“Brake”

“The car has become a secular sanctuary for the individual, his shrine to the self, his mobile Walden Pond.” ~Edward McDonagh

I’m suddenly going to fast, I can’t control it. The tires race underneath me as they hit the hot asphalt; they, unlike me, have a need for speed. The wind turns from a comforting breeze to a whirlwind of confusion. The scream coming from the passenger seat gets confused with my thoughts. Then there’s a sudden thump. All I can think of is the poor animal that I surely hit, but I’m to afraid to turn around and check. As my dad reached for the wheel I figure out that I didn’t hit anything other than the sidewalk. “Brake!” is all I here from my dad, and I comply with his desires.

Even thou I turned sixteen about five months ago, it wasn’t until last month that my parents got annoyed enough by me and decided to finally teach me how to drive. What I thought of driving, before I actually tried it, was that it was very easy. All you really had to do was turn the wheel when there is a turn, push the break when you want to slow down, and slam on the gas when you want to go really fast.

But I was wrong, deeply and stupidly wrong. As I stepped inside the driver’s seat for the first time, I felt the wheels spinning under me. The power of the engine as it roared when I pushed the gas. I was too afraid to unlock the hand break, because I thought I was going to crash with invisible obstacles. Then there was the added pressure of pressing the clutch and changing gears. All that was running through my mind was how confusing everything was. And to top it all of I had to put with my parents incessant instruction. During those first lessons I felt the urge to buy duct tape and shutting their mouths as long as I was only wheel.

I was ready to quit. As I hit a couple of bumps before getting it right. My only major accident so far was running into a side walk. For most it wouldn’t be much, but since it was my first time driving I was completely terrified. Ever since, I’ve completely avoided side walks, and manage to learn fairly well.

After various lessons I got really good, and this got me thinking. I like being in control, deciding for myself what I wanted to do. As if I was running the world, nothing mattered more than what I wanted, where I wanted to go. That’s how I want to live; I decide what I want to do and how I want to run my life. I want to be able to really put that duct tape over their mouths, and stop listening to what they order me and decide for my self.

My next time behind the wheel, will be the first time I’m by my self. What I hope I can do is show everybody that I can so things my way and nothing is going to happen. The world isn’t going to come crashing down, because a girl who has to go off to college in a year decided to start taking responsibility for herself. Driving has given my courage and a new level of independence that makes me feel unbelievable. Finally I feel like I can tell the world and my parents, what I think and it’s all that matters.

It’s not as easy as it looks

“It’s a lot easier to laugh it all off, than to cry about it.” –Anonymous

“Altho' a tear may be ever so near, that's the time you must keep on trying, smile- what's the use of crying,” –Charlie Chaplin, “Smile”

To a lot of people writing comes easy for them, and for it to be perfect maybe not right away but with little work. Most of the people I know are like that, but I’m not. An essay that I worked on for weeks might read like a night-before essay by someone else, and it’s hard to hear that from a room full of people with perfect or nearly perfect essays. Trying to establish an idea in accordance with my opinion and to make sure that it reflects my emotions without sounding overly sappy is a long daunting task, which most be performed constantly, as every two weeks or so essays are due for my College Writing class.

Most of my classmates would rather tackle a 3-page essay on the development of the language in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s A Hundred Year of Solitude, than something purely scientific or theoretical. Personally, I would much rather write an 18-point resolution on ending world hunger. It’s not that resolution writing is that much easier, but there are a lot fewer factors to consider when writing it. Most of them are very broad. Your country’s point of view and economic feisability are the two most important, with in those parameters you can suggest just about anything. I know some one who might just suggest something like, shooting down the moon with a Cold War technology weapon or taking over cyberspace with hard to decrypt codes and massive amounts of software. The only difference is that you have to verbally back it up with good arguments, but that’s the easy part.

My fear of writing didn’t come up from my inability to write, because I can, if you can call regurgitating in a piece of paper every piece of relevant information the teacher said, writing. It actually originated in Mrs. Hurtado’s 10^th Grade Spanish Class. Basically you have the freedom to think for yourself, and I love the idea. My problem is that I can’t put it on paper. If a teacher doesn’t tell me exactly what they want from my essays, I’m at a lost. It definitely got worse with Dr. Sirias’ Freshman College Composition class, where the subjects are so broad they virtually give you no boundaries.

