Category: Junior Literary

      Last week, the southern United States was hit with an unusual winter storm.  Although Mississippi was not struck as harshly as places like Texas, we still got our fair share of icy roads, power outages, and boil water notices. On Sunday, we were invited to return to school five hours earlier than usual for the sake of avoiding the weather, but once sleet began to fall, all students who were not already more than half way to the school were directed to turn back. We were left with half as many students on campus and even less staff members. (Special thanks our faculty! They were amazing through all of this!) Bored, cold, and with some extra downtime from having virtual classes, the teenagers here did what any art school students would do; we walked–well, slid–around campus and had a photoshoot.

This photo was taken outside of the SLC on the first day we had a full blanket of ice greeting us each morning.

After a failed trip to Dollar General, which, like most stores, was closed at the time, I snapped this outside of the Johnson Institute on my way back.

My senior Maleigh and I had a photo op outside of the Phoenix.

…the rocks were slippery.

Here is our grade-A photographer in action.

We attempted to slide down the ramp with trashcan lids. Not our finest moments, but we made it work. Sorta.

 Had to take a snap of the frozen news paper. You know, for the aesthetic. I’m sorry, let’s just move on.

Gardening Club has a small garden outside of the SLC, and unfortunately, our green friends got frozen over. A couple of distinguished birds (they’re decorations, but don’t tell them that), got to catch a glimpse of the gorgeous scenery. 

The breathtaking view from the top floor of the SLC. From one of the tallest buildings in Brookhaven, you can see the rooftops of the dozens of stores and restaurants in downtown. I am still in awe of this.

Warning: Spoilers for Danganronpa V3

For a long time I would always be obsessed with things.  I thought it was just a thing I did but apparently it’s a symptom a good amount of autistics go through.  Hyperfixation is defined as: a condition that creates interest and develops it consistently in humans for something or someone.  

My newest hyperfixation is this cute little bastard.

For those of you unfamiliar, this is Kokichi Oma from Danganronpa V3.

His character is very interesting, he loves to act all evil but in reality he’s just a mischievous person who really is a good person after all.  I actually did a short character analysis video I will link here.

Everyone seems to dislike him throughout the course of the game because he lies; but in the end he sacrifices his life to try to save them all.  His plan was perfect, it just happened to be messed up by the other characters.  

It is the saddest thing to me that even as he is about to die and it is harder for him to breathe because of Maki’s poison arrow.  He reveals how he’s felt all along and Keebo is the only one who believes him.  The fact he was painfully dying of poison and his real tears instead of the over theatrical ones he does as fake, proves the fact this is the truth.  Also, why would he save Kaito and Maki and choose to sacrifice himself if he was truly evil?  

Here is the video of Kokichi’s last words.

So yeah, not evil.  He was just lying to execute his plan and save himself pain.

He secretly good boy.

Thanks for having common sense, Keebo.

unfortunately, this blog will not encompass the lyrical masterpiece that is the fifth track of rascal flatts’ “feels like today” 2015 album; it will actually be about the tragedy that came from a former racecar driver’s dream: big machine records (and the cuffs they keep their clients in).

scott borchetta founded big machine records in 2005, but not before he approached taylor swift in a cafe in nashville, offering her a place on the roster of the record label he was about to begin. taylor swift was the first person signed with big machine records, and 15 years later, this decision proved to be two pivotal moments of her career at once. 

first, the basics. ownership of creative property is a little bit tricky, especially in the music industry, so:

1. artists own all of the technical components of their music – the lyrics, the instrumental, and everything in-between. they are theirs to use as they please, because they created these specific aspects.
2. record labels own anything that was released under their label name: any recordings and remixes that say “big machine records” are legally owned by big machine records, and they profit from the royalties.

what this means for taylor swift:

1. everything she’s written from her debut album through reputation is hers. she owns the lyrics and all of the technical components.
2. big machine records owns what is called the “master recordings” of these albums – every track that’s played on the radio, signed to a movie or tv show, or streamed on a service.

