  Hello and welcome back! It’s been months but I’m active once again. My first blog post of Grade 10 has already arrived despite feeling like I’ve hardly settled into my new routine. Today’s topic is Identity. I’ve touched lightly on the subject and idea of identity in the past, but now we’re really getting into it. For the first couple week of the new year we’ve dove straight into defining identity. Our answers vary as everyone has their own interpretation of what identity means. The dictionary defines identity as, “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.” My job in this post is to explain my understanding of identity.
  So what exactly is my idea of identity? Well when I think about my personal identity, one that is different that every other person on earth, reaching the deep stuff can be daunting. Sure, I am a soccer player, a student, a teenage girl, and so much more, but that’s just scraping the surface of my identity. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again and again, I’m only 15 and I still have so much to learn about myself. For me that means not necessarily having a clear idea of who I am. It’s different for everyone and that’s what makes the question, “Who am I,” so special. I could ask my younger brother who he is and theres a 99% chance he’d say he’s a soccer player or a Jedi but honestly that’s expected from him as he’s only 11. If I asked my dad the same question chances are he’d go on a whole journey from when he was a little kid in Ireland to when he chose to become a teacher instead of a lawyer all the way to now. Of course there is still a chance he’d say he’s a Jedi but never mind that. I think that since the older you get the more you learn about yourself, your answer to the question at hand can mature just as you have.Â
 
  In the passing weeks we’ve read multiple excerpts from novels and such as the “House on Mango Street”. In this particular reading we read about a Latina girl who described her name, Esperanza. She described it in harsh detail and in the following assignments we had to analyze why she hated her name so much and why it caused such a toll on her. It was obvious that Esperanza’s name was a huge part of her identity and it got me thinking about how much of my identity surrounds my name. It’s a lot. For reference here’s my name story assignment where I had to re-write Esperanza’s story with my own name. In doing so I was reminded of my heritage and how much I take it for granted simply because it so normalized in my head. I swear I can count maybe three times in my entire life where a substitute teacher has pronounced my name correctly on the first try. But as I explained, that’s okay, I’m used to it and it’s part of me now.
Identity is who you are. It’s your race, ethnicity, culture, sexuality, beliefs, values, appearance, career, upbringing, worldview, location, name, age, and everything else that makes you, you. Stopping to try and define it can be hard but all in all in helps you to better understand yourself. Below is a gif I made to represent some of my identity. It doesn’t seem to need much explanation but I could go deeper. I won’t though, I’d like to keep some things to myself.Â
My Gif!
Thank you for coming to this years first Ted Talk
Ciara 🙂
