The Mask Project
For this project, we were asked to write an essay and create a mask. We started the project by learning and taking notes about sociology in general. We learned things like cultural norms, values, and sanctions. After we learned the basics, we moved on and watched movies and shorts about humans being socialized and different ways and how that affects people for the rest of their life. We watched a video about a child being left alone and not being socialized, and the effects of that were very dramatic. From the videos, we moved on to reading a short comic book about socialization. Writing the essay was the hardest part for me because I hate writing. After doing my first draft and editing it to the point where I felt I could present it, I found there was a lot that I missed and pretty much restarted. Creating and designing the physical mask was one of my favorite parts partially because I feel good about my final product.
I feel like I put a great amount of effort into my work for this project. I came up with a creative design for my mask. For my essay, I don't feel as good about it, but I put in as much effort as I felt comfortable putting into an essay. There have been times in this project where I have had my friends and family edit my essay. I had advocated for my self in this project by asking for help when I didn't understand something. The writing portion of this project was a big challenge for me. There are times when I feel unmotivated to wright or when I do I feel like it isn't as good as it could be. I kept working my hardest and completed the project to the best of my ability. I don't take pride in most things I create because I'm scared of being judged or shut down. I have learned to take more pride in my work through this project because I have learned that it is art and art is a personal preference and its all ways going to be disliked by some people.
Through doing this project, I have learned a lot about my self and how I react to different things. I didn't know exactly who I was before this project but by doing this project, I learned that I could be adventurous and dangerous, but I generally like to play things safe. I have learned where I get these norms from and who taught me them. My school family and friends have raised me to be dangerous and adventurous and risky. Looking at the cycle of socialization has taught me where children learn specific things about sociology. Watching the movies about the feral children has taught me that raising a child without any socialization can have a great damaging effect on children.
The write-up
For this project, I was left uninspired and dry with ideas. I was able to finish the main writing portion of the project with a good final product. for the creative, it was left uncomplete, which I regret doing. Through doing the research and writing part of the project, I have learned about the Australian ways of war in world war two. One of the things that I found most interesting was the fact that the country of Australia didn't want to strick fear into the civilians of the region. Another thing that I found interesting is that while under attack on Timor with the other troops backup Australia was the last to retreat even after the catastrophic event in Darwin.
In the future,e I would like to dive deeper into more of the Australian perspectives on the war and why they were the last to retreat on the island of Timor. I would like to see more of the lasting effects that the war had on Australia. If I were to do this project again, I would spend more time coming up with a creative idea for the creative portion of the project. Overall i find war projects and most things that half to do with war unsparing and overall a basic idea even if I am given the creative freedom to do it on whatever specific part of the war I would like to and I think that is part of the reason why I was unable to complete the project.
