10.26.22

The Lumberjack

History of Campus & Community Dialogue on Race

by Kumi Watanabe-Schock, CDOR Planning Team & Library Media Coordinator

Campus & Community Dialogue on Race (CDOR) is an annual event at Cal Poly Humboldt. CDOR invites students, staff, faculty, administrators, and com munity members to present and attend programs that relate to racial, social, and environmental justice and its in tersections with all forms of oppression and resistance. CDOR’s purpose is to promote and facilitate change by en gaging a diverse range of individuals, communities, and viewpoints to ex plore the impact of racism and to cre ate spaces and structures for reflection, analysis, dialogue, and positive strat egies for change. Cal Poly Humboldt’s 24th annual Campus & Community Di alogue on Race (CDOR) will take place Monday, Oct. 24 through Friday, Oct. 28. This year’s theme is Truth Telling for Liberation.

CDOR was established in 1998 when former President Bill Clinton challenged universities and commu nities across the U.S. to hold critical forums on race. Cal Poly Humboldt respond ed to the call and held its first dialogue on race on the first floor of the J, with approxi mately 80 people in at tendance. Ever since,

CDOR has been committed to creating safe spaces for this important annu al dialogue to continue and evolve. I spoke with Marylyn Paik-Nicely, for mer Coordinator of the MultiCultural Center (now the Social Justice, Equity, & Inclusion Center, or SJEIC), who worked on campus between 1997 and 2015.

Marylyn commented, “It’s great the CDOR is continuing and growing.”

Over the years, we’ve had an amaz ing array of keynote and feature speak ers, and CDOR has been responsive to the changing demographics on campus for the last 24 years.

Sea level rise threatens Humboldt, local government stalls

by August Linton

The edges of Humboldt Bay are on the verge of being overrun by the sea. It laps at the boundaries of Highway 101, surrounds the Arcata Marsh, and sneaks around the corners of low-lying industrial areas in Eureka.

SINKING SHORELINE

Humboldt’s location at the end of the Cascadia Subduction Zone makes the area more vulnerable to sea lev el rise than any other location on the California coast. Due to its position in a very active tectonic area and the spe cific activity of the surrounding plates, the Humboldt County region is steadily sinking, or subsiding.

The Humboldt Bay Vertical Refer ence System Working Group is a re search group focused on identifying geology’s role in Humboldt Bay sea level rise. In a 2017 report, they found that land subsidence contributes to sea level rise two to three times more in Humboldt County than anywhere else in California. Of the 18 inch rise in sea levels that has occurred locally in the past century, an estimated 50% is due to tectonic subsidence.

“The ocean isn’t rising any faster off of our coast than it is down in San Francisco, but we have subsidence that the rest of California doesn’t have,” said environmental planning consul tant Aldaron Laird.

Laird has been an essential part of local sea level rise risk assessment and

adaptation planning over the last de cade, consulting with Humboldt Coun ty and various local districts.

ADAPTATION PLANNING

Humboldt County has commis sioned many reports which assess the risk that sea level rise poses to infra structure and communities. These con textualize what different levels of sea level rise will mean, and suggest possi ble adaptation measures. However, the reports do not implement the adapta tion measures.

The most recent grant-funded proj ect to tackle this issue concluded in 2019, yet none of the recommenda tions from that, or any other report, have been implemented.

An area that the reports do not touch on is the potential for industrial con tamination in the bay as sea level rise reaches new areas.

In her career as an environmental advocate, Jennifer Kalt has observed the local government’s lackluster re action to the threat of sea level rise for years.

“What I have seen as a repeating theme is a lot of local jurisdictions get ting grant money to develop plans and then there isn’t a plan,” said Kalt. “It’s a little depressing to see so much plan ning lead to nothing.”

Police Chief candidates Community Darkroom She Kills Monsters

Community darkroom open in Ferndale, California.

Police

An honest review.

Eligibility

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Contradictions at open forum

Police chief candidate views cause con cern among students

by Carlos Pedraza

The Chief of Police Search Commit tee held an open forum last Wednesday for students to ask questions of Thom as Calucci, one of the police chief candi dates. A Cal Poly Humboldt email stat ed the meeting was being held in the Library Fishbowl but was changed at the last minute to the Great Hall above the Marketplace. In total, only two stu dents were present to ask questions.

