Video Essay

Watching this video, Cupid Shuffleby Cupid, reminds me of our family reunions we had when I was younger. Seeing the people dancing in the streets reminds me of when we would first arrive at the family reunion. We would get out and someone would be grilling, someone would set up the games for the kids and then there would be a dj setting up his booth in the corner of the dance floor. The people dancing in the video remind me of when the whole family would decide to do the electric slide and there would always be one person that thought they were able to sing and could not. Then there would always be one person who would always want to lead the dance and then screw it up. This song always brings my family together to start the party off right. The people just remind me of a big family, which I have because my mom has 12 borhters and sisters, having a good time. Even at weddings we play it and this May when my brother got married it was this song and another that got both families together and helping each other learn the moves and we also did the electric slide which almost everybody knew.




When I first heard "No Daddy" by Tearra Mari I immediately fel in love with it. I love the message of this video, especially because of the fact that I was raised mostly by my step dad instead of my real father because my parents divorced when I was really young. Seeing the mother and daughter arguing at the beginning about the moms boyfriend reminds me of when me and my sister would not listen to my mom especially when it came to things that had to do with out step father. I especially love the lyrics the song. It sends a positive message to girls who never hear that from anyone in their lives. When the girls are sitting in the classroom, it reminds me of myself from sixth grade up until tenth. That is when I got into the most trouble in school and most of the incidents had to deal with me arguing with a teacher or doing something I was not suppose to be doing while in class. My sophomore year was the worst because me and some of my friends made our english 10 teacher quit teaching at the end of the year, but me and my cousin were kicked out of the class and put into a different english class.




Animal I have become by Three Days Grae is one of my favorite videos because it shows that everyone has a darker side to them. This relates to me becuase most people see me as a cheerful person. But, don't get me wrong I am a nice person and cordial to most, I can be very vengeful and full of spite towards people who rub me the worng way. The darker side of me comes out when someone irritates me or crosses me. I don't trust people very easily and I only confide in those who have gained my trust. I am the type of person that doesn't really show that much emotion but I can turn from calm and serene to a person full of vengence in a second if someone comes at me in any way that I feel is threatening or if I dont like a person. A lot of people think that I am a bitch if they see me walking or at least in my hometown but once they get to know me they find out i cna be a great person, but I can also change to the attitude where I could care less when someone does pisses me off.




Pink's video for Get the Party Started takes me back to when I was growing up in Norfolk. Britany, my cousin, and I were inseperable seeing how we are only two months apart in age. She was and still is always by my side. We were two peas in a pod and always getting in trouble together or getting others in trouble. WE have gone through so much together and share everything. We love going road tripping together with a few of our friends and being able to tell each other everything. I can honestly say she knows more about me than any of my other friends. And, when Pink is getting dressed in her closet, that just seems like a typical weekend or tuesday night when it would take us forever to get ready to go out. I'm pretty sure we will continue to do everything together for the rest of our live.









As i sit and watch the video for Get Me Bodied by Beyonce, it brings me back to this summer when the song fist came out. I along with my cousin and a few of my frinds were obsessed with it. I remember every Tuesday night a bunch of us and our group would go to The Depot, which is a club in Norfolk, and walk into it and start dancing. We would go to our usual spot, sit down, and eventually start dancing. Everybody would always stop and look into our corner and watch and see what dance moves we were doing especially if it was a new one and then they would try to copy us. But, when this song would come on me and my cousin couldnt wait to dance to it. We always cleared a spot where we could dance and nobody would be in our way and just wild out as we called it. We knew every word to this song and every dance move that Beyonce did, but we couldn't wait until the end when they did just the dances, but they would never play the full song and so we would always end up mad because we would be ready to do them.




