Tomorrow's Roundtable

We went on field trip to Andy’s work in downtown to work on our new business. He works at Meta Design. 

The girls Dominique and Calianna (excluding me) worked with Scott. When I first walked into the room they gave me an attitude about being in there which I didn’t like. They were rhyming and rapping and thinking of new creations. They were looking at new beats and were trying to find lyric to fit the beats. They were talking about how Mike was boring. They were listening to instrumentals for future raps. 

All the boys were working with Andy on our new logo design for our rap group. Jahem and Daquan were rapping along to a song.

 Daquan was really feeling himself rapping and dancing. 

Today was a good day for Jahziah i was so proud of him! He was really quiet and nice and only had one screw up today. He didn’t do anything bad. 

Angelo was filming everything that happened. 

Jahem was drawing a crown for our logo and kept saying I messed him up. The boys listened to “BandGang” (a music group) to focus, 

Daquan cursed a lot. 

The boys had a lot of creative ideas for our logo. 

Now in 15 Seeds, us students are making a new music business. Today, Jahem, Papa, Daquan, and Ja’Shoun were listening to beats and trying to find one for an upcoming rap. 

Today we had a discussion about about living assets and liabilities. We all decided that we wanted to make a music group company. We had a discussion talking about the things that 15 Seeds will give to us such as a web series, a music group, and an unknown.

 We had to vote for the unknown. The vote was between treats, ice cream, and money. No one had a strong claim for treats or ice cream so we all voted for money. 

Calianna is the artist of 15 Seeds. Her job is to design cool artwork to put on the blog and to be shown later in the year for our documentary. She’s calm and crazy and nice at times. I don’t always talk to her because Dominique is usually always around her or she’s always trying to listen to our conversation. I guess she gets along with everyone. She never has had problems with anyone in 15 Seeds except Ja’Shoun.

Dominique is the so called writer and host of 15 Seeds. She’s my cousin but we don’t get along. It’s a person who always asks her if she’s jealous of me because that person sees that she starts problems with me for no reason. Yea, she’s my family and all but I really don’t think I have good feelings towards her. 

I don’t know if I can love her the way I love the rest of my family. It’s times where I just wanna get her out of my life and just not have anything to due with her but somehow she’s still in my life. Our relationship isn’t good. I can’t even lie, I don’t think I can love her because of the things she has said and done for attention. But, my whole life isn’t focused on that or her. It’s focused on working, being good in school, and having a successful future.

Angelo is a photographer at 15 Seeds. He is on the creative team with Calianna, Dominique. and I. He has worked with Nasi and Trent on camera angles and filming. I think he has a good experience at 15 Seeds. Lately, he has shown a lack of attendance. I think he will start attending 15 Seeds more because he can get a lot out of this program. He is one of the quiet individuals in 15 Seeds but he gets along with mostly everybody who attends the program. No lie, as a kid being 12, I see a bright future for Angelo having to do with filming.

Ja'Shoun  (left)  is the manager of the sales team at 15 Seeds. He is responsible for finalizing things and also agreeing or disagreeing with his peers ideas or opinions. He is the quiet one and the type of boy that everyone likes. He's goofy, nice, he plays around a lot, and he's nice and sweet at times. He seems to get along with everyone in 15 Seeds including me (smiley face). I remember two weeks ago I had an incident with Dominique and he was one of the people who kept telling her to leave me alone (another smiley face).

Da'Quan  (right) is a seller on the sales team. He is one of the short kids in 15 Seeds (laughing emoji). He goes by "SpiderUpN3xt." Like Ja'Shoun, he is sometimes quiet unless he is around his friends. He is the type of boy that a lot of people like. He almost gets along with everyone in the group. He likes to cuss i guess. But he's considered a cool kid and likes shoes. He likes the brands "Trukfit" and "Jordan".

Jahem is a seller on the sales team also. He is Calianna and Jahziah's cousin. He is a great listener and is good at participating. He always participates so you never have to ask him to participate, it's like it's in his blood or it's like it's voluntary. He's good to have on your side because he always has good evidence for something or he has good reasoning.