Calucci is a former police captain from the University of Texas at San Antonio and was a member of the Be havioral Intervention Team, an orga nization that provides mental health checks. While at UTSA, Calucci collab orated with school counseling faculty to provide crisis training to university police.

Calucci wants to bring a similar pro gram to Cal Poly Humboldt.

“I want social workers to ride with our police officers,” Calucci said.

He went on to explain how he want ed police to integrate with the commu nity and was against the us vs. them mentality of the thin blue line.

“I need our cops to understand at this university, we are not here to kick ass and take names, we are here to pro tect you all,” Calucci said.

Still, Calucci made it clear his main goal was to protect the university from those whom he saw as outsiders.

“I’m fairly certain that somewhere, someone in this community has a griev ance against this university,” Calucci said. “Whether it be a faculty member or other student, I’m fairly certain that person is planning revenge… I wanna be here to protect you from them, not from yourself.”

When Calucci was asked who “them” was, he answered, “There are people

who intend to do you harm, those are the people who I don’t like.”

Calucci appears to understand that policing has caused problems, specifi cally citing police-related generational trauma. Though he is aware of it, Calu cci does not consider it his role to solve this problem.

“I did not sign up for the things you are asking me to do,” Calucci said.

Humboldt student Elizabeth Rubio explained how the police system has a history of racism, prejudice, and vi olence, and asked how Calucci would handle prejudice in his staff and him self.

“First thing you said is we live in a racist society and that sucks you feel that way,” Calucci said. He acknowl edged that racism was present in so ciety. “If I could wave a magic wand and make it go away I would because of that crap,” Calucci said in response to Rubio.

Rubio proceeded to ask if Caluc ci was aware of the murder of Josiah Lawson and the case surrounding the alledged murder. Calucci said he saw a sign supporting Justice for Josiah, but he did not know any specifics of the case.

Rubio also asked about the police response to student homelessness. Calucci said police would not harass students sleeping in cars and wanted them to feel safe. He stated his main goal was to get students off the streets and find temporary housing for them.

Jue Smith, the other student at the forum, felt that both police chief candi dates were unprepared.

“Neither candidate did their home work about this area or legislation that’s been passed,” Smith said.

Photo by Carlos Pedraza | UPD squad cars parked outside of the UPD office.

24th annual Campus & CommunityDialogue on Race Truth Telling for Liberation

Conquering fear with truth telling

by Frank Herrera, SJEIC Coordinator

My name is Frank Herrera, and I am the Social Justice, Equity, and Inclusion Center Coordinator here at Cal Poly Humboldt. The wonderful work that we do here centers around conversations of how we can be more inclusive and equitable. One way to do this is to create caring, kind, welcoming, engaging, and empow ering spaces where

ALL students are celebrated as they are, perfect humans. The next step is to chal lenge our preconceived ideas so that we make slight, and sometimes large, adjust ments toward the people that we want to be. We take stock of those attributes that we admire in others and realize that those attributes we hold to high regard are not yet actualized. Once we have that vision, we begin the slow process of working to ward that person you were meant to be. Our student-led program builds on these ideas and works to extend them to their family, friends, community members, and beyond. Much of the work we do is practiced over and over since that is what it takes to align one’s identity with their vocation to become more than we cur rently are (Paolo Friere, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”).

The work our students do is centered around love. As Bell Hooks defines it in “All About Love,” “Ultimately, love is care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, trust, and hon est, open communication.

Love isn’t abuse, belittlement, cruelty, or humiliation.” We,

our center and the work we do, focus on creating empowering spaces, like CDOR, so that our students, community mem bers, staff, faculty are all one large, strong community where all of our differences are acknowledged and celebrated.

“Fear is the path to the dark side … fear leads to anger … anger leads to hate … hate leads to suffering.” A quote from ThePhantomMenace, 1999.

Harvard professor Arthur Brooks states that love empowers us to be coura geous and to take chances and grow. We use this idea of love to uplift folks and to remove fear so that we, our campus com munity and beyond, can become more inclusive, equitable and whole..

