WELCOME!

Welcome to the MORE Program's book blog. This summer we will be reading the University's One Campus, One Book selection by Steve Lopez, titled The Soloist. As we read the novel, we will encounter various themes and topics which will allow us to reflect on our own personal backgrounds. You will be asked to write about some of these themes discussed in the novel in order to more fully internalize such concepts. Some of the concepts you will be asked to comment on include, but are nor limited to, homelessness, mental illness, friendship, inspiration, music, passion, and redemption.

BLOG #1

Listed below are two questions based on the first portion of the book, pages 1-119. Respond to one of the two prompts and express your thoughts and opinions on the matter. Your response should be a minimum of 500-750 words.

1. In The Soloist, Nathaniel finds his solace and escape in music. How do you escape? What talents do you possess that help you escape? What benefits do you gain from escaping into your world? What opportunities do you miss out on when you do?

OR

2. Write an article about yourself, written in third person. It needs to be in a positive tone, describing any obstacles or hurdles you've overcome and accomplishments you've achieved. Pretend it will be published on the front page of the Sunday L.A. Times. What do you want the world to know about you? No obstacle, hurdle, or accomplishment is too small.

BLOG #2

Listed below are two questions based on the second portion of the book, pages 123-286. Respond to one of the two prompts and express your thoughts and opinions on the matter. Your response should be a minimum of 500-750 words.

1) Find two incidents in The Soloist that you find particularly important in terms of its message about homelessness and mental illness. Summarize each incident and indicate how they contribute to the theme of the book.

or

2) Why do you think there are homeless people in the United States? Can something be done about this issue? Finally, who do you think is responsible for dealing with the problem of homelessness?

The homeless have always been in the margins of my sight, background characters to my leading role.  They were there, beggars and drunkards alike, cast in the shadows of the spotlight.  I had never really looked at them, but I remember them; some overdressed in layers of dirty apparel in the summer heat, some barely clothed in the wet winters. There were some lying on the sidewalk as if they were dead, there were some who walked out into the middle of the street during heavy traffic, sat down, and ate their lunch of scraps next to a dead pigeon.  The homeless were always there, but I never gave them a second thought.

One day a couple of weeks ago, I took the train to visit my mom in Carson.  When I met her in the parking lot of the train station, she asked me if I wanted to go take some water to the people living in the parking lot.  I was shocked. Did she mean to deliberately go to them and offer them one of her many gallons of water on that blistering day?

“Sure” I said, with some apprehension. I didn’t really know how to proceed with that.  She had never shown such open altruism to me before, and seeing her brave the encampment of soiled paisley bedding tents and mismatched shopping carts, I wondered how many times she had done this.

She walked with a smile, juggling four gallons of water in her arms as she offered water to those she passed. Seeing her confident stride, I did the same.

When all of our water had been given away, we walked backed to our car. As we passed a woman, she asked if my mother was a pastor.  I smiled and said no, just doing a little public service.  My mother stopped as well and asked the woman her name.  She began to cry at that, and said “Gloria”.

“Why are you crying, Gloria?” my mom asked.

“Because I’m out here, getting high all the time,” she said, her voice cracking.

And in that moment, I began to really see her.  She was a woman in her mid-thirties with such sad eyes and a broken spirit. She said she came out there almost every day to get high.  She spoke `for a while, just venting her troubles about her precarious situation, about how she wanted to do better, but couldn’t seem to find the strength.  When she had finished, she asked me to keep her in my prayers.

I thought about Gloria for a long time afterwards. I realized that the spotlight wasn’t just on me.  Everyone had their own spotlight, and deserved to be seen and heard just as much as I did.  The homeless weren’t just background characters, they were main characters—and main characters were human beings. People without homes deserve to be in the spotlight just as much as anyone.

People become homeless for many different reasons.  But just because they live on the streets doesn’t mean they aren’t worth our time, our attention, our respect.  The reasons people become homeless don’t seem as important to me as helping them adjust to their new situation and helping them get back on their feet.

I don’t know the solutions to “ending homelessness” either, but I know that journey begins with all of us showing a little compassion.

Homelessness in the U.S.

I believe that there are many homeless people due to unemployment, uneducated people, economic status and health issues. Unemployment most of the time occurs because of discrimination against race. For example, a white and black person could be interviewed at the same time and although the black person was more outgoing with more to offer, the white person would get the job due to bias of racial discrimination. Discrimination against a person of color is a factor in unemployment that should not be tolerated or practiced in any case. Frequent unemployment lead to high rates of homelessness which invades the streets with unfortunate individuals. Unemployment leads to homelessness, starvation, and last but not least it portrays a negative image of the United States government.

The U.S government should be having a priority in education. To provide full financial aid opportunities of higher education to all American born citizens will further enrich the values of America. Many students don’t want to attend college for the fear of being financially unstable while having other priorities. This fear or priorities force individuals to work full time, while having a high risk of being laid off when something in particular is not in demand. Typically a demand for people who illegally emigrate from other countries to “have a better lifestyle” is high because they earn lower than minimum wage with no citizenship rights.  It is important to pay attention to the level of education each American citizen obtains because a better education system will lead to a better country. A greater emphasis in K-12^th grade education will also help students gain motivation to pursue a four year degree, therefore having the government invest more of its money into this category will help alleviate if not diminish homelessness in the U.S.

