If you’ve been on any social media for the past two weeks, you may have seen the words “Roman Empire” trending. This trend started as a way to laugh at the fact that men admit to thinking about the Roman Empire multiple times a week. When I first heard this, I thought it was absolutely absurd, but then I started thinking, and realized I actually had my own Roman Empire: Princess Diana. 

I went to two of my roommates and they agreed me about how influential Princess Diana was to the world, historically and fashionably. After discussing with them, I was curious to see what other girls thought about daily, and if there were any overlaps. 

After asking a lot of different people, Princess Diana and the Salem Witch Trials were people’s  most common “Roman Empires.” Those who said Princess Diana talked about how the Royal Family treated her, as well as how much of an influential icon she was for people all over. In regards to the Salem Witch Trials, one person said they like to compare it with about how many things in modern times can kill women.

Another topic that was brought up was the Titanic. Some people said when they were kids, they were obsessed with the Titanic and consumed all the media they could about it, but then moved on as they got older. That was, until the OceanGate Submarine sunk earlier this year.  All the news and information about a similar tragedy grabbed their attention again and restarted their obsession. 

Throughout the past few weeks, I spoke to more and more women about regarding their Roman Empire, and while every response was different, they were all still connect in one way or another.. A professor of mine once said that people love to be obsessed with the mystery behind things—the “what if’s.” As a woman, I’ve noticed that other women love to take on something that has been unresolved or is niche, and it made me wonder why.  

I obviously don’t have the answer, but I’d like to think it’s because women throughout history have been seen as inferior and were pushed to the side, and many of these historical events/people are related to women. When I told a couple of guy friends about Princess Diana, some had no idea who she was, or they had no idea how important she was for people everywhere, especially women. It’s important to keep history alive, and even though these events are different, women will always support women, and continue to attach themselves to historical events where women were wronged.

Written by Isa Gattamorta

Edited by Emma Moran and Kate Castello

The idea of religion scares me. 

I know that might be a strong statement to make, but it’s the truth. I grew up in Brazil, a very religious country, and I was raised to pray every single night and ask for help from my “guardian angel.” If things went wrong, I was taught to believe by my family members that it was because I didn’t pray hard enough. Thankfully, my parents weren’t extremely religious. They definitely are believers but they never forced us to go to church—we were more of a lowkey version of Catholics. My grandma, however, had a small chapel in her home where she prayed every day. She had a collection of rosaries, and many statues of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and angels. Even though my grandma and I had different views, it never affected our relationship. I remember calling her on Facetime when I was around 16 and explaining to her how I didn’t feel comfortable being religious, specifically Catholic, due to the exclusionary attitude the religion held towards different groups of people. She explained to me how she understands my feelings, and for her, religion is a helpful tool in experiencing peace. She loved the idea that she would be able to watch over her family after death and spend the rest of eternity in Heaven with her family around her. 

The idea of Heaven never sat right with me though, I truly believe that after death there is just emptiness. Not a bad emptiness, just peace really. I always loved the idea that this life is all there is for us, it has made me appreciate every single day more knowing that after this, life is really just over. 

When I tell my mom this, she asks me if it doesn’t make me feel sad, knowing that I don’t believe in the afterlife, and for a while, I told her it didn’t—and that’s because I never really experienced a death in my family. But, in June of 2021, I finally experienced the feeling of grief. My grandma died on June 24th from COVID-19 after fighting for a month. Before her death I kept having dreams of being back in Brazil with her, as if I had never left. It felt peaceful, it

felt warm, it felt like I truly was there with her. And every day I would wake up feeling the dread of knowing I was 5,059 miles away from her while she was fighting to stay alive and all I could do was hope she would get better. I couldn’t be there for her—none of us could.

 One morning I woke up and felt weird, I had been crying all night, unable to fall asleep from thinking about my grandmother. I went downstairs and saw my mom sitting down on the couch, she looked up at me and I saw her face. I knew at that moment that my grandma was no longer with us. 