The CDOR theme this year is Truth Telling For Liberation. This is such an im portant concept for becoming the person you were meant to become. Truth telling can help one better align with their true identity. Once you have love for oneself and others, you can be courageous and share who or what you believe to be true without the fear of being judged or mis judged. I hope that all of you come and contribute to our campus and communi ty events so that we can build that loving

community we all strive to create.

The CDOR Committee members are a group of dedicated, caring, and lov ing individuals from all over campus and our community. They volunteer their time every year to make this place better for the next generation. I have been so lucky to be part of CDOR and all those folks that come and do this in credible work.

Most of our event presenters, who are faculty, staff, community members, administrators, and of course, the Col lege of the Redwoods, discuss current and relevant issues and potential solu tions to the challenges that individuals, families, community members, cities, states, country, and beyond face. The passion and the knowledge that comes from these groups are vital to building new communities based on the values and vision of our campus strategic goals and our CDOR goals.

“The vision of Campus & Commu nity Dialogue on Race is to achieve racial, social, and environmental jus tice.”(https://dialogue.humboldt.edu/)

Finding self-truth and opportunity through dialogue

by Dr. Kintay Johnson

My name is Dr. Kintay Johnson, Director of the Multicultural & Equi ty Center at College of the Redwoods. When I was a student, opportunities like CDOR shaped me personally and professionally in many ways. CDOR inspired me as a student to get in volved and try to make our institution more student-friendly. I represented then-Humboldt State University on the state level as a California State Student Association (CSSA) senator. I worked with my fellow students, faculty, and administration on campus to save jobs and create a funding source that would sponsor student activities and initia tives on campus.

This experience gave me the confi dence to get involved, and since then, I’ve tried to do something personally and professionally to serve my com munity. I’ve worked with first-genera tion students, foster and homeless high school and college students, re-entry

students who were previously incarcer ated, and single parents; I taught classes in our local jail and talked about college to students in Pelican Bay State Prison. I’ve sat on the boards of nonprofits, been elected chair of boards, and represented Del Norte and Humboldt county on the state level.

Currently, one of my favorite and most important roles I serve is as the Area One Trustee for the Arcata School District School Board. As the trustee for Area One, I represent the area from Sun ny Brae to the edge of Blue Lake and also serve as the Board Clerk. I was appoint ed in February 2021 and have honestly loved every minute. Twenty years ago, I never dreamed I would serve as a public official, and this December, my term will come to an end. Although I will miss the board, the opportunity changed my life.

This CDOR, I welcome you all to come to my workshop, The Importance of Community Organizing, aka “Fear of

an Organized Community.” In this work shop, we will talk about some of the or ganizations in our community and why it is important to get involved with them. One of those organizations is the Eure ka National Association of Colored Peo ple (NAACP). Founded in 1952, our goal is to create a world where everyone has equal rights, free of racial discrimina tion. So come to my workshop, let’s get organized, and build the community and world we want to see.

Truthtelling for liberation to me means we all have our individual stories and experiences, out things we bring with us. With that comes a self-truth, op portunities like this allow for me to say, ‘hey, here is my truth.’ Also, a way for me to bring awareness for issues in my com munity and be a voice to those who feel like they don’t have a voice or feel under represented.

CDOR HISTORY

FROM

This year, CDOR will present keynote speaker Dr. Cornelius Minor, whose latest book, We Got This, explores ways to create more equitable school spaces, will present “Teaching in the Age of Im possible” via Zoom. Featured speaker Udodiri Okwandu, a doctoral candidate and a presidential scholar at Harvard University, will present “Moving from Racism and Medicine: Reconciling the Past and Present,” also via Zoom. Addi tional keynote speakers were invited by College of the Redwoods (CR), thanks to the collaboration with Dr. Kintay Johnson, Director of the Multicultural & Equity Center at CR. Saul Flores will present “The Walk of the Immigrants,” focusing on advocacy, social good, and complex intersections of the Latinx community. Also presenting will be Na Eun “Jiggy” Yoon, a youth motivational speaker, high-performance coach, and creator of WITHIN academy. They will appear in person at the College of the Redwoods campus and via Zoom.

