Category: Essays

If I have to lay eyes on another hot person again, I’m going to off myself. Troy’s golden children make me want to be an amalgamation of extremes, a monstrosity of polarity until I am the most beautiful, most wise golden body of pure youth and stamina. It has instead succeeded in making me feel like the other end of the pole, a Grendel tearing through the mass of perfection, and yet my delicate ego and sweaty sensibilities are held together by my innate sense of narcissism that hasn’t failed me yet. 

Nothing academic has happened, all of this coming simply from three days in an honors dorm filled with golden children that are now unleashed upon the world with a slap on the ass and whispered sweet nothings that we something. The best of our homes, the pride of our towns, in one place. Beautiful people finding beautiful people is just nature, but this has to be some kind of artificial selection breeding experiment. And I am among them? I will truly be something by the end of this all. I had begun to think that I’d found myself, that I was confident. Now, I am hesitantly confident and loudly agog at this sea of extremes before me, spread out over a few floors. And to think, we haven’t even begun to learn yet. Potential is terrifying to look at when it’s not only within you, when it’s all around you in flaming torrents of supposed peers. And yet if you asked me if I belong here, at the moment I think I would say yes. Agog does not mean in disbelief, it means my mouth is agape when looking at the cast of my next four years and not knowing how a single one of us is going to end up, including me. I have chosen the right path, but the sheer luxury and challenge of it is giving me cavities. 

I can never picture life without this again. I don’t wish for a different time, but I wish this time would hurry up so I could have some semblance of structure in this unbelievably abstract new life in which my civil disobedience of stealing as much Coke Zero from the dining hall with my unlimited swipes is regulated by not a soul and I eat at the behest of my own prodding hand, no matter the time. This is incredibly odd. I think it is exciting, and I think it is terrifying, and I think it will be good.

Othello imparts the tragic story of General Othello and his wife, Desdemona, falling prey to the sadistic whims of ambitious Iago as he takes advantage of their worst insecurities. For Othello, his dark skin brings about unwarranted maltreatment from those around him in the form of disrespect, pity, and inherent hatred; as a result, Othello must work exponentially more arduously to achieve the same outcome as a white person would in his position to achieve the life he has rightfully earned despite his evident talents in strategy and leadership. Iago finds his plans most successful once the main cast departs from Venice to the island of Cyprus, where the isolation offered shifts the power into covetous Iago’s hands as everyone else becomes insecure in close quarters and paranoia runs rampant, especially in the once steady mind of General Othello. Othello‘s isolated location on the island of Cyprus overrides Othello’s empirical senses by enhancing the impact of his greatest insecurities, consequently causing him to cease communication with his loved ones and act out of the ordinary; as a result, Othello reveals that both geographical and emotional isolation meddles with the mind’s logical capacity and ultimately can lead to the abandonment of identity.

         As the play begins, other cast members provide a confusing preview of Othello’s general reputation: some refer to him by his rank or simply by his name while others invoke racial epithets that serve to strip him of his individual identity, often being referred to as “the Moor,” or a north African Muslim, rather than his title or name because they find his racial identity to be foreign and therefore not worthy of respect. With this lack of respect comes the commoditization of his identity as a Black person to be exotic and unpredictable as opposed to the preconceived sensibility of white people, which Othello actively combats through maintaining a deliberately respectful and patient countenance when dealing with the ignorance of others. Not only does he show intentional patience to those that dehumanize him, but Othello has also built an exceedingly impressive reputation as a general and peer within the military whether his actions were in the motivation of deliberately warding off racial stereotypes or simply behaving as himself. Deeply and publicly respected by the Duke of Venice, Othello is aware of his social influence and has no need to defend his honor within Venice’s borders. He instead approaches his disadvantages within European society with a rigorous strategy in dodging and deconstructing racial ignorance by not allowing a single one of his dissenters to find truth in any of the stereotypes they consider damning so that his race has no apparent connection to his adequacy as a general or husband and can thus not be discounted out of racism. As a soldier, Othello is levelheaded and forgiving, and as a husband to Desdemona, he is consistently loving and respectful; however, his desperation to maintain an unwaveringly positive perception of himself within society directly reflects his weakest points of vulnerability⸻ his value as a soldier and the reciprocity of respect within his relationship with Desdemona. As a cunning observer, Iago finds the perfect opportunity to attack Othello’s vulnerabilities once they all vacation on the island of Cyprus because the isolation the island offers possesses the potential to exacerbate the effects of insecurities as everyone is unable to easily escape or distract themselves from not only looking within themselves but also consequently peering into the pondering others’ perceptions of themselves. Furthermore, Othello has lost all sense of security in leaving Venice because he no longer has the blessing of the Duke to irrevocably defend his character, leaving him vulnerable to ignorant eyes and mouths. Iago knows that the island’s finite territory and population act as a positive feedback loop in which every interaction that people have with one another takes on more influence than it might have on the mainland as it echoes off of the shrunken atmosphere of the island’s limited social stimulation until everything may evolve into a manifestation of insecure paranoia. Through casually feeding Othello rumors that his wife may be cheating on him with his second-in-command, Cassio, Iago triggers an alarm within Othello that takes advantage of his insecurities as a general and a husband which amplifies over and over within the close quarters of Cyprus; however, supplying Othello with falsehoods would not be enough, considering Othello is often communicative and would likely ask his wife if he should suspect the rumors to have any truth behind them. Iago remedies this through obstructing any communication between Othello and Desdemona or Cassio while also strategically allowing for Desdemona and Cassio to spend much more time together, hammering the final nail in Othello’s proverbial coffin as he takes complete advantage of their isolation and overwhelms Othello with empirical evidence that his most pestilent insecurities are true. The isolation of Cyprus has a distracting psychological effect on Othello as his senses inform him that⸻ despite what may be emotionally concluded⸻ his present situation on this island invokes a feeling of urgency, as if his relationship with Desdemona or his rank as a general mostly exists in the present on Cyprus rather than in the past or future back on the mainland. Despite what Othello’s mind believes that it knows, his eyes and ears deceive him over and over again as Iago plants extremely targeted and specific evidence that reaffirms his worst fears; his mind knows that he is on an island that exists as part of a greater whole, but his eyes see and his ears hear that he is isolated and disconnected from the land and the people he once trusted so that this duplicitous conspiracy is now his entire world.

