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Garden Proposal Capstone - Eliana Alfaro-Allah

Posted by Eliana-Eliyas Alfaro-Allah on

For my senior capstone, I searched through my passions and eventually came upon the idea to explore the idea of creating a garden for SLA and BFHS’ terrace. A garden would offer the opportunity to enrich both communities in terms of nature and gardening, it offers opportunities for all sorts of students, ranging from engineering students to art enthusiasts. As access to the terrace is restricted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I have compiled a formal proposal, complete with an extensive annual budget plan and blueprints for a rooftop garden, in hopes to pass it on to a rising senior able to flesh out my idea better than I can.

FINAL capstone garden proposal (1)

Advanced Essay #2 : The Second Side of Migration

Posted by Eliana-Eliyas Alfaro-Allah in English 3 · Block · B Band on

Foreword-

For my advanced essay, I wanted to highlight not only the hardships of migration, but the shock and effect that it has on people who are put in these stressful situations. I attempted to highlight the realities of immigrants, and bring he reader’s attention to the risk and danger that these people live in in order to bring awareness to the desperation that comes with seeking safety.

I saw an article while I was scrolling through my computer the other day. And an image popped up that made me start to think. The image featured a family. A family that walks, carefully and cautiously, away from a large place of greenery and down a strip of barren road. The father, on the far left, carries his baby in a carrier on his front and looks after a child to the right, patting his head comfortingly. The aforementioned boy has a thick, puffy jacket draped around his shoulders, a few sizes too big but efficient in keeping him warm. His brother next to him has a thick jacket as well, but the hood up and the rest of the jacket hanging off his small body. Their mother next to him dotes over him, a worried expression on her face. On her back are several jackets and supplies for their journey, but on her front she as well has a carrier. Unlike the husband, hers is empty. She holds the hand of the last child on the far right, his expression frozen in a crying face as his mother pulls him along. They seek one thing: safety within the place they’re going.

What is often misunderstood about the experience of immigrants is how desperate immigrants are to seek safety. Immigration is a very dangerous journey with several potentially life-threatening risks. Why take them? Why put so much effort or money into leaving a country that’s been your home all your life and go into a country that you know nothing about? You would only put everything on the line if you had to. This is the dilemma that immigrants face when coming into a new country. Whether for personal wellbeing, family or education, nobody immigrates on a whim. It is a frustrating and difficult process, and people do not consider how many risks people take to immigrate.

Mr. Block, in english class, showed us a very insightful video. This video featured syrian refugees that immigrated to Lesbos, Greece, having conversations with tourists who were in greece on vacation. During these conversations, a lot is opened up about the narratives on both sides, but we see the thoughts of the immigrants more so, and a compelling story is brought to the surface.

Two men talk on the beach, one a tourist and the other a refugee. When sharing introductions, the refugee says, “I was a refugee in Turkey for two years, and now I am in Greece.” His tourist counterpart expresses his concern when he says, “How awful. That is quite a journey.” To which the syrian refugee responds, “the trip was relatively safe, because I was nearly killed three times in Syria.”

In just this small exchange, we see two very different perspectives. On one hand, we have this refugee who clearly has been through several ordeals, and was in such an unsafe environment that he was willing to risk everything he had to leave. His life was in danger, and he prioritized leaving that situation to start a new, healthier and safer life. On the other hand, we get to see the realization in this tourist, who up until that point had no idea of any of the perspectives that came from immigrants. He was so taken aback by the nonchalant-ness in his refugee counterpart when talking about potentially facing death three times, it became clearer to him that no one leaves just on impulse. Something that perfectly frames this is later in the video, we see two women talking, and the female refugee declares, “we love Syria, but fate has brought us here.” Most people misunderstand the desperation of some refugee situations and how they are willing to do virtually anything to escape them.

The importance of migration is encapsulated beautifully in the book Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Exit West is a book about two young lovers, Nadia and Saeed, and their struggles trying to stay together as they try to immigrate to a foreign country. Exit west is a commentary on how migration is treated and reacted to on both sides, the immigrant side and the non-immigrant side. The book does an amazing job of highlighting the struggles of immigrants seeking refuge. To highlight the position that refugees are put in when they immigrate, Moshin Hamid writes, “when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind.” This quote is an in-depth look of the immigrant experience, in a sense that desperate actions are taken for the promise of refuge in countries they aren’t home to. You can feel the essence of the pain of leaving behind all you know, and all of the people you love for the greater good, with hopes to start a new chapter that brings forth promise.

