In Digital media we learn how to use adobe programs to express ourselves. It is super fun and super engaging way to express yourself, there’s no limitations except our imagination. At Freestyle we learn how to communicate, collaborate, and execute. We learn how to make something truly or own through the adobe programs, we can really get better at art here.

Date Proposal: A sandwich she couldn’t refuse

There she is, the girl of my dreams, Panini. I see her for approximately 24 seconds a day when she walks to her second period. She walks so elegantly, drifting through the crowd like ramen noodles in thin broth. We make slight eye contact and I show a little smile, and she smiles back, but it could definitely just be out of pity. My name is Bryan. I am a 16 year old boy who likes to make sandwiches at the local Subway. I want to ask Panini to homecoming. However, I don’t  really know her that well. I have a plan. I am going to make a sign with a sandwich pun because of her name. I start looking at poster ideas, my brain keeps spinning with ideas, but nothing really comes to mind. I spell out words in little salami slices from work. Her name is Panini, a kind of sandwich. Suddenly it hits me, “will you be the panini to my press”. It’s a perfect, fun pun with her name and something that I am passionate about. I start by stapling salami slices to the poster and print out pictures of Panini presses, and throw them all onto a poster. I stress for  weeks, turning, tumbling, and sweating every hour. The day finally arrives, I bring my stupid sign to school and walk around first period nervously, palms sweating profusely. There I go, walking slowly up to her in the passing period. My heart beats faster and faster. We lock eyes and I have my sign held up high, she bursts out laughing and comes over and says yes as she gives me a hug. I have never spoken to this girl and just admired her from afar. As she hugged me she whispered in my ear, “pick me up at 8” and slipped a note in my pocket. There I stand like a headless chicken, and was overwhelmed with emotions. I walk to my next class with a smile wider than the West Nile River. As I get to my next class I read the note and it says her address and something rather disturbing. It said “Bring at least 3 forms of identification”. This left an uneasy sinking feeling in the bottom of my stomach. I ignore the feeling and carry on with my day. 

A few weeks later, I get the tux and  car ready. My car is not a very impressive, it’s a Chrysler PT Cruiser. I get ready, lather myself in Axe body spray and drive over to her house deep in the hills. I start pulling up to the address, and some things seem off… Very off… There’s a 2 story guard house and a moat surrounding the mansion. I peek at the house and can’t believe my eyes. It’s beyond huge. I pull up to the gateguards. I roll down my window, the body guards ask for my birth name and who I’m here for. I state my birth name “Bryan Wilkerson” and they all nod their heads and give me a thumbs up, as I drive through one of them says “good luck”. Twenty-seven henchmen come out and tell me to step out of the vehicle, they check my 3 forms of identification . I am completely stressed out. I enter the house and get patted down to the bone. I am utterly terrified about who I am about to meet. As I’m in panic, Panini slowly walks down the spiral staircase, all the anxiety I have built up leaves in an instant and it turns into butterflies. But coming right after her is her father, a 6’10 monster towering over her from behind. Maybe the scariest man I have ever seen, it’s like they’re walking in slow motion. I was overwhelmed by his presence in the room, standing there frozen as he slowly approached me. I nervously start a  conversation with the father, I ask for his name while stumbling over my words. He states his name “Clarence Kenny” I almost burst out laughing because of his name, but barely restrained myself, I casually asked what he did for a living. He responded in less than a heartbeat, he said “I’m in waste management”. I laughed nervously realizing he’s most likely a high up member in the mob. There he stood with his stone cold eyes and rock solid physique. He tells his daughter to wait outside in the cutest little voice, even called her princess. Very soon it was just me, him, and 27 armed guards ready to rumble. My knees are weak, my palms are sweaty, and my breath is getting heavier and heavier. He says in the most serious, deep, monstrous voice ,“If you touch my daughter, or even lay a finger on her, my associates will take care of you.” That single sentence made everyone in the room laugh except for me, it left me utterly speechless and shaking. He slaps my back and says “bring her back by 11 sharp”. I leave the room with my knees almost buckling after each step. 

