[unlikekrystal]

secondary source VI

https://youtu.be/e0x7hIz0XQ8

For my last secondary source, this video discusses the life and hardships Michelle faced while living in Chicago. She visits her old neighborhood and reminisces the events that parallel to the book. Another theme that I’ve been noticing is her always asking if she’s good enough; is she worth enough to be where she is now? I find this truly relatable because often times I think I have to put in twice as much than my other peers. That I’ll fall behind if I don’t grind enough or go the easy route. It’s crazy to know that Michelle has felt this inadequacy in a few points of her life. She’s real and doesn’t hide the messiness she partook in and isn’t afraid to embrace those mishaps. It’s definitely something I admire about her.

[spideyshan]

It can sometimes be hard to grasp the fact that people who are looked up to, deal with the same things we do. Especially when you’re the former first lady. You’d think “Michelle was the first lady, she has Obama, daughters, and a dog. What more does she possibly need to feel complete?” but none of us have lived her life so we will never truly know, only she will. I think it can be even more damaging when you’re always being looked at with certain expectations based on who you are.

[spideyshan]

Book Post #7 — End

Jenna has come full circle with the end of her book with the question: Why do I want to be an actor?

“The truth is, I don’t have one definitive answer to this question. Because over the years my answers have changed, or been added to, so that now I have a wide variety.”

I think that’s the answer I expected from Jenna because it’s the same answer from me. New reasons on why I want to be an actor get added onto my mental list all the time. After reading this book and going through Jenna’s journey, I’m both excited and scared to start my own.

“As you go forward, though you may get discouraged, please don’t hold back your gift. Because the world needs actors. The world needs you. Now, go do it.”

[spideyshan]

Book Post #6 + Secondary #6

Friends actress LIsa Kudrow gave funny graduation speech at Vassar College , 2010

“Then, it all changed. I got cast as a series regular on a show that I knew would run forever and be very well written. Jim Burrows was directing and that was a big deal. He'd directed and produced, Cheers, Taxi — everything good. I was set. I was done. No more guest starring roles where you're not really part of the show because you're just there for the week. I was done worrying. ““I get to do what I love on the best show ever.”” After two days of rehearsal, I got fired. I got fired from Frasier, the one everyone knew was going to be a hit, and it was.”

It’s weird to read about how famous actors still feel absolutely defeated by their career even after they’ve “made it” and especially while you’re in the middle of writing a book about keeping your head up high. All that time of waiting to see if the show got picked up just to find out that you’ve gotten fired. Big oof. Jenna said “I immediately went to a dark place. I figured it must be me. It must be that I sucked, that I was horrible.” and I can’t even imagine how badly the pit in her stomach felt. The same feelings go for Lisa Kudrow and her firing from Frasier, too. Having to go through auditions, the network test, having the satisfaction of getting the job, and then being fired can humble an actor, as Jenna said. But, even though you do get fired and it’s embarrassing reading about yourself on websites and watching the actual show when it gets released, not all hope is lost. Jenna says that “I’ve also learned that the jobs you don’t get often make way for better opportunities in the future.” Which has been proven to be true by both Jenna and Lisa. After Lisa got fired from Frasier, she actually met her current husband, “Oh and after I got fired from Frasier, I went to a birthday party and, feeling like I had nothing at all to lose, I flirted with a guy who was way out of my league. We dated and on Thursday Michel and I will have been married for 15 years. Yeah, that’s the biggest achievement of all, and we’ll be celebrating with our 12 year-old son. Thank God I got fired! Maybe there is a reason for everything. I think there is.” When Jenna got fired from the CBS show, “Shortly after getting fired from the Matt LeBlanc show, I was offered the leading role in a mew Steve Martin play, Meteor Shower.” It just goes to show that everything happens for reason.

[spideyshan]

Secondary #5

Everything You Never Knew About The Original Pilot To ‘It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’

Before ’It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,’ there was an $85 home movie called ’It’s Always Sunny on Television’ set in Los Ange

THIS IS CRAZY!!! I had no idea that the first episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia was just a short film made by Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, and Charlie Day. They spent less than $200 making the pilot of one of the funniest shows around, that’s crazy! From all of the years that I’ve been watching this show I never knew that! In the business, shows getting picked up is insanely hard and Rubbing Charlie was an example of one of the many shows that didn’t even get picked up, no matter how much hard work they put in to it. Whether it’s just with two camcorders and $200 or with a whole professional crew and cameras, you don’t what’s going to happen. Throughout her book, Jenna has always been a strong advocator for creating your own work and this just proves that your own passion can turn into something huge.

