April 29, 2016
OPINIONS
Blueprint
3
An open letter to my forever best friend By Asma Zaman, Co-News Editor Dear best friend, Throughout one’s lifetime, it seems as if there is a constant barrage of people coming in and out. Life changes, friends leave and the home you once spent your reckless childhood days in becomes a distant, nostalgic memory, lost amongst the sea of everyday business. As we move on with our lives, constantly rushing and advancing, we seem to become so wrapped up in ourselves and our own endeavours that we seem to forget those who have stood by our sides through the worst of it all. I moved to the U.S. when I was five years old, with barely an understanding of English. As the years passed, and I entered school, I began to have a difficult time adjusting to this newfound American culture. Ever since childhood, I always felt like the foreign outsider. Every one of my peers seemed so perfectly assimilated into American culture, that by the time I even got there, it seemed like I was way behind in all the new trends. I guess that’s where you came in.
As a recent immigrant from Lithuania, you also felt the same way. Although we were worlds apart, we were brought together as young children by this one commonality. I found someone who I was not only able to share my culture and traditions with, but who also introduced me to an entirely new culture of its own. From potato pancakes and European basketball to watching romantic Bollywood movies, you and I were far from the average children growing up. However, as the years passed and we began to grow up, we increasingly started to become regular, American teenagers just like the rest of our peers. You developed your own style and started listening to music that I had no interest in, while I began to read books and novels which you thought made me nerdy. Although we began to change ourselves, and drift away from our similarities with one another, we still maintained true to our roots and thus embedded in those roots was our friendship. Transforming into actual teenagers was a big deal for us, yet we managed to stick with each other through it all. From our first time trying on makeup (and failing horribly) to be-
ing able to go to the mall by ourselves for the very first time, we did it all. You were the one who not only stood by my side through the awkward tortures of middleschool, but through the tumultuous four years of high school. To that friend, I tell her thank you. Thank you all those late nights you spent listening to my rants. Thank you for bombarding me with 18 balloons on my birthBest friends Goda NaraPhoto by Asma Zaman day and for spendkaite and Asma Zaman at ing hours making sure Six Flags. my day was as special things will be different as it could be. in the future. Although the True friends are not easy to come future may be uncertain, there is one across. Today you and I find ourselves thing that reassures me about it -at the crossroads of our life. With our friendship. This is to you for truly high school nearing an end for both being the best friend imaginable. of us, the uncertainty of the future is plaguing both of our fears. Contact Asma at You and I are both wondering how azam2301@csd99.org
Having imaginary friends provides real benefits let go of them when I turned 13, they never let go of me. They were always there to protect me, and they helped me get through tough situations. I could go to and express my feelings, even if I couldn’t see them. I wasn’t hallucinating or schizophrenic. I just have a creative and imaginative mind and it is normal. Having imaginary friends is actually a benefit for both children and adults. It helps children boost their self confidence and helps them get to explore more fantasies and that can turn into reality through their minds. It also helps children improve their speech skills. It seemed like it was just yesterday when I played “house” with my imaginary friends. They might not be real, but I can feel them, and I thank them for listening to all my rant sessions and for helping my parents raise a pretty weird but sweet and amazing child. That’s me by the way, not my younger sister.
By Unna Fernandez, Staff Reporter When I was six, I remember being on my first date. It was with a little boy named Robert. We played hide-and-seek, sang songs and had our own tea party with my other friends names Kim, Jeff and Min. Those kids were my true friends, even if they weren’t real. Oh, did I forget to mention that they were my imaginary friends? Robert was my imaginary boyfriend incase you were wondering. In my imagination, he had dreamy brown eyes, and he was very sweet. But then we broke up because he cheated on me with this girl Monica who was a fairy princess, and it didn’t end well. Oh well. An imaginary friend, also known as an invisible friend, is a psychological and social experience in which you use your own imagination and turn it into reality, even if it still isn’t real. This mostly happens to kids ages two or three. Most kids let go of their imaginary friends at the age of 8 or 10, but as an 18 year old, I still have mine. I know, call me a baby, but in all honesty, it feels good having imaginary friends, even as I’ve gotten older. I’m not crazy, but whenever there’s a time when I have no one to talk to, I don’t talk to myself; I talk to my imaginary friends. They’re always with me, helping me, giving me advice, and making
me feel like I’m not alone. There were times where I forgot about them, because of course when growing up, you gain real friends. Growing up, my life was filled imagination, and imaginary friends helped me a lot when I was a kid. When I went to school in the Philippines, I was an outcast. It started in the first grade. I was a target to everyone because of how different
Illustration by Marcela Calderon I was. I spoke English well, I was more of an artistic kid, and I was teased a lot because of that. My classmates never gave me a chance to show them who I really was. Instead they just brought me down because it was a fun thing for them to do. The only friends I had were Min, Kim and Jeff. Even if I did
Contact Unna at ufer3007@csd99.org