Category Archives: Uncategorized

Home

Posted on by

After four years at UPS and countless “homes” mentioned in Ron Thom’s Convocation speeches I think it’s safe to say I’ve found a home at UPS. A home with my friends, with my sorority, with my major/department, with my lab, with multiple communities.

But I can’t forget the first home I came from the one where my parents raised me, where I grew up and where I decided to make Puget Sound my home! I’m lucky enough to still live in the same house I grew up in for 18 years, that I have my parents, siblings and friends still around to celebrate the holiday season with over break. I know not everyone is so lucky and I’m always grateful for how lucky I am to call Hawaii home <3

I remember the feel of my bed and my pillow,

I remember the pressure of my shower spray and absence of shower shoes,

I remember the drive home and to high school,

I remember the neighborhood Korean restaurant and the owner remembers me,

I remember overheating in my high school classrooms

I remember seeing a day fly by without doing anything but chilling in bed

I remember accidentally stepping on my dog’s poop in the yard

I remember anytime I venture outside it’s likely I’ll run into someone I know

I remember those cringe-worthy moments from high school when I see an acquaintance

I remember my favorite channels on the TV

Hunger

Posted on by

I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen.
—Exodus 10:3–6

So apparently the Cellar is closed for the winter now. Considering the recent state of the C-store shelves, one begins to understand why.img_1426

img_1422
See, here’s what appears to have happened. We have all these students who are on meal plans. Surprisingly, not everyone’s estimates of how much they were going to eat this semester turned out to be accurate. Sure enough, we ended up with plenty of students who needed a way to burn some excess dining dollars. Combine this with the C-store’s food supply, which was meant to satisfy the student body for the duration of a semester and no more, and the results are evident.

I suppose this is symbolic of how the campus is starting to empty out now. People are leaving for vacation, roommates are saying goodbyes, and the Wi-Fi has mysteriously become slightly more reliable. Even the air has lost its warmth – it now bites and tears at those parts of us that we foolishly leave outside of our coats. Soon the Diner will stop accepting our meal plans at all, but I will be gone before then. Vanished to a mysterious realm cloaked in fog and battered by wind, not too far from the forges of steel wings. That is to say, I will be remaining in Washington.

The class lists for next semester certainly aren’t empty, though. A month from now, the campus will be reborn. Not everyone who left will return – just as not everyone who showed up in August is still here. We may be seeing some new faces around campus, though. If the wrinkled trio of Fate so decrees, I may even end up with a roommate who isn’t imaginary.

Who Dares Somethings

Posted on by

I had my first final this morning. It wasn’t quite as big a deal as I’d been made to expect. We were allotted two hours for the test, and I was only there for 70 minutes. I feel fairly confident about my result, but that is little cause for rejoicing. I expect that my other two will be more challenging yet. At least I’m not taking Chemistry. Anyway, I can’t justify complaining too much, because I barely studied at all last weekend.

There are a lot of ways to not study for finals. Netflix comes to mind immediately. So do partying, socializing, reading unrelated books, and digging into the dregs of your Steam library. Hibernation is also a feasible option, and one that can also reduce the strain on the coffee maker at Diversions. There are also a lot of dangerous ways to not study for finals, but I will leave them as an exercise for the reader.

So what did I do? Notice that the Ludum Dare Game Jam happened to be the weekend before finals. Apparently I decided that spending 48 hours developing a video game is preferable to safeguarding my grades. This was a little isolating at times, as I wasn’t fighting quite the same fight as everyone else. On the other hand, I also had a very easy time finding playtesters. This decision might bite me later, but I still think it was worth it.

Now I have a new problem. It’s currently the Ludum Dare judging period, so I’m supposed to play other people’s entries to get feedback on my own. In other words, I now have a semi-legitimate excuse to play video games when I’m supposed to be studying. I’m not sure what the solution is here.

Snow Day

Posted on by

Tuesday morning, it snowed. It snowed early in the morning, and did not last past noon. If we were in a snowier state, this might have been a relief, but here we were mostly just disappointed. I figured that was going to be our snow season for the year, ignoring the weather forecasters’ better judgement.

