"Dia de Enero" by Shakira is an important song to me and everyone else who needs spiritual healing. From research, I found that “Día de Enero” is the third single released from Shakira’s 2005 album Fijación Oral 1. The music video for the song shows Shakira walking along a beach at sunset. She draws a heart in the sand with the letters “S y A” symbolizing her love for her former fiancée, Antonio de la Rúa. This song was written for the person Shakira loved at the time. It is about healing a broken heart so that they can learn to love again. Though, art is translated differently by everyone including myself. (The song is in Spanish, but I translate the lyrics) It starts with, "I met you on a January day..." and right here, the song already feels like it was written for me because a new year has just begun and we need to heal from the hardships of the year that had just past. Then the chorus comes and hits my soul with, "I'm going to cure your grieving soul I'm going to leave you good as new And everything will pass Soon, you'll see the sunshine You, more than anyone, deserve to be happy". Shakira goes on and says, "How life itself will decant the excess salt from the sea". I cry every time I hear the chorus of the song. It makes me feel seen and that I can overcome whatever hardships I face and that I deserve to be happy. Salt and the sea are symbols of healing and nature, It gives me hope to know that I can heal and become an even better person than I thought. There is enough "salt in the sea" to heal anyone's wounds.

My heart belongs to science. As a Hispanic, as a physicist, as a woman here is where I belong. My name is Victoria Dominguez, and it is my senior year as an undergraduate student at California State University San Marcos with a major in Applied Physics and minor in Mathematics. My lifelong dream is to do my own physics research and graduate with a PhD in physics. This dream feels so far out of reach for me. I fought hard to get to where I am today and there are still so many challenges to face. When I was in high school, I didn't think of coming to a 4-year university. I planned on going to community college in my hometown since my family is very low income, but I soon realized that was a bad idea. My parents have made it really hard for me to become my own person, since they are very machista and sexist. I would always stay late at school, joining clubs, or staying over with friends, all because I hated my home life. If I went home, I was forced to do all the housework, and my parents threw parties while I studied for school. They would constantly invite their friends over to leave their children with me, while they drove away to the casino for the weekend. I would avoid my house at all costs. I have never been respected by my own parents and they told me I had to pay rent as soon as I graduated high school, so I had to leave. When the time came to choose a college, I chose Chico State University, up in Northern California. My parents said that I had to find a ride to college because they would never take me. So, I was forced to choose the closest college instead, which is 40 miles from my house, and I had friends that said they can take me. I moved into the dorms and started my college journey. I have loved every second of it. I met so many lifelong friends, and all my professors at the university have been so kind. Everyone at the university is super inclusive and have made it easy for me to fall in love with science again. It was my third year at CSUSM when covid hit, and the world was run behind computer screens. At my school, in order to graduate, you need to do research with a professor, or get an internship. The pandemic made it impossible for me to get internships, I lost connections with the professors, and I was not involved with school activities since they were all online all throughout my fourth year. I struggled for a very long time. At the moment, I still only need that credit to graduate. I am an applied physics major, but I also love chemistry, biology, and electrical engineering. I am motivated by unanswered questions, and the unknown. Discoveries in science are everything to me and I want to be able to make advancements to these fields. Everything good that has ever happened to me was because of me. I was put out into the world with no support from my parents and I have already achieved so much. Everything I do will be for me and young women of color who have had similar relationships with their families and want to achieve careers in STEM.