Category: family

Scapa’s Journey

maydaygaskarthLeave a comment

There are many things I love in life, and one of those happens to be animals, more specifically horses. I’ve grown up around horses since I was young. Horses are amazing, and if anyone knows me, I talk about horses all the time. My aunt had five of her own horses, and her retired off-the-track thoroughbred named Maggie was one of the first horses I ever learned how to ride on.

Horses have always been a very important part of my life. In sixth grade, my uncle told me that he signed me up for horse camp, and at first I thought “Ha. Very funny, not happening.” But I never would’ve thought that that camp would’ve been an open door that led me to one of my true passions. I never thought I’d be owning my own horse.
It was in April of my freshman year. My aunt came up to me and asked me if I wanted to go to an auction to see baby horses. I knew, logically, I should’ve said no, because I knew we were going to fall in love with one of them and then we’d want to buy a new horse. We already had five horses, but you can never have too many horses… right? Well, neither my aunt nor I believed that because when we left the auction, we already had our hearts belonging to one horse.

His name is Scapa. Right now he’s two and a half years old, but he was just a yearling when I got him. It was less than a month before I was getting my back surgery, and I was not sure if I’d have the chance to ride for another year, but I knew I still wanted to work with horses. My aunt got him for $1500, and over the summer before my sophomore year it was my job to help train him for his first halter class, where he won third place.

Though I’ve only had Scapa for a year and a half, I’ve realized several times that Scapa will most likely live into my forties. While I’m in college, going to law school, and even afterwards, my horse will still be there. Horses will always be there for me, and the fact that as I grow up Scapa will be also, it’s something really special that I’m incredibly thankful for.

People who’ve never been around horses are never really able to understand how much of a treasure it is to form a bond with a horse. Horses have always been my best friends in animal form. Any time I’ve had a bad day, I would go down to the barn and my horse would immediately make my mood happier. From horse shows to camping trips to Ireland, the highlights in my life have always involved horses, and it’ll probably be that way for years to come.

Photo Credit: manetail.com

Money Can Buy You Happiness

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In every sport except one, in order to be phenomenal you must practice non-stop and dedicate every hour of your day to challenging yourself in the sport; every sport except for horseback riding. Many people say that money can’t buy you happiness, but in this sport, all riders believe it to be true. Money can buy your way into fame and top ribbons in competitions.

In jumpers, in order to be a good rider that is not as wealthy as your competition, it still requires the same amount of dedication that other sports do; but, if you are rich and can afford to buy $500,000 horses then no matter what type of rider you are you can race your way around the course, be the most ratchet rider in existence, and win every class.

In hunters, the people with the most money always win, even though everyone argues it to be unfair, it has been this way for a century or two. Everything about the owners riding can be inferior to someone with less money than them, but because their horse is nicer, and therefore more careful with it’s legs, it will be able to clear anything you set them up to. Especially in hunters, how you place depends entirely on the fanciness of your horse; including the way it moves, carries itself, jumps, and its flexibility. Hunters is a sport for those of the upper class and all you see at shows in that aspect are people flaunting their money everywhere and paying any price for their daughters to place well.

This aspect of horseback riding frustrates many people in the sport, but yet those who truly love to ride continue to compete no matter the outcome.

Photo Credit: horseshowsbythebay.com

Brother Bear

faithfulomnivoreLeave a comment

The last time I thought about you was a few weeks ago.

It was because some friends and I were discussing the best animated Disney movies. As we went through the list, the title Brother Bear popped into my head, and I immediately began expressing my love for the film, declaring it my personal favorite.

Now that I think about it, I don’t even really remember what happens in the movie. I vaguely recall a plot about two brothers who turn into bears, then turn back into humans, then decide to turn back into bears – or maybe something sort of like that.

I didn’t realize that I miss you until tonight, and I think part of the reason why it started to hurt so much is simply because I wasn’t even aware I missed you.

The last time you called was to wish me happy birthday, and that was four months ago. I can’t remember the last time I saw you.

Ever since you moved out, we’ve gradually lost touch. Now when you come to visit I feel a sort of distance between us. Maybe it’s because you’re over a decade older than I am, but even still, when I was in kindergarten and you were in high school I remember you used to laugh at my jokes, or at least pretend to laugh at them.

Now it feels like we don’t have anything in common. When you do come home to visit you’d rather sit with Dad in the kitchen than come play video games with us. It didn’t used to be like that. But even if you do choose to spend time with your siblings, it would probably mean throwing around a ball in the yard with our brother, and I would either sit and watch you both or just stay inside.

