The Glamorous Sracso

 

What are Girl Scouts cookies? I wonder as I watch the man on stage throw back the black cloth to show the numbers 65243. What do these numbers even mean? Is that worth a lot? This show is between channel 6 and channel 8. These people adorned in exquisite cloths and dangling jewelry are announcing something. Oh something about nominations. I hear the films "Mad Max: fury road" and "The Revenant" said pretty often. Are they permanently on these nomination lists because there's a lot of times where the lady or gentleman on the stage opens up a fancy looking red and gold envelope  and dramatically says "Mad Max". The thunderous roar suddenly starts as the screen pans to a specific person standing up. They look very happy and start shaking hands with the multitude of people sitting around them. They are congratulating them I think but I still have to figure it for what? Oh my they are given this shiny little gold man. It looks very interesting and now that I notice more of the background, there's more of these shiny gold men but a lot bigger scattered and stacked in the background. The person given this little object starts talking in the mic, but it's always filled with thanks - thanks for either family, crew, or whatnot. I don't really understand why they are thanking but the speeches don't last for long as they seem to end when the music starts playing. I'm starting to get that the music means "hurry up and finish your speech". Now, there's singing. Huh? I thought this whole thing was about just people getting the statues.  I guess this show has a lot of entertainment packed into it.

The reason why people write in another perspective foreign to our own is to raise awareness of the objects we take granted. The stuff and normalities that we think is so normal might not be so in other countries or ethnicity.  The "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" is a perfect example of this. When I first read it, I was like huh? Is there actually a culture out here like this? When it hit me, I was shocked about how a foreign take to the everyday things that I do changes my mindset. It really shows how everybody's perspective is locked onto one specific mindset because most of the people in our class didn't realize that this piece was a satire of Americans until after we talked about it. After reading this essay, the question "do people really see us like this?" lingered in my mind.

Also Leonardo DiCaprio for The Best Actor please.
EDIT: WOOHOO He finally got it :')

Originality is Cool

So on Friday, we got our essays back and we talked a lot about originality – the art to think independently and creatively and to think outside the box. It doesn’t always have to mean thinking something that was never thought before, but rather putting old ideas together in new ways. In today’s world, the increase in business and technology is growing faster than ever and originality is needed to stand out among the sea of inventors. It needs to appeal greatly to the public and be functional at the same time.

On the site, kickstarter.com, it tests the countless potentiality of these inventors.  (Kickstarter is a website where you fund ideas to make them into reality) I remember I went on there to look for a phone case. I saw one that interested me greatly and I could see the originality of it. Of course, phone bumper cases have been here for a while so that’s not new, but how this specific bumper looks and how it’s made is different from all other bumpers in market. This is using an existing idea but redeveloping it so it’s essentially better. I funded the project and I was not alone. The final funding was 348%! The donations is a strong indicator on kickstarter on whether the consumer – us – find the project original and worthy of our money.

In another aspect, originality creates a style. I take art and originality is really stressed because if we all had the same art style, it would be really boring. That traces back to these blogs. If they aren’t unique, Ms. Valentino won’t call out your name during her weekly blog summary. Not going to lie, I really look forward to these and to see if she mentions my name. The arts also include writing. Your writings are perfect windows to take a glimpse into you style. I’m still trying to develop mine but I guess I still haven’t discovered it yet. Better get out my shovel and dig deeper because in my opinion, originality is an ability that is hidden inside of us. We just have to dig deep and discover it.

All four artists are drawing the same woman, but they all have really different styles.

TLDR: We cannot simply create originality…originality creates us. 

There is No Unmarked Girls

Some months ago I was at a big homecoming dance filled with girls and boys of all grades. Instead of focusing on my date, I found my eyes settling down on the other three girls in my group, just pondering how different our appearances were and how each style had a different statement.

