flukey-jordan-blog

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Portfolio Statement

                                                 Portfolio Statement

      Dear reader,

      The following attachments include the assignments I had completed throughout the semester. Personally, writing had never been one of my strong suits through my years of school as many people in the past had always degraded my work. As for most things that I do with my life, I wouldn’t have much confidence in what I was writing and would only attempt to do the minimal work required for a decent grade. Looking back through my own work, I could see a steady growth in development as the semester pressed on.  

      After every assignment was graded by Professor Rogers, I would look back through the rubric and read over the comments that she had made. On nearly all of my papers, her feedback consisted of high appraisal. The words of positivity not only boosted my confidence, but also showed that I should take pride in my writing abilities. From the first paper about my past experiences of writing, to the final paper about where I wanted to see my future self, my writing represents myself and my personality to the highest degree of what I could write.

      Sincerely,

      Christina Jordan

[flukey-jordan-blog]

Assignment #1

                                                My Writing History

     All throughout my educational career, I believed that my writing lacked some sort of structural foundation; whether it would be the initial purpose, centralized topic, or analytical aspect of the work. Specifically through high school, students were often asked to write drafts that would later be compared to other students’ within the class. No matter what class the assignment was for, I felt that my paper would be completely off topic, or sound stupid compared to others. I always felt intimidated by other students because their work would always seem more sophisticated and appealing than my own work would be. As I have done with most things in my life, I would attempt to overcompensate for something that I wasn’t missing, meaning I would work myself up and overthink my writing even before I would complete it. It was a common occurrence for me to struggle with writing, even when only initially beginning an assignment as I would psych myself out with so many degrading thoughts about myself and my writing. Only just recently, I have built up enough confidence within myself to accept what I’m writing as being meaningful and to be enough for any given assignment.

     My biggest critic would have to be myself, clearly. I would always degrade my work, especially compared to my friends as I would always think they were smarter than me. I remember my sophomore and junior years were my lowest point of writing. With both English classes of their respected years, I struggled to maintain the teachers’ standard of writing. What I thought was good quality with explained reasoning and examples were never good enough. I was a part of the “Scholars Program” at my school, which was basically all the straight A students being grouped into the same core classes. As expected, the teachers would hold us to a higher standard of quality, with myself included. But I believe they held some of us to a standard higher than we could reach based on our starting point. I would ask the teachers what I would be doing wrong and what I could do to fix my writing and all they would say was “read the rubric and follow my corrections”. After every hand back I would try to follow their advice for the next assignment, but I would never see any improvement. I felt the more I tried the worse I would do, until I eventually began giving up on myself.

     Over time, my confidence had fallen so low that I lost faith in my ability to write. The following year, I would always see my writing as being this terrible thing that would barely get a point across, but I finally met someone that turned my thoughts around. And just recently, I feel that my writing has gotten tremendously stronger and I have a couple teachers to thank for such an improvement. The biggest supporter was my high school AP Literature teacher, Mr. Reese. He could see where I struggled in my writing; he even noticed how much I struggled in class while physically trying to write. One day after class, he had pulled me aside and asked what my thoughts were about my confidence within myself and my writing. My response to him was simple, “I lack the confidence in myself, and anything I do”. After I said that, he took a few of my essays out of a pile and began going over every aspect of them. The way he dissected my writing was nothing but praise; things like word choice, structure, organization, etc. He was so eager to help me understand that there was no reason for me to think the way I do about my work, that I believe that I took his inclination of support into my future works as I became proud of some of my work after completion

     Typically I would never write anything outside of an academic setting as I have never had the inclination of writing for pleasure, in the sense of creating my own stories or poems or anything of that nature. The closest thing I could think of that would relate to writing outside of the classroom would be the use of any social media. Personally, I only communicate with others through face-to-face interactions or the use of technology; mainly using my cell phone to text, call, snap, or video chat as forms of communication. In my opinion, I believe our modern world has hindered the way people write nowadays as slang and abbreviations take away from the sophistication of word choice and proper definitions of words. Although our world has been vastly changing, I attempt to separate the outside world of informal formatting from the academic standpoint of formal writing in efforts to bring out the best qualities of my writing.

[flukey-jordan-blog]

Assignment #3

                                          My Perception of Reading

       All through my life, I never really understood how someone could just sit down and read a book from cover to cover without getting bored, distracted, or fall asleep. Even reading for classes seems more like a hassle to me but then I see some of my friends and other classmates speed through three books a week and I just wonder in amazement. As my classes became more difficult, that is in high school, I began reading more complex novels. While reading those, I found myself actually enjoying the content. I even started going as far as relating to some of the characters in a few of the stories, which was a very rare occurrence for me, but I still would never just go out of my way to sit down and read on my own time.  