In the U.S. there exists a group of people with mental and health issues who are homeless or close to being homeless. Economic status is a big part of this issue, as those who struggle financially and are in need of a doctor don’t have the funds to pay for medication or therapy. It is essential for a person with a disability to have good economic standing to be able to have a positive health progression. Many people who do not have the money to help their relative or themselves to get better, end up selling their possessions or anything that may help them get the money they need to pay a doctor or medication. Many families go through this situation, making it very difficult to pay home bills, buy food, or even pay for rent. Many families end up homeless when they are unqualified of receiving help from the government to pay for medical expenses. It is important for the government to address all health issues and provide everyone with a decent way of life, especially in a country like the U.S.

                I believe that the government is responsible for the homelessness in the U.S. It is evident that there are thousands of people who are homeless as one passes through the streets of downtown LA. Homelessness could be an issue that is possibly ignored because the government prefers to spend money on other things like war and worldwide issues. I believe it’s important for the U.S. government to take care of its people hence it will create a better society for American citizens and increase the values of the American people. 

Unique Individuals

         Homeless people wandering the street of the United States have different backgrounds that is why it is important to look at each case individually. Understanding what led them to become homeless will be key to find a way to help them and prevent many others from becoming one of them. Among the causes are drug abuse, abusive home environment, a traumatic experience or mental illness and making poor financial decisions. Most of them can be prevented with a better preparation of individuals to face the challenges that life might bring along. It is governments duty to look after those whom they represent by providing them with health care and a good education but individuals should also be responsible of themselves and their loved ones by asking for help when needed. Individuals should take advantage of the services provided and get informed health issues.

            Drug abuse is a big cause for individuals to lose hope for a better life and lose everything including their families. This particular group of individuals represent a bigger problem than being homeless as they can contract many diseases and spread them by sharing needles. They can also be threat to other people because of the violent behavior many of them might experience when under the influence of drugs or when they feel the need for it but can’t get it. A better education on drug abuse at an early age combined with family support could have prevented many of them from getting to that point. The only way to make these individuals an input for society is to force them into treatment and keep track of them to make sure treatment worked.

            Making poor financial decisions led many people to lose their homes, and everything they had and some of them did not find a way to get back the life they used to have. Hopeless they made the streets their homes and the bridges their refuge, keeping them safe from the rain, snow, or the heat. They have to be accounted for their own failure but government and family should also take the blame for not providing them with the guidance to make better decisions or the support to overcome failure. High school is a perfect time to inform students about the way economy works like understanding credit, loans and consumerism instead of just memorizing a few definitions and draw supply and demand graphs.

              Many of the individuals wandering the streets are affected by a mental illness or were victims of a traumatic experience. For individuals with a mental disease, family and government have to be accounted responsible for not providing the support and services needed. More mental health institutions need to be opened to provide care and treatments for those who need it. Someone with a mental issue will very likely not accept the need for help and that is why they must be persuaded and force into treatment. Family plays a key role by providing the moral support and love needed by those under treatment that is why they must get involved. More information about mental issues must be provided to make sure people showing the symptoms get treated as soon as possible.

               Solving the problem of having too many homeless people requires the cooperation from the public and families with government to provide the help needed in the best possible way. Taking a different approach according to the circumstances that led that particular induvial to become homeless is the best way to do it because will meet that person’s particular needs and recovery can be more successful. The goal should be to make of them functional individuals that contribute to society and economy and that’s why the must feel like they are part of it and that they can still have an input on it.

Together We Can

A huge number of Americans are homeless each year. A great part of those homeless people are families with children. There are many factors that contribute to the reason why there are many homeless people in the United States. Many become homeless due to losing their jobs. People start having financial problems and as they struggle to find another job, they lose their homes and are pushed to live out on the streets. Other people are homeless after having divorced. They lose everything they had and they, along with their children, are left alone without a home. Another reason for homeless people is mental diseases and physical disabilities. Many of these people with these issues try to isolate themselves from society and often times leave their families behind and go out to live on the streets. Homelessness can also be due to natural disasters. For instance, after an earthquake, a hurricane, or a fire, people lose their homes and they are pushed into living on the street. Another factor is drugs. An addiction to drugs leads people from all ages to live inside a small bubble, where they isolate themselves. These people lose their jobs as a consequence. With no job, there is no income. No income means no money to pay the bills. Then this leads to losing everything they have, including their homes. The only solution to them is to live out on the streets. 

But there should be more than one solution to help this issue that should concern all of us. As a society, we need to work together to help those who needs us. The first step to ameliorate the situation of homelessness in America is for the victims to acknowledge that they have a problem and that they can return to their normal lives. It is the government's job to keep building homeless shelters that provide a place to stay and also a meal. There should also be organizations whose goal is to aid people who have lost their homes due to natural disasters. In addition, medical aid should be provided to help those suffering from mental disease and physical disabilities. 

