9 - Blu M: On My Own

When I was younger, I was often called mature and an “old soul” by adults who knew me. Teachers, my mom's colleagues, grandpas golf buddies, and family of course. Everyone was impressed by my grown nature at such a young age. I thought it was cool and played it off naturally. In fact, around the ages of 5-8, I didn’t really understand what these grown ups were going for. But after years have passed, I’ve finally realized why I was so mature! I glorified my independence.

As many know, I am an only child raised by a single mother. Of course, my other family members were there to raise me, but because their lifestyle differed from mine so greatly at times, I learned how to get things done in my own. I didn’t know anybody my age prior to school, and I didn’t get to know my classmates the best. So in order to entertain myself, I would take things into my own action. Watching tutorials on how to draw, pushing myself to be successful in school with many independent programs, and more. I love the sense of being able to do things all by myself, like I was a “big girl!”. 

Things were great, but that doesn’t mean there was any negative. Being so independent from a young age, I lost out on so many opportunities of experiencing true youth. Now, let me explain; of course I did childish things like watching cartoons, running around on the grass, playing on play structures, you name it. I just wasn’t able to experience these to their full potential. My brain developed to be self reliant, resulting in me not having fun with people my age. Every recess at school, I’d basically be all alone (for several years at least), trying to enjoy my time. And I did, but without anyone else.

I wouldn’t say I regret becoming independent so soon, but I wish I got to experience more when I was little. Of course, I can’t take a Time Machine back, but if I could even for a day I would. Just so I can experience that carefree youth. Just so I could have some wholesome fun. Just so I can be free. Just so I can forget about being independent for a few minutes.

Independence is great, but don’t rush into it too soon. Trust me on that one.

Word Count: 400

9 - Grace B. The Journey

    Stairs to others may seem like an awful amount of work to get to a destination. Why would anyone possibly like to take stairs when there is an escalator not too far away? Well let me share some wisdom with you, stairs are fun. You can run up them and get on your bottom and slide right back down. You can skip steps and set challenges for yourself. Or you can simply walk up the stairs, and think or maybe have a conversation with the person next to you. This moment will last longer than it would have if you had gone another way. 

    Personally, I’m a stair walker. I enjoy the journey it takes to get to my ultimate destination. I enjoy taking in the moment and having the opportunity to make it last longer. I enjoy the small conversations and the challenges of “who could do it better.” I enjoy the panting at the end of a long staircase joking with someone about how I should probably “hit the gym.” The process of getting there is just as exciting as reaching the end.

    Now applying this to life, I still try to be that stair walker. I try to enjoy the journey. There are times when the journey is too difficult to overcome and you want to hop on that escalator, but the hard times are what makes me stronger. If I get too busy looking at my potential and worrying about where I’ll be 5 years ahead, I’ll miss the greatness right in front of me. The struggles are what you talk about and what you remember once you reach your success. 

    So walk up that staircase. Keep going, your legs may hurt and you're out of breath, but take in the moment. Make a positive outlook on it. Enjoy the journey. 

305

Tyler B. 9- Then Vs. Now

 

As a kid I watched a lot of tv, because when no one wanted to hang out with me what else was I going to do? Therefore I found a love for a lot of characters in the shows I watched, and I want to go through some of them and explain how my love of them has changed as I’ve gotten older. Lets start with a series that most people know, Star Wars, but not the movies or the Disney Plus shows (obviously) but it’s one cartoon show made by Cartoon Network, that being Start Wars the Clone Wars: The Animated Series. The show follows the Jedi, mainly Anakin and Obi-Wan, but I’m not going to talk about either of them, yes the show helps develop both of their characters, with Anakin with emotional conflicts that the Jedi claim he should not have, and how the show reinforces Obi-Wans commitment to the order by showing us he was in love and had the chance to run away with his said lover, but chose not to, staying true to the Jedi order. But one of my favorite characters from this show is a person they chose to bring back after 9 years of everyone think him dead, Darth Maul, or just Maul by the time we see him, as a kid I just liked him because his design was cool, his new robot legs were cool and he had a cool voice. But as I have gotten older, I have realized that Maul was a complex character whose life was driven by revenge and abandonment, wanting to kill The Emperor for leaving him for dead and later killing his brother, and hunting down Obi-Wan for cutting him in half by killing Obi-Wans once lover but eventually dying at Obi-Wans hands. Plus, after the release of the final season, and his fight scene with Ashoka on Mandalore, he’s just very cool.

