2012 College Essay Edition

Jesuit Journal College Essay Edition Cover by Tim Nguyen ’12 Photo by Jack White ’13

Spring 2012 Jesuit Journal 1

Contents & Acknowledgements Embracing Immortality by Chris Axmann .......................................................................................................4 The Brightness of Black and White by Austin Lock...........................................................................................7 The Only Easy Day... Was Yesterday by Derick Liu...........................................................................................8 Gilgamesh by Blake Wilcox..............................................................................................................................11 Welding by Nic Brown.....................................................................................................................................12 UVA Supplement by Brendan O’Brien.............................................................................................................14 Bacon by Chris Hurley.....................................................................................................................................15 World Issue by Akos Furton.............................................................................................................................16 “Duh” by Anonymous......................................................................................................................................18 Remembering A Lullaby by Nick Erturkuner...................................................................................................21 Girls by Will Fonseca........................................................................................................................................22

Editor............................ Michael Gregory ’12 Assistant Editors............ Kevin Chen ’13

With the beginning of the spring semester its come time for the Jesuit Journal’s College Essay Edition. The Jesuit Journal has released a College Essay Edition for over a decade, and I’m proud to say we have some best essays we’ve published for this year’s edition. The Jesuit Journal extends a special thanks to Mr. Oglesby, Mr. Blackwell, and all the seniors for finding and writing these superb, entertaining essays!

Grant Uy ’14

Layout & Design........... Tim Nguyen ’12 Art Contributors............ Jack White ’13

Jared Chalson ’12

Tony Duong ’13

Michael Artiquez ’13

David Radoszewski ’13

Cole Fincher ’13

Zach Lucas ‘12

Julian Michiels ’14

Miguel Sotelo ’14

Dylan Suhy ’14

Luke Olinger ’12

Ryan Cunningham ’12

Patrick Campbell ’14 Moderators.................... Dr. Michael Degen

Mr. Ian Berry

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Artwork Jared Chalson ’12

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Embracing Immortality

by Chris Axmann ’12 Based on No Regrets by Aesop Rock University of Chicago Prompt #3: Spanish poet Antonio Machado wrote, “Between living and dreaming there is a third thing. Guess it.” Give us your guess.

Shadows of a hobbled figure shifted silently down the whitewashed corridors of her nursing home. Dull gray eyes absorbed a gaggle of nurses, darting busily amidst a web of broken souls and broken bodies. In one corner a huddled figure moaned spitefully, clawing for attention the only way he knew how; across the hall was Nancy, asking her nurse when her husband would return from the market, but he had died a few years back. Two doors to the left was Bob. Bob’s only complaint was his lack of legs. Everyone knew better than to point at his legs and say, “Look! See your legs!” That would only confuse him.

She quietly made her way to a cold room, bare except for a cot and an undersized closet space that was crammed full of the junk and trivial knickknacks that tend to cling to the elderly. She sunk into a sagging mattress and collected her thoughts until a nurse came in to check on her, as was routine for some of the residents that were labeled “wanderers.”

“Lucie?” No reply. “Lucie are you alright?” The nurse’s voice wriggled through Lucie’s brain, awakening some slumbering passion that had all but dissipated. She pulled herself out of the sunken bed, and begun a slow trek to her closet door. The nurse rushed to her side to help the struggling woman across the slick linoleum floors. She slid the door open, pulled a few scraps of paper from a shelf, and hobbled back to her bed. The papers were tattered and discolored from age, but each had delicately etched charcoal images on them: one was of her late husband Rico, while he scrubbed the floors of their small apartment; another was of the sidewalk where the other girls jumped double-dutch, leaving her to paint her soul across the pavement with her treasured sticks of chalk. The last was of a lady that vaguely resembled the old woman whose gnarled hands clutched the sketch in front of her.

