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E V E | C R E A https://evecrea.agnesscott.org Writer | Creator | Learner Tue, 09 Mar 2021 20:06:56 +0000 en hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-Blue-and-Red-Fashion-Online-Shop-Logo-32x32.png E V E | C R E A https://evecrea.agnesscott.org 32 32 When the Aliens Come, Give them Poetry https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/writing/when-the-aliens-come-give-them-poetry/ https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/writing/when-the-aliens-come-give-them-poetry/#respond Mon, 16 Nov 2020 06:35:38 +0000 http://evecrea.agnesscott.org/?p=4133 After Audre Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury”

Author’s Note: One genre where I feel my writing has increased substantially since being at Agnes is poetry. Through this essay, I convey my thoughts and feelings over the existence and necessity of poetry. I hope you enjoy!

We hold these truths to be self-evident: life, death, and poetry. 

Through poetry, we paint the truth of our existence. Whether it be 89 years of experience, or 50, or 20, or 9– all of it can be, in a way, lived through in as little as seven lines. With poetry, we can finally take off the foot at our throat. We use poetry as a way to breathe fully without strain. When writing poems, we can take pause, can exist in a moment free from time and space, analyzing both time and space. We use poetry as a language to form and fully realize those shapeless ideas and confounding emotions that have always been there scratching at the doors of our bodies to be released. Poetry serves as certificate that states boldly: we are alive, we are real, we are here, and we aren’t going anywhere. 

Then we whose existences are often whittled down to one word: black, or gay, or trans, or disabled, or immigrant, can use poetry as validation of our experiences. Can show just how many identities, thoughts, dreams, actions, and emotions can fit in one body. We have always been threatening to erupt, and poetry waits for us with open arms and wails, 

“Yes, I can take your broken, your weak, your horrors, your loves, give it to me all and I will never shut my gates.” 

When I tell my father that I find poetry hard, one of the hardest things in life ever, and that I don’t consider myself a poet, he laughs–surprised every time. As if he was saying,

“It’s in your bones, girl,” and I, girl, was dancer who did not shake. But poetry is hard because it is difficult to be truthful, especially to ourselves. Poetry exists first as self-revelation. Even when we are writing about the simplest of moments, we are shocked as we sit down and see what they reveal. How many emotions and thoughts and wonders can you fit in, in the time it takes you to make the five-minute trip to the corner shop? 

But perhaps W.H. Auden was right, that, “poetry makes nothing happen.” Because poetry in itself is just speaking truth that is already in existence. It is people’s perspectives that make it new. People, specifically the people who have never had to look, never had a deep-set questioning of what society has presented as right and wrong and a stark understanding of expectation vs. reality. When people like this see poetry made by the likes of I, and us, and we, they go “Wow.”, they go “I’ve never seen this before.” they go “I never would have thought!” When all you see is you, of course when you finally transcend the mirror, you will “discover” a newfoundland that has always been there, teeming with other. 

When regimens take power, the people who they come for first are the scholars and the creatives. Poets have been jailed, murdered, crushed by their own implications of self. They want us silenced. What is a more effective way to test if something bears weight, then to get rid of it?  Slaveholders made sure that no slave could read or write, and yet, no matter how horrendous the times were, my ancestors still sung, and what is song, if not poetry? 

If we silence ourselves, if we fail to consume and to write our truths, then we must become secret police infiltrating our own lives, ending any experience and moment that could hold fuel and inspiration for us to put pen to paper. And I’ll tell you what type of existence that is                                                                                                                                  


                                                                                                                                         

Poetry as truth then becomes an act of resistance. Resistance from the powers that be. Resistance and rejection that white, man, able, european is the existence that is the truest. We reject the binary, we reject the notion that this is all there is. With poetry, we carve out a tradition that is both new and ancient. We are opening our doors, we are bearing ourselves –naked and raw, we are sending an invitation to the cosmos. It is your choice to accept it or not. 

And if poetry can really save neither nations or people, let it at least give remembrance. Let us lay our dead to rest. Let us pay homage to those who have past, and ourselves. In it, we bear witness. In it, we are realized. Whether we are writing in dark times or simpler ones, it is necessary to write at all, because poetry is proof of our undeniably human existence. We are here: we rage, love, cry, laugh, live, and die. Poetry documents the full range of our humanity and the wonders and horrors of our world. When the aliens come, they will have to look no further. 

