This morning I got my first pumpkin spice chai tea from Starbucks. The moment I took a sip I felt fall in the air. Don’t get me wrong I love summer more then anything, but there is something about fall that I find calming. After a long hot summer, the temperature starts to go down, Friday night football starts up, and most importantly Halloween and Homecoming. Fall has always been one of my favorite seasons I can finally start wearing comfy hoodies and sweats and get a hot chai before school. It’s not super cold yet but the summer heat is coming to an end. I associate a lot of things with fall but the most important one has to be pumpkins. I love pumpkins whether it’s carving them or having a pumpkin pie. There is something about Fall that is just comforting and I am so happy it finally cools down.
Golf is a fun activity for hanging out with your friends and relaxing but not when you flipped the cart accidentally. I went golfing with a friend last Sunday. We played 18 holes at the Ojai Valley Inn. He shot 91 and I shot 98. I was happy with my score since I finally broke 100 within only 7 months of playing golf. We had a took a little break after the front 9. We had lunch with another friend and his family. It was the first time meeting them. They were all really nice and all. They even invited us to visit their house on one of the weekends. Anyways, after the lunch and the back 9 we realized I left my jacket at the 9th hole. Therefore we drove the golf cart back and grabbed it. After finding my jacket we started heading back to return the cart to get ready to get back on campus. Unfortunately, when we were making a U turn to get back on the road we went flying off a little bump on the ground that we didn’t notice. The cart flipped and he got hurt badly. I didn’t get hurt, just a few scratches. I gave him my golf towel to try stop the bleeding. I flipped the golf cart back and drove us to go seek help. After noticing the head of school, he sent teachers down here to pick us up to go Emergency room. In the end he is all good now, waiting for him to recover fully. In conclusion always look out on what is on the road.
I used the same words as before, relied on the same silly excuses, and stuck to the same topics of conversation that I used a couple of years ago when I was younger and reckless. As usual, I blushed in our dialogue, and felt embarrassed; for some reason, I always feel shy about using the harsh words I normally use in everyday speech with you. Why, I don’t know, just as I don’t know why this hasn’t changed over the years.
We have long been living separate lives far apart, but a thread of something pure and untainted has remained between us over time. I don’t feel grown-up and tired when I talk to you; it’s as if I’m slipping back into the summer of ’22, and as if my worries and cares are gone again. But now, reflecting on our conversation, my head is filled with different questions. Why do I act like a kid when we talk? What do you think of me now? If/when we meet, will we connect the same way as before? Was our connection so easy for me because I simply didn’t know myself or the world? Will I look at you with different eyes after all I’ve gone through? Or maybe everything has stayed the same, and we can easily chat about our past and future again? How will you react to my changes and worldview? How have you changed, what’s going on in your thoughts, what do you feel as you enter a new stage in your life, and what do you think about the life path I’ve chosen?
What I fear most is that we will meet and you will see me as an adult, beautiful and healthy, a successful young woman who has achieved her goals and set new ones, and you will realize that all this cost me a broken heart. Broken not just from your absence, but also from the absence of family, from total and consuming loneliness in a foreign country, from strange people who have spit on my soul, from endless burnouts. I’m afraid that if you see this, then it will become an undeniable fact that I will have to come to terms with. And then the real question arises: was it all worth it?
I still remember our car rides and all the songs we’d sing. I still remember our ice cream trips. I remember our spot and walks on the beach. I still remember our humor and how angry it would make Mom. I still remember our basketball practices, and you coming to every game. I still remember looking for you at church and running up to you to give you peace when you came. I also remember the brunches and donuts we would have after. I still remember you showing off your bike pictures, and the videos of you calling out my uncle at the top of the mountain. I still remember going to my tias house and how much they loved seeing you. I still remember how happy you made everyone when we went to Mexico. I remember how happy you made anyone you met. I still remember how much you cared and how heavily you loved. I still remember how much you ate and how much you loved it. I still remember how nervous you’d get when we’d go swimming, and how you wouldn’t let me go in the deep end in case anything happened. I still remember how you couldn’t swim. I still remember teaching you, and even when you were scared you still cracked jokes. I still remember your stories of ovs at night. I still remember your voice, I have all your voice messages saved. I still listen to them. I still cry every time. I still remember your smile and your laugh.
Flowers make me feel good about myself. One drawback, however, is that flowers in the U.S. are very expensive. If it were true, I would buy flowers every weekend when I go to town and put them in my room. Also, considering the temperature and the fact that they are placed in a room, fresh flowers don’t last very long, so I am a little reluctant to buy them. However, I feel better when I put flowers in my room. The other day a friend of mine gave me a dried rose. Just by placing them in the room, they brighten up the room at once. Another reason I like flower bouquets is that they are made from various kinds of flowers. It is nice to receive a bouquet from someone, but another good thing about flowers is that you can arrange them with the recipient in mind. Another interesting point is that each flower has its own meaning in the language of flowers. Gerbera as a whole means “mystery and sublime beauty” in the language of flowers. The language of flowers also changes depending on the color, and in the case of roses, there is a meaning depending on the number of roses. These may be small romances for us as well. My mother’s birthday and Mother’s Day are coming up soon, so I want to give her a bouquet of pink flowers.
