For my capstone, I wanted to do something not only for students and teachers as well. So I decided to clean up Room 500 up on the fifth floor. Room 500 is a room where students hang out, teachers take students for quizzes and studying, or both students and teachers go to so they can use the printer there. The room was in a bad state, the walls were a pale green covered in graffiti and there were books and trash all over the floor.  I took it upon myself to take some time to clean up the room before I got to painting the walls to cover up the graffiti and moving shelves in for teachers. However, before I got to doing physical work, I collected data from students and teachers in order to get the result both parties wanted, as well as doing research. When it came to painting walls, light and dark colors worked best for ficus and prevented headaches and such. Bright colors that have an extra pop tend to strain the eyes and gives people headaches, which is what I was trying to avoid for students. Teachers wanted space to organize things as well as a space that is clean in order to hold tests and such. As soon as I got what I needed, I moved straight to the physical work which was finished in no time and the result came out really nice.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1il6lWFdozwLtbGNKL2g4-9DxshwRYwrFTi1jjhecyZ4/edit?usp=sharing

I guess you can say it all started back in 8th grade. I had the best group of friends a girl could ask for. But there was that one friend, LuLu.

She seemed to involve herself with every boy in her path and not just any boy. It had to be one of our ex boyfriends or someone we used to have a crush on. Anyone we had feelings for, she would involve herself with. At one point I knew it was going to happen because it was not the first time she betrayed the trust of one of us the way she did. One of our friends, Ezzy, had a major crush on a guy and they were so close to one another that when she claimed that she no longer liked him. We could see it in her eyes that yeah she did not like him, she loved him. Of course LuLu did not get the message and went after him anyways.

It was none of our business on why she would do it, but we wanted to know why. We could not stand the dreadful thought of her hurting one of us again or hurting the next person in her path. Who knew that the next victim involved in all of this would be me. Maria, one of our other friends, did not know what was going on, and she was the closest one to LuLu out of all of us. She did not find out this until a week before we graduated middle school. I was not told anything about it and neither was Ezzy or Jen aware of the situation. Maria promised LuLu that she would not tell me or anyone else about what had happened between her and my “ex” crush. At that point in time I thought I no longer had feelings for him, but I was wrong because a boy named Juan.

“You know you look like you have a crush on me” he brought up.

“What of it” I asked him

“Well, I know you truly don’t. I know that deep down inside of your heart, you still have feelings for Ethan” he said bluntly. In that moment I thought “what would he know.”, but my heart was beating so loud in my ears.

“Maybe he is right” I thought. I still had feelings for this one guy and did not seem let him go. I was just looking for someone to make me let go of these feelings.

“Thanks” I told him

“For” he questioned. I smiled at him.

“For making me realize what my true feelings were” I said.

The next day I decided to talk it out with my friends.

“Hey you know Juan made me realize something yesterday”. I began to tell them during lunch, but it seemed like Maria had something more urgent to say. She did not tell me until the next day. The way Ezzy had to do a whole lap around the school building and came back on the verge of tears proved it. The way Jen seemed to have the air knocked out of her proved that. The way Maria seemed so genuine, ready to comfort the waterworks to come proved that.

The next day was the worst. English class had a whole other meaning to it. Once I was told the way LuLu betrayed me, I was done for. Those clear words are ones I can not write down for the simple reason that they bring up emotions that I do not want to feel again. Ezzy almost cried because she thought of him as a brother and thought of him doing that was downright awful and unbelievable. I cried because I thought he was better than that. He allowed himself to be easily manipulated by her, which was the worst part. Of course we were all curious to know if the whole thing was true so we asked Chris, who was his and one of our friends. The seven of us were close, so in a small group of friends like that, things were bound to be said. When we asked him, he was clueless.  

“Hey did Ethan tell you anything about him and a girl” Maria asked

“No, from what I know he is with nobody, why do you ask” Chris said

“Just asking” I told him

“Don’t lie, what happened, what did he do” Chris asked

“Lunch, we will tell you at lunch” I said

“No, tell me” he demanded

“Lunch” Ezzy said ending the conversation there.When we told him at lunch, he flipped out.

“That has got be a lie, that’s bull” he said, but Maria shook her head as if saying “it is not a lie”

“I thought he was better than that and he did not tell any of us” he said disappointment dripping off of every word. When Ethan and Tommy walked back over to our table we hushed up. Ethan was the most suspicious. We told Tommy later, but we ignored Ethan. Just to my luck he asked me to be his date to the dinner dance for the next day’s graduation. I of course said yes, but never let go of what he possibly did. After the graduation and after the dinner, the next day he texted me and we began to talk. Out of nowhere he brought up the crush I had on him and then brought up what he and my friends had discussed.

