When I first opened up the Pixlr website to start photoshopping my images for this assignment, the search bar had already been autofilled with “New York,” which featured pictures of downtown, roads, and the Statue of Liberty (guess which one I chose?). I’ve always loved visiting Lady Liberty during my trips to New York, and I am fascinated by the torch she holds. I’ve never been inside the statue, but I’ve seen a life-sized model of the torch, which was an incredible experience. In the spirit of sports season, I decided to give America’s famous landmark her very own foam finger so she can root for her favorite team! I think this image conveys our country’s love for liberty, and for sports. Freedom and justice is what many think of when seeing the Statue of Liberty, and a sense of freedom can be felt whenever one watches and/or participates in a form of a sport. For me, theatre is my sport, and I have met so many people and become part of such a tight-knit community, all of whom give me the freedom to be who I want to be!
*sorry for the image quality, I hope it manages to convey the message!
The two images I combined for my combo photo are an NFL backup quarterback and a stack of money. The meaning of the photo is pretty straightforward, demonstrating the amount of money that is actually in the NFL and that players who are 3rd string players and barely see the stage of an actual NFL game are still receiving excellent pay and are in much better financial shape than 99% of Americans. This photo also demonstrates how quickly NFL players and other players throw away their money on useless items, have some financial problems later in their lives, and even have to declare bankruptcy in some rare conditions. During this assignment, I found it challenging to combine the two images and discard the parts of one image that didn’t look good when the images were combined. In addition, it was difficult to blur the images together to make it look like one image, not two images obviously edited together. In the end, I was able to figure out the solution, and I am sure I will be more efficient the next time I perform a similar task.
I chose to create visual notes for my biology class, specifically on natural selection. This process was helpful because it forced me to fully understand what I was reading and transfer it into visual format. The visual note taking also helped me lay out all my ideas and organize them into different categories. Part of my visual note was a timeline of evolution, which was helpful to see visually rather than a list of events. Sometimes during a lecture it is hard to fully comprehend all of the information that is being presented, so the visual note taking is helpful for that. Though it is a long process, it is helpful for concepts that are difficult to understand.
At first, it felt strange to do the prewriting exercises. However, after thinking about my past experiences that shaped my writing and reading for 45 minutes, I felt comforted by all the great teachers who taught me. I used this narrative as a way to explore my writing journey chronologically. I started in 5th grade and ended with my most important essay to date, the common app personal statement. Looking back at the literacy narrative some changes I would make would be to add more examples and go into greater description about my teachers. The essay is as much about them collectively as it is about me. One thing I did not mention enough was the impact COVID had on my writing skills.
In my literacy narrative, I dove into my pattern of being fascinated by ordinary people like me who do extraordinary things. This was fostered in my childhood through books like Percy Jackson and Harry Potter, then evolved into a lens through which I see the world. One of the most interesting parts about writing this literacy narrative was looking at my own life as if it were a novel itself. I have never before thought specifically about the ways reading has molded me in this way, and the longitudinal approach was a great way to dissect it. The connection that I was able to make at the end of my narrative between my earliest childhood memories and my recent athletic experiences was very surprising to me. I think my sentence dissecting The Matrix could be seen as the most interesting because of its applicability to everyday life, especially for those who feel like they are trapped in a corner that society has placed them in.
As I was completing my visual notes, I found that even the action of re-writing them ingrained them in my mind. Ironically, the notes are about how your mind engages with visual stimuli and processes them. The use of smell is particularly important in the case of the Ice cream. It was also pleasant to draw some stick figures with animated emotions to match the notes. The flow chart that ensued after several minutes of thinking “I don’t know how to draw. How am I going to accomplish this assignment?” wound up really helping me with understanding the concepts and internalizing the main point of the lecture: the difference between personal and public culture.
I used my notes from my psychology lecture for this visual note taking assignment. Through the process I found out how “messy” my notes are and how many typos there are in my notes. I feel like this assignment helps me to categorize and memorize my notes. I feel like processing things visually is more effective for me to memorize the knowledge and the connections between them.
If you flip through my elementary school yearbook, there is a series of pages with photos of each fifth grade graduate lined up in neat boxes. Under the photos, there are a few fun facts about each student; one being what they want to be when they grow up. When you land on my box, you will find an eleven year old girl in a bright purple sweater with the caption: “I want to be an author when I grow up”.
