Blog #4

For the critique of my essay, my computer partner suggested a variety of ideas, including changing my organization in order to better get the readers attention and so that the essay will flow more smoothly. She also suggested revising some run-on sentences and marked up my paper with spelling and wording suggestions that would further improve it. She did like the personal aspect of the paper and reminded me to keep that if i changed the writing at all.

I want to change my work by revising the organization and order in which i presented the ideas and by fine-tuning the word choice and spelling, and maybe add some new information.

Second Draft of my Artist Statement:
Trying to decide on a choice for my American icon was a very difficult assignment for me. There are many great people in the history of our coutry who I admire that have made amazing accomplishments, but not many who I can honestly say have inspired me or drastically changed my view on anything. I wanted to find someone who I could really spark a deep connection with, someone I really admire; so I looked through lists of famous celebrities, writers, photographers, artists, and great thinkers, trying to find someone that cicked with my personality and who I hope to become. A couple of days ago, I came home to find that I had been searching for something that had been right in front of me all along. How could I have overlooked the person who had been 100% by my side all along? Someone who I have personally seen overcome every obstacle put in front of them and beat the odds even when there was no hope left? My American icon is my mom, the strongest and most inspiring person I know.
My mom and I had very different childhoods, she made sure of that. As a young child she was abused by her own mother, beaten and starved and locked in the basement on regular occasions. She was taken from her home by child services at a young age and was put into foster homes, left with nothing but a broken jaw that she had to live with until she was able to get dental surgery in her late twenties. She was then raised to be a strict Fundamentalist-Baptist and was sheltered from doing the things that most teenagers do, like go out with friends or even listen to music. Although she was away from her terrible home, things continued to get worse, in ways that I cannot explain because to this day i still do not know to the full extent what happened in my mother's teenage years. Finally, after high school, she broke away from her religion and became a child's advocate for Project Heartbeat, a program made to help children who came from broken homes. Most people would have given up at this point, but that wasn't something my mom was raised to do. Instead, she did her part to ensure that not everybody has to suffer.
Growing up, I never wanted to be like my mom. I would always accuse her of stifiling me by being too overprotective, and roll my eyes whenever she tried to make a joke. It took about fourteen years and the uncovering of some information that had been kept from me to realize how lucky I am to have her. When I was seven years old, my dad took me on a spontaneous four-week vacation to Europe. I never really questioned the reasoning behind it, I just assumed that it was purely for the sake of traveling. We went to London Paris, Rome, Venice, Verona, and other placed tht I don't even remember the names of. But being seven, I didn't appreciate the rich culture and history of these places as much as my dad. After what seemed like an endless day of being forced to walk for miles and miles and look at old paintings in historical museums, I called my mom from one of the hotel phones crying. I went on and on about how tired my feet were and how I wish I could come home because daddy was being mean. This phone call drastically changed my life in ways i could have never imagined. Little did I know, while I was touring Europe, walking and sight-seeing, my mom was in the hospital undergoing intense treatments that the majority of people do not survive through. The treatments were getting too rough, and she had reached the descision that she just couldn't do it anymore. She had come to the conclusion to tell the doctors to stop the treatments, a choice that would end the pain but also end her life. But after recieving that phone call, she realized that she couldn't leave me alone. She told the doctors to recontinue the treatment, and promised herself that she would stay alive long enough to watch me grow up. I am thankful every day that I picked up the phone and made that call.
All of her life my mom has been surrounded by peopel telling her what she can't do. Her doctors told her she wouldn't live past age thirty. She was told that she probably wouldn't survive the chimo therapy required to battle the melenoma skin cancer that had infected her lungs, but she beat the odds, on two seperate occasions. She became the only person in the Northern Hemisphere to live through the treatments that she was put through. As a young child, I saw my mom getting sick and dissapearing for weeks, and I can't count on my fingers the amount of times people warned me that I could possibly lose her. But she made it through every time. I began to think of her as invincible. I was never too scared that I would lose her for real, I was convinced that it would be impossible. One thing she taught me, that I will always take with me, is to never give up. I've come close to giving up many times, but I always think of my mom, and how she is iving proof that you can perform miracles if you keep trying, and never lose hope.
I can not say that I can in any way relate to the pain and siffering that my mom has been through, but I am learning from her how to beat the offs even if they are all against you, and how to learn from hardships and use them to grow and become a better person. I have been there with my mom when she battled cancer, both times; visited her when she was hospitalized for periods of time, watched her completely lose her memory for a period of two months, and all the while watched her do everything she can to make sure that I have the best life that she can provide for me. And I can only hope to become as good-hearted and selfless of a person as she is.