And what can we do, but offer what we have?

Nothing to see here….
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Anoushka’s Video!!! https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/cdvl/anoushkas-video/ https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/cdvl/anoushkas-video/#respond Tue, 02 Apr 2019 15:28:13 +0000 http://evecrea.agnesscott.org/?p=520

Filmed by Eve Barrett and Joann Lee. Edited by Eve Barrett. Choreography by Anoushka Pant. Dancer is Anoushka Pant. 

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You Want a Revolution, I Want Some Recognition https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/blog-2/you-want-a-revolution-i-want-some-recognition/ https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/blog-2/you-want-a-revolution-i-want-some-recognition/#respond Sun, 24 Feb 2019 21:58:21 +0000 http://evecrea.agnesscott.org/?p=507 So listen to my declaration.

Finding an internship is not easy, especially when you’ve got a bad case of imposter syndrome heckling your every move.

I so desperately wish that I had the confidence of a wealthy, white man or that I was so confident that I sweated in Kanye. Unfortunately, all I have is a case of bad stomach every time I apply for something.

I suppose that makes me a part of the statistic. I learned in my intro to my I/O psychology class that women are more likely to see asking for things such as a promotion or an interview as a nerve-wreaking chore, versus men who are more likely to see it as a fun game.

Well the ball is in my field and I’m trying my best not to get a concussion.

It’s not that I am bad at promoting myself or saying good things about myself. It’s just I get thinking constipation every time I do so. But I’m a firm believer in faking it till you become it and an avid lover of improv, so my mouth is sprouting off great things about me even as my brain is stuttering along.

I think perhaps the most important part of getting others to recognize your potential and greatness is learning how to recognize it yourself. How am I supposed to get a job, if I can’t tell the hiring manager why they should hire me in the first place?

Thankfully I’ve developed a list to get me through the process of recognizing myself:

  1. Say the Mantra

The Mantra looks a little like the mirror rap moments Issa Rae performs in ‘Insecure’:

Positive affirmations are the life force of the Mantra

2. “Put my thing down, flip it and reverse it”

Practice makes perfect applies to almost everything. When you have your elevator pitch down, practice it so much that you can flip it and reverse it without breaking a sweat.

3. Back it up

Yeah you can say for hours how amazing you are, but if you have nothing tangible to back it up then who cares? Experience with other jobs and your portfolio is what employers want to see. Even doing something seemingly as small as writing this blog post helps me build my portfolio.

4. When all else fails, Wing it

You can’t plan for everything. Improvise whatever else you need and be ready to go with the flow. This keeps you on your toes, and your responses to anything fresh and creative!

To be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever not be nervous when it comes to the interview process. However, that will never stop me from applying because I can recognize the endless possibilities of myself and I’ve got a good idea on how to get people to see it too.

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TECHWomen https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/blog-2/techwomen/ https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/blog-2/techwomen/#respond Thu, 24 Jan 2019 23:28:56 +0000 http://evecrea.agnesscott.org/?p=479 As part of their mission to connect women in tech with one another, contribute to the tech world, and inspire a deeper impact within the company and various communities. Comcast NBCUniversial TECHWomen invited students at Agnes Scott College, regardless of major, to a hands on Data Storytelling workshop. There, at the Comcast headquarters we were introduced to Tableau. A data analytics platform that’s being called the “gold standard” when it comes to visual analytics.

Image courtesy of Comcast NBCUniversal TECHWomen

The event was the first workshop type of event that TECHWomen has ever done with a college, and I’m so excited they chose the innovative students at Agnes Scott College to be part of Comcast’s own innovative strategy.

Going into Comcast headquarters we were all brimming with excitement and curiosity about what we would be doing for the day. Most of us had little to no experience with Tableau. I, for one, had no idea what Tableau even was.

Image courtesy of Amira Daughtery

I didn’t go to the workshop because I am a data person. I very much do not excel when it comes to any type of math, hence the creative writing major. I went because I need to know data analytics anyway. Especially since I’m interested in possibly pursuing marketing and advertising straight after college.

Data “Storytelling”

Data Storytelling those were the words that drew me to this workshop in the first place. I love stories, in every form, and it made sense to me to figure out this relatively new field of storytelling with data.

