It Is Not Too Late To Save The Oceans!

     With today’s Millenials it’s hard to grab anyone’s attention or awareness if it isn’t a picture on Instagram or a short video on Twitter. But what if they’d take 5 minutes to read this small article to inform themselves and figure out that it isn’t too late to fix the rest of what has not been destroyed yet in the big blue seas. 

    Around the early 2000s, the gigantic sea life around the world began to deteriorate due to society’s lack of consciousness and awareness. It is 2019 and oceans that we once filled with life and blue are now filled with tons of garbage and brown from the pollution that rolls in. The ocean has been one of the most rapid destructions that cover 71% of the world and have been oppressed due to the fact that they do not have a voice. 

    Although many of us are conscious of the deteriorating oceans, it seems like a hazy idea to begin and conserve the oceans because it does not affect us directly. According to the Journal of Environmental Management by Katherine Yates, There has been a movement since the mid-2000s for the protection of large marine areas; especially in the UK. The oceans are still crying out for help figuratively and the ecosystem in the deep blue sea continue to slowly disappear. 

    Although this source does give a sense of hope that there are non-government organizations that are willing to help and create marine protected areas where the living organisms can go un harm and grow naturally.

    There are so many ways to conserve what we have left but it is just steps we need to be willing to make and invest in. For example, many restaurants are already transitioning from plastic straws to paper straws. So why not implement that in your homes. The only way to start is by starting small although it may not seem like much. 

    Another example would be grocery shopping. Bring a reusable bag you may have stored away. Companies like Goodwill and Aldi are implementing this reusable source. Artists like SZA and brands like Champion are collaborating with nonprofit organizations to implement support behind this cause to save our oceans. It is not too late to make a difference. So its better to begin now before its too late. 

 

The Dark Side of Ultra 2019

Ultra Musical Festival in Miami is one that electronic dance music (EDM) lovers anticipate the whole year. As spring break approaches, beaches begin to fill up with the masses of people getting ready for the party to begin.

The music, adrenaline, colors, and creativity fill up the space where nearly 165,000 people from over 60 countries attend to have a good time. However, the partygoers that go never expect it to be their last night.

Unfortunately for many, that is the reality. The fight to shut down the music festival has raged for a while, but the various attempts have failed. The large-scale event possesses several dangerous characteristics that those thinking of attending should be conscious about.

For example, the availability of drugs–bath salts, LSD, ecstasy, shrooms, and marijuana–at the party has increased tremendously and is a major danger to attendees. Substance abuse has caused the death of several people during the festival. According to the Broward-Palm Beach New Times, there were around seven fatalities reported at music festivals in 2013. One fan was found dead at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival in March 2014. “It was the second year in a row that someone has died at Ultra, which started in 1999 and was casualty-free before 2013,” says the Broward Palm Beach New Times.

Last year there were only 35 arrests over the three-day event at Bayfront Park, showing an almost 50 percent drop in arrests in comparison to the previous year; this has been a steady trend since 2013.

This trend seems to show that the crowds are taking the advice doled out by law enforcement officers for young people to safely enjoy their weekend. However, there are still some people that go with bad intentions to try and convince the young crowds to take substances in order to have a good time, but their ploy is not true. If you go to Ultra this year with a group of friends, remember to be aware of your surroundings and just have fun with your friends without doing anything illegal.

 

Advice to the Aspiring Journalist

Their are aspiring journalist all over the world and to become a well known one, you have to climb to the top and give it your all. But it doesn’t come easy. Yes you may have the passion and the curiosity, but many others have that. What makes a journalist unique is the way they express themselves in either their articles, TV performances, or even photography; in their words.

Stephanie Simao was once a hopeful journalist that for a time  (1999-2012) was in the broadcast aspect of it all. She went to school in Texas to study in the communication field even though she came from New York. She had once applied to the University of South Florida, but the University had more to offer and first hand experience professors that were currently in the field. Before the age of 10 she wanted to be a veterinarian, but the passion for writing had always been there. One of her favorite and funniest topics she had to cover was a dog show in Louisiana in 2001 ( within her second year in the field). She got to experience both her passions at the same time: animals and journalism.

“Being a reporter is easy, being a storyteller is hard,” Stephanie Simao stated during her interview. Anyone can write story or say something in front of a camera, but the aspect that gives the subject life is the story behind it.

Stephanie Simoa found her niche within journalism after many years of experience. In this case, she found it because of an old boyfriend of hers that was a police chief. That is where she fell in love with investigating crime. But everyone is different, finding the one thing you are good at and then sticking with it is your best bet in finding you niche. It is much harder to force yourself to do something you know nothing about than a topic you are passionate about or a style of writing.