The young woman sat under a jet-black tree with branches that burst haphazardly across the page like veins. Lucie’s frail old fingers traced every fold of the paper, as her eyes strained to relive the memories engrained onto her precious pieces of paper. The sketches returned her to a lost life of beauty, of dignity, of art; now they were only the distant memories of a battered old woman whose hands had once diligently called them back to life. Lucie blew a sputtered train of breath and gazed past the nurse’s eyes, as if looking for something she had lost long ago. “Look, I’ve never had a dream in my life, because a dream is something you want to do, but still haven’t pursued. I knew what I wanted and did it till it was done, so I’ve been the dream that I wanted to be since day one.1” A week later Lucie passed on, leaving little behind. Her funeral was a small ordeal; she had no family and never was much for company. The nurse was one of a few people who cared to see her go.

She hung Lucie’s art on the aged wooden walls of the funeral parlor because she figured that’s what Lucie would have wanted. After Lucie was gone, no one missed her; her life evaporated and slipped through the cracks, easily missed by anyone not looking. She died with her dream fulfilled, and though her breath was gone, her sketches embraced immortality on the nurse’s walls long after Lucie had melted away.

(Endnotes) 1

From No Regrets by Aesop Rock

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Artwork by Tony Duong ’13

Artwork by Michael Artiquez ’13

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Artwork by David Radoszewski ’13

Artwork by Michael Artiquez ’13

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The Brightness of Black and White

by Austin Lock ’12 There is a common saying that is thrown around casually in today’s society that focuses on a much deeper meaning than at the first thought of the words. “Never judge a book by its cover”, is a quote that is easily understood and can have a deeper meaning than at first glance; it also refers to anyone of a certain ethnicity. Growing up, I didn’t really pay much attention to the fact that I was biracial and therefore did not let it affect me. I was extremely comfortable and I never felt scared to express myself. My eyes and emotions were open and eager to interact with those around me without any feelings of restriction. At a young age, race was not important to me or my peers and either no one around me seemed to care enough or didn’t notice the fact that I was a little darker. High school is where the game changed entirely, starting with the fact that it was my first real continuous encounter with blacks that I was not related to.

The first couple of days, I truly began to clench and felt uncomfortable with who I had been growing up. My skin chilled and bumps arose that gave an actual sight to the discomfort I felt. My eyes, previously giving off an open and anxious look, began to shield off emotion and give off an unapproachable feel. Being the only one from my middle school to attend Jesuit, I soon was cast into a situation where I was eating lunch and talking with nearly all the blacks in the grade. Even though I was lighter than most of my friends that I would sit with, I felt as though they accepted me into the “group” and soon felt accustomed to the routine. Because my ethnicity had never been brought to my attention or acknowledged by anyone I was with growing up, I really felt more comfortable with friends I had made at school that were not black. While I had always felt like I was somewhere in the middle of being able to maintain a good relationship between both my black and white peers, it became apparent to me that both ethnic groups were convinced that I was 100% African American.

It was surprising to me, and still is, to find out how astonished people seem to be when they are told or hear that I am both white and black. It is an unmatched feeling that leaves me self-conscious when I feel as though I fit into both racial categories equally and one group is certain I only fall under one category. I am in a fortunate position however, to bring a sense of unity and diversity to any particular ethnic group. The openness I now feel around my peers has diminished the tension I had upon arriving at school and no matter the weather, my skin and muscles are relaxed and warmed by the thought of acceptance. I will continue to have similar experiences in college and look forward to the approval and diversity I will be able to bring because of my unique position.

Photo by Jack White ’13

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The Only Easy Day... Was Yesterday

by Derick Liu ’12 Background: Because of my parents’ job situations, I moved frequently in my life to accommodate my family. I was on my first international flight at the age of two months old from United States to China, and I flew between United States and China four times before the age of six. I attended kindergarten in United States, and went back to China for five years of grade school. I came back to United States in 2006 for middle school.

A trickle of tears slowly strolls down my mom’s cheek as she quietly said to me: “Derick, you don’t have to do this, I don’t understand why you are so stubborn about this! We can still move back to China, you don’t have to go through with this!” Quickly enough, mom’s quiet murmurs turned into constant sobbing. Mom cried, and it was the first time that I saw her cry in thirteen years of my life. At the time, I was shocked.

“Ma, didn’t you always tell me that ‘The one who can endure the bitterest of all challenges shall be the most successful of all?’ Ma, I have not even got the time to see what America is really like! How can I go back? I am not going back to China!”