Yesterday’s snow did stick. It was the liveliest night the campus had had in months, as people rushed out of their dorms and houses to enjoy the rare weather and procrastinate on studying for finals. I remember walking past the tables of the Oppenheimer cafe, each one converted into a construction site for a gingerbread house. Shortly afterwards, I was walking along a campus path sipping my hot chocolate. It was then that I witnessed the events which I will now relate to you:

The men stood erect in the snowfall, spaced out at positions in a semicircle around the library entrance. They were dressed in heavy pants, coats, and gloves. Each one had his own pile of ammunition. The rounds were carefully compacted into approximations of spheres and each and every one of them was as cold as death. Each man shuffled nervously, waiting for something. A group of four women stood off to the side, chattering as they awaited the moment when each man would spring into action. I was there too, but this was not my story. I waited. I observed. They spoke:

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“He should have come out by now.”

“When he does, block the door so he can’t take cover inside.”

“I told him not to come out.”

“Oh come on!”

“I was joking.”

The door opened.

“Fire at will!”

A man dressed in heavy pants, a coat, and gloves was shocked as the first volley of snowballs arced toward him. He recovered quickly. No one blocked the door, but he did not run back inside. He turned to his right and rushed away from the killzone, shielding his face with his arm. Snowballs shattered on the ground, on the walls of the library, and on the man’s coat. They did not stop him. He rushed past one of the ambushers, and made a break for the grove of trees nearby. Two of the ambushers tried to follow, but the snowy ground proved treacherous. One caught himself right before he fell onto a bicycle rack. The other was forced to pivot his feet in the style of a braking ice skater in an effort to stay upright.

“I don’t think you guys won this one,” I said.

“We didn’t. He got away,” one of the ambushers responded.

“Why did you let him get away?” asked a second to a third.

The snow continued to fall. The campus was alive.

Illuminate the Night

Posted on by

In my last year at Puget Sound there will be many, “_____ for the last time.” But there’s still room for, “_____ for the first time.” For instance, I went to Zoolights for the first time. Zoolights is an animal light display held at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. Scattered around the zoo are different light installations of all the various kind of animals.

Since this event is held at night, you won’t be able to see the animals because they were in their indoor cells. With a couple of exceptions, like the camel-rides and in one of the indoor displays we were able to see a sleeping tiger. However, the aquarium is still open, so while you warm up you can gaze at the different species of sharks, fishes, and my personal favorite, jellyfish.

It’s honestly a spectacular light installation. You can’t help but smile and awe at all the brilliant displays illuminating against the night sky. I’d highly recommend going to this if you haven’t gone yet. This event will run through January 1st from 5 – 9 pm. I would also recommend checking the weather ahead of time and to dress for the weather aka bundle up. When we went, it was a chilly and windy 28°F.

Tacoma Narrow's Bridge

Tacoma Narrow’s Bridge

Walruses!

Walruses!

Mt. Rainier, another "_____ for the first time" I'm looking forward to.

Mt. Rainier, another “_____ for the first time” I’m looking forward to.

Signs (Pt. 7)

Posted on by

A cat watches me walk back to my house against the wind.

“Can you take the trash out?” my friend asks. “Tomorrow’s garbage day.”

I look at the white bag choked around the rim of the trashcan. It’s full. I put my backpack down, undo the knot, and pull up the bag.

I walk to the street and open the lid of the bin. I look inside. Someone once told me to be careful when I open the lids of trash bins because rats sometimes feed on leftovers inside. I drop the bag into the empty bin and close the lid.

“Did you eat?” my friend asks back inside.

“No. I’m going to make ramen.”

I fill a pot with water and put it on the stove. I pull a packet of noodles from a drawer, tear the packet, and empty the noodles into the pot. We watch the noodles unfold.

 

“Do you want an egg?”

She opens the fridge and pulls out two eggs. I open another packet of noodles and empty them into the pot.

“Isn’t you know who graduating soon?”

“Yeah.”

She cracks the eggs and lets the yolks spill onto the pan. I stir the noodles in the pot. Steam rises from the water. I open the window over the sink.

“It’s raining.”

“You got back at the right time.”

I pull two bowls from the cabinet and place them on the counter.

“I can cut some vegetables,” I say.

“No, I’ll do it. I don’t trust you.” She washes green onions in the sink and dices them. The smell of the onions mixes with the smell of the rain outside.

I turn off the burner and empty the pot into the two bowls.

She picks up a handful of diced green onions and drops them into the bowls. She waves her hand in and out of the steam, and the steam hugs her fingers.

“Are the eggs ready?”

“Yeah.” She scrapes off the eggs and slides them onto the noodles. I carry the bowls to the table. We talk about time, and meaning, and smallness.

Signs (Pt. 6)

Posted on by

“I’m going to miss her,” I say as we walk home in the rain, our hands in our pockets. I wear a hood. She doesn’t have one.

“Did you say goodbye?”

“Yeah.”

