For our New York Times project, we chose to focus on various types of cultures. Everyone in our group is from a different cultural background, so choosing who wrote about what culture was very easy to do. I’ve noticed since coming to the city that Italian culture is extremely common everywhere you go. Being half Italian and half Irish, I thought speaking about Irish culture would be more interesting for everyone else and for myself because it isn’t commonly spoken about. I found an article speaking about an Irish culture museum, so I thought that would be perfect for this topic. The purpose of the museum opening was to bring light to Irish culture which sometimes seems to be forgotten, which is exactly what my goal was in discussing Irish culture.

I don’t really think it’s possible to explain who you are through a few slides, or a list of songs, or a a video. Learning who someone is takes time and effort. But I guess I’ll give the playlist a shot.

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For a very long time I battled with depression and anxiety, Although I still do, I’ve learned better coping skills and now its manageable. “You’re Not Alone” was a song that helped me get through this really dark stage in my life. The reason why is pretty self explanatory. It made me realize that I wasn’t alone, and ending a story before it was finished was not something I truly wanted to do. The songs “Living In The Moment”, “Waiting For The End”  and “Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been” are all songs that help me when I think of turning down that dark road that I fought years to get out of. They remind to me to always stay positive, not let things get to me, take everything day by day. I can’t let my past eat me alive, and I can’t let it dictate my future.

The song “Who You Are” helped me through self worth issues I’ve had for as long as I can remember. I don’t remember a point in my life where I wasn’t self concious and hated who I was and how i looked. Once i got to high school and got involved with dating, it got even worse. I let guys alter my way of thinking of myself worse than it already was, and tried changing myself to be what THEY wanted. But this song taught me that it’s okay to be who I am, and it’s okay not to be okay sometimes. It’s hard, but everyone goes through it.

The songs “Maps” and “Flashlight” represent moving onto a new stage in my life. Maps is about moving onto bigger and better things, and going to new places. Flashlight is a song about growing up, and about how people change. That’s a large lesson you learn in high school; that people change. And you continue learning it throughout your whole life.

The song “The Chain” stands for my love of dance. The last dance I ever competed on stage (and won 1st place out of the entire competition for) was my solo to this song. This piece was so meaningful to me; it really was much more than just a dance. My senior year of high school was terrible, and this piece explained it perfectly. I’ve never connected to a dance so much.

The song “Swing, Swing” represents my relationship with my brother. The song itself, its lyrics and what its about, has no significant meaning for us. This was the first song my brother learned on guitar, and we used to perform this song for our family. We even recorded a “demo” of only this song. It’s one of my fondest childhood memories and will always remindme of him.