Category: Senior Literary

Welcome back to Jaleigha blog. Yes, your girl is a senior now. So, my first blog will be about my first poem I wrote here.

 

Soul Ties

When people say they are feeling blue,

You wonder if it is love.

Sometimes you can love too hard you won’t know what to do

You can love so hard that you would get lost.

It hurt like hell and hit bad in the heart.

Love will make you see so much red!

No matter how much you forgive, you will still see red.

Holding your breath while your face turns blue.

Trying to get yourself and your heart right

Wanting to give him another chance to love,

But no matter what u try he will make you lost.

Looking once aging at your stitches.

You hate yourself for letting him give you stitches.

your eyes burn with tears of red.

 you don’t need or want to be lost!

you want to find someone who can love,

Not someone who makes you feel blue.

Someone who knows how to treat your heart.

He’ll have you thinking you have a bad heart.

When your heart becomes bad because of the stitches in your heart

just because you could love.

Sometimes you let the red you see become red red!

Just like the love for him, or is it love? 

You don’t see that in him, you still see lost.

You are done with the feeling of lost.

No more pain in your heart,

You’re tired of feeling blue!

It’s your turn to give his heart stitches.

You want to use your red.

He doesn’t need your love.

Show yourself the love.

You were hurt and lost.

He’s gone, so is the red.

Heal your heart.

Remove all your pain with the stitches.

Now you have the happy feeling of blue.

You are free of all the stitches. You have your sweetheart.

Soul Ties is something I wrote based on something new I was learning new. It was talking about love and how it can make you feel. I loved how I wrote this poem. It was one of my best low-key ones. I think this year will be me wrestling things I never thought of writing. So far, it’s been my writing things dealing with ghosts. 

If y’all have any type of ides that I could do, y’all should really let me know so i can try to write it. I would say it’s a little hard to come up with something to write when you’re so used to writing about love or different things dealing with the right path. But I can say I do like a big challenge so it’s not so bad.

It’s 2026. We’re in a class full of writers. Us seniors are in senior seminar. We all took that job quiz telling us how much ai is going to impact our jobs. Looking at writers, it’s a very threatening line to look at. While ai writing isn’t very good, it’s still intimidating that our passion is constantly threatened by artificial intelligence. 

Now it’s 2018. It’s my ninth birthday, and my grandfather just died a month prior. At his funeral I got to speak, and I remember having to pause before speaking to angle the microphone down towards myself. The church filled with laughter, and I think that my grandfather would’ve loved that even at his funeral people were able to find something to laugh about. Anyway, it’s my ninth birthday and my brother’s fifteenth. As a present to the both of us, we got a Playstation 4 for the two of us to share. Currently, that Playstation sits in my dorm next to a monitor that I need a speaker for. I promise this is relevant.

The ps4 that my parents purchased came with a few games on disc. Must’ve been some deal they were running. While me and my brother both played around with the Star Wars game that came with it, there was another game that started to collect a little dust. That game was Detroit Become Human. 

If you have never heard of this game, I will gladly gladly GLADLY tell you all about it. As the name suggests, the game takes place in Detroit Michigan. It’s set surprisingly close to present day, the year in game being 2038. The contents in game seem impossible to set in place in reality because the androids would already be in early stages right now, but with the current state of technological advancement and the push of AI I wouldn’t be surprised to see a prototype similar to the Cyberlife androids in the near future. 

The way the game works is you play three characters all in a story where they intersect at small sections. You make the decisions for them, leading to many many many different ending and possibilities. You don’t really get to choose who you play next. The whole game is kinda like a tv show where you have to decide where the plot goes and also sometimes shoot someone at the exact right time. If you don’t shoot at the right time, that character just dies and doesn’t come back. Except for Connor. That chud. Look, I’ve been playing this game since I was nine years old and I’ve played it at LEAST twice a year (three times in one weekend this summer) and I still am nowhere near getting all of the endings. Maybe that’s a failure on my part, but I’m a sucker for accidentally playing the same route over and over again. 

