{"id":244,"date":"2020-01-31T21:14:17","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T21:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~SaumeyaS\/?page_id=244"},"modified":"2020-05-06T23:30:52","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T23:30:52","slug":"narrative-1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~SaumeyaS\/narrative-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Narrative 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NARRATIVE 1<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

“How well can I visually tell a structured story?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

~Introduction<\/strong>~<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Starting with learning about the process of storytelling, I practiced visualizing characters and storylines through descriptive storytelling, and digital art. I furthered my technical communication skills by using different kinds of equipment and applications such as Wacom Digital Drawing Pads, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, HTML\/CSS, and Google Apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I valued most about the narrative unit was how we took various creative paths to tell stories. I enjoyed not just writing the stories but for Honors, writing another short story to explore new styles, in Design, creating a work of art to symbolize and emulate the traits of our main characters, and in Digital Media, recording it and creating visual imagery for the story. With these projects, I was challenged and learned how to think about the art of storytelling in unconventional ways and execute my ideas in a thoughtful way and creative way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

~English Narrative Work<\/strong>~<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For the English Narrative Unit, we were assigned to write a short story from scratch starting with a brainstorming process and then putting the story together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Character Questionnaire and Plot Map<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The brainstorming process included filling out an extensive detailed character questionnaire to dive deep into who our character was going to be and then creating a basic outline for the plot of our story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SaumeyaS-Character-Questionnaire-and-Plot-Map<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The inspiration for my story was arranged marriage and its role in my own family and culture. The concept is something that has always intrigued me and I wanted to shed light on something that isn’t often discussed and create a rebellious love story surrounding the topic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arrangement<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

       \tYou know there’s something wrong when the first thing you think of when your boyfriend is proposing is how you\u2019re going to hide a husband from your parents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t      We were standing on the edge of the road, the place we met four years ago where he had parked after his car broke down. It had been a beautiful purple skied night and I stopped when I saw him standing there shivering in his thin navy NorthFace jacket and cargo pants, clearly unaware it was going to snow that day. I gave him a ride to town that night, and now, four years later, here we were here again, and it was snowing still. He was on one knee holding a small black box with a twinkling diamond and gold band and I could feel the snowflakes fall on my face and jacket, as a smile crept onto my face and tears filled my eyes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t     I already had enough trouble hiding when we were dating but I said yes, of course, because this is something that I wanted to do. For the first time in my life, I wanted to do something to make myself happy and not worry about others’ happiness. For four years, I’ve managed to hide him from my parents. He somehow understood my hopeless situation and my inability to disappoint them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      A week after he proposed, we were getting coffee from Jitters, the cafe a few blocks from campus that I work at, and practically live at, and I told him the plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t     ‘So we drive to Scarborough, and you stay in the car. I go inside to tell them I\u2019m engaged and tell them how you have your own very successful business, and you speak six languages. Then I tell them you\u2019re white. Then you come inside, and then my life falls apart because my very brown parents are not going to approve of this, and they’re going to disown me, but you know what? It’s fine; it’s fine because I will be happy, and there will be no more secrets.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     ‘Amira, you’re spiraling again.’ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t     A little less than a month later, Jason and I were on our way to my childhood home to tell my parents. The drive was long and quiet as we listened to the heavy pouring rain outside pattering the car\u2019s exterior. When we arrived, I told him to wait in the car, and that I would text him when I broke the news. He got a bit frustrated at me for using the phrase ‘break the news,’ but I knew that this was going to be a tragedy in my parent’s eyes. The tragedy of their daughter defying societal norms for love. I took my new engagement ring off my ring finger and put it in my pocket, and walked in. Immediately, I was hit with an overpowering smell of sandalwood and spices. The entryway and the ceiling were lined with pink and orange streamers and sparkly fairy lights. There were flower petals everywhere, and I could hear several different voices coming from the living room. This was all extremely strange because I came home all the time and they never made such a spectacle of it in the past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \t    My mother saw me first and said, ‘Oh good Mira, you’re here.’  She pointed to a man I had never seen before on the couch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     ‘This is Aman. He is part of a temple program that finds a suitable husband for girls your age.’ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      He looked like he was maybe in his early 30s, had thick-rimmed glasses and cropped oily black hair. He was wearing an unusually large tweed jacket and an oversized button-down that drowned his slim figure. He was the opposite of Jason in every aspect, and I hated it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My father chimed in with ‘Yes, Aman is a corporate lawyer, and he knows how to speak Hindi, Marathi, and Gujurati. Very very impressive, no?’ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I did not think it was impressive, Jason spoke six languages. Nothing was really registering in my head, and it felt like I couldn’t speak like my tongue was caught in my throat and wouldn’t budge. That’s typically how I felt around my parents whenever I disagreed with them. I never expressed my feelings to them, and they just assumed I believed whatever they did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Aman said something I didn’t hear. I looked straight at him with cold dark eyes and said nothing. When he moved to shake my hand, I noticed his grip was loose, and his hand was sweaty. I couldn’t do anything; my nervous system shut down. I tried to remember a conversation in which they mentioned they would be going to the temple to find me a husband. I couldn’t recall. I tried to remember a time recently where they communicated to me that they had wanted me to get married. I couldn’t recall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t       It had been an hour by this point, and I met so many new people and touched so many feet (a sign of respect in Hinduism). Every time I looked up from my fidgeting hands in my lap, more and more people were touching my head and cheeks smiling brightly down on me. My mother picked up on my withdrawn demeanor two hours after the circus started and pulled me into the kitchen to scold me. ‘Why aren’t you trying to make Aman’s parents approve of you? This is your future husband and father to your children. Act nicely.’ This was the moment it really hit me. They really set up an arranged marriage for me; without informing me, and they just expected me to go with it without me even meeting the guy. I looked down at my phone, and Jason had called 23 times. That’s when I heard the door swing open, and I saw Jason standing in the entryway, looking very confused. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