So when we sat down to go through how to use a data set to create things such as bar graphs, line graphs, scattered plots, gantt charts, and stacked area charts, I put my undivided attention into how a story can be created from data. What the data said about the company or what were the external issues effecting the data, such as was the product impacted by the outside world, are all questions that can be answered or considered with data storytelling.


You don’t have to build Rome, but you do have to understand how they built it.

Something that stuck with me the most during the workshop is how needed data analytics is in the business world.

It’s no longer enough to send all tech/data related questions to the IT crew. Being a modern business person means knowing the data and knowing the applications.

You don’t have to build Rome, but you do have to understand how they built it.

This is not just smart business, it is basically a requirement for modern businesses in a world that is technologically changing as quick as a snap of the fingers. To keep up you have to constantly be learning and relearning the ever changing ropes.

And I for one, have always loved learning.

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Sadie by Courtney Summers Review https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/major-learning-outcomes/sadie-by-courtney-summers-review/ https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/major-learning-outcomes/sadie-by-courtney-summers-review/#respond Mon, 03 Dec 2018 19:47:18 +0000 http://evecrea.agnesscott.org/?p=463

For my Literature for Young Adults and Children (ENG 320) class, we were required to create a “book talk” reviewing the book. I made my book talk podcast style and I actually enjoy how it turned out! 

The selection I chose for this book talk was Sadie by Courtney Summers. Sadie follows 19 year old Sadie Hunter as she hunts down her little sister’s killer with just a few amount of clues to help her and a switchblade to protect her. It was thrilling to read from the first page to the last and I highly recommend to anyone who wanted a little more serious YA read. 

The process to create this book talk took me a total of four hours to write my script, set up the setting, edit the video, and upload the video to the class drive. 

I set the book talk up podcast style, in order to mimic the book’s own podcast transcripts perspective. Setting the book talk up podcast style is probably why I enjoyed this project so much. For me, it was the most creative project we had to do for the class. And since creativity is right up my lane, I was in my element the whole time. I think I might just continue the Eve’s Reads series!

Of course, that doesn’t mean the video is perfect. The transitions could be so much better, the subtitles need to match the audio, and the lighting needs to brighter. 

Other than that I think it was fun to make and I extremely am thankful for Adena Adams and Jules Wilder helping me as I filmed. They made the process go by much quicker. 

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What is a Reader? https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/the-written-word/what-is-a-reader/ https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/the-written-word/what-is-a-reader/#respond Mon, 03 Sep 2018 18:02:41 +0000 http://evecrea.agnesscott.org/?p=403 A reader is someone who consumes.

Words, phrases, revelations, entire worlds can be devoured in one afternoon sitting, and yet the reader is still not satisfied.

The reader’s preferences can vary from fiction to nonfiction; prose to poetry; essay to novel, but the appetite for more after the last word is read is still the same. A reader can look at the full feast or the tiny, intricate details that go into each step and still be satisfied that they even have substance to gaze upon. A reader takes a bite whenever and wherever they can- in the subway, on a bench, before bed, while bustling to class. A reader looks for any mode, any utensil, any way to gobble up whether it be by newspaper clipping, or by the bright phone held close to their face, or the old classic of a physical book.

A reader takes a chance whenever they sit down with a new text, a chance to be delighted, to be scared, to be inspired, to be bored straight out of their mind, or to just be in the moment of every line that has been written for them to enjoy.

And sometimes it is true that even the most ravenous of readers have to excuse themselves and take a break, because sometimes it is too much to handle and sometimes it is that they cannot appreciate the text fully because they do not know the exact words to describe its taste or cannot wrap their head around what it’s trying to be. So the reader takes a step back and often they do come back, and often they do not because not every story is to their liking, and not every story is made to be liked.

But the reader does not stop searching for the next right one, because the reader, at the end of the day, is a learner and a learner is insatiable.

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Roots, Race, Resilience, and Resistance: Journeys 2018 https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/first-year/roots-race-resilience-and-resistance-journeys-2018/ https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/first-year/roots-race-resilience-and-resistance-journeys-2018/#respond Wed, 25 Apr 2018 17:54:08 +0000 http://evecrea.agnesscott.org/?p=346 Roots, Race, Resilience, and Resistance. That was the theme for our Journeys trip in New Orleans in the Spring of 2018. Exploring this theme provided me the opportunity to become engrossed with this trip, so much so, that I do believe that I have learned life lessons that I will continue to carry even after my GBL course ends.

