caliber
Staff PRESIDENT Lauren Leung EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Marie Bellevue HEAD OF PHOTOGRAPHY Charlene Wang HEAD OF DESIGN Jadyn Lee HEAD OF MARKETING Fatima Khan CHIEF WEB EDITOR Angelina Liang PRINT EDITORS Anabelle Long Avyssa Abourtorabi WEB EDITORS Andrea Bernal Ella Chakarian PRINT WRITERS Chase CathyVedAnukshaKristenRinaIsabelleMcClearyZhouRossiYeeRamMadhanKulkarniWang PHOTOGRAPHERS Kyle Garcia Takata Justin TristenMelodyNguyenGarzaCousins DESIGNERS & ILLUSTRATORS Avina ArielLynnHannahMakennaYadavLeungYangKimChu WEB WRITERS Elle KatherineChen Stenger Lauren von Aspen Tatum RiyaMinaAmishaHandelSethiAbbassiMehta MARKETING Haniqa Rahardjo Annie Chiu Lydia Jung
As you flip through these pristine pages, the majority of you will be gazing at one of our issues for the first time. Just as the words on our pages, the names on our staff list have changed over the course of the pandemic, and so have you, the reader. Issue 22 bears the challenge of reconnecting an evolved Caliber with the campus presence it once was. The pieces in this issue were written in the start of 2022, during the first in-person school year post-quarantine, so just as Caliber is now, our writers were striving to reconnect with themselves, the campus community, and the new world around them.In this issue our writers look to introspection to confront the past, in the age old tale of self-
As you explore these pages we hope you question what you believe is normal, and connect with your community, as Caliber connects with you. With care, Marie Editor-in-ChiefBellevue
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Editor’s Note
exploration providing a sense of comfort and control amongst the chaos. From hometowns, to friends, to family, to culture, our writers will take you on a journey of creativity in grappling with how their histories, alongside political, cultural, and social histories have molded them, as well as others into who they are today. At Caliber we are interested in investigating the cultural norms around us through each individual’s own artistic expression. In our focus on culture, we hope to encourage our readers to engage with the norms, habits, and customs that permeate their lives.
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3spring 2022 / calibermag.org Contents 4 A Girl on the Brink MARIE BELLEVUE 10 “Who Do You Know?”: Dedication vs. Favoritism AVYSSA ABOUTORABI 16 SlouchingSacramentoTowards ANNABELLE LONG 3652 Photospread: The Marías KYLE GARCIA 68TAKATA Photospread:Picnics CALIBER PHOTOGRAPHERS The Lost Art of Written Beauty VED KULKARNI 30 Becoming APC: A Player Character CHASE MCLEARY 24 Exploring Toxic Productivity: Why Do You Plan? KRISTEN YEE 40 On Heartbeat Stars and Borders We Cross ANUKSHA RAM MADHAN 62 Hyphenated CATHY WANG 46 The Nude Gaze RINA ROSSI 58 The Three-Shift Day of a Working Mom ISABELLE ZHOU
WORDS BY ANNABELLE LONG / VISUALS BY ANNABELLE LONG Sacramento exists apologetically, a slouching city anxious about speaking up for itself. It is often only described in terms of what it is near, not what it is, because no one seems to know how to talk about it in a way that doesn’t inspire either pity for a forgotten capital or eye-rolling at a city that tries too hard. An hour and a half from Tahoe, an hour and a half from San Francisco. Yes, the capital. Boo, the Kings. Yes, the 916, but also no — the city has grown large enough to warrant the addition of another area code, rendering the 916 loyalists an exclusive group, a historic relic of Sacramento past, original Sacramentans, there before the city became one with two area codes. The Midwest of California, some“Isay.want to tell you a Sacramento story,” Joan Didion wrote in “Notes from a Native Daughter,” and I do too. I grew up on one of Sacramento’s tree-lined streets, was coddled by the simulated suburbia of my just-south-of-downtown neighborhood and came to understand myself as a blank canvas for whoever I’d become in my post-Sacramento existence. Sacramento was always the beginning, an endpoint to be avoided, a place to love but never to return to. It is a city of generics; mine was a childhood of generics. There are several 12th Avenues in Sacramento, and I grew up in the middle of the littlest one, which was quiet enough for me and my sisters to learn to ride our bikes without fear of traffic, but lively enough to support a popular annual Fourth of July block party; it is a through street with the traffic patterns of a cul-de-sac. It sits under a thick canopy of trees, so if you look up in the summer, you will see more tree than sky. My neighborhood’s namesake