The Blue and White had the pleasure of meeting with a new and upcoming staff member, Erika Nunez. She is a Senior here at Apopka High School. We discussed what's important to her or something she feels she cannot live without. Additionally, we discussed the times she realized she had experienced growth development and the setbacks that came with it.
"I think I would be incomplete without reading. I find reading to be very, very amazing. I love to test my own imagination and see if I can see the scenes a book is portraying, or see if I can add to its beautiful story. I'm not really into writing my own short stories, but I do like to sit and imagine. I love to enhance my dreams as much as possible and have noticed that reading certain books does that. I noticed learning about certain fields also does that. I find that reading really allows me to find peace in silence, and especially with my siblings leaving for college, I have to realize that the house is going to be more silent. Reading will definitely bring joy.”
“Thinking back to my childhood, growing up, my father was very, very strict. I'm an army brat per se, and there was always this theme of discipline and education in my life. Punishment would be physical fitness instead of taking away privileges. By middle school, I saw that he wasn't as strict as he used to be. I realized that I started watching my grades as much as he used to, and I gained this discipline from him. I wanted to research the internet instead of sitting at the encyclopedia, as we used to when we were younger. I started wanting to work out because there wasn't any more mandatory PT. I realized that his discipline became my own. That realization truly changed my life, and I'm glad that my father was strict when I was growing up. I believe he was very effective at stopping being strict enough for me to be strict to myself.”
“I recall in Speech and Debate, I had a competition where I had to interpret and perform a 10-minute speech on a book about rape, child abandonment, abusive fathers, and murder. It was a pretty dark book, definitely sad, but there was love in it. I expected to do a dramatic piece, but my Speech and Debate coach signed me up for a humorous interpretation without my knowledge. I figured she'd know since the book was really sad. This competition was very challenging because I had to perform a very dark piece humorously. It kind of showed me the effort needed while creating animated characters, making a court scene seem interesting, and exalting the love in the book. Even though I had a dramatic piece, I competed in Humorous Interpretation and was able to place. I remember at the final competition everyone was laughing at the other pieces, but when it was my turn to go the room was completely silent: There was no laughter. Consequently, I mistook this lack of laughter for disinterest, but when I looked at the crowd, people were at the edge of their seats; they were staring so intently. I was taken aback; it was undeniably life-changing."
"I learned that you don't always have to be what's expected. My audience was expecting a light-hearted performance, but they received a strong dynamic performance. When I read the reviews on how I did in the notes from the judges, they weren't critiquing the story, they were simply explaining what I could have done to add more tech to the scene. I found it very interesting that you could have a dramatic piece and still make it in a humorous competition. I think with life, people may stray away from doing the unexpected, but I encourage everyone to be adventurous and surprise everyone else with your unexpectedness."
