3. Mozarella

  I love sandwiches. To me, the sandwich is life. Sandwiches have been around for a long time. However, the most famous story about them is that they originated from the Earl of Sandwich in 1762. While I don’t really care for the background of the story, I can do the math. It’s been 264 years since the alleged invention of the sandwich. That means that for at least 4% of the time that the sandwich has existed, I have been eating them. That’s a lot of sandwiches.  I still have vague memories of my first sandwich. According to a grainy video recorded by my father, he sat me down when I was a toddler in the middle of our kitchen, and brought over a small table. On that table, he produced a rather large stack of bread, cheese, and store-brought sandwich meat. It was about a solid 4-inch tall stack of bread, and more than enough meat to feed me for 3 meals. Honestly, the sandwich was pretty mediocre. It was bland and pretty tasteless, but to me, that memory was special. Out of all ...

I’ve never had a terribly excellent memory. As I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, my memory is akin to a puzzle where about a fifth of the puzzle pieces are scattered in random areas like the world’s most convoluted crossover between a scavenger hunt and a puzzle. As a result of that, my recollection of past experiences tends to differ greatly from what other people around me recall. For example, I was bullied as a child in elementary school. I remember vividly about how my bully often teased me, but never physically attacked me. At least that was what I was under the impression of, but apparently my memories of being bullied are not quite completely accurate. A while ago, I was talking about my memories of getting bullied, and my mother revealed that, according to one of my friends from elementary school, I was pushed off a bench by my bully. To this day, I have absolutely zero recollection of this event ever happening.  In a slightly contrasting example, I once started watc...

Growing up my parents put me almost every sport they could. I tried soccer, volleyball, swimming, badminton, tennis, you name it I tried it. None of them really clicked, either I couldn’t get the hang of it, or I just wasn’t having any fun; and then they signed me up for our basketball lessons at our local recreation center. After trying so many different sports, there was something about the game of basketball that just clicked with me and if you were to ask 5 year old me what that was, I would simply answer, “I like the sound of the swish.”  To this day, I stand by that statement. Even now, if anyone were to ask me what my favorite sound effect is, it’s a basketball going through the hoop, hitting nothing but net. Even though I don’t play at a high level anymore the memories I’ve made and the experiences I’ve had have molded me into the person I am today.  I was never the best on the team, I wasn’t the most accurate shooter, I was definitely not the biggest on the court, the...

  Last weekend marked the beginning of the infamous and ever-exclusive two-weekend-long event of Coachella. We got to see larger-than-life celebrities, and astrohead influencers pretend to be “roughing it out” in Indio Valley for the weekend– well, their idea of “roughing it out” is staying in a mansion without a jet jacuzzi, but we’ll still give them the credit.  Now, I am not very involved in the influencer scene on social media; my pages are filled with stupid memes and media analysis, but I did enjoy seeing some of the outfits from the festival. One thing was extremely clear, though: upon watching the streams and the multitude of videos, I concluded that this year Coachella was about nostalgia. Specifically, the performative nostalgia of the late 2010s. With everyone running to get barricade for Justin Bieber and Disclosure, people decked out in flower crowns and neon minishorts ( Vanessa Hudgens’ influence still seems to be looming over the festival, unfortunately), it ...

                                                                                          Image Citation This past week, I was randomly reminded of an open house I attended with my parents when I was much younger. I have no idea where exactly it was (aside from somewhere in the Bay Area), but it was a very beautiful neighborhood and a very sunny day. While I started exploring the quintessentially American home, I stumbled into the room of, presumably, the teenage son. I don’t remember much of the actual room, but I do remember how, walking into the walk-in closet, I was greeted by a plethora of games, boxes, clothes, and other memorabilia. Curious, I opened a small cardboard box, thinking of how intricate the home staging was, allowing potential homeowners...

