13- Antonio L: Refusal To Acceptance

 Refusal To Acceptance

Loss, as the title explains, ignites the grieving process which is the transition of refusing loss to accepting it. It can also be seen as the first state of grief, where people refuse to accept what was lost.

Loss can take many forms, but it can only apply to certain people who have their own experiences with what they’ve lost. How people tend to cope with loss determines how they’ll handle similar situations in the future.

If someone is willing to accept that loss is inevitable and must move on from that, loss will affect them less. Compared to denying that something’s wrong, a person can only deny so many things, and they’ll have to face the truth eventually, not really creating another way out of denial. 

When people lose something, they fear to lose anything else, usually becoming paranoid at the thought that anything bad could happen at any given moment to anything a person cares for. This fear is built off the experience that comes with loss.

That feeling of defeat, a melancholy tone to everything around you, a less vibrant experience towards everything in life. Reaching a low that one must climb out of on their own, because it’s all a mental game at that point. 

Grief and loss are almost synonymous to each other, where you have to lose in order to grieve. The grieving process is complicated but also leads to acceptance in the end, leaving no way to stick to the past.

With how much goes on in life, it’s almost impossible to stay in the past. So loss can’t be bound onto a person forever, and it becomes another event with its long lasting effects. But loss itself is never impossible, but people must prepare themselves for how to deal with it when it comes. 

Word Count: 302

12- Khiem D.: A Drawn On Encounter

A Drawn On Encounter

This will be a long post about literally 2 seconds, everything will be overexaggerated for the sake of extension.

Setting the scene, I was walking back to my father’s car, steps carefree on the rigid stone of my driveway. It was a day like any other, having come home from a tiring day of school only to be dragged to an optometrist to diagnose my failing vision. My father’s car, what I believe to be a 2015 Ford Transit, covered in a bright blue livery advertising his livelihood. It always had a guttural hum as the exhaust spewed out noxious flurries of smog. Wraps adorned the back windows of the van proclaiming the address and logo in UPS sans font, each letter a yellow base with white bordering. Despite its unique appearance in the sea of Honda Civics, it was familiar, unassuming, safe, or at least that’s what I thought.

I reached for the door of the van, my father waiting patiently for me to go meet my fate, a simple action. As my fingers gripped the indent of the car handle, the ever familiar give and snap of the door signals for me to apply force to open the door. Literal milliseconds passed as the door gave way, my eyes tracking nothing, in particular, muscles contracting slightly as the weight of the door fought against my pull. I didn’t expect anything to come of it but as nanoseconds passed something emerged from the top of the door. As if waiting for the perfect timing, striking once its prey crept up, it descended like a brown blur, to meet my gaze. It bounced as if it was a bungee jumper, its weight captured by the cord protruding from its abdomen from the potentially deadly fall from the top of the door.  I proceeded to grab the web and toss it. THE END

WordCount: 312

12- Blu M: The Hike That Ruined Me

(It might be funny to look at my picture before reading…)

When I was younger, bugs used to terrify me, and that isn’t an understatement. I’m talking jump on a chair, grab onto mom, scream for help type of terrify. If I was in a cartoon, id the the character that died from being scared and had to grab their soul from flying away. Bugs were my worst enemy! Cockroaches, beetles, worms, practically any bug besides the “pretty” ones which I had a common bias to, all scared me! But there’s one tiny creature that would push my fear over the top.

Spiders.

A fun fact about me, I used to go to summer camp when I was 7 years old. And no it wasn’t for fun, and I wasn’t because I was a bad little kid. It was because I had zero social skills and my mom wanted me to develop some. This camp was held at Peña Adobe and we would hike and fish in a tiny pond and enjoy nature activities in general. And being in nature always has a be consequence, coming in contact with bugs.

We were going on our hike one day. This was definitely one of the longer ones, as the time we would be out was estimated at 1.5-2 hours. (Yes, we didn’t walk fast since so many of us were small, but that’s besides the point!) Everything was going well, the usual scenery around us and conversation overheard between our counselors and kids. Everything was the same. And so, as I’ve become used to this entire camp thing, I just go on, not expecting anything crazy. Well, of course, the moment I drop my guard, little ol’ Blu falls. Great. I’m already panicking enough as I didn’t want to get too dirty or scraped, and the moment I turn my toward the inside of the trail, there she is.

