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I’m a big fan of true crime and thriller shows…
My name is Brina Gartner and I am very proud to say that my son is the Interim Second Vice President of this remarkable organization. I am writing this article to begin to heal a wound that I have carried for over 30 years. I am doing this for myself in the hopes that it will also bring some understanding to the reader about how different things are now from when I was young, and how important it is that organizations like this exist.
From a very young age, I became aware of my…
We are living in the era of social media. While we are constantly connected with one another and always in-the-know, we are also exposed to an endless amount of content from seemingly perfect people with glamorous lives. Apps like Instagram constantly expose us to polished pictures that make us hyper-aware of our own insecurities. The use of social media has become a norm among preteens and teens, and it is for this reason that we should be teaching our children about the importance of body image. Overall, there are about 3.5 billion social media users and while 90.4% of millennials use social media, about 64.4% of generation Z use social media as well (Wagner, 2020) [1]. With easily accessible mobile phones comes excess usage which can lead to teens comparing their lives to others. It is so easy for these kids to assume that these perfect looking people reflect how normal people should look. This can disrupt their self-esteem and hinder their well being.
As an English major with an emphasis in creative writing, I had the opportunity to work on an honors thesis for a quarter during my senior year. While it was more common to write fiction or poetry for the project, I chose to craft a collection of personal essays dedicated to making sense of some of the most pivotal and emotional moments in my life. As challenging as it was to revisit these painful memories, I found that writing allowed me to chart my thoughts on tough topics to gain a better understanding of complex events that I had previously attempted to suppress. What I came out with at the end of the quarter was an empowering product of reclaiming events that had previously broken me.