Additionally, students, staff, faculty, and community members will present various workshops during the week, including a staged reading of Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, which is part of Rooted & Rising Staged Reading Series, a collaboration between the Umoja Center and CPH Theatre Arts Program spotlighting Black playwrights and Black stories.

SEA LEVEL RISE

FROM PAGE 1

Michael Richardson is a supervis ing planner of long range planning in the Humboldt County Planning and Building Department, which is responsible for sea level rise adapta tion planning. He said that the county would like to decide on terms of col laboration with other local jurisdic tions before they plan to implement any sea level rise adaptation mea

sures. Simply put, they don’t have im mediate plans to do anything specific.

“There would be a different pro cess to go forward with getting the cities and the county on the same page and whatever agreements need to be made,” said Richardson. “What that plan looks like is what we’re still figuring out.”

Kalt doesn’t think that the pace at which the government is moving on this issue will make a difference in time. In addition to protecting resi dential areas, she said that their fo cus should be on relocating key infra structure.

“I’m concerned that a lot of the agencies that need to address these problems, there’s not a lot of politi cal will to do what needs to be done,” said Kalt.

There are many organizations with an interest in adapting Humboldt Bay to meet the challenge of sea level rise. The Coastal Commission, CalTrans,

Humboldt County, local city govern ments, and even the state govern ment of California all hold potential responsibility for the threatened ar eas. Kalt doesn’t see any of them do ing anything to prepare.

“It’s a Humboldt County pastime to finger-point,” said Kalt.

A recent report released as part of the county’s Humboldt Bay Sea Lev el Rise Regional Planning Feasibility Study extensively details what theo retical responsibility a variety of local, state, and federal jurisdictions would have to combat sea level rise, but does not lay out a plan for collaboration. A further report is expected to be pub lished before the end of 2022, recom mending a strategy for collaboration.

If nothing is done to adapt to the changing coastline, life around Hum boldt Bay will look very different in 50 years. Infrastructure-rich areas will be reclaimed by the tide, and local government and utilities companies alike will have to find ways to work with the new bay. It is also worth considering that any adaptation mea sures will likely take significant time and resources to complete given their cost and scale.

KING SALMON

One of the first areas in Humboldt to be substantially impacted by sea level rise is the unincorporated com munity of King Salmon. This oceans ide community is located across from the mouth of Humboldt Bay just south of Eureka, exposing it to the full brunt of tidal forces coming through the bay entrance from the ocean. Sun bleached houses, mobile homes, and a few small businesses line canals. It is located only 3 feet above sea level.

In early January 2022, there was a flooding event in King Salmon caused by king tides coinciding with the rain and high winds from a storm. Photos depict residents kayaking down the street or wading shin-deep in water.

Salmon Avenue. Any tide which over took this could leave residents with no method of escape. In a 2022 Hum boldt County Civil Grand Jury report, this is predicted to occur within 3 feet of sea level rise, possible as soon as 2070.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Other significant infrastructure endangered by the amount of sea level rise listed in the report include PG&E’s Humboldt Bay Power Plant (HBPP) complex, Highway 101 as it traverses the bay, and water and elec trical transmission lines. Several sites contaminated with industrial waste will also be reached by tides at this level, causing those contaminants to leach into the bay.

According to a report authored by Laird, 1.6 feet of sea level rise, possi ble by 2040, will put King Salmon un derwater during king tides. Sea level rise of 3.3 feet, predicted to occur by 2065, will cause the tides to overtake most of the area daily.

According to Laird, the most press ing threat to King Salmon is whether utilities will continue to be available to its residents. “It only takes one utility to stop providing service and you wouldn’t be able to live there any more,” he said.

PG&E’s Humboldt Bay Generat ing Station, located in King Salmon, supplies power to around 67,000 people. It is predicted to be threat ened by king tides by 2065. The plant will have to be relocated or otherwise protected from the tides in the near future if it is to continue supplying power to Humboldt County.

are currently no plans to relocate the spent nuclear fuel stored there, due to regulations.

HERE AND NOW

Participants in the Humboldt Baykeeper’s King Tides Photo Initia tive have found evidence of high wa ter levels affecting Humboldt Coun ty here and now. Founded in 2004, Humboldt Baykeeper is an advocacy organization which focuses on pre serving coastal resources around the bay. They monitor levels of contam inants present in the bay, assess new industrial developments, and catalog the effects of sea level rise.

