Year in Review 2020:
Junior Year at UC
Year in Review 2021:
Final Year at UC
Below is a picture of my desk at home, where I spent a large majority of my time over the past year. I wanted to create a space that felt peaceful, homey, and perfectly attuned to my own personal learning methods. As you can see, I love candles...and stationery! In line with my newly formed, independent study habits (mentioned in the video), I intentionally crafted my desk to be a place where I'd be undisturbed. I now feel excited to come home from class, brew a cup of tea, and crack open my textbooks!
Towards the end of my reflection, I mention realizing that I need a balance of art and science. So I made it a priority to schedule activities into my week that would feed my spirit, such as visiting the Cincinnati Art Museum every few months. Seeing mesmerizing pieces like this geometric light sculpture inspired me to keep doing what I love! I often find that spending time immersed in one field refreshed my motivation to enter the other.
Year in Review 2019:
Gap Year at OSU
This is one of my favorite pieces I made during my entire year in art. I made it for the Special Topics in Drawing course (mentioned in the video) in response to a film about death and spirituality called Fainting Spells, directed by Sky Hopkins. After watching the film, I reflected on the ways death has impacted my life--specifically, I wanted to respond to my struggles and victories with suicidal ideation. The piece acts as a timeline, documenting my journey from a child unplagued by mental illness to an adult who had to fight through an incredibly difficult year. The red lines represent significant moments of suicidal tendencies, and the black dots represent the ratio of tears shed throughout my fight. At the end, my feet emerge from the chaos: this represents where I am now. My soul's colors, which were one so drowned in darkness, are now coming back to me. Along the sides of the piece are song lyrics from Kodaline's "All Comes Down," a song that played a key roll in many difficult nights. At the top is a line from a poem by Neil Hilborn called "The Future." I will display this piece proudly in my home as a reminder of all that I am capable of.
Year in Review 2018:
Sophomore Year at UC
Below is my absolute favorite page of lecture notes from the entire year. We literally learned the exact reason why the Sun shines. How cool is that?! I'll translate for you...it's because of a quantum mechanical process called quantum tunneling. The Sun is composed of mostly Hydrogen, and Hydrogen atoms each contain one proton. Each of those atomic nuclei have their own electromagnetic charge, and so all the protons exert an electromagnetic force on all the other protons. That force is called the Coulomb Force. It causes protons to repel each other. But even though this repulsive force exists, protons still collide with each other. It's more likely that protons won't collide with each other than it is that they do, and in order for the collision to occur, the incoming proton has to sneak past the Coulomb Force and the other atom's nucleus to get to the proton. That process of sneaking by is called quantum tunneling! When the protons collide, they fuse together and form energy, emitting light! There are so many protons in the Sun that even though proton-proton collisions are unlikely, enough occur every second to give us sunlight.
Year in Review 2017:
Freshman Year at UC
Looking back at this video present day, I'm struck by how distanced I feel from the person speaking. In many ways, I had only barely scratched the surface of the trials that were to come. I empathize with this past self with a sense of grace and compassion, now knowing all that she is about to face. I'm filled with gratitude for the ways I've evolved, and with excitement for the growth that lies ahead.
Part 1
Part 2
This is some graffiti I did at the end of the summer to mark significant progress in my mental health. It reads, "I'm not sad anymore."
Spoiler Alert: it did not stay that way