Heliconian: PDF of issue and more!

DAN KATZ '08 & The Heliconian Staff

Spring break lends itself to hours of unorganized time, perfect for sitting down with a good poem, book, or perhaps the print issue of The Beaver Reader. We at the Heliconian want you to remember the literary voice at our school, and so we felt it important to provide the PDF of the Heliconian in our little literary corner here. Take a look at the past issue, and look forward to the new issue of the Heliconian this spring.
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The PDF can be found here: https://www.bcdschool.org/ftpimages/40/misc/misc_51007.pdf.
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In other Heliconian news, we would like to use this space to remind you that we are now accepting submissions for the Spring Issue! So, if you have any writing or artwork that you are especially proud of, please send it to us at Heliconian@bcdschool.org. To make it simple, go to first class and type Heliconian into the address bar.

Spring break also lends itself to ample time to write your own poem or prose. Sit down at your computer, start typing, see what comes out, and send it to us- we might just publish it!

To get those creative juices flowing, take a look at the poem below.

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Introduction To Poetry
Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

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Happy writing!

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College Essay XIII: Kelly

KELLY KRETSCHMAR '08

Sometimes what is most important in life is revealed in an instant, like a flash of lightning or a moment of truth. Often a significant event, like a wedding or a death, can strongly impact a person. For me, there has not been a single event, but rather a special place that, for five years, has allowed me to grow, learn and share myself in a way that makes me proud. That place is Allandale Farm, where I have found independence and a sense of identity.

Allandale Farm is the only working farm in Boston. It has beautiful fields and greenhouses, which I have grown to appreciate. On the farm, I feel comfortable and needed, both working with counselors and campers in the summer nature program, and as a year-round store employee in the retail greenhouse. Every day at the farm, I have had the opportunity to experience something special and to share my knowledge and personality with others, no matter what age they are.

On one particularly hot morning last summer at Allandale, my four-year-old camper, Sophie, needed my help in catching a frog. Whispering in her ear, I told her that the best way to catch a frog is to pretend that you are a detective. Together we stood on the pond’s bank, so still that the frogs could not sense us. Within a minute, green eyes started to appear on the surface of the water, and I spotted a small frog facing away from us. With Sophie holding on to the net, I moved quickly and swung it over the creature. On tiptoe, Sophie tried to see into the muddy net, and with one small hand, she felt around inside. Suddenly, she smiled brightly and lifted her catch to show me. Moments like that make me happy to be involved with children in a natural farm habitat.

In addition to the summer camp, two years ago, I began a new challenge, spending my summers and weekends in the Allandale retail store as a member of the hardworking and friendly staff. I performed various tasks as a cashier, shelf stocker, display designer, and store opener and closer. Some jobs required me to step outside my comfort zone by interacting with customers of all ages and styles. Gradually, I developed confidence in my ability to communicate with retail clients. Questions that customers asked me ranged from what organically grown means to why there are white spots on a tomato plant. Learning how to respond to all of these questions was difficult, but I was able to find answers directly from the farmers who work every day in the fields. Since they are mostly from Latin America, we communicated in Spanish, and through them I have been able to get a good sense of what farm work is. No longer afraid of not knowing an answer, I now am comfortable asking others for help.

One part of Allandale Farm that I love very much is its connection to the surrounding community. Many of the customers come from great distances to use Allandale’s produce for their homes, shops, parties, and restaurants. Last summer, a customer came in and filled three shopping baskets full of food. When she arrived at the check out, I questioned what she was doing with all of it, and she told me she was a personal chef. Two of the baskets were for the families for whom she cooked, and the third was for her. Every Sunday, she returns to the farm, refilling her baskets with fresh produce. I have continued to ask her what she plans to create, and she always makes my mouth water with the amazing meals that she is about to prepare. It makes me proud to know and communicate with talented people who appreciate the farm that I cherish.

At Allandale Farm, I continue to experience something different from many of my peers at school. I have the opportunity to share myself in a public place where food is grown and sold, children are welcome, and the environment is respected. Though I am used to the fast-paced traffic and crowds of Boston, I am proud to work in the tranquil environment of a farm, both for others and myself.
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College Essay XII: Maddy

MADDY KIEFER '08

I come from a family of artists. My grandmother’s basement is full of her hand-made dollhouses, complete with intricate furniture that she carved, and I spent much of my childhood in my mother’s studio, which was full of her graphic designs and canvases of landscapes and cityscapes. If that weren’t enough, my sister has a life ambition of seeing every single Vermeer painting, and we’ve spent our summers helping her achieve this. My family and I have been fortunate enough to visit a total of nine major European cities, and we spend the majority of our time there looking at portrait after portrait, landscape after landscape, and fruit bowl after fruit bowl, staring at gaudy gold ceilings and furniture in royal palaces, and craning our necks to get a glimpse of faded stained glass windows in cathedrals.

