When I hear the word "reflection," I think of watching a moving cloud in the surface of a glassy puddle, of watching a tree's upside-down twin ripple gently. Until now, my reflections have always been like this cloud, this tree: superficial, but with the potential to become deeper, more meaningful. Reflecting on junior year - more specifically, the second semester of junior year - isn't like that. It's like splashing through that puddle to rip the cloud's reflection to shreds. It's like diving into that rippling tree and seeing how long I can hold my breath under the burden of everything that's started to come crashing down on me.
It's impossible to reflect on first semester - not because it's too hard to think about, but because I honestly have very few memories of those months. Second semester has eclipsed not only first semester but also almost all of freshman and sophomore years (oh, freshman year... to be able to go back to that naïve girl who had no idea what awaited her). Tests? Plenty of those - and still many to come. Essays? I think I've written as many essays for WISH as I have for AP Lang - including the AP test and the 3-essay practice period. Project overload? That's what AP classes are for, I guess.
And despite the amount of stress I've been under these past months, there have been so many good moments that it's easy not to be too overwhelmed by the pressure. I've been accepted to the summer program for WISH and will be going to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for a week this summer to work with NASA employees and other girls from across the country, designing Mars rovers and competing for the best design. I have an SAT score that I'm pretty proud of even as I wait for the College Board to list my most recent score on the website. I've worked to edit, and been published in, this year's book for Creative Writing Club. I've gone on amazing trips with my Venture Crew, from backpacking up Montebello to biking around Angel Island. I haven't done very much that I regret, which is in itself something to be proud of: to make it through a time without making any serious mistakes.
That's not to say that this semester - this year, really - hasn't, and won't, be marked by sadness. Two of my neighbors, in addition to one of my former teachers (Mr. Naylor), have passed away. Many of my friends will be graduating in less than three weeks, heading off to various states to continue their education in new environments. My final project for WISH is waiting on the computer for me to put on the finishing touches and submit it before Tuesday night, at which point this semester-long space course - probably one of the most informative programs I've ever been a part of - will come to an end, at least until Texas.
As if those aren't enough emotions, there is one more: anticipation. Anticipation because, by this time in three weeks, we'll be seniors. Anticipation because in a matter of months, we'll begin sending off our college applications, and those of us who apply for early action may already know where we'll be going. Anticipation because one year from now, we'll all know where we're going to school, and we'll be done with the last AP tests we'll ever need to take, and another chapter of our lives will be coming to an end.
Anticipation because, just over a year from today, it'll be us sitting in the bowl in black graduation gowns and mortar boards waiting for our names to be called so we can claim our diplomas.
But for now? We've all made it through another year. We've survived the stress, the sadness, and the joy. We can survive one more year and help each other through it before we're forced to split off into the different paths of our futures.
As a final poem, I hope many people will be able to relate to this one: not necessarily the literal interpretation of the poem, but rather what it implies: the ebb and flow of memories, as we reflect on what we've done to pave the way for new experiences to take the place of the past.
Ocean Whispers
the ocean writes whispers in my ears,
speaking softer than ever,
telling the story of its waters
through the hushed waves
that carve away the face of the beach.
every sound details an event:
a shipwreck, the cries of the lost,
an oil spill, the deaths of oil-streaked otters,
a hurricane, abundant destruction,
impossibly more tales
in the history of an ocean
older than life.
i hear these stories
as my feet pad down the beach,
all these and more,
as the ocean whispers gently,
incoming,
receding,
an impossible mass of water
never to die
but determined to educate visitors
of its tales
before it is once again flooded
with whisper-stories.
~Becky Hill
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Friday, April 5, 2013
Eternity
Okay, so I know that I've already written a post for this blog cycle, and that I don't have to do another until the next cycle. That being said, there is one thing that I'd like to share before I forget, so here's Post #2 for this cycle.
But before you read the rest of the post, you should watch this video:
So, what is that, exactly? What is that glowing blue ball? Surprisingly enough, it's actually the flame surrounding a lit droplet of fuel. The reason why it looks so bizarre - and unlike any flame you're probably ever seen before - is because that's what fire looks like in a microgravity scenario.
