Haider Mahmood – Hall 1121 Spring 2019

Portfolio

1st- Is the unit 3 group assignment that me and micheal worked on about rape culture. (Link)

2nd – Is the revision for the artist essay which i revised to a personal breakthrough. (Essay)

3rd- Is a gilyard homework assignment (Paragraph)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J_so4_BnPGeGxx1W9zKyYc-ZkPOZEIMQ9kJOb8HxU6w/edit?usp=sharing

New York College Of Technology

Haider Mahmood

May 14, 2019

Dr.Carrie Hall

NBA YOUNGBOY

Coming home after one of the worst days in your life. You experienced disloyalty for the first time from someone who you did everything for. You’re in so much shock that you feel like you’re about to break but you keep your composure. You feel like you can’t trust anyone anymore so you don’t even want to talk to anyone. You do the one thing that is in your comfort zone and that is listening to music. You grab your headphones and turn on the radio, the song playing talks about the exact way you are feeling right now. you look at your phone and see your favorite artist NBA YOUNGBOY and his new song Genie. NBA Youngboy’s real name is Kentrell Gaulden but his rap name stands for NEVER BROKE AGAIN YOUNGBOY, he was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The reason why I listen to his songs a lot is because it describes certain pain that most rappers don’t show

Kentrell starts of the song by saying “Too many problems (yeah) Thinking how I’m gone solve it (yeah)” and just this one line has gotten me already hooked. While listening to this song I was at a very rough point of my life. I had multiple problems where I addicted to a drug, couldn’t really trust any of my friends, lost a lot of money into repairing car that I accidently crashed. Its situations like these you never expect yourself to be in. Everyone is there through the good times when you have the drugs they’ll take it with you and tell you it’s not bad and when you get that new car they’ll be happy to get it as long as it benefits them and they will help you spend that money as long as you spend some on them too. No one is ready to help you with your problems and therefore I was stuck in life not knowing what was the solution. Scared to end this toxic relationship with my friends just because I’ve known these guys for my whole life.

Kentrell continues the song by saying “So much pain in my body (yeah) They selling lies and I bought it (yeah)”. Which has a general meaning which meant that my friends would saying they’re my bro and they have my back through any bad point of life but whenever I was there they were never there. One of the most important lines Kentrell says that is “I been giving all my love, tell me do you feel it”. Which describes my point of view of the friendship. I would do anything to make my friends happy. If I see that they wanted something that would make them happy I would get that thing no matter what I had to do. If I see that they need financial help I would reach into my pocket with no hesitation. Situations like these happened every day and all this love I was showing meant nothing and I was never getting any love but I don’t know why I was fine with that. Part of that is because I was blind to see the fact they were using me, I guess I never really believed people like that existed.

Kentrell continues by saying “They keep begging me to change. Talked to Future the other day and he say I need to change lanes (yeah)”. I remember when I started to talk to people about what happened they told me I need to change my life. Focus more on making legal money and focusing on school more so I can have a career. I need to put all this anger into changing my life and doing something positive and that exactly what I did. I started asking god for a better life from here on because I believe that’s one of the only people who will always want the best for me. Kentrell continues by saying “Said I changed on you, but I feel that you changed on me. I say my prayers and you gon’ sow just what you reap (yeah)”. This is an important line because although I never treated people in a bad way those who treat people in a bad way will get their punishment by karma. Kentrell ends the song by saying “Don’t tell me that you love me, if you ain’t going to die for me (oh). You can stay to fuck from round me.” Which overall means if you don’t value my life then stay away from me.

In conclusion NBA Youngboy (Kentrell) is a hip hop artist who writes songs explaining his pain. His song really described my emotions from a previous situation. Nba youngboy is one of the only rappers who doesn’t rap for money, he does it for his 5 kids .

HOMEWORK

Gilyard writes in a way that would 10/10 times make me want to continue reading. Hes not afraid to make comments of his real life to impress his own readers. For example when he says “my main pursuit was money for drugs” . Just saying that shows you a raw side of him that would you wouldn’t really expect a writer to say about himself. Also in Gilyards writing his is very clear when he speaks about a time for example he would say the year and place so people can really picture what he seen. Reading this shows me some tips on how I can really hook my reader and make my essays more interesting.

