. Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, and Fleance all wear similar clothing typical for a wealthy man of the time. As they aren’t kings, they don’t wear capes but since they’re wealthier they still wear nice clothing. The murderers all wear black clothing to show contrast with the other characters and disguise on their mission. The witches wear long black capes and have beards, as described in the first scene of the play.

My partner is Amelia Benamara and we choose to do the theoretical playbill because we felt that it would be a little bit harder than the other ones. Because we thought that it had more steps, due to getting the bios of all the characters, in this case we only got a few. We also got a few costumes for the main characters and we had trouble picking out a theater because when we picked out the theater, we had to look for some of the background information for it. We also took the time to look at different playbills (examples) to compare ours to an actual playbill. Something that was really difficult was getting the correct dimensions of the playbill. It was easy to get the size online but it was hard to figure out how to get those dimensions and create it while using Google Docs. While having it on Google Docs was a little bit hard, then I realized that if you took a piece of paper and folded it in half, it will create the perfect size for playbill. So what I did was create tables throughout the whole document then made the color of the table white to make it transparent to the paper. I only left the line down the middle to separate the two sides and show where the paper would fold. As we were doing this project, we kind of went out of order. We did most of it as we planned but we took some days off to do other projects, just to keep everything balanced out. We had so many things going on at once. However the calendar and list we previously made helped a lot with the organizations and keeping the whole project smooth.

The first thing we did was split up as soon as we started (after reading the details of what we need). Amelia worked on getting people’s names for the cast and created questions for their bio. While she did that I create a format for the project and after sending out the email together, then typed up the bios into paragraph form. Amelia drew most of the art work and I got some of the customs online. And we talked at least three times a week about the projects. Mainly about if we got all the pictures, Amelia was able to get everyone’s picture for their bio while I put the pictures in and made a new format. In the end we edited each other work a little bit show show the difference and express our true thoughts.

Working with each other was very easy because of the great communication we had going with one another. We would always remember to work on the document on certain days and would use the time we get in class very wisely. Also, we worked pretty well on time management, as you can tell by the pictures on google hangout and our well organized calendar is. We, as a team, respected each other’s choices and would always find a way to mix our ideas together as one. Amelia thought we did a pretty good job together on dividing the work up, equally. Everything was fair to both of us throughout the entire playbill creation. Overall, we think we made a pretty good team and had fun at the same time. So, we’re glad this project was enjoyable, instead of stressful. We are proud of the outcome!

The Rationale

The process of creating the game board of Macbeth was surprisingly easy, but there were a few challenges we had to overcome. We chose to make a game board because we felt that kids love to play board games, and if they can learn and play games at the same time, they would be enjoying themselves while getting an education. Shakespeare and his plays can be hard to understand at first glance, so why not make on into something simpler, like a game? It also gave us a chance to use our creativity skills, such as the 3D printer, which we used to make the game’s pieces.

For the game board’s creation, we decided to make it look like the original game, Candy Land We made it look like Candy Land because we thought that Candy Land was a great game that people loved to play with their families, so we just figured that if the game looked liked Candy Land, they would want to play for a long time. From then on, we tried to make everything that goes along with Candy Land, like making the game board colorful and making the squares loop, twist, and turn. The game’s objective obviously had to be different than Candy Land, so we settled on was to show how Macbeth started as a soldier who was loyal to his king, the war zone, to an evil mastermind that wants to kill people who get in his way, at Inverness.  Every piece on the board has a their own function, adding a challenge to the game and making getting to Inverness difficult, since Macbeth’s transformation from good to bad was the same exact way.