“I had kinda been after my parents to take a walk over the sand hill.”
Adult

“I had kinda been after my parents to take a walk over the sand hill.”

One of your prompts today was the first time I was injured as a kid. I'm sure this wasn't the first time, but the one time that I really remember well was, I was old enough to ride a two-wheeler. And I really don't remember how old I was, maybe, I don't know, seven or eight or nine. I dunno. Anyway, riding my bike and I had -- something had happened, I'd tipped over, I had badly scraped my knee. This was on a Sunday. Badly scraped my knee. And so I was sitting in the, in the house, in the living room, with my foot propped up on the footstool, and my knee had been tended to.  And my aunt and uncle showed up. And, the place where my parents lived, and still live, there's a really big sand hill, and -- in between, to the north of their house, their road. And then my grandma lives on the next road over, on the other side of this giant sand hill. So, I had been after -- I, I dunno where I'd gotten the idea, but I had kinda been after my parents to take a walk over the sand hill to my grandma and grandpa's house. And then, you know, somebody over there could bring us, could drive us back, and so on. I thought it would be fun, and my aunt and uncle, they thought it would be fun too. So they showed up this afternoon, that afternoon that I was laid up with the badly scraped knee. And they had on, you know, jeans and regular shirts. And my aunt was usually one to, you know, dress up, look really nice. And my uncle was too, for that matter. But here they were, and it didn't dawn on me at the time that my parents and my aunt and uncle had planned on this being the day that we were gonna walk over the hill. But it had been, and I didn't find it out till later. So I was kind of sad that -- when I did find it out, that I had kinda messed this up. We did get to do it at a later date, and it was a lot of fun. 

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October 1, 2025
“That right there was my mistake, saying, ‘You do what you think would look good.’”    
Adult

“That right there was my mistake, saying, ‘You do what you think would look good.’”    

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio. It was the day before Easter, 2002, and my hair was just long and raggedy, and I thought, “You know what? I've never had short hair before. Why don’t I go get myself a nice short hair cut?” You know, just for fun. You know, just to switch it up a bit. And I don't know much about salons. I know Fantastic Sams isn’t, isn't known for being high quality, but it was open the Saturday before Easter, and they had openings.  So I went on in. And the lady asked me what kind of short haircut I would like, and I said, “Oh, well, you know, I don't know, maybe something --” I said, “Maybe a little below my ear, something like that.” And I, then I said, “You know what, you just do what you think would look good,” you know. And that was my mistake. That right there was my mistake, saying, “You do what you think would look good.” Now here, herein lies a cultural problem. I was getting my hair cut by a lovely young Black woman, and she looked cute, and her hair looked cute. But let me explain to you, her hairstyle was that very, very short, pretty much cut almost to the head kind of fingerwave that some Black women wear, that looks very nice on a lot of Black women but I've never seen it on a white woman. Well, I had never seen it on a white woman, until about 30 minutes after I noticed her haircut and sat in her chair. So yeah, that's what happened the day before Easter. I got the shortest haircut of my entire life. Almost down to my scalp. Barely enough to do a teeny little fingerwave. And thankfully I do have thick wavy hair, so it did kind of work out that way. But yeah, I went home and cried my eyes out. I was absolutely devastated, just absolutely devastated. And it wasn't even that it was a bad haircut for what it was supposed to be, it was just that it was not the haircut for me. It did not look good on me. It did not flatter me in any way. And of course I have -- I grew up with a cruel, cruel abusive mother, so…

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October 1, 2025
 “It’s not like fire smoke, but just like something was burning smoke.”
Adult

 “It’s not like fire smoke, but just like something was burning smoke.”

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio. So I put my stuff down, I go to the union, I get my stuff. I get the veggie pho. What else do I get? I get Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and I get a Gatorade. If you were that interested in what I was gonna eat for lunch.  I come back, I walk down into the basement, and I am hit with like a flood -- almost like the floodgates open, hit with the intense smell of smoke. And I was like, “Hello?” Like, I was starting to like cough, I was like, “What the f*** is happening?”  I walk into the main area of the basement. It is so cloudy. It smells like burnt food. It's not like fire smoke, but just like something was burning smoke. It's -- and it's -- so it's super cloudy. One of the percussionists is taking two tiny fans from our practice rooms and setting them up in the lobby, trying to like move the -- like trying to move the -- What's it called? – like the smoke out of the building. Right? He's literally like, just doing that, and I was, I was like, “What happened?” Apparently, one of the freshmen in our studio... God bless her, bless her soul. Sweet kid. She forgot to put water in her ramen before attempting to cook it. I kid you not. The smell wafted throughout the whole basement of the building, which by the way, is a big building. So it is a big maze of a basement. You could smell it throughout the whole basement. And it wafted up into the top -- the main floor and the second floor of the building as well! Like, one of the other percussionists, he literally showed me a picture of, of the ramen because she was so freaked out that it was burning in the microwave that she didn't take it out of the microwave, she just left it in there. So, he went and he picked it out for her because he was like, “Girl, come on. Chill, chill out, like, it's okay.” He showed me a picture. That s*** was black. Like pitch black, f***ing like, charcoal.

