Description Essay

Here is my description of my family's town back in the Italian part of Switzerland. It's Gnosca, pronounced with a silent "g" as in "gnome."

Object Description

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Box Man Debrief

1. A new concept that arose in this discussion for me was the idea that the box man's loneliness was chosen because it is a simpler struggle for him than that of other people in more traditional lives. This is evident in his refusal of help and the potent description that people talk to him with "persuasive tones reserved for rabid dogs" as people view him as an outsider.
2. I wish that we had been able to talk about the atuthor's use of fictionalized examples to add to the thesis. We did not discuss the function of this example or the credibility of the fictional situation.
3. I wisht that I had been able to talk about my views on the above, unmentioned topic and analyze the author's purpose in the contrast between the two situations. I thought that the purpose of the author's imaginaitve description was to create a universal situation with added details that could and do apply to many people. Though it is fictional, the account identifies a common human predicament and contributes to the thesis.

Labeling Myself: I am a ____

First attempt: I am a socialist.
Second attempt: I am an introvert.

Link to Manufacturing Consent Long Form

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media Long Form

How to: Create a Just, Thriving, Sustainable World

I don’t really feel comfortable with calling myself a social activist though with my senior project, I hope to take on the role of a community organizer and as someone who brings about local social change. So maybe this makes me a social activist; I’m not sure.
        What I want to do is overcome the boundaries of a separated world of alienated individuals struggling to grasp and sense of self in an evolving and, frankly, deteriorating world by creating a Thrive Hub at our school. A Thrive Hub is a community model which unites individuals toward a common purpose to educate others and take action. I hope to facilitate a Wake Up, a presentation which asks the questions which addresses the questions of or current status in the world today, for the Napa High community and to educate and inspire my peers to take action themselves.
I have been involved with Thrive Napa Valley for several years which is essentially the adult version of what I want to form at Napa High. After attending the week long training at Whidbey Island with Generation Waking Up, I discovered not only a deeper sense of myself but the impassioned determination to make a change in my own community.
          In my training, I found that to bring about a more just, thriving a sustainable world, we must first change ourselves. By facilitating a Wake Up experience at Napa High and by creating a Thrive Hub, I hope to breach some of the boundaries within our community and leave behind a legacy for students to carry on.

Do I really have to think of a title?

My name is Anna (pronounced Ahn-nuh) though I will respond to the more traditional pronunciation. When I was younger, I decided that my name was boring and thought that I would take matters into my own hands. After some deep consideration and careful planning, I proceeded to tell everyone in my preschool class that my name was in fact, Teapotta, an original name I perhaps thought was fitting for me. To my mom’s amusement and chagrin, I still have some craft projects from the Teapotta days with my self-chosen name written on the back.
If anything, this story showcases my quirky nature and sense of independence. The accusatory statement of “You’re weird” is often met with the enthusiastic response of “Thank you!” I love being strange and watching people’s reactions to my occasional goat noises and inexplicable statements.
As an only child with no relatives my age, I grew up in an adult centered world, never offered the option of sitting at the kids’ table. My mom often likes to say that I was born 40 and grow more middle-aged each year. In middle school, my lack of a social life or friends outside of a conventional school setting left me to fill my free times with books. I befriended the characters within the pages and let my imagination run with the plot.
An early love of reading and my creative nature led me to believe for many years that I would become a writer. The summer before my sophomore year attended a two week creative writing camp with similarly minded people. I absolutely loved having the space to write and share my stories with others and felt like I grew significantly a writer. In spite of, or perhaps because of this experience, I realized that writing was not the career path for me. I am simply not cut out for the long, grueling hours spent in front of a blank page, squeezing my brain for inspiration. My love of reading and writing continues but my idealized career path had vanished.
           Like most of my peers, the casually presented question “What do you want to do in life?”gives me the chills. Just because I'm on the newspaper staff of The Beat of the Drum doesn't necessarily mean I want to be a journalist. This sense of unknowing on a threshold of possibilities frankly scares the crap out of me but also elicits a feeling of excitement. At this point, I can be nearly anything I want. And though I realize that this has limits within the reasonable confines of my abilities (for example, with my extreme phobia of needles, it will be unlikely that I will become a doctor or tattoo artist) my lack of certainty for the future ensures a plethora of possibilities.
Though at times I feel undirected, there are flashes of clarity in my life. I recently attended a week long leadership training seminar through the nonprofit, Generation Waking Up, on Whidbey Island with my friend, Lara.
After that experience, I feel inspired to do the vague, philosophical and often cliched idea of “good” in the world. I’m planning on opening a Thrive Hub (something I will talk about more in my second blog post) and hopefully, in the future, traveling to spread more of this undefinable “good”.
   Other than that, have I mentioned that I love cats?