FLEX, or the Flame Extinguishment Experiment, is an experiment that was performed on the International Space Station (ISS) to observe the results of microgravity of flame, and to determine ways that could be used to extinguish these flames (hence the name). I wrote a report on this phenomenon for my most recent module for WISH, and although it's not directly related to aeronautical engineering, it's still pretty amazing.
Why does the flame look like this? The easiest explanation is that the Earth's gravity gives an Earth-based flame a sort of teardrop shape (like on a birthday candle). However, since the ISS operates in a microgravity environment, the effects of gravity on the flame are essentially nonexistent, and the flame can expand in all directions instead of just upward. The flame also burns more slowly than a fire on Earth would. In addition to the spherical flame, the ISS scientists have actually discovered another phenomenon, called "cool flame". In some of the several hundred experiments they've performed, the droplet of fuel has continued to decrease in size even after the flame has stopped burning - as if the droplet is still lit. While the theories behind the idea of cool flame are still fairly rudimentary, it's definitely an interesting aspect of microgravity combustion.
As for the reddish glow several second after the flame goes out in the video? I'm still not entirely sure what that is. I haven't found any solid explanation for it, but I do know that it isn't cool flame. (Actually, I did find one explanation once, but it was extremely vague and seemed to be generally regarded as inaccurate, so from my perspective, the glow is still unexplained.)
Maybe it's just me, but I thought that the effects of microgravity on a flame are really pretty interesting. Wouldn't it be cool if all fires were globes (ignoring the fact that fires are damaging enough as is, of course!)?
And to continue the idea of flame:
Eternity
Will you come with me to search for eternity?
Will you peek behind doors, duck into corners,
strike match after match to light up the darkness?
Will you help me tear down the thin boundaries
between reality and impossibility, help me open the world
to a new vortex of opportunities? And if we finally find it,
will you leave me behind in a corner, in the dark
without a candle or a match, or will you stay with me
by my side through life and through death,
through this newfound land of eternity?
~Becky Hill
But before you read the rest of the post, you should watch this video:
So, what is that, exactly? What is that glowing blue ball? Surprisingly enough, it's actually the flame surrounding a lit droplet of fuel. The reason why it looks so bizarre - and unlike any flame you're probably ever seen before - is because that's what fire looks like in a microgravity scenario.
FLEX, or the Flame Extinguishment Experiment, is an experiment that was performed on the International Space Station (ISS) to observe the results of microgravity of flame, and to determine ways that could be used to extinguish these flames (hence the name). I wrote a report on this phenomenon for my most recent module for WISH, and although it's not directly related to aeronautical engineering, it's still pretty amazing.
Why does the flame look like this? The easiest explanation is that the Earth's gravity gives an Earth-based flame a sort of teardrop shape (like on a birthday candle). However, since the ISS operates in a microgravity environment, the effects of gravity on the flame are essentially nonexistent, and the flame can expand in all directions instead of just upward. The flame also burns more slowly than a fire on Earth would. In addition to the spherical flame, the ISS scientists have actually discovered another phenomenon, called "cool flame". In some of the several hundred experiments they've performed, the droplet of fuel has continued to decrease in size even after the flame has stopped burning - as if the droplet is still lit. While the theories behind the idea of cool flame are still fairly rudimentary, it's definitely an interesting aspect of microgravity combustion.
As for the reddish glow several second after the flame goes out in the video? I'm still not entirely sure what that is. I haven't found any solid explanation for it, but I do know that it isn't cool flame. (Actually, I did find one explanation once, but it was extremely vague and seemed to be generally regarded as inaccurate, so from my perspective, the glow is still unexplained.)
Maybe it's just me, but I thought that the effects of microgravity on a flame are really pretty interesting. Wouldn't it be cool if all fires were globes (ignoring the fact that fires are damaging enough as is, of course!)?
And to continue the idea of flame:
Eternity
Will you come with me to search for eternity?
Will you peek behind doors, duck into corners,
strike match after match to light up the darkness?
Will you help me tear down the thin boundaries
between reality and impossibility, help me open the world
to a new vortex of opportunities? And if we finally find it,
will you leave me behind in a corner, in the dark
without a candle or a match, or will you stay with me
by my side through life and through death,
through this newfound land of eternity?
