3. Lion's Mane Jellies

  Last year, in my quest to fulfill some kind of art journey, I went around looking for art competitions to enter. One quickly popped up, so I spent some time looking into the regional winners to get an idea of what types of pieces were being recognized. Looking through the awards, though, I was upset yet not very surprised to discover that one of the winners two or three years ago was an AI-generated drawing. The title was something along the lines of “My Mother’s American Dream,” and it featured a smiling immigrant woman wearing a cowboy hat and an American flag shirt. Let me be brutally honest: at face value, I doubt that the piece contained any significant creative impact or artistic skill. Maybe choosing an AI-art piece was some kind of political statement on the part of the judges. Or perhaps the person had a lot of insightful things to say about their creation? Who knows?  Regardless of the reason, I was offended. Patriotic spirit should come from real people, not Chat ...

Mass shooting in Florida. Hindu temple was defaced in California. A college student attacked a Jewish fraternity at Syracuse University. An Illinois man killed a Palestinian child. The headlines never stop. I have lived within the borders of Fremont, California for all 17 years of my life. I grew up with the privilege of having school-initiated presentations about Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian (and many more religions) holidays and practices. From a young age, I was taught to respect other beliefs and practices regardless of whether ours coincided with them or not. I was able to go to school with mehendi on my hands and rotis in my lunch box. Instead of looks of disgust and disapproval, I was greeted with my fellow classmates asking if they could try my lunch and compliments on the painstaking labor my mom had put in to keep me from moving while she applied the mehendi. I was naive to believe that this sanctuary was eternal and gifted to everyone in America. It’s not even safe w...

Trump: An American Success Story That was the title of a book that I found, scrolling down the Amazon page of books for my POAS project. I initially laughed it off. Obviously, Trump is one of the last names that I, and probably most (if not all) of you attribute to being the embodiment of “American Success.” American Success. Those words stuck to me. Trump, of all people, with his simply outstanding moral character, an American success? As I mulled over the thought, I gradually came to the realization that Trump’s life is indeed, an American success story. Just think: Trump managed to transform his father’s assets, some 400 million dollars of profit from creating middle-income housing, to a billion-dollar brand. Trump has grown from being called “just another real estate developer” in the newspapers to a man so famous, people know him by last name. Trump. The name itself invokes a sense of victory, of superiority. He has appeared in so much media, from Home Alone 2 to WWE, it’s practi...

  Since she was a child, Shari has always been a particularly outspoken and outgoing girl — even if it was towards her own detriment. A specific example of this could be the time when she banged on the window of a fellow tourist’s car in Greece to let him know that she was not very appreciative of the racist comment he muttered under his breath. Okay, but he should know that I am not the one! Don’t say stuff if you can’t handle the consequences. I can handle them, but he clearly couldn’t because he couldn’t even look me in the eye when I was yelling at him! Hush Shari, I am talking. Anyways– Shari is not one to back down from a fight (you as her peers have probably seen this?), she is very opinionated! So, when she saw a text notification on Instagram from a former fling… let's just say she was ready to argue back. Let’s call this boy E. A San Jose native, E spends his time reading political news, debating, and wasting girls' time. He did the third to Shari, and t...

Have you met a senior recently? Well, you probably haven’t seen their faces because they’re usually either buried deep behind the common app on their computer or grasping their hair in anger at the sheer amount of essays they’re forced to write. College is daunting, but at least it’s not as controversial as the electoral college (probably).  The electoral college is what we as Americans use to elect the president of the United States, the person who represents the face of the country, the person who’s responsible for leading the military, the person who’s responsible for handling affairs both domestically and internationally - for four years straight. It then follows logically that under the Enlightenment principle of self-government (world history is really getting to me), we as a country should get to elect this person, and a majority should evaluate them as capable of leading such an influential nation.  Majority? That was the question raised by many democrats after Trump’s...

     The other day I was having my weekly debrief session with my family at Sunday lunch and the inevitable topic of politics arose and my dad said something that I thought was really interesting, he said, “America is confused.”      It sounds like he’s describing the average indecisive teenager when they are asked where they want to eat out that night. But as I lay down staring at my ceiling that night I wondered, did my dad have a point?       America is based on the idea that anyone can be America… right? After all we are a country of immigrants, but somehow some way that got lost in translation, especially over the last few decades. The xenophobia only intensified after President Trump’s first term in office and is now at an all time high since the anti-Muslim sentiment post 9/11. At our very core, America is confused.       We don’t know who to identify as American, is it the rich white person? Is it all white pe...

