Diamond Wallace

English 2

Pahomov

April 6, 2018

The Innocence of maturity

Although most people would like to avoid having consequences for their actions, the presence of those consequences brings structure to people’s lives. Society thrives because of the idea that it is unacceptable to demonstrate atrocious and uncontrollable behavior. Most of the time, when there is a lack of structure in someone's life, they tend to mature faster than expected.   In the novel, The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, the boys did not have a sense of structure. Their innocence was stripped away from them when they realized they had to survive on their own.

With all structure comes authority. People with authority usually have the power to shape and create respectful, and obedient people. But what happens when there is no authority?  According to an Article by Andrew Rondell, ¨Those who grow up without authority tend to act out of character or mature faster than what they should.¨ Sometimes the rapid growth of these adolescents makes their mindset very problematic. The themes of authority, innocence and consequences connects with the world we live in now.

One of my real world connections is Miley Cyrus growing from Hannah Montana. When first starting her career at Disney, Miley seemed as if she had been molded to fit with her standard. Just as many people do, she grew up and realized that Disney controlled her. So, as most Disney Stars do, she left and lost a sense of authority in her life. Miley began to reinvent herself, entering the “Can’t Be Tamed” era just after the series finale of “Hannah Montana” happened. Afterward came the “Wrecking Ball” era and “Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz” eras, which Miley has most been scrutinized for.

In The Lord of The Flies, the three older boys; Piggy, Jack, and Ralph, wanted to be incharge, or be the leader. They were molded into thinking that there always had to be a sense of jurisdiction, because society shapes us into following the laws and government.  Once the boys accepted the fact that they were stranded, they knew they had to enhance their maturity. They had to play the role of an adult, but many of the other boys did not take them seriously considering the minimum age gap. “This is an island. At least I think it’s an island. That’s a reef out in the sea. Perhaps there aren’t any grownups anywhere.” (1.9-11). The boys understand that the ruling order of society that they are used to has disappeared. Children are use to obeying adults, not children who are practically their age. That is why there was little control over the boys on the island.

When children realize they can get away with little things because there is no dominant leader penalizing you for your wrong, they think they can get away with murder. They do not fear acting out of the ordinary because they do not have any repercussions behind their actions. In the novel, the boys acted out of fear numerous times, two in which resulted in murder. ¨The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went […]. Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy’s arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig’s after it has been killed. (11.209) The conch explodes, marking the end of law and order on the island. As the law ceases to exist, so does Piggy.  Piggy was not the first boy to be killed on the island. After the incident that occured with Simon, the boys understood that there would be no punishment after it. This time when they killed a boy, they had no remorse for their actions.

During an interview with Miley Cyrus, the interviewer said, ¨Your art makes people uncomfortable sometimes!¨ In response to this comment, Miley took matters into her own hands explaining her actions. ¨That's what punk is all about. If you don't piss somebody off, then that's not punk rock, I guess. But I wish people wouldn't be pissed off. There are so many real, true, problems in the world. If people would take their angst and their opinions and actually do something besides worry about what I'm doing.¨

In recent months, Miley has reflected and taken ownership over many of her actions. One of the most important decisions she has made is taking ownership of her past issues with drugs and alcohol. She shared her journey to sobriety with the rest of the country. In an interview with Billboard Magazine in May, she opened up about why she decided to get sober. She explained that it is important it is important for her to hang out with people who she could trust, and correct her when she was wrong. She wanted to surround herself with positive people that only wanted to see her survive and excel. When she was an addict, the people who she was surrounded with had no intentions on growing mentally, they were stuck in a state of comfort.

The ownership of actions between the boys in the Lord of the Flies, and Miley Cyrus is very different. Miley Cyrus reflected on her wrongs and did everything she could to correct them. Although you cannot correct murder, the boys did not take ownership of their actions, nor did they show repentance. Miley Cyrus began changing her image once she broke away from the control of Disney. She began to understand why discipline, and structure was important, and that is why she shifted her attitude. The boys in the Lord of the Flies realized there were no dominate figures who had the power to punish, so they never learned from their actions, only repeating the same mistake again.

The rapid maturity of the youth sometimes depends on the exposure that children experience alone while growing. The lack of self control can also come from the lack of authority in their lives. It is very important to understand how humans act based on the possible idea of retribution when there is, or is not rule and order.

1. “The Evolution of Miley Cyrus and Why It Matters.” Study Breaks, 13 Nov. 2017, studybreaks.com/culture/miley-cyrus-evolution-matters/.