One girl had her long brown locks in a tight bun, a style that is a cross between modern and traditional. Her formal black dress was underscored by the dainty diamond jewelry and the strict posture she was holding. Because her dress was her grandmother’s old dress, her style leaned towards more traditional than modern.

The second girl was full with playfulness and a hint of naughtiness. Her long hair flowed behind her in curled lockets, reaching to the small part on her back. As she smiled at the camera, her gold-sequined dress glittered in the sunlight with a black mesh creating a barrier between her skin and wandering eyes.

The third girl’s hair was similar to the second, but had a more side bang look. The hair, looking like a piece of the night sky, was thrown over her shoulders like it was no big deal. When she strutted down the entrance way, her bright fluorescent yellow dress could catch anybody’s attention. Coupled with her purple corset, she was quite contrasting.

Then I noticed the makeup. The first woman had a natural look with a black charcoal line drawn over each eye and a smoky and subtle eye shadow drawn above that. The second only wore a natural, pink lip gloss with a tint of black shadow to really bring out her dress. The third had a hint of purple eyeliner, mascara, and air-brushed facial mask; her fingernails sporting a purple coat.

Now the shoes. No. 1 wore tiny, glittery, black high heels; No. 2 had fashionable, gold, shoes made for impressing; No. 3, another pair of heels but this time, closed-toed.

As I analyze my friends’ style, I came to realize, why am I only looking at the girls? I glanced at the four men besides us and have come to understand…their style was unmarked

.

This is me trying to write in Tannen’s style of writing in “There is No Unmarked Woman”. I agree with this piece because at the dance, every girl’s dress was unique, whether in color, length, material, etc. that makes every girl beautiful, but when I look at the guys, I just see the same ol’ things. A black suit jacket, some black dress pants, and a dress shirt and tie combination that matched his date.  And that is why the guy looks more at the girl than the girl looks at him ;)

A Gap

In class, we talked about what kinds of differences create conflict in a family relationship. One of the first differences my mind thought to is the generational gap between my parents and me. My parents are first generation, meaning that they are the first generation in their families to move to America and start living here. Usually, when you think of Asian first gen. parents, they are heavily accented with their native language and not fluent with the English language. That is generally true. My parents have been living here for at least 24 years of so and I know more of the English language, culture, and general information about America in my 17 years of living here than them. This shows how different I am compared to my parents and this difference comes with a whole lot of conflict.

Courtesy of Stock photos

My mom has a lot of “facts” she learned from the newspaper. I absolutely think the information she reads is utterly false. One of my favorite “facts” is that dyeing your hair causes cancer. Excuse me? I argue that this isn’t true and my mom starts arguing back and thus a conflict has arisen. My parents are also old-fashioned. Most parents start off with “back in my days…” but my parents start off with “back when I was in China…” so that’s a difference between American parents and my parents. One of the most prominent conflicts that happened in my childhood is that I wasn’t allowed to go to sleepovers. Now, I don’t think it’s a big deal, but back then, it was like “omg you’re not going to Jenny’s sleepover? What a shame”. I remembered I spilled a lot of tears and yelled a lot about this topic. Another big topic is that my mom can’t understand the social norms among teenagers, especially about fashion. She would look at my ripped jeans and thought I accidentally ripped them. I would explain to her that it’s fashion and she would just scoff at the ridiculousness of the idea that ripped jeans are intentional.

Other problems children with first generation parents have to go through

A regret that I have in my childhood is not being able to learn mandarin fluently. I remember skipping Chinese school and not doing my homework. My mom does not understand English well, and I can’t communicate in mandarin well. Thus, I can’t explain myself accurately during arguments and that makes the situation worse. This lack of communication skills is probably why there is rift in my relationship with my parents. So in a sense, I can relate to Manning when he writes about his relationship with his father; “our communication was physical”. My absence of communication skills creates this barrier in my emotional relationship with my parents. As sad as it may sounds, it is getting better. Now that I am older, I have realized that the necessity to learn my native language is at the utmost importance to mend the rift between me and my parents. :’)