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BritWeek Drives Through Beverly Hills
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Steve McQueen’s green 1956 Jaguar XKSS, a gray 1928 Bentley Speed 6, and a row of iconic Mini Coopers line up in attendance for the British Invasion show at the Petersen Museum for auto enthusiasts and car aficionados on Nov. 14.
by CHrIstIan CHavEz and louIs WHItE
The growl of cars charged the air as many classics prepared to park on top of the Petersen Museum’s rooftop lot. Guests sipped coffee, and chomped on donuts and sausage rolls, and the smell of engine oil mingled with the snacks on a warm and sunny day.
Hundreds of guests came to watch collectors show off their prized classic cars. Former late-night TV host and car collector Jay Leno attended, and so did TV-teacher Bill Nye, the Science Guy. Rapper, Tyler the Creator rubbed elbows with other celebrities and car fans who turned up at 8 a.m. to see rows of iconic cars.
Enthusiastic fans snapped pictures and talked to the owners. Petersen Automotive Museum, the City of Beverly Hills and car aficionado Magnus Walker hosted the event, which highlighted a fantastic ride through some of Britain’s most celebrated automobiles.
Some cars and their drivers stood out. Daelen Cory wore a top hat and a drawnon mustache, one of many drivers who attended the event and drove his green 1968 MGB GT.
“It’s a totally classic gentleman’s car,” Cory said.
Inside his car was a 24-inch tall puppet with a top hat sitting in the driver’s seat. The back of his trunk was propped open to reveal another top hat with goggles sitting on the bottom to highlight its unique place among a sea of cars. The car oozed personality.
The license plate on the back of Cory’s car had the word Couyon, which holds a personal significance for the flashy driver.
“My mother gave me a name in Cajun French, ‘Couyon’ which is a fool,” he said. “I have a couyon puppet sitting in the driver’s seat driving away with his magical top hat and goggles.”
The Britweek rally treated guests to many cars with different personalities, rather than the average manufactured assembly line vehicle with predictable curved features. Many of these classic vehicles, such as the Mini Cooper and Rolls Royce were made by hand.
Brandon Faith studies photography at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He says he enjoys photographing car events with a large format 4x5 film camera. This camera allows the photographer to take a step back and slow down to produce an image that captures more detail than a typical camera.
“Keep the car scene alive, and just remember the past because if you treat these things poorly, you’re just throwing away this era,” Faith said.
The importance of this event is about preservation, and with students like Faith carrying around a large format camera, the car scene will survive and thrive.
“All we will ever have is pictures,” said the photo student.
The automobiles rolled toward the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts near Beverly Hills City Hall. The parade of classic cars dominated Fairfax Avenue as everyday cars idled on the sidelines. The classic jewels rode in style through L.A’s streets one more time.
At the close of the day, fans of British car culture witnessed a spectacular ride through history.
PHotos by CHrIstIan CHavEz
(Top) Jay Leno exiting the Petersen parking lot in his 1928 Bentley Speed 6 heading towards the Wallis Annenberg Center of the Performing Arts. All part of the British Invasion Week on November 14, 2021.
(Center) A 1968 MGB GT sits on the Petersen Museum’s top level parking lot. The owner, Daelen Cory, adorned his car with a top hat, funky glasses and a license plate with the word Couyon. All part of the British Invasion Week on November 14, 2021.
A green 1967 Morgan parked on top of the Petersen Museum’s top level parking lot. All part of the British Invasion Week on November 14, 2021.
In Her Own Words
Native Student talks Heritage, Future
by raCHEl rodrIguEz
LuvLeighAn Clark is a Native-American who attends Los Angeles City College, in pursuit of fulfilling her dream of becoming a filmmaker.
Clark has nine college degrees, which include four associate degrees, two bachelor degrees and three masters degrees. She plans to continue her education towards two
PhD degrees. Previously from Bay
City, Michigan, she became a foster child in Lawrence County, Ohio at the age of 13. Clark has lived in nine states and changed her name five times. Clark hitchhiked and walked from Michigan to California, a three-week journey. She arrived in
Los Angeles just before turning 21.
Clark shares her story with the Collegian.