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October 1, 2025
“I’m not there with her, you know?”
Teen

“I’m not there with her, you know?”

We probably have the closest bond of all of our siblings. Me and her are really, really close. Which, it’s hard being long distance from her. It was both like really nice to see her over the weekend, and also very, very difficult to see her, you know, like living her own life and being like, “Ah, I'm not necessarily a part of this.” Like, there are people that you care so much about that I didn't even know their names until -- or like even, sometimes I knew their names but I didn't know the face to match the name. So it's both beautiful to see like, “Wow, you've really built a community here,” and also kind of melancholy and sad to realize that I'm not a main part of that community, you know, even though we're still a huge part of each other's lives. I'm not there with her, you know?

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October 1, 2025
Chae Eun Park
Screenshot
Alumni

Chae Eun Park

"I was doing something I love so much that it didn't really feel like work anymore" So my question is, describe a time that you felt you truly grew into your role on a team and discovered something new about yourself as a result. So in high school, I was part of my school's radio station. And I was naturally a pretty shy and quiet person, and I don't really enjoy talking in front of other people. So I found the first year pretty challenging because of that. You know, just having to talk in front of a microphone without other people -- in front of a lot of other people that would be listening. However, I had listened to the station a little bit prior to joining, especially in middle school when covid hit. And around this time, this was when groups like BTS and Blackpink, just a lot of K-pop groups were really starting to emerge in the K-pop industry. And growing up as a Korean-American, I found it really interesting that the radio station had a separate specialty show where one of the staff members would play music in this genre and then talk about it. And so naturally I became really interested in this and I even audi- this led me to audition to the station during my sophomore year, after spending a virtual year -- after spending my freshman year virtually. And about halfway through this year, I decided to take action, so I started talking with one of the other staff members and together, we were able to create a K-pop specialty show after the old host graduated. And it was really fun because I was doing something I love so much that it didn't really feel like work anymore. And I was glad that I was able to share my story and the stories of people in this industry, and hopefully people that were listening would be able to take something valuable from these things that I was sharing. And I started off with reading a script, just because I was pretty afraid to make mistakes the first times around. But gradually, I started going off and just talking on the spot, which built a lot of my confidence and pride in my speaking abilities and growth. And I think that this experience now as a college student really shaped who I am…

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October 1, 2025
Connor Mason
Screenshot
Team

Connor Mason

"And suddenly there's a big thud. Everything flies up into the air." So it's like mid late November probably. Me and my grandfather, we went up hunting. It was a nice day. We played some cards, cleaned up the blind, hung out. And it was a fun day. I had a good time hanging out with my grandpa. So we're -- unfortunately, we didn't find any deer or anything. It was gun season and we were out hunting deer, but we couldn't find any. So we started to head home. Hopped in the car. We were driving down some scary back roads. It was real dark out. Couldn't see anything. Maybe a couple feet in front of the car. So we're driving. I'm playing on my iPad in the back, my grandpa's driving. And suddenly there's a big thud. Everything flies up into the air. My iPad flies out of my hands, and my grandpa yells, "Whoa!" And so we had just run over a giant tree that had fallen in the middle of the road. And we were in the middle of nowhere, it was pitch black out, and so the only thing we could really do is keep going. So we just kept going. That was probably the scariest car that -- car ride that I've ever been in. But it was definitely a memorable moment with my grandpa. Eventually the car got totaled, and luckily we made it all the way back to our house, maybe another hour and a half drive. But somehow we in the car survived the ride back. But that was one of the most scary moments. I didn't know if I would make it back home, if we were gonna be stranded in the wilderness. But luckily, we made it back and our car survived.

