3. Burrata

  A long, long time ago, when I lived in the faraway land that is Texas, I suffered from year-round torture at the hands of fire ant colonies in my neighborhood. menacing. credits: https://ipestpros.com/the-low-down-on-fire-ants-texas-ant-control-experts/ These things HURT! Just one sting from a fire ant would cause my flesh to swell into itchy, red, unbearable bumps. One once crawled into my ballet flats while I was out walking with my dad. I yelped, kicked my flats off, and trampled it at once, but not before the ant could get two bites out of my left foot. For the next week, I couldn’t fit in any of my shoes… Unfortunately, I face similar issues with most other bugs. Mosquitos are simply dreadful: ants in California don’t bite, but these little blood-suckers are always tormenting me. Several of them ambushed me just a few days ago at Alameda Creek! Still, if not for bugs, I would not have so many memories. That Texas fire ant may have traumatized me, but the details I associate ...

Watching the American High School rendition of Mean Girls was an outstanding experience. I really enjoyed the musical thoroughly and it made me remember the importance of memories. One of the common themes in the story was trying to remove their past, their younger memories. The characters decided those old moments were not a proper representation of themselves anymore. They wanted to forget it forever. For instance, Cady tried to let go of her past in Africa. She changed how she dressed and her personality; pretending to be less smart and hoping to be more attractive. However, she realized her mistakes when talking to Aaron. There was such a memorable scene at Cady’s party where she was upstairs with Aaron. Cady was drunk and opened up about her past. She talks about her experiences in Africa, closing her eyes with her mom to identify how many bird species she can hear. Cady constantly emphasizes how she does not do it any more again in America, adding “obvs”, to highlight how it is ...

At the moment that I am writing this blog, my current craving for the day is seared salmon sake topped with miso cream cheese. How often do you get cravings? I feel like I crave something every day, and it always varies between drinks, snacks, candies, entrees, and everything else. Eating in general is really relaxing for me especially after a long day of working. Just like in the daily survey, I’m intrigued to know how other people spend their personal time and take care of themselves. Today, I finally decided to rummage through the thousands of photos that I kept buried within my gallery. When I scrolled through 12,928 photos to get to the top, the first date was marked September 24, 2015 of a photo that I had not even taken. It was a picture of me taken by my sister, me wearing a red Christmas sweater thinking it was a good decision. I scrolled for a while. 2021, 2022, 2023… wow. Little Casmin was so naive. She just kept a big (sometimes evil) smile on her face, unaware of the horro...

Did you remember the vocabulary words on our past few VQs? I’m sure you did, but for some of them, especially when the words are close synonyms of each other, picking a word becomes russian roulette (or eeny meeny miny moe depending on your preference). Getting one wrong is an automatic C (help) and two wrong is a left hook to the test category. However, if you get them all, it’s 20/20 extra points for just four words! I’ve noticed, though, that we have many different ways of actually remembering the vocabulary words. Given that it’s wraps if you get just one word wrong, I’ve tried many different methods of studying for them myself. I’ve drawn mind maps, made flashcards, listened to myself on the bus, and all the other techniques that people seem to swear by. For me, though, the primary thing that seems to work seems to be writing the words over and over for some reason (Umbridge flashbacks).  It’s a really weird way of remembering it. It’s not like I remember them because I see th...

  Jaycee Snelson Week 15: Ripple Effect When walking home from the play I was thinking about the memory that was created, of watching some of the friends I made throughout high school take part in an amazing production and how some of them would be graduating soon, and how I would remember this memory for a long time. Then I started thinking about if this would be a memory for the people around me.  For instance, I was sitting next to this third-grader who was watching the performance for the second time to support her sister, who was a part of the live orchestra. During the performance I heard her whispering. At first I thought she was whispering to her mom who, at the time, I thought was sitting behind us. However, after the third time it happened I glanced over and realized she was whispering to me. Not wanting to disappoint her, I responded to her commentary on the play, thinking this would be a one time thing.  It was not. The...

Many old Indian houses traditionally have an indoor swing. (Photo from Pinterest ) i tend to forget by Acintya Shenoy i remember the first day it happened. i am sitting in my great-grandmother’s room, her only room in the house, the only blue room in the house, the only blue room in the house with a swing. i am sitting on her lap, on the swing, and her hands are made of branches. her hands are made of branches, and they are holding me, and they are singing me a song i don’t understand. they are clasping around my chest and whispering in my ear and swaying in the wind like a dead man and i don’t understand. i don’t understand the copper around her wrists, i don’t understand the barklike silk covering her chest. i don’t understand why she is trying to look me in the eye when i am facing away from her, sitting on her lap, on the swing. my grandmother walks into the room and eyes her with pity, then carries me to her lap, and her hands are made of branches, but there are still a few leaves...

