The idea behind the personal essay was to start to prepare us for the narrative unit. By telling your own stories, you learn how to tell other people's stories. The assignment was to tell a story or a few stories that pertained to our media pieces and poems.

Explain how and WHY we enhanced the essay in WebAudio by making it a podcast.

The sun was shining brightly onto the stony square. The wind was cold and fast, chilling me through my wine-colored cloak. I was surrounded on all sides by figures dressed similarly. All shades of red, together we formed a bloody sea. We had beautiful faces, covered with illusion. Ivory skin and eyes as black as night we were empty. Rosy, flushed cheeks and crimson lips gleaming, our masks reflected nothing more than hollow shells. Empty paper and metal, they’ve encrusted over our faces. They suffocated and blinded us, never to be ripped from us. Beauty is cruel and twisted.

 When I was around 12 or 13, I started having a lot of body confidence issues. I would constantly put myself down and worry about what other people thought about me. Going into high school made it so much worse. I started comparing myself to other girls and wondering how I could make myself better. Within the first few months of freshman year, I had become so absorbed in my image that I started actively trying to get skinnier. It started with dieting and exercise, which was fine, but I only lost a pound or two and it just wasn’t going fast enough for me. I looked for another solution and if I ever decided to eat dessert I would make myself puke it up afterwards. It was a way of allowing myself to enjoy whatever I wanted without having it hurt my image. I thought it was okay and I had it under full control because I wasn’t puking up meals yet. I thought that if it ever got to that point I would be able to stop myself because I wasn’t just another poor girl who hadn’t learned how bad it was for you, I knew full well how awful it was for your body. I knew the acid from my stomach would tear through my esophagus, leaving me unable to speak or breathe. I knew it would never actually help and I’d never regain my confidence. I knew everything would get out of control one day, but I really didn’t care. I just wanted to be skinny with everything I had, I thought it would finally make me happy.

 In April at the end of my freshman year, my father died. I was absolutely devastated, thrown into a deep depression and probably mentally disturbed because I saw it happen. I went numb, I could barely feel any emotion. Since I had been bulimic for a while, it started to feel like the only thing I could control anymore. I planned out when I would and wouldn’t do it so I could have just a little bit of stability. I was spiraling out of control, on a self-destructive rampage. It felt like I was drowning in a sea of problems that I couldn’t solve. The only time I felt like I had a choice as to what I was doing was when I purged. I did it after nearly every meal, it was the only thing I felt like I could decide for myself. I had to go through years of therapy in order to get over my control issues and even now, it never goes away. I have to keep the constant reminder of it in my head, always resisting the urge to go back to that life.

 My symbol is a mask because I see beauty as a sort of distant and unreachable conclusion. It’s cruel, always taunting you because you can never attain it, and disgusting because of the severe lengths we as a society have convinced people they should go to. I know that no matter how hard I try I won’t be able to reach the goal that was set for me, much like you never really see what’s behind a mask. It also represents how I hid from all of my loved ones. I stayed behind a fake smile and laughter, I used sarcasm and humor to hide what I was doing to myself and how I felt. To this day I am ashamed to have let myself do any of that.