anyone who doesn’t live under a rock is well aware of the ongoing feud between kanye west and taylor swift, but… what you may not know is kanye’s association with a man named scooter braun. kanye and scooter have been friends for a while, and scooter even worked for kanye there for a time, but even after the employment was terminated, they remained industry friends. based on all of the context clues, it’s safe to assume scooter and taylor don’t get along well, especially not where kanye is involved.

for quite some time as her career has skyrocketed, taylor has wanted to buy back her master recordings from her original record label. in 2014, she brought this proposition to big machine records, and they gave her an ultimatum: they will grant her immediate ownership of her master recordings…. if she signs a contract to stay with the label for 10 more years. this doesn’t seem like a half-bad idea, until you do a little more digging.

at the same time taylor’s proposal was being considered, big machine records was up for sale. taking into account her place as a prominent artist, it would not benefit taylor to sign 10 years of her future to a buyer she doesn’t even know. she declined the offer.

as it turns out, who else would end up buying the label but the infamous scooter braun – the one who teamed up with kanye to ruin taylor’s career before? and in that moment, every master recording that taylor swift had produced under big machine records lied in the hands of someone who had previously tried to ruin her career.

as the powerhouse woman she is, taylor decided to tell her fans exactly what happened and exactly how she would handle it. thus, the announcement of her re-recordings. 

taylor swift will be re-recording all 6 albums: debut, fearless, speak now, red, 1989, and reputation; though not in that order. if all goes well, these releases will be treated as the master recordings, so not to give scooter braun any recognition for taylor’s success. they will also be released as “taylor’s version” of every song, and the existence of any other version will be promptly eliminated from loyal fans’ minds.

until we meet again… on april 9th… when i cry listening to white horse – taylor’s version.

“Basketball players don’t cry.”

What makes people think just because I play a sport means I can’t have emotions?  Basketball players cry a lot, at least this one does.  I cry over being bullied, I cry over my life situation, I cry over my crush not accepting me because they’re studying abroad next school year.  Sometimes I don’t even know why I’m crying. I just can’t stop the tears from flowing. 

Truly, I have always been an emotional person, a crybaby most would say.  The truth is people need to stop running from how they feel.  Oftentimes growing up my father would tell me to “Stop crying or he’d give me something to cry about.”  That is the toxic behavior that instills into people making them think they aren’t allowed to feel emotions.  Emotions are not a bad thing. They aren’t the problem. The problem is the people who refuse to acknowledge their emotions and simply call a person weak for showing them.  In reality, it shows strength to let yourself show emotions, to be vulnerable.  Stop telling people with depression to just go outside, you wouldn’t tell that to someone with cancer, would you?  People with disorders such as depression can sometimes not have very good control of their emotions.  If you always feel numb and nothing, you would want to feel something, at any cost.  

Society has made up this allusion that you must always be happy all the time when in reality this is not possible.  If you were never to experience sadness, you would never know the thrill of excitement.  No one likes feeling upset, but hiding that pain does nothing but hurt you more.  

Now I’m not telling you to hit someone because they stole your french fry, but you have the right to tell them to stop doing that.  

So let’s all just be a little kinder and consider each other’s feelings.  Just because you don’t get upset and someone who ate your sandwich doesn’t mean you can eat other people.  I know that is a dumb example but the point still stands.  Trauma has clawed at some of us; even simple mentioning of simple words triggers us to have flashbacks.  Some things are sensitive topics for people, for example, I get upset when people flaunt food I can’t have because of my restrictions.  I miss being able to drink coke so don’t chug one right in front of me, it’s super disrespectful. 

(I had a burst of inspiration to write a short sci-fi story about robots, so I decided to turn it into my blog posts for the time being. I ADORED writing this so I really hope you enjoy this as much as I did. 🙂 It hasn’t really been revised or proofread, so don’t make your first judgements so harsh!)