I didn’t know what to do except be mad, mad at a “god” who took away one of the most important people in my life. I wanted to believe that there was a heaven so I could see her again, and feel her spirit around me, and I tried so hard and looked at every single “sign” as a message from her. I felt so alone for months because no one in my family understood what I was going through, they all believed. But this loneliness ended when I listened to the song Chinese Satellite by Phoebe Bridgers. The lyrics from the song that stood out to me are: 

You were screaming at the Evangelicals 

They were screaming right back from what I remember 

When you said I will never be your vegetable 

Because I think when you’re gone it’s forever 

But you know I’d stand on the corner 

Embarrassed with a picket sign 

If it meant I would see you 

When I die

Sometimes when I can’t sleep 

It’s just a matter of time before I’m hearing things 

Swore I could feel you through the walls 

But that’s impossible 

I want to believe 

This song helped me strengthen my beliefs that there truly is nothing after death—and that can be really beautiful too. I find happiness in knowing that my grandmother is at peace. And though I wish I could believe in some form of the afterlife, what brings me the most comfort is knowing that we are living our one life to the fullest extent possible, whatever that means to each person. Whether you are a believer or not, we can all enjoy our life on Earth and look back on beautiful memories of the people who are no longer with us without longing for the time you are finally reunited. Live your life for the people that have left you, live your life knowing they are proud of you and you don’t owe anyone anything. I believe in peace and serenity because of Chinese Satellite.

Written by Gabi Amorim

Edited by Lauren Myers & Kate Castello

POIDH: Pics Or It Didn’t Happen

An acronym coined when social media was first created that still holds its meaning to this day.

At first, this phrase was used to refer to crazy or unbelievable things that needed visual documentation in order to be believed. As social media has developed, it has taken on a new meaning and is now applied to the more simple things.

Every once in a while I may find myself drinking Starbucks outside, reading a book, wearing some cute sunglasses, and thinking to myself: I need to document this on social media. This would make a great Instagram post. Everyone needs to know how I’m reading this book, how good my drink looks, and how the lighting in my backyard is perfect. And then when I try to take a picture and it doesn’t look the exact way I want it to, I get irritated or stressed out. Thoughts like “If I don’t post this, no one will know I have great taste in books,” or “If I don’t post this, no one will know how good my Starbucks order is,” or “If I don’t post this, who’s going to see my awesome outfit,” run through my head. 

Why can’t I just enjoy a peaceful moment alone, reading a book outside in the sun? Why is my brain conditioned to turn every nice moment into a social media opportunity? I’m sure many of us are guilty of the very same thing– at least, I hope it's not just me. This doesn’t just have to apply to documenting “cool” things you are already doing and then whipping your camera out after the fact. Maybe it means going to a party for 5 minutes with the intent of just taking a few pictures, and then leaving so that people will think you are a person who goes out and parties, when in reality you are a person who prefers to stay in. 

Our generation has grown up with Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, and more. Constantly comparing ourselves to posts we see online, whether it be other people's cute outfits, expensive vacations, or delicious meals. Social media is a huge, unavoidable part of life. Sometimes it can be a wholesome thing, showcasing pictures of cute puppies or videos of best friends reuniting with each other. It can also be an anxiety-inducing environment, from promoting unrealistic beauty standards to inducing severe FOMO.  

I’ve been trying to teach myself that there are so many more important things to worry about than curating a perfect Instagram post. This is a hard lesson to learn as a person who has grown up with social media, as I’m sure many people can relate to. 

In an effort to make social media more personal and less stressful for myself, I decided to hide comments and likes on everything I post. For me, this turns my Instagram account into more of a collage, a representation of who I am and the things I find beautiful that have nothing to do with seeming cool to anyone else except for myself. 

Documenting your life on social media, whatever form that may be, can often be an enjoyable, uncomplicated thing. But it can also quickly turn into a stressor. I am hopeful that one day social media can become more authentic, more positive, and more simplistic. It’s becoming increasingly important to remember that just because you didn’t post an Instagram story doesn’t mean you didn’t have a beautiful day at the beach. Just because you didn’t make a TikTok of your outfit doesn’t mean you never wore it or that it went unappreciated.

