What I Learned This Semester
This is a drawing of all the major things things I learned or enjoyed learning about this semester. The Cosmic Race by philosopher José Vasconcelos was a major concept I never knew about. The idea of labeling Latinos a “Cosmic Race” is interesting because it would be giving a name to our mostly ambiguous identity that has been confusing us since the beginning of time. We are a diaspora so our culture is scattered and we may be mixed with many things. By giving it a name and understanding that we are a people that are many things because of our history makes its us feel seen and valid. That is why the person in the middle is someone of many colors because of the inside we are made up of many cultures. Bad Bunny and Selena are two of my favorite artists that I respect and listen to constantly. I really loved learning more about them and their impact this semester. Lastly, The Young Lords was a group of NYC Puerto Ricans that I never knew about. They were very progressive and I feel like if they existed today they would have many members and would be thriving. They fought for our rights just like we are today.
My Reaction to: La Guera by Cherrie Moraga
Playlist for “Kimberle”
1. Isabel’s Moment (feat. Tobias Jesso Jr.) – King Princess
I chose this song because I feel like it is a song that really supports how Kimberle is feeling about her break up and how the speaker feels about her relationship with Kimberle.
Lyric: “But hope is something you find when you’re sober”
Quote from Kimberle: “Quite the little Cuban sandwich we’ve got here,” Kimberle said, passing me what now seemed like the obligatory after-sex joint followed by the vaguely racist comment.” Kimberle turns to smoking joints and cigarettes to numb her pain from the break up. Like the lyric suggests: there is no hope when you’re high and that is exactly how Kimberle feels without her girlfriend
Lyric: “And I’m still trying to draw all the lines through my friends and my lovers, it ain’t clear how we feel when we spend all this time with each other”
Quote from Kimberle: “Trembling there in the dark, I realized I wanted to kiss Kimberle—not for anyone else’s pleasure but for my own.” and “Kimberle, don’t you ever think about what we’re doing—about us?” These quotes relate because the speaker doesn’t want to be friends with Kimberle, she wants to be something more than just lovers. She’s not sure where Kimberle stands with her, but she knows that they spend an excessive amount of time with each other and there could be a possibility that they could be more than friends.
2. Hard Times – Paramore
I chose this song because Kimberle and the speaker are both going through Hard Times in their personal lives. The following quotes are examples of how hard their life has been.
Lyric: “(Hard Times) gonna make you wonder why you even try (Hard Times) gonna take you down and laugh when you cry (These lives) And I still don’t know how I even survive
Quotes from Kimberle: “Her girlfriend had caught her in flagrante delicto and walked out; depression had swallowed her in the aftermath.”
“She couldn’t concentrate at her restaurant job, mixing up simple orders, barking at the customers, so that it wasn’t long before she found herself at
the unemployment office (where her insistence on stepping out to smoke cost her her place in line so many times she finally gave up).”
“It quickly followed that she went home one rosy dawn and discovered that her landlord, aware that he had no right to do so but convinced that Kimberle (now four months late on her rent) would never get it together to legally contest it, had stacked all her belongings on the sidewalk, where they had been picked over by the students at International House, headquarters for all the third-world kids on scholarships that barely covered textbooks.:”
“Me, I’d just broken up with my boyfriend—it was my doing, it just
felt like we were going nowhere—”
3. Post Break-Up Sex – The Vaccines
This song is about having sex with strangers in order to forget your ex. This song relates because this is exactly what Kimberle is doing in order to cope with her feelings about her break-up.
Lyric: “Post break-up sex that helps you forget your ex, what did you expect from post break-up sex, Oh when you love somebody But you find someone”
Quotes from Kimberle: “Kimberle had not been installed in the studio more than a day or two (crying and sniffling, refusing to eat with the usual determination of the newly heartbroken)”
“To my amazement, Kimberle had brought somebody home. I didn’t especially like the idea of her having sex in my living room”
4. Alewife – Clairo
This song reminds me of Kimberle because she is suicidal and needs help from her friend. And in the song Clairo talks about how she could’ve committed suicide if her friend wasn’t there just like the way Kimberle could have done it if the speaker wasn’t there. An example of this is when the speakers goes out to search for Kimberle after she ran away through the window and goes missing.
