Author Archives: ROSALIA FLORES

Hi my name is Rosalia, but you can call me Rose.

1.The first fact about me is that I am Ecuadorian and Colombian. I come from immigrant parents so growing up I was very involved with my culture and was able to learn a lot about it as well as the language which I can speak to this day. Since I was a child I took a sense of pride in my ethnicity and was happy to share it with other kids. As i grew older I began to see things that pushed me to do otherwise and believe I 1: didn’t fit the physical stereotype of my ethnicity or 2:that I shouldn’t take much pride in it and should focus on whitewashing myself or assimilating. And although I went through this time period, as I grew and was able to meet students of various different backgrounds and through current movements in our country and society, I was able to rebuild my love and confidence for my identity and culture.

2.A second fact about me is that I have a very strong interest in music and have a few talents in the subject. I play piano, guitar, and can play a little bit of saxophone. I started playing piano when I was around 10 and later on continued onto other instruments. I play by ear which basically means I am able to listen to a song/musical piece and be able to, naturally play it. It is a little difficult to explain in non musical terms but in short I can listen and play. I also really like to sing, I started exploring that area around middle school and even though I was a band kid, I still auditioned for the choir solo..I know, very strange. But I got it so since then I have been pursuing it as well. Throughout the years I have been able to explore and learn to sing in different genres within the Hispanic community but also outside of it. I can now say my range goes from opera, mariachi, regular pop, to cumbias and so on. And since I have been able to work on myself in the musical area I have been able to use it as a form of expression and a way to make money for some emergencies. I do gigs here and there, of course now with covid-19 this has been very limited, but I do because performing is something I really enjoy.

3.Another fact about me is that I also paint. This is something recent I picked up on some time last year. I was going through a rough time period physically and emotionally. I wasn’t doing so well in the sense that I was very sick and I felt lonely for a long time. I had lost my best friend in a terrible conflict with basically a clique at our school who were just toxic all together. After weeks of dealing with this issue, the unimaginable happened. Well what I thought was unimaginable. He left me for that group of girls, changed some aspects of his personality and would act like he had never associated with me in this life. So of course, me sitting in a hospital bed wasn’t feeling great about all of this. I felt lonely for a long time and developed a lot of negative feelings towards myself. And I dreaded starting my senior year because I felt like the loneliest and most undesirable unwanted, person that could ever exist. And since music and singing was something we had bonded over, I couldn’t continue that activity without feeling all the emotion all over again. So I turned to painting for some time. I wasn’t really good at it because it would mostly just be blobs of color at first or very pinterest inspired cliche paintings, but it helped at the time. And I picked it up again during quarantine and now its something I find very fun to do. I painted my little brothers door with Toy Story Characters and Garfield, Cars, The Lion King. I paint little angels kissing or hugging on the window or wood furniture, I’ve even painted my grandpa that died recently. Because painting is a hobby of mine, but also a form of letting things go, and coping.

4.Another fact about me is that I consider myself an adventurous person. In all aspects really. I like to try new things I haven’t done before because I believe life is too short to be afraid all the time or sit back and be bored. Yes I have a lot of fears like fear of heights and fear of the water since I don’t know how to swim, but I still try to experience as much as I can. I like to take lots of videos and pictures of my experiences and of course this ties into my high interest in taking pictures.

5.I am a food lover. I like to look up new places to go eat at and put them on a list on the notes app. I tend to overeat a lot and end up with a stomach ache sometimes but I’d rather feel that than not get the full experience. I don’t really have a favorite food because it is just too difficult to choose especially with so many different foods from different countries and cultures that I love. But a drink I really really like is boba. I don’t know what caused this but it’s a drink that I can’t refuse no matter the occasion and I inexplicably and unconditionally love it. I also really like Hot Cheetos, I would never combine the two because that would be a sin, but Hot Cheetos are really a comfort food for me.