For my capstone project, I decided to create individual makeup styles/looks that were inspired by different things in the everyday world that stood out to me. These inspirations range from the beautiful colors in the skyline, different types of fashion trends and stereotypes, movies and even just things that happened to catch my eye as i walked down the street. As an aspiring makeup artist, I love mixing it up and creating new funky looks, why not use the array of things we see around us everyday for that inspiration? 

In the first article "theres still a need, Mr Posner writes that certain aspects of the patriot act are long over due however,  I felt as though his paper wasn't that opinionated because although he talked about how the act was making up for lost time and certain aspects of it were needed to increase national security and how the decisions made about the act were justified, he barely goes into detail about the act. To a reader who didn't know what the act was, his article would be a dull, under opinionated read. In my opinion he should've went into more detail about the new measures of security that the act entailed and about the difference between the government seeping too far into peoples personal rights and being justified enough by the strengthening need for more intense national security. In my opinion, i think that we do need the patriot act but not to the extent that they show in the movie enemy of state. I think that if people are under suspicion and the government has reasonable belief to think they are  a threat to national security, they should be put under some surveillance but at the same time, i wouldn't want the government taping into my phone conversations if they misinterpreted something that i said or did. 

In the beginning of our project, we originally planned on doing a website. We made a weebly but something happened and they wanted us to pay; there were just some complications. In the end we decided to make a video and publish that and hand out brochures and post flyers in different places that had little strips that people could tear off with the link to the video. On the site that the video is on, we can see how many people have viewed our video which can we can use to track our success.

We originally planned on going out and taking pictures on our own but we ran into some moral issues with that so we managed to get a few of our own pictures but then found some of the other ones on the internet. This didn’t really serve as a problem; it just sort of set us back at first because we couldn’t think of a way to get the pictures without taking them. Then it came to us; Google! One issue that we did run into in the end was our brochures and flyers, they were nice and everything but they didn’t really portray our project the way we had planned them to, so I had to stay up and fix those and print them out. We originally planned on doing a simple flyer with a quote then a link to our video. The flyers that Loren made though had a lot of words and pictures and just didn’t really catch people’s attention in a quick way, which is what we were aiming for.

In the end however, we pulled it all together and managed to get everything done and the way that we had envisioned it. Siani researched all the information we asked her to find, Loren made the original flyers and brochures, Isabella made the video and I made the keynote presentation and worked with Isabella to fix the flyers and brochures. I really like how our project turned out and I think it’s a good result of our hard work.

Education is a funny thing; everyone interprets things differently, so no one set of guidelines can guarantee a class room of students the same values that they may or may not take from that class nor can it ensure that their I.Q levels will all be the same. What it can do though, is provide an opportunity for each individual to take that lesson and learn at least something from it when they step out the door of the classroom.

This year, I learned a lot of new things, not only about religion or monologues or descriptive writing skills, but I learned a lot about myself and the people around me. From the moment I stepped in the doors of SLA freshman year, I had a “leave me alone unless you’re like me” kind of personality going. Granted, I’d be nice to everyone, but I generally only stuck to the people who I could relate to, mostly by music. I always tried to be open-minded but at the same time, I always kept my distance. This year, I had a really diverse stream, which allowed me to be immersed in a lot of different kinds of people.

 At first it was a little scary and disappointing, because I could no longer cling to the familiarity of my freshman year crew. But I got something so much better, something so much more from it. I learned to appreciate people, more so than I ever had. I learned to appreciate them for how we could humanly relate, having the same problems or the same sense of humor or the love for making others smile. I became really good friends with a girl that I probably would’ve stared down last year. And I accepted her, and I love her, and I appreciate her, for everything that she is, does and learns.

With the lesson of diversity strong in mind this year, I think that the most powerful project we did was the one on religion. I liked being able to compare religions and learn about the different beliefs of each one. I started the unit really ignorant to the different kinds of worship and faith that went into every religion, but when the project was over, I had a new sense of appreciation for each one.  When we started the unit I had originally thought of religion in a one tone way. “Religion. There are many different meanings of the word, many different origins and beliefs that go into it. But when stripped down to it’s bare meaning, religion is more like a preference to guide lines of redemptions. But after looking and studying each one, I learned that there’s a lot more that goes into each belief than just some crap that they read from a book.

Another thing that was really interesting, diverse and educational were the trials. I liked how everyone really got into their roles to defend their group even if they didn’t believe they were guilty in the end. I think that the trials were one of the most important projects as well because they teach you lot of different things. For example, you learn a lot of researching techniques, social lessons and historical facts as well. I think in the end you also learned how people’s opinions have changed over time and how we can ponder and reflect and learn from previous mistakes made in the past so we can learn to avoid them in the future, and that’s what history does, it teaches you, not only about the past, but how you can learn to better your future.