Image Credit: Disney,com

I remember you babysitting while our parents weren’t home, how you used to sit us on your bed and then flop onto it beside us to see how high we would bounce.

I remember the countless hours we spent in the pool. I would cling onto your back like a leech, and even though it annoyed you you let me stay there. I remember the first time I went down the slide I sat on your lap because I was too little to go by myself. Or when you would throw me up in the air and how it felt like I was flying, how time stopped and I was weightless, until I finally splashed back into the water.

I used to think of you as a superhero, and in some ways I guess I still do. I believed everything you told me and never questioned it, not just because you were so much older and wiser, but simply because you were my big brother.

I always took our time together for granted. It’s been some five years since you graduated college, and even when you were still in school you barely lived at home. I know you’re still looking around for what you want to do, and I know you might be unsure even though you wouldn’t admit it. I just hope you’re happy.

You’re always busy. It’s either work or a softball tournament or plans with friends. You never come on vacation with us anymore. I don’t blame you one bit, that’s just life. But sometimes I wish you would try a little bit harder to make time for me.

I like to imagine that you’d live closer to me if it weren’t for your girlfriend. Don’t get me wrong, I think she is very good to you and very lovely, but sometimes I can’t help thinking that maybe if you weren’t with her I would get to see you more often.

It’s hard for me to believe that you’re grown up now. I don’t want to believe it.

Looking back to that movie conversation with friends, the reason why I vied for Brother Bear so intently was because it reminded me of you. Maybe you remember the nights when I wanted to sleepover in your room. When I did, that’s what we always watched –  because it was your favorite movie.

Even though you’ll never see this and I’ll never tell you, know that I love you very much, and I miss you.

 

 

 

left without a choice

mariethearistocatLeave a comment

we let people change us. from the moment we are born, our lives have a certain path dictated by others, whether you’re premature and in need of immediate surgery or cozily wrapped in a pink or blue blanket. after you go home from the cold hospital, you were placed in a crib and kissed on the head. the people

Photo Credit: wird.com.ua

who brought you home soon tell you what to wear and how to act. this is only reinforced when your teacher tells you to raise your hand and to ask politely to use the restroom. after you outgrow the brightly colored chairs at kindergarten table to a desk at a high school, you start letting your peers decide certain parts of you. they decide where you sit at lunch and who your biology partner is.

and after that you start letting one person decide. this person is commonly known as a spouse, partner, or significant other. you share deep night conversations filled with painful memories or happy ones. what they do with this information is up to them, and you’re allowing them to decide that for themselves. so, what if they pull the trigger, let go of your darkness over dinner cocktails or lunch sandwiches. so what if your leg got bruised when i pushed you around, sweetie? don’t worry, i’m sure a haircut will cover up that broken jaw or that black eye. when you go home, make sure to wear a little more makeup there so your mom won’t notice. you listen to them, curl your hair that way or stop hanging out with that friend.

no wonder 25% of women and one in seven men will be victims of domestic abuse. if you’re shocked, don’t be. we train people from birth how to change for others, but some don’t learn to change for themselves.

Let Them In

mariethearistocatLeave a comment

This is an apology for all…

The funny whose jokes are overshadowed by sadness.

The family-oriented who can’t see their nephew graduate.

The misunderstood who can’t show their legitimate beliefs.

The innocent who are painted as violent, unjust, or villainous.

The dedicated whose crafts will be destroyed before their finish.

The capable who are given more restrictions that weigh them down.

The creative who will never pick up another paintbrush, pen, or camera.

The trapped who have had their ticket to freedom ripped out of their fingers.

The loving who will be across the world from their sister while she is getting married.

The kind who are readily met with guns pointed in-between their eyebrows.

The faithful who can no longer see the light at the end of the ominous tunnel.

Photo Credit: http://www.motherjones.com

The charming who get turned away before they can flash their brilliant smiles. The forgiving who are given nothing but punishments for the actions of others.

The aspiring doctors, teachers, or parents whose lives were cut off or thrown off course.

The eloquent whose thoughts will have to be shared in diaries instead of at universities. The confident who get put down until they would rather stare at the ground than at a mirror.

The brave – the ones who perilously fought for their country, who can’t receive their medals or see their families after a long, hard battle.

The humans who are treated like less than they are, and much less than they deserve.

