Chellening the Status Quo Mash Up Final

1.       After a whole year of humanities and looking back on all the things we have learned is pretty astonishing. I think that the English humanities course should be required to take because you are taught a lot of ideas and concepts that will definitely be able to benefit you in the future. One of the big concepts that I will take with me is challenging the status quo. I think that this is a very big thing people should always over come. We cannot let ourselves follow the crowd or the “norm”. If you do it may prevent you from: growing, gaining experiences, learning new ideas through experiences, and it may prevent you from living you life to your fullest. I believe strongly in that new let anyone drag you down or hold you back especially from your dreams. Branch away from the rest of the world and allow yourself to find who you really are.  

2.



Gay Marriage

3. There are many ways that people are able to challenge the status quo; One being in terms of society. We are programmed to fit into what the society thinks is right and how we should act. Not many people in this world are willing to gain courage and follow their hearts. One perfect example of this is gay marriage. Even though today it has gotten a little bit more accepted by society it is still high on the list of “not normal”. I have noticed through media and around me that over time more and more homosexuals are coming out of the closet and not caring what society thinks. This group of people has huge aspirations to sticking in what they believe in, they follow their heart. A lot of them have not given up they continued to have protest and continued to be open with their sexuality. Everyone should be more like them and not give up and stand up for what they believe in no matter how many times they are told no.

4. “I came across your recent statement calling my present activities unwise and untimely…  Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

5. “The joyful cave dweller could now have gone [after exploring what makes the shadows they see] skipping away into the countryside, delighting in his new- found freedom.  But instead he thinks of all the others who are still down in the cave. He goes back. Once there, he tries to convince the cave dwellers that the shadows on the cave wall are but flickering reflections if “real” things. But they don’t believe him. They point to the cave wall and say that what they see is all there is. Finally they kill him” (90).

6.



Rosa Parks

7. “We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community”.

8.  “This humanity of women , carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it… someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer ,mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only of life and reality: the female human being“ (77-78).

9.

“VIOLA: “There is a fair behavior in thee, captain,

And though that nature with a beauteous wall

Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee

I will believe thou hast a mind that suits

With this thy fair and outward character.

I prithee—and I’ll pay thee bounteously—

Conceal me what I am, and be my aid

For such disguise as haply shall become

The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke.

Thou shall present me as an eunuch to him.

It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing

And speak to him in many sorts of music

That will allow me very worth his service.

What else may hap to time I will commit.

Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.”

10. Not just another outfit, Lady Gaga (open in new tab)

11.The smart pretty and pink, Legally Blonde (open in new tab)

12. “Modern art touches a sore spot, or several sore spots, in the ordinary citizen of which he is totally unaware. The more irritated he becomes at modern art the more he betrays the fact that he himself, and his civilization, are implicated in what the artist shows him.”

13.



Andy warhol



14. One of my personal experiences I have faced in terms of challenging the status quo is my parents and friends tell me I should date my boyfriend, because he was Mexican and “you can do better than that Mikaela”. Not even were the closest people telling me these things I also had somehow created the reputation of dating a bunch of Mexicans when really I have only dated two. To me this was very hurtful because I am not a person who cares about race or ethnicity. I looked within these guys’ hearts and liked them for who they were.  For the longest time me dating a Mexican was not accepted at all form my parents, friends and other students especially living in the North Shore.  This really made me feel horrible inside that people actually were thinking this way and that one of them was even my own mom. One time my friends mom told me that the reason I am dating a Mexican is because I don’t know any better because at the time I was living with my dad and not my mom.  After all this I was very tempted to not be with him because of how it made me look to everyone else. I decided that I didn’t want to let this special person who makes me happier than ever and who treats me better than any guy has before, so I stayed with him. This is one of the better choices I am proud I have made because me and him are still together and happier than ever. I couldn’t imagine how things would be without him. I am happy that I decided to follow my heart and my gut in what I believed was the right thing for me.  I am going to take this idea with me for the rest of my life because nothing feels better than stepping out of the social norm.

Works Cited:

1. Mikaela Allmon

2. Gay Marriage  

3. Mikaela Allmon

4. Luther King jr, Martin. “Letter from a Birmingham jail.” April 16, 1963

5. Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie's World.  New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1994.
6.Rosa Parks

7. Luther King jr, Martin. “Letter from a Birmingham jail.” April 16, 1963

8. Maria Rilke, Rainer. Letters to a Young Poet. New York: Random House inc. 1984.

9. Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night. New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 1993. Print.   