The walls of the facility creaked and groaned, as the tiles of the ceiling let go of the hands of their surrounding brothers and fell into the toxic water below. The bubbling sludge grabbed hold of their fiberglass bodies and dragged them into the burning swamp, turning its white glass fiber strands into drowned, black ash. The two HopperWare licensed robots stood and watched as the vomit colored water devoured its meal of company acoustical ceiling tiles in giant swallows. 

“Ah,” Uttered a tall, slender robot with bright yellow plating, “it looks like this place is in much poorer condition than I thought.”

“Really, Chisa?”  A shorter and more buff red robot said sarcastically. “For someone who was apparently designed for analysis and navigation, it really seems like you’re lacking in that field.”

“Oh, and what were you designed for again, lifting things?” Chisa snapped back, her rounded head spinning towards the two orange eyes of the labor robot. 

The two watched as the facility continued to eat itself up, and the pale green overgrowth on the walls that almost painted the entire room shook from the wind coming in from the holes in the ceiling. 

“Wait!” yelled a robotic voice from behind. As the clanking metal footsteps grew closer, a medium sized blue robot caught up to the other two and instantly rested its hands on its knees. “Sorry, I got lost.”

The larger red robot let out an automated chuckle and gave a shove towards Chisa. “Looks like someone wasn’t doing their job very well, huh Chis?” The navigation robot narrowed her large, yellow eye at this. 

“I’m sorry, just let my fans catch up for a bit.” The blue robot panted, his metal suit design opening and closing vents on his sides. “I wasn’t built for this.”

“How about you do your job, then, 15?” The yellow robot looked at the construction robot, “Since you’re just oh so good at it.”

15 let out a machine-like grumble and opened up the plates to his side to reveal two forklift arms. “Get on, David.” 

The blue robot turned his attention to 15, who stood looking pretty silly with his two regular arms protruding from the same sides the forklift ones were. With a little hesitation, David lowered himself onto 15, who lifted him up and walked closer to the sewage pit.

“This is humiliating.” Muttered David, his glasses-like eyes turning downwards.

The three HopperWare robots, after traveling through every floor, room, and tunnel of the HopperWare testing facility, finally stood facing one of the last chambers.

The yellow one, marked with black text around her neck spelling out “CH154” stood cross-armed at the gap. Her main body was made of grey metal, but her more vital parts were covered by bright yellow plating. Her hands weren’t as intricate as the other two’s, as she only sported two fingers and a thumb on each wrist; just enough to grab and open things, but not much else. She was tall, slender, and feminine, and it seemed as if the designers got a little too excited while designing her hips. She had one yellow eye installed in her dome-like head, which allowed her to rotate her vision 360°, but nowadays she used that function more for dramatic effect.

The red one, recognizable by his short stature and hefty body, hoisted up the blue striped robot with its forklift arms. His wide structure and multi-tool filled hands were a rusty red along with the rest of him, excluding the reflective orange stripes running down his torso and back. There were several pieces of graffiti on his body, and the most notable were a large, stylistic yellow 15 spray-painted on his back and a phallic symbol resting on his shoulder in permanent marker. His head was angled and sporting two orange LED eyes, along with a smile and a tongue sticking out in black and red spray-paint. 

In his arms was the first model of the tax-accountant robot David, who’s hard metal shell resembled that of a blue suit. He had semi-human features and anatomy, with bright lights inside his glasses serving as his eyes, which looked much like a smart anime character’s would when they’d push up their spectacles with a smirk on their face. Besides that, his face was blank other than “design pending” graphic on his cheek. He was average height, lightweight, lanky, and not built for long walks or journeys, as his main challenges would be doing math and fetching things from around an office. 

The three continued to stand at the edge, before 15 let out a question that had been running through his circuits for a while now. 

“Hey, math boy.” He said as he looked down in his arms.

“Yes?” David responded

“What’s the chance I’d be able to throw a 100 pound object across this pit?” 15 asked.