In Mr. Kay’s race theory class, we studied in-depth some of the lives that immigrants lead. To assist with the perspective, Mr. Kay gave us an amazing resource, called the Interactive Immigrant Experience. What it is, is a compilation of biographies of real life immigrant experiences and what it does is it takes you through the life of an immigrant trying to get into the United States. I followed the journey of a young man named Hamid from Iran, a very gifted computer scientist who was trying to get into the United States to find schooling and work in his field. He is granted a visa, and is hit with good luck when his job offers to upgrade his visa to a work one, and he meets a wonderful woman whom he falls in love with. Trouble arises when said wife’s mother becomes ill, and you have to decide whether to let your wife go and visit her ill mother, or make her stay where it’s safe. I decided to make her stay, and sacrifice her never seeing her mother again, because if she had, she would not have been granted re-entry into the U.S. when Trump’s muslim ban took place. This helped me put an insane amount of things into perspective, and realize how shallow and blind people are to these real life experiences that immigrants are going through.

The immigrant experience has never been an easy one. Throughout the generations, people have had to put themselves into life-threatening situations. But why? The answer is almost horrifying. It’s to escape life-threatening situations. When we peel back the layers of the experiences of immigrants, we find shocking truths in other people’s realities. We are blind when it comes to the amount of hoops people have to jump through and the risks people take to seek what they need to survive. People ignore the reality of people’s situations, and the dangers that they face day to day and instead see it as an infraction upon their country. It’s quite the opposite. People risk everything to be able to live safely and happily, and should be respected when they immigrate. Nobody knows the other half of the story, but my hope is that people will begin to.

Works Cited:

J, Peter. “16 Children – 16 Photos: Click the Black Background and Switch on Their Reality.” Politiken. Politiken, February 28, 2017. https://politiken.dk/fotografier/art5849931/Click-the-black-background-and-switch-on-their-reality.

McEvoy, Gráinne. “What Would You Do? Take an Immigrant’s Journey.” Experience Magazine. Accessed January 14, 2020. https://expmag.com/immigrant-experience/#all_opening.

“Migrants’ Stories From a Greek Island.” The New York Times. The New York Times, February 29, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/100000004237409/migrants-stories-from-a-greek-island.html.

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Advanced Essay #1 : Understand.

Posted by Eliana-Eliyas Alfaro-Allah in English 3 · Block · B Band on

Introduction-

For this essay, I tried to do what I hate to do the most, and open up in this essay. I tried to let the reader into my mind and how far I’ve come. I’m proud of being able to complete this and give insight into my life and the people who influence it. By the time I write my next paper, I want to expand on reflections rather than spend so much time on descriptions.

Eliana Alfaro-Allah Air Stream 9/20/19

The cold air nipped at me from all sides as I stared out at the river. The sun had already set, but the light hadn’t left the sky. It was no longer orange; it had become a dim sky blue that hung above our heads. Two small brothers laughed joyously as one of them happily tugged a kite along the riverside, the small amount of sand squeezing in between their toes.

I got bored as soon as I sat down. I looked around for entertainment, and cast my eyes down toward the ground. I immediately spotted a small rock, its reds and oranges shining past the dreary and dull greys of the pebbles it laid among. I picked it up, grimacing at the dirt on my fingers but hurriedly cleaned it off. I smiled down at the treasure, admiring it with joy.

“You know-” my aunt’s thick accented voice interrupted my spacing out as I turned up to look at her. Her long, chestnut-colored braid dangled with a flower at the end like a pendulum as she sat down beside me. “If you want to take anything from nature, you have to ask permission first.”

I blinked, utterly confused by the statement. I looked back down at the rock, smoothing it out in my fingertips before looking up at Zafra. “How do I know if they say yes or not?”

Zafra snorted, the sound turning into a chorus of delighted giggles. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders before pulling me flush against her, resting her cheek on top of my head. “You’ll just know, I suppose.”

