Tapestry Submission Deadline: FEBRUARY 17

Hello Creative, Artsy Tapestry members,

We are approaching our submission deadline for Tapestry! The deadline is February 17th, less than a month away! We strongly encourage you to submit your work, which can include photography, short stories, poetry, paintings, sketches, sculpture, etc. We would love to see your work in our 2014-2015 edition of the Tapestry book.

Remember, to submit, just click on the "Submit to Tapestry" button on the side of this blog, fill out the form, and share your work with foxchapeltapestry@gmail.com!

Have a wonderful new semester!

SUBMIT, SUBMIT, SUBMIT!

- Emily

Long Weekend Reflections

Hi Tapestry!

       I’m sorry for my recent lack of posting – junior year finals kind of took over my life for a couple of weeks. They were a little bit stressful (to say the least ;), so I was more than ready for this long weekend to arrive! Finally, I’ve been able to relax, catch up on sleep, and do the fun things I was missing during crazy finals time…

       Last night, I was sitting on my cozy family room couch with my mom and my sister, who came home for the weekend from her busy New York City life. We were all exhausted from a major shopping outing that had somehow managed to last nearly the entire day. Our little blue teapot was simmering on the stove, fresh chocolate chip cookies were baking in the oven, and Downton Abbey was flickering on the TV. (My mom and sister just got me hooked on Downton Abbey this season…it’s so good!) I wiggled my toes inside my fuzzy, warm socks and sank deeper into the soft cushions, feeling happier and more relaxed than I had in a long time.

       A little part of me knew that the next day would be Monday, and then the day after that (tomorrow already?!?!) would be Tuesday, when a whole new semester filled with homework and sleepless nights and busy days would begin. But I was there, in that moment, letting the comforting sounds and smells surround me. I embraced the feeling that washed over me and was reminded of how necessary it is to spend time with family and friends and to eat extra helpings of dessert and to curl up by the fire with nothing pressing to do.

       One of my major New Year’s and New Semester’s :) resolutions is to take more time to breathe – and to savor those moments of happiness and relaxation that are, in reality, far more important than anything else. It’s so, so easy for people, especially me, to get lost in the crazy, pressure-filled routine of everyday life and to forget to spend time doing the things they love with the people they love. I read a quote the other day that really summed everything up: “Aim to live life so that you don’t look back, at the end of your life or after some great catastrophe, and think, ‘How happy I was then, if only I’d realized it!’”

       Now is most definitely the time to realize it.

Hope you all had a fantastic and relaxing long weekend!

Sophie

Ah wowww!

Hey Hey!!

Here, we are wrapping up the semester, and ready (or not ready, because it's harder) for the new semester and the new classes.

So, I'm here and I just want to ruminate and think about how much I have changed in this first semester of 2014-2015 school year.

1. College Applications- This is a dreaded, exciting, tiring, and an illuminating experience wrapped in one. I felt that throughout the process I grew as an individual. I gained a clearer understanding of what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. An understanding of the things that I valued and morals that I held. In a nutshell, it was all thoroughly enlightening.*

2. 18 -When I turned 18, it felt like, suddenly, I was alone. Before 18, I was a child, protected by my parents, and my actions were excusable, but from the moment clock struck 12:00 and forever, I am on my own. I can be charged as an adult and put in jail!! I can get married without consent!! I can go get a tattoo!! I don't have to have my parent sign a transcript release form!! What is this freedom? It's too much.

3. English AP 12- So the hardest class of the school, and I'm signed up for it next semester. Few months ago I trembled when I was told stories of 2-4 hours of homework, and then today all my fears evaporated away. I watched as some of my classmates, who are currently in the class, did a presentation and I was left speechless. It's hard for me to imagine that I am going to be just like them in a few months. They were so articulate, moving, and wise. They presented stories and literature in a way that I have never seen it done before. Their voices were clear, loud, and had important humanitarian messages. Some of their mothers were in the room, and it seemed to me that we shared the same sentiments; I wanted to jump up and hug them and tell them that they were amazing in more ways than they knew. So if you have any doubts about the class, embrace them, and let Moliere sway you with his words, 'The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.'

My grandma recently said the most beautiful/relevant thing ever which sounds more poetic in Punjabi but I want to share it anyway,

The sun didn't change, The moon didn't change, neither did the sky,

the only thing that changed is the man.

To wrap things up, the Tappy Events for 2015 include: The Open Mic, a Career Speaker, the Publication, and the Publication Party.

-Jaagrit

*I realize I'm only 18 and sound like a joke, please bear with me. 

Chaos at the Airport

Hi all,

One of my resolutions is to post more on the blog, because I have been awful with that! Truly sorry for not contributing more to the blog, but junior year assignments have taken over my days and nights. However, I'm not here to make excuses. I want to tell you all a story about my holiday break.

My parents are divorced, and so every year I am in a different place for Christmas Day. This year I happened to be at my dads, and I stayed there for around a week or so. My dad lives in New Jersey, and we have driven there in years past, but my family wanted me fly there this year. 

Airports have never been a fun place for me; I can usually deal with hectic people, but some of these people are crazy! I think I was ran into maybe nine times, but that's beside the point. As I was making my way through security, I took off my shoes, coat, and bag. Now, I never have an issue with security, but of course on the busiest day of travel, I have to be the one to cause a problem. 

" Miss, can you step over here," the TSA agent snarled.

Oh God. This cannot possibly end well.

"Sure, no problem. "

"Stand there. Do not move an inch." 

Don't move an inch. I can do that. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man walking a dog with both the man and the dog wearing a vest that read "K-9 Unit." As they approached, I grew very nervous. The dog stopped, and smelled my legs and feet. He started to bark, louder than I had ever heard a dog bark before. This is no exaggeration. Everyone in the line was staring at me. After three minutes of extreme public humiliation and an unnecessary search, I was told that I was free to move forward. 

"Must've been your perfume."

I retrieved my belongings and got on the train that takes you to the gates, but not before tripping and almost falling on an elderly man in a wheel chair. 

"Well, this should be an interesting break," I thought as I put my headphones in and tried to rid myself of the embarrassment that my perfume had caused.

Needless to say, I gave the perfume to my stepsister when I got to my dad's house. 

"Why are you giving this to me?"

"Oh, no reason at all. Thought you would like it," I explained.  Boy, was she going to love it.



Thanks for reading about my crazy time at the airport!

Kristen Scipione

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