Community Engagements Through the Arts: This I Believe 11 (4/13 by 8 pm)

Friday, April 10, 2020

This I Believe 11 (4/13 by 8 pm)

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134 comments:

AnonymousApril 11, 2020 at 1:13 PM
As I write this, I’m sitting here in our living room, watching my younger brother play Super Metroid. He’s not very good at it; he keeps getting lost, and he always forgets that there’s a map on the top-right corner. I know he’ll figure it all out eventually, but I still can’t help but want to sit here and talk to him, try and help him through.

This is a time when we are all cooped up in our homes. Suddenly, we can’t go anywhere but to different parts of our house, and occasionally to the grocery store. These moments don’t come often, in a world where every day we become more and more distant.It’s scary, is it not? How separated we’ve become?

As far as I remember, I’m writing this as my last This I Believe essay for CETA. Soon, another moment of separation will come in just a few short weeks, where we as friends drift apart for the extended summer. Some of us may never see eachother again; but is that not true of everyone you meet, eventually? All friends, all family, even fated lovers drift apart in time. But this is a moment where none of this is true.

My little brother has just figured out where to go, and gotten the item that let him escape the hellish pits of Norfair. I’m so proud of him, and I just told him this; he doesn’t really believe me, because he doesn’t realize I’m not just talking about the game. A silly video game may be temporary, and so may our relationship, but This I Believe that memories last forever; and as such, we should treasure them.
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AnonymousApril 11, 2020 at 4:34 PM
I have been extra crafty lately. I have felt the need to create things. I think I am doing this to help cure my boredom with all the extra time I have. But whatever the reason I am really enjoying it.

My first project was of course the emojis which I finished almost immediately after getting them. I would just do one after another. Mindlessly painting them. 10 done just like that.

Next was painting a record. This one did not take me long either. It took one night while painting and drinking with my roommate. I enjoyed this project the most because I was able to be creative with someone.

After that was bleaching jeans. I had seen some videos of people bleaching one pant leg on a pair of jeans to make it white so I wanted to try it for myself. I ended up loving how they turned out on a pair of jeans that I had previously ripped myself. They are my experiment jeans.

Next was T-shirts purely because I was bored and knew I would never wear the shirts how they were so I wanted to change them. One I bleached. The other two I tie dyed then ironed on funny images.

Project 5 was repurposing an old wooden ladder. For this one, I had to cut a 12 ladder in half, sand it, paint it, add baskets and hooks in order to make it a blanket rack for my apartment. I also really enjoyed doing this one.

These are not big projects or wonderful works of art but for me, they have helped me stay sane. I believe in craft projects.
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AnonymousApril 12, 2020 at 12:07 AM
As I sit down to write my last This I Believe essay of the semester, a melancholy mood overcomes me. Although initially I struggled to pinpoint beliefs to write about, after the first essay I have overflowed with constant ideas. I have long been a believer in the little things in life. The small details that brighten your mood, bring a smile to your face and make all the difficulties of the world worth it. I quickly discovered that these essays were the perfect way to highlight those small gestures of humanity. Whether it be about our favorite things, childhood memories, or core values we hold true, all of these essays highlight the often overlooked joys of life and beautiful characteristics we all contain.
I began the habit of writing This I Believe essays the moment inspiration struck. No matter when the next one was due, as soon as the feeling of pure joy and utter belief overcame me, I sat down to write what had caused this sensation. Doing this forced me to recognize, acknowledge and analyze the details that make my world go round. Further, as I continued these details began to accumulate more rapidly and noticeably. These essays have kept me attentive in my day to day life, teaching me so much about myself that I had never quite identified.
Not only do these essays educate me about myself, but they provide windows into all of your beautiful lives and minds. I have learned more about my classmates through these essays then I could ever hope to in another classroom setting. In doing so I am made even more aware of the little things in life that draws all of your attention. I will deeply miss reading all the shared essays every Monday evening, granting me insight to different ways of feeling and thinking. I will continue to write This I Believe essays as inspiration strikes, in order to articulate my identity and relation to the world and ultimately because I believe in This I Believe.
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AnonymousApril 12, 2020 at 11:37 PM
*TW: the Holocaust

From the instant I learned what the Holocaust was in fifth grade, I knew I had found my historical area. I think I was just so incredibly inspired by the perseverance and strength of the Jewish and Romani people that hooked me. Every survivor’s story is different; they all hit me in a different way every time I hear them.