It is not only the government's job to help but it is also our job, as citizens of the United States, to help as well. For example, I'm part of the Union Station Homeless Shelter Organization and we provide food for the homeless. Every year for Christmas and Thanksgiving, we volunteer and make sure that each individual has a warm, nice meal to enjoy. People can also gather up a group of volunteers and cook their own food and go visit homeless shelters. If we work together, we CAN make a difference in the world. 

The Product of Ego in Society: Homelessness

Homeless people are everywhere, in every nation and in every corner of the globe. Whether it is a third world country or a first world country, homeless people exist. Whether people like it or not, there is no way to simply “get rid” of homeless people. I believe that homelessness will always exist by the way our society is set up and how we are as humans. It is only in a utopian society where homelessness would be extinct. As human beings, we were made not to be perfect, we have flaws, we make mistakes, and we want too much and give too little. It is with these traits where homelessness simply will always exist.

             The hard truth that most people do not understand is the paradox of homelessness. In civilizations, the rule of economy has always come with an exchange of goods and services. People would in a way trade goods or services for something in return. As history has gone, usually a type of currency would establish for the exchange. For example, if I would want to buy some food, I would pay for it using money, or if I worked for a whole day I would be paid for my time. In a perfect world everyone would be receiving money and spending money. Everyone would have money and everyone would be happy. Sadly, that is what a utopian society looks like and life does not work like that. Although there have been ways to make a civilization similar to a utopian society, one such example is communism. Taking away all the negative attitude towards the idea, the overall concept is the closest to a utopian society as we will get. The down side to the concept is majorly focused on our characteristics as being human. Humans are not perfect and when presented with a certain amount of power or money, it is difficult to turn away. With most people developing greed towards money is another point to why homelessness cannot be removed from societies. If there is an unequal distribution of money then it can be assumed that people do not get money or even have money. In a society where money is the key to survival, if a person doesn’t have money what happens? One answer would be that they fall back onto homelessness. In a simple stance, homelessness can be described as simply not having money due to many many reasons. Most people that are homeless have never thought that they would become homeless, it just happened.

            Life as a whole is generally unfair and not easy. Some people get hit with obstacles more than others and some cannot recover from those hits. What most people fail to realize about homeless people is that they were once like you. They had a job, hopes, dreams, a house and a life, unforeseen circumstances just moved them from that path. Of course there are some organizations that help with the growing population of homeless people but what use is there to help them if they will not get a job? That may come off as a bit negative but think about it for a second. Homeless people do not have a job, but jobs today don’t hire a person that is homeless to be the face of their company. It’s a never ending cycle that plays a role to the economy. As jobs will begin to become scarce more and more people would fall into the classification as homeless, and if jobs focus on their egos then a halt in manufacturing would occur. The point behind all this is if companies focus more on giving out jobs rather than on ego, lots of people would not be homeless as they would have a job.

            Consequently it is not a specific persons fault to why there is homelessness; it is our fault as humans not to care for each other. In life we look down unto those that beg for money or food, and we do not identify them as one of us. There is a quote I heard from somewhere that states, The moment we stop helping each other, that is when we lose our humanity.” If humans put aside their egos and thing not materialistically just to help others, positive outcomes will lead to a brighter future. 

Deinstitutionalization and Homelessness

The deinstitutionalization of the Reagan era is notorious for its failure to one of society’s most vulnerable people: the mentally ill. Psychiatrists and doctors saw some patients who were misdiagnosed receive lobotomies; around fifty-thousand lobotomies were performed by the end of the 1950s. Politicians abused this fact to oversell community health clinics and promise more funding than intended, in order to save money on state mental institutions. Drugs were used as an elixir, a crutch to ease the transition from in-house treatment to community treatment. The accelerated deinstitutionalization coupled with Congress’s lack of long-term financial support led to the homelessness problem we find in our communities today.

Richard D. Lyons of the New York Times wrote on the 1986 reflections of various politicians, civil libertarian lawyers, and psychiatrists on the transition from treating patients in-house. Some pointed to a dependency that state programs developed on tranquilizers to treat patients. Drugs like Thorazine were advertised as a means to end violent episodes, but doctors misrepresented them as a means of complete treatment. Critics and proponents of deinstitutionalization alike understood the enthusiasm for the tranquilizers. Prior to medication, disorders like schizophrenia and manic depression went un- or mistreated. It was at this point that the families and friends of the discharged patients (those lucky enough to have a home to go to) had the hope of communal help and sovereign remedies.

Mental illness, treated and untreated alike, can result in pushing away family, caregivers and friends, a safety net that often prevents homelessness. Today, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental disorders (DMS) has a drug for the most outlandish of disorders. One study by the SAMHSA Spending Estimates Project showed that in 1986, 7% of the $32-billion mental health budget was used for drugs, compared to the 27% of the $113-billion budget of 2005; in-patient spending plopped from 42% to 19%, respectively. According to S W Schondelmeyer in the journal Health Affairs, the cost of prescription drugs has increased by 25% since 1985. The caregivers of the mentally ill were left with the growing cost of medication with none of the promised local help. Safety nets tore, exposing the vulnerable to the streets and to their limitations as a functional member of society.

