Film Festival

I attended the Film Festival in the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center. The theme of the event was education, empowerment and experiences of Woman. It explored the gender inequality in a global perspective and I learned how education plays a pivotal role in female empowerment. On April 24, 2012 the film that was shown was “Africa’s Child”. It described the stories of 4 Kenyan women growing up in a time of cultural upheaval.

The environment in which the film was played made the experience unique to me. There were many white people who attended the event and besides myself, there was only one other African American. I tried to think of it as an outing to the movie theatre mainly because you will never find just one race of people in a theatre. I know that I have never been to a movie theatre with all African Americans or all white. I felt awkward sitting in a room with white people and watching a film about struggles of the people who are similar to me. Eventually the vibe changed because the film was a little humorous and everyone else would laugh at some of the same things that I thought were funny.  

Out of the 4 women that the film focuses on, one sat with me and she was Kandice. Kandice’s life was similar to mine, although I would consider it the opposite. She had an opportunity to leave her historically black neighborhood school Boston high to attend a school called Metco which was located in the suburbs. When comparing Kandice’s life to mine, I was not able to attend a school in the suburb; I had to attend my neighborhood high school which consisted of nothing but the African American race. After high school Kandice was accepted into Spelman College which is a historically black college. On the other hand, as you know I was accepted into the predominantly white institution after high school. I found it interesting that her education life was the opposite of mine.

 Kandice stated that “In order to create a new game, you have to learn how to play the game that is already established”. This quote really sat with me because for a while I wanted to go to school that did not only have African Americans. I thought that it would make me a better person if I learned in a classroom with another race. My elementary, middle and high school had no other race except African Americans. So one of the reasons I applied to Penn State was to get that cultural experience.

Kandice was able to handle the culture shock through high school and then be able to work around her kin again. Opposed to that, I loved working with my kin and I find it even more delightful to attend Penn State with others.

Overall I enjoyed the experience; it made me think about my transition from high school to college. 

A Greek Fraternity and their 5th Annual Poetry Slam

The multicultural Greek fraternity “Sigma Lambda Gamma” organized their 5^th annual poetry slam March 14, 2012. This event was held in Heritage Hall in the HUB- Robeson Center. It allowed Penn-State students to come out and show their talent to everyone on campus. I say everyone because the event was free and anyone was welcome.

I’m not a fan of poetry but this event has put a flag on my thoughts about poetry. I think mainly because these poets are of my age range and they recited things that I could relate to. Normally, poetry does not excite me but that time it did. The night was full of snaps and laughter. With the guest poet, Shia from New York, the night was even better.

Shia is a young poet, but he has been living his life, paying his bills, and supporting his family through poetry. I thought that it was interesting that he shared this with us. I cannot believe that there are poets who are financially stable because of their great words that the can put together and recite flawlessly. As the guest poet I knew that his words and the poetry he shared with us had to be marvelous especially if it is what is helping him make it in life.

The Penn State poets were great also. I thought it would be hard for them to get as big of applause when reciting poems right after the experienced poet Shia. I must say though, that each young poet brought their all to the stage. There was poetry about the economy, about relationships, about politics, you name it. It was all different and creative.

I had never been to a poetry slam where there were students my age reciting poetry. They seemed very skillful as can be. The poetry that I usually hear is recited by older people and I think that is why I sometimes found it boring. Well, I now look at poetry in a different light. Young poets rock!

Self-Evaluation

1.  Self- Evaluation

My personal experience in English 15 has been a nice one. The course has made my writing skills grow. I think they have grown tremendously because I do see growth and development with my writing. The different units such as the memoir, visual analysis, and research paper have touched on different aspects of my writing style.

 The memoir has helped me with a creative writing style where as I could talk about what I wanted to talk about and how I wanted to talk about it. I think of the memoir as more of a free style type of writing. Although there were guidelines like statement, dialogue, and analysis I was still able to be creative with what I wrote in my paper.

The visual analysis unit really helped me with identifying the strengths and weaknesses in a piece of work. For example, my paper in particular covered an advertisement for the college of communications about bringing together and reestablishing their community. In my opinion it did not do a great job at serving its purpose. I had to formulate and argument stating what worked well with the ad and of course what did not work well. Personally, it was challenging trying to argue that someone else’s work was bad. Especially when having to keep your audience’s attention and having them agree with you. This paper turned my radar on for organization, creativity and good reasoning, which are all challenging parts of writing.

