A test?

Did you just say we have a test?

Oh no, this is is something I can not address,

For if I do I will be obsessed

With studying, I must confess.

We had one just last week - I can attest.

Can't I just undress

And go to bed without the stress?

On this test I need success

For I haven't been doing well in this class - I am a mess.

I am not blessed

With endless knowledge pouring from my chest.

I really don't have time for this - surely you jest!

You must cancel it lest

I have a breakdown and travel far into the northwest

To escape your terrible unkindness.

It makes me feel unexpressed,

Depressed,

Distressed,

Oppressed.

I'm going to need to buy an armrest,

For my exhausted body - we need to readdress

This whole system and what possessed

These teachers to torture us. I protest!

Maybe someone needs to suggest

A new system of retest.

I think I'll write an anapest

To calm myself from this unrest.

I'm not seeing any progress

In myself by taking these exams of processed

Information.

Their overestimation

Of our abilities are cruel. It's an invasion

Of numbers words and equations

Attacking my brain and giving me an abrasion

In my head like an infestation

Of bugs are crawling around causing an unnecessary vibration.

I need a better explanation

Of this material for this devastation

Of a test. Maybe I can use some flirtation

To get someone to give me a donation

To bribe someone to give me a vacation.

I need more circulation

Of blood, I think I'm losing it from all of these terms, like "deforestation",

"Migration,"

"Croatian."

How many days can

I do this for? I think there needs to be better communication

Between everyone in this incorporation.

I need to fold an origami tessellation

Before I die of suffocation.

We need to stop with this glorification

Of the modification

To the testing system. I will make a renunciation

To the school before I start seeing a constellation

Spinning around my head from this condemnation.

This is dehumanization!

I'd rather excommunication

Than this abomination.

I need a translation

Of this material. This is such inconsideration!

What do you want from me? A really weird English word to get your sensitization?

Fine, here it goes: floccinaucinihilipilification.

What even is it's pronunciation?

I wouldn't know because of your misinformation.

Please have patience,

We will have this test in good time, don't be a Satan.

Congratulations

For making our time wasted.

"I need your documentation,"

The airport security will say as I leave, because of this test, in utter frustration.

My heart is racing

From this endless difficult test situation.

We need to have an investigation

Of this system. I will make a dissuasion

To convince you why, on this fateful occasion,

We do not deserve to be tested on these calculations.

I once met a girl who sang opera

She sang so high that she chopped a

Small tree into shreds

With her voice, as it spread

and the tree hit a man while he screamed "ah!"

My eyes are closing, I can barely breathe.

Who said this was a good idea? Oh, me.

My sword is what I wish I could now sheath.

I can't keep fighting for all these AP's.

All these performances are coming up

Now learning all the songs the day before

When asked if I'm okay I tell them yup,

But now I know that I'll throw up for sure.

Thought I could take it, now I'm falling; fall

Apart is what I do now every day.

My future, dreams, and all is what I haul

But somehow I know it will be OK,

This work is piling up but I believe

That somehow I'll go far and I'll achieve.

Her voice, the way it harmonizes mine.

We are in sync, we are each other's mimes.

We're here to sing, we don't care for your dimes.

Together, only do we truly shine.

We're concentrating on each other's line.

Our minds are both together counting times.

And so together we make steady rhymes.

So to our music, people love to dine.

We look each other in the eye and smile,

For this is what we've always practiced for.

So maybe come and listen for a while,

This singing thing might have us hooked for sure.

For we have figured out our own new style.

We know you'll always come back wanting more.

 Introduction to Me

       My life revolves around my passions and interests, my family, my religion, and my future. With my family I love to travel around the world and learn as much as I can about people's history, culture, art, and everything else there is to know. We enjoy all of the beautiful and natural outdoors that God has created and we aren't afraid to explore or try anything. My family and I are adventurous, we don't take life too seriously, and we know how to enjoy life while squeezing the most we can out of it.

 I don't like to waste any opportunities. I have so many hobbies and interests because that's just who I am. I love art, science, English, music, and sometimes I even enjoy history. (I will never be able to include math in that list because I just despise it too much.) Many people have told me I should stop trying to do everything I love and have time to relax, but that's just not how I live. I don't waste time worrying because time has a way of slipping away, and what's the point of wasting it? Instead I use every second to live in the moment and enjoy what life has to offer.