  Upside-down glasses.  Whose?  Taarak Mehta’s?  Why, who else’s?  These lines (in Hindi, of course) made up nearly the entirety of my childhood as an ABCD (American Born Confused Desi). I grew up watching Taarak Mehta Ka Oolta Chashmah , a 2008 Hindi comedy serial, before Hindi serials turned into glorified Wattpad stories with bad plots and more sound effects than actors. The show's title, which is mostly in Hindi, translates to Taarak Mehta’s Upside Down Glasses.  The show depicts the minute and intimate details of the lives of a group of Indian families that all live in the same apartment complex somewhere in India. This show made me who I am, culturally at least. According to my parents, frequent trips to Kashmir as a child and nightly marathons of Taarak Mehta’s 2008 comedy are what helped me learn to speak Hindi fluently, and believe me, there is a difference between textbook Hindi and native Hindi or Hinglish. Despite my fluency in my language, I am...

“Zayats, volk.” “Zayats, volk.”  The words you just read likely mean nothing to you; nothing more than nonsensical combinations of letters.  But, believe it or not, they are exactly what the nightmares sound like of Eastern-European kids who were experiencing childhood during or after June second, 1984—otherwise known as faithful day episode fourteen of “Nu, Pogodi!” (or “Well, Just You Wait!”) released to residents of the Soviet Union. Since then, any Russian-speaking child who grew up in the eighties or onward will echo the same haunted sentiment if you ask them; do you know that one episode with the robot hare?   I did not grow up in the Soviet Union, which is what my parents experienced. Neither was I born in Russia, like some of my friends were. In fact, I have never gone outside of North America.  And yet, I grew up on Soviet cartoons.  My parents, taking their 10-hour flight over the Pacific Ocean in 1999 with stuffed suitcases and fractured English knowl...

“Tra-la-laaaaaaaaaa!” is Captain Underpants’s most-used war cry, and a catchphrase from the franchise. If Gen-Z ever has to go to war, I’m sure this cry will be the new “shot heard around the world”. However, when I first mentioned his name, what’s the first thing you thought of? The comics published in 1997? 99% of us thought it was the film and/or the series. If you go ask anyone from previous generations though, they’re all going to refer to the comic as that’s the first thought many of them will have. And why not? The comics are also legendary. It’s just a funny difference between how newer generations perceive cultural ideas. Or not. The issue with generational divide doesn’t appear when we disagree over which format Captain Underpants’s attire looks better in, but more so when one feels like their voice isn’t being heard anymore. In Nepal, for example, Gen-Z just proceeded to overthrow an entire government and hold elections on Discord (a gaming chat software) because they ...

  For those of you who don’t know or are blessed with the ability to stay off instagram and control yourselves, national boyfriend day was last Friday (October 3 rd ) and oh my god was that ragebait.  I understand it ok, I’m not some soulless monster that hates anything and everyone that has something to do with romance, but really what is the point of posting it on your story that you’re dating someone when the whole world already knows! I blame Hollywood. The movies they produce set these unrealistic expectations such as all guys look like Ryan Gosling from “Crazy, Stupid, Love” with his shirt off in the dirty dancing scene. Or the fact that we (guys) have endless safes of money that are just waiting to be spent buying flowers and big expensive gifts for someone who might not even be the love of our lives!  That's not romance, that’s infatuation.  While the formal definition of infatuation is an intense short-lived passion or admiration for someone or som...

Dear green,  When I was a young lass, I would write facts about myself in my scratchy notebooks: Name: Annie Age: 7 Grade: 3rd Family members: Mom, Dad, Brother Favorite color: idk Favorite food: sushi Color/colour/颜色 was my one uncertainty, always left blank on the page. it plagued me, the question I could never find an answer to… ‘Til you came along, bringing to my life a new hue… a viridian, spinach-y tint! Gone are the worries of choice: which marker, which picture day background, which pen, which word to write under “What color do you like?” You were my new title, and I was jubilant. but, how did my grand realization come to be? were you calling me all along, or did I consciously choose to make you a part of me? maybe it was coincidental—a cumulative result of my actions. first the green phone, then the pencil pouch, then the water bottle, then—oh look! I guess I fancied you. what is color if not a name? If not a mode of classification and category for humanity?  perhaps ...