~Becky Hill
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Becoming Somebody
So I've been talking a lot about being an aeronautical engineer in the past posts, but (with the exception of the poems/stories I've been including at the end of each post) I haven't actually talked much about my other career goal: writing.
In my first post (Galaxy), I mentioned that I began writing basically as soon as I realized that the books in this world were written by real people and didn't just spontaneously burst into existence, and I never really stopped. My parents have never entirely understood where this artsy part of me came from, a fact they would admit almost proudly at social events (i.e. Person A comes over to me and asks me what I enjoy doing. I respond by eagerly explaining my most recent story idea. Person A looks questioningly at my parents over my head. My parents just shake their heads and say, "We have no idea where these artistic genes came from.").
But wherever my love of writing came from, I certainly didn't put it to waste. If you were to look at all of the Microsoft Word files on the desktop from which I'm writing this, you'd probably be searching through files for days. Poems, stories, first chapters of unfinished novels, a mere sentence which clearly was supposed to lead to some story idea but has since become meaningless - these are all commonplace, especially if you were to look at the earlier documents. I've become better at starting one idea and sticking to it, although by no means does that mean I never get distracted by a "better" novel idea.
Here's the thing: When I was young, I was absolutely convinced that I could make a living as a writer, and just write for the rest of my life. Since then, I've realized that this was an impractical idea for two reasons. First, my elementary-school self didn't understand that for every published author, there are dozens more hopefuls who may never get published. And among those published authors, there still aren't too many people who will genuinely make enough to comfortably support themselves. And unfortunate as it is, this is the case for many liberal arts - the jobs just don't pay well enough, or consistently enough.
The other issue? Writer's block. I haven't written anything in months, and even then the short story I did write was for a contest. I can only guess at the source of this writer's block, but I'm pretty sure it's because of the stress to which I've been subjecting myself in the past... well, years. If this kept up, I'd never have a job as an author. And so writing has taken a backseat to the major I'm very much interested in - and that will pay the bills: aeronautical engineering.
That's not to say I've completely eradicated writing from my life - far from it, in fact. There's journalism, of course, where I love working to produce the newspaper, even if not everyone bothers to read it. Perhaps more importantly to my current writing, however, is Westmont's Creative Writing Club. I'm one of the co-presidents (along with Sofia Braunstein) of this small club, and this year marks the second year that the two of us, as co-presidents and co-editors, are self-publishing a collection of stories and poems by members of the club. This year, the book is titled A Cup of Chaos and includes 21 stories and poems by 11 authors. By the next blog cycle, eleven Westmont students will have become published authors!
On that note, here's an excerpt from one of the stories I wrote that will be published in A Cup of Chaos, along with my poem Galaxy (my first post) and my short story Experimental (two blogs ago). This story is also one that was published in three parts in the Shield.
Becoming Somebody
That day the rain was my red carpet into the school, the sheets of water forming shadows, my only companions. They whispered in their little rain-voices and guided me through the burnt ruins of the once-massive buildings. Ashes mixed in the puddles at my feet and painted my legs grey with every step.
A starburst of lightning exploded over my head, the rumble of thunder following quickly. The sound broke the clouds’ last resolves and they began to cry relentlessly, drowning out nearly every sound except their mourning.
“My sister and I, we called the thunder skyquakes.”
The boy had been hiding among the rain-shadows, out in the field that served as my destination. His hair dripped water faster than the sky itself and he strained to speak loud enough to overwhelm the clouds.
“Who are you?” he asked me.
I am shattered windows and unwashed dishes and crushed soda cans. I am pain and brokenness and the personification of all things undeserving of the light of beauty that I see shining down around me even through the rain. “I’m nobody.”
He smiled, his eyes casting a beam of something warm that spread over my whole body. “Well then, little nobody,” he said, taking my arm and turning me around to face the ash-world of the school once more, “let’s go make you somebody.”
If you want to read more of this story, you can do so here: http://figment.com/books/384558-Becoming-Somebody
~Becky
In my first post (Galaxy), I mentioned that I began writing basically as soon as I realized that the books in this world were written by real people and didn't just spontaneously burst into existence, and I never really stopped. My parents have never entirely understood where this artsy part of me came from, a fact they would admit almost proudly at social events (i.e. Person A comes over to me and asks me what I enjoy doing. I respond by eagerly explaining my most recent story idea. Person A looks questioningly at my parents over my head. My parents just shake their heads and say, "We have no idea where these artistic genes came from.").
