Essay #4. I and The Ten Year Old Me

Yani Rivas

Essay #4 draft #3

2-16-09

I and the Ten Year Old Me

When you are a child you have many dreams. You believe you can do anything you want. Your parents tell you “When you grow up you can be a famous artist, doctor or an architect.” At school teachers ask you to tell them what you want to do when you grow up. Frequently they tell you that you can be the president of your country (That’s a very famous phrase.) and as a child you believe it. Your eyes shine full of hopes. Every child dreams that he or she is going to have an interesting life when they are adults. But it is lamentable that not all children can make their dreams come true when they are adults. When I was nine years old I had many dreams about my future life.

I had dreamt of being a rich model. Almost all the time I was in front the mirror watching myself and practicing to be a model. My mother liked to see me modeling. So she always asked to my sister, cousins and me to do a catwalk for her. When I did it, I really enjoyed it. We used to move the furniture to have more space and began, one by one, to do a show. My mother was the emcee and she used to say “Here is one of the most important and beautiful models in the world.” Then we would enter the catwalk (the corridor of my living room) and do our best to impress my mother. I remember one day when my sister and two of my cousins were ready to begin high school. They began to practice how they were going to walk when they enter to the school the first day of class. My sister began the catwalk and then my cousins continue and they did very well. But my mom said, “One moment, let’s see how Yani does it, because she does it like a real model.” I felt very proud of myself and began to believe that I was a natural model.

When I was 16 I began to go to a model’s school and I was very excited. But it was for a short time, because I didn’t continue the classes. Now I’m 21 years old. I lived in a different country than the one were I was born. I’m studying English as a second language and working part time. I have a normal life. I wake up early every day to go to school, and then I go to work in my part time job. When I don’t have to work I have to stay at home and do homework. But I don’t like it to much because when I’m in home my mom wants to me do some housework. When I’m just ready to start my homework my mom calls me and tells me, “What you want to do, to wash the dishes or clean the house?” And I say “Mommiii… I have to do homework,” But she responds to me, “You have to do some housework too.” That’s not so exciting like I dreamed, but hold on, I’m only 21 years old and I’m preparing myself for a more exciting future.

In my opinion I have a good life, but what would happen if I met the 9 year old me? I think she would ask me about what happened to all the passion that I felt before for being a model. Was it really completely gone from my mind to be a model? I would tell her that I don’t know. But she would be angry with me, telling me that the only aspect that she doesn’t like about me is that I’m undecided in my life. I would tell her that she is right because I don’t know even what I want to do as a career if I’m not going to be a model. Then I would tell he, “Hold on. Hold on. Don’t push me. It is very difficult to become an adult and you don’t know because you are a child. I’m doing my best and don’t worry, I’m not going to disappoint you.”

Essay #3. The Top 3 Most Important People

Yani Rivas

Essay #3 draft #3

2-8-09

The top three most important people in my life

What does a person have to do to be the most important person in your life? There are many people who can be important or interesting to you, but only a few people know how to enter into the deepest part of your heart. Sometimes these people just do little good things for you, but they know how to do it, so, you like it. And others can do big things for you that can be thanked during all your life. There are three people in my life that they knew what to do to be part of the most important people in my life. Those people are my father, mother and boyfriend.

My father is one of the most important people in my life. His name is Santo Rivas. and he is 44 years old. He has been my teacher in many aspects. Since I was 6 years old my mother began to travel from Dominican Republic to New York. My brothers and I used to stay with my father when she traveled for three or four months to the U. S. In those moments my father played the role of father and mother, although my mother always was in contact with us. I always remember that my father corrected me in every little thing that he thought was inappropriate. When we were together and he saw me with my mouth a little open, he used to tell me “Morena (as he use to call me) close your mouth!! It is not good to have the mouth open, it is not nice and a mosquito can go inside of it.” My father used to remind me that all time and now I feel thankful, because now I can keep my mouth closed and as a result I don’t look like a silly girl. I think although people would be very smart, if they can’t keep their mouse close they look very silly. My father saved me from look like that. This is just one aspect that can show that my father was familiarized with everything in my life. Even when this little aspect wasn’t so important, he took care of that. I admire my father for correcting me; furthermore, my father is one of the hardest working men in this world. Since I was a little girl I have been seeing my father working hard to take care of his family. He is always trying to help people around him. My father is one of the people I love most; moreover, he is a very good father and he taught me many specials values in my life such as having respect for my own life. He told me “you have to respect first others if you want they respect you and if you respect your life then you don’t going to have nothing to regret. He is my model to follow.