Q: Can you share more about your Native American heritage?
Clark: I was raised with my birth father’s side of the family. They denied their Cherokee bloodline because my grandmother married a racist.
They hated my birth mother because she was Aztec. I became a foster kid at the age of thirteen and because my family is not registered with a tribe it is actually illegal for me to say I am Native American.
My only proof is two blood ancestry tests. My Native bloodline is high enough to register with a tribe, but you still have to prove which tribe you are from.
I do not speak to my birth father’s side of the family, and Aztecs do not have a tribe despite being on the USA list of civilized tribes.
Many people think those of us not raised on “The Rez” want to be part of it for the money. In fact, not all tribes get money, and many live in poverty that makes Third World countries look like Beverly Hills.
Q: What does Native History Month mean to you?
Clark: No one teaches the truth of Native history or current events. They feed the fairytale of the first thanksgiving, which did not happen the way people are taught.
I find it even more insulting that it is done during the month of commemorating the genocide of Native people.
Native children are still being taken from the tribe and put in foster care in the white man’s community. If they stay there long enough they lose their tribal enrollment.
This lowers the number of tribe members, which gives the government the right to abolish the tribe. We are down to 550 tribes in the United States, 50 less since the ‘70s.
None of this is talked about during Native History Month.
Q: Can you tell more about yourself, not only as a Native student, but as a Native woman?
Clark: My religion is a mix of my Native religions (old ways) and my Pagan Irish ancestors. I believe in protecting Mother Earth and animals over humans.
I believe the strong protect the weak. I believe that we need to go back to the old tribal communities of “We” and not the “I” communities we are living in. If we go back to the old Native tribal ways, I believe that many of our country’s problems will go away in a few generations.
Q: What does independence mean to you as part of the indigenous people?
Clark: The biggest independence that can be given to the Native communities is the right to prosecute criminals no matter what skin color or tribal affiliation, on their land.
Crimes are committed on tribal land because the tribes are not allowed to go after any tribal people that commit crimes on tribal land, no matter the crime.
Rapists and murderers get away with it and local police will not investigate it nor can they on tribal land and very rarely the FBI. This is why there are so many missing Native women and children.
Q: What are some projects you have and are working on?
Clark: I am trying to film all my shorts to build my director’s reel and showcase my writing skills in the hopes of making it as a filmmaker.
I am polishing off a feature film about the right to die when you are sick and dying anyway.
I have the outline for a feature called Finding Santa, which is about foster kids running away to confront Santa. I am told that there is no audience for this because people overlook those of us raised in state care and will not look at the ugly truth of child abuse.
I am trying to find a way to self-publish my book of poems and artwork. I also have three children’s books I am trying to self-publish.
I do not have the money to pay an illustrator so I am taking drawing classes to learn to draw better.
To find out more about LuvLeighAn Clark, check out her IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/ name/nm3617523/?ref_=nv_sr_ srsg_0.
Clark has some of her short films available on her website: https://luvleighan.wixsite.com/ goddessproductions/shorts-1.
She also has some educational documentaries available on the website as well which can be found at: https://luvleighan.wixsite.com/ goddessproductions/documentaries.
Mom, dad,
Jointhe winning team Journal 220-1 and Journal 220-2
CT
COLLEGIAN TIMES
2021 SPRING-SUMMER
ROBERT WILLIAMS, LACC ALUMNUS
‘MR. BITCHIN’ JUXTAPOSES LOWBROW, FINE ART
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Collegian CORONAVIRUS ROARS INTO 2020
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MAEBE A. GIRL WILL WIN A SEAT IN CONGRESS
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HOLLYWOOD GAY BARS, SKATEBOARDERS AND HOT CARS
TIMES
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Join the winners of the A.C.P. National Pacemaker Award three years in a row: 2019, 2020 and 2021.
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Hannah spends a good deal of time within the imposing walls of Brasenose College at Oxford University. Only 11 percent of state school students in the U.K. win a place there, according to a Sutton Trust report from 2016.