“Well, it depends on the aerodynamics of the object and the way it’s shaped, but with your strength and specialty it shouldn’t be that difficult.” David replied.

“I see…” 15 started, “here we go then!”

“Wait, WHAT?” exclaimed the lanky blue robot, but his question would not be answered. Before he knew it, he was lightly tossed into the air by 15’s forklift arms before being caught by his main ones.

“No, no, no, no, NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO—” David yelled as he was hoisted into the air and then launched across, and his screams grew distant before a CLANG reverberated off the walls. A variety of expletives echoed through the room before “I’M FINE! THANKS FOR THE WARNING!” was belted from the other side.

Last December, I revisited a couple of my “Let’s Talk About…” commentary blogs, and I decided to rewrite them into professional essays. With these revisions, I think I accomplished my goal of expressing my thoughts on the issues I discussed in a more eloquent way, so I wanted to share one! This was originally titled “Let’s Talk About…The Social Responsibility of Online Influencers.”

In 2020, our world was introduced to an inordinate number of tragedies, but unlike the world-shifting global pandemic, the campaign to end racial inequality and police brutality is nothing new. Black Lives Matter is considered one of the largest social movements in the history of the United States, but the seeds of the network of advocates were sown from the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media in July of 2013. Outraged and profoundly horrified by the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of a black teenager named Trayvon Martin, a woman named Alicia Garza, who works as domestic worker rights organizer in Oakland, California, published a series of Facebook posts called, “A Love Letter to Black People.” It is in this series that she expressed, “…black people, I love you. I love us. Our lives matter.” Patrisse Cullors, an anti-police violence organizer in Los Angeles, replied to the post saying, “#BlackLivesMatter.” With the support of their mutual friend Opal Tometi, these two women created the movement, though the hashtag did not begin to trend until the murder of Michael Brown in 2014. Within three weeks of Michael’s death, “#BlackLivesMatter” was being used on average almost sixty thousand times every single day. In late November, a grand jury decided to not charge Darren Wilson with the murder of Michael Brown, and within those subsequent weeks, the hashtag was used over 1.7 million times.

Inspired by the 1960’s civil rights movement, Black Lives Matter organizers have revolutionized advocacy and activism with their strategic protesting strategies, using social media to garner widespread media coverage, and publically challenging and demanding support from politicians. After the murder of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020, at the hands of police officers Derek Chauvin, Alexander Kueng, Thomas Layne, and Tou Thao, the movement saw what is often described as a revival. However, as many black activists have said, Black Lives Matter never “fizzled out” for them as it did for the nonblack allies who associated themselves with the movement in its initial formation. An accurate description would be that during this turbulent time in our world, a great deal nonblack people took the opportunity to educate themselves on the issue of racial inequality against black people, more influencers and celebrities spoke out against the injustices, and therefore, the movement received more social backing. White people in systemic positions of privilege are recognizing the disconnect between the way they and people of color are treated in the world, and an unprecedented amount are publicly acknowledging this and responsibly using their platforms to build support for the movement.

Unfortunately in the wake of “#BlackLivesMatter”’s surge on social media in recent months, those genuinely advocating for change are being met with a whirlwind of what are known as performative activists. Wikipedia states, “Performative activism is a pejorative term referring to activism done to increase one’s social capital rather than because of one’s devotion to a cause. It is often associated with surface-level activism, referred to as slacktivism.” In this new age of technology, people are able to effortlessly hide behind their screens and project an idealized image of themselves, and this has resulted in a number of people showing up for black people in convenient, online settings. One might recognize someone like this in their own life when they compare the way this person acts on social media to the way they do in real life. On their Instagram story, they firmly state that they will not tolerate any kind of ignorance towards the black community, but they are silent when presented with people making harmful judgments about black people and the movement as a whole. They leave supportive comments on black activists’ posts, but do not correct their nonblack friends for using racial slurs. They share links to petitions that they have not even taken the time to sign themselves. 

