Passion: I can’t speak for everyone, but I would like to think that everyone silently has a list, maybe not a physical, but at least a mental list of the movies they deem to be the greatest of all time. This may not be very objective, but I feel I may have the best list out there. Ever since I was little, I have loved movies, specifically anything from the 1980s to the early 2000s, especially movies based on a true story. For my Passion Blog, I want to dive deeply into my “top list” of movies and provide knowledge and detail about why I found them so impactful and vital to my upbringing. For me, movies aren’t just a form of entertainment. They teach life lessons and values and can often be comforting when other things can’t. The best movies, in my opinion, invoke emotion and allow the audience to sympathize with the characters and interpret the messages differently. Everyone notices something different, and speaking from personal experience, when I rewatch my favorite movies, I often learn something new each time, which forces me to rethink the movie as a whole.

I am looking forward to sharing my list with you all this semester.

Civic: Today, exploitation happens daily, so often, most of us forget all the forms it entails. I want to highlight this topic’s significant conditions for my civic blog post. My blog will prioritize domestic servitude, forced marriage, forced criminality, organ harvesting, and sexual and labour exploitation. I feel strongly about this topic and hope that by advocating for this civic issue, my support inspires others to get involved and advocate for this issue. Exploitation is a universal problem that continues to prosper sadly as we move into our future, affecting all races, genders, and religions. In other words, exploitation does not discriminate.

“This I believe speech.”

I believe adaptability is a superpower because it allows you to become a chameleon in any situation or social environment.

Outline:

1. Introduction
   1. Attention-getter: What if I told you I have a superpower? Now, it isn’t one that Marvel recognizes, such as flying or turning into a green supersized man, but to me, it’s my superpower, and I think everyone has at least one. But what’s the difference between something you are good at and a superpower? The difference is that an everyday superpower is something you don’t have to practice to get good at or think about. More of a natural-born talent but one that can be developed, and adaptability is my superpower for me. 
   2. Hook: Today, I want to share how my belief in adaptability evolved because of personal life experiences. 
   3. Context:  From a young age, I was presented with situations where I had to be adaptable to my surroundings. , I only saw that as a negative thing in my life for a long time. However, when I became older and started high school, I altered my perspective on adaptability and saw it as my superpower. Something that could help me navigate life as a teenager and succeed in all elements of my life, social, family, or academic. I became more comfortable experimenting with my newfound belief. It became a habit. This impacted me significantly because I saw firsthand the doors that could open up for me because of my superpower. 
   4. Thesis:  I believe adaptability is a superpower because it allows you to become a chameleon in any situation or social environment. 
   5. Preview: First, I will be sharing my background on my childhood and some experiences that made me feel adaptability was damaging or a weakness. Then, I will provide you with the experience that changed my previous belief and made me see adaptability in a new light as a superpower. 

 

1. Body: Old Belief – Constant moving and growing pains
2. Belief: Struggle of constantly moving at such a young age, states, houses, and schools

 Supporting Idea: When I was going into first grade, my parents bought a vacation house in FL, we spent the entire summer there, and by the end, my mom decided we weren’t going home, back to Maryland. This was the first significant change in my life, and it happened at 6. My dad would commute back and forth from MD to FL to see my brother and me because his work became the second. Soon after, my parents ended up getting a divorce, this started when I was in second grade, and while it was for the best, this was another situation that I had adapted to again, making it the 3rd on my list. After a very unusually long divorce and many years of fighting, they finalized it when I was in 7th grade, by now my parents both had new partners, and their children were introduced into my brother and my life, just adding to the list of things I’d had to adapt to over the years. From the start of my young education to 5th grade, I had moved to 5 different schools making me always the new person, which opened up a whole other door of, yet again, “having to be adaptable.” I tell you this so you can understand why I had such a negative connotation for adaptability. In other words, I had significant growing pains, and when it came to adaptability, different feelings came with it. I had grouped having to adapt with instability and feeling like I could never grasp a situation long enough because it would change me all over again as soon as I did.  

Supporting Idea: Leading me to my final point of this past belief, which may have been the biggest reason for feeling so negative about adapting. For many of us teens, our room is our safe space. A place where we can let our creativity flow and express ourselves to the max. No rules, no boundaries, it’s all ours. Well, as a young teen, I moved a lot. With my dad, I moved five times, and with my mom, I moved four times, all for extraneous reasons.

Nonetheless, this made creating my room and space very difficult, and I remember this particular obstacle being the most frustrating of them all. Again, I was young, and my growing pains were at their peak as I transitioned into high school and a new school. Both an individual and high school were intimidating for a 14 almost 15-year-old. 

[Towards the end of the 8th-grade year summer, I had started to try to convince myself this situation was less intimating and more of an opportunity for a fresh start, an optimistic approach at the time, that I wasn’t even buying.]

 

1. Body: New belief –  Recognizing I can be a Chameleon 
2. Fastfording to my first year, coming into a private school where most kids had gone since Kindergarten, I was nervous. Mainly because the friendships they had formed were so strong, I felt like I wouldn’t be able to integrate into these groups smoothly because I didn’t know them as long as others did; however, to my surprise, that wasn’t the case all. Everyone went over the top to make me feel comfortable, meet me, and include me. This was eye-opening because, while I was used to being new, the feeling of starting at a new school never got comfortable or less nervy than the next time. For the first time, I felt I had found a great place to spend the next four years. As a side perk, because I had moved to different schools in elementary and middle school, I had a whole set of other friends from other high schools, which made the experience even more admirable because I had people outside of my school to hang out with as well and was able to introduce my school friends to my out of school friends creating a bigger and more enjoyable group and environment. 
3. My school became a community to me, and because of my experience with adapting, I joined clubs and sports more quickly than others. When it came to making friends or feeling confident talking in class or addressing adults, I wasn’t nervous, it didn’t even phase me, and the more I engaged with situations where I would have to adapt more I noticed I was good at it and I had been my entire life. This put into perspective that even though I went through challenging obstacles at a young age, it never affected me socially or academically because I adapted and persevered. 

 

[Realizing I became a chameleon, which helped me make connections for my future.]

 

1. Conclusion: Now, in college, I use my superpower often and only see the positive effects it brings me. I have watched so many times how, because I am adaptable, I am chosen for opportunities, and doors are opened to help enhance my personal or career-oriented life. It’s happened. 
2. Summarize main points: My experiences growing up adjusted how I saw a common theme changing my perspective permanently. 

1. Restate thesis: I believe adaptability is a superpower because it allows you to become a chameleon in any situation or social environment. 
2. Memorable conclusion: I now have a list of positive things adaptability has brought me, and let me tell you, it outweighs my previous bad ones. Thank you!