         As Othello’s insecurity grows in the absence of familiar Venice and the ever-present approval of its Duke to remind others of his value, he turns to what he believes is the only honest source of information that cannot possibly betray him: empirical fact. Iago informs Othello of supposedly overheard interactions between Desdemona and Cassio that seem to suggest some kind of affair happening right under Othello’s nose. Though Othello might have previously had no reason to suspect this to be true, Iago’s accounts strike his most vulnerable insecurities as insubordination from his second-in-command with a betrayal from his seemingly unwavering wife have the potential to be so painful if true that Othello feels he must protect himself as if Iago’s accounts were factual. The sensorial accounts he gains solely from Iago become his doctrine of unbiased truth as Iago takes advantage of Othello’s instinctive yet unknowingly perverse dependence on empiricism in lieu of any refuting interactions with Desdemona or Cassio. If Othello should approach either of them and demand the truth, Desdemona or Cassio could simply lie and enhance the betrayal; however, in saving himself this pain and isolating himself further, Othello only makes himself a more willing victim to Iago’s schemes. Othello’s very senses are continuously manipulated because it appears as though everyone around him is also devolving into their most immoral selves within their shared Cypriot isolation as Cassio and Desdemona privately spend more and more time together while Othello can only ponder what the two of them do behind closed doors. As Cassio and Desdemona take on the appearance of Iago’s unflattering scheme in Othello’s eyes, Othello himself mimics their apparent devolution in response to Iago’s manipulation as Iago targets his racial insecurities and begins to act exactly how Iago and the rest of his dissenters perceive him: wild and beyond reason. Instead of exhibiting patience or logic, Othello becomes exactly the person he intentionally avoided being as a defense mechanism against all the betrayals seemingly bombarding him: in assuming the identity that best explains his insecurities, his own sense of individuality that once made him appear a victim to the whims of his loved ones can no longer force him to process and come to terms with the corresponding grief. Othello’s betrayed trust cannot be criticized or devalued if he took matters into his own hands and protected his honor by wildly murdering his wife on the word of a fellow soldier; instead, the false perception of his dissenters can only be confirmed when he no longer has to fight off what most people assume him to be and therefore avoids the pain of being humiliated at the center of his most vulnerable insecurities. Isolation is Iago’s key catalyst in Othello’s downfall because the entire process of convincing Othello of a conspiratorial betrayal could not have been possible without maintaining some form of isolation between Othello, Desdemona, and Cassio, which had been previously unavailable in the free and familiar environment of the mainland. In Iago’s manufactured echo chamber of Cyprus, he systematically strips Othello of his identity as a patient general and husband by attacking his weakest vulnerabilities in a lie so painful and yet so believable in the absence of communication that Othello assumes the identity that Iago has created for him in order to protect himself from fully experiencing the tragedy of losing trust in his most valued confidantes. Iago achieves exactly what he wants as Othello finally loses the inkling of his true identity in the violent murder of his wife after experiencing emotional isolation and manipulation that could not have been possible for Iago to execute without the isolated borders of Cyprus and the consequent absence of Othello’s esteemed Venetian reputation to aid him the process.         As human beings, entering a new environment inherently awakens a primal kind of fear in which we assess our surroundings for possible threats or rewards. In entering an unfamiliar and isolated space, Othello was instinctively forced to overwhelm his senses with information about his surroundings as a remnant of threat assessment, including that which Iago supplied. The success of Iago’s plan was only possible in a new and separated setting like an island because Othello instinctively relied on his senses as a vulnerable human in a new environment, unknowingly falling victim to Iago’s manipulation of his very instincts as a human as Othello’s dependency on his senses overrode his sense of logic⸻ in an unfamiliar setting, humans often prioritize sensory input over logicality in order to survive. Not only did Iago strip Othello of his identity as a person, but he also turned his instincts as a human being into a weapon against Othello’s loved ones.

Bras changed my life. I’d always wanted to wear one, just to feel like a Woman with a capital ‘w,’ and I was ready to bring about this grand metamorphosis of estrogen that would tear me apart and put me back together with flesh and blood and complaining of back pain and turning the washing machine on delicates and– wait, that’s it? A B-cup?

I had only gotten A’s my entire life, my name started with an A, A came first: I knew that. But I wanted the letter D to be in my life for the first time that I could remember. I prayed at the altar of Victoria Secret, for the alphabet beyond the first three letters to reform me in the eyes of femininity. I’d always been an athlete with broad shoulders and a flat chest thanks to innumerable hours spent in the pool, and I yearned to match the girls in the locker room that would smugly mention their mature relationship to the alphabet. This dream eluded me completely up until the year I turned 16, only the response exceeded my preference.

Time had led to my separation from swim, polycystic ovaries drew me closer to imbalances in estrogen and testosterone, and quarantine left me idle. Just 16 years old and my cup size began to grow unprecedently.

Flash forward and I am now a very different weight than I had been for most of my adolescence, as that’s just how growing up goes. Funnily enough, I also now wear a D cup. The beginning was mostly terrible. Most of my old clothes clung too tight and rejected my newfound curves. The sizes I had once patronized now led me to question the sanctity of my rounded shoulders and the softness of my limbs.

Up until recently, I felt alien, like my presence in this world was overflowing and gurgling over the confines of my clothes until a bra’s only purpose was to remind me that I was not the same person, the same body I had once been. I resented my young self for her alphabet dreams, I resented myself for letting change happen, I resented the world for making me resentful. And yet a relieving leak metastasized slowly in the dark recesses of my resentment as I looked into my eyes and saw the body I’d always had approaching what it would always be: an adult. I was no longer a child, and my body was an accurate (perhaps beautiful?) reflection of my growth. I felt that I had not only achieved my dream of a D cup, but I was also more interesting, more intelligent, more open, more compassionate, more, more, more. I was more than I had been.