There is a trustful dependence on drugs to treat the mentally-ill in American society, a job once believed to be that of the community. Homelessness is not limited to those diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, but many homeless people suffer addictions (eg. alcoholism) and/or traumas (eg. veterans). The high cost of drugs and therapy often act as a barrier to accessible healthcare. There should be a greater emphasis for affordable housing on the part of the social worker and the community. The first step towards a solution is recognizing the limitations of drugs compounded with an effort to identify the care needed for each individual case. Congress should fulfill the promises made by decades past and finance the mental health programs necessary to work towards a solution.

A Person First, Homeless Second

I believe that there are always going to be homeless people in the United States for reasons such as poverty and unexpected disasters like hurricane Katrina. However, the current epidemic of homelessness can be attributed in part to the way our society is structured, particularly socioeconomically. In a capitalist environment, each person must tend to themselves and not rely on others. Thus, there is a tendency to flee altruism as a form of self-preservation (i.e. one will see to their own financial security and comfortability before another’s is considered). Another reason for the high homelessness rate in the U.S. is due to lack of information or misinformation regarding mental illness. Often I have heard the phrase, “he should have made better life choices; it’s his own fault,” regarding a homeless person asking for money. This outlook is fundamentally incorrect. Mental illness hijacks a person’s cognitive abilities, making their erratic life choices seem normal and shifting the blame from the victim to the disease.

Once properly educated, one can be a part of the solution to homelessness with patience, care, and friendship. I found a quote that was particularly enlightening. Steve Lopez is mid-discussion with Dr. Ragins, and is told the following:

Relationship is primary. It is possible to cause seemingly biochemical changes through human emotional involvement. You have literally changed his chemistry by being his friend (Lopez, 210).

Notice that Dr. Ragins did not mention forcible, more traditional therapy as the main factor of healing. It is a relationship that can set the mind at ease; it is a personal connection that refreshes the mind. Nathaniel is an archetype of the epidemic of homelessness caused by mental illness. Others like Nathaniel (and there are so many like him) can be significantly impacted for the better by people with a willingness to be caretakers. Neurobiologist Fabrizio Benedetti stated in an interview, “The attitudes we have and the words we say move a lot of molecules in the brain” (Brain Science with Ginger Campbell, MD; Podcast). Being a positive influence, an example of a good attitude and a supportive hand can work wonders towards lessening the rate of homelessness in America.

Recently, President Obama established an overarching Medicare plan known as Obamacare. In doing so, he was placing some of the responsibility of American citizen’s health on the U.S. government. I believe that the example of Obamacare should extend to mental illness as well. It is good and right to have government funded institutions and organizations put in place to be shelters and wellness centers for the homeless and mentally ill. The caveat to government institutions is that they should be run by a person with empathy comparable to that of Mr. Lopez. It is the government's duty to care for its citizens, even the ‘not-so-easy’ cases. However, the responsibility does not only fall on America’s infrastructure.

It is also the responsibility of American citizens to care for each other. Yes, this is easier said than done. But, maybe if we say it to each other enough times, some of us will actually do it. It is important that we volunteer and give, altruistically, to help those in need. It is not for us to judge, but to help. If monetary aid cannot be given, then like Benedetti mentioned, attitude and words are the next best thing. Spread the word to others that mental illness is not a choice, but a disease. A homeless person is a person first, and homeless second. 

Recovery

    Nathaniel Ayers does not care what conditions he finds himself in, so long as he is free to play his instruments as depicted in Steve Lopez’s The Soloist. Lopez struggles to understand why Nathaniel chooses to sleep amongst the degenerates he bad-mouths, all for the sake of playing music, only to be drowned out by cars and horns. Nathaniel just wants to make music, showing little interest in being heard. He has no desire in the stress of becoming a professional musician or in recovery. As a young child, I had a lot of anxieties and paranoia. My siblings offered to teach me many hobbies, my favorites by far being arts and crafts, reading, and swimming. Although these outlets were healthy and fun, I would still feel internally tangled by the end of the activities. As I got older and lazier, I developed a disorder called trichotillomania. It is defined as having an irresistible urge to pull at one’s hair. I was at a loss on how to manage it.

     My godparents wanted me to seek therapy, but I refused. I did not want to be diagnosed and medicated, like every other kid in high school who claims to be bipolar. Instead, I got busy, filling up my schedule with a part time job and a college class. If I was constantly using both of my hands, then I couldn’t possibly pull my hair. Much to my dismay, I found myself thinking about pulling, an experience much more treacherous than actually pulling. When I was a cashier at Green Arrow Nurseries, the girls I worked with would comment on my fidgeting. It took all my willpower to resist my abnormal urges. Once the desire overwhelmed me, I would escape into the greenhouse to have some privacy. One day, as I felt for my next victim, I noticed an Epipremnum aureum, commonly known as Devil’s Ivy, covered in brown leaves. I grabbed it to toss it, but saw that it had plenty of happy sprouts popping up in every direction. I sat down and started pinching away the dead leaves. Something in me clicked. I was no gardener, but I felt at peace trying my hand. By the time I was done, the Devil’s Ivy looked nurtured and refreshed.