is Land Park, which, really, any park could be called. I’ve often felt that this is the specific impression Sacramento leaves upon its residents: the lack of anything specific at all. The nicest thing anyone has said to me about Sacramento is that they “actually liked it!” and when people ask me if I like it, my answer is always, “I’ll defend it.” It isn’t that people are rude about it, or even that they’re wrong about it, but my defensiveness appears more as a reflex than a strategy. In Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s seventeen-year-old titular character insists that she hates her boring hometown, our boring hometown. She tells her mother that she wants to go to college “where culture is,” by which she means New York, or at least somewhere in New England. Lady Bird came out during the fall of my senior year of high school when I, too, was seventeen and when I, too, was doing my best to make sure I would not spend the next four years in Sacramento. I didn’t care about being somewhere particularly cultured; I only cared about not being in Sacramento. When I was not accepted to the schools I applied to Early Action, I accepted my apparent fate and moped. In Where I Was From, Joan Didion wrote that when she was rejected from Stanford, she had “a sharp and dolorous image of [herself] growing old in [her family’s home], never going to school anywhere.” As a student at her old high school, I felt similarly. I was less embarrassed by the rejections than by the prospect of never leaving Sacramento. I was a girl for the world, and the world was not there. My refrain is that Sacramento tries very hard, and it does. In the twenty-one years since my birth, Sacramento has become one of the fastest growing cities in California, and it has tried very hard to shed its cow-town reputation. Midtown, with its craft beers and handlebar mustaches, has the energy of a city
SLOUCHING TOWARDS Sacramento
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5spring 2022 / calibermag.org trying very hard to become Portland, and downtown, with its hair gel and flag poles, has the energy of a city trying very hard to become DC. Sacramento does not care to be much like the rest of California; the only beaches it has are drought-stricken riverbanks, and the only celebrities it has are the ones who try their hands at politics. But Sacramento certainly tries very hard to be Insomething.2012,Sacramento rebranded from “The City of Trees,” of which there are fourteen others, to “America’s Farm-to-Fork Capital,” of which there is only one. In 2014, it tore down half of the decrepit downtown mall to make way for an arena for the long-suffering Kings, who then played in the aptly named Sleep Train Arena, six miles from downtown. The year before, my debate team considered its merits. Our argument for the arena was that it would restore a failing downtown. Our argument against the arena was that Sacramento’s downtown was so lackluster that no development could save it. There were two sides and one conclusion: Sacramento was boring. Sacramento, we all agreed, was not what it was supposed to be. It hasn’t even been ten years since the arena opened. I’ve only been inside twice, both times during my junior year of high school: once to see a concert, and once to watch my school’s women’s basketball team lose the state championship. That year, I had a long-distance boyfriend. We saw each other at debate tournaments, but he’d never been to Sacramento until the weekend of my prom. After I picked him up from the Amtrak station, I drove us to the top of a parking garage, where we ate donuts in my family’s minivan and watched the sunrise light up the capitol rotunda. He told me he couldn’t believe that Sacramento was a “real city,” complete with graffiti and skyscrapers. He said he’d imagined something much smaller — smaller apparently meaning less real. He stayed for the weekend, and I took him to the only attractions I could think of: the gardens behind the capitol, the Railroad Museum, the touristy boardwalks of Old Sac, the Crocker Art Museum. I tried to make him care about Wayne Thiebaud’s paintings of Sacramento’s placid riverbends, and I tried to instill in him the same reverence a younger version of myself had felt for the men of the Central Pacific. I tried not to be embarrassed by the fact that everyone else at the Railroad Museum was either under eight or over sixty. I wished I had more to show him, that I didn’t have to try so hard. My boyfriend didn’t care for Wayne Thiebaud, or for the railroad, or for any of my other vain attempts to prove Sacramento’s place in culture and history. He, an Oregonian by way of a brief New York childhood, most loved the orange trees in the capitol gardens. I grew up with an orange tree in my backyard; the perfume of its blossoms was the scent of my afternoons. Its Edenic quality when laden with fruit was lost on me until I saw his appreciation for it. I’d never even thought