10. youtube video- Lady Gaga’s style

11.youtube video- Legally Blonde trailer

12. Barrett, William. “The Testimony of Modern Art”. Chapter Three.

13. Andy Warhol

14.Mikaela Allmon

Curation Blog Two

Over the past week I evaluated my research and got rid of things that did not work anymore and I searched for other information that can add more support and strength to my website. I was able to organize some of the things that I didn’t know what category to put them in. For right now my design is very simple and easy to use. I have a basic home page with tabs you can click on that ring you to more information. On each tab there is a category such has holidays, on a rainy day, seasons and learning and a couple other that are still being worked on and modified such has games. My topic is pretty basic so getting my point across is obviously narrated for right now. But I am still being conscious of that because I don’t want my ideas to flutter and the audience not being able to follow.

My major accomplishment this week was actually creating the website itself. I started with Wix.com and I love what I am able to do with it. This website allows you to do a lot and add a bunch of detail and animations. So far my most interesting link would be holidays because this link is the most lively and pleasing for an audience. This link gives off great information in a fun and simple way. I have lots of pictures and explanations or links to other websites that give a demo or a step by step process on how to do the craft.

My biggest obstacle is not being tech savvy because it puts a huge barrier for my website to come to its full potential.  As for wix.com it is great and enables me to do a lot but this site is also very busy and confuses me on how to work it properly. I have started to overcome this issue but I was thinking about transferring my design and ideas on a new website much simpler.  I tried using the template Mr. Allen gave us but I am having trouble setting up and editing the template and making it mine. 

My next steps of this process are to learn more about my chosen website and possibly explore another website that will allow my site to come up to its full potential. I also plan to make sure I am focusing on all of the tabs and not just one. I want to keep all my tabs as equal as possible when it comes to the information under each tab. Another thing I plan to do is add pictures or explanations to help the reader better understand.

Over all my filtering of sources is working really well and while evaluating them more and more ideas are flowing into my head as well as categories.  It is making the organization of my website easier and not so bland. Like said before the major thing not working so well is the website itself, I need something simple but allows me to add photos, videos, links and designs to my site.

Curation blog one!

While trying to sort out my curation about kid’s crafts or fun things for them to do; I started with searching for crafts and fun ideas for children as a basis before I picked out my type of web design. This search has been very fun and I’m getting great information the only problem is that when I am evaluating my sources they all seem to be very good ideas for my website. I am slowly narrowing it down because I don’t want to make it to bombarded and busy when people first enter my site. But I haven’t given up on my research; I am still gathering and filtering through sources and new information. I have organized my sources in to sections: crafts, recipes and fun activities. I am finding it difficult to make sure I have a balanced amount of ideas and sources ender each category. I can see that it is possible for my categories now to branch out into a bunch of other categories as my curation goes on.  I have expectations that everything will just fall into place over time. My biggest problem is finding a type of website design that works best for me. I haven’t made an official decision on which design yet because I wanted to start my research first and see what format seems to fit best with my sources and me. As of right now my sources answer the question very well but I think it might be too overwhelming by the amounts of information I currently have. I am trying to find a way to make it more user friendly and make the narrative of my answers to directly answer their questions without any questions and confusion. My goal is to make everything easy to follow and easy for people to understand. I want my website to be one that a parent could quickly go to and get a quick and fun idea to do with their kids. Over all, I can’t wait to see where my curation takes me.

dialectics: hidden identity and great art

A guy who is an excellent artist but hides his identity… this guy is Banksy.

Banksy is a guy who decided to follow his passion, no matter if that meant breaking the law. He is known for putting his own works of art into museums and graffiti around the city. As many people know you can’t just walk into a museum and put up one of your pieces of art or go around doing graffiti. But for Banksy he didn’t care. He loved what he was doing and he was pretty damn good at it. But what he didn’t expect was for people to notice or become in love with him. So he created a pen name to protect his true identity from the law. But why did he care if he was such a great artist even after his art exhibit which the whole city loved?

A guy who was a copy cat artist but lets his identity shine…this guy is Mr. Brainwash (terry).