    I no longer work at Green Arrow, and Green Arrow no longer exists. My days of being in the beautiful 1950’s green plank-paneled greenhouse are over. I have created a potted garden in my modest balcony, with 62 plants from many places (some were even propagated from neighbor’s yards). I can name most of them, but I am only interested in names for the sake of looking up ideal conditions, soil requirements, and potential pollinators. I enjoy nurturing them, because I understand that I need them and that my plants and all the ones I ever knew and may never see again are made up of A, T, G, and C, just like me. When I see a stagnant stem, I see wasted energy that could be better spent replacing it. So I grab my scissors, the ones that either encourage growth or end a life, and cut away. Like magic, I usually see signs of new growth the next day. When I remove hair from my scalp, I am left with embarrassing bald spots that grow into obvious patches of hair. I seek to escape my limitations and pains. When I remove dead leaves from vivacious plants, however, I leave them with room to grow. I accept that I am growing, too.

    Nathaniel has schizophrenia, sometimes unable to tell the difference between the present and past. The only link he has is his craft, it ties him to what he once worked for to his present freedom. Fortunately, I do have the tools to get better and am living in a time where mental health and how it’s treated is a hot topic. In fact, it is likely that Nathaniel’s story contributed to the discussion on mental health. After two years of self-treating my disorder and anxiety with gardening, I realized I had helped myself as far as I could without treatment. I seeked help at Open Paths Counseling Center, a mental health clinic that aims to provide treatment at a low-cost for low-income individuals. I still struggle, but take solace in the fact that I am getting better because I was brave enough to admit I needed help.

Maybe I’m in the Wrong Profession

Art is my first love. It’s romantic in the way it colors my life. It began with coloring books and tracing paper, but as I grew older I realized that I loved the arts. Audio, visual, you name it. I took up piano and guitar; I took up drawing and painting. Although I tend to avoid the term “talent,” through practice I have developed an aptitude for drawing. It is where I go to escape the noise of life. Don’t get me wrong, I think life is beautiful! But occasionally the clamor and stress of being an active dreamer clouds the beauty of living.

Nathaniel also dealt with a clouded existence. On page 4 of the book, The Soloist, when asked if he remembers Mr. Lopez, Nathaniel says, “I remember your voice.” To me, this quote sums up Nathaniel’s story. He knows his mind is slipping, he knows his experiential knowledge is cloudy and foggy, but he is clear in a sound. He remembers the music of a person’s voice.

Like Nathaniel, my clearest moments are my most artistic ones. I too have found clarity in my art as an escape. I have found myself able to fully immerse myself in an art piece. I am able to lose myself in my drawing to the point where it’s almost meditative. If I am troubled, I puzzle out my issues while therapeutically making lines on a page. I have used this method of clarity for as long as I can remember. Often when I was young, I missed out on playing outside for the sanctuary of my art studio (my dining room table at home). But I believe that escaping into my art has helped me far more than hindered me. I have been able to connect with others via my drawings, and I have been able to clarify my world.

Recently, I doubted whether or not chemistry was right for me. I had gone to office hours and sat down with my professor, going over my last test question by question. I was stunned at the mistakes I made. My heart began to beat fast and I started to get tunnel vision, a byproduct of insecurities and seeming failure. I was torn, worried, and confused. I thought I was good enough to handle the class. Did this test prove otherwise? As the blood pounded in my ears, it seemed to echo my own concern: “Maybe I’m in the wrong profession.” I left my professor’s office for a secluded place on campus. I turned to my source of clarity; I began to draw.

I drew a heart, to remind me of my love for science. I became one with the smooth muscle, the contouring for depth, the shadows. Each line was deliberate. Each stipple was meaningful. I poured myself into the piece and escaped. My escape did not let me down. The vignette cleared, my mind stabilized. The drawing was by no means perfect. The heart was flawed, but after all, it’s only human. In its flaws I realized something fundamentally important about myself:

 

I am a work in progress. Like an unfinished canvas, although I am lacking now, I will continue to have depth and dimensions added to me as I learn and grow. I am a student. And I have definitely chosen the right profession. 

Breakout

Sometimes stress and problems build up to a point that we can no longer manage. We feel like we are suffocating and that those things that are keeping us from being calm are going to kill us inside eventually. When we reach this point, the one where we do not know what to do or what to say anymore, we look for things that will distract us, things that can allow us to forget the reality of our lives.

In the Soloist, for instance, Nathaniel escapes the reality of his world through music. It appears as if music permits him to forget his medical condition. Playing and listening to music is his outlet. By playing and listening to music, Nathaniel travels from the real world into a world that calms and soothes him. In like manner, whenever I am having problems either because of family, school, or relationships, I like to take a break from the world that is troubling me, and I escape into a world where I am in control.