       I'm really short (so I may be mistaken for a nine-year-old sometimes), I'm a female, I'm Jewish, but none of these things will come close to stopping me from achieving my dreams. I believe that everyone deserves an equal chance in this world to do what they love and so I consider myself a feminist. My definition of feminism, since there are many, is that everyone deserves to be treated with equality and respect. No one should be discriminated against just because of who they are. People may try to stop me - it's happened before - but someday I will become everything I hope to be and no one nowhere will be able to keep me from that. I am way too passionate to let anyone or anything take me down. Sometimes people say I'm talented and incredible etc., but it's just me - Aida Mireille Hasson. I'm just a tiny girl with enormous dreams who isn't afraid to work her butt off.

 Where did all of this come from, you may ask? Well, I have an incredible family and a pretty great childhood. I may not remember most of it, but it's made me who I am, so here it goes.

The Start of a New Passion

       When I was around seven years old, my uncle came over around the time of my birthday and gave me an origami kit as a present. If only he knew how much it would change my life. I immediately grew obsessed with making simple dogs and flowers. After I had run out of all my paper, my Gido bought me more origami kits. Eventually I bought harder instruction books and taught myself how to fold incredible things. I loved the way you can take a boring flat paper and make a bunch of seemingly random folds and end up with a bird or a dragon or anything else you wanted to make. I learned all of the names of the folds and different types of bases and such, and I got pretty good at it.

       My parents went to the Museum of Natural History and saw a beautiful Christmas tree covered in origami one day. They asked the people working there how someone could put origami on the tree, and they said you had to be part of the organization OrigamiUSA. That's how I found the millions of people who loved origami as much as I did. I went to classes and conventions, bought more books and paper, and continued my love of folding. Folding relaxes me, like most of my hobbies do, and it's just another thing that makes me who I am.

Ice Cream for No One

       My family loves going on trips. We love hiking, exploring National Parks, and things like that. We also love complaining. Our trips consist of constant traveling and activities piled up one after another as to not waste time, as my dad says. That also means fewer meals, bathroom stops, and breathing time. So, after three hikes, two guided tours, and a walk through the Visitor Center packed with lots of brain use, we get tired. And hungry. And we have to pee. So naturally, we complain.

 "Daddy, I'm so hungry! We didn't eat since yesterday lunch," we say.

 "You need more than one meal a day?" he would joke.

 "No really, I'm so hungry and tired and I have to go to the bathroom," we say.

 But he would convince us that this was the last hike before lunch. Of course there were three more activities after the hike before lunch, which he purposely didn't mention. When we didn't stop complaining, my dad made up a game to distract us. Somehow it worked every time. "Well what are you more?" he would ask. We angrily debated what we were more of: hungry, tired, about to pee ourselves, etc. Somehow we would end up laughing at each other and stopped complaining.

       On one family vacation, we traveled to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and we were hiking up a mountain. After we started complaining for a good amount of time, and we were just too pooped for my dad's game to work, he told us that there was an ice cream store at the top of the mountain. Our eyes lit up. We pushed through our hunger, exhaustion, and desire to collapse, all for the ice cream. Because logically, if there was ice cream at the top, then it was worth it. After hours of hiking we finally got there. "Where's the ice cream?" we asked. No answer. "Daddy where is it?" we repeated excitedly. After looking at his face and seeing his big smirk that he could not conceal, we found out that there was, in fact, no ice cream and it was all a lie. All of that hard work was for nothing. My mom couldn't believe that we actually fell for it. The whole way down we were yelling at him. He didn't care; he had gotten us to climb the mountain. Even today we never let him forget the time he promised us ice cream and we never got it.