A huge, fat, scary, FAST, spider. I’m talking mammoth sized compared to what we usually see. Its abdomen was practically bulging from its size. Its legs were like eyelashes badly covered in mascara. It nearly glistened in the sun. It was the most hideous, scary, foul, vile, evil thing that 7 year old me could see. Frozen in fear, the only thing I could do was yelp and hyperventilate, not even screaming. I sounded like a very pitchy, untrained opera singer as I layed there so vulnerable on my side. I probably went ghost white from this awful moment. 

This entire event happened in probably a span of 20-30 seconds. I remember seeing some counselors come towards me while another lead the rest of the kids on their hike (they really abandoned me to the behemoth creature huh, cowards). But everything else was silent, as if it was only me and that spider on this trail. The moment I saw that thing creep towards me, I finally let out the scream, as my counselors picked me up to help with any first aid I needed. One guy kicked the pushed near the spider and it immediately retreated back into hiding, and I was just in disbelief. 

10 years later, my fear of bugs has finally subsided. I find many cute, and I even enjoy some spiders now. However, for tiny me, that wasn’t the case and that event has clearly done some damage for a while. After all, I did write about the whole thing today…

Word Count: 564

12 - Grace B. Why Me?

 

I have many fears that haunt me and make me tiptoe around my daily life. I’m afraid of the dark, which some may think is childish, but just because many people don’t have it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I’m afraid of heights so those grand staircases we hope to walk on better have a handrail. What I’ve noticed about most of my fears is that they all have a solution. When darkness hits turn on a light, luckily for me our technological world implemented a flashlight right in our phones, so that was never an issue. When I’m high up somewhere I tend to grab a handrail or the nearest person and hold on, those who are afraid of heights know that all we simply need is support and stability. But what is the solution when there’s a spider in my room?

I am severely terrified of spiders. Any one that is near me makes my skin crawl and my brain is in fight or flight mode. You know those Halloween props and you step on the button and a spider hops out at you? Yeah, I’m not a fan. I can feel all the sensors in my body telling me to run out the room. One day I was home alone and I had come home from school and I was so tired. I was really looking forward to just passing out on my comfy bed, but little did I know that I had a visitor waiting for me when I walked in. 

I greeted my dog giving her lots of love and I walked up to my room. I open the door and immediately my eyes are drawn to the top left corner of the room. My heart begins to race and I can feel my palms working up a sweat and all I could keep thinking was “Why ME?” Why did it have to make its way to MY room? My sister's room is 2 feet away from mine and she’s off at college. No one would’ve been bothered if it went in there, but no. It chose ME. 

So obviously the best choice was for me to close the door on the spider and sit outside my room. I was completely in the mindset that that spider could have my whole room if he wanted to. So I went to my mom's bed and tried to sleep. And as my eyes got droopy and I was falling to sleep, I began to feel my skin crawl, itching me to wake up. I was paranoid. I let that spider take over MY room, what if he made his way to my moms room for a laugh? Then what would I do. So I decided to face my fear head on. That spider was a goner.

I opened the door to my room once again with confidence and determination to remove him, but once my eyes met this little spider on the top left corner of my room, doubt crept in. He was just there chilling, acting like he owned the place. He was challenging me. Suddenly all that fear went away and I just wanted him gone. I wanted to reclaim MY room. So I ran to my closet, grabbed my black chancla and my inner Latina came out. I launched it across the room and it hit the spider perfectly. I ran over to the crime scene and there the spider was. Dead. I won.

I don’t promote violence of any kind. In fact I held a beautiful funeral for this spider in my bathroom toilet, so I think we made some kind of peace. Sometimes you have to face your fears head on. They might not be as bad as you think. 

628

12. Kaiyue L. - Legally Blonde Analysis

The iconic film Legally Blonde highlights many stereotypes that are associated with gender and class, specifically the main character, Elle’s identity as a White, upper-class woman, and the privileges and challenges that come with holding such identities.