Starting in my seventh grade in America, life got weird. Everything in America is so different from that of China. In China, privacy is different. Friends usually walk arm-in-arm, but boy, was that not the American way of showing one’s friendship, I found out fast! Life was not easy. Also, Chinese normally speak in loud voices. In China, I was never concerned with the inside and outside voice idea. We always talked in a loud voice to each other, and that was okay in China; however, in America, talking out loud was never accepted as an appropriate action. Once again, life was not easy. At all the schools that I attended in China, I was the elected class president and was always the popular kid. However, because of my cultural differences, I was one of the least, if not, the least liked kid when I came to America.

Some kids threw food and trash in my lunch box at school just because I behaved differently compared to them. Some kids thought it would be hilarious to pick on someone who was different. These cultural differences gave me what I never wanted—loneliness. Because of these differences, I always felt left out of everything that I was doing; I felt so out of place amongst my peers.

Despite the difficulties life presented me, I was determined. I cannot forget the sight of my mother crying. My family has given up too much for me, and I am not going to let these efforts go to waste.

The beginning years were not easy. I was placed in ESL classes for the first two years of my academic career in America. I had to take all my tests and quizzes in a separate room; I was considered to be handicapped due to my language barrier. However, through my daily dedications and efforts, I have not only won my school’s English department’s excellence award consecutively for two years, I have also qualified for the AP English course in my senior year after a challenging entrance examination.

I was barely accepted into my private high school, yet at the end of junior year I was in the top ten percent of my class. I was unpopular before, but I broke free of my comfort zone by reaching out to other people and building groups of friends. I was ridiculed for my pronunciation accents before, but now I challenge myself by reading and speaking at my school’s public prayer services. I was a follower before; I shunned my own ideas in a corner, afraid that they would be laughed at. Now I take charge

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of my new environment as the executive board member of multiple extracurricular clubs and organizations; I became the right-hand man of my club moderators, constantly giving them my ideas on how to make the organizations better. I was reluctant to do community service before, but now I take time out every week to help tutor underprivileged Hispanic kids who have language difficulties. I was selected by my school’s faculty members to attend a privileged campus ministry leadership retreat; I was also picked by faculty members to become a member of the New Teacher Orientation team, representing my school to give advice to the new faculty members of our school’s community.

I came to know how to make life better for myself.

Photo by Jack White ’13

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Artwork by Cole Fincher ’13

Artwork by Zach Lucas ‘12

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Gilgamesh

by Blake Wilcox When I was thirteen years old, not quite a boy, and but certainly not yet a man, I read a tale set in the distant, exotic land of Mesopotamia at the dawn of human civilization that followed the exploits of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, “who is most eminent among men.” I smirked at that last bit. Surely just as eminent as Achilles or Beowulf, I thought, bemused at poets who assiduously claim their subject as the greatest of men.

But as I read on, I became aware that Gilgamesh was different, was more authentically human than other heroes with their comic book antics. After doing great deeds, Gilgamesh’s companion Enkidu dies, stricken with a plague sent from the gods, and this causes in Gilgamesh a great change. When Patroclus is killed, Achilles lets loose his rage on Paris, and Beowulf avenges the death of Aeschere by killing Grendel’s Mother, but for Gilgamesh there are no dragons or monsters to repay with death. The only thing responsible was Fate, fickle but inexorable in Her design. Because the King is unable to lash out, he turns inward. As he watches Enkidu wither, he becomes painfully aware of his own mortality, his own humanity. He ceases to be a hero, characterized by burly muscles and righteous wrath, and becomes a man, wrestling not with beasts but with those eternal, timeless questions that so define the human condition. He literally travels to the end of the earth in search of immortality, seeking to transcend the human condition. Though he, the greatest of men, exerts all his efforts and comes close, he never overcomes Fate, never throws off the mantle of humanity.

