Assignment 6 - Lena Ilagan

Prompt 1:If you had to create one olympic sport, what would it be, and why? How would it benefit viewers? Is it entertaining for its novelty, or its impressive showcase of strength?

Prompt 2: If you suddenly become extremely talented at something you once were mediocre or awful at, what would it be, and why?

Prompt 3: If you could bend or manipulate one element, which one would it be? Would you then use that power for good, or evil?  Why would you even chose that element in the first place?



If I were to suddenly acquire a skill I had been previously awful at doing, I would definitely choose singing.

One of my most traumatic memories of my childhood was when my mother sat me down at the kitchen table and told me I had to stop singing in the shower, because earlier that day everyone at her dinner party had heard my screeching rendition of Kelly Clarkson's Since U Been Gone.  It was right there and then my five-year-old dream of becoming a sensational popstar was crushed; gone were the visions of glitter, screaming fans, and an easy life of money and adoration.  That was but the first of my many crushed dreams, and though it was not the last, it was the most emotionally damaging. Many a night, I have pondered upon the thought of what my life could have been, had I not been tone deaf.  Maybe I could have become one of those child-singer sensations and ended up on disney channel. But life isn't fair, and God didn't bless me with the proper equipment to bring forth heavenly notes.  If there was one skill that I have never been able to master, it has been singing.

Music one of the most beautiful things on this Earth, and many times has literally been the only thing holding me onto this tangible plane of being.  With every note I listen to, I feel as if my soul climbs higher and higher into the air, floating on the breeze of gentle, yet heavy chords.  Sometimes, I feel as if I could somehow match the pitches of the notes coming through my ears.  Each time, I tell myself, "Maybe if I just feel it enough, then I can make my music sound good.  Who needs pitches when you've got soul?"

However, that thought quickly flies out the window when my parents bang on the door and ask me if I'm skinning someone alive.  Each time, I have to tell my parents with great shame that I was just listening to music, and each time, they snap to me that I need to just "sing along in my head," and that, "I'm making everyone in the neighborhood go deaf."  It is not because I want to maim my good neighbors (though, if I make everyone deaf, then I can sing all I want and no one will tell me to shut up) that I sing; I just want to feel alive through the notes, that's all.

It has been my most desired wish that I could match the ethereal pitches ringing through my ears, that I could recreate the notes playing in my ears through my humble lips, that my notes could fly through the crisp blue sky, hand in hand with those of the artists playing through my headphones.  If I were somehow granted the wish to have harmonious vocal chords, and a pair of tone-receptive ears, then I feel as if I could go miles with them.  I have the heart and soul of a great singer, but none of the mechanics to match, and that reality is a very sad one indeed.  Maybe someday they'll offer a way to switch vocal chords with others, and maybe then I can achieve my five year old dream of becoming a glittery, glitzy popstar.  But until then, I'll have to settle with deafening my neighbors with terrible renditions of even more terrible music.  If my notes can't fly through the air, I'll just have to send them in an airplane.