ODALYS CLOSET PROJECT

Santa Maria is known for its Santa Maria BBQ but also for their hard work in agriculture. Many low-income families are latinos working in an agriculture driven economy. Due to low wages, many families conform to purchasing second hand clothing or recycle their children’s clothing for younger siblings. I may not be wearing what is trending but I am grateful for the clothing that I do have because I am fortunate to. Students wearing overgrown clothing like pants and really worn out shoes became normalized for me as my years walking in and out of elementary and Fesler Junior High School. My initial perspective of this began to change because I noticed that many students and I were being bullied for our way of dressing. I wanted to create a solution without harming the environment. Some people throw out their clothing or store so many in their closet when it could be reused. I founded Odalys’ Closet Project, a non-profit organization in November 2016 welcoming the community to receive clothing breaking a social barrier. We worked with the Children’s Resource Center and also donated to other places. In Santa Maria High School, the Children’s Resource Center has been a key resource for the Santa Maria High School community because most low-income and migrant workers live around the area. The students go there all the time and it’s normalized. I hope to continue to expand this resource because it is essential to low-income families, like mine. In addition, one physical/mental health problem that we also address is reducing the bullying that students experience due to the way they dress or their family’s income. I think it is important to normalize where we come from and even though fashion makes statements, it does not define our potential. Bullying situations usually start on how we are approached and how we ourselves approach others based on dressing stereotypes. We de-stigmatize this notion of fashion and attempt to normalize second hand clothing by making regular announcements through intercoms and advertise our efforts through posters, as well as social media and school’s canvas.

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@OdalysClosetProject

Achievements:

22 April 2017 

Students Win Altrusa Awards - Lopoc Records

Altrusa Junior High Awards

 

29 Apirl 2019 

Youth Making Change- Fund of Santa Barbara 

Granted $1,476 

* Thank you for all the Support and especially Mr.Wall for the guidance and support. (Teacher and Advisor at Fesler Junior High School).*

LANDLADY - P.K. PAGE : ANALYSIS

In the "Landlady” by P.K. Page, he conveys that being overprotective can become damaging as oneself may think they are caring for someone but in reality they lose sight of their intentions. Page’s portrayal of the Landlady through imagery, selection of detail and tone emphasize the dark obsession hidden behind caring that occurs in this poem towards the tenants. 

First, Page’s diction personafies the house as a person who wants to take in tenants and care for them as a mother but is someone not mentally stable. Her caring ways start with her making the tenant’s “lives become exact” (Line 5). This house keeps them together and organized in order for the tenants to live comfortably similar to a parent figure or someone that could keep you accountable. The house’ desire to know more about her tenants is given human characteristics by the way her ears ”advance and fall back stunned” (Line 7) and the way she searches their belongings “when they are out” (Line 15). Generally, a bandit would have these characteristics as they prepare for their big move. However, city authorities and school authroiries also are able to search for others' belongings which is not something anyone would regularly do. Unfortunately this desire of knowing about her tenants is overboard even up to wishing them the worst so her curiosity can be fulfilled. 

Furthermore, the selection of details Page uses has a relationship with watching closely.* The doors being “like shutters on her camera eye” (Line 4) shows that she captured every single move making sure they don’t miss any detail like the camera one uses to keep a memory forever which is nice but stalkers can do it, too. Being very observant is not enough because yet she waits for the tenants to come home like a watchdog pricking when they sense their owner nearby. Without a doubt, the house goes through every moment the tenants live whether it is happily or sadily. The house “knows them better than her closest friends'' (Line 16). Page 's name given to the house, Landlady fits her well as the House has a lot of knowledge and we can use the stereotype that women, ladies, are the ones always gossiping and stay at home people so she has a huge amount of time to dedicate to gossip. This is proved through the descriptions and character traites a Landlady seems to have like a wife annoying her husband or checking him.

Lastly, the tone Page uses for the Landlady, the House, is an adoring desperiate tone towards the tenants. She shows her adoration by imagining to be in their shoes and their accomplishments and emotions. The curiosity of the “landlady” has become deperiate as she seems to drown in a slo motion time where she is not fed with enough information or her expectations are not met. As a home, she lives longer than the tenants and could receive many at different times of years and probably keeps wanting more people. 

In conclusion, Page’s complex portrayal of the landlady through a desperiate tone, selection of detail and diction through imagery fuses into a perfect and undertsable scenario where the house is represented by a toxic relationship as the owner, being the house with her tenants.

DECIEVED OR TO BE DECIEVED -- BASED ON 1984 BY GEORGE ORWELL

Deceive or Be Deceieved

Many works of literature contain a character who intentionally deceives others. The character’s dishonesty may be intended either to help or to hurt. Such a character, for example, may choose to mislead others for personal safety, to spare someone’s feelings, or to carry out a crime. In 1984, written by George Orwell, the protagonist, Winston Smith, lives in a dystopian country, Oceania, in which he tried to define every aspect from his life from wrong to right. However acting compulsively, trusting the wrong people, and becoming selfish leads him to unintentionally decievie the woman he loved and himself.  

It is evident that the first reason Winston deceived himself through his compulsive actions was from feeling free to becoming incredulous. FInding himself in an antique store and impulsively acting by buying a journal was the commencement before his acknowledgment of his criminal thoughts. However, his obsession to learn more and go against Big Brother drove him to further his thoughts into actions. He proceeded to write in his journal aware that “if detected” he is anticipated to be punished “by death, or… labor camp” (pg 94). In this situation, Winston is ready to test the limits of Big Brother and the power they have within the people of the Four Ministires of Truth. He internally battles with himself to seek his past, and with failure, blames Big Brother for his present where he has missing memories and is not satisfied with his way of life. He later meets a woman who he truly loathed for being a younger generation. Ironically, meeting Julia and having sex with her is a an action he willinlgy takes, even when jeapordizing himself and Julia’s safety just to break a rule. “I hate purity, I hate goodness” (pg 206). Essentially, for Winston and Julia, they share the same opinion and act against the laws of Big Brother and their tyrant governor with the suspense of being caught sooner or later. 

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