My favorite storyline is Markus’ (the bald dude). The base story is an android that cared for an old man gets thrown away and starts a revolution for android rights. I should say now that the whole story is an allegory for racial movements against injustice. It kinda falls short a little though because it’s a bit base level, but I think it’s good if you’re a nine year old just starting to actually understand  these concepts. With Markus you can choose to be neutral (stupid decision, nothing cool happens), pacifistic (really cool), or violent (also really cool). Your actions as Markus affect society like crazy so if you’re trying to be like a chill Kara and Connor do NOT like kill everyone and threaten the president. Will not go well. At all. 

I also really reallly realllllyyy like Kara. I do have a little bit of an issue with her character being boiled down to a mother, but also it’s really freaking beautiful that she’d sacrifice herself the way she does so many times in game. She just wants to care for her baby and would literally let a polar bear out of a cage to do that???? Peak I say. PEAK! Also, her relationships with the characters she meets are sosooooso awesome. Her guard is rarely ever down (especially if you play the “I hate Alice and she hates me” route, but there’s so many things that are like mandatory for every story that make her like you) so the moments she can breathe with Alice (her daughter) and Luther (her kinda mutual protection partner). Even if Kara is a little nothing burger, she’s like the whole reason we have the game so SAY THANK YOU. The short that started the whole game is sooo cool to look back on.

I guess I should also talk about Connor. The fan favorite. The pretty boy. He’s an assistant detective for the Detroit police. The main endings you can get with Connor are “he joins the resistance (yay)” and “I’m evil I killed Hank (noo).” My favorite way to play Conner personally is the “Connor sucks at his job and can’t do anything right” route where you die at any opportunity possible and lose all leads. There’s a lot of fans that treat Connor as the main character because like he’s got the biggest opportunity for change and like he’s the demo character blah blah blah MARKUS IS THE MAIN CHARACTER YOU FOOLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Don’t mind that. Anyway. What I think the game is missing are androids that don’t want to unionize. That’s like all they’re missing because SOME people in groups are NOT the most aware. Like Connor’s the only one that does that. Like it makes sense why he doesn’t immediately because he IS a cop betraying his own people, but like what about a dude that just really really likes handing over paint. I wish there was some main story interaction where Markus converts someone and then is really confused when they don’t follow him. “I have it good here!” “They’re gonna put you in a trash compactor???” That’s one of my biggest issues I am biased though.

The creators do sadly make their female characters one note. Markus gets to Jericho where all androids are free where there’s ONE lady to go out on missions with? She’s one of the sex androids and escaped because she was being sexually abused there? Great! Put her in a relationship with Markus!! Like I think they were going for North finding solace in Markus and no longer being afraid of close relationships with men. But like. They did it so poorly and, with the way most routes go, it’s such an undeserved ending for her character. At least they covered abuse and like how sex work would change. That was really interesting to see. Kinda radicalized me at a young age lowkey.

WOAH MAMA!!!! Even with the new word limit I went over…. Whoopsie! Well, I guess I have to cut myself off. Next month I’ll relate this post back to AI and talk about the dreams we had for something that ended up being so dire. Well, that’s enough for now. ByeBye!!

Hello everyone, it’s a new year, and I’m back, ready to offer more of my thoughts. And, as a disclaimer, unless I state otherwise, this post is made up of my personal opinions. If you have an issue with that, move on to the next blog.

As most people who know me are aware, I’m going into pre-law. And as the title suggests, this blog is about defense attorneys. It’s common knowledge that the vast majority are not big fans of lawyers, specifically defense attorneys. You always hear the same tired statements.

“Oh, you’re defending bad people.”

“What if your client is guilty?”

“You’re helping criminals walk free.”

To the people who think that way, it’s a good thing that you’re not a lawyer. In my opinion, if you cannot separate your personal feelings from your job, this career, and most others, are not for you.

 It’s not about whether the client committed the crime; it’s about their rights as a human being. It’s about proportionate sentencing. If a man steals from a grocery store, does that mean he needs to do 15 to twenty years?

Justice goes both ways.

Not every defendant is Jeffrey Dahmer, or Ted Bundy, or whatever other evil criminal you want to list. Do you think that every defendant is a rapist, or a murderer, or a thief? Do you think that every person convicted of a crime is guilty?

