ASSIGNMENT #2
Post 2: Monologue & Self-Portrait
For this assignment, you must (1) post the monologue you’ve developed in your seminar AND (2) embed a self-portrait, which can be a photograph, an image, a cartoon, a drawing, or some other depiction of how you see yourself.
1) Hurricane Sandy must have impact a lot of people in the east coast of the United States. Living in New York City, this hurricane sure has destroyed homes of many lives and have ruined the M.T.A. transportation system. During that night on October 29, 2012, I am writing this monologue and my English essay when the gusts of wind kept banging on my window. I kept thinking to myself that I’m sure soon enough my electricity was going to die soon. So after every sentence or half a sentence on my English essay and on this monologue, I kept pressing the two most important lifesaving keys, control S, to save my work, constantly. To my surprised, I still had internet connection and electricity throughout the whole night when some of my friends didn’t. I’m so lucky to be living in Flushing, Queens. This area is surely the most unaffected area of the whole entire county of Queens or perhaps in New York City. The moment I step out of my home the next day, everything looks normal as it was the day before the storm. Luckily for the students, including myself, school was closed for the whole week. Hurricane Sandy bought a six day weekend for me to relax and get away from college.
2) http://mrspal.org/files/2012/03/youth-26yzc6p.jpg
I once spoke to an old traveler in Germany who’d been on the road his entire life and he told me about a curse. It’s something those of us on the Road fall victim to like flies dying in the frost. We have the gift of being able to see the world, but we’re still human so we find that we like seeing certain things. As we go on, we keep seeing things that we love and eventually after years out there we find the desire to put down our passports and rejoin the rest of the world. But like any real estate agent will tell you, life is all about location, location, and how close we are to the nearest falafel place. We look for all the things we love, but we don’t ever find any place. So we keep traveling, keep finding new things to love, and continue to fail our search. Over and over we look, love, and leave, and each time we take a little more with us that obscures the real truth of the life. Shangri-La doesn’t exist, the only thing we travelers have is a destination but we continue to ignore the journey. Well screw that, why bother finding a home when I’ve got the Road?
http://s373.beta.photobucket.com/user/W4nts2belink/media/Untitled_zpsc527231e.png.html?sort=3&o=1
People, even my family and friends, may have questions about me. One may be, why I am always reading with my earphones on, or just listening to music. People probably wonder what music can possibly make me so intrigued that I would be listening to it for the majority of the day. I’ll confess…piano instrumental pieces…it’s all I would listen to. But how could I be so prejudice against other music? Okay, so recently I began listening to violin pieces, as well as just a tad few weeks ago, more like two weeks, I began listening to gospel music.
Why am I a quiet and reserved person? It seems as if I keep myself in a bubble, but truth is music keeps me calm and serves as an escape from reality. It’s an escape from the migraines of being exposed to a chaotic environment that I am not used to. How ironic? Yet considering the peaceful neighborhood that I live in, with the rare sounds of honking cars, dogs barking, and people talking over others, I guess this would be considered a norm for me. People have the notion that I don’t like to speak or make initiations in conversations, but why is that? Simply because I haven’t had the time to have all my thoughts collected and completely processed, meaning from beginning to end, and worded to my satisfaction and understanding for me and others. Enough of these misconceptions, I will just let it be and let people discover me for who I truly am.
http://www.spellsaab.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/music-to-listen-to.jpg
Busy, tired, exhausted. Why do I have so many things to do? I always thought that college was quite easy, but it turned out that I was totally wrong. So much readings, so much writings, and so many quizzes and exams. I can complain about the college all day long. I enjoy working hard, but I don’t enjoy working that hard. I usually feel overwhelming and stressful when I see my to-do-list, which contains so many unfinished works. I miss my high school, and I really wish that I could travel back in time. Well, that is a bit too crazy. Let’s face the reality and do work.
http://imgsrc.baidu.com/forum/pic/item/b219ebc4b74543a992db217e1e178a82b80114bb.jpg
Hi, my name is Anna and I am a foodaholic (and a sugar addict). For those of you that don’t know what a foodaholic is, it is “a person having an excessive, often uncontrollable craving for food” according to dictionary.com. Some of you may look at me and not believe me, but if you ask my friends and family members they would be able to tell you that I can eat a lot and at almost anytime.
