Letter of Recommendation
Resume
Slam Poetry/Spoken Word
Poetry has taken over my world for the past few months. I competed in a local youth poetry slam hosted by Aspen word, and won second place. I have preformed at the Wheeler Opera House and multiple other venues in Aspen as well as all over the valley. I will continue to preform valley-wide throughout the summer as well. I am also part of a newly formed Slam Poetry/BNV team straight out of YMHS.. We are called Speech Therapy and we just gained funding, and will be competing in national Slam Poetry competitions very soon. I will put a link to a video of my very first poetry performance and some of my work down below. Stay Tuned :)
Some of my original poems.....
Just A Little Nervous
When I was 11, I remember sitting in the bathroom stall, intently studying the carlessly scrawled writing on the cold smooth walls surrounding me.
The untouchable names of a higherarchy, greek gods and goddesses, also known as the popular kids.
Middle school seen as a makeshift mount olympus.
Then towards the bottom, where the artist thought nobody would dare to venture, I found my name, and a phrase.
Written in such a primitive manner, it was almost like descovering long lost cave drawings.
But this time, I was no aphrodite or stong mighty athena.
I was a village leper, cast out and scentenced to death by stones, stone cold words shooting with the intent of causing maxiumum damage.
Fat, ugly, worthless, mental, screwed up.
I thought to myself, no alyssa, they just don’t get it, you’re not mental, just a little nervous.
When I saw my “friends” in the halls, and they would greet me with smiles and a friendly “hey fatass” my hands would shake, and i would sweat, and the world wouldn’t stop spinning.
My voice wouldn’t function and my mind became an amusement park for the words that became the sticks and stones that hurt so bad they broke me.
No, alyssa, you’re just a little nervous.
First impressions were nightmares, and handshakes were handguns.
I didn’t just walk on them, my whole life was made of eggshells.
What if this, what if that, oh no, oh no, oh god no!
And then I thought it was simple.
Just go to therapy like everyone else and swallow this pill and you be happy and smiling and on your way.
She said to me, no sweetheart not anxiety, not panic attacks, just a little nervous.
As I grew older, the thoughts grew in my mind, expanding to a point of threatening the structure of my crainium.
It’s normal, everybody gets nervous especially during public speaking, you’ll be fine. Because the presedent totally runs out of the room crying and hardly being able to breathe just because he was asked a question.
Years, later I was Diagnosed, as if that was my new definition.
My birth certificate of mental illness, the official seal of abnormality.
I’m not just nervous, im being buried alive.
Crippled by thoughts and words with a vice grip….suffocating me, just like the pills i take to fix this.
Why aren’t they working? What are the side effects?
why can’t i control this? what is happening to me? STOP.
Panic disorder. Panic attacks.
Attacking me from all angles, because it knows just what makes me tick.
A tick, sucking my blood, or maybe my soul, don’t mind me I’m just not capable of saying hello.
I’m not my aniexty. I’m not a basket case.
I’m not a leper.
I am stong, I am athena, I am aphrodite.
I’m….you. I’m you, and you, and you, and all of you.
The only difference is, I’m just a little more nervous.
-Alyssa Szczelina
When I was 11, I remember sitting in the bathroom stall, intently studying the carlessly scrawled writing on the cold smooth walls surrounding me.
The untouchable names of a higherarchy, greek gods and goddesses, also known as the popular kids.
Middle school seen as a makeshift mount olympus.
Then towards the bottom, where the artist thought nobody would dare to venture, I found my name, and a phrase.
Written in such a primitive manner, it was almost like descovering long lost cave drawings.
But this time, I was no aphrodite or stong mighty athena.
I was a village leper, cast out and scentenced to death by stones, stone cold words shooting with the intent of causing maxiumum damage.
Fat, ugly, worthless, mental, screwed up.
I thought to myself, no alyssa, they just don’t get it, you’re not mental, just a little nervous.
When I saw my “friends” in the halls, and they would greet me with smiles and a friendly “hey fatass” my hands would shake, and i would sweat, and the world wouldn’t stop spinning.
My voice wouldn’t function and my mind became an amusement park for the words that became the sticks and stones that hurt so bad they broke me.
No, alyssa, you’re just a little nervous.
First impressions were nightmares, and handshakes were handguns.
I didn’t just walk on them, my whole life was made of eggshells.
What if this, what if that, oh no, oh no, oh god no!
And then I thought it was simple.
Just go to therapy like everyone else and swallow this pill and you be happy and smiling and on your way.
She said to me, no sweetheart not anxiety, not panic attacks, just a little nervous.
As I grew older, the thoughts grew in my mind, expanding to a point of threatening the structure of my crainium.
It’s normal, everybody gets nervous especially during public speaking, you’ll be fine. Because the presedent totally runs out of the room crying and hardly being able to breathe just because he was asked a question.
Years, later I was Diagnosed, as if that was my new definition.
My birth certificate of mental illness, the official seal of abnormality.
I’m not just nervous, im being buried alive.
Crippled by thoughts and words with a vice grip….suffocating me, just like the pills i take to fix this.
Why aren’t they working? What are the side effects?
why can’t i control this? what is happening to me? STOP.
Panic disorder. Panic attacks.
Attacking me from all angles, because it knows just what makes me tick.
A tick, sucking my blood, or maybe my soul, don’t mind me I’m just not capable of saying hello.
I’m not my aniexty. I’m not a basket case.
I’m not a leper.
I am stong, I am athena, I am aphrodite.
I’m….you. I’m you, and you, and you, and all of you.
The only difference is, I’m just a little more nervous.
-Alyssa Szczelina
Home
They always say home is where the heart is,
But you have made a home inside of my heart.
You had a different idea of what an address should be,
Your humble abode located on the corner of my lungs and major arteries.
The slots between my ribs became the steps to your front porch.
And you walk inside this house like it was always meant to be yours.
The truth is you were completely uninvited,
Dragging in the filth from your cloudy intentions on the bottoms of your bare feet.
Your realtor was reality,
but she must not have told you this property is not for sale.
So despite my protest you made yourself comfortable.
Put up your barbed wire picket fences.
Left the key to my heart under the mat that you wipe your feet on.
Brought in box after cardboard box, filled with expired memories, invalid love letters and eviction notices.
You see, you were supposed to light up my life, but you can’t even pay the electricity bill.
What happened to the last heart you moved into?
You see I’m no expert in real estate, but I know she wanted you gone.
You made a mess everywhere you went, a mess that she would spend countless days cleaning up with vacuums and Prozac.
You tore holes in her throat because her lungs would no longer scream your name.
Yet you dare question me when my housewarming gift is a cold shoulder.
You see, home is not physical place but it is when you crawled into my skin, and wedged yourself right next to my heart so you could hear its continuous cold beating, as if that was a right not a privilege.
You turned my heart into a compass that never fails to point back to you.
How do you keep a landlord if you can’t pay the rent?
How do you keep a lover if you cannot pay them in respect?
It was on moving day that I realized that this was the only time of day you have ever given me.
Box after cardboard box filled with what could have been.
Filled my heart with only you, every piece of me shoved into cramped spaces.
Slowly choking me out because I was not a part of your decor.
It was on moving day that I realized I wanted you gone.
You see home is not an address, but it is when you made yourself cozy in my mind.
Plagued my thoughts with spatters of you, painting a picture that was far from my own.
You not only moved in, you infiltrated my heart, knocked down the only barriers that ever loved you, you left nothing of myself for myself.
Because of you my heart will go hungry.
After you, this house will stay empty.
Your memory like wallpaper, my denial the glue.
Everything in this house once belonged to you.
It will always belong to you.
Because you see, they always say home is where the heart is.
But you have made a home inside of my heart.
This home will never belong to me.
Because after all, you never did give me back the key.
They always say home is where the heart is,
But you have made a home inside of my heart.
You had a different idea of what an address should be,
Your humble abode located on the corner of my lungs and major arteries.
The slots between my ribs became the steps to your front porch.
And you walk inside this house like it was always meant to be yours.
The truth is you were completely uninvited,
Dragging in the filth from your cloudy intentions on the bottoms of your bare feet.
Your realtor was reality,
but she must not have told you this property is not for sale.
So despite my protest you made yourself comfortable.
Put up your barbed wire picket fences.
Left the key to my heart under the mat that you wipe your feet on.
Brought in box after cardboard box, filled with expired memories, invalid love letters and eviction notices.
You see, you were supposed to light up my life, but you can’t even pay the electricity bill.
What happened to the last heart you moved into?
You see I’m no expert in real estate, but I know she wanted you gone.
You made a mess everywhere you went, a mess that she would spend countless days cleaning up with vacuums and Prozac.
You tore holes in her throat because her lungs would no longer scream your name.
Yet you dare question me when my housewarming gift is a cold shoulder.
You see, home is not physical place but it is when you crawled into my skin, and wedged yourself right next to my heart so you could hear its continuous cold beating, as if that was a right not a privilege.
You turned my heart into a compass that never fails to point back to you.
How do you keep a landlord if you can’t pay the rent?
How do you keep a lover if you cannot pay them in respect?
It was on moving day that I realized that this was the only time of day you have ever given me.
Box after cardboard box filled with what could have been.
Filled my heart with only you, every piece of me shoved into cramped spaces.
Slowly choking me out because I was not a part of your decor.
It was on moving day that I realized I wanted you gone.
You see home is not an address, but it is when you made yourself cozy in my mind.
Plagued my thoughts with spatters of you, painting a picture that was far from my own.
You not only moved in, you infiltrated my heart, knocked down the only barriers that ever loved you, you left nothing of myself for myself.
Because of you my heart will go hungry.
After you, this house will stay empty.
Your memory like wallpaper, my denial the glue.
Everything in this house once belonged to you.
It will always belong to you.
Because you see, they always say home is where the heart is.
But you have made a home inside of my heart.
This home will never belong to me.
Because after all, you never did give me back the key.
This Body
There are stories painted on this body with brushstrokes of stretch marks, rolls and curves carved into flesh with sculpting knives, stories of shame and torture.
This body knows what it's like to be made only of other people's definitions.
This body knows what it's like to have fat be the first thing they notice.
This body knows only one side of a piggy back ride.
This body knows what it's like to be picked last in gym class.
Don’t play tag for fear that you can’t run as fast.
This body knows eating alone.
This body knows skipping lunch.
This body knows ‘go eat a salad.”
This body knows “oh shes eating a salad? who is she kidding?”
This body knows numbers are her enemy.
This body knows spoons and forks can only be secret lovers.
This body knows sitting in the pantry at 2 am.
This body knows dinner as a battle.
Your either feeding a disease or fighting it.
This body knows looking down at your feet as the doctors takes your weight.
This body knows its not healthy,
This body knows no other comfort.
This body knows tears in the fitting room.
This body knows “Sorry we don’t carry your size.”
This body knows stores she cannot even walk into.
This first time I was called fat I was seven.
My only knowledge of beauty was my mother.
Not thigh gaps and hip bones.
This body knows being a slave to a scale.
This body knows how it feels to be the fat friend.
This body knows shame as a pant size.
This body does not know what it's like to blow out your birthday candles and not wish to be skinny.
This body knows locker rooms as torture chambers.
This body knows changing in the bathroom stall instead.
This body knows picking apart itself and never being satisfied.
This body does not know bikinis.
This body knows diets all too well.
This body knows that it has to have will power.
This body knows demons hide in her mirror.
This body thinks nobody will ever love her.
This body knows being looked down upon.
This body only knows plus size.
This body knows two sides of the story.
This shame will not define me.
This fat will not confine me.
You can’t eat that.
You’re skipping dinner tonight.
This body knows stabbing itself in the back.
This body knows being a best friend and a villain.
Alyssa, you wouldn’t even let a friend talk to you like that.
This body knows its own stinging insults.
This body knows how it feels to always hate yourself.
I cannot remember feeling beautiful.
This body knows having its beauty corrupted.
This body knows self loathing as a daily ritual.
This body knows itself as an eye sore.
Does this body know it's not it’s job to be pretty?
That your relationship with gravity does not determine your worth?
That “Fat girl” shouldn't have the power to condemn you?
That skinny never did mean happy?
This body knows shame, torture, and tears.
But this body knows the true definition of beauty.
This body knows beautiful memories.
This body knows passions and dreams.
This body knows how to think for itself.
This body knows how to paint its own pictures.
This body knows that numbers are just numbers.
Food is just a basic human necessity, not a relentless enemy.
This body knows who she is.
This body knows no boundaries.
This body knows more than just pretty.
This body is okay with taking up space.
This body knows self respect.
This body knows she can love herself.
And this body is sick and tired of hiding away.
Of the shame, and always looking down.
This body is my body.
This body will know only what I want it to.
Because your body should already know that my body, does not exist to please you.
There are stories painted on this body with brushstrokes of stretch marks, rolls and curves carved into flesh with sculpting knives, stories of shame and torture.
This body knows what it's like to be made only of other people's definitions.
This body knows what it's like to have fat be the first thing they notice.
This body knows only one side of a piggy back ride.
This body knows what it's like to be picked last in gym class.
Don’t play tag for fear that you can’t run as fast.
This body knows eating alone.
This body knows skipping lunch.
This body knows ‘go eat a salad.”
This body knows “oh shes eating a salad? who is she kidding?”
This body knows numbers are her enemy.
This body knows spoons and forks can only be secret lovers.
This body knows sitting in the pantry at 2 am.
This body knows dinner as a battle.
Your either feeding a disease or fighting it.
This body knows looking down at your feet as the doctors takes your weight.
This body knows its not healthy,
This body knows no other comfort.
This body knows tears in the fitting room.
This body knows “Sorry we don’t carry your size.”
This body knows stores she cannot even walk into.
This first time I was called fat I was seven.
My only knowledge of beauty was my mother.
Not thigh gaps and hip bones.
This body knows being a slave to a scale.
This body knows how it feels to be the fat friend.
This body knows shame as a pant size.
This body does not know what it's like to blow out your birthday candles and not wish to be skinny.
This body knows locker rooms as torture chambers.
This body knows changing in the bathroom stall instead.
This body knows picking apart itself and never being satisfied.
This body does not know bikinis.
This body knows diets all too well.
This body knows that it has to have will power.
This body knows demons hide in her mirror.
This body thinks nobody will ever love her.
This body knows being looked down upon.
This body only knows plus size.
This body knows two sides of the story.
This shame will not define me.
This fat will not confine me.
You can’t eat that.
You’re skipping dinner tonight.
This body knows stabbing itself in the back.
This body knows being a best friend and a villain.
Alyssa, you wouldn’t even let a friend talk to you like that.
This body knows its own stinging insults.
This body knows how it feels to always hate yourself.
I cannot remember feeling beautiful.
This body knows having its beauty corrupted.
This body knows self loathing as a daily ritual.
This body knows itself as an eye sore.
Does this body know it's not it’s job to be pretty?
That your relationship with gravity does not determine your worth?
That “Fat girl” shouldn't have the power to condemn you?
That skinny never did mean happy?
This body knows shame, torture, and tears.
But this body knows the true definition of beauty.
This body knows beautiful memories.
This body knows passions and dreams.
This body knows how to think for itself.
This body knows how to paint its own pictures.
This body knows that numbers are just numbers.
Food is just a basic human necessity, not a relentless enemy.
This body knows who she is.
This body knows no boundaries.
This body knows more than just pretty.
This body is okay with taking up space.
This body knows self respect.
This body knows she can love herself.
And this body is sick and tired of hiding away.
Of the shame, and always looking down.
This body is my body.
This body will know only what I want it to.
Because your body should already know that my body, does not exist to please you.
Restorative Justice Training Certificate
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Puppy Mills
Ever since my mom told me she had adopted our family dog from an organization that rescues dogs from puppy mills, I have been interested in learning about them. Before my mom had adopted our dog and told me about the place she came from, I had no clue what a puppy mill was, I hadn't even heard about it before. So over the course of two years, I have done my research on puppy mills. From an avid animal lover's standpoint, this information breaks my heart. Puppy mills are basically large-scale commercial dog breeding operations where profit takes priority over the overall heath and well being of the dogs being bred. Puppy Mills started in the post World-War || era, because mid-western farmers were looking for others ways to create profit. There are an estimated 4,000 puppy mills in the U.S that produce half a million puppies per year. In puppy mills, female dogs are bred every time they are in heat (every six months) in order to increase profit. The puppies are then taken from their mother at about 5-6 weeks old (well before the recommended age) where they are sold to a "Broker" or "Dealer" that distributes the puppies to pet stores all across the country for resale. Puppy mills usually house dogs in overcrowded, and unsanitary conditions. They are stuffed in cages that are often too small for then to even stand up in. To minimize waste cleanup, these cages have wire flooring, that allows the waste to fall through the holes, but these wire floors injure their paws and legs. These cages are stacked on top of each other in columns, and the dogs at the bottom are often the most ill, because all of the waste from the other dogs that falls on top of them.. The dogs often chew on the wire cages, resulting in their teeth and gums becoming infected and slowly rotting away, and eventually the infection will spread, rotting away their whole lower jaw completely away leaving only a flap of skin, and finally spreading into the whole skull. These dogs do not receive proper vet care, food, water, and socialization. These dogs have many medical issues, due to years of neglect. These dogs often require years of effort in order to rehabilitate them socially, because they have never been touched by humans. It's true, they go their life without being touched by a human even once. They are only fed through the holes in their wire prisons. Breeder dogs spend their entire lives confined inside of cages. The U..S Department of Agriculture has set standards for the conditions of puppy mills, and unfortuneately, these conditions are well within those standards. The U.S.D.A says that these are acceptable and addiquite conditions for breeding dogs. Once a breeder dog has reached the age of four, they are no longer able to breed, and the serve no use to the puppy mill breeders. These dogs are often killed, or in rare instances given to shelters or dog auctions. Dog auctions are a huge part of the puppy mill industry. Dog Auctions are auctions where dogs that are too old to breed, too sick to breed, are deformed, or are simply not wanted by the breeder anymore, are sold. They are sold to other puppy mill breeders. More than 1,000 dogs are sold at each auction. They are sold for as low as a penny, and there are only valued based their breeding abilities. The dogs that do not sell are often killed after the auction is over. These dog auctions are where most Puppy Mill Dog rescuing organizations rescue the dogs. They try to buy off and save the most sick, or oldest dogs to save them from being killed. They also rescue the dogs that do not get sold. This is where my dog got rescued from. The majority of puppy mills are in the states of Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri. Missouri has been labeled the "Puppy Mill Capitol of the U.S". The majority of puppy mill puppies are sold to pet stores, but they are also sold online, or in the newspaper. Be careful of where you get your pets from, because you can be unknowingly supporting this disgusting industry, as a lot of Americans are. Always insist on seeing the owners property, and meeting the parents of the dog you are getting, if you must buy from a breeder. If they are responsible, caring breeders, they will welcome you and show you everything. There are many lovely Mill dog rescue organizations right here in Colorado, such as Breeder Release Adoptions, and National Mill Dog Rescue. Adopt, don't shop.
The amazing story of Lily, a puppy mill dog <3
Many other puppy mill dogs have similar stories to hers, please, take the time to listen to them.