Listening to the Spice Girls song Goodbye is such a sad song and so is the video because this is the last video they made before they broke up and it reminds me of my senior year of high school and the last days of summer when I had to say goodbye to everyone. It was one of the hardest times in my life becuase I was leaving my comfort zone to set out on a new path and go on with my life. The different images attest to the fact that each of the girls are moving on with their lives and that is how it was for us. When I left for college I left my security blanket of home not to mention that this summer was also a time for adjustment for me because my family moved to California. I left behind friends that were still in high school as well as family and my hometown even though I always complain about it, I like the safety of being there. I also like the fact that while I am here in Lincoln I have friends from back here going to UNL and I have made more and I also love being in a bigger town and not being around the same people and having everyone know your business.

Skin

This is one of the saddest videos I have ever seen especially since the first time I saw it was my senior year of high school. I can't imagine what it would be like to find out that you had cancer. Then as she loses her hair, I can almost feel the sadness because most girls feel like nothing without their hair. Hair is one of the most prized possessions that a girl has. Most girls would feel like they were nothing without their hair. But the worst part of the whole thing was that she was worried about prom and i she would be asked because she did not think that a guy would want to take a girl with no hair to the prom. But, I loved when her date showed up to the house with his baseball cap on and then took it off showing that he had shaved his head just for her so that she would not feel bad or left out for not having hair. The scene of them dang is also a favorite of mine just because it is like they are the only two people in the world that matter on that day and that she is the only girl that he can see. It is her special day and no one or nothing is going to ruin that day for her. As the video plays your emotions change just by what you see, like the fabrics hanging from the ceiling create a calming feeling when she and her date are dancing.

North Omaha

North Omaha is commonly viewed as a violent, poor, drug infested community where only low income African Americans live. Most people think that the kids in that specific part of Omaha will never amount to anything but drug dealers, gang members, or living on welfare. They do not see the positives that come out of that same neighborhood. People try to disassociate themselves from that specific part of Omaha. It carries a stigma that no one wants to be associated with. It is not just shunned by outsiders but it is shunned by members of the community, for instance Creighton University, which is located in North Omaha, posted information on their website encouraging prospective medical students to find housing outside of the North Omaha area. They reported the housing in North Omaha as being older, smaller, more run down and a little ways from shopping areas. They also said that although they can be close to Creighton, many of these neighborhoods have bad reputations and we recommend looking elsewhere for housing.
This picture uses illustration to project what people think about North Omaha. It has a visual representation of the police cars which is what associated with North Omaha, the rough neck neighborhood. But, it uses pathos to draw emotion from the reader. The phrase "I Have a Dream" is widely known throughout the world and is synanomous with a struggle to become equal in the eyes of other which is what these children and families are trying to do to prove they are worth while.

Although many people focus on the negatives of North Omaha, there are a plethora of positives associated with it. Most of the attention received by North Omaha is focused on racial tension and economic strife. The area is trying to make the future bright and create opportunities for those less fortunate by creating after school programs aimed to help children stay focused on the positives in their lives and deter young kids from turning to gangs to gain acceptance and to keep them out of trouble with law enforcement. Programs such as North Omaha B.E.A.R.S, which is an acronym for Building Esteem and Responsibility Systematically, the North Omaha Boys and Girls Club and Girls Inc. help to serve the area by combining sports with academics, builds self esteem, and creates better social skills.

North Omaha, just like any other place in Nebraska has its issues that need to be addressed, but the situation will never get better if everyone continues to focus on the negatives and not the positives. That is why this picture has a dual meaning to me. When I first saw it, I thought the message it was trying to get across was that even though most people see the kids of that part of town as hopeless, just like you they have dreams and aspirations that they hope to one day attain. They do not choose to be in that situation and not all of the kids are hopeless. Not all of the kids are terrible. They just need a little more help in achieving their goals because they have to work twice as hard just to beat the odds and to not become another statistic.