There are many ways in which escape from my reality. I escape by listening to music, going to the gym, and creating art. First of all, music has many genres for all different people with different tastes. In my case, I like to listen to different genres according to how I am feeling, and what my current mood is. To demonstrate, if one of my problems is making me sad, I choose to listen to sad songs. It alleviates me to know that other people are feeling what I am feeling and that there is someone out there who understands me. My second option, if listening to music is not working anymore, is going to the gym. Whenever I go to the gym, I forget about everything. There is no time for thinking about my problems. Working out helps me get rid of my stress and it relaxes me. The third way that I escape from reality, which is my favorite one out of the three, is art. I am an artist and I have always enjoyed showing my emotions through a drawing, a sketch, or a painting. Art is my outlet and it is my comfort zone. When I do art, I feel like I can express myself in any way without being judged by society.

Escaping from reality allows me to calm myself, to give me hope that things will be resolved. Not only does it pacify me but escaping also helps me get a clearer mind and get fresher thoughts. After I have escaped, I come back to the real world, and I am able to analyze things better. However, there are times when escaping also disarrays with my reality. Instead of coming back with a new mind and solutions, I try to ignore what is troubling me. I try to pretend that everything is perfect and that there is no reason to worry.

Although escaping has its pros and cons, it is needed in our lives because it relieves us temporarily. 

Physical Activity Could be Relaxing, Right?

With stress being an inevitable obstacle in the “game” of life, one must pause the game and take a break, let their mind rest from the constant worrying of upcoming tests or deadlines. This break varies from person to person as everyone experiences relaxation in different ways. In the novel, The Soloist, Nathaniel finds this break in music, whereas I take my break in the sport of gymnastics and in teaching gymnastics. Gymnastics is a sport that requires intense focus, determination and patience; these traits help me vanish from the world of stress.

In gymnastics there is no multi-tasking, if a gymnast multi-tasks there is risk of injury. Stress and the outside world do not have a place inside the gym. One uses their entire body to help perform skills, strengthening themselves physically and mentally. When I do gymnastics, everything that worried me for the day is gone. I focus on my breathing remembering to keep breathing and not hurt myself. When performing certain skills, I cannot afford to be thinking about an assignment that I haven’t done yet or else I would risk not landing correctly. Every time I enter my gym, my mood changes and all I want to do is work on a skill that I have not mastered, for example a back handspring. On a side note, a back handspring is where you jump back onto your hands and whip your legs back to land on your feet. Although I have yet to master this skill, as I have been working on it for a little more than 2 years, I am very determined to master this skill on the floor. Whenever I attempted a spotted back handspring, there is absolutely no way I can be thinking of anything else besides my body movements. Whenever I am distracted and think of something else, I would have a horrible form and would certainly mess up. Doing gymnastics is my way of escaping my responsibilities for an hour and a half and just focus on what my body can do and how I can improve my flexibility.

The benefits of gymnastics are numerous. In an overall concept it is the “total package” of exercising and getting fit. Performing any skill whether it is a handstand, cartwheel, bridge kick over, chin up pullover, back hip circle or front tuck, it requires you to work out your muscles. Dissecting one skill, the handstand, performing a hand stand would utilize your upper back muscles and your forearm muscles to keep you up. Your core muscles will be strengthened to keep you balanced while your heart will be pumping blood throughout your body to provide oxygen. Cardio is used a lot as each skill is the equivalent to going full sprint on a track field. Each skill requires body control that will be developed over time and practice. From this focus and body control, there are numerous applications. My health is better in both the short and long term a well as my body control. Balance is key in gymnastics and thus it has improved both my reflexes and hand-eye coordination.

During the practice is where I would be “missing out” on my day. As I would leave all my responsibilities at the door of my gym, they would pile onto me as I walk back out. My class would be on Mondays from 7:30-9 and when I would leave my gym, all the assignments I haven’t done would slowly appear to me. I have unpaused the game when I have paused it mid-attack from my responsibilities.  In a way I have used up an hour and a half on doing gymnastics rather than finishing up an assignment that I have procrastinated on. Most of the time, this hour off is worth every single minute as I have gone almost two hours without worrying about my schedule, assignments that need to be done, family problems that uninterested me or major events I forgot about. Everyone needs to let go of their responsibilities now and then so that tackling them again would not be as painful as before.

           

            

The Different Worlds of Music.

I chose the first part.

     Nathaniel escapes using music. I have a similar method of de-stressing and getting away from temporary hardships in life. I turn to my guitar most of the time when I have to get away from any problems. Other times I turn to video games or the movies. America's pastime, the movies, let's time fly by while life moves on, but playing my guitar really calms me and relaxes my nerves.

     In the past I've looked towards playing my guitar to learn new songs and sway the girls into a serenade. Having my previous girlfriend listen to me play was the setting I needed to lure my thoughts into the world I created with music. I can play from minutes to hours on end. From Blues to Rock, Jazz to Pop, and even Classical, I find different genres to take my mind into several worlds.