If you ever mention visiting Lake Tahoe to me, even if I really want to visit the beautiful place now, the first thing that would come to mind is the bad luck my family has had there over the years. We’ve had blown tires, torn muscles, and the worst one happened when I was around the age of 7 or 8. It was a warm, sunny day, and the first time that my family had visited Lake Tahoe during the summer. Usually, we would travel there during the winter and my sister and I would go skiing. Well, my parents used to go with us until my dad tore his meniscus one trip and didn’t realize until around 3 months later, getting surgery on it then. Anyway, we were with both my aunt and uncle and their spouses from my mom’s side, and we decided that it would be a good idea to rent out a boat and take it out on the lake, even though we had never driven a boat before. The first half of the day was great, with fun banter and laughter, until we stopped in a certain part of the lake shaped like a small semic...

I fell asleep. Away from reality. Wandering mindlessly until I tripped upon a memory. And I remembered how in 3rd grade, we were able to sit wherever we wanted and I chose a beanbag. It’s so random, so unimportant, yet so distinct. I feel like memories have a mind of their own and I cannot control them. I cannot control their desires, their beliefs, their ideas. They control me. They shape my choices and my decisions. Memories do not follow rules; they follow our emotions. The memories I expected to be the longest lasting would have been the moments that defined me: the milestones, the ones that should have stayed the clearest in my mind. Yet, in my mind, my memories are able to linger as long as they want, and disappear just as quickly. Maybe their randomness is the point. They are not meant to be logical, obvious, or meaningful in human-defined ways. Randomness is their strength. They are pieces of us, scattered and resurfacing when we least expect them.  Memories reveal what our...

Have you heard of the phrase “hair holds memories”? I came across a trend where artists applied this phrase to fictional characters who sought to cope with trauma by cutting their hair as a means to move away from their past. The concept of taking memory into a form that is physically tangible has increasingly caught my interest as I grew up. The most recent example is through the Olympian ice skater Alysa Liu. I know I talk a lot about her, but there’s one more thing I would like to acknowledge: her hair! Every year, she dyes a blond ring on her roots (I’m not sure what the specific hairstyle is), and as her hair grows, you can currently see several rings that she has dyed in the past 3-4 years. That’s such a cool concept!! Having your past self with you everywhere you go as remembrance of good and bad memories is so inspiring. Not only do you see your growth, you see the milestones you achieved, the people you met, and the losses you took.    What I hint at with this idea o...

Greg Heffley might not be Shakespeare (or—and I hate to break this to you—real for that matter) but the meticulousness with which he records his day-to-day life is genuinely impressive. We’d hear about his system to remember tasks (throwing a pillow in front of his door or putting a sock on the TV), about Rowley’s cast and Greg’s jealousy at not having to go through a broken arm, and much more.  However, I think it was lost on many eleven year old brains including mine, that it is the way Greg recounts his life that is so funny, not his life itself. The rotten “cheese” was probably not as significant as he made it seem, but because so much of the first book and his social life was focused on the “cheese touch” we also believed it to be significant in the school life of all the other kids. Did we consider the perspective of other students though? Did we think about whether the same cheese that was so significant for a child entering middle school, trying to look cool with new hormon...

  Jaycee Snelson week 14: Dear Past Me Dear past me,  It's almost time for collage,  So let's see the changes since the past. Look how much you have grown.  You're older, smarter, taller, yet you still have far to go.  You longed to be a dancer full of beauty and grace.  But you left that life behind to brave every ball to the face.  No longer do we stop outside to climb the tree so great. Instead we stay inside the house and read, and cook, and bake. Your favorite subject was math and while that is still somewhat true.  This love for it is now split with history too.  Your family also grew, from three to four to five. As you watched your siblings grow, right in front of your eyes. It seems like only yesterday, I couldn’t even read. But now I’m writing essays with what seems like lightning speed. No longer do we wish to help every furry friend in need, Instead we wish to help the youth, full of so much life and glee. Our friends have come and...

Please listen to the following music as you read. Sense and Sensibility . Directed by Ang Lee, Sony Pictures Releasing, 1995. brushstrokes of youth by Acintya Shenoy and so i hung the white linen, swaying in the wind, pliant, and freshly cool, and soft           with a gentle caress. bites of cold across washed skin. there’s a bird cawing in the distance between the hands that hold us and what we share, what we were. the blue sky turned gray with longing as i looked to the young  sprouts of grass, fresh in  innocence and desire and conquering the vast underground; heads trampled by passersby without a care, ignorance of what lies above for what might be elsewhere in the depths of bliss or the uncertainty of the clouds than                             ...