Letter to a Location

Letter to a location

Dear Dance room,

Oh how I wish you didn’t smell like a wresting locker room but since you are the wresting room too I guess it is an occupational hazard.  You poor abused mirrors you not only get kicked by some of our turns and leaps but a few wrestlers have been known to do you in too.  To the floor, we have a love hate relationship.  You are really painful when gravity takes in and during drops, but you also support my turns and let me fly.  Oh the countless hours of dancing and bounding that you have provided.  Long days full of zero periods and the occasional after school practice have allowed me to memorize your every corner without even being awake.   You have seen the good the bad, the highs and the lows of our team and practices.  You have taken our abuse; from drops, kicks, leaps, to “living” moments.  You have provided a safe creative environment to grow new bounds, and new styles.  You have taken abuse from the thousands of dancers that have passed through your doors to the actually crack in the floor (that we currently have duck taped) from a rally day where the bleachers weren’t too nice to you.  I will always remember all of the falls that have come from your slippery floor.  There is a feeling of home that comes simply from walking through your doors, any four of them.  To the speakers you have played countless beats of music, many I have even edited.  You provide some of the soundtrack of my life.  When you grow up and more of your alumni have become wealthy dancers I hope you will be blessed with air conditioning.  You are the hottest room on campus, especially when PE classes are in the gym on 100-degree days.  Please dear dance room do not take my constructive criticism as a whiners tirade.  I feel so blessed to attend Los Osos High School where not only academics and sports are valued but the fine arts are valued as well.  I do wish that dance was considered a fine art and a sport, but you’re just the room you don’t make the policy.  I hope you will continue to be there for many more generations for aspiring dancers and students who are just exploring the amazing world of dance.  If your walls could talk they would reveal the hopes, the dreams, and the sorrows of many.  You can take pride in the fact that you have given thousands of Los Osos students a chance to explore and excel in the fine arts.  I will not miss your 120 degree temperatures during the summer months but I will miss the people, the teachers, the choreographers, the team mates that you have housed for the four years I have been a Grizzly.   You were the first to witness my recovery from a hamstring injury as a JV dancer and the first to witness my fouettes, floats and turns that I have worked for years to perfect.

Love and sometimes hate,

Aimee Ermel

Senior Memoir Why I Create

Working on my senior memoir was a lot of fun and it made me realize how fast the school year has gone by.  I think that through writing all of these personal journey essays I really realized how far I have journeyed.  One that I really enjoyed was the Why I ___ prompt.

      I create because it brings joy to others and me.  It is my passion and where I find happiness.  Creating encompasses all of my passions: dance, drawing, animation, science and multimedia.  Dance is my oldest friend out of the fine arts.  Starting when I was eight and just learning it has provided a place for self-expression and memories.  Dancing provides the chance to soar and push past what I once thought was my limit.  Thanks to the dance team at school I have developed a passion for choreographing.  It isn’t easy, in fact choreographing has been more challenging than learning a new step, but the final product is very rewarding.  I have had ups and downs in dance; this alone has helped shape who I am.  When I pulled my hamstring and had to take a break from dance I discovered art.  I had always had a love for drawing things but it wasn’t until 7^th grade that I discovered I actually had talent.  Drawing provided an outlet for the pain I felt from dance, it was and is truly the best therapy.  Creating is the way I can take out my frustration and turn it into something beautiful.  I love being able to take what was once a blank page and give it life, a face, or memory.  Animation defines creating.  It is one of the only art forms where a character truly comes to life.  People watch Disney animation and see what were once just blank pages that were turned into characters that can resonate with the audience.  There is an inexplicable feeling I get from seeing my art come to life.  When I create there are no limitations and no ways to fail.  I have grown up with science.  I have two scientists as parents, how could I not?  It wasn’t until recently that I have realized that the boundary between science and the arts really doesn’t exist.  It takes a creative person to come up with a hypothesis to be tested.  In its own way science is its own genre of art.  Art and animation are also necessary for making the public able to understand discoveries at the molecular and sub molecular level.  More and more science needs art to speak for it.

       I create for the feeling of accomplishment.  No matter how it turns out I find joy out of the process and knowing I have grown a little bit as a person simply by trying.  I have found the drive to my dreams through creating.  I am blessed to have more than just one talent pathway to find joy.  It is this joy and passion that I want to share with others.  It is fun to impress people and make some ones day by just giving them a drawing.  I like being able to take what could be seen as something simple and turn it into something deeper and more meaningful.  Simply, I create because I cant imagine not doing it.

My Sestina Poem

A while ago Mrs. Elliott had us start writing our own Sestina poem so that we would understand how the poem is composed.  I figured since it is National Poetry Month I might as well finish my poem and post about it.  As most of you know I am a little Disney obsessed so my poem, naturally, is on Disney. (warning: if you don't like Disney I wouldn't recommend reading it)

Oh how I love Disney

From the famous Mickey Mouse,

To the turrets on the castle

It is a world of creativity called Disneyland

From finally wearing the prized mouse ears

To soaring over the clouds on the Dumbo ride

Why is the line so long for the Dumbo Ride?