Today was not the best day for me. People had problems  with the things i decided to put on the blog, when they should have just been minding their own business. So that person thought that if she had an argument or debate with Mike, that what I wanted to put on the blog would not be put on the blog. 

That's not how it worked out though.

Hi, Once again, I'm Dajanique. Lately, I haven't been feeling the same. I don't know if I'm feeling depressed, alone, or what. I'm just not always happy I mostly separate myself from everybody I just sit in my room by myself. It's just, lately people have been talking about me at school and in 15 Seeds. The reason I once thought about suicide was because of what people thought about me. At my school, a lot of people talk about me. 15 Seeds isn't really any different than my school. Some kids at my school and 15 Seeds talk about me, and they talk about the same things. Sometimes, I wonder if the world would be a better place without me. 

But of course, I don't show the way I feel on the inside. I just act like everything's fine when it's not. The things kids say to me and about me make me feel unimportant. It makes me feel like I'm screaming and yelling and no one is hearing me. I only told one person everything and that was because i love him. He's my best friend. No one knows I told him everything because I don't really talk about it or like to. I don't really talk about my problems to people. So many people just talk about me for no reason. The boys in 15 Seeds and one girl talk about me all the time and no one ever does anything about it. They hear it sometimes I'm guessing but don't do anything, I don't really know. Dominique does  it too. Even when the boys talk about me, she laughs and doesn't say anything. But the treatment at school and 15 Seeds is the same. I don't really care about my life all like that anymore.

Hey there,

I’m Dajanique. I am a seventh grader who currently attends Kipp Bayview Academy. I am 12 years old, my birthday is on June 15th. I was born in 2003 to Stanley Crosley and Natasha Anderson. Yes, i am the oldest and I somewhat hate it. For now, I am the blogger of 15 Seeds.

In 2012, my dad got a phone call saying that his brother (my uncle) had died on April 9th, 2012. When he died, I was very sad because I thought of all the times when he would take me to the park and I would cry because he would push my too high on the swing. I also thought about when he would pick me up and give me and taunt me with my favorite oatmeal cookies. I knew I had to continue with my life because everyone has to eventually die someday.

In 2013, my bestfriend lost her life in a fire. On an early morning Saturday, at around 12:30am, a fire broke out on Treasure Island. People say her family forgot about her, I disagree. I think they probably couldn’t get to her in time. I really miss her. I remember two days before she died, it was Valentine’s day and she wanted a sucker from me but i didn’t have enough. So I didn’t give my class any because i gave some to her. That makes me feel good when i think about it. I love her though and I really really really really really really really miss her.

Now, I work at something called 15 Seeds. It’s a program/job I attend every Thursday and Sunday. I work with Jahziah, Calianna, Jahem, Daquan, Angelo, Ja'Shoun, and Dominique. The real person i get along with is Calianna. She’s like my bestfriend. We both are sort if always quiet. Our teachers are Mike and Veronica. Our two camera people are Trent and Nasi. We do activities. We have two teams, a sells team and a creative team. I am a blogger right now, so I am apart of the creative team. I love this job.

For me, Oakdale is not a great place to grow up. It’s too much violence. Ever since I’ve lived here, I’ve been physically right in the middle of two shootings. It is not safe for me around here or anybody. I do not like living on Oakdale. My relationship with Dominique is not perfect. We argue a lot. We have arguments almost everyday. Ever since our uncle died and we’ve lived closer to each other, we haven’t been getting along. My relationship with Dominique is like really complicated. I feel kind of sad being on the same team with her because it might be a lot of conflicts. 

15 Seeds from Tomorrow's Roundtable on Vimeo.

15 Seeds is an after school program that was created by 5 kids from across California when asked to solve the education crisis. It is based on principles such as games for learning, individual pacing, field trips, healthy food, etc. This program is part of a documentary called Tomorrow's Roundtable.

Learn more: tomorrowsroundtable.com Get involved: [email protected]