I am blessed with a fast metabolism but I know that it won’t last forever. In my high school we learned in health class that I would be called a TOFI, which stands for thin on the outside but fat on the inside because I eat a lot of sugar and junk. I love candy, cookies, baked goodies, sweets. I know I have a problem, and that is the first step.
http://www.joywithlove.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/chaos-theory-042.jpg
College is far different from what I expected. I have speeches, papers, and lots of studying. I am most definitely overwhelmed. When most people say college is better than high school, I thought it would be fun. But from my point of view, This is anything but true. I find myself confused. My time management is problematic and I can’t adjust. I have always been in school for eight hours straight. Now, I am doing nothing but wondering. This is most unexpected of me for classes to be all jumbled.
But there is nothing I can do. I do, however, see some light on the end of this trail. I see responsibility and a chance for change. I can change and hope to have better time management. This is how it feels to be a freshman. I know it would only get worse. I hope I will be able to learn from my mistakes. I wish to improve. But I know that I won’t be fully satisfied.
http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/images/MH900089038.jpg
I don’t want to grow up
I don’t want to grow up,
I just want to be a kid again
I don’t want to know about the starving kids
I am not smart enough to understand why
There are starving children when there is enough surplus food to go around
I just want to be a kid again
Where the worst thing is not seeing your mommy for a while
I don’t want to know about the criminals using insanity as a defense
I am not smart enough to understand why
People are not punished for their crimes whether they are insane or not
I just want to be a kid again
Where the worst thing is Tom catching Jerry
I don’t want to know about the secrets behind the politicians
I am not smart enough to understand why
People don’t learn from their mistakes
I just want to be a kid again
Where the worst thing is when your mommy hides the candy
I don’t want to know about the war
I am not smart enough to understand why
Countries fight each other when they can use diplomacy to solve problems
I just want to be a kid again
Where the worst thing is getting a bruise on your arm
I don’t want to know about the high drop out rate
I am not smart enough to understand why
America’s budget is spend on defense not education
I just want to be a kid again
Where the worst thing is when you forget to watch your favorite show
I don’t want to know about the racism
I am not smart enough to understand why
People hate each other when we are all the same inside
I just want to be a kid again
Where the worst thing is choosing between vanilla and chocolate ice-cream
I don’t want to grow up
I am not smart enough to understand politics
And the complex relationship between countries
I just want to be a kid again
Where everything is black and white and has a happy ending
I have no choice but to grow up
Maybe it is my destiny to fix the world
Or maybe it is my destiny to open the eyes of the world
Either way I will still be a kid in my dreams
Where I can be anyone I wish to be
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=dreaming+money+cartoon&hl=en&tbo=d&biw=1440&bih=809&tbm=isch&tbnid=n3PyOqAOQviOvM:&imgrefurl=http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/a/american_dream.asp&docid=KTbqgDPJWw2qcM&imgurl=http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/jsi/lowres/jsin430l.jpg&w=400&h=337&ei=mU26UKi-D82K0QHRioHACg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=713&vpy=123&dur=2225&hovh=206&hovw=245&tx=141&ty=121&sig=103136635720839915159&page=1&tbnh=144&tbnw=171&start=0&ndsp=46&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0,i:98
Eric Schaefer
Ars gratia artis
I will admit that my enrollment into Latin poetry class was met with as much exuberance as one can have towards something they perceive to be old, boring, and irrelevant. The pathological apathy towards the arts that afflicts students across the world had certainly afflicted me and festered within my mind, causing me to percieve excursions into the arts to be frivolous at best. In my opinion, at that time, time learning should be spent learning “useful” areas of study such as mathematics or one of the sciences. However, the Ancient roman poet Catullus would show me that the arts are just as worthy of our time and are just as useful and relevant as any other area of study. Before delving into the works of Catullus we had to learn about certain figures of speech such as anaphora, metonymy, and alliteration – though learning about these figures speech was boring and helped only to reinforce my negative views about the class… their importance would be revealed to me. As we moved on to the work itself I found myself feeling something I had never once felt before – actual enjoyment from poetry. The Right side of my brain, which I had neglected for so long and had assumed only to have decayed and shriveled up was actually coming to life and making itself an apparent force within my mind. As time went on I found layers of enjoyment within each poem: Firstly artistry in the Latin within each poem entranced me. The sound of each word, line, and poem as you spoke it in latin was filled with as much mastery as any great piece of art or any grand equation. My analysis of the sound of the poetry, which in part relied on me seeking the various figures of speech within the poetry helped me understand why I felt that the poems were crafted so beautifully. Secondly, the translations of the texts were so heavily imbued with meaning (even after facing the crude editing of translation) that becoming enamored with the poetry was not choice, but inescapable destiny. When Catullus wrote about the death of his brother not only did I feel the sorrow that he did, but I was also reminded of the sorrow that I felt at the passing of some of my loved ones, when he wrote about the rage and anger he felt towards his critics his words are still so fiery and poignant that they force the reader to feel some of his, and when he wrote about love he felt towards his lover he forces the reader to feel both the love that he felt as well as the pain he felt when she left him. Thirdly and more pedagogically I enjoyed his works because they gave insight into the life of a Roman in the beginning of the last century B.C. My enjoyment in this form of art changed my view of the arts completely. Realizing, I had wasted my time not nurturing the creative part of my mind I sought to unlock hidden creative talents that I never thought I had. In doing this I found that I had knack for improv. and was alright at theater. I realized then that though mathematics and science were important in showing how the universe worked, the arts were just as important in that they are an expression of a conscious mind existing and expressing itself in the universe.