*scene opens up with wind blowing*

E-excuse me sir, do you have any e-extra change on you that you don’t need? *Gasp* I'm not going to use the money you give me for drugs, I’m not a crackhead! Sir, sir, listen, I am so sorry for screaming at you, I-I-It's just that I-Am hungry a-and Im cold, I just really need some money……………………….Well fuck off then don't walk in this direction ever again!

*Another person walks past*

Hi, do you have any money for me, I’ll give you something in return. *Flirtatious*

*Gasp* *sadly looks down at the two pennies she have in her hand*

Why do-do p-people keep calling me a crackhead? I’m just a homeless woman...who lost everything she had because her house got taken away for drugs. Bbbut that doesn't mean that doesn't mean that i'm a crack head, it just means I was around it a lot

*pauses*

Oh who am I kidding? Why am I lying to mys *Pauses due to interruption* mind your damn business, I can talk to myself If I want to!

Ignorant ass people, now, where was I? What happened to me? I’m worse than what I was in high school! A very depressed kid who couldn’t find who she was because she’d always listen to the negativity others would bring to her. Me, I was the person who was bullied from third grade because *pauses* *sniffle* B-because I use to come to school with bruises on my body, all the way through high school, because I was the quiet girl with a drunken father who always came to the school to argue with the teachers about notes being sent home regarding bruises on my body.

After my first time smoking weed, I relied on it as a fake coping mechanism. I knew I could deal with my father beating me senseless every night, but, I chose not to. I chose to escape from reality. Soon, it became an addiction, and a gateway to cocaine.

I got so addicted, I just couldn't be me without it.

I numb the pain with the drugs because I lost touch of the Lord, I lost touch of myself because I'm living in a world so fake, I lost touch of the real me.

I c, I can’t take it nomore, everytime I try to change, I go back to the same things! This is karma, It's coming all at once because I was so stupid in high school. *gets mad* I was stupid for following the crowd. Getting drunk and smoking weed at a tenth grade party. I thought it was so innocent at first, like “this cant harm you, this won't harm you, you're just having fun Mariana. You know when to stop you know better, Mariana.”

Of course I didn’t reach for help when I knew it became a problem. I didn't have anyone to turn to, because every time I would try to talk about my situation, my p-p-pops would just s-slap me senseless and tell me to shut the fuck up and handle it myself. To stop bitchin about any and every thing. *wipes tear* He’s been an alcoholic abuser since my mom left him, since she left us.

How could she, how could she leave me with him knowing how he was. I couldn't stay with him so I packed my bags and left when I was 17 to live with my friend. And things didn't go so well because he was arrested soon, his house was taken away for drugs.

Now what? Im 21 years old living on the street with no job or thought of the future. I am a disgrace to mankind, it's time for me to make a change. It's time for me to go to rehab and get my life together because I don't give a fuck if I go to jail, I much rather be clean in jail or rehab, than stay out here in the cold dangerous world. I can’t believe, I can’t believe I ran away from the one person I loved, the one person that always had my back, the one person I trusted, and the one person and that one person was me. Now its time for me to find myself and discover my true identity.

It was August 25, 2015. A memory that will live in my mind forever. I woke up that morning from a deep sweat, because I was drowning in my dream. As I sat on the side of my bed to recollect, my father called me down stairs. I stepped down from my bed slowly because I was weary, and I started to walk down the stairs.

¨Just get washed and dressed, we have to go file some papers,” My dad said as I nodded my head. I went upstairs to pick out some clothes. I threw on some sweatpants and a hoodie because I wanted to dress comfortably for the muggy weather. As I was walking down the steps, I caught a glance of myself in the bathroom mirror. I stopped, stared in the mirror and said,

¨You are going to have a wonderful day,” I had to remind myself to have a positive mindset every day because I was being stalked and harassed by people who lived around me. My father and I got into our big, old, sturdy jeep and drove downtown to file some papers. We made a criminal complaint against the family around the corner which only resulted in us going to court a few times without the problem going away. Since court didn’t work, our last step was trying to get a restraining order. Unfortunately, we were having troubles filing the restraining order, so we just let God take manners into his own hands.

We left downtown and we went home only to find out that our cousins were staying over for a while. My cousins were hungry so they told me to run to the store for them to get them something to eat.

When I was walking past the park to go to the store, I saw the family who was stalking me. All three of the sisters followed me until I arrived at the store. When I purchased my cousins food, I walked back home, but this time, cautiously just incase the three sisters appeared again and wanted some trouble. I walked past the park, and the three sisters were standing at the gate, staring in my face taunting me. Evidently, the three sisters had a problem with me not caring and went back home to tell their family. An hour or so had passed and my family and I were sitting on the steps. We saw my aunt go around the corner a few times and the three sisters plus the oldest sister came around just moments after my aunt returned.

