Happiness, Meaning, and Personal Ethics
This project was more based off the roots of defining what gives us happiness and meaning along with our personal ethics. We'd write a piece about our own personal philosophy, and create a project which would be our artistic representation of what we're defining about ourselves. The direction I originally took it was to make a film which would follow a character who is basically me but it's also through the perspective on how I see things and would also show my own personal way of doing things and thinking in general. But it changed last minute and became even more personal than that. As in change, it changed drastically. I decided not to do the film due to time constraints, lack of footage, and I wanted to branch out. So I wrote a free verse poem over the course of a few hours. The essential questions it was aiming to answer was what my happiness and meaning were and what my place in the world possibly was. The inspiration came from bottling things up for a few years and I thought it would be nice to just let it all out. I'm not sure I developed any new perspective but I think I somehow managed to obtain a better understanding of myself.
After doing this project, there's not much I can say on any new insights. But like I said earlier, I gained a better understanding of myself. Well I guess insight wise, I can say that, after reading my poem over and over again just lets me remember what I've been through and reminds me why I'm still standing to this day. But what I do believe in doing what I feel is right, even if it's flat out wrong to others. I've also learned to either do it, or don't do it, since there is no try. Some of my ethics come from Yoda and Obi Wan. Which they're both from the Star Wars saga. Anyway, throughout the process of writing the poem, I obtained better insight with who I am. Going more in depth is impossible because I'm a really simple life for who'll only be around for a temporary amount of time.
i shall be blunt, I have no further "intellectual quandaries" from here. I haven't wondered about anything now about before, other than why did I have to go through that stupid crap. I did nothing to deserve it. I have no questions about myself right now but it'll come eventually.
After doing this project, there's not much I can say on any new insights. But like I said earlier, I gained a better understanding of myself. Well I guess insight wise, I can say that, after reading my poem over and over again just lets me remember what I've been through and reminds me why I'm still standing to this day. But what I do believe in doing what I feel is right, even if it's flat out wrong to others. I've also learned to either do it, or don't do it, since there is no try. Some of my ethics come from Yoda and Obi Wan. Which they're both from the Star Wars saga. Anyway, throughout the process of writing the poem, I obtained better insight with who I am. Going more in depth is impossible because I'm a really simple life for who'll only be around for a temporary amount of time.
i shall be blunt, I have no further "intellectual quandaries" from here. I haven't wondered about anything now about before, other than why did I have to go through that stupid crap. I did nothing to deserve it. I have no questions about myself right now but it'll come eventually.
My free Verse Poem
Below is the poem I wrote for this project
Rhetoric and Ideology Project
Project Description
For this project, I had to pick look at examples of rhetoric, past and present in order to deconstruct ideas within America. Part of this was driven by me finding out what my ideas/views on America were and to find a way to express them through rhetoric. The objective of this was to find an issue I was passionate about and express my standpoint on it through a form of rhetoric. Now what I did for this project was something that had partially sparked my interest through fiction and the real world. So the topic of my project was the uncertain likelihood of militaristic resistance towards injustices such as oppression or discrimination. Which is an indirect response to the police brutality that's occurred within recent years.
My project incorporated the Art of Rhetoric with the intentions to shape a persons knowledge along with testing ideas like the possibility of rebellion within the U.S. By shaping knowledge my project meant to show an audience the reality acts of police brutality and the unease among people it caused. Some examples are Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland which both had victims Michael Brown (Ferguson) and Freddie Gray (Baltimore). The knowledge shaping was supposed to show what had happened, what followed. While my project also tested ideas by sparking the idea of the uncertain possibility of violent militaristic resistance if injustices are overlooked within the U.S.
