We made it to the last blog!! Isn’t that crazy?

Originally, I was thinking about writing about my favorite high school memories, but I decided against it. (NOT because high school sucked so horribly, but because today, while I was looking at my poorly put-together lunch, I realized that this is a daily occurrence and it was a little funny.) ALSO, these lunches might be useful in college if you’re low on time (I’m not sure about budget though… these are my parents’ ingredients). 

I’ve made my own lunch since my Junior year of high school when I became aware that the food at school is just not very appetizing. Spending a year online eating homecooked meals for lunches made raised my standards (to which I dropped… apparently) for food, so I began making my own lunch. 

1. Tortilla with chicken breast and some sort of salad mix

This one is the most convenient because it literally consists of throwing a few Costco Rotisserie chicken breast pieces and shaking some bagged salad mix into a tortilla. It works really well on days when I have only 3ish minutes to put my lunch together in the mornings, but it’s really easy to get tired of the taste of tortilla. It also looks kind of horrendous because the big chicken breast pieces make it look lumpy when you roll it. It’s tasty though, and it normally fills me up for a long time.  

1. Salad mix with chicken breast or tofu (+++ points if you put the dressing in a bag and it gets all over your lunchbox and now all of your tupperware is greasy because you didn’t put the salad dressing bag into the tupperware box with your salad and you never make that mistake again)

This is basically just a salad with a protein. It’s kind of basic and really easy, but it’s also really tasty. I feel like salads can be really refreshing in the middle of the school day. Salads are also one of the easier lunches to throw together when I’m in a rush. The biggest inconvenience, however, is the dressing. I don’t have one of those cute tiny plastic dressing containers, so I just use a plastic bag that gets oily everything oily without fail. I also tend to put crunchy toppings like fried wonton wrappers and slivered almonds in a separate bag so it doesn’t get soggy from the chicken and the salad. 

1. Sandwich made of entirely engineered ingredients (except for the lettuce)

I mean it when I say entirely engineered ingredients,  I mean it. The discomfort that comes with knowing the ingredients of all of my food is part of why I don’t make this sandwich as often as I would otherwise (it’s really convenient). But then I remember why I’m going to therapy. Anyway, the ingredients I use are Sara Lee Honey Wheat bread (because my mom likes it the best with her peanut butter and apple breakfast toasts), American cheese (the kind that I used to bite “crowns” out of when I was little), chicken/turkey deli meat, and romaine lettuce (because I buy it for Toasty… and she can’t eat all of that by herself). This sandwich always smacks (albeit maybe a little too salty), and I like to cut it into 4 pieces instead of 2 so it feels like I’m eating little tea sandwiches. 

1. Sweet potato and an egg

Despite taking the longest, this has been my least favorite lunch. I always feel a little unhinged taking a whole lukewarm, microwave-baked sweet potato out of my fourth-grade pink zebra print thermos. Also, do not worry, I am not eating a plain hard-boiled egg with my sweet potato. Normally I eat a soy-sauce marinated egg that my grandma brings over on occasion. I kinda hate this lunch just because for some reason eating it at school makes me feel a little crazy. I normally only pack something like this when I need to get rid of some sweet potatoes. 

1. Last night’s leftovers

Not gonna lie, leftovers for lunch are pretty mid. For me, it feels weird to eat dinner food for lunch. My thermos also isn’t the best at insulating so it always ends up a little lukewarm. The condensation also builds up so it ends up lukewarm and soggy/dry at the same time. It’s not my favorite, but if I don’t have any “lunch” ingredients, it’s a way to avoid buying lunch at school. 

Making and planning my own lunches has become a staple in my routine, and I might miss using the fresh ingredients that I have access to when I’m confined to the dining halls for my meals. 

Last blog post guys!! We made it!

I feel like for a long time, the media has portrayed teenage girls in such a negative light. Tons of movies and shows have portrayed teenage girls as vain and shallow: obsessed with make-up and shopping and boys.

For a while, I fell into this “trend” of hating on teenage girls. I rejected the color pink. I rejected femininity. I rejected dresses and pretty shoes. I rejected boys to the point where I’m surprised my parents didn’t think I was lesbian. 

I stuck to baggy clothes. I didn’t let my mom buy me new shoes until they were visibly unwearable. I once proudly announced to my family and my family friends that “I was not into boys.”