Gilgamesh’s struggle offered my simple thirteen-year-old self those primordial questions that I had not considered before. I thought about mortality and death, and then I thought about life. I was inspired to meditate on just what humanity is, and on what separates it from the gods Gilgamesh so aspired to be like. These deep and weighty thoughts led me to the weightiest of all: what exactly am I, what exactly is “I?” I had of course been using the word since I was a baby, and I had learned in school that it was the first-person singular pronoun, but these practical and grammatical meanings no longer seemed enough to satisfy me. Gilgamesh taught me to ask these questions, and inspired me to search for answers in other places. My bookshelf filled, then overflowed, and the pleasant musk of fresh-cut paper began to hang over my bedroom. Conrad, Dostoevsky, Huxley, Basho and Goethe were all great, but none stand in my imagination and my memory like Gilgamesh, for it was he who taught me to think like a philosopher.

With time, and with struggle and reflection, I gained wisdom, and with it the peace that allows me not just to tolerate my human condition but to embrace it. Perhaps I have succeeded where Gilgamesh failed, but I will never disdain him, nor forget the way he inspired me at such a crucial, formative point in my life.

Photo by Jack White ’13

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Welding

by Nick Brown ’12 My first day of welding class, which met every Sunday for four cold winter months, was one of trepidation, but, like always when I start something new, I enjoyed the excitement of not knowing anything and absorbing everything. Doing new things is fun; it is as simple as that. The hard part is finding something that will capture your attention each time you do it. For me this is making things: building something out of raw sources is enthralling. This profound feeling brings me such delight also because of its rarity, having only happened a few times in recent memory: when I was buying my first stock (I handle my own portfolio) and my first day of Calculus class, but both of these experiences are starting to lose their stimulating effect.

I have always enjoyed making things in my spare time such as the frozen margarita machine, made from an igloo cooler and a garbage disposal, but I find welding exhilarating due to its uniqueness: most people can make wood boxes but it’s a much more exclusive club who fabricates metal boxes. Very few people my age even realize that much of what they live in is backed by the unification of metal to metal and my ability to manipulate this forgotten world is empowering. But all of this was a surprising side effect of the class. In reality I had just wanted to learn a skill to build another whim of mine: a car. In the end welding turned into a sought after expertise by both friends and family: my mother wants me to make exterior wall art for the house, my friend wants me to build him a roof rack for his monster truck, and my neighbor wants me to build him a rain water tank stand.

When I arrived the first day I was expecting male-dominated, middle-to-upper-aged students, who wanted to do minor repair and farm work. It was nothing like that: I found myself both the youngest student (by over 25 years) and the only male besides the instructor. My classmates’ reasons for being there were also quite eye-opening: they all used welding firstly for making art; whereas, I was planning to use it for more practical purposes. This was shocking and I realized that my schema for what a welder should be and do was utterly skewed. We go along nonetheless with our common interest in the manipulation of steel. So our instructor started, he placed flame over steel and suddenly, piercing through a half inch think section of steel, was a stream of sputtering balls of liquid metal. I was hooked.

Using what I had learned in my class, I began my project with earnest but first had to practice.

I made two tables, the second immensely better than the first. Having not even started on the car, I was having fun: buying the metal downtown, finding a way to transport it (I had to use my friend’s trailer), cutting it and conforming it, bringing my ideal plans to reality. Then I started on the car, the big behemoth. But I had come prepared to confront: I had plans from Australia adapted to my needs, I had tools galore, and I had a job to pay for everything, I was ready. But then summer was over; my long awaited moment was tainted by the need to now focus on studies and write college essays, a creation of a less enjoyable kind. I long for more time to work on my project and sometimes I do find time here and there to do so. I am currently in the process of welding together the frame, from which I move to searching for a useable motorcycle engine. After that I will make the suspension and powertrain, all from scratch, and complete my vehicle with lights and horns in compliance with Texas DOT regulations in order to title and register it to be driven on public roads. I envision finding the time to finish during my spring and winter breaks and my ambition rewarded by the end of my senior summer; although, I have learned a valuable lesson about time: you never have as much as you thought you did.

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Artwork by Julian Michiels ’14

Photo by Jack White ’13

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UVA Supplement

by Brendan O’Brien ’12

“Ages 12 and under.” As much as we fight injustice, discrimination still reigns in hundreds of IHOP’s across America. In a world striving for social justice, how can we let ageism spoil breakfast?