Hardship Tests Student, Scholarships Bring Education of a Lifetime
the quest for higher education drives a student from L.a. city college to columbia University and travel across the pond to an historic institution that educates presidents, princes and kings.
by sorIna szakaCs
She walks with a firm resolve to continue her education “come what may.” The gateway to Hannah’s future is an antique fortress door of weathered heavy wood beneath a carved stone frieze. A crowned lion and a unicorn support the college’s gold and blue coat of arms.
Inside the Old Quad, she stops, gazes upward, slowly closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. The sky is bright blue and the sun showers her in warm rays.
It is warm for October in this part of the world. For a moment, the warmth of the sun reminds her of
California, where her journey began five years ago.
She flashes a smile, as she joins the cohort of new Oxford students, ready for Matriculation Day.
They wait in small groups on the pavement surrounding Brasenose
College. They seem to be on a
“Harry Potter” movie set. This is the United Kingdom, after all. The whitish-yellow limestone from the Headington quarries and the freshly sodded lawn could transport anyone back in time to a 16th century autumn day.
But this is Oct. 4, 2021. The students, even though all dressed the same in this century’s fashion, do not seem out of place. And they couldn’t be, since all of them are about to be matriculated in an initiation ceremony—a most prestigious rite of passage— they are about to go down on the scrolls as Oxford’s new generation of future alumni.
All wear head to toe sub fucs: plain white shirts adorned with black ribbons or bow ties, dark clothing, and the black sleeveless gown with a turned collar. It has square pleats that hang the full length of the gown that falls to the hip or knee. It all depends on the student’s status.
Hannah Gehrels graduated from Los Angeles City College (LACC) in 2018. City College became her sanctuary, her home and her refuge. It was the place she turned after hitting rock bottom.
“I restarted school at a point when I had lost everything,” Hannah says. “I had lost my children to divorce and international kidnapping and was looking to repurpose myself. In fact, I ended up in Los Angeles on vacation and without goals or even an intention to stay. I was following a friend when I enrolled at LACC. That friend subsequently quit school but I found it to be a healing.”
Life in a “square box,” in a Los Angeles women’s shelter with a newborn does not seem like a recipe for success for most people, but Hannah is one of a kind, driven and ambitious. She spent her community college years focused on a better future for her and little Carolyn. Many times, Hannah carried the baby and later the toddler with her to class.
During a creative writing exam, Professor Sam Eisenstein snapped a photo of the motherdaughter duo. Hannah sits at the desk, face down, eyes on the paper, focused on her exam. Carolyn, then a one-year-old, sleeps peacefully across her mother’s lap.
“You wouldn’t even have noticed she was there,” Hannah says. “She was such a good baby and still shows up for my lectures with the same attitude of been here, done this,” Professors always remark post lecture how good she is to have in class.”
She is six years old now and familiar with lecture halls, libraries and university events. Even so, she is still a little girl who loves her unicorn dresses and has friends her age to play with.
“Carolyn already knows a good deal more than her peers about tertiary education,” Hannah says. “She’s been to university lectures and seminars; she’s attended office hours and orientation. She has lived in the U.S. and U.K. and has a growing network of global friends. Carolyn has a betterequipped lexical toolkit than I had at her age, all due to my academic peregrination. She is aware of this privilege and takes advantage of it.”
Hannah struggled financially through college, lived in a shelter while enrolled in classes and had to budget her scholarship money to survive. She does not want her daughter to face similar struggles in the future.
“So, it follows that my greatest desire is for her to live unrestrained by these contraptions,” she says.
City Becomes First Stop in Academic Career
Looking back to that Fall 2015 semester when she took the first step toward a new life by enrolling at LACC, Hannah remembers she was overexcited.
“Ignorant of the inner-workings of the American college system, I tried signing up for 16 classes,” Hannah says.
Her decision to enroll in college was life-changing. At City, she not only found that she could heal, but also met “competent educators” and peers who helped her keep on going when she felt like quitting.
“I really respect professor Farrell, he’s everything you would want in a professor,” the alumna says. “Dr. Bartelt is a brilliant enigma. Dr. Muller wears many hats in her effort to be there for many students. Professor Ealy is retired I believe, but helped scrutinize my Jack Kent Cooke Foundation (J.K.C.F.) application, he is stellar. Another professor I revere is linguist Dr. Lane Igoudin.”