The Severed Toe

       When I was about 8 years old, my sisters and I were playing hide and seek at my grandma’s house. At least that's how I remember it. My sister says we here trying to scare someone. According to my version, we we’re looking for a hiding spot and suddenly my little sister Olivia finished counting. We were still out in the open, so I stuffed my other two sisters into the nearest bathroom. I wanted to close the door but my sister Hannah’s bare foot was in the way. I whispered loudly “move your foot!” But in a panic of the moment, after I thought she had moved her foot, I slammed the door shut and suddenly Hannah started screaming. “My toe! It’s off my foot! It hurts so much!” My sister ran to my dad, who as he always responds to injuries, ignored her. My mom proceeded to look at Hannah’s toe and then said to my dad, “Ronnie, her toe is not attached to her foot.” After that all I remember is panic. I remember some members of my family carrying Hannah out the front door lying on her back screaming. They carried her to the car and drove her to the hospital. I remember not knowing what to do and feeling so bad for my sister and wishing she had just moved her foot. Weeks later it was time to take out the stitches. My sister sat on the black office chair in my dad’s room as he cut out the stitches. Hannah’s screams were so painful and loud that from my room I cried because I heard and physically felt pain for her. To this day she has a scar on her pinky toe where it was sewn back together.

The Very Real Jellyfish

       I have three dramatic, loud and over-exaggerative sisters. That’s why, when my sister Hannah started screaming, no one listened at first.

       It was a long weekend and we were going on a family vacation to Cape Cod for about four days. I was around eight years old. My dad told us that the beach we were going to sometimes had jellyfish in the water, and after we all freaked out he said that we most likely wouldn’t see any because they were mostly further out than we could swim. After we asked him a million times if he was lying (he does that often to get us to be calm or to trick us for his own pleasure), we relaxed.

When we got to the beach we kept teasing each other about the jellyfish. My sisters and my parents ran into the ocean and started playing around. “Ah, I feel a jellyfish!” one of my sisters joked. We continuously started pretending to feel jellyfish. “I felt one!” “It touched my leg!” “It stung me!” We all jumped around laughing at the nonexistent jellyfish.

       All of a sudden we heard, “AHHHHH! A JELLYFISH!” and we all turned to see Hannah crying and screaming uncontrollably. Her little face was covered in tears. “Whoa, calm down Hannah, it’s just a game,” I said as I swam over. "No, it stung me!” she cried. After a few times of repeating that, we realized that she had actually been stung. We ran out of the ocean to find the top of Hannah’s hand big, red, and swollen.  “Wow, you actually did get stung. That must hurt,” my dad said half jokingly. She proceeded to yell at him and yell that no one believed her.

       My mom rushed with Hannah to the nearest lifeguard, who told her, “Yep, that’s a jellyfish sting. You have to put wet sand on it to feel better.” So that’s what Hannah did, but she screamed that it burned when she put wet sand on. "Are you sure that’s right?” my dad asked my mom and Hannah skeptically. ”Maybe go ask another lifeguard.” At some point in the story we went for lunch in a restaurant on the beach while my mom and Hannah searched for a lifeguard. The way I remembered it, we stayed to order while they went looking for answers. When they came back they told us that, as it turns out, the second lifeguard said that the worst thing you could do was put sand on it. After that, we ate lunch on the beautiful beach while Hannah was miserable. I guess that’s what you get for pretending to get stung by jellyfish.

My Childhood From a Spinny Chair

       Every child has pretended to fly, jump across hot lava, or something along those lines. But have you actually been to outer space? I, unfortunately have not been to space either. I have been pretty close, though. My spaceship was a black spinning office chair in the stairs of my grandma’s house and my engine was one of my older cousins Aida, who would spin me around and make sound effects.

       Let me be more specific. On Shabbat, my whole family goes to my grandma’s house to eat. On Friday night, my cousin Aida, my sister Hannah, Aida's sister Jeannie and I go upstairs to hang out (still do this). The lights were sometimes on, but usually it was dark. We would go in to my grandpa’s office. It's pretty small but there's a couch, a bench, and a big black “spinny chair,” as we would call it.

       One of us, usually me or Hannah, would jump on the chair and tell Aida to do her stuff. “Close your eyes!"  she would say. I got so excited. I would close my eyes and start to feel Aida shake the chair as if it were vibrating. She made engine noises to make it more “realistic.” “Ready for take off!” she exclaimed. “5,4,3,2,1, takeoff! Woah, we’re in space! Oh my God, there's an asteroid storm, we have to dodge them!”  I was constantly laughing and yelping from the sudden movements. She made up situations that I would see so clearly in my mind as she pulled me all over the room, spinning and shaking the chair. After I landed, although I was so dizzy that I felt like I was going to throw up, I felt so amazed, as if I had actually been to space. I sat down to recover while my sister would beg, “My turn, my turn!” and she would do it all over again. Today when we go up to that room we sing, spy on the neighbors, talk about our problems and more, but I will always remember our spectacular journeys to outer space.