When I went to Germany, I went to Sachenhausen, which is where every SS Officer began their careers. It was mostly a labor camp for political prisoners, relatively small and overlooked by most. The structures were destroyed in air raids and by the Soviets once they occupied East Berlin, but the haunting veil of death and pain lingers still.

There’s a museum on site that houses a number of things, but the most compelling artifact for me was a birthday card. Best I remember, as I didn’t photograph anything out of respect for the deceased, it was a scrap of paper spirited away from an office, and a prisoner had drawn and colored a bouquet of roses and wrote ‘happy birthday’ in Czech. After he’d illustrated the card, he’d passed it around the barrack for the other men to sign, and after a day of forced labor, he and the barrack presented the card to the recipient.

Despite all the pain, death, and horror the victims of the Holocaust faced, they did not lose their humanity. They still laughed and cried and danced and celebrated birthdays and carved baskets out of walnuts. They still felt the need to create and share and live.

I believe the human spirit is hard to destroy. Even in the most difficult of times, people survive. The Nazis tried desperately to erase the humanity of Jews, Communists, Romani people, LGBTQ people, and the disabled, but they could not completely crush the human spirit. While I feel it is essential to emphasize the suffering of victims, it is also important to highlight their humanity. They aren’t just figures in a photograph or numbers in a textbook, they are human beings with lives and interests and power.
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 1:07 AM
I don’t fully understand it, but for some reason I really like Easter. It could be that I always got a new dress for the Easter Sunday church service and had the opportunity to feel pretty. It could be that the Easter Sunday church service was ever so slightly more exciting than the other 50 church services we attended every year (besides Christmas, of course). It could be that on top of an Easter basket, my brother and I received actual gifts on Easter--and no one could be disappointed because one simply doesn’t make an “Easter wish list”...I always felt lucky to get anything. There was definitely a period when the religious significance meant a lot to me. But today, I’m trying to pinpoint what made me so disappointed about the prospect of not celebrating Easter in 2020.
Last week, when I was working the farmer’s market, I asked naively if Farmer Ed needed me the coming weekend, too. He said, “Uh, yeah, I figured we were on for the whole season now…” and I remembered, “Oh yeah, I forgot that’s how this works.” But I was shocked when I remembered this Sunday was Easter and that the market would still be open. “You celebrate Easter?” Ed asked as though it was some bizarre thing…”Yes, I always have. I never thought about not celebrating it.” I was planning on going back to Louisville to visit my parents whom I haven’t seen in over a month, but with the contact with the public I was having at the market, my mother said she’d rather I stay in Lexington. I’m not that mad about that part, but I was left to hop two hurdles: working on Easter (both a holiday and in my mother’s words “a day of rest”), and not making it home for a meal or any sort of celebration. And I felt wholly deflated at the thought of it. I love the market, but the prospect of being alone or having no special occasion afterward was hard to bear.
Thankfully, when I asked another friend “Do you celebrate Easter?” the question was also “Yes.” So we had a healthfully socially distanced celebration together. There was no mention of religion. It was simply a time to be elegantly put together, have a nice meal, drink wine and enjoy some social company. It was so fulfilling, arguably more fulfilling than if I had actually gone home. I believe what could have possibly made it so nice and what I was afraid of missing out on if I had been alone was the sense of an “occasion.” This was a formal welcoming of Spring, the first day we could wear white again, and a moment to finally sit outside for a meal--the first time in a while. So I believe in “the Occasion”...its pompt, its circumstance, and the way it makes you feel.
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UnknownApril 13, 2020 at 12:14 PM
While reflecting back on my life, I laugh when I think of the times I had in middle school. It was 6th grade and we had a sub for three months before the permanent teacher started. When the teacher Ms. Smitas arrived that day, I remember that me and my friend were talking when she was trying to explain something to the class. Thinking back now, she may have done that so students respected her, and so that students learned that she was going to be listened to. Well, for me it was the beginning of an awful adventure. I was sitting out in the hallway to then make eye contact with my basketball coach. Well, because of my troublesome acts of talking while the teacher was talking, I had to run that day in basketball practice. Obviously, I did not like to be running all of the time in practice, so I tried to be better in the class. I wish I could say that I never ran again, but that wouldn’t be true. I also wish I could say that Ms. Smitas didn’t follow our 6th grade class up to 8th grade, but that also wouldn’t be true.