Dr. Danielle Muller directs the Ralph Bunche Scholars Program and keeps in touch with Hannah on a regular basis.
“It is wonderful to still be in touch with Hannah even though she has left LACC a few years ago. I get to see her blossoming and succeed in her pursuit and focus of higher education and a better life
for herself and her daughter,” Muller says. “Hannah started her academic career at LACC and is now at Oxford College in England. How awesome is that?”
With straight A’s on her transcript, she joined the Ralph Bunche Scholars program at City and was later inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. It was during one of the society’s LACC chapter bi-weekly meetings that Hannah heard about J.K.C.F. from a former recipient. Inspired by the alum, she did not delay planning and working to pursue the prestigious scholarship.
“That very evening when I went home and perused the website. I began writing the first of what would be many drafts,” Hannah says.
City College Cub Morphs into
Columbia University Lion
A few months prior to her graduation with associate of arts degrees in the social and behavioral sciences, the humanities, and French at City, Hannah learned she was the recipient of the J.K.C.F. scholarship. The $40,000 she received helped further her studies.
“It was in April 2018, at the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) Board of Trustees meeting at Los Angeles Valley College. Dr. Muller knowing I was being announced one of three winners, somehow kept it all to herself while she drove us there. I knew I was to be acknowledged as a semi-finalist. I didn’t know that I had won,” Hanna remembers smiling. “It’s usually hard to catch me off-guard because of a posttraumatic stress disorder. I mean, I manage my life meticulously.”
She saw LACC President Mary Gallagher and the LACC Foundation Director Robert Schwartz there, but she still didn’t think anything of it.
“I remember holding Carolyn when I went on stage to receive the semi-finalist award,” she says. “When they called my name as a finalist I worried I would drop Carolyn. I was in such shock.”
Mere weeks after winning the Cooke scholarship, Hannah received an email from Columbia University in the City of New York. She was accepted and would start her B.A. coursework in the 2018 Fall semester. She left City to continue her language, social and cultural studies.
The journey from coast to coast was not an easy one, and Hannah simply says it was a “charged period” when talking about it. She left the West Coast at the end of the summer and moved to the city that never sleeps to further her education goals. But sometimes, changes are hard and tiring, even for focused and meticulous people like her.
“Despite my planning and budgeting I went to New York with $80 in my pocket,” she says. “I relied heavily on support from my friends. When I felt like quitting, professor Kaviani encouraged me not to. My friend Arus took me to the airport. Another friend, George, loaned me the money to pay the security deposit for my house because the award itself was still pending.”
Hannah moved into a onebedroom apartment, 10 minutes walking distance from Columbia’s main campus. The mother-daughter duo finally had privacy, a kitchen of their own, and “multiple rooms with doors.” Leaving the L.A. shelter life behind was “liberating” for her.
“I was relieved when I finally opened this door I worked so hard to open,” she says. “Here I was receiving a quality education in New York City, having improved my standard of living. I had left the shelter in L.A. and entered a home I provided myself. And I can’t tell you what this felt like to have this without a man granting it under some form of ‘contractual obligation.’”
Even though she appreciates the work of New Economics for Women who owned the transitional home she lived in while in L.A., Hannah says the time spent there was “strenuous.” Some residents used drugs, and others were mentally unstable. It was not a child-friendly space.
“You have to understand where I was coming from and how long I had been traveling to get where I was,” she says. “So I was very proud of myself to have finally acquired a home. I am grateful for how my life has bounced back after the divorce because all these negative things happened to me along the way—I broke my jaw, my girls were subject to parental manipulation, and I was threatened and intimidated by my ex-husband even after he had injured me physically and left me lame for six weeks.”
Hannah’s voice is steady as she recounts her journey. The changes are stark, but she speaks slowly as she recalls how her life unfolded in the last few years.
“After being a subordinate for voice. It is particularly difficult to prioritize yourself when you have young children. Prioritize yourself anyway. Model good behavior. Choose self-improvement. Your children will mature and thank you for it.”