I think we are on the right track, one that will lead us to a world where posting is not a priority, but instead more of an afterthought, because I think that’s a healthier way to live.

Written by Julia Brummel

Edited by Lauren Deaton and Elisabeth Kay

“You’re half and half,” she said. “Just like a creamer!”

Half and half. Two halves of a whole. American Asian. Amerasian. Coffee creamer, if you will: what my mother called me playfully. I’m made up of my mother’s resilience and my father’s perseverance. Internally, I embody my mother’s culture while I physically favor my father’s skin color. I am half Filipina and half Caucasian. Despite my Asian heritage, I am frequently presumed to be Caucasian due to the fairness of my skin (although with a tan in the summer, I am considered otherwise). As someone who is half Filipina with what many would call white-passing looks, I struggled to fully embrace and understand my cultural identity during my childhood. I was, although I hate to admit it, ignorant of the culture I am now proud of. Even so, ever since I was little, my mom always instructed me to be proud of being half-Filipina.

Growing up in a school community seriously lacking in diversity—the main component of the racial demographic being white—I found it embarrassingly easier not to mention my Filipino side or talk about it around my Caucasian friends in order for me to “fit in” more. Having to explain why I call my aunt and uncle Tito and Tita, and Grandma and Grandpa Lola and Lola on my mom’s side of the family felt uncomfortable and awkward to talk about. I know now that respect for elders is a huge aspect of Filipino culture, but at the time I didn’t fully understand that. I really regret not embracing my Filipino side when I was younger, and I wish I had felt more confident in my cultural identity. 

Throughout my childhood, it felt as if people at my school were playing a guessing game with my race. I often felt my biraciality was something people found difficult to wrap their heads around—something extraordinary. Especially at a young age, my peers saying, “You don’t look Asian” and my mom affectionately saying “Just tell them your mom’s brown,” made me feel conflicted about my identity. The assumptions of people trying to guess my ethnicity made me feel out of place—I was a puzzle being critiqued for the interlocking of its pieces. I felt tethered between my appearance and self, having no choice other than to voice the half of the identity no one could see on the surface. I didn’t want to do it in the way of just simply “proving” my Asian heritage because someone didn’t believe me, but rather in the way of voicing my pride for my Filipino side because I feel it is my responsibility to do so. My Filipino side may be invisible to many, but my looks don’t define me and my upbringing.

My cultural identity is not a perplexing jigsaw made for you to comment on the presentation of the pieces—Who are you to question the puzzle maker?

After I graduated, from what the locals call the “Wexford Bubble” of a school community and moved to college—it was eye-opening for me to experience such an inclusive community compared to the one I spent years growing up in. I finally felt like I belonged on campus; I was suddenly surrounded by others from many different backgrounds. My biraciality was no longer seen as something out of the ordinary.

“I never want to ride the subway again.”

Although I was born favoring my father’s fair skin, I sometimes wonder what life would be like if I had been born resembling my mother. Simply because I favor the caucasian features of my dad, I feel that I’ve dodged the bullet of the distressing, ever-present anti-Asian and anti-Asian American hate crimes. Yet I still feel fear, grief, and guilt for wondering if my feelings are justified by having white-passing privilege while being Asian American. The guilt of feeling scared for my mother while I myself will never be able to live vicariously through her and ever feel the amount of terror she feels. 

Are only 50% of my emotions acceptable?

Looking at Olivia Rodrigo in her prime today, I see her as an inspiration not only for her talent and success in her singing career but also because I can relate to her culturally. As she is also Asian American—half Filipina, and half Caucasian—I feel proud that she is open about her family heritage and ethnic background to the public. However, there has been an ongoing debate if Olivia is perceived as white-passing or not, to which there is no definite answer. One thing is certain, although she may have some privileges other Asian artists don’t, due to her being half-white, that doesn’t eliminate the Filipino half of her identity.