But wait I’m getting ahead of myself, a little background is needed here.

Journeys is a week long trip either globally or nationally and it is a part of a semester long course called GBL 102. This course is designed as a critical component of Agnes Scott College’s Summit initiative and is part of Agnes Scott’s mission to prepare its students to become global citizens. Each class and trip covers a theme that you devolve into before, after, and during the trip.   

My trip was top New Orleans (NOLA) and our theme was Roots, Race, Resilience, and Resistance. But how does that theme relate to New Orleans?

I learned in those seven days on the trip that it has everything to do with NOLA.

Let’s start with Roots. The Roots aspect of the theme focused on grassroots groups that we met during the trip, such as the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and their work with NORCO, LA a place we came to know as “Cancer Alley”. It also focused on New Orleans’ locals and the roots that they have placed down in NOLA and how sometimes those roots were becoming removed or displaced by things like Katrina or gentrification.

This brings us to the Race aspect of theme. This topic not only covered NOLA’s rich history of  different cultures, ethnicities, and races that settled in NOLA, but also it covered how marginalized groups are treated in present day issues and it brought up the importance of understanding the racial dynamics of NOLA by learning the history of more than just a single story.

In discussing Resilience we met with people like Warrenetta Bank in the Lower 9th Ward, a community leader who with volunteers from all over the country an the world, are helping to rebuild their community and the Lower 9th Ward from the destruction that was caused by Katrina.

Finally, the last topic on the theme Resistance meant to me a combination of all these things before how marginalized groups are forming and joining with grassroots groups to not only rebuild their homes but to also fight back the history of repression and the racism that is still happening in New Orleans via gentrification, unfair incarceration, health and toxic waste, and the problematic school system that is rampant.

Discussing and learning about the various topics in this loaded theme made me learn so much about New Orleans. Discussing about it before the trip was nothing compared to watching it play out right in front of my eyes. The lessons that I learnt that stuck with me is that NOLA is more than just its tragedies, it’s a living and thriving place with a bigger than life community, but the flipside to that is to not recognize NOLA’s past struggles and to not take the time to understand groups current struggles is to fall into dangers of a single story and to glamorize and fantasize a place that still needs progress. The theme to this trip helped me understand this.

I think that having a theme or topic that you concentrate on when you go to a particular place makes the experience much more meaningful, because you are actually being mindful about what your observing and experiencing. I recommend that everyone has something they’re trying to learn for a trip and that they start learning about it even before they go on the trip so they get this meaningful experience, such as my trip to New Orleans.

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Why I Write https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/lifestyle/why-i-write/ https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/lifestyle/why-i-write/#respond Wed, 14 Feb 2018 18:41:59 +0000 http://evecrea.agnesscott.org/?p=243  

I have many plans and goals in my life; aspirations that one day I hope to achieve and complete. As I have aged, these goals and dreams have changed with me, but the one thing that has always remained constant is writing. In elementary school, I wanted to be a fashion designer and an acclaimed writer. Now I want nothing to do with fashion, but I still want to be a well-known author.

Perhaps my #1 goal in life is to write something that changes somebody’s, anybody’s, life for the better. This goal also stems my motivation to write for myself. I love writing, to me- it’s the purest form of self-reflection and I would only be able to create something so profound that it changes someone’s outlook on life if I cared and loved it enough to do so.  

This realization came to me when I first read the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling when I was in the first grade. Now, I enjoyed books from a very young age, but it wasn’t until I read the Harry Potter series that I realized that books can have an effect on so many people, worldwide. My young brain thought well that’s magic- creating whole new worlds and characters people love by just putting a few words on a page. Mind-blowing that was, and, I found, that I wanted so much to do the same.

I started off big. Whole new worlds, all-powerful beings, magical powers, talking animals- the whole shebang. I wanted to get as far away from reality as I possibly could, because writing was my escape from reality. My dreams and thoughts cascading from my head onto a piece of paper in jumbled form.

High school helped me to even more expand my writing skills, by introducing me to works that really challenged me to up my game.