But wherever my love of writing came from, I certainly didn't put it to waste. If you were to look at all of the Microsoft Word files on the desktop from which I'm writing this, you'd probably be searching through files for days. Poems, stories, first chapters of unfinished novels, a mere sentence which clearly was supposed to lead to some story idea but has since become meaningless - these are all commonplace, especially if you were to look at the earlier documents. I've become better at starting one idea and sticking to it, although by no means does that mean I never get distracted by a "better" novel idea.
Here's the thing: When I was young, I was absolutely convinced that I could make a living as a writer, and just write for the rest of my life. Since then, I've realized that this was an impractical idea for two reasons. First, my elementary-school self didn't understand that for every published author, there are dozens more hopefuls who may never get published. And among those published authors, there still aren't too many people who will genuinely make enough to comfortably support themselves. And unfortunate as it is, this is the case for many liberal arts - the jobs just don't pay well enough, or consistently enough.
The other issue? Writer's block. I haven't written anything in months, and even then the short story I did write was for a contest. I can only guess at the source of this writer's block, but I'm pretty sure it's because of the stress to which I've been subjecting myself in the past... well, years. If this kept up, I'd never have a job as an author. And so writing has taken a backseat to the major I'm very much interested in - and that will pay the bills: aeronautical engineering.
That's not to say I've completely eradicated writing from my life - far from it, in fact. There's journalism, of course, where I love working to produce the newspaper, even if not everyone bothers to read it. Perhaps more importantly to my current writing, however, is Westmont's Creative Writing Club. I'm one of the co-presidents (along with Sofia Braunstein) of this small club, and this year marks the second year that the two of us, as co-presidents and co-editors, are self-publishing a collection of stories and poems by members of the club. This year, the book is titled A Cup of Chaos and includes 21 stories and poems by 11 authors. By the next blog cycle, eleven Westmont students will have become published authors!
On that note, here's an excerpt from one of the stories I wrote that will be published in A Cup of Chaos, along with my poem Galaxy (my first post) and my short story Experimental (two blogs ago). This story is also one that was published in three parts in the Shield.
Becoming Somebody
That day the rain was my red carpet into the school, the sheets of water forming shadows, my only companions. They whispered in their little rain-voices and guided me through the burnt ruins of the once-massive buildings. Ashes mixed in the puddles at my feet and painted my legs grey with every step.
A starburst of lightning exploded over my head, the rumble of thunder following quickly. The sound broke the clouds’ last resolves and they began to cry relentlessly, drowning out nearly every sound except their mourning.
“My sister and I, we called the thunder skyquakes.”
The boy had been hiding among the rain-shadows, out in the field that served as my destination. His hair dripped water faster than the sky itself and he strained to speak loud enough to overwhelm the clouds.
“Who are you?” he asked me.
I am shattered windows and unwashed dishes and crushed soda cans. I am pain and brokenness and the personification of all things undeserving of the light of beauty that I see shining down around me even through the rain. “I’m nobody.”
He smiled, his eyes casting a beam of something warm that spread over my whole body. “Well then, little nobody,” he said, taking my arm and turning me around to face the ash-world of the school once more, “let’s go make you somebody.”
If you want to read more of this story, you can do so here: http://figment.com/books/384558-Becoming-Somebody
~Becky
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Lost and Found
One thing that a lot of people ask me, when they learn that I'm a part of NASA's Women in STEM High School Aerospace Scholars (WISH) program (see previous post), is, "What exactly do you do?" The answer is: A lot of things. I've completed 3 modules so far, each of which covers a separate topic, but so far my favorite module has been the second one. In that module, I was required to design a Crew Transit Vehicle (CTV) capable of leaving near-Earth orbit (NEO). [Side note: In science, doesn't it seem like everything has an acronym? So far there have been 5 acronyms in the first 4 sentences.] We had to write a report of at least 500 words about the design of our CTV regarding propulsion, crew accommodations, etc. Using the parts of the CTV that we explained in that report, we then had to draw a diagram of the spacecraft.