I still struggle with identity issues with being biracial, but I have come to terms with the fact that my physical appearance is not equivalent to an absence or diminishment of the culture that has been instilled within me ever since I was little. I can confidently say that both sides of my heritage combined have shaped my upbringing and made me the person I am today. By speaking out on my experiences and understanding what it means to have white-passing privilege while still fully embracing my Filipino culture I hope I can serve as a reminder for others to fully embrace their culture and who they are. Coming to terms with understanding my own cultural identity has been a journey from childhood to adulthood, but one that I’ve learned to embrace wholeheartedly.

Written by Sofia Brickner

Edited by Sydney Williams and Kate Castello

I once knew a girl who had a scar on the right side of her bony nose—a deep red circle from her glasses nose pads. It’s what she’d tell people when they asked for a fun fact. She thought it was the most interesting thing about her.  

I once knew a girl who hit her growth spurt early. She towered over her classmates, including the boys. It made her feel like a boy. She tried to be smaller by forcing her shoulders to the ground. Her back morphed into the letter “S”, a snake that betrayed her. A male classmate once asked her why she had more arm hair than he did.  

I once knew a girl who had blonde hair. She rolled her khaki skirt too many times. Sitting behind her you could see her shoulder blades leaning in for a kiss periodically. I saw her present in class once, it sounded like she was crying.  

I once knew a girl who lived for others' happiness. Every day she would shuffle to the locker room after school, and trade her crested button-down shirt for a reversible jersey. She ran up and down the court, up and down the court, up and down the court. Her coach told her she could play next level if she tried hard enough. That was all she ever did.  

Tried.

I used to know all these girls very well because they used to be me. They still are me—but I’ll never be them again. Sometimes I think of them as lost friends, girls I left on good terms with and whom I look back on warmly. Other times I think of them as enemies, lurking in the shadows awaiting my eminent downfall, waiting to get their revenge on me for betraying them. I think all of them look at me with a tinge of anger—they never thought they would be replaced. They all thought they’d be me forever, laughing at the girl they sent to the sidelines, never thinking it would be them. Now they all sit in severance, waiting for the next transition, waiting for the girl I am now to get dethroned.  

I try to defend myself against them, ripping them apart. My cruel attempt at a power play.  

Why would she wear that?  

She looks fat.  

Why would she say that? 

Her smile looks dumb.  

These girls have no way of talking back to me—they’re defenseless. But sometimes I imagine what our interactions would be like, what they’d think of me now. Would they recognize me? I like to imagine nine-year-old me would look at me with pride, she dreamed of being an author and designer. 14-year-old me would probably look at me with confusion, you don’t live in New York? I don’t like to imagine what 17-year-old me would think. I worry she’d look at me with disgust upon the realization that I will not be graduating with a doctorate or any science-related degree. I know 19-year-old me would be proud that I found friends and love.   

As I get older my awareness of these girls grows—just as my awareness of time passing grows. Next year I’ll be popping the comfort of my university bubble. I still remember the girl I used to be when I stepped into this bubble, I can’t seem to grasp the fact I will not be the girl I am today in a year. I worry what 21-year-old me will think about myself in one year. Two years. Ten.   

I claim that all these girls are from my past, but really, they’re always present with me. Sometimes I catch a glance of them in the mirror or see them in the audience when my voice shakes. I pass these girls on the street, in class, at parties, in private. I carry all their baggage, all their anxieties, all their fears. It’s heavy—I can feel the pressure pushing down on my shoulders. But I also carry their memories, their joy, their passions. I would not trade those for the world. 

Written by Belle O'Hara

Edited by Kate Castello

Growing up a girl, you don’t realize when you start looking at the women on your television screen more as guidelines rather than characters. You notice how they’re dressed, how they speak, how they are spoken to, how they react. You start seeing it in real life through an interview with your favorite character at the Kids Choice Awards, then red carpet events. You see negative posts about your favorite artists plastered over social media, news outlets, YouTube—erasing the woman you looked up to and replacing her with a villain, a crybaby, a drama queen. In one way or another, most girls experience a handful of these events growing up, but we don’t realize the impact the presentation of successful women in the media has on us. 