Lyrics: You called me seven times
One, two, three, four, on the line
I didn’t mean to scare you
Just had the thoughts in my mind
They showed up to my door
My parents didn’t know what for
Swear I could’ve done it
If you weren’t there when I hit the floor
Quote from Kimberle: “She was asking me to keep her from killing
herself. There was no method chosen yet—it could have been slashing
her wrists, or lying down on the train tracks outside of town”
5. Mirrors – PVRIS
I chose this song because it reminds me of how the speaker may feel about Kimberle. The lyrics fit the same way the speaker would describe Kimberle especially while having sex with her. Kimberle is someone I feel like fits the “dead inside” description the song mentions and for some reason the speaker still likes her. The placebo feelings the song mentions is also a good way to describe how the speaker may be having romantic feelings that aren’t actually there, instead its probably lust.
Lyric: But when you float above my body
Standing up right above me
I don’t feel so lonely, lonely
Quote from Kimberle: “At one point, Kimberle was balanced above me, her mouth grazing mine, but we just stared past each other.”
Pandora’s Box Newspaper Connection
This is an article about a transgender woman named Tracey Williams that dies as a victim of domestic abuse. This connects to Arturo Arias’ Pandora’s Box because it is about how Pandora a woman who suffers under the fate of an abusive man gets freed by Juanita a woman who had just transitioned and was also about to suffer under the hands of physical abuse. Eventually Pandora decides to transition as well.
Selected Photography
These two pictures both draw my attention. They both showoff a landscape and subject. In the first photo the subject is the plant and in the second picture it is the triceratops. The landscape in the first picture is very open with rocks and dry plants and the second picture has a landscape that is tall and grassy. The biggest difference with these two pictures is their style. The first photo is black and white giving it this somber serious tone meanwhile the second picture is colorful and bubbly giving it a lighter lively tone. There are colors coming from the grass, the sun, the bubbles, and the people.
Poem and Movie Clip
This movie clip and poem connect to each other because what I see similar is that they are about trauma and their relationship to it. The Rocketman bio pic is about Elton John and his struggle with parental trauma, addiction, and sexuality. And in this beautiful scene he faces all the monsters in his life and lets go of their power on him. Then he proceeds to hug his inner child. I love this scene so much because I feel like trauma may exist within us, but no matter where you are in your life no matter how old you are it is never too late to be the person you want to become. I feel like this differs from the poem because the speaker is running away from their trauma. They don’t want to stop and face it because they aren’t ready to and that is okay. However, eventually the marathon will stop.
Porcupine Love Alternate Ending
i really really miss you now and long to see you.
I’m keeping a journal now since my therapist suggested it. “Your thoughts become a lot smaller once you let them out”. I am currently writing this as I am waiting in the airport for my flight to New Zealand–to see you. Love is something I have ran from my whole life. I’ve been scared of it. I’ve been scared of the helplessness, the lack of control, the feeling that I might have to depend on someone to hold me with my heart in the palm of their hands beating as loud as a drum as the passion pumps breaths into me.
It was all too much for me. I was immature and I wasn’t ready for someone like you Antenna. I know perfection does not exist, but you are the closest thing to it. I don’t need to explore the stars and fly around the moon to know what space is like because I found it in you. Your love is the heat that radiates off the sun and burns away the doubt that I have. With you my chakras are aligned, I feel a peace that I have never known. And with every country we explore I find new pieces of myself. I discover all the parts of myself that were blocked off and stopped me from loving you with every ounce of my body. You allow me to feel my emotions with an ease that flows like water, and with that strength I can make love to you like I never have before. When I insert my fingers in you and you feed me your sounds, I see an angel taking me to the skies with the dust of the stars in her eyes.
This is love and it is something I never want to let go of. Never again. I will hold you close to me until my last breath. I am so terrified, but I’m in too deep to turn back now, now I can only feel my legs running to you with no hesitation or intention to stop, the pain doesn’t hurt me because our love fuels my adrenaline. I love you Antenna and I’ve been faraway, but I’m coming and I will never run from you again.