My epiphany had brought me to the divine knave of elaborate skylights and salted pretzels: the mall. I bought new clothes that accepted my body like a lifelong friend, only my journey wasn’t complete— I had to return to my altar and pray for an answer. And so, I purchased new bras. Some were pink like my lips and my stretch marks, some had roses that danced across my shoulders in duets with my freckles, some were silk that matched the softness of my limbs. In these patterns and fabrics, I found the support I’d been longing for my entire life cinched between two clasps. All at once, I felt at ease. My body is now and forever the subject of my worship no matter its changes. I welcome change, for I know that beyond the tides of the present, a new bra awaits.

Sappho remains one of the most revered Greek poets of antiquity with a range of poems regarding love, longing, or both when enraptured with another person (though most often, this person was a woman). Despite her renown, most of her poems were originally private journal entries and letters to familiar correspondents. “To an army wife, in Sardis” is no different, as it serves as a private form of communication between Sappho and her subject, an army wife named Anactoria whom she loves and cannot be with for reasons vaguely undeclared. Sappho is speaking directly to Anactoria through this poem as a confession of internal turmoil regarding their relationship’s inability to continue in their present situation, while simultaneously defending their time spent together as indicative of love’s great hold on the threshold of the human will. Sappho’s relationship with Anactoria reflects a complex association with love and war as contemporaries of one another, ultimately revealing that the pursuit of a love most beautiful can motivate a person to do anything to preserve their relationship, no matter the consequences.

         Though the nature of Sappho and Anactoria’s relationship is romantic, Sappho qualifies the pure positives of romance with the negatives of warfare in sole reference to their love for one another as means to explore the complexity of emotions that love may evoke. She admits that some may consider a “cavalry corps” or “some infantry” the most beautiful sight to possibly behold, only to recant by declaring that “whatever one loves, is,” implying that Anactoria is the most beautiful sight she may behold; even when pitted against the likes of corps or infantries, which also happen to fall within the world of Anactoria’s husband, as she is an “army wife.” According to Sappho, love and war must be equals if they are both capable of producing superlative sights of beauty, whether the sights are the militaristic marvels suited for Anactoria’s husband or Anactoria herself, whom Sappho declares is suited for her perception of beauty. However, to set love and war beside each other in metaphor, such as saying that “being far away forget us, the dear sound of your footstep… would move me more than glitter of Lydian horse or armored tread of mainland infantry,” serves to not only imply that love and war are equals in the powerful emotions they are both capable of provoking but to also show that Sappho’s position as the yearning lover mirrors that of a soldier at war writing to his lover. Sappho believes that to love Anactoria is to be at war as long as they are apart, as a longing lover such as Sappho is loyal to that intangible “light glancing in [Anactoria’s] eyes” above the allure of armor and infantry; or, just as a soldier subjects his fidelity to an intangible idea of his nation’s values, or to the protection of a far-off land that he can only dream of when sleeping restless nights in the makeshift barracks of a battlefield. Sappho finds herself unable to express her longing for Anactoria without including mentions of warfare because Anactoria’s husband halts her reverence and infatuation with Anactoria and therefore reveals the internal genesis of Sappho’s tempestuous love: Sappho wants someone she cannot have and yet she still declares her undying fidelity to Anactoria like a soldier wheezing her last breaths in a war lost to her lover’s soldier husband. This onslaught of warful love causes Sappho’s references to love to bleed into mentions of war because of their similarly potent and volatile effects on the emotions of those they affect.

         Furthermore, Sappho builds upon her complex relationship with Anactoria to reveal that because love and war are similarly provocative, the pursuit of love can often morph into a war to do whatever is necessary to preserve a relationship. To justify her tension-charged infatuation with Anactoria, Sappho likens her love to that of Helen of Troy and her lover Paris of the ancient Iliad myth: “Did not Helen; she who had scanned the flower of the world’s manhood; choose as first among men one who laid Troy’s honor in ruin?” Sappho’s allusion to Helen’s selection of Paris that started the 11-year-long Trojan War communicates that Sappho finds her troublesome pursuit of Anactoria a cause worth fighting for, no matter the consequences: may Trojan empires fall so long as Sappho is with Anactoria. This infatuation marries both love and war as Sappho explains that a nontraditional love places its constituents on a battlefield that only exists because they chose to be together until love is indeed both “the dear sound of your footsteps” and an “armored tread of mainland infantry.” Though their love could cause conflict, Sappho believes that, if necessary, war can be the foundation of love if outsiders threaten to end the relationship. War is not the opposite of love, but according to Sappho, it can be a consequence of the fear that a loving relationship may end: after all, Helen could have never seen Paris again and stayed with Menelaus to avoid conflict, but she chose to be in love with Paris for the rest of their days together for fear that she and Paris may never be with each other again. Sappho arms herself with allusions to the Iliad and metaphors of militaries as she becomes a soldier within her letter to Anactoria, preparing for battle and declaring the honor of their love; a love that she believes is worth fighting for. Spurred by love and unafraid of war, Sappho’s complex relationship with Anactoria reveals that because love and war are so emotionally turbulent, the throes of love’s influence can often fuel a person to ignore the possibly warlike consequences of their actions to preserve their relationship.

         Both Helen and Sappho’s pursuit of love fostered possible conflict; however, one entered her feelings onto a page for four eyes only while the other snuck on board of a ship and caused a war of mythological proportions. Considering the poem was between the two women, the poem was likely a commiseration or a resignation rather than a call to arms; after all, Sappho and Anactoria’s husband were in a war of their own and Sappho knew when to surrender, but not when to stay silent. War was often considered a man’s affair while matters of the heart were reserved for women, but for a woman at war with herself as a result of her love for an army wife in Sardis, she was forever reserved to contemplate both war and love.