Me As A Writer

Haider Mahmood

English 1121

Dr. Carrie Hall

May 21, 2019

Improvement

How have I grown as a writer? The teachers always talking, you read long articles and have to write long essays! Who would love writing. At first I joined this English course because it was required. I was not even looking to improve I just wanted my college credit and wanted to get out. I’ve seen my professor Carrie Hall try so hard to get us to improve and I just couldn’t find the point. But because I see her dedication to get us to improve I started caring less about my grade and more on doing my part of the class which was trying. I realized I wasn’t give this class my full attention and just kind of get out of a bad vibe. Knowing myself I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy this class because I just hate school in general. I hate the whole concept of school because it teaches you nothing about the real world. But this wasn’t any class, it was Carrie Halls.

The second we were both dedicated I wanted to figure out what was the point? I soon realized by writing , whether it was my journal , homework or essays. My writing has changed because I’ve stopped looking at it as an assignment. When you are told to do something you just do it in school and never really ask yourself what’s the point of this. I feel like over this semester instead of writing this assignment for my professor I wrote it like I’ve been writing for my friends which made my essay more interesting to read and write. I’ve changed my whole mentality of writing assignments from hating to write them to getting better to understand the concept of them, which was to entertain or show people a piece of how you think.

When writing and focusing on improving even with the help of you teacher you can’t really be good at everything. Although I started to love writing and getting to know how to write, I was good at things but I was also bad at things. The reason why I was so bad at essay is because I would go home and open my laptop and get stuck on the introduction. How do I even start an essay? I thought the point of the introduction is to tell people what you’re going to be talking about and so I would ask questions. Like if I was talking about hotdogs in my essay I would ask questions the reader would never know of the top of their head. For example do you know where hotdogs come from? I would think this is the type of things that would get the reader interested but honestly it just pissed them off. Until one day in class Dr.Carrie Hall makes us do an assignment where we think of a time in our life and write down our surroundings. With that information we create an intense scene which would get the reader hooked. One thing I’ve been really bad at is conclusion. I was told as a kid in conclusion just rewrite what you wrote about. I was so happy about that because when you get to the conclusion you just want to finish as fast as possible.

Now I no longer have a hatred for writing. In my free time I continue to write in my personal journal. No matter what it’s about, sometimes I write about my day. I write what I did in my day and what I wanted to do. I write about story’s that I make up from my head. For example I just created a story about a crazy race driver who does anything he can to win races. Writing has only made my life better because I can finally take my thoughts and write them on paper. I used to write down my goals on how I can become a better person today and in years to come. Most importantly writing has taught me to take risks. Writing in general was a risk for me because I was getting out of my comfort zone. I was writing my personal thoughts and didn’t know who would be reading it. Also I would ask questions that I wasn’t really confident in asking. Scared to be judged on the type of question I asked, whether someone would just say “ that’s a stupid question”. That one of my biggest fears when I comes to writing because it’s just a confident killer.

So this is me as a writer. I have improved myself in ways I couldn’t even imagine years ago. I’ve started to accept writing is a part of me just like brushing my teeth. Writing in my journal has helped me write my thought on paper easier because there a people who love to read your writings and support

Unit 4

New York College Of Technology

Haider Mahmood

May 14, 2019

Dr.Carrie Hall

NBA YOUNGBOY

Revising

I am revising the artist essay because I feel like that wasn’t the best essay. I decided to rewrite it for the audience of complex, which has a audience of highschool students and college students because those are the people who mostly like to the artist NBA YOUNGBOY. I would change this essay from a written essay to a video one like we watched in class because the video told us a lot about kendrick lamar and the actual meaning of his song videos. I would want to include the most important parts of his life and the most important accomplishments. Then describe the meaning of things in his songs that stand out.

NBA YOUNGBOY

Haider Mahmood

Dr.Carrie Hall

March 26, 2019

English 1121

NBA YOUNGBOY is a rapper from Baton Rouge, who real name is Kentrell Gaulden. Youngboy is a 19 years old and he is averaging the most views on YouTube. One of his most famous songs is Genie. The reason why people listen to that song a lot is because it describes certain pain that most rappers don’t show. Youngboy grew up poor and doesn’t really care about money. He wants to make sure that all 4 of his sons have enough to live their life.