http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&safe=off&sa=N&tbo=d&biw=1150&bih=631&tbm=isch&tbnid=8yCvNAemE4dJNM:&imgrefurl=http://snunes.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html&docid=9OyoEZG0lEBYCM&imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eGn2BZSuSnw/TyBIV6KLsLI/AAAAAAAAEtU/EQ2oOlE7I8k/s1600/jail%25252Bbirds.jpg&w=621&h=441&ei=3Ae9UMyZLIXO0QHLjoHgCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=351&vpy=297&dur=538&hovh=190&hovw=266&tx=200&ty=67&sig=114906158674819965754&page=2&tbnh=142&tbnw=200&start=18&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:20,s:0,i:151
So what do i do now? do i stay loyal to the old or do i try to make a good impression on the new. im so mad that im put in this position again. how could i forget to hand in my schedule again! i dont want to get fired but i cant possibly be at both jobs at the same time! sometimes i wish i didnt have to work everyday so i could just enjoy my summer before college. But no time for wishing, time to make a choice. If i don’t make the decision now, ill make a bad impression anyway by being late. Time to get going
Dahlia Moussa
A few days ago I was waiting for a train and in my exhaustion and boredom, I decided to text my sister a poem I made in my head in hopes that the train gods would hear it and make the train come faster. The poem went something like, “Train, train where are you train, come already now my feet are in pain, and while I wait the sun beams in my eyes, and all I can hear in my head are the cries, saying train train where are you train.” Surprisingly it actually worked and my train came and the train gods must have really liked it because I got a seat too. The reason i was so exhausted was because I worked at Abercrombie for six hours straight, folding clothes and running around to help customers find their desired merchandise in a dim lit store. The only thing that keeps me from quitting, despite the fact that I’m the manager’s slave, my entire body smells like their best-selling cologne “Fierce”, and I’m tortured to hear the same songs play at maximum volume over and over and over again, is that I’m getting paid over minimum wage. Actually now that I think about it I need a raise.
Besides work being an annoyance, college has also changed a lot of aspects in my life. I now have barely any free time, while trying to maintain good grades, get enough sleep so I won’t be cranky, and have somewhat of a social life. Just this semester I’ve discovered what studying is and we now have a love-hate relationship. Love because it seems to be getting me the grades I want and hate because well it’s studying and I would rather go out somewhere than type up and re-read numerous outlines about logic or history. I feel like such a nerd sometimes, and it’s actually kind of funny when I look back to my high school years and see how I was indubiously the least nerdy of my friends. who all thought ARISTA was a good idea and participated in all the extracurricular activities they could. While I liked reading and watching CNN, which in itself is nerdy, it was my approach of walking into a class five minutes late to discover we had a test and giving it the best I had that made my friends think I was lazy. I guess I’ve grown up or become more responsible for myself in college. I definitely feel more grown up because I used to be able to stay up until 3 A.M. and now I barely make it to 11 P.M. without passing out. In a way college has made me, like many others, a juggler, where we have to balance a lot of objects and be prepared of what else life will throw at us.