I have mentioned my mother, but I haven’t told you that she is on my list of most important people in my life too. Her name is Julia Fermin and she is 40 (don’t tell anybody how old she is.). She is my support in good and bad times. She always takes care of me by trying to see if I feel good or not and how she can help me with all difficulties in my life. I can tell you, that, sometimes even when she disagrees with the way I act she is always there supporting me and helping me. My mother is for me like a sister because she is different from traditional mothers. She is young to have a daughter of 21 years old, so, when we go out together people say we look like sisters. She is very pretty and full of energy. One day I was watching her dancing and I thought “she looks like just a young lady my age.” I say this, not because she was just dancing; it was because she was dancing with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. I watched how she acts in the house and how she takes care of us and I like it. So I would like to be the same way when I have my family. I want to be near her learning how should I do to keep my family happy in the same way that she does it.

It is not rare to have your father and mother as the most important people in your life. But now is a little bit different. Other of the most important people in my life is my boyfriend. His name is Albert Crucel. and he is 27. He has been my teacher in many aspects. One of these aspects was that he taught me how it feels to be full in love. I knew him when I was 18 years old. Since that time, he has been with me making me happy with all his attention and interest to make me feel good. If I tell him that I feel sad, he always try to know way I feel sad and he reassure me. Although we have to be separate in sometimes because we live in different countries, he has come to be a very important part of my live. He is the person to whom I feel that I can tell everything that I have on my mind. I feel that I can tell him the corniest, stupid and interesting thing that I think. I spend good times with him even when we just talk on the phone. We have been together three years and we can spend hours speaking on the phone. I mean when people have a long relationship they get tired of speak a lot with the partner, but I and my boyfriend are different. Albert is one of the most important people in my life for teaching me the prettiest feelings in the world and making me happy.

These three people found what they have to do to be the most important people in my life, not by a common method between them. Each one of them entered in my heart in a different way. So there is not a specific rule that make you win a person’s heart. People just have to give the better they have and not think just in themselves, but think in the other person too.

Essay #2. How Music Has Influenced My Live

Yani Rivas

Essay #2 draft #3

2-10-09

How music has influenced my life

"Words are just words and songs are just songs until you bleed it". Those were the words of my uncle Ruendy when I told him a few years ago, "I don't know why, but before I didn't care about the song’s lyrics and now I do”. He just said the phrase and immediately I understood the meaning of these words. I stayed astonished and thought ohh!! My god!! That is true. After I heard my uncle words I remembered that each song that I had heard was talking about a situation that I was in at that time. These sorts of things make me think of the many ways that music can influence our lives. In my life music has influenced my hopes, love and the bad moments.

Music helps me not to ever give up on my hopes. I have many goals that I hope to carry out one day. When I hear songs like "I'll survive" by Monica Naranjo and “Life is a carnival" by Celia Cruz it makes me joyful and full of hopes because these sorts of songs can to transmit to me the same strength that the artist feels when he or she is singing it. Then after I had hear the song or while I'm listening it, I feel renewed like new batteries. These two songs talk about people that despite they had have bad times as many people, they don’t give up, and instead they see problems like just part of life. In other hand many people when they have problems they give up and begin to think negative about life. I don’t like to be like this kind of people. I like to think positively although there are problems in my life. One day I was disappointed because of my job and was feeling drained. Then I heard a song by Luis Fonce, but not the whole song, just a little phrase that said, "I don't ever give up." This phrase was enough to change my mind. After that I began thinking positively looking for the best way to solve the problem in my job. So not just in words, I mean that music can help me instead in my own experience.