I rejected all of these little things that piqued my curiosity. All out of fear of being seen as the shallow caricature of a teenage girl displayed across my TV and computer screens. I was afraid of being laughed at like the tracks in the background of some 2000’s sitcom. Embracing feminity made me feel a shame that could have only been planted in me by the outside influences of media.

As those around me and I have grown, I’ve begun to embrace what it means to be a teenage girl. To be a teenage girl is to have a somewhat understanding of the bitterness that society injects into us, but to still feel the same capacity of love and excitement for the future as a child. 

I don’t want to continue taking my happiness, my interests, and my body for granted because of what society believes a teenage girl is or should be. 

So, here are some things I love about being a teenage girl:

• writing in all caps to maintain an unspoken aesthetic 
• whispering secrets into my friends’ hair
• witnessing arguments and conflicts among friends and the unique thrill that comes with working to fix them
• feeling pretty in simple clothes that remind me of the “it” girls i see on pinterest
• being at the golden age where i can go out wherever i want but still have a safe and familiar home to return to 
• picking up new hobbies and putting them down as the thrill of novelty subsides and the effort begins to feel like a little too much
• baking with ingredients purchased with my parents’ money
• window shopping online instead of writing this blog post
• the thrill that comes when a new person confides their secrets in you
• keeping a collection of stuffed animals that date back to when I was an infant (my dad called them my citizens [my childhood favorite plushie being the mayor, of course])
• stalking people on Spotify and creating a story about them (which obviously has to be true)
  • hey, what’s that heartbreak/falling in love/anger playlist about? 
• playing card games on a picnic basket because we don’t have school on a weekday, and it’s still sunny out
• playing these card games until it’s dark and the mosquitos are starting to bite
• retreating from the mosquitos and the chill of the night to a warm home that isn’t yours (it’s my friend’s, her mom is really nice) but still feels like it 
• planting my whole face into my pet and just sitting there, for maybe thirty minutes, because i don’t want to do my bc calculus homework 
• baking a cake for the hell of it, because i have too much time when i’m not doing the homework that i should be doing
• being able to run down the steep hill in downtown naperville without worrying about old ankles giving out
• feeling pretty in a new dress
• finding a new comfort food and eating solely that for at least one of my meals for like a month (right now it’s chicken soup and orzo)
• waking up to the smell of cooking on Christmas, or Easter, or before a family party 
• watching a movie in my living room with my parents and my brother
  • Listening to my dad enthuse about the film/actors/directors
    • “Look how young she was, Lisa (my mom)!” 
• getting driven by my friends even though i already have my license 
• going on taro boba runs at 9 pm (just because we can)
• binge watching a show until late in the night, even though i still have school the next day

These are just a few things about living at this age, as a teenage girl, that I’ve taken for granted. These little things make life so much more vivid and bring a vibrance to all of the little moments that surround them. Not every moment has been good, and not every moment will ever be good, but I’ve started to begin recognizing the little things that make life worth living (and that makes it feel worth living even more).

Spoiler warning for Infinity Pool, Knock at the Cabin, Barbarian, The Menu, and The Killing of the Sacred Deer!!! I’ll be talking about how disturbing each film was, and that means detailing some of the more disturbing parts for me. 

• Infinity Pool 
• Quick synopsis: A man and his wife travel to an exotic island, but after committing a crime, the man is given the opportunity to pay his death penalty by creating a clone to die in his place. 
  • 10/10

One of my friends really really wanted to watch this movie because it’s the most recent A24 film. We spent a long time trying to find it in theatres, but it wasn’t showing in any theatre near us nor even at an appropriate time. The only theatre we found was 30 minutes away and it showed at 12:30. Am. 

We ended up renting it on Amazon Prime, and I soon understood why it wasn’t showing in theatres.

I rated this a 10/10 on my disturbing scale. It’s kind of like Midsommar but if you cranked the “disturbing” notch up a few pegs. The horror comes in bright colors and uncanny imagery, which can be both satisfying to watch and also extra uncomfortable. This movie definitely toys with downright strange and uncomfortable imagery, giving you the urge to close your eyes but also keep watching. This film isn’t afraid to show gore and other forms of body horror, and I found myself closing my eyes for the latter half of the movie. 