On a last note, despite my constant complaints about life, I’m actually really enjoying it right now. While there’s a pressure to find out who I am or what I want to do with my life, I like having time and a place to figure it all out.
http://harveymillican.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/puss-in-boots.gif
You just came home from school, what do you see? Perhaps your parents or siblings lounging about complaining about what they don’t have and want/ As you walk up to your room you see your bed nicely tucked in and the computer waiting for your touch. Everything sounds all mint and normal but its not. Just the other night you had a reverie that you were someone else. You did not have your home, your computer, or your parents around. Instead you were a native of Fiji, one of the third world countries and was struggling to survive. Since you were born of the modern era, you had never experienced a day without technology and proceeded ti live your life without and regard ti those in need. However, as you live what felt like days in your dream you learn to appreciate what you truly possess. You couldn’t wake up. As you grow desperate, you attempt to take your own life in order to wake. What can you do? What must be done to end this cycle? As you panic you are greeted by your fellow kinsmen and is directed to village. There you acquired the sensation of absolutely nothing. You questioned yourself why this is happening to you. Before you heard what they said, you wake. Now you are off to search for that answer yourself.
http://www.mypartnerisagamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/panda_gamer_by_prywinko-d5d1e9t.jpg
I don’t know what to do
or how to
I don’t know what to say
or what to listen to
In short I don’t know how to live.
But, I do know I have a plan
and I’m gonna stick with it.
So I know what to do and how to
so I know what to say and listen to
so I know how to live.
Thats my plan.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nomadicsamuel/7053145847/in/photostream/
Everyone is so different
They all have their own life, no one seems to give a shit about anyone else
Everyone has their “matter of consequence”
No one seems to appreciate the simpler things in life anymore
There’s this saying “one sees clearly only with the heart, what is essential is invisible to the eye”
Who the hell got time for that!
All people ever think about is making the most money
You can just tell.
Hell, I’m like that too
I don’t see myself any different from them
Isn’t that how we were raised?
only the people with money will live in prosperity
only they can experience the “American Dream”
So aren’t we all the same
with everyone else on our train ride home.
http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&tbo=d&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1280&bih=652&tbm=isch&tbnid=0bKG4vloV8n48M:&imgrefurl=http://vecto.rs/design/vector-of-a-cartoon-boy-playing-a-video-game-with-a-controller-outlined-coloring-page-drawing-by-ron-leishman-16247&docid=wxDwfyBWrMC–M&imgurl=http://vecto.rs/1024/vector-of-a-cartoon-boy-playing-a-video-game-with-a-controller-outlined-coloring-page-drawing-by-ron-leishman-16247.jpg&w=1024&h=1044&ei=ZprGUOO5MqnO0QHtrIDgBg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=366&vpy=293&dur=267&hovh=227&hovw=222&tx=144&ty=235&sig=109111781673175715379&page=1&tbnh=145&tbnw=142&start=0&ndsp=27&ved=1t:429,r:15,s:0,i:129
I don’t have my monologue anymore but I gave you a printed copy! Here’s a picture of how I see myself:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mea81uFPSm1qahj27o1_500.jpg
I made up my mind already. I’ve lived in New York all my life its all I know. People ask me what’s my ethnicity and I say Dominican Republic and that question is followed by “oh that nice, is it nice this time of year?” I hate answering “um I not sure I think it’s always hot.” I never been to the place where my father was born where my mother spend a good portion of her life where my best friend is currently on vacation. It sucks when you’re like “hey mom and dad can I go to DR this winter break,” and they respond “why would you go there, you have no family there, there is nothing to see there.” But there is SO MUCH to see there’s Punta Cana, Puerto Plata, La Romana. So yes Dominican Republic is up on my list but I have other places I want to travel to when I get more of that green stuff we call money like Australia, London, Paris, Greece, Brazil, Egypt, Grenada, Hawaii, and Costa Rica just to name a few. I’ll get there eventually, hopefully.
http://www.souvenirparis.com/510-1331-large/tweety-bird-eiffel-tower.jpg
It is very cold. Too cold for this time of year. Either this or I can’t adjust to the temperature drops. The cold permeates the walls. My working radiator is forgotten. Wait, the window is open. How stupid of me, to leave it like that the whole night, welcoming winter’s fingertips into my usually cozy sanctuary. Getting up in this is one of morning’s most daunting tasks. I shall change this. Window closed, hot chocolate poured, simmering, I have changed the weather. The atmosphere is complete, warm.
https://picasaweb.google.com/116040961140649041568/AboutMe?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLaQjdXZ2-2kmwE&feat=directlink#5794858568888211666