     When I begin to strum my strings sometimes they sound a bit off, so I use an app on my phone called “GuitarTuna” that works just like a guitar tuner without the dreadful cost of a real one and works just as good. After a good tune-up I begin to play whatever comes into my mind. Usually, it’s a song called “Spanish Romance,” or just “Romance,” and is played mostly by picking the strings into a beautiful melody. It comes on to you as a dark melody at first, but transitions into a warm welcoming tune. Then, it ends by making you feel betrayed or beaten.

     After this song, I either decide to go more of a saddened approach or a more uplifting one. If I go towards the sadder approach, then I play “Tears in Heaven” by Eric Clapton. This song was made to express a deep sorrow for a lost love. Although I don’t entirely empathize the feeling this deep song expresses, I sympathize the feeling of regret and sorrow Clapton shows. Throughout the whole song the guitar sounds emit strong feelings of sadness just like what the Blues genre sounds like. If I decide to lean towards a more uplifting approach, then I decide on “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley. This is a confession song if I do say so myself. I once played this song to the woman I loved, so I have a great empathy towards it. When I play this I feel taken away to a field of grass under a cool, shady tree and having a red polka dot cover laying perfectly on the ground. My initials engraved onto the friendly tree alongside my lover, serenating away at the heart of my one true love with our eyes gazing at each other like the answer to life is majestically shown.

     The songs I play on my guitar all have a memory of a world that I invent in my head. It takes me away to those special places. The songs by Jack Johnson have an earthly sense to them; the songs by Bruno Mars have, mostly, a love-struck touch to them; the songs by The Beatles give a wide assortment of feelings to them. Still, when I play time sometimes flies by and the things I need to do are left undone. Chores are left alone, homework is forgotten, and even friends are held up. When I snap back into reality I remember the things I needed to do and they don’t seem as bad anymore. Escaping the reality that one embraces often leads to stress and anxiety. It’s a good thing to find something to escape from it for a while and come back refreshed.

                                                           Saved by O. Chem         

Located in Glendale, CA, Herbert Hoover High School welcomes students who just arrived to the United States with a great ESL program that includes not only English classes but also history and science classes to maximize student’s development in their new home, America. Among those students was Jose Manuel Ruiz Ruiz, who arrived as a junior from Michoacan, Mexico. Being raised in a small community with less than 1000 habitats and going to a school with more than 2000 students was intimidating and to make it worse there was always racial tension between Hispanics and Armenians with Armenians making up more than 60 percent of school population. Succeeding in a high school with such conditions seemed impossible but Jose was determined to not only get a high school diploma but be eligible to go to a four year university and become a biochemist.

            Discouragement came from the least expected places when trying to be place in higher level math course by recommendation from math teacher but was rejected by counseling office and was told to relax a little because no matter how much he tried, he would not pass the math, English and technology exams required for graduation by Glendale Unified School District and will have to go to high school one extra year as a super senior.  Wasting one year was not an option and he didn’t give up until placed on higher level courses being the best student in most of them.  Counseling office was proved wrong when the time to take the exit came as Jose managed to pass both math and technology exams the first time and only requiring a second time to pass English exam. With a strong GPA and exit exams out of the way, finishing high school on time and being qualified for a four year university was very likely.

            After spending the summer taking classes, an even more challenging senior year awaited with extra classes to be taken and successfully completed to keep his dream alive. On November of 2009, during the first semester of his senior year, Jose got a job at Porto’s bakery and was finally able to support himself and become totally independent. Balancing work and school was not easy and made Jose reconsider the option of going to a community college and the transfer to a four year university to be able to save some money and buy a care and be more prepared.  After a very successful fall semester, Jose was encouraged to apply for Glendale Latino Association Scholarship and he was one of the chosen ones to be interviewed. During the interview, Jose was told that most students seemed more prepared and that they were going to a four year university and asked how could he compete with them. His answer was simple: “I am doing in two years what they are doing in four” panel was left speechless. Panel was very impressed with him that they decided to give him the scholarship being the only student going to a community college in that year to receive it.

            After two very intense years, graduation had arrived and Jose was graduating and not only that, he received a scholarship and several awards from Glendale Latino Association and Adelante Latinos Association. Going to college and having extra money, gave Jose a sense of freedom he never had before and totally forgot about his education to the pint to take a two year break. Coming back to school was not easy, he did not have the discipline to be a top student and struggle to the point of thinking of quitting school again but organic chemistry professor, Asmik Oganesyan noticed that that Jose actually enjoyed chemistry and saw in him potential to be a great scientist by the way in which he understood chemical reactions and his ability to find possible solutions to problems faced in lab. She told Jose about the bridges to the future program that CSULA had and convinced him to be part of it. Currently, Jose is working in Dr. Tunstad research lab and is determined to go back to Glendale Community College and improve his grades to come back next fall as a student and become a chemist. 

Stepping Into Your Shoes

In the soloist, Nathaniel often escapes into his world of music, where there is beauty and order in Beethoven and his violin.  He does not see, however, that his reality is not so beautiful.  My situation may not be as severe as Nathaniel’s, but I can sympathize with wanting some form of mental escape when it’s not possible to physically leave the problem.