• Knock at the Cabin
• Quick synopsis: A couple and their daughter stay at a cabin for vacation. Soon, they receive 4 visitors, who tell them to sacrifice a member of their family in order to prevent the apocalypse. 
  • 3/10

The concept was really interesting, and most of the movie had me wondering whether the 4 intruders were insane or telling the truth. To be honest, if the intruders were part of a cult and they had genuine delusions, I would find this whole movie a lot more disturbing. Instead, their predictions of the apocalypse took away from the realism (which I find a lot scarier) of the movie.  

Overall, I really didn’t find this one too disturbing, but I really enjoyed it. The acting was great and the concept had me hooked the whole time. 

• Barbarian 
  • Quick synopsis: A woman stays at a rental home, only to find that it’s already occupied by a stranger. She decides to stay and learns that there are worse things that inhabit the home. 
  • 6/10

This one was pretty disturbing for me because it played on my personal fears. One of my weird and niche fears is to live in a temporary home like an AirBnB/hotel, and for someone to be still in the home while I’m living there. 

While it was uncomfortable, this one was pleasantly broken up with humor, so it didn’t feel so uncomfortable to watch. The ending was satisfying and the social commentary was amusing. 

The implied horror was more disturbing than the horror on the screen. Shots that included an empty bloody room with a bed and a camera, several VHS tapes with the names of various women, and evidence of a baby’s existence were more disturbing than the actual focus content itself. 

• The Menu
• Quick synopsis: A couple attends a tasting at an exclusive restaurant, only to realize they were never meant to leave.
  • 2/10

The concept of this one was really interesting but contrasted with all of the other movies that I’ve seen, this one was not very disturbing at all. 

I’d say the most uncomfortable thing was the cult-like following the sous chefs had for the head chef. Otherwise, this movie almost felt a little bland in the context of all of the other horror movies I’d seen. 

• The Killing of the Sacred Deer 
• Quick synopsis:A cardiovascular surgeon and his family slowly become more and more haunted by a boy named Martin.
  • 9/10

This one was also very uncomfortable to watch. The dialogue in this movie is stilted and unnatural. It’s also very hard to tell whether the warnings that Martin heeds are real or if he is just crazy. “The Killing of the Sacred Deer” is filled with uncomfortably realistic gore and unnatural human movements. The whole movie exceeds at being unsettling, and the ending just leaves you feeling gross inside. I felt like I needed to wash my brain and eyes. 

All in all, watching movies with my friends has been a really good escape from all of the stressors in my life. Horror movies especially…

[edit: bros i’m looking up these movie posters and I’M GETTING SCARED AGAIN]

autumn convalescence analysis

When I first opened this poem, I had no idea what convalescence meant.

 I thought it meant “to bring something together” but it’s instead the “time spent recovering from an illness or medical treatment.” Now I have an idea of what this poem might be about, the speaker is recovering from something in autumn. 

The first stanza throws me off again. I don’t understand what “reversal” means in this context, and in what case would an egg smell like honey? The poem has created the painting of a peaceful morning breakfast, in which the speaker is trying to organize their thoughts regarding a past pain. 

The second line in this stanza does make sense to me because an egg does tend to ooze. This egg is not cooked yet. I’m starting to wonder if this is a metaphor for an unplanned baby. 

I’m not sure why “off broken shell” is separated from the rest of its sentence. The reference to a surveillance helicopter makes me think that the speaker is recovering from something that is still hovering over them. They are unable to escape their malady, which would make sense if the speaker were worrying over an unplanned child. 

The next stanza is more clear, I think it’s the speaker trying to self-soothe. The dash between “palm” and “New nerve” might be a way for the poet to clarify what the narrator is quieting. The “new” nerve continues to make me wonder whether the speaker is pregnant. This idea would follow through with the rest of the poem, with an egg referring to an unborn child. The “habitual pulses” in the next stanza could refer to the heartbeat of either the mother or the child. 

There is a shift in the poem when my presumed morning image shifts into the afternoon. The speaker begins to describe the afternoon as “achy” and that the trees smell like they’re “dying.” The author’s choice of bitter and apprehensive diction follows 

The author’s description of “blood on the leaves and fingers” and “sticky with crimson sap” makes me wonder if she is remembering a violent encounter that she is trying to heal from. Though, I’m still not sure what the mini-shift in the stanza means. Between the sour diction, the speaker says “the light like freedom,” which makes me think that despite the violence from her former lover or an abuser, she has the freedom of loving her new baby freely.

