Both of my parents went to respectable colleges, and left no doubt in my mind that I would also be attending a high ranking college. As a child, they sent me to math groups for advanced students, had me attend numerous piano lessons, and encouraged me to be active in athletics as well as activities. My father had gone to Yale, a school that is "very good but never something we, as kids, should brag about." When I was a sophomore in high school, my brother followed our father's footsteps and also attended Yale. Immediately, I felt the weight of my college life fall upon me. Although no girl in my family had attended Yale, it was silently assumed that I would apply there as well. I continued to strive for perfection and for the praise of my parents.

What’s your identity? This question always lingers in my head. During each time period, you are placed into different positions by different people. Not until you go to work and become self-sufficient,those people who are called adults, and the surroundings will keep imposing you their understandings of life. So where suits you the best? Is that the one others choose for you, or the one you crave for but other is against?

Sun. 9/7:
(ICPR) By 5 p.m.  Post on Serendip a reflection (ideas, questions, conundrums, close readings) on the reading for Monday.
We will build our conversation Monday around these reflections.

Mon. 9/8:
(ICPR) Eli Clare, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation
We will pay particular attention to "the mountain" and Part ii: bodies, "freaks and queers" and "reading across the grain"
Reread Solomon excerpt and bring to class revised identity graphs/models

(ENGL) By 5 p.m. create a webby post on Serendip, answering this question:

I agree with Alisha’s post. Although I am not asked very often, “What are you?” people just assume I’m black without even bothering to figure out “what I am.” Granted I am black, but struggling to defeat the misperceptions that many teenagers have, that I have encountered, is something that I have faced very often.

The Martian and the American

The sun was barely beginning to frolic past the hill. Rays of light kissed our face as we embraced the goodbye and welcome of this strange intersection from our naïve selves into adulthood. It was a moment that neither of us were prepared to face, but the day had arrived and the only option that stood before us was to look forward. A natural light bathed our skin as we shouted into the air, hands free from the shackles of statistics. We had overcome what our parents could not. Yet despite this beautiful friendship reflected in the photo, our lives originated on what seemed to be two very distant planets.

My friend has frequently told me that I’m “such a white girl.”  It seems that this bit of commentary always interrupts some paroxysm of laughter or is post some purchasing escapade, as though that is solely what a white girl does: laugh, buy things at Starbucks, and shop at Victoria’s Secret (activities that I, and quite a few other humans, happen to take part in). 

            What seems strange to me, is not that I should be called a “white girl” because, I am in fact a girl who happens to be white, but the use of the phrase “such a” or the word “typical” out of the mouth of someone I have known now for over eight years. 

Check out this article about one of our sites, U School:

http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20140905_Students__parents_eye_hands-on_approach_at_new_school.html?nlid=7600801

What I’m about to say next may appall you: I can relate to the white woman in the essay by June Jordan. Yeah, the one who calls Jordan “lucky” for being black and having something to work to, unlike herself, not believing that she was “a person”. I admit, now that I’ve seen and had firsthand experience of friends who have been in tough situations that I don’t share the same exact viewpoint as the woman but  I was kind of scared to admit it during class in fear of being judged by people I barley know and will be spending another 4 years with.