Humanities Semester Reflection

My American Icon Project, is one of the projects I did this year that I am proud of. I am proud of this piece of work because I got the exact picture I wanted. Before I actually took my photo I got an image in my head of what I wanted my photo too look like. When I took the photo I came out just how I wanted it to. I also think that it clearly matches with the writting part of this project.

"Duff Goldman is a well-known pastry chef in Baltimore, Maryland. He has a television program named Ace of Cakes, where they document different cakes that he has created. Duff is known for making unique cakes that no one else has made before, he has made a Broadway hairspray cake, camera shaped cake, shoe shaped cake, and so much more. He also uses his engineering skills to help build his cakes. I look at him as an inspiration because he takes crazy ideas and makes them possible, one specific time I remember is when he made a Crayola crayon cake because it looked so realistic and I have never seen anything like it before. Duff Goldman has had many inspirations that follow along with him getting into the career that he has now. His inspiration was his family which most of their careers consisted of some type of art, but it was mostly his mom that was his inspiration. He worked with his mom in the kitchen with since four. Then he started working as a professional chef when he turned fourteen. He worked for a chef while attending school. Soon after graduating he went into culinary school, and soon started his own business where he opened his own shop, charm city cakes.I choose Duff Goldman as my American icon because I look up to him as an inspiration baking wise, knowing that anything can be possible if you put in your creativity and effort in your work . I do like to bake cakes when I get bored for fun like a hobby. I think that his cakes are amazing and when I am baking I do look at his cakes as an inspiration but it is nothing I can accomplish now, maybe later on when I get more familiar with baking, but now I just bake simple cakes nothing big like what he does. I do see Duff's one of a kind cakes as a goal that I would like to reach at some time in life, so I use his cakes as an inspiration knowing that it is possible to achieve. You maybe thinking why am I reading this and what do I get out of this, but you can take anything you read and use it as your advantage to help you accomplish your goals. Baking is just something I like to do as a hobby and if you have a hobby you enjoy but haven’t yet gotten to where you want to be, you can do what I did which is look up your inspiration look at their accomplishments and their dreams I think that will lead you closer to knowing that it is possible"

The writting part of this project, I don't feel like it is my best. Only because this was the first project of the year and I have learned so much and improved a lot on my writting skills since. I do like the photography though, I've never done a project before were photography was involved. Not just photos but high quality photos.

The steps taken to accomplish this piece of work were to first make the project interesting, so for me I thought about something I love to do which is bake. During the begining of this project I had no idea who I can do my project on beacause all I was thinking about was my photo and how to take it and how would I express that person through this photo. Then I realized im not going to get anywere if I just think about what my photo was going to look like. So my next step was to then do some research on Duff Goldman my American Icon. I brain stormed what you would like to accomplish in this project like what I wanted the reader to see when they first look at my photo. Then I just did reasearch put together my paragraphs and I got a lot of critiques from peers which helped improve my writting.

Another Humanities Project I am proud of is my H20 Project. Even though I still feel like it can be improved in so many ways I still like it. I like it because of my photography, I do like the photography in this project. My final product for this project was a photo essay, I was really excited to go out and take photos and edit them on photoshop but I never got too edit them. Because I got sick and was absent for two days, the two days I was suppose to do my photo editing. So even though I missed out on a major part of my project I still like it.

The steps I took in finishing this project were to first find a research question that fitted my interest because if I didnt then this whole project would be boring and I wouldn't be happy with it. So my research question was,

How are surfers/swimmers affected by the ocean and what can we do to help?

So after finding the right question I went out and did interviews and a lot of reasearch. My first interview was with a doctor and during that interview I gained so much knowledge about the illness and their causes. I also learned what people can do to help protect themselves from getting ill. I then went to the beach and took some photos and also interviewed different people on the beach and asked them questions. Most of them would say they didn't get ill but that didnt stop me I knew somehow I had to get some different answers. So I went to a different beach one that in my opinion is more dirtier and luckily I found one surfer who explained to me how she got ill from the water. During this whole process I was always Critiquing and re-editing my work. I think thats what helped me the most in my final product.

The following article I read, Neptune's Navy by Raffi Khatchadourian. It is about how Paul Watson and 52 other volunteers are on a mission to save the Whales. Sea Shepherd Is an organization with about 52 volunteers. There main mission is to stop whale slaughtering. The Japanese is majorly known for killing whales in the Antarctica Ocean. So the Sea Shepherd boat goes out attacks the Japanese slaughtering boat, and to them it doesn't matter if they are breaking the law or not they take action for what they believe in. "Watsons willingness to risk lives or injury for his beliefs (or for publicity), and his courage (or recklessness) have earned him both loathing and veneration from those who are familiar with his activism."

The reason the Japanese were killing whales off from the Antarctica ocean is to help harvest."In the winter of 2005 they killed MORE than a thousand whales"The Japanese government says, "There are plenty of whales out there and it is no more terrible than killing cows or pigs for food," said Masaaki Shigeno, a property dealer in his 60s.Whale has been an important part of our diet for hundreds of years, so it is part of our culture."

I do wonder if it really is such an important part of their culture that they have to kill so much every season. Toshiko Marks, who is a professor of multicultural understanding at Shumei University, said: "I don't know anyone sensible who honestly says they like to eat whale meat. I hate it because I was forced to eat it as a child immediately after the war because there was not much else. But if you ask young people, they've never tasted whale and don't want to."

"Isn't it time for the language to move on?"

In the following article I read," He's Not Black By Marie Arana". The author starts off by talking about Obama and how people refer to him as the first black president. When technically he is not. He is also half white and was born in Hawaii.Marie believes our language is the reason why we call him black. The old racist rule is that if your are part black then you are all black, that there was no such thing as half white and half black. Which Obama is. In the article Marie quotes that on the Newspaper that next day it stated on the cover, "Obama Makes History: U.S. Decisively Elects First Black President". She explains how this quote was and is constantly being used in a variety on media organizations.

I do agree with what she thinks about the whole Obama situation. I do think that majority of people voted for Obama because they saw a chance to have some one who is partially black. I think that because I would hear that from a lot of people. I would hear ," He is going to make a strong black president" A lot through out his campaign. People should understand that he is not only black,he is biracial.But going back to the main point of this blog which is what I think about when Marie writes in her article, "Isn't it time for the language to move on?" The Obama being called first black president is a great example on how people now a days use that kind of language.

I think basically what she is saying is that people shouldn't just refer to people as black, white, hispanic,asian but should look more in depth and not say some one is black because of their skin tone, and that is what she sees in the language these days andexplains that it is time for this to change like when she writes,"It's as if we have one foot in the future and another still mired in the Old South. "