College Options...

So, for an assignment I'm supposed to respond to a few common questions asked to students when applying for college. The questions I've chosen are:

Why are you interested in our college?
AND
Who in your life has most influenced you?

Well, as far as colleges goes, my first choice is The School of Visual Arts. A friend first mentioned it to me, and for years I've been preparing to get my portfolio ready and meet the academic requirements for some scholarships and admittance to the school (a 3.05 GPA). The school also offers courses such as a semester-long Tattoo Design class, which is on option i've been interested in, and can only benefit my illustrating major even further. And the top students in Illustrating and Fine Arts get their own studio, AND the school is also located in various locations ALL OVER MANHATTAN! Being born and raised in the Bronx, I also grew up in Upstate NY; but my whole life, each borough (especially The Bronx, Queens and Manhattan) of the city can never be too close to my heart. I've visited SVA and got a better insight of the school and more familiarity to the different buildings of the school in different parts of Manhattan, and only wanted to attend there even more!

As for the second question, I think that the most influential person in my life is my older sister. All my life, she's been there for me; to teach me right from wrong, to lead me in the right directions, to learn from her mistakes, and so on and so forth. She's my mentor, my best friend, and has set the foundation of who I am as a person. When she was my age, she liked to draw countless pictures of sexy faeries with curves, slender faces, long hair, combat boots and cocktail-ish dresses. Her fantasy art was like something out of Amy Brown and Daria with mushrooms, and that was probably one of my biggest influences into working in a career in art. She's been through so much in her life by my side and managed to only grow exponentially from it, and I'm proud to say I strive to follow her example.

'Questioning' Literature

I've always wondered what makes a work of literature questionable, controversial, and so hard to find in a bookstore or online because of it's material. What makes a book even remotely taboo? Who decides if a work of literature is banned? is it because of the plot? the actions of the characters? The issues the book references? And if a book doesn't have 'literary merit', is it worth reading?
For example, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is about a middle aged man falling in love with a 14 year old girl and their tumultuous relationship. It's banned for some time shortly after it is published, and the tagline of the film based off of the novel (directed by the brilliant Stanley Kubrick) is: "How could they possibly make a film about Lolita?" What I'm wondering is why this is so shocking to everyone, like young girls being involved with much older men is something new? Suprisingly, the taboo of pedophelia is pretty recent in world history. Henry VIII married 17 year old Catherine Howard when he was 49. In ancient Rome, girls were under the juristiction of their fathers and usually married at 12-14 years old. Thankfully, western civilization has come a long way with women's rights and longer life expectancy due to advancements in medical science, so the practice is now seen as horrific (FINALLY!) and looked down upon instead of being a familial obligation. But the setting of Lolita is the United States during the 1950's, and despite being banned in England, South Africa, New Zealand, and France it was a major sucess in the United States (the book sold 100,000 copies in it's first 3 weeks on the shelves) and it's language along with its humor was praised by literary critics everywhere. So I guess this off topic blurb about the marital practices in world history was all for nothing...


"Now 1984, Imma let you finish, but Lolita is one of the most controversial works of all time.... OF ALL TIME!"

Speaking of which, George Orwell's 1984 (one word: GENIUS) alludes to just some of the social issues such as censorship, totalitarianism, organized religion, sex, and torture. Orwell's horrfying image of Big Brother and chilling imagery of a world where nothing is sacred or individual, and free will is but a distant dream (a world that's frieghteningly easy to imagine now) is what made this book deemed controversial the day it was released, and so damn fascinating.

My favorite literary characters

-I was always fond of Lady Macbeth for her macheiavellian personality and yet her very withdrawn sense of guilt for putting her husband (who is perhaps the most whipped protagonist I've ever seen) up to killing anyone formally close to him just so that SHE can get to a position of authority. She's a manipulative, cunning, evil wench that doesn't get her hands dirty, and I love her for it!
- Jacob Jankowski is a far cry from Lady Macbeth but for that he is especially favorable for that. He is noble, a loyal friend, resilient, and has more common sense than any of his male counterparts in the novel. And as a forced college dropout in the 1930's he manages to survive both the circus of The Benzini Bros. and the circus of the Great Depression. Water for Elephants is a phenomenal book, and it's rational, relatable, and down to earth protagonist manages to survive virtually anything that gets thrown at him throughout this novel.
- Ophelia.... poor, poor Ophelia. her father gets murdered, the guy she lost her virginity to goes absolutely bat-Scheiße and dumps her, and after that SHE loses her mind and drowns herself in the river, and at her funeral, her brother cares more about revenge than mourning. Give the girl some slack, man!! After her death, there is NO MENTION of her throughout the rest of the novel. I mean damn!