After looking up the author, Victoria Stitt, on LinkedIn, I learned that she is an English teacher and an advocate for social justice. I started wondering whether this poem could have been published around the time Roe v. Wade was overturned, which could make this poem an examination of the anxiety that surrounded women regarding unplanned pregnancy.

That idea was kind of shot down when I realized the poem was published in 2021, and Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. 

Another one of my theories about this poem was that it could have been about remembering the violent death of a loved one. I noticed that Victoria Stitt had previously written poems about black violence, and I began to shift my frame of thinking with this poem. The visceral description of the egg could instead be the speaker projecting the violent scene that they witnessed. The “broken shell” continues the violent imagery, where the second sentence of the poem could almost be imagined as the violent image of the aftermath of someone shot in the head. The speaker’s description of life “wailing like a surveillance helicopter” could instead reflect the constant fear and anxiety of violence that black people live with. 

The “new nerve” that the speaker soothes could be the new realization that the headlines on the news are truly real, that this violence could happen to anyone. The line “i begin to remember you” enforces my idea that this is about a loved one lost to violence. The speaker creates a sour picture following their memory of “you.” The speaker describes the afternoon as an “achy yellow.” The “honey” smell that the setting started with turns into the smell of dying trees.  The tone shifts from one of apprehension and anxiety into one of uncomfortable memory.

The final stanza is what confirms my theory the poet is describing a speaker remembering the trauma of witnessing past violence. The poet describes “blood on the leaves and fingers,” which brings me to remember the violent injustices that black people have faced outside of their homes.  

There are still some things that I’m unsure about in the poem, like the significance of “kelly drive” and what the interlude of “light like freedom” means for the poem’s overall meaning. 

I feel comfortable with both of my theories, but I think the one regarding violence may be closer to the poet’s intention because of Victoria Stitt’s background writing about the violence and fear that black people face. 

———————–ANNOTATIONS———————–

Theory 1 annotations:

Theory 2 annotations:

additional notes:

• Each stanza has two lines 
• There’s a dash between palm and trying → which shows that the following phrase is an explanation? 

A couple of weeks ago, I deleted TikTok. Which isn’t a monumental thing, but I found that I was spending a lot of time scrolling and bypassing my own time restrictions. The TikTok algorithm had a sort of magical hold on me. A “10-minute break” would turn into an hour, and then suddenly it’s 8:45 pm and I haven’t started any homework. All I’d be left with is exhaustion and guilt. 

Others might have more self-control than I do, but as the cycle repeated, I realized just how negatively TikTok was affecting my work ethic and mental health. 

I’ve been focusing on spending more time on activities that make me happy or relaxed. Last semester was kind of a nightmare, and I want to start enjoying new things again. I started allocating more time in the day to do things that I love, and it’s really helped me feel more balanced with all of my work. 

Here are some things that I’ve accomplished since deleting TikTok!

I started reading a lot more. Here’s a mini book review!

While spring cleaning, my mom and I cleaned out an old bookshelf in our office. I stumbled across a bunch of old books that I had bought but never read from middle school. My first book of 2023 was “The Square Root of Summer” by Harriet Reuter Hapgood.  “The Square root of Summer” is a fun sci-fi romance that I definitely would not have understood when I bought it in middle school. Physics and hypothetical theories are intertwined within a girl’s memory of her past summer. Elements of her past begin to reappear, and she’s forced to face a past she doesn’t want to return to. 

I read the book like a snack, and it reignited my love for reading. Since then, I’ve read “It Ends with Us” by Colleen Hoover, which was just not a good book. I don’t understand the raving reviews because all it did was make me cringe and laugh but not in the way it was supposed to make me laugh. Both of the main characters are so hateable and I kind of hate-read through the entire thing. 

My current book is “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue,” which has been a little slow so far, but it’s so beautifully written. 

Now, instead of laying on the floor and scrolling on TikTok for 2 hours before dinner, I read a book. While it felt like work at first, reading makes me feel more accomplished, and more refreshed than using my phone. 

I  also started crocheting! 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still really really bad. I’ve been crocheting the same ugly scarf since my birthday, and I’m still only ⅓ of the way through. Despite its unappealing look, crocheting has been another hobby that lets me turn my brain off and let my muscle memory take the wheel. 

I especially like listening to Podcasts or listening to YouTube videos while crocheting. Sometimes feeling mindless is the only way for me to truly refresh.