Back in her broadcasting day in CNN affiliate, Fox News affiliate, CBS 12 News affiliate, etc. she was well known in the streets. She openly admitted that the best part of journalism for her 10 to 15 years ago would have been the recognition and the perks that came with it. After reflecting in her older age she realized that her favorite part of journalism is “the great humbling honor to have regular people share their stories with you.”

Although Stephanie Simao has been in the field of journalism since 1999 she never got to where she aspired to be since she was young. She had always envisioned herself in Miami’s Channel 10 News. Although she left the journalism world in 2012 because she didn’t want to be in the spotlight anymore; she could still remember most of the stories she has covered over the years on air.

The journalism now is not how it is before. You would need to go out and get three to five different sources and now by just going to a search engine everything needed can be found on the internet.The concept of journalism was to go find what is real, to go to the core of the situation and get answers and discover even more than what they thought they could. The last thing Stephanie said was some advice to the future journalist. “ When you get to where you are going to work, find the oldest person there and learn everything there is to know from them.” she believes she was lucky enough to have worked with 50 and 60 year old journalist and learn what she knows now from the best.

 

My Mother’s Journey

Through life I have always been close to my family, and learned to be strong with whatever obstacles that life decided to throw at me. From deaths to bad decisions. When I was 30 years old my older brother died. Ovidio Granda died of lung cancer at age 34 and he didn’t even smoke. This was a great lost to my family. All of my brothers and sister to this day miss their black little brother. Oh yes, he was the only black child my mother had. The family would call him negrito as his nickname. I can still hear my my mom calling from the kitchen “negrito benga pa la cocina”.  

The lost of a child is horrible, and it affected my mom a lot. Well it affected the whole family in it’s entirety. Not to mention it wasn’t the first child she had lost or the first brother I had lost.  A previous brother named Edgar Granada had passed away. He on the other hand died because he was a flirt and got into a fight with a guy about a girl. He loved dancing. He got shot at the club by the guy. Both brothers left behind children, and Ovidios kids never accepted the family. I have pictures to this day, and I still talk about them with my youngest sister. And then there was twelve of us left. Although I was already a grown women family has always been a big part of me. You know, that without family, life is just five times harder than it suppose to be.

My mother’s name was Graciela Quintero, we used to call her chela when i was younger. My mother had nine boys and five women, fourteen kids in total. My mother was a widow when she was twenty seven years old with nine kids. Then she remarried, which this was Hugo Giraldo, my biological father. I was relatively close to him, but when my mother brought me to the united states she changed my last name on my birth certificate so i would have my father’s last name, that is when it became Maria Socorro Quintero.

From the fourteen children that my mother had, I was the second child she went back to Colombia to bring me to the United States. I got to Chicago when I was thirteen. I got to Pierce Middle School and then when i was done with high school i went to Admunsen High School that was on the Foster and Wenona, i lived on that street which was right in front of my high school. I was relatively OK student because i had a lot of trouble with english. My mother did force me to come here and leave my friends and my country behind so i refused to learn English and i was a rebel child.

The guys in the house were in charge when something had to be dealt with. In my time the men in the house were the ones that run things at home. When i was in high school A group and friends and i would skip school and i would make my own notes to excuse me from class. Eventually my mother and father caught me because the school had called them to the school and showed them all the previous notes i had written for excuse.

When i was seventeen years old I got pregnant with my eldest son, his father name ws Diego Echeverry and we named our child David Quintero. When David was two years old his father left me for another women. I started working working and lived with my parents to help take care of David. ‘Cause i had a child so young i was not able to attend school which i liked going to  school. Then i met Carlos Alberto Moscos, which was the father of my fraternal twins, I was twenty nine and David was thirteen years old. When the twins had around ten years old their father died of cancer. Then i got into some trouble and when i payed for my mistakes, that is when i moved to Miami.

Then I met your father, he was named Mario Alfredo Lemos. He did not have papers and the government sent him back to Colombia. While i was pregnant with you though, he barely helped out with me and i hate to work in Kmart while you were in my belly. When you were born you saved me. They put your face next to my face and I felt the electricity shoot up, it gave me energy again wit you in my arms.

 

Why School Is Actually Important

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” Those words were once spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to sum up why education is actually important, it couldn’t have been said any better.

From a young age kids have hated going to school, either because they had to wake up early, they had to leave their parents side, or just because they needed to be a whole day with a stranger.