Funny how a flying elephant becomes a symbol of Disney

As a child waits she holds her mouse ears

On her shirt is the classic Mickey Mouse

Impatiently she wonders if this is the best ride in Disneyland

She stares off as she waits at the back of the castle

Residing at the end of Main Street is the magnificent castle

Through the gates kids scream of joy on the Dumbo ride

All around is the essence of Disneyland

Where the dreams of a man called Mr. Disney

Says it all started with a mouse, Mickey mouse

The three simple circles have inspired mouse ears.

On a string is a balloon with beloved mouse ears,

That reflects in the pond around the castle.

In the perfect spot people pose for pictures with Mickey mouse

Childhood is calling to go on the Dumbo ride

Oh how these memories make the magic of Disney

The joy that creates Disneyland

There is only one place called Disneyland

Where the old and young are allowed to wear mouse ears

This idea of never being too old or young is unique to Disney

No one is too old to dream of living in the castle

Reality is allowed to stand still and elephants can soar at the Dumbo Ride

Joy spreads across a child’s face just by hearing “look there’s Mickey Mouse”

An anthropomorphic black mouse has become the icon Mickey Mouse

He is the leader of the club at Disneyland

Although he isn’t the only mouse, Timothy resides atop the Dumbo Ride

Who knew that one animation short would lead to people wearing mouse ears

And fireworks every night over the castle?

One mouse has encompassed everything that is Disney

A chance to become part of the magic by wearing mouse ears

Age relives memories of the past, and youth may savor the promise of the future at Disneyland

All thanks to the vision and risk taking of the company and family that is Disney

If you do like Disney and poetry Disney has "A poem is.." video series where they have celebrities read poems and they pair it with classic Disney animation.  

 http://disney.go.com/disneyjunior/a-poem-is/a-poem-is-videos-episodes
-Aimee E

The Help

For my novel I am reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  I had only heard of good reviews of the book and I enjoyed the movie so I thought it would be a good book.  The main synopsis of the book is the story from African American maids working in Southern Mississippi white housewives’ homes during the 1960s.  The story is told in a similar way to The Poisonwood Bible in that the story is told through multiple characters, Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter.  Aibileen works for the Leefolt family cleaning and taking care of their toddler.  Minny is the outspoken maid who acts before thinking of consequences most of the time.  Skeeter, a recent grad of Old Miss College, dreams of being a writer, and is somewhat of a rebel in the way she thinks about society in the South. 

So far, the main defining elements in the book are the setting, how the setting shapes the society, and the society as a whole.  The story, or rather stories, take place in Jackson, Mississippi; this in itself helps explain parts of the story.  The South is known for its slavery and having been very slow to end slavery.  Personally growing up for five years in Texas even in 2002 people would comment that “we are still fighting the War of Northern Aggression…there was nothing civil about that war. ”  In a sense, these maids of the wealthy white households are kept separated as if they are practically still slaves.  Hilly Holbrook, who Minny worked for, for awhile, proposes a sanitation bill that declares it unsanitary for the help to use the guest bathroom or any bathroom in the house that the white people use because the whites could get diseases from the black help.  She demands that households build a bathroom outside of the house just for the help to use. 

In this way the ideals of the South in the 1960’s influences the society.  The group of white Junior League ladies, who hire the help, create a society built on petty sorority, to the extreme and rules.  Hilly could be considered the ruthless ruler.  She controls what goes on in the Junior League meetings, who is excommunicated, and what is the ideal way to live.  The rules of this southern society are made by Hilly as she goes.  Besides Hilly’s rules there are general society rules: the white people are expected to have help, the white women are expected to go to college to find a husband and then not finish, and the help are expected to raise the white children that then become their employers.  For all three narrators these “rules” are what they come to question.  Skeeter is the only one who has finished college and the only one out of all of her friends to not be married.  The society puts a lot of pressure to conform to these rules.  Minny used to work for Hilly but once Minny crossed Hilly she was fired.  Hilly didn’t stop at just firing her, Hilly had to make sure Minny would learn from her mistake so Hilly claimed that Minny stole from her.  This doesn’t seem like it would mean that much, but Hilly being the queen of society that Minny is essentially ruined destroying all chances of getting another job.  No one was going to dare and hire Minny and have to face the wrath of Hilly.  All except Celia Foote who is on the outside of Hilly’s society circle.  Celia is on the outs because she married an old boyfriend of queen Hilly’s, that Hilly never truly got over.  Celia in essence serves as a loophole in Hilly’s society; Celia longs to be part of this society but by being on the outs she opens up changes in society.

            There are many changes in society coming from the help being willing to talk to Skeeter.  Skeeter, the aspiring writer, decides that she wants to write a book about the help and the “irony that they (the employer) love them (the help) yet...They don’t even allow them to use the toilet in the house.”  Skeeter who has to deal with the pressures of society herself sees the unjust pressures put on the help.  She wants to bring change in her own society and life.

-Aimee E