Zafra was always insightful. She had frequent revelations and nuggets of wisdom, always on hand. When I went to Chile for the first time, I had no idea what to think. I hadn’t even left the United States, and I hadn’t spoken Spanish in a long time, and now I was going somewhere completely new where the only person I knew was my grandmother. My grandmother had a bad habit of withholding information from me, so I didn’t exactly know where we were going until the cab from the airport took us to a small apartment on the corner of Lota and Hernando de Aguirre. I was lacking any sort of guiding motion in my life at that point. My mother worked so much that I hardly saw her, and while one of my sisters had moved back in with us, she was hastily learning a trade, so I barely saw her either. Nobody to ground me or show me they understood. I had gotten accustomed to it until I met Zafra.

She was a kind and gentle soul, a psychologist who had a wholesome faith in humanity. And toward the beginning, as much as she tried to get me to open up, I wouldn’t budge. Her profession made me wary, reminding me of some sort of talented robot. Of course she pretended to be interested in my life. She lived to learn. The classic ‘good doctor’, just wanting to fix.

But she never gave up. She was always eager to greet me in the mornings, all the way down to tending to my last need at night. She brought me copious amounts of sweets and gifts. I took the acts as ones of bribery. But she had me cornered in the kitchen one day. She had been fixing me tea, and had asked if I liked Chile. I told her that it was a dream. What wasn’t there to love? Great food, nice views, everything’s cheap, I wished I could live there. Zafra was pleased with my answer, but followed it up by asking that if that was true, why was I silent so often?

I didn’t know how to respond. This woman, my aunt, was so sweet and kind, if I wasn’t honest, it would take such a toll on me. So I told her. I keep to myself usually, but it’s just that I hadn’t spoken Spanish in a while, and sometimes it came out like jagged, broken shards of a glass vase. She turned to me, and said the words that I had been meaning to hear for so long. “I understand you.”

I wouldn’t be so emotional over it had it been for the fact that we both knew she wasn’t just talking about language. My facade can take the form of many things. In America, I played the smiling fool, airheaded and dopey to bring a light atmosphere to heavy undertones of my life. In Chile, I could be the shy and pensive girl, only people in America knew that I hated people like that with a passion and I wasn’t shy so much as I just disliked people. But Zafra looked straight through me and told me that she understood all of it.

She took me to a fair close to the end of the trip. After a day of fun, we waited at the bus stop in anticipation to be taken back to Santiago when Zafra nudged me, giving me a glance of the bundle of paper in her hands. She unraveled a set of churros, that we all began to wolf down. I told her that it reminded me of funnel cake.

She tilted her head in confusion. “Funnel cake? What kind of cake is that?”

I hummed, tapping my chin and picking at a loose thread of my cargo pants. “It’s not really… cake. It’s strips of batter like this, fried with powdered sugar. It’s basically the same as churros, just… spaghetti.”

“Hmm…” Zafra nodded, closing her eyes and thinking. “I understand you. And you eat that on what occasions?”

I smiled, finishing the last bite of mine before brushing off my white-speckled hands on my pants. “Fairs, like this. They had a county fair in my other grandma’s town every summer when we went to visit her.”

Zafra looked down at me, her lips curling up in a small smile. “Do you miss her?”

I yawned. “I’m supposed to.”

And she understood. Zafra, while I hated to open myself up in the moment, let me become a softer version of myself under her guise. She helped me to become more trusting, less hateful, and my friends especially can see it. She saw me for what I wanted to be, not what I emulated, and treated me kindly and caringly. I take every conversation, every story over tea, every story and chunk of love she gave me and carry it with me and try to share it with others. Even if I can’t help anyone hurting, or erase what made them so bitter, I can do what Zafra taught me. I can understand.

Eliana Alfaro-Allah - Lord of the Flies Essay

Posted by Eliana-Eliyas Alfaro-Allah in English 2 · Pahomov/Rhymer · D Band on

Eliana Alfaro-Allah

English 2

D - Band


In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, we see a rift and blur between the lines of civilized and savage. But when someone is pointed out as being the latter, what is it about man that becomes so violent? So upset and disgusted when a mirror is shined in their face? When humans are deemed savage by other humans, they go to extremes to convey their denia about being savage.No human likes to be looked down upon, we all would prefer to be looked at as civilized.  But to mask their true nature is commonplace for humans, and we don’t just see it within Lord Of the Flies, but in our own society.


