To start, we spent a couple weeks at the beginning of the semester reading a short text on adolescence in which we had a seminar on connecting the text to our own experiences. We dove more into adolescence by reading the book The True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and interviewing significant adults in our lives on their adolescence experience. This resulted in another seminar and reflection combining the seminar and interview. To end this unit, we made masks out of plaster to create a simulated version of our faces. We then got to paint/design it however we needed to get our perception of adolescence across. Along with that, we had to write an essay describing the theme of our mask and I chose how technology has negatively affected our generation compared to the generation before us.
My Mask
My Mask Essay
Disrupting Nature
You enter your teenager’s room but it looks like a completely different dimension. A room of robots, gazing at their tiny screens. “Give me a sec…” they say as a bright light shines right into their glossy eyes with a look of infatuation and mystery. Their wheels are turning with such focus and mesmerization that there’s no way to tell what they're feeling or thinking . The light shakes across their faces as their fingers tap the screen at the speed of light. You're probably thinking, what has this pure and adventurous world turned into? Life used to be so much more simple. During this time of my life, I was running around with my friends on our banana seat bikes and learning all about myself through risk taking. But it seems that my child doesn’t have the time or energy for that because instead they are slowly being poisoned by these new, unknown devices. Back then there was isolation of teens from the rest of the world--except for the news but no exposure to other teen cultures. Technology is like a buildup of bacteria in the mind, it builds up over weeks and eventually turns into months and then years. What a world we live in where all the teens and even adults let this bacteria take over the mind, planting doubtful thoughts about ourselves being, “I wish I was as pretty as her, “I wish I had the money to dress like this”, “when are they going to text me back”, “I wish I lived there so I could spend my time doing that.” Technology poisons our perspectives of not only ourselves, but the environment surrounding us. iPhones and the apps that come with them are the bacteria we feed ourselves every day and the sensation of that bacteria entering our eyes and brain fuel our curious mind. People think in different ways, some may take more time to sort through their thoughts using their own mind and sense of intellect, while others are unmotivated by their potentially intellectual thoughts so they decide to take the easy route and look it up. A study by ScienceDaily talks about how intuitive thinkers use their smartphones more often than analytical thinkers: “‘They may look up information that they actually know or could easily learn, but are unwilling to make the effort to actually think about it,’ said Gordon Pennycook, co-lead author of the study, and a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology at Waterloo.” With smartphones, our brains think that we no longer have the ability to store simple information in our head because it’s all at our fingertips. When the brain becomes this lazy because of a device, that makes it hard to motivate the brain for other thinking activities. Motivation comes into play because we rely on our phones to pick up the simplest of questions, but once we get stuck on a hard math problem or essay question in school we lose all motivation to do it because 1, our brain is too lazy to think about it in depth and 2, we can’t look up that exact question online. Having everything we need to know at our fingertips cures a curious mind but the more we feed ourselves with this bacteria, the more it spreads and takes over our natural abilities. This bacteria taking over our motivation has caused us to have completely different experiences from the previous generations and makes our experiences less original and genuine. Our entire generation has been a completely different experience mostly because of the invention of smartphones and tablets. The generation before us being millennials and gen x figured out most of what we know today, therefore they got to spend their adolescence novelty seeking. Since now we have phones we can continue sitting on our beds or couches to answer a question we have while xennials had to take that question with them out into the world and figure out the answer through adventures. In my adolescence interview, my dad states, “My artistic friend groups really started to take off because when I was 16, some friends and I formed a basement/garage band. You know artistic expression, we’d go on adventures throughout the day, we’d gather a bunch of information and fun stuff and we’d come back to the basement and we’d write songs and jam.” My dad’s friend group would spend their novelty seeking very wisely by going out in the current environment that they spent most of their days to gather inspiration for their song writing so that the night of, they had some content to write about. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, phones cause a lack of motivation and creativity so when you go your whole day or majority of your life without a smartphone, you have more motivation to keep yourself busy and constantly making something new, which is a key strength of the adolescent mind. For example, I’ll be sitting in a class and get a strong urge just wanting the moment where I can go home and freely scroll on my phone or spend hours watching a TV show to come. I walk home after getting off the bus and at first I’m too tired to hurry home, but once I think about what I can do once I get there, I start walking slightly faster until I feel the bottom of my feet press harder and harder into the pavement. By the time I’m about 1 block from my house I start jogging, causing my breath to fasten. I blast through the front door and crash into the couch as if I’d just been catapulted all the way from the school onto that couch by the bacteria that so desperately wants to take me over and keep me from doing anything else but giving my undivided attention to it. There it comes, the phone out of the pocket and the click of one button to open me up to the entire world. It’s sometimes this same pull even when I’m with friends while I can recognize this same bacteria is pulling at me and my clueless friends. “What should we do?” I say desperately, “I don't know, what sounds fun to you?” the other individual says, we continue that pattern for about an hour until we decide to go on a walk. There’s nothing else for our hands to do but touch that damn phone. I want to be able to spend authentic and valuable time with people I care about like my dad did with his friends, who he’s still friends with to this day because when writing music with others, you get to really learn about that person emotionally. On the contrary, the deeper this bacteria digs into the brain the more it affects our physical body and what we can and can’t do, like the ability to be authentic. The more time you communicate with others via social media, the less time you spend connecting with them in person or even over the phone. My mom always talks about how her way of communicating with peers was by her giving them her landline number, or by them miraculously finding it and surprising her with an unexpected call. At least this way, you’re still making that emotional bond with someone but when texting you can’t transmit the tone, volume, or emotion in your voice. During my adolescent interview, my dad states, “I enjoyed the groups that took more risks because I felt like it was more fulfilling and I feel like that risk taking brought us closer together. It solidified our friendships especially like skating and playing music, like putting yourself out there.” My dad took this as his way of risk taking because playing music around others can be quite nerve wracking and out of your comfort zone, per say. But once you take that risk and make it happen, you get to see a whole other side to someone making that group very emotionally intertwined. These authentic connections are a key aspect to building healthy and strong relationships preparing you for that skill in the future. Without technology, our parents' had the time to take risks while as much as we may want to, the phones make it hard to gain that motivation and creativity. The previous generation only had a tv to sit down and stare at, this still could’ve planted false beliefs about themselves and the world around them making it a precursor bacteria to what teens now have to deal with. That was just the start because at least it wasn’t an interactive experience. Free of a little world in their back pocket, they could simply walk out the front door and just let that novelty seeking urge lead the way. I feel that smartphones fog up our purpose in this life stage. The times I do spend less time on my phone I feel very free and productive, even if I’m doing something that shouldn’t be looked at as success. At least I’m proud with my use of time. Novelty seeking and the making of pure experiences may be that much harder for the following generation because as they grow up around technology, it’s all they know. Children of the “iPad kids” generation are being introduced to these devices at a very young age which has to have a great effect on their development. The generation coming after us was born into a poisoned world of technology. They won’t even be able to recognize the change this world went through. To them, the generation before them was also born into this poisoned world with iPads and smartphones so therefore it’s normal to have these devices in their hands every second. A study by Jenny Radesky, clinical instructor in developmental-behavioural pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine stated,“‘These devices may replace the hands-on activities important for the development of sensorimotor and visual-motor skills, which are important for the learning and application of maths and science,’” The developmental stages of a child are very important for future experiences and coping mechanisms. Instead of doing activities like puzzles or building blocks, they’re using iPads or phones which distract them from their surroundings and future education. The sensorimotor stage is from Piaget’s theory of development where they start to notice the world around them based on their movements and sensations as well as recognizing that they are separate beings from other people and objects. With the use of technology at this stage, it could disrupt their perception of the world around them because the only world they’re a part of is what's on that screen. They will need to be playing a game in order to relieve their stressors rather than finding healthier coping mechanisms that will help them in the future. Throughout the day, the environments we surround ourselves with are immensely changing and affecting the human species. Meanwhile, I can’t say all of this and not admit that I’m on my phone at an unhealthy rate because some days that’s all I do. But I do believe that it’s changing humans’ view on the world and originality in our personalities. For example, you compare our news source from today to millenials and gen x, “xennials.” You’re walking through a park in the 1970s and drop on the grass that the rest of the park revolves around, before pulling out your book you look around to see the kind of environment you’re in. There’s an old man sitting on a park bench holding his weekly newspaper from the coffee shop across from the park. He’s wearing a beige beret, a black sweater and beige slacks with black moccasins. Then you look to the phone