‘Once a Cookie, always a Cookie’
Hannah followed her own rules and received her second J.K.C.F. scholarship that helped her fly across the pond and enter the gates of the historic University of Oxford. According to the Cooke Foundation, they usually facilitate their undergraduates into postgraduate and doctoral degrees.
“It is simply a matter of applying within three years of your first degree. As the saying goes “Once a Cookie, always a Cookie,” Hannah says. “There is a vast network of Cookie cousins who have used the scholarship to reinvent their lives. These people are now remodeling the world. Many are gifted, prolific, and multi-talented. I pale in comparison to these people and tred lightly around them.”
Even though Hannah does not have time to enjoy the outdoors as much as she would like, she says she sometimes takes a spontaneous break from work to run with wild abandon in the meadow behind her home. She describes Oxford as a charming city filled with open air markets, museums, old chapels, libraries, lush meadows, history— “lots of it gnarly.”
“There’s even an underground tunnel called the Gladstone Link that connects the Radcliffe Camera to the Bodleian Library,” she says. “It’s picturesque British countryside if you can oblige ‘us’ a bit of imagination with tuck shops, pubs—with period features to boot—and art galleries all flung hodgepodge about. The river Thames cuts right through the city with one of its tributaries meandering quietly behind our house feeding an enormous sprawl of grassland.”
As for the school curriculum, she says it “requires” students “to lose their sanity” with “as many as 16 books per class per week.”
Hannah enrolled in four classes. Between school projects, housework and taking care of Carolyn, she does not have much time for anything else. They both wake up early. She takes Carolyn to school by 7:30 a.m., and on the way there and back, she listens to lectures over headphones. She returns home and prepares class notes or tidies up while listening to an audiobook.
“I head to one of the many buildings we meet in,” she says. “The walk can take anywhere between 20 and 35 minutes. Once I am done, I pick Carolyn up at 3:15 p.m., or if I have a lecture or seminar, at 5:45 p.m. When I get home, I prepare dinner while talking to my sister in Jamaica. I facilitate Carolyn’s homework and/or reading exercises. She goes to bed around 7 p.m. (but usually pushes it to 8 p.m.). I work from the point she falls asleep to 2 or 3 a.m. on essays, presentations and just trying to print out or organize the class work.”
Language Skills Assure Pathway
to Academic Success
Hannah’s family moved to Jamaica when she was 3 years old, but she was born in the United States. It took almost three decades and a broken, abusive marriage for her to come back. When she finally did, she realized that the only way to a better life was through education. She speaks French, Dutch and Spanish and studied Romanian as part of her curriculum at Columbia. Her journey was not an easy one, but the rewards for hard work made it bearable.
Mary Gallagher, the City’s president says the college is lucky to have students like Hannah “in our midst.” She says Hannah was an “exceptional student,” involved in clubs, student activities and organizations. She even planned a TedX talk at LACC that was “incredible”.
“She was a strong advocate for students, a multi-talented, a highly competent student, and a brilliant communicator. Her story is one of resilience, and of resisting the
It was in April 2018, at the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) Board of Trustees meeting at Los Angeles Valley College. Dr. Muller knowing I was being announced one of three winners, somehow kept it all to herself while she drove us there. I knew I was to be acknowledged as a semifinalist. I didn’t know that I had won.
close to a decade—after living with the bare minimum and no alimony—after years of clawing my way out—I win this scholarship and my whole life changes overnight. Now, I have professors who are themselves voices of authority within my field interests—at my discretion. I could talk to them and learn from them whenever I wanted. I was finally leveling up. I was entering a place in society where I could articulate my own value instead of acquiescing to an exerted one.”
As a Columbia student, Hannah experienced both ups and downs. She could meet academic expectations because of her exposure to the rigors of the Ralph Bunche Honors Program at L.A. City College. However, it was the social and language transition at Columbia that gave her a lot to consider.
“I mean, here I was studying anthropology and linguistics in the hallowed halls of the institution and simultaneously involved in an inner working of the same,” she says. “This was destabilizing because superficially the two journeys seem like paradigmatic experiences.”
Though she excelled outwardly, internally she suffered. Thrown into “analytic overdrive,” she felt like a misfit, listening to herself speak in class.