During this project, I made several connections that went hand in hand with each other to make me look more into studying my topic. To start off, I have a Navajo and Hopi background, and back in 1973; AIM or The American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee. History has shown me that the Federal Government has not been the kindest to indigenous peoples and given that I am of indigenous descent, seemed most relevant to me to address what could happen if people who are oppressed and mistreated for much too long. They lash out. Another thing that seemed to make me study the topic of rebellion was the unrest within Baltimore and Ferguson after their incidents which sparked people to protest, riot and destroy parts of the modern environment they were in. Those people who were unhappy with what had happened really caught my attention, and at the time, the action of the police officers made my stomach turn and I began to look at a variety of police brutality incidents that were caught on tape. Which ranged from unarmed males being gunned down, asphyxiated, or beaten. The final area that really made my study of this topic very interesting was of fiction; which was the conflict between The Rebel Alliance and The Galactic Empire. The area of this area that made a weird connection to my topic was the time before the rebellion rose, which was a time that the Empire was unfair to it's citizens. It connected to my topic of resistance due to the idea that a government (in this case, The Empire and in some cases ours) will allow the unfair treatment of a minority within its population to slip by and let the aggressors off with nothing but a slap on the wrist. Then when the mistreated resist in a way that's civil; they are likely to be ignored. But when they resort to violence, they are deemed criminals, terrorists, or rebels while the people allowing them to be mistreated are usually the criminals.
The only real difficult part about this project was the editing process that took a majority of the time I took in producing the film for this project. Given that when it comes to film editing, I become a perfectionist. It wasn't a negative experience, it was really fun but it was more on the challenging side since I wanted everything to have a sense of perfection one I had finished. If I had to do this over again, I think I would tie in fears some Americans have and make it sound acceptable. I'd be more of a devil's advocate. An example of what I would do would probably say something among the lines of, "ISIS is fighting the good fight. They have their reasons to lash out at us for mistreating them as we did with many other ethnicities within the U.S and if people here fight against us, well it's probably our fault in history." That's among the lines of typing off the spot and an idea I had just as I finished the final product.
When looking back, I think that I've learned that rhetoric is something you do to get people attention, and to possibly make them believe what you believe and our ideology ties into that heavily. Without ideology, what would rhetoric be? As an "American," I think that I've learned one thing about my developing ideology. I am not happy with many things within this country and I feel like it needs to change but people may not listen to reason so if brute force is needed, it may have to go that way. I have a short fuse.
My project incorporated the Art of Rhetoric with the intentions to shape a persons knowledge along with testing ideas like the possibility of rebellion within the U.S. By shaping knowledge my project meant to show an audience the reality acts of police brutality and the unease among people it caused. Some examples are Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland which both had victims Michael Brown (Ferguson) and Freddie Gray (Baltimore). The knowledge shaping was supposed to show what had happened, what followed. While my project also tested ideas by sparking the idea of the uncertain possibility of violent militaristic resistance if injustices are overlooked within the U.S.
During this project, I made several connections that went hand in hand with each other to make me look more into studying my topic. To start off, I have a Navajo and Hopi background, and back in 1973; AIM or The American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee. History has shown me that the Federal Government has not been the kindest to indigenous peoples and given that I am of indigenous descent, seemed most relevant to me to address what could happen if people who are oppressed and mistreated for much too long. They lash out. Another thing that seemed to make me study the topic of rebellion was the unrest within Baltimore and Ferguson after their incidents which sparked people to protest, riot and destroy parts of the modern environment they were in. Those people who were unhappy with what had happened really caught my attention, and at the time, the action of the police officers made my stomach turn and I began to look at a variety of police brutality incidents that were caught on tape. Which ranged from unarmed males being gunned down, asphyxiated, or beaten. The final area that really made my study of this topic very interesting was of fiction; which was the conflict between The Rebel Alliance and The Galactic Empire. The area of this area that made a weird connection to my topic was the time before the rebellion rose, which was a time that the Empire was unfair to it's citizens. It connected to my topic of resistance due to the idea that a government (in this case, The Empire and in some cases ours) will allow the unfair treatment of a minority within its population to slip by and let the aggressors off with nothing but a slap on the wrist. Then when the mistreated resist in a way that's civil; they are likely to be ignored. But when they resort to violence, they are deemed criminals, terrorists, or rebels while the people allowing them to be mistreated are usually the criminals.
The only real difficult part about this project was the editing process that took a majority of the time I took in producing the film for this project. Given that when it comes to film editing, I become a perfectionist. It wasn't a negative experience, it was really fun but it was more on the challenging side since I wanted everything to have a sense of perfection one I had finished. If I had to do this over again, I think I would tie in fears some Americans have and make it sound acceptable. I'd be more of a devil's advocate. An example of what I would do would probably say something among the lines of, "ISIS is fighting the good fight. They have their reasons to lash out at us for mistreating them as we did with many other ethnicities within the U.S and if people here fight against us, well it's probably our fault in history." That's among the lines of typing off the spot and an idea I had just as I finished the final product.
