In this project we focused on adolescents and how it impacts the rest of our life. We created masks too show a side of adolescents and wrote essays to go with it. We learned about the development of the stigma around adolescents, the theories of how we form relationships with others, the myths around adolescents, and relationships during adolescents. Our exhibitions showed off our masks and essays and what we learned.
Mistakes
The pipe was laying on the tail gate of her moms truck, it had a half packed bowl and a lighter sitting next to it, it was calling to us. We were naive kids, it was summer and we were at the lake. The timing couldn’t have been better. We looked around and her mom wasn’t looking. She offered me the first hit. It was the beginning of a whirlwind of events that would change my life. That was the first time I smoked weed, I was barely 12 years old. That night when I went home, I texted my next door neighbor about what happened. She got super excited and asked me to smoke that night. It was so fun, we snuck out, we listened to music, we danced, we laughed, and smoked. For the next couple of months that's what was fun doing it to hang out with my friends and have a good laugh. Then that stopped. I no longer smoked with people. I simply sat in my room and used it just to get through the day. I sat in the Mountain Middle School bathroom with a lighter and dabs just so I could go to the second period.
I started to hate my house. My family was always mad at me for something. I would get yelled at because the bus was late getting home. I walked 2 miles on the dirt road after going to school all day, I was exhausted. “Why are you home so late” “The bus took a while.” I would always try to remain calm. “Seriously that's your excuse, you've got b’s in two classes you should be here doing your homework to get those up.” “Now!”
I scurried away to my room and sat on my bed. Why was he so angry? My lowest grade was an 85. My brother was failing every class. Why did they never get mad at him? Why was I the one who got the burden of needing to be the perfect student.”
“Why aren’t you helping me cut wood, your brother was doing this at your age” “I tried, I couldn’t lift the chainsaw, it's almost the same weight as me”
“All you do is lay in your bed all day, you're as lazy and useless as the dogs. No more useless, at least they go on walks and hang out with us.”
“Why are you crying? C'mon I’m not being mean, I was kidding, Stop taking things so seriously.”
These were the things I heard everyday. They wondered why I didn’t want to spend time around them.
My brother hated me for even speaking or breathing too loud and would retaliate with slapping or hitting me. The people I surrounded myself with were not helping, all they ever wanted to do was smoke. It was a constant battle between the little voice in my head and having the validation of these so called friends
When I said no they refused to talk to me for a couple weeks or they would tell me that I was no fun and they didn’t know why they hung out with me. I was utterly alone. The only thing that was a comfort for me became the weed. I could escape the harsh reality of life with a simple inhale.
The cold of winter was coming. School was in full preparation for POLs and projects. The stress levels were high. I spent most of my time sitting in my room writing about something for school. The week prior to POLs rolled around. I sat in my dark room, it was 10:38. I shut my computer. I hadn’t slept all week, why would I? I had things to do and it was the only alone time I ever got. It was my time. My time where I could just be me. Sleeping a total of 5 hours over the course of 7 days had turned my dark circles from their regular shade of a light pink to almost purple. I layed down in the soft embrace of my blanket and plugged in my phone. I was on the edge of sleep, when I got a text. I didn’t know this was the text that would ruin my life completely.
“Wanna sneak out” “I have school in the morning I’m really tired, I don’t think I should” “I’ll bring my new bong” “Maybe” “Please, Please, please.” She continued to beg me and tell me how lame I would be if I didn’t. I felt like she would hate me if I didn’t and then I would lose one of my only friends so I decided to go.
It was cold, I was wearing a unicorn onesie. I batted the trees out of my way in the dark. There was the road, and there was my friend.
We sat in the middle of the dirt road. I packed a bowl and we smoked. We talked and had fun. I closed my eyes and sat with my knees to my chest. I felt good, the fun high which I hadn’t had in a while. Normally it was a depressing high but not tonight. Tonight I was king of the world. I was bouncing up and down and for some reason I couldn’t stop. It was really fun.
I remember opening my eyes, this is when disaster hit. I wasn’t part of my body anymore. I was ten feet away watching myself through a tv screen. My body was numb and tingly. I couldn’t find my way back to my body. I let out an ear piercing scream. I was terrified. I looked at myself on my phone screen, I didn’t recognize myself. My friend tried to calm me down. I couldn't. I needed to go home and sleep, maybe that would fix it.
I honestly thought I was dying. Part of me still thinks I’m asleep in that blanket on the road and this has all been one big nightmare and I’m going to wake up and everything will be fine. I know in my heart that isn’t true and some dumb mistake I made when I was 12 has made my life much harder. If I hadn't given into her peer pressure and trusted my gut things might be better.
I began to stumble home. Trying to navigate the body I wasn’t attached to. I finally reached the house. Before I went to sleep I checked my pulse. It was racing. My heart rate was 125. I prayed for my life, prayed that it would go away if I slept. It was a dreamless, cold sleep. When I woke up all of my fears had come true. It didn’t go away. It was less severe but I was still not attached to my body. I got a text from my friend saying her dealer had laced the weed. I blocked her. I couldn’t believe she would have given me acid weed.