       I will say, on the rare occasions of me enjoying a good book, I found that I loved reading murder mysteries, historically-based writings, and fictional novels. Although all of these books have been introduced to me solely by the educational system, I was so intrigued by the plot and characters that I was eager to continue reading and finish the whole book. To name a few, I remember reading and being amused by Cold Case by Julia Pratt Leonard, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Every single one of these novels captured my attention in their own way. Maybe it was that I related very heavily with at least one character in each book, but I began to find out more about myself as I read through the pages. That was my only inspiration for reading, as even now, I am still trying to find out who I am as a person. Reading about characters that have similar traits has impacted my view of life and perspective around me.

       Building up the interest was a learning process, much like the initial process of reading in general. I recall my early days of elementary school for the memories of learning how to read. Every day, my kindergarten teacher would spend about forty-five minutes to an hour of reciting the alphabet and calling out the sound each letter made. As the days progressed forward, the class would dive deeper into the components of the letters – what letters were constituted as vowels and consonants, the different sounds certain combinations of letters would make. Towards the end of the school year, my teacher would take us individually and ask us to recite a sentence or two to check our progress. I remember when it was my turn to read to her one day, and I distinctly remember being able to read the provided statement without any assistance and almost perfectly (or at least as perfect as a five year could speak). The amusement and tone my teacher had as she spoke to praise me provided a feeling of pride that I could sense in her, even at a young age. The satisfaction of being able to accomplish a skill as major as reading was very rewarding. I tried to strive for the gratification of success that I found in my early days of reading with everything I would do, both academically and athletically.

       As I continued growing up and reading through grade school, I did encounter a few struggles. As a shy child, I found it hard for myself to speak aloud in front a large class. Even though a vast majority of us were at the same level, I often felt embarrassed to mess up and I would constantly psych myself out. I'm not sure if it’s the nervous pressure I would put on myself every time I would attempt to read for the class or what, but I believe that I may, in some way, be dyslexic as I tend to find myself having a hard time with pronunciation of certain combinations of letters or phrases. I would feel almost intimidated by other students being able to flawlessly express their reading abilities and when I tried to do the same, I would find myself getting upset and worried that I was not as good as the other classmates. Even my friends, in my opinion, were so much better and faster at reading than I was, and I think that stigma may have contributed to my lack of interest toward the concept of reading.

       I have always been my hardest critic for anything that I would do. From sports to school work, even toward the simple task of reading. But my thoughts had to stem from a base, and that usually was that of my teachers and fellow peers. Both positive and negative remarks have been made about my ability to annunciate and understand strands of words. The most common connotation I received from my classmates was “you read really slow”; for example, my friend would show me a paragraph from a novel and it would take an awkward amount of time for me to completely finish the piece and the other person would say something along the lines of  “Are you done yet?” or “Did you really just take that long to read that little bit?”, both of which were comments that degraded my confidence in myself. To me, the remarks were very degrading as I felt I was behind others or not as smart. But the older I got, many other classmates and teachers would comment about how I fully understood a reading, or the perceptions I got from certain readings which I later took as uniqueness as English to me is up to interpretation.  

       Overall, reading for me is strictly an educational aspect of my life. When a novel or article is assigned, I do find pleasure in reading what is provided but I won't attempt to read on my own.  I feel that I would rather go out and create my own experiences instead of relying on other people’s imagination for entertainment. Taking time away from making my own memories to look back on just seems demeaning and pointless to me, unless the reading is to provide pertinent information that would benefit the situation.  

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Assignment #4

                                                 Inspiring Artist

       As a young and awe-inspiring artist, Ryan Upchurch has been making a name for himself through his own means. He isn’t your average contacted musician who follows the rules of a given record label. In fact, Upchurch has created his own record label “Redneck Nation”, to set himself apart from fellow artists. During his short but expanding career, Ryan Upchurch has written music across various genres – even going as far as crossing over and combining different styles to create his own. Typically, he releases music that incorporates styles of country, rock, rap, hip-hop, or any combination of the listed genres; so, if you are into music, I highly recommend taking a look at his works as you will not be disappointed.

      Figure 1. PondcreekRoad music video. A taste of Upchurch’s music.

       Personally, Upchurch has been so admirable due to is his originality that he expresses within his music. Every song he has written and produced have stemmed from his own personal experiences. Take his song “Tunnel Vision” for example. The lyrics show his struggles of trying to make a living on the outskirts of Nashville until he took a huge gamble to chase a dream of becoming a musical phenomenon (“Tunnel Vision”). Another song that correlates with his life is “Pond Creek Road”, which is featured in the video to the right. It is a song that depicted his hometown through childhood memories (“Pond Creek Road”). To me, his choice of lyrics and personal connection that Upchurch provides within his songs shows a character that separates his music from any other artist in the music industry. Compared to that of any signed artist, Upchurch uses his free-ranged independence to his advantage as record companies practically own their signees, forcing them to follow their preference instead of individualized music like Ryan Upchurch composes.