Though I may order a Breakfast Sampler (eggs over medium, extra syrup) with a smile on my face, my yearning eyes always wander over to the kid’s menu. Strawberry eyes lock with mine, her banana smile slightly devious. She mocks me yet still tempts me, with her whipped cream locks flowing effortlessly down her perfectly round head. As shimmering globs of syrup drip from her sleek face, I admire the fresh golden tan only a grill can supply. Chocolate chips add the finishing touches: the perfect jewelry for the perfect pancake. A sweet rush of nostalgia floods my mind. I remember the innocent days of childhood when I could order two Pancake Faces without a second thought. Wistfully, I look back at the waitress. Cautiously and timidly, I unfasten my lips, my cheeks flush with red, the words on the tip of my teeth: “And an orange juice too, please.”

I couldn’t do it. The order comes, and I ostensibly enjoy an “adult” breakfast. However, in reality, all I can think about are strawberries, bananas, whipped cream, and chocolate chips. The pancake face is my secret desire, my unspoken love, but IHOP’s intolerant menu stipulations along with the accompanying embarrassment force me to falsify my want. Ageism and chagrin provoke my façade.

Maybe I’ll never again taste the delectable goodness that is the Pancake Face. Or maybe, I’ll overstep self-consciousness and lofty restrictions, and mature enough to be a kid again.

Artwork by Miguel Sotelo ’14

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Bacon

by Chris Hurley ’12 I like bacon. A lot. I suppose I always have. I love everything about bacon. It’s more than just an edible foodstuff; in fact, edible doesn’t do justice to the delicacy. My experiences with bacon reveal a microcosm of who I am and who I will become.

The first experience would be that in which the meat is being prepared by another, a role typically filled by my mother, whose love for me I judge by her willingness to cook bacon for me.

Superficial? Maybe. Yet her love is definitely more apparent when served with a side of bacon. But as I attempt to wake up, I find material inspiration that greatness, bacon, lays directly ahead, I need only heed the tangible signs. This inspiration comes to me from both the audible pops of grease in the frying pan and the pheromones that arise from the alchemy brewing downstairs. Tangible motivations, like those above, always encourage me to persist as well as to explore, whether it actually is bacon causing me to wake up, or my geometry teacher guaranteeing that with hard work I could ace her class. Perhaps it’s from my Latin teacher pushing me to yearbook, where I am now Editor-In-Chief, or my friend Mark encouraging me to showcase my vocal (what I like to think to be) talent, which I now use to cantor and to sing with the Greater Dallas Youth Chorus. All of these external influences have guided me into things newer and better.

Sometimes, regrettably, I have to cook my own bacon. My stomach growling, I stare up from my kitchen table down my kitchen corridor. Light-years away sit my pantry and refrigerator; this becomes a battle of personal will. I sit momentarily, pondering what food could actually motivate me to retrieve it.

Suddenly the metaphorical light bulb flashes, causing my taste buds to scream one blaring thought into my head. Bacon. However, I am forever uncertain as to the actual presence of bacon in the meat drawer, so from the beginning it’s all chance. I shuffle to the refrigerator, where I cautiously open the doors and search, bringing either great joy or crushing disappointment, but the regret of not taking the chance always being worse. This fear of regret causes me to take that anxious glance for bacon, to go out for theater, despite my rather depressing record of actually being cast, and even to apply to that college, despite the self-esteem crushing chance of rejection (hint, hint). All of this because success, those pink, fat-lined strips, could always lie there, waiting to be found. Yet, this journey has not concluded (that’s left for another paragraph to do). Smiling as I array the bacon out on the pan, I control each strip’s fate, a fate of refinement from their crude, raw beginnings into my preferred ideal form, chewy. Like all other endeavors in my life, I tailor them to my optimal standard, or, if there’s another person who somehow likes crispy bacon, I corrupt several to that malformed taste, reflecting how I have learned to work with others even if I don’t agree with them. Without care bacon can be easily burned, a club easily mismanaged, without good bacon, the final product can underwhelm, demonstrating need for quality preparation to succeed. My philosophy with bacon translates directly into my life, managing my affairs with care, and always entering into a situation with the quality tools to succeed.