It never got better. I have episodes where it feels as dramatic as it did that night. If I smoke again it will happen again. I have tried several times hoping it will change but it doesn't, it gets worse. I not only drift out of my body and life, I also begin to see shapes,colors,and figures. The world feels like it's spinning at 100 times the speed it normally does. As time goes on I've gotten used to living outside of my body and watching life as if it was through a tv screen.
After much research last year I found out what it was that happened to me. Depersonalization is a term to describe it. It is an anxiety based disorder. Many people experience episodes of this throughout their lives but some people have the unfortunate experience where it occurs permanently. You feel like you're living life outside your body, you feel like you aren’t in control of your motion or speech, things don’t feel real, emotions and senses are numbed, lack of emotion in memory or you feel as if they arent your own. It can create depression and anxiety and worsen your mental health. Ever since that night I have been living outside of my body trying to hold on to some grip of reality.
When you grow up around something, you adapt. You think; this is normal, this is how things should be, but then you grow up and begin to see that it isn’t normal. Our childhoods impact who we become and how we form relationships with others. Countless studies have shown the effects of drugs on your brain as an adolescent. Specifically weed and how it stunts your emotional growth and your memory. An article from the Us national library of medicine national institutes of health states “Adult studies of marijuana use often find subtle decreases in performance compared to controls in cognitive domains such as attention, memory, and processing speed; such effects have been discussed as transient in the literature given limited group differences after prolonged abstinence from marijuana.” Although research is still being done and new information is coming out, from what we know now smoking at a young age can stunt parts of your mental growth.
After that night I stopped hanging out with that friend and some others who were like that. I learned to find people who actually liked me for more than just doing drugs together. I have had to work to get used to living with my mistakes I made because of peer pressure. I wish I had chosen my friends better and took better care of myself. I wish I had learned more about the effects of drugs on the developing brain and the risks that come with it. In my times of need I had no one and used it as an escape. Mental health is a big issue in adolescents that needs to be taken more seriously. If I had had a safe space or some one to talk to I know I could have avoided most of this. Coping mechanisms are something that aren't talked about enough. Everyday I look back at that night wishing I wouldn't have gone and I would have chosen new friends, wishing I had known more about drugs, Wishing I had someone who was there for me.
This project was long, stressful, and During this project I learned how to become a more powerful writer and put meaning and impact behind my words. I was able to go more with my words than a format. In my first draft of my essay I had been trying to write my essay to perfectly follow the template we had been given. My writing was less powerful when I was switching between story and analysis. I moved all of my analisis to the end of the essay and just used my story to convey most of my essay. I think that seeing the difference when I changed it made me understand how to understand my own work and take control of my writing. I also was able to utilize dialog to create more power. Lori came to me after reading my essay and saying “get messy with it.” Even though it was slightly vague advice, it helped me make my writing match the emotion in my story. I added lots of bits of dialogue and I think that it helped convey my meaning much better than when all I had dialogue wise was a text conversation. For example in my first draft I had a 5 sentence paragraph talking about the background and then in my final draft it was almost an entire page of dialogue and story telling. My biggest take away from this project was my confidence in my writing skills. Normally I am very negative about my writing and my skills in humanities, but throughout this project I was able to really connect to this piece of writing and feel proud of my work. DUring this semester I have learned that I underestimated myself and that has been holding me back from creating work I like and doing other work. This has made me feel more confident when writing and working on projects. I wish I had done more at the exhibition. I thought that hospitality would be fun and cool to create a good flow plan for the exhibition, but I feel like all of our ideas and plans were changed by the managers and we didn’t get to participate that much in the exhibition. I think I did contribute a lot of help setting up. I think if I could do this again I would want to do more
MODEL UNITED NATIONS
Our MUN conference focused on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. In 2020-2021 The US withdrew all troops from Afghanistan officially ending the longest war the US has been involved in. Following that the Taliban took over. The entire country became a mess. The Taliban outlawed women from attending schools or holding jobs. More than 55% of the country was thrown into famine. There is only one children's hospital throughout the entire country, while many children are being born underdeveloped and with many health issues due to the conditions of the pregnancies. Journalists were banned and were being murdered. Our job was to take the role of a United Nations country and try to come to a resolution to help this issue.
During this project we read and wrote many different types of poetry. This taught us about poetic devices and gave us skills to write our final poem. The prompt of writing our final poem was very open ended. We were allowed to write about whatever we wanted as long as it had some philosophical meaning and depth and included poetic devices. We also had to create a visual piece to go along with our poem
Is It Worth It
Is it worth it To wander the desert stream bed to admire what once was To keep the light bulb to reminisce the light that danced around the room before flickering out to the winds To listen to the untuned notes of a piano that once entertained ballrooms To watch the dried petals turn to dust because it once brought stars to the young girl's heart To continue to water the thorn bush in hopes it may bloom again To sit and cry upon the beach in chance your tears may refill ocean To place together pieces of the scorched and tarnished map that once lead to friends long past
The old man stands upon a tall mountain He does not understand Even with the sting of wind blowing through his long hair and beard why he is not satisfied He danced the dances He watered her flower bush Why is there still a hole If everything is gone why must he remain Is it worth it to go on?
