Farewell Fresno High School

For as far back as I can remember, I hated school. No one knew this, and no one would have guessed it based on my academic capabilities. I always dreamed of the day that I would be done with it. It took me all the way to senior year to find my groove. I became something greater than myself and for once I felt pride in my school. I felt pride in myself. This has been the best year of my life, so far, and now that my childhood dream is finally here, I wish that it wasn’t.  

I’m not scared for this next stage of life. In fact, I’m rather excited. I love the idea of completing my college education at my own pace and not being forced to wait for the rest of the class to catch up. I just don’t want to lose my sense of community. Who will be my supporting team if I don’t have my teachers and counselors. How will I make friends without being encouraged and welcomed into school clubs. I was just getting started and now I have to figure it out all over again.  

But I’m ready. How could I not be after the amazing support I’ve gotten. I’m eternally grateful for Ms. Sciacqua for pushing me to be my best while supporting me when I’m not. I’ll never forget Mr. Tovar and all the joy that his class brought me. The film program has brought upon a new horizon for me and a passion that fueled me through high school. I found my happy place when I joined drama club. In an ideal world, I could pursue a career on the stage while still securing a stable income. Maybe one day I'll live that dream. 

I didn’t feel too bad in kindergarten when I didn’t have an answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I started to feel stressed when I still didn’t have an answer on the first day of senior year. Now, I know that I’ve always known what I’ve wanted to be, I was just always afraid of not meeting the grand expectations put on me. I want to share my voice and my art with the world. I choose what makes me happy. So, I say farewell to Fresno High School and its careless high school fun, and hello to my future, one step at a time. 

The difference between llamas and alpacas

Many people can’t tell the difference between llamas and alpacas. Some don’t even know that they are two different species. The reality is quite the contrary. These two silly creatures are easy to differentiate if you know what to look for; here are just a few examples to get you started.  

Scale of llama compared to scale of alpaca.

The most obvious difference is size. A llama can weigh up to 400lbs while an alpaca usually weighs 150-200lbs. Alpacas faces are shorter and blunter, and they also have short, straight ears. On the other hand, llamas have large, long faces and have long, curved ears. A llama can grow to an outstanding six feet tall on all fours to the tops of the ears (seven feet tall with a pair of stilettos). Meanwhile, an alpaca can only reach about four and a half feet (unless it stole the llama's stilettos). 

The next difference is their fur. An alpaca has a very fluffy appearance. Its hair is very curly, and they have very monotone coats. If you're lucky enough to pet one, you’ll find that their coats are very soft. Llamas, however, have long straight hair, and the color may be inconsistent. Their hair feels coarse on the outside layer but is softer on the inner layers. 

The final difference is personalities. You may hear that llamas are more prone to spitting. Although this is true, it’s for a different reason than you think. Llamas are independent, protective animals and are often put with a herd of alpacas as a ‘guard llama’. If a predator approaches, a llama will distract the predator while the alpacas flee. Alpacas are herd mammals and are usually skittish and shy. 

Llama face compared to alpaca face.

Both llamas and alpacas have a place in their environment, and they sometimes have a communalistic relationship. This topic is important to me because llamas are my favorite animals and, although I love alpacas too, it’s upsetting to me when people erroneously think they are the same animal. I encourage others to read more about llamas and alpacas and discover how wonderful they are. 

7 Ways To Tell The Difference Between an Alpaca vs Llama (alpacadirect.com) 

How Ancient Greek Statues define beauty standards

Ancient Greeks created new muscles!?

Why weren’t the Greeks satisfied with a perfect replica of the human body? It took centuries to achieve acute realism when creating statues that depict the male sex, but once that goal was achieved, the Greeks were still not happy. The first reason is the human psychology of the constant need for exaggeration. Modern beauty standards are a great example of this. People this day and age want bigger lips, brighter eyes, and wider hips. Once they achieve that, they want to enhance themselves even more. Nowadays, we have chemicals and plastic surgery, but in Ancient Greece, physical form was evidence of physical ability.

Another reason Greeks made statue’s physique so unachievable was because typically, their statues depicted their gods. They saw the gods as superior in every way which also included physical ability. Different from the neolithic era where obesity was seen as appealing because it meant you were well fed, in ancient Greece, the lean muscular build was desirable because it meant you were physically capable and efficient in the battle arena. Gods would be the most strong and powerful and therefore needed to be built to look stronger than any man.

So how can you make a human-like statue look stronger than any man? You add muscles that don’t exist!

Greek artists started creating statues with defined muscles that don’t exist. On this particular statue, two extra muscles were added to the lower back to make it look even more muscular than will ever be achievable. The unfortunate reality of this is that most Greeks physical goal was to look as close to a god as possible. They were making their own goal unachievable as the never-ending cycle of unreachable beauty standards continues.

This topic interests me because I have always found the human-depicting statues of ancient Greece to be the most beautiful and breath taking throughout history. This prompted my curiosity for the reason behind why I, and many others are so enthralled with these pieces of art. The reason being that they are not just depicting a human, but a superior version of a human, one that our brain chemicals find more desirable than reality.