This Is America

This is America
    Where you can be "Judged by the color of your skin, but not by the content of your character."
This is America
    Where it is a decision to be made whether you want to fight peacefully or fight violently.
This is America
    Where little boys with pigment in their skin have to be taught silly but necessary things like, "Put your hands on the dash, don't talk back, don't ask why, don't resist, yes sir's and no sir's, don't reach for anything, drop your location as soon as you see the lights, if they tell you to do something do it. Matter fact just don't drive."
This is America
    Where an officer can have 12 police brutality complaints against him, kill a man, and only be charged with manslaughter
This is America
    Where we fight for equity over equality
This is America
    Where the very people that work for us and that we pay to work, we are paying to kill us.
This is America
    Where we have to be afraid to send our kids with the pigment in their skin out into the world
This is America
    Where we are just simply afraid for their lives. Not just our little boys, our little girls too.
This is America
    Where I have to be afraid of what I say, what I do, and most of all, I have to be afraid of the color of my skin because they are.
This is America
    Where we're damned if we do and damned if we don't
This. Is. America

What's in my Big Question For Me

Asking questions helps the world gain a better understanding. My big question benefits me because it will help me gain a better understanding of myself. I listen to music at any time I can. Music helps me with anxiety, depression, loneliness, happiness, and any other emotion that could arise. My big question will help me better understand and educate someone else who has this question. It will help me understand why my brain reacts the way it does to music.

My Big Question

At the beginning of the school year my big question was what is the true definition of beauty and why does society/influencers feel they can change this definition to benefit themselves. But as the semester went on I felt like I wanted to do something more interesting to me. Then I chose to ask the question Is ignorance really bliss? But none of these speak to me. I don't truly care about "beauty", I do care about ignorance our world has, but the one thing that is always on my mind day and night is music. So I've decided on a final question that I believe will show a small glimpse of what my mind is like. My NEW and FINAL (hopefully) big question is Does music affect someone's personality and everyday moods?

I'm Ignited

Today in my English class we discussed these questions that are really big to us. We also discussed why? My top 3 favorites were;

• Why are stickers sticky?
• Is life real or just a hallucination?       
• Can a multiverse be open as a frequency or energy? Does this make time travel or guardian angels real?
• I'm very intrigued by this one. 
• But I do believe that guardian angels are real whether they relate to multiverses and time travel, that I don't know

HOPEPUNK

HOPEFUNK- is not about submission or acceptance, but about standing up and fighting for what's right and for what you believe in.
      Authors believe that this literary genre matters because it gives everyday people like you and me hope. In an age and day where people are afraid to say this and that because someone might get offended or hurt by what they say. Or where we can't speak up or speak out because then we will be looked down upon, this genre says the things that will make changes.

Speech 1: "I Have a Dream"

In my AP English class, we will be learning public speaking skills and in doing so we will watch a couple of famous speakers doing their famous speeches. I will be uploading my notes on these speeches. The 1st speech we are listening to is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's famous "I Have a Dream speech.

   Ethos- elements of messenger that create credibility
         - can sometimes not be verbal
               - can be a way of speaking
         - can be closely knitted w/ pathos
   Pathos- appeals to the emotions of audience
   Logos- appeals to logic

Withering injustice- Poetic
      Withering- intended to make someone feel mortified or humiliated
       Injustice- lack of fairness or justice; an unjust act or occurrence
Fallacy- error
Ethos

• mass gathering of many diverse people
• allusion to Emancipation Proclamation
• uses advanced words

Pathos

• relates to black people
• very poetic speech
• appeals to hurt and pain of black people

Logos

• "100 years later"
• "insufficient funds"
• people always understand money

More you understand the more you are prepared

Use of metaphors creates understanding

allusions- Steinbeck- Shakesphere

My Learning Rise and Fall

      August 14th of 2019 was the day C'Mira's learning experience would be changed.
School for C'Mira, who goes by the name of Cece, started on August 12th. As soon as she saw her schedule on August 9th she knew something was wrong. It was mainly right there was just one thing that she saw wrong. Instead of AP English Language, it said English 3. That same day that she saw her schedule she went and talked to her counselor. Mrs. Fruge told Cece that she meant to put her in AP English, but there wasn't enough space. So that upcoming Monday that would start Cece's Junior year, she went to her perspective classes. Fourth period had passed and fifth period was coming up. She was dreading it because she just knew it wasn't the right class for her and what she wanted to achieve. She sat in the class just dreading another year of bs textbooks, bs workbooks, and bs essays. Cece texted her counselor and asked if there was any openings yet, but sadly there was not. She went the rest of the day thinking about how her transcripts would look to the colleges she had on her list. After sixth period of her second day of school, she marched straight into her counselor's office and asked her if there was an opening yet, and to her satisfaction and surprise, there was!
     Cece got her new schedule and saw that she had Dr. Preston. She had known of Dr. Preston since she was in 8th grade. Cece had an older sister who went to SMHS since she was a freshman and had all the advanced classes. Cerenity and Cece had all of the same types of classes for their respective grades. So before Cece even got Dr. Preston she knew she wanted him because she knew somewhat of how he taught. She went to Dr. Preston's class afraid of the expectations she was putting on herself to uphold the reputation her big sister had made. She loved creating her blog and doing the blog post. Cece also loved going to Dr.P's blog to get the daily schedules and instructions for the day. Most of all Cece loved doing the daily journals. As the semester was advancing, Cece started having trouble focusing and keeping up with the blog post. She didn't have time because she was trying to prove herself to not only the people telling her she had too much on her plate but to herself. She was the type of student who did things to make her transcripts look good. Cece was very smart but gave up easily once things got too hard.
       On August 29th, 2019, Cece's great grandmother passed. Cece fell into a depression that presented her with many struggles on top of her struggling to juggle her time management with sports and school. At this point, she fell very far behind. She didn't think she could persevere. Basketball season was approaching and her coaches told her that they knew she could do better than what she was, but that wasn't enough. Her foster mom hounded on her to get her stuff done, and that wasn't enough. Her counselor told her that she might have to go to a JC after high school with the way her grades were looking, and it still wasn't enough. What made Cece see that she was only bull shitting herself was the fact that she had come so far, proven so many people wrong time after time, and made both of her late grandmothers too proud to give up when she was so close. She mentally and emotionally slapped herself in the face and told herself, "It's time to face the facts and get back to reality."
      Cece realized that it was not time holding her back but her own mind. Dr. P told the class that they would get a chance to interview for their grades. Thanksgiving break was coming up and she knew that this would give her the chance to properly prepare herself for this interview and get all her work done so she could ask for a good grade and actually deserve it. She would go home after practice over the break and work on her blogs and website instead of goofing off with her siblings and cousins. Cece was so determined to put in the effort for Dr.P's class that she put herself on a schedule that would allow her to diligently and effectively work on not just her AP English work but her AP US History homework as well.
      At the beginning of this semester, Cece fell into a space where she played the victim. She tried to keep up with everyone else standards on top of her own. Cece was trying to keep up with everyone around her when in reality she needed to keep up with herself. Cece is now the student who takes responsibility for her actions and takes charge of herself. She is growing as a student, an open-source student, and as a young adult.