At the beginning of the film, Elle lives a lifestyle of ease, luxury, and social approval. She's the president of the UCLA sorority, Delta Nu, and was in a happy relationship with an attractive, aspiring senator Warner Washington. Life seemed perfect until Warner broke up with her before transferring to Harvard. He does not see a future with Elle, telling her that if he wants to be a senator by the time he's 30, he needs to marry a "Jackie, not a Marilyn," implying that he believes Elle is "too blonde." Heartbroken but determined, Elle follows Warner to Harvard Law School, planning to humiliate him with her intelligence. Now living a life that's the complete opposite of her poolside Malibu activities, Elle for once is socially disapproved due to her unsophistication and innocence. Warner, on the other hand, is now in a new relationship with "a Jackie", the brainy, serious classmate, Vivian Kensington. Rejected by the love of her life and flunking out of school, she used her sadness as fuel to study and quickly excelled in her classes. She slowly began to earn the respect of her peer and developed a passion for law. In the end, Elle graduates from Harvard with high honors and is the elected speaker at the ceremony, she not only gets invited to a prestigious law firm but also finds true love.

Elle Woods is an example of a character breaking the traditional stereotypes of feminine women. While she fully embraces a love of pink, having her nails done, shopping, and her small dog, she is not naive or uncaring like the "dumb blonde" people around her assume her to be. She challenges the notion of the “girly girl” with her intelligence, advocacy, and resilience. 

One of the central themes of Legal Blonde that impacted me as a kid is that a girl being into fashion doesn’t make her unintelligent–and those fashion smarts aren’t inherently a “useless” form of knowledge. Elle’s fashion smarts are introduced when a storekeeper tries to take advantage of her alleged stupidity by attempting to trick her into buying a discount dress for full price, but Elle sees through it. Later, Elle’s fashion smarts are crucial to her winning her first legal case. This portrayal is truly groundbreaking. Most characters like Elle are treated as cruel, superficial, stupid, or all of the above. Elle is none of these things—and she doesn’t change herself to succeed.

Wc: 442

12 - Lilly T.: Burnt Alive

 

Staying out in the sun is a big part of my childhood. I would go to the park often, travel to places for vacation, and go to swim practices. Out of all the memories I’ve had, sunscreen is something that will always be associated with the sun for me.

There would always be someone getting sunburnt, whether it was me or someone I knew. If you haven’t gotten one before, sunburns are really annoying to deal with. They don’t hurt badly, but enough to cause you a little pain every time the burn gets touched by something. My family ran out of sunscreen at one point and went to the beach without it. Once we left, my dad took home a sunburn that covered his entire back. It was funny at the time, but sunburns can lead to skin cancer if you’re exposed to the sun without any protection for too long. Sunscreen helps prevent this, but not completely.

The sensation of the spray sunscreens is something I will never forget. Spraying on a layer of sunscreen on a hot, sunny day is refreshing because of how cold the sunscreen is. Easy to apply, and feels great. Who wouldn’t enjoy that? Perhaps this is a way to get people to buy and wear sunscreen more often instead of letting themselves be burnt alive. I would always complain when I was forced to put on the cream sunscreen, but the spray bottles made it a lot more fun and easier to put on. Thanks to that, I don’t have any skin problems.

Anyways, enough with the rambling. Stay safe and wear sunscreen to avoid being cooked.

Word Count: 275

12 - Charlene H: The Mountain in Me

Are You More Like?: the mountains or the beach?

Mountains and beaches are both popular places for vacations. The beauty of these unique landscapes attract many, and the recreational activities that both have are fulfilling.

But I’d rather talk about my personality, which resembles the mountains. Most people know I am quiet and reserved, and if anyone were to talk to me, they would notice I am shy and awkward. In addition to that, I am introverted, meaning I get easily exhausted by social stimulation. That doesn’t mean I don’t like social interaction though. I do. I just need it less than most people do, and not to mention, senior year has made me realize that it is hard for me to make new friends even when I try. My silent and introverted nature is comparable to that of people who go to the mountains, in that they appreciate the calm and quiet of their environment just as I like the peace and quiet of mine. Unlike beaches, mountains don’t have a lot of noise or activity. Mountains are more isolated and secluded places, having low population densities.

When it comes to beaches, I love the waves that crash against the shore, the marine life buried beneath the sand, and the activities that are easily accessible. However, I view a lot of beach people as carefree, cheerful, energetic, adventurous, and thrill-seeking, and I am not that type of person. I have more of a composed exterior that hides my intense mind. I also prefer to observe my surroundings, as if I am a person sitting on a mountain top and appreciating the breathtaking views. Like those in the mountains, I observe more than I talk. Though I am talkative over text, I do not know how to physically express myself in person a lot of the time.

I know people whose personalities are like beaches, but no matter what situation I’m in, my mountain-like characteristics will always stay. My quiet and observant personality will always be a part of me.

Word Count: 331