Gabriela Judith Ortega de Rovi

“They try so much but they can’t touch my inner mystery.” –Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman

An ordinary person that wants to live in a way that brings emotional satisfaction to them self and everyone around them, this is who my mother at her 43 years of age believes she is. My mom is a person filled with opposites, like her very rigid mostly black personal style, and her love for Victorian fashion. Like two of her favorite places my mother likes a variety of things, like her own name my mom is eclectic.

My mom is New York. She’s a business woman that loves to wear a lot of black; even thou we live in one of the hottest countries in the world and she hates to been hot. She demands perfection at all times, in all aspects of everyday life, including fashion, because she wants to bring out he best in them. This perfection translate to her love for learning, she loves to study, so much so she has two mayors, business and law; her belief that education is the way to be free that led her to raise me the way she did. She takes no standing in religious or political affairs, which is a little strange because she is a lawyer, as these things aren’t as important as spirituality and inherit goodness. She’s a neat freak, which makes sense since my mom hates when she feels she’s not in control of the situation.

My mom is Lignano Sabiadoro. She’s a very quaint, simple person. She’s feminine, and appreciates the Victorian style as the woman’s time to shine. Even though she’s not a stay-at-home mom the most important thing in her life is her family and their happiness. She likes to bring attention to herself for being a good person and being a productive member of society, and therefore likes to reflect on the past and why things happen, in order to be a better person.

My mom in any given day will change her clothes and attitude a given number of times to fit the people around her. During the day she’s a hard working HR manager that has to deal with a number of things including a workers’ union that loves to strike, like any Panamanian union. But when she gets home, she’ll slip on her pajamas and be the most caring and loving mother in the whole entire universe.

Even though essays are meant to be forms of self expression this is not who I think my mother is, this is an interview with the women herself. To me mom, doesn’t mean woman who gave birth to you and therefore demands respect and love. But a person that earns these things by putting others before themselves, who hugs you when you scrape your knee, and who’s happy as can be for every little thing you accomplish even if it’s the silliest thing in the world. My mom is a little crazy, but a good person to the core and that’s who she is and what she means to me. The best is that all she is is only mine. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

Coming Soon

“I would go every single day if I could, but I would look very foolish eating popcorn all by my self.” –Judith Ortega

I’m all alone in a dark room. Nobody is around, but they’re supposed to be. Rows and rows of empty seats stretch as far as I can see. It’s dark and cold, but I don’t want to go. I’m not confused or in a strange place this is exactly where I want to be. I’m still alone, but all of a sudden a bright flash of light illuminates the wall opposite to me. Now I can hear voices coming through the walls, and sounds of the outer world.
I’m still all alone, but now I’m not in the dark room. I’m wherever I want to be. It can be futuristic New York, at a time after the extinction of the human race; or Ancient Rome; during WW I; or in the midst of the clone attack to the confederacy planet of Geonosis. Yes, I can travel through time and space, even thou I haven’t moved a muscle.
The power of movies to me relies on the capability to transport you to different places, during a specific period of time. In my eyes, it’s basically the cheapest time machine men could have ever invented. The best part of this kind of time machine is that not everything you see is necessarily real.
Ancient ruins destroyed by catapults, being claimed back by the earth as vines and greenery grow through them. The moist morning dew feels cold as you walk barefoot through the forest surrounding the ancient castle. The whistling of the wind, rich with magic as the plants’ breath of life perfumes the air and mixes with the saltiness of the nearby ocean.
Cristal clear water where every kind of sea creatures live, beneath them corals grow upon the wreckage of an ancient Spanish boat. As barracudas, angel fish, and octopi swim past you finally see the ship. You don’t know where is up or down, the only thing you do know is that salvaging the wreckage is you mission, your life’s calling.
Dark woods in the midst of the Russian countryside, the rocky soil slashing through cloth and skin as you run away from mythical creatures. An ancient dark presence surrounds the area; a normally green lush valley is now full of death and desperation, so you run away. But as the tress pass you feel more constricted, like the forest in its dying state is absorbing you.
I’ve never been to these places, and most likely I never will but through the magic of movies I feel like I can always go there. It’s the only plane ticket that won’t cost you as much as your laptop. I know you can also watch movies in the comfort of you room, and in pajamas; but the experience of sharing the rush of emotions with other is the best.
These feeling goes back to my toddler year. My grandmother use to take me to the movies every single Friday and I try to keep this tradition alive and go as often as humanly possible. But I don’t get around to as much as I would like. This is exactly why the movie theater is my favorite place in the world.