Lastly, I started watching more shows with my family. I make time to watch at least one episode of a show with my mom before ending my day. It gives me something to consistently look forward to, and it forces me to end my homework before I start feeling miserable.   

So far, I’ve watched “The Glory,” with my mom, which is a revenge K-Drama. It’s only a few episodes, but it’s already made me really excited about the second season. 

I’ve also started watching “The Last of Us” with my entire family, and I’m really looking forward to the next episode. “The Last of Us” is based on the popular video game, and it definitely satisfies my love for apocalypse and zombie media. 

Lastly, I’m currently watching the K-drama “May I Help You” with my mom. “May I Help You” is about a girl who can speak with the dead when she touches them. It’s cute and a little sad, but it’s been a nice end to my day. 

Overall, I think that deleting TikTok has made a positive impact on my life. I feel much more fulfilled spending my time on activities that “expand my horizons.” I now know that there’s nothing wrong with spending time for myself after school, and spending time on things that I’m interested in rather than feeling sucked into an algorithm has improved my well-being. 

Ok, this is kind of a sad essay because this year hasn’t been my best. I’ve been trying hard though! This is a stream-of-consciousness style blog post for sure !!  😀 

The first semester of my senior year was probably the hardest academic year I’ve had yet. I made the mistake of taking only difficult/work-heavy classes, which added to the stress of the college application process. I think this was a mistake because the combination of BC Calculus, AP Physics 1, and some other unfortunate life events has really made me lose steam. My motivation to learn (or do anything) is kind of going down the drain. This is kind of a depressing blog post but I honestly don’t have too much more to write about. Recently, all of my brain space has revolved around maintaining my grades and getting my work done. My physical health and mental health have been put on the back burner, but I feel like I don’t have the academic freedom to care for myself right now. I worry that if I give more time to myself, I will have less time to study. My grades right now aren’t quite where I want them to be, and I’m afraid if I spend less time working to put myself first, they will fall even further. I think a break is needed for me, so I can reset and pick myself back up before school resumes anew. 

This semester taught me the importance of balancing work and relaxation. Unfortunately, I’ve been feeling like my schedule doesn’t allow me much time to relax, and when I am supposed to be “relaxing,” I’m too busy worrying about what’s coming next. At least now I know what happens when you don’t keep the balance, and hopefully, I keep this in mind for my future self. I learned that when you can’t balance work and relaxation you begin to lose your identity. You lose time to nurture what makes you unique, like your hobbies, your relationships, and your interests. Over winter break I’m really hoping I can focus on taking care of myself, I’m realizing that I really haven’t felt relaxed since freshman year. Every winter, spring, and summer break since I’ve woken up early with “I need to study for my SAT/ACT” as the first thought in my mind. I miss the freedom that comes with not needing to worry about grades or standardized tests.

The advice that I’d give to future seniors is to make sure you balance your course load. Especially senior year, where you’ll have writing college applications to focus on. I’d suggest to them to take a fun class that they have a genuine interest in. Senior year is also your last year of high school, so take advantage of the classes that are offered. I really want to take Ceramics or Painting or Senior Foods, but I will never have the chance to take those classes at Naperville North anymore. So my biggest advice is to take classes that you’re interested in and complete your applications as soon as possible!

Despite feeling sad about my current course load, no matter what classes I choose, I don’t think that there should be regret. While I’m really sad that I won’t experience these classes in high school, the hard classes that I’m taking now might better prepare me for the rigor of college. (I am kind of worried that college is just going to be even harder. Since I want to go into medicine, I’ll have to continue spending my time productively throughout college and college summers. Also, because of the rigorous lifestyle of a doctor, I do worry a little that won’t be able to relax until I’m retired, but I’m hoping that this isn’t the case.)

In a few months, I’ll probably be feeling a lot freer, and hopefully, my love for learning will have returned. I think right now I just really really need a break. This post is kind of a spiral, and I’m a little sorry you had to witness that hahaa. 

Right now, the overwhelming mass of work I need to complete for school and college apps, ALONG with the stress that comes with dealing with some health issues has been driving my mind into the gutter. 

As I wrote in my first blog post, I spent a lot of time on the internet as a younger kid, so today, I’ll write about some of the phases that I went through that contributed to where I am now. Honestly, I really miss these phases because I was really happy. I had absolutely no worry about being cringy or being judged, I was happy and excited to pursue what I loved. I wish I could go back to that, but school allows me 4 hours of time to myself after school, all of which I need to spend on schoolwork haha. 