It was 8th grade, and we were all in graduation practice. I could hear Ms. Smitas yelling at this guy named Chandler in the back of the gym. Soon, I feel like her voice is next to my left ear. I look to the left of me, and see her escorting Chandler out of graduation practice. She looks right at me, and yells “what? You wanna go too? Lets go.”. I turn my head to look straight at my coach with a “wtf” look on my face. He points “go”.
I literally remember the rage I felt while I was walking out of the gymnasium. I was mad, and embarrassed that the entire 8th grade just saw me get kicked out of graduation practice for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
So, it’s me, Ms. Smitas, and Chandler walking into the office. She goes in this cubicle with Chandler and calls his mom. Then there’s me. Sitting outside of the cubical, not being able to participate in my 8th grade graduation practice. She gets done with Chandler and lets him go back to graduation practice. I am thinking, “I can’t wait for her to call my mom so she can tell her what I did”. So Ms. Smitas calls me in the cubicle, and I go and I sit down. She looks at me with a pause and states, “I am not going to call your mom”. To think I couldn’t be more mad, when she stated this I was furious. I responded, “I want you to call my mom. I did not do anything wrong and I want you to tell her what I did”.
After school that day I ran because of this incident.
When my 8th grade year was over, I can remember thinking how happy I was to go to a new school where Ms. Smitas wouldn’t be there. I was a freshman in highschool, and it was my first highschool basketball practice. The head coach calls us all in a huddle to make an announcement. He says, “I decided to hire a new freshmen basketball coach. Her name is Ms. Smitas and she will be here tomorrow”.
Really, I could go on about all of the times this woman made me mad. But moral of the story, she hated me from day one because I talked while she was talking.
I believe that there are different methods to get a student to stop talking while you're talking, and kicking them out of the classroom is definitely not one of them.
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UnknownApril 13, 2020 at 12:15 PM
While reflecting back on my life, I laugh when I think of the times I had in middle school. It was 6th grade and we had a sub for three months before the permanent teacher started. When the teacher Ms. Smitas arrived that day, I remember that me and my friend were talking when she was trying to explain something to the class. Thinking back now, she may have done that so students respected her, and so that students learned that she was going to be listened to. Well, for me it was the beginning of an awful adventure. I was sitting out in the hallway to then make eye contact with my basketball coach. Well, because of my troublesome acts of talking while the teacher was talking, I had to run that day in basketball practice. Obviously, I did not like to be running all of the time in practice, so I tried to be better in the class. I wish I could say that I never ran again, but that wouldn’t be true. I also wish I could say that Ms. Smitas didn’t follow our 6th grade class up to 8th grade, but that also wouldn’t be true.
It was 8th grade, and we were all in graduation practice. I could hear Ms. Smitas yelling at this guy named Chandler in the back of the gym. Soon, I feel like her voice is next to my left ear. I look to the left of me, and see her escorting Chandler out of graduation practice. She looks right at me, and yells “what? You wanna go too? Lets go.”. I turn my head to look straight at my coach with a “wtf” look on my face. He points “go”.
I literally remember the rage I felt while I was walking out of the gymnasium. I was mad, and embarrassed that the entire 8th grade just saw me get kicked out of graduation practice for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
So, it’s me, Ms. Smitas, and Chandler walking into the office. She goes in this cubicle with Chandler and calls his mom. Then there’s me. Sitting outside of the cubical, not being able to participate in my 8th grade graduation practice. She gets done with Chandler and lets him go back to graduation practice. I am thinking, “I can’t wait for her to call my mom so she can tell her what I did”. So Ms. Smitas calls me in the cubicle, and I go and I sit down. She looks at me with a pause and states, “I am not going to call your mom”. To think I couldn’t be more mad, when she stated this I was furious. I responded, “I want you to call my mom. I did not do anything wrong and I want you to tell her what I did”.
