about.

Hi there! My name is Eileen, and I’m a senior at Northview High School. This is my second year as part of the MUSE staff, and I’m excited to further my growth in this class and help create a fantastic magazine this year!

I joined Lit Mag as a creative outlet to explore art and writing. While I have always been an avid writer and reader, I hope to step outside of my comfort zone and learn more about design, digital art, and editing. I also hope to expand into different forms of poetry and prose beyond my normal short story. As I explore new facets of art and design, I hope to cultivate my interests in creative expression :)

some facts.

Besides working on the literary magazine, I am also involved in Speech and Debate, the Creative Writing Club, and NEHS. In my free time, I love searching for new art and new foods to make, of which has left me with a closet full of supplies in all shapes and sizes. While knitting and crocheting will always remain one of my favorite crafts (see below), I also enjoy embroidery and baking of all sorts of foods (brownies, pound cakes, and cookies galore!) Winter is my favorite season, and some of my favorite foods are moon cakes and tomatoes (sorry Rachel!). I’m also the oldest of three siblings, so enjoy the picture to the far left ~~

hobbies!

As someone who loves music, I play the clarinet, but I also occasionally dance to Kpop! I’m part of a Kpop dance group (B.A.P.) that performs annually at Northview’s International Night. We’re already preparing a stage for next semester, so watch out for our performance!

I’ve been crocheting since around sixth grade, when I picked up the craft to curb my summertime boredom. While I mainly crochet amigurumis (little stuffed animals ~ see Yarny, who is a duck, above), I also make bags, clothes, and tablecloths. Depicted above are two doilies I made over this past summer.

In addition to crochet and B.A.P., another constant in my high school career is speech and debate. I’ve dabbled in many different events over the years, from Public Forum to Extemporaneous to Original Oratory. I love voicing my thoughts on various topics, and I’m excited to get back to in-person tournaments after the pandemic.

  • On a particularly hot July afternoon, I became a yellow room to watch a cheerful girl move in. From my seat below the windowsill, I saw her unpack wooden boards and nail packets from forts of cardboard boxes, assembling shelves and dressers that framed me in white and beige. Books, bags, clothes, a clarinet perfused over the plained furniture and carpet like colors on a drawing, layering into place over time. Every now and then when the golden glow of afternoon slanted through my windows, she tacked an origami to the wall or transposed fixtures - the night stand switched sides of the bed, the dresser shifted three inches left, the purple lamp disappeared. Playfully, sixth grade passed in the sequestered moments mirroring little musings on each other.

    I became a yellow room to watch a determined girl crochet little trinkets out of pastel threads. Without a desk, she sprawled across the floor, fingers weaving mazes of polygons and chains. Amigurumis lined her shelves, the stuffed animals she never had; yarn scraps weltered the floor like autumn leaves. Hundreds of hours hunkered under a yellow light, accompanied by her shadow and an ever-growing pile of creations. One day, she unraveled a half-moon rug, as long as her arm and ringed with thick ruffles. Draped in yellow and white arches, it complimented her room well. She arranged it at the foot of her bed.

    I became a yellow room to watch a nervous girl become a highschooler. Rain jeweled my windows, and a pallid sky obscured the sun. She situated a cyan desk by my front door, the wooden legs coated in frayed, white hairline cracks from a decade of another’s usage. Workbooks piled upon it in mini towers, and beside them half-empty plastic water bottles grouped and remained. Day merged with night - a shadow hunched under the lamp-light in carved stone, a laptop gleamed incessantly on a cyan sea like a beacon, silence hung in discarded papers and closed doors. Yellow walls stared at each other, a continent apart.

    On a particularly hot July afternoon, I became a yellow room to watch a tired girl move out. She packaged amigurumis and books into small crates and lugged shelved furniture away, leaving a silhouette of a place once dressed like her. Haste guided her steps like a guardian - tepid recluse followed in her shadow. On a night where the moon hung small and gibbous, she painted over my walls in soft, snow-white, and that was the last I saw of her.