[unlikekrystal]

One thing I didn’t like about reading the first portion of Becoming (where Michelle talks about her childhood and growing pains) is her father refusing to acknowledge his illness, which is multiple sclerosis. He never gets help and even when there’s options to lessen the struggle and pain, he doesn’t take it. Even when Michelle was in college and recommended him information about the illness + where to get proper examinations, her father simply pretends that it isn’t there and continues to disregard it. I find it admirable, although what I don’t understand is why he’d want that for himself. Not only does it affect his life, you can see in her recollections of her father that his disability impacted Michelle (and the rest of her family) as well. While she was away in college, she states that hated to ask them for money or other necessities because she didn’t want to seem like a burden. I think she was inflicted by this trait from her father since he probably hated when his family wanted to spend money on his health too.

[spideyshan]

It bothers me whenever people pay for me (like food or clothes) but to think that it can go so far to the point where someone won’t speak up about it and it puts their own health at risk... woah. I’m sure that was probably true and that’s why Michelle didn’t like asking for money. I definitely think I got it from my parents as well because they always hated asking for money even though we needed it really badly. The traits that get passed down from our parents is both a blessing and a curse.

[unlikekrystal]

In this passage, Michelle discusses how she used to keep a journal throughout her years of being an adult and while dating Obama. She mentions how she dislikes her job as a lawyer, though she can admit she’s very good at it. She wants to go out of her boundaries and experience a life that isn’t so comfortable. However, the downside to this is that she is afraid of the monetary effects of this decision. The advice her mother gives her is to grind hard now and worry about those issues later, which is smart. You can’t be impulsive with your money and what you want; there has to be a balance between the two. I relate to Michelle because I’ve dreamed of becoming a family/entertainment lawyer, but as I grow older, I’m not so certain that this is the path I want to take. My parents encourage me to find success and are proud of my hard work and accomplishments, so there’s no strict expectation to follow this career. This also reminds me of a conversation I had with my Communication Basics professor back in first semester. He believed that everyone has some sort of special talent—whether it’s big or small that we need to exploit them. If we go through our lives without exploring different possibilities or paths, we die wondering if our lives would’ve been different had found those oddity about ourselves.

[spideyshan]

Jenna kept a diary as well! She talked about Moving to LA for the first time and struggling with money. You later find out that all of her savings are gone and she questions why she even chose her career path. Choosing a forever career is challening because your heart wants you to go for one thing, but your mind is telling you another thing. But in the end you see both Michelle Obama and Jenna Fischer thriving with doing what they love!

[unlikekrystal]

In this passage, Michelle discusses the sticky situation between her and another cousin of hers. They don’t exactly like each other and at one point the cousin asks her why does she speak as though she were white. This makes Michelle realize how different she is compared to some of her relatives. Her parents taught her and her brother to be proud of their intelligence and to show it through how they talk. However—this concept wasn’t what caught my eye.

Now, I’m not the face of the majority, but there are those who speak fluent Ebonics but to suggest that all black people talk like ignorant hoodrats and that all white people pronounce every word with conviction, clarity and authority, is severely misguided and ill-informed. Furthermore, when blacks, moreover society as a whole, insinuate that somehow other blacks with couth are trying to be like their white counterparts, is simply not true.

[spideyshan]

The fact that some people think just because you talk “proper” makes you “a white girl” is ridiculous. That makes it seem like all white people talk with elegance. LMAO. I mean have you been in Texas??? No race has everyone speaking “proper” and there really is no proper way to say things, we’ve all just made up these expectations on ways to talk.

[spideyshan]

Book Post #5 + Secondary #4

In this part of Jenna’s book, she talks about the first on screen kiss she had. It was with John Krasinski (Jim from The Office). Jenna says that this kiss was probably one of the most iconic on screen kisses ever, which I have to agree with. It was taken so seriously to the point where Jenna and John couldn’t even be in contact with each other for at least an hour prior to the shooting of the scene. Weeks before the scene was even shot, they talked about how the scene would go and what would happen but they didn’t rehearse it all because of how real and raw they wanted everything to be. Jenna and John weren’t aware of where the cameras or crew were, just so it could become even more real. After reading this and watching their kiss, it adds a different perspective on how I see this scene now. It truly is iconic.

[spideyshan]

Secondary #3

“Sebastian and Mia are drawn together by their common desire to do what they love. But as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.”