I drove her there nervously, worrying about what she thought of me. But I think she was excited to go with me, we slow danced all night, hoping her father or his associates wouldn’t see. I enjoyed myself thoroughly and kissed her at the end of the night. I drive her home with the time ticking, it’s 10:53 and we barely make it back on time. Her dad, looking somewhat impressed, pulled me aside and said his associates were watching the whole night .He also said that he’s never seen his little princess smile like that ever. He wants me to continue to talk to her. He shook my hand firmly with a big smile and said “don’t tell anyone who I am if you know what’s best for you.” The chills I got were crazy, I drove off shaking and excited. And that kids is how I met your mother.

Intention Statement

The title of this short story doesn’t really have a lot of meaning, but is entertaining in my opinion. I feel it brings the reader in and kind of makes them excited to read the short story. I chose to write this story in first person because it just seemed more fun to write. When I write the best work comes when I genuinely enjoy writing the paper. Writing this in first person just felt right and was fun to write, I felt I could express myself more freely with this perspective.  I also chose to write in the present tense because I felt it would be more suspenseful and fun to read, it’s like you’re discovering everything just the way he is. Discovering her dad being some Mafia leader is crazy and unexpected and I think having it in the present tense adds a sense of mystery and suspense that you can’t get from past tense. This story also takes place in a modern setting pretty much 2018, just a normal teenage boy trying to find his love. Once the teenage boy finds her he runs into obstacles that nobody suspected. The mafia dad was meant to be a curveball that was just overall meant to be a joke. In the story he refers to his job as “waste management”, this is a reference to the show “The Sopranos”. This show is a very similar situation and when people ask what they do, they refer to their job in the mafia to waste management. The climax is Bryan in the room with the father and the father heckling and messing with the scared version of Bryan. I chose to resolve the conflict by letting the Dad’s love for her daughter take over and letting Bryan continue to see her. He does this because he loves to see her happy and Bryan makes her happy. By the father accepting Bryan and everyone being happy it leaves a satisfying and enjoyable ending for everyone. In pier reviews I got lots of grammar and small critiques like that, but many useful idea changes. For example, Jamie proofread my paper and told me to put more emphasis on certain parts to exaggerate the feelings my character should have which made the story more interesting and enjoyable to read.

For this illustration I wanted to make a fun sticker. I used like lots of inspiration from a very popular studio Ghibli movie “Princess Mononoke”. The characters in the image are tree spirits that mean good luck. They showed the main character out of the forest and saved his life as well as many others. They are very cute and funny looking characters, that’s why I picked them. I used the ellipse tool to create lots of circles, after that I transformed them by duplicating them and morphing their degrees to create these cool effects on the Tree Spirits.

This is the audio to me and Jamie Maclean’s parody on the song “Crank That” by Soulja Boy. It was a super fun project to do and very fun to write. Here is some behind the scenes of the project, you can see the lyrics we wrote.

I’m bouncin’ on my toes 

actin sus around my bros

Watch me supersoak that (oh)

I be touching on their toes

I’ma pass it to Arab and he gon’ crank it up fo’ sho’ 

I’ma pass her to Mr. hawk, and he on x game mo

Haters wanna be me, Soulja Boy, I’m the man

Females wanna see me, Matty strait out the can

They be lookin’ at my neck, sayin’ it’s the rubberband

my nintendo wii, tryna sell it secondhand

Man (man), watch me do it (watch me do it)

Hand (hand) watch me play it (watch me play it)

Dance (tryna do it like me, man that monekey damn ugly!)

In this animation project Natalie, Pedro, and I all worked together to produce this. We had lots of fun brainstorming and trying to find a common ground of what we wanted. The final product is a result of a dream of mine, I got swallowed by a whale and went into a city inside of the whales stomach. Unfortunately all of the dream couldn’t have made it in just because of our current animation skills and time restraints we had, but I want to recreate it later in life. In this project I really learned how to collaborate, there were some communication difficulties just because we had different visions in mind. We ended up finding a common ground combining both ideas an trying to make something together. My art is still kind of rough so I the art inside of the animation that I did wasn’t the best, but still had lots of fun doing it.

Here is some behind the scenes of one of the backgrounds that I drew. This one took especially long just because of the hands and shape of the feet. I am really bad at drawing people so this really helped me with drawing and it was very challenging. I look forward to keep improving at art and making my animations better.