As time passed, I thought I was getting better, writing the way they wanted with all the detailed examples and gimmicks, but that didn’t seem to work, as I still was lacking something. Then I decided to just be me on paper, that was another epic fail. I just seemed to be missing every hit, until my fear went from seemingly silly to ridiculously irrational.

Now every time I have to write an essay and I close my eyes, I can see it, the L arms with pointy elbows that look so sharp they might cut you at the mere sight. Geeky B converging glasses with a Power of 7.5 Diopters to make sure that the most minimal mistake doesn’t pass by. They make you huddle under the dominant presence of a being thirty times smarter than you. The alphabet monster is out to get me. It projects its menacing blood-red shadow upon my eyes as they slowly get totally blood-shot. I’m filled with panic as I imagine my mother’s disappointment when report cards come home. I hear a voice telling me I just don’t have what it takes to make it. Words come at like perfectly written size 12 Times New Roman text, in the darkest shade of black hole black. He sucks your soul to its inky depths waiting for your brain to be a useless pile of mush.

All in all writing it’s the most terrifying part of academic life I can think of, and the alphabet monster represents that in my brain. But I decided that I wasn’t going to be defeated by a blank word document, or the looming shadow of my keyboard.

As I stare at my fingers trying to come up with new arguments to support my main idea, all I can think about is Dr. Sirias’ advice: leave it alone to marinate, if you can think about it right away go on and take a walk, revising is the key to improving your writing. Maybe just maybe I’ve gained trust not only in my abilities but in the advice other people gave me, unfortunately it took some time. But seeing a loving piece of work mercilessly destroyed definitely drove the point home.

Now I know I can’t just regurgitate ideas onto paper and hope that they came out right, I have to steer them in the right direction. Even thou some of my work might be complete trash there are ones that can be polished into beautiful pieces of art, after long hours of revising and editing.

Writing is more like a perfectly flawless dance routine than a painting. With paint even thou you might not think it’s much or even like it at all, some one will go up to it and say “Wow, that’s beautiful art,” even if it is your parents. For example, a lot of people don’t consider modern art, art at all, but there is a beauty behind a perfectly painted single color wash-canvas, even if it lies merely in contrasting texture. But with dance it takes hours of practice, pain and sweat to be able to show the audience a perfectly polished and flawless piece of artwork, completely formulated with the human body. And only if you can see the emotion in their eyes then you can call yourself an artist.

Good advice I’ve learned comes from the strangest places and oddly enough so does the inspiration for trying to improve. A couple of classmates telling me; you really need to improve your grammar –ASAP– and your last two essays have been not the best, but you can do a lot better, is apparently all I needed. This only made me want to go home a little bit faster so I could start my next essay.

As I wrote this essay, I closed my eyes for a couple of second and I saw the alphabet monster, but this time I wasn’t scared. In my mind, I took a deep breath, as it started laughing, because it thought I was going to run away like in all my other bad thoughts. Instead I looked right at those huge glass-magnified eyes, and said “Bite me.”

To my MUNers…

“This past week I didn’t see a Model of the United Nations, but the United Nations.” Philip Clarke, President of the Environmental Committee THIMUN 2010

Deforestation is a problem that, unlike economics or war, doesn’t discriminate it affects us all despite economic stands or civil unrest. This is why we should all take part on its prevention and reversion.

The delegation of Angola would like to congratulate those countries already taking national action to combat desertification, but if we really wan to make a difference on this issue there is no better way than supporting and expanding the UNCCD and its action programmes.

This is why the delegate of Angola fully supports this fully supports this resolution and encourages all the delegates to vote for this resolution.

Speeches such as this one can make or break the future of a delegation’s plan to better the world, or as it is called formally their1 resolution. They have the ability to convince delegations that maybe your ideas might be the best way to resolve the conflict. Of course if a delegation supports an idea, unlike in many areas of “real world” politics, it must go in accordance with their country’s policies and values. If the world was ran by people such as those attending MUN conferences, it would definitely still have problems, but it would be a lot easier to reach compromises and find a solution.

Philip was right; through the course of the week thousands of high school students stepped out of the regular life to come to come together in the international city of peace and justice, and try to solve the world’s problems. And unlikely enough we did it, through diplomacy and rational we reached consensus and made progress in areas where the world leaders lack the ability to compromise.