Pants-less

       I was in elementary school, around fifth grade or so, when my go-to embarrassing story occurred. It's quite hard to believe, but I assure you it happened. When we used to have gym in elementary school, we would wear leggings under our skirts and then take off our skirts in class so that we were wearing only leggings. We would then walk down the stairs to the gym. One day, I was doing something, and everyone had taken off their skirts and left the class. I rushed to get out of the room so I wasn't late. I pulled down my skirt, threw it in my bag, and walked down the stairs. I was alone in the staircase, since I was already late. One of my friends, I don't remember who, came down the stairs. "Aida! You're not wearing pants!" she exclaimed. Confused, I looked down to see my underwear. I then remembered that I had forgotten to wear leggings that day. In my rush, I had forgotten that I was supposed to remember that I wasn't wearing leggings. As you can see from this story, I have no memory whatsoever, which makes it pretty difficult to write these stories. Anyway, I ran upstairs to my class as quickly as possible, pulling my shirt down and praying that I didn't bump into anyone. Thankfully, I didn't see anyone else. I went to my chair to get my skirt (thinking that I had just left it on my chair), only to find it gone. In panic I searched everywhere, to find it a few seconds later in my bag. "Oh yeah, I did put it there," I said out loud. I put my skirt back on and ran back down to gym just in time to be marked here, and I enjoyed the rest of the period sitting on the side.

Memory

       As you saw in the last story, I have no memory. To further prove that to you, let me share another story. When I was in 7th grade, I had a class in the room connected to the library. We learned English there with Mrs. Foxman. At the end of the period as we were leaving the classroom, my friend said, "Thanks, Aida."

 "For what?" I asked, confused.

 "For picking up my pencil," she replied.

 "What? I have no idea what you're talking about. I didn't pick up your pencil," I answered.

 She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Yes, you did. I dropped it right here, you picked it up and put it in my hand, and then I said thank you."

       For some reason I had absolutely no memory of that happening. The entire rest of the day, I tried to picture myself picking up her pencil but I couldn't see it. It's not like she was lying because everyone around me chimed in with, "Yeah, you just picked it up." I couldn't believe it. I'm pretty sure I dreamed of picking up a pencil that night.

Cinderella

       My whole life I waited for the 7th grade play. I had never been in a real play before, and I couldn't wait. I had seen both my cousins go through it and perform and I thought they were the coolest and most incredible people in the world for it. I waited so long, and finally the time had come. The play was announced to be Cinderella, which sounded really exciting. I decided to try out with one of the songs from the show. I practiced and practiced, getting tips from my mom and cousins. Finally the day of auditions had arrived. I of course didn't expect any big part whatsoever. I expected to be in the chorus or have a minor role. My entire family was sure I would get Cinderella, but I thought they were crazy. Either way, I would be happy with whatever part I was given.

       The cast list was up. Before I even got to the list to see it, my aunt, who is a math teacher in my school, texted me with congratulations. Apparently I had gotten Cinderella. I was so surprised, but when the word spread to the rest of my family they didn't seem as excited because they "knew I was going to get the part."

       Immediately my mom and I began to think of costumes. We couldn't find anything good online, so my mom suggested I make it myself. It was not easy. It took a heck of a lot of time - time which I didn't have. I am not ashamed to say that there was some crying involved. It came out so beautiful, though, and I was so happy. No one even knew that I made it except for my friends, but I was proud of it. There started my love for costume making.

       It wasn't easy memorizing lines, but I loved it. When the show came along, I had the best time even though we messed up a few scenes. In one of the performances we somehow skipped an entire scene (the show didn't make sense that way because the fairy godmother had never told me to be back by midnight). The students who were doing lighting had no idea what they were doing so at one point they left the lights on for a good 5 minutes while we tried to make it like we were doing stuff rather than just standing there, which just made the lighting people think the scene was still going on. At one point when I had three seconds to change my entire costume into the ball gown, I missed my most important cue and was late for the prince to see me. As I was running from the classroom that we were changing in to the back of the stage, my microphone was turned on because I was supposed to be on stage. My microphone was falling off my face and the ball is a big dancing scene so in a rush I yelled, "I need tape!" to cast members not on stage, which the entire audience heard. There were many other mistakes like missing a line here or there, but the show turned out great anyway and it was so much fun.

