"Now, I say I'm from Michigan, but I was born in California." Hi, my name is Keira Wesley and I am recording this on September 1st, 2025. And the question that stuck out to me was, where did you grow up? And I think for me, that question is a little more complicated than for most people. Because I was born in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. I was born in Fremont, which is a suburban to urban city just outside of San Francisco, and I spent six years there when -- before my first grade year. So when I was six years old I moved to Michigan. Traverse City, so north, northwest Michigan. And I have two older sisters, who, they moved when they were going into fourth grade and going into sixth grade. So, they were three and five years older than me. And one talking point that came up a lot when I was going through elementary and middle school with them was, how quote-unquote "Californian" are we? And they always felt like they were more Californian than me, or they had a better claim to being Californian than I did. And I always felt very strongly that I was equal part Californian that they were. I felt that I, like, had the same amount of Californian in me that they did. I felt really, really strongly about it and I like would argue with them a lot. I'd be like, "No, I'm as Californian as you," or "It doesn't matter how many years more you spent there than I did." We still spent a good portion of our childhood there, so like, we're all equal parts California and equal parts Michigander. But as I've gotten older and especially in like my senior year and the last few months, I've been thinking about that again as I've been applying to colleges and like thinking about, am I gonna leave Michigan? Or am I gonna stay here? I started to like rethink that way of thinking about Californian versus Michigander identity. And I start to think like, "Wow. Maybe they have a point, maybe they are more California than me." And I think I see it in a bit of a different way than I did when I was a lot younger. So the way I see it is that they spent so much of their…

"Our day is set up for greatness, really" This story happened when my family and I went on a cruise. So, our cruise ported at Saint Martin, an island in the Caribbean, we got off at 8 a.m. we had to be back on the boat at 5 p.m., and we've cruised before, so we know how we have to get back or else the boat will leave you. So we get off. We have a lot of time on our hands. We rent a Jeep, and we're feeling pretty good about ourselves 'cause our day is set up for greatness, really. So we're driving around the island, and we've been here before. So we have our favorite spots, we go to our beach, we go to our restaurant, we're pulling over, going shopping, when all the sudden on the way back, we have about two hours till the boat leaves. We hit really bad traffic. And I mean backed up for miles, bumper to bumper. And this is a island where they don't speak English. So, we are pulling over on the side of the road asking the locals. If they could help direct us back to the ship, and they probably know where the cruise ships are because the small island and they know where the port is. So we're asking them grande ship, grande ship, they're just pointing in the right direction. I mean, it helped a little bit, but the traffic was the problem. So my dad is pulling around people. In this Jeep, driving in the wrong lane of the traffic. Whipping the car around these turns, and we don't even know where we're going. Eventually, we made it back to the rental car spot that was right by the port. We returned our Jeep. We almost hit someone whipping into our spot. But regardless, we made it. We're running back to the boat. It starts raining, I'm slipping on the concrete. At the end of the day, we made it back with 20 minutes to spare, but that is the time I almost got left by my cruise in Saint Martin.

"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.

"This frog's not even supposed to be here" Hi. This is the story of a frog of many names. Some people know this frog as Goji. Some people know this frog as Earl Grey. Others know it as Grog. This frog came into my life a couple years ago when I moved into a new house with some friends and we knew we wanted some sort of animal, so I went with, with my friend [name] and his boyfriend [name] to, to the pet store, thinking we were probably going to get a turtle, but then we overheard the staff talking and they were like, "Blah blah blah, there's like, this frog that came in on our new vegetable shipment", like the vegetables that they feed the other animals and it's like, "This frog's not even supposed to be here, and we need to get rid of it." And this is an American Bullfrog, and this is in California where American Bullfrogs are not native. They're, they're very invasive and they cause a lot of problems for the ecosystem, so they could not ethically release this frog into the wild. And they were like, "We're gonna have to kill this frog, that's so sad." And we were like, "Hey, we are looking for an animal, can we have that frog?" and they said "Yes." And we took the frog home and then realized we don't really know how to take care of a frog, no one in our, in our little trio, had frog experience, as of yet. Luckily, it turns out American Bullfrogs will eat pretty much anything that moves. We started off with crickets that we got from that same pet store. But this was not a super sustainable solution, because crickets don't live super long, and we needed to feed this frog on a regular basis, and, and we did not have access to a car to go get more crickets from the pet store, which was very far, and I mean, like I -- my first assumption was like, "Oh, there are like -- there's like pet stores all around. We can get food for the frog." That was false. There were very few pet stores in over vicinity. We had to go very far on a quest for crickets every time -- every time we needed to get them. So then I was thinking, like…

"We met each other getting lost to our math recitation" Okay, so this is one of my favorite stories ever, and it's how I met my now roommate, and one of my best friends. So it was freshman year at MSU. And it was the first week of classes, and it was a Friday. And on that Friday was our first math recitation. And mind you, like, we're both freshmen. I'm going in, and I'm like, looking for where I'm supposed to go, I'm using my maps for everything, and, the room number was Wells, A-Wing of Wells. And I didn't realize there was, there were two wings of Wells, so I was in the B-wing. And I go in the elevator and I'm, you know, just walking to the elevator because it was on the third floor. And this girl comes rushing in, you know, the doors are closing, I stick my arm out 'cause I'm like, "Oh my gosh." You know, obviously I want her to be able to get in the elevator. And she's like, "Oh my gosh, you almost broke your arm." And I was like, "Nah, it's chill, it's good." And I think maybe she could tell that, I was like another freshman or something, 'cause she was like, "Oh, are you in Math 103, blah, blah, blah, do you have recitation today?" And I was like, "Yeah, like I'm room number blah, blah, blah blah." I don't remember. And her room was like, "Oh, I'm like two down." And it was -- so I was like, "Oh my gosh," whatever, we exchange stuff, but like the wifi wasn't working. Anyways, this is all in the elevator up. And so we get up to the third floor, and we're looking around. No one's in the halls. We're like, "What's going on?" We're like, "We're in the wrong wing. We are in the wrong spot." So we finally figured out where we were supposed to go. Um, but I think it was just so crazy how we met each other getting lost to our math recitation. But now she's literally one of my best friends, and I think it's always just such a cute story to tell.