LIST

1. Experience at ISA (International School of Amsterdam)
2. Experience with Beacons
3. More on my preschool ideas

I read through my narrative and realized that I was lacking in what my preschool really was trying to accomplish.  Thus, I took time to write the ending paragraph.  

This was the extent of my preschool explanation:

Now the ultimate goal of owning my own preschool doesn’t seem so far away, and I’m motivated to do anything I can to make my dream a reality.

I added: 

There will be three main focuses in my preschool: community service, fine arts, and education.  A child is never too young to give.  Thus I will create opportunities to help the less fortunate through activities like, but not limited to, sharing music, helping at food shelves, and having clothing drives.  I will also instill the love of fine arts in each and every child that walks through the door, giving them choices between dance, theater, choir and instruments.  The education portion will be just like any other school, teaching math, writing and reading, but I will also add languages, geography and science.  Though they are young, I believe that solid building blocks are the key to success in any child.  The children will learn by doing instead of just seeing, and it will help them to excel in the subjects taught.  My idea is to not only have preschool, but also a pre-preschool of sorts for two to three year olds and also a Pre-K for five to six year olds.  That way, they will have enough time for the philosophies taught to really make a difference in their lives.  Keeping thesis in mind and experience under my belt, I am determined to create a preschool righting the wrongs of modern day segregation and intolerance.  Though it’s a small step, I hope to contribute to ending discrimination, creating a brighter future, and bringing communities together, regardless of race, religion and economical standing.

The "Music" of Figurative Language

I am a really big fan of musicals, and a lot of the songs use figurative language to get their points across creatively, below is a song from the musical, Next to Normal.  It’s called, “You Don’t Know.”  The main character is trying to explain to her husband how she feels every day of her life being depressed.  It’s one of my favorite songs in the show, very deep.  

Next to Normal - You Don't Know (Alice Ripley)

Do you wake up in the morning and need help to lift your head?
Do you read obituaries and feel jealous of the dead?
It's like living on a cliff side not knowing when you'll dive. - Simile
Do you know, do you know what it's like to die alive? - Hyperbole

When the world that once had color fades to white and gray and black. - Hyperbole
When tomorrow terrifies you, but you'll die if you look back.
You don't know.
I know you don't know.
You say that you're hurting, it sure doesn't show.
You don't know.
You tell me let go.
And you may say so, but I say you don't know.

The sensation that you're screaming, but you never make a sound.
Or the feeling that you're falling, but you never hit the ground. - Metaphor
It just keeps on rushing at you day by day by day by day.
You don't know, you don't know what it's like to live that way.
Like a refugee, a fugitive, forever on the run. - Simile
If it gets me it will kill me, but I don't know what I've done. – Personification

Good writing like this really brings in the audience.  Listening to this song, you cannot only hear the strain in her voice, but also in her words.  It’s a very impactful part of the show and this is the first time you really see the pain she is suffering.

Writing Prompts

List of ideas:

1.     Story of my baby blanket, how I lost it and the devastation I felt. 

2.     Moving to Amsterdam

3.     Messing up in a play in college

4.     Getting a bear from my great grandma in her will

5.     Moving out

6.     School difficulties

7.     Emotional problems I’ve had to deal with.

Questions:

·      School – Why has it taken me so long to be able to get back to school?

·      Men – Why are men’s thought processes so different from women’s?

·       Fast Food – Why is fast food so delicious but so bad for you?

·      Television – What is it about crappy reality TV that makes it so irresistible?

·      Public Restrooms – What is it about public restrooms that make people uncomfortable?

·      Shoes – Why are shoes so expensive?

·      Sports – Why did I stop playing sports in high school?

·      Jobs – How did I get so lucky with the job I’m at now?

Fastwrites

Most of us harbor dreams – my dream in particular is now becoming within reach and I’m heading towards it as fast as I possibly can.  I’ve always dreamed of being a teacher.  Since I was little, I would make my stuffed animals come to my “school,” write out very descriptive applications for my “daycare” and even pretend to be my friends’ teacher.  My dream recently developed into a full-blown plan.  I want to own my own preschool.  This preschool is not going to be like a normal school, in which parents pay tuition for their kids to learn how to count and write their name.  My preschool will be devoted to culturing kids who otherwise wouldn’t get the chance until later on in their lives.  I come from a mixed background… no, not culturally, but living-wise.  I’ve had the experience of living in a different country, living in the suburbs, and living in the city.  I know the differences between city-folk and suburban-folk.  My quest will be to blur the lines just a little bit, culturing these children by taking them on volunteer trips to local food shelves and homeless shelters, never putting them in danger but instilling in them that they can make a difference no matter how young they are.  My dream of being a teacher faded about two years ago, when I struggled to acclimate with the new role of being a college student.  It took me a long time to be able to overcome those hurdles, but today I’m glad to say I’m back on the right track and am ready to make my dream a reality.