I trip and step in a puddle on the road. Water leaks through my shoes. She helps me back.

We walk under streetlamps. The lamps light the sidewalk in vague circles. I hear cars one road over, but there aren’t any on this one.

“When does she leave?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“No more?”

“No more.”

The sky screams. A plane flies over us from behind. It passes over the streetlamp and disappears into the clouds.

“Look.”

I turn.

“Look.” She points to the streetlamp.

“What?”

Back two steps. She points.

“What am I looking at?”

“The rain.”

I catch the rain off the light of the streetlamp. White lines falling in and out of sight, like snow.

The roar of the plane is like an echo and fades as we watch the rain falling in the light.

Signs (Pt. 5)

Posted on by

She steps out of the car and pulls her jacket close. She feels something fall on her cheek. He gets out on the other side. They walk toward the water together.

“It’s cold.”

The waves watch them as they approach. They spread a towel.

“It’s going to rain,” she says.

“We have a couple of minutes.”

“We don’t have to leave.”

She yawns. She hasn’t slept much in the past few days. But she doesn’t close her eyes because she’s afraid that if she does she’ll fall asleep. And if she falls asleep she’ll miss it. Even without the sun, there’s still the sea and the strands of grass sticking out of the sand.

She sits with her hands in her pockets. A strand of her hair catches in her mouth. Her hood comes loose.

She walks toward the sea and stops just short of the water. It washes over the sand and over her shoes and recedes, leaving strips of foam, like tongues of seaweed, on the sand.

She pulls the watch out of her pocket. There’s rust between the links. She thinks that maybe it counts the fifty-ninth second twice.

The sea washes over her shoes again. She feels the water seeping in, suffusing her toes like a cloud of tea in a mug. It crawls up the sand and falls away.

A wind drifts in from the ocean.

Signs (Pt. 4)

Posted on by

The alarm goes off at 5:40. He turns over on the couch and turns it off. He pulls his feet under the blanket and closes his eyes.

She comes down at 6:00 and boils water. The kettle whines.

“Want some tea?”

“Please,” he says, putting on his glasses.

“What kind?”

“What are you having?”

“Chamomile.”

“I’ll have that too.”

The blanket slides off. He leans back into the couch.

She brings a cup filled with darkening water. He loops the string of the tea bag around his finger and winds it around the handle. The warmth of the cup steeps his fingers. The tea dimples under his breath.

He offers to make eggs—the only thing he can make.

“We can pick up something on the way, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Grab some books.”

He sets his cup on the table and walks to the bookcase. He begins at the top, reading the titles, pulling one out here then slipping it back. Most are paperbacks, and almost all of them are creased deep along their spines. He collects a few and tosses them on the couch. Then he moves to the bookshelf on the other side.

“Borges or Calvino?” he asks.

“Hm. Borges.”

She pulls the blinds. It’s still dark, but he can hear the rain on the road.

She stuffs the books into her backpack. He pulls his sweater over his shirt and grabs his jacket and puts that on too.

They hurry to the car and dump their things in the backseat before sitting up front. He rubs his hands. She starts the engine and turns the heater on. The frost dies on the window. After a minute, she pulls onto the street, and he opens the book as the wipers smear rain back and forth across the glass.

Signs (Pt. 3)

Posted on by

“I have a gift for you,” he says and places an unwrapped cardboard box on the table. The box is small and cube-like. On the top in sharpie he’s written her name. She puts her book down and leans forward, looking but not touching.

“What for?”

“It’s an early graduation present.”

“Want me to open it now or after graduation?”

“It’s up to you.”

She leans back and smiled. “I’ll wait. Want some tea?”

“Sure. I’ll make some hot water.”

He fills the kettle and puts it on the stove.

“Do you want any?”

“Yeah, I’ll have some.”

He pulls two mugs out of the cabinet. One of them is yellow and green, and its rim is chipped. He runs his finger over the chip. It flakes.

The other mug is dark blue. The ceramic is uneven and glazed over. It’s cracked in three places, as if it had been dropped and broken, but the cracks have been filled with gold. He runs his fingers over the gold.

“What’s this?”

She walks over and cups the mug with her hands.

“My friend broke this mug a couple years ago. So he took the mug and repaired it. I don’t know where he got it done, but he brought it back like this.”

She puts it down, picks up the kettle, and pours water into the mug. He watches the water rise against the sides of the cup, above the gilded cracks. The mug doesn’t leak.

She drops a tea bag into the mug, loops the string around the handle, and hands it to him.

“Three minutes steep.”

He nods and lets the warmth steep his fingers.