Moving on to a very different character, Marceline from Adventure Time was hands down my favorite character in the whole show, as a kid it was because she was a vampire and a musician, and I also used to think that her character existed to make Princess Bubblegum jealous of her relationship with Finn. But now that I’m older and more educated on things, and after spending around 3-4 months binge watching the whole show during quarantine, I have grown a new love for her character. Now, I like her for her surprisingly complex backstory, which is littered with reoccurring events of abandonment, making her more closed off when we first meet her, and how her relationship with Bubblegum changes over the series, with hints to their ex-romantic relationship changing to a confusing friendship, then coming back around and getting together again. I also still like her because she’s a vampire and a musician, and a lot of her music in the show is very good, if only her songs weren’t so short or always getting cut off, plus vampires are my favorite kind of monster.

I could go on forever about characters I loved as a kid and still love now, Ash from Pokemon, or Soka and Zuko from Avatar The Last Airbender, I could go on forever about this. But as this is already getting too long I’ll leave it off here, for now at least.  

Word count: 558

Tyler B. 8-Alexis Rose and how she inspired me

 

Alexis Rose is a character in the show Schitts Creek, were a rich family has all their money and assets stolen and have to move to the small and dingey little town of Schitts Creek, but this town ends up changing them for the better, it takes these 4 rich idiots and turns them into people who learn to care and function as normal people in the normal world. Alexis Rose is the younger of the 2 siblings, she lived her life the way she wanted, she dropped out of high school traveled everywhere with random people, she dated random people, there are multiple incidents were she brings up something about going to Mexico and getting kiddnapped and her parents having no clue this happened. But I’m here to talk about how Schitts Creek changed her and turned her into a character that I admire and look up to. She starts out as a very childish person, who by the end of the first season, manages to get engaged to someone she doesn’t (at the moment) have a thing for and proceeds to cheat on him with someone else. So she is kind of a bad person, and does some dumb things, but she gets better.

She goes back to high school and graduates, then to community college and starts her own social management business. She even grows in a romantic way, learning how to have a healthy relationship and when to admit she made a mistake. In the end of the show, Alexis plans to move to New York with her brother, David, but after finding out that he’s staying in Schitts Creek, she decides to go to New York on her own. This to me shows huge growth, comparing her at the start and end of the show you really see how much she grows, at the start her longest relationship was probably 3 weeks with some random DJ guy, but by the end the only thing that makes her end her relationship with her boyfriend is when she realizes that, with him going to an island to study bugs for 6 months, she realizes that their relationship is stopping him from following his dreams. And so by doing what is probably the most selfless thing she does in the show, her and her boyfriend agree to break up together. Back to her going to New York on her own, at the start of the she absolutely would have either begged her brother to come with her or go to Cali and live with her parents. But by the end, she has grown and become more adult than she’s ever been, so she makes the adult decison to go out and make it on her own, by herself, for the first time.

Alexis Rose has greatly inspired me, her growth seems greater than the rest of the Rose family. She is proof that people can go back to school and still succeed. She starts her own business, thus proving more so that people that can achieve anything if they work hard and push through. She is one of the few characters that have truely affected me, she inspired me so much that she is the inspiration for my name change after I transition in the future, and she is someone that I want to be like, independent, proud, and understanding by the end of the show. That is someone I want to be like, truly.

9 - Lilly T.: Let Me Sleep

 

Sleep is something that a lot of teenagers, like me, lack. In his TEDTalk, Matt Walker talks about 6 tips that will help you get better sleep. I agree with his tips for the most part.

 

The first two tips he talks about are regularity and temperature, which I completely agree with. My regular sleep schedule is from 12-1 A.M. to 7 A.M. It’s not the best sleep schedule, but it works. The second tip, room temperature, varies from person to person. For me, I like to sleep while my room is cold. Others may like to go to sleep when their room is warmer. 

The next two tips are darkness and to walk it out. These two tips can vary greatly from person to person. Personally, I can sleep anywhere and anywhere if I’m tired enough. This would be the majority of the time. ‘Walking it out’ to wake up is something that I can relate to a lot because I like sleeping in on the weekends, but when I do that I feel more tired throughout the day. I’m sure I’m not the only one with this problem. 