Due to quarantine and school, I have never gotten the wonderful opportunity to travel outside the country. That is, until a few weeks ago! My family went on our first cruise around the Mediterranean and it was absolutely beautiful. When I think about this trip, I think of specific items, things that sum up my favorite memories of traveling, and so I thought I should commemorate these things for safe keeping. I don’t travel very often, and I’d like to have an account to look back on, though I also thought I could provide a bit of warning or advice to anyone making similar trips in the future!

Flags!

I am a massive geography geek when it comes to world flags and one of the things I was looking forward to about my first time out of the country was seeing some of the flags that I had loved to study in person and for them to mean something to the people I would walk past. It’s one thing to learn the flags, to come to know them and be able to spot them, but I was so excited to be in the place where the flag meant something to the people around me and represented a part of these people’s identities. I bought a flag from each place I went and even ended up with some extra regional flags that I found along the way!

Flags are a beautiful way to signify a sense of union and pride, and not only was I able to collect a few national symbols that I could match with the faces I met during my trip, but I was also able to work my way down to even cities and regions and autonomies and movements. It was more than I could have hoped for and I learned so much about each place! I was voracious in my want to learn and it served me well. I recommend knowing at least a few, because you would be surprised by how helpful it can be or how much a person’s day can be made by just pointing out the flag they fly.

Heat Stroke and Dust

My family’s route was flying to New York and then flying to Athens, which meant 24 hours total of traveling. The way our trip was scheduled, as soon as we checked into our hotel, we had 45 minutes to nap and then we would go on a tour of the Acropolis and its temples. I was ecstatic to see such a historical marvel of geometry and architecture, only the problem was the fact that there was a massive heat wave and our tour was at 2:00 pm. I had a lot of fun and our tour was super interesting, it’s just I literally could not stop sweating and inhaling dust. As we got back on the bus to go back to the hotel, I was starting to shiver and feel nauseous. I thought this was fine considering I don’t exercise every day and I just figured it was a me problem, but then I had to ask the bus to pull over and then vomited in a giant dumpster on the streets of Athens.

It turns out I had heat stroke or something, but I didn’t know what to do so I just changed and fell asleep. It turns out that was the wrong thing to do since you’re supposed to cool down with a cold bath or cold compresses and not drink water. Instead, I changed my t-shirt, drank three bottles of water, and promptly fell asleep after dry-heaving for a split second. I’m fine now! Athens is a super cool city anyway, so it didn’t really get me down. At least now I know what to do if I get heat stroke and I can say I’ve thrown up on the streets of another country! Take it easy if there’s a heat wave, though, just for my sake.

Sweat!

The aforementioned heat wave was literally everywhere we went, all of which had near 100% humidity. It doesn’t take much heat to make me sweat despite the fact that I live in a pretty hot climate, but I think I need an IV of fluids to this day after the amount I sweated. It was record-shattering. I think I was close to heat stroke several times during this trip, but I only got it once! I just can’t emphasize how much I sweated during that trip. I guess Europe doesn’t do that thing where you blast AC to the point where left unchecked, you could contract acute hypothermia, but I missed it quite a bit. It probably makes sense since our bodies aren’t used to going from one extreme temperature to the next and it probably helped my immune system or something but all it manifested directly was more sweating at all times. Also, almost no one puts ice in their drinks! All water is chilled, never cold. Again, probably better for our bodies, but I’m an American, goddammit!

Beloved Biker Shorts

Before this trip, I didn’t wear biker shorts. I didn’t own them, I didn’t plan on owning them. And then I bought a few pairs to try out. And I will never not wear them. I am a victim of chafing anytime I wear denim shorts, but God almighty I never experienced anything akin to chafing as long as I was wearing biker shorts. They are the love of my life. Out of the brands I tried, Hollister has the most comfortable and soft shorts that are now my go-to’s with a ton of colors to choose from. Target’s are pretty good and I think Victoria Secret’s/Pink’s are better for working out than walking around. These shorts are everything I ever needed and more. If they go out of style, I’ll be dated. I am their number one fan and I recommend them to anyone and everyone whose thighs touch.

White and Blue

Santorini is a beautiful place! There’s shopping and photo ops and white and blue buildings; however, I believe that you should treat this place like Disneyland and just go crazy on the food. There’s so much good food there it’s not even funny. Lots of hidden restaurants lie beside staircases that lead in every direction, so keep an eye out! Some of the best food I ate throughout the entire trip was within those little secret restaurants. Eat your filling!

Tzatziki!

I have never eaten something so delectable. I am a changed woman. I’d never tried it before but took a stab at it and now it’s my idol, my king, my deity. It’s my favorite thing I ate the whole time and I plan on making it at home, so if you have any good recipes please let me know. I could write a symphony about tzatziki. A jazz ballad. An ode. It is what I dream about, what I sing for. It is my love, my life, in the mirror of your eyes, the subject of every love song. I whisper it even now because I can’t believe it was real. Tzatziki… tzatziki… tzatziki.

Montenegrin Churches

If you’re ever lucky enough to visit the gorgeous country of Montenegro, please try to visit a few of its many churches. I am not a religious person but the history and beauty hidden away behind weathered stone offers a unique and intimate experience that allows for cool moments of silence and solemnity too seldom offered by tourist destinations. 

Taormina

Taormina is a small town in Italy that I could rant about for days. As someone that has only known harsh architecture and suburbs and skyscrapers, there’s a weird feeling I get when buildings are not quite as tall as a skyscraper but still loom over you several stories in the air. The cobble streets and the tourist tchotchke stores make for a visit you wish was endless. I could’ve spent a week there being idle. There’s all the classic Italian food and coffee that literally blew my mind, but it’s just such a wonderful place to sit with your thoughts and appreciate where you are. 

4 Maritime Nations

One of my favorite parts of Italy was finding the 4 maritime national flags of the Amalfi coast! That meant 4 extra flags that I could add to my little brain database! They were such beautiful flags for beautiful cities. I couldn’t find physical flags, but I bought four little magnets; however my mom didn’t see that I did that and ordered me a five-foot flag of the four nations that I now just have despite not being Italian at all. Oh well! I now have a giant flag that I have no connection to in order to remember those cities, so I will love it forever!