booth and there is a middle aged woman wearing a red trench coat with curly brown hair and a brown handbag. She was throwing her hands up like her husband had just cancelled a dinner they had planned for months for a work function. After a one sided scene of yelling and throwing up her hands, she takes a breath and says “I need a coffee.” then vigorously hangs up the phone. Then let's think about that same situation in 2020. The old man on the bench is actually a middle aged man reading an article on his phone about COVID. And instead of the woman at a phone booth, she’s pacing back and forth on the concrete while holding an iPhone 12 to her ears. It may be the same exact location, but there are major symbols and events happening that show how different the times have changed. Teens should be able to sit in a park with each other without being reliant on our phones. Even in parks on a daily basis, it’s easy to see the simplicity taken away and toxicity in the air because of how much a change in environment and sources there’s been. There’s so much more peace and authenticity to life than spending precious time on this earth on a phone. While taking days to chill alone at home and doing what you want is always healthy. The world has been altered because of the massive change between different generations along with the impact it will have on the well being of upcoming generations and how technology is the number one indicator of changes in the environment around us. Adolescence would be so much different without technology while we are the first generation experiencing the thick of it. From a first hand perspective, it has affected the social and emotional effects on relationships and causes loss of motivation because our phones are our newfound entertainment. Life never used to be spent in this manner and it doesn’t have to be. I’m walking down a luscious strip of grass by myself, with no distractions but a slight breeze and the crunching of leaves under my feet. I feel so clear minded and a warm humorous feeling that’s rooted in my stomach, then shoots up through my throat and ends at my face causing me to let out a slight chuckle. I look around and think to myself “Each one of these people has a life of their own but we're all spending this moment the same way, listening to the same harmonious sounds of the nature we’d been born into.” The river trickled by each one of us while a darling sparrow chirped and flew across the head of everyone standing on this strip of grass, with a lovely symphony in the background singing the daily toad and cricket song. There was nothing in my pockets giving me sort of a relieving feeling because I knew that I was missing nothing and all I needed at this very moment in time, was myself.
Project Reflection
As I was filling out the outline for this essay I was thinking, "Do we really have to write 5 body paragraphs? Geez that's a lot of writing!" While when making sure I had accomplished everything on the checklist, I noticed we only had to write 3 body paragraphs after the fact. I gave it some thought and I do not one bit regret how long I made my essay because I got out all my thoughts out and got to deeply educate myself on what technology is scientifically doing to this pure place we were born into. My writing grew more than it ever has throughout this project. I learned how to set a scene and make it flow with the evidence following and my writing made me personally feel things that I have never even considered thinking about prior. I looked back to the original outline where I wrote that I wanted to explain how the previous generations lived through their adolescence and compare it to how we're living ours. I turned it into a whole scene basically in alternate dimensions comparing the 2 generations' childhoods and just the overall environment they had been surrounded by. My prompt specifically has made me more aware of my surroundings and my doings. Especially when I go into restaurants-- there's more people on their phones than the people actually interacting with one another. To positively contribute to our town culture, I try to stay off my phone at appropriate times. The gist of my essay is how this pure world has turned toxic just within a decade. In my opinion, socialization and open mindedness is key for a satisfied human soul which can be tainted by these devices we surround ourselves with which others should at least consider. This project has not only provided me with a valuable perspective of the world but has made me appreciate the people in my life that have supported/taught me these values. I feel like over the course of this semester I have deepened my self discipline and definitely started to grow into myself as a student. Not in all of my classes but more so the ones that provide me with a deeper philosophy about my life as a human being on planet earth. I've mentioned this in many of my other reflections but the class that has helped me the most throughout this semester was on course--it was a reminder that there's skills I can use inside and outside of school to keep me on track with my academic and personal goals. It may be hard sometimes but I know what I have to do and that I WILL get there eventually. I did what I had to do personally in order to pass humanities such as finishing my mask and essay with full confidence and taking full responsibility as an exhibition host. I also helped with putting the masks on their stands which was the centerpiece of our exhibition. Something I could improve on for the next exhibition is talk to more people and make it easier for the adults to navigate their way through the exhibition although this was an amazing and very well organized exhibition. I feel that the biggest affect on exhibition is involvement in our class culture which I struggle with, so to make this exhibition even better everyone could positively integrate themselves into our culture as a class and a high school.
