And I looked over at my friend and I was like "Is my car squeaking or is something in the car?" I don't think I'm an enemy of bugs. Um, and I don't think that they specifically don't like me. Ive just had some bad run-ins, you know? Um, I don't hate them. I've just had bad run-ins with them. This sounds bad. This sounds like I'm making excuses or something. I don't know why I'm explaining it so much. But recently me and my friend, we went to a bonfire at my other friend's house. And at the time we were staying with her mother. And her mother was like, "I have a couple of chairs in the back if you wanna bring those to the bonfire," like lawn chairs. And so we were like, "Okay, bet. Thanks." Took em, put em in my Jeep, and we went right into the bonfire. And now, my Jeep -- I like -- when I have the windows down, sometimes I can hear like a little squeak. Like when you hit a bump, it's like, "Squeak," like the suspension. But this time when I was driving, I noticed, like, it was very loud. It was really loud and it was consistent and it wasn't just when I was hitting bumps. And I looked over at my friend and I was like "Is my car squeaking or is something in the car?" And she was like, "No, no your car is just squeaking." And I was like, "No, girl. No, girl, tha- that's crickets. There are crickets in the, there are crickets in the lawn chair." I was like, "I can't do this. I cannot do this girl." I pulled over so fast into the quickest -- into the closest, um, what was it? Like a car wash, like a touchless car wash with a big old parking lot. I whipped in and, and ran out of the car and like tore the chairs out. Because, also at the time, I had a bunch of stuff in my vehicle, so if a cricket had hopped out in there, I was just gonna have to burn the whole thing. So I ripped them out. I still heard the, the menacing sound of the crickets. And I, I, I held the bottom of the bag. I like opened the, the cord and like ripped it…

"This day had been lined up perfectly." So this took place back in May of 2019 -- so very much pre-pandemic and uh this day had been lined up perfectly. I had concert tickets to go see BTS and somewhere along that day -- towards the middle of it, we get a phone call, my mom does at least. And the, this dog that we were looking at that we were very interested in getting, we were approved to get her. So I remember like my mom just like calling us all into the room with a hu- -- like with this big smile on her face and basically saying "Guys, guys we have a new puppy." And I just remember like jumping up and down hugging my sister and asking "When are we getting her? When can we see her next?" Um, and my mom was like "Well, we're gonna pick her up today." And, and then I just remember them going to drive -- cause I was getting ready. I had a concert to go to with my friends, um, but I remember that they left in time to go pick up Dottie. And then, they drove back. And I just remember seeing her for the first time and sort of just like holding her. She was so, so tiny. And she was just the cutest, tiniest little thing. She was so tired though that when we first got her she was so curious about the house, but she was also so sleepy. So like I remember just sort of sitting there and she would -- it wasn't really like a walk. It was more like a waddle -- up to me and she would just sniff me and then she'd start crying because she wanted to be picked up and I remember like I was crying tears of happiness because I was like, who is this amazing little creature that I'm holding right now? It was, it was very cute, very sentimental. I was like, "Okay, I'm sorry. I, I have to go get ready for the concert." And so, I walked back upstairs. And apparently from what I'm told is Dottie did not like this cause she couldn't walk up the stairs yet. And I just remember getting home that night -- I was freezing. And I enter the house cause I obviously knew the code…

“… if I'm with friends, I guess I'm an odd person.” So am I an odd or an even person? Well, I guess… Well first, you gotta figure out what odd and even means. I guess, you know, odd means like crazy or different or I don't know. Even seems more like straight, you know. You can imagine like even is like a guy in a business suit going to work and odd is like… I don't know, like a guy in a clown suit going to work. So I guess I don't know. I guess I'm in between. You know, I like to have fun, everyone likes to have fun, but I guess I don't go out and do things. You know, I'm not really loud in class and not even like obnoxiously loud. I don't really talk, make much noise at all. And I don't - I dunno. If I had to choose between like wearing a clown outfit or a business suit. I guess it really just depends on the day, you know? If I'm with like friends or… I guess yeah, if I'm with friends, I guess I'm an odd person. But when I'm, I guess, in a more serious setting. I don't really try to be an odd person, I guess I'm more of an even person. I guess if that makes sense. It's kind of a strange thing, especially because it's not a term that you normally describe someone as an 'even person'.

So I paired up with the first person and go rock paper scissors shoot. I throw scissors, they throw paper. A few months ago, I went on a retreat for my school. I've already been in this University for a few years, but I wanted, I wanted to kind of get to know people better and just really get more involved in my community 'cause, you know, you -- it's never too late to make more friends. But I was a little worried that I would go on this retreat and I wouldn't really meet any new people. Like when we were waiting to get on the bus, everyone was in their groups together, and there was a few people that I knew but it wasn't really -- like there wasn't the same kind of closeness. Um when we got on the bus, I sat by myself and I was just really hoping and praying that everything would turn out well. We end up -- so we go ride the bus, get to the retreat site, and we put our stuff away and we go through the process of kind of introducing ourselves, getting to know our orientation leaders, um, and then they tell us that we're going to play a rock paper scissors tournament. So every person would pair up with another person and you guys would play rock paper scissors and then the winner would go on to play the other winners and you would keep going and going until only one person was left and they were the winner of the whole tournament. I normally really get in my head for these things. So I just decided, you know what, I don't care. I'm just going to throw whatever and it's, it's fine that -- if I lose. But -- so I paired up with the first person and go rock paper scissors shoot. I throw scissors, they throw paper. And I'm like, "Okay, this is, this is nice." And I go with the second person and then again I win and then the third person I win again and I'm like, "This is kind of getting serious." Um, and so even after a few more times, I kept winning, and at this point, I'm -- there's like a little bit of attention starting to gather and people were like, "Oh my gosh, okay, like, you gotta…

"Today I'm feeling thankful for nature and these opportunities." Lately my focus has felt off, maybe at times even bit foggy, but with the transition of ending spring semester into summer break, things have felt off balance. Summer classes and work are now in full swing and I'm preparing to move into a new place very soon. All very exciting things, but still stressful nonetheless. For the long weekend, I've been visiting my partner's family. We celebrated the wedding of a close friend and spent a lot of time outdoors. This weather's been wild for Michigan. I can't believe how warm the past few days have been. After a long day of adventuring on the dunes near Lake Michigan, we decided to wind down by the hot tub. The sky happened to be clear for the first time in a while. So we were watching the stars appear as the sun went down and enjoyed the constellations as patterns began to paint themselves across the sky. We'd only gone out to relax for a little while until my partner gasped and said "no way". Instead of getting ready to get out as I had been before, I paused and joined him as he pointed to where he saw the meteor fall. What was planned to be a short trip outside transformed into something longer. We were determined to see more of these shooting stars. They were so beautiful. Our efforts proved to be worthwhile as the stars shone above the warm summer breeze. The beauty of it all really helped me to clear my mind and remember that all the stressors in my life right now are part of the bigger picture. Just as each of those stars played a role in creating the beautiful sky for us that night. Today I'm feeling thankful for nature and these opportunities. It always seems to be the best relief for a stressed-out mind.

"I found "Rainforest" by Walter Wanderley." I recently visited my friend in Arizona. She took me all around the towns where she's lived. She showed me a lot of different things, and I ate a lot of good food. She took me to her favorite fast-food restaurants. My favorite out of all of them was Cane’s; their chicken was so good, and I did find out that they're making some near me soon, so I'm going to be hitting those up constantly because it was so good, would highly recommend Cane’s to anyone. But also while we were there, we went to a musical instrument museum and that was really cool ‘cause I love music, I love musical instruments. They had -- it was literally musical instruments from all over the world. I was really happy to see the khaen from Laos, that was the coolest one that I was hoping was there. They also had a huge upright bass called an octobasse. That was crazy too. And I loved seeing all the different violins ‘cause I play violin. And we also went horseback riding. That was really, really fun because I used to ride horses and it's been like -- I think I did the math and it was like eight years since I've been on a horse, and this was Western style, but I used to do English, but it's like, fundamentally -- like I knew what was going on, and it was just so much fun to be doing that. And honestly, the highlight of my whole trip besides getting to spend time with my friend, which was obviously incomparable, was I found this record that I had been looking for, like a vinyl. My -- one of my favorite musical artists is Brazil's number one organist, Walter Wanderley, and my favorite album by him is called “Rainforest.” And every time I go into a record store, I search high and low for this record, and I've never been able to find it. Well while I was there with her, we went to a record store, and I found it -- I found “Rainforest” by Walter Wanderley. When I say my heart was pounding, I mean it. It was awesome, a great trip, so many highs throughout it. It was just phenomenal -- loved being with my friend, loved being on a horse, seeing musical instruments, and…

