Hamlet Act 1 Scene 1

- setting Denmark

- 2 guards Beenardo and Francisco

- Berbarrdo takes place of Francisco

- Marcellus, Horatio, and Bernardo are together when ghost enters 

- the ghost is an allusion of the dead king

- Horatio demands the ghost to speak

- Fortinbras wants to start another was with Hamlets kingdom 

- Fortinbras doesn't believe he should've lost the war 

- Horatio alludes to Julius Caesar

- Horatio demands the ghost to speak but then the cock crows

- they debate on whether to tell young Hamlet what they saw 

- they decide to go tell him

Canterbury Tales Essay

There are always moments in time, that are meant to challenge our beliefs. Without a little hiccup in a constant plan, we as humans wouldn't learn to work around our obstacles. Being able to honor something is one thing, but trying to find a voice to question something is a little more challenging to do. Within Canterbury Tales, Chaucer tries to make a balance for both honoring and questioning traditions in the literary and social world. Chaucer surrounds himself in a world that is realistic but at the same time different in the use of images and symbols that he uses to portray a scene, character, or a message. Chaucer goes onto narrate the story in a questioning and ironic way to characterize and set up diction and syntax that would get his story through an aura of the struggle between doing something that is expected or straying away from the norm.
Illustrating a scene that's meant to say one thing but it might come off in a hundred different viewpoints, can be either a scary or exciting task to take on. Chaucer, during his time wrote Canterbury Tales as a book combining several different elements and types of people into a common theme that had never been done before. Life was very structured and formal during his time. For him to try to challenge the literary and social traditions of his time was a bold move. He did this using characterization, both indirect and direct to selectively separate different social classes and standards. He imported symbols into certain  aspects of the story to relay a subtle but strong moral message to make the reader question and think. Then he combined his literary techniques together with his personal insight to create tales that could've been separate stories. Instead, were combined to truly capture the essence of irony and disorder but at the same time was real and structured that embodied elements that were interchangeable to make the story come together as one piece.

Character Study 2

As I enter my first class, I sit down in the middle somewhere in that huge lecture hall, where class is about to begin, Fashion Design. Right as my professor walks in a smile crosses my face, because it's finally sinking in that I'm in college studying what I want to do for the rest of my life. Professor. Whitmore starts to speak right away and has a pretty exciting announcement to tell the class. She tells us that one of us is going to get the chance to fly to Europe and be a part of the infamous Fashion Week. It sounded to good to be true, but the catch was, whoever got picked had to leave class right away, get on a plane, and once there find their way around Paris to their designer they were going to be paired up with. Oh and the person chosen for this once in a lifetime adventure had to style that designers whole collection for the show without any help, and if the designer doesn't like it or there collection gets bad reviews, that person would fail the class. So I was thinking to myself, how cool it would be to go to Paris for this once in a lifetime opportunity to possibly get my foot in the door with all these famous designers and have a shot at proving that this is what I was meant to do. There was no way though, that I out of 200 students would be picked, there was just no way. Little did I know the chances were in my favor, I didn't know if it was luck or fate that I ended up being picked. I tried so hard to contain my excitement so as I left the room with my plane ticket and backpack, I was headed to the airport. In a matter of minutes my idea of what college was going to be like changed. I knew I wanted to study abroad in Paris for my major, but I didn't expect it to be on my first day of Freshman year. I didn't have time to call my friends or family, so they next time they heard from me they wouldn't even know I was in France. I would spend a whole school year away from them, doing what I love but while missing the ones I love. As I got to the airport I was all flustered and in a rush because my plane was about to take off in 15 minutes and I've never been in an airport by myself. As I was jogging to my terminal I bump into this woman and fall down. I was slightly angry at first because I didn't need this extra delay. Then I got up and saw that it was Hannah, my best friend from high school. She was on her way to somewhere for one of her college assignments as well, but I didn't get all the details because I was in  a rush and so was she. So I picked up my bag and ran to the terminal. I got there just as they were about to shut the door and for the next 15 hours I would be on a constant roller coaster ride, not because of the plane but because of all the ideas, emotions, questions, and possible scenarios I was going to be put in, that would be rushing through my mind. That did happen for  a good 10 hours of the trip, but I did actually manage to sleep for a solid 5. When I landed I didn't know where to go or what to do because I was tired, hungry, smelly, and lost. All I had was my dead phone, wallet, laptop, water, a jacket, 500 American dollars and an address. It was no use using my laptop without internet connection, so I had to find directions the old fashioned way, by asking people, who a majority didn't speak English. Finally after a few hours of going from place to place, person to person I ended up standing in front of a building that read Versace. Now from my perspective I have heard of the designer I knew he was really famous and so are his clothes and I was just in awe at where I was. I walked in and from that moment on just like the moment after hitting the "send" button on my college applications everything was in fast forward. I met the main style coordinator from Versace and right away she put me to work I was sitting in on meetings, shadowing what seemed like a new stylist everyday, but it wasn't all fun and games. Yeah I was in this beautiful place around all these beautiful faces and clothes. I was on the outskirts because people didn't know me and believe me I tried giving my input, but I always got shut down because I was young,unknown, and someone with no hands on experience in the fashion business, yet. I needed to do something though because I didn't want to go in blind when it came to Fashion Week and I didn't know the collection or my surroundings. So I took matters into my own hands and I made my presence loud and clear. Everyday I got up 2 hours earlier to go  into the design studio and I would stay 2 hours after everyone left to review the collection and each piece. I would study every article of clothing, sketch out my ideas, and build virtual replications on my laptop of my own vision for the show. During the day I wouldn't ask to help or ask to give my input, I would just do it. At first whoever was in charge at the task at hand was taken back, but I think it was refreshing for someone young and new to take control. No matter how much they tried to push me aside or shut me down, I wasn't going to give up and there was no way I was going to fail my first college course. Nothing really changed in the way people saw me and I didn't gain more respect or any at all. They still saw me as an adolescent who was annoying and getting in their way. Still that didn't stop me from making my presence seen. In a matter of no time, the day had come where I would either fail or succeed and it didn't seem like anybody cared if I failed. On that very first day of fashion week I was in control because I had to be. I was the one who finally got to boss people around, and style things my own way. It was liberating in a way to have them listen to me for the first time since I got there but at the same time it was scary not being given input or ordered around. I had no direction it was all on me if this collection would be a hit or not. It was minutes until the first model would walk out on stage I was stressed anxious, and my mind and heart were racing at a million miles per hour but I was proud of what I had accomplished with the obstacles I had overcome. Finally the time I had come the lights dim, the music started, and the cameras started flashing. I didn't know what people thought of it, I was just praying and hoping for the best. That night was the longest 6 hours of my life and I was exhausted, but the show was finally over and I wouldn't know until I got back to the States the next day, to see if I passed or not. This time I was too exhausted to think, so I slept the whole plane ride home and it sucked because an hour after I landed I had to be in class. So I didn't even bother stopping by my dorm I brushed my teeth in a public bathroom, washed my face, threw up my hair and there I was, this time sitting in the front of the class. It felt like the first day all over again, and technically it was only my second day. Professor Whitmore walked in without a sign of emotion on her face and the room was quiet. But as soon as I heard the claps surround me like a cloud of thunder, I knew I did something right. I guess one could say I not only passed my class with an A, I was offered by the head of Versace to come back to Europe anytime free of charge to Fashion Week and when I got my degree there would be a spot waiting for me in Paris.