Youngboy starts of by expressing he doesn’t care about anything and on this song he is going to say everything on his mind. NBA Youngboy is known for his violent activities as there is multiple videos show online of him fighting people and getting in altercations. Some of Youngboy’s song are about him doing violent things that are proven. Youngboy continues the song by saying “to may problems, thinking how I’m going to solve them, so much pain in my body, they selling lies and I bought it”. This is one line most people can relate to because everyone has believed a lie and been taken advantage of. We all been at a point where we had a life problem with no idea of a solution. Youngboy continues the song by throwing a shot at his ex, Jania. Youngboy says “saying you would never leave how can you just lie to me, get from your knees you aint gotta cry to me”. Jania is known for being the one who gave Youngboy herpes. She cheated oN him with a rapper named Gee Money who she got the herpes from and then gave to Youngboy. Jania was a person Youngboy trusted and to betray that trust really shows that you have to watch out for these females. Youngboy continues the song by saying “I’ve been giving you all my love do you feel it, never learned how to trust sittin in penitentiary, all for you I take a slug baby who the realist, had to tell her I’m a genie I can answer wishes”. NBA Youngboy has been to jail for years and currently has cases pending against him. This line is basically Youngboy saying that if he ends up trusting and loving you then he will give you anything you want. Youngboy continues by saying “I got my static when you ridin with me, we get pulled over know you ain’t gon no time for me, I put my hands up police drew down on me, so many charges make me want to go way oversea”. This is an important line because Youngboy is saying how loyal he wants his female to be to the point where she is willing to go to jail for him. Also he is saying how he is tired of his criminal charges that it just makes him want to go to another country where he has a clean slate. Youngboy has been to jail many times for having weed on him, having a gun on him and assaulting someone. So the next line is “Reminiscing ’bout them days I was sittin’ up in that cage. I was begging you to stay and you hung up in my face.” This is a very rare side of youngboy because there are multiple videos online where youngboy states that he doesn’t need anyone or never will, so for him to actually beg a girl to not leave him while he’s in jail is rare and obviously it hurt him because she hung up on him and he put it in the song. “I been rolling through the streets and been clutching on my heat. I put blood all on my feet and I put cameras in my trees (baby)” this is a very important line because this is when his girlfriend gave him herpes and he ended up killing the guy who gave it to her. Most of the rappers don’t really write about the things they actually do but it is confirmed that Gee Money was shot and killed after the truth of the herpes came out. Youngboy continues by saying “I been taking Adderall mixing it with lean (mixin’ it wit lean).Hope I don’t wake up out my sleep.” This is a very depressing line because you don’t drink lean while taking other drugs. Especially Adderall because they drugs have opposite side effects. Mixing these drugs shows that Youngboy is hurt and doesn’t even want to live anymore. Youngboys lyrics show you inside of his mind and emotions, as you can see herpes has youngboy suicidal. As the song ends youngboy says “Been in love never help me solve my problems (my problems).I wish that I could find a girl just like my momma..” which shows you the women youngboy loves are the one who care about him and love him just like his mom. The last lines says “I don’t wanna hurt nobody, but still ride around with that chopper (yeah).Zoe life to the end, tell them free the main sniper (tell ’em free Kodak). Which shows you a different side of youngboy where he isn’t violent but can be and Kodak gives a shoutout to his friend Kodak Black who was in jail.