6 spring 2022 / calibermag.org of his favorite part of Sacramento as particularly Sacramentan.Thenight
Bill Clinton took to a microphone and made the case for his wife. He recited Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” which I only recognized because I’d read Things Fall Apart a month prior. His voice was hoarse, presumably from days of speaking about slouching towards Bethlehem and explaining how things fall apart. As he finished his speech, the crowd erupted into delicate, black-tie applause; falcons applauding the falconer. Surely, none of the partygoers needed convincing that the center might not hold; tickets started at $500 and went for as much as $27,000. I remembered too late that I had a key for house sitting purposes. I knew where the Angelideses kept their cat food, and that they had a framed photo of their daughters with the Clintons in their foyer, but I knew nothing about the Sacramentans who paid $27,000 to stand in heels and evening gowns in a backyard to be persuaded of things they already believed. When Hillary’s husband concluded, I ran around the block in my Birkenstocks, eager to see him. I saw only a shock of white hair as he got into an SUV and drove down the street I practically grew up on, past the pond I always wanted to swim in, past the amphitheater where I watched Shakespeare and spoke at my middle school graduation. I wondered if he looked around, if he took Sacramento in. If he noticed the pond, or the
he left Sacramento, I went to a concert in the new arena, and I sobbed through the show, my heart heavy with a love that we’d only just named. My boyfriend left for a family vacation in Ojai, and every time he saw an orange tree, he sent me a photo. Perhaps it was just the sweetness of a first love, but I became proud of my orange tree, even though the fruit it bore was alwaysWhenbitter.the orange tree in my backyard had sat in more fertile soil and I was five, the man who lived in the house behind mine announced that he was running for governor in the next year’s election. I knew Mr. Angelides more for his cat and his swimming pool than for his politics, and as it turned out, no one else knew much about him either. Despite being the Democratic nominee and receiving key endorsements, he lost to The Terminator in a landslide. When I was six, I didn’t knowTenthat.years later, in 2016, the Angelideses’ friend ran for president. One night in May, a little more than a week after I turned sixteen and a little less than six months before the election, they threw a party to celebrate their friend’s campaign. The elites of Sacramento descended on the backyard behind mine, and I sat on the lid of my family’s compost bin and watched what I could through the fence. My parents invited our whole street over, and we all strained for a peek at what was going on, for a look at the Sacramento we hadn’t been invitedEventually,to.
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Residents in the new neighborhood can choose between houses in one of several styles: The Brownstones, The Estates, and The Cottages. If they’re lucky, they might get to live on Omaha Beach Avenue, or if they’re very lucky, they might get to live on Ronald Reagan Street. Residents of the surrounding neighborhoods objected to the name of America First Avenue, so new residents will have to settle for Veterans First TheAvenue.conclusion of the developer’s pitch to prospective residents is that a life in Crocker Village will be “living how it was always meant to be: Uncompromised.” Uncompromised. Funny for a city known only for its proximity to other places, for a city whose most notable residents left it, for a city that is really only the capital because its streets were laid when the state needed a place to put its government. If Sacramento does anything well, it compromises. Both patron saints of white Sacramento girlhood abandoned it for the glamor and decided uncompromisingness of New York City, but both have looked back. Saint Joan paid homage to her origins in Run River, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and Where I Was From, and in Lady Bird, Saint
8 spring 2022 / calibermag.org amphitheater, or how Land Park swells with greenery in the springtime. I had never spent much time thinking about it, but I hoped he did.