This is not an opinion: It is estimated that between 6% and 15.4% of people are wrongfully convicted in the United States. That means, out of 2.3 incarcerated Americans, 138,000-354,200 are wrongly imprisoned.

The rate of wrongful conviction in capital cases is 4%. A rate of 4% is too high when lives are on the line.

Yes, criminal defense lawyers do represent egregious people as well; however, being egregious does not dismantle the Sixth Amendment.

In case you’ve forgotten, the Sixth Amendment, under Article III of the American Constitution, states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”

Now, back to my opinion, to call defense lawyers bad people for defending the accused reads as a lack of intelligence. As said, this is my opinion. Don’t get offended; a hit dog hollers.

I hope that you enjoyed reading my blog; I would much prefer it if you learnedsomething; both would be lovely, though. Below I have cited my sources for this blog, and I will see you next time.

Ciao!

Cited Sources:

Sixth Amendment. (n.d.). National Constitution Center – constitutioncenter.org. https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-vi

What is the false conviction rate in the US? (n.d.). https://legalknowledgebase.com/what-is-the-false-conviction-rate-in-the-us

Hi blog! It’s been a few months since my last one of these, and a lot has changed! I have evolved, not only as a writer, but also as a person. I think for my first blog of the year I’m just simply going to talk about what’s new.

I have found that I love Minions! Papoi! I know that last year I liked them and I would call my friendgroup the Babois because of how much I liked them, but now it’s different. I REALLY love the Minions. If I had one wish ever it would be to be friends with a Minion. I love them. They are so silly and just have no worries at all and I love that for them. Also apparently they are immortal? This is a common discussion between me and my girlfriend. 

I have gotten really into watching really bad films on Tubi. Like lots of bad films on Tubi. I would make a list of my favorites, but I don’t know how… appropriate that would be; however, I will leave you with this: if you scroll through Tubi for too long, you will find some interesting things. I usually end up watching these with Alex during English IV when we have nothing to do. 

I have expanded my music taste! I have been listening to a lot more The Weeknd (thanks to David Walker), Mars Argo, Nirvana, Cherry Pick, and more. I have tried to stop limiting myself to certain genres or vibes of music when I have a crisis. Going back to the Tubi movie obsession, these movies also have great sound tracks, so that’s always fun! 

I have begun to look at more art. Mostly classical pieces. Right now I’m studying Van Gogh, next will probably be Renoir. I used to wonder why people stood in front of art for like hours at museums, but I’m starting to see why. What I like about Van Gogh is that his art style is very streaky. You can tell its art made by a paintbrush while still seeing that it’s realism. I don’t know if that’s stupid or like confusing, but yeah. 

Now I’m going to transition over to what I did during the summer! I attended the McMullins Writing camp, where I roomed with Lela and made so many friends. I found out that I am very much a fall/winter person. (The heat KILLED me.) I spent many days with my best friend McCarley. (We practically lived with each other all summer.) I got accepted into Itawamaba Community College, though I’m not completely sure that’s where I want to go. It is the most convenient option. 

For my future, I now want to do college online and study to be a creative writing teacher. I want to live with my best friend and girlfriend. I want to own a dog and a lizard. I also want to be a published poet who participates in workshops and festivals. For now, I want to work at a small business or a record and book store. I think that would suit my personality and just sound cool to tell people. 

I don’t want to keep you reading for soooo long about me me me, so here’s a few questions about you! –

1. How was your summer?
2. Did you learn anything new about yourself?
3. What do you think your future holds?

Lastly, I just wanted to remind you guys that no matter how stressful this senior year may be, I’m always here to talk or listen! I know that this year is the one that we all have been looking forward to since we were kids, so I just hope we can all make it a good one, in harmony, together. 

Okay, this concludes my first blog of senior year. I love you guys, thanks for reading. Talk soon! 

HI my name is Kemarrion is Galmore! and this is my first senior blog! I don’t want to be serious because I’m not a serious person

I think it’s somewhat honorary I start this off with some poetry, I mean poetry is like my signature at this point. It has grown into all my writing, speech and life. Poetry is question put in a rhythmic style to convey one’s feelings or external observations. And I think I’m full of questions. I think we should all ask questions about everything, if we don’t then how can we be human? Is our sole purpose not discovery and advancement. If we don’t then are not any better than the same animals, we slaughter and consume? If we can’t be conscious enough to ask questions about the life, how could we ever actually live it?