NBA YOUNGBOY – GENIE

NBA YOUNGBOY is a rapper from Baton Rouge, Louisiana who is currently the rapper who is averaging the most views on YouTube. One of his most famous songs is Genie. The reason why people listen to that song a lot is because it describes certain pain that most rappers don’t show. Youngboy starts of by expressing he doesn’t care about anything and on this song he is going to say everything on his mind. NBA Youngboy is known for his violent activities as there is multiple videos show online of him fighting people and getting in altercations. Some of Youngboy’s song are about him doing violent things that are proven. Youngboy continues the song by saying “to may problems, thinking how I’m going to solve them, so much pain in my body, they selling lies and I bought it”. This is one line most people can relate to because everyone has believed a lie and been taken advantage of. We all been at a point where we had a life problem with no idea of a solution. Youngboy continues the song by throwing a shot at his ex, Jania. Youngboy says “saying you would never leave how can you just lie to me, get from your knees you aint gotta cry to me”. Jania is known for being the one who gave Youngboy herpes. She cheated oN him with a rapper named Gee Money who she got the herpes from and then gave to Youngboy. Jania was a person Youngboy trusted and to betray that trust really shows that you have to watch out for these females. Youngboy continues the song by saying “I’ve been giving you all my love do you feel it, never learned how to trust sittin in penitentiary, all for you I take a slug baby who the realist, had to tell her I’m a genie I can answer wishes”. NBA Youngboy has been to jail for years and currently has cases pending against him. This line is basically Youngboy saying that if he ends up trusting and loving you then he will give you anything you want. Youngboy continues by saying “I got my static when you ridin with me, we get pulled over know you ain’t gon no time for me, I put my hands up police drew down on me, so many charges make me want to go way oversea”. This is an important line because Youngboy is saying how loyal he wants his female to be to the point where she is willing to go to jail for him. Also he is saying how he is tired of his criminal charges that it just makes him want to go to another country where he has a clean slate.

LEMONADE

Reading bell hook bought up one main question. what do women go through? not just african american women but just women in general. if beyonce has to make song to shine some light on women enpowerment that means we are not doing something right in this world. lemonade was something girls used to sell and often get the saying “get your money straight . Meaning women can earn just like men and take care of themselves. I think beyonce was making a reference to remind everyone that females have power. It says beyonce “wreaks violence”. I don’t agree with that brcaise in the music video I don’t think she wasn’t showing that much violence and wasn’t promoting it either . Bell hooks states that Beyoncé’s “feminism can’t be trusted “. Which throws me off because am I supposed to believe beyonce or the author . It feels confusing about reading a article where the author dosent trust the person she’s writing about.

Its Time to Upgrade School

SCHOOL IS HARD! NO MATTER WHAT TEACHERS, PARENTS OR SIBLINGS SAY. THEY DONT KNOW HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT SCHOOL. LEARNING CAN BE MUCH HARDER FOR YOU THEN IT WAS FOR THEM. I BELIEVE SCHOOL SHOULD BE UPGRADED JUST LIKE THE IPHONE. EVERY YEAR THEY CHANGE IT AND MAKE IT BETTER FOR STUDENTS TO LEARN AND PASS THEIR CLASSES. FOR EXAMPLE STARTING WITH HIGHSCHOOL ATTENDANCE WOULD REALLY HAVE TO MUCH NEGATIVE AFFECT ON YOUR GRADES. HIGHSCHOOL SHOULD BE ALL ABOUT GETTING TO KNOW WHAT LIFE IS ABOUT. HIGHSCHOOL SHOULD TEACH YOU ALL ABOUT LIFE PROBLEMS YOU MIGHT FACE AND SOLUTIONS TO ALWAYS REMEBER. THEY SHOULD TEACH YOU ABOUT CREDIT AND DEBIT CARDS, HOW TO SAVE MONEY AND INVEST IT SO YOU CAN MAYBE MAKE MONEY OFF OF THAT. THEN COMES COLLEGE WHERE I BELIEVE THAT WE SHOULD TAKE CLASSES OF ALL THE BASIC SUBJECTS. BUT THE THING ABOUT COLLEGE WHICH IS TOO HARD IS THE MIDTERM AND FINALS. WHEN PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD HAVE CHILDREN SUICIDING THEN YOU KNOW SOMETHING IS WRONG. I BELIEVE THAT INSTEAD OF MIDTERMS AND FINALS COLLEGE SHOULD SPLIT IT INTO 4 TESTS THAT THEY GIVE THROUGHOUT THE SEMESTER. NOW THAT YOU KNOW THE BASIC SUBJECTS AND KNOW ABOUT HOW TO SOLVE LIFE PROBLEMS ITS TIME TO ACTUALLY GO OUT THERE AND EXPERIENCE THEM.

