I never really understood why some people don't care about their birthday, or don't want people to know about their birthday. But I think I kinda get it.  See Tomorrows my birthday, and the closer it gets the less I care about it. Now normally I have a countdown to my birthday and I make sure everyone knows when my birthday is. I constantly tell people about it because I'm so hype for it to be “my day.” Sometimes my birthdays don't always turn out that well but I always look forward to it. This year is different though. Its my 16th and that's supposed to be a big one. I was making it big. A few months ago I started planning a sweet 16 with some of my good friends. I wanted to go all out. But as it go closer, we were rushing everything. We had to do so much last minute. Like the food, decorating, music, lighting, I even invited people late. That wasn't even what was really getting on my nerves. I don't really like people spending money on me and my mom spent a lot. So whenever we would talk about what needed to be done she would get really upset. It was just hard to deal with. One thing that really hit me hard though,  was what she said after I told her I didn't want her boyfriend at my party. She told me she wasn't going to go. If he didn't go she wasn't going to. I was so confused. Because your boyfriend doesn't go you don't want to? But I'm your daughter and if he's there i'm not gonna have the fun i could without him being there. But I knew that if she didn't go I was gonna get hell after. She put alot into it and if she missed the party she would be pissed. I'm not having another sweet 16, it's only the one. It just hurt hearing that she chose someone she hasn't known nearly as long as her own daughter. And that she didn't really care about missing my sweet 16. I knew my decision was hard, but if I wanted everything to be ok I would have to let him come to the party. I cried so much because of what she really said. I was shocked and hurt. The next day was hard I wasn't really looking forward to the party I kind of just wanted it to be over. But surprisingly it was pretty fun I got to dance, take pictures and celebrate my birthday. I didn't get to eat as much food as I would like to but overall everything went good. There wasn't one mistake. But my birthday is still on the way. And i'm not looking forward to it. I don't know why, but I don't really care about it anymore. None of my close friends want to do anything with me on my birthday. My mom hurt me with what she said.

But maybe it can still turn out ok. Maybe everything will play out fine.  My birthday is “My day.” and i shouldn't let anything stop me from enjoying it. My birthday is going to be ok…

If we were born able to stand up, I would have been dancing from birth. It's something about the bass in music that makes me just want to move and the rhythm in songs that make it flow. It's effortless... It just happens. There's also that part of me that believes it's in my blood, having so many family members that dance. My father is strictly Hip-Hop, and my mom moves to whatever gets her up. And great grandfather was  a professional ballet dancer.

I remember the first dance book I signed out of the school library in first grade. It might have been the pink tutus that drew me in or how beautiful the pictures in the book looked. I just knew that I wanted to be a ballerina. When I got home that night with my new book, i told my mom,

“Mommy I think I want to be a ballerina.”

“That's great.” she responded. “Did you know that I took ballet classes when I was younger?”

“Really? You never told me!”

“Yeah, but I don't think that you will like ballet classes Rasa. the teachers are really strict. I hated dance classes.”

Even Though my mom suggested that I shouldn't take ballet classes, It was really her way of saying she wasn't going to let me.

I will always remember the day, I was at my grandmother's and my mom called with “Good News.”

“Hey Rasa do you still want to take dance classes?” she asked

“Of course I do mommy!”

“Ok, it’s a summer camp that goes on throughout the summer and you can start on Monday. The only thing is, they started a week ago.”

I was thrilled to start dance classes, but nervous because I was going to be a week behind the other dancers. The weekend flew by and on sunday my bags were packed to come home.

Monday morning came and I was up extra early eager to get ready and go. I was unsure of what to wear. So I packed some black and nude tights and my black high top converse. After breakfast my mom, dad, and I got in the car to go to the dance “The Pointe Dance Studio.” My heart started pounding as we walked up the stairs to the office. We signed in and were shortly helped. The lady at the desk asked me if I had any dance clothes. I showed her my tights and shoes. She told us we had to buy jazz shoes, ballet shoes, and a black leotard. I had no Idea I would need so much for classes.

My mom bought everything I needed for classes and left. I quickly went to the bathroom and got changed. I felt to naked in my new dance clothes. The lady at the front desk told me to go straight to the back for my first class. My first class was jazz. I thought I was nervous before, but my heart was pounding and I was shaking when I was introduced to the teacher and the class.