A young Joan Didion thought much more about Sacramento than a younger version of myself did. We both spoke at our middle school graduations, hers at a little school in an empty field that is now a suburb, mine at an amphitheater built by the Works Progress Administration. Her speech, predictably, was a meditation on “Our California Heritage.” I went to California Middle School — our mascot was the golden bears — and my speech was cornily titled “A Bearable Transition.” Where Didion spoke of the heroics of her pioneering ancestors, I spoke of the awkwardness of being thirteen years old. She said, “We must live up to our heritage, go on to do better and greater things for California.” In my speech, given in the same month sixty-six years later to a significantly more diverse crowd, I didn’t say anything about Sacramento, or about California. I felt no debt to a Californian heritage, despite my identity and the name of my school. Sacramento was a backdrop in my life, a setting, not a character.Inmore than just that way, our Sacramentos are different. Mine is more developed, and mine is more diverse. Mine exists in the shadow of the frontier spirit of hers, and mine exists without the water that allowed hers to flourish. Levees, for example, felt urgently necessary in her Sacramento, and they do not in mine. My maternal grandparents live next to the Sacramento River, and my paternal grandmother lives across the American River, and for years, my family has remarked on how low both rivers are. When do they stop being low and start being Didionnormal?wrote of great floods, of roads drowning in rainwater and snowmelt, of sitting by the radio and waiting to hear if the levees might finally give. As a child, I learned that the old cemetery was the highest point in the city and so I should go there during a flood. This terrified me: I imagined myself alone amongst the headstones, watching Sacramento be swallowed by the waters of the rivers that sustained it, the unearthed coffins of 49ers and my great-grandparents bobbing up towards me. But Sacramento, during my childhood, was in a drought.“Allthat is constant about the California of my childhood,” Didion wrote in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, “is the rate at which it disappears.” The old Sacramento, the Didion Sacramento, the rainy Sacramento, the gold mining, train town Sacramento, still exist, but not entirely. Half a mile east of my house are train tracks that had preceded the neighborhoods surrounding them, and in part, delineate “good” and “bad” neighborhoods. In Lady Bird, Lady Bird embarrasses her parents by telling her boyfriend that she lives “on the wrong side of the tracks.” In high school, my best friend and I attended “train parties,” which happened in the middle of the train tracks in the middle of the night. Our attendance was a deliberate performance of delinquency; my friend and I went to them when they happened, but we more often spent our weekends studying.
The parties were all very coming-of-age movie, very unnecessarily rebellious, very dark and damp and probably very dangerous. Drunk sixteen-year-olds and midnight and hurtling freight trains do not often make for happy memories, but I always had fun. My friends and I climbed over chain link fences, from one side of the tracks to the other, and we stayed in the middle until residents of the Land Park-railyard borderlands called the cops and we had to escape through a fence into the parking lot of a McDonald’s. Now, a few years later, the tracks are cinder-blocked off, and the ground east of them has been scrubbed to remove all traces of industrial waste, and the old rail yards are halfway to becoming Sacramento’s newest, swankiest pseudo-suburb. A footbridge built over the tracks in the days of the parties connects Land Park to the “Sacramentodevelopment.hasnever been lived like this before,” the developer’s website says, and about which I can only feel skeptical. “The worlds of suburban ease and urban energy have been pulled together in the shape of Crocker Village.”