La La Land was one of the first things I thought of while reading Jenna’s book, especially because of Mia’s whole storyline. In the movie, Mia is an aspiring actor and she wants to make a living off of what she loves. The movie revolves around her passion, love, and work ethic for what she dreams of doing. During the movie you see the coffee shop job that she hates, rushing to rehearsals, failing rehearsals, balancing her dreams while also trying to balance her real life, and the doubts she feels throughout her journey. All of which are told in Jenna’s book. Jenna tells her personal journey and story but La La Land is like watching a different perspective on the business. While it can be spiced up a bit for entertainment sake, after reading a lot of Jenna’s book and comparing the two, there’s a lot of real elements.

[spideyshan]

Book Post #4 + Secondary #2

This part of Jenna’s book really struck a chord. Jenna’s whole book has been a guide, you read through her struggles of being an aspiring actor and you feel sympathy for her as you read about her horror stories and rejection. In the first picture, Jenna talks about how she wanted to give up because she had just filmed a pilot for the show “Rubbing Charlie” but she soon learned that the show didn’t get picked up, which made her want to quit her dreams. At that point in time, she had been working for eight years to be a working actor and to get a role, put her heart into it, film the pilot for 9 days, and then learn that it didn’t even get picked up, crushed her dreams. But when you turn the page in her book you read more about her audition process for The Office. After they had narrowed it down to four Pams, Four Jims, Four Dwights, and four Michaels, they filmed the actors doing scenes in an actual office for two days. Jenna talks about doing scenes with John Krasinski, Rainn Wilson, and Steve Carell. It was really cute reading about her story with John, it really fit Pam and Jim. As I was reading about her audition process on The Office, it actually made me nervous, I thought “I really hope she gets the part” knowing fully well that I’ve watched countless hours of this show and that Jenna did indeed get the part of Pam. It felt really good to finally get to the part of the book where Jenna finds her forever job. The video attached is just a small portion of the audition process that all of the actors had to go through. You even see people that didn’t get the part, like Adam Scott who auditioned for the part of Jim. He obviously didn’t get the part, not because he’s not a good actor, but because it all depends on little details. Adam ended up getting the part of Ben Wyatt on Parks and Recreation (which was perfect casting in my opinion). The business is hard and it can feel destroying at times but TV shows like The Office make things brighter.

[spideyshan]

Book Post #3

While reading Jenna’s book, I’ve noticed that she uses quotes from professional actors/“celebrities” at just the right time. If she’s talking about the doubts she had during her journey, she will insert a quote about not giving up. If she’s talking about the business, she’ll put a quote about the business. If she’s talking about agents/managers, she’ll put a quote about that. Depending on what you’re learning from Jenna, a quote is almost on every page to inspire you or make you laugh. It’s a small detail but it’s given this book layers, not only having her words on a page, but other actors as well. They’re little reminders to keep you going on your journey.

[unlikekrystal]

So far in ‘Becoming’..

The first few chapters tells her story from her own perspective as a growing child– she reveals that her life is a form of alchemy. Her childhood, growing up on the South Side of Chicago, is recalled with an essentially American kind of wholesomeness: a strong nuclear family of four, sharing a one-bed apartment upstairs while the one below was occupied by her piano teacher great aunt Robbie. Her family worked hard and kept things moving upwards.

I didn’t expect this much homeliness and normalcy while reading the beginning of Michelle’s backstory. The tone of her writing ignites a sense of nostalgia—and it’s not just from her childhood, I could see my own reflecting in my mind. At first, I assumed that because her husband was the President, she’d come from a wealthy background, but she lived no differently from the average American citizen. Michelle worked hard to get where she is now and you can see a glimpse of that fiery determination when she describes her younger experiences. I’m eager to learn more about this side of our former First Lady.

[spideyshan]

The only thing I knew about Michelle Obama before she became the First Lady was that she lived in the South Side of Chicago and met Barack there! I never even knew that she knows how to play the piano. I’m excited to read more about her life before becoming the First Lady through your posts.

[spideyshan]

Ruh Roh - Book Post #2 + Secondary

Jenna talks about headshots and what it takes to have a good headshot that represents who you are as an actor. She also shared some of her headshots that didn’t go as well as others which reminded me of my “headshot” which isn’t even really a headshot. I used this “headshot” for my METAS (theatre festival) portfolio and it was the only picture I had of myself that kind of qualified as an amateur headshot. I took this photo by myself, up north, in a Pink Floyd shirt, while I’m covered in lake water. Yeah, good thinking on my part. I’m automatically casted in a new Netflix original with this headshot for sure. Reading her horrible headshot stories just gave me a giggle knowing that I’ve gone through something similar. I guess it’s all apart of the journey!