At age 10, Taylor Swift was my idol. I adored her in every sense, her music, her presence—I wanted to be her. At age 13, I hated her. I stopped listening to her music, poked fun at those who worshiped her the way I had years prior, viewing her as a grown woman who could only write music about her many boyfriends. The Times had dubbed 2014 “The Year of Taylor Swift”, but by 2016, the general media had turned against her. Her new media-produced image was reflected in the shift of her fan base: the many young girls just like me, who had idolized her, suddenly wanted nothing to do with her. In 2016, The Vulture described this period of Taylor Swift's adoration to have “vanished”, clearly showing this sudden (but thorough) erasure of the love many had previously held for her. Many media outlets painted her as anti-feminist, shallow, and “fake”, pulling evidence from song lyrics written by a fifteen-year-old girl, “feuds” elicited by grown men, and media-trained answers to targeted questions from reporters. We were conditioned to hate her through news stations and teen magazine articles. I held this hate until 2020, as a sophomore in high school, and I have my younger sister to thank for it; one of the—still many—“Swifties” who had not abandoned ship. I share this story to encapsulate the fact that, even as a self-identifying feminist for as long as I can remember, I was successfully brainwashed into hating Taylor Swift simply because, at the end of the day, she was a woman, she was successful, she was not sorry and would not stop. 

I recognized my passion for this unfortunate occurrence around the same time. Sitting through my first thorough listen of the “Lover” album, I came across the song “The Man”. To this day, the impact this song has on me is immeasurable. At age sixteen, I sat in the car with my mother and sister in tears after listening to an eye-opening pop song; every reason I had found to hate Taylor Swift was finally disassembled after three minutes and ten seconds. Taylor Swift’s “The Man’ captures the exact dilemma presented to successful women in the media: “I'm so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I'd get there quicker if I was a man, and I'm so sick of them coming at me again, 'cause if I was a man, then I'd be the man.” Regardless of how many awards a woman wins or records she breaks, she needs to do double the work, have double the impact, to even stand a chance of being placed on the pedestal beside her male counterparts.

This theme is carried across into the realm of the most classic Hollywood tradition: the red carpet. Events where celebrities of the highest caliber are mixed with up-and-comers, all dressed to the nines, and there to discuss their look and their work. While women and men working in entertainment face similar challenges in the sense of scheduling and work-life balance, the differing questions asked to male and female celebrities at these events paints a different narrative. Jennifer Garner presented this issue in her acceptance speech at ELLE’s 2014 Women in Hollywood event, where she described how her and her husband were on the same red carpet, but the questions asked to them were drastically different. She explains that, while she received questions about how she managed her work life and her family, he received no questions of the sort. Not only had he not heard these questions on that particular night, he never had, not once. Many other female celebrities have had similar experiences, and ELLE recognizes that they are also guilty of subjecting celebrities to different questions based on their gender. This led to ELLE’s initiative to flip the script; they decided they would be targeting work-family balance, beauty routine, and diet questions towards the men present on the next red carpet event—not the women. Many men responded to these questions in a joking manner, not taking them seriously, and the ones that did answer honestly shared that they felt no pressure to look a certain way or put a lot of time and effort into their appearance for these events. While this alone shows a drastic difference between the societal pressure on men and women to appear a certain way, it is also important to address the fact that a woman would not be seen as funny for responding to questions this way. A woman would be seen as rude, ungrateful, and condescending. 

Taylor Swift says it best in her interview with CBS, “There's a different vocabulary for men and women in the music industry…A man does something? 'Confident and bold.' A woman does it the same way, and she's 'smug.' A man 'stands up for himself,' [whereas] a woman 'throws a temper tantrum” (2). While working in the same entertainment industry, the spotlight shed on men and women are inherently different. This is portrayed in every aspect of the media and is a trend that can be found in every professional setting a woman enters. A woman’s success can be diminished with one article, her strategy painted as manipulation, her talent tied to the man she’s dating at the time. What society is asking of us is not the same. This is made clear to us at a young age, before we can even recognize the disparity we are signed up for at birth. I was lucky enough to be surrounded by strong women, and raised by a stronger one, who saw this discrepancy, which allowed me to see it too. As women, we should not have to accept this societal pattern on our television screens, or in our favorite magazines, and we definitely should not have to face it ourselves on a day-to-day basis.