       The next year they changed the 7th grade play into a 6th, 7th, and 8th grade play, which was great because I didn't have to wait a whole two years to be in another show. The play was Willy Wonka and I was given the role of Grandpa Joe. It was a really fun part and made me love acting.

My Musical Roots

       My love of singing didn't just come out of nowhere. I had watched my cousins Jeanne and then Aida perform many times. I thought they were the coolest people in the world. Aida and I loved to hang out so I would sleep over her house on Friday night a lot. She never came to me because she would get very homesick even though she lives like two blocks away. Whenever I slept over, we would sit on the floor of Jeanne's room in the dark and they would teach me gorgeous harmonies that we would all sing together. I loved singing but I knew I wasn't as good as my cousins. Even so, I performed in little things in elementary school that the teachers offered.

       One day my dad came home and said that a patient's mother gave him her card and she was a singing teacher. He told Aida and Jeanne that they should go, and they did. I wanted to go too, but I didn't ask. When I auditioned for the 7th grade play my dad asked if I wanted to go to voice lessons, so I did. I love it and I've been taking lessons with Lyuba ever since.

Sharp Things and Me Don't Mix

       I have a rule for myself. Never, and I mean NEVER, go near anything sharp or hot. You see, every time I've approached something sharp or hot, I've hurt myself. The number of times that I have spilled tea on myself is not normal. I've burnt myself while trying to cook noodles, stepped on a long, pointy pushpin while walking close to the cork board we have in our house, and many, many more stupid things. That's why I have my rule. Sometimes, though, my parents ask for my help with something. For example, "Can you take the meat off the barbecue and put it on this plate?" And I would say something like, "You know I can't go near hot stuff." But of course my excuse is not seen as valid. I am so careful. I go very slowly so that I don't hurt myself. Then for some reason I accidentally drop the steak on myself, touch the hot part of the tongs, touch the actual barbecue, or something else stupid. This has been going on for my entire life.

       When my family and I traveled to Banff National Park in Canada during summer vacation, I tried to tell them that I shouldn't be the one to open the can of tuna. We were making dinner and my mom had asked me to open the can. Cans are sharp after they are opened, and although I was careful, I knew I would manage to hurt myself. "OK, fine I'll go open it, but if I hurt myself, don't say I didn't warn you." I said. I then went to the kitchen, picked up the can opener, clamped it onto the can and started turning. After I had gone all the way around the can and poured out the juice in the sink, I had to remove the top of the can that was still covering the tuna. After no one would help me, I tried to lift the top, and somehow I cut open my whole left hand. The cut ran from the middle of my pointer finger diagonally across my other fingers and down my hand. It wasn't so deep that I would need stitches, but it hurt intensely and took a while to heal. You'd think that after something like that I would not get hurt anymore because I know what could happen, but I still do it all the time.

The Day It Changed

       I've never moved before. It's always been the same house in the same beautiful neighborhood, and I loved it. We rarely did anything to change around our house. One time my mom redid the wallpaper and I cried for a week because it looked different. Everything around my neighborhood is my home and it means a lot to me. I like when things are the same, when I have a place that will always be the same to go back to, no matter where I go. When we go on vacation I'm always sad to leave, but when I come back it feels like the best place in the world and there is nowhere I'd rather be. I love my home, and that's why it hurt so much when it got destroyed in Hurricane Sandy. Although I did have some fun during the storm with my family, and some crazy stories to tell, afterward I didn't know what to do.