Freshman year, we had to read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, and I discovered that auto-biographies could be as compelling, or even more so, as stories about aliens or were-wolves. I became fascinated by people’s life stories. I wanted to know their individual truths, so I joined the school newspaper as an outlet for doing so. Junior year, for AP Lang, we read essays and speeches from brilliant minds such as Martin Luther King, Eleanor Roosevelt, Amy Tang, Malcolm X, and John F. Kennedy. We learned how you can influence crowds of people with the right words such as Obama did in his speeches for the 2008 election. Senior year in AP Lit. we read books and plays like the Kite Runner, the novel that taught me the importance of character development and redemption in a story, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, the novel that solidified my interest for classical stories and Oscar Wilde, and Things Fall Apart, the first novel I ever read by an African author. These materials were different genres and different forms in the way you can tell a story, but they were all good, in their own right. I learned there in high school, that I shouldn’t limit myself to only fantasy fiction and that you don’t have to write a full-pledge, traditional novel to craft a story that touches people universally.

For me, writing is having thousands of ideas shoot through my head daily and I have catch some of them before they can speed out. The easy part is coming up with and getting an idea the hard part is writing it down, dissecting it, and making it articulate. When I finally catch the idea, I start my writing with the characters of the story. I interview them in my head and on paper: what are their favorite colors, sayings, places? What do they do in their free time? What are their motivations, weaknesses, and strengths? Who are they? Sometimes I put my characters in random situations, different worlds from the one in their story just so I can get a sense of how they’d react. One of the most important things to do when I’m writing and one of my favorite things to look for when I’m reading is a character’s development. If the plot doesn’t develop the character I know I’m doing something wrong and I go back to the drawing board.

That being said, know that writing isn’t easy, and whoever tells you otherwise is straight-up lying. Writing may never be easy, but I do it anyway, because to not would be even harder.

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The Pursuit of Happiness https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/blog/the-pursuit-of-happiness/ https://evecrea.agnesscott.org/blog/the-pursuit-of-happiness/#comments Fri, 19 Jan 2018 21:58:58 +0000 http://evecrea.agnesscott.org/?p=196 Credit: "A Stone Pathway" by Eve Barrett is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

I like being happy.

Everybody likes being happy. We’re biologically structured to. We get a high from it. Happiness is the best crack you’ll ever have and- bonus- it’s good for you and it won’t kill you! (This is excluding people who have died from laughter, those tragic outliers.)

Technically speaking your unusual if you don’t like being happy. Sadly, just because happiness is good for you and wanted it doesn’t mean it’s there 24/7 or even just the 7.

Think of happiness as a dead beat dad and child support the few passing moments of joy.

I’ve been in active pursuit of happiness ever since I can remember. A firm believer of the phrase Treat Yo’ Self even before it was even a thing.In intermediate school and middle school I would fill journals to the brim with bullet point lists with the title of, “Eve Barrett’s Plan for Success, Happiness, and Cookies” (10 year old Eve loved cookies- I had the nickname Cookie Monster for 3 summers in a row). A list might look like this:

  • Go to college (Featuring extensive research of colleges and colorful pamphlets)
  • Travel to England (I had a great love for England; it seemed all the novels I read were stationed in that quaint country)
  • Eat all the chocolate I want (This is still top 5 of my priorities on any given day)
  • Write a novel every summer (I gave up ⅓ of the way every summer)
  • Major in Criminal Psychology (I was obsessed with going to college, and I was also obsessed with learning about serial killers)

And finally,

  • Change somebody’s life for the better

That last one was on all my lists. It was the bullet point that always stood out from the rest. Maybe because it was the one dream, the one goal that wasn’t excessively about me.
The thought had come to me, believe it or not on the bus when I was in 5th grade. Every morning I would sit down and straight ahead of me was one of those moral stickers people in academia were so fond of. It read in big white letters,

“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you might be the world.”

The words never failed to light my face, but it also made me more meticulous in regard to people. How were they? Was the smile on their face because they were actually happy or because it was a societal muscle reflex?

I would pretend I was Nancy Drew and people’s happiness were my cases:

I heard the way my teachers sighed as they sat down in their desks, the way their mouths would twitch in an attempted smile- no, not good enough- before smile number three stayed- there, perfect- before greeting and settling down their rambunctious class.

I noticed that some of my friends would grimace and stay quiet as others would talk excitedly about their home life. Watched as they twirl their hair as they made up something cool they did during one of the breaks.