After school that day I ran because of this incident.
When my 8th grade year was over, I can remember thinking how happy I was to go to a new school where Ms. Smitas wouldn’t be there. I was a freshman in highschool, and it was my first highschool basketball practice. The head coach calls us all in a huddle to make an announcement. He says, “I decided to hire a new freshmen basketball coach. Her name is Ms. Smitas and she will be here tomorrow”.
Really, I could go on about all of the times this woman made me mad. But moral of the story, she hated me from day one because I talked while she was talking.
I believe that there are different methods to get a student to stop talking while you're talking, and kicking them out of the classroom is definitely not one of them.
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 1:33 PM
When I was 17, I worked at a restaurant in my hometown called Great Harvest. I had worked there for almost 2 years and would continue to work there off and on until I was 20. This was my first real job and of course was filled with many ups and downs. The ups included making lifelong friendships that grew out of the long hours cleaning floors and making sandwiches and learning how to be responsible with my time. The downs on the other hand, included fights with rude bosses and even worse, rude customers.
One incident has especially stuck with me over the years. The store was rather busy that day. Saturday lunch hours were always crammed with people in the restaurant and making call in orders. As I was trying to fill bags with utensils for to go orders, the phone rang and I picked it up. “Hi, this is Faith from Great Harvest 54. How may I help you”, I said in my usual slightly higher pitched phone voice. The man on the other end simply said “I want a pimento cheese sandwich and a bag of chips, I’ll be there in 5 minutes”, and hung up the phone without allowing me to ask for his name, number, or if he wanted the sandwich toasted or with lettuce. Just that simple command. In situations like these, I usually made the sandwich cold with no toppings and left it wrapped but unbagged and would ask the customer when they arrived if I could add anything to or toast their sandwich before they paid.
This man came in and immediately began raising hell. One of our new workers, a young girl with the sweetest disposition, walked up to the counter and asked how she could help him. Without warning, this man began screaming, and I mean literally screaming, at her for not having his sandwich bagged and in her hands ready for him. I heard the exchange and walked over. I told him I had his sandwich ready if he did not want it toasted and no toppings. This sparked an entire new barrage of screams and insults about our service and he even turned to our new worker and asked if she could do anything right. I lost it then. I handed him the bag with his untoasted and untopped sandwich and asked him to immediately leave the story and feel free to never return. He looked shocked and somehow more angry and left the store, slamming the door for good measure.
I assumed he would call my manager so I called him first and explained the situation and told him how rude and awful he was to our new worker who was barely 15. He told me I did the right thing and that Great Harvest had enough customers without one angry middle aged man who yells at 15 year old girls for no reason added to the mix. I believe in not treating restaurant and service workers poorly just because society tends to portray them as less than. His sandwich would have been way better toasted anyways.
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 1:41 PM
I worked at a local bakery and restaurant for two years and adored my job. However, I experienced many similar situations, appalled by the rude behavior of some customers. It sounds like you kept a very level and reasonable attitude wile dealing with such an unpleasant man.
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 2:24 PM
My family has always been very into holidays as it is a great time for the whole family to reconnect during the busy lives we live. No matter the holiday my mom decorates the house to the max. As a kid i would always help her but as i have gotten older it is rare that i am home to help her with decorating. Since quarantine I have gotten to spend lots of time with her and was able to help her decorate for Easter just like when I was a little kid. Not only did I get to decorate with my mom, I got an Easter basket from the easter bunny for the first time in years. As we all sat down for dinner as a complete family I started thinking about how I will remember this specific easter for years.