As I hope you have noticed, bacon is more than a transcendent ending, bacon is the journey. It is a journey where many factors spur me on towards the unknown ending, with plenty of ups and downs along the way. However, not to chase this opportunity leaves only time to regret. I try to live my life to the fullest, not leaving any time left for past regrets. In this I believe the Great Gatsby is agonizingly correct. Despite the challenges, despite the dismal chance of failure, we must always chase the Green Light; we must always chase. This begs: Is humanity meant to chase? Is it just a facet of American Exceptionalism? Is it wrong to chase the bacon? Whatever comes for me, there will always be the possibility of bacon. Bacon is the American Dream.

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World Issue

by Akos Furton ’12 Immigration is a highly politicized buzzword that presidential candidates harp on. Whatever your political stance on immigration, migrants from across the globe converge in the US, creating a country centered on diversity. As an immigrant born in Budapest, Hungary, I speak Hungarian as my native tongue. At five, I moved to Dallas, Texas. My family cooks goulash for dinner, but I relish grilled cheese sandwiches. My life has existed as a jumbled mix-match of cultures, Hungarian values enforced by my parents, American culture bombarding me via friends.

In middle school, my friends frequently teased me because of the ethnic foods I often brought to lunch, traditional Hungarian staples such as goulash, palacsinta, and the infinite range of soups from egg to fish to tomato. To fit in, I begged my parents to cook American foods at home, and packed American foods for lunch. While I did develop an affinity for hot dogs and barbeque, I lost a part of my identity. As I entered high school, I began to express my heritage by bringing traditional Hungarian cuisine for lunch.

Unafraid to display my heritage, I have even taught my friends how to make a time-honored Hungarian dessert called piskóta.

While I am a US citizen, many immigrants are not fortunate in obtaining legal residency or citizenship in a timely manner. My family immigrated to America on a six-month work visa that required renewal lest we face deportation. The renewal process was a labyrinth of bureaucratic departments. I remember my parents running from office to office, denied for a myriad of reasons. After the arduous process, my family was granted an appointment with an official. He asked my parents a host of questions, but one question I recall: “Who is the ideal American?”

I have thought about that question often. Is it the rural farmer, born and raised in the country? Is it the basketball player from the urban projects? Is it the unemployed, former blue collar worker? Or is it the recent immigrant who can barely speak English? I would answer all of them; any person on American soil who seeks to improve his life through hard work is an American. From our diversity comes our strength.

Artwork by Dylan Suhy ’14

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Artwork by Jared Chalson ’12

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“Duh”

by Anonymous

Distant voices from across the room seemed muffled and vague compared to the crisp silence between Eduardo and me. Quietly sitting on chairs in an empty room, we stared at each other, curious to find out why the other was here but neither of us saying a word. Frustrated with the awkward situation, I decided to breach the silence.

“Hey Eduardo, I am John… Can you tell me how old you are?” “…”

Eduardo’s lips stayed shut, his eyes trained on the corner of the room. He seemed to wish that he could drill a tunnel to China and back with his laser focus. I did not know whether to pursue an answer or leave him be.

Nervous, I carefully opened my mouth to speak again. A continued silence ensued. I thought that he might not want to answer my question. However, I soon remembered that Eduardo had an inability to express himself in a way most people would normally understand, so I decided to engage him again. Because his mouth still did not open, I pointed to my lips and then to his with my right forefinger to indicate that I wanted a vocal answer. However, after thirty minutes of sitting and repeating, I began to regret coming to this center to volunteer as I witnessed other volunteers’ energetic interactions with their mentally disabled students.

As I rolled my eyes, I suddenly glimpsed Eduardo’s twitching eyes, with his left eye almost closed. His head was tilted slightly to the left, his lips clenched shut, and his arms tapping rhythmically on his thighs with an incredible energy. Curious, I decided to prompt him one more time.

“How old are you?”

“Duh!” he blurted.

