Gabriella Kim

Gabriella Kim




I Come From…



I come from words of encouragement, games, and delectable foods. I come from a fun neighborhood, and lots of little pets. I come from many things.



I come from games all around the house. I come from library Clue, dining room Taboo, and kitchen Monopoly. I come from recess-yard-basketball, and secret park volleyball. I come from backyard worm hunting, and front yard gopher hunting. I come from cutting doll hair, and making plays. I come from good times and happiness.



I come from delicious foods and desserts. I come from spicy curry and a failed batch of strawberry chocolates. I come from bunny cakes and gooey chocolates. I come from hot lava cakes and ice cream. I come from brownies and fruit tarts. I come from delight.



I come from a small neighborhood where everybody has a pool, and the streets are so empty you could play volleyball on them. I come from house after house all with stairs, and a tiny hill underneath the road. I come from baseball, soccer, badminton, and bicycling all in the same place. I come from two kids my age delivering cookies to my house the day I moved in. I come from laughter.



I come from words of encouragement. I come from reading the signs in the assembly room saying “It’s okay to make a mistake.” I come from my dad telling me to always try my hardest. I come from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech, and interesting riddles. I come from inspiration.



I come from an ever-changing house. I come from a used-to-be white house with a yellow inside, to a yellow house with a gray and brown inside. I come from a green, to blue, to white, to brown deck, and painting my brother’s name on his wall. I come from lots of stairs, and a whole bunch of paintings. I come from glass doors, and brown and yellow sofas. I come from duck and elephant statues, and lots of different plants. I come from fun parties and camping in my own backyard. I come from fun and good times.



I come from all of my past fishes, and a swirl of underwater color. I come from Orangie, my first pet, and Ferdinand, the fish I had the longest. I come from Pinkie, Pineapple, Bluie 1, Bluie 2, and Bluie 3. I come from Angle and Glowie, Lucky and Lioney, Crayon and Butterfly, Goldie, Darty and her crew, Nemo, Dory, Minty, and Queen. I come from Ninja, Domino, and Rainbow. I come from Sandy and Mr. Moo. I come from my two anemones Wisteria and Alteria, and my two lobsters, Bob and Bill. I come from underwater excitement.



I come from all those things I listed in the beginning, and many more. I come from my home, and my loving family. I come from lots of things I will never forget. I come from happiness all the time. I come from joy and excitement.

Tommy Muhl

The energy of my picture reflects everything. Some energy is calm and other energy is like a going off bomb. This came to be from things that happen in my life, and drawing straight lines with a ruler. My picture makes me feel happy and joyous. It is perfect for me because you can tell that there are mistakes, like I make in life. Some are small like forgetting a baseball to put in my bag before I go to a practice. Sometimes the mistakes are much larger. I see my life and sometimes think up glimpses of the future. Every time I lay in bed asleep, I can sometimes see things that are so real that I feel like I am there. Only then do I realize I am dreaming and anything can change.


My picture shows how hard I am on myself. In sports if I miss a pass or miss a shot or miss a fly ball I feel bad. I am not only hard on myself with sports but also with school. Just yesterday I was sure that all hell had broken lose. I was locked out of my computer account, my partner didn’t do a thing to help on our project, and it was due. The teachers gave me extra time because my account was locked. It also shows that sometimes in deep darkness there is always a light. I know they say that in a lot of movie previews, but now I realize it is true, but it isn’t only related to some hero that will fulfill a prophecy.

The first thing that most people realize in my picture is heaven. The golden gates show that now the people who have passed on are in a better place. Though it also reminds me of everything I did with that person. Although it is called the Golden Gates, I think of them being a little bit upsetting.

Another thing that is noticed fairly quickly is the floating bed. It shows me. The balloons holding it are some of my friends. The two balloons that aren’t connected to my bed are friends that are no longer friends. These people don’t treat me as well as I would like, so if they don’t, my time should not be wasted on them.

I am the one in the bed. My brother Eddie is the clone trooper. I put him as this because of how strong he is. My Mom is Phineas from Phineas and Ferb. I put her as this because she is always thinking outside the box and thinking of others before herself. My Dad is Ferb. My dad is very well spoken and smart. He also is very much like my mom, by being so nice to others. The globe being held up is my passed on Grandpa. He was the head of Universal for 40 something years. I put him as the man holding up the globe because he held the whole company together for that long. I didn’t put his wife and my Grandma because I never met her, but she is in the spirit. She was an amazing person. She had 6 kids and then fostered more than I can count. On the other side of the family my Grandparents are the Skype symbol. They are this because that is how I communicate with them. I talk almost every day. My grandpa worked for Reagan and Nixon. He is a very amazing man. My Grandma is also amazing because she gave birth to 7 kids.