As we got older I stopped getting easter baskets, I stopped having time to help my mom decorate, I stopped getting to help prepare the fancy holiday meals my dad spends all day making, I stopped a lot of things that really brought me close to my family. I believe although this Easter was different in many ways, overall it is one that I will cherish for the rest of my life. It was so simple and so sweet.
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 2:24 PM
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 5:17 PM
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 5:26 PM
*reference to suicidal thoughts*

I can’t believe this is the last “This I Believe” essay for the semester. It is almost hard to believe. I am proud of myself and my peers for making it through our first year of college. This semester alone I got in a car crash, my grandfather died leaving me with only one grandparent left, and together we have all struggled through the coronavirus. This I believe in growth and resilience because I have grown and survived through each of these things and it appears the curve is flattening and we are getting closer each day to the end of the struggle and the difficulties of COVID-19. At the end of my senior year and starting freshman year. I was depressed and suicidal, however this year I have worked to help myself and found myself a little bit more, among new friends, and new experiences. I realized I had my life in my own hands to live happily according to me.
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 6:18 PM
I have spent a lot of time at my parent’s house since our semester was moved online, and as much as I love our big yards and farm to ride around and fish on, I feel cramped. My room is small at home. Not on purpose though. When my parents built our house and had the structure in place, my mom realized they had forgotten to put a closet in my room. My mom was pregnant with me at the time, and she knew her daughter would need a lot of room for clothes (which is true). Needless to say, part of my room was sectioned off to make my closet, and it takes up one whole wall of my room. Leaving me with only three. They’re painted orange and green because of a phase I went through in middle school. It was fun at the time because one of my friends also had an orange and green room. Years later, I don’t talk to her and I don’t even think we are friends on Facebook. The brightness of the walls feels rude and intrusive. The orange makes it almost impossible to relax during the day or get rid of a headache, and the green reminds me of the color grass all kids draw at the bottom of their landscape pictures. It’s too much color. I have posters on the walls: Taylor Swift, Kiss, Lady Gaga, but they can’t drown out the brightness of the walls. Maybe I should paint them this summer. A more calm color that adds openness to the room. Like the color of my room in Lexington; it’s green, but it’s a much softer shade. My room is bigger here too and not just because of the paint on the walls. I have room for lots of clothes. I have a couch I can do homework on and blinds that open to let in lots of sunshine. It’s nice to have more room and a prettier color room. Instead of three walls, I have 8. Yes, my room is shaped like an octagon, and I don’t struggle to relax or focus here. I believe in space.
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Kremena TodorovaApril 13, 2020 at 6:20 PM
Every morning during the pandemic, my 13-year-old daughter lets out a thunderous bellow on waking up.

Except “bellow” doesn’t capture the sound coming out of her half-asleep throat. “Bellow” might suggest anger or pain; there isn’t an ounce of either in the wake-up noise my daughter makes. It is more like a battle cry—except that I dislike war and its metaphors, so “battle cry” doesn’t work either.

In short, before she even opens her eyes, my daughter issues a celebratory cry, as if every day is to be praised and every waking moment an occasion to make oneself known.

Making her presence known is a thing my 13-year-old excels at. She is tall and strong, her body barely containing her exuberant energy. She bounces instead of walking and runs when a fast pace is called for. Indoors, her steps make the floor shake, just in case there is a possibility of overlooking her. Except she is usually talking, chanting, or singing. She lives in a world of commotion; if the rest of us hush for a moment, she explodes with raucous questioning: “Why is everyone so quiet?!”

At times, my 13-year-old becomes the class clown, anything to draw out laughter. She spills out bad jokes like a dandelion shedding its seeds in the wind. “What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?” she calls out, before springing on to the next thing.

At times, my 13-year-old’s inexhaustible energy grates against my need to slow down. But in this time of crisis, I welcome her loud bellows heralding hours of untold magic.

I believe corny jokes can cause magic to blossom. I believe in Elena.

(Oh, and by the way, the answer to the farmer joke is, the famer said “Where’s my tractor?”)
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 6:29 PM
I never thought I would like doing these, really. I thought it would be something that I would hate doing every week and just check off a box for homework from this class. After realizing that this would be the last This I Believe essay of the year, I went back and read all of my previous entries. Some of the ones I wrote were silly, but some of them meant something to me, and I think they mean a lot to the rest of you all as well. After reading each one, I realized how much I enjoyed doing these every single week. I would have never imagined that something so small and simple would bring out some of the best moments of the semester for me, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without reading your all’s essays as well. I have never felt closer to a group of people who I literally have nothing in common with. We have argued, laughed and painted together and it all starts with everyone being willing to be open with other people and share what is going on in their lives.