Past work over the year

Religion wiki site

The collaborative Google doc used in the sweatshop trials

Monologues Doc

- this project made me kind of closer observe my daily routine and made me realize how people in different countries and of different languages would say it

2.) How do you feel about your final product?

- i like my final product, i think it went well, took a hill but overall i think it came together well 

3.) If you could do your project all over again, what would you do differently/the same?

- if i did this project again i think that i would give more time and do my weekend schedule, because i think that it would be more entertaining and fun to watch and to see everyone elses!

4.) Did you enjoy this project? Why or why not?

- i think that the project was okay 

Sammy. Zeisloft

12. 13. 10

Iron stream

            Everyone has a different way of speaking. Whether it’s the way that they pronounce words, a certain rhythm in which they speak, or the amount of slang terms they put into one sentence. Each person creates in their mind their own individual sort of linguistics; and from one persons mind, to the ears of another, through a call to your friend, or an email to a pen pal across the world; language spreads like wild fire from one friend to another or from one man, unto an entire nation. Although it goes without saying that even in a world of such high population and different ethnic groups, language is probably the most diverse thing that can both define a person and set them apart from a group of people. Language can also bring people together…or people can come together and create their own language.

            My friends and I have developed our own language over the years, a code per say, which any outsider attempting to listen into our conversation would be baffled by. We speak in foreign tongues I suppose but nothing like a dialect you would learn about in an English class or read about in a textbook. We speak in codes of serious tones, which throw off the passer bys as our lungs boil up with a comical explosion, which soon erupts through our lips as outbursts of laughter. We speak of funny or outrageous things in more quiet, serious, monotone voices, which then spark the reaction of laughter to those around us. I guess you could say that by our lack of expression or any obvious intentions to appear as comical stand bys, we’ve already planned out the reaction of our crowd, the ones that stand around us. It may seem like we aren’t trying to be funny, but we know that we can count on your laughter as the fuel for our next sentence that we spit from top of our minds, off the top of our heads.

            Amanda sat slouching in an upward position against the table in the café. She had an expression on her face that screamed more negative drama. I quickly signed in with my school I.D and went to see what was wrong. She saw me approaching and got a slight shift in her facial expression, but she was a terrible actress, because I saw right through her sad attempt to paste a smile on top of her tear stained face. I put my schoolbag down on the floor and immediately gave her a hug. “What’s wrong baybay?” I asked in a light tone. “Nothing” she said in a groan. She pulled away from the hug, I cupped her face in my hands “You a terrible liar dumby, I’ll ask again, what’s wrong?” Dumby was a name we would call each other, which later defined itself as a term of friendship or endearment. “Nothing stupid, you so dumb I was only lookin sad to get a hug from your pretty face”. I stared at her for a minute, and she stared right back with those big brown puppy dog eyes. She was beginning to lighten up and then we both burst into laughter.

There was something about our secret little language that always made one another feel better some how, like we felt understood or maybe it was just the fact that we had each other to laugh with when times like these got us down, but either way, our little system we had, was fail proof. “ I love you dumb dumb” I said to her and I wrapped my arms around her like a blanket of comfort, because although I had gotten a smile from her, I knew her problems weren’t solved. “ I love you too baby” she said in her normal calm tone. We sat there in our warm embrace as she told me of the things she was going though, like stupid arguments with her boyfriend and other teen queen dramatics that everyone had gone through, was going through or would eventually have to face in the mere future. When the bell finally rang and the school officer yelled that it was time for first period, we picked up our bags and went to our first classes. Our conversation hadn't been over yet but I guess you could say that we momentarily paused it due to the inconvenience of our separate classes. We went our different ways but our special little language seemed to keep us close no matter the distance.

People everyday stray from what we may call “proper English” whether they mean to or not. For some reason we feel that saying things in our own individual tongues will make our voices more different or heard; and it does, to certain people on the outside looking in. But to those who speak your tongues, it seems like nothing out of the ordinary, or possibly, it makes you feel all the more extraordinary knowing that you and a group of people share something that others may not know or understand. Language is not defined by the accent you have or the way you roll your tongue on certain letters, its something deeper and more complex, its about being able to speak differently to the people around you, and have them completely understand what you mean. 

Title: Basic Knowledge of the Spanish Language

The purpose of this project is to teach those who are new to Spanish, some basic questions and how to conjugate verbs. To properly complete the original goals of our project, we first created our script to get an idea of the exact things that we were going to say. Then we revised and corrected all of our grammatical errors and perfect the script. From there we rehearsed and preformed the lines from our script. In our final product, we realized that we were most proud of our dedication and good use of class time, also the way that we stayed on task and completed all of our goals that we had set for ourselves. 

Questions for Noah: 

How has your Spanish progressed since you moved there?

Were our videos of any help to you? 

What do you most understand or what was the easiest thing you have learned thus far?