Because I realize that this is probably pretty confusing to anyone who doesn't know what a crew transit vehicle is, here's mine (which I designed with the capability of transporting commercial travelers, instead of just astronauts, to the Moon):
Lost and Found
found on a candy wrapper floating in the gutter after a rainstorm:
anywhere on earth is heaven as long as i'm with you.
found on a note falling out of an old algebra textbook:
every minute without you is a minute of my life wasted.
found of the bottom of a recycled board intended for a tree house:
there's nothing like spending time with you to make my day a little brighter.
found on the back of an envelope sticking out of a mailbox:
every word you say is another reason to love you.
found scrawled in the corner of a lab bench in silver marker:
just looking at you gives me the strength to do anything.
lost to misuse and time:
the true meaning of love.
~Becky Hill
Because I realize that this is probably pretty confusing to anyone who doesn't know what a crew transit vehicle is, here's mine (which I designed with the capability of transporting commercial travelers, instead of just astronauts, to the Moon):
A warning: I am a terrible artist. My space suits (#5, on the second level) look like blobs of Play-Doh, and the sleeping bags (#10, bottom level) look like... actually, I don't even really know what exactly they look like. Sad as it is, one of the few things I'm actually happy with is the toilet (#13, bottom level), which even then doesn't look remotely like a toilet would in space. Oh, and I'm moderately okay with how I drew the treadmill (#14, bottom level) and water electrolysis machine (#4, top level... don't ask why there's a water electrolysis machine). But even though I'm really pretty awful at drawing, I'm still super happy with how this design came out, because this is my first time ever actually designing anything related to aerospace, and I had so much fun designing it that I don't really care if it looks like something vomited all over it. I even had a lot of fun writing the design report (I interpreted "at least 500 words" as "Oooh yay an excuse to write a 2500-word report on the design of a spacecraft!").
There are some things that make me almost reconsider becoming an aerospace engineer, and then there are some things that make me wonder why I ever considered giving this up as my dream. This CTV design was one of the latter. After designing this, I know that I'd love to have a job like this for the rest of my life, except where my designs actually make an impact on the world. And if designing the interior was this much fun, I don't even know how much I'm going to enjoy any opportunity to design the exterior (which is more interesting to me) of a spacecraft or aircraft.
Module 4 (my current module) will also require a design report and graphic, this time about an innovation that would be able to assist astronauts in the construction of the International Space Station (ISS). Well, this should certainly be fun...
On a completely unrelated note, here's a little poem/story/thing I wrote last year:
found on a candy wrapper floating in the gutter after a rainstorm:
anywhere on earth is heaven as long as i'm with you.
found on a note falling out of an old algebra textbook:
every minute without you is a minute of my life wasted.
found of the bottom of a recycled board intended for a tree house:
there's nothing like spending time with you to make my day a little brighter.
found on the back of an envelope sticking out of a mailbox:
every word you say is another reason to love you.
found scrawled in the corner of a lab bench in silver marker:
just looking at you gives me the strength to do anything.
lost to misuse and time:
the true meaning of love.
~Becky Hill
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Experimental
These days, it seems like everyone is pressuring our generation to do more. Help the community, advocate for a cause, get better grades, and the biggest pressure of all: get an internship or a job. For a while now I've been searching for one of those - not because I feel like I should, but because I really do want to be more prepared before I graduate from high school - but engineering internships aren't normally offered to high school students, and juggling a job with all of my classwork just isn't really feasible. Which is why, in December, I was thrilled that the dean of admissions at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University sent me a message inviting me to apply for a program for high school girls interested in aerospace. (My first thought: YES PLEASE! My second: Wow, this is probably the only email from a college I've actually really looked at before deleting.)
The program is called WISH (short for Women in STEM High School Aerospace Scholars, which is way longer than the acronym, which should realistically be more like WISHSAS - or even WISTEMHSAS if you want to get really specific - but whatever). I applied for it over winter break and was accepted in mid-January, and since then I've already been hard at work.