Lastly, the fifth and sixth tips are all about what you consume before sleeping and how you go to sleep. The fifth tip is quite an obvious one, as you shouldn’t be consuming anything right before you sleep, anyways. Specifically caffeine or alcohol, but caffeine doesn’t have any effect on me in small amounts and it’s illegal for me to consume alcohol. How a person goes to sleep is the real question here. Some people like to do activities to make themselves tired before sleeping, while others relax to fall asleep. I tend to do my homework late at night, and that’s what makes me sleepy.

If you don’t have a sleep schedule, I highly encourage you to do so. I used to have a really bad sleep schedule, but now that I sort of have one I feel a little less tired than I was previously. Sleep well, and let the bedbugs bite. That was a joke. Word Count: 346

9. Kaiyue Li - Changes Starts Today

We've all had moments late at night where we laid upside down in our beds, wondering how different our lives could be if we have done things another way. Maybe it was a past argument you wish you had better comebacks to, or a relationship that wasted your time, we just never seem to be satisfied with where we are currently.

Our lives are ongoing stories in which every one of us is the main character. Unfortunately, we can’t hit a rewind button and start over. There are chapters in the past that we simply can’t change. They may include rejection, sorrow, and pain. Those chapters do not determine how your story ends, or who you are as a person. The ending has a lot to do with your choices today.

There's nothing you can do now to change what has already happened. If you spend the majority of your time worrying about it, you'll lose sight of the present. Does it mean that you should forget about your past? No, but you need to learn from the mistakes which you have committed and make sure that they are not repeated. Humans don’t have the power to reverse our lives. It's not under your control but what you can control is this very moment, and the years ahead of you.  

The pen is in your hand, make sure you write the end that you want. Just remember "you can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start now and change the end", and it's never too late to start striving for your goal.

wc - 265

9 - Alejandro M: Humans and Mistakes

 

Let’s say that we are little kids again. You did something bad, like maybe hit your younger sibling. We get scolded by our parents and now what’s the next thing we do? We probably behave for a while until your parents forgive you, and then you go back to being a little kid again. This is just an analogy for times where a person starts where they are and changes the ending. It’s a very toned-down version of the quote “You can’t go back and change the beginning. But you can start where you are and change the ending.” but it works and helps you get an idea of what the quote means.

We are humans. Everybody makes mistakes and everyone regrets things they’ve done in the past. We made the mistake of not making too many friends or making too many friends. We made the mistake of not studying too hard for school or studying way too hard for school. We made the mistake of not having fun in your childhood or having a little too much fun. We made the mistake of not being with certain people or being with certain unpleasant people.

But those things are in the past. You can’t go back. Those things have been done and the only thing you can do now is do what's best from there. Learning from mistakes, moving on, and improving is the best thing you can do once those mistakes have been made. Don’t hurt yourself even more for something you have already done and can’t change. The best thing to do is just do what’s best for you in the future after you’ve committed your mistakes. You’ll feel so much better if you change the ending to something that you wanted to, and not something that you never gave your best effort towards.

Word Count: 307

9-Krishna C- Changes

“You can’t go back and change the beginning.  But you can start where you are and change the ending.”

    The way I interpret this quote is that no matter where you are in life, in your mind, or socially  it is never too late to better yourself or your situations.

     I 100% agree with this quote because I believe that most of the time it doesn't matter where you start, the only important part is that you start somewhere .

     Although waiting till later will only make the process harder, this usually leads to many people giving up because they don't get the instant gratification. Although the process may be harder later down the road if you are able to make the decision to do better at whatever your goal is it will be much more rewarding because you have seen your personal growth and as you get older you are able to appreciate your hard work better.   

    Starting a change is only half the battle though, it is easy to start something new but it is much harder to consistently go through with it. I believe that that is where you will have to look inward for gratification, because when you don't see changes, or get burnt out, or just want to quit, getting over that hump will only feel good to you. 

My point is to stop looking at the past and asking why and make the change today, and that you might not get the results you want immediately but it is very important to stick to the process and stay consistent because that is the only way true change can be made. 