I’ll start off with Ninjago.

I rate this one a 7/10.

This phase lasted from around third grade to 5th or 6th grade. I watched the show religiously. There was even a year when I skipped trick or treating to watch an episode because it aired from 7-8. 

This one loses points because at this point I really wanted to be a ninja, so I pretended to be one. I definitely embarrassed myself, and I’m still embarrassed thinking back about it. There was a Ninjago book that said something along the lines of “ninjas don’t get to take hot showers or sleep on comfortable pillows.” For the next week or so, I tried to “toughen myself up” and I slept without a pillow, and I refused to take hot showers. Not my proudest moment.

Ninjago redeems its points because it did me into storytelling and world-building. Little me wanted to create a story that made people feel excited as I did, so I started writing and creating comics. 

Winx Club + My Little Pony

8/10

I put these together because they were in the same pirate website rotation. My old sketchbooks are filled with drawings from both of these shows. I barely remember this phase, but I do know that it introduced me to pirating websites. I learned how to deal with pop-ups without getting a virus at the ripe age of 9. Winx and My Little Pony also got me into character design, with their bright colors and unique outfits. 

Hamilton

9/10

My friend introduced me to this musical, but I wasn’t really interested in it until I saw an animated music video for it. These fan-made animatics got me into animation. I got my first art tablet during this phase, and digital art changed my life forever. This pipeline led me to make a lot of friends in the YouTube animation community. I also earned a lot of money by building an online following and selling art. Hamilton was also the first Broadway musical that I saw live!

Overwatch

6/10

I made a lot of friends playing Overwatch. It started in 8th grade, and I bonded with a lot of people over the game. 

I ended up joining the varsity Overwatch team for our school and oh my goodness. I was so stressed over a video game haha. I kept making friends over the game, and I got a free trip to California to play at nationals. 

Overwatch was also the gateway drug into gaming for me. I can’t tell if this was a good or a bad thing. (Video games are a really easy way to bond with people)

Miraculous Ladybug

4/10

Like all of these phases, I made friends who shared their love for this show. This show also fuelled my drawing inspiration, as well as brought me an unreasonable amount of joy. This was a phase in which I was just really happy with everything in my life. 

This earns some points also for the Chinese main character. I feel like a lot of mainstream shows don’t have a Chinese main character. 

Critical Role

7/10

The voice actors/players on this show are so unbelievably talented. I got into Dungeons and Dragons over quarantine, and it was the perfect form of escapism in a tense world. I got close with a lot of my friends over this game, and the character creation and story fuelled my inspiration for art. 

I miss having the time to indulge myself in art and world-building. A lot of these phases contributed to my love for creation and drawing. I hope that soon I will have the time to find what I love again.

P.S. sorry about the image quality! I guess moving them from google docs is not the way to go. Just pretend the graininess adds to the nostalgia!

“She looks like a Petunia!” My mom proudly announces, swinging my door open at 8 am on a Saturday morning. 

I rouse and mumble, “What?” 

“She looks like a Petunia!” She repeats. I’m still lost. “The bunny!”

Ohh. I had gotten a pet bunny a few days before.

I get out of bed to follow her downstairs, still not understanding that “looking like a Petunia” meant that her name should be Petunia. I had thought she was sitting in a position that made her look like a flower. 

It’s already been a week with my bunny, and I still can’t quite conjure the perfect name for her. Her vet records say “Momo;” the original name I had for her before realizing it didn’t quite fit. 

I had bounced between several names on the car ride to the breeder’s house. 

Bonito or Momo, I had decided. 

When I first saw my bunny she was sitting in a cardboard box, barely the length of my hand. I picked her up to place her in the carrier. She was warm and soft. The breeder named her Cassy. 

Neither Bonito nor Momo nor Cassy felt right. 

“You’re going to confuse her,” my mom jokes. For the past week, I had been calling her many different names, searching for the ones that stuck. I set her name to Momo when I registered for the vet.

Every day, I took her down to the basement to let her run around freely. I began to bond with her then. I brought my homework down with me, and I watched her jump around as I leisurely completed my AP biology readings. One day, when she laid down after running around in the basement, my intrusive thoughts won. I stuck my face in her fur. For some reason, she smelled like a toasted marshmallow. I ran upstairs and told my brother to sniff her too. 