“Everyone was talking about ‘agency’ and uptalk was in vogue. So just by opening my mouth I gave away details of my socioeconomic standing and at least the last five years of my educational journey,” she says. “Most of my peers were at the top of their classes prior. I felt I was walking amongst clones. Everyone was a former president or vice-president of something. I went from being a big fish in a small pond to being a small fish in a big pond.”
And that was not the only struggle. She had to learn the layout of the new campus, spread out over 10 blocks. Her classes were all over the place. Aside from her studies, she had to focus on getting new doctors, new dentists and new health insurance for both her and Carolyn. The mother-daughter duo had to start from scratch in the new city, without Hannah taking a break from studying and reading around 12 books each week.
“I hit the ground running and kept moving. This was damaging because over time, simple things like actively listening and reading, breathing deep, and sitting still became near impossible,” she says. “I developed insomnia and restlessness animated by ‘the city that never sleeps.’ That being said, having matriculated to Oxford I can see I have a leg up on others. Columbia is the lead researchdriven university. That works to my advantage here.”
During lectures at Columbia, she often scanned the room amazed how often people would ask questions she thought about, too. This was a humbling experience. What was shocking was that students often turned to drugs to enhance scholastic performance.
“I refused to follow the crowd regarding this,” Hannah says. “I committed even more time to running and being on the track. Running has saved my life and improved my time management skills. I know this sounds paradoxical but by inserting a fitness regime in my schedule I have bought more hours in my day.”
Painting also helps her “make sense of the world and fight depression.” She says that sometimes, when the clinical depression hits hard and she can’t talk, painting is the one thing she can do.
“I actually had my work in two galleries in downtown L.A. while at LACC. I have found buyers are more appreciative of my abstract work, but I usually am commissioned to do portraits,” she says. “Here is a painting of Dr. Gallagher that I gifted to her after graduation.”
Scholarships Offer Key to
Success
Hannah could be considered a scholarship guru. Her success in applying for and receiving some of the most prestigious scholarships in the country is a testament to years of research and draft writing. She is the recipient of a second J.K.C.F. award of $120,000 disbursed over three years, which will help her with the M.A. at Oxford. Women’s Education Fund and Soroptimist International each awarded $10,000 to Hannah. She also received a CalWorks Regional Award and many other smaller awards during her years at City and at Columbia.
Hannah offers advice, but no encouragement for those who want to pursue scholarship support. She says those who need encouragement should not apply.
“They will only be overtaken by students more desperate than them. Scholarships exist for exactly the kind of people who will recognize them for what they are: opportunities to change your life,” she says as she advises students to stay focused on their goals. She says motivated students should not lose heart because of social barriers or problems in their environment. “Do not let it become your innerlabel “victim.” I admired Hannah for her humanity, for her kindness, and for her beautiful smile and infectious laugh,” Gallagher says. “I feel very proud and fortunate to know a person like Hannah. I am not surprised she went to Columbia or that she went on to Oxford. She is one who will do great things.”
Hannah knows how much scholarships matter. The funds assist economically disadvantaged students on their way to success by helping them focus on what is important: their education. Personal essays and statements are part of scholarship applications, and that sets up language as “academia’s most important currency,” according to Hannah.
She says that social and economic burdens could bar the way to success.
“These deterrents stood in the way of the things I wanted most: an education, opportunities and means,” Hannah says. “I quickly learned that for any class constituent to transition through the ranks they must be in possession of something that defies the laws of the lower level and gratifies the expectations of the higher level.”
Hannah encourages students to hone their linguistic and language skills.
“In the case of scholarships, people meet you on paper before they meet you in person,” Hannah says. “So your ability to succeed is bound up in language acquisition skills. You have to be able to write well, more so if you grew up in poverty, and you have to be able to metabolize the unsavory things life throws at you and serve this up in delectable prose.”
It has been almost two months since Hannah’s matriculation day at Oxford. After all students of Brasenose College confirm their attendance and take photos, they walk to the university’s Sheldonian Theatre, to join peers from other Oxford Colleges for the matriculation ceremony.