This is for all those in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya who have faced injustice, not just from every-day Islamophobia, but blatant xenophobia from the leaders of a so-called “great” nation.

Cry Me a River, Or Don’t

mariethearistocatLeave a comment

I don’t cry often, or at least not as much as people assume I do.

Before I turned nine, my tears had no depth. I would cry because I couldn’t get the Barbie I wanted, or because I wasn’t allowed to eat the chocolate bar I craved. It was like I was standing on the shore, only to get my chubby feet wet. They would be salty tears of defiance, and yet, they were noticed more. No one ignores a little, pig-tailed girl with puffy, wet eyes and a solemn face. People would rush to my side to be my hero and save me from my sadness.

In the summer before my fourth grade year, I truly cried for the first time. I was curled in bed and the breeze made the leaves on the tree in my backyard hit against the window with a soft thump. A mountain of blankets weighed down on my crackling shell of a body. My mom was angry at me, and I was convinced that she undeniably hated me. Even though that wasn’t the case, my cheeks seemed tattooed with the streaks left behind from my crying fit, and they stayed like that until the morning.

Only after that night, did I realize that I can only sincerely cry alone and wrapped in many blankets. It’s an odd revelation, but one that I will testify to for the rest of my life.

When I sat in the first row at my mother’s funeral, I was the most anxious I had ever felt in my entire life. I felt like her closest family and friends were watching me like beady-eyed hawks. My legs were neatly crossed and my black, lace dress itched in ten different places. I tried to focus on my aunts and uncles speaking about their beloved sister, but could only think about the choir show I was missing. My attention only perked up when my sister went to speak.

She stood with her right foot tilted ever so slightly inward. You couldn’t see it because of the podium in front of her, but throughout my entire life she had done it whenever she was nervous. She greeted everyone with a half-smile and red eyes, and you could tell that she was trying to make my mother proud. My grandma was holding onto my skinny wrist like it was a treasured jewel. I looked down at her black shoes and fixated on the curvature at the front. Then I heard my name. My sister had water welling up in her eyes and looked to me to turn the attention away from her. I wiggled out of my grandmother’s grasp and walked reluctantly to the stand.

“Um, I miss my mom. Not a day goes by where I don’t miss her and I loved- uh, I mean love her always and for-” my voice cracked.

All of a sudden, tears gushed out of my eyes as if someone turned on a hose. I ran away from the microphone and sunk into my seat, and wished I could evaporate. Those tears weren’t of evident sadness, but rather were a scapegoat to leave the gaze of all those gloomy visages. After that moment, I wasn’t sad but embarrassed. It is such a normal thing to cry at a funeral, especially the funeral of a parent, but it was one of the most fake and shallow outbursts of emotion I have ever experienced.

Photo Credit:  www.pinterest.com

After that, I couldn’t cry for months. My body was no longer capable of that type of emotional release. Whenever I do cry, it is of exasperation. A way to rid myself of pent-up frustration.

Some say that teenage girls cry about everything. When we break a nail or have a split end, it is as if the world is falling apart. Even when the world is crumbling around me, I pretend that I’m standing in a field of daisies, a defense mechanism I’ve created for dealing with my emotions in public.

And with all that said, people still think I cry all the time. But I guess that’s just what a girl’s gotta do.

Boys Rule, Girls Drool.

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It’s a well know fact to all teachers that the average boy is behind in the industrial world, beginning in Pre-K, and lasting through to college.

Boys, simply put, haven’t been doing nearly as well as girls in school. Statistics have shown that, on average, boys’ grades consist of mainly C’s and D’s, while girls hold more college degrees.

This phenomenon is a growing epidemic in all countries, and all cultures. 70 to 80 percent of the students accepted to Advanced Placement (AP) classes are girls. This increasingly large gap doesn’t pertain only to inner-city boys, it includes boys from each and every corner of American Society, and beyond.

Photo Credit: heartbreakhypnotist.com

This education crisis has been the focus of large schools, which are actively trying to curve the problem. Some blame ethics and how the social dynamic of school affects young male students, who see athletics as their way to shine. Others blame the school system as a whole for failing to provide boys with a system that adequately suits them, and demand a larger outcry for boys, just as there was for girls thirty years ago.

Jefferson Academy in Long beach C.A. has taken a different approach, by putting students into gender-separated classes. For boys, they have placed a larger emphasis on academics as opposed to sports. So far, the school has seen a large success rate in test scores and overall effort.