The thing about WISH is that it's not really an internship in the traditional sense. It's a program run by NASA - specifically, Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. There are 312 of us in the program, and we're from all over the USA. Unlike a normal internship, which usually means assisting someone, WISH is a series of lessons that are meant to prepare all of us participants for a summer experience. The online lesson section consists of eight modules and a final project - I don't know the extent of the final project yet, but the modules consist of various assignments, from quizzes to essays to ethics discussions to math problems to diagrams. I've already submitted my first module, which focused on an overview of space travel, and started on my second. If I do well in the online portion of the program, I could qualify for the on-site summer experience - a six-day-long, all-expenses-paid trip to JSC this summer. There, I'd work with other participants, NASA employees, and student mentors to design a mission to Mars using the information I'll be learning this semester.
I'm really happy that I have the opportunity to be a part of this program, since there aren't many programs like this available for high schoolers and even fewer for high school girls. Even if I don't get into the summer program, I'm already enjoying the online portion, and I'm really looking forward to learn more about aerospace before I go to college.
On the topic of science and engineering, here's the beginning of a story I wrote recently, featuring a cyborg character:
Experimental
As soon as the first tendrils of sunlight tickle her toes, she knows
that it is time to leave. This has been their pattern for three days
now: They walk for hours, endless hours, before settling down somewhere
hidden for the night. Every morning, she has woken him up just as the
pinkest morning light begins to expose itself to the world. Better to
let him think that she is a light sleeper than that she doesn’t need to
sleep at all.
When she nudges him awake this morning, he greets her with a smile. It
takes him only a second to remember where they are before he rolls to
his feet. “Where to today?” he asks sleepily, fumbling to fold up the
blanket that has kept them warm for the past few nights.
She shrugs, crouching to pull on her socks and tie her shoes. “The same
way we’ve been going, I guess,” she says. East: endlessly east,
following the long road that never seems to bend, ducking into the
shadows whenever a car threatens their safety. All it takes for one
person to recognize her as the Engineer’s defective creation or one
person to know that the boy’s clothing marks him as a person from the
Depths, someone who can be executed simply for venturing aboveground,
and their journey will come to an unexpected halt.
“Then the same way it is,” he responds, slinging the bundled blanket
over his shoulder. He takes her hand in his, and in silence they trace
their way from the overgrown field to the roadway.
When he isn’t looking, she presses a hand to her chest and feels the
soft thud of her heart in her chest. Anyone, she suspects, would feel it
and think that it means she’s alive. But only her touch is sensitive
enough that she can feel the gears turning in her chest - the gears that
act as a heart and give her some semblance of being human.
You can read the rest of the story here - and if you have a Figment account, I'd really appreciate it if you would heart my story (the little red heart button below the cover). Thanks!
~Becky
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Future
 |
| With my aunt Tiffany at DreamWorks. |
My aunt is Tiffany Hillkurtz, the younger daughter of Gary Kurtz (who, along with George Lucas, produced Star Wars VI: A New Hope and Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back). She's had minor acting roles in the past and is now an editor for animated movies, including Madagascar 3 and Astro Boy. Normally she lives in Los Angeles, but for the past six weeks she's been living with my grandparents so she can work with DreamWorks on The Penguins of Madagascar (March 27, 2015). She invited me to tour the studios, and so today she showed me around the building.
For The Penguins of Madagascar, Tiffany is mostly working with storyboards - the initial drawings. She's one of the small team who gets to decide how long a certain image is projected in the movie, what sort of angle to use, the tone of the music, even characters' voices (to a point). When I was there, she played four different recordings of the same sentence, with different words emphasized to create different tones, and explained how she gets to choose which one works the best for her scene. In the short time I was there, she also explained how she can use up to 16 tracks (voice-overs, music, etc) at a time and draw on the storyboards to adapt them to her liking.
It was an interesting experience because before today, I never really knew much about the animation process or even much about Tiffany's work. It turns out that people have been working on Penguins for a year and a half and it's still mostly in the storyboards stage - and, if the producers don't like the screening that the editors will be presenting soon, they can still get rid of all of those thousands of hours of work and have everyone start over again from scratch. After Tiffany and the editing team finish their work, it'll go off to the animators, the lighters, the set makers, and way more people than I can remember.
I never knew how long it took to make an animated film before today. I mean, I knew that it took a long time, but I never really understood why. In case you're wondering why it takes close to four years to make a one-and-a-half-hour movie, here's something to put things into perspective: In the six weeks that Tiffany has been working up here, her finalized scenes - which can still be cut from the movie - total 15 minutes long. And that's not uncommon for editors.