Bones

I am lying in a claustrophobic room with a large metal plate crushing my chest. My mom and grandma are trying to hold tears back while waiting for the result of my X-rays. Am I really OK?
Fall Festival at Balboa Academy is a Halloween tradition that attracts students from all grades. In my first year at BA I didn’t understand what Fall Festival was but still went to see if I liked it. When I arrived the spooky Halloween atmosphere is the only thing that differentiated Fall Festival from school fairs we had at my old school, so I felt at home.
The first thing you notice when entering the school grounds on a Saturday is the very calm almost carefree atmosphere of the place. These old buildings didn’t harbor learning, homework, and pressure for now but pure clean fun. I have never experienced an autumn in the States but the school grounds were decorated like the ones in the movies. The seniors were standing out side the dungeon, which had been transformed into a haunted house, in very creepy costumes trying to lure in unsuspecting elementary children in order to give them the scare of a lifetime. There were barbeques, since in Panama it’s almost always sunny, candied apples, games, and raffles.
I was very young, so my mother didn’t feel safe leaving me to fend for myself. But like a good rebellions pre-teen I ignored her, thinking to myself that I would be just fine. I left my mother’s safe side and started to roam the fair with my friends.
One of the most distinctive things present at Fall Festival and at Oxford International school fairs, or any other typical school fair in Panama, is the zip-line. I decide to give the one at Fall Festival a go, since I had ridden the one at OIS fairs at least 20 times.
I did great and didn’t look down when I was climbing up those endless stairs. The hook clicked on and the man gave me a signal, which meant I could start the 15 feet descent. But this experience still frightened me to death. Most might think that a person or child that has gone down a zip-line about 20 times in her life shouldn’t be afraid of heights, but heights are my absolute and only fear. To most it might have an everyday thing, to me it was terrifying. Irrational fear of heights has never quite described how I feel; more than afraid of the heights, I’m afraid of falling. And this fear would soon be justified.
Breathe in. Breathe out. I kept repeating this in my head as I closed my eyes and took the plunge.
The next thing I know I’m flat in my back lying on the wet late-October grass. My new outfit was wedged in all the wrong angles. My head was pounding, like a hammer making gold leafs. My arms felt like they had given up all their energy, numbed limbs with no purpose. I still stood up, shook away the grass, to reveal pancake size grass stains covering my new stone-colored pants. The next thing I hear is the nurse, Mrs. Hayes, screaming to the top of her lungs “Stay down!” A thud reverberates through my ears. It feels as if everything went in slow motion. People’s faces are shocked with worry, the weight of Mrs. Hayes body as she lands on top of me, trying to keep me from standing up, and bounciness of my head as it repeatedly hits the ground from the force of the tackle.
Then the paramedics arrive and place me on a stretcher. My mom runs to me, after my friend told her what had happened. After that it all became a blank until the loud sound of the sirens woke me up inside the ambulance. My mom was sitting next to me holding my hand, telling me everything is going to be ok. The ambulance rushed to the hospital, and here is where our story began.
The doctors and my mom were concerned about whether or not the 15 feet fall had affected my spine or broken any bones. But I was fine, no broken bones, no mayor injuries, no internal hemorrhage, nothing; just a ruined shirt and a pounding headache. This might sound like a lie, a twelve-year-old girl falling 15 feet hitting the ground, then standing up only to get body slammed by the school nurse and to top it all off nothing happened to her; and I wouldn’t believe this if I was reading the tale on-line, but this is a true story. I walk out of that ER with nothing more than a bag of ice and a blushed face.
I think the moral of this story is that I’m indestructible… Nah! It’s that bad thing and accidents happen but you always get something out of it, even if it’s a lesson on how to fall without getting hurt.

Me, myself and I

Me. I can’t describe myself in one word, not even this one. I am me, not really. I’m everyone before me and after me. I am everyone I’ve met and everyone I haven’t. I am my family and my friends. I am everyone. I know a lot of people say that they don’t care what other people think. These people are fools. They’re terrified of what they really show, what people can see in them. More than they are scared of what they see in the mirror.

I’m a junior at Balboa Academy, where everyone calls me Rovi. I’m an extroverted friendly person, that people like to tease, and I have to admit I take it really personal. I’m a chronic procrastinator, who firmly believes that Wikipedia, the internet, and her calculator are her best friends—but I can’t leave out the real ones, they’re pretty “emosewa” too, even if I say it so myself. I’m an idealist with strong convictions and a love of life. I’m not a party girl but I know how to have a good time. I like to spend time with my parents, and my friends are the closest thing to sisters I’ll ever have. This is who I am.

I love to draw and paint even thou I’m not the best; to me it connects me with my roots, my dad’s side of the family, who I don’t see very much but I’m proud to say they are my family.

I live in Panama, land of the fishes and the butterflies. This is actually very funny coincidence, since I love fairies. I know it’s childish but I don’t care. Some day I’m going to paint my room, like a view of my universe; fairies, forests, lots of colors, friendship, hope, peace, truth, and love. I might sound like a hippie, and a lot of people think I am one, but if I am, does it really matter?

Does it really matter what other people think of me? Like I said before it does. We don’t live isolated. We might have our own little bubbles, but someone bursts them every now and then. This is because we live in a society, with people that we have to bear whether we like them or not, so we have to adjust ourselves to this. This is exactly why I don’t go proclaiming my love for fairies or the fact that I think the war is the most pointless thing in the world to everyone. You, me, them, we are everyone.

I am myself. And if you don’t like it well what can I do. Since after all you’re like that too.