One of the biggest “turning points” in my life was when I left high school.  Most people have a little trouble adjusting to college life away from their families and discovering who they are going to be for the rest of their lives. I had an especially hard time with this.  I went to Gustavus my first year out of high school, and realized halfway through my first semester I wasn’t ready to leave home whatsoever.  I hated the fact that my family was so far away from me, and I was hurting from past things that I had foolishly kept a secret to everyone.  The next year, I attended MCTC and failed again because I just wasn’t going to school and was still facing the troubles I did at Gustavus.  I decided to take another semester off.  I was still stuck in high school and didn’t want to come to terms with the harsh reality that I was on my own now.  After many sleepless nights and a lot of analyzing my life, I finally have got my act together and made a step in the right direction. Through all the analyzing of myself, I realized that I wasn’t making reasonable goals with myself, and I was setting myself up for failure.  It was one of the biggest realizations to me because I pinpointed at least part of my problem and I was determined to fix it.  It hasn’t only helped me in my school life, but I’m a lot happier as a person now too.

Judging What I Have

Abundance: I generated the most writing from the first prompt, and found myself wanting to actually write more than I did on the subject.   It’s actually what I’m deciding to write my essay on and that’s why I stopped at two fastwrites rather than three, because I want to start writing about the first prompt in more detail.

Surprise: I found it really confusing to write about my biggest turning point, especially in just a fastwrite, because there is so much more information I could give on the subject, but I would have to start from the beginning and it’s just too much to put in a paragraph.

Confusion: I think my first prompt raised a lot of questions, such as how will I be able to make my dream a reality and how soon can it actually become a reality?

Honesty: I’m willing to write honestly about my first prompt, which will actually probably combine with my second prompt in a way.  I’m a little standoffish of the second one because it is kind of a touchy subject.

Survival of the Fittest

I’ve lived in Minnesota my entire life, and not once had I dared go to the Mall of America on a Saturday afternoon.  Even as a child, people warned my family about getting swallowed by the sea of tourists and shopping enthusiasts that came out to prey on the (now second) largest shopping mall in the United States.  With the sign indicating it’s name glinting proudly in the sun, currently at it’s highest point in the sky, I should have known it was a bad idea. 

Last weekend, I made a promise to my dad that I would take my little sisters back-to-school clothes shopping.  Thinking I would be most successful at the “moa,” as it’s so proudly known as to the native indie-hipsters and teenyboppers, I originally set the date as Friday after school.  Unfortunately, my sister Camila has dance after school on Fridays so I took Gabbi alone.  Skipping out the door, she giggled, knowing that she had once again completed her lifelong quest of being “first” in the family.  The mall was calm Friday night; we ate a delicious meal at Famous Dave’s and shopped for jeans and shirts able to withstand the ever-approaching months that our state is known for.  We ended with dessert at a modern-esque ice cream shop made up of all white tiles and pink accents called Freeziac.  It was a rather enjoyable experience, beside the fact that my wallet took a pretty hard hit.

The next day was Camila’s turn.  I picked her up from dance, excitement so prominent on her face it was as if she was screaming at the top of her eight-year-old lungs.  I rumbled my ’99 Mercury Sable to life and we were off to what I thought would be an equally enjoyable time with the older of my two sisters.  The trouble started the minute we exited from 77 onto Lindau Lane.  Cars were parked one after another on the ramp, with no signs of moving.  It was clear that the enjoyable, relaxed day I thought I would have with my sister would turn into batting off angry shoppers and dodging wide-eyed tourists.  It took us fifteen minutes just to get into the parking lot.  By this time, I was fed up and drove up the long, concrete mountain to the top, which is so righteously named after our far state of Alaska.  With Camila in tow, a firm hand holding hers, we elbowed our way to the food court, where we had Chinese instead of a nice sit-down meal.  The restaurants were roaring with people and a 25-minute wait was an eternity neither of us wanted to suffer through.  The stores were overcrowded and stuffy; clothes strewn about every which way, which made sizes near impossible to find.  The Mountain Dew Camila drank for lunch had her in a more rambunctious mood than normal, and although she fit in with the screaming four-year-olds being pulled around like show dogs on leashes, I had had enough.  We traversed our way through three more stores and successfully spent the remainder of my paycheck finishing just as we had the night before; a custom-made ice cream treat from the sparkling, new Freeziac. 

It was a day I will remember forever, swimming through seas of people, navigating through piles upon piles of overpriced children’s clothing, and ducking to get out of touristy pictures in front of restaurants and attractions.  I never would have thought that going shopping at the mall would turn into survival of the fittest.  I’ve learned my lesson, and I’m never stepping foot in the Mall of America on a weekend afternoon again.