The Performing "I"

Photo Journal No. 3

            I am a very active person; therefore, I cataloged myself as a morning person. I try to be what I am during every moment that I have or experience, without any pretense of being what I am not. The moments that I can be myself completely are the ones where I feel very confident with my surroundings. Besides, I represent myself in a lot of ways: cooking, exercising, dancing, making people laugh, breaking rules a little bit, not doing conventional things, being very honest, talking with my heavy accent, struggling for my goals, being very strong with the thing that I should live by, loving dog and cats, and being authentic.

As human beings, we perform every time to be accepted in certain parts of the society, and then interact much better with people that is part of that circle. Daily, I perform the role of student and wife. Those are the main roles that I play with, but eventually I perform the role as a friend, daughter, sister, and neighbor. Absolutely, they have conflict between each other because I should perform each of those very different; therefore, I change my behavior in each of those roles. It creates disadvantages when I want to show really who I am, consequently I have to pretend to be or feel what I am not. In the other hand, I suppose that they support each other as well because when I should to take a role in certain situation, it helps me to get what I want, or to be involved where, or with who I desire to be with. Moreover, they interact with each other because they act simultaneously most of the time. Thus, I consider that everybody is an actor by nature.

My identity as a Gina Goff is physically defined because I was born with characteristics that evidently show my sex; female. However, my identity had also been constructed because my gender as woman makes me developed certain ways of thinking and behaving that I was not born with, and it makes me acquire what the society offers to me to develop my identity.