Call To The Neglected

This is for the teen who’s best friend is a tree
and doesn’t hesitate to tell her so
This is for the rocks that can’t sit still
and the folding chairs that don’t have a will

This is for the miscarriage that lives on in our dreams
the children who’d rather live in a library
and the politicians who just want to get out and play

This is for the writers that inspire new ones
and the ones who couldn’t care less
This is for the artists that can’t stop no matter what
and their unknown inspiration

This is for Andrew Bird’s “Masterswarm”
the people in King’s dream
and the homeless man waiting for Godot

This is for the board games gathering dust
the cats that stare you down
and the teddy bear you’d never dream of throwing out

This is for a bed without a home
power without a cause
and a Catholic without religion

This is for the song that needs to be sung
the pills that need to be taken
and the puzzle that needs to be solved

This is for the sidekicks
the defenders
the disputed
and the crazy

This is a call to the neglected

AT 

Common App Essay

Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.

(approximately 250-500 words)

Ed Kennedy’s life is, in essence, the definition of normality. So then why was he chosen to undertake the seemingly impossible task of changing people’s lives for the better? “I am The Messenger” by Markus Zusak tells the story of Ed, whose life of a simple cab driver is altered drastically when for unknown reasons, he starts to receive playing cards in the mail. Each card points him in the direction of a random person who is having problems in life. His task to help solve the problems is non-negotiable; if Ed refuses to deliver one of these messages, he will be killed. The author shows that with enough motivation, even a 19 year old deadbeat cab driver in a dingy old town can do more than live his ordinary life. He can morph hopeless situations into ones full of happiness and joy.

Although Ed was forced to deliver these messages, I admire that he took on the tasks with conviction. Everybody has bad days at school, work, and/or at home. I have found that the easiest way to lift my spirits is to help somebody else out. Whether it is giving advice, helping peers with homework, or getting people out of their own funk through humor and wit, all of these acts brighten my day even if only temporarily. Ed Kennedy expressed similar feelings of joy and pleasure by making connections to people he had never known before.

The way Ed Kennedy questions the meaning of life when he asks, “why me”, as he does a number of times, resonates with me. I have often questioned my purpose in life. Reading about Ed’s experience and the ways in which he rises to meet his challenges has helped me when I have felt hopeless to make a difference and to find purpose.  I realized, when reading about Ed that he was transformed in the process of helping others. When I volunteer at the food pantry or when I can afford to give money to a homeless person, I find my perspective on life changes.

When Ed started out by following the instructions of the cards, he did not know where they would lead, yet he completed them anyway. When I feel gloomy and confused about life, I try to remember that you don’t always have to know where things will end up, but that each step you take along the way can help you get to a better place, even without a map that guides you there.

Ed saw firsthand the unfairness of this world and did not let it stop him. By the end of the book, Ed discovered that in addition to the good feelings he had gained from helping others, he was also stronger and could make positive changes in his own life. His story gives me hope and reassurance and motivates me to continue to reach out and help people without needing them to first express their own need for support.

For my second project as action for my D&E class, we built a homemade solar panel. Similarly to the earlier water station project, we built the panels in the hope that we could inspire others to make their own through watching the process that we went through. By working on this project, I learned a lot about the fundamentals of working in a group. It can be hard to spread out the work evenly between all the group members. No matter what, I believe that at least one leader will always emerge in a group. I became  a leader and I am proud of how the project turned out. At first it was hard to understand what we had to do, but eventually we figured out the building process and worked together to make it happen. There were times when I felt that we could have done a better job. I still think that we successfully accomplished the goal we set out to reach.

AT                                                  The Earth Above  (22”,22”,9”)                                                09/2012                                                                 Made with: wire, clay, sculpey, and cardboard

The idea of this piece is to show your power animal’s movement, along with a similar human and mechanical movement and relate them to our natural elements through the use of molded wire and clay. We first started this project by trying to define what the term Power Animal meant and used the ICHING to determine our natural elements. We followed that up by choosing our own Power Animal and taking a field experience to the zoo to verify our animal and observe its movements. The next step in the process was to make a flipbook depicting and visualizing our animal’s movements that would later help with the building of the sculpture.

Lastly, we found both a human and a mechanical movement that associated with our animal’s own movement and shaped three wires to identify each of them. In order to finish the movement wires, we had to make beads with a hole in the middle out of sculpey. After they were hardened in the oven, we slipped one through each wire and were this way able to illustrate how the movements worked in a visual form. We then took the cardboard we had spruced up with clay and the molded wires, and put it all together to show the movements mingling with the natural element we had chosen.

At first I had chosen an ox, but after going to the zoo and discovering that there weren’t any oxen residing there, I changed my Power Animal to the Sichuan Takin (a goat/ox mix that lives in the Asian mountains). The natural element that I chose was Earth. In my sculpture, I made  a mountain with the clay I had to better depict my element. It worked in the exact way I wanted it to; it did a great job of representing the solidness of my animal and his/her way of life.

The movements I chose were the Takin’s slow nonchalant walk, a human rolling down a hill, and a vending machine dispensing a snack. The walk represented an established motion; one so normal that you wouldn’t even need to think to do it. To me, the roll was similar to the Takin’s walk in the sense that even though rolling down a hill is usually a chosen act, there is a set motion to how you do it. The vending machine’s motion depicted a non-negotiable action that once concluded, fulfilled its given purpose completely.

In my Design and Engineering class, we had to build a water station for our first action project. The basis for this project was to build a water station and film a video that shows its functionality. We also had to make a SlideRocket that would allow the people who watch it to build their own. The SlideRocket consisted of eight slides showing our use of the steps making up the engineering process. With an extra slide, we applied the Bernoulli equation and our current ITP level. I’m really proud and thankful for how well our water station worked considering the limited materials and resources. The most that I’ve cherished is the experience of working with low-cost/scavenged materials to build something that is simple, yet extremely useful to an underdeveloped country or territory.