       My mother screamed at him, ‘Who are you? What are you doing in our house? You need to take your shoes OFF!’ Her thick Indian accent came through sharply when she said this, as it always does when she is angry. I walked up to Jason and laced my hand through his, and the room went completely silent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t    ‘Mira who is this?’, ‘What is going on?’, questions circled the room, and I could feel my whole body start to go numb, but I still found the words to my speech I practiced in the mirror forty times last night.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018This is Jason. He is my fiance, and we have been together for three years. I am not marrying Aman even though he seems like a lovely man. I am an adult with the ability to make my own decisions and choices without having to worry about your opinion of it. I realize now that the only way to make myself happy is to stop worrying about others’ happiness and be selfish for once.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t     My mother started crying, and my father threw his glass on the floor. The guests began rapidly exiting the room, probably off to tell the town of the Parish’s scandalous daughter. Aman touched my forearm and told me he thought I was brave before leaving with his parents, who looked at me as if I was something stuck to the bottom of their shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Throughout it all, Jason squeezed my hand hard; looking at his calm and stoic expression, I knew now more than ever that I had made the right decision. We didn’t look back as we left the house, my mother’s face in her hands, and my father’s back facing me, refusing to look at his only daughter destroying every dream he had for her. I walked outside with Jason and took the engagement ring out of my pocket and slipped it back on my ring finger. The rain was still persistent as ever as the water droplets streamed from the dark skies above, but through a few clouds, the sun\u2019s rays were slightly visible and I knew the rain would clear up eventually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Honors: Short Story Author or Playwright Study<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

For Honors, we were challenged to view a list and pick an author to study and analyze the work of. I picked Jhumpa Lahiri, and read her novel, “Interpreter of Maladies<\/em>” a collection of short stories. We then had to write a short story emulating the style of the novel we read. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were then challenged, in a project tied to Digital Media, to record our short story performing a dramatic reading, and then editing our audio in Pro Tools and add sound effects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With creating the audio version of this story, I valued the process of recording my story emphasizing quotes with a little bit of voice acting and fixing the little blips and errors when editing. I also valued finding music and sound effects to fit the theme of my story and seeing the final process put together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n