"Write Your Own Song"

Write Your Own Song Lyrics and Reflection

All the different colors and heritages,
peoples variety will never subside. 

Many different standards,
Thoughts, aspirations that make people different
Individuality isnt needed to survive.

Stepping out from the crowd
Making every possible mistake
Learning through a different light,
Living a different day

Take a walk on the wild side
Step away from the modern day crowd
Discover your own style
True colors can never be too loud
Finding your surreal self
Can lead to so much more
Meeting new people
Opens up a new door

Stepping out from the crowd
Making every possible mistake
Learning through a different light,
Living a different day

Its up to us to end all segregation
Teach the world life isn’t about looks
But instead ambitions
Determined to break all stereotypes in our generation
The media may influence us
But making our own decisions is part of our success
And as individuals we only settle for the best

Well, the past is the past
And histories been decided
It is up to our generation to make the world undivided
Have fun, be our selves- our only task
And individuality is something we don’t want to mask



Reflection-

With my song I wanted to be able to address an issue that maybe other people my age can see and think about as well. I first began writing about current problems such as war and pollution but later moved to something that people can relate to a little easier. The feeling and maybe attitude of being different or left out because of a certain quality seemed like a popular theme around teenagers, so I decided to write my song about the quality of being unique and the acceptance of that in our modern day culture.
The first verse opens with the description of different people and our population, " All the different colors and heritages, peoples variety will never subside" this is saying how people can be physically different, and that’s accepted in our culture. I also wanted to introduce our attitudes and psychology that makes us utterly the same or different "Thoughts, aspirations that make people different Individuality isn't needed to survive". We learn through examples and have gone through eras where people choose to follow a stereotype.
My chorus is a short couple of lines that describe what maybe a person should do to find there inner self or really something they enjoy. It goes into saying that you might be "making every possible mistake" by stepping out from what your used to, but in the end by "learning through a different light" you will be seeing a different side to things that you thought were only single side. Personally, by challenging myself to look beyond what i'm used to seeing, and having empathy for people or situations that I might not have, I truly sometimes live a "different day" and appreciate what I have more.
The third stanza explains the importance of "discovering your own style", and how by doing a different routine or be-friending some new people, can open up doors in your life and create opportunities for things you want to do in the future. Lines in the fourth stanza support ideas of internal change and go into saying about how modern day society may encourage equalism but there is still some segregation and factors that are up to our generation to change.
"Convinced by the media The news, and so much more Telling us how high we can soar", this line describes how our culture is really dependent on our media and luxuries to tell us what to think is up to date and what topics we should stay away from. In reality, I believe in order to be unique and be ourselves its important to do the opposite and really follow intuition and do what makes a person happy.
Overall, I think individuality in something a person can thrive on, and this quality I think begins when were teenagers trying to find out who we want to be. There are many different qualities a person can have to make them individual, that why I close the song with the word "different", in other languages.

Final Song Relfection

When I had finally finished my English Song project, the dominant feeling I had was relief. Although I had began the project with the mentality that creating lyrics to a song and then singing it would be simple- as I went step by step through the process, things only got more complicated. Creating lyrics I found to be one of the best parts to the assignment because I was able to write in a style I wasn’t used to while voicing my opinion on something I found important (individuality). Performing these lyrics to music was a whole other obstacle. Since my friends and I don’t have the best voices, we decided to sing in a group and match it to a beat I would later create on garageband. Volume levels, and making a instrumental to fit singing was quit difficult and consumed a lot of my time, so when the song with not so great vocals and an okay lyrical match, came out I was pretty much pleased with it. Creating the movie (by grabbing images off of the internet) was pretty easy and downloading my song to imovie was a breeze. Putting it on my blog however, was a different story.
When everything was said and done, I overcame my little nerves and presented the song to the class- I was pretty proud of the overall results, and didn’t care so much about my bad vocals anymore. The project lead me to appreciate the music industry and any artist that can actually create an okay sounding song with a deeper meaning, and I also learned more about myself and what I think is important enough in the world to spend more then 4 hours creating a song about.