The King Tides Photo Initiative en courages members of the community to document areas inundated by high tide levels. In many of these photos, residential areas around the bay are actively being overrun by the sea. Some of the images aggregated on Baykeeper’s Facebook page show the Highway 255 bridge over Mad River Slough nearly overtopped, Jackson Ranch Road in the Arcata Bottoms covered with water, and waves crash ing over a parking lot at the Arcata Marsh.

The Highway 101 corridor is one of the areas where tidal inundation is starkly visible. Despite the bay’s en croachment, there are ongoing plans to extend the Humboldt Bay Trail along that same strip to reach Eureka.

DIKED SHORELINE

Little structural damage was done, but it was obvious that King Salmon is at extreme risk as sea levels contin ue to rise.

Parts of the community are only accessible via a single bridge on King

The Humboldt Bay Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation, a nu clear waste storage facility, is located on the HBPP campus. It houses the spent fuel from the Bay Generating Station’s nuclear predecessor. There

Humboldt County and the Eel River Delta are uniquely vulnerable to sea level rise. The historical lega cy of diking the shoreline in order to create more usable land has led to a large concentration of critical infra structure in former salt marsh lands, according to Laird.

A large portion of Humboldt Coun ty’s critical infrastructure is concen

trated in former salt marsh lands. This land is made accessible and flood-proofed by a system of dikes which will not stand up to sea level rise.

“Highway 101, Highway 255, mu nicipal water lines, wastewater treat ment lines, natural gas lines, optical fiber lines; all of this infrastructure is built on that former tideland which is prevented from saltwater inunda tion only by the diked shoreline,” said Laird.

The location of this infrastruc ture in former tidelands means that a breach in any one dike could result in the entire area being flooded. “We don’t have to wait for sea level rise to see the impacts of reclaiming the diked former tidelands,” said Laird.

Even if every dike around the bay holds against today’s water levels, they will be overtopped by 2 to 3 feet of sea level rise by 2040 at the earli est, and 2060 at the latest. Addition ally, there is no bay-wide district in charge of maintaining the dikes. In stead, over 100 shoreline parcels are individually managed by local juris dictions.

It costs millions of dollars to re build even one mile of diked shore line, and the raw materials to rebuild are not readily available in the quan tities that would be needed.

“If we can’t address these and do anything about it, I think the first thing that’s going to happen is the dikes…they’re going to fail,” said Laird. “They’re going to breach and the bay is going to reclaim the 7 to 9 thousand acres of tide lands that used to be part of it. It’s the areas that we gobbled up from the bay over a cen tury ago, those are the ones that are most vulnerable.”

“It only takes one utility to stop providing service and you wouldn’t be able to live there anymore”

- Aldaron Laird, Humboldt Bay sea level rise expert

“It’s a Humboldt County pastime to finger-point”

-Jennifer Kalt, Humboldt County environmental activist

Photo by Tadashi Masumoto, courtesy of Wren Kosinski | The bay laps at the King Salmon shoreline.

Ferndale locals open community darkroom

by Jack Hallinan

Artists Ryan Farmer and Samm Melton plan to fill the void of commu nity-accessible darkrooms in Hum boldt County with a photography stu dio based out of Ferndale. Their goal is to provide a space which will serve as both an educational and communal studio for photographers working with film, as well as a rentable darkroom for independent artists.

“We know that it’s not going to be perfect for everything, but it is going to be a spot that people can learn,” said Farmer as he navigated the space. “We can do classes, we can talk about the concepts of everything, and then if somebody has their own personal proj ects or product photography, any sort of thing that they need a studio space, they can rent it out.”

The studio will be based out of the garage in the Main Street building that Farmer and Melton currently work out of. While the space is limited, the art ists aim to meet the demands of the lo cal photography community. The facil ity will contain a small studio, a gallery and a darkroom.

For artists working within the me dium of analog photography in Hum boldt County, resources such as studio spaces and film supply stores have been scarce. Working with film photography necessitates the use of a darkroom, a space which requires complete dark ness, ventilation, and the use of film processing chemicals, factors which make it extremely difficult for photog raphers to practice their art at home independently.

