Growing up and growing old are opposite and different in many ways. When you grow up you detach yourself from your family and seek your own identity. On the other hand, when you grow old, you return to your roots, yearning for family and comfort.

Throughout this project, I have tried to see how aging is portrayed within the characters.

My poem was about the difficulties of growing up alone. The girl is saddened by the fact that her grandmother has died and she doesn’t know how to do things because she always had looked up to her grandmamma. This reminded me of Oedipus, when Antigone cries out for help when her father dies. I then wrote a short story about an old man’s decision to reunite with his family. This is seen in Charlotte as she desperately wants to be loved. When you grow older you have already shaped your identity, but you still want to fit in and feel appreciated.

            My next piece was a collage of two song lyrics and two pictures. The two songs reflect two different aspects of growing up. Bruce Springsteen wrote about a teenager rebelling against authority and discovering who he is. On the other hand Solsburry Hill by Peter Grabriel is about surrendering yourself and learning how to cooperate with others. With Lucy one quickly sees that she is trying to find herself and trust her instincts, but when she admits to loving George she surrenders herself. The two drawings are a symbol of defying limits. The young girl represent the normality, she is learning how to dance. What little girl hasn’t taken dance classes? Yet, the drawing of the male ballerina shows that dreams don’t have societal limits. It also shows that one can find their belonging as you grow up and your dreams seem humiliating.

            The two journal entries that follow are of Antigone and I as we discover what womanhood is. Antigone was strong and challenged authority, but I added in that growing up is also about accepting criticism and authority for a better community. Finally I took seven pictures of people and showed the differences in emotion one face throughout aging. In a “Room with a View”, Mr. Emerson was a jaunty man who seemed happy to grow old. In “I’m Not Scared”, Michele was discovering his own pathway and was scared. Emotions are normal and can sometimes lead you to grow and learn from mistakes.

Jessica

Final Blog

Unknown itself is neutral, which means it neither directly destroys nor directly honors you. The one who determines the effect of the unknown is the character himself (herself). The first reactions when encountering unknown are usually nothing more than trepidation, excitement, uncertainness, curiosity and precariousness while the final out comings varies. In my project, I try to analyze how the unknown shapes the characters in two different way–the positive way and the negative way.  Maureen from July’s People and Michelle from I’m Not Scared provides two proper examples of how an unexpected unknown altered their life forever.

I found the same fear I found in Maureen when I first came to NMH. Both Maureen and I entered an environment which is occupied by a completely different culture and race. I chose to create a paired poem comparing the differences between the first expression of Maureen and me. While I felt excitement and desired to begin my new life, Maureen was struggled with the redefinition of her role playing in her family. At the end of the book, Maureen failed to adapt in the village and chose to escape from everything.
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When we talk about exploration, people usually connect this word with the nature and space. However this word means a lot more than that. Exploration not only makes people gain more knowledge about mother nature and the outside world,  it also leads people to discover their own identity and shape their own perspectives towards lives.

In novel A Room With A View, Lucy went on a journey of exploration. While watching and enjoying the views of Italy, Lucy discovered the true love and passion for life. The second half of the story revealed the second half of the Lucy’s exploration journey where she explored how much love, passion and freedom mean to her. In my project, I made a dance piece to illustrate her exploration of love. I combine a set of drawings into the dance as well to make the theme exploration look more clear. Read the rest of this entry »

Is it easy to make a drastic change in ones life or the lives of others? Of course not. Though many of us would like it to be easy we can not simply ignore the fact that if we have a problem we have to attack it with passion. Those of us who assume that we can duck our heads and avoid a problem that is fronting us soon realize that life doesn’t stop. I have gone through this year with this kind of attitude, and I thought it might work. I assumed that with time my problems would go away, but without me trying to stop them, they simply grew bigger. I soon found myself buried in homework, absent points, and disciplinary consequences that were beyond what I had ever imagined. I’m not there yet but I think its finally gotten to me. I realize now that in order to make a change in ones lifestyle you have to attack life head on and bend it to your will.  Now how do some of the characters in our book do this?
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I never understood real courage when I was young. I remember the issues of Boy’s Life which had cartoons for those boys that had won the Heroism Award or the Merit Medal. Little Jimmy in Arkansas beat a dog off of his brother and Mikey from Washington State chased the bears away from the campsite. I had been told stories of men like Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in history who had killed so many men on two separate occasions that the United States awarded him 30 or so medals in all. Literature introduced me to both extremes of the idea, the typical coward and the typical hero/heroine. Harry Potter helped all of his wizard friends escape the clutches of the evil Voldemort and the fantastic stories of sword-wielding dragon-riders and their smaller, gritty, underappreciated companions were my idea of good reading for the greater part of Elementary and Middle School.
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