Topics such as the lack of fresh drinking water, and the emissions trade procedures where discussed in the Environmental Committee, of which I was a part of. But other topics of international importance such as the melting of the polar camps, the end of the US embargo on Cuba, and the status of child soldiers in the Geneva Convention, where discussed in the other commissions of the massive conference.

Personally, I don’t trust politicians, they’re to corrupt to make a difference anywhere except their pockets, but when I attend conferences such as THIMUN, it gives me hope for the future, as I see that my children unlike me, might live in a better world constructed through international diplomacy and honestly instead of corruption and false ideals. If this is the future of international politics then we can all rest assured that the world tomorrow would definitely be a better place to live in than today.

Gwrteithia Brofi

Although mayor parts of it are already extinct, and the few places that still venerate this culture are seldom and secluded, the Celtic culture is one of the most interesting parts of history to me. It maybe because of their legendary figures and beautiful language, or because some time I’ve wished I lived during that time. But what definitely attracts me the most is their unique relationship with nature, such a devotion led to the development of a strongly naturalistic religion.

Until their Romanization, the Celts believed in the existence of spirits controlling nature as well as the representation of such spirits as fairies or pixies, but like many other cultures they also believed in gods. Most of their believe system was regionally based as the Celtic world was too large for information to spread around it. One of the greatest differences between Celtic religion and other of the time is that they didn’t show their gods in creature form until their contact with the Romans.

I was always attracted to understanding the Celtic religion mainly because of their belief in fairies, as they are my favorite mythological creature. But the rest of the beliefs seemed strange to me, as the talk about feeling the trees breath and the forest id filling them with live. I thought I would never understand this deeply spiritually connection the Celts had with nature, but one day I discovered that you can hear the tress breath.

San Antonio, Texas is probably the last place I would have ever thought that I would find this, but this is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t judge books by their covers. Last year I spent the summer with my grandmother in San Antonio, because I needed a change of scenery. After I’d been there for a couple of weeks already, my parents flew in and my grandmother decided to give them a tour while they were there. Every day we would go to different churches and historic places, and one of them really stood out for me.

Our Lady of Atonement is an outdoor church near Sam Houston Army Base in San Antonio. I’m completely against going to churches as I don’t really like the stuffy, uptight atmosphere inside of them, although I do admire their architectonical beauty. But there was something different about this one. The main chapel was under ground in a caver, hidden in the middle of a huge park. The bigger masses where celebrated in the top part of the cavern that over looked a beautiful patio. The paths connecting the four corners where weathered and old, it was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.

The trees where the most impressive thing of all. The paths winded around the trees that looked centuries old, as the huge roots winded over the top of the ground and held on very tightly to the soil. They looked old and wise, as if they could tell a million stories, and teach a million lessons. I was merely waiting for one of them to spring to life and start talking to me. In that moment I got close to one of them and whispered as if I was telling someone a secret, “It’s ok I won’t hurt you if you talk to me. I’ll listen and learn from you.” I felt vey silly in that moment but it felt natural like I was supposed to do that.

Then I understood the Celts’ beliefs. The trees, the rocks, the ground itself felt as if it was breathing. The air of the park was so dense with church’s incense that it felt as if the spirits where around me. The experience convinced me that to some degree the Celts where right. Nature is alive and you can feel it.

Is being feminine so bad????

Capote and Freedom Writers are both movies that present male characters with strong ideas about the role of their inner femininity, and how it relates to their role in society as well as their interpersonal relationships. In one side, have, we have Truman Capote, a declared homosexual who’s not afraid to flaunt his personality in front of New York’s highest and most exclusive circles. On the other, we have Scott Casey, the husband of a caring, hard working High School English teacher, who in the instance of his wife, Erin Gruwell, taking on three jobs refuses to be the symbolic “wife” in the relationship.

Truman Capote was Southern author who mingled in the high levels of New York’s social life, and had a weakness for alcohol, fame, and attention. His way of speaking softly and almost monotone resembled that of a woman and his manner of carry himself, with constant hand movements to accompany and emphasize what he was saying. This attitude resembled the ways of actresses such as Vivian Leigh, and characters as Blanche Du Bois. His odd vocal mannerisms and particular sense of style and fashion distinguished Truman Capote from other writers. This helped him when mingling with members of different social circles. In the movie, we see not only his manners when in a social setting but also his relationship with author Jack Dunphy as well as his emotional attachment to murderer Perry Smith.