Character Study 1

I step onto the campus for the first time as an official Bruin. I look all around me and I'm surrounded by a sea of  baby blue and yellow. I'm anxious and excited as I pass by the John Wooden Memorial building to my first class. To rewind back to a year ago when it was the start of my Senior year and I was overwhelmed and stressed practically everyday of my first semester. I remember not feeling like a "Senior," not looking like a, "Senior," or acting like a Senior. Then again, who am I to judge who I look like, feel like, or act like. I guess I'm allowed to feel the way I feel or act the way I act, but how other people see me and characterize me is different from what I think my reputation is and what people see it as. I was trying to hold my life together between school, volleyball, college stuff, friends, and family, sometimes I felt like shutting out the world and wishing I could freeze time to make everything stop or at least slow down. Even though the beginning of Senior year was stressful, I didn't want high school to go by so fast. I remember going to every home football game, dancing in the Decades Day rally, and feeling a slight moment or relief when I finally pressed the send button on my college applications. I applied to 5 colleges, CSULB, SFSU, Point Loma, Cal Poly, and UCLA. Directly following that very moment as I submitted my applications, I felt as if the rest of the school year zoomed by. There went volleyball and football season, basketball season came and gone, then Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Then before I knew it I was in 2015 and I was 18 years old. Then came around college acceptance letters season. It was pretty exciting to get accepted to 4 out of the 5 colleges I applied to thus far, but I was still waiting on that one, my dream school. I remember waiting by my door every day at 4 o'clock to see the mailman put the mail into my mailbox and every day that passed I felt like it was a day longer that I didn't get in. Then the letter that would determine my future came into the mail on a Friday, I was planning on going to the Drive-In later with Hannah, Haley, and Juidth. When I finally held that letter in my hands, I wasn't excited, nervous, anxious, overwhelmed, or sad, I was completely numb. I sat down and stared at that envelope for a solid 60 minutes. I just looked at it thinking over and over again in my mind, how I would feel or react if I didn't get in. Then finally I found the courage to rip open that envelope and read the words, "Congratulations Sierra you have been accepted." I'm not an emotional person, I don't cry at sad movies, when I get hurt, or even at funerals. At that very moment I was so relieved, proud, excited, and happy, that tears of joy came gushing out and I couldn't believe what I just read. I called my mom, sisters, and told my best friends when I saw them later that I got in, and they all were happy but a little shocked at the same time. Then it was graduation time, the one part of high school that in a way I was dreading and sad about. Hannah Hurd, my best friend, said her Valedictorian speech and that's when it really got me, the realization that high school was over and everything that was a part of me at Righetti was going to be somewhere else now. I cried like a little baby that night, knowing that, that day was the last time I would ever see some of the faces I grew so used to passing in the hallways or the "friends" I made that I only spoke to at school. High school flew by like everyone told me it would and now I was onto a new adventure. The Summer as always seemed to go by even faster as it did before, even though I had an extra month. I spent it hanging out with my closet friends, going on spontaneous adventures, going to Italy, and making memories. Now the time was here to get back to reality and face what lies ahead. I chose UCLA, obviously, and every moment leading up to this exact time and place, where I'm officially recognized as a Bruin, has been only a small pebble in an everlasting road, that is my future.

Canterbury Tales 2

Collaborated with Courtney Reyburn, Hannah Hurd, and Judith Lee

Phonar14 Video

Canterbury Tales 1