My escape is entering someone else’s world, adopting another person's worries and troubles.  Growing up, that meant reading fiction novels, Harry Potter, Gone, and any vampire romance were my favorites.  It was so easy to slip into the drama of defeating an evil wizard and having a vampire-soulmate that I could easily forget my own troubles.  My tastes, though, have somewhat changed.  I prefer to watch the movie or subsequent television show rather than read the original book, and I am even preferring comedy to dramas.  I do love to read still, but I am losing my taste for fiction.

Another escape that I have recently found is music.  Unlike Nathaniel, however, I cannot play any instruments, but I do love to listen.  Lately, my heart sings at the soulful tunes of Ed Sheeran and acoustic instrumentals of Hozier. But my favorite thing to do with music is to dance.  Growing up, I didn’t always like dancing because I was so clumsy, but I loved watching others dance, the way a ballerina could execute a spin into an arabesque, the liveliness of jazz, and the expression of pain and love on a praise dancer. It was all so beautiful.  It wasn’t until I was 15 that I realized how much I loved it.  Though I am not particularly talented, dancing is an escape for me, an expression of music and motion through movement.

Through whatever means, “escape” must give me a much needed break from my thoughts.  When I am absorbed in the world of music, books, or television dramas, I am no longer consumed with worry.  I can step away from all that and focus on something that isn’t troubling.  Escaping keeps me grounded; by leaving my problems behind, I realize that they aren’t so big, that they are fixable.

Sometimes, however, I escape for too long.  I get so absorbed in the book or television show that I neglect my duties.  Instead of writing my term paper or studying for tests, I’m reading the latest Percy Jackson book, or binge-watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or The Walking Dead.  I conveniently forget that I have work to do and, like Nathaniel, I don’t always do what needs to be done.  My methods of escape work a little too well.  I have to learn to manage my life, and so does Nathaniel.  Though he may never be normal, his problems can be managed, with effort and time.

So, is your world worth stepping into?

Khala Harvey

Bridges

Write an article about yourself, written in third person. It needs to be in a positive tone, describing any obstacles or hurdles you’ve overcome and accomplishments you’ve achieved. Pretend it will be published on the front page of the Sunday L.A. Times. What do you want the world to know about you? No obstacle, hurdle, or accomplishment is too small.

Every year, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers host a national competition, called Extreme Engineering, at their yearly conference. In 2012, Candelaria Flores, an engineering community college student was encouraged by her fellow peers to participate in this 24 hour, no sleep, competition against 300 University students. Candelaria saw this as an opportunity to gain leadership experience by being in a team of big companies like the NAVY, Raytheon, Boeing, NASA etc. She had no previous formal interview experience, she wasn’t prepared and didn’t know how to behave well under pressure. During the first stage of the competition, students are interviewed by 10 top notch engineering companies. Candelaria, was very nervous as she chose to have her first interview with the NAVY. The long lines of competitive University students became intimidating and soon enough it was her turn to experience the initial threshold of Extreme Engineering. Candelaria greeted the sergeant with a nervous handshake, sat down on the chair across the booth from him, and the sergeant asked, “Why should I pick you out of everyone in this room? What makes you special?”. Candelaria froze. What made her stand out from all the University students when she was only in community college? She couldn’t answer the question. She apologized to the sergeant for not being able to answer the questions, and left the room in tears and discouraged from becoming an engineer. After she spoke to her advisor Brian Vazquez, he took initiative to helping her and her peers who were interested in attending the next conference and prepared them well for interviews and professional presentation. In 2013, the yearly conference was approaching rapidly and everyone began speaking about Extreme Engineering. As Candelaria prepared for the interview, she began to gain confidence in answering questions, and practiced a firm handshake with eye to eye contact. On the day of the first stage of the competition she had unpleasant flashbacks from the last year’s interview but she stayed strong and managed to once again be interviewed by the NAVY first. It was Candelaria’s turn to be interviewed. The sergeant asked questions about her leadership, and how she prepared. She answered with confidence and less nervousness. “TIME’S UP!” said the time keeper after 3 minutes of being interviewed. She firmly shook the sergeant’s hand and thanked him for the interview. She passed her first interview! She felt good about continuing onto the next booth and chose Raytheon. Raytheon asked Candelaria to draw a picture using a pig, fork and a car and to tell the interviewer a story. She drew a formula 1 vehicle, with a fork as the antenna, and the pig as the sponsor. As she told the story she brought her picture to life. The Raytheon interviewer asked her, “How did you prepare for this interview? Do you have a laptop?” After answering the interviewer’s questions he asked her the ultimate question, “If we choose you, will we win first place?” of course she must reply “yes!”. She shook the interviewers hand and made her way to getting the last interview to qualify for the next stage of the competition. After the first stage ended every student returned to a large room where companies announced who would be in their team for the rest of the competition. One after another, the competitive students were being called to be a part of the NAVY, and NASA. Candelaria had not heard her name yet. Raytheon was next, students being called and she still didn’t hear name. Raytheon needed one more student, when they finally said “Candelaria Flores”. She had redeemed herself! Hard work and motivation led her into one of the strongest team and elite competition. Her devotion to getting back up when she had failed inspired her for success and as a team Raytheon won 1^st place.