Sunrise Sonnet y Analysis

The darkest shadows are cast upon me
Leaving me lost and scared in search for light.
Stuck in the dark alone I cannot see
The struggle these hurt people have to fight

Looking down upon this broken up place
Some are desperately trying to save,
One brave soul sees life isn’t about race
He says no one deserves to be a slave

His words brought them out of darkness to light
Taking away all inequality
Fresh generations now have a clear sight
A sight that pushes aside polity

The sky, which had once been a blackened mess
Is now a blue beauty and nothing less.





Analysis
With my sonnet, my partner and I wanted to set up a scene for the readers to picture and imagine, but within the words have a deeper meaning, for them to think about and compare. We chose the event of a sunrise, and wanted to compare that to a part of American history that much like a rising sun, went from a very dark gloomy place with indecency to a common happier ground.
The first stanza opened with a dark and sad thought, which would be the character in the night sky, which represent racism. "The darkest shadows are cast upon me, leaving me lost and scared in search for light". In this case the dark shadows would represent racism, and the fact that it is surrounding and very hard to escape. The next line mentions that this character was very lost, she couldn’t feel like she belonged anywhere in a world filled with prejudice and judgment, and the "light" she was in search for was the equality she couldn’t seem to find, especially on her own. "The struggle these hurt people have to fight" ties in all African American people that had to fight to survive in this time of grief, and was made for the reader to feel sympathy and realize how big the problem was at this time.
The next major part describes what the person might see from the sky view of "racism", and lead to bit of a solution. "Looking down upon this broken up place," describes America and all the different segregations, instead of seeing one whole country there were different parts with different standards and laws that weren’t right. "Some are desperately trying to save", this refers to white people at the time that were against it, black people holding protests, and laws offering benefits to blend the two colors together.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a huge positive figure for black people during the time of segregation, and his speeches touched people's hearts and eventually changed the world. That is why we choice to make him the turning point or "rising sun" in our sonnet. "His words brought them out of darkness to light". This line specifically refers to the "I had a dream" speech, which touched the world and really gave hope to struggling people suffering from segregation. This dark racism had turned into more of an equal place or "light" and had a more hopeful future.
Finally, from all the fighting and segregation America would learn to love its differences and teach its future generations equality and things that made life better for everyone. "Fresh generations now have a clear site". "A sight that pushes aside polity", my generation has had the great advantage to be able to look back on all the bad things our country has did in the time of segregation, and learn from them in an environment were differences are accepted. We are no longer under the control of laws that make one race have more of an advantage then the other; we are honestly equal and appreciative of that.
"The sky, which had once been a blackened mess, is now a blue beauty and nothing less". These last lines act as a conclusion for the entire sonnet. Segregation had that once had been around and was unfair and honestly deadly, had transformed into this new place with all different socially accepted variables (including skin color), and is still continued today. Overall we wanted readers to relate to the segregation of the past, and really be appreciative for the diverse culture we have today.

