Covid-19 has been born.... The Pandemic has killed more than millions to even count.... A virus born to kill.... And never seems to yield.... The media makes a big deal out of the new virus that's sweeping through the world like wildfire. It reminds me of Robert Frost, saying something like "The news is where you find it." - and by this saying I mean things in life are not always as they seem. For example, butterflies are seemingly delicate and fragile, yet they go through a pretty tortuous, matted metamorphosis from being caterpillars to becoming butterflies. And just like how hard it is for them to be reborn as another species; sometimes we all need extra motivation to make changes in our lives which may seem difficult at the time but end up leading us to better places before we know it. I mean, it still does take a lot of getting used to but come on, I bet even when this whole nightmare was over, people will definitely have a hard time not putting on their masks and keeping their distance. It's like this has become our new "normal life"... If you had asked me a year before this global pandemic: that the whole world would deal with the same fear, isolation and the uncertainty of what their next day was going to bring, and you don't even known if you were going to make it to the next day alive and healthy. I might have laughed out pearls of tears, saying that's impossible, and was just as unlikely as going to Jupiter and having a picnic party with aliens shaped like cotton candy and eat with their nose! But I was so wrong... When life decides to play its games, no one and I mean not a single soul out there can stop it. We can prevent it -- but there are costs to them. In the morning, I wake up feeling like a robot programmed to perform the same tasks. It's like we're prisoners, but instead of walls and jail railings it's buildings and cars encircling us on all sides. We're caged in our homes for our own protection. The hours of sunlight were controlled to give us just enough light but never in combination with daytime or nighttime so as not to confuse or unsettle us during this time of transition. I felt that the animals in captivity at the zoo must feel similarly cramped and confused. My anxiety increased every day until I started demanding my rights and they let me out into a world that was foreign to me where everything appeared new and only a few people walked around resembling zombies looking rather bewildered as I did, unable to process how abruptly our lives had changed... ​ It starts to feel like you are in a different planet where danger lurks every corner of the surface. Even if it's the size of Mount Everest or as small as a bacteria. Our world will never truly be safe from harms hands, but if we try to be good people, perhaps our world would at-least be kinder and more considerate about how others would feel and be impacted. And this year going to in-person school again was more than I could handle. Everyone's faces were decorated with masks, which locked away our expressions and emotions. Those who I had considered friends now don't even seem to recognize me. It felt really upsetting when I saw someone familiar on my first day back, and a smile would warm my face underneath my protective shield. I would wave and call their name, but in return I only got a sharp glance and the cold shoulder. And I felt broken... Anyway apart from school-- My family and I had been debating about getting the vaccine for months. We have gotten it last month but it was being of being pressured not of choice. We think the vaccine might have been the 'so-called hero' but in reality it had always been that little spark in everyone's heart. The one that told us we won't give up, and if we fall, we will rise once more and give it all we got. The hope and love and compassion has helped us to overcome this strenuous past months that led up to a year. But still hatred and violence flourishes, and the media often adding fuel to them. If we can't work together even when we had each other. How will we ever overcome this wave of disaster? They say count the blessings not the curses. We have all learned a new thing, and some a lot. One can find inspiration from the natural world. Like I had mentioned before, just as a caterpillar must go through metamorphosis to become a butterfly or a butterfly must go through metamorphosis to become a chrysalis, we all have to undergo our own individual transformations in order to mature. As much as there are challenges awaiting in this process and things that may happen unexpectedly along the way, everything is worth it if you emerge with strength, confidence and wisdom. We must fly high like a butterfly and dream about big goals, spreading joy and happiness and just try to show someone you care about them and they aren't alone. And when the time is right, the breeze will pick you up and take you to the skies...

