Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio. Finding out a classmate died is a jarring experience to say the least, and I cannot say – like, it's thrown me for a bit of a loop. I can't say I'm in like a state of grief, exactly. Like, he seemed like a nice guy, but again, I exchanged maybe five sentences with him over the past three years, like I don't – I don't know. Over the past three or four years. Like, I don't –  Like, I – it's, it's horrible. It's sad and I'm – I feel sad. I feel like – shocked, I feel whatever, but, you know, like, it, it doesn't – like I mean, it's not like this is gonna – you know. Again, it's not like this is gonna send me into a state of despair. At least not this particular death, I guess. There are certain aspects of the death that are freaking me the f*** out, but – and again, like, I don't mean to sound insensitive. I don't mean to sound – like I hope I don't – I don't mean to sound – like I – it's horrible. It is horrible, but like, you know, I cannot say that like I am gonna be the one – I guess, like, that's, that's the thing. Like, I am not going to be the one most deeply impacted by this. You know? This is not the death of a friend or a loved one. This is the death of a guy whose face I recognize, which, you know, is still horrifying and sad and – I – you know.  But, you know, like, again. There are a few things, I guess, like, my thoughts. Like how this is connected to my own – and I feel like, I feel like it's almost narcissistic to try to, you know, connect this to my own existential dread at this point. But this is what I'm thinking about. This is what it's caused. This is sending me into a little bit of a spiral at the moment. Um, if you can't tell by the kind of incoherent rambling, but, um, you know, like, on the one hand – Like, on the – one part of it is, is more or less some of the same stuff that…

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio. I've been thinking about this a lot and I felt that I couldn't really talk about the shooting if I didn't talk about just trauma in general and how it affects people. Because whether you were on campus or not, whether you were someone who were acquainted with the victims of the violence or not, you -- if you are a member of, you know, people who go to MSU, people who have to come to campus, people who have to be, you know, on site, then it's affected you, I think. I tried to tell myself that it didn't, but I think it did. So I guess when I think about trauma, it's hard to think about trauma in any sort of real sense. I feel like -- I have to put this somewhere. I feel like when someone experiences trauma... Okay, maybe I shouldn't -- it's not an objective thing. It's a very subjective thing. When I experience trauma, when I think about the trauma that I've had in my life, it's like this invisible string. A very fine string is just -- like it's wrapped around my body, just kind of entangling me. And it feels at first like a surge of adrenaline. Like, "Oh my God. Oh my God. I gotta get out. I gotta get out. I gotta be safe. This is not safe. I need to be safe. This is not safe. What do I do? What do I do? Oh my God. What do I do?" And it can almost feel -- I -- it almost feels euphoric just because it's so much energy and maybe I'm not used to having that much energy and adrenaline. Sorry, I'm pausing a lot. But anyway, yeah, if you've been traumatized, maybe it feels the same way. That's what it felt like for me. Like, initial trauma. The thing is, people don't often -- they're not lucky like that. We don't just get traumatized once and that's it. It's easy to say, like, people get desensitized to things. But we don't. We can pretend, but we really don't. You don't get desensitized to traumatic things. You might want -- you wish -- we all wish we could get desensitized to these things, but we don't. I'm sorry. I'm getting a…

I went to a concert last Wednesday. And it was Yo-Yo Ma, an incredibly famous cellist, who -- surprisingly, not everyone I've talked to has heard of him. But yeah, Yo-Yo Ma and a famous violinist and pianist who I hadn't really heard of were all playing at the Wharton center on Wednesday, and I was very excited. Had a whole fiasco with tickets that I will talk about later, but the important thing is all three of them when they came out on stage were wearing baseball caps with the Spartan logo on them. And yeah, Yo-Yo Ma was like, "Go Green!" and everyone was like, "Go White!" Um, and then in between the first piece and the second piece, Yo-Yo Ma talked a bit about, like, "Spartan Strong" and, you know, touched on, you know, him caring about what happened on the 13th. And I thought that was really sweet that this famous guy who travels all around the world playing his cello, he's incredibly skilled -- that he cares about this university that I go to, that my friends go to, that -- yeah. It really touched me that he kind of acknowledged that we're coming up on the anniversary of that event.

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio. Coming up on the one-year anniversary of the, um, shooting on Michigan State's campus last year. Um, I don't know. It's kind of weird. I -- like I've been talking about it and thinking about it more in the past week or so as we approach it, but it's also making me realize how little I've thought about it lately, um, like in the past, you know, four or five months. Which, I feel guilty for saying that I'm not thinking about it, but I think it's kind of like a survival mechanism. You know, I can't every single time I walk on the campus spend all my time thinking about that, um, or else I wouldn't be able to walk onto campus. But I do feel like I'm sort of like, I don't know, doing, doing it a disservice by not spending more time being thoughtful about it. I have a class in Berkey this semester and I've never had one in Berkey before. And Berkey the building isn't very linked with that event for me because I wasn't there. I know it's linked with it, but it's not really linked with my experiences and my emotions towards it. Um, well I actually feel worse when I walk by, like, the back window of my old apartment that I lived in when it happened. That freaks me out more because that was like, so much more associated with my experience with it. And I don't feel that way going into Berkey, which is nice. I'm really lucky for that. In the first week of classes they had service dogs in Berkey. They had snacks. They had counselors available. And I really appreciate that. But then, they haven't had it since. And I get it. You don't have the resources to do that all semester long. That's very reasonable, but, I don't know. I guess it just contributes like this general feeling of guilt I have that it's not just me. Like, everyone's sort of thinking about it, you know, when it's convenient. My, my professor made a joke about it, kind of, the other day in class. The professor that I have – I take the Berkey class with. I don't know, it wasn't a joke, but, we were going around saying where…

I have not done one of these in a very long time, but I thought that I would record, um, my own sort of follow-up diary about the violence that happened at Michigan State on February 13. It's now almost a year later, and for the most part I think things have kind of gone back to normal. You know, classes have been in full swing and we're like back on our regular calendar. Um, but I was just thinking -- Okay, so I am teaching in Berkey Hall this semester for the first time since the shooting. And I kind of surprised myself by having a reaction the first time I went in this semester. I kind of was back in this like swing of normal, everything's back to normal, and I saw flowers and reporters outside Berkey Hall that first day of classes and, you know, my body just kind of had like a, a reaction going in. Like, I got tense and I kind of felt like a little bit of anxiety. You know, it's small but it is something that I felt and I'm guessing that I'm probably not the only one, you know, I'm thinking about students that were going in. Have to go back into that building for the first time. And what they are -- how they're holding up. I -- yeah. Just wanted to note. You know, it's a small -- it's a small impact, but it still exists.

I'm scared to see reports of what might happen that night which is part of the reason to why I'm leaving. I'll be back like, the week after and then it'll be spring break and everything which is in itself a whole 'nother weird thing. It's just – yeah. Sometimes I gotta put me first and, and leave, take a little mental health break while also – you know, not really necessarily a break, but just going to be back, doing all my work remotely. I feel like that's the one good thing about living in this day and age is even though I have feelings about last year, at least the good news is I can do homework and everything from the comfort of my room. Quite honestly, I might have like a glass of wine or something on that day, pay tribute to the victims and their families, do a prayer for them. I know my parents are probably going to do that, and so it'll be nice to join them, I think. I think it'll be nice to join them. It'll be nice to just kind of process it, realize, "Okay. You know, I'm fortunate enough to be in this position of still attending this university a year later," without totally, you know, being rude or hateful or spiteful in a way. It's just, I need a break. Um, really need a break in general, but you know, it'll be like a peaceful time to – at my home at least, to just pay tribute to the victims and their families and to all of us as a community, 'cause I feel like that's the biggest thing that doesn't get talked about is, uh, the survivor's guilt and everything, um, and how that impacts us mentally. 'Cause I – where I was last year I could hear it, and that was kind of traumatizing within itself, looking back and realizing. And the amount of like therapy sessions and everything, but, I feel like at MSU we have a pretty good community. We have – I, I'm just so grateful to be in a community where we all – you know, ordinarily I would say on a day-to-day basis we might not seem like we care about each other. But on days where it's coming up to the anniversary and everything, I would hope – and I, I've…

I felt just sad. I thought I'd feel scared and then I'd feel angry, but I felt a lot more sad than I was expecting to feel, and it's hard because I feel sad just being here. I live far away, and so I couldn't really... I didn't really wanna spend the time and energy, driving five hours to home, so my my girlfriend and I, we went to her house. She lives only like 45 minutes away. So, we went there Tuesday night. And I felt okay Tuesday, I was like, "I don't really feel like I need to go home," but she wanted to go home and I didn't want to be here alone. So I went home with her and it was... I was fine, when we were there. I felt distracted enough. I felt distant enough, and I was okay and I didn't really feel like... I dunno, I felt like I was gonna be okay, and when we got back here, she had to go almost straight to work when we got home, and just pulling on to campus and pulling into our parking lot. It was just like... Just being here in this space, it was immediate. Like, I wasn't scared, but I just - it was this immediate sense of I just felt really upset and alone and sad, and she had to go to work and then I wanted to go to the vigil that they had, but all of my friends are home and she was at work, and so I had to go alone and that... Walking there was... As soon as I got there, it felt good to be surrounded by so many people but I don't just - I don't know when... I don't know how long I'm gonna feel like this campus is no longer a place where I feel connected and comfortable and happy. I didn't really realize that it was so related to this space until we drove back here, and I just immediately felt this wave of sadness and it's like that's about being here. Just being here makes me feel this way, 'cause it's hard to go anywhere without a reminder of it, and I just don't know what to do about that. I mean, when a place you love so much is just forever tied up in this overwhelming sense of fear…

I was just hoping to briefly share my condolences to the Michigan Diaries team and Michigan State Community today. Just seeing some really tough news that I, you know, can only imagine the kind of feelings that everyone's going through in the active shooter situation. So I, yeah, just wanted to offer, you know, some more words of support. Definitely have the team and the Spartans on my mind. And I saw that class schedules and sports schedules and stuff are canceled. 100% understandable. You know, I can keep making recordings. I think the planets will wait for Michigan Diaries whenever you're ready. You know, if we gotta take a week off, you know, I'll still be here. So. Or if you want to continue the pace of normalcy, I would understand that as well. Yeah. Just I have to imagine really, really tough day for everyone in East Lansing. So my thoughts and prayers to the Spartan Community today.

And then I guess the other thing that I would say about my experience about the shooting is that I think that I was a little bit in shock the next day, so the Tuesday, where I was kind of like, "Okay, something bad happened. Now let's, now let's get together and do what we can to do our job and to fix things and to whatever." And the university was sending out emails saying like, you know, "We're gonna cancel classes and make sure to take the time you need to be okay." And I was in - my body was in like action mode, and so it surprised me as time went on to find that I actually was impacted more than I kind of expected. Like, I think for the last week, I've been kind of randomly bursting into tears, like at anything. At bad news, at good news, at somebody being a little bit nice to me, at just anything. It kind of reminds me of grief almost, where it's like, you know, most of the time you kind of carry on, and then suddenly out of the blue you'll remember that the person that you love died. So I guess that's the other thing that I think is notable about my experience here, is that like basically a week after, I feel more impacted than I felt the day after, and maybe part of that is, you know, listening to stories from my students who, you know, went through their own traumas that night, either, like me, listening to the police scanner, listening to the sirens go by, listening to the helicopter as they search for this guy, or my students who were on campus, you know, hiding in their dorm room on lockdown, hoping that they're not next, you know. I think our whole community has been touched by this trauma, and I guess the flip side of that that makes me something I am grateful for is that, you know, Mr. Rogers says like, “Look for the helpers.” And I think almost everybody that I've interacted with has stepped up to try to be a helper for other people, so, you know, all of the community resources, the free counseling that's available, the businesses that are like opening up. Like, I went to Strange Matter the next day, and they were just giving…