Interest Inventory

Interest Inventory

1. What is your favorite activity or subject? Why? Your least favorite? Why?

My favorite activities are reading and doing theater because both are unlimited. I don't have a least favorite subject.

2. What are your best subjects? What makes them easiest for you?

My best subjects are probably lit and theater subject because they capture my interest the most.

3. What subjects are difficult for you? What makes them the hardest?

Any subject is interesting to me as long as it is presented in a way that captures my interest. What I mean is that if something just seems tedious, even if it is reading a book (and I really love reading) I find it really hard to bring myself to do it.

4. What subject makes you think and work the hardest? Why is it the most challenging?

Literature and theater are the subject that I invest the most time in and try to challenge myself most in.

5. Rate the following topics according to your interests (1 very interested, 2 somewhat interested, 3 not interested):

a) Dance- 1, b) Music- 1, c) Drama- 1, d) Sports- 2, e) Writing-1, f) Math- 2, g) Computers- 3, h) Science- 2, i) Social Studies- 2, j) Business- 3, k) World Languages- 1, l) Politics/Law- 1, , m) other interests ( visual arts -1)

6. What are your favorite games or sports?

Volleyball, swimming and dancing

7. If you could learn about anything you wanted to, what would you choose to learn about? Be specific.

Astology, the Beat Generation, history and styles of theater, history and styles of music, different religions (including dead religions), any language (including dead languages), any new instrument, skydiving, underwater diving, sword fighting, fencing....and many many many other things.

8. What are three things you like to when you have free time (besides seeing your friends)?

Read and write, spend time at the beach, walk on stilts

9. What clubs, groups, organizations do you belong to?

TeatRUM

10. What things have you collected in the past? What, if anything, are you currently collecting?

Books, postcards or posters with actors and musicians I like.

11. Have you ever taught yourself to do something without the help of another person? If so, what?

I taught myself to draw, and I taught myself to cook (and I'm still teaching myself)

12. If you were going to start a book club, what kinds of books would your club read?

Bukowski, Kerouac, Burroughs...and a lot more but I'm pretty tired of listing ^^;

13. If people were to come to you for information about something you know a lot about, what would the topic be?

Books, authors, and cooking

14.If you could plan a field trip for learning, where would you go? Why would you choose that place?

I would go to the library in Alexandria. But if it had to be real I would choose any country I haven't been to.

15. When you’re using the computer, what are you usually doing? Why?

Working or checking my e-mail. I don't like spending much time online, so other than the online tutoring I do I don't use the internet for much else.

16. If you could interview an expert on any subject, what subject would you like to talk to someone about? Who would you like to interview about that subject if you could?

I'd like to interview a director such as Anne Bogart, Augusto Boal, or Suzuki on their views of theater.

17. If you could interview one significant person from the past and one from the present, who would you interview? Why would you choose these two people?

I would choose Augusto Boal from the present, because he has managed to bring theater to the public in a way that gives people an outlet to express themselves without fear of oppression, it is a theater that makes people aware of their own voice and their own abilities and power to solve social problems. From the past I would interview Khalil Gibran because he was an amazing writer and person overall. His writings are amazing, and I would just really love to sit down and talk to him.

18. What careers are you currently interested in?

Right now, I am interested in continuing my life as a student. Hopefully I'll be able to get a doctorates degree in Theater. After that, I would love to work in anything in theater.

19. In my classes I prefer to work:

Alone

20. In school I learn best:

Alone

21. What helps you learn?

Reading and hands-on activities.

22. What makes learning more difficult for you?

If there is not enough interesting interaction.

23. Think of a great teacher you've had. Describe what made this teacher so terrific.

My music teacher from high school never acted like he was inherently superior to his students, yet he always had their respect. He listened to the students and I learned a lot from him.

24. What past school assignment or project are you proudest of? Why?

I don't know if I would say I am "proudest" of it, but one that sticks out in my mind is a project where I had to develop a fully functional roller coaster using foam tubing and a marble. The marble had to go all the way across the roller coaster without falling or stopping, and it had to come to a safe stop (by itself) at the end.

25. What project done outside of school are you proudest of? Why?

The plays that I have helped with, because I feel that they have all been worthwhile.

Personal Literacy Narrative

I don’t remember any moment in my life where I didn’t know how to read. I feel like just based on this fact, I can safely assume that my mind, at that time, was able to understand the significance of this new skill. I maintain the belief that the ability of written communication is what marks us as a superior species. Theologists say it is our belief in a “superior being”, artists say it is our ability to make art, linguists say it is our vocal communication system. I study literature. I say it’s reading and writing.

As I was saying, I don’t know when I began reading. I was a pretty sedate kid. I didn’t like the screaming games played in my kindergarten class. I preferred my own company to other kid’s. Yeah, I was a 5-year-old antisocial come mierda. More than anything else I loved to read. I used to go up and down whole aisles in my library looking for a book I might have skipped. I would go through whole sets every week. I became an accidental kleptomaniac because I had a problem parting with some books. Frankly, I was obsessed. I was also writing from a pretty young age. I would write letters to the tooth fairy or I would write songs that I’d invent. It’s pretty embarrassing to read these now, so I’m thankful for everything that has helped me progress as a writer. I’m grateful for those who supported and who support me by making me feel that what I write is worthwhile. I’m more grateful to a friend who once read my work and laughed in my face. She was the first person to ever tell me that she hadn’t liked what I wrote. Flippantly, flat-out, she told me it was cliché, badly-worded…just bad. It was a slap of reality, and I am eternally thankful for it. I’ve learned the value of a friend who will tell you the naked truth about yourself and your art.

But even more than a good critique is a good book. Books provide me with an unending source of potential. They allow me access into the minds of people that I otherwise would never have known. Ideas, styles, theories, insanities, experiences, worlds. It's like dreaming. A state of hypnosis comes over me whenever I read. I become extremely suggestible - strings of words disappear into all types of sensory hallucinations. It sounds like a type of madness because it is.

Writing is another type of madness. It involves creating a connection with your subconscious and pulling out strings of ideas and images, nightmares, fears, paranoia, experience, memories and fantasies. It is extremely difficult and most of the time just fucking frustrating trying to establish this connection. Sometimes you feel like you are there but then the words get blurry and meaningless when they cross the border from thought to paper. So right now, my main goal is to facilitate that connection between my conscious and my subconscious. I do exercises in dream retention - I make sure to write down my dreams as soon as I can (eventually I would like to manage to be lucid in my dreams and control them). Among this and other things, I do a lot of free writing. That is, you just write the first thing that comes to your mind, whether or not it seems to hold meaning. Maybe it sounds strange, but it's very effective.

Anyway. That is where and who I am as a writer. It's not much. But I am enjoying the madness.

Class Journal 1

Hmmm...Yeah maybe I'll work on those titles a bit more. So, this is my first class blog. Woo-hoo. We worked on writing about our names in class. It was interesting because I had never realized how my mom's maiden name corresponds really well with my love of water. Let's see...My next blog (which I will post right after this I suppose) will be the essay about my history or experiences as a writer. So hopefully that one will be a lot better than this...I think this is pretty much going nowhere. I'm sure I'll get used to this journal thing soon.

So I've had this blog for a while, but I never really got into it. Really I just made it for myself, pretty much as a digital archive of things I have written, drawn, painted, made, etc...but yeah I'm not a very big computer person so that really didn't work so much. But I do have some drawing exercises I've done up here...also a story that I wrote for one of my English classes. Hopefully I'll get around to putting up more. Well, not hopefully. Definitely...probably. Well see how it goes!