I am nothing. I am everything.

I am hungry and full.

The yin and yang of complenetion.

I am quiet. I am loud. I am angry. I am sad.

I am symmetry. And unevenness.

I am a god. I am human.

I’m here but gone.

I am constantly dying but immortal.

I’m on earth but in the clouds.

I am life, but somehow I hold deaths hands for his first day at preschool.

I recently began to ponder what life currently looks like and what life could be. I like to make sense of my life by comparing it to things I’m familiar with like movies or shows. If I were to compare my life to a movie I would use “everything everywhere all at once”. The movie means so much to me, and I think everyone trashes it because of the “sci-fi” aspect of it. How can one ever learn and grow if one isn’t open to new things though?

The movie is about the multiverse the same worlds existing in different universes and times. The worlds aren’t always the same, it’s like making a copy of a copy of a copy and so on. It’s eventually bound to be different someway or somehow and I think that’s the beauty of it. The symbolism of seeing the same thing, but different perspectives were played on a lot in this movie. I think due to the multiverse being introduced as a everything bagel literally! It allowed for interesting plot with many themes and literary devices to be depicted in the film. I like the idea of there being multiverses, but only because it leaves endless possibilities. It gives hope in a strange way. Like for instance if I was sad now and giving up on everything somewhere a different version of me is somewhere frolicking and jumping through fields of flowers happy and excited for his future. I was first introduced to this concept by marvel it was strange attempting to wrap my head around there being different versions of myself maybe one with 3 eyes or one with a rap career dating Beyonce or something.

I think everything everywhere all at once was also used as a show of representation of bi-polar disorder I mean the main character is forced to experience lots of multiverses all at once to affect the world in a certain way leading to the eventual collapse of her mental state. She experienced all those emotions at the same time merging all her consciousness across multiple universes having to be so many people at once. Throughout the movie she was unable to control her body to the point she was glitching into different personas who was she really? The angry young woman set on revenge? The depressed lab rat too timid to act? The constantly monitored young woman now entering adulthood?

I think I relate to this movie especially now. The whole concept is that emotions are whole worlds and can crumble/be born at any moment in your life. I think in a way the universes are holding every single version of the worlds aka our emotions. It’s strange to think about it not going to lie. I was upset one day scrolling through my phone just bored and stuck on that one universe angry. Looking through my phone, I found myself smiling, happy in another universe without a care in the world blissfully unaware of the unconsented transportation form that universe and I wondered how I got there? Do I break this whole world built on my anger to get back to that one? Did the anger even matter if I could be someone else entirely? Would I be trading places with a different version of myself leaving them trapped crawling at the edge of that world to take back their place?  If I were happy would the reason I be mad even matter anymore? There are so many questions and there are probably answerers for each one but were the questions even meant to exist? If so, why do they? What do you do when you spend so much time stuck in one universe you’re out of questions?

Senior year is here and I often find myself asking questions and all the while slipping into other universes every day. I kind of consider myself an astronaut at this point. (tell Nasa call me). I think every time I slip into these universes; I discover new things about myself though. I think sometimes I even feel those universes colliding with the previous ones. I wonder if that’s what life is are we all just aliens or passengers rather; hitchhiking in the minds of people we could’ve been if something would’ve gone slightly different?

I have told you what I think this entire time. What do you think? What world is holding you captive at this moment? What planets have merged to form the person we see today? what worlds have you explored and lost/?

do you think we are all multiverses of emotions?

what world do you want to be explored/ have your senior year ?

What questions do you wake up itching to know?

If you have no questions, do you think you are truly living life?

Earlier this year, I came across a video that talked about a writer who liked to examine and write about people on their death beds. She had been writing on the topic of death for years, speaking from professional experience with hospitalized patients who were not expected to live very long. The book was called, “On Dying and Death” and it’s by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. In addition to being a writer, Ross was also a significant figure in the health industry and began her career as a psychiatrist. She was even able to develop a general chart or a stage-by-stage explanation of the emotions that people go through before they accept that their loved ones are dying. She called them the five stages of grief, and they are ordered as follows: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.

