Exploration Two: Lilyan Eldadah

My name is Lilyan Eldadah, but all my peers and classmates call me Lily. I am currently a freshman at Ohio State University Marion Campus, studying Health Sciences. Although I am starting to like OSUM and all the faculty and students, OSUM was not my first choice. I plan to transfer to OSU Main Campus next year, to finish my undergrad there. I do not want to live in Ohio the rest of my life though; hopefully I can move somewhere big like California or Florida. My fun fact is that my dream is to become an orthodontist when I grow up. Ever since I was six or seven years old, I would always wonder why some people had straight teeth and others had not-so-straight teeth. Teeth fascinated me; I would always ask people if they have had braces before, or how they happened to have such white teeth. As I grew up, my teeth took the wrong turn and I had to go to an orthodontist, who recommended I get braces. After having braces for three and a half years I was finally able to take my braces off, and you could not get me to stop smiling after that. I want to be able to transform kids' and adults' smiles to the wonderful straight smile they all deserve. Plus I am going to be that awesome orthodontist who will whiten your teeth after you get your braces off, because my orthodontist did not whiten mine and that sucked. I have lived in Worthington, Ohio district almost all my life, but I was actually born in Libya, Africa. When I was one and a half, my family and I moved from Libya to Egypt, and 6 months later, we moved to Columbus and have not moved since. I am only seventeen years old because I graduated a year early. My roots come from Palestine though, and if you have not heard, recently the war has started back up between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Throughout the summer I went to several different protests to advocate and show people the truth about what is happening in Palestine that is being covered up by the media.

Here is a picture of my friends and I advocating for the freedom of Palestine.

            The author I chose to research and write about was Frances E. W. Harper. After researching, there were so many interesting facts I found out about Harper. Harper was born on September 24, 1825 in Maryland and went to school as the "daughter of free black parents" ("Frances EW Harper). The most interesting fact I found out about her was that she was the first African American to publish a short story. The short story "Two Offers" because very popular along with other poems such as "Bury Me in a Free Land". Along with being an outstanding writer/poet, she also stood up for woman suffrage rights and equality between all races. Harper reminds me of myself because we both stand up for what we believe is right and try to advocate for peace and freedom.

          The poem I chose to read written by Frances E. W. Harper was "Bury Me in a Free Land". In the poem she expresses her strong message about slaves and wanting equality between all races living and dead. I honestly loved this poem a lot and could really relate to it. Although slavery is abolished today, there are still a lot of injustices happening all over the world. One injustice that hurts me is all the killings of innocent people in Palestine.  Harper continuously says that she wants to be buried in free land, or not in a land of slaves, and just like her I would like to be part of a world without so many injustices occurring and being covered up by the media. I hope to make an effect in the world some day just like Frances E. W. Harper. This poem and the actions of Frances E. W. Harper reminds me of the song "Brave" by Sara Bareilles. Bareilles sings about speaking up for what you believe in and not to stay silent because being silent will not get you anywhere. 

           "Frances EW Harper." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 07 Sept. 2014. <http://www.biography.com/people/frances-ew-harper-40710#final-years>

             A piece of writing that impacted me was Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls. I read this novel during my senior year for my AP Language and Composition class and when I first began to read the novel, I thought it was going to be very boring and a waste of my time, but by the end of the book, I had fell in love with the way of writing Walls' wrote and the piece itself. Half Broke Horses is a novel about the life of Walls's grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. The novel is written in first-person, which I thought was a good choice made by Walls because that way the reader feels like he/she is getting the information and facts directly; it also makes the story more appealing to read. The novel captures all the thrill, adventures, and horror Smith experiences. Smith pushes herself to be the best Lily Casey Smith she can be, which impacted me to not take the easy way out. Smith had the advantage of learning how to break horses because she lived on a farm with her family, which I found amazing because she could ride horses and teach them how to be better racers, which helped her later on in life. At a young age, Smith had already accomplished so much, which made me want to explore and impacted me to want to be the best Lily I could be. For anyone who has not read Half Broke Horses, I would recommend this novel to anyone who likes to read about adventure and true hardship.