While there is an on-campus pho tography lab and darkroom at Cal Poly Humboldt, these resources are acces sible only to students enrolled in pho tography classes. This has historically served as one of the only functioning analog photography studios in the county.

Another major focus for Farmer and Melton is sustainability. The chemicals that are used for film development, such as developer, are not environ mentally friendly, and they hope to re duce their environmental footprint by exploring more sustainable methods of film processing.

“There’s a lot of potential in creating developers that are plant-based, as well as using things like coffee grounds to break down developers,” Farmer said. “Where we’re located thankfully has a lot of water at the end of the Eel River Valley, and a community of ecologically minded people that are supporting us, whether that be providing the wood to make box cameras, or the gardens to grow plants for chemistry. With ana log photography comes a large bit of waste, and we know that it’s important to think of the future and lower that footprint.”

Farmer and Melton are taking both locals and traveling artists into account when establishing prices for use of the darkroom.

“We’ve talked about offering the ability to be a part of a membership that will provide a significant discount on the hourly rentals of the darkroom space, or for people that are passing through the area to be able to just rent it out as a one-time deal,” Farmer said. “So it not only supports local people that wanna use it regularly, but people that are passing through and have a use for either a professional studio or the darkroom.”

Farmer and Melton hope to have their darkroom available to the public in the coming months. In the mean time, they are providing film process ing and scanning services, including color film, through their personal stu dio located in the Mind’s Eye Coffee Lounge on Main Street.

“She Kills Monsters” not a Nat 20

by August Linton

In the hours before I attended the opening night of “She Kills Monsters,” I was excited. Live theater has been absent from my life, and the chance to see people perform a play was one I relished. But I didn’t enjoy this pro duction for many reasons, mostly stemming from its amateurish air and its lack of sensitivity in its queer rep resentation. There are many things the show did right, but I feel that they were overshadowed by these elements.

Certain elements of the show’s queerness were successful. The rela tionship between Tillius the Paladin (Geneva Bell) and Lilith the Demon Queen (Kyrstie Obiso) and their re al-world counterparts was surprising and wonderful in its intimacy. As some one who was a nerdy gay teenager, I saw myself in their fear, their yearning. It affected me to see a gay kiss live on stage— I hadn’t before. Queerness of ten intersects with desire to escape into fantasy, and I saw that genuinely repre sented in “She Kills Monsters.”

The decision to cast one of the suc cubus villains, Evil Tommy (played by Oliver David) as a gay man felt strange considering the role this character occupies. The character is regularly called Evil Tina and played by a female actress. I found myself uncomfortable and struggling with cognitive disso nance as an obviously queer-coded character bullied, screamed slurs at, and borderline sexually harassed an other character.

The stage combat, too, left me want ing something more. It’s evident that the cast spent blood, sweat, and tears on choreographing and practicing the show’s many fights, but many stretched my suspension of disbelief. Swords swung three feet from their targets, while victims lowered themselves to the ground rather than falling. A show with such a focus on its fights deserved better.

The production design, however, greatly increased my enjoyment of the show. The boss monster props espe cially charmed and impressed me. The undulating fabric-covered frame of the gelatinous cube, intensely staring papi er mache orb of the beholder, and nu merous large dragon heads of the final boss fight wow and amaze in cinematic fashion.

Other elements of the production seemed unfinished or fell flat, including sometimes jarring sound design and inconsistent costuming. This gave “She Kills Monsters” a distinctly high school play feel, despite the myriad uses of the word ‘fuck.’

The age of “She Kills Monsters” as a script showed in its dialogue and in its ideology. Released in 2011 and set in 1995, it has many elements and jokes

which fell flat. Why does the main char acter Agnes (Miah Carter) treat her sis ter’s gayness with disbelief and fear? The politics of dating and marriage in Agnes and Miles’ (Stephan Chittenden) relationship also felt dated, and weird ly emphasized. And what was with that joke about Miles touching his girl friend’s younger sister?