Once I was introduced to the teacher, she told the girls to do the dance from the top. The song was a remix of “bust your windows” by Jazmine Sullivan. I couldn't believe that I was about to learn the dance that they did. I was speechless.  There was so much movement and sass, From head rolls and snaps to chassés and jazz runs. I wanted to get right to it. After jazz I had ballet, hip-hop and modern. I knew that this was the missing piece to my puzzle. Dance became my everything.

Right now i've been dancing for almost 4 years and will be interning at a hip-hop dance studio. This is only the start. Dance has become my second nature. From the way i walk to when i'm just talking to someone, I can't stop myself from doing small movements. Dance came in my life and sure isn't leaving anytime soon.

My element is Vanadium. The atomic number for Vanadium is 23. Vanadium is a metal element. It can be used as an additive to steel to prevent it from rusting. When I was doing research I found out that Vanadium was discovered in mexico by Andrés Manuel del Río. the element was named after the Scandinavian goddess of beauty and fertility.

At first I wanted to create a stamp of mexico with a V in the middle, however that seemed kind of basic and boring. I then decided to look up what a fertility goddess looked like. I decided that it was a creative way to show the element Vanadium. I then tried to draw the fertility goddess as a stamp to the best of my ability. It took me a few times to get the stamp that I wanted, but I liked my final sketch.

Now that I had my sketch I had to draw it on transfer paper and flip it so that my stamp won't be backward when I use it as a stamp. I then used a 4x6 card to imprint my flipped sketch on transfer paper to the card. I used a pencil to indent my stamp. The indentation would be the positive space for my stamp. When it came time to stamp, I rolled the blue paint evenly on mt card/ stamp and placed it on a piece of paper. I then pressed on the stamp with a wooden spoon to distribute the paint on the paper. I removed my card/ stamp to reveal my element stamp. If I was to do this stamp again I would make sure that my indentations on the card were deep enough so that all of the parts that should be negative space were negative space and all the places that should be positive were positive.

My favorite part of this project was printing my stamp. It was nice seeing my stamp come alive with color. The positive space really pops and represents Vanadium the way I wanted it to.

In my first blog post, I talked about body image and how It is an issue connected to me, that I wanted to focus on for my project. I did research on body image, how models are portrayed and how that along with social media affects people. In my second blog post I talked about a survey that I created to see how people in the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) community feel about body image. I wrote about the responses I got and explained what they meant.

After doing my survey I wanted to see what organizations were making any effort to change the stereotype of the perfect body image, or how people feel about their body. I found out that dove has a project called the “Dove Self-Esteem Project”. The project is trying to boost girls confidence and raise self esteem. I think that this is a great organization trying to make a change, because they are a very big and well know company that is making awareness. When they have commercials they also mention their project trying to make people aware of the issue.

Now at this point I needed to do my agent of change. My plan for my agent of change was to create a presentation for my advisory that explained my you and the world project overall. I wanted to make people in the SLA community aware of how other people in the community feel about body image. I wanted to overall tell them what I learned from this project. In my presentation I shared how body Image was connected to me, the information I found online from research, and the most important information I received from my survey. During the presentation I began to kind or feel emotional because the issue was personal and I was sharing both my experience and what I learned.

Overall this project taught me a lot, Both about the community and body image. I learned a lot of information about how body image effects people as a whole and the ones we see everyday. This project was easy to complete, due to it being something that I am passionate about. The project was never boring. This project opened up a part of myself that I didn't know about. I didn't know that body image was an issue in our community. But after looking deep into myself I learned that it was something that was affecting me when I was younger and is now affecting people in my community. I feel like this project should be expanded. If i was to continue this I would want the whole school to be aware of the issue and I would want to make a better agent of change that helps people dealing with body image issues. I probably should have stayed on top of my work and always use my time productively. I probably would have got more done. But overall I loved this project and i would do it again whenever. I am so glad that this project was assigned, I would have never learned so much about body image.

After doing research on “Body Image” and how body image effects people. I learned about how having a negative body image can badly impact a person and their self esteem. Some people tend to get this idea of the perfect body image from social media. I also talked about how models body image is portrayed is unrealistic but they are who people strive to be like them.