In the same way that music can renew you, music can make you feel more in love too. There many love songs telling you about the magnificence of this about all the pretty things that you can feel when you are in love. I know that for some people it sounds very corny, but I have to say it. When you are in love and you hear a song talking about the same feeling that you have, it is amazing. When I began the relationship with my boyfriend I didn’t have idea about what was love because he is my first love. One day I heard a song by José José called “wanting and loving is not the same” this song tell you what you feel when you love somebody and what you fell when you want somebody. After had heard this song I said, “I feel more than want for him I I’m really in love with him.” That song made me know my feelings. Others songs can make you relive your feelings and relive good moments. As soon as I hear a song that reminds me of a good time it is like I could be there again. If you don't have any idea about what I'm talking about maybe you have never been in love. Because when you are really in love, you are going to say that this is true. Songs make me feel pretty things about love.

Not all is pretty in life as hopes or love. Sometimes moments come when you just want to be alone. In these moments music is a partner for me. Those moments that you feel that you don't care or you don't want to think positively. There is a song called "Tomorrow" by Mirian Hernandez that can describe what I mean. This song is about a woman who is experiencing a bad moment, and she says in this moment “I need to cry.” She says, “tomorrow I going to try to be fine, but today I just want to cry.” This is the perfect song when you just want to be alone pondering your bad times. It could be the death of somebody important to you, disappointments in love or a very big problem. These are moments when you don't want to hear anybody telling you that you have to be strong, there are moments that you just want to have a partner with you in your hurt. For me the music is my partner in those bad moments.

In my life I will never forget my uncle's words because I have understood a big meaning through it in my life. When I was a young girl I used to hear songs that I considered “nice,” but just for the sound or because my mother liked it. Now when I hear a song, it has a deeper meaning for me. It doesn't have to be just in my life, it can be in a person's life near to me. If I'm sure of something, it is that when the music has a meaning for you or some familiarity with your feelings, it is more pleasure for you. That's why my uncle told me, "words are just words and songs are just songs until you bleed it".

Essay #1 Censorship

Yani Rivas
Essay #1 draft #3
1-22-09

Censorship


Censorship can be defined as the prohibition of expressing our feelings, when they are in disaccord with the government or with an influential group. This happens in many countries, democratic or not. But where it is most notable is in the dictators’ countries. Censorship can be applied to songs, books, news, TV programs or in a simple world. Though these pages we can see examples about cases where censorships were implied.
One case of censorship happened 11 years ago. On June 15 of 1996 the Michael Jackson’s song called “They don’t care about us” was censored. In this song there were a few words that were offensive to some ethnic groups. Those words were “Jew me” and “kike me” and “don’t you black or white me”. Because of these words, the song was classified by the Jewish community as a racist song. The term “kike me” is very, very insulting for Jewish people. Michael Jackson says that he never wanted to be racist; rather, he said, “the song is about the injustices to young people and how the system can wrongfully accuse them”. So he had good intentions in singing this song, but not all people agreed with his language. Michael Jackson later apologized that some people felt uncomfortable with this song because it was not his intention. On June 23 he decided to change the insulting words “Jew me” and “kike me” to “do me” and “strike me.”
The men who would direct the music video for the censored song “They don’t care about us” say that it was a double standard in the music industry. It was because in another songs Michael did use words like nigger and nobody care about it. Finally the song was not censored completely; just the offensive words were censored. In my opinion people have to have the same rights, because our skin color can’t define who is better. Many people agree with this. So we shouldn’t use offensive words about anybody. Accordingly I think that if they going to censored the offensive words in songs, we should take care of all the words not just some. If people feel bad about the word “kike” it should be the same with the word “nigger”. So I don’t agree with this decision because people are being unjust when they only dispute some words. In others words Jewish people aren’t better than black people, and black people aren’t better than Jewish people. So I don’t understand why people who were offended by the derogatory term 'kike' were not equally offended by the derogatory term 'nigger.'
In other case in Bangladesh a country in south Asia there was a writer called Taslima Nasrin. In 1993 one of hers books was censored. Wild Wind was censored, first, because she talked about the personal life of a girl who was raped. She did it without the girl’s permission. Secondly, she critiqued the women’s life in the Islam religion. So the Bangladesh government accused her that she was blaspheming. It was the principal reason why the book was censored. She defended her book telling, the government that there’s no freedom in Bangladesh even it is a democratic country. But her defense didn’t work, because the book was banned anyway. It is hard to write a book about abuse in a country where the government doesn’t practice democratic. Talisma must have had much value and reasons to write the book. I disagree with the censorship in this case. I believe that everybody can say what they believe. It is up to the reader to believe it or not.
In US everybody knows Shakira, a singer from Barranquilla, Colombia. Since her video music “Ojos Asi” she has been recognized for her sensual dance. Her dancing is popular worldwide, but in her world tour called “fijacion oral tour”, she was censored by the Afghanistan government because they claimed that she showed too much of her body and her dance is not appropriate. In some TV transmissions they decide to cover her chest using technical support. But this action was not enough for the government. Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, demanded blacking out the transmissions. He called transmissions damned, because the obscene content caused damage to Afghanistan and his culture. I think we can not to pretend that all the governments are going to believe the same. If the government and their people feel bad with this kind of dance, then they have all the strength to avoid it. In my opinion the Afghanistan’s government is being exaggerated, because people have to decide by themselves what they want to hear and to see.
Some of the censorships are fair and others are not. Fair or not when it is a legal decision, we have to accept it. I mean not accept it and be conformist otherwise I mean that sometimes we need to give it time to see our dreams fulfilled. Some of these are big cases of censorship and others are just little cases. Many people feel upset about the censorships; this is why there are littler organizations that do concerts against censorship.