Model United Nations Project
Project Description: The MUN project addresses worldly conflicts involving the students in the international community as representatives of the United Nations. It was good for improving our research skills and professional speaking skills. The issue proposed was the Afghanistan Humanitarian crisis which is negatively affecting multiple countries. Women and girls are currently losing their rights to an education and work causing the Afghan population to plummet considering that women take up at least 50% of the population. The Afghani citizens are also experiencing famine due to the re-occuring droughts in the area making it impossible to grow food and make profit off of it. We then had to write resolutions and policy papers based on our assigned country's view on the issue and what they could possibly contribute on the sub-issues within the humanitarian crisis. To conclude, we held a simulated UN Conference with intention of proposing and passing a resolution(s) with possible solutions to this tragedy.
Policy Paper
Policy Statement: Pakistan believes that we should try to care for a large amount of Afghanistan's population such as refugees, also influencing the Taliban in a positive manner through full recognition and funding. Many afghans have been forced to flee their country and move to places where work, education, and a healthy life is available. Afghan natives, especially women and girls as well as their families feared that they would no longer be able to work or study, forcing them to migrate from the area. Although when some of the wrong refugees started to infiltrate Pakistan, it was claimed that they were to blame for the growing security concerns, branding these individuals as terrorists. With all of the afghan refugees/terrorists crossing the afghan border into Pakistan, Pakistan had to send troops to build fences along the Durand line border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, while remote areas along this border were being used in inhumane ways creating conflict within the Pakistani culture. Afghans contribute worldwide to being one of the world’s largest refugee populations giving some of them limited time to gather all of their belongings due to escalating violence. BBC news states, “Pakistan's High Commissioner to the UK, Moazzam Ahmad Khan, told the BBC Today programme: ‘We don't really have the capacity to take more refugees in and that's why we're suggesting - and requesting - that let's sit down together and work on the possibility of avoiding that eventuality.’” Representatives of Pakistan make it clear that they don’t necessarily want to kick all of the refugees back to where they came from based on the life threatening situation that would put them in. But, at the rate that refugees are entering Pakistan, they’ll end up draining their country's economy as well as Afghanistan’s economy. Rather than suddenly sprouting this onto displaced afghans, they are willing to sit down and discuss when and how it will be safe to send them back. In the long run, a good investment for us and Afghanistan would be to recognize the Taliban as the official government as well as including other countries in this agreement. This could help to slowly ease them towards a well developed and stable government from the influence of other countries. It’s hard to change opinions which everyone knows in this century but, if the Afghan government could run almost as smoothly as our government then maybe they would recognize that peace and freedom create a healthy country. The aid that we could provide more than letting refugees in constantly would be to build more refugee camps in the remote areas of the Durand line border. Meanwhile those areas are being used for illegal activities, it would support both the citizens of Pakistan being taken out by terrorist groups as well as the suffering refugees with no place to go. VOA news mentions that Pakistani Foreign Minister, Qureshi, said that Pakistan will host mobile support for providing food, medicine and housing to millions of people throughout Afghanistan using the foreign ministers of Islamic Countries. With refugee camps at the border It is a considerable concern that this humanitarian crisis may shrink Pakistan's economic growth so, the camps could be paid for using the frozen assets so that its not draining Pakistan or Afghanistan’s economy. This way, afghans don’t have to live under a government that they don’t agree with and their resources are all paid for until Afghanistan is strong enough to support their community.
MUN Project Reflection
Knowledge: I’ve never been too involved in our worldly conflicts because I feel that the news is too biased and I just never think to engage myself in everything going on. This project educated me in a lot of different ways, one of them being more involved with our international community as well as developing professional speaking skills because the only speeches I’ve done were about me and my growths, not strictly educating. For example, my MUN speech forced me to research on the specific issue of the Afghanistan Crisis as well as embodying it as if I was addressing personal issues within my country. I developed a more expanded vocabulary with the use of professional wording in my speech giving me a better understanding of my country from the United Nations perspective. I now have better experience with fluently speaking in depth on a certain topic.
