For my capstone I mentored young girls at my old middle school every Wednesday for eight weeks. Each week we discussed different topics such as, Social Media, Family and Friends, Violence, School, Society Views, and Self- Respect. As we had our discussion there was also assignments that the girl had to work on, which were all based on the topic of discussion. The goal of this capstone was to understand how young girls think, how the react, and what influence their actions. Each of the young girls had a journal which they wrote in just about every week about how they was feeling and I responded back to them each week. Through the course of the program I learned so much about these girls. I went in expecting them to be distanced and unwilling to work but they were open and allowed me to get personal. I learned that some young girls only need for someone to take the time out of their day and just listen, listen to their feelings and thoughts, knowing that they wouldn’t be judge. They made me realize that no matter what age you are, you’re still vulnerable and want people to be there for you, no matter how strong you are. This was a learning experience for not only the girls but for me.

Blog and Pictures

Here are a few pictures of my blog and some of the girls I mentored 

Blog

Link to my blog, where all of my work lives: HipstaShakur

When I take selfies I try to portray things that are apart of my life. Some of my selfies won't make seem to some people because they don't understand what's going on in my mind. I have a weird and imaginative mind. I know that they say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, so sometimes I try to make my eyes the main attraction of the photo. People have many perceptions of me, some are true and some aren’t true. I try to get people to understand that I’m just different and I do different things. That’s all.

Sometimes I don’t mean anything when I take selfies. I just take them just to take them because I’m bored. Sometimes I don’t really care about what other people think and I want people to know that, which is why my face is always stern when I’m around certain people. However, when I’m with my friends outside of school, there’s another side of me, that people in this school would never see.

Pasta Salad

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Rotini Noodles, 1 red pepper, 1 yello pepper, broccoli, salad seasoning, italian dressing, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.

Directions:

Step 1: boil water for 20 mins
Step 2: prep vegetables; dice red and yellow peppers
Step 3: add rotini noddles into water
Step 4: cover pot for 20 or until rotini noodles are fully cooked; check occasionally
Step 5: boil another pot of water with broccoli for 5-10 mins; broccoli should not be fully cooked
Step 6: turn off pot with rotini noodles once fully cooked
Step 7: pour noodles into  mixing bowl
Step 8: turn off pot with broccoli
Step 9: add broccoli into mixing bowl with rotini noodles
Step 10: add diced red and yellow peppers into mixing bowl; stir it all together
Step 11: add Italian dressing
Step 12: sparkle Parmesan cheese on top
Step 13: sparkle salad seasoning on top
Step 14: put top on mixing bowl
Step 15: Shake mixing bowl
Step 16: sit in refrigerator until cool
Step 17: serve

Analysis:

All the ingredients in my dish is healthy and good for you. I used fresh products and made the whole dish from scratch so that way I knew what was going in it. This dish isn't necessarily organic because I used rotini pasta noodles however the vegetables I used are. The red and yellow peppers and broccoli was made natural without any harsh chemicals. This dish is something I really like but since some people like to put crab meat in it, which I'm allergic to I wanted to make it my own by not adding crab meat. Plus crab meat really isn't organic and healthy. And this is a really popular dish in my family. 

During this course I learn more than I was expecting to learn. This was a really interesting class and I enjoyed it a lot. In this class I learned what my larger role in the food system was, how a baby’s brain develops, neuroscience about criminals, etc. I wan’t expecting to learn how a baby’s brain develops or the effects nutrition and nurture has on a person for their lifetime. I learned that I have a huge role to play in the food system because I’m the one eating the food and I eat what I eat eats, which was something I didn’t really think about before. It got me thinking about changing the way I ate but then again at the same type I didn’t really find another wrong with the way I eat. Since we all are going to die anyways there’s no need to really try to eat better.

During the course of the class, I had some ups and downs and I got frustrated at times because I didn’t understand what was going on. However I was to overcome the obstacles I had and fall back into flow with the rest of the class. I ending up doing all good both quarters and I have the grades to prove it. This was one of the best classes I’ve ever had, it was interesting and thought provoking. 

• The first one is Arthur by Marc Brown
  The second one is my work in pencil
  The third one is my work in color pencil
  The fourth one is my work in sharpie
  The last one is my work in color pencil and sharpie

• The first one is Pisanello work
  The second one is my work in pencil
  The third one is my work in color pencil
  The fourth one is my work in sharpie
  The last one is my work in color pencil and sharpie

Piet Mondrian was born in Amersfoort, Netherlands on March 7,1872. As a young boy his family moved to Winterswijk in the east of the country where he was introduced to art at a very early age. His father Pieter Cornelius Mordriaan was a drawing teacher as well as his uncle Fritz Mondriaan.

In 1892, Mondrian entered the Academy of Fine Art in Amsterdam and began his career as a teacher in Primary Education, but he also practiced painting. Most of his paintings were landscapes of his native country such as , windmills, fields and rivers.

In 1911, Mondrian moved to Paris and changed his name by dropping an “a” from Mondriaan to show his departure from The Netherlands. While in Paris he was influenced by the Cubist style of Picasso and George Braque and this appeared heavily in his work. 

In 1938, Mondrian left Paris and moved to London. After the Netherlands were invaded and Paris fell in 1940 he left London for Manhattan, where he remained until his death. 

After his death, two Mondrian friends opened an exhibit known as “The Wall Works.” They have been exhibited twice sine Mondrian’s death at Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art (1983/1995-96), once in SoHo at the Carpenter + Hochman Gallery (1984), once each at Galerie Tokoro in Tokyo, Japan (1993), the XXII Biennial of Sao Paulo (1994), The University of Michigan (1995) and for the first time in Europe at the Akademie der Kunste (Academy of The Arts), in Berlin (February 22- April 22, 2007).

For the most part, I really liked this project because it was fun and I had a lot of wiggle room. I was allowed to promote and spread my word, something I never got to do before. I always wanted to show the world what I care about in life. What I think is important and I got the chance to do that with this project. I got the chance to promote my own work, something that I helped put together and that was great.

But I’m not going to make it seem as though it was a easy thing to do. There was days that I stressed out about whether people would like our page, videos and view our website. I was worried that my friends would ignore it because they thought it was spam or that I was being weird. I guess I’m always that one person who worries about what other people have to say about me. By me stressing out about that, I started to feel as though I was bringing my group down because I didn’t have any faith.

If I would have been more supportive and had positive thoughts, I might could’ve been able to promote our stuff even more. Another thing I did was set our campaign on a pedestal and when we failed to reach, I felt bad. My expectations were way too high and I didn’t realize that until we got results. But the results are still good whether we reached my expectations or not.

Overall, I managed to get our campaign out there to people who I know will help promote it. And by me doing that, it raised my spirits as well as my group mates. Now I know what that big numbers and views doesn’t happen over night. And that it takes more than two weeks to get a campaign well known. But this was a great project because it taught me patience is key and not to get big headed with things. We all was able to set goals and reach them. And I think we as a group did a spectacular good with our campaign.

In this interview I'll be talking to my grandpop about his job. He worked there for 37 years but recently retired. I'm interviewing about how was it working at a job that long, what type of things he keep across. And since he was working there for so long, what type of people did he come across, so here's our interview.

Crossing boundaries means that you may upset others because they don't necessarily agree with what you're doing. They feel as though you're doing something that you're not supposed to be doing. They feel as though that you shouldn't be at the level you're at because of your race, the way you look, or the way you act. There always going to be people who feel as though you're stepping into the wrong territory.

While doing this podcast I learned so many things, things that I never even think was important turned out to be very important. I knew that my grandpop working at his job for those many years that he came across some problems even though when he used to come home he wouldn't really complain about it. I also knew that some of the people working at his job had racism because it was only a few blacks working there. While I was interviewing my grand pop I started to feel bad about not wanting to listen to him, like my grandma was the always the one talking about how she grew up and the people she had to deal with. Like if would want for my grandpop to tell me how he feels. So after doing this interview I will start to ask my grandpop about how he feels.

I think what my peers told me really helped because I like taking advice. I think getting advice from others is a really good thing because they pick up on things that you didn't notice. And sometimes it can be bad getting advice from your peers because they might not give you anything at all. I felt like I did really good with getting my interview done but not with the editing. The editing is like the hardest thing for me to do.

            The Way You Speak is Your Stamp of Who You Are!!

Where can I start? I had so many people say that I talk with an country accent, I’ve been made fun of because I can’t pronounce words right, and I have been corrected to not talk like I’m in the streets. I had to deal with being told how to pronounce words right, and how to say a proper sentence. I used to get so mad when people corrected me. I used to curse them out, stab them, hit them, and even choke them. I used to do anything to get them out of my face. I would do it because they made me feel bad about myself. They hurt me, so in return I had to hurt them. The way you speak can tell people where you grew up and who you grew up with.

            I remember when I was in the sixth grade and two girls that were in my class made fun of the way I pronounced street. We were in the classroom in our reading groups, we all had to read a paragraph out loud. As I was reading they began to laugh, I was confused because they were the only ones laughing.

“What’s so funny? Y’all the only ones laufin!” I said.

“Can you reread that sentence?” one of the girls asked.

“…he kicked my ball across the street.” They laughed again. I didn’t know why until they said that I pronounced street wrong. The way I pronounced it sounded like

“he kicked my ball across the shkreet.” To me it sounded like I pronouncing it like “street” but I wasn’t. It made me so furious, I started cursing them out really loud.

“How you gon’ try and judge me when you look like a silverback monkey? Get yo ‘hairy a** away from me. And you get the f**k away from me wit yo no neck havin’ a**. Go ahead wit yo’self, you dikes.” They were judging me because I say some words with a country accent. I’m not from the country or anything, but my family and I go to South Carolina every summer, so the way they speak clings to my tongue. Like when I say “dog”, I don’t say dog but I say,

“Dhog.” to me it sounds as if I’m saying “dog” but to others it sounds like “dhog”. At home my family doesn’t notice it because they speak just like me. And another thing, I don’t get how they their judging me when they speak nearly the same language as me. They didn’t speak “upper English”, but they spoke slang with “good English”.

            At the time, it seem that I only had a hard time pronouncing str and scr words, and that I sometimes sound country. I never thought that the language that I spoke and speak would be considered as “ghetto English”. Speaking “ghetto English” can tell the person you’re talking to a lot about you. It can tell where you live, who you live with, what type of school you went too, and even your education level. I never paid any attention to the way I talked because everybody around me talked just like me. I thought I was speaking English, but other people knew I was speaking “ghetto English”. The way I talked didn’t begin to bother me until I came to SLA. It was then when I realized that I wasn’t speaking “normal English”.

            In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Glona Anzaldoa, there’s a girl who tells how at home and with her friends she can speak a normal language. A language that they all grew up speaking, but when she’s in school, she must speak another language. “My home tongues are the languages, I speak with my sister, brothers, with friends. From school, he media and job situations, I’ve picked up standard and working class English.” I feel the same way as she does, when I’m at home I don’t have to watch my tongue. I can pronounce things the way I want to pronounce them without being corrected.

            Now that I go to SLA I have been getting correct almost everyday on how to say a sentence right.

“ You doing anythin’ Friday?”

“You mean, ‘Are you doing anything this Friday?’” she corrects me.

“You wanna com’ downtown wit me?”

“Do you want to come with me downtown?” she corrects me again. I used to hate when people corrected me. I used to snap and curse people out when they corrected me. However I don’t do that now, I take what they say and practice my pronunciation. Instead of snapping on them, I practice because I know a lot of people judge you on the way you talk.  I stopped snapping because it was only getting me in trouble and I didn’t want to keep getting suspended because it was only making me look bad. I practice everyday and I’m starting to learn how to speak “normal English” even when I’m with my friends from home. I used to code switch but that takes too much work, I rather speak one language and try to change the way they speak. I know it may not sound right, but I know that if they want a good job they must be able to code switch or speak “good English”.

            The way you speak is a stamp to tell people where you come from, unless you train yourself to speak better then you can fool people. However if you cannot code switch or change the way you speak, you’re labeled so people know everything about you. I’m learning how to change my language so that people would know everything about me. Some people even think that it tells people your education level, I don’t think so because I’m a smart person with a GPA of 3.73. Even though I have a good GPA, the way I talk doesn’t seem like it.  

It’s cool! I don’t trip!

Dest, how could you do this to me? How could you let this happen? I thought you cared about me! You said we were like twins, I guess you really meant it. I should have been Sadie, but No! I was lil’ Dest. When we were young, we did everything together. You told me so many things; you opened up so many doors for my one set mind. You were a sweet little girl. Always smiling, laughing, acting like a kid. I admired everything you did.

Then, you changed. Dressing, talking, and acting differently. You started to tell me that the only way I’m going to get with a cute boy is if I dress like this: tight clothing, low cut shirts, shirts with the belly hanging out, hip jeans, and make-up. All this and we were only in the 5^th grade remember running around in Meade schoolyard. You were right though it worked, even though my boys weren’t real cute but they were okay. Then we got even older, 7^th graders, we stop talking. I wasn’t good enough for you, so I changed started mocking you and all the other girls. By 8^th grade we were cool again, twins. We went everywhere together, did everything together! Started sneaking out of school to go see boys that I didn’t even know! Letting them feel on me even though I didn’t want them to. You did so I did!

That’s when I met him! That boy who sees me on the train but don’t even say hi. After all I gave him, all he gives back is nasty gleams. It doesn’t bother me that much any more. It still hurts me seeing him with girls, he never took the time out to be with me. It wasn’t even two weeks after it happened and he was already seeing somebody else. But it’s cool. I don’t trip.

I’m in high school now. So many people around me are saints. So many people never had that experience. They’ll judge me if I told them. Some people know, but I know they judged me. Just by the look on their faces when I told them. But it’s cool. I don’t trip. LIES! It’s starting to hit me, HARD! (Punches fist) I wish I could go back in time and do it all over. So many things that could of happened because I was a rookie. It didn’t even occur to me then, I had faith in him because you said “He knows what he’s doing.”

I blame you for everything. It’s your fault I’m in this state now. That day plays over and over every time I go there, Allegheny. Every time I see their faces. I’m embarrassed. I was embarrassed then and I’m embarrassed now. I remember sitting on that step 2:00 in the afternoon, I didn’t know who step it was. I didn’t even know the area; I didn’t even know that person. Yet I was waiting for him to come and get me. I was alone, I should have been in school, but I was there. You weren’t a phone call away either, you were gone bye-bye. Sun beaming down on my back, then his voice “Yo”. My smile, his smile, his hand, and his muscles pulling me off that step. The walk across the street, front door squeak open, squeak closed, his dad cooking, stairs squeaking, door closing, plop on the mattress, music videos, and then the black screen.

The moment his hand touch my thigh, my heart started to pound. I could feel my face get heated, it was on fire. My body started to shake, and then his voice “ Don’t be nervous”. He got closer, dead in my face. He reached his hand out and touched my face. At first it was a kiss, next came the tongue. He laid me down and started to kiss my body. I suddenly blacked out from the panic. When I opened my eyes I was naked. How shameful I felt, I wanted to cry. He pulled down his pants, boxers and all. His body touched mines. I wanted it to stop so badly but I didn’t, I let it happen because I wanted to please you. I wanted to be grown up for you, because you told me too.

All the things I did for you! But what did you give me in return? Nothing. Nothing at all! Oops I lied, you gave me shame, and you gave me the reason to walk with my head down. You’re the reason why I’m so easy. You’re the reason why, why, why … I… No, no it can’t be! No, I can’t stop it. I can’t take control of my life. I been brain washed by her. Oh my, I don’t want to believe this but I must. I can say no! It’s my fault because I refuse to say NO! I refused!

When I started drawing my full figure drawing I had the beautiful image of what it was going to look like. With both of my drawings, I want for them to come out looking great. That wasn’t always possible. With my full figure project it didn’t come out as a thought it would. I had a whole different picture in my mind. I wanted for my picture to be pretty; I wanted for my picture to covered all of the details that I saw. That couldn’t happen because every time I had to start over. At the end I thought it was still pretty good.

Through out the course of me drawing my full figure object, it was hard. I had to start over four times, in all four classes. It was pretty terrible. I wanted to give up; I was going to give up. My teacher and one of my peers encourage me to continue. My peer helped me with my outline, she pointed out things that I haven’t seen before. At the end I thought it was a pretty good turnout. With my clear object it was really easy. I drew what I saw and at the end I went over it and made it even better. It was one the best thing I ever draw.

My work shows that if I but my mind up to it I can do it. If I try hard and say I can do it then it’ll keep happen. As long as I have positive mind then my work will show how good I am. The same thing happens with all my other work. If I put my mind to it I can do it. I have learned how to have a positive relation with all of my work.

·       Explain this project in your own words.  (the mission, etc.)

The mission of this project was to talk about what we did over the summer  using past tense.

·       How did you apply the SLA core values to your project?

I think I applied the SLA core values by asking my friends for help, helping them with their project, and asking my teacher for help.

·       What did you learn through completing this project?

I learned how to say what I did last summer. I learned how to tell the reader/ viewer what I did.

·       Think back to your process in completing this project.  Did you have any major break-throughs or a moment where everything started clicking?  Or maybe instead everything fell apart?

At first I thought it was going to be cake. I started lacking but then I realize that it wasn’t as easy as I thought.

·       If you had the opportunity to start your project all over again, how would you do it differently?

I would do a collage which is what I was going to originally do but I ran out of time.

·       Did you enjoy this project? Why or why not?

I did at first but then after a while it started to annoy me because I started overthinking about it. By the end I liked it again.

            “Get her, get her! No you don’t touch her, you better not touch her!” I was screaming so loud, my ears were ringing. I was getting pushed back in forth. I hate it when I’m standing the middle of a crowd when a fight is going on. Even though most of the time I’m encouraging people to come and look at them because I was screaming loud enough for everybody to hear. Just because I don’t like people fighting will there’s nobody looking. It seems useless.

We were all standing in the schoolyard because it was our lunch. It was warm day I’ll say not hot enough to have sweaters on but not cold enough to have shorts on. The lunch was made up of the 8^th, 7^th, 6^th graders. We all knew what was going to happen because we’ve been talking about it for months.

“You gon to fight her? my friend asked.

“If she gets in my face, yea!” My other friend responded.

“You better not start bitchin’ neither.” Said the first girl.

“Yea you better Waka Flocka Flame her.” I said. And all my friends started laughing. They laughed until tears came streaming down their faces. “Waka Flocka Flame” was the name of a move my “twin” and I made up. It was basically two punches and a body- slam.

            That was me in the 8^th grade. I used to be rough, I mean I’m still am but not like I was. When my friends from home and me get together we always reminisce about how we were.  That was then, though. This is now.

“You wanna spy on people?” Ayoola asked.

“Yea come on!” I replied. As Ayoola and me ran through the hallways trying to find somebody to spy on, we heard people say ‘ Ya, need to stop. Ya too old to be acting like that’.  We would just laughed about it. If you saw our faces you would have been cracking up. Ayoola had yanked her head back, laughing basically screaming. It sounded so bad. I was the leaned against the chipping painted wall, with one hand on my head, and the other on my leg. I was laughing so hard that you heard me gasp for air.

            I have two sides to my personality. When I’m in front of my friends that live other my way, I’m this cold- hearted girl. You could die tomorrow and I’ll be like ‘Oh, I really don’t care.’ When I’m around my friends at this school I’m friendly like if you was to die I would console your family. I know it may seem weird but it’s true. I don’t fully understand why I act like that. I guess I’m still growing inside.

One place where I am friendlier is on facebook. I remember when I posted that I was “playing spy” with Ayoola. My friends from home saw it and was like ‘ WTF you mean you was playing spy. You need to cut that out.’ I knew had forgotten that they could see it.

The biggest factor is that I don’t want to have two sides to my personality. I want all of my friends to accept me for who I am. Which is being sometimes friendly and sometimes to cold- hearted. I mean I’m not always friendly, and I’m not always cold- hearted. I have days that sometimes I feel like being “weird” as people call it. Then I have some days when I feel like being mean. All I really want it is for them to accept me for who I am.

I’ve been trying to show them that I’m half and half. This process is going to be a hard one, but one day I’ll like to be able to who I’m really am. In the future I want people to think I’m cool and friendly but I can also be serious. If the people at this school were to come around my way, they would recognize me. If the people from around my way were to come to my school they won’t recognize me. Basically I’m just saying I don’t want to have to act a certain way for people to recognize me.

In this slide I added a red background. I also changed the picture of me. I made it my bigger. I also used the rules of the third by having my picture in the center of slide. The picture of the jaguar is kind of bigger because I want people to know that I love jaguars a lot. Then I had the gorilla on the other side of my because I love them to but not as much as I love jaguars. I choose the red background because red is my favorite color. Black is my second favorite color so the gorilla represents that. Orange is my third favorite color and the jaguar represents that. I had the words at the bottom big so they stick out.

I choose to do this slide because I wanted to try and make my slide using all the things I learned from Presentation Zen. I used the rules of the three by having my picture in the middle of the two other pictures. That way people would look at me first then at the other two pictures. I used three bullet points to describe myself. Then I left space because I didn't want to take up to much space.

Imagine you doing that to somebody who only speaks spanish. You want to say excuse me but they had no clue about what your saying.

Here are some ways to say Thank you, excuse me and please.

When you want to say please. You simply just say Por favor . How easy is that?

You're walking down the hallway and someone knocks your book out of your hand. You ask someone else to pick it up and then you thank them.

So I'm going to show you how to count to hundred.

Now that you know how to count to a hundred.

A thing to remember is when you say veinte, you must replace the last e with a i.

Here's an example: if you want to say 4:25 you simply say Son las cuarto y veinticinco.

When you want to say things like :35 you just put trientacinco. Same thing goes for all everything over veinte.

 There's one exception though when you want to say it's 1 o'clock you must say Es la una. Not Son las uno if you say it that way you're pronounocing it wrong.

In this video one person asks the other person what time it is!