Barthelona

Barcelona is such a beautiful city! It was by far the easiest to navigate out of everywhere we went and knowing a little Spanish can get you a long way. I love learning Spanish and hope to be fluent one day and it was fantastic getting to speak it even just a bit. It’s rich with local culture and pride with the kindest people I met through the whole trip. I watched Spanish TV for a while and there’s a show called “First Dates” that was like the first episode of “Love Island” over and over and I loved it. That’s a gem right there. Catalan is such a beautiful language as well and I loved learning as much as I could about Catalonian history and culture. What an amazing place!

***

I feel like the luckiest person in the world for getting to go on this trip even with sea sickness and heat stroke. They only gave me opportunities to learn about what it is to travel and to exit your comfort zone! I am most privileged to be a guest in such beautiful countries and will cherish my memories forever. Traveling is such a privilege in and of itself and I am grateful to have seen countries beyond the one I’ve lived in my whole life. For all of the used travel guides I read when I was younger and the flags I’ve studied and the histories I’ve read, being in those places makes the knowledge that much sweeter.

I haven’t believed in God since I went to a bible camp in 3rd grade. The only time I ever peacefully withdrew to the hold of a higher power throughout my entire life was sitting in the deep-end of a pool that was at least 11 feet deep. Air wasn’t enough to convince me that the world was large enough to be made by gargantuan hands. The sky seemed limitless and so it was a sandbox, an open-air freak occurrence, a dominion of gasses and little things. And then, there were deep-ends. I felt in this pressure against my ears and my face and my body I could sink to cement and look up at the chlorinated mosaic of the sky above me and dissolve into the infinite fractals of sunlight that I watched disappear into the current just as they were uniquely made. 

I felt most relinquished to this life with metric gallons pressing on my body, pressed in between life and death, liquid and gas, and whole. I longed to be a creature of the pool depths. I longed to live among the debris of trees that floated into the pools, to join the dirt among the bits of leaves that flourish when disturbed. So that when people found me, I’d be a commodity and a treasure that a crow like me could take home and prize until it’s lost or their parents throw it away. I wasn’t fickle like the others, though. I wanted to sleep there when all the pool lights extinguished. I wanted to be visited by curious children that were brave enough to withstand the depths without complaining of achy ears or holding their nose. I wanted to be a cryptid. I’d let all the air from my body reenter the heavens above and sink down, down, back against the cement, hair pooling around me. 

Finally, I could see how the world around me could maybe not echo. That when I would look at the wavering outlines of land-dwellers, their sound waves were scrambled in the fractals that tickled my eyes. No longer was this world empty and hollow. No longer were gasses infiltrating every alcove that I begged to be made whole. No longer was I at the top of a mountain. 

Water would push against me, all over. It would plunder my inner ears as my eyes would spin around and around while the rest of my body hovered in place. I had swimmer’s ear so many times, but I never ever learned. I wished I could breathe it in like air so that it would take longer for my body to deflate. Air always seemed to leave too quickly, but I felt that water would let me finally be still, like sap. I felt it wasn’t too much to ask to be down at the bottom of the pool forever. I was so deeply, infinitely jealous of sand-dwellers in the ocean that I would pray to the pool god I believed in to make me a crab or a lobster so I could be at the bottom of the ocean all the time, or at least a wayward napkin that dissolved into a trillion little floating iotas that became one with the water when disturbed in the slightest. But I preferred being a crab, if that’s alright with you.

I would bring objects down with me to see if they looked any different. They always did, because nothing really belongs at the bottom of the pool, so it never failed to enchant me when staring at my dad’s sunglasses or a full water bottle that looked iridescent or a doll that I’d brought that knew too much and had to be silenced for her crimes and swim with the fishes. She knows what she did. I wished I could eat down there, and believe me, I tried. Licorice works well enough, if you can believe it. There’s only a slight chlorine taste you need to get past. Everything felt more real in the turquoise of the deep-end. I felt solid and real. I felt dissolvable and sleepy. I felt incubated.

I am a woman of many vices. Popeyes, Good Mythical Morning, the Hairspray movie. All of my coping mechanisms own me. But the coping mechanisms that have their claws, their TALONS lodged in my arms that hold me over the abyss are those that I turn to at school.

Our school computers are violently censored with almost any website conceivable being blocked, including several necessary for school that have had to be manually unblocked by complaining to the IT people. What we have unblocked, we cherish deeply. And those few websites that have slipped through the cracks are my scholastic vices. (If you work at my school in any capacity and see this article and think it would be a smart idea to get these few moments of relief blocked, know that I will send you a bill when my Prozac prescription goes up. That’s blood on your hands. Do you want to risk your moral equilibrium for a few moments of authority? I hope not, for both of our sakes.)

 I cannot emphasize the scale of the filtering system on the school laptops. Everything is blocked. Everything. I had to email the administration to get this blog manually unblocked on the school computers because the algorithm classified it as “general.”

These vices belong to the internet, to the Microsoft store, to my own ability to code. These vices are online traditional pastimes. They are board games, they are mind puzzles, they are free to download with in-app purchases. These are: my school vices.

In the morning, I open my flask of USA Today daily crossword and add some ice. If you don’t pay a $5 fee for a subscription, you don’t get to access past puzzles so you have to do them the day they come out. Once they’re done, you have to wait until the next day to get a new fabulous puzzle. It leaves me buzzed after those blissful 8-15 minutes are up and I know there’s not going to be a fix like it until tomorrow. Whoever writes those things has around 300 confirmed addicts at their beck and call within my school alone. 

It’s the only thing that rivals Wordle (another newer vice of mine) and 2048 cupcakes, which is saying something. If I finish the USA Today puzzle and still have a crossword fix that needs satisfying, I head over to seemingly the only other crossword website that is unblocked on our laptops, which is Best Crossword Puzzles, which has an archive of less good but still free puzzles.

