How to Arrange Flowers

Plan to enjoy, enjoy to plan

Fig. 1. “A person arranging flowers into a vases” prompt, Canva, Magic Media, 23 Feb. 2024.

Arranging flowers is a delicate art, and with many moving pieces it can be difficult to start. When describing the joy of how to arrange flowers, self-proclaimed amateur Stephen Martin stated, “Everybody should have flowers in their house, just to enjoy them and to take a moment to stop and smell the roses and slow down life a bit.” He claims that he always has flowers in his house, and buys at least one new kind of flower every week. 

So how do we do it? To start, lay all the flowers out and see how they interact with each other. Steve explains, “Always think of flowers as a three-dimensional object. Consider the angles it will be viewed from and plan out the flowers accordingly. Do it on a table, see how they work together, and put them together in a way you like and find appealing, and then, put them in the vase or wrap them up.” There is a lot of creative liberty that can be taken here, but there’s also a lot of room for error! If something doesn’t look right, arranging them on a table can make it a lot easier to move things around before putting them into paper or a vase. 

There are some frequent errors, however. “Cutting them all the same length and then trying to cram them into a vase is a common mistake, so including diversity in height and contrast is better,” Steve advises. Using the right techniques, these happy little accidents can be avoided. At the end of the day, it should be a fun expression of self, and as long as it’s an enjoyable process, it’s sure to turn out lovely. 

The learning curve to mastery is difficult. When describing his experience, Steve explained, “I’ve loved flowers since I was a kid and listened to the advice that people have given me over the years… It’s taken me about 55 years to get here. And I still have a long way to go. ” But he wouldn’t trade a second. 

Flowers are a beautiful way to express yourself and your emotions. The process of putting together a bouquet is part of the fun that comes with enjoying the plants. As Stephen says, “The pleasure of when everything comes together and I know I’ve found my perfect bouquet is my favorite part.”

The Need of Libraries

We as a society must keep libraries alive, as they are a place where anyone can learn about, interact with, and love literature and books, and at the end of the day, can provide infrastructure to make sure everyone has a safe place to go during the day.
Libraries are beneficial to a great number of people and a wide spread of demographics. One example of this is stated by the New York Times article “Do We Still Need Libraries,” “Mr. de Blasio should act because his city is demanding it, more than ever. That is, the people whose needs are the core of Mr. de Blasio’s mayoral mission, whose priorities he trumpets, immigrants and the poor.” Along with that, The Age, a Melbourne-based newspaper, wrote an editorial on the matter during the pandemic, in describes the use of libraries for others like children and people who live alone, “Books are particularly important to those who live alone as well as those who have mental health issues. . . Children would no doubt also be delighted with this brief break from isolation accompanied by access to fresh books. Such a move would have a profound effect for the good of our well-being.” Libraries are required by many people.
Along with that, their services are needed. The NYT displays this, “The libraries are where poor children learn to read and love literature, where immigrants learn English, where job-seekers hone résumés and cover letters, and where those who lack ready access to the Internet can cross the digital divide.” In addition, The Age exemplifies how important libraries are for students and economically challenged people, “So how exactly are they continuing their studies, or applying for jobs and government assistance? Let’s declare libraries an essential service as soon as possible, so the digital divide and social inequality don’t get any worse.” The services libraries provide for free are needed in the community.
Libraries need to stick around and continued community support for that can help keep these essential parts of life accessible.

Works Cited

Angell, Katelyn. “Privacy Audit of Public Access Computers and Networks at a Public College Library.” Information Technology & Libraries, vol. 42, no. 3, Sept. 2023, pp. 1–10. Advanced Placement Source, https://doi.org/10.5860/ital.v42i3.16233.

“An Essential Service That Needs to Reopen.” Age, The (Melbourne), May 2020, p. 20. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=c837c02c-3392-3a7a-bc81-7c6891c49966.

Lane, Julie. “Gathering Strength to Combat Access Inequality: How a Small Rural Public Library Supported Virtual Access for Public School Students, Staff, and Their Families.” Information Technology & Libraries, vol. 41, no. 2, June 2022, pp. 1–4. Advanced Placement Source, https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v41i2.15161.

Saeidnia, Hamid Reza, et al. “Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Mobile Application for Academic Library Services: A Study in a Developing Country.” Information Technology & Libraries, vol. 42, no. 3, Sept. 2023, pp. 1–23. Advanced Placement Source, https://doi.org/10.5860/ital.v42i3.15977.

Gonchar, Michael. “Do We Still Need Libraries?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 May 2015, archive.nytimes.com/learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/07/do-we-still-need-libraries/?rref=collection%252Fcolumn%252Flearning-student-opinion.

Volleyball

As I nervously walked onto the volleyball court, I wondered if I was making the right decision. I had barely played volleyball before the experience and wasn’t even sure if I would like it. I only knew one other person and the basic rules of the game, but everything else was strange and unfamiliar. It was seventh grade and the spring recreational volleyball season had just started, and my best friend convinced me to sign up. For the entirety of our first practice, I only spoke to her and our coach, and I kept to myself.

Over time, I started to really enjoy practices, even branching out and talking to some of the other girls on the team. I started to form my own identity on the court as someone who takes chances for defense, a strong server, and someone who always calls the ball. I began donning nicknames that the other girls gave me with pride, interacting with them on and off the court.

Nearing the end of the season, the setter of my team asked why I joined the team at all. The truth is, I never really wanted to, I just thought that I had never tried it before and it could be fun. In that moment I realized that my experience with volleyball was a lot like life. Anything could be an invigorating, life-changing experience, but no one can know for sure until they try it and give it their all.

I still play volleyball to this day. I still text the girls that were on my team. Most importantly, I still believe that the only thing we can continue to do is try, because there’s no way to know how much joy something can bring otherwise.

High School, Somehow

“Ames, Iowa, High School” by photolibrarian is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

If someone told 11-year-old me three years ago that I would be going into my sophomore year of high school, in a new state, without masks, and with the fear of COVID-19 steadily dwindling, I would have never believed them. During the pandemic, there was so much uncertainty, about what exactly the illness entails, when it would end, and if the world would ever go back to normal. However, somehow, school has returned to an adapted version of its former edition. And thus, my family, and the world, have experienced almost many changes to our lives as the World Health Organization COVID policies have since the start of the pandemic.

When my family decided to move, during the pandemic, it seemed like a difficult task, especially knowing no one in Iowa except various corn fields. Although more people started to move during the pandemic than in past years, it still seemed to be a daunting challenge, and felt like so much change in an era filled with precariousness and worldwide strife. Yet, against all odds, my family and I managed to move 500 miles, alone, in the middle of a global emergency.

Along with that, we, as a society, have been biologically fearless, braving our new world, scared of new illness among uncertainty and doubt, and continuing to try to build routines that were forgotten and to instill systems as they were invented. As vaccines and treatments were still being innovated and pioneered there was a plethora of unknowns. And still, the population of the world decided to press on anyway, because throughout the world, there was a sense of collaboration in valiant attempts to make the public as safe as possible, for the time being.

It is this principle that, in my eyes, shapes high school. The idea being terrified, but somehow continuing on, with support from individuals going through very similar and starkly different circumstances, and being open to scary, harrowing things that can end up being an enriching adventure. This is especially evident in 2023, after the pandemic and global state of emergency has ended, and we now have to adapt to an altered state of the world, one rife with fear, pain, and loss, but one also with hope and perseverance. High school is like that sometimes, being scared of tests, expectations, the future, and more, but persisting forward. High school in 2023 is all about the “somehow;” knowing that somehow we will make it through the unpredictable and somehow look towards the future.