Perseverance/Difficulty: Personally, the most difficult part throughout this project was understanding how to professionally word my excerpts as well as finding a significant view that Pakistan truly stood for. The perseverance came in handy while writing my resolution because after talking to multiple people about what strategies they used to write their resolution, I discovered that the first 5 preambular phrases were the background of my country’s view. Pakistan has strictly been concerned about their border and refugees, distracting me from the other areas of the world that the Afghan humanitarian crisis is interrupting. This resulted in having trouble speaking in the conference because the only knowledge I had was Pakistan's needs as far as containing the Taliban and not the needs of the other main countries. So when I had people ask my views on the issue, the only information I could provide was that we needed more support for refugees to preserve the protection of Pakistani citizens. Voting: I ended up voting for the resolution created by Russia, China and Afghanistan because they took everyone’s concerns into consideration. As well as adding tid-bits from their allies resolutions. We have been allied with Afghanistan and believe that giving full recognition of the Taliban would help to positively impact their views based on the governmental systems of the rest of their allies. This resolution also has the potential to lessen the violence that militant groups of the Taliban have created in many areas with the intention of getting something they want because the most wanted thing of the Taliban is to be recognized as an official government. So if we at least gave them that then it would give them one less reason to destroy other territories.
Advice for Students: The best advice I can give for staying on top of this project is setting aside an hour at least once a week to sit down and really dissect the given assignment. Because even if you ask for help and clarification, you might personally need some time to see in the assignment where you can apply the clarification given. I would also say to simplify the information found within the research assignments and look up the definitions of unfamiliar words to later make it easier to write the policy paper and resolution, because I know quite a bit of people in our class that had a hard time writing resolutions due to the unfamiliar vocabulary. To make this project worthwhile, you should develop your own personal views on the issue being discussed which in the long run will help you identify your country's view as well as interact when you have to speak from the perspective of another country.
Poetry Project
At the beginning of this unit we talked about our opinions on poetry and I can confidently say that majority of us weren't very inspired or happy by the thought of poetry. All I could remember of poetry was there being so many rules as to how poetry had to look and be formatted. But little did I know there was so much more to it than that, yes the formatting and poetic devices are a big portion but it boils down to how you passionately write and what helps you do so. This project included the process of writing a poem about something that made us feel inspired and take the whole revision journey to make it the best version of itself that it could be. And we ended the project by creating a project that we felt brought our poem to life whether that be through spoken word, kinetic text, art piece, video, etc. I chose to make a painting/collage so that I had an opportunity to put all of the imagery and symbolism onto a canvas.
Poem
Wanderlust I live inside my head. One that battles serenity and that of undergrowth, yearning to sprout life into misery like the ground, tough and rooted within its oath.
My temple hovers over ancient bricks to steer, reaching for 100 year old books as aged as my tears. A strong current of air tests the ability to thrive, wind, a breezy kiss to my face that reminds me we’re alive.
Light dancing across my eyelids bringing me back to the lucid, whistling of the birds were the voices of people I wish I could know and earthy sounds of places I wish I could go.
My genes so long they touch the tears of god, seeping to the skin like an infusion of his sadness with fraud. Eyes of the world level with the magic of life forces, separating my connection from the intoxication, extinguishing torches. Although tough enough to be trailed by emotion consumed beings, those who sprinkle their bliss to a plane of seeking.
An infatuating earthquake takes over, uprooting my precious 4 leaf clovers. A chronicle of 2 living in lust blurs the attacking mistrust. I desire somewhere sensational to meet the irreplaceable. The choice is between you and me contemplating depth of which to be.
Looking at you with remembrance of strife, proceeding to follow my path of life. I miss your solitude with every step. While it’s too late and so I need to accept. I tread with content and ease to taste and feel places that please, my eyes pierce exquisite infrastructure as they do with sand as texture.
My hand meets that of a desert goddess. She makes me a promise, to be there as they weren’t at any given occurrent. She always lived in disguise and walked me across the equator, leaving me more and more wise. I walk below towers without fear of the human race, submerging myself in sacred water powerful enough to get back to the surface. I live in the presence of my mind.
Artist Statement
The inspiration of this poem comes from the act of daydreaming in positive and negative states. My original idea was the idea of wanderlust which in direct translation is the strong desire to travel and keep moving. With that being said, my daydreams interpret themselves as being somewhere else whether that was deep in darkness or high on happiness. It all comes in waves, and these feelings of happiness are the strongest when in the authenticity of our earth (nature) because the sounds make me feel like I'm somewhere else. Another contribution to this poem was feeling that I was meant to be born in an older generation, considering how early the intoxication of technology and constructs of society have been introduced to us. I try to live in purity as hard as it can be at this age and in this advanced generation. The lines most representing this interpretation were, “My temple hovers over ancient bricks to steer, reaching for 100 year old books as aged as my tears”. The ground beneath us is old and sacred since we can remember in correspondence with the sadness from my past that’s been bottled up. As humans, we were made to stay moving as a survival strategy. And when we grow up somewhere, certain places that we set foot on bring up negative correlations and memories which is the sadness intoxicating us from below. In other words, I want to go to unknown places in order to essentially start fresh and make new memories rather than reliving the dispiriting ones. With that being said, the emotional turn is towards the end of the poem when I’m back in the past and had to be independent from the beginning. I focused more on making sure I was healthy and happy rather than exploring who I was. The stanza starting with, “My hand meets that of a desert goddess” represents the authentic me deep down who helped me hold on throughout my childhood which I didn’t know yet. Although during this occurrence, I wished I had someone else to lean on that would be irreplaceable and had all of my trust unlike a lot of aspects of my life back then.