Since my last blog post, I have created a survey on how people in the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) community actually feel about their body image. Throughout the time that my Survey has been up and people were taking it, I have encountered an incident where body image comes into play. I have just joined the cheerleading team at SLA Beeber, and one of the first things said to me was “Are you ok with losing 5 pounds?” At the time I wasn’t really thinking about it, I was just excited to be on the team. However after going home I realized how my project is so relevant in our community. I know the reason behind them asking me to lose 5 pounds, I need to be lightweight, however incidents like these can really impact a person.

My plan for my original research was to create a survey that would tell me how people in SLA feel about their bodies, if people think models have the perfect body, if they could change any part of their body what would they change and what type of social media user they are. After 2 weeks of people taking my survey I received 55 responses. 34 females took my survey, 20 males and 1 preferred not to say. One of the questions I asked was “On a scale from 1 to 10 how do you feel about your body?” these are the responses I got.

After seeing the data I got from my survey, I was surprised to see how diverse people feel about their bodies. I noticed that none of the 55 people who took my survey rated their body a 10. 17 people said they felt 5 or lower about their body, which means that some people don't really feel that well about their bodies. As I kept looking at my responses I noticed that 20% of the people who took my survey said that they agreed that models have the perfect body image when asked if they agreed or disagreed that models have the perfect body image.

I wanted to see if there was a connection between the people that felt 5 or lower about their bodies and the people who thought that models have the perfect body image. I found out that the majority of the people who felt 5 or less about their bodies agreed that models have the perfect body image. This was shocking for me because I learned how models body image is photoshopped sometimes and are an unrealistic body image goal.

Along with my previous questions I wanted to know what people would change about themselves if they could what they would change. The most common things people wanted to change were their stomach, they wanted to be curvier, and some wanted clear skin. People said they wanted a flatter stomach, bigger butts and clear skin. Overall I was surprised to see the responses I got from my survey. I have learned that models do play a part on the way that people view themselves. And that the people in the SLA community have insecurities about themselves. This is something that can affect so many people. For my agent of change I plan to share this information with my advisory in a presentation. And hopefully this will change their mindsets or make them aware of the issue.

For more information of my research visit my Annotated bibliography.

Rasa Watson

Soy una mestiza chica

Encrucijada

Mi familia es blanco y negro

Y yo soy una mezcla

Cada día veo gente diferente

Huelo incienso

Oigo música en el salón

Saboreo té

Tocó los suelos de mi casa

Bilo con descripciones

Hablo con mi diferencias

Bailo con las dos fronteras

Todo esto me hace a mi

Somos personas irregulares

Somos blanco

Somos negro

Pero yo soy…

Rasa Watson

Growing up I have always been “different”, I was the only mixed girl with locks at a afro centric school. Being the only mixed girl made me feel like I was too light and people always made comments about how I was too white for them. Along with my complexion I had locks, which wasn't quite a common hairstyle to see. People would say it looked like I had a dirty mop on my head or that I looked like Medusa. The comments that people made about my skin and hair me feel bad about myself, which drove me to comb out my locs. This is similar to how body image is affecting people everyday. Body image seems like a common thing because we don't really make it a big deal, however it can play a major role in someone's life, that is the cause of many issues. For my “You and the World” project i'm am going to be focusing on body image and how the media affects girls in high school. For this project I would like to see how body image really effects the girls in my high school, and based off of the information that I receive I hope to spread the reality of how body image is affecting people in my community.

Body image is mentioned often, but I don't think that people really think about what body image really is. The Merriam Webster Dictionary definition of Body image is “a subjective picture of one's own physical appearance established both by self-observation and by noting the reactions of others.” As mentioned in a BBC News article, social media is one of our main ways of communicating, however we don’t always put our true self forward. We tend to use filters or alter our pictures before we let the world see them. We want to be “perfect” so we don’t let people see our flaws.

Did you know that Americans spend altogether about 250 billion hours of watching television? And about 30% of that is comercials? “The Media And Body Image” by Mirror Mirror Eating Disorder says that “ads seldom portray people that look like us.” the average model wears a 2 or a 4 while the average american wears a 12 or 14 (in women's sizes.) so people are striving to look like these models when on top of being way smaller than the average size, the images we see are altered to make the model look even skinner.

