My name is Amber Bisnauth. I also have a middle name, which is Noemi. My hometown is the Bronx, New York. I live on the west side. My background in English is pretty simple, standard English classes until my senior year of school. Senior year I took Philosophy and Creative Writing. Creative writing is basically poetry. My favorite food is definitely steak. I love going to steakhouses. My favorite music genres are probably hip hop and R&B, some spanish music and old school songs. I love going on car rides that have blasting music. It feels so vibey and fun, especially with friends. One goal I have for myself this year is to make positive friends. I need friends who will benefit me in a positive way. Positive ways such as encouraging me to study, not always being at parties and telling me when I’m wrong in a positive way. Another goal I have for myself this year is to act like the adult I am. Which means act mature, make friends and not seclude myself and put my education first. I need to stop procrastinating as well. That’s a very unhealthy habit of mine. My major is early childhood education so I need to keep it professional. One question I have is what might be the most challenging part of this course? I know everyone is different so one thing might not be challenging for the next but I genuinely want to know what would be the most challenging part. Questions I wish professors would ask are what do we need to do in the beginning of the year to be successful for the school year.

 

On the walk we took today I saw a lot of nature. This school has a lot of trees, bushes and mountain views. This campus is also kept very clean. All I really heard to be honest is birds chirping and construction. It was very quiet besides that. I smelled a lot of grass being cut down. Also, the air smells very fresh. There was nothing on this walk that I could taste. On campus I usually see a lot of dogs. People are usually always walking their dogs wherever we go on campus. I have not really had a chance to sit and admire how beautiful this campus is. We as students and staff of the school should really start to appreciate the hard work people put into making our campus look as beautiful and presentable as it is. 

 

I went from “ready” to “set” in this program in different ways. One of the most challenging parts I knew would be to make friends. I made a couple of friends though. Making those friends allowed me to feel more comfortable in this program and branch out. Now during group sessions such as advisory I feel more comfortable and want to participate. School has never been my cup of tea but for college I feel like I need to make it work out. In order to do that I need to step out of my comfort zone. I also need to drop the unhealthy habits I have. I feel like I’ve been good at doing that though. I have learned to not procrastinate so much and do what is most important in my freetime. There have only been a few in this program and I feel that a lot of progress has been made. Another way I feel like I got here was encouragement from my mother. She will always be my number 1 supporter and the person I go to for everything. She always encouraged me to apply here and don’t push it away to the side. My mom always gave me prep talks and made sure I was OK before I came to this program. Without her I don’t think I would be able to set myself free and explore. The motivation and support I get from her is unmatched and I wouldn’t want it any other way from anyone else.

Home to me is a place where I feel safe and comfortable. A home doesn’t necessarily have to be a place where you sleep, eat and are forced to live at. Home can be someone you confide in for everything and can even be someone else’s house where you feel more at home. Personally, my home would be where I live though with my family. My actual house. To me this feels like home because I feel safe the majority of the time and have been getting along with my family really well. I used to not get along with my family as much as I do now so it has really started to feel like home. Now that I have said what my home is I want to describe what that home feels like. It feels quiet, safe, reliable and warm (most of the time). I can just come to my house, say hi to my family, my dog, and appreciate all of my belongings. I also have a second home which I feel that I belong to. This home is the softball field. I’ve been playing softball for as long as I can remember and as the years go I feel more and more love and loyalty for the game. A lot of people don’t consider home is where they live. These 2 places are what truly feel at home to me and I wouldn’t wanna change anything or be ungrateful for all and everything that I have. 

 

My ideal world would consist of literally everything that makes me happy and all things positive. A lot of things genuinely make me happy. The color pink, softball, money, food, clothes, sneakers, my friends and family. My world would definitely be a safe and positive space for everyone. I don’t like it when people are disrespectful to one another and when people are so negative towards each other. None of that would definitely be in my world. When people are negative that just genuinely brings everyone down in my opinion. It’s like you can never be yourself or feel happy when you are around negative people. The world we live in now is disgusting to me. I would have never imagined that we would be living in a world right now where it is the total opposite of comfort and happiness. I would never want my world to be like this. In our world right now we literally have no freedom, no freedom of speech and BARELY any peace. We always have to worry every single day whether or not today will be a good day. Crime is crazy ridiculous, racism is unbearable and verbal/ physical violence is so normal. We are not united at all. We walk with RBF’s and everything feels so toxic. I wish we could all try to have the ideal/dream world but that would never happen.       