Final Art Piece
Reflection
At the beginning of this unit, the only poetry I had written was during my premature years and had never really understood the depth of meanings that lie beneath the surface of poetry. All of the exercising poetry activities we had written leading up to this final completely changed my perspective on poetry and now I feel like that’s the only way I can truly express my emotions through the art of writing. In my first draft, I constantly relied on poetic license to write the poem in an easy way that worked for me, but in the long run it just didn’t flow the way I was envisioning. My first poem was also too literal rather than using poetic devices to symbolize those emotions. While my final poem incorporates poetic devices in every line as well as communicating multiple themes. For example, line 2 of my first poem states, “Where I can go anywhere imaginable” while the 2nd and 3rd line of my final draft states, “One that battles serenity- and that of undergrowth,” As you can see, the first draft was the first thing that came to mind which didn’t have much meaning as the final draft expanded onto what kind of mind I live inside of using metaphors to better symbolize the emotion. I had many changes throughout this poetry writing process but the biggest one for me was the flow. I first incorporated that concern into my poem by going through and creating a rhyme scheme which I also feel makes it easier to come up with metaphors and deeper imagery. The lines stated in my first draft were, “My jeans lightly drug across the tears of god, seeping into my socks and my skin like he infuses his sadness into me inch by inch” and the improved version of those lines from my final draft are, “My genes so long they touch the tears of god, seeping to the skin like an infusion of his sadness with fraud.” As you can see the rhyming made the pacing more clear as well as where to add punctuation in an intellectual aspect. The message deepens as it explains how it feels to digest sadness rather than just telling you that I’m sad. The emotions expressed through this formatting makes them more identifiable and relatable for the reader in question. Overall, the rhyming makes me so much more proud of this draft because it started out as a basic and clique metaphor while I was able to strengthen it by incorporating more than one poetic device just into 2 lines. From the beginning when I had just started writing my draft, I knew that I wanted this poem to be packed with imagery. I just didn’t know how to portray it without sounding too cheesy. With that being said, as I started to create a more solid format that imagery expanded within that format. The first example of imagery from the first draft was, “While the birds play at a low volume- On my surround sound rainforest” and the final product of that example is, “whistling of the birds were the voices of people I wish I could know- and earthy sounds of places I wish I could go.” I went through and completely changed the wording as I was creating a rhyme scheme, and intensified the sensory details which in my opinion makes the possibility of imagery stronger. The first example felt cheesy as I was saying before based on the comparison I was trying to make between speakers and birds which don’t connect as is. While the newer one had a twist by connecting birds to the people you could meet all over the world which more so connected with the theme of being wanderlust. Representing the daydream of being somewhere tropical just by the sound of birds also with hopes of influencing the reader to focus on their surroundings and even the simplest sound of chirping birds.
The last and most important change was the message itself. I knew that I wanted to put the reader in the place that I was envisioning myself in with just explanations of physical places. In the final I ended up explaining physical places through the mentality I was experiencing at the time of writing this poem. The first draft of this trying to be portrayed was non-existent because I wrote these lines after the last process journal. The lines that came out of the process journal exercise are, “My hand meets that of a desert goddess.- She makes me a promise,- to be there as they weren’t- at any given occurrent.” The change made was introducing a deeper meaning by using foreign symbols to communicate an aspect of my childhood. The desert goddess represents me when I hadn’t found myself or at least didn’t have the time to worry about myself but throughout everything I was going through, I knew that I would have myself no matter what. I thought this would be a fun twist for the reader because of the desert goddess’s hand in the center of the art piece giving them a deeper understanding of her purpose in not only my poem, but my life.