Hannah steps inside the theatre and again, looks upward. The ceiling’s painting foreshadows the Oxford education she will acquire while completing her Masters of Philosophy. The 17th century painting by Robert Streater, “Truth Descending on the Arts and Sciences to Expel Ignorance from the University” stands as proof of what the legacy of being an Oxford alumna truly means. From high relief, gilded cords, putti – cherub- like creatures– roll back a vast crimson awning to reveal “the triumph of Arts and Sciences over Envy, Rapine, and ‘brutish scoffing ignorance.’”
Hannah stands next to her friend and listens to the ceremony. It is a short one, but it is solemn. The Latin words resonate inside the theatre’s walls, enhancing their meaning. Students repeat some of the words aloud, a pledge to the university and its mission to “expel ignorance.”
Minutes later, Hannah walks out of the Sheldonian, smiling back at the warm sun. She emerges into Oxford “as a fully-fledged member of the University.”
“I have always believed in myself,” she says.
Hannah painted L.A City College President Mary Gallagher’s portrait in 2018. Painting helps her “make sense of the world and fight depression.”
Hannah’s Scholarship Decalogue
1.Write succinctly. Abstain from long-winded sentences. 2. Be respectful. Deploy politeness appropriately. 3. Abstain from highfalutin jargon. Speak in layman’s terms when talking about your research interest and studies. Get others excited, not alienated, about what you do. 4. Research the scholarship. They exist at many levels and are often owned by third parties. One of the first things to do is find out if you match their criteria. Ask yourself: Who is behind the award? Who believes in my dreams and wants to help me? What do they stand for? Deliberate on what sort of people would want to invest in society. 5. Most times what you need to write down will need to start long before you apply. In other words, take a genuine interest in helping others long before you are required to write about your community service. 6. Watch out for mechanical and grammatical errors. Dot your i’s and cross your t’s. 7. Attend workshops and ask for help from professors with whom you have built a rapport. If you dislike a professor and they are good at something you need help with, approach them anyway. Be humble and ask for their help. Ultimately, you win because now you have been taught a new skill. 8. Help others work on their scholarships. I cannot stress how much latent incentive lies in helping others. 9. Confidence and arrogance are distinct things. Those evaluating your response want to hear good reasons to invest in you, not arrogant or entitled claims. Confidently make your case by showing how valuable you are instead of by what merit you should be selected. Rather than stating your title and what you generally do, show how your actions made life better. 10. Write, revise, and stay alert. Try to answer the questions long before the deadline. Give yourself ample time to edit again and again. Work on the scholarship when you are sharpest. Get adequate sleep and work when alert.
Santa Claus
Returns to Hollywood
The Nutcracker and T-Rex, colorful floats, celebrities and movie cars thrilled parade goers at the 89th Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade on Nov. 28. The Viva Panama Float with dancers, and the Idaho Potato Truck on an 18-wheeler carting a two-story, four-ton potato took over Hollywood Boulevard. Award-winning bands and 12, four-story character balloons marched down the boulevard in the Christmas parade that returned to Hollywood after a one-year break because of the pandemic.
Jolly Old Elf and Santa Claus with his reindeer brought the holiday season spirit.
The event is scheduled for a two-hour primetime television special airing on the CW Network, Friday, Dec. 17, at 8 p.m. Sheryl Underwood, the host of “The Talk” will serve as the parade’s grand marshal.
(Top) The Penultimate float and perennial child favorite Santa Claus and his Reindeer float escorted by Santa Claus, Marines Gunnery Sergeant Jonathan Lazer and Battery Gunnery Sergeant Raymond Paladino
(Center) PAVA World, Pacific Asian Volunteer Association wishes everyone Happy Holidays. The Traditional Korean Marching Band brought colorful cheer and sounds to the Hollywood Christmas Parade, Sunday, Nov. 28, 2021.
Bottom left: The Los Angeles Police Emerald Society Pipes and Drums Band members are both active and retired officers of the law of multiple agencies. Ring in the cheer at the Hollywood Christmas Parade, Sunday, Nov. 28, 2021.
(Bottom right) Milton High School Marching Band of Milton GA., performs during the Hollywood Christmas Parade, Sunday, Nov. 28, 2021.