An issue that is important to me? This is a really complicated question. There are too many issues going on in this world for me to only have one issue. If I really had to desperately choose though I would absolutely say RACISM. Racism nowadays has become so comfortable to everyone that daily jokes made are about racism. It’s disgusting how normalized racism is for white people towards colored people but how “disrespectful” it is for colored people to give the same energy back to the white people. Everyday people of color wake up frightened and unmotivated to go out in the real world and live their normal lives because their lives are not so normal anymore. I say their lives are not normal because they are judged by the color of their skin that they are born with. Is it their fault they were born into the lifestyle they currently are in? I would say the only stance or role I take part in, in this situation is defending my people. Anytime I see someone make a racism comment on social media, hear a racist comment or see a racially motivating action I always speak up or question it. The main people who are the problem/source to this situation is white people. Being straight up and no sugar coating. White people feel that they are so entitled to literally do anything they want just because they have money, power and are seen as more important in the world. THAT IS DISGUSTING. I really do not support anything the white people have to say and will never be on their side in whatever they do. I want to make a change in my community and that all starts with people of color making their voices heard in a safe way. 

 

My preferred media of expression is conversations with the people closest to me. I feel that I can always confide and talk about anything to my best friend. We have known each other for nearly 10 years and every conversation we have gets more and more valuable to me. I always express what I am feeling to her. We always hang out with each other and just feel the vibes. We could go out to eat, have a sleepover or even be at family events and we always find a way to express ourselves to each other. I express to her about the new boy I like, why my family is annoying sometimes and even express how my other friends can annoy me sometimes. This media serves me better than others because I feel safe expressing myself to her. I don’t have to worry about her telling my business to other people and I don’t have to worry about her judging me. We both serve the same purpose to each other. We express ourselves to each other and always confide in each other. Personally I have tried to express myself in other ways and it didn’t really work out. I have talked to therapists, I have tried to journal and I have tried to talk to my mother about personal issues as well. I have even tried to make new friends but it just feels like my social battery runs out so fast now and I only want to talk to my best friend. I guess we have just been friends for so long and now that I am older I am cherishing our friendship way more. I need to still branch out and make more friends though but sometimes it is hard. 

The larger implication to this multimodal project to me is being able to admire and cherish the school/campus we are going to be living on for the next 4 years. As young adults, a lot of us don’t take into consideration a lot of the hard work that is being done around us and I believe doing this project helped me view this school in a better way. I have learned to appreciate not only the campus but to value the people who provide their services to us to make sure we are good 24/7. We really need to thank every person who works here. Even though we see them as annoying because they are constantly telling us what to do, they want us to be the best that we can be because they know that we can do it. I have learned a lot of educational stuff about this campus too from doing this multimodal project. One of the other bigger implications of this multimodal project to me was the fact that we had to type so much, allowing me to expand my thinking and get used to writing a lot more. I stretched out a lot of my thoughts in this multimodal project so it also didn’t seem so dry and vague when people get to read it. Being able to make a whole project about a campus I have only lived on for 2 weeks so far was kind of difficult but also fun at the same time. 

I have a lot of big takeaways from this program. I have learned to be social, to make friends, how to manage time, get used to campus and learn how to maneuver through college a little bit. Something that has gone well was making friends and not staying lonely/anti-social. I was really nervous that people would not like me because I give off an attitude sometimes. I have learned that it is okay to stay in my shell as well. Something that I would say wasn’t so pleasant for me was waking up at 6am everyday while having to be outside doing stuff all day until 7:30 pm at least. That really drained my energy this summer. We had 2 classes this summer. I would say my favorite class was critical thinking. I learned how to be more creative and free in my writing. English has always been more of my favorite subject than math anyways. The professor we had, Dr.Elizabeth also made my experience better. She was so kind and understanding and would always help me when I needed it. In math I just didn’t feel comfortable or felt as successful as I did in English. This English course also helped me experience what college English is going to be like. Writing at least 250 words everyday allowed me to experience not writing like I am still in high school anymore. I think the larger purpose of this program is to mold us into the successful adults we want to be. 

My audience portrait is people who genuinely care and want to listen to what you have to say or present. Whenever I talk or present to people what I have to say I want everyone to look at me and show me that they are interested. Respect is also a big part of an audience. Showing respect will take you far anywhere you go. Practicing having respect when you are listening in big audiences will prepare you a lot for when you need to have respect for the people in the higher positions when speaking to you. I have learned to have respect for everyone from home training and in school being taught discipline. I also say you should treat everyone how you want to be treated. Respect goes both ways.