Kay Quintana
Kay Quintana is a senior at Brophy College Preparatory and interning at the Brophy Community Foundation. Kay plans to attend Colorado College next year.
I know that even when I am stepping foot onto my college campus for the first time, or stepping up to receive my college diploma, or stepping off a rocket onto a new planet, I will never forget my time at Brophy and the help from the Brophy Community Foundation who, in part, made it all possible.
Kay Quintana
“My name is Kay Quintana. I am a student at Brophy who has relied on financial aid provided in part by the Brophy Community Foundation for my entire four years here. Thanks to kind donors, I have grown into the person I am because of the opportunities offered to me at Brophy. I came closer to God thanks to my recent Kairos trip (216 forever), and I encountered God firsthand in the faces and lives of the people in Wheeling, WV, and the Dominican Republic. These experiences would not have been possible without access to attending Brophy.
While at Brophy College Prep, I’ve grown not only spiritually but also academically. I have fallen in love with Astrophysics thanks to the astronomy class offered by Fr. Juan Pablo Del Toro S.J. and the AP Physics II class taught by Mr. Jason Svedin. Both of these classes have made me want to pursue a Ph.D. in Astrophysics, the former opening my eyes to the incredible wonders of the universe and the latter showing me how I can use equations and physical laws to understand how the universe works.
Additionally, Brophy College Prep has given me time to nurture my artistic side while I focus on my academics. Drawing and graphic design classes sparked my passion for the arts, and now I am obsessed with evoking feelings of wonder and capturing my emotions in my art, poetry, and photography. I love to paint scenes on canvas with acrylic, but I am equally obsessed with manifesting the worlds of my imagination through 3D computer software. I paint and design to capture my imagination but use poetry and photography to capture emotions. I write poetry to capture the feelings of a pivotal and emotional experience, while I use photography to help convey the awe I feel when experiencing the world. All of this is only possible with the help of teachers for artistic guidance, painting supplies, IT support, and photography equipment.
Overall, Brophy has morphed and shaped me into who I am today. Attending Brophy was only possible with tuition aid from the Brophy Community Foundation. Every bit of support I have received has played a small part in my recent acceptance into the Questbridge National College Match Program. Questbridge saw the person Brophy had made me and saw it fit to award me a full-ride scholarship to over 50 of the best colleges in the country. After much deliberation, I have decided to commit to Colorado College in Colorado Springs as the first stepping stone in my dream to become an astronaut.
I know that even when I am stepping foot onto my college campus for the first time, or stepping up to receive my college diploma, or stepping off a rocket onto a new planet, I will never forget my time at Brophy College Prep and the help from the Brophy Community Foundation who, in part, made it all possible.”
Explore additional art and poems created by the talented Kay Quintana below.
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The sun sets fire to the world
The sun sets fire to the world
And we may never know why
Not so long as this exists, this repulsiveness
Have you ever
let your mind wander only to
find yourself suddenly
making direct eye contact with infinity
The endless expanse incomprehensible
The tessellated farm land tilled with bloody hands and wet cheeks and malnourished bone
That sweet sugar permeates our every day just as that crimson seeps deep into the roots of that
god forsake cane and god forgotten infinity field
And now I am left
wondering why the Sun is lighting the clouds ablaze
contemplating why a bloody mouth tastes so
sweet
regretting that sea means nothing and defines
ubiquity
wishing for just a single moment more to say goodbye
holding back the impending disaster of my tears
The flood of emotions that’s will devastate all I know
Written by Kay Quintana after returning from the Dominican Republic Immersion Trip
I’ve Waited for You
Do you remember the infinite nothings back when you and I were together in that realm where physics ran up the walls and the stars had yet to form and the end was yet to start with only our love to hold us inseparably fused
The eternities we would spend floating in that pledge of fire and energy and cluttered void,
Giving up our being to become a part of that ubiquitous nothing, before there was any time to inform us of what was yet to begin
What a marvel it was to exist with you for those few atto-seconds that spanned across everything we are yet to and never will one day truly understand, oh how we still loved despite the sheer and absolutely insanity that was “is”
What a cruel twist of fate that despite our creation we were thrusting toward that recursive and ever elusive now; all the while
everything that has never been so and might always exist as such was forced into our “now”
What has always been but had never before existed propelled you into the first dying star while I was transfigured into the that which you would one day spend eternities reconciling;
billions of years ago, back in the future present
I was; as you were promptly and forever formed into the everything that would one day merge into the ethereal expansion of not
I am; yet still waiting for that you to return, that form that might remember and love the me
What surprise me most was seeing you see me seeing you before either of us realized that we were finally that “is” which we long desired
That’s when that eternal existence returned to me from that distant and eternal past “was”
And I remember why I’ve waited for you
And I remember why I’ve waited for
And I remember why I’ve waited
And I remember why
I’ve waited for you
Written by Kay Quintana