As they got older though, school started getting harder and the responsibilities started getting bigger. No more nap time or play time. Instead, they were introduced to 5-8 hours of homework and studying, plus final exams constantly creeping in around the corners of their minds.

But there is some good to it all.

Throughout their years of education kids never stop learning. From science and math to social studies—whether that mean history class or learning how to make friends and interact with different people—they grow up learning how to handle different responsibilities and situations, and most importantly finding out who they really are and what they want to be.

For most people, their high school years were the most important years in their adolescent lives.

Receiving the education you need helps you make decisions from right and wrong. An educated person can be well aware of not only the rights they have, but the law and their part in society. As one gets older, the realization that education is an important factor that contributes to social harmony and peace is clearer and easier to see.

Even if it is in the small results, it is noticeable that education is a big factor in the everyday lives of everyone. So waking up early, doing homework, and being independent from one’s parents—every factor helps make up a person.

 

#METOO

There has always been a boundary or a curtain between men and women. Until this day Americans live by the saying that we are all equal whether it’s — race, gender, sex. But then deep down the will always be a division especially between women and men. Although there has been great advancement in this day and age, there is some light still coming in and women are growing, becoming stronger and more independent. But then there is still times where men seem to forget when yes means yes or when no means no.

#Metoo movement began in early October when continues report in The new York Times and The New Yorker shun some light on a film mogul Harvey Weinstein that allegedly would convince women to enter hotel rooms and bars, and sexually harassed or assaulted them.  Short after a tweet from actress Alyssa Milano, who was one of Weinstein’s accusers, the social media platform began to boom with personal stories of victims with similar cases all using the hashtag #Metoo.

Some may agree that this movement is finally getting the ball rolling for some laws that hadn’t been able to come through before. According to the New York Times This mass unity throughout the world against sexual abuse, through a ground breaking wave of speaking out in common conversations and social media, is finally revealing and disintegrating two of the biggest barriers to ending sexual harassment in law and in life: the disbelief and minimising dehumanization of it the victims.

Sexual harassment law is the first law to accept sexual violation in inequality terms. This was essential  for this moment and what is happening around us now. Although when the abusers and discrediting of accusers could still be a great reason as to why the suspect could use that as a shield to their actions. Some women  are worried of what this movement can bring to them now; the consequences of all these women accusing men of assault that are in higher positions. There may be less employment of women now because men may be afraid of getting wrongly accused.

“A Pew report, released on Wednesday, identified some similar concerns, with 21 percent of women saying that the increased focus on sexual harassment would lead to decreased opportunities for women in the workplace, and 31 percent saying that women falsely claiming sexual harassment or assault is a major problem today,” according to Vox. But women are not just going to let this moment just disappear out of nowhere but maybe the intensity will begin to subside. Hopefully the effects that this has brought will stick and stay for a long period of time.

 

Thanksgiving Realization

Many things we, as individuals, should be thankful for. Family, friends, life, love, and liberty, and for the most part we hit every single point during our thanksgiving speeches at the thanksgiving table. But very few of us get to realize what is really meaningful to our own hearts.

So this is what I’m really thankful for. I’m thankful for being able to be who I wanna be. To take the steps towards any yellow or brick path I want, and go against the arrows that everybody is pointing to just because I decided to be different. I’m thankful for the friends that have been by my side from day one (when I had my green hair) to the ones that I just met 2 months ago and made me realize that they are more friends than some I’ve had for years. The word friends is over rated, these people are more like family. And most importantly family. I’m thankful for my family. Certain personnel’s in my family have inspired me to keep on reaching until I reach my dream. They have always encouraged me and have pushed me to be the best self I am today.

That’s what I’m thankful for. And as I continued growing I keep on realizing the different things, people, and situation that cross pass my life time that make me grateful more and more each year. It’s with personal growth that people seem to realize what actually matter and what they are truly grateful for.

So let me ask you, what are you thankful for?

Beginning of High School. Hello.

Recap and Explanation:

Where to begin.

Hello Senior me. This is you, but you from September. The year just begun and it going  to be awesome. This will be a year that you will look back at not only your accomplishments, but to the memories you made that you can tell people a week after you have received your diploma and are walking out of that chapter.

Hopefully you go to ,what you now believe is your dream college; Syracuse. That you get to study in the city and that you accomplished leaving Miami that you wanted to so bad. Now you are fine and you are trying and I hope you still keep that mindset. That ambition to be somebody big and some known in the big big world.

Be happy because once you are reading this you know that its just the beginning of another life outside of school. At least you’ll have a choice. And, if you haven’t already, make a name for yourself.