Development of my Literacy

I think of the books I read when I was growing up as a way to pass time when there was nothing else to do. But that aside, these books were memorable nonetheless. I remember sitting in the corner of my cousin's room at my grandmother's house in So. Ozone Park, Queens just reading piles of Dr. Seuss and books of children's nursery rhymes as a toddler. My parents didn't have time to read books to me before I went to sleep, but my mom always took the time to teach me new words from flashcards every morning before I went to school.
I remember my art teacher reading Eric Carle's books such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar. In my kindergarten class, I always loved reading new adventures of Frog And Toad Are Friends. Around winter break, an illustrated version of The Nutcracker was my favorite simply because it was a story of a girl's beloved Christmas present turning into a prince and being whisked away to live happily ever after in a magical holiday-themed alternate universe that resembled a 'Candy land' knockoff, and what 5 year old girl didn't want that to happen? Then I read The Velveteen Rabbit cried, and read it again, and again, watched the animated short about it, and read it again. I was 5 years old and I had read my first depressing work of literature.
In 3rd grade, I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and I liked it, but didn't care enough to read into the rest of the series. Then I read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes and loved it (Nothing like a story of the tragic aftermath of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cause a 10 year old girl to die from Leukemia to brighten your day *sarcasm*)
Middle School was a defining time for my literacy because I had fallen in love with Horror novels. I had delved into the world of Edgar Allan Poe, Lovecraft, and Anne Rice.

-Rice's Violin was a far cry from her famous Vampire Chronicles, but that's why I was so interested in it. It was different than what she was known for writing about and instead of a Vampire, it was a wandering ghost stuck in limbo with an enchanted Strativarius who was the former student of Beethoven and an preys on the emotions of a vunerable young woman.

- H.P. Lovecraft is one of my favorite authors because of his stories which are a form of frieghtening all their own. They're suspenseful, original, chilling, and addictive to any avid sci-fi or horror fan. Lovecraft is known as one of the most influential writers of sci-fi, horror and all around weird fiction of the 20th century. One of the most infamous creatures of horror in (The Cathulu) was concieved from the mind of Lovecraft, along with much of H.R.Giger's artwork and the adaptation of the 1985 cult horror film, Re-Animator. If I could meet one dead author, Lovecraft would be my first choice.

- And who hasn't read at least ONE piece by Edgar Allan Poe? he is known as one of the most prominent mystery/detective writers of the 19th century, yet sadly he never got the chance to witness how his work influenced so many readers/writers after him. Annablle Lee is one of my favorite poems: it's dark, passionate, and (in a weird way) romantic. Nothing says 'eternal love' like necrophelia. I loved The Tell-Tale Heart because of the internal monologue of the narrator shows a 1st person POV of growing paranoia and insanity... and an old man's dead body under the floorboards.

Christopher Moore: Bloodsucking Fiends

So far, the book is a good read. The characters are relatable and dynamic with their own problems and human qualities (or about as human as their existance allows them to be). Fiends has an original, humorous plot with common everyday dialogue that makes the book easy to follow and keeps the reader involved. It's a refreshing break from the ever incessant over-estimated, flat, droll, poor quality and underlying misogyny of Twilight and sticks to the common characteristics and rules of Vampires in literature. As a fan of horror liturature, that is a MUST, and Christopher Moore exceeded my expectations of the modern writer.
Jody, a 23 year old young woman in San Francisco lives an average life with an average office job and under the living arrangements of a selfish, inconsiderate 'friends-with-benefits' type until she is attacked and passes out behind a dumpster after experiencing a lascerating pain and wakes up with a horribly burnt hand, strange vision where everyone has a glowing red aura, a bag of hundred dollar bills, and a really bad case of the munchies. She returns home, realizes her housemate cares more about getting to work on time than the fact that she was attacked and missing for the past two days, snaps, and throws a potted plant at him. Ahhh, relationships....
It is not until Jody sees her companion knocked out on the floor with a small pool of blood forming from his head that she realizes what she's been craving.