Joan Didion’s Sacramento story concludes with a concession: “Perhaps in retrospect this has been a story not about Sacramento at all, but about the things we lose and the promises we break as we grow older…” My love for Sacramento feels like a concession, a compromise, an apology, an agreement to come to its defense even if I do not always know why, or even if I do not always know what, exactly, I am defending. This is all that I know: Sacramento is real, a city of trees, a quiet city, a growing city, Lady Bird’s city, a city of failed politicians and successful actors, of failed actors and successful politicians, a city of railroads and orange trees and gold panners and cemeteries that used to promise life. It is a city of low rivers and high effort, of high fire risk and low morale. It isn’t mine, or Greta Gerwig’s, or Joan Didion’s, but it is all of ours. Sacramento apologizes and it compromises, and it tries very hard. I just do my best to pay attention.
Lady Bird appears unconvinced. She replies, “I do?”
“Well, it comes across as love,” Sister Sarah Joan says.
“Sure,” Lady Bird replies. “I guess I pay attention.”
I won’t say I won’t abandon Sacramento because I probably will. I am no better than Saint Joan or Saint Greta, least of all in my devotion to our shared hometown. I, too, am tempted by the siren song of a life, or at least a decade, spent in New York, where Greta lives and Joan died. I live in Berkeley because it is not Sacramento, and I like it here. But I will not pretend to not love Sacramento, will not pretend to be unattached to it or unconcerned with it.
“You write about Sacramento so affectionately,” Sister Sarah Joan says, “and with such care.”
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Greta gave her birthplace its first role as a main character in a Golden Globe-winning film. In the movie, after reading Lady Bird’s college application essays, a nun-slash-guidance counselor tells her, “You clearly love Sacramento.”
“Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing — love and attention?” I can never tell if I agree with Sister Sarah Joan. I know I pay attention, but I think the love came first.
“Well,” Lady Bird says, “I was just describing it.”
09:30 PM - Continue work 01:00 AM - Finish work and clock out as Grandma’s caregiver (until 7:00 AM) - Check in on Grandma to make sure she doesn’t injure herself falling out of bed
05:30 PM - Run errands: buy groceries, pick up medications, clean the house, etc.
But looking back now, my mom worked the equivalent of three-full time jobs: Her 80 + hour week at her Software Architect job Fulltime caretaker to two children Around the clock nurse for our grandmother who had terminal lung cancer and shingles
10:30 AM - Work 12:00 AM - Give Grandma her afternoon meds
WORDS BY ISABELLE ZHAO / VISUALS BY HANNAH YANG
06:30 PM - Cook dinner, eat, and wash dishes
07:00 AM - Wake up (if not already) and check on Grandma
07:30 AM - Exercise and shower
09:30 AM - Prep ingredients for lunch
08:30 PM - Give Grandma her evening meds and spend time with her 09:00 PM - Check on kids (and peel them fruit <3 )
FULL-TIME JOBS WITHOUT KNOWING IT,
HOW MY MOM HELD THREE AND FELT LIKE SHE WAS FAILING THEM ALL
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09:00 AM - Clock in as Grandma’s caregiver & give her her morning meds and painkillers
02:00 PM - Continue work and eat lunch; attend afternoon meetings
You’d think from her schedule, we’re strapped for cash; or I’m from a single-parent home. But my family is the picture of upper-middle class normalcy: the average two-parent, two-child household living the stereotypical Maryland suburban life.
12:30 AM - Update with visiting nurse for Grandma’s care 01:00 PM - Cook lunch and wash dishes
My mom chalked up her busy schedule to COVID, and with the chaos in the news, she felt guilty thinking our privileged life was any sort of crisis compared to what was out there. So she suffered mostly in silence.
04:00 PM - Check in on Grandma change her clothes and reapply pain medications
Not included: clean the house, get groceries, work overtime on weekends (because if you check, there are not 8 hours of work in that schedule), study for the exams for her new computer certification, make up for missed meetings, visit the pharmacy to pick up Grandma’s regular meds, get regular COVID tests to keep Grandma from getting infected, look over finances now that the kids are living back at home, deal with an identity theft crisis, worry about kids’ stress over COVID, address the constant screams for pain and help from Grandma
The rise of the feminist movement meant more individualistic freedom for women, especially in their professional lives. It has become more culturally acceptable for women to hold meaningful careers, be the breadwinner of their families, and become strong and dominant leaders in their industries (much like my mom!). In 1950, only 30% of women were considered to be active members of
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ON HER CAREER
The worst part is: two of those aren’t even considered jobs, despite the gruesome hours and debatably harder emotional toil. To society, the latter two jobs are expected —especially so for women. Within the childcare and healthcare systems, even without the disruption of COVID, the disproportionate burden of care shouldered by women is a major issue that our society seems to sweep under the rug.