Fuck School

Haider Mahmood

Dr. Carrie Hall

English 1121

February 7, 2019

Personal Breakthrough

I am in my high school auditorium having a good time with my friends. Its 1:30 because I usually skip this US government because if I go I end up falling asleep anyway. If you deeply inhale you can smell the pizza the school has been serving every Friday for the last 50 years. I feel comfortable and happy that I’m hanging with my friend but at the same time I feel guilty for not going to class. I look around and see multiple people crossing through the auditorium wearing the gym outfit trying to get to the C-Gym. Then there’s those multiple group of friends just like us who didn’t feel like going to class.

Why is class so important to me? Why would I feel guilty if I’ve been skipping classes for the last 3 years of my high school? Because this year its graduation. If I pass my classes I get to go to graduation and if I fail I would have to do another semester in high school. Even though I never was interested in going to graduation I still knew inside me that it was a once in a lifetime moment. So why was I not going to class. For two reasons one because I had a bad group of friends around me and the second being my accent.

The reason I hung out with these people is because even though they were a bad influence they were just like me. We all would be going through the something like a problem in life and we could count of each. We all would skip a classis and at the same time and meet and in the auditorium and talk about it. The best part is we didn’t judge each other, and we always helped each other find solutions. The reason we would have skip class is because all of us got out of school at different times and none of us had lunch senior year.

Growing up with my mom teaching me Urdu and only speaking to me in Urdu confused me in a lot in middle school a lot. When I went to school and where we spoke English transitioning from my Urdu to English I developed an accent. Even though I could perfectly understand people in English, when I tried to reply they couldn’t understand me. This limited my ability to speak a lot with my friends, I couldn’t communicate as much and couldn’t participate in activities. The reason I’m telling you this is because in high school I didn’t have a heavy accent, but the point was that even when you don’t have the accent no more it’s the fact that having it makes you uncomfortable at times.

What was the point of coming to school? What’s the best way to make money if I leave? What can I do to change my habits? What can I do to boost my confidence? Questions I would ask myself every day. It wasn’t until I realized that life was all about evolving, becoming a better version of yourself. At the second I decided it was time for me to change everything. I met up with all my friends and everything I wanted to do just left my mind. It went back to just having fun in life. As much as I wanted to do good in school I also wanted to have fun. I have this mentality if something isn’t fun I really don’t want to do it. I realized before I tell my friends I must change my mindset. It took a week to see that I really wouldn’t be something in life if I didn’t graduate. I went to my friends and told them we should start going to class.

I finally had enough courage to say those magic words. They looked at me and asked what happened. I told them everything I started thinking of for example we would have no careers and be making no real money in life. I started to convince them all to class too. Now that I started going to all my classes my only problem left was my accent. I asked everyone I knew what I could do about that and they said just practice. So, every day I would go to an English tutor that would teach me a bunch of new words and then I would go home finish homework asap to practice my words and that really helped because by the end of high school my accent started fading away. As classes end I got my report card and going to class really paid off because I didn’t fail any. Summer came, and I did the same thing every day I would practice my words.

In conclusion working hard in life really pays off. changing your mentality can really get you somewhere in life. If you want to accomplish something, then you must put everything you got into it. its good if you change your bad habits but even better if you change your friends too. To succeed together is the best feeling knowing all of you made.

Your marginal comments are HERE. Your grade and my endnote are in the comments.

Personal Breakthrough

Haider Mahmood

Dr.Carrie Hall

English 1121

February 7, 2019

Personal Breakthrough

The reason I hung out with these people is because even through they were a bad influence they were just like me. We all would be going through the something and we could count of each. We all would skip a classis and at the same time and meet and in the auditorium and talk about it. The best part is we didn’t judge each other, and we always helped each other find solutions. The reason we would have skip class is because all of us got out of school at different times and none of us had lunch senior year.

What was the point of coming to school? What’s the best way to make money if I leave? What can I do to change my habits? What can I do to boost my confidence? Questions I would ask myself everyday.

Author: Haider Mahmood

Portfolio

Me As A Writer

Unit 4

Revising

NBA YOUNGBOY

NBA YOUNGBOY – GENIE

LEMONADE

Its Time to Upgrade School

Fuck School

Personal Breakthrough

The OpenLab at City Tech:A place to learn, work, and share

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The OpenLab at City Tech:A place to learn, work, and share

Support

Accessibility

Copyright

Creative Commons