       When we heard that the storm was coming, we ignored the warning because when Hurricane Irene came a year earlier, despite all the warnings, nothing happened. Not even a drop of water came anywhere close to us. We moved all our stuff up from the basement and worked  hard to protect our things for nothing. So naturally we ignored the warnings, and my dad and uncle of course made a video making fun of the storm that was yet to come and put it on YouTube. (After the storm they took it down because people were getting mad in the comments that they were making fun of such a serious thing. It was an extremely funny video, though.) My cousins and grandparents got out of the neighborhood just in case, but my family stayed. A little bit before the storm was supposed to come, my sisters and I got worried. What if the basement flooded even a little? So we proceeded to move a bunch of stuff higher up (of course that was all for nothing; it all got ruined anyway). We did bring up all our bikes though, which was a good idea. As we were moving stuff to higher shelves, my little sister Olivia yelled, "My kitchen! We have to save my kitchen!" So my mom forced us to carry her giant, heavy, pink play kitchen up the stairs as quickly as we could, which slightly injured me. I'm pretty sure I was bleeding, but I don't remember exactly.

       All of a sudden water started rushing in from under the garage door. "Get me towels!" my mom yelled, as if towels would help. We were all very frantic. I ran up and brought down towels, which she stuffed under the door, only to have the door burst open with water rushing in seconds later. "Go, get upstairs!" my mom yelled. We ran up as quickly as we could and sat together in the living room. After about an hour, the power went out. My mom and my sister Emma sat in the dark living room ignoring the water around them out of fear, while me, Olivia, my sister Hannah, and my dad kept watching. "Woah, look Mommy, it's completely covering the fence outside!" "Look, our stuff is floating!" "It's completely covering our car!" we said. "Stop! Don't tell me, I don't want to know!" my mom said anxiously.

       After a while we got hungry. "Shoot, I meant to take out the rice and lentils out from the fridge before the storm. We can't open the fridge now because then all our food will go bad. We do have the yogurt and cucumber dip that was meant to put on top of the rice and lentils, though. It's in the kitchen," my mom said. We proceeded to eat the yogurt dip plain because we were starving. After a while of sitting, my mom thought she smelled fire. "Everyone get out of the house!" she yelled, "We're swimming to Uncle Beeb's house!" His house is about two blocks away. "Swimming?" we asked, scared. "Yes, everybody out," she said. We all walked out the front door and (stupidly in the moment) we closed it behind us. We helped my dad out of his wheelchair and down our front steps and we prepared to swim. "Wait. Before we do this, are you sure it was a fire?" my dad asked. After yelling to each other for a few minutes, my dad said he would go back in and check to make sure. He climbed up the steps again only to find that the front door was locked. Now we were literally locked out of our house in a hurricane with the water rapidly rising. So, my mom decided to swim around the back because our back door was unlocked. The water was filled with gross stuff including dangerous giant tree branches that could have seriously hurt her. She swam around and opened the front door from the inside, and my dad went in to check if there was a fire while we waited outside. "There's no fire, it was just the power box." He said. After my mom freaked out a bit more, we went back to the living room and just sat for a while. The water rose all the way to the top of our basement stairs, almost reaching the first floor. Eventually the water started going down and we slowly all went upstairs to bed. It rose again for a bit during the night, but less than it had originally been.

       School was closed for a while and, since we had no power and it was freezing, we stayed in my grandma's apartment for a while, which wasn't much better. We also didn't have a working car, so we borrowed my Teta's car. We couldn't get much gas, though, because there were lines for days to get gas. For my dad, my grandmother's apartment was terrible. The elevator wasn't working because the power was out, so he had to crawl up giant flights of stairs every day because he was still going to work. After a few days, we moved to my Teta's house, which was also flooded but not as bad as ours was. The pull-out beds were more uncomfortable than the floors. I just wanted to go home. After school started again, the Manhattan Beach-ers were called to the office so they could see where we were staying to send us some sort of Shabbat package or something. I remember waking in to the office and we all had to line up. The assistant principal saw me and asked, "Do you need a hug?" I didn't really answer but she hugged me and I'm pretty sure the boys behind me were laughing at me. Not that I cared what they thought, but yes, I was sad and maybe I did need a hug. My home had just been taken from me by an evil force named Sandy - who I had actually vowed to destroy if I ever met this terrible Sandy "in person." After a while we went to visit our house. I can still see the picture in my mind of broken fragments of everything we cared about scattered on our lawn. We had actually just completely redone our basement about a month back. So much for that. I saw my parents' wedding picture, some of our favorite games completely ruined, and just a big mess of what was supposed to be my home.