Body image is becoming an issue that young girls are dealing with as well. The article “The Issues” by NYC girls project says that “80% of ten year old are afraid of being fat.” As well as “By middle school, 40-70 percent of girls are dissatisfied with two or more parts of their body.” knowing that people may not be the happiest with their bodies why does it matter? Not having the body image that you want can cause low self esteem and decrease your confidence. “The Issues” Article says that body image can cause eating disorders from low self esteem, alcohol abuse, smoking, obesity and bullying. These are some of the consequences that affect the people who suffer from not having the body image they want.

After reading “Male vs. Female Body Image”, I was able to see that men are affected by body image just not as severely as women. However that doesn't mean that it isn't and issue, men tend to be more discreet about it.

Body image is a simple issue that can become a very large issue in someone's life. The images we see on social media make an impact of how we see ourselves. That view of ourselves can cause bigger issues like an eating disorder or low self esteem and a lack of confidence. Taking what I have learned from research, I now want to see how real of an issue body image is in my high school.

If you would like more information on my research, check out my Annotated Bibliography

Printmaking is an art form that transfers images carved out onto a medium of your choice. It originated in china around 105 BC. as printmaking traveled around the world, it became used for different prints and branched off into different versions of printmaking. Printmaking created a way for people to replicate the same image on paper fabric or any medium they pleased. It became a form of art used for printing on fabric, and used as a way to create a way to duplicate a writing like a newspaper. This is an easy form of art that is accessible by many people. That can be simple or extravagant.

I found this piece particularly interesting because of the contrast between positive and negative space. The contrast between the white and black creates helps you establish the texture of the trees. The brightness of the positive space helps to create what looks to be a reflection of the tree. I have noticed that everyone had a different take to print making. I wonder what the world would be like without printmaking, because it is used not only for art but for everyday things like creating a graphic t-shirt. What if people knew more about printmaking? Would it be something that everyone would do?

Reflection

After getting critiques from my peers and Ms.Hall I learned that I needed to have everything on myslide constant and centered. So when I was revising my slide I had to Make sure that everything was even and centered. The pictures that I used in my slide were all different sizes so I lined them up by size, from shortest to tallest. With keeping everything consistent, I had to take my shapes in the corners out and replace then with symmetrical ovals. I also had to change my background to have it a constant color. Research is very important. To know what you are doing it is good to do research

After doing research on the elements of design, I learned that I needed to keep my slide simple but eye catching. From my research I learned that to do that I needed to have few focal points but still have contrast and texture. I started my slide with a background, but I had to make sure that I did not violate any copyright laws. To do that, I went to google and searched blue backgrounds, clicked on images, search tools, then usage rights. After clicking on usage rights I selected labeled for noncommercial reuse, and picked my background with  gradation of different values of blue. Once I had my background I Inserted a variety of pictures connected to my me magazine. When inserting my pictures I wanted to add shape, so I cropped my pictures into ovals. Looking at my slide, it looked plain, so I added text and a title to my slide. I had to make sure the text was short, large and contrasted with my background color. However my slide still had blank spaces. To fill those spaces, I decided to add a few more shapes to my slide.

The final outcome was simple and eye catching just how I wanted it to be. With just a few simple steps you can create a slide that will give the effect you want.

Introduction: In video #1 we are studying for a spelling bee. This is about us learning and spelling the alphabet with different words. This is our way to show we understand and can pronounce the letters. We all pronounce the letters and say the words we are spelling.  Here is the video...

Video#2: In this video Rasa and Siarra are studying in the hallway when Abraham and Donald run into them. there is a short conversation talking about the large amount of projects and tests that are coming up. This was our way of showing that we know how to use numbers in our everyday life.

Video#3: After learning about the season and weather in spanish class we wanted to show what we know. we created a video showing our knowledge on the seasons as well as the weather during that season. Here is our way of showing that…

Video#4: In this video, Donald, Abraham, Rasa, and Siarra are studying for a test but forgot what day it was. we say what days we think it was. Then soon figured out what day it was.