Written by Olivia Ciampi

Edited by Briana Malik and Kate Castello

I would love to know who decided to keep it a secret that your first year of college is terrible. No exaggeration, it is flat-out awful and I feel like no one prepared me for that. This isn’t to say that there aren’t outliers– statistics class taught us all that even in a normal distribution, there will always be data that doesn’t fall in line with the vast majority– but, I would venture that for most of us, it is extremely difficult to be a college freshman. 

All throughout high school, I used to daydream about college. The fresh start, new friends, endless clubs to join, and classes that I actually wanted to take were beyond alluring. For four years, any social mishap, embarrassing mistake, or traumatic misstep was only temporary, an afterthought that I could chalk up to silly high school memories soon to be laughed at with an abundance of college friends. 

When the time finally came to move 6 hours from home and the realization that I was leaving behind everything and everyone I had ever known set in, I started to waiver a little bit in my intense faith that college was a magical cure-all. I still held out hope though. “This is what college is all about,” I thought. I was ready to step outside of my comfort zone and the confines of the small town that I had grown up in. Let me tell you, there was no “stepping.” The only way I can describe my transition to Pittsburgh is if you can imagine pole vaulting out of your comfort zone and then looking back to realize that it had altogether vanished. 

No one warns you that making friends isn’t as easy as walking up to people and asking “do you want to be friends?”. No one warns you that classes really are hard and a big jump from high school. No one warns you that it just feels so isolating. I spent an entire semester clinging to platitudes like “keep your head up” and “hang in there!”. I couldn’t fathom ever feeling like Pittsburgh was my home or finding people that made me look forward to coming back year after year. 

Winter break went all too fast and before I knew it, I was begging my mom not to leave me there again. As dramatic as it sounds, I pleaded and cried, desperately trying to avoid going back to a dorm room that felt steeped in sadness and a campus that acted as a looming reminder of how far I was from my family and childhood friends. 

One of the biggest lessons I learned from my freshman year (as cliche as it sounds) is that it just takes time. As the second semester went on, I began to form a routine at school. I created a mindful set of steps to walk through and each day began to get easier. Slowly, I started to recognize people in my classes and form relationships outside of the classroom. I became more involved in on-campus organizations and honed in on my studying skills. The longing for home began to ease and by the end of the year, I wasn’t just doing okay, I was genuinely happy. Never in my life had I been a particularly patient person, but I discovered that a little bit of patience was all it took to get acclimated to my new environment, and from there, I thrived.

I am so serious when I say that no amount of money could convince me to live my freshman year over again. If you’re one of the lucky people who doesn’t relate, I mean it from the bottom of my heart when I say that I am so happy for you. But if I hit just a little too close to home, just know it gets better, I promise.

Written by Emily Harper

Edited by Edited by: Diya Aneja and Elisabeth Kay

I often find myself zoned out in the shower; I come up with elusive stories or recall random info from my daily Twitter scroll while my conditioner soaks in my hair. I come up with movie ideas, take part in interviews as if I’m famous, write poems, and spin webs of how everything in my universe is connected. Eventually, I come to and realize my fingers are pruning, so I turn to rinse my hair.

I have a deep fascination with pop culture and fictional worlds. Typically, I feel alone in this fascination. “No way others are dedicating this much brain space to their favorite movies, shows, songs, and actors,” I remind myself almost daily. But is this belief of mine true?

Most, if not all people, daydream to get through the day. It is almost a form of adaptation humans have built to survive the sometimes monotonous world we’ve created. But who’s to say what it is that others dream about? It could be what they might do when they get home, an exciting event a few months away, meeting their favorite celebrity, or something completely different. What I do know, however, is that most humans have an inextricable tie to media in the twenty-first century, and whether we like it or not, phones and our perpetual access to it, are literally in our pockets. This means that there is a pretty slim chance that I am the only one who uses pop culture as an escape route in my daily life. 

