Ryan's Well

Last week, Jayna had approached me with the idea of having another bake sale. Last year, we had worked together to successfully hold a bake sale to raise funds for Relay for Life.

Thus, after ok-ing our plans with Mrs. Keeler and Mrs. Langely, we planned on having our bake sale on Friday, March 25th. We're holding this bake sale in order to give money to the Ryan's Well Foundation to build wells and latrines in Africa. Tracy Fu, Lucy Zhang, Jayna Sames and I will work together and we hope to sell goods such as doughnuts, muffins, cookies, puppy chow, etc.

The reason that Jayna approached me with the bake sale in the first place was because of her experience in her club, Outdoor Adventure Club. Jayna told me that she had studied the global water shortage, ownership, and the affects of pollutants on the water in the polar caps. The shortage of clean, fresh water in Africa is an issue of Global Importance, and thus, we aimed to support Ryan's Well Foundation , which aids impoverished communities.

Furthermore, nearly one billion people, many from 3rd world countries such as Uganda, lack access to safe water. Over 2.5 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. This crisis leads to millions of preventable deaths everyday that contribute to the stagnation of communities. Thus, this problem exists as an ethical implication: the equal rights of humans to access basic human needs.

Here is the Foundation's website.

http://www.ryanswell.ca/home.aspx

Gold and Silver Keys

Two weeks ago, the Regional awards for Scholastics, a nationally recognized art competition, were announced. Surprisingly, I found out that I had won a Gold key for my poetry entry "But Not Really, Clair de Lune" had won gold key, the highest award. SImilarly, my other poetry entry "Dear Jack, Half-Truths, Chalk Dust, Railroads, Phosphorylation" won Silver key. Also, another bit of exciting news is that my poetry entry "But Not Really, Clair de Lune" is going to New York to be judged at the national competition.

I had entered Scholastics last year on a whim, but hadn't won anything. To have my poetry recognized regionally (the region that I had entered consisted of 16 states) made me realize my own strength in poetry. Before, I must admit, I lacked confidence in my poetry. But having received regional (and perhaps national?) recognition has increased my own awareness about my growth as a amateur poet and artist. I am a bit more confident with my poetry, and I'm glad that I committed to my club Spectrum, which really helped hone my poetry skills. With Spectrum, I can experiment with various techniques in my poetry (for instance, right now, I'm going through a phase where I only capitalize important words in my poems).

In case you're curious, here are the poems that I entered in Scholastics.

Clair de Lune

I'll tell you of the Debussy

Moon, reified in the soft specter
of light falling from stars.

But not Really

My first friend (but not really)

in kindergarten
had blonde hair and a bright smile,
and our world was made up of
glitter crayons and colored paper.
But,
Because I had dark hair, almond eyes,
and broken English learned from watching TV,
I never was invited… never invited.
I told my mother, sobbing,
“I wish I was blonde, why am I not blonde?”

My first slow dance (but not really)
was with a boy with a charming smile,
And short brown hair.
I had known him for a week and five days,
And we danced on the stage
With a sluggish heart-beat of music.
And when I laid my head on his chest,
His arms around my waist,
I thought,
“This isn’t right…
This isn’t love at all”
And I ran.

My first crush (but not really),
Who had dark hair and a shy smile,
Told me, pencil whispering on paper,
That I was pretty,
and I smiled,
because being blonde didn’t matter anymore,
and life was more than colored paper and crayons,
and I was happy.