For the next few days from then on, I called her “my toasted marshmallow.” Eventually, “my toasted marshmallow” shortened to Toasty. I liked the name Toasty because her fur color was similar to toasted wheat bread, as well as her semi-unconventional namesake.  

Now that Toasty’s name is much more secure  (she’ll even run to you if you shout her name), she’s also gained a few nicknames. 

1. Toaster Strudel
2. Strudel
3. Toast
4. 我的小宝贝

My ability to have Toasty was the result of hard work (not Anse-style hard work I SWEAR). My dad’s condition for getting her involved was a high academic achievement bar. Toasty is a reminder of the best worst years of my life. She’s a covid bunny. 

I don’t think that there is a pet more perfect than a rabbit. Rabbits don’t smell, they don’t bark, and they clean themselves. Their homes aren’t hard to maintain, and they can be very loving. 

Actually, there’s no pet more perfect than Toasty. 

My cousins have a rabbit from the same breeder named Blue, but she’s a bit of a demon. I still have a scar on my arm from picking her up to take her out to let her play. Blue sprays her pee and nips at my cousins. 

Toasty lets me pet her, and she flops over when she gets relaxed. She likes to rest her paws on a wooden toy and put her head on it like a pillow. She kisses my nose when I get close to the cage, and she takes a victory lap around her cage every time I give her a treat.  

She’s not afraid to thump and shut me up if I’m being too loud while calling my friends. 

I know that Toasty will be there to lick the salty tears off of my face when my work starts to feel like it’s too much. I know that even when she turns her butt to me in rebellion, she’ll still let me put my face into her fur.

She knows that I will always give her a treat when she jumps back into her cage (it’s 3 feet tall off the ground haha). She knows that I will always keep her home clean and stocked with fresh food. She knows I’ll shut up if she stomps her feet, and I’ll go close the blinds when the shadows scare her at 6 am. 

To Momo, to Bonito, to Petunia, to Toasty, I love you. 🙂 

I used to be deathly afraid of zombies.  

In elementary school, I read a zombie graphic novel that was meant for 4th graders and up. During LRC time, as the mischievous 3rd graders we were, we plucked the book from the shelf and read it huddled in a corner of the library. 

Quite honestly, it had me traumatized

The pictures of the zombies had become engrained in my young head. I struggled to fall asleep for a week. I kept my head under the hot covers, refusing to come up for air out of fear that there would be one of them looking at me through my window.  

I wouldn’t even let my mom say the word “zombie”. It was like a curse. “He who must not be named.” I told her to call them unicorns. I made my mom tear out the pictures of the zombie costumes in the Party City Halloween magazines. I was horrified by them. 

Despite this, if you were to ask me today what movie I wanted to put on, there’s a pretty high chance that I would respond with a zombie movie. I’m not sure what flipped the switch in my mind from absolute horror to entertainment, but over the summer of freshman year, I became a frequent binge-watcher of zombie movies.

I admit lots of zombie movies can be redundant: our main character wakes up from a coma in a hospital in desolate ruins. Blood is spattered on the walls and there is nobody to be found. Then, the main character makes noise too loud, interacts with a hunched-over figure, or opens a door that should have remained closed. Suddenly there are 4-5 infected cannibals running after him. 

Bam. I just described the beginnings of The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later. 

If it isn’t along those lines, it’s a man living everyday life with his family when suddenly the news flashes, or he sees something strange in the streets. He has a few close calls with desperate people or the zombies themselves before he finally settles in an area he deems safe enough for himself and those he loves. 

I just described Train to Busan, World War Z, and Shawn of the Dead. 

Despite the redundancy and predictability of zombie movies, I find myself captivated by the screen every time. 

Zombie and apocalypse movies boil down to the ways humanity and morality intersect in the event of the destruction of society. Our ideas regarding this occurrence tend to spin around in circles. 

For example, zombie movies commonly have the conflict of sacrificing someone for the sake of those around them. The protagonist’s group is faced with a dilemma: a horde of zombies is right on their trail, and somebody is limping, slowing the whole group down. If they continue on like this, the zombies will catch up and all of them will die. So the limper is cast aside. The zombies spend time eating away at the limper and the rest of the group gets away safely. This trope reflects the well-known moral dilemma of whether you should sacrifice the few to save the whole. The ways people react in a zombie movie is often the same. They choose to sacrifice. 