We see it a lot in the public sphere now, that word: parasocial relationships. Each time you scroll through your Instagram feed and a post from Zendaya is sandwiched between a girl you went to high school with and your younger brother, it feels like you are connected, as if through some web you really know each other, maybe even on a metaphysical level. But when does this behavior get taken so far that it requires calling out? 

Towards the end of the summer, Taylor Swift was attending her friend's wedding in New Jersey. When fans caught wind of this, they flocked to the venue, getting hoisted up to peer through windows in hopes of catching a glimpse of the star. This kind of behavior is an example of an unhealthy relationship, with a stranger, mind you. Though it is fun to indulge in fictionalized versions of these people, it isn’t okay to invade their personal space. Usually, I just stick to the daydreams. 

Post-shower, I set my phone down on my nightstand and shuffle into a comfortable position. As I close my eyes, trying to go to sleep before my 9 a.m. the next morning, my mind is awake. Deep in my neural pathways, I am on set rehearsing lines with my co-star, getting a quick nap in my trailer, and chugging coffee in between takes with my parka on. I go on like this until my daydreams drift into dreams. 

This is how I get through my days, and it brings me great joy. My mind is my greatest weapon, so I feel no need to sit outside the most popular New York restaurants to run into someone famous. Instead, I could be inside the restaurant and part of the inner circle, without the hefty price of a plane ticket.  

I don’t like to indulge in the concept of “guilty pleasures,” because you should feel like you’re able to express your enjoyment of something, no matter how silly you feel it may be. I bet you, a million times over, someone in the apartment right next to you or on the opposite end of the bus or one of your best friends is doing it too.

Written by Leighton Curless

Edited by Meagan Meyer & Elisabeth Kay

As a child, I jumped from activity to activity hoping to find one that would stick. 

Seriously, my parents tried so hard to find something, anything that I liked. We began with ballet: I didn’t really have the patience. Then, swimming: I was pushed a bit too hard and, honestly, I was a delicate child. Soccer: too much cardio for a girl that just wanted to talk about American Girl dolls. Then, violin: I played for nearly a decade until a voice deep inside told me I wasn’t good enough to keep playing. Horseback riding: got into a tiff with one of the other girls, left a bad taste in my mouth for the culture. Hip-hop: forgot half of the routine when it came time to perform. Art classes: made one solid piece for our living room and claimed it was sufficient. 

The thing is, I did enjoy trying out new activities—I just never quite stood out. When I didn’t become a prodigy within the first ten seconds of trying, I would become violently uncomfortable. I’ve always hated being bad at anything (and don’t even get me started on any type of water game). 

I have interests, of course. I could talk about pretty much all of Martin Scorcese’s films (not in a film bro way, I promise), and give a detailed description of every Amy Winehouse song, but being surrounded by people who can literally lap me multiple times on the track or can belt out a perfect note—is truthfully horrifying. We’ve all heard the expression, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” but it’s inevitable when your environment is made up of well-rounded people. 

I’ve always appreciated these utterly fascinating individuals though. In all honesty, I feel envious that they’ve found the thing they love and enjoy so much. There’s a sense of pride that they exert when something related to it comes up, and I’ve since realized I love engaging with these people. 

People are what I am fascinated by. 

I love seeing my friends laugh, and I enjoy watching their facial expressions when they talk about a situation they just can’t seem to get over. Being in discussions together about our histories and backgrounds often changes our perspectives of one another. Bringing all sorts of people together and just seeing if they click brings me the utmost joy. It’s an indescribable and exciting feeling when you find a few people who mesh perfectly with you. Even if it’s a person I meet one night and never see again, I’ll continue to bring them up for the next few months just because of one unique quality they had. 

As a freshman, I hope to be introduced to lots of different interests and explore even more passions. I pledge to continue my ways of childhood and put myself in a weird range of activities.

Hopefully, something will stick! 

