I chose the monthly prompt because I felt I could express my heart and my soul in words on the page, and be something that I would want to look back upon after graduating from high school to see how far I had come and if my dreams had changed. I also felt that this was a great way to honor my teacher who has had been a huge inspiration to me and taught me a great deal about myself and teaching.
My entry talks about my goals for the next five years during high school and my first year of college. It focuses on the things I want to learn and overcome in order to grow as a person.
My entry is a letter to myself in the future, describing the events that I have gone through in the past year. It encourages my future self to reaffirm to values that I learned in the present, and discusses the role of mental health in our lives.
I chose this category because it really connects to me since I can get easily stressed. Writing a letter to my future self really allowed to me understand that there are many different ways on taking care of my mental health. To this day, I still practice the mental health tips to help take care of my mental health.
My piece is a letter to my future self. I chose this prompt to self reflect.
I chose this category because I felt that there was so much injustice in our world. I decided to make a social media post, sharing a few bullet points on how to be just in our lives.
“‘I Know’ is a personal poem about what I know my future self will do eventually, because my present and future self are both trying to be the best version of ourselves. I want my future self to have hope in themselves, to have goals, ambitions, to continue doing or strive for the things I enjoy or make me happy. As a result of writing this poem, I’m again reminded of who I want to become, and I feel more at peace with self-reassurance.”
“I am a first-generation Latino who will be attending The University of Irvine this fall. It’s cool to say that I will be the first in my family to attend a four-year university, but it comes with a lot of pressure. In this poem, I wrote about my struggles with being a first-generation student and my battle with imposter syndrome. Acknowledging these emotions on paper is good and art is my therapy. I hope my poem makes people feel seen and gives others an insight into what it feels like to be a first-generation student.”
A Cup of Tea’ depicts how one can carry the weight of being cast out in society. However, sometimes all you need is a little push from yourself to realize that society does not define who you are, and the first step to being accepted in society is to accept yourself. Incorporating the past, present, and future in this work is meant to show people that who you were before and who you are now do not define the good you will give and receive in the future.
People who really know me know just how hopeful I am about everything. From having hope that I will do a good job on the test to believing I can learn a new language at 5 years old (I moved to the US during that time). I always believe good will come no matter what. There is always something, even the tiniest detail, to have hope for.