"I jumped off the rock, and immediately, everything went black." So I had been kind of sitting in my kayak at the water for an hour or two, and I just decided to go investigate the cliff. Um, I kind of walked up, like with my friends, they were cheering me on. I kept telling them, "I’m still not gonna jump off of it, I just want to see,” so I walked to the edge of the cliff. It was more of a rock — we’ll call it a rock. I walked to the edge of the big rock, twenty feet, um, and I kept telling myself, “I'm not gonna jump off of this, I just wanna see what the view looks like.” I walked to the edge of the rock, and — Do you ever have those moments where, like, your body decides to do something that your mind has yet to agree to? In my case, that is exactly what happened. Without my mental consent, to my complete lack of knowledge, I jumped off the rock, and immediately, everything went black. I had jumped off the rock and passed out in midair. Fully blacked out. I hit the water, not knowing what had happened — I had blinked, and I had gone from the top of the rock to the water — I was spluttering, coughing, I think I was so disoriented from passing out that I, um, had forgotten how to swim. My friend had to paddle into the water and pull me out, and everyone was like, “You jumped off the rock!” and I was like, “I guess I did jump off the rock, but I don’t remember doing it, I don’t remember deciding to do it,” and in that case, I think my body had wanted to do something that my mind hadn’t agreed to. I was told that there was a photo taken of me jumping off the rock, I have yet to have seen this photo. It’s been five or six years. I still wonder what I must have looked like jumping off of it while being passed out in midair, um maybe one day I can reunite with that photo, but definitely after that experience I told myself I was never going to jump off another rock into water again, and I’ve enjoyed telling the story ever since.

“In the past four years, that's what everyone has been introduced to me with which I think is really cool.” I like the idea of like creating who you are over time and like cultivating that so that people can see the most accurate version of you. Like, for example, I was given a super… A name that did not belong to the ethnic group I was born into which is a little strange, but it's never something I really identified with because of this. Also for other reasons like gender expression and not wanting to be like uber feminine all the time. But what happened with this in part of my like creating an identity thing was my friend and I read a book like maybe in seventh grade. I'm not sure. And it was all about these people who were subverting gender norms and like the main character had this whole like lizard-related trope and like they kept getting called different kinda like lizard names and that was like something they found empowering because it was inhuman and strange and fun. And so my friend and I who really liked this book and identified with it because it's like really relatable to us, we were like trying to struggle and figure out who we were outside of expectations and stuff. So we each gave each other like a little lizard nickname thing from the book and that's how we would like write letters to each other with these fun names, to better represent what we felt like, and now that's like the name that appears on my records and stuff. Not the one I was born with. Like, I don't have a lizard name as my legal name, but it is like… In the past like four years, that's what everyone has been introduced to me with which I think is really cool.

"So we were at this show and I was just -- I was vibing." So I was thinking about a particular time that was a remarkable story or something that has made an impact, um, in my, you know, self development, um, and I thought about the time that I broke my tailbone for the first time. I actually ended up breaking it three times, unfortunately, um, but I broke it for the first time when -- I think I was in fourth grade, maybe fifth grade, um, and I was in a, an honors choir, and we took a trip to Mackinac Island. I was with, um, my mom, she was like a chaperone, and a bunch of my friends. And we went to this show. I think it was, um, Three Men and a Tenor, um, at this old theater and, um, it was super beautiful. The seats were really old and each one had, like, a sort of, like, knobby handle in between them, where you can, like, r- -- like an armrest, I guess, um, and, like, velvet seats. They were beautiful. Um, but because it was old, some of them had, like, missing seats and whatnot, um. Anyways, so we were at this show and I was just -- I was vibing. I really, really was enjoying myself. I was with a bunch of my friends. It was music that I enjoyed, um. It was, you know, performers that I had seen since I was a kid -- like, even younger kid, um, it was music that I knew, so I could sing along to it, um. And I was really in the moment and I was jumping up and down and we were singing along to the music, um, and then, you know, we were cheering at the end of it. And then when it was all done, I was just full hyped of energy. I went and -- I, I went to sit back down really hard, and I missed my seat, and I slammed into the armrest that was between two seats and my tailbone hit that little knob at the end of the armrest so perfectly that it sent a intense shock wave all the way through to the top of my head. And I felt like I couldn't see for a second and it was awful, um. Eventually, like once…