Who doesn’t love funny GIFs of animals. Animals give us a reason to smile everyday. If you had to pick between a dog or a cat which one would it be? I personally love dogs so its an obvious answer for me. I also wonder what would be the craziest pet to have…. maybe a bunny….

Who doesn’t love sunset! Whenever I see sunset I always have to run and take a picture of it. They are a way of making me calm down and enjoy the moment. It is nature at its finest. For whatever reason, whenever I see a sunset all my stress goes away for that moment and I can enjoy my time on this earth.

Deep, Dark and Dangerous

Filled with unknowns

Mysterious and intimidating yet so calming at the same time 

One crashing right after the other 

One rising right after the other 

Emotions come in waves some stronger than others 

The more you fight the current, the deeper you fall 

Farther from the shore 

You are told to ride the wave, just like everyone else 

A wave may never be stopped 

But it can be controlled 

What will make you unique?

What will anchor to your morals? 

What will be the reason you succeed? 

Don’t forget to enjoy the waves because happiness is not a destination 

Sometimes you won’t be able to touch the ground 

Don’t be scared

You must come out of your comfort zone and see what you can accomplish 

You will amaze yourself 

Your fears don’t realize how strong you can be

During the eye of the storm, we see the seas true colors

You must realize a support system is crucial for survival 

If the waves crash down on you, 

You feel as if the weight of the world is on your shoulders 

The pounding water feels as if its suffocating you 

You must get up before the next wave, 

Catches up to you

Create a rhythm, you cannot expect a smooth sea

You must learn to dance with the water

As you may already know from my blog posts, I am very big into sports. From a young age, I played every single sport that I could. Soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball, football, the list goes on and on. Without a doubt though, my favorite sport is soccer.

Well long story short, during my senior year at college I was playing Intramural soccer. I was the goalkeeper. During this game, our team and the other team were going back and fourth. The game ended up going into overtime.

In soccer, the rule for overtime is next goal wins. So everyone got more serious and competitive. Towards the end, a person on the other team shot the ball, and I needed up jumping in the air and then as a I landed I heard a pop.

I felt an immense amount of pain in my knee and knew something was wrong. As you can tell from the title, I ended up tearing my ACL. From the point on always thought, if this game did not go into overtime, none of this would happen. Of course I was angry and frustrated, however, I never lost my love for the game of soccer.

Although I am not able to play until next year, I enjoy watching professional soccer and my friends play as well. Something about the game of soccer puts me in peace, and that peace is why I will never stop loving the game.

As you may already tell from my page, I am a very proud New Yorker. For this video, I managed to safely travel within some of the trademark places in New York City to show the affect that the coronavirus has had. I tried to depict just how empty New York really is right now. It is a surreal moment being in times square when there are less then one hundred people, and you can hear sirens from miles away. 

For this video I wanted to contrasts how New York usually looks to now. So I managed to create a video/montage of picture that I took during the trip. Being new to editing videos, I found a difficult time being able to create the music in the background, and have some pictures be less blurry. However, through trial and error I managed to create a great finished product. I hope you enjoy the video!

Each year Marist College hosts a Youth Homelessness Awareness Event, where you sleep outside for the night, along with special guest speakers. As president of the National Honors Society Club, I was in charge of putting this years event together.

This event does not only help raise awareness for homelessness across the country, but it also makes you get an idea of just how difficult it is to be homeless. Through this event you personally get to experience it yourself through sleeping outside. Although it may just be for one night, the experience in it of itself stays with you. Hearing personal stories from our guest speakers adds another emotional element and hopefully shows students just how much of a problem homeless is in America. It may have gotten to the point where many students don’t even realize we see it every day. 

To see students actually show interest in this event is uplifting. Like I have mentioned previously, the turnout for the previous events are great, so it is clear that the students do care. Furthermore, many of the guest speakers truly appreciate the event and show appreciation. That in it of itself makes this event worth it. 

It is clear that this virus is taking a toll on all of us, but now is the time where we all must unite. Being stuck inside all day is not ideal for anyone, and can cause a great deal of anxiety to people. It is important to check in on your loved ones and friends to make sure they are hanging in.

For me personally, being from New York City, there truly is not much that I am able to do at the moment. I constantly go outside for fresh air and try to read a book and watch tv shows to keep me occupied. Furthermore, many of us would believe that being stuck at home with nothing to do would make us motivated, however that is not the case.

For me and many of my friends, we all have become less motivated for doing school work. This is why it is important that we all stay in this together to try to help one another in anyway possible during this stressful time.

The reason I picked this for my second post is because I have an emotional connection to it. Being from New York City, we are built tough. This video depicts what it means to be from New York City. With the coronavirus hitting New York City so strongly, it has forced us the pick each other up. New York City is built for situations like these.

            As Governor Cuomo stated, New York loves everybody, it doesn’t matter where you come from, or who you are; we are all in this together. This fight cannot be solved by one person, all of us have to sacrifice for the greater good. Having said that I know that the people in the front lines will be fighting for all of New York. 

            My neighbor works in the ICU unit in a New York City hospital where he works tremendous hours. He is also expecting a new-born son in a couple of weeks. With his wife secluded at home and the husband working all these hours, it is easy to see how stressful they must be. But they are a visual representation of what it means to be New York Tough. To see the husband come back exhausted and only to have to help his wife shows us how difficult this time really is. This is why we all need to help each other out during these difficult times. 

With our lives being completely changed, our “normal life” has been changed. For me personally, I have been a sports fan from the day I can remember. And when I mean sports fan, I really mean SPORTS fan; every single sport I love to watch. With that being said, I would normally have zero problem being quarantined in my house for a long period in time, simply because I was always able to watch some sporting event. Then all of sudden sporting evets across the world started to cancel at a rapid pace. We have now reached a point where there are ZERO sporting events taking place at the moment. 

            This has made me realize just how special sports really are to our country. Sports allow our spirits to be brought back up during troubling times, and there is no greater moment of this then after 9/11. Mike Piazza of the New York Mets hit a big homerun in the first sporting event in New York after 9/11. This moment alone gave New Yorkers a sense of joy and started to heal the city. This video attached to this post, shows some of the iconic sports moments in the world. To me sports is so much more than just a game. It allows us to forget about the troubling times in our lives, even if it’s just for a couple hours. I hope this video can do the same for some people and bring a sense of joy during this time. 

Welcome back to another blog post on ORBIT. This blog post is again going to be about the film “Rize”. I found this film to be extremely moving, with a multitude of emotional scenes. Of course, the first scene in the film was riveting, but I believe the scene right in the middle truly brought the whole movie together. The scene that I am talking about takes place at the 39 minute 45 second mark and goes on until the 42 minutes and 25 seconds mark. 

            In this scene we first hear a story about the struggles of one family and how they try to make the best out of the situation through loving each other. What I believe makes this scene so powerful is how the editor made a montage of that family truly enjoying each other presence, while in the background having Christina Aguilera song “soar” play. I believe the lyrics in this song add another layer of emotion to the scene.  Lyrics such as “In life, there is gonna be times when you`re feeling low and in your mind, insecurity seems to take control… love will open every door”. These lyrics truly speak to the whole meaning of this film, which I believe make it so touching. I believe the editor purposefully choose this song, in order for it to go with the story line. 

            After the montage of the family, the song fades in the background where you can barely hear it, and the mother of the family speaks out expressing how there is anger in the son through his life experiences. “maybe he is angry that he has seen me work all my life, maybe he is angry that he doesn’t have a dad”. Right after that line, the music comes flying back in with explosiveness, while the son is dancing aggressively in the beach. The reason for why I believe the son was dancing so aggressively was to let out all the anger he had while looking at the waves crash down. This was the most powerful scene in the whole movie. I truly love how Aguilera’s songs came back when we saw him dancing on the beach.

            Even the way they cut out of the scene was powerful. The individual stops dancing and looks deep into the ocean and the sunset. He slowly begins to walk away, then we see a bunch of seagulls fly around in the distance. While all this is happening, Aguilera in her song is singing “don’t be scared to fly alone, find a path that is your own… spread your wings and soar”. The timing of this scene and music was what made it truly so incredible. The edits, the song choice, the ability to zoom in at certain times all allows the viewer to truly understand what the son is feeling at that exact moment, and what it truly means to dance out the anger. This scene alone is what makes this movie worth the watch.