In 8th grade, my friend Livia who lives in Mississippi arranged a trip after graduation to a mall town on the Gulf Coast of Florida. This town is called Seaside and it was amazing. I went back to Seaside after school got out last year. I just went with Livia, and it was amazing, but this year, I am going with the original group, and it is going to be so much fun. I literally can’t wait. Whenever I shop for summer clothes I always think about wearing those clothes in Seaside. Seaside has a lot of teens and there are gatherings at night where I have met people that I still talk to. Basically, we spend all day biking around and tanning at the beach, and then we go to dinner and, after dinner, get ready to go to the nightly beach get-together. Even though I have only been twice it feels like I know Seaside like the back of my hand.
Hello whoever is reading this. You are alive. You are in a body that is working to support you. There is so much here for you to enjoy on this planet. Small things like that smell of cookies coming out of the oven, and big things like your future marriage (wink wink), or not.. if that isn’t your vibe…
You have more hikes to go on, and more sights to see! You have languages to learn, and foods to eat that you have never even tasted before! You have arguments to have and lessons to learn. You have cats to pet and birds to listen to sing outside of your window as you wake up in the morning. You have coffee to enjoy or continue to wait to find out if it really tastes good or not. You have rooms to decorate, and candles to light! You have stories to tell and songs to sing. You have people to tell you love them again and again and for them to say it back. You have hugs to give and adventures to go on. You have silly gifts you need to buy for your friends and photos to take. You have jokes to tell that will make you laugh until your stomach physically aches. You have a world with endless opportunities ahead of you. You just have to reach out and grab them for yourself.
There is so much for you here so don’t go anywhere yet!!! There is so much left to discover! Remember who you are and don’t forget it. You have no idea the effect you have on other peoples lives and all of the days you will continue to brighten.
I love fruit so much. I love that after a dip in the pool on a hot summer day, I get to take a bite of the freshest ice, cold piece of fruit. Fruit is just like amazing. You can make fruit into anything basically. You could make fruit a snack, a dessert, a drink, and literally so much more. I don’t think people understand the perfection that comes from one fruit. Fruit is honestly the food of happiness, think, fruit is colorful and juicy with a great taste. The only thing I cant decide on is what kind of fruit is my favorite. I really love watermelon, but then I think about a strawberry, and like OMG mangos at the perfect ripeness is like the best gift a person could ask for. I remember this one time when I was in Mexico, on a vacation, I would eat at least 8 mangos a day. The fact of the matter is fruit is the best and everyone should love it! Also fruit is so healthy for you!
This year I had much more fun on prom maybe it was because my expectations were so low from the disappointing previous year. This year I brought my absolute best friend Kyra and we had a great time. I have been to a couple public school dances with Kyra, and I told her this was going to be nothing like those and instead much more underwhelming. After school, she came over and we began to get ready we started with our hair. I had this realization when I was looking at her through the mirror no matter the venue or the weather. I was determined to have a good night. Once we finished getting ready, we took photos and headed to school. We came to Mieke’s room and talked about where we thought the venue would be. After a long van ride, we arrived at a country club. It was super pretty, and the food was great. We all went to take sunset photos and went to the photo booth. Although there may not have been as many people as the public school dances or an afterparty it was still amazing.
I wish I could… I wish I could… I wish I could… travel the world. I wish I could find what fumes my random breakdowns. I wish I could read what was going on in someone else’s mind. I wish I could live along the coast with my house on the edge of a cliffside overlooking the water with the mountains on the other side of my home towering over. I wish I could know when I do something wrong. I wish I could be alone. What I wish I could do compared to what I realistically can do is far away from one another. On one hand I can possibly travel the world someday. On the other hand I won’t be able to tell myself why I am upset about nothing or read someone else’s mind. All I can do is hope. I can hope one day I won’t have to question a break down. I can hope one day I can talk to someone directly and they can tell me how they are feeling truly. I wish I could change people’s opinion and outlooks on specific situations but I can’t. I am only human. We wish that we could and sometimes we can but only if we think positively. Forgiveness and forgetness is the key to life in my opinion. If you forgive you might find the answer to your question of why? If you forget you can forgive. I wish I could change time. I wish I could eat a feast without feeling full. I wish I could learn to never make a mistake again rather than continuously making mistakes and learning from them. But none of that is realistic. We live. And we learn. We forgive. And we forget. We have love. And we have loss. I wish I could make everyone believe this.
OVS Journalism Blog 
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