Getting through the morning is the hardest part. I might wash it down with some sudoku. Sudoku never fails me. It doesn’t have to be written like a crossword or word search. Refresh the page and there’s a new, equally easy or hard puzzle ready to die just as quickly as it was born. I have become a master of sudoku. I peruse those broken columns with the pure determination of a man on a suicide mission. I can’t breathe until I finish an easy sudoku.

My fastest time is 2:29 on sudoku.com, so you can tell I’m pretty serious about it. I went through a phase of doing sudokus exclusively on the expert level, and it got to the point where I almost snuck away during Thanksgiving dinner so I could finish the puzzle I’d started right before they’d asked me to set the table 40 minutes ago. My fastest expert time is 12 minutes. I don’t know if that’s impressive or not, but it’s what I have. God, I love sudoku. They’ve got a new one now, Killer Sudoku. I recommend it, it’s fun.

By noon, it’s hazy. The room spins and it’s time to focus on something, ANYTHING to get me to lunch. A gentle hand cups mine as my eyes threaten to shut for the entirety of class, and I know it has found me. That gentle friend, that scheming pal ‘o mine. Chess at chess.com. It’s my world, has been my world, for about a year now.

My rating has been in a bit of a rough stretch for a while, but nevertheless, chess will always have an ally in me. Did I buy the premium membership so I could get unlimited puzzles and analysis? Yes. And it’s money that I’d rather spit on than regret paying. Chess tides me over until lunch and I let it take me by the hand until I forget what’s around me. It’s a trip like no other with the senses numbed by the previous sudokus and crosswords, I’m telling you. But remember– it’s not even lunch. (If you’re wondering about my background, it’s Chris Evans.)

Once I’ve eaten and I’ve done whatever I need to do (there’s always something), it’s time for the home stretch. Last period. By now, I’ve entered a fugue state. The world around me is peripheral and I’m depending on the most colorful, the most exciting, the most adrenaline-inducing vice of all: Cooking Fever.

With the aforementioned restrictions, we can’t buy games that cost money, which means that a lot of the available Microsoft games are terrible and are probably viruses. But Cooking Fever isn’t a virus. It’s not quite a Papa’s Restaurant type of game because you can update equipment and the levels are much faster, but this game has me by the neck. It’s capitalism training but colorful, and I am its loyal subject. I disappear for hours at a time and my family frantically searches for me. I reappear, my eyes bloodshot and the bags under my eyes swollen. “Where were you?” cries my mother, “We’ve been looking for you everywhere! You disappear so much these days, we don’t even know who you are anymore!”

I look her dead in the eyes and I say, “Mother, I was playing Cooking Fever.”

It’s harder to get away with during class, but I find a way. I always find a way. Cooking Fever is a necessity, it’s my purpose during the last hours of the school day. It’s ugly and garish, but it’s mine. It’s mine.

I return home and my vices don’t seem as appealing. I’ll play a chess game here and there. Maybe do a sudoku after I finish my homework. A crossword if I’m watching a movie. Cooking fever if I need to kill time. But school hours. It’s like a casino. The clocks don’t mean a damn thing because once I step foot on campus, it’s time for me to bet on black and win big. I win big every day. So what if my vices control me? My brain pilot could use a break. If you ever talk to me at school, you’re not talking to me. You’re talking to sudoku.

In the spirit of preparing for season 4 of Cobra Kai, I rewatched part of season 3 with my twin who also happens to be a super-fan and has seen it a million times. Not only did I rewatch part of the show, but she has decided to take me on the journey of watching the second and third original movies, ultimately leading me to believe that I truly understood most of the characters of the main cast in Cobra Kai. 

In my sick and twisted little teenage mind, as we were finishing up season 3, I came to a sudden yet unforgettable realization: each main character that I saw on the screen before me matched a song off of what might one of the greatest pieces of musical work to ever exist on the miserable surface of this planet: Taylor Swift’s masterpiece, Folklore. 

I don’t know how widespread the middle ground is between the Venn diagram of die-hard Swifties and people that like the Karate Kid cinematic universe, but I’m sure that I’m hitting a niche of at least two people: my sister and I. As a Christmas gift, this is a small homage to my twin, Charlotte: Merry Christmas, and I hope season 4 is everything you want it to be! You are by far the biggest fan of this whole thing I’ve ever seen and I hope I’ve done this justice!

Daniel LaRusso = Mirrorball

Daniel LaRusso is a people pleaser, through and through. Not only that, but most of his life is watched by those either exploiting him or those that simply want him to know peace. He is a fighter when needed, but he lives his life in the pursuit of well-earned respect despite living on a pedestal from the moment he learned karate. 

Though people constantly seek him out to fulfill some kind of boon or lifelong dissatisfaction, he has to live day-to-day life on the peaceful principles he learned from Miyagi while also honoring his personal ambitions. He exists beyond the scope of the people that see him as some mythic legend: he’s just a guy that has been battered and bruised, time and time again.

CHARLOTTE’S INPUT: There is good evidence of this song in Karate Kid III with Terry Silver trying to woo him, but then Mr. Miyagi tries to convince him otherwise. He’s caught between two worlds and he’s trying to please both, but either way, he’s going to get beat up.

Johnny Lawrence = August/This Is Me Trying

Nothing can excuse the hooligan behavior of 80s Johnny, but in the lens of “August,” I cry a little at the thought of Johnny feeling like a second choice after the Adonis that is Ralph Macchio when he served in his own right and was emotionally manipulated by a war criminal. 

Especially as we veer into Cobra Kai territory, every moment of Johnny’s recovery from menace-to-less of a menace takes effort and discomfort. Obviously he is not at all perfect, but that’s the magnetism of his character: he represents impulsiveness that has to be battered away with the most integrity-filled part of yourself. Even if you’re not at your best, you’re still trying.

