Eli Khuri-Reid

     I'm sitting in my room bored. My parents and brother left an hour ago and I've just finished my homework. I am now alone and unoccupied and as such, my thoughts begin to wander off. Although it would be absurd to say that the sounds made it all the way too my room and convinced me to go outside, a part of me truly believes that I was subconsciously called by the sounds of faint strumming. Nonetheless, I walk down the stairs and head outside. Nightly walks are a fond pastime of mine so it isn't unusual for me to be out at this hour. what's remarkable however, is the event that would come during my walk. As I step outside, I can't help but take in the presence of the late-summer evening. The sunlight is refracted in the sky, leaving only the feint blue light to mix with the clouds to form a dark, blueberry-like color. The weather is perfect in that I can go outside in a t-shirt and shorts and still feel a light breeze brushing across my face and clothes. The chir...

     "If it's open it's open," "Si esta abierto esta abierto," or " si c'est ouvert c'est ouvert." What one might think is a simple saying has been a guiding principle for me for a significant part of my life. This statement has set a baseline for how I view people, interactions, objects of desire, and even the makings of the natural world. It has allowed me to alter my perspective and allowed me to have confidence in situations where I might feel uncomfortable. People who partake in this ideology, I feel, begin to develop a strong sense of leadership. When a group or organization you are in has times of uncertainty and ambivalence, those who can not only see the openness of the possibilities, but how they feel it should go tend to, whether they realize it or not, shape the environments they reside in and rise up as leaders and directors. In discussions, when there is a period of silence or halting, the conversations is "open" for...