It’s not that I dislike art, churches, or palaces; I just don’t enjoy them the way my parents and sister do. For them, museums are a way of seeing the different cultures of each country and how they differ from one another. The way I take in the culture is harder to identify, however. It is not each individual painting or exhibit that stands out in my mind but smaller, seemingly insignificant things.

On every trip we go on, after spending a few days in the major city, we go hiking or biking in the countryside for a week. These rural parts of the trips are what I value most. The small villages and the varying landscapes capture for me what makes each place unique. I absorb the little details: I watch the villagers, look at the scenery and imagine what life must be like there. People and places mean more to me than art. For example, in Scotland what I remember most is the feeling of isolation from atop a hill we climbed where there was no sign of modern civilization anywhere, not even an electrical wire. In Holland, I noticed the cycling culture. Bikes had the right of way, and there were biking lanes on every single street, even in the countryside. We would see cyclists eating an ice cream or carrying enormous paintings, giving the entire country a unique culture that no other location possesses.

Other memories include the interactions I have with villagers. Ironically, many times the people I remember are the ones that don’t speak English. In Spain, I used my Spanish vocabulary to explain to our bus driver that my mother was carsick and wanted to pull over. In the Czech Republic, we ended up playing charades with our waiter, trying to understand that “bůček” meant bacon. Although it can get frustrating, these circumstances are the ones that I remember the most clearly and, often times, with the most pleasure.

For me, the art is in the people, places, and experiences, and because of this, I am headed in a different direction than my family. Although I don’t know exactly what I want to do with the rest of my life, I know that the idea of discovery and tangibility in social and natural sciences intrigues me more than arts and humanities, and this is what excites me so much about continuing my education next year.
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College Essay XI: Laura

LAURA BULKELEY ‘08

With supplies for four days on my back, thick mud underneath my feet, and impossibly tall, lush trees clouding the Costa Rican sky, I started on my first backpacking trip with fourteen strangers from all over the world—the first segment of a three-week adventure tour. The trip would open my mind to other points of view and teach me how to enjoy the moment in ways I never would have predicted.

A few weeks after I got back from my trip I noticed pimples on my chin. The pimples went away, but one large bump stayed. I was diagnosed with a staph infection and given medication. As my bump got larger it turned into what looked like a scab. One hospital visit and two prescriptions later I was diagnosed with a drug-resistant staph infection, even though every confused doctor knew that was not what I had.

The confusion that surrounded me in hospitals, school, and my job was evident. No one understood why I had such a disgusting abnormality on my face. Everyone asked what was wrong with me; some feared they’d catch it too. Unfortunately, I could not give anyone answers to their questions or their fears. The embarrassment became who I was, not just a part of me. All conversations led to my chin, and it was all I could think about, especially since it was starting to spread to other parts of my body. Being in school was almost unbearable.

After a month of perplexity, I had my annual appointment with my dermatologist. I was finally told I should get a biopsy to test for Leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis is caused by a parasite that is found in some female sand flies. It can inflame the organs and lead to death. This disease affects many countries around the world daily, but the United States only sees about a dozen cases a year.

The only place that can test for Leishmaniasis is the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. It took a week for my biopsy results to come back. I had cutaneous Leishmaniasis, which is only on the skin, but my case was bad and I needed to start treatment immediately. I missed parts of days of school meeting with doctors and getting tubes in my left arm for the infusions I would need every day for twenty days. Walking around with tubes in my arm made me feel even more self-conscious than I had before. However, I was relieved to be able to tell people what I had.

But instead of people being more understanding and sympathizing with me, I found myself defending my condition. Since no one had ever heard of this obscure disease, they did not know what to say or how it actually affected me. My peers knew it affected my appearance, but they did not know that I was also achy, tired, and had lost my appetite from my medicine, that I could not take showers and had to wrap my arm in saran wrap every night when I bathed so I did not infect my bloodstream through my tubes; and that many nights I could not go to sleep because my lesions caused an icy hot pain. I made frequent trips to the nurse’s office to change the band-aid on my chin, and I had strange fluid coming out of my lesion that neither the doctor nor I could explain.

Once my schoolmates became accustomed to my condition, I still had to deal with it in the hospitals. In my endless hours in the ER, doctors constantly came in to look at my disease. I was an object of curiosity, not a human being, but a picture out of a medical textbook. I was asked to take off my band-aids and my shirt, and a couple doctors took pictures. One doctor that I had never met before left the ER saying, “I wish I had brought my camera.”

After the initial shock of being diagnosed with this strange disease, I started to gain my confidence back. The infusion center at the hospital became my own little community where I knew I was safe. I felt myself maturing among the adults I was constantly around. My doctor became my “best friend,” and I grew comfortable around sick adults who needed to get blood and chemo transfusions. I became more accepting of people who were not entirely like me, but were like me because we were in the hospital together.

In one of John Steinbeck’s books he states, “People don’t take trips. Trips take people.” He was certainly right. Leishmaniasis was not a reason for me to regret my Costa Rica experience, but only to appreciate it more. My experiences and memories in both life-changing journeys will stay with me forever.
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