Every Lil' Thing

I had found myself on the floor of my bathroom, flooding in used tissues, soaking in tears.  Empty ice cream pints crumpled up and melting. Clothes and jewelry scattered everywhere. And my shirt sleeve, coated in tears and snot. I was not in a good place, lonely, depressed, and angry.  I had tried everything, like eating my feelings and watching “Friends”, hoping that Joey Tribbiani would cheer me up, but no.  Not the Phish Food Ben and Jerry’s, not the enthusiasm and stupidity of Phoebe Buffet, nothing. Thoughts wouldn't stop rushing into my head, and tears would not stop flowing. I left my bathroom and came to my bed, cuddled in it, and saw my computer.  A new thought came into my head.  I opened up my computer and let it all out.  Over two pages of pure anger, sadness, venting, and tears, all let out on one solo word document, after ten minutes of non-stop writing. When I was done, I had realized the tears had dried, my frown was gone, and that my shakin...

Music has always been an escape, even from the beginning of time. Pilgrims, merchants, colonizers, and slaves; flappers, soldiers, boomers, and millennials; parents and children; rich and poor; black, brown and white. People of all decades and centuries can connect with the power of music. It hasn’t always been a musical world full of Kanye Wests and Ariana Grandes, but there has always been a song. There has always been a story waiting to be told. Not just written on paper or blurted out of one's mouth, but a story told with a beat. With the clapping of hands and the stomping of feet, we can hear and feel the pain, the sorrow, the love and happiness, the war and the peace. Music has evolved just as much as our nation. The diversity of music over the years mirrors the diversity of our people and the cultures that are living in this melting pot. The story of America can easily be explained through the evolution of song. Music is, and always has been, a reflection of the time in whic...

  Growing up, I believed that, well... "growing up" was a myth. I believed that everyone just  stayed put in their period of life. My mom would stay by my side, no matter what  challenges she faced, she would smack them down and still protect her little girl; my  brothers would stay annoying teenage boys blasting music and playing video  games till 2am; I would stay my dad's "little princess" and I would stay having little, to  no, responsibility, but lord! Was I wrong. The truth is, nothing stays the same. It feels  more than weird to think about leaving high school and think about living on my own, think  about the career I will want to do for the rest of my life. It's not scary, I'm not afraid of what's  to come, no, that's not it. It just feels bizarre, you know, strange to think that the unknown  will soon become... known? When I came into high school, I thought that as soon as I  stepped foot in the quad, I'd feel like a grown...

A beautiful blonde girl, adorned in a blue dress by talking mice loses her glass slipper, her true love finds it, they end up together and have a happily ever after.  Her bright red lips suck into a poison apple as she falls into a deep sleep only to be awoken by a true love's kiss. To no surprise, she too had a happily ever after.  “The Blindside”, a true story about a woman who took in this homeless child, made him part of her family and made him the huge success he is today. Leigh Anne Tuohy taught Michael Oher the true meaning of love and is he is now proud to call the Tuohy family his own.  Whether it’s the love of a friend, the love of family, or just true love, American movies, and stories, tend to end in the same way, a “happily ever after”.  While the word “love” for us may paint a picture of an elated couple riding off into the sunset on a horse, it is important to know that those four letters mean different things to other countries.  It's important t...

  "Ain't nothing changed but the year it is,” - (USC) Law Professor Jody David Armour A drug-dealing high school drop-out, a scholar-by-day and poet-by-night, and a struggling DJ walk into a nightclub…Little did anyone know that a few kids from a heavily gang-affiliated and impoverished town would later become known as the “Fathers of Gangsta Rap”. While growing up practically drowning in sights of death and AK-47’s, these men had nowhere to go but up, and so they did. Using their life experiences, memories, and fears of both the past and future, NWA forever changed the name of rap and exposed the injustices inbred in the justice system. Being considered the “world’s most dangerous group” only gave these men more ammunition to fight, and so they did. Using words as a weapon to fight their biggest enemies - the police and systemic racism -, “N****z Wit Attitude” (better known as NWA) started a movement and created art that was a “reflection of [their] realities”. Though controv...

  Now if you're a senior, then this isn't your first pandemic you've lived through, so congratulations for that. Though corona isn't anything like H1N1, AKA the Swine Flu, we still have to wear masks and shut lots of stores down.  Now, with school being half cancelled and half online, with parties being no longer, and with a deadly virus strolling through the streets of New York, to les Rues en France, staying mentally sane is damn hard to do, especially for gen-z teenagers.  It's depressing to say that this pandemic isn't the most shocking and devastating thing to happen during these past 6 months because weve also been through the biggest civil rights movements of our generation, in addition to losing legend and idols of ours like the Black Mamba, AKA Kobe, Juice Wrld, Pop Smoke, the face of jeopardy, Alex Tribek, and even James bond himself, Sean Connery. We had people protesting for days, marching on end till blisters smothered their feet, and till their mas...