As the clock strikes twelve and midnight arrives, I know it’s another day of tumultuous grinding. But preceding all my assignments is my daily task of utmost importance. I type out the word that I have been using for—wow! Exactly 100 days! Happy 100th anniversary to:  G R A P E We are off to a good start today! P has to be in the beginning, as having “rp” in a word doesn’t really make sense. There’s not many words with this arrangement, so I’m set for a 3. PR ID E “ Pr id e ” just didn’t seem like a Wordle word, and my Wordle-intuition was correct. I begin to have an ominous feeling. PR OV E Oh man. In hindsight it was such a terrible guess. “ Pr ov e ” had probably been used before, and it also didn’t seem like Wordle word. But let’s move on…. PRU N E Okay. PRUDE A few minutes later, I receive two messages. I click on the first one. “WORDLE IN 3” Three??? That could’ve been me. I swallow my pride and type out “5 😡 .” “GET SMOKED” The other message is a simple “4.” “5.” “YOR SO ...

  How does one’s memories in a situation affect their viewpoint in specific events? Perspective is a key part of every event, and depending on the position one is in during situations, their opinion on said situation is different. Any situation can be viewed extremely differently by two people depending on their own circumstances.  An event where a person wins may be happy to them since they had their own achievement, but it may be a sad memory to another person who lost to them, or the event may be viewed as negative to a different person in the same situation if the person felt like they didn’t deserve the win. Depending on the circumstances of various people, the same event is twisted into a million different versions according to the person. Memories make up most of one’s viewpoint, as the way one was raised, the experiences they’ve had, their education, and several other factors massively impact a person’s viewpoint. Memories fundamentally make up a part of a person, ...

       College. It’s daunting, so close yet so far. It’s surreal realizing I’m so close to the finish line. It’s interesting isn’t it, how college acceptances are labeled as the finish. The culmination of 13 years of hard work: blood, sweat, tears, and countless sleepless nights. As junior year comes to a close I find myself lying awake at night staring at my ceiling in the dark lost in my thoughts, reflecting on the decisions I made, often finding myself playing my memories like a movie in my head on shuffle.       Upon entering high school my parents had two requests for me: don’t do anything that’ll get me beat up and have no regrets. I took both of those to heart (especially request number one lol) and I’ll admit, I’ve done some pretty idiotic things. The most recent example I can think of is Scubaing in front of the entire Rally B and hitting the stanky leg in the middle of the gym. My friends say I have no social anxiety and it started out...

A blur. Day after day, staying at home. No school. Not old enough. Eat the same, purple, sweet yet bitter medicine. Those years are long, but feel so short now. The child cannot remember much about their early years. Save for the taste of Tilamook cheese. The child recounts their life through the accounts of others. The child watches videos of them failing to sing “twinkle twinkle little star.” They see pictures of them in their parents’ arms, in their grandparents’ arms, even though they have no recollection. They see that broken-down Little Tikes cozy coupe in their backyard, and remember that image of them chewing on a dandelion in it, some fifteen-odd years back. Though so many people tell them of their life, the child still cannot remember much, save for the taste of some cheese. Some memories remain, though. Their father eagerly recounts their first time eating a sandwich together, recorded in low quality video, the child sporting a chubby, toothy grin. They remember eating meatb...

                                                                       Image Citation Jamais vu is French for “never seen” and is essentially the opposite of déjà vu. It refers to the experience when something familiar suddenly feels unfamiliar. For example, how many times have you repeatedly said a word until it loses all meaning and sounds like a weird spell from another language? If you repeat almost any word in the English language, it will eventually start to look or sound fake and misspelled. Even though it is correct, and you know it, your brain stops properly recognizing it. At first, this seemed counterintuitive to me; shouldn’t repetition only lead to increased understanding and confidence in the word? I mean, that’s usually how it works for studying and overall memor...

It has definitely been known that I like to watch movies. I think the past two blogs I have written have related to my love for the medium in one way or another: an app like Letterboxd, or a franchise like Marvel. And while I try to think of other topics to write about (trust me, I understand reading about movies every other week can be redundant), I genuinely think that the movie theater and movies in general shaped me into the person I am today. The first memory I have of the movies was when I went to see The Force Awakens during my winter break when I was 6. Before this event, my family would bring a blanket to the theater because I was a notorious napper during movies. So, when I practically begged my mom to take me to see the newest Star Wars movie, she brought a blanket to prepare for me, lulling my head into her lap. To her surprise, I stayed awake throughout the entire two-hour-long run of the movie, which delighted her, as for the first time, I didn’t waste $8 on a movie tic...