"Coming of Age"- Poster Draft

For this poster, I thought of things in my life that are priority and that have helped me come of age. I tried to interpret that through the pictures I used, because all the things in the poster, have helped me come of age. I used one picture of when I was a child, to show the past, then recent pictures, to show how I've grown, and then my dreams,to show coming of age. I also showed Family,Friends, and God as my support system in helping me grow. As for the "photoshop techniques," I just layered things, and tried to find fonts that are fun, but stick out there.

"Journal #3" -Venting!

I miss the conversations that started out as early evening conversations, and turned into early morning conversations. The conversations we used to have that had absolutely no meaning to them, but meant the most. I miss chilling with you everyday, and acting like a little kid. I MISS MY BEST FRIEND!! I strongly dislike the fact that you go to Radford, and I go to Moanalua. Since middle school ended, we've only seen each other 2 times, and we talk on about a monthly basis. I know I shouldn't complain, because some "best friends" never talk, or see each other, but I've become so accustom to seeing you everyday for about 2 years, that it's terribly hard for me not to even talk to you everyday! I hate to feel that were drifting, farther and farther apart, but I can't escape that feeling, and it sucks a lot! I miss you so much, being without my best friend in high school, is like being without a flashlight in the dark. I envy the girls who have their best friend in the same school as them, because when they have a bad day, they have their best friend right there to comfort them. As for me, I have to send you a text, praying that you have the time text back. I still remember the note you wrote me in my yearbook at the end of 8th grade, "it still hasn't hit me that your leaving me, in the high life!" I never actually knew what you meant, until I actually got to "high life" and realized you weren't standing next to me, to experience it with me, and it broke my heart. I know that sounds weird, but pretty much from the moment we met, we were inseparable! We'd chill before school, during school, and after school, and countless, never-ending phone conversations! To this day, I truly believe that your the sister God forgot to give me, and the one person that brings the best out of me. The one person I can trust to never hurt or judge me. But recently, I can feel our friendship drifting and drifting, and this scares me more than anything! If I was to loose you as a best friend, it wouldn't be a "whatever!" thing! Then I think of our personal promise we made, to be best friends forever, and I have faith that no matter what, our friendship will never end.

To finish up this journal, I think what bugs me the most is that I don't know what the future holds for our friendship, and I'm afraid of what may happen, but I hold on to faith that we'll be best friends forever, and like Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart”, and you've left a huge footprint in my heart(:

"Coming of Age"-Essay Draft

I slowly walked out to the familiar car, in the lightly lit up parking lot. It was around 9:00 p.m. My legs ached with every step, and my head pounded harder than a hammer. I jumped into the cold air conditioned car, to my mom’s voice, “How was practice?” I didn’t even have to respond for her to know the answer. I’ve been training for the past 6 months, preparing for the biggest test of my life, my second degree black belt test. I’ve been in karate for nine years, and nothing made me more nervous then tests. I started attending 5 classes a week just to prepare for this test, and pretty much drained all of the energy I had in my body.

When my instructor informed me that the 2^nd degree test was in December 2008, my first wave of emotions was excitement, to get my 2^nd degree belt, then nervousness unfortunately took over my body. I automatically knew that I had to buckle down, and get serious as ever, or I would fail. The fear came back to me, an event that occurred almost 7 years ago, that I never mentioned to anyone. The event was my 1^st degree black belt test, the first time I took the test, and I failed, and had to take the test a second time. I was scared that the disappointment from nearly 7 years ago would come back to me. Despite my fears I emotionally and physically prepared myself for the big day. Pushing myself to heights I never pushed myself to before. I trained to the point where I had aches all over my body, and even injured my leg, but throughout my training, I pushed through all of my challenges physically and emotionally because I knew it would all be worth it in the end.

When the big day finally came, I felt an ocean of emotions. Words couldn’t start to explain the way I felt. I arrived at my dojo that night, and it was time to take the test. During warm-ups my fear came back, so I ran over to my cousin, who was also taking the test and asked her for a quick pep talk. She told me something like “its okay Destrie, you got this, just relax.” Relaxing was the last thing I wanted to do, but it was time. My brain was running at 100 miles per hour, and unfortunately wasn’t about to slow down anytime soon. First thing we did was the basic karate moves, I passed that with ease, followed by 4 “katas”, and number of sparring rounds. I was pretty confident that I passed, but wasn’t 100% positive. The moment of truth was coming up, the presentation of belts. Row by row, the belts was given to the students that passed the test. Thoughts ran through my mind, and finally my agony was over. My name was called, indicating that I passed! When I was called up, my instructor gave a speech about how I improved, and worked really hard for 6 months, and how it all paid off and how proud he was of me.

Although I didn’t noticed this until I recently looked back, this experience has taught me to have perseverance for something I really want, and when I push through all the trials and tribulations, I can achieve any goal I set. This was defiantly a lesson I will remember for the rest of my life.

"First Blog"- Writing Experiences

My writing experiences include writing essays and taking English courses through out my school years. I haven't had much experience with writing, beside school assignments and writing basic 2-3 page essays. When I came to Moanalua, I learned a lot of different writing traits I should use to write a good essay or story. Before high school I wasn't aware of Sentence Fluency, Word Choice, Voice,etc. Since I've been through the meneMAC course last year, I've learned a lot about good writing, and has made my writing stronger, and more interesting. I've learned how to "show" my story NOT "tell" it!

My goals for my writing is to continue with showing my stories and not telling them, and to bring my voice out more when I write. I want people to be able to read my writing, and tell all my emotions and point of views that are in the story. I also want to apply my 6 traits A LOT in my writing, so that I have noticeably great writing!