Count Your Years In Pennies

TAPESTRY! I apologize. But I'm here. My mom told me once that I'm a late-bloomer. She told me this partly to comfort me on behalf of the Victoria's Secret employee's comment that "things do change for 32A's," and partly on behalf of my consistent negligence of things I really should be doing.  I think I'm just perpetually late and maybe a little lazy.

Anyway, last day of this year I'm running up the horribly steep hill of my neighborhood, my stomach full of guacamole, and I can't stop writing in my head. I do this thing when I think of the most amazing topics to write about (ok not necessary amazing-they are just topics I WANT to write about), and they come to my mind-but I'm just so lazy that I think "oh I'll def remember that" and shlosh the idea into the back shed of my skull.

Too bad I am always so late-because I'm constantly catching up to these ideas to stop them from running past, or worse, away from me. So here I am on the last day I can call this a life in 2014-and I'm feeling like I've let so many great words slip through my fingers.

Don't get me wrong-this has been a year of great successes for the world and myself alike. However, how many times do we really hold time cupped in our palms and treat it like a precious thing?

Years, like pennies, are taken for granted. We celebrate when they are new and shiny, and look to what new splendids they can afford us. But as years plink on, their surfaces becomes tarnished by disappointment, pressure, our environment, and stress. By the 31st, everyone has posts on their Twitter feeds exclaiming what a $#!? year it's been, and we toss our years into our change purses, clasp them closed, and thank ourselves for the new copper that's replaced a greeny-brown reality. I believe this mentality is mainly because we can't seem to remember what we ever wanted in the first place.

Most of 2014's qualities will carry into the new year. The same giggling girls in tube tops will cover Instagram with their shiny smiles that we will like, parents will act relieved to hear we're at least thinking of college, and men will continue to be thanked for holding doors for women. Take-out will always be fifteen minutes of crucial waiting, and we will all still have an unexplained inkling for driving to loud music at nighttime.

My parents told me that on New Year's Eve 1999 everyone was afraid. They thought the computers wouldn't know how to transfer into the new millennium, and life as people knew it would cease to exist. But midnight came and went, and the Earth was untouched by the moment. Life is life, and that is the truth that transcends all generations of time. Sure new music will arrive, new people, new experiences, and new fears, but the constants of life, the way people are people, the expectations for a more wholesome humanity, and the pennies upon which we rely will definitely remain. The notion of reinventing a newer, more satisfying life in 2015 seems romantic, but you cannot change yourself in the stroke of a minute, or the course of a year.

Instead of attempting to replace 2014 with 2015, I suppose I'm asking whoever reads this to count their pennies. Your years are passing, and no great material wealth can slow that fact.  Time is an invaluable element of growing up, and I thank the sun and moon for their tireless rebirthing of night and day.

Open up that change purse, and feel the coins you've stored away. Feel their rust and remember how it got there. Pennies, like years, are building blocks. They add together to create a vast sum of worth that define the greater plot line of life. Without years, we would not have our lives as we know them. Keep those pennies in your heart, and you will have captured all of time's greatest riches.

A Healthy and Happy New Year to All,
Nicole Fallert

Amazing Adventures

Hey everyone!

            I’m sorry for my absentness in November…things are always so crazy this time of year, but they were especially crazy for me around Thanksgiving time. I was incredibly lucky because I got to go on a trip with my family to visit my brother, who has been studying abroad in Santiago, Chile since July! It was an amazing trip, filled with delicious food, beautiful sites, and so many new cultural experiences.

            We were there for just under a week, but we saw absolutely everything we possible could. In sunny Santiago, we gazed at palm-tree filled parks and quiet neighborhoods along side bustling restaurants and glittering skyscrapers. We meandered through my brother’s Universidad campus, ate unbelievable pork sandwiches with his host family, and rode up a (slightly rickety) cable car to the top of a hill to look out over the entire city, which is humongous and home to more than seven million people.