When looking back, I think that I've learned that rhetoric is something you do to get people attention, and to possibly make them believe what you believe and our ideology ties into that heavily. Without ideology, what would rhetoric be? As an "American," I think that I've learned one thing about my developing ideology. I am not happy with many things within this country and I feel like it needs to change but people may not listen to reason so if brute force is needed, it may have to go that way. I have a short fuse.
Resistance: A WArning (My Written Rhetoric)
MY Film
Voices from the Animas
Project Reflection
Throughout this project, we (I) had to gather voices from individuals who had a perspective on the somewhat recent Animas River spill. At the start of the project, we needed to come up with questions , based from questions we currently had, or questions we hard heard from other people. The next part of the project consisted of finding answers, but it's not as simple as you'd think. We couldn't just find the answers for the perpecctove we chose, we had to gain views from other perspective. For the next part, we had to get our interviews, edit and upload them to the Storycorps archive. Finally at the end, there was an exhibition in which people generally from Durango
This project was one heck of a ride. Well for me it got rather personal after I had come across an epiphany after really asking questions and questioning things in general about the spill and water itself. For awhile, when my dad would tell me about how important water is, I would turn the other way due to personal reasons. But once I looked back on something that happened awhile ago, it really hit me. Water is life, it's as simple as that.
The interview? That, that was amazing, I look back on it and I wouldn't approach it any differently you. The only thing that really stood out was the similar talking points the interviewee was making were very similar to talking points I had made in an in class seminar. Afterwards, I really took away that I wasn't alone in what I thought.
At the exhibition, I'll be honest. I wasn't fully there. I was waiting for a potential interviewee who could have possibly shown up. Russell Begaye, the Navajo Nation President. Even though I was present, talking and socializing with friends and the exhibition guests, I had my mind set on interviewing the Navajo Nation President. Unfortunately, he was unable to make it, however I had gotten another interview with a family friend who had said she'd specifically wished to be interviewed by me. I did not hesitate.
Throughout a project, everyone will grow. I'm sure I did, once that realization on how important water is to me as a Navajo teenager, my eyes were opened. As a person, I grew as a listener and a speaker. I really like to talk and I really like to listen, but when it comes to something that incentive set me off, it was a challenge and after being interviewed, I'd come out of my reclusive turtle shell. As a listener, I really like to listen to random people, or friends. It's always a nice change of pace where I'm not talking but instead I get to shut up and listen!
This project was one heck of a ride. Well for me it got rather personal after I had come across an epiphany after really asking questions and questioning things in general about the spill and water itself. For awhile, when my dad would tell me about how important water is, I would turn the other way due to personal reasons. But once I looked back on something that happened awhile ago, it really hit me. Water is life, it's as simple as that.
The interview? That, that was amazing, I look back on it and I wouldn't approach it any differently you. The only thing that really stood out was the similar talking points the interviewee was making were very similar to talking points I had made in an in class seminar. Afterwards, I really took away that I wasn't alone in what I thought.
At the exhibition, I'll be honest. I wasn't fully there. I was waiting for a potential interviewee who could have possibly shown up. Russell Begaye, the Navajo Nation President. Even though I was present, talking and socializing with friends and the exhibition guests, I had my mind set on interviewing the Navajo Nation President. Unfortunately, he was unable to make it, however I had gotten another interview with a family friend who had said she'd specifically wished to be interviewed by me. I did not hesitate.
Throughout a project, everyone will grow. I'm sure I did, once that realization on how important water is to me as a Navajo teenager, my eyes were opened. As a person, I grew as a listener and a speaker. I really like to talk and I really like to listen, but when it comes to something that incentive set me off, it was a challenge and after being interviewed, I'd come out of my reclusive turtle shell. As a listener, I really like to listen to random people, or friends. It's always a nice change of pace where I'm not talking but instead I get to shut up and listen!
link to our AniMas Archive |
link to my specific interview |