I gazed at Eduardo with surprise for finally opening his mouth and answering my question.

I wondered what he meant to say and in an epiphany, recognized “Ten!” Excited, I confirmed with Eduardo; then he smiled, triumphant that I understood what he was trying to say. Abruptly, he snatched my left hand and brought it to the left side of his chest, where his heartbeat thumped steadily. This time, I could immediately interpret his meaning: “Thank you for patiently waiting for my answer.”

Waiting for Eduardo’s answer was definitely irksome; however, it was absolutely worth the time.

Eduardo conceived my patience as something way more valuable and meaningful than I had intended it to be. My first Saturday with him was a day when Eduardo ignited my pressing desire to both study and engage more thoroughly in mental disabilities. He taught me that no matter how disabled someone may be, he has the same heart as that of any other. Just because his brain works differently, it does not mean his heart perceives differently.

After five hours, Eduardo left with his mom, waving and air-kissing to me with his right hand as he held his mother’s hand tightly with his left. At that point, I fell on a couch with exhaustion, and felt my heart aching not because of what Eduardo is not capable of doing but because of what other people are capable of doing. So many people tend not to appreciate those with mental disabilities just because of seemingly irreconcilable differences. However, they need to realize that these people with mental disabilities are just like themselves, because these people are also humans. As a psychiatrist and a social worker, I will show the world that those with and without mental disabilities share considerable amount of similarities, and help the world to realize them.

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Artwork by Miguel Sotelo ’14

Artwork by Luke Olinger ’12

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Artwork by Ryan Cunningham ’12

Artwork by Tony Duong ’13

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Remembering A Lullaby

by Nick Erturkuner ’12 “Uyusunda buyusun ninni, buyusunde adam olsun cemo, adam olunca gitsin, buyuk adam olsun cemo, gidince tenis oynayip sampiyon olsun cemo. Uyusanda buyusun benim oglum cemo, ninni ninni. Buyunce okula gitsin Cemo, okula gidince okuyup buyuk adam olsun cemo. Ninni benim oglum ninni. Okulda tenis oynayip sampiyon, olsun cemo… Ninni ninni, okulu bitirip buyuk adam….”

When I was two years old, my dad started singing me this Turkish lullaby to help me sleep. Every night, I rushed to my bed and crawled under the covers, waiting for my dad to sing to me. As his mouth opened, I listened so closely to every word he said. I did not know what the words meant, but they quickly became my favorite words to hear. He told me later that the words told me to be a champion and to be great. Every night as my dad finished the song, he would give me a hug and kiss my eyes, a Turkish tradition. When he hugged me, I never wanted him to let go. I felt like I was in a fantasy world, a utopia from which I never wanted to wake up. My bedtimes were the happiest times of my young life, and they served a larger purpose for me. They showed me how much my dad loved and cared for me.

Yes, I know my dad has always loved me, but I did not fully grasp it until this lullaby started. For me, the song was more than a hymn to put me to sleep. It showed the bond that my father and I had developed, a bond that consisted of my dad teaching me how to ride a bike, how to throw a baseball, and how to hit a tennis ball.

So as my dad continued to sing me the lullaby when I was eight, images of him teaching me and informing me on life lessons ran through my head. Then, the lullaby made me think differently. It showed me how important my dad was to me. It showed me how much I loved my dad and made me question what I would do without him. My dad had taught me basically everything I know from how to solve math problems to how to hold my fork at the dinner table to how to cut the grass.

What would I do without him? As time has passed over the last 6 years and college has rapidly approached, this question has popped into my head a lot more often. Whom would I go to when I needed help with a girl or a math problem? Who would patch up my injuries and play the role of “Dr. Dad?” The more and more I thought about this, I learned that while my dad has been all of these for me, he has also given me all the tools to be on my own. He did his duty as a father; he taught his son to be independent. Now that the time has almost come to go off to college, I will take those Turkish words, telling me to go out and be great, with me.

I have become the man that sang this lullaby to me. I have watched my dad teach me all the qualities and lessons that I need to know. I have watched him support me in everything I do. I have watched him guide me in the right direction. It has come full circle as I possess the skills to be like him: a great father, role model, a leader, and a hero. Now, it’s my time to go out and be a “sampiyon” and “buyuk adam,” to be a champion and to be great in life.