We were all dumbfounded because we wanted to know why our family was communicating with people who didn’t like us. Before I knew it, 15 people came around one corner of my block, and 16 came from the other. They approached me and asked if I had a problem with their ¨Family¨. I said no and then some girl hit me with a cheapshot from behind. In less than 5 seconds, I blacked out and started banging that girl head into something hard while I was getting hit by 5 other females. I got away from those girls and I saw my brother, who was in the Police Academy at the time, getting jumped by 6 men. I wasn’t going to let my brother get jumped, so I jumped in there with them. Somehow, I pulled off one of the men and held him against the wall. I had recognized him.

¨You don’t have to do this.¨ I said to him.

¨Fuck you lil’ girl,¨ He replied as he threw me into the street. I fell on my head and looked around because I felt like my world was falling apart. I saw my brother getting jumped, my mom trying to help my brother, my dad and uncle hitting people with chairs, my other brother fighting off people with sticks, and a very sketchy face with whom I identified as my aunt, just standing there not helping us at all. No loyalty. I felt like I was drowning, only this time, I wasn’t in water. Eventually, I snapped back into reality and started fighting anyone and everyone. I ran in the house to get a knife and when I came back, everything was frozen, still, and silent. The fight was over and nothing could be heard except for the sound of police sirens coming our way. Could this be police coming to help us? No! Apparently, the family who jumped us called the police and said that we harassed them. The police believed them which does not make sense because they were on our property!

Charges were pressed and since then, I have been in a deep depression. I learned that you cannot trust people, not even your own family because at one point, we were all close. That situation affected how I love and how I trust, and it shaped me into the person I am today.

Picture of me holding a basketball waiting for my WNBA career.

Hello readers! This is Diamond Wallace and I am back with another blog post! In my first blog post, The Forgetfullness of the WNBA, I talk about the under recognition that the WNBA recieves. Women in the WNBA work really hard and they do not get equal payment. The $25 million that the WNBA is getting from ESPN is a small fraction of the N.B.A.’s average $930 million payment from ESPN and TNT. There is an issue with equal payment in the NBA and the WNBA.

In my second blog post, Responses and Feelings of Basketball Fans, I interviewed two men who love basketball. One of the men were Maleek Griffen, a basketball youth coach, who told me that he loved the WNBA because they follow fundamentals. Douglas Wallace, a former basketball player, had a different opinion towards the WNBA. He explained how the WNBA is not interesting or fun to watch. Even though they both disagreed, they said something very similar. “This world is sexist!” Both men explained how men think females can’t do anything as well as men. Women are expected to be nurses or teachers. When men hear things such as women's basketball, they automatically assume that the game is going to be less aggressive and interesting than an NBA game. That is what I want to stop!

I raised awareness by making an instagram hashtag. With that instagram hashtag, I sent it to all my friends and told them to post and share the hashtag, So far, a guy named Charles Ethan has 40 likes on my WNBA post. If he keeps the most likes, he will win $20 from the WNBASuppotIt page which is ran by me. I decided to make an instagram page and hashtag because words can be spread around quicker.I believe raising awareness on social media is the best way for people to know whats going on. Most teenagers don’t watch the news or read newspapers. They gather information through apps like instagram and snap chat.

Many people are reposting the WNBASupportIt page and I gain followers every day. There are also a few hashtag reposts. My experience was pretty challenging. At first I was skeptical about the instagram because I didn think it would get around. If I would have started earlier, I would have had more followers and hashtag reposts.

This project was very eye opening for me. It helped me see different perspectives on womens basketball from other people. I really hope that people start to follow the WNBA and  i hope that they recieve the equal payment that they deserve. I learned that some people watch basketball for fundamentals because they have a love for the game while other people watch it for amusement. For my annotated bibliography, click here.

This is a screenshot of my instagram page.

The stamp above symbolizes me in many ways. The flower above is an orange blossom. An orange blossom has a meaning that many people don’t know about. The meaning is chastity, purity and loveliness. It’s a symbol of me because my heart is big enough for love and forgiveness and my purity is where God wants it to be. In my brainstorm, i used words such as loving, forgiving, funny, outgoing, outspoken, and creative. The orange blossom is my favorite flower.

When I brainstormed my words, I looked for words that had common meanings. At first, I was going to draw a diamond but I thought that's a diamond would be basic. So instead, I looked deeper and found characteristic traits that I never knew about myself. I realized that all flowers had meanings, so I researched my favorite flower and found out its meaning and how it connected with me.

Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. The technique of duplicating images goes back several thousand years to the Sumerians who engraved designs and cuneiform inscriptions on cylinder seals. Printmaking originated in China after paper was invented around AD 105. Relief printing appeared in Europe in the 15th Century, when the process of papermaking was imported from the East. Daniel Hopfer decorated armor in this way, and applied the method to printmaking. Etching soon came to challenge engraving as the most popular printmaking medium.

The Forgetfulness of the WNBA

This image is showing how many people attended a WNBA game. The estimated amount was 2,326 people.

Have you ever wondered why the WNBA doesn't get as much recognition as the NBA? Have you ever wondered why the WNBA does not have their own video games, famous sneaker lines, or social media attention? Well, according to an article by a Sports Illustrated writer, Jeff Pearlman, The WNBA isn't and will never be a popular league. Well, why is that? For the past 14 years, league employees have been trying to figure out why. Surveys have been conducted, marketing experts have tossed out every possible slogan. Simply, the majority of sports fans simply don't crave women's professional basketball. Jeff Pearlman explained how the WNBA isn't appealing or interesting to watch. Men aren't really interested in watching women play basketball because when men watch basketball, they look for aggressiveness and competition, which the WNBA doesn't have. As blessed as women like Parker and Lauren Jackson and Diana Taurasi are at basketball, their skills are not as appealing as Lebron James and Michael Jordan. Basketball fans want to see LeBron James dunk and Ron Artest lock down an opposing scorer. They want to see players such as Stephen Curry shooting threes and Kyrie Irving breaking people ankles.

Women in the WNBA don’t dunk like men do in the NBA. That is why men say the WNBA isn’t aggressive enough.

In 2009, the championship series between Phoenix and Indiana averaged a .4 rating on ESPN2. That Is about 548,000 viewers. The NBA Finals drew 18.2 million viewers. This is a huge gap. The WNBA didn't even reach 1 million views while the NBA reach 18 million. Even though the WNBA did not reach many views, this was still an achievement for them. It was an achievement because the league celebrated a 73 percent rise from the previous season. The WNBA doesn't usually have many viewers that watches their games.

Have you ever heard of the WNBA player Maya Moore? Most people haven't because the only people they know that plays in the WNBA is women like Skylar Diggins or Sue Bird. Maya Moore is a small-forward that plays for the Minnesota Lynx. According to an article by Lyndsey D'Arcangelo, Maya Moore has been compared to Michael Jordan as his female embodiment in women’s basketball.

Maya Moore is known as one of the most athletic and aggressive Women in the WNBA.

Maya also has her own sneaker line through the Jordan brand, but she doesn't seem to get much attention or publicity. Maya wrote an essay for The Players’ Tribune, called Invisibility. She talks about the hard work she puts into basketball to get to get to where she is today, and how disappointing it is that all that hard work goes unnoticed. Basketball fans don’t really care about the stories off the court. They care about basketball products. Unfortunately, the product isn’t televised as much as it needs to be. The league’s best teams aren’t showcased like they should be, in order to market product.

According to Brian Mazique, the WNBA was founded 20 years ago, but there's never been a video game made with its players and teams for fans. Publishers don't believe they would sell enough copies to cover the cost of production. They also believe they wouldn't be able to make a huge profit. It will take more production to deliver a full WNBA release than the NBA games. The licensing shouldn't be an issue, but 2K would have to get female motion capture talent if they hope to make the game look and play authentically just like they make 2K17 look.

Image from WNBA 2k prototype

The WNBA should have as much recognition because they NBA because they work just as hard. The WNBA does not get paid as much as the NBA.The NBA has more views and more money. Half of the W.N.B.A.’s 12 teams lose money, and they benefit from revenue generated by the N.B.A.’s national television and sponsorship deals. The $25 million that the WNBA is getting from ESPN is a small fraction of the N.B.A.’s average $930 million payment from ESPN and TNT. There is an issue with equal payment in the NBA and the WNBA. For women such as I, I believe that there should be equal payment because I love women's basketball with all my heart. If I ever decided to go far with basketball, I would want to get paid the same amount because I am working just as hard. Basketball means a lot for me and as I get older, I will work harder and harder. For more information, click on the Annotated Bibliography

Mi familia es divertida

Mi familia es genial

Mi familia es la gente que aprecio

Trabajamos duro porque venimos de tiempos difíciles.

Venimos de la esclavitud

Luchamos duro.

Luchamos por nuestra libertad

Y llegamos a donde estamos.

La mayor parte de mi familia nació en Nuevo York.

Algunos de mi familia nacieron en philadelphia.

Vivimos una vida feliz

Somos una familia feliz

Amo a mi familia

Aunque me hagan enojar.

Amo a mi familia