Week 4

People are really fascinating, especially the way they interact. Since around seventh grade, it’s puzzled me, the concept of friendship. Like, when we’re young, we have friends because our parents decide that we should be friends because our parents are friends. But as we get older, sometimes, that is no longer enough. With personality changes and differing interests, what defines friendship? Now, the thing that most interests me, is that I have friends, really good friends, yet I still question what friendship is. Perhaps I have already found the answer, because are my friends still the ones from childhood? No, they are not, so perhaps I can rule out the time in which you have been friends. But on the other hand, if friendship is something commenced by something shared, then by that logic, my friends shouldn’t be my friends, because we have nothing in common. Furthermore, there is that whole saying of opposites attract, and so if that’s a quantifier for friendship or how it begins, then everything I know about friendship goes right out the window, and I’m right back to where I began, questioning: What is friendship? How does it begin? And if nothing changes, what makes it end?

Scott Week 4

A TSA lady told me, You got to have fun on this job, or something along those lines, and I feel like that's a good thing to live by, you can’t enjoy yourself unless you have a little fun.

Week 4 Caitlin G

“The goal isn’t to life forever. It’s to create something that will”. I think this is a very interesting concept, that is actually pretty accurate. No one can live forever, but those who are able to leave a lasting legacy and a positive influence on others are truly never forgotten. 

Week 4

I watched my step-siblings argue over who got to give their father’s 5 dollar bill to a performer in a restaurant a few days ago. Such gratuity can only be considered valuable if you give up your own money, otherwise it’s no longer a private message of appreciation and rather a public statement of your generosity. It disgusts me that some people in this world will only offer assistance when they know they’re being watched. Offering their hand to a man stuck in a ditch 5 meters deep when they have a rope 10 meters long, or giving spare change to the roadside performer on camera while the homeless mother in the alley starves.

Scott Week 3

They say good things can come from bad things but when my grandma died I didn’t see much. That was until it caused us as a whole family to get closer which ended up being a good thing out of this and whole situation

Athena - week 3

On the plane home from France, I overheard a conversation between the people sitting next to me about us. The majority of their conversation was about how silly teenagers are. As a teenager myself, who tends to overreact, I began to wonder how I’m perceived by adults. I often feel out of place amongst people my age, choosing to enjoy the company of adults over “children”. I often write about people my own age taking on adult issues, so listening to their conversation helped me realize that as teenagers, my characters shouldn’t always take themselves too seriously and neither should I.

Athena - week 2

When my article came out, I was terrified about the headline. What if I offended someone? What if someone didn’t read it, simply because I referenced Planned Parenthood? Now that days have passed, and numerous people have reached out, letting me know how impactful the article was, I want to feel terrified again. Because I have found that topics/times like that, that make one fear they’ve gone too far, are when a person is truly taking risks, and writing from the heart.