Author: jazmynebisquera

Hopelessly in love with irony and best frienemies with sarcasm.
Life

Satisfied With Life

jazmynebisquera

I’ve been working hard towards fulfilling my resolutions and doing homework and being happy. I’ve spent the last few days working on making a name for myself through social media (twitter, my blog, YouTube). I feel really good, and (this might sound a little strange) I’m really glad my happiness isn’t because of my friends.

The past two years have been difficult. I shouldn’t be complaining however, because most people’s lives are twice as hard as mine and what I’ve gone through probably doesn’t measure up to what others have gone through. But, for the sake of saying what I meant by, “I’m really glad my happiness isn’t because of my friends,” I will describe what has gone on with me for the last two years of my life.

Freshman year was a mess for me. I was going into a high school where everyone LITERALLY knew each other from middle school (because it’s a 6-12th grade school), coming from a school I attended for 9 years. I didn’t know anybody. No one from my old school came to this new one except for me, and I was absolutely terrified. I was extremely shy for the first month or so of school, eating in the bathroom during lunch or off in secluded corners and not talking to anyone. I finally did make some friends, and stuck to that friend group for the rest of freshman year. Many things happened during that year, one of which was a very negative, complicated relationship that I was too invested in. Long story short, I got hurt very badly, and was completely reliant on the other person for my happiness. I was sort of happy by the end of the year, but not really.
Sophomore year also kind of sucked. I transitioned into another friend group, and they were all very close to each other. I didn’t feel accepted or a part of the group when I joined it, and truth be told, I still don’t. But anyways. They are fantastic, fun, caring people and they helped me through a lot during sophomore year. But my happiness depended upon their approval of me and how much they liked me. I bounced a lot between two groups, and set out to make as many friends as possible so I could be happy and not alone.
Junior year. The beginning of junior year was alright. I managed to find myself in-between three groups: the group I hung out with in freshman year (everyone kind of left), the group I hung out with in sophomore year (still going strong), and the group I started hanging out with (mostly seniors who are going to leave). I didn’t really know where I wanted to be, and there were often times scheduled hang-outs at the same time as other hang-outs, and I usually had to make a decision on where I wanted to go. I was starting to feel liked by a lot of people, and that made me kind of satisfied. Kind of. I was still completely reliant on other people to make me feel happy.
The summary of my high school career for 2010-2012: I needed all of my friends to like me and I needed a boyfriend.
Now though, I am completely happy to say that I am making my happiness instead of relying and depending on other people to make me happy. I can be happy on my accord.
I don’t know when the shift happened. Maybe it was the dawn of 2013 that triggered this. But now I feel like I can be independent and single and not have a problem with that. I know I need to lay off trying to make everyone happy and like me, and try to lay off pursuing or crushing on other people. I need to focus on my goal of re-vamping and re-creating myself. Not for someone else, but for myself. I’ve been so preoccupied with my relationships and wanting one that I lost track of myself and my goals in life. It’s about time for me to start over again and be whoever I want to be.
Hopefully this feeling of happiness and independence will stay with me for a while. I really hope it will.
Love,
Jazmyne
Dance

“Adorn” by Miguel Jontel

jazmynebisquera
I uploaded my very first hip hop dance video onto youtube yesterday and thought I’d share it on here.
To learn more about my video and the reason behind doing it, read below.

I created a music video centered around the psychological science of love. I based this project off of a project I did in my AP Composition class last year. The project I did last year had to do with the Odyssey. We were to make creative responses to the story of the Odyssey, and I chose to base my project off of the relationship between Odysseus and Penelope. I half-choreographed, half-improvised a dance about their love and ache for each other. I performed the dance in front of my class and the project was deemed successful, though I didn’t get the chance to archive it in film.
            The project I did for J-Term, “The Science of Love,” is a music video because I wanted to be able to choreograph a dance to a love song and be able to document it in film. I wanted to combine theatre, dance, and film because those are art forms that I am interested in.
            The research I conducted about love was about how it affected people physically, mentally and emotionally. There are three distinct phases to falling in love: “Lust,” “Attraction,” and, “Attachment”. Each phase produces different hormones and chemicals. In the “Lust,” phase, the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen are released. Dopamine and norepinephrine, or adrenaline, are released in the, “Attraction,” phase. Finally, in the, “Attachment,” phase, oxytocin and vasopressin are released.
            The project reflects these three phases through the dance. In the dance, there are several factors I included in the choreography to show the different effects of each chemical that is released in the phases of love. The body rolls and waves represent the sex hormones in the, “Lust,” phase. The quick, popping movements represent the chemicals dopamine and adrenaline in the, “Attraction,” phase. The slow movements, improvisational moves, and breaks from dancing represent the oxytocin and vasopressin in the “Attachment” phase.
            To create the project, I interpreted the words from the song, “Adorn” by Miguel Jontel, and the effects of love into hip hop dance. I then filmed myself dancing in the cafeteria, capturing myself multiple times in three different areas of the cafeteria. While editing, I put together the dances in the different areas of the cafeteria together to look like there are three of me dancing.