I've never really considered following in my aunt and uncle's footsteps (my uncle, Alex Hillkurtz, is a storyboard artist and drew the storyboards for movies like We Bought a Zoo and Argo), and after today I've decided that I really just don't have the patience necessary to work in a job like theirs. I really enjoyed touring DreamWorks though, because it was a great way for me to experience one type of a workspace, and I loved learning more about my aunt's work.
In honor of DreamWorks, here's a poem about dreams and the future:
Future
As soon as I cut the rope
I can feel myself floating
toward freedom, toward new horizons,
toward the blank beauty of a clear mind.
The water laps at the sides of the boat
and the foot nudging mine laps
at the edges of my understanding.
I know the owner of the foot is my now,
my golden light to keep the monsters of my then at bay.
I know that the boy who sits before me
is the best future I could have imagined
for myself or for anyone else.
He is my clean slate. He is my guardian.
And most of all, as he leans forward
and his lips brush mine, he is the one
who scares demons from the dark depths of my past
and fills the empty spaces they leave behind
with the starbursts of color and light
that is my future.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Tasting Freedom
(So I know that I actually have another post that I could use for this cycle, but I made that one before the deadline that was changed, and since it feels like I haven't written in a while and I still have so much I want to talk about, here's another post...)
Air travel has always caught my interest, which I guess isn't surprising since I've grown up with planes. It was in eighth grade that I actually started being interested in the science of flight. Anyone who went to Rolling Hills will probably remember the 8th Grade Exhibition project. I still thought I wanted to do something regarding biology back then, and so I chose the (incredibly long and mildly pretentious-sounding) topic of the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system - basically trying to figure out if there's any hope of finding "aliens" on Mars or Europa (Jupiter's moon). While I was working on that, I realized I was more interested in the vehicles that made it possible to go to these other bodies than in the actual idea of extraterrestrial life. I've always been pretty good at math and science, and so I decided then that I wanted to be an astronautical engineer - specifically, designing spacecraft.
I let that idea stew for a while in my mind. After Exhibition, it was off to high school and biology class my freshman year, which mostly just reinforced the idea that I really didn't want to be a biologist of any sort. Body parts? Dissections? Ecosystems? So not my thing.
Being the overachiever that I am, I took AP Physics B the next year as a sophomore. I struggled at first but eventually the mechanics started to click for me. I liked learning about Newton's laws, and I really liked knowing more about how the physics of mechanical things worked. Around this same time I was touring different colleges, most notably Cal Poly SLO, where I sat in on a sophomore-level aero engineering class - and understood the majority of what they were learning. I didn't know anything about aerodynamics yet, but I wasn't lost during that one-hour lecture, and to this day I think that has been my most educational and interesting class ever.
Subconsciously, although I'd forgotten about it by the time second-semester finals rolled around, I think that class affected my decision for my final project. In physics we didn't have final exams for second semester since we'd just had the AP exam; instead, our final was a project. I chose to focus on aerodynamic efficiency - that is, the ratio between lift (how much upward force the air exerts on a plane's wings - I went over that a little in my last post) and drag (the air friction as it goes over the plane) that allows for the best fuel efficiency. After teaching myself the fundamentals of aerodynamics, I knew that I not only wanted to be an aeronautical engineer rather than an astronautical engineer like I'd thought two years earlier. I also knew that I wanted to work with aerodynamics.
This last summer, I went to a girl's aviation camp in Wisconsin called Women Soar You Soar, which took place during the country's (and possibly the world's) biggest airshow, Oshkosh AirVenture. At WSYS, I met other teenage girls who were interested in aviation too, whether they wanted to be an engineer, an air traffic controller, a pilot in the military, or just a pilot as a hobby. I met several famous pilots - including some of the WASP from WWII - and made a number of connections that I'm really grateful for, including my mentor, who works at Boeing as an engineer and offered that she may be able to help me get an internship there next summer.
A lot of people want to know why I want to be an aerospace engineer and the steps it took me to realize this. It's not something that's easy for me to describe - even this abbreviated (if you can call it that) version spans from eighth grade to now. Hopefully it details a little more about how I reached this conclusion though.
