3. Burrata

Last weekend my mom made a joke that out of the two daughters she had, not either of them have the same body type as hers: a size 0 pant size with small hips and a small waist. I don’t think she was trying to shame me and my sister of our body sizes, but a crucial factor to her situation was that she was severely malnourished in Vietnam because she didn’t have a lot of money growing up. So why is being skinny and underweight the social standard and why is it more rewarding societally? Aside from my mom’s unrealistic expectations for her daughters, it’s interesting to see how body types in general have developed over the centuries from ancient times until today. My mom when she was in her mid twenties. As we have seen today in fashion magazines and in media in general, the beauty standards for women are to be skinny, but also… curvy. They need to have a small waist, but have bigger legs and bigger breasts. I’m sure most of us have heard of the hourglass figure. The image of perfect beau...

I hate that my memory is so selective. I hate that I can remember exactly what I said in that embarrassing conversation a week ago and not what the integral of an arctan function is. I hate that I can remember exactly how it feels to get your first D on a high school test and not what the name of that song playing on the radio is. I hate that I can remember exactly where in my notes I wrote about a specific topic and not what it said. I hate that I can remember exactly how it feels to sprain my ankle while playing soccer and not what I needed to buy to make sure I didn’t run out of it. I hate that I can remember what a sour grape tastes like and not what the ice cream I had in London tasted like since it was genuinely some of the best ice cream I have ever had.  I hate that I can remember exactly when I lost that really important thing but not where I lost that really important thing. Yet, I love that I can remember how it feels to bite into a cold piece of watermelon and not how i...

  “What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.” The above line is one of the lyrics from Hamilton, a 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical. In this particular song, “The World Was Wide Enough,” time stops for Alexander Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda) moments before he is shot by Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom, jr.). As Hamilton “[glimpses]” death, he sings a final goodbye to his loved ones, thankful that America has become “a place where even orphan immigrants / can leave their fingerprints and rise up.” I never got the chance to elaborate on this genius quote during my POAS presentation in March, so this blog is me making up for it :) The metaphor of a legacy being akin to trees is poignant in many ways. First, it shows that legacies grow, as exemplified by many innovators who only gained recognition posthumously. Vincent van Gogh, for instance, was largely unappreciated during his lifetime, but his art is now displayed in museums around the world. What may start ...

  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...