Writing about something that happened for the class to see every week sounds lame on the surface, but it has been very rewarding. Being able to go and reread everything that happened this semester, (especially during these circumstances) has been a breath of fresh air. Reading and writing about these little things in our lives that mean a lot to each of us has brought us closer together, and I am forever thankful.
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 7:19 PM

Recently I made a purchase for myself to just make myself smile, especially during these rough times. I went to the clothing section of Walmart and found a very soft shirt for less than $5 and I got a 4 XL! Instantly this became my new favorite item and I wore it for three days in a row. In high school, I always felt fat, so to compensate I wore smaller t-shirts - I don’t know how this made sense, but I wanted to look smaller. Then one day, I saw this trend. It was some trend to cover your shorts with a big t-shirt, this is now known as the uniform of a vsco girl. But, this trend demonstrated to me that I could wear bigger t-shirts without being seen as bigger, so from then on out I wore t-shirts that were too big for me. It became a huge comfort that I’ve grown attached to, so much so that I no longer feel comfortable wearing t-shirts that fit regularly. I regularly go shopping for a new t-shirt and it’s my guilty pleasure. I believe in big T-shirts and guilty pleasures.
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 7:42 PM
This being our final essay after a semester no one predicted, I cannot help but to look at the great things that came from it. During this time you see awful news reports of the number of deaths or the fact that a lot of people did not take this seriously enough to cease the spreading (which sadly includes our President). But in my mind of a treacherous time like this I feel like a lot more good was shown than bad or even arrogance. A lot of my friends ended up taking the quarantine seriously as so did I. I have been in my home for the past month mainly working on homework, job searches, and binge watching. I got so closed inside that I even started running, for fun! But as much of a complainer I am being, I am grateful. I am grateful that I have a home to stay in, resources to stay entertained, and food. Not everyone can say that. Also with my job, a lot of people can work from home when a lot of people are being laid off and are frightful they will not be able to pay rent. I believe in hope with this pandemic. Slowly but surely things will be back to “normal” by the practices we make for the health of our world. Which also brings me to this… Have you seen pictures of landscapes or cityscapes lately?? A lot of natural landscapes are full of life and less polluted, for example I was scrolling through Twitter and saw pictures of waterways in Venice where they said they have not seen the seafloor in years but now they can once again. Another was a city outline of New York, L.A., and Chicago with purple coverage highlighting their pollution before and during the pandemic. The significance of less smog in these mass cities was incredible. I believe in hoping there are several things to be grateful for; the mass awareness of this virus, awareness of our foot in nature, and how we are going to react after this pandemic.

As horrible as these events are, I think it would only be right if we take what we saw and learn from it. Next time we will be ready for the next pandemic, work together in times like these instead of exploiting others in worse conditions. We are fortunate enough to have the ability to go home or stay in isolation that not everyone has. I hope that we will learn from this event in our lives to move forward and not let history repeat itself.
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Marissa PriceApril 13, 2020 at 7:57 PM
*Warning because this one’s sad
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Marissa Price
This might be the last This I Believe essay I ever have to write, and in a sea of other really big recent changes, the realization of that hits hard. Like everyone else, in the last few weeks, I’ve been caught up in grieving the loss of a normal end to my year-- attempting to adjust to online classes and looking potential post-grad instability in the face-- so much that I hadn’t really even had a chance to look up and notice how little time I had left. I got to catch my breath this past week, my mind finally feeling lighter again, and in those moments I realized I really only have a matter of days left of class before finals week hits. Typically, I know we don’t have classes during finals week, but I’m wishing we did. I would keep doing what I’m doing for such a long time if I were given the chance. I know typically seniors say they can’t wait to get out, but I’ve been so fortunate to have a major I love doing the work for, so I’ve never had that thought.