The research paper was by far the most difficult. One main challenge was arguing for both sides of a particular audience, no matter whether I agreed with what I was arguing or not. My research paper was about Shoes. I argued that Shoes are art, but this paper was about definition therefore I had to argue that shoes are not art as well. I must say that when I don’t believe something I definitely would not usually put my sense into the situation. The research paper challenged me to search for truths in how shoes are not art and the articles that I found played a big role into that. My view and opinion on shoes have changed because of doing the research. I never would have come across some of the articles if it had not been for this unit.

The revision paper was the first paper that I have ever revised so many times. I never thought that revising a paper so much was possible for me to do. I revised my memoir at least 6 times, having to rearrange ideas, omit and add things. Each time I came up with a better idea on how to approach the paper and a new experience that I learned.

I believe that the blog journal and cultural events allowed me to be more active with others. My opinions are not the only one that count when it comes to the arts. So, getting to know what others thought and hearing or reading their experience expanded my knowledge about the arts as a whole.

As far as attendance, I knew that it would never be a problem. I live by the motto “get up, go out, do something and be something”, so being in class was a must for me. If I would have missed class, I would not have obtained most of my new skills. Being present is the way to go and missing out is not a tool to success. I pay for my knowledge and so I am going to get every cents worth. Class participation on the other hand was not as strong as it could have been. I would like to have been more active in class discussions. Shy is what I would characterize myself and I cannot help it but I am sure that it will get better with time.

English 15 with Professor Squillante was awesome!

2. Blog Response Round-Up

Blog 1: Creating Your Blog

The Language I Know

Enter At Your Own Risk

Blog 2: The Palmer Museum

A Very Painful Adventure Into Blogging

Depends On The Wind

Blog 3: What Is Art?

My Opinion About Things

Live Love Laugh

Blog 4: The Podcast Reflection

Identity Through Writing

Keep Your Weight Back

3. SRTE Evaluations

I completed my SRTEs!

"Talk That Talk"

The inimitable artist Rihanna uses creativity as a weapon. She has been the most dependable pop star of the last 5 years. Recently, she became the fastest solo artist in history to have 20 Top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. Rihanna is close to ranking at the top of the charts near The Beatles. Her hit songs are released with no concern to style or mood. So, of course her voice has been extravagant on tracks belonging to different genres of music such as R&B, hip-hop, soul, rock and pop.

For the most part, her voice hasn’t been in one particular place over the past years. “Talk that Talk” her sixth album brings forth a new and altered Rihanna style. Her new album has placed her in the center of the pop genre and it complements her well. Many of the tracks on this album are dance music which is convenient enough because it’s the current and fashionable mode today.

 “Talk that Talk” is her cheery and most joyful album yet.  It says a lot and there are no signs of scarring from the violent relationship with Chris Brown. Track number 1 “You da one” which was the second single has the triumphant sounds of the drums. She sings “You da one that I dream about all day/ you da one that I think about always/ you are the one so I make sure I behave/ my love is your love, you love is my love. Another track “Do ya thang” is even cooler with the catchy drum breaks. It has this teenager-ish vibe and good natured tune. She sings “You know that ima do whatever I’m not goin leave/ this kind of love don’t come easy/ we don’t care what they think/ promise we’ll stay the same/ say that you’ll stay right here for me.

The album seems monstrous and powerful because she is trying to reestablish her position in the music culture. She expels the evil spirits of her demonic relationship with Chris Brown as she sings that she is in love with life. But it all seems to be rushed, I don’t know if everyone is ready for the whole 360 after the abusive relationship. The situation wasn’t shallow but yet Rihanna sings happily and tries to bring us to the party, when in fact some of us may not have recovered from that instance. The album has none of the dark wounded recent subtext of her more recent albums.

Her music is touching and it reveals that we all go through the same things.  On the track “We all want love”  she sings “Everybody want something/ gotta want something/ what are you living for/ we all want the same thing/ we all want love”.  After dark moods we do turn around and put on a smile. Most times after bad relationships we toughen up and are ready to party and find love all over again. Besides, who wants to stay depressed forever?