 Although I never sat down to read this novel and experience it for the amazing book that it truly is, the author’s findings about the mental process behind accepting death stuck with me and I found myself extremely curious to know how she wrote this book, and what other factors played into her crafting these ideas.

I’m not completely sure if this piece of information is connected to Ross’s book, but I also saw that when people are close to death, they are thinking about two things, “Who have I helped, and what have I done in my life?” Hearing this really influenced the trajectory of the path I thought I was going down back then, and it made me consider the meaning of purpose and how I could use my own to contribute to the world.

Before I came to MSA, I didn’t really think I had a purpose and that’s just to say I didn’t believe there was anything that I was working on to better my future or someone else’s future. But looking back on my junior year, I realize that is absolutely not true because some of the happiest moments of my senior year stemmed from the efforts of my junior year. Now, I think it’s so important to celebrate our entire journey, because that’s how we build the courage to keep going, and to continue building whatever craft. So, if anything, my years here have taught me to welcome the hard times and be very open to experience and allow myself to be shaped by my struggles.

            Yeah, so, this quote is very special to me because I was able to carve out my own definition of purpose and be moved by it. I definitely don’t have everything figured out, but one of my main goals in life is to be conscience about the world and the people who are in it, not that it’ll make accepting death any easier, but because it’s important to me.

            One of my plans this summer is to actually read this book and probably be really immersed in it for a while. I’m interested in works that explore some facets of human existence and contemplate what they mean. Also, I wanted to write about something sad for my last blog, so I thought this book being my latest fascination matched that well, I guess.

            Anyways, if you’re interested in this book too, let me know, maybe we can go half and half on it at our local bookstore, and swap it every couple of years?

I feel like I’ve talked too much about graduating high school, too much about my childhood or how scary I think growing up is. I would have loved, more than anything, to write about what graduation means to me, how saying goodbye to this chapter of my life seems like the scariest change I’ll ever encounter. It feels like such a beautiful moment that is also so incredibly common. 

I used to hold a grudge against people that weren’t afraid of graduating high school. I used to think they weren’t consciously going about life, that they would regret not appreciating their high school graduation enough in the future.

But now, I’m starting to become exactly what I could never imagine myself to be. I’m not as scared as I used to be. And it’s funny that I can look back at how different I was before I came to MSA. My hair was wavy, almost straight. I played the oboe and the keyboard (both terribly) in my high school band, and my only sense of community was in that band. I drew every single day and could fill an entire sketchbook in just a few months. My favorite artist was Chappell Roan and I thought I had left hyperpop far behind me (not knowing a new phase was in my future). 

At the same time, not a lot has changed. I still love horror media, I still love Smiling Friends (if you told summer 2024 Stephanie that it would be over by now, she would flip. But she would also say she “knew it was coming” just like I did when Zach and Michael first announced its finale). If I met 16-year-old Stephanie, we really wouldn’t be that different. I like to think that she would say we’re completely different people but I don’t think that at all.

I think I’m more different from the Steph that was in her first few months at MSA than I am the girl before that. She had terrible imposter syndrome, comparing herself to her seniors and fellow juniors enough to think that she couldn’t possibly be a real writer. She didn’t even know what the word “prose” meant. She didn’t know anything about writing and that’s what I love about her, she just wrote what she wanted without putting a genre, or even a title, on it. She wrote short stories without calling them short stories, started novels without calling them novels. She wrote with no end goal, word count, or desire to show anyone. And if I really think about it, I’m so jealous of her.

Over the two years I’ve spent at MSA, my writing has obviously changed but my dreams haven’t. I still want to ultimately write horror novels, but now I can see myself writing a romance novel, memoir, short story collection, or poetry collection. It’s important to note that I wrote my first ever (successful) poem to audition for MSA. I had only written one (terrible) poem before that in the seventh grade. I remember it being really difficult, but in the end I loved it. I should’ve known that I would love poetry years later.