Though schools across the country are hesitant to apply this practice, this agenda has been proved so far to be beneficial. As a boy with coed classes, I don’t believe I would want to have my class suddenly split.

If this were the only way to resolve this issue, it should happen with a new generation, rather than the current generation enjoys the luxury of mixed classes and would be opposed to anything but.

Research also points out how an emphasis on academic success may be just as beneficial in the long run. With similar intelligence rates among boys and girls, the academic gap could be eliminated through better parenting, and a greater emphasis on boys in class.

To what extremes would the school system go in order to help young boys succeed? That is the ethical question that the next generation, and America as a whole, may have to face.

Who Decides?

raining17Leave a comment

How do babies choose their families? Is it a game of chance – the roll of a dice, or a pick from a hat? Or is it the stork, who flies down and delivers each baby bundle to warm, expecting hands?

Photo Credit: previews.123rf.com

Sure, babies are genetic. We’ve all heard about the birds and the bees. Each family will have a child made up of an assortment of their genes (with the exception of adoption, donor insemination, etc.) But I’m talking about what’s inside. Look past eye color, or skin tone. Everybody has a soul, or a spirit – whatever you want to call it. Everybody has something inside, something intangible, that makes them truly them.

And how does each soul end up where it does? In some families, all members fit together like puzzle pieces. All their spirits fit in and work together, and it is clear that each soul is meant to be there. But in other families, souls just clash. One might belong to a puzzle depicting a mountain, but the other to a valley. They clearly don’t fit together – so why did these contrasting souls end up together?

Is the work of some greater force, with a reason for bringing certain souls together? Is it an occurrence under the pretense that everything happens for a reason? Or is it just that game of chance? Maybe souls land where they do for a reason – through a complex, calculated plan that is fueled by purpose. Or maybe souls just float around, and wherever they happen to land is correct. For some, it is where they are meant to be. And for others, it’s not.

Last. Blog. Ever.

mushuooLeave a comment

Tonight, I am writing my last blog for the Ojai Valley School Journalism class.

I have has such an incredible experience here at OVS, and a part of that was being involved in this class.

Being given the opportunity to express my opinion on whatever I feel like has been amazing. Blogging has been an amazing outlet for me and writing articles has allowed me to strengthen my writing skills in a fun manner.

I would like to thank Mr. Alvarez for his incredible support for the past two years, academically and personally. He is truly one of my favorite humans in the entire world, and he is someone I would do nearly anything for.

This time is bittersweet. Leaving high school, and the journalism program, will be upsetting; but I am growing up and moving on, and that is a beautiful thing in itself.

I cannot wait to share my experiences in college with my family, friends, and former teachers. I wish everyone at OVS the best, even Harley.

I will be forever thankful for my time here at OVS.

*@KENNYROO NO PICTURE

Just A Thought

mushuooLeave a comment

Every day when I wake up, I find myself thinking about things that may be important to me at that moment; if my hair is straight, how my skin looks or if my outfit is figure-flattering… but in all honesty, all of this is irrelevant.

We spend so much time focused on the things that make us temporarily happy like looking skinny or driving a nice car or having the most likes on an Instagram picture, but why does any of this matter? What is the purpose?

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy social media and feeling confident and purchasing nice things, but what REALLY matters? That is my question.

I feel like we focus too much on the superficial, rather than the necessary.

I am speaking from watching family members and friends suffer through the horrifying effects of cancer, Crohn’s, and Alzheimer’s, not through personal experience of these diseases; but when your health, your life, your comfort is threatened, all of those factors change.

You begin to focus on your comfort, your happiness, your health… unfortunately, the reality check came because of the diagnosis of an illness, but that’s when you start to realize what is sincerely important.

I experienced a drastic change in my health two years ago after I experienced a surgical complication, and I remember how things changed.

For a while after that surgery, I remained in a mood of distress, in constant physical pain. But through this, I was able to realize how strong my primal instincts were; I remember those feelings dynamically, and they will never escape me.

After reading an article surrounding the effects of cancer earlier this evening, I remembered how I felt then and reevaluated how lucky I am now.

This article hit me right in that spot that nobody wants to be touched, the one where your throat swells and your eyes throb and you breathe deeply to stop the emotions you are feeling from consuming you.

Now when I wake up in the morning, I will look at myself and think about how lucky I am to be alive, to be healthy, to be eating my breakfast, to have a family, to have a roof over my head, and to have each of the opportunities before me that I do.

I am happy, I am healthy, I feel terrific.

 

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