CHARLOTTE’S INPUT: For “August,” when you hear his account of the Alli story, it reminds you of how young they all were. It sounds so wistful: their summer romance was cut short. It makes you like him more. With “This Is Me Trying,” he puts in work constantly with Miguel, with Carmen, and though his relationship with Robby is rocky, he is certainly putting in what he sees as immense effort. You can just feel how palpable his effort is.

Robby Keene = Exile

When I think of Robby, I think of ANGST. What song is more representative of inner turmoil and true anger against the world than “Exile.” There are two sides of Robby: the side his father left him with where he has the intention to try his best to recover the authenticity that comes with bettering his own life and his own personal tormentor that tells him to go where any respect is given. He just wants to end up somewhere he doesn’t have to watch his back at all times, and with the ever-increasing conflict in his life, it’s hard to see through intention when the promise of sanctuary is only skin deep.

CHARLOTTE’S INPUT: For Robby, things keep repeating and not in a good way. He sees these trends and he’s afraid to accept the good while it’s there and finds comfort in the bad. Rather than go back to two father figures, he feels like he needs to exile himself from the cycle by seeking out someone he knows to be toxic as a new opportunity.

Miguel Diaz = Betty

Miguel is somehow still a relatively upbeat and optimistic character despite having been through probably the most pain out of anyone in the entire show. When I think of him, I think of a teenage boy that harbors the irrefutable idea that eventually, things will work out. What song is better than “Betty,” a song where the speaker only hopes that the best will happen out of faith in love?  

CHARLOTTE’S INPUT: With Miguel, he’s similar to the song because he always comes back to his first love while still caring for the people he leaves behind. The only reason he leaves his first love originally is because he feels jealous, and once he understands the situation as it is, all he wants is to feel safe again.

Samantha LaRusso = My Tears Ricochet 

Sam went from having some relationship/friendship troubles to having full-blown anxiety and possible PTSD, so I feel like she deserves a song about acknowledging previous hardships while also showing that she’ll never be the person she was before. All I want is for every single character in this show to get therapy, but all I can do at this point is hope that Sam grows into the entirety of the song’s message and is larger than her current problems.

CHARLOTTE’S INPUT: Sam unintentionally causes so many of the central conflicts and by season 3, she feels so lost and like she’s hurting everyone around her. By then, she feels like a new person but she still doesn’t feel like she’s enough. She can’t control her internal conflicts so it affects those around her, but there’s not much she can do about it.

Eli Moskowitz/ Hawk = Epiphany

Even though the mohawk is atrocious, I have such a soft spot for Hawk’s character despite the fact that he is an out-of-control menace that needs therapy just as much as everyone else. He is loyal to whoever provides him with the most confidence, though in the end, he ultimately returns to his original loyalties after an epiphany freeing him from the singular conflict shrouding his decisions. The scar isn’t even bad!

CHARLOTTE’S INPUT: For Hawk, that moment in season 3 where he returns to his morals and his real friends, UGH. He wakes up from this haze into an epiphany and sheds that false sense of confidence for what really matters: his friends. I think it’s one of my favorite parts of this show where he accepts that his old self is a part of him for the better. A great song for a great character.

Tori Nichols = Mad Woman

Where do I start with Tori? Oh my god, please give these people therapy. I respect her struggles and understand the immense pressures that fall on her in so many ways, but my god, she is a mad woman. Especially later in season 3, I feel like this song is the perfect anthem for her motives. Also, FIX HER HAIR.

CHARLOTTE’S INPUT: Tori knows that everyone thinks she’s crazy but she’s still sensitive. She’s had her struggles, but there are reasons for her to be so mad and be so aggressive. She’s the only girl in a masculine and violent setting, so she’s in a league of her own, which immediately pits her against Sam. Except Tori is 100% a mad woman. Like pre-Kreese. But Hawk has a similar level of rage and people aren’t as quick to call it out, so she might be due for a redemption moment.

John Kreese = None from Folklore because he’s a menace, but maybe Look What You Made Me Do

Mr. War Criminal John Kreese is the man that haunts my nightmares. Never have I seen a character so unhinged and more deserving of time in prison. If Tori was in the military, this is what would happen. He does not deserve a single track off of Folklore, so I award him with one of Taylor’s most unhinged tracks: “Look What You Made Me Do” off of Reputation. We need surveillance on this guy. National security threat #1.

CHARLOTTE’S INPUT: This man is utterly unhinged. And when this song came out, it was the bringer of chaos. This song ripped apart reality at its seams, and John Kreese does not play reality by its rules, so an unhinged song for an unhinged guy works.

Mr. Miyagi = Peace

Miyagi. What a perfect human being. God bless that confusing, eccentric, and eclectic character. Truly someone that only wanted those around him to find peace and fought for that journey every day of his life. Would it be enough if I could ever bring Miyagi peace?

CHARLOTTE’S INPUT: Mr. Miyagi is one of my favorite characters to ever exist, and one of his struggles is not bringing Yukie with him and when they’re first reunited, he has to acknowledge that. He changed the course of her life, of Daniel’s life, and both are still committed to him as a loved one. People want peace for him, but it’s all he wants for everyone else.

Demetri = Seven

Demetri is loyal like Hawk, only he draws upon his past rather than what people can offer him in the future. He can see past all the insane karate politics and has a clear agenda: be a good friend and be strong for his friends. His childlike sense of optimism is “Seven” through and through, and he is such a fun and consistent character.

CHARLOTTE’S INPUT: Even by season 3, all Demetri wants to do is maintain his and Eli’s childhood bond no matter what. He brings people back to their most foundational and youthful selves, and his sense of loyalty and persistence is unmatched.

Amanda LaRusso = Invisible String

Amanda is somehow the only voice of reason in this entire show. How is she the first person to try and get Kreese arrested? When she slapped Kreese, I felt twenty years added to my lifespan. Truly inspired, and not only that, but she is the perfect balance for Daniel’s insane background and truly deserves her own show. She really is the voice of the people in this show. 

