My passion for my cultural music is unmatched. The Dominican Republic is home to a diverse musical culture that derives from Spanish, African and indigenous Taino musical influences. Some of the musical genres include guitar music, traditional merengue, bachata and son.

  Around age six, I remember being obligated to dance with my neighbor and feeling embarrassed due to not knowing what she was doing. I wasn’t able to follow her or keep the rhythm. At the time, I couldn’t explain how I knew I was dancing horrible, but I had a feeling I wasn’t doing it right. I took that opportunity to ask my mother to explain and to teach me how to dance. My love and appreciation for culture comes from my mother. My mother always took time to teach me about our cultural foods, music, dance, dialect, etc. So you can just imagine the excitement she had for teaching me to dance.

  She claims I always had rhythm and was easy to teach. She had taught me merengue and bachata that day. I recall my mother saying, “Merengue is the easiest to remember, pretend you’re a solider and just march. Now add hips and loosen up.”

   Merengue is very important in my family. My dad and his band were a major influence in the 1980s. He incorporated jazz and soul to some of his music and introduced it to Latin music. My favorite example is slap bass, which was included in the song, “Tu Besos” (1985). He traveled all over the world and reminds me daily how music changed our life for the better.

It’s safe to say technology has improved people’s lives to the point that we now depend on it. Technology has been embedded in our everyday lives. We use it for safety measures, for cooking, for preserving, in healthcare, in researching, transportation, communication, etc. So why can’t it also be the way in which we express modern art?

In my opinion, memes are a great way to visually communicate with others. Memes can help you with storytelling. You can choose from a variety to help you explain the feeling you’re trying to convey. In traditional writing you would have to use at least three senses to describe something in depth. However, with today’s generation, people tend to take short cuts. The saying,“One picture is worth a thousand words” was made for modern society.

Other than self-expression I do think memes help us remember certain events. What are memes? Essentially, memes are images and videos that are taken with text added (usually humorous). Some events that are used in memes more memorable than others which are marked in meme history and reused for social amusement.

The first day of CT101, I automatically assumed how easy it would be as a result of my love for writing. I assumed it was more fiction story telling verses making your own web page, creating links and GIFs.

However, I did like hearing about the course and its creative content. I love how creative writing is being introduced in a more modern way with pictures, videos and GIFs. I’m excited to learn how to use certain tools to introduce in my writing. Hopefully with this class I can have the potential to better my blogging and hopefully make my own webpage.

If I could compare it to my other classes, I would say it’s definitely geared to modern technology and how we view today’s art form. It’s an updated version of illustrations to express our views of the world.

Recently I have been binge watching the show “Love is Blind.” The show is a social experiment where single men and women look for love and get engaged, without ever meeting in person. The couples talk through a wall and are not allowed to see each other or describe themselves. Once the man or woman feels as if they’re ready, he/she will then propose and finally see his or her fiancé face to face. Each season premieres episodes on Netflix over the course of 3 or 4 weeks and then followed by a reunion special.

I find myself constantly watching TikToks and Instagram videos of fans reacting to the shows. I find it entertaining when people/fans imitate the cast members and their decisions. People will also mock cast members, investigate cast members lives to see what they are up to. As crazy and intense as it sounds, it’s pretty entertaining to see someone’s dramatic love life; and if you know me, you know I live for the drama.