Performative activists want the positive attention they are sure to receive from feigning a “woke” appearance on social media, but are neither educated enough nor willing to defend black people against those who try to justify and/or dismiss the hardships they have endured. They pat themselves on the back for doing the bare minimum, because that is all a white person needs to do in order to be deemed a good person by our society. To lay it out simply, if someone chooses to continue a friendship with someone who supports the countering movement All Lives Matter and makes no attempts to educate that person, they are not an ally. If they speak on behalf of the community instead of bringing attention to the thousands of statements made by black people online, they are not an ally. If they sit by idly while their peers make racist comments, they are not an ally. If they support influencers who have been radio silent about the movement, they are not an ally. If they think people can “agree to disagree” about racism, they are not an ally. They are not an ally, and others must learn to stop titling them as shut because the world has conditioned people to think white people deserved to be praised for doing anything remotely positive.

Why are nonblack people being applauded for their activism at all? Why is it that when some, mostly other nonblack people, see a content creator retweet a single link to a petition after months of noiselessness about the movement, their innate response is to compliment them? Why is it acceptable for these musicians and actors with net-worths of tens of millions of dollars to do nothing more than like one comment saying, “Interact if you support BLM!”? Why are people still embracing this idea that white people deserve to be thanked for doing the absolute least to support a movement fighting for equality and justice? Advocating for black lives is not a skill or favorable quality, it is a very basic action that any moral person would do. Respecting the minimalist idea that black people are human beings who deserve to experience life not plagued by constant fear and shrouded in danger is nothing exceptional. More importantly, why do some nonblack people act like they’re doing the black community a favor when they take the slightest action to help?

Performative activism can be incredibly damaging for a movement like Black Lives Matter that is rightfully demanding significant and important change. False allyship does nothing to aid black advocates and ultimately serves as a deterrent, and those who are pushing a facade of caring about the movement in order to gain social standing must take accountability for this. It is a necessity that they educate themselves on how to be effective allies and take those steps–not because they want to save face, but because they understand that is their obligation as a person to help their fellow human being when they are faced with grave injustices. 

Since 2021 has started, my life has been filled with unwanted turns and many things I wish my small hands could fix time’s clock to reverse. Heartbreak. Depression. Death. All of those things made me realize how much is to be appreciated. We must appreciate those who love us. We must appreciate the ones who make us smile. We must appreciate our gift of life.

It’s the little things for me. A warm hug after connection had been tethered. A quick phone call just so I can hear your voice. A simple “how was your day?” The sending of a TikTok that is nothing more than idiotic because it reminded you of me or reminded me of you.  The little things matter. They may not seem like a lot to you, but to someone else it could be the thing that’s giving them hope, making them smile, making them feel again. 

I was away from MSA campus for well over a month because of personal reasons. There was nothing more exciting than pulling up to the front doors of the school with bags weighing down the trunk. Adrenaline rushed through my veins as a smile crept onto my face. Moving in and setting up, I felt like I was back home. My home away from home.

Every detail, I noticed. The noodle cups stacked up in a box that also held microwavable macaroni and rice sat on the desk adjacent my bed. The way the mirror seemed clean and my covers felt soft. I missed my painting and tiara above the desk that I used.  I missed my roommate’s  colorful duvet and our late night conversations. I missed the little things that make my MSA experience special. 

As I write this, I wish that time would slow down and allow me to really appreciate the little things this school has to offer. The early morning chat with the cafeteria ladies. Leaving my room only when that one person asks me. The randomness that happens in the cafeteria and the second floor activities. The burning of my calves as I take the stairs to avoid elevator conversations. The way the literary lab eases my soul as soon as I step into it.

I am really a junior at a school of the arts. I really get to live on a campus with creators and artists alike. I get to pursue my passion while still maintaining the life of a regular teen. All of it is still so fresh to me yet I feel like its all almost over.

I appreciate the little things in life because sometimes those are the most special.  🙂

BE APPRECIATIVE,

MSA SIMP 😉