       Games are very important to our family. On Shabbat or whenever we have free time all together we play games. Board games, card games, games from our favorite brain game store Marbles, random games found online, etc. We get a new game about every week on average and we play them all Shabbat long. It's our way of hanging out and enjoying each other because we haven't seen each other all week. So when I saw our game pieces strewn all over the grass, it hurt. We found Blockers (one of our favorite games at the time) colorful square pieces all over the area, and we still found a bunch months later hiding in random places. Our house looked gross. All the trees in the area were dead, and the sky looked like it had been run over by a dirty truck a million times over. The park across the street looked like it was from a creepy movie where possessed children would play. It was depressing and eerie looking and I just wanted my house back.

       After we moved back in we redid the basement again, but we were missing a bunch of our stuff. Of course, it was just stuff, but for the next year or two one of us would ask the other to go get something from the basement, only to remember it had gone in the flood. "My accordion!" my dad lamented. "It's not like you ever played it," I said. But still, it was his accordion with his dents and scratches that he had made when he used to play. My mom's wedding dress, my dad's instruments, half of the elevator, our basement refrigerator, my sister's dolls, our favorite games' - it was all stuff, but it was our stuff. Our things that we grew up with. It took a while to get out of the whole "we lost that in the flood" phase, but eventually it became our home again. Our neighborhood still doesn't look like it did before the flood. There were so many trees, so many beautiful trees that I would look up at as I walked down the block. They were so tall and strong, I used to think that nothing could destroy them. Now there's a bunch of dead stumps as a reminder of what was. They started planting some baby trees not so long ago, but I won't be alive when they grow to be how they used to be. Now I can see the ocean from my balcony. It used to be hidden by all those trees. I think I'd rather have the trees than see the beach, though. Now I don't get as upset when we change things around the house anymore. I guess the flood was the worst my home could ever be changed.

Unimpressed Skier

       My dad is just a normal person. He was in a car accident when he was a teenager and was paralyzed in both his legs, and now he's in a wheelchair. I mean, he skis and drives, and rock climbs, and bikes, and does everything that he loves regardless of his situation, but he's just my dad. That's why when people come over to him and say "You're an inspiration. You're truly amazing,” we all laugh and make fun of him. He's just a regular person who does stupid things like everyone else. But, everywhere we go, we get more and more "you're an inspiration" speeches from people who think they know him by seeing him do something "amazing" for three seconds.

       When we go skiing, sometimes my dad has a hard time getting off the chairlift occasionally because the bottom of his bucket (the part he sits in) gets stuck to the chair. Sometimes he falls off and the lift worker stops the lift so he can get up. One time when we were skiing, my dad went ahead while Hannah and I were a few chairs behind him. A random skier joined us. We approached the end of the lift, and then the chair stopped because my dad didn't get off well. "I hate monoskiers. They're always causing problems,” the lady next to us said. Of course, being the shy introverted people we are, sister and I said nothing. Not, "That's our dad you're talking about,” not, "It's not his fault, he's trying to fix his bucket.” or anything like that. That was the first time we ever heard someone say something bad about my dad doing something. After we got off the chairlift we told our parents what happened and my mom couldn't stop laughing.

They sit around the table

All these women and discuss

They sit there eating dinner

Making conversation and fuss

Each with their own place setting

They speak of all their tales

The struggles that they faced

While living in this place

They gather 'round

And finally feel safe

Surrounded by the ones

Who felt the same disgrace

They tell each other stories

They all empathize and surely

They band together

On this table

And leave their mark

For those who come after

To see what they've done

Gone through and come

To the conclusion that

Something must be done

They will leave their tales behind

The ones they spoke of at dinner

So the women of the world

Can see that they needn't be thinner

Whiter or more male

To do something in this world

These women around the table

Innocently eating dinner

Will inspire the women of the world

And tell them to be quicker

To get the women of the world

To finally band together

No matter their culture, race, identity, gender, or other

We are the women

They scream

The ones who fight the norm

We are the women

And the men

They yell

The ones who just won't conform

Come join us they say

And sit 'round this triangular table

Tell us all your stories

Come, have some dinner

And join our feminist story

(Inspired by the artwork The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago)