My Experience during Hurricane Sandy:

by Juliana Maronilla 

Someone might call me superstitious, but at least a week before Sandy I was praying that some phenomenon would wreck my boring little town, canceling school. Little did I know that such a wish was possible. Before Sandy hit New York, I found myself worrying heavily about completing my honors math homework and the capacity of the storm. During Sandy, those worries faded quickly. I went on several weather stations frequently in obsession on the storm’s magnitude, fascinated with the idea of a hurricane hitting New York. But the news came out eventually, that the storm was a tropical storm in my area. My hopes died down a bit, although the wreck clearly devastated my town, Scarsdale. First, the most horrible news that I learned later was the death of two boys because a tree fell on a house. Second, was the week-long closing of school and power-outages. I remember asking a friend when school reopened how she dealt with her house’s lacks of power. She told me that she went to stay at her sister’s house in Long Island (ironically) in a location where there was no flooding. The hysteria because of Sandy became real to me that week as my dad shared news of very long lines of cars at gas stations. As for my family and our house, we survived with little trouble. A tree fell in our backyard from the neighbors and my parents spoke with them later to remove it. Tree branches, leaves and rain surely wrecked the yard and the unfamiliar moving of the trees due to the wind chilled my soul. Moreover, the stories of people in my town going to other houses made me appreciate my own house having power. Besides these, my family was fine. Even if we had lost power, we were still fine. And, I was strangely calm, even as trees moved in my backyard.

One day during that week, I decided to visit my high school. I was fully aware that the storm was going on, and some might say it was stupid, but I was dearly curious as to how the rest of the town looked like, the part that wasn’t my yard or my neighbor’s yard. I don’t remember what the walk there was like. I do remember that when I got to the high school, I suddenly became aware of the intensity of the wind because things high up, like power lines, were rattling. At the high school, sections were yellow-taped off due to the flooding and I could see several trees had fallen down. The weather closely resembled “tropical storm”. Looking at the sideways falling rain, hearing the heavy wind, seeing the flooding, left me feeling as though the high school had been abandoned.

In general, my suburban, upper middle class town in Northern Westchester was lucky. We had experienced mostly high winds, but nothing extremely serious. I am aware that entire neighborhoods were flooded and landscapes erased. I am aware that people lost their lives and suffered long before receiving help. So I am grateful, to say the least that my family and house were okay.

by Juliana Maronilla

end of August 2015, start of MHC

I am walking towards the MOMA when I see the homeless person sitting against a building. As I pass him, the thought of stopping and simply talking with him crosses my mind. “I’m supposed to be going to the MOMA” is what my mind tells me. I walk up to the front of the museum and enter. Inside, I see a line of people and turn around. “When I get back, the line will be shorter”, I think to myself. As I head towards the homeless person, subtle feelings of dread pervert my mind as I ponder how the encounter might go. I come right in front of the person and say, “Hi, my name is Juliana. I don’t have money but I’d be willing to hear your story”. The person, who has a baseball cap, ripped jeans and a lengthy cardboard sign, gets up to shake my hand. I stare in slight shock, as I realize this person is a woman. “Hi, I’m April! Nice to meet you. I’d be glad to tell you my story. If you just wait a while, my husband will come around”, the woman replies in a cheery Southern accent. We shake hands and she proceeds to speak. Her nice white complexion and long blonde hair suddenly become visible to me. The woman explains in great detail and passion her story. She and her husband, who are from Indiana, had been living a nice middle-class life. She, in particular, was working in a Chrysler factory, making automobile parts when one year she lost everything- car, house, money, material possessions and family support. She and her husband have been living in New York ever since, as a way of protesting against Chrysler (and as a means of survival). Her greatest request has been that someone, most likely a reporter, would broadcast the injustices she and her husband had faced from Chrysler. And, she hopes to have a better life.

As she speaks, a man comes around the corner and toward us. Similar to her, he has a baseball cap, jeans and an unfamiliar Southern accent. We shake hands and April introduces her husband Eddy to me. Eddy, like his wife, speaks to me with much pleasure. The three of us converse more, discussing our shared faith as Christians. I leave the couple with promise to come again, and I make my way towards the MOMA.

As I enter the MOMA, I think of the encounter I just had-how surprisingly friendly the couple had been. I was soon interrupted by a man. “Excuse me, would you be interested in coming in with me? I have an extra ticket”, the man says.

I ask the man to repeat what he said. He explains that usually he and his wife go to the MOMA together as members (who can go straight into the museum), but his wife was not there. I have the eerie feeling that he asked me because I am Asian and could pose as his daughter. Although I already had a free pass from Macaulay to enter the museum, I agree to go with him and we enter.

After finishing with my assignment at the museum, I head out. Naturally, my eyes search the nearby area for my homeless friends. I did not see them again that day, but knew I would another day.

Over the last 19 years of my life I have had no serious encounter with the police. Of the most troubling to me are with the CUNY police (at times), but those encounters are over petty matters. For that reason, this post will be around a movie I recently watched that relates to Clyde’s articles.

What If?

Over the weekend I explored the possibility of a school shooting by watching “I’m not Ashamed”,which is a PureFlix movie. In it, a Christian girl struggling in life and growing in her faith fatally dies when two armed students shoot her. As later discussed, the armed students shot eleven other students and one teacher after shooting Rachel. Most of the movie is about the relationships that Rachel (the protagonist) has and the goals she tries to accomplish like spread the love of Jesus by talking to outcasts, forgive those who betrayed her and get a homeless young man off the streets. In a slightly cheesy movie with a heavy religious bias (conversion/faith and righteous living is pointed out as remarkable), that i would not elevate over other cliched Christian movies, except that the protagonist dies ¾ of the movie. Moreover, it would have little secular attention except that the much-dreaded event is the well-known Columbine High School Massacre and the main character is Rachel Joy Scott, now an inspiration to people all over the U.S.

The scenes that occurred before the massacre are chilling and real. The first chilling scene is when Eric and Dylan (2 shooters and Rachel’s classmates) are showing their homemade film to the class. In it they are shooting bad people on school grounds. The second scene is Rachel listening to the news that today (the day of the shooting) is Hitler’s birthday. “Creepy” is her response. The third is when she is in her theater class showing her teacher a sketch of a rose and thirteen tear drops that turn to blood. Rachel doesn’t know what those drops represent. Finally is the scene where the shooters are getting out of a car, waiting for the school to blow up. In this scene they shoot Rachel while she is talking with someone outside. They shoot her several times in the back and once in the head after asking if she believed in God.

Granted, these scenes and every scene in which the shooters are plotting is chilling. But what really gets me is the normality of Rachel’s life, the atmosphere of everything’s okay, that is portrayed within the movie. On the day of the massacre, like every other day, Rachel is shown getting dressed, saying bye to her mother, play-fighting with her brother in the car and attending school. The appearance of the shooters and Rachel’s sudden death was a stark contrast to the preceding scenes.

“I’m Not Ashamed” was chilling enough to give me a nightmare that night. And although it is a movie, it was based off real-life events and could have easily been the background to the Sandy Hook shooting, which I was old enough to hear about. In the end, what I question is whether the “stark contrast” in this movie is a truth. If a shooting or another such event were to occur on a subway or Grand Central Terminal, would I feel as uneasy as I did watching the movie?

Trailer for “I’m Not Ashamed”

Second Homes

by Juliana Maronilla

My father is from the Philippines (Manila). When he was in high school, he applied to several Ivy-League schools as a confident bright student. He got accepted into University of Pennsylvania and moved to America to study there for 4 years. Once he had completed four years at UPenn, he moved again to California, to work.There he met my mother*, who was studying at a California university, and they soon married. It wasn’t long though, before my father decided to go to graduate school, this time in Michigan at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Eventually, after having my sister and me, my father and mother moved to Scarsdale, NY (for work). We have been living there ever since.

I was born in Los Angeles, California, lived in Michigan for a short period and resided  in Scarsdale for 15 years. I grew up reading a lot of novels, swimming on several swim teams and attending a lot of church events. In particular, I went to a Christian camp with my family every year. I was a quiet child with braces, glasses and black hair. I played the cello in school and classical piano outside of school in the midst of a busy life. I enjoyed cooking and baking and eating healthy.

Now I am a student at Hunter College. I am a chemistry major on the pre-med track. I still am involved in the Christian and music community and travel back and forth from Scarsdale to the city. Moreover, I have been met with so much diversity at Hunter. I know only a handful of Hunter students from Westchester, as most are from the city. One of these students is in Hunter’s InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a club which I regularly attend. Another is an Afghan immigrant with ties to the Scarsdale High School orchestra, which I was part of in high school. Another is from my high school (we don’t talk). Another is a member of my home church, Ridgeway Alliance Church and a recent transfer to Hunter.

Several things I hate about the city involve people. I hate how isolated it can feel. I hate how normal diversity appears. And I hate how crowded the subways and Hunter halls can be.

Several things that I love about the city also involve people. I love how people exist on every block, and one never is alone when walking long distances. I love seeing the diversity at Hunter College. I believe it’s beautiful, because it’s a reality I never saw in my hometown. Moreover, I love the relative space amongst people-the fact that people can be friendly strangers and don’t necessarily have to be in each other’s business.

My parents came to America and at first viewed it like a foreign land. Unfamiliar and strange with different buildings and landscapes. Lacking their immediate family and hometown friends. Although I do not know what their experience was necessarily like, I feel like living in a city environment instead of the suburb community that I was part of for 15 years has provided me with a glimpse. The distance between Scarsdale and Grand Central via the Bronx River Parkway is only 23.5 miles, but the scenery, vibe and people are different. Coming to Hunter was mentally a nauseating experience, but over time it became my second home.

…

My Thoughts On the Subway (+MetroNorth train)

When I first came to the city in Fall 2015, I was very confused with the subway maps. The different colored lines and letters confused me, and I only recognized the green 6 line (between the 23rd/28th station and Hunter’s station). At the end of freshman year, I got the hang of the subway system. This year, like many Hunter students, I have relied heavily on the subway for transportation. Even more, I am using it to travel between Westchester and Manhattan. When I was a freshman, I always utilized the MetroNorth Railroad to go home, but I now take the Woodlawn 4 subway almost as frequently as the Grand-Central/North White Plains train. The Woodlawn 4-subway and the MetroNorth train are both boring trips to me as I travel without friends or family and don’t talk with anyone.

The Woodlawn 4-subway is more crowded than the MetroNorth, and provides a more awkward orientation as passengers face each other in a close arena. The Woodlawn-4 subway is also a longer trip; while the MetroNorth train takes 45 minutes, the subway can take up to an hour. Nevertheless, I believe the differences balances out. Even though the MetroNorth is a more comfortable and roomy trip, it often leaves me feeling isolated (unless I am taking a crowded 7:10 AM train on a Monday morning). And, the MetroNorth is pricier than the Woodlawn subway, $5-$9 more expensive. Moreover, the coziness in the Woodlawn subway makes it pleasurable to someone from a mostly empty-feeling suburb area. In general, I enjoy the subway rides, and believe it is a very unique experience.