A Lifelong Adventure

A Lifelong Adventure

If you really want to hear about it, the last ten years of my whole goddamn childhood, now would be a good time to start. It wasn’t until I reached that little half frozen over lake down in central park, that I sat on a crumby bench and thought about how long its been since I talked to that phony of a therapist and told him pretty much my whole damn life story up till that point. Yeah, lots changed since then. I don’t really feel like telling the whole damn decade- but I'll start with that winter when I just got kicked out of that Pency joint-up till it gets important.
That winter I guess I was pretty sick and all, with all the drinking and smoking I was doing then, I was always damn near winded and it just took the flu to catch up with me. All the swanky doctors my parents took me to said I "was pretty lucky to have survived", and that I "was given a second chance-". Bunch of bullshit. My parents just sent me right back up to the next school in line for that spring. Benjamin Prep, which would be the last phony infested place I'd study. Except for this time, I got roomed with this kid Brandon Kindfield- we hated each other's guts when we got paired together for dorms. He thought he was such a bad ass. Turned out he wasn’t as phony as the rest of 'em. His family was filthy rich and they lived in about the nicest apartment in Manhattan, and he looked like a goddamn model. He didn’t care at all though, not about his grades, his family, and heck, he was one of the best liars I've ever met. We kind of helped each other out I guess, whenever the chief would come up to accuse one of us for something the other would make up ways to get out of it, that’s how we made it to the damn graduation. Funny thing is I don’t ever recall a dull moment with that kid. We always kept each other company and had a hell of a lot of fun.
After we graduated we went our different ways, he was always a smart allec, and his family got him into one of the best law schools on the eastcoast so that he could be a lawyer and help phonies get out of their damn problems. As for me, I fooled around in New York for a semester- mostly looked out for Phoebe; my parents were always away on vacations now that she was old enough to look out for herself. We even took dance classes out near the old museum some nights. She always fooled around saying that she loved dancing with me so much; she wanted to be a dancer when she got older. I always teased her about it, but damn well knew she could do it.
Ol' Phoebe influenced me into going to a near by College- I looked at it as an excuse to live in my own god damn beaten apartment, away from the rich phonies at my parents. I decided while I was back in the school hellhole I might as well take some English classes, those were the only things I liked anyway. And get this- Jane ended up tutoring at that college on Wednesday nights. Before I knew it she dumped the jock she was going out with and we ended up hooking up a few times. Been together ever since then. She would read my writings when we were getting real serious, and tell me how much she loved them, she even showed them to her boss who was the head of the whole English unit at our school.
Few years later, I was a goddamn English teacher. Some how I wound up teaching these high school kids how to read and write and before I knew it I was getting paid for it. Don’t get me wrong I'm not one of those phony guys that are a stuck-up teacher and lives with his British babe. Jane and I keep it real simple, still up in New York, we've been spending a lot of time indoors since she has been knocked up for the past 9 months. It wasn’t planned or anything, I didn’t even want kids, but it was her dream to have this whole family thing and all, so when she said she was pregnant, I just went along with it.
Jane's going to be a real amazing mother, when we were up in the hospital she just went into that little yellow room and before I knew it gave birth to our damn son covered in all sorts of muck. She gave me the first choice of the name- I thought about it real hard, I didn’t want it to be one of those little phony kids with a horrible name there mom gave it while she was reading a damn Shakespeare novel. No, I wanted it to be something decent so that he could grow up liking it or at least trying to live up to it. For the first time I looked into his small brown eyes, they almost looked familiar, and he grabbed my hand with his all of his might and held on real tight. The feeling of a perfect baseball glove cradling your hand. " Allie" I said. Hell, I don’t expect him to be anything like ol' Allie but I just felt something so right at that time- with that name. He'd be a great kid.
Well, who in the hell could have told you that in just ten years I would have my whole damn life settled? I have a job- teaching, be married a woman that still refuses to move her kings from the back row, and have a small squirming child as a sit here in the mist of winter.
Oh, one more thing I figured out along the way, it doesn’t really matter where the ducks go for the winter- and all the twist and turns and ups and downs they encounter on the way. In the end they end up right where they started, and for some reason- it all works out.

Analysis

I tried to continue off from the original text by adding on a story that Holden would tell of his successful life in the future to kind of show that he was actually a nice kid after all and had potential to pursue what he wanted. J.D. Salinger made Holden to be a teenage boy stuck between childhood and adulthood seeing downfalls in both of the two extremes (childhood means being immature, and being an adult meant being a phony). If he was able to kind of give a brief summary of the rest of his childhood leading up to his adult life where maybe he acted the same but was more accomplished- you could see that he has the ability to grow up, and become an individual that he was proud to be.
Holden seemed to be unmotivated and he hated school, so in order to make him be able to finish it and become something I included the character Brandon Kindfield which would parallel him with his actions and views. He was there to be a friend to Holden and a way for him to vent and share his ideas. I think that Allie was a really great friend to Holden, and when he died Holden had trouble excepting people into his life and he thought everyone was phony. If he had a best friend that agreed with him and allowed him to maintain his fun / troublemaking self maybe his life would have been that much easier. However, I thought that by separating them in the middle of the ten-year span, Holden could still be independent and decide what he wanted to do.
Phoebe also acted as a motivator and convinced Holden into going to college. In the novel, Holden confided in his younger sister and took into consideration most of what she told him. She was very bright, so she would know that going back to school would be good for him and a way for him to find a career he liked. As for herself, Holden always said she was one of the best dancers he has ever danced with- so a future option would for her to become a professional dancer.
Holden always loved English, and that was the only class he didn’t fail in most of the schools he went to. He also mentioned that he wanted to be "the catcher and the rye" meaning he would want to save kids from falling off of the cliff. Since this really isn’t a profession I thought that by becoming a teacher he could kind of shape children's minds from "falling off of the cliff" (or becoming phonies), and kind of turn them in the right direction. While doing something he was great at.
In the college, Jane was put in as a sort of prize for all of his accomplishments. He had a long time crush on Jane and really showed affection towards her; they got along and would be a great couple.
Since Jane had a messed up stepfather, she would be able to learn from him and be a better mother. Holden's childhood experiences are not far from bad either, that’s why I chose to close with Holden becoming a father of a baby whom he names Allie. He will never fully cope with the loss of Allie and by introducing this child, my hope would be that Holden could shape him into someone that he loves and trusts -not to replace his brother, but match up to the greatness that Holden saw within him.
Lastly, I think the ducks that Holden was always curious about symbolized the lost path he was on when trying to find him self, and not knowing where to go when he was having a rough time. In the end he would see that there will be times in his life that are hard, but in the end everything works out.