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October 1, 2025
Elle Jacobson
Alumni

Elle Jacobson

"We were confused and we're like, 'What's happening?' And then the vehicle just shut off." Okay, so this was probably a year ago. My family and I like to go to Florida every year. Sometimes we go in different locations, but this year we were going to Marco Island. And this year we finally like flew. Because before then we would usually like drive a really, really long time to get there. And we flew, we got out at the Florida airport, I can't remember where it was, but wasn't exactly at Marco Island. It was like a hour, hour and a half drive there. And we had a rental car. So, you know, that was convenient. Got in the rental car, start driving. And like, relevant for the story, those hybrid cars that like are both electric and gas powered, that like kind of feed off each other -- which like, we did that once before, when we rented a car another time. And you know, we liked it, so we did it again this year. And I have three sisters, you know, my dad and my mom, we were all packed in the car. And it was a really long drive. And we were like in Naples, Florida area. And we just got off the highway, we were coming to a light, and all of a sudden it just said, "Stop car, vehicle's turning off." And we were confused and we're like, "What's happening?" And then the vehicle just shut off. Luckily we were at the light, but like we couldn't move. We couldn't -- like we turned it off, turned it on. Wouldn't start up. And like, eventually we had these people, like construction workers nearby, help us push it off the road. Like we put in neutral. And that was just the start of it all. Because, like, we started calling the tech support like, you know, the insurance company for the rental car. We were like, "Hey, our car broke down." Like, "Just randomly happened." And they were like, giving pretty bad advice. They're like, "Have you tried turning on and off again?" It's like, "Yes." They're like, "Okay, well, you're gonna have to charge it." It's like, "Well, no, you don't actually," but he just like -- they're like, "Oh, this is probably the problem." But it wasn't. It was like something internal, probably…

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October 1, 2025
Bai Yang Clemens
Alumni

Bai Yang Clemens

"I taught her a game called Spit" A while back ago, I've been heavily influenced by my science teacher, back in freshman year of high school. I was in her biology class and I had a really hard time learning in class. I was just bad at biology and like understanding the materials, but she was a fantastic teacher and she was really nice, too. She helped me a lot when I asked her questions and I would stay behind after school to get more help from her to understand the content material. And she became like, kind of a great friend for me in high school. After school, because I'm a little bit of a nerd, I would play cards with her, and I taught her a game called Spit, which is very fast-paced and very fun to play with her. But, yeah, she was just an amazing teacher and I ended up doing extremely well in that class. And the next year, I took chemistry with a different teacher and when I didn't understand things in chemistry, I would go to her and ask her questions and she would explain it to me. And she also wanted to be a chemistry teacher and start a chemistry YouTube channel, so I knew I could rely on her for help. And now here I am four years later, a freshman in high school with a major and biochemistry and molecular biology. Because now I understand the content in biology and chemistry and that's like one of my strong, strongest majors, is in the sciences, in part because of her. But yeah, I really appreciate her for doing everything she did to help me out. And she's part of the reason I made it this far in school.

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October 1, 2025
Mary Cavagnetto
Alumni

Mary Cavagnetto

"It did derail on me three times this summer" So, I recently just moved into my freshman year dorm, here at Michigan State University. And I've had a lot of time, a lot more than I thought, just to think about a lot of different things. One thing that I've thought about are things that I'm grateful for, and something that I'm grateful for is all of these experiences I've had over the past 18 years. That's how old I am. And one experience in particular was actually my job this summer. I feel like it's not very common to hear about my job, but I was actually an iron mine tour guide. So there's this place in the U.P., that's where I'm from, it's called The Iron Mountain Iron Mine, and I actually tour guided there. So, what I would do, I would introduce myself. Then I would introduce a bunch of these machines that the miners used to use, back when they were mining. And then we would actually go into a iron mine on this little like train cart thing. We could hold to like 30 people, but it did derail on me three times this summer. And ironically it was all in the same week and it was my last week, so. They're probably like, "Oh, it's time for you to go." But I got to meet so many new people, like from around the world. I'm pretty sure I hit all 50 states because when I started like introducing myself I'm like, "So, where's everybody from?" And there's people from Wyoming, from Texas, Florida, Hawaii, Alaska. So [I just] got to experience all of that and I think it's really cool how one thing can bring so many people together, especially in a place that's not very heard of. Like the U.P., you obviously hear of the Mackinaw Island Bridge. They're like, "Oh, what's even up there? Does anybody even live up there?" Yes, there are people that live up there. No, we are not part of Wisconsin. And no, we are not a part of Canada, either. So yeah, I just wanted to share that. I think it was a very cool experience that I wouldn't trade for the world.

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October 1, 2025

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