I begin my day waking up at 5am in the morning. I take a quick shower. If I do anything with my hair on a school day, at most it would be blow drying it. I put on a light layer of lip liner and minimal amount of eyeliner. I put my glasses on and throw on my signature hat and rush out the door. I drive to the train station. When I board the train, it is fairly empty. This is my daily routine Mondays-Fridays. I will be in Albuquerque until 4:26pm.

While on the train, I usually work on homework assignments. This day I was reading the Earth System by Kump.

 As part of this identity project, I brought a black wig and semi-gothic attire.  There is a Skinny Puppy show I am going to later in the night. I use this opportunity to play with the invention of a different physical identity. 

I arrive in downtown Albuquerque. There is a mix of people who take the 5am train. Most of them are going to work or school. We all set on our way when the train stops with purpose. 

My daily routine is indicative of what I do and also of my economic status. These factors will have big influences and undertones of the things that shape who I am. Once I get off the bus, I stop to get a light breakfast at Frontier. I do not like eating this early. I force myself to eat. I have hash browns and fresh squeezed orange juice for under $5.

As the day goes on, I meet up with two of my friends, Leonard and Chauncey, and we eat at Annapurna. After we are done eating, Leonard and I do some physics equations from our weekly assignments. This goes on for 2-3 hours. I receive a text from my mother that is a photo of my son. He is at daycare playing with a canary with his friends and he looks so happy. I wish I could be there sharing that moment with him, but as a single mother, this isn't a realistic option for me, so I can continue to do math equations.

Throughout the day I check my Facebook, study, and wander around the UNM area. This particular day I was inundated with both calculus 2 and physics homework. The main CAPS area I had been studying at, had closed. They reopened again at 6pm in the sub and I returned for more tutoring. I didn't leave the campus until around 6:30. I had been on campus for almost 12 hours. I still had the event I was going to go. I hopped back on the nearly deserted bus and headed back to the downtown area. At this point, being home sounded nice. I paid $30 for the ticket a month ago and I knew I would kick myself for missing one of my favorite bands. I also realized how crazy I am for even having such an exhausting day like this.

Once I reached the ABQ downtown station I could immediately tell that by the time of day the mood had completely changed there. Security was more relaxed, people were doing their thing, and a couple was walking hand in hand in the emptying downtown bus and train station. I was heading to my friend's apartment in the downtown area. I am tired and look exhausted. My hair is a mess and I look frumpy.  At this point, identity is the last thing on my mind and I just want to sit down and drop off all the stuff I am carrying.

Once I get to Rosie's, I immediately begin to get ready because we are running out of time. I never seem to have enough time in the day with 16 credit hours this semester or in general. I put on a black wig and black lipstick and dress into black clothing. If you would have seen me on the street earlier that day, I would be difficult to recognize now. This makes me feel comfortable. I enjoy not being recognized and it makes me feel free from other people's expectations or story lines of me. I welcome getting lost in a crowd of similar looking people and just relaxing for a bit.

We arrive at the show. My friend and I joke about these wigs and alternate looks and call it "false advertisement." I choose not to limit myself by what I am interested in and as a result my "identity" is very malleable, like a chameleon changing its skin, I am constantly changing my physical appearance. For as long as I can remember, it has always been this way. I just have a sense of how brief life is and I want to get as much out of this lifetime as possible. However, with this project, I get to take it to a whole other level and really deviate from what I normally look like.

My school days are completely different from my weekdays. I sleep in late, which is around 8 or 9am. When I wake up, I spend time with my son, Eason and just relax. After having such a crazy Monday through Friday schedule, I am not motivated to do much. My face has come down from major swelling that occurred on Wednesday from an acute allergic reaction. This random experience had a huge impact on this project. When my face was swelled I got mixed reactions from people. Some people were kinder to me while others gave me a wide eyed and weirded out looks. Having people react like this to my appearance as well as having my face go numb was a strange experience. For a long time I didn't want to look at my face in the mirror.  I was definitely treated different looking this way. This photo was taken the day after the reaction. I am wearing no makeup and wanted to emphasis the idea of how naked I feel without having makeup, clothes, accessories, to cover myself in. I remember when I took it I felt ugly and embarrassed. But, it felt important to just take a photo of me without my usual magic tricks and just deal with the discomfort.

The next identity change was for the Winter Goth Ball at Sister. For this I wore a green wig, did elaborate makeup, and was intentionally trying to look more feminine. I usually dress fairly tom boyish, so I wanted to see how reactions would differ from the norm. There was definitely a dramatic difference. Who knew long hair and makeup could gain you a lot of positive attention? Apparently, the majority of long haired makeup ladies out there strutting their stuff. I felt like I was in drag. The weirder thing about it, is that I knew this was false advertisement and how disappointed people would be if they knew what I really looked like. However, the hilarity of fun of the situation won over any insecurities I may have had and I just went it. It's amazing how long hair can give me so much sass with the combination of energy being directed my way. I am not use to that. 

These photos are of me and my friend Rosie.  While dressed like this there was definitely an identity transformation. I received a great amount of attention, which is generally not the case with my usual default look. From beginning to end, I would say our identities play a huge role in how people treat us. There are many people who try to treat people equally, but I think all of us are guilty of this kind of selective treatment, including me (although I try not to). I often wondered why people could be so mean to others because of the way they look. I think its important to treat people based on their personality and the beauty that is within them opposed to what is perceived on the exterior. Yet, I see so many attractive, mean, and stuck up people receive endless amounts of attention while others are ignored despite their good qualities. I feel like I personally can shift from being "unattractive" to "attractive", but I play with this idea to see how people will treat me.  I have no idea if anything has been expressed in this project. I do believe that if I had an identity it revolves around a changing physical appearance for various personal reasons. The conclusion I came to is that appearance does play an extremely important role in our society and its no wonder why people gobble up junk food like US weekly or Vogue. We love our eye candy. What worries me is that some of us don't like our content to have quality. Are we turning into a culture of superficial and issue avoident people? I know that when I post about animal or human rights issues or concerns about our government, I am ignored like a crazy. Those posts get 0-4 likes. When I posted the photo of me with the green hair, I received 70 likes in two days. Which ideas are being supported with that kind of feedback? In what are putting more value into?