Hidden in the shadows is the fact that there have been some very successful and quite popular people that have come from North Omaha and gone on to greater things. For instance there is Gabrielle Union, who is a famous actress that has starred in movies such as Bring it On, Bad Boys II, and Deliver us From Eva. There are also some great football players who play or have played in the National Football League such as Gale Sayers who was raised in North Omaha and graduated from Omaha Central High School, and then went on to become a two-time All-American player at the University of Kansas and eventually ending up with the Chicago bears. Ahman Green who also graduated from Central High School before attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to play football and eventually playing for the Green Bay Packers and now plays for the Houston Texans. And, last but not least there is Johnny Rodgers, the 1972 Heisman trophy winner who is idolized by kids all over Nebraska.

The second meaning it had to me was the fact that North Omaha has a rich history in the civil rights movement, which dates back to at least 1912 when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Omaha chapter was founded. It is also the birthplace of one of the most prominent figures in American civil rights history, Malcolm Little who is commonly referred to as Malcolm X. It is also home to Whitney Young Jr., another influential figure in the history of the American Civil Rights Movement, who spent most of his career trying to end employment discrimination.

North Omaha has lots of history to offer the city. It has important annual events which help to define the community as well as celebrate it. By encouraging people to not go there and being prejudice against it, leaves a historical part of Omaha unrecognized.

Free Write

This weekend has been filled with all kinds of exciting events. Saturday night as I was waiting for a friend, I got a knock at that door. It was a Peer assistant on duty telling every room that they were to close the blinds to their rooms because a man that was not suppose to be on campus had been walking around, but not to worry because he was not looking in the windows at us. That is when the rumors began to fly. When I was coming home that night, some girls from my floor and the floor beneath me were laying on the lawn in front of the student center and waved me over, as we sat and talked some guys came by and yelled at us for being outside and said there was a murderer on the loose. The story had gotten so misconstrued that people were saying the guy had killed another guy on our campus about five years ago and that he had cut off the guys limbs and hung him from a tree. Then I heard a story that he had killed a girl from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln five years ago and had gotten away with it because of a technicality. I also heard that he had just walked up to a guy downtown on Tenth street and started to stab him. Then there was an email sent out from the school stating that there had been a "suspicious person," on campus and that we were to avoid walking around the campus alone and to be careful of our surroundings. There were cops and security everywhere you looked on that day. And, just as was suspected all of this was a rumor. An email was sent out saying that after having the Lincoln Police Department investigate this situation, it was just a rumor and that it had no substance to this investigation and apologizing for causing any concern.

