PEOPLE

PAGE 4 • SPRING 2022

‘Lego’ of stress

Starting college away from the familiar and safe environment of home for the first time can be stressful. Humble junior Shyra White found a way to handle her stress one block at a time with Legos. Suffering from stress and panic attacks, Shyra’s cousin suggested Legos as a way to cope. “Honestly, my cousin was doing it, and he was like, ‘You should try it, it’s cool. It helps with like anxiety and stuff. Like gets your mind off of it,’” says Shyra, who is colorblind. “So, I tried it, and ever since I started, I haven’t stopped.” The public relations major’s Lego structures have been a great pressure relief, “I feel happy. There’s not a care in the world for me when I’m building.” Her family has also been the beneficiaries of Shyra’s hobby. Her first project was a football stadium for her dad. Her brother received a football she built, and her sister was the recipient of a 3,000-piece R2D2. Her latest project is a 11,000-piece world map which is about 25 percent complete. “The map I’ll probably keep for myself because it just looks really cool,” laughs Shyra.

Story and photo by Ginger Kovar

UPbeat

In service

Hailing from Houston, junior Jalynn Banks currently is pursuing a business management major and hopes to be of service to others. “I like to help people, I love doing community service, and I do like being around other people in general, even though I am an introvert,” Jalynn says. A recent class taught her a more empathetic view of local businesses, especially restaurants. “As far as business, I look at stuff differently, and I think having a different perspective has really helped me be more passionate of what I really want to do,” she says. In the business field, using her passion for business consulting, she aims to help people pursue their dream. “Mainly, I want to help people run a business, things (they) should be aware of when running a business, and even in the case of sudden disasters, that people could still live out their dream and not give it up,” she says. “I really want to help people navigate through stuff like that.” What began with a job has become both a pastime and an evolving journey for Alexander “Alex” Hebert. “After high school I had this job building cabinets, wholesale cabinets, and it was an 8-to-5 type job,” the Kirbyville senior says. “It was a lot of fun because it was my first time experimenting with wood, and I just kind of took a liking to it.” Alex says he likes the flexibility of wood. “If you have an idea, an image in your head, you can shape it out of wood,” he says. Some of his recent projects include birdhouses and lighted cedar shelves, but he has a bigger project in mind — a cypress table. “I need to harvest it myself,” he says. “So, I have to dry the wood, because the moisture content has to be within a certain threshold before you start working with it. And then I have to plane and make sure all the surfaces are flat and straight. It’s a lot of stuff that I don’t really have the time or tools necessary for. So, it’s like an ongoing project that just gets pushed back.” Aside from the craftsmanship that goes into woodworking, Alex also has to use hand-tools rather than electric because of his small apartment. Woodworking has taught him patience, and to be more deliberate and focused in his everyday life. Alex’s past projects have shaped him as well. “Most of my projects are failed projects,” he says. “My most memorable one was a desk that I was building for someone. It was going well, up until a certain point where I wanted to experiment with epoxy. I had no experience with pouring epoxy or anything like that. I just decided to go for it.” After carefully cutting a design into the tabletop, his attempt to fill it with the epoxy turned out to be what he described as “a huge mess” which had to be scrapped. “Because I’m self-taught, I don’t have a mentor telling me what to do, what not to do,” he says. “My mentor is my mistakes.”

UPbeat

Story and photo by Ambour Leal

The Woodworker

Story and photo by Madalyn Blackshear

PEOPLE

SPRING 2022 • PAGE 5

K-pop Kollector

The widespread popularity of Korean pop music is one of the biggest phenomenons on the planet. Lamar University senior Jaquelyn Espinoza is one of millions of superfans around the globe. The Earth science major says she first gave K-pop a listen during the lockdown of 2020. “It’s been two years of being a fan now,” she says. “Really, I was just bored. It was a YouTube suggestion so I thought, ’Why not?’ and kind of got sucked in. It’s very addictive.” Of course, K-pop fans are widely known for their social media presence supporting their favorite stars. “I have a whole K-pop account on Instagram,” Jaquelyn says. “I use it to trade and sell photo cards. There’s a whole community for that.” The photo cards are often included when fans buy K-pop albums. The cards feature pictures of the genre’s biggest stars and have become quite the collector’s item. “I have probably 250 cards, and I only started collecting in December,” Jaquelyn says. ”It’ll increase. I’m nowhere near done.” She is more avid collector than most fans, with her collection spanning 31 performers, she says. “Most fans only collect, like, four. I’m working on my collection — it’s getting there.”

PAGE 6 • SPRING 2022

Story and photo by Keagan Smith