So now I look for other things to do that I might love as much as this. Jobs… hopefully grad school at some point… my eventual career. And I’ll ask people to videocall me often. And I’ll find ways to make artwork outside of school because my portfolio depends on it. But, until then, I have 21 words left to write a final This I Believe statement for this semester, and I’m going to throw it wayyyy back to the first ones I ever wrote. Straight from August Term 2016.

I believe in Little Theater (where I was standing when I realized fully that this was the university I wanted to attend,) I believe in the power of documenting life (via journaling,) I believe in New York City (because back then I wanted to move there.)

And from CETA ‘17: I believe in long conversations with old friends, I believe in taking pictures, I believe in change, I believe there should be a third day in the weekend, I believe words sometimes fail, I believe in days well-spent, I believe that sometimes things happen so quickly we can’t even process it (currently relatable,) I believe in music, in changing my mind, in dorm supplies, in the healing power of art, in random Starbucks runs.

And CETA ‘19: I believe in the ways that our parents influence us just by doing everyday things, I believe in the sculpture room, in paying attention to my mental health, in the love my grandmother showed me, in asking questions, in the remnants of our past, in my names (and nicknames,) in playing piano, in trying to be mindful. I believe in my siblings and in wearing beanies when it’s cold and in living alone and in This I Believe essays. I believe in Pittsburgh and souvenirs, and of course, in CETA.

I believe this class changed my life, and I have a lot of TIB essay drafts that have yet to see the light of day. This might not be the last one after all.
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AnonymousApril 13, 2020 at 8:20 PM
From this side of the house, the two dogwoods face me. One brightens these gray-colored days with its yellow flowers, and it is soon to be accompanied by its late-blooming pink-headed sister. It's a little too chilly for my bones for me to grow comfortable out walking in this weather, so I make my outside rounds quick while I check out their lichen skirts. I touch and count the types. There are two green, one mint, and one aqua on the yellow-flowered tree. There is one green, one mint, and one yellow on the soon-to-be-pink-flowered tree.

Yesterday I found out that it is a Redbud Winter. The trees have years and we use them to guess the growing season. It is a Redbud Winter year. The purple-flowered redbuds have colored the hillsides. On warm days I touch them. On cold days I watch them. They are the first sign of spring here. Their brightness wakes back up the hillsides, barren except for the brown leaf litter that remains year-round. Redbud Winters remind us to plant our gardens late, as the Redbuds may be ready for a change of seasons, but the ground and cold spells are determined to keep their frost into the spring, as though this may be their last winter with this ability (I try not to think that it may well be).

Toni Morrison wrote in Beloved: “In Ohio seasons are theatrical. Each one enters like a prima donna, convinced its performance is the reason the world has people in it.” The same tends to be true for its southern neighbor. The redbuds have made a show of our mountains. I am told that next year the Dogwoods should do the same. I know this because my mamaw’s mom told her, she told my mom, and yesterday my mom told me. It’s a Redbud Winter, but I am watching the Dogwoods next to the flooded creek. I think about the shifting seasonalities in light of the shifting climate and wonder if we can count on the accuracy of annual tree-based insight. What meaning will next year’s Dogwood Winter have if the timing is wrong? If the climate is wrong? I believe that the maternal knowledge of my family and many others is threatened by global warming, and I am terrified we are going to lose it.
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AnonymousApril 14, 2020 at 12:55 AM
I believe in seniors

I wanted my last blog post of the semester to reflect on some of my time at transy. I have many friends who are graduating seniors and I have thought about them a lot these past weeks. This is an ode to the seniors.

To the seniors that taught me how to put in my order at the raf, I thank you.

To the seniors that let me crash in their room when my roommate was being a brat, I thank you.

To the seniors that taught me what AOII sisterhood really means, I thank you.

To the seniors that collaborated with me in art classes, I thank you.

To the seniors that made transy welcoming and a place I can call a new home, I thank you.

There are so many things that I want to thank the senior class for, but these are a few. I will truly miss those that are graduating and am deeply saddened that I won’t see them in the fall. I have cherished the memories made and hope I can inspire the underclass men like you have inspired me.