Mae Loebig Artist Statement
When we first started the poem project I was stuck on what to write about. I started 3 or 4 different topics and either got stuck or didn’t connect with it. I went on a trip mid project without any real poem. I had gone on a hike and started thinking about my grandpa. How much I missed him and wished that he was here. This gave me the inspiration for my poem. Writing about him was hard and thinking about the pain of his last years alive. I formatted my poem to show someone searching for a way to fill the hole the loss of a loved one creates and how alone it makes you feel. The first stanza is formatted for each line to ask a question starting with is it worth it. The second stanza follows a more specific story and follows up with those questions asked in the first stanza. I wanted to end my poem with a question that I think many people after they experience grief ask themselves. Why once they are gone must I remain.
My grandpa was one of the funniest, kind, and loving people I have ever met. He passed away when I was 6 due to ALS. He was my best friend. I never got to say goodbye. The last couple years of his life he could no longer speak and had to talk through a computer. Even though I could no longer hear his voice he still managed to make me laugh and smile every time I saw him. Him and I would sit up and tell each other how much we loved each other until my grandma and mom were upset that we weren’t going to bed. I didn’t ever get to say goodbye. The older I get the more stories I hear about the amazing person he was and I miss him even more. When I was old enough to conceptualize death it really hit me.
The feeling of realizing there is nothing you can do to get the people that you care and love about, who changed your life back is the feeling I wanted my poem to capture. My grandparents' house always had beautiful flowers blooming and I wanted to use the flowers as a theme throughout my poem. Lots of people say that time heals, but I have never understood that. The pain and grief doesn’t go away, we just learn to live and grow with it. I wanted my poem to recreate the hardship of losing that one person who you looked up to, brought smiles and laughs, and was your best friend and no matter how much time goes by it still hurts. In grief there is a hole where they once were and a hope that you can find something to fill that hole.
Growth as a poet reflection
I originally wrote my poem as a tribute to the people around us that we have lost. My first couple drafts were more sad than anything, but during the cruitie and process journals I wanted to incorporate a feeling of nostalgia. Adding these parts helped me deepen the meaning and emotion of the poem. I made changes to the voice and perspective in my second stanza. I think this changed my poem to feel more specific towards myself as well as adding imagery that brought more detail to my poem. “Even with the sting of the wind blowing through his long hair and beard” was a line I added in my later draft. That was a feeling I understood I wanted to capture: the clarity of cool air and the feeling of being on top of the world sometimes isn’t enough to erase the pain. In my first draft which I wrote. In my first draft one of my lines was phrased “to grow the thorn bush in the small chance it may bring you flowers” I really enjoyed the thought of this line, but rephrased it to fit my poem and flow together better. The flow of my poem was made to feel like a wave continuously hitting the shore which is why I added the line “to sit and cry upon the beach in chance your tears may refill the ocean”.
The first important change that I made to my poem was my incorporation of things that specifically related to my memories with my grandpa and my fears that rose without him here. Most of these changes were subtle and didn’t mean anything to other people but brought a new level of connection and passion to this poem. My references to flowers multiple times throughout the poem such as “to watch the petals turn to dust”, “to continue to water the thorn bush” and “he watered her flower bush” Came from the full garden and flowers that have always been a staple of my grandparents house. This also went along with the line about crying apon the beach because every vacation that I went on with them or knew that my grandparents went on were always at the beach. Most of the second stanza is written to incorporate my fear of going on forever without the people I love and care about.
Another important change I added to my poem was imagery. My poem originally was one longer version of my first stanza all with the finishing of the sentence is it worth it, but after realizing that my poem was missing a deeper meaning and poetic devices I added my second stanza. This stanza was meant purely for others to visualize a lonely old man who has lost everything. This imagery explains the message of my poem much more clearly and ties the idea together nicely. It also asks questions to provoke emotion and thoughts about impermanence. For example “he does not understand, why is he not satisfied” For me this line captures clearly the hole that is left without the important people there alongside and the longing for answers of why are you left there. I have always found myself pondering these questions I put in my poem and that adding these took my first draft from surface level sadness to a more philosophical view.
I struggled connecting my stanzas with the change of viewpoint. In my final draft I added the line, “To piece together the scorched and tarnished map that once led to friends now long past” This line was meant to show that the people from the first stanza were gone and begin to shift the perspective nicely. Whereas in the previous draft it transitioned from “To continue to water the thorn bush in hopes it may bloom again, why is he not satisfied? '' Adding the lines in between added more context and flow to the journey that I wanted to take the listeners on as they heard my poem.