CHARLOTTE’S INPUT: One of the primary/recurring motifs in the show is Daniel reconnecting with his exes, and somehow, none of it phases Amanda. If something happens at the dealership, she brings it up to avoid long term conflict. They just always share this connection despite Daniel reliving several of his childhood traumas/romances. It’s insane because they’re tested time and time again with no resounding consequences other than more trust.

***

I hope you enjoyed my Taylor Swift-fueled spiral, and happy holidays to everyone! Charlotte, I hope you appreciated this present! HAPPY SEASON 4!!!

I have read and watched so much science fiction content in my short sixteen years on this earth. I cannot even emphasize how much, but take my word for it that it is likely my most-read category of books and most-watched category of movies and TV shows.

With science fiction, you can often bet that aliens might make an appearance eventually, or they may be the focal point of the story, and this is where we diverge into my obsession with the portrayal of aliens in certain works of fiction.

Aliens tend to serve as a plot device that supports the attempted theme of the novel, like the Formics from “Ender’s Game” appearing to be hominid insects as a way to provide an excuse for those on Earth as to why they should eradicate them; they’re bugs to be squashed. Or you could maybe take a look at the human-like aliens in Ben Bova’s “New Earth,” where their appearance serves to be unnervingly similar to that of the mission specialists from Earth, looking for a new place to call home.

Other times, aliens serve to portray a new and undeniably unfamiliar threat, like those in the movie “Independence Day,” or the bane of my existence, “The Tomorrow War” (This movie nearly rose my cholesterol to the point where I would’ve sued Amazon. Spoilers will be a part of this parentheses rant, so be warned. 

So first of all, no one thinks to tell the people from the past that the alien JUST APPEARED WITH NO WARNING? And then these things shoot knives out of their body: where do these knives form from, are they refuse from the body? They seem to never run out of these knives? Also, if they are aliens, how do they have perfectly intact double helical DNA with the same four bases as us? 

When I saw that DNA and then they talked about how they dug out of the earth from that volcanic eruption, I was so excited because I thought it was going to be a whole spiral about how they had always been under the earth because they were actually from the same planet as us and that would explain their genetic info but NO of COURSE they are STILL aliens. It’s a despicable movie.)

Not only do I consume a lot of science fiction, but I also love learning about science, specifically space. I love when sci-fi is somewhat accurate, but the “Moon Base Alpha” series by Stuart Gibbs (to this day) is my absolute favorite example of aliens in contact with humans in any example of sci-fi. 

The basis of this children’s trilogy surrounds the life of young Dashiell and his fellow moonies on the first ever moon colony. There’s drama, there’s research, and most scandalously, there’s murder! And though I won’t really be covering the plot or the characters, this is a series I am glad that children now will grow up with and will likely cause so many young people around the world to discover their love of the world of reading. It’s so well written, inclusive, and genuinely entertaining! But I am going to focus on the presence of aliens in these novels, and why I LOVE it compared to so many other depictions of aliens, especially in comparison to the “Tomorrow War.”

Dashiell communicates with the resident alien of the series, Zan Perfonic, through a mental bond that Zan establishes and Dashiell later learns to utilize. While that may lean on the fiction portion of the genre as of now, Zan’s explanation of why she can’t describe herself when asked by Dashiell was so refreshing to me: she says she simply can’t explain herself because she doesn’t look like anything he could ever imagine. 

If our world were to interact with aliens, they would be just that: alien. Our version of life is what it is (depending on what you believe) because of exceedingly rare and preferential circumstances surrounding the correct combinations of elements and environmental conditions to bring about life. 

The assumption that they will look anything like us or something else on earth is misguided and unrealistic; where their life thrives, maintaining a hominid body or walking in general could be unsuitable. Everything about us is made for the convenience of our planet: we have skin for protecting our organs, we have pigment for protecting us from our distance from the sun, we walk because it’s faster in our planet’s relative level of gravity’s influence, we have eyes because we have an abundance of light at all times, we breath air because it’s the correct compound to fuel life and is protected by the ozone layer while being spouted from plants, and there are even more never-ending examples. 

Gravity, atmosphere, elemental basis: there are literally endless influences to what could make aliens different from us. Even further, their genetic information could be absolutely different from ours in every way, depending on what suits their way of life. Our endless genetic diversity on one planet results from infinitely unique sequences of data from four bases. FOUR! Imagine how many others they could have, imagine their nitrogenous bases are found in a different elemental bond: the differences are endless!

Zan Perfonic tries her best, but she can’t qualify her own appendages, her own functions, into that of humans. Her language doesn’t transcend planets, her body doesn’t, her world doesn’t. For the sake of Dashiell’s understanding, she appears in his mind as a normal human woman, and communicates with him in English. Later, you find out that she lives on an ocean planner and that she’s comparable to an unimaginable cephalopod-type species. 

I love this explanation because she suits the environment she lives in: she likely doesn’t breathe oxygen (or need it at all), her movement is supplied by appendages made for water, their technology exists in a state preferable for underwater life— it’s unimaginable, it’s unique, it’s hard to grasp: it’s alien. 

Gibbs does an excellent job throughout this entire series to establish a story that’s larger than life, but still grounded in reality. He includes pages of the moon base’s guide book for exposition, scientific backing, and key facts that will provide context for big plot events and reveals. He could tell me anything in the entire series, and I’d be knocking at NASA’s door asking for an explanation as to why we don’t already have a colony on the moon. 

Not only are these pockets of science perfect for progressing the story, but they are also explained masterfully for children’s understanding and appreciation: these stories could not only introduce kids to reading, but also to the magic of science. I may be a sixteen-year-old ranting about the accuracy of a children’s series, but I’ll be damned if I don’t have standards for the children’s books I rant about. 

I highly recommend the “Moon Base Alpha” series by Stuart Gibbs to all ages, and I commend Stuart Gibbs for pioneering this explanation of truly alien aliens. All of his books are exceedingly entertaining, and I always find it endearing to watch an author be so creative and genuine in their pursuit of stimulating the young minds of the future. Read his books and keep it up, Stuart!