“That is a lie, are you seriously going to believe rumors” he texted me, but when high school came the last thing I expected to be brought up once again. A friend who was not even involved and left halfway through the school year managed to find out about it. That was when I knew it was true. What had been a “lie” actually did happen. So I confronted Ethan once again and demanded the truth without a single little lie. He spilled it then and there. I needed some time away from him so I didn’t talk to him for a while, but I slowly started to forgive him because at some point in some of our lives we will be easily manipulated into doing something. We of course are really close friends now, but I find it hard to trust others now. Trust can be easily lost and hard to gain when it comes to me after what had happened. I gained and lost respect for people, but it is something that burns in my memory. I think the reason I never forgot was to remember that even those close to us manage to break us apart and hurt you where it hurts the most. To remember those things still hurt and will continue to hurt and things will happen, but we will eventually forgive and maybe we will slowly forget. I am glad and happy that I was told the truth, that I got the answer that was needed. I did not get the answer I wanted, but as long as it was the truth, I was fine. I do not enjoy sugar coating things when I talk to people, and I do not like it when people sugar coat things when they talk to me. The truth can hurt a lot of the time, but it is something that people just need to know. This was inspired by many moments in “The Yellow Birds”. Every part of the book was true to the events they described. Every detail was included into the book and although the wording made it seem as if everything was a dream, a false hope. It was true all of it was true.

Hey, Vilma Martinez again! In my first blog I talked about Kitten neglection that occurs here in the

city of Philadelphia. In my second blog I talked about animal neglection in general. Now for my

final blog post I will be talking about what I did to make a difference in our community. For my

Agent of change action piece I decided to start a bake sale at my school, so that I can

have an opportunity to donate the money I raised to the PSPCA. Selling the baked goods at my

school was tough work, but it was something I managed to get htrough. I was able to raise a fair

amount of money to donate. After a while me and my mom finally decided to go down to the

PSPCA to donate the money. After meeting with two of their employees, we were given a tour

around the building.

The tour was… WOW. The building contained murals of animals that have passed on and

places for the animals to play and relax. The cats were so playful and sweet and then looking

into the animal hospital was heart breaking, the poor animals were caged recovering from

operation. Witnessing this was something that truly was so powerful because these animals

managed to survive so many things. I felt very happy.

We were able to see the cats and kittens in the building that were being put up for adoption. They

were so sweet and adorable, and most of the animals there were only cats and kittens. It was

really sad to see them there without a family to care for them.

​Hello everybody I am back and here to inform you more on Animal Neglect. So in my previous blog post I mentioned Kitten neglection here in Philadelphia and how it affects the city. I have posted stories on examples of how they were neglected and how awful it is to look at this. Now I would like to discuss the topic on Animal neglect in general and I have been doing a bit of research and decided to make a survey about this topic. They are based on basic knowledge to appeal on others opinions. The first question included a ratio in which the viewer would think what a homeless person to a homeless animal is, 14% thought it was 1:1, surprisingly 0% was for 1:2, a solid 43% thought it was 1:3, another 14% thought it was 1:4, and the remaining 29% thought it was 1:5. The results for this was very surprising, I expected a good percentage to pick 1:2, but no one appeared to choose it. Many of this answers were a good shots at trying to get the correct answer, although the correct answer is 1:5, that 29% got it correct without even knowing so congrats! I believe that this answer would be correct because although there are many many homeless people there are also a lot of stray animals. There are more stray animals then you actually think, although you see many people out there asking for money that also don't have a home or food or maybe even family, there are also much more stray animals out there that also ask for comfort and food and the slightest bit of attention so that they actually know that there are people that care for them. I think that this is very wrong and something that can be fixed. Although there are animal shelters that are full and can't accept animals into theŕ hold you can also give an animal to people who would need the company. THere are plenty of homeless people out there why not give them a companion they can be with, they both know that they are secure with someone they would wanna be with. Doing this would be killing two birds with one stone (not promoting animal violence), you get to help the community doing two things. Although this seems like a good idea, there are plenty of other ideas that can help out in the community with issues like these. Just helping out would make a big difference.

Many of the animals that will be helped would be of the biggest population there is, cats. Now on my survey I asked  a agree disagree question to get the opinions of those taking my survey.

As seen here I wanted to know if it was true for them if cats in particular were abused more than dogs and dogs in particular were used just to make profits off of. Here were the responses of the viewers. I hate the fact that their are people who say that dogs would be more abused than cats reason being that it is not true, they are either equally or less abused than dogs. I believe this as my own opinion because I have seen many of the stray cats that have walked around on my block and I have never once seen a stray dog in all of the states I have ever been to. Here in Philadelphia on my street I have seen with my own eyes that cats have been mistreated very badly and have been messed around with like a toy, this is unfair and discrimination towards them. ¨A dog is a man's best friend¨ is a saying commonly used and is true because a dog is most likely to find a home than a cat would. It is upsetting to think that animals in general are treated differently between one another and can be thought of ways through merely  little stereotypes between animals. This is like your common types in human diversity, it similar in animals. I wanna be able to help trying to shut out these stereotypes. So, to make a difference I will be doing field work on my block by creating a bake sale at my school to help raise money to provide stray animals on my block with shelter and food to keep safe in the harsh moments of the seasons. This is something that would be rare to find someone to do. Something your normal person would do is volunteer at an animal shelter, but I find that to be cliche so I decided to do this. I just hope to have this work out!!!!!