The Golden Gazette

A New National Anthem BY  ADA LIMÓN The truth is, I’ve never cared for the National Anthem. If you think about it, it’s not a good song. Too high for most of us with “the rockets      By saying it's "too high", Limón is commenting on the composition of the actual           song rather than the content or meaning behind it. red glare” and then there are the bombs. (Always, always, there is war and bombs.)      However she then follows that by going into the multiple negative connotations           behind the song, beginning with bombs, which she comments on the                          prevalence of violence and normalization of it in regard to this country.  Once, I sang it at homecoming and threw even the tenacious high school band off key.      To break up the "darker" commentary, Limón throws in a...

When your world feels like it has broken into a million pieces, it seems impossible to even begin to attempt to put any of the pieces back together. This past year or so has felt like everything is shattering and that nothing is being put back together. I’m not really sure if that makes me just a really pessimistic person or just unfortunate. In the past year all three of my pets have died, I’ve gotten deferred from what my parents tell me should be my number 1 school, someone extremely close to me is suffering from some pretty scary health issues, and at some points I feel I’ve been rotting away mentally. Wow, I feel like I’m talking to my therapist right now… But anyways, the point of sharing all that is not for any sort of pity or just because I’m an over-sharer; the purpose is to establish the foundation for why I feel like there are so many cracks in my life. However, to finally bring in some positivity, as a result of trying to piece back together my shattered heart and mind, I h...

  Insomnia. I firmly believe that insomnia is a beautiful word. If it didn’t have its already existing definition and connotation in the english language, I could easily see it being a beautiful name with the nickname Nia. The way the word flows to me is truly beautiful, and I wish the definition was not so negative. I’ve never personally struggled with real intense insomnia, but I’ve definitely had my share of sleepless nights. The way insomnia makes the body feel is terrible, but the way the word sounds flows lovely off the tongue and feels fantastic. Most words ending in vowels also just tend to sound a little bit better than their consonant ending counterparts.   I have probably the worst sleeping schedule out of anyone that I know. I fall asleep around 3 am, or whenever I finally force myself to attempt to sleep for the night, and then wake up bright and early at around 7 for school. Luckily we aren’t in person, because then I’d be up at the ripe time of 5:30 am. I am pre...

     Something that I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this week was the topic of “peak experiences”.  When I was trying to think about my different peak experiences I was looking for a specific date or moment that I could put my finger on as MY peak experience. Well, that was stupid. One, not everyone has just one peak experience, and two, it doesn’t have to be a specific moment where self-actualization happens. For me, my most recent peak experience happened towards the beginning of quarantine.  Everything I knew was changed and thrown in every direction possible. I am a person who is very resistant to change and I like to have constants in my life. As you can tell, COVID was definitely not one of those constants, and took all of my constants and threw them out of the window. All of the consistency that was in my life disappeared, and as a result I was given the perfect opportunities to really reflect on my life in general. Now that I had the time, whether I...