Lincoln's Children Zoo

Walking into the Lincoln Children’s Zoo brought back memories of when I was a child. Growing up in Norfolk I did not have a zoo to go to, therefore I only went on special occasions. As I walked up to the counter to pay my way, a rush of excitement flowed through my body and all those memories came streaming back into my mind. As I walked past the paying booth, I noticed the gift shop. It reminded me of the first time I went a zoo’s gift shop and wanted my mom to buy everything that was in it. I was in love with the stuffed sharks after walking through the fish aquarium at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha.
The first thing that caught my attention was the distinct smell of the animals before I even entered the zoo. The stench could be smelled from a few yards from the gate. Then, I noticed a cute little sign that had a penguin on it and said, “No puffing allowed,” it was very cute.
No matter how old you are, the zoo can bring back the kid that is buried deep inside of anyone. Zoos have always been a place where families went and going to the Lincoln Children’s Zoo was no different.
Upon entering the zoo, there were families with young children everywhere you turned stampeding about. The farther you went in, the more children you saw. You could hear the excitement in their voices as they saw the different animals. Hearing them talk to their parents with such enthusiasm made me relive the many times especially the first time I went to the zoo with my family.
Besides seeing the children in the zoo another sight that caught my eye was the bulletin board announcing seal shows everyday eleven o’clock and three o’clock, and a sign announcing to kids that they could party with the animals for their birthdays. As I walked down this pathway that was lined with trees, the first animals that I encountered were the reindeer that were in a fenced in pen. Both of the reindeer that they had were female. Their coats were a dark brown and white, and although they were female they had antlers, which had begun to shed a thin layer of hair that had been protecting them. As I walked closer to the fence, the group of girls that I was with and I was greeted by one of the reindeer while the other one stayed clear of the visitors in the back of the pen. At first we thought she was very cute and that it was trying to get our attention as she was sitting down, so we thought, but in actuality she came over by us and started to urinate right by the fence. We immediately walked away after that.
As I began to walk away from the enclosure one of the girls said there was a white peacock. I turned and looked and it was one of the most beautiful animals that I had ever seen in person. As we walked closer to it I heard it start make a high pitch screech, it sounded like any bird that you would hear. Everything on him was white, everything from what looked like a crown of feathers to his white beak and feet. He stood alone in a circular area that housed a bench and a fake cow that was put in for kids to see if they were able to milk it.
Besides the peacock and the reindeer, there were other exotic animals that I saw. Before entering a building filled with other animals, there were red pandas, which were red with hints of black and white all over their bodies. Seeing them in this or any other zoo is a rare experience because there are only 200 of them in captivity worldwide. As I entered the building where the majority of the animals were housed the first creatures that were visible to me were the fruit bats from Africa, which hung effortlessly from the ceiling.
Immediately following the bat displays were these adorable, hyper squirrel monkeys that had just came from a zoo in California. Their names were Miles, Kirk, and Worf. Also, with them was an Acouchi, which looks like an over grown rat that looked scared and miserable, because the monkeys were never still. The whole time we were watching them, the acouchi cowered in the back like a scared child. This was kind of peculiar to me because I had never been to a zoo where they had different species of animals housed together.
After watching the squirrel monkeys, the other animals were not that interesting to me. They seemed to be very depressed, there was a marmoset named Connor, which had had a back injury and had to have one of his back legs amputated. There was a two-toed sloth, which resembled Cousin It from the Addam’s Family, which sat on a branch, a dwarf crocodile, dumeril's monitor, golden lion tamarins that had miniature manes that resembled a lion’s mane, a red tailed boa and a blood python that were coiled together, and black and white lemurs. A mice farm was hidden in a corner, which housed baby mice that were very ugly creatures to see. They were hairless, had their eyes closed, and almost every bone in there body was visible as they aimlessly wandered around the tunnels of their house, which was basically a hamster’s cage, just bigger.
There were also meerkats, little creatures that look like prairie dogs, which seem to be mean animals. One of them hissed at me as I passed by the cage, and he was fighting with the other meerkat that was housed with him.
I loved seeing the eagle's nest which was huge, and it was surprising that the zoo would actually allow people to walk in it. I never would have thought that a bird’s nest would be that big. If an eagle’s nest is that big, I cannot imagine how big an ostrich’s nest is! Walking into the eagle’s enclosure has to be one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Being that close to such powerful animals that were so close to extinction was something that I will always remember. They were so calm; nothing seemed to faze them as they lurched in their box area. I also was excited to see the seals, but it was a big disappointment because one was very lazy and looked like it was dead, and the other one swam out from its private area and then went back.
But, my favorite part of the whole experience was the petting zoo. It was strange because when I was younger I hated the petting zoo, I was always afraid to feed them. I would start to cry if my mom would try and make me. Seeing those kids fearlessly running to the different animals pens and feeding and petting the animals made me wonder why I was so afraid of these animals as a child. There were goats and llamas that you were able to feed. The animals automatically associated people with food. As soon as you would walk up to their pen, they would put their noses up to the fence or hold their heads above the fence for you to feed them. You had to put 50 cents into a candy machine that was filled with these pellets and when you turned it, a handful of feed came pouring out into your hand. Feeling their wet noses and tongues against my hand at first was not the best feeling, but then I got over it and just had fun.
Most of our time was spent there playing with the animals. I seemed to be more excited than the little kids that were there. As I sat there feeding them, I noticed that this was one of the most popular places in the zoo with families. Children were running around with wide eyes and smiling from ear to ear simply because they were allowed to interact with the animals, they didn’t have to watch them from afar.