High Fidelity

This book is about a man who is telling the reader his own life. This men is trying to find to why he feels unsuccesfull in his life -- principally in love and in his job.


This is defenily not my favorite book, but it is a good one with an ample vocabulary. I cannot recommend you this book because I don't like it much. I think this principal character speak to much and I don't like that.

My Top 5 People

Santo R. (my dad)
Julia F. (my mother)
Alberto C. (my boyfriend)
Danny R. (my brother)
Julisa R. (my sister)

my top 5 songs

1. The life is a carnival / Celia Cruz

Album: carnaval de exitos

Year: 2002

Genre: salsa

Memorable lyrics: (rie, llora, vive tu vida y gosala toda) smile, cry, live the life and enjoy it all.

Memorable association: in bad moments in your life, that song makes you think that the bad moments are just little parts of the life. So you don’t have to worry because they are going to pass.

Blurb: is a happy song that makes you think positive. She talks about the good things in our life.

2. Mi angel / Belinda

Album: Belinda

Year: 2004

Genre: Spanish pop rock

Memorable lyrics: (tanto miedo tengo de perderte, tanto miedo de no verte mas aunque eres mi amigo para mi algo mas) I’m so scared to lose you, so much fear of not seeing you anymore, although you are my friend , to me something more.

Memorable association: simple, this song reminds me my boyfriend.

Blurb: It is about a girl that is in love with a guy, and she always takes care of him.

3. Lucky / Britney Spears

Album: oops! I did it again

Year: 2ooo

Genre: pop

Memorable lyrics: She cries, cries, cries in her lonely heart thinking. If is nothing missing in her life, why do this come at night.

Memorable association: this song makes me think about many rich people that sometimes have all the money to spend but they are not happy.

Blurb: It is the story about a very pretty, rich and famous girl that are doesn’t feel happy and she doesn’t know why.

4. I’m not a not yet a woman / Britney Spears

Album: Britney

Year: 2001

Genre: pop

Memorable lyrics: I’m not a girl don’t tell me what to believe, I’m just trying to find the woman in me.

Memorable association: well good parents always believe that you are a girl or a boy no matter your age. Sometimes you disagree with their opinions and they want you to do what they want. But here is a song to express your feelings. jeje

Blurb: this song is about a girl that is trying to be a woman taking care of hers own decisions

5. Me muero por besarte / La quinta estacion

Album: El mundo se equivoca

Year: 2006

Genre: Spanish pop rock

Memorable lyrics: (muero por decirte que el mundo se equivoca) I’m dieing to tell you that everybody is wrong.

Memorable association: sometimes you want something that everybody says that is bad or is wrong, but you want to believe that is not truth.

Blurb: It is about a girl that is full in love with a boy and she just wants to be with him.