The Palm Trees are Crooked Here

Upon picking this book up and having no prior knowledge on Chuck Collins, I assumed it was about baseball. Blonde moment- clearly it's not. The writer starts out by sharing he is technically part of the one percent of the wealth in America. This makes me instantly skeptical of everything that he says (having experienced unflattering interactions with those of privilege). Yet, for a rich white guy from Michigan, you could tell he had somewhat of a different mindset from most. He was given an inheritance and he just decided to give it away to charity. He was seen as idealistic from his parents, but along with giving away his money he was doing it for the experience. He wanted to understand what it felt like to live without a safety net. While working with a mobile home park after giving away the money, his house ironically burns down. He received an immediate response from the mobile home owners of food, love, and commitment (with a few shovels) and he felt like ...

As I wrap up my first semester at a university- thousands of miles away from the place that captured 21 years of my life- I reflect on the progress, and setbacks, that I have made. In the 2 years I anticipated this move, I set myself up to the best of my ability when time moved slower than I wanted it so I became discouraged. I slipped up on my perfect routine. I just caught myself in a web of depressed uncertainty. Looking back I should have cherished the quality time I had with my family instead of wishing I was somewhere else. At first, those two years felt like forever. But once California became my reality, time started moving very quickly- suddenly I had little to no time to spend with my loved ones. Suddenly I had to compute how to pack up my whole world and move it somewhere else. I embraced this change with excitement and a little worry as well (okay- more than a little...). For the longest time I received a lot of pushback from even the most supportive ones- Are you su...

Valuing diversity recognizes differences between people and acknowledges that these differences are a valued asset. Multicultural education is an important component of valuing diversity. It respects diversity while teaching all children and youth to become effective and participating members of a democracy. The education system in America needs to be reconstructed to teach more of an understanding of other cultures and their influence in the creation of this country. However, because of all the political pushback on education reform I believe we won’t see the steps needed to start a wave of change implemented until many years from now. Until then, we must learn from our history and teach future generations of the views and heritage outside of theirs, in this we can eliminate the gaps and build a more harmonious, equal society. We can help eliminate prejudice and learned bias from planting a seed in the youth. I propose a summer camp in which students can come together from al...

All right guys, this is going to be a long post so unless you want to hear my rant about self-love you can keep scrolling. The photo on the left was taken in October 2014 (when I was my heaviest) at that time I hated myself. My whole life I lived to please other people. All the makeup and editing I did was just to fit in and have people like me, I became a performer in an incredibly unhealthy way. I measured my self-worth in the opinion of other people. I channeled the stress I put on myself in every bad habit you could think of.  Luckily, I managed to snap myself out of it. Through all the wise words of the great adults in my life and my own interactions with people my age, I came to my own conclusion- I was blind. We are given one body and one life and every person is blessed with unique and beautiful traits.  I feel as humans we naturally compare ourselves to others, but no two of us have the same path. We have to learn to see beauty in everything, including ours...

The book My Life on the Road shows an incredible glimpse into Gloria Steinem's world. I don't just mean her childhood or experiences alone. I refer to her perspectives on the situations, how they changed, and in result how she changed. Even though I feel I have the free spirit and ambition like Steinem I did not get to travel as frequently, this caused an itch in my feet (would explain why I traveled to the opposite side of the country to attend USC). Yet though our back stories are very different I found I very much agreed and related to the experiences Gloria had. I learn every day- yes I've been in school for the last seventeen years- but I'm not talking about what I learn in an establishment. In a world where we are so engrossed in the world our iPhones control, we must break through the bubble and look up from our screens. The same experiences Gloria spoke of in her book are not experiences that one must travel to a faraway place (or much less back in tim...

Upon reading this book I had not heard of Gloria Steinem. However, the first few chapters are filled with a like-minded inspiration. We all wake up in different beds and go through different circumstances but Gloria's childhood from day changed more frequently than most. She took her gypsy-like experience and instead of becoming a homebody after and looking back on this as a negative experience she flourished. It is clear she received inspiration for traveling with her father. But it was through personal experience that she gained experience. She learned life lessons through those she encountered- shopkeepers, taxi drivers, travelers, and natives. Instead of acquiring knowledge through school she gained information by traveling with her father (a salesman) across the US. From truck stops to cab rides to travels to every cranny of the world Gloria absorbed the world around her and let it help her grow and become the intuitive woman that she now is.