WC-256

9 - Lucas V: A Very Nostalgic Series

 

       Back in the day I really liked an anime called Beyblade. I used to watch it every day after school and also play with the physical toy while watching. This series was called Beyblade Metal Fusion and it is one of the best series from the franchise. The next series with the same characters is called Metal Masters which was a little bit boring since most of the episodes were tournament-type battles, whereas the Metal Fusion had a better story that had included a villain. The toys themselves were pretty good. The series ended unfortunately because the viewers were declining. The thing with the shows was that there were sometimes humorous scenes and also some scary scenes. The sound effects feel very real and the art that the animators made was really nice. 

    This series and the toy plus the characters make a very nostalgic experience. There were two different toys that were being sold. One brand was called Takara Tomy which was sold in Japan and then there was another one called Hasbro which was basically sold everywhere. They were basically the same beys just somewhat the same names as the original Japanese had different translations. I remember bringing the toy to my school and showing it off to my friends. It was a great time back then. Those toys that I had, I actually sold them back in middle school to get money for the newer Beyblades. I sold all my Beys, launchers, and a couple stadiums to a little kid for $40. I kinda regret that decision now that I think about it. 

Word Count: 262

9- Antonio L: A Child's Gold Mine, AKA, The Prime Era of CN and Nick

 A Child's Gold Mine, AKA, The Prime Era of CN and Nick

My childhood wasn’t filled with JUST cartoons, I’d watch shows like CSI, CSI: Miami, NCIS (shows that follow this scheme, usually when my parents watched them) but I wouldn’t call them the shows I’d mainly watch.

I spent a majority of my time as a kid watching Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, both of which were the two main networks with lots of recognition about 10 years ago (both kinda fell off though). But enough background, time to see if anyone can relate with me based on their favorite childhood shows.

I’ll start off with the older shows that aired on Cartoon Network like “Dude, What Would Happen”, “Destroy, Build, Destroy”, and “The Hole In The Wall (though I kinda didn’t feel like mentioning game shows, like BrainSurge on Nickelodeon). Right next to the occasional rerun CN aired, they tossed in more reruns in the form of the shows I just mentioned. All were very similar, the way this was done was through destruction, usually of everything surrounding the participants in the shows.

If I had to remember all the cartoons I’ve seen on CN, that I actually enjoyed watching, they would be “Codename: Kids Next Door”, “Camp Lazlo”, ”Chowder” “The Amazing World of Gumball”, “Regular Show”, “Adventure Time”, all the seasons of Total Drama, a lot of seasons of Beyblade, “Over the Garden Wall”, “Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated”, and “What’s New Scooby Doo.”

But CN isn’t that simple, they also have another network called Boomerang, which is full of their older shows that have stopped airing over the years like “Teen Titans”, “Samurai Jack”, “Johnny Bravo”, and other old shows that I can’t remember. All I remember though is the Friday and Saturday nights I spent as a 9 year old watching the old episodes of Teen Titans and actually noticing the large distance between how cartoons were made 10 years apart from each other. Nickelodeon also has something similar to this, that being NickToons, but their choices of what older shows to air are very questionable nowadays. 

Notice how I’ve said all of this, and I haven’t gotten to Nickelodeon yet, and that’s because I realized as I’m writing this that the shows they aired weren’t that significant like “Sanjay And Craig”, “Fairly Odd Parents (the later seasons), and the multiple live-action shows Nick tried to gets people’s attention with, not saying all of them were bad, like “Drake and Josh” and “iCarly”, but the later ones never made me want to watch Nickelodeon, also because the majority of Nick’s airing time was spent towards showing old episodes of Spongebob. 

There are still a choice few that were good on Nick though, like “My Life As A Teenage Robot”, “Three Delivery”, “El Tigre: The Adventures Of Manny Rivera”, “Danny Phantom”, “Jimmy Neutron”, “Back In The Barnyard”,  “Avatar: The Last Airbender”, and “Mighty B”, though most of these I remember watching with my sister when I was like 5.

I’d like to go onto how Disney Channel and DisneyXD have better shows compared to Nick, both cartoon and sitcom types, but I’m just going to cut it off here. Word before I go I do acknowledge how many shows I’ve listed and probably assumed I just Googled these shows, but just believe that I sat in front of a TV a lot after school before. 