       Looking at his career as a whole, Upchurch gained a lot of success through his own dedication and perseverance. He knew exactly what he wanted and wouldn’t be forced into a contract that didn’t follow his intentions. As a result, Upchurch founded Redneck Nation Records and ultimately built his career from the ground up. Without being signed with a record company, he found other ways to release his music. Typically, he posts music videos and lyric videos on the social media platforms of YouTube and Facebook. Using these as a means of advertisement of sorts, his work spread like wildfire as people continually shared his posts, reaching wider audiences. Inevitably, thousands to hundreds of thousands of newfound fans began supporting the young Tennessean and his profound success.

       There are various different genres of music and not every avid music listener is going to enjoy or support every song or artist they come across, but they should give credit where it is due. Sure, Upchurch is a rough-cut nobody from the middle of Tennessee, but he has accomplished what many could only dream of. Nearly ten albums, with dozens of smashing hits – Ryan Upchurch is breaking barriers and making a name for himself. I truly believe he will leave a lasting impression on his fans and his contribution to music will always be remembered.

                                                 Works Cited

Upchurch, Ryan. “(NEW) ‘Tunnel Vision’ by Upchurch.” YouTube, YouTube, 11         Dec. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akb9YoXtjgc.  

Upchurch, Ryan. “UPCHURCH ‘PondCreek Road’ (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO).”        YouTube, YouTube, 29 Jan. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?                                v=FeFQSViQ7Ms.

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Assignment #5

                                                  Outlook on Life

       Life is full of challenges that encourages an individual to learn from their experiences. Every day we, as humans, encounter situations that involve making decisions that (hopefully) better ourselves for the future. Through my first eighteen years of living, I have been through a lot – experienced death first hand, the devastation of being forgotten, the loss of somebody who you thought would always be there for you, being forced to be somebody that I don’t want or see myself as being, the constant feeling of being lost without any understanding of how to change. All these hardships had challenged my character but what had gotten me through was the acceptance and guidance provided by my closest friends. For me, the most important thing to me is having a small circle of people who support me for who I am and for what I want to become. Over the past few years, I have been struggling with my perception of myself. That is, I don’t give myself enough credit as the words that my own family and parents have always said to me were degrading, which hindered my self-worth. I, for one, am my own enemy as I only see the negative point of view of my personal actions because of how I was raised. Now that I have finally found the group of people that actually care about me, I am beginning to see things about myself that I have always denied. I have even gone as far as planning my future, as there was a time in my life where I wasn’t sure that I wanted to continue forward as I felt hopeless because I falsely believed that I was letting everyone down, when in reality I was only losing myself.

       I hope that one day that I can get out of Maryland, to get away from the negativity of my childhood. I want an escape from my past to start a new life that is completely by my own standards. As of right now, I want to get away to Tennessee and visit Nashville. I want to experience a more western-like atmosphere while also getting to see music city in person. Music has always been a huge inspiration for me as I feel that I can relate many of my emotions and personal problems with the lyrics and melodies of certain songs to help express what I am going through. I would also want to take the drive to any of the southern states such as Mississippi or Georgia to feel accepted in a more suitable area for my redneck attitude. There are more areas and better opportunities for hunting and fishing. Who knows? Maybe I could find somebody that I could love that has more common interests than those that live around here, and who would love and accept me for who I am.

       Aside from my personal endeavors, I ultimately want to become an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation; more specifically, a part of the Behavioral Analysis unit. Growing up, I always wanted to be a cop or detective of some sort as most of the television shows revolved around murder mysteries and the psychological reasonings behind motives. My parents would always mock me for wanting to be a cop since I am a female, but their mockery only fueled my desires to defy them, to prove them wrong. I am also a strong supporter of patriotism and the all of the effort our police officers, firefighters, and other task forces are putting into protecting the people of our nation. It is something that I want and hope to be a part of in the future.

       Lastly, I have always wondered about what would happen in the end. As we all know, everyone dies at some point; whether it is tomorrow, next week, or 30 years from now, the result is inevitable. With not knowing when the time has come, there are a few things I hope to accomplish before I go. For one, I hope my parents realize what they had done to me to make me feel the way I do towards myself and towards them, as I do not believe they really understand me or my thoughts. The most important thing I want to find out before I die is my purpose for living in the first place. I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, and I want to know my reason for living. I hope to become something that I can be proud of, that my future family can be proud of.