Terry was a guy who wanted to make a video about Banksy.  After all his studying and interviewing this video became more about himself.  He took the ideas of Banksy to put up out of the ordinary graffiti and to create an art exhibit. This wasn’t the only thing that made him a copy cat; he would look at books of other artist work and then photo copy it and change something about it. On top of that he would sell his works for tons of money. Yes in some cases he was a good artist but how can we give credit to a man who copies other artist and whose passion is mainly to be more and bigger than the other artist. Why does someone who is aware of copying other artist get away with showing his true identity?

Metacognition: MashUp

When looking at the list of words to choose from it was very hard because I had only minimal ideas for each and I wasn’t sure on how else to explore those ideas. But I didn’t give up I reread my reflections and read the listening skills passages. I used my working memory to bring out stronger ideas and I listened to Mr. Allen’s advice that we should pause and let the more complex ideas come out.

As I started letting the more complex ideas come I was all of a sudden bombarded with ideas and thoughts. For some reason the topic of gender really intrigued me. I took this topic and made it more specific to the female gender. What my thoughts were is that women are often looked down upon and that we have been dealing with this for centuries. When in reality; we are capable of the male work.

Has I was working on my mashup I noticed that it was very hard to get my thoughts and ideas out. One of my struggles was putting them in an order that made them talk to each other. But I did find that while finding other sources and quotes in my subconscious it really bothered me that women are seen differently than men. It drove me crazy thinking about how for centuries women are seen has not capable of certain things and all the stereotypes about women there really are. I really liked how I was able to become aware of some thoughts that are in my subconscious. Now I really wonder what else I am unaware about in my subconscious.

I would have changed the amount of time spent on this project because I think that if I spent more than just a couple days I would have gotten better results and my passages would have been easier to put in order because they would naturally talk to each other. But over all this project was very fun and I would have liked to do this more throughout the year with different topics.

Best of Today: Frank Gehry

Today in class we finished the movie Sketches of Frank Gehry. This movie or documentary took us through the process he goes through for every work of art and building he creates.

 He starts off his thought process by first getting inspired. His inspirations come from everywhere and anything even a garbage can. Once he gets inspired he makes scribble drawings or sketches. Once he has a good feel for how he wants his building to be he makes a replica out of paper with the help of his assistant and he tweaks it has he goes on. Then it is incredible to me how he can take these models and then actually bring them to life.

There are a couple things I really like about this guys work. For one he doesn’t let his building take full control over him, the people and the other buildings. Like he said he wants to “respect” the other buildings. A way he does this is to take similar patterns, rhythms and styles and incorporate it into his piece enabling all the buildings to flow beautifully together.

As far as the piece its self he uses a lot of metal. What I find clever is he gives it a cozy feel by adding rooms that contain wood.  For me personally wood and metal are at opposite ends of the spectrum and I would never put them together. But Gehry did a phenomenal job at making it work well and actually changed my mind how I feel about putting together those two forms.

Another thing I liked about this movie and Gehry’s building is how it showed us the most modern someone could be. He broke rules but also followed the rules at the same time for his works of art. He is a man who is really capable of working in old and new ideas into his work. I found it funny how he discovered that he needed to start using a computer for his work because he got stumbled with a staircase in one of his buildings; but yet he still uses his paper models where as now a lot of architects use computers to figure out everything the building consists of. I feel that this video was a really good wrap up to our discussions and readings about modern art. It allowed us to have background knowledge to understanding the full potential of his work.

Blogging Around:Postmodern Art

One is the blogs that caught my attention was Colette's because after watching the commercial she posted it was able to actually grasp what she meant. she talked about postmodern art and how it is used today especially in commercials and as an attention getter for consumers.

My comment: I really like the commercial because it really back up you point about postmodern art. postmadern art is different than modern art in that it  catches its audience much easier. having a video really helped me understand what you meant by catching thr attention of consumers through emotions.

The second blog i commented on was Cassie's. I thought the way she gave a brief explanation on the difference between modern and postmodern art was, was very helpful when she introduced another term; contemporary art. she talked about how people dont find alot of meaning in art anymore has the should.

My comment: cassie i really loved the thought about how art sometimes has the sterotype of having no meaning. which i think happens alot today because people dont really see the actual paintings its all through the internet. but if people were put right in front of the actual painting i think they would find meaning in all kinds of art. every pience os art has meaning and authenticity like you said. we should try and connect more with art and interpret it and takin in its beauty because every piece of art is different.