Word Count: 555

9 - Khiem D. : Heavy Themes And Religious Dogma

 

Heavy Themes And Religious Dogma

Trigger Warning: I will be covering themes of child abuse and generally disgusting visuals

Well here we are again, I swear I will try to write something more cheerful but I just find the message of this game to be really powerful. The Binding of Issac is a indie game about the story of Issac, told through his imagination going wild as he slowly asphyxiates to death in a toy chest hiding from his mother. The story is very personal to it’s creator, Edmund McMillian, as he set out to create a game to express his experiences with religion, coming from a household of former drug addicts turned born again christians. Of course this is metaphorical as he wasn’t literally hunted down by his mother or fighting vile lovecraftian horrors by shooting them with tears, but more of a sharing of his feelings in a way he feels fit, dark humor.

The story of Issac as mentioned before exists solely in his deteriorating mind, as he hides from his mother as he assumes she is coming to sacrifice him like the biblical story of the same name. McMillian frames this story as a more up to player interpretation as he has stated before he hates hand holding in stories. My understanding from the clues given to us is that Issac used to live happily in a relatively poor nuclear family, consisting of a recovering alcoholic dad who is implied to be some sort of researcher and his stay at home mother who is a devout christian.  His father fosters Issac’s creativity, inspiring him to take up drawing and creating papercraft worlds as a release. This lays in stone the basis of Issac’s main coping mechanism before the events of the game as eventually through some unknown event, his father takes up gambling (implied to perhaps help his family’s poverty) which kickstarts his drinking habit again which fuels his gambling even more. Issac’s mother, to cope, delves deeper into her religious beliefs and eventually drives her husband to divorce. With his father gone Issac’s mother would fall deeper into her beliefs escalating to only absorbing evangelical christian programming, eventually taking away everything Issac owns and locking him a room, starting the events of the game.

As mentioned before, the story is highly interpreted through the bits and pieces given throughout the game. Most of the stages, items, bosses, and endings show Issac’s understanding of the events as it stands as a young kid, he naturally doesn’t truly understand religion and interprets it as him being filled with sin and being the sole root of the problems in his life. I don’t believe McMillian is demonizing religion but rather trying to establish the idea that children are susceptible to the connections they make unconsciously, dangerously so. It’s a great game mechanically and the themes are very well thought out, but I would not advise the squeamish as it is literally one of the most grotesque games I’ve ever played despite the cartoony artstyle, from things like a damage up item stapling one of Issac’s eye shut to literally fighting through a floor representing the a decaying womb.

Wordcount: 511

9 - Charlene H: One Step In, One Step Out

 

Are You More Like?: Are you more like the escalator or the stairs?

Escalators. Stairs. Both of which transport people between floors of a building.

But there is one that I feel I connect with more, and that is the escalator. I connect with it more because of what it symbolically represents.

I feel that some people may associate me more with the stairs, and I understand why. As stairs force people to put in the effort to move their legs up or down, stairs symbolically mean putting in a lot of work to reach a goal. Stairs symbolically mean enduring struggles in order to reach a higher level of success.

There is a tweet I remember seeing. Essentially, it says, “The person who outsmarts you is out working you. The person who finds shortcuts is out working you. The person with a better strategy is out working you. Usually, the hardest work is thinking of a better way to do it.” This is like an escalator.

Physically working hard isn’t necessarily a bad thing; however, strategic thinking is important and beneficial in the long run. Strategies outshine mindless hard work. It helps conserve mental energy and increase motivation. While I try my best, there are times when all I want to do is take breaks and rest. My productivity ability should not be the value I have as a person.

Society encourages the idea of hard work, sometimes even to the point where maximum productivity is valued above everything else, like it’s important to sacrifice any moment of relaxation or free time. This is a mentally and physically draining cycle.

The value of human life should never be defined by productivity. People have gifts in what they can do with their lives, what they bring to people, and what they bring out of people. The way that one spends their life, how they treat other people, and specific actions they choose to take all show more about a person’s personality, attitudes, behaviors, and motives than productivity ever could.

Rather than work to fatigue or exhaustion, it is helpful to think out how to reduce labor while still accomplishing the same goal. But of course, thinking of strategies and not taking any action to put them into effect is useless. These strategies still do require effort.

And that is why I am more like the escalator. It’s “work smart,” not “work hard.”

Word Count: 389