            We also travelled southward down the coast to the island of Chiloe, which is the second largest island in South America. It was breathtaking–I’ve never before seen such vivid green hills and calm blue-gray water. Colorful farm-houses and grazing cows dotted the countryside, and mussel farms floated at the water’s edge. I felt like I was looking at a postcard! On the island, we were able to visit so many beautiful seaside towns, all of which were filled with a rainbow array of houses. We explored markets filled to the brim with colorful handmade goods and local homemade foods (especially seafood empanadas…mmmm). We were even able to be a little adventurous– one day my brother and I braved the chilly waters to go sea-kayaking, which was extremely fun, as it was my first time ever being in the Pacific Ocean.

            We went back to the main land, and then ventured a little north again, to visit a beachside city called Valparaiso, which was also very big and full of life. Nearly every wall or public staircase was covered with creative murals and graffiti–the whole city felt like a giant art exhibit. It was awesome! They even had a mural that said–in English, interestingly enough–“We are not hippies, we are just happies.” I though it was really funny!

            I am so thankful and thrilled to have had the opportunity to travel to such a vibrant, welcoming, and fascinating place, and I hope that someday I’ll be able to go back. I thought I’d share a few photos from my trip…

this is part of the view from the top of the hill in Santiago–it was too big to see all of it from right there!

Chiloe :)

a stand at one of the really cool markets

       - Sophie :)

A Case for Soil Conservation

bonsoir all,

As you can probably tell from the title of this post, I should be studying for a rather foreboding AP Environmental Science test that is rapidly approaching. However, I feel that my grasp of various soil types is secondary to a topic that has lately percolated through all strata of social media  (Sorry Mr. Schubert).

I have not involved myself in neither advocating nor criticizing the protests in Ferguson, Missouri surrounding the death of young Michael Brown, nor the recant chokehold case in New York City. The stories have been a little bit like flu season: contagious.  Our country's eyes have been glued on this Missourian town and bustling urban center, but now it feels like everyone knows something I do not. Why are we protesting? 

The answer seems obvious. With Twitter practically overrun with shared photos of protests nationwide, the cry for control within our justice system is not because of the single death of this young boy. No, the nationwide protest, I believe, has spread from one initial sneeze that has manifested into into a tummy-turning turmoil that rarely allows the brain to cool its fever and ask why am I here? 

The top results that appeared after I searched "#ferguson" on Twitter. These photos were minutes old.  

For those of you who have taken U.S. History, think of the formation of our government. It's a constant see-saw ride between wanting and disliking intervention. The American police system has become a standard we take for granted. We require protection, but don't accept its overuse. We expect justice, but reject when its actions appear ignorant of our humanity.

I think I am finally addressing the circumstance now that it has reached our own high school. Many of my peers have adopted strong opinions regarding the situation, but honestly, I'm pretty confused. As Millennials, we receive our news via retweets. While the accessibility to awareness is heightened, the availability of fact is hard to perceive.

I check Twitter probably about four times an hour, and it appears that within each visit, a new opinion is presented to me. One hour I am rushing with the protestors, connecting emotionally to an Twitter post such as this one of a Berkeley student protesting the New York City choke-hold case:

By the end of the next feed scroll-through, I've linked to a Slate article on the conservative case for police reform. While I am so thankful for young people's ability to actively communicate their beliefs, I think that we, myself included, have allowed the nutrients to leach from the soil.

We are all journalists in this situation: reporting, commenting, editorializing, investigating. However, we are remiss of one very important element of journalism. We cannot advocate a cause if we do not understand the who, what, when, where, why, or how of our information. A cause for truth, rather than blind group action, will effect change. We cannot let the things that nourish our ability to accurately encourage a movement be poisoned by over fertilization.

So when you are asked to form an opinion, or are tempted to argue, lie down in the soil instead. Put your cell phone away, and just feel the world beating underneath you. We are all trying to share, live, breathe, and understand one another. As students, we cannot react without justification. I am still searching for my own resolutions regarding the brutality. When I reach them, maybe I'll be right one, or maybe I'll be wrong. Whatever happens, I pray that our world remembers that the roots of our lives lay entangled in the very soil of the same Earth.

Comment, retweet, or write. Let's continue this conversation.

Nicole Fallert