In contrast, we have Scott Casey, a man so in doubt of his male persona, that when his wife tries to help the children from Long Beach through the economic backing of three jobs, he feels threatened and eventually leaves her. The idea of not fulfilling his role as husband, and the subliminal message from Erin, that he will have to take the role of the “wife”, frightens him. This suggests that Scott is not very open to his feminine side or that her fears that his feminine side is more willing to show than he wishes, because it may show weakness or maybe he is just not sure about his masculinity.

Here we have two examples of movie adaptations of real life people, and how much they differ base solely on their ability to channel their inner femininity. One is openly in synch with it, while the other is afraid to let it out.

In this instance we’ve got to ask ourselves the questions of who is truly a man. He who doesn’t mind flaunting his sexuality to the public, like it in was the morning new. Or he who is scared of even wearing a pink shirt because it might give the wrong impression.

Men, who can understand them.

It’s not going so swimmingly…

“My biggest problem is what to do about all the things I can’t do anything about.”

–Ashleigh Brilliant

”Never let a problem to be solved become more important than the person to be loved.” –Barbara Johnson

Teenagers are trouble waiting to happen. This statement so often repeated by my family members annoys me. We all have body image issues, hormonal shifts, and on top of it all parents pushing you in so many different levels. This doesn’t mean we’re a lost generation, a waste of brain matter. What if your parents are the ones causing all your problems? Not in a childish, “she’s ruining my life” kind of way, but in a seriously, deeply traumatic sort of way.

What if the psychological pressure to be perfect is the very thing that makes you snap in the first place? What if the constant nagging and bother is the cause for the back talking and disrespectfulness? What would happen if our parents left us to our own devices letting us decided what we wanted, not what they wanted for us?

Lock and Key is the story of two teenagers, both deeply scarred by their parents’ actions. How they try to save each other through love but keep missing. Ruby didn’t ask her mom to leave her alone, so she could run her own life. But that’s exactly what she got. Ruby finds herself all alone in a yellow big house, the one thing that made her feel safe despite all the wrong things in her life. The key to this house she hangs on to until the very end of the book because of what it means to her in the context of her life.

Her mom has recently abandoned her, supposedly so she could run away with her boyfriend. Ruby decides to keep her living conditions a secret, and continues to live her life filled with drugs and alcohol. Hiding things from people is Ruby’s specialty as her mother thought her to lie to all sorts of people from a very small age, as her mother was notorious for not paying bills. So it was up to Ruby to lie to all sorts of bill collectors.

And she hasn’t seen her sister since Cora left for college. In an unexpected twist of fate the sisters are reunited after Social Services finds Ruby living by her self for quite a while. Cora doesn’t really try to get close to Ruby at first, but her husband, Jamie, is very nice to Ruby. Ruby doesn’t feel at home and tries to escape several times, but decides to stay in return for Jamie’s kindness.

With a change of scenery for Ruby also comes an attitude check in the form of her next door neighbor Nate. Nate saves Ruby after she tried to visit her best friend and boyfriend, and she discovers dark secrets kept from her by the two people she trusted the most. Ruby passes out after drinking a bottle of alcohol and smoking pot with her ex. Nate gives insight to Ruby’s actions, as they both are in denial of their problems but at the same time they are able to help other people handle theirs. Ruby realizes that the same kind of help she is trying to give to Nate is the one that others where trying to give to her while living with her mom. As she has been in the situation she feels she can relate, therefore get through to Nate. At last, Ruby realizes that there is a big difference between being willing to accept help, and the openness to offer help.

Our generation is known for its high percentage of alcohol and drug abuse, as well as teenagers running around plainly messed up. But if they are given the right opportunity just like Ruby, they can turn things around and make the best of their situation. The bad thing is that we never give them a chance. We label them, put them in a box or a prison cell and forget that they even exist. This is a waist of time, if we helped kids learn how to express their thoughts and communicate their situations, with out the risk of them being ridiculed or labeled, more people would agree that we’re valuable and that someday we’re going to make a difference.

I would recommend this book to all teenagers, because it might mean different thing to different people. I would go as far as to maybe make it mandatory reading in health or psychology class. Lock and Key is a book on personal strength and the power of friendship and love, and how these things can save someone’s life. Maybe some of our generation is lost, but I’m confident that we are not a waste of space or time. And that if you just paid a little more attention to us you would learn that we’re more than the labels society gives us.

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.