Furthermore, zombie movies commonly have a bitten individual hiding the fact that they are infected. Out of fear for their own lives, they put the lives of their entire group in danger. The viewer becomes completely frustrated. How could someone be so selfish? In 2020, we began to see why. This trope manifested itself in reality as the pandemic rolled over us. People not wanting to change plans refused to tell others if they were sick, putting the health of others in danger. This shows human nature’s tendency for self-preservation as shown. 

Lastly, there’s the unstable one who believes that they are the “chosen one” to end it all and purge the remnants of humanity. These are the individuals who sabotage and betray the protagonist. This character reflects those who crumble when faced with tragedy. Unable to cope with the loss of control, these people find control by believing that they are the ones in charge of the lives of others. They mask their fear with destruction. As long as they believe that they have a purpose and make some kind of impact, they are doing the right thing, right?     

I used to be deathly afraid of zombies, but it’s the people that are the ones that get scary in the face of tragedy. I can’t help but become entranced by zombie content. Despite my prior phobia of zombie content, the theorization of humanity’s reaction to the worst possible scenario is now among my favorite subgenres of media to consume. 

Every nauseatingly cringey phase of my life has contributed to building who I am now. 

Yes, even the 8-year-old who screamed and giggled when the Ninjago theme song played.

Yes, even the girl with the anime fan page on Instagram.

Yes, even the 2020 discord-attached wannabe animator trying to mimic her YouTube idols.

Little 8-year-old me who was obsessed with Ninjago was just the beginning. From there, she developed an obsession with cartoons and animation (as any little kid would). I discovered my passion for drawing and creating in the 2-d space with paper and pencil. I absolutely fell in love with it.But I got tired of waiting for Thursdays 5-6 pm central time. I took this newfound love and used it to create my own characters in Ninjago. I designed new outfits, wrote new storylines, and created copious amounts of severely embarrassing comic strips. I flip back on these sketchbooks with barely distinguishable characters with a mix of wild discomfort and gentle nostalgia. But they remind me where my creative roots stemmed from. 

As I grew older, I was exposed to even more media. This meant more cartoons. I became obsessed with anime (I did not enjoy writing that admission), and this obsession led to an entire Instagram account dedicated to my favorite character (who I will never disclose). As much as I want to bury and trample this part of my adolescent experience, reflection allows me to see what I took away from my awkward fangirl behavior. This account led me to find other accounts, people that I would soon become good friends with. 

I was a 6th grader disguised as a 16-year-old in a group chat of individuals from 11-18. Hindsight, that was mad sketchy. As I’m reflecting and writing about it I’m realizing how lucky I am to have met people who were genuinely good. The internet is self-aware. Everyone knows there are creeps and sketchy people, but once true connections are established, we always look out for each other. Growing up with half of my social life on the internet led me to exposure to mature issues rather quickly. The exposure to these issues-  spectating as others ranted and gave advice- provided me with experience second-hand. I began recognizing these universal struggles, and I learned how to cope with them despite not having yet experienced them personally.  

Most recently, as the pandemic hit full swing and our school went online, so did a lot of my social life. I became re-obsessed with YouTube. So much so, that as I watched a YouTube channel crash and burn with the drama of the internet, I scrambled with the rest of the viewer base to fill the content gap. I turned to Reddit to stay caught up with the drama (yikes I don’t want to talk about Reddit’s reputation). When I saw a “casting call” to create content in an online group, I pounced. 

I found myself thrust into a group of animators and editors from New York to Thailand as we shared awkward conversations over tinny Discord calls and bonded over laggy game servers. Eventually, we all became really good friends, and we started working to put out content. At some point, the original leader of the project left, and I became the new manager. Although it didn’t feel like it at the moment, through this experience, I learned how to lead others. I learned how to organize deadlines, how communicate through conflict, and plan events. 

As easy as it can be to dismiss online friendships, the ability to connect and listen to the stories of the people who share the same (potentially silly seeming) passions as me has allowed me to gain a wider view of the world. Playing Valorant at 4 am with virtual strangers in Belgium, Colorado, and California, may not have benefitted my Honors Biology grade, but the stories told and advice shared in these calls are ones that I will likely hold onto for many years to come. 

All of these versions of me have built onto the other. I cringe and cover my eyes looking back at the past versions of me, but I love each one of them for the skills and experiences that they’ve given me.