[spideyshan]

Book post #1 — Beginning

Reading about Jenna’s acting journey has been really fulfilling and crazy so far. I mean just take a look at this actor’s pizza recipe! Honestly, what the hell. So far I’ve not only learned about what it’s like to be a struggling actor, but I’ve also learned about Jenna’s thoughts, feelings and determination throughout her story so far. It not only gives me hope but it also gives me a laugh to read about the crazy things she did when she was just in her early/mid 20’s. In May of 1996, she saved up $8,000, packed up her car and drove to LA to start her new life. I’m excited to read more about her journey and get more advice on this career choice.

[spideyshan]

My Book!

The book that I chose for this unit is Jenna Fischer’s “The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide”

I chose this book because of my love for acting and of course, The Office. A career in film/tv acting is what I really have my heart set on and it’s even more perfect that one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite tv shows has an acting survival guide!

I also remember last year, Ms. Raffa, my english 10 teacher was reading this book and would always talk about it in class and I’ve always wanted to read it since then. So, thanks Ms. Raffa :~) (I miss you).

I’m really excited to read this and learn more about Jenna and what she went through to get to where she is now and to also grow my knowledge on acting as a whole.

[veektorecamaj-deactivated202005]

Link to article: https://wapo.st/2Ridk6h

“So it probably … border anywhere.”  I find it fairly irresponsible to blatantly disregard international asylum law. International asylum law states that a person who is seeking asylum must make their claim to asylum in the first available country in which they aren’t facing persecution. Because folks of the caravan are beginning their journey within Honduras and Guatemala, their claim to asylum would only be considered valid in Mexico in the case of Guatemalans, and in Guatemala for folks from Honduras. Here is a rather hideous case of twisting facts…

“Closing the border … School of Law.”  While this Peter S. Margulies may have a point in the case of native Mexicans, the point would seem to fail in the case (once again) of whom are essentially economic migrants from the folk of the caravan of South America consisting of native Guatemalan and Hondurans. Though, Mr. Margulies does bring up a fairly compelling idea, that if native Mexicans are to face some sort of persecution, (to which they would be entitled to asylum) that a “permanently closed” border would greatly hinder actual asylum seekers from Mexico coming to America. This could result in a humanitarian disaster…  “Had the migrants … or anywhere else.” One should certainly consider that in the process of claiming asylum, there is a vetting/interviewing procedure. During this process, tests are performed to determine the place of origin of asylum seeker x. Also, there really is no other absolute way to ensure that a group of people may not experience hardship when waltzing across what (at times) may be considered a warzone when acknowledging violent clashing of different forces at the border. In this case, the rock throwing on the part of non-citizens towards border patrol. 

[spideyshan]

While I do agree that what these people are saying is filled with hate and prejudice, I don’t really see how the article as a whole is corrupt even though what republicans are saying is.... gross. The author himself is just presenting what other people have to say about the subject (he also presents what people on the other side have to say as well, even though that isn’t in your chunk) so really he’s just telling the story of what happened and what people have to say about the situation.

[spideyshan]

In this portion the author heavily puts his opinion on others with the use of strong language, The Bible, and God. He wants his readers to know right off the bat that gay marriage is horrible! eek!

He’s very straightforward and close minded with what he says and he uses this “technique” quite often. He is almost selfish in the way that he speaks, only believing that his belief is far superior than anyone else’s and that everyone must listen to him and go along with his beliefs. 

Ex: “Marriage is a sign of a covenant between God and his people; between Christ and His bride, the Church. Same sex unions cannot convey this message because they are the same and not different. The different genders (male and female) symbolize the difference between God and humankind. Same gender does not represent that reality. There is no possibility of new life and one of the two ends of marriage is procreation.”

“Men and women complement one another, emotionally and anatomically. Homosexual unions contradict nature. They imitate but they do not complement and that is key.”

“Only sex between a husband and wife is morally permitted.”

After that mouthful he proceeds to talk about how gay people can be “outstanding citizens or saintly persons” and “While the inclination is disordered, only the activity itself is sinful” even though he just stripped away part of what LGBTQ+ citizens take pride in and identify themselves as, it’s almost dehumanizing. 

Trying to control readers into his point of view is clearly the motive of this article and he uses the English language to accomplish that.