Over my time at MSA, I loved writing about my childhood and how attached I am to it. It’s certainly magical, but I think I’ve dwelled on it too long. How many times can you say “I’m terrified of growing up” before people get tired of hearing you? How many times can you say “I’m not ready to be an adult” before you’re eighteen and you have no choice? And how many times can you keep lying to yourself saying you’re not ready when you are, you just don’t realize it?

I’ve made excuses for myself time and time again: I don’t know how to do taxes, I’ve never had a job, I still don’t know how to drive! But I can learn, like I have with everything before. And if I don’t learn the first time, I have no choice but to try again.

I’ve realized that some people know me for writing about how scary this transitional period of life is for teenagers. Sure it’s great hearing them say I’m relatable or “real”, but I’m ready to move on. There is so much more I want to write.

My senior showcase has certainly broken a part of my brain. I’ve realized that there is no going back after “AMERICAN GIRL/AMERICAN BOY”. I lost a part of myself after focusing on my time in Indonesia for the first time in twelve years. Something about not knowing what happened those six years made me the girl I was. The Wasian girl that thought of herself as entirely White, because that’s how she was raised, the girl that dismissed her time in her home country because it hurt too much to think about. 

I don’t fully know who I am yet, and I don’t think I ever will. Maybe I’m getting closer to knowing, maybe this is the closest I will ever be. But I’d rather dwell in the uncomfortable honesty about my childhood than ignore it and make that ignorance part of myself. I want everyone to know about how difficult it was for me, because that’s how I became who I am today. Maybe being closer to my culture, my childhood, and the blocked memories brings me closer to my best self. 

On a lighter note, I really love sharing this website to anyone outside of MSA that’s interested in my writing. Not only do I get to promote my peers’ casual pieces that display their personality and how I know them, but also I feel like the people I share it with know a little bit more about me when they read my blogs. I also love going back in time and reading my old posts. It’s embarrassing as hell, but I only say that because it’s me. 

Outside of this website, I also love searching random internet topics and finding a 10-year-old blog post by a teenager who only had one thing: a website domain and passion. There’s something so charming about reading an internal monologue typed out for all of the internet to see.

When I’m in college, I want to be able to look back at this website and read my old, embarrassing blogs. Maybe they won’t be such a pain to read in a few years since hopefully I won’t remember writing about Chappell Roan for my first ever blog and started it with a clickbait title. 

I also want this final blog post to be like a time capsule. I’d love to compare my changes even further in the future when I look back. So:

My name is Stephanie, but I prefer Steph. I’m a senior at the Mississippi School of the Arts and I’m graduating in less than a month. I used to be afraid of becoming an adult, graduating high school, and moving on to college. I am really childish. I cram playing my favorite video game, the new Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, in my thirty minutes of free time every day. My favorite artists (and band) right now are underscores, Jane Remover and Paramore. I’ve just realized my love for graphic design as I work more on my showcase. I’ve stopped drawing as much as I used to. And I love having pink hair. I can’t wait to read this in a couple of years and go “Wow, that’s funny. I don’t even listen to underscores anymore.”

I’m proud to say I’m not afraid of growing up anymore. I’m not “comfortable with the idea of graduating” like I said in January, I’m excited to graduate. I can’t wait to move on and change. I can’t wait to compare these moments in my life and I can’t wait to cringe at my blog posts years in the future. I can’t wait to become a different person, hopefully closer to the best version of myself.

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I was originally going to write about the 2012 “The Lorax” movie. I was going to write about how O’Hare could potentially be Asian American representation, how The Onceler should’ve never been viewed as a forgivable character (at least not any more than O’Hare), and how motivations of Ted were only for a girl way too old for him and he didn’t even care about saving Thneedville for real. I was going to write about how much potential that movie had to be a genuinely good critique of capitalism and how powerful that movie could’ve been and how you can see it in the concept art and the demo songs (that are on the soundtrack!).

I was so excited until I realized it would’ve been my last blog post as a student at MSA. As funny as it would’ve been, I did not want that to be my legacy. So I went for a personal essay (if you squint) about how I have nothing to say about graduation. And I think it’s really funny that “nothing to say” equates to 1,300 words. I’m really happy to say goodbye. AMERICAN GIRL/AMERICAN BOY is on May 4th at 6 PM in the Black Box.