As mentioned several times in this blog, English 110 has helped me grow as an individual in society, and while I am confident in my abilities not just as a writer, I did struggle. Nothing that you enjoy should come naturally; working is part of progress and progress is growing and striving for perfection.

In our first assignment, Critical Analysis, my first draft is drastically different than my final copy. The problem with my first draft was that I had way too many ideas that I wanted to use but did not formulate them cohesively. My thoughts were too jumbled to write a proper essay. When Professor Sidibe gave us the structure of we should format and write our essays, everything came naturally. By using the outline, I was able to get an A- on my first college essay, which I felt proud of myself for. I was proud of myself because I used a little bit of guidance and was able to fully immerse myself in an assignment and be graded in the same passion I had with writing it.

The essay itself was interesting to write because of the works that we had to use. We read Gloria Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” and Bharati Mukherjee’s “Two Ways to Belong to America”. These two works definitely opened me up to the way of thinking that Professor Sidibe wanted us to use. Both of the works were significant in the fact that the writers both used an intense process of critical thinking in their analyzations of the topics at hand. For Anzaldúa it was how minority groups, such as latina women, often turn against each other and try to out-do one another in either being more american than each other or being more hispanic than each other. For Mukherjee, she analyzed how her and sister differed in their opinions in their experiences as immigrants in america. Overall this was one of the most mind-opening assignments I have ever had to do and I loved it.

The second assignment we had to do was our critical lens analysis of “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie using the lens of Custer Died For Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr. These two works gave me great insight to how the Native American culture actually exists in America and how easily it is to be persuaded and misinterpreted by the history of their population in America. It is truly the fault of our ancestors for the way that Native Americans are portrayed by textbooks, movies and media. The biggest thing that I learned from it was that their definition of wealth does not mean material, unlike the majority of the American population that it is so blinded by consumer capitalism.

The assignment itself was pretty hard at first. It took me a long time to fully figure out the correct perspective in which to write on. Once I got the trick of doing Lens work I was fully able to dive into the world of Alexie by using Deloria. It sounded confusing still as I write this still. This assignment wasn’t my favorite because I didn’t like that I was limited to a certain way of thinking. I had my own thoughts about how I saw Alexie’s piece but I didn’t think that Deloria’s thought process used sarcasm so much that it sounded like it wasn’t sarcastic. I tend to appreciate more metaphorical pieces of writing so it made it more of a challenge for me. I was glad that I got the opportunity to practice it though because it reminds you that thought processes in humans are all so uniquely different, so it is good to open your eyes to a new way of thinking that you aren’t used to.

I have never felt more passionate about any assignment in my entire life until I had begun my research paper. I was excited that I could write a research paper on pop culture because usually I thought it had to be scientific with scientific research and data to back up what you are saying. I saw Beyonce’s Lemonade and immediately knew that that was what I wanted to do my paper on. It wasn’t until I was editing my final copy that I realized how passionate I was on my topic. I noticed that my tone had almost sounded angry, even though I wasn’t. It wasn’t concerning to me at all, however. I had liked that I had found passion and felt that my assignment had purpose for being written and thought about so thoroughly.

Writing it wasn’t the hard part; researching was. I found so much about the topic I chose and so much on the topics I didn’t choose that I became so overwhelmed with where I could go and what I could do with it. Lemonade has so much substance to pull from and use that it is often overwhelming to think about. Not only was it socioeconomically challenging, there was also feminist challenges, such as bell hooks who thinks that Beyonce’s fight for feminism is too sexual to get what the feminists want. It was topics like these that made me think, probably too much, about the media as a whole. This project proved to me that I could be an english major if I wanted to, which I do want to.

My in-class presentation was highly nerve racking. I was the first person to go and wasn’t too familiar with Professor Sidibe, so I was very anxious the whole time. I enjoyed doing that research as well and finally learned something that meant a lot to me and something that was of value to my life. Musical Theatre was something that has gotten me through the toughest times in my life. So when I learn more and more about it I love it more and more. I was happy that this topic was approved and I am happy that I had the freedom to do this topic.

In researching the presentation, I found it liberating that I had such freedom in where I could take the project. There was so much I could do and I appreciated it greatly. I got to show a clip in class of a Tony Awards performance and I was so happy that the class atmosphere was made so welcoming and positive for me to not be too scared to show everyone my life.

Being able to do a vlog was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. I have loved watching youtubers and their vlogs for as long as I was into youtube as a media platform and not an entertainment platform. It was really fun to film in certain ways with certain visual aspects, such as the time lapse. It was fun to have a live reaction but the editing process was super tedious and I needed a lot of help on it. It took quite some time however I did enjoy it.

I had never been to Martha’s Bakery so I was very excited to go. My roommate was nice enough to take me and help me with it. He taught me how to use my phone for the camera qualities it actually had that I had never known. Perhaps it would’ve come out better had I had a real camera to use but overall I’m proud of it for my first video assignment.

The QC Fall Faculty Dance Concert was such an amazing performance to watch. As a dancer of 12 years before moving to Queens for school, I enjoyed it so greatly, especially it’s cultural relevance. It was entitled Dimensions in which all of the pieces showed the battle of struggling between a material world and reality. I would deeply explain this however I go into it all in my essay on it.

I loved it especially because my friends Molly and Ariel, who were in this class, were in it. The three of us first bonded over dancing for so long and sometimes in competitions against each other! It was so good to see my friends doing such great things and having such a good time in their first semester of college which proved to be some of the best and most stressful months of our lives.