I hope that this hasn’t come off like some cheesy high school grad speech, but more like a friend saying goodbye for now.

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AnonymousApril 14, 2020 at 2:05 AM
Here I am at 2 am sitting outside sipping “Tik Tok coffee” ( It’s the one that takes like 4 hours to whisk to make it foamy- you all know what I’m talking about) by a roaring fire pit that i keep feeding oversized logs to when I realized that I forgot to write a final TIB essay. I struggled to find a belief or something meaningful or worthy enough to write about, after all this is the last TIB essay I will write…for now at least. So look to the sky in frustration waiting for the apple to fall on my head so I can discover my meaningful worthy enough topic, and sure enough it happened! I catch a glimpse of light hiding behind a thick veil of clouds and I was inspired!!!

Stars!

The beauty of looking at the night sky lies in knowing that what lives inside us are as vast as what we see outside. As I ruminate about it, these countless stars are similar to the countless pangs of agony that we have inside — even the very skin that masks our deepest and darkest sadness screams its hints by exposing our very flaws. But the irony is, despite the many echoes and turmoils that plead to be let out, we feel empty. We feel nothing. We succumb in numbness.
I compare this to the universe, the stars. The manmade number line cannot constitute it. It’s just a line of numbers that the human mind can count, three dots, and the symbol of infinity. Does this show that the concept of infinity is just a result human laziness? Have we become tired of counting stars? Have we become tired of pointing one-by-one the thoughts that define our very nature?
After a few attempts of understanding the universe, of understanding ourselves, the easiest thing we can get a grasp of is seeing these in things outside of us.
Our inner thoughts and feelings are as countless as the stars, some of them are still yet to be named. Both can deeply overwhelm us. Our inner demons persist to exist despite them being forced to be purged from our veins, while the stars in outer space can also make us feel small because of their being immense. But free will leaves us to choose what we allow to consume our very thoughts, and I choose the latter. I choose the stars, looking at them reminds me that even after death, they still can give light.
I don’t know if everything I’m saying is making sense but what I’m trying to say is, whenever I have problems and my emotions are too immense to bear, the courage of stars teach me that the speck of dust that is my existence still has a constant sight that cares. The night sky.
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AnonymousApril 14, 2020 at 5:45 AM
NEWEST BAZE FAMILY UPDATE:
This week, I believe my father is wrong.
I mentioned a few weeks back how much my mother and I wanted a dog. I hate to say it, but it will not be happening anytime soon. My mother and I have been in contact with many different breeders, and we found the perfect puppy to bring home. She is a Neapolitan Mastiff. She is currently 6.5 weeks old and would be ready to pick up on the 24th :(
Last time we asked for a dog, my father straight up said no. Never even thought it over. This time though, he said he would consider it. I do not know why he would say something like that to me if he knew the answer was still going to be no. I give my hopes up way too easily for him to do that. ESPECIALLY when it comes to puppies!!!
This puppy was incredibly perfect. As most puppies are, but this one was different. My mother and I had pictured our family’s future with her. We were so ready for her. We had a shopping cart full on chewy.com. It was exciting.
But, my father said no. He says he is not ready, so my mother and I must respect his wishes. We are so sad.
Though I will respect my father’s wishes, I do not have to agree with them.
I believe my father is wrong. Thank you for staying tuned on my family’s puppy decision.
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AnonymousApril 15, 2020 at 8:16 PM
One of the final projects for my Perspectives on Globalization course was to create an e-portfolio of our proudest works, both in English and French. Even though I haven’t written any worthwhile poetry in quite some time, I wanted to include some of my old favorites. While looking through my collection, I could not stop cringing. Tacky love poems written by 15-year-old me that had never experienced the love she was writing about; angry political poems before I had a better grasp on my own beliefs; and so, so many poems that clearly show my pre-medicated depression.
Nevertheless, it was interesting to see this distant version of myself through these poems and to see how much I’ve grown since then. One day, I might look back at the This I Believes that I wrote for this class and cringe, but it will still be a looking glass into my past life. I’m grateful for the opportunity to express myself and my beliefs, and I know my future self will be just as grateful.
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