I saw my parents’ marriage snap from years upon years of bending. I took in my mother’s crossed arms and hunched back as she dove into her work, and heard my father’s forced laughter ringing in his car that he had to live in when we had our daily calls.

From my observations it occurred to me from a young age that happiness is not easily achieved nor is it easily maintained.

And as I got older people seemed to get sadder. Their shoulders sagging with the weight of the world, and yet they were no Atlas.

My peers and myself struggled through the lapses of puberty, education, and each of our own unique Coming of Age stories.

Once the carefree children that played alongside me in elementary were having nervous breakdowns in class, tear stains a set feature in their face. The bubbling of a child’s laugh turned into an adolescent pained chuckle when someone dryly jokes of taking their life just, so they wouldn’t have to be sitting in class, “because yeah they get it.”

I wanted to change it; to go back to the carefree days. Unfortunately, time travel is still just a thing of science fiction, so I had to do something a bit more practical. I finally had an epiphany sophomore year of high school during study hall.

Truthfully, it was like any other day. My best friend Karina and I would stop by the concession stand and fill up on snacks to munch on during the boring 35-minute space that was study hall. It was during midterms, so everyone had their head down in books. Some studying, others giving up and just drooling in their text books as they snored. As I looked I saw people were stressed out, especially my friends and I wanted to do something that would put a smile back on their faces.

“Karina, do you think you can help me with something?” I swirled in my seat suddenly, surprising Karina, and she stopped the hot cheeto mid way to her mouth.
“With what?” She inquired. I smiled brightly,
“Happy Notes!” I exclaimed.

Happy Notes are little envelopes that say open for happiness in bright colors on the front and on the inside they contain a little note with something funny or nice written on it. The idea had come to me when I was scrolling through Etsy the night before and stumbled upon a product called Happy Pills, where medicine tablets opened up and on the inside were little scrolls of paper that had a compliment written on it. I didn’t want to buy the product for all of my friends, because I was all the way broke, but I decided to create the next big thing.
I enlisted Karina to create the envelopes, while I decorated them and put wrote the funny or nice things on the inside. We made a prototype bunch and during lunch I brought it to my friends. I waited anxiously as they opened it up, and my patience was rewarded as a smile so bright would fill their faces as they would read the note.

“Oh my god, Eve this is so sweet!”
“This made by day.”
“Thank you so much!”

The chorus of thanks range through me and it felt like the biggest win of my life. I continued to make the Happy Notes for my friends through the entirety of my high school career.

However, even heroes have to fall and I found that my own happiness was a fleeting and fleeseable thing during junior and senior year of high school. I was Stressed™:

My lowest low came during fall semester of my senior year. However, surprisingly, not till after I finished all of my college applicants, so I’ll take that as a win. Thank you very much. Everything seemed to go down hill in an increasing order of not coolness- First, I had to go through sessions of grueling, nerve-wracking, and tear producing driving lessons with my dad. Then I got sick- like miss two weeks of school sick, which led to a painful bout of not caring about anything related to school that saw a worrying drop in my grades as I struggled to even pretend to keep up with all the stuff I missed when I was gone, add that to dying every night for the time-consuming well oiled machine that is marching band, and you get goodbye to those senior exemptions for midterms during the fall semester. When I was finally, finally, able to catch up and do some damage control- I got into a car accident! That of course led to not being able use my dominant hand for like the whole month of December, missing my Winter concert for band, definitely not being exempt from finals and having to take all my finals after the long winter break, and who can forget those bouts of depression and failing grades! But eventually, eventually I climbed on top/ ignored it all and went through senior year with a smile on my face as I walked across that graduation stage and away from the hellhole that was high school.

That experience definitely gave me depression whiplash and it was undoubtedly the closet I’ve been to rock bottom in my lifetime. But once you’ve reached the bottom, the only way is up. Or is that just a saying people use to make them feel better about themselves? It makes me feel slightly better about myself, so I’ll keep using it.

This experience also made me treasure happiness even more, and it made me more empathetic to people’s struggles. It bolded, italicized, and indented to me that being happy is great, it’s fantastic, but helping other people achieve that happiness is phenomenal too.

Even though a smile is just a fleeting thing when you manage to put it on someone’s face they’re able to experience happiness even for just a short while, and everyone deserves a chance at happiness. And so, my pursuit of happiness still continues, and I hope that every day is an exploration into the wonders it can bring.

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