Comic Life

Short Story

Paddling Blues
The nerves were larger then the fiberglass canoe we were carrying down to the water. It was my first regatta of the entire season, and I swear to god the longest 2 and a half miles you could travel over any stretch of water. This race was supposedly the most important race of the season to our club- it pretty much reflected to my crew however, on how many long hours we took out of our gossip stories and complaining of the heat to actually dip our paddles into the water to empress the coaches. Don’t get me wrong, paddling's a passion- but there comes a point when you just want to paddle. You don’t want to listen to the coaches. You just want to get out on the water and absorb the moment; this was one of those times.
The coarse was shown to us by finger pointing and buoys outlining the absolute boundaries of this race without lanes. As we all walked out- leaving the soft sand to our battleground, the Kailua bay filled with brightly colored canoes. The coach had informed us many times of the incidents that usually occurred at this race, this included flipped boats and broken paddles- this killed me. Out of all the encouragement she could have provided, she bobbed her blonde head in between rules, and pointed out the largest girls that we were already intimidated by. When she offered us an extra paddle, instead of accepting, we leaped into the canoe and shot off.
The paddle out there was none the less nerve racking. My little wood weapon was shaking from my hands, and coated with the seawater it had already hit. The team with scrawny girls who looked anxious and about to throw up was the team I belonged to. When the flag had finally gone up, after an exaggerated wait, everyone threw down a few heavy strokes to get the boat going, and eventually lead us to crashing into the sides of others. The race officials who wanted to keep everything "keiki" and "humble" prohibited cursing, but I'm pretty sure I learned some new words that day.
In mid race, after accidental blows to the ama, and run-ins with some of our larger competitors, my energy was at an all time low. The goal to win was at the least of our priorities since we had taken last in the second turn. It wasn’t until someone shouted, a single word of encouragement, or maybe it was a sound of them dying, something along the lines encouragement my team persisted and agreed to paddle our damn arms out until we reached the top three. And don’t get me wrong, this plan was genius and all, considering all we needed was our 6 bodies to pull our 6 paddles beside our 6 seats and make this 200-pound boat move. To bad we lost an element.
The race was really heating up; we were gaining places and showing off our (if you can imagine) muscles. Each blade went in simultaneously following the seat 1's "beat", and then I heard a silence from the rear end of the boat. No, there was no more water being flung onto my back, nor strength the boat used to have. I glanced back to see our seat 5 sitting there in shock. I then turned my attention to the little piece of wood that would have lead us to victory- floating in the open ocean, along sides of our competitors. When the announcement came from our steersman that someone had lost a paddle, like we already didn’t figure it out, my entire crew died. And all of a sudden the coach's words, " bring an extra paddle" became clearer then the water we were previously going to take victory in.
I no longer considered my arms limbs; they were long weights that caused pain up until the last stroke. When we crossed the finish line, we finished in third. Before me, along with our entire crew swore off paddling (until we had all been elected into the next race). Oh and the winner of the match, those "humble" phonies, gave us back the paddle they just came across while paddling in the water.
I learned a lot from that one race, from now on I will always be prepared for any event. Well, that’s not possible, I will take with me an extra paddle in my races, and maybe listen to the coaches if there words of wisdom come up. I guess the moral would be to be prepared, because what you forget could affect many more people then yourself.