In the book, on page 156, after the murder of Simon, Ralph takes it upon himself to confront Piggy and tell him what it really was- murder. Piggy is disturbed, and lashes out at Ralph, blaming Simon for his own death. “It was dark....There was the lightning and thunder and rain.  We was scared!...Anything might have happened. it wasn't --what you said…. "I was an accident…. He had no business crawling around in the dark...  He asked for it." Then he changes, "It was an accident.""By Piggy saying that Simon was ‘asking’ for his own death when Ralph tells him that it was murder, Piggy knows that Simon ca  nnot speak for himself, and they both know full well that Piggy didn’t do anything to stop the killing. Piggy still wants to distinguish himself as civilized and not savage, and is enraged that Ralph is now showing Piggy his true colors.


This  instance isn’t lone in the world of the book, in fact, it’s not just in the world of William Golding. When it comes to savage acts, humans are not the only ones to blame. In 2013, a documentary by the name of ‘Blackfish’ took storm, earning rave reviews and a whopping 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s a somber story of a killer whale named Tillikum, that after a long psychosis of being trapped in Seaworld, it begins ruthlessly killing its trainers. On February 24th, 2010, Tillikum killed a female trainer by the name of Dawn Brancheau by causing blunt force trauma to the head, neck and torso before dragging her underwater and drowning her. Even though it tore through the nation, and media was quick to capitalize on the tragedy, Dawn Brancheau was blamed for her own death. When giving addresses, Seaworld stated that Dawn was at fault, due to her hair being tied in a long ponytail on the top of her head that Tillikum grabbed onto. This caused outraged among her friends and family, making them feel wronged that Dawn was being blamed for her own death, when she wasn’t even alive to defend herself. Seaworld was quick to defend themselves instead, and in turn by denying they had any involvement by abusing their whale, they blamed the woman who died for her own death.


It’s prevalent in society today for people, instead of owning up to their own guilt and moving on to be a better, more experienced person, they deflect blame childishly and opt to refuse to listen. This is seen in the book, on chapter 11, page 270. Golding writes, “The booing rose and died again as Piggy lifted the white, magic shell. “Which is better –to be a pack of painted Indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is?” A great clamor rose among the savages. Piggy shouted again. “Which is better –to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?” Again the clamor and again – “Zup!” Ralph shouted against the noise. “Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?” Now Jack was yelling too and Ralph could no longer make himself heard. Jack had backed right against the tribe and they were a solid mass of menace that bristled with spears.” This is insanely child-like, which while being simultaneously applicable to the boys’ level of innocence as children, but the extremes they go to in order to convey their denial. Jack is enabling the kids, and leading them to instead of listening to the rational concerns of Piggy and Ralph, but to heckle them and boo immaturely. It’s indicative of modern society, and very dismally, it’s not just applicable to children, but to grown people.


In 2018, an article came out about a college student named Heather Price, who was raped in her own dorm. After the incident, she stayed silent, as do a lot of rape victims, but eventually wanted to come out about her perpetrator. She soon found out that in her college, she wasn’t alone, and forged relationships and found solace in the other victims on campus. And while that sounds uplifting, there is a very harmful part of this story - which is, these women weren’t believed. When bringing up their accusations to higher authorities, not only were they not believed, but they were heckled by other students, saying that it was their fault for the crimes that were acted upon them, telling them that it was their fault for the clothes that they were wearing on the nights of their attacks. This goes to display the level of injustice, where innocent people are being blamed for crimes committed against them, and when they attempt to remind their attackers of their own guilt, they retaliate immaturely by blaming and heckling them. No better than a group of uncivilized schoolboys.