*trigger warning rape & cancer* I want you to take a second and think about one thing about yourself that -if you had the ability to go back in time and change your life- you would not change for the world. There is an 19th century philosophy, made famous by the movie The Butterfly Effect, that claims that if there is one thing about yourself, one trait or characteristic that you would want to keep if you found yourself suddenly able to go back in time, you would need to re-live the same experiences and make all the same decisions in order to guarantee that in the future you would retain that one quality. And it is this I want you to remember as I share my story. As a child, I did not get into trouble. In fact, the worst infraction I ever made was that I did not spend enough time in the sun, and so my parents would take my books away to force me to go outside. Naturally, I worked out a system to hid them in ziplock bags under the hedge. As I grew older, I also learned that breaking the rules held greater consequences for me than for my friends. While my affluent teenage peers were able to break curfew and notoriously climbed onto the top of the city capital to drink beer, my parents could not afford expensive lawyers to get me out of trouble. There was also a question of my legal residency. When it came time to learn how to drive, my parents taught me that I could not afford to speed or break the speed limit because it could result in my deportation. And while this lesson may have been exaggerated to keep a teenager safe, it became my truth. The key here is that I followed the letter of the law and did nothing wrong. When I was raped, I expected the legal system to protect me. In my darkest hour, when the campus police showed up, I thought that they would be on my side. While no woman should ever have to know how to report a rape, this was certainly not something I was equipped to handle alone. The campus police not only bullied me and warned against ruining the career and future of my rapist, they threatened my legal status and suggested that I might be deported if I wanted to make a formal claim. But MY story is not about my rape. It is about learning to live and remold myself after trauma and after being let down by the system meant to protect me. Two years later, I was diagnosed with skin cancer so severe that if I had not booked a visit to the dermatologist on a whim, I would have lost my eye in less than a year. I drove myself to the surgery and watched as my face was carved from my eyelid to my cheek. But once again MY story is not about getting skin cancer, or the additional two melanoma diagnoses three years later that suggest that I will likely continue to present with skin cancer the rest of my life. It is not even about the fact that I had done nothing wrong, that I had always worn copious amounts of sunscreen, that as a child I had to be forced outside and seldom spent time in the sun. It is not about the fact that the doctors did not believe me when I told them that I had never tanned in my life, because I was slim, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. In 2018 I had my first panic attack. I was attending a conference for work, sitting in a room of over 10 thousand people, and suddenly I felt powerless, lost and like I was sinking. My colleague with me at the time was a Marine veteran and instantly recognized the signs, but I had lived a sheltered and protected life, so it did not occur to me that I had PTSD, for my experience did not seem as valid as that of veterans and survivors of horrific disasters. For although I had never realized it, I fell into the habit of comparing my experience to that of others, to comparing my pain, my stress, my fear and my recovery, and finding it less worthy. But let me tell you that any PTSD is worthy of attention and every experience is valid. I started my tattoos in 2019. One on each shoulder as a reminder that I am not alone. My 'strong women' and 'warrior' tattoos are as much a testament to the resilient woman I have grown to be, as a symbol of the indelible presence of trauma. For although it is not inked into our skins, trauma can present and trigger in unexpected ways, even after years of self-work. I share my story because trauma and PTSD does not make you weak. It doesn't make you incapable of recovery or incapable of working through the episodes. It makes you human. I strongly believe in normalizing mental health for, if nothing else, we are brought together by the similarities of surviving: COVID, quarantine, the injustices and unpredictable illnesses that life throws at us. But we are stronger together. And each of us has that one thing that makes it all worthwhile.

Rising rap star "Chief Flame" & his Jamaican girlfriend "Stay Fly Chin" has finally called it quits after the artist supposedly cheated. MediaTakeOut posted early Tuesday morning confirming the breakup, & mocking the rising rapper for his careless act.

Rapper Chief Flame & his long time girlfriend decides to give it another shot at love after the rapper was supposedly caught cheating with an upcoming video vixen.

"Stay Fly Chin" - is an Jamaican Instagram model born and raised in Jamaica. She is widely known for her beautiful Instagram photo's, & her relationship with rapper/songwriter "Chief Flame". The couple met in early 2017 while both were on vacation in the Bahamas. The 2 have only split up twice since falling in love. (STAY FLY CHIN' Bio:) -Born: Jamaica -Age: 25 -Kids: n/a -Net worth: $30.000 -Way of income: Modeling -Social Media: instagram/twitter- @stay_fly_chin_

As a Literature specialized student in Le Hong Phong High school for the Gifted, I used to believe, as everyone else in my society, that I am not gifted at those science subjects like math, physics, chemistry, etc,... Doing scientific research is totally out of the question. However, in summer 2017, one of my friends dared me to apply to a science camp in Quy Nhon province and guessed who would be accepted. I accepted that challenge and, surprisingly, I won. That was the turning point that brought me to the path of scientific researching. Coming back from the trip, I decided to apply what I learned by participating the Intel Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) of my school. The first step is the hardest. I did not know what topic I should study about. But once again, luck was by my side. I surfed the Internet and came across a video which presented a process of producing plastic food; what surprised me, however, was that numerous people shared that clip these kinds of following captions: “Some bad people with vile purpose are selling that food to kill us”. Incredulous, I looked for information on Google, only to have found that no bad people want to kill us; rather, it was just some kind of Japan's processing technology. That was not the first time I have felt uncomfortable with several individuals sharing news without double-checking the facts. That is an indication of lacking critical thinking (CT). This sparked an idea in me, and I went with CT right away. Then, I had a nice partner, two wonderful mentors, and numerous kind people (even strangers) who was next to me in that difficult reaching the summit trip. Those extraordinary supports are valuable motivation which fuels me to run farther on the scientific researching path, until now. There are no chances and no changes if I did not change my mindset and give myself a chance. Be willing to be exposed, you can fly so far. . Biopage Mini-Essay Writing Contest is my new chance. Absolutely, the upcoming changes are bigger, better and brighter than that of the past.