On one of the first Christmases I can remember, I recall tearing open a gift from Santa to find a “make your own book” kit. The kit contained sheets of paper and markers to write and illustrate a story. That very day, I wrote and illustrated my first book: “Family Trip to the Zoo”. The story describes a family of four taking a trip to the zoo, the main character being my aunt Keara. I submitted the writing and illustrations, and in a few short weeks I received a hardcover version of my story. Over the course of my elementary school years, I wrote and illustrated a total of five books; which you can still find tucked in my bookshelf at home. My aunt holds the title of favorite relative, and I devoted four out of five of my stories to her – one being more centrally focused on her daughter. Aunt Keara has her own copies of each book, and would encourage me to write a sequel after receiving each new story.
My aunt and I dancing at her wedding
Up until the seventh grade, English was my favorite subject. When I took biology for the first time in seventh grade, I fell in love with learning about the physiology of the human body. English still captivated me, and I continued to challenge myself throughout high school with AP English classes. While I enjoyed all of my English classes, the ones that specialized in creative writing drew me in more than anything else. I loved utilizing my imagination to craft stories, and for a brief period in middle school I wrote short stories for fun. My inspiration oftentimes emerged from my love for reading fictional novels. I still love to read in my free time, and the immense number of books I read when I was younger benefitted and expanded my vocabulary. As I grew older, writing was my outlet to tackle all the emotions I did not know how to deal with as an adolescent. I used to keep a green leather poetry book in my nightstand. On my restless nights where sleep escaped me, I would open my poetry book and furiously transfer the words in my head to the page. The whirlwind of thoughts dispensing from the pen and its scratch against the paper would lull me to sleep within a matter of minutes. While my phase of poetry writing slowly perished, I continued to use writing as a resource for times of distress. My first break-up occurring in my junior year of high school snuck up behind me and knocked me out. In the midst of the messy ending, I sobbed for weeks on end; physically unable to eat, sleep, or function. I desperately needed closure, which he was unwilling to provide. I sent him paragraph after paragraph, with no response in return. I realized my desperation was only pushing him away further, and that I needed to find closure on my own. I resorted to journaling. Every time I wanted to text, call, or reach out, I would write everything I wanted to say to him in my journal. The more I wrote, the better I felt. Eventually, I no longer depended on my journal or felt suffocated by the urge to reach out. Without utilizing writing as an outlet, I am unsure as to whether or not I would have made it through.
While I grew up with a natural passion for reading and writing, my brothers struggled with finding the same motivation to read and write. Over the past couple of summers, my mother hired me to tutor them in basic reading comprehension, grammar, and writing. I had the opportunity to do what I loved, and make a profit. Conducting these lessons contorted my vision as a writer, due to the fact that I had the lens of an instructor rather than a student. Creating the lesson plans and teaching my brothers led me to plunge further into the details of the language, and fine tune my own writing in the process. The process gave me awareness of the hidden errors in my writing: teaching grammar resulted in a closer analysis of my own. My writing has evolved throughout the years, yet my imagination remains consistent over the course of the journey.
The universe is infinitely complex. But, one of the first things we learned this semester in physics was that all free motion can be described by 2 simple equations. Final velocity = initial velocity + (acceleration x time), Displacement = (initial velocity x time) + (.5 x acceleration x time^2). The issue on the surface level with these equations is that most motion in the real world happens in 3 dimensions. For example, if a ball is thrown through the air, it is moving in both the x direction and y direction due to the force of the throw and gravity.
I had trouble picturing this at first, but my sketches represent the real-life examples that my professor showed to display these phenomena. In the ball rolling example to the left, the acceleration of the bottom ball displays how force in the y direction affects motion at an angle. On the example to the right, our professor proved to us that a 45-degree angle is the most efficient for launch distance due to the best utilization of force in both directions. I am always told by my professors that if I can teach the lesson to a friend then I truly know it, and I feel like sketching this assignment helped solidify in my mind the concepts we have gone over in class.
During the process of this visual note taking assignment, I learned that you don’t really need detailed or intricate drawings to tell a story. Realizing this has made me fully understand the intersection of storytelling and illustration, which is what comics and graphic novels are all about. I believe that the level of drawing skill is not dependent on how successfully one can communicate their thoughts, and how simple doodle-like images are enough to convey an idea. I really enjoyed visually drawing out my notes, and I think it helped me to thoroughly understand what I’m learning, as I had to process the notes before engaging in the illustration process.