Written by Julia Maynard

Edited by Allison Defriece and Kate Castello

To My Childhood Home,

I’m writing from my first apartment’s front porch, the one I’ll be moving out of come August. I have no attachment to this apartment—unlike my home forty minutes east of Pittsburgh in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. I grew up in a small, what my friend Bella, calls a “mountain town” outside of the city. The people there love to spread the town gossip like it's nobody’s business but their own, and treat the Fourth of July as if it’s a holiday the town made up for its own over-the-top festivities. 

Latrobe is not a place many call home—not even my parents. My mom is from a tiny town in Indiana, small enough to only have a five-way stop sign in the center of town and that’s it. My dad is from Uniontown, south of Pittsburgh, and by god am I glad we didn’t move there. Instead, my parents settled on Latrobe and built a new life for themselves, my brother, and me to form our own, unique lives. I’m thankful my parents moved to Latrobe because it is where I found my best friends—my two neighbors who turned into the sisters I never had—and a life for myself. I know everything I know today because of Latrobe and for that, I will forever be grateful.

However, not all stories have a happy ending. 

My parents divorced in 2020, leaving our family split into four, fractured pieces. My father left in pursuit of his own happiness; he walked out one day during the pandemic and didn’t look back on the pieces he left behind. My mother fell apart. Her husband of almost twenty years had left her for the simple reason, “I’m not happy.” My brother took a vow of silence, maybe if he didn’t speak about it, it would go away. 

But I chose to talk. I chose to cry. And I chose to scream.

The place I called home was going up in flames and I felt partially to blame. Was it something I did? Was it something I said? I asked my brother an assortment of questions on drives when I just needed to go somewhere to sob to Phoebe Bridgers. He gave me no replies, which made me feel crazy. How can you not feel anything? Our dad just left us and you feel NOTHING? He chose silence. 

Maybe it was his form of protecting his peace? I don’t know. All I know is that the family portrait on the wall was shattered, like the glass holding it together in its frame. My life as I had known it was broken.

Telling my friends was hard because Latrobe isn’t a town where people get divorced. All I ever heard from people was their pitiful “I’m sorry”— talking began to feel tiresome and useless. 

A few months into the divorce, my home started to feel like a house. A place we came into and immediately shut our doors, ignoring each other as if we were suddenly roommates and not a family. Without my dad, I felt as if the world had come to a screeching halt. 

During the months without my dad in the house, I opened up some boxes of memories he had left for us to sift through and I came across a camera with our home video tapes. One tape was of the day I was born, and I pressed play, nervously waiting to see what was on the other end. The video started, showing my dad holding a baby version of me, born only hours before. What struck me most was not that my dad looked like a child, but what he said to the camera. He said, “Hi Will, I want you to know that we love you,” and I had to pause the video before I started to ball.

The twenty-nine-year-old version of my dad didn’t know he had told his seventeen-year-old son that he loved him, and I needed that. I needed him to give me reassurance during a time of uncertainty—especially during the pandemic. My house had finally felt like it was my home again, and I packed up that box to save as a memory. Now, there are many boxes in my basement: they’re sitting and waiting for someone to move them to another town far away from Latrobe. After my Mom decided to move back to Indiana in 2020, I would tell my friends, “Just a few years from now my Mom will move away!” But a few years have passed and now I’m the one that's moving.

Everything in that house is a part of me. The memory of my friends dyeing their hair in my bathroom, my bulldog coming home for the first time with us, and the many dinners at the table with family and friends. I chose to leave my home not with the anger I used to have, but with the love that filled the hallways I used to run down with my brother. I chose to leave my home with the same comfort my mother gave me when I ran into her room scared of a monster under my bed. I chose to leave my home the same way I came into it, with love. 

From the wooden floorboards, to the fake granite countertops, to the hole in the wall we moved an ottoman in front of, to the doorway that I will walk through one last time. It has been a journey—it has been a life. I am so glad that I was able to call you home.

Love,

Will

Written by Will Beddick

Edited by Elisabeth Kay and Kate Castello