alter/ memoir

I did my alter/ memoir on memories and things that make me happy. The first thing you see in my video is a picture of me and my cross country team in high school at a starting line. Along with the picture is a track number that you stick on before you run your race and a 1st place medal. Track was a very important time in my life and it's one of the best memories that I have.

Next in my video i have a family photo because i love family and even though mine is tiny, there is so much love between us. After the family photo i have the infamous Rutgers "R" because without Rutgers I would probably not be in school right now. Then i have a dream catcher and a little note. The dream catcher means alot to me. I have them scattered all across my room and have a large tattoo of one. The little note is from my roommate that says "Just because you're amazing." Me and my roommate randomly leave each other little sticky notes to uplift one another and to make each others day.

After the sticky note i have a wine glass and a picture of me and my boyfriend. I used the wine glass because who doesnt love wine and because it has cheetah on it which i used to be obsessed with. The picture of my boyfriend is there because he makes me happy and is capable of dealing with my crazy ways as best as possible.

Lastly I have photos of me and my brother and a purple ribbon, The purple ribbon stands for Awareness of Domestic Violence and this hits close to home. My mother was a victim of domestic violence and almost lost her life to it. The ribbon is in front of the picture we hung in the hospital for my mom so that she had motivation to keep fighting and not give up. Then i have photos of me and my brother and elephants. Elephants never walk the same path twice and that is why i have become so intrigued with them. The photos of my brother are there because he is my rock when things get tough.

Sydney Powell-Altar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K--ZEnL77Lg

I dedicate my shrine to my best friend from high school Maria Topolski and added items that reminded me of her and connected our friendship. She currently a student at American University in

DC and we occasionally meet up but it's so drastically different when compared to the weekends we spent together in high school. I can confidently say we almost everywhere in NJ at this point, Maria loves to drives and doesn't care about distance. We once drove all the Philadelphia to just get donuts.we were friends back in 8th grade but we became really close after taking hinese together in high school and then going to china together in 2013. Each item i picked tells a story about the person that is maria and and our adventures as friends. The first piece I decided on was the music which is a polish song by weekend ona tańczy dla mnie. Maria is very proud of her polish heritage and through being her friend i have spent many afternoons eating fresh perogies her mom has made or cheered for legia warszawa alongside her and her brother.I picked the song Ona tańczy dla mnie because we always played that song when driving around. It's the only polish song that I kinda know the lyrics and sound decent trying to recreate. Its also very high energy which one way i would describe maria. I placed a picture of maria from her elementary school days in india for a visual representation. I also find it funny when looking around for photos i had of her i only had a picture she gave me from her childhood.The next item is my phone and we that as our main form of communication. Living so far away from each other now makes interacting hard but we try really hard to text each other everyday. The Photo Booth pictures and id represent one of the first and last things we did in high school together. We happened to get our freshman pictures with each other all the way to Prom which was our final school event together. The bracelet and pouch are both souvenirs maria got from me when she went to Turkey. The postcard of the Great Wall of China represents our trip to China together and memory of climbing the wall together. China was such an important factor in our friendship becoming so strong, we had that shared experience of traveling overseas together and studying Chinese. The medicine represents maria’s anxieties and her hypochondriac tendencies. Throughout her friend she has always me medical questions or made her exam her back for scoliosis. She believes in my diagnosis since my mom's a doctor but i have no medical knowledge. She really likes eggs,that her favorite breakfast food. I picked the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell because It's a book we both read in english class and i think it's kinda describes who we were in high school, kind on the outside of each group of friends but making our own small outlying group.she really likes she sugar but she goes crazy if she has to much.The shirt for Sigma Phi Epsilon is from my recent trip during halloween and a memory from DC. We got the shorts after playing in the frats Wiffle ball game which was really fun and we got the nickname GDI’s (God Damn Individuals) since every group we beat were sorority teams and we were just a random group of new jersey girls. The last shirt says lake placid which is upstate New York and is the place my family spend our summers. I've gone up with maria twice already and we always have fun hiking and being in nature. All the items represent some aspect of maria from the time i've met her to right now.

Joyce - Alter

I did my alter in honor of my late Poppop. It's been three years without him now and the things that make me most happy is looking at photos of him and listening to his favorite songs. The first photos I show in the frames are some of my favorites of him and me. The top one is my ABSOLUTE favorite. The song I play in the video is called Movin' by Brass Construction. It was one of his favorite songs. Supposedly when my mom was young, he played that record everytime he got in the car. I also panned the camera to the window because my poppop partook in a lot of yard work and kept our lawn and outside of my house looking really nice. I feel he would've liked my view.

 https://youtu.be/7qKvF1_dTRo