As you can see there are a lot of symbols relating to Greek Mythology. I have loved it ever since I was little. My dad had showed me the original Clash of the Titans. Even though now I realize it was not real, I made my dad help me search everywhere in our house to find all of Perceus’ weapons so I could kill any invading monsters. I never did find them, but I did use toy ones. Every day I would walk in to preschool and tell my friends how cool Medusa was. That is how much I loved it. I still do.

Also in the floor there are two portals. The one that says “Never ending fall” refer to all the times I have done bad and feel like nothing has gone right. The other portal that says “Portal to Grizzleheim” is a fictional place. In 2008 I made 2 very good friends that had great imaginations. Then their dad, who is a baseball coach, got a head coaching job at a very nice school in Minnesota. I was sad they were moving. Since we all had imagination, we created a world called Grizzleheim. We made it a place where we could all see each other. It is kind of like an empathy link. But we exist only in each others’ imagination.

Creating this picture revealed how hard I can be on myself, and how much I do care about people. I also notice I can be a little full of myself. Sometimes I brag. I also notice I can be a little bit centered about improving others and not myself. I would like to not be the person who can make people laugh, I would like to be the person who lives, laughs, and loves. I am not saying I am not like that already, but I would like to improve. I feel the most valuable part about me is how loving I am. I am not trying to brag. I cry everyday for people in Haiti. I get sad to think about leaving home and going to college. One night my mom came into my room to check my blood sugar and I was crying 3 hours after she put me to bed. She asked what was wrong and I told her, I had a dream about two of my old cats. These cats were deaf, but were the most loving things on Earth.



This picture made me feel like I was soaring. Not flying, but looking back at everything. The thing is you got to appreciate everything, because in a matter of seconds you or someone you love could be walking towards the light. I will remember myself as a 5th grader. Oh yeah and my mom will probably cry when I read this to her.

Ibby O'Carroll

Ibby O’Carroll



Room Picture



My room picture has opposite colors and analogous colors. I felt like it shouldn’t belong, but it should. It feels straightened out and just right, and in a way, it represents my life. It also feels like the opposite of my life because sometimes I feel overwhelmed and sometimes I feel very calm and content. It is every feeling I have ever experienced. It is mostly the feelings that I hate, which is not surprising, because they are the feelings that I think about the most. It’s just right because it fits my personality perfectly.



The first area that catches my eye is the silver and gold beams of light that represent heaven. To someone that isn’t me, they would probably think that it is “cool” or “bright”. But the real feelings are happiness and sadness. It reminds me of my grandma who is up there, which is sad, but I know that things happen for a reason, so I feel happy. She gets to experience a whole new life up there. I get to talk with her through this picture. She is my greatest joy and my saddest sorrow. I know she helped me create this picture, too.



The next area that catches my eye is the rainbow. It is like a passageway to the future. I don’t know what it will feel like, because I will know in the future. It is like a beaten up rainbow that I took in to my room, because it was exceptional. It means that I don’t know how my life will end up, but I know that everything will work out in the end.



The big lollipops start the journey of my life. The staircase is a symbol of before my life started. As soon as I stepped into my room, my life began. Everything that I put in my picture is a big part of my life. The blue hazy light represents the time I fainted. The swirly cross represents England, because my dad was born there. The yellow dots represent all the times I was very confused. The red edges on the bottom of the stairway represent books because I love reading. The mountains represent the ups and downs that I have been through and the star represents how far I have come. The hearts represent my family and that they will always be there for me. I wrote life because it is the one thing that will always be with me until the day I die.



If I ever get a chance to be in my room picture, I will get lost in the wonder and excitement and joy and sadness and all the overwhelming things. I would love to spend time in my room with all of my close family members and friends, but alone with them. It will be a space where I can share all of my feelings in that room. I could do whatever I pleased and everything that I’m scared to show real people. I could cry and laugh and live in that room.



I learned that I am the opposite of myself. I will always be happy and sad, daring and scared, loving and unkind, and grumpy and excited.

June 26, 2010

I am where I need to be doing what I need to do....techology. I write poetry and paint emotional as well physical portraits.

My students have a visually emotional assignment each of the five years they are with me. This technology is clearly a marvelous tool to unite visual images with written and verbal thoughts and feelings that are developed simultaneously in my classroom. Students will be able to document their journey of self expression throughout their years with me.

I would also like to create a computer scrapbook of sorts that includes each student's image and writing.