In my family, there is no “breadwinner”; my brother and I respect my parents equally for their work. But, if I had to label one of them as the career man or woman, it would definitely be my mom. A marine biologist turned chemist, turned computer software engineer, it was important to her that she did something she enjoyed. Now over 50 years old and a good two decades into her career as a computer scientist, she still hustles for her job as if she were a new grad: studying for new computer certifications on the weekends to improve her resume and pulling long nights to perfect her projects. COVID brought her grind mentality to a new extreme. With most people converting to telecommuting, work-fromhome brought the hustle culture of the work environment back into my mom’s at-home space. Remote work meant more asynchronous communication where my mom’s boss and co-workers could reach her 24/7. Checking emails and responding to questions wasn’t self-contained in the working hours of the day, but bled into our personal time with the constant buzz of her work phone. Work-from-home also made international work more accessible. Instead of going on a few major business trips a year, she could now take meetings online at any time. The business trips used to be far and few and between, and gave her time to relax and explore the city. But these new international meetings were constant. And worse, they’re spread across different time zones, normalizing the idea of waking up at 6 AM in the morning or staying late until 10 PM to talk to clients in Turkey or Bangladesh. But my mom isn’t alone in experiencing this increasing pressure; a combination of a feminist-driven expectation for success and a corporate system that normalizes hustle culture has pinned many 21st century women into an impossible career situation like my mom’s.
Despite being a successful career woman, my mom got a lot of flak for starting her new career just months after having me. To focus on her students in graduate school, my mom sent me to China to live with my grandparents for the first few years of my life, something my more traditional Chinese relatives couldn’t comprehend. Yet despite being a career woman, my mom was every bit the homemaker as well: she made our family dinners, cleaned the house, did the laundry, maintained finances, and managed our busy extracurricular schedules.
There is such a low bar to being a “bad mother”: she yells at her child; she doesn’t remember the child’s convoluted and overly complicated after-school schedule; she serves her children McDonald’s one night because she doesn’t have the time to cook. Any deviation from the perfect physical and emotional support that is expected from our mothers somehow makes them evil. Yes, this idea has been challenged by recent media such as the comedy movie series, Bad Moms. However, the “bad mom” stereotype is still prevalent in the majority of our culture. Consider the common evil stepmother archetype in Cinderella or Rapunzel when compared to Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin. Lady Tremaine makes Cinderella clean instead of going to a party; Homer Simpson strangles his son; Mother Gothel shuts Rapunzel in a tower so that she can brush her hair; Peter Griffin degrades Meg as either a slut or a loser in almost every Family Guy episode. I’m not excusing the stepmothers’ actions as justifiable, but it seems a bit odd that they’re considered “evil,” when Homer and Peter are just goofy, problematic dads with no equivalently malicious label.
ON HER CHILDREN
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the labor force in the US. In 2000, that number grew to almost 47% and in 2020, women officially became the majority of the US workforce as they held 50.04% of American jobs by December of the previous year. But with new doors open for female success in their professional careers comes increased pressure to step through those new doors. Personally, I’ve always known that building a family and raising children would be a major commitment in my life, potentially over my career. However, when expressing these sentiments to other Berkeley peers, they’re surprised — even disappointed—in my choices. In our individualistic society, it can sometimes be seen as “weak” to find purpose in life through others, such as our children, instead of in our own success. However, despite growth in the overall labor market, jobs have become increasingly demanding with longer work hