For our conversion we chose to have Big Bird in China directed by Quentin Tarantino. We thought the juxtaposition of a children's film with the grittiness of Tarantino’s style would be both interesting and comical. Quentin Tarantino has a very distinct style, but unlike Wes Anderson, it can be diverse and used differently across many genres. It is hard to pinpoint but you can always tell what is a Tarantino film. Looking closely, many of his films involve long takes, dialogue driven scenes, intense violence, and suspense. Goriness seems to be the end goal of many Tarantino scenes and the suspense acts as the journey there. Tarantino is also very character focused, he takes from the Western film ideal where the characters are larger than life or have extremely unique elements to their persona. In terms of writing, Tarantino uses a lot of dark comedy and multiple storylines. The storylines tend to combine and conflict and reach a large finale. In terms of cinematography, Tarantino uses a lot of long takes, shots of feet, 360 degree shots, and trunk shots. When looking at Tarantino’s films, his core influences come from spaghetti westerns and samurai films. He tends to enjoy intense cultural influence and vibrant camera movements.

When I was deciding what I was going to do for my Capstone project, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could incorporate what I have learned in my time at SLA, and my passions outside of school as well. Music has always been an important part of my life, and I had also learned a lot about digital media in my classes, so I decided that I was going to create an EP with a few of my friends in and out of SLA. Working together we were able to put together five original songs, put on a release show with a handful of other successful bands in Philadelphia, make a music video for the lead single from the set of songs, and learn how to promote ourselves along the way.

We began recording in the early summer, and finished in early winter, spending approximately spending five months to complete a project that ultimately began a year before. Along the way I was able to learn a lot more about the intricacies of a band and how different sounds meld together to make a cohesive sound, that was not only complex, but sounded good too. I learned a lot about marketing and promoting as well, with the goal of getting as many people to listen to our music as we could, we were able to make connections not only in Philly, but around the world. I am very proud of all the time and effort put into this project, and hope that I can see it grow even larger.

Stanley Kubrick made a influential statement through his 1987 film, Full Metal Jacket. This film about the grueling and horrific events that occurred during the Vietnam war, but what makes it different from any other film depicting the war was that Kubrick made the decision to show how both parties involved are deeply impacted by the violence. By showing the immense destruction of Vietnam land, the terror that the Americans inflicted, and the sheer number of casualties, Kubrick is making the statements that there are no winners in war.

Kubrick begins his film by depicting an American marine boot camp for men who enlisted. This is where we are shown our first piece of evidence from Kubrick on how excruciating war is.   

We are shown all of the privates lined up against their bunks, with Sargeant Hartman positioned in the middle of the room. Hartman exclaims [addressing the privates] “There will be no racial bigotry here! I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops, or greasers! Here, you are ALL equally useless!” This message is more than a message to the privates, but instead is a description for what is to come, war is not discriminatory, no matter what race you are, either way the enemy will try and kill you.

The entire first half of the film revolves completely around the American soldiers preparing for war at the boot camp, with the center of attention being the private nicknamed Gomer Pyle. Throughout his time Pyle is more and more mercilessly tormented by Sergeant Hartman, leading him to insanity.

Private Pyle is driven to the point where he decides to take the gun that he was required to sleep with and kills both himself and Sergeant Hartman. Kubrick was trying to express the great emotional distress that war would put people through, and sometimes it is too much for people to handle, leading them to these extreme measures.

In the second half of the film, Kubrick shows what the experience of war was actually like in Vietnam. We are shown this through the perspective of private Joker, who is assigned to be a journalist for a group that was moving to take control of an area. As they meet the group they come across a soldier nicknamed Crazy Earl who exclaims to them “These are great days we're living, bros. We are jolly green giants, walking the Earth with guns. These people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to the world, we're gonna miss not having anyone around that's worth shooting.”

Through this line Kubrick was trying to express a persona of the United States that has been created, a type of person who enjoys killing anyone that is not like him. He is trying to show how war is just a game to us, we are so powerful that we could go anywhere and wipe out large groups of people just because we can. There is no integrity in war, nothing keeping us from being machines, looking for a reason to kill.

This idea also shows true when Private Joker is interviewing a fellow soldier, Door Gunner, about the reasons he kills. He exclaims “Git some! Git some! Git some, yeah, yeah, yeah! Anyone who runs, is a VC. Anyone who stands still, is a well-disciplined VC! You guys oughta do a story about me sometime!”

Private Joker responds “Why should we do a story about you?”

“'Cuz I'm so fuckin' good! I done got me 157 dead gooks killed. Plus 50 water buffalo, too! Them's all confirmed!”

“Any women or children?”

“Sometimes!”

“How can you shoot women or children?”

“Easy! Ya just don't lead 'em so much! Ain't war hell?”

Gunner is the representation of what America was seen as during the Vietnam war, he kills for the pure pleasure of it. During the war America killed large numbers of innocent women and children, and seemed to not regret any of what they had done. This contributes to the idea that America sees war as a game, where all lives are expendable.

In the final scene of the film we see the group face a suffering Vietnam sniper who had been shot. We see a young girl lying on the ground bleeding, gasping the words “kill me” over and over again. As the group stands in a circle over the body of the person who had just recently

killed a large number of their friends, they must make the decision whether to leave her there or to put her out of her misery.

This shows some of the conflicts that soldiers had to go through every day during the war in a fight for survival. The issue that is brought up here is whether we should make each other suffer for the things we have done to one another? Kubrick leaves this unanswered, because it lets the viewer decide if revenge is inherently a part of human nature, or a consequence of violence.

No one is real, an almost infinite number of fake people climbing through a tangled web. They give a feeling of worth to some insignificant person that lives on another side of the planet. This lets us hide from ourselves, the people that we want to become can now be who we really are, just by hiding behind a screen. Now we can be defined by what a number of pixels and some piece of hardware says about us.

Now that the internet has become a piece of everyday life, people are allowed to live through the persona they create for themselves. It has become a part of life, that we must look at a person we meet through the internet and have to wonder whether they are real or not. Though some have different reasons for lying about who they are, some just want to create the person they wish they were in real life, others use it to manipulate. There is still one thing all of these people have in common--they can hide from the rest of the world without having to get out of bed. You can do anything, be anyone.

Along with the fact that you can no longer trust people you meet on the internet, your activity is also constantly being tracked. Advertising companies can learn anything about you, take your search history and create a completely personalized viewing experience for each person based on what information they are able to dig up about you. It is almost something out of George Orwell’s 1984, which illustrates a dystopian world in which none of your actions are private.

Journalist Curtis Wallen from The Atlantic writes a fascinating article dating back to July in 2014 about his experience creating a fake identity online, in which he talks about the way anyone can access information about you. In his writing he says “It’s not an exaggeration to say everything you do online is being followed. And the more precisely a company can tailor your online experience, the more money it can make from advertisers.” This tells us how almost everything that you see on the internet everyday is an effort for an advertising company somewhere to make money off you.

The depressing truth about what happens today is that identities are created or stolen, and it is becoming harder and harder to weed your way through and find real people. There are websites that are used for dating all over the internet that help match people up, hopefully leading to a relationship. A big fear between people that use these dating sites is that someone is lying about who they actually are in order to attract people to them. They might do this by using a picture of a model instead of themselves, or by speaking in a way that might attract a certain type of person, instead of speaking as you might in real life. This has been a dangerous game for people to play for a long time, though it is becoming easier and easier to get away with. Anyone can sit and hide behind a screen and pretend to be anyone they want, and usually without any repercussions.

Another recent issue that connects to false identity is fake news. People who claim to be high power officials spread news that has been completely made up in order to make a point of their own. Through social media sites like Facebook we are handed a lot of information about what is happening in the world, and it turns out that most of it is not true, but because we see it there and hear it from something we trust, we automatically believe that it is the truth. Pui-Wing Tam a journalist for The New York Times writes in a recent article from early January 2017, “The phenomenon of fake news is reinforced by powerful figures who cite the false information and help spread it. That includes Mr. Trump himself, who has invoked fake news when it has suited his needs.” Now we are faced with the issue of not knowing what is real or not online, are the people real, is what we see and hear actually accurate?

This leaves us as a population with the question: How has the use of the internet and the ability to have access to the largest portion of the world we have ever had, changed the way we think of our own identity, and the way we perceive others? This is a question that should be explored deeper throughout the next coming years because it has led to issues like cyberbullying, which has allowed people the right to act like monsters towards one another online because they have the protection of the screen between them. The little monitoring that goes on is also staggering, there are little to no consequences for people who commit these types of crimes over the internet.

Throughout the coming years I hope that we are able to find a way of solving this problem, this issue that leading us into the world that George Orwell foretold, where we can trust no one. Identity means nothing anymore because through the internet we are able to be whomever we want to be.

Wallen, Curtis. "How to Invent a Person Online." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 23 July 2014. Web. 20 Jan. 2017. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/how-to-invent-a-person-online/374837/

Tam, Pui-Wing. "The Continued Creation and Dissemination of Fake News." The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 Jan. 2017. Web. 20 Jan. 2017.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/technology/daily-report-the-continued-creation-and-dissemination-of-fake-news.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

This piece of writing reflects on how I was able to use language to express myself in ways that I couldn't before. I was introduced to a new way to put what I was feeling into words, this was a big turning point in my life that allowed me to understand myself and the world around me in a new way.

Essay:

His name was Bukowski, Charles Bukowski, and he changed the way that I would write for the rest of my life. He was truly insane, a crazy man, but every word he spoke, every verse he wrote was pure poetry, a reflection on mankind that was almost as if he were watching the movement of the world from up above and spat out what he saw. The depressive way that he wrote could also reflect all of the pain that he felt through his life, as if he were baring his soul to us the reader, and then telling us all to go fuck ourselves. I loved it from the first moment, from the first words I heard, “There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out, but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going, to let anybody see you” from the screen as a montage of images were shown in front of me, with an old voice reading the heart wrenching words of a dead man.

“Who is this person? Who wrote this?” I immediately asked. I had never heard writing like this before, I had never felt a poem wrap it's cold, calloused hands around me before. Poetry had always been a chore to me, some assignment that a teacher would hand you and tell you to write your heart on the page, and I never knew what that really meant until now. That night I went home and read through every word that he had written, every thought that he had was now trapped rumbling around in my head. I was then convinced, I was convinced that I could be just like him, I could write just like Bukowski.

I decided to take a try at writing poetry. I let the words play over and over in my head like a broken record, lines kept repeating in my head until I could find the right way to express all of the pain that I had felt, I wanted to put myself into my words just like he had. So I wrote, letting the words flow out of me, and it felt like I had discovered something that I had never known was inside of me. A new medium of expression that allowed me to tell the world how I felt, a way to put the isolating feeling lingered over top of me for years into the minds of those who read my words.

“So you want to be a writer,” he said. “If it doesn’t come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don’t do it. Unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut, don’t do it. If you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen, or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don’t do it.” Now I knew what Bukowski meant when he said this, that the only way you could be a true writer is if you have something to say, if you have the emotion to put into it, or the true desire to put your words into the minds of people. There are so many people out there who are writing for the wrong reasons, they want to feel the satisfaction of knowing that they have the deepest or most powerful words, but those who can put the most meaning into their words are not the people who want to write, but the people where all they can do is write, all they have is their words.

There are so many people today who have extensive stories to tell, people who have felt pain, but who don’t have the words to express it like I did. The fact that people all over the world are incapable of reading and writing is a horror, because I know that by using words I was able to find a way to express myself, and I couldn’t imagine an existence where I couldn’t. It is like being trapped in your own head, your body constantly feeding off of your pain until there you have nothing left. No way to release the growling beast inside that could make you one of the greats.

So as I think back over his words, what it seemed like he was saying directly to me. “There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out, but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you.” These words that are scattering throughout my head, eating away at me, and as I look for my response, I write:

If my heart could speak

Its every word would be stifled by your loud screams,

Your insatiable need to be heard by everyone in the room,

Though you don’t have a word to say.

As you fill the room with nonsense that no one wants to hear,

I sit in the corner,

Unheard and undesired,

And though you interrupt every word that anyone has to say,

I let you go on because,

If my heart could speak,

I wouldn’t say a word.   

Over the course of this past month or so I have done a lot of research, and a lot of hard work trying to make the best You and the World project that I could. I have gone through the process of researching my topic on the internet, just trying to scrape the surface, I went through several interviews, in attempt to get a better understanding of my topic, and finally, got involved with the community, just trying to make some sort of difference in this vast issue. Overall I think that I did a pretty good job make some headway my topic, but in the end, I don’t think anything I could have done would have made much of a difference because the issue with immigration is much larger than it may appear, and it takes more than a ninth grader doing an English project to make a significant difference. However, this could send me in a new direction that can put me into opportunities that will allow me to make the change that needs to be made.

The research process was tougher than I had anticipated it to be. I kept being led in different directions, and kept digging deeper and deeper into this somewhat endless topic, and I think that there was still so much more to uncover. First off, I could have researched more into the immigration process itself, and added more about how these illegal immigrants live while knowing they are hiding behind the law. I would like to have learned more about what happens when someone is being threatened with deportation, and how they might handle the situation.

When going through the original research process I would have liked to get more perspectives from other people, and find out more first hand information from people who immigrated to the United States. Even though the interviews that I conducted went well, I would have liked to know more, and know what other people think about the issue because this is so broad and there are so many opinions that go along with it.

Finally in my agent of change portion of the project I felt like I could have done so much more, even though I know I couldn’t. The hardest part was trying to find an organization that would let me get involved, and to also find an organization that let me do something impact worthy. I feel that impact that I made was somewhat insignificant, though it might have had an impact on someone else, I didn’t feel like I did something great. I looked for an opportunity that would allow me to learn more about my issue, and help change the circumstances in some way, and I just feel that I didn’t quite complete it.

After continuing my research with Immigration and getting to know more in my original research, I have begun to get involved in the community around me. I wanted to find a way that I, as a fifteen year old could make an impact on my issue, and I decided that getting involved in with an organization that handles immigrants, and helps them in the process of becoming a full U.S. citizens. There are numerous organizations that are set up around Philadelphia that help immigrants with learning English, U.S. history, and any other information they might need to pass the exam for citizenship. It takes a lot of work to learn this information, and I know most of it by heart, so it may be the perfect fit for me. I found an organization that had a great program for immigrant education, and worked hard trying to contact them, I called two times, and sent an email, but sadly I never received any response from them. I searched for organizations that would be able to take somebody my age to help out and learn something about the immigration process. I searched and searched until I found an organization called PICC or Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, at 2100 Arch street, right around the corner from my school, Science Leadership Academy.

I contacted the organization over phone and talked with Maria Sotomayor, who told me about all of their volunteering opportunities, and helped me get involved. I volunteered to help sign new citizens up to become voters. On Friday, May 22, I went out to the USCIS building in West Philadelphia, and witnessed a citizenship ceremony where men and women from 38 different countries came to finally become citizens. They went through the process of signing documents, singing the National Anthem, and saying the pledge of allegiance. Finally at the end we went around and helped people register to become voters.

These are two images from my experience at the ceremony

I found this to be a very gratifying experience that made me feel good to know that these people were working so hard to achieve this, and I got to experience it with them. I was able to be a part of their first American experience, and I now know after doing all of my research, what these immigrants have to go through. I would have liked to get involved with illegal immigrants, and help them on the road to citizenship, but that would have been harder for someone my age to do.

There is still a lot more work that needs to be done to help with immigration in the world, and there still is an increasing number of illegal immigrants in the United States. There still is a large problem with immigration law in the United States, and there is a lot of work that needs to be done. I hope that someday there will be someone who speaks up for immigrants in this country, no matter who it may be, it is needed to start filling this bottomless pit of confusion.

After beginning my research on immigration and explaining what problems immigrants have with coming to the United States and becoming citizens in my first blog post, I needed to dive deeper into the confusion. I needed to get other perspectives on the issue, and see what I could learn. I decided that I should interview someone who actually experienced immigration to the United States, and someone who has a legal point of view towards the subject.

First I interviewed Jhazzelle Majarucon, an immigrant from the Philippines. She told me that the way she became a resident was because her mother submitted a petition for her and her sister, meaning that she could choose a family member that she wanted to bring to the United States. There was a big difference between the two countries, and she had to become accustomed to the different culture. The technological differences were major, as well as the way Americans treated each other. Jhazzelle points out that “In the Philippines it is accustom for people to kiss each other on the cheek when they greet one another.” While here most people don’t do that, and she had to transition the way she would live her life. Though the transition was not very difficult for her, Jhazzelle still had to find her way.

Image of interviewee, Jhazzelle Majarucon

Second I interviewed Andrea Freiberger, a worker for the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) granting immigration benefits, such as green cards and citizenship. I asked her some questions concerning the issues with Immigration law, and the making of laws. I asked her what the most common arguments against immigration are, and she responded by saying “The most common issue that people have a problem with is allowing people who are in the United States without legal status stay and become citizens.  One argument against allowing this is that those people who came illegally broke the rules and shouldn't be rewarded for doing so. For example, there are very long waiting lines for certain visas, and it is hard for someone who has patiently waited for 10 years to come to the United States with lawful status see someone else ‘cut in line’ and be given lawful status for entering when he or she felt like it.” Her answers opened my eyes to see why it is that people in the United States (a country made of immigrants) is so opposed to seeing immigrants enter our country.

Finally, I asked what a ninth grader like me could do to get involved in the community, and make a change. She answered by saying that there is still so much that needs to happen, and that the best way to get involved is by getting in touch with an organization that handles new immigrants, or to work on spreading the word, and letting people know about this issue. Now I am working to find an organization in the greater Philadelphia area that handles immigration, and will let a fifteen year old work for them.

This is a Ted talk where Tan Le talks about her Immigration story

Check out my annotated bibliography  

I have been interested in immigration to the United States for a while now, mostly because it is an almost endless topic with so many great details behind it. I also had a teacher at my old school who was an immigrant, and it was a long and hard process for her to become a citizen, which made me want to look more into the topic.

Immigration to the United States has become more of a problem throughout the years, and it is holding back people who seek better opportunities or a new beginning. More than 10 million undocumented people currently reside in the United States, and the numbers are increasing by 700,000 people each year. Immigrants who come to the United States face many difficulties in gaining residencies and citizenship to the country. To receive a green card (resident alien status) the immigrant must satisfy requirements set by the government. Some of the qualifications include: having a family member who will be able to sponsor you while you reside in the country, have a job inside the country, or be a refugee who will be able to meet the definition of refugee and have special interest to the United States. The problem that comes after you receive your green card is that an immigrant must follow the 10 steps to naturalization. Then the subsequent issue is that they must be able to pass a test proving that they are able to speak, write, and read in English, and have knowledge on U.S. history. Finally they must also be able to pass a Catch 22 test. They must be considered a to be a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States during all relevant periods under the law - US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Which is saying that if you have committed a crime then you aren’t eligible to become a U.S. citizen, however most of the immigrants who come to the U.S. have to come illegally. Despite the many issues that come with immigration the number of people who come to the United States is still growing.

Here is a graph showing the number of Immigrants coming to the U.S. in previous years

http://www.immigrationeis.org/sites/default/files/images/charts/immigration_into_us_1.gif

Another issue that has come with immigrants is their effect on the economy. They come to the United States to work for little pay in the jobs that Americans reject, but then we blame the immigrants for stealing away from them. There are really many benefits that immigrants have on the economy, but are still looked down on because of the costs, one of which is that other people who are already citizens have to compensate for things that immigrants can’t pay for. If an illegal immigrant sends a child to public school, other parents would have to compensate for payments that might need to be made because they are unable to pay the government due to their risk of being discovered and deported. If an illegal immigrant is at risk of being deported then they must go into hiding. There are many organizations around the country that help keep undercover immigrants safe. For example there is an organization called Sanctuary Philadelphia which hides immigrants in churches around Philadelphia until they have been granted residency to the country.

This is a picture of where most immigrants are located in the U.S.

http://blogs.forrester.com/f/b/_tp/.a/6a00d8341c50bf53ef0120a5528170970b-pi

The real problem with illegal immigration is security, not the threat to the economy. Despite the fears that immigrants will take over the nation’s economy, the issue that hides behind is that Americans are afraid for security reasons. They are afraid of a possible terrorist attack, or government infiltration that could end in an American tragedy. This is the opinion of many, but not all Americans.

It is important for people to know, that our country, the United States of America, a country made up of immigrants is now making it more difficult than ever for people to be a part of our nation. This is all based on a matter of rights, Americans are refusing to give immigrants their constitutional rights, and I feel our country should stop contradicting itself.

Now I would like to get a first hand perspective on the immigration process, and also get more of an outlook from a legal standpoint.

To read my bibliography click here!

I think it is important for teens to know about net neutrality because in the upcoming years the internet will become more prominent in everyday society, and the people of the future will need to know their rights, and shouldn’t be held back from all the opportunities the internet has to offer. Without net neutrality, the internet service providers will be able to tell schools what they have teach their students, and what is appropriate for children to see. If they tell us what we need to know, then they are telling us what is wrong and right, even if what they think is controversial, and may be disagreed on by the majority of the country. For example the issue of Global Warming could be completely braised over by everyone because the i.s.p.’s don’t let websites with information about it through the fire wall.

Another reason why net neutrality is important for teens is because it promotes the spread of ideas, giving more opportunities to today’s youth. Everyones says how we will be the next generation of creators and innovators, but if our main source for information is being held back, then how do they expect us to reach that. If the I.S.P.s want to be part in making the next generation of geniuses, then they should take part in net neutrality. It is important that teens have as many opportunities as their parents, and as generations before. What is the use of the internet if you are restricted from all of the great things that it offers.

Finally a free and open internet promotes free speech. One of the things that all teens should have the opportunity to do, is to speak their minds, and of that is being taken away from todays youth then we will end up with a messed up generation of kids. In twenty to thirty years, imagine a society of people who are being suppressed because they are afraid that if they speak their mind, then it could lead to a punishment, or the put down of your ideas. This is just like the novel 1984, where no one can speak their minds, and no one has a chance to be independent. This is what I imagine could happen to us, this is what people should fear, and we should work on fixing it, for the teens today.

https://www.aclu.org/net-neutrality

http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality

http://www.theopeninter.net/

I made my slide based off of something that people all over SLA usually think of when they think of me. I used a picture of the Backstreet Boys as the main focus of my slide, because when people usually think of me, they think the cool folders I have, all with the Backstreet Boys. I then put my name with a question mark because people also think ‘whoa what just happened’ after they spend some time with me. I wanted my slide to look really simple, so I didn’t add many elements to it. I thought of the apple ads, and saw how much they put on their ads, they don’t have many components to them, but they look really good. I also thought the Backstreet Boys were a good choice for me because they are so full of life and youth just like me.