To end this astronomically long post:
Tasting Freedom
I stand at the edge of a cliff overlooking
the dark abyss of the unknown,
the forgotten, the left behind remnants
of a once beautiful world
without pain or suffering.
A strong wind pushes me closer
to the edge, the air carrying with it
the broken pieces of hope
from the world of pain. A single pebble
tumbles from the ground below me
into the ever-darkening pit
that stretches into eternity, daring my foot
to tip over the edge, to test the boundaries,
to taste the lemongrass scent of freedom and beauty.
And then, as the gust of wind slows to a slight breeze,
I spread my arms, take a step forward,
and fly.
~Becky Hill
Air travel has always caught my interest, which I guess isn't surprising since I've grown up with planes. It was in eighth grade that I actually started being interested in the science of flight. Anyone who went to Rolling Hills will probably remember the 8th Grade Exhibition project. I still thought I wanted to do something regarding biology back then, and so I chose the (incredibly long and mildly pretentious-sounding) topic of the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system - basically trying to figure out if there's any hope of finding "aliens" on Mars or Europa (Jupiter's moon). While I was working on that, I realized I was more interested in the vehicles that made it possible to go to these other bodies than in the actual idea of extraterrestrial life. I've always been pretty good at math and science, and so I decided then that I wanted to be an astronautical engineer - specifically, designing spacecraft.
I let that idea stew for a while in my mind. After Exhibition, it was off to high school and biology class my freshman year, which mostly just reinforced the idea that I really didn't want to be a biologist of any sort. Body parts? Dissections? Ecosystems? So not my thing.
Being the overachiever that I am, I took AP Physics B the next year as a sophomore. I struggled at first but eventually the mechanics started to click for me. I liked learning about Newton's laws, and I really liked knowing more about how the physics of mechanical things worked. Around this same time I was touring different colleges, most notably Cal Poly SLO, where I sat in on a sophomore-level aero engineering class - and understood the majority of what they were learning. I didn't know anything about aerodynamics yet, but I wasn't lost during that one-hour lecture, and to this day I think that has been my most educational and interesting class ever.
Subconsciously, although I'd forgotten about it by the time second-semester finals rolled around, I think that class affected my decision for my final project. In physics we didn't have final exams for second semester since we'd just had the AP exam; instead, our final was a project. I chose to focus on aerodynamic efficiency - that is, the ratio between lift (how much upward force the air exerts on a plane's wings - I went over that a little in my last post) and drag (the air friction as it goes over the plane) that allows for the best fuel efficiency. After teaching myself the fundamentals of aerodynamics, I knew that I not only wanted to be an aeronautical engineer rather than an astronautical engineer like I'd thought two years earlier. I also knew that I wanted to work with aerodynamics.
This last summer, I went to a girl's aviation camp in Wisconsin called Women Soar You Soar, which took place during the country's (and possibly the world's) biggest airshow, Oshkosh AirVenture. At WSYS, I met other teenage girls who were interested in aviation too, whether they wanted to be an engineer, an air traffic controller, a pilot in the military, or just a pilot as a hobby. I met several famous pilots - including some of the WASP from WWII - and made a number of connections that I'm really grateful for, including my mentor, who works at Boeing as an engineer and offered that she may be able to help me get an internship there next summer.
A lot of people want to know why I want to be an aerospace engineer and the steps it took me to realize this. It's not something that's easy for me to describe - even this abbreviated (if you can call it that) version spans from eighth grade to now. Hopefully it details a little more about how I reached this conclusion though.
To end this astronomically long post:
Tasting Freedom
I stand at the edge of a cliff overlooking
the dark abyss of the unknown,
the forgotten, the left behind remnants
of a once beautiful world
without pain or suffering.
A strong wind pushes me closer
to the edge, the air carrying with it
the broken pieces of hope
from the world of pain. A single pebble
tumbles from the ground below me
into the ever-darkening pit
that stretches into eternity, daring my foot
to tip over the edge, to test the boundaries,
to taste the lemongrass scent of freedom and beauty.
And then, as the gust of wind slows to a slight breeze,
I spread my arms, take a step forward,
and fly.
~Becky Hill
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