Despite this, Bell and Obiso as Tilly and Lilith were two standouts, bring ing a wide variety of attitudes to their characters in both the real world and the dream world. The character of the Great Mage Steve (Maverick Cheney) deserves a special shout out for being a consistent source of laughs every time he flopped onto the stage to be killed in yet another gruesome way. Vera (Elena German) also very much embodied the role of high school guidance counsel

or, and drew laughs with her creative use of a rolling chair. However, much of the ensemble’s acting didn’t impress me, lacking physicality and emotion.

“She Kills Monsters” has an emotional core of loss and drama that to me felt smothered by the production’s issues.

At the end of the show, about a quar ter of the audience stood up, attempt ing to trigger a standing ovation. It didn’t happen.

“She Kills Monsters” resumes Oct. 28 and 29 at 8 p.m. and Oct. 30 at 2 p.m. at the JVD Theater. Tickets are $10 general, $8 for students and se niors, and free with a Cal Poly Hum boldt student ID. For more informa tion, contact the Department of Dance, Music, and Theatre at 707-826-3566 or theatre@humboldt.edu.

Photo courtesy of Cal Poly Humboldt Department of Dance, Music, and Theatre | Stephan Chittenden as Miles, Evan Pierce as Chuck, Miah Carter as Agnes, and Priscilla Cuelllar as Kaliope, Lexi Takaki in the background as a creature.

Jasmin’s Corner

My girlfriend goes to college in a different state, and I feel like I’ve really been trying to make it work. Do you have any advice for someone in a long-distance relationship?

—Anonymous

Oh buddy, you are not going to like my thoughts on this. To put it bluntly, I have never understood the point of a long-dis tance relationship during college. I know one couple who has been able to maintain a healthy, loving long-dis tance relationship– all the other ones

I mean, these are the years you’re supposed to be exploring your op tions, experimenting with drugs, basically figuring your own shit out. How are you supposed to do that when you’re basing your life around someone else, who isn’t even physically there with you? Are you really ready to be domestic like

I understand being in love and the rose-colored hopefulness that comes with it, but be real with yourself– are you staying because you want to spend your life with them, or because you’re scared of being alone? I say break up, stay friends, and if you’re able to come back together in the future, then be together in the future. If you can’t be “just friends” with them, that’s something else you need to figure out. You can also just ignore me and waste everyone’s time!

xoxo, Jasmin

by Jake Knoeller

11 am - 11pm 11 am - midnight

Fall beats all in Humboldt County

Have you ever noticed how bright the mornings start to look in the later months of the year? Do you feel a bit of nostalgia when those leaves are falling off the trees and the air starts feeling cooler and clearer?

I can’t deny that there is a notice ably better energy in Humboldt County when late September and the months of October and November come around. That’s because we live somewhere that the fall season works perfectly with.

Humboldt is known for its beautiful nature and scenery, especially its trees. Those orange and red leaves create standout sights, even considering the high standards set by the year-round natural beauty in this county.

Fall outfits are flashy as well. The more layers needed for comfort, the more creativity required. It’s no secret

that there are many unique outfits on a daily basis in Humboldt. Adding some warm hats, scarves, and more cozy boots into the mix is a great addition.

There is a special coziness to the hol iday season as well. Halloween is a hol iday full of surprises and excitement, and it becomes the talk of the town as early as September. A cold and spooky night on Oct. 31 is something that al ways has suspense surrounding it.

Thanksgiving is really what I’m talking about when I say the word cozy. It’s easy to connect this holiday with a cool and sunny day as well as orange leaves all over the ground. But what’s the first thing you think of with this holiday? Probably the food. The feast on this Thursday is always something to behold.

I’m not telling you everything about

this season is perfect. Everyone seems to be getting sick lately, a side effect of the brisk breeze in the air. The combi nation of the cold weather and people wanting to stay inside together makes illness pass around like crazy. But are great things in life ever perfect? It’s rare that there isn’t a downside to something.

Good sleep is important during this time of the year, both in terms of stay ing healthy and enjoying daytime to the fullest. That is the time to be venturing out on all the fun fall activities, such as hikes, bike rides, and scenic road trips.

If you’re not sold on fall yet, just take a walk outside the next free morning or afternoon you get. Take in some of the fresh air and the views. See what this does for your perspective on the four seasons.

Photo by Cash Rion | A tree in full color on campus.

Graphic by Camille Delany