In Lord of the Flies, we see an abundance of varying cases involving the boys on the island being shown their true selves, and lashing out in their immaturity to display the denial of the acts that they are charged with. This specific happening is displayed not just in the world Wiliam Golding has created, though. Humans are capable of many incredible things, this we know. But humans, as products of our emotions, over time, have created ways to delude ourselves into an alibi while putting victims of actual crimes down. And while it’s been happening for a long time, this has become prevalent in our society as of late when heinous behaviour is more likely to be called out in the current political climate. And while it’s unfair that truly guilty people are able to walk free because of it, these unchecked acts of rage can come from a mask of denial to hide away guilt.


Ezekiel

Posted by Eliana-Eliyas Alfaro-Allah in English 2 · Pahomov/Rhymer · D Band on

Laura taps on the screen, her head tilted to the side with a quizzical expression on her face.


Is this thing on? The red light means it’s recording, right?


Alright, well… where do I start?


My surroundings must look familiar, huh? Yep! This is going to be your room! I finished painting it a few days ago, but it took a little while for the fumes to leave. Ezekiel, at the time I’m filming this, you are… about a week away from coming to term. It’s exciting, isn’t it? The concept of life, how it’s ever-changing and evolving, how everything on this planet is put here for a reason. It’s a cycle, they say. If I told your father I thought that way, he’d probably kill me, haha. All ‘god made us this’ and ‘we do this for that!’


Oh, I haven’t even introduced myself! Well… my name is Laura. I’m your mommy! And right now, you’re in my stomach, which in retrospect is kind of odd now that I say that out loud, hah… I guess It’s confusing that I’m even leaving you this tape. You probably have so many questions at the moment, and I wish I could answer them all. If you’re getting this, Auntie Maya has decided that you’re ready. Well- what does that mean? Haha, I should clear that up.


Laura scratches her cheek nervously, her index and middle fingers drumming on her lap.


I asked my friend Maya to give this to you when she believed you were ready to know the truth. Knowing your father, he probably never let you know what happened to me. I… The doctors tell me I’m not going to pull through. It’s my anemia, it’s gotten worse in the past few months, things are getting scarce. And… I’m really sorry, Ezekiel. That’s why I’m leaving you this tape. So you know who mommy was and how much she loves you! Your father was furious when he found out I might not make it… He blamed himself for me being so sickly. It’s not his fault, Ezekiel. The lord does everything for a reason. And if I have to give up my life to have you nourish and grow on this planet, so be it!


You… you’re going to be born into some very confusing things. Ezekiel, I need you to know that the things daddy and the cult do aren’t normal. I think I really wanted to believe that when I was young and dumb, and I first met him. He seemed like such a wonderful man, and I thought he saved me from a lot of things! Then, one day, he started telling me about all of these strange ideas… How he was a prophet sent to do god’s work, how he had ‘visions’ of how the world was supposed to be… He told me of a group he was gathering together. At first, I tried not to mind it. Now I regret my neglect, seeing the awful things it’s led up to.



Killing other humans isn’t normal. Your father might have tried to convince you it is, but it isn’t. Trust me when I say, your father isn’t killing for a mission. He kills because he likes to. I know he’ll try and immerse you in it too, but I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you to join his plight of darkness. Don’t try and fight your father, he’ll only see you as an obstacle to get what he wants. I need you to know, Ezekiel. I need you to know that whatever happens, you have to find your own humanity. You’re a miracle, Ezekiel. Don’t you ever forget that. And please don’t let daddy see this. Mommy loves you.













Ezekiel

Posted by Eliana-Eliyas Alfaro-Allah on

Laura taps on the screen, her head tilted to the side with a quizzical expression on her face.


Is this thing on? The red light means it’s recording, right?


Alright, well… where do I start?


My surroundings must look familiar, huh? Yep! This is going to be your room! I finished painting it a few days ago, but it took a little while for the fumes to leave. Ezekiel, at the time I’m filming this, you are… about a week away from coming to term. It’s exciting, isn’t it? The concept of life, how it’s ever-changing and evolving, how everything on this planet is put here for a reason. It’s a cycle, they say. If I told your father I thought that way, he’d probably kill me, haha. All ‘god made us this’ and ‘we do this for that!’


Oh, I haven’t even introduced myself! Well… my name is Laura. I’m your mommy! And right now, you’re in my stomach, which in retrospect is kind of odd now that I say that out loud, hah… I guess It’s confusing that I’m even leaving you this tape. You probably have so many questions at the moment, and I wish I could answer them all. If you’re getting this, Auntie Maya has decided that you’re ready. Well- what does that mean? Haha, I should clear that up.


Laura scratches her cheek nervously, her index and middle fingers drumming on her lap.


I asked my friend Maya to give this to you when she believed you were ready to know the truth. Knowing your father, he probably never let you know what happened to me. I… The doctors tell me I’m not going to pull through. It’s my anemia, it’s gotten worse in the past few months, things are getting scarce. And… I’m really sorry, Ezekiel. That’s why I’m leaving you this tape. So you know who mommy was and how much she loves you! Your father was furious when he found out I might not make it… He blamed himself for me being so sickly. It’s not his fault, Ezekiel. The lord does everything for a reason. And if I have to give up my life to have you nourish and grow on this planet, so be it!


You… you’re going to be born into some very confusing things. Ezekiel, I need you to know that the things daddy and the cult do aren’t normal. I think I really wanted to believe that when I was young and dumb, and I first met him. He seemed like such a wonderful man, and I thought he saved me from a lot of things! Then, one day, he started telling me about all of these strange ideas… How he was a prophet sent to do god’s work, how he had ‘visions’ of how the world was supposed to be… He told me of a group he was gathering together. At first, I tried not to mind it. Now I regret my neglect, seeing the awful things it’s led up to.



Killing other humans isn’t normal. Your father might have tried to convince you it is, but it isn’t. Trust me when I say, your father isn’t killing for a mission. He kills because he likes to. I know he’ll try and immerse you in it too, but I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you to join his plight of darkness. Don’t try and fight your father, he’ll only see you as an obstacle to get what he wants. I need you to know, Ezekiel. I need you to know that whatever happens, you have to find your own humanity. You’re a miracle, Ezekiel. Don’t you ever forget that. And please don’t let daddy see this. Mommy loves you.


Where it Hurts

Posted by Eliana-Eliyas Alfaro-Allah in English 2 · Pahomov/Rhymer · D Band on

“What does it feel like?”

I played with a loose thread on my sweater sleeve, trying to spit out the words of my response. My eyes grazed over the faded beige walls of my therapist’s office, to one of those childish posters of cartoon-ish faces displaying different emotions, to the tips of her leather boots, back to the walls.

“I can’t really… put it into words.”

How do I describe something like depression to a trained professional? People often confuse it with just being ‘sad’ or ‘angry at the world’. For me it isn’t any of those emotions. It’s bleak, and dark. The absence of ANY emotion. So I shrugged, picking at some exposed cotton on the couch.

She sighed, pushing up her glasses and uncrossing and crossing her legs. “Well, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Art therapy is useful for a number of reasons.” She smiled warmly, setting her clipboard down and going over to her wooden shelf. It was grainy and stripped, as if it had lasted through the civil war. She tugged out a bin of art supplies and fished out a pencil and a blank piece of printer paper. She sauntered over to me, setting them down and folding her hands together. “Your mother told me you loved to draw. So I want you to draw what it feels like.”

My eyes flickered down to the blank sheet of paper. Reluctantly, I picked up the instrument, and sketched my way through what having this mental illness felt like.

I started with a silhouette of a heavy set girl. Growing up I of course had issues managing my food intake, to the point where it concerned my mother how heavy I was getting. She dragged me to nutritionist after pediatrician after psychologist, to get the same responses she didn't want to believe: “Your child eats when she’s anxious or upset, and that seems too often. What’s happening at home?” It felt awful, having to be seen in public, being an embarrassment to my own mother. My seventh grade math teacher even made a rude comment about my weight, one that I laughed off, even through the twisting feeling in my throat.

I drew a smile on her face. Not a sincere one, this one was crooked and exaggerated and painted, like the Black Dahlia’s after she met the wrong end of a blade. I used to get picked on, teased for everything. Until I started to smile. If I could make someone laugh, if just for a moment, then they couldn’t see what was hurting. If I kept myself smiling, no one would guess that every night I’d curl up and sob, because I wanted to die so badly. If I made other people happy, they’d never guess that the only reason I haven’t killed myself is because of the ache in my heart when I picture my mother’s sobbing face as I’m lowered into the ground in a casket.

I drew a pit in her stomach. I drew scratches, scribbles, shaded it with harsh strokes, so much so that my therapist raised a curious eyebrow. I drew this storm brewing on the inside, but not one of rage or a fit of emotion. This feeling was anxious, dry, and it ached. It was waking up early and staring at the ceiling to try and find the meaning in getting up. It was people asking, “You’re depressed? Well, why can’t you just be happy?” Which is akin to saying, “You have alzheimer's? Well, why can’t you just remember?” And instead of seeking help, you drag yourself through life, trying to ignore the fact that it isn’t normal. Not everyone goes through this. It’s not like being stabbed with a knife, it’s like being stabbed so many times that you go absolutely numb. I scrawled scars on her forearms. I drew dry and crusty eyes, I drew a facial expression that no one knew wept because she couldn’t just be happy.

She glanced back up at me, her eyes tender and soft. “I see…” she murmured, as I let go of the pencil that I had been squeezing so hard my knuckles were white. She set her glasses down, breathing out a sigh. “Have you ever considered to yourself… that it’s okay to not be okay?”

My lips parted, the concept foreign to me. I met her eyes, for the very first time. “I’ll try.”


Art9 printmaking analysis

Posted by Eliana-Eliyas Alfaro-Allah on
HedgiePrintEtsy1_large
HedgiePrintEtsy1_large
Printmaking is a vital and important concept in our society today. Printmaking to put it simply is the act of creating a print from any medium you prefer! Whether it be digital or made traditionally, without printmaking, our usage of stamps, wall decor, playing cards and many other important things to society, would not exist. One of the oldest forms of printmaking is engraving, which was done all the way back to caves in 3000 B.C. It is speculated that in china, they invented a primitive form of printmaking called the rubbing, which was used on stones and seals. Printmaking is not only a calming and fun task, without it, many fun things in today's society would not be here.


This print depicts happy and pastel-colored hedgehogs chittering and lazily eating apples. The pale pastel colors indicate that it's meant to soothe and de-stress the consumer. Some of the hedgehogs are happily gazing about, while some laying lazily or sleeping.

The hedgehogs are evenly spaced along with the apples. This gives the print a sweeter and more innocent look. It is most likely geared toward children, seeing as it has a cutesy and calming aesthetic. 

I think that this print is meant to be for therapy or a de-stressing activity. Its calm colors and happy shades give it a lively yet sleepy look. It is not exciting, yet not boring all at once.

This is a good print because of the spacing and the use of negative space. The blending of the pastel colors is beautiful and gives it a very child-like kawaii vibe. 

Element print

Posted by Eliana-Eliyas Alfaro-Allah on
IMG_2472
IMG_2472
For this project, an element was given to me, to which I had to create a print. This element is Caesium (atomic number 55). Caesium is a factory element, usually used as a drilling fluid. It also has uses in electonics, electricity and chemistry. The idea for my print comes from its name, meaning "heavenly blue". My print portrays a heavenly-looking angel blowing on a factory, as if giving it life an room to spread like a dandelion, since Caesium is used most commonly in factories. To make this print, I was given a stamp. After making my design on tracing paper, I flipped it over and traced it onto the stamp so the words and images would not be backwards. I rolled a well-distributed amount of printing ink onto the stamp and transferred it to paper. After the print dried, I tore the edges to create a deckled edge. Following that was the matting process on construction paper. If I were to do this print again, I would not procrastinate as much as I did and instead would do more test prints to get a solid print. The initial design was the most fun part of the process. I let my imagination run amok in this project and let my creative mind take the wheel. I think mt final design was very lovely. 

Intro to tech Slide (Remix)

Posted by Eliana-Eliyas Alfaro-Allah on
a e s t h e t i c (3)
The critique that the class and Mrs. Hull gave me was very helpful. I learned from my mistakes to make an even better slide. I balanced out the stars to not offset or interfere with the text, and blew up said text to make it stand out. I gave flashes of color to make it pop better and balanced out the text. I went back to the websites Ms. Hull gave us, as well as researched on my own to improve my slide.
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