PhoebePOC in America

 Last day today, I am really excited to present my project at express fest. I had some more thoughts that I wanted to add to my project like resources on how to ask POC questions without being disrespectful. I feel that by having that print out at my table will encourage people to read about how to not offend anyone. I also pulled together some last minute decorations, I happened to have a lantern laying around curtsey of my advisor who had given me it for graduation decoration. I then painted it red to match the overall theme of my project. I also gathered some asian snacks together for my peers to try, since it is educational and tasty! I then collected all my documents that needed to be printed out and then printed them out and stapled them. Then I met up with my advisor to look over my project before then going to set it up in the gym. My advisor and I then looked over my project and decided it was done! I set up my project today in the gym. 

 Today was my day to finish last minute touches, I completed my video for express fest along with the long video documentary I created earlier. I finished all my art which is displayed above and I think this art is some of my best art today. In my art i dedicated my time to using watercolor and brush painting ( common form of asian art) for my art aspect. I then did origami to represent the asian communities struggles, I chose an elephant because like our asian elders they are strong and wise. Elephants are being poached and constantly threatened, much like our asian elders. I also typed up some last minute thoughts to then I printed out, like "what are micro  aggressions?" and wrote examples that I've received and how we can avoid micro aggressions. 

Today I finished my final touches to my tri fold. As well as I have some more information typed up that I want to add to my tri fold tomorrow. Today was a mellow day where I just worked on my art, this is one piece of asian art I started working on earlier today, this is Chinese calligraphy which is an art form in china. I also worked on the Japanese art proportion of my art which included origami. I made about 5 paper cranes today which to be frank i'm not the best paper folder, so that definitely took awhile for me to complete. I fixed up a two minute video for express fest today as well as watched my 20m youtube video over again looking for any bad cuts or errors. I did some final edits on that and will be uploading to youtube tomorrow hopefully. And I then typed up my reflection today which I was able to complete.   

 This week I wrapped up my poster, and i'm almost done with my art element. Im sad this project is coming to a close, however I've learned a lot more about my future and heritage. As well as learning about how my friends feel about these current issues. I think that my project covers a lot of important topics beyond just racism and struggles. Talking about how proud we are asian American, how we can use our race as an advantage. I hope that white peers can learn more about being a POC, for I have hope that people will listen. Ive decided for my art element that I wanted to do calligraphy but also a painting of how us asians feel about the current events. This is a last minute thought but I hope that I can achieve it in the next day or so. 

 Today was the last day that i worked on my tri fold. I hope this weekend I can make any final touches I have. I also spent a lot of time editing. Which is still taking me awhile to complete due to the length of all the responses. I hope by this weekend I can also work on this video and hopefully wrap it up this weekend too. And for my last part of my project I’ve gathered all the responses of how each individual wanted to be interpreted in art work. Hopefully this weekend I can complete my work and use Monday to do one final review. 

I think I had a very successful day today, i'm almost finished editing my final video for my project. It is around 20/30 minutes as of now, and hope that with my editing that the overall video will be a total of 30 minutes. And as for my tri fold it is done for the most part, I plan on adding finishing touches on tomorrow and then anding a few more pieces of info onto my tri fold. The last of my art supplies came, I received the ink needed for my painting as well as the origami paper. For my art I've decided that I want to do calligraphy and a word that describes the individual, calligraphy is a form of art within some asian cultures. I plan on also doing brush painting to contribute to my art part

 I forgot to post yesterday! but I continued to make progress on my tri fold, I worked outside and painted more. More of my art supplies arrived so I can get started on the art proportion. Im thinking of doing brush painting for my art interpretive part. Brush painting is a form of traditional painting within asian cultures, I took brush painting class for some time and think this would be a good opportunity to use my brush painting skills (its been awhile). Today (5/20) I think I can finish up my tri fold. Yay! and I also will be editing since another friend sent me his video response. 

 Today, I continued working on my trifold presentation, I spent a majority of time cutting, printing and pasting. I started to map out my trip fold more today and then glued on some pictures of the participants for my project. I also did a lot of research on my topic so I could have my tri fold also be somewhat informational aside from expressing voices of AAPI people. I hopefully will have my craft supplies arrive by tomorrow, then I can really start focusing on the art proportion. I worked a bit on my video today as well editing was very difficult since the footage I have is a lot. Ihope tomorrow I can finish gluing down pictures and text to my project. 

 Today I got my trifold (finally) then I was eager to start my vision of my trip fold, I started gluing my individual cut out flags as a border for my trip fold. Then I started to print out pictures of the people featured in my project, along with adding important information to my board and maps. I then spent more time editing today, I have about 4 hours of video footage that I need to break down into a 25 min video for my final project and a 2 min video for express fest. Who would have thought editing would be so time consuming. As more people reply with responses I hope to then take important statements and put them on my board alongside peoples personal pictures. The picture below was my progress after adding my border (still holding off on gluing some things down as I get more responses)

  Weekly reflection   This week was very tough for me, getting a start on my project was somewhat rough. Since I don’t have my tri fold yet that has set me back a bit for planning. I ran into some minor issues with video editing but overall I’m committed to still working through it and getting my video completed. My favorite part of this week was reaching out to individuals and having them have such a positive reaction to answering my questions. As a whole this project gave many of the individuals a feeling of importance which their opinion was wanted. I’m excited for next week and wrapping up my video as well as getting my trifold and start to focus more on the art part of my project. My hope is that more of my supplies comes in by the middle of the week and I can then finish my video by Tuesday (assuming I work overtime)

 I forgot to post yesterday, but yesterday I was very immersed in my editing. So much that I took a majority of my time yesterday cutting down video footage. I also watched about 3-4 hours of video responses and cutting the clips for my express fest video. Who would have thought watching and editing videos would be extremely tiresome. I hope that I will get my last responses in by Sunday to then spend my time editing the whole day on Sunday to then re watch and make final edits on Monday.  

 Today I started with getting my supplies gathered up and started mapping out my tri fold project. I printed out many small flags for my tri fold, along with maps that I will then cut out and put on my tri fold. I started to paint the maps that I had cut out. After I had done that I started typing out meaningful information and personal statements that I wanted to display on my tri fold. I then did research and typed out important statistics that I believe should be presented on my trifold. As I wait for my tri fold to arrive, I continued to edit and gather video footage from the people I interviewed. 

 Today I got started on creating my video for express fest. I have started to gather up all the footage and responses I have as of now. Hopefully I will be able to begin editing and piecing together the video tomorrow. As of now I have almost gotten all of my participants responses waiting for a new more to roll in. Today I also ordered the art supplies needed for my project, so hopefully I will be able to start on the art aspect of my project soon. I am excited to be working with paint for my project! 

 Yesterday was very successful for me, I began wrapping up my questions and sending them out to the participants for my project. I have 5 different Asian countries represented as of now. Im hoping that number will potentially increase by a couple more in the next few days. As of now the countries I have being represented are; China, Hong Kong (which is somewhat part of china but independent), the Philippines South Korea and Taiwan (Somewhat part of China, but independent). I got two interviews done yesterday, both also had recorded answers so I can use the footage for my express fest film. Yesterday I also started planning out my art aspect of the project. And beginning to narrow down how I wanted to capture the art in each country. Today I will start my art aspect as well as get the needed supplies. 

 Today, I woke up at 9 and began working on my senior project. I first started by curating a series of individual questions and important topics that I want to touch upon with each person that I will be interviewing. Since everyone I will be talking to faces different challenges based on race/ethnicity I tried to have the questions be more personal and targeted to their specific issues. Following that, I also reached out to people who I was interested about hearing their experiences from. I also created a schedule which helps me keep track with the people I will be talking with. As well as made a list of all the people who I will try to meet with throughout my project. I am eager to work on my project again tomorrow and begin talking to individuals.