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Girls

by Will Fonseca ’12 University of Chicago Prompt #3: Spanish poet Antonio Machado wrote, “Between living and dreaming there is a third thing. Guess it.” Give us your guess.

Between living and dreaming there are girls. It’s the unavoidable answer for a kid in my position.

I’m 17, I wear wiry glasses, and I’m underdeveloped. My skin is pasty and it blotches without even putting up a fight. My neck is long, and I mean long. We’re talking avian. I’m six feet tall and weigh 125 pounds. My head, which on its own accounts for about a third of both of those figures, hangs forward six inches when I forget to do my head-back, chin-up, chest-out Jean-Claude Van Damme impression which my doctor thinks looks normal. Indulgence aside, the point is that girls, for guys like me, exist in a strange place. It’s certainly not the one we live in. The customs are different. They seem to have their own interpretation of time and money and social grace. They move and talk and laugh with ease, even the nervous ones. There’s a languid buoyancy that makes them seem dreamlike. But bizarrely, they’re real. We, the nerds, are Tralfamadorians and they are humans. We are green and different. We are attached to them like a dog is to a vacuum cleaner. Pulled in by its mystery, its curious and admittedly intriguing grace, its hum, only to jump back like lunatics when we realize that it is real and coming for our paws. Whatever atmospheric stratum these things are floating and breathing on is not real life and is not a dream.

I’ll try to explain this in more understandable terms. The state of existence I’m talking about really comes into play when the two of us meet. The girls in themselves are humans like the rest of us, I suppose. They have flesh and blood and veins that are blue and hair that sprouts from the same places as ours. (I am forced to this conclusion only by elementary science; empirically, I remain unconvinced).

What creates the state of limbo is our lens. When we are brought into the game, the chemistry gets strange. A justly applicable example is the proverbial first date. I’ll admit to having participated in my first of these this summer. She was a tiny Irish girl named Eleanor (and she still is) who could deliver some fire out of her mouth when one forget to be careful. (She is also applying to UChicago). We went to a nice restaurant and then a movie, and by the time we got in my car to go home, around 11 p.m., I was far more doused in sweat than I’d like to illustrate in detail. The car ride made it worse. I was freaked.

I don’t remember the conversation very well, but I do remember getting back in my car after dropping her off at her house and thinking something along the lines of “what on God’s earth just happened?”

“Surely I did not say that.” Thinking back on it, this is the sort of stuff you might say after you wake up from a strange dream. The inexplicable conglomeration of people you’ve known independently at various

Artwork by Patrick Campbell ’14

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points in your life and who have seemingly nothing to do with each other. The strange plot lines: were you really walking naked in a mall? I swear to it, I got the same feeling as I drove home that night. I wasn’t me. That wasn’t the life I was used to living. There was this little girl whom I was at once totally obsessed with and totally frightened by, and she pulled me into a weird betweenness that was not a dream, because, as she later recalled, it was real, but was something far more transcendental than the potato chips, homework and worn out sneakers of life.

It should also be noted that Machado doesn’t seem to believe that the answer is ambiguous. In fact, he seems pretty sure that he’s got the right response. The quote itself is worded less like a topic of discussion and more like a quiz. I see the old fella giggling in his chair as he writes this. Girls were probably on his mind for a few reasons. He’s a poet. Sheer common sense says he was probably thinking about them. The numbers are there to prove it. He was also Spanish. The numbers look even better. If he wasn’t thinking about girls, he was probably thinking about paella or soccer. And though these are definite possibilities, I’m not convinced they’re the right ones. I spent two weeks in the Iberian Peninsula a few years ago – “exploring my Portuguese heritage,” my dad called it – and Spanish men, even the grown-up non-nerdy ones, are, if nothing else, romantics. Also, a trip I took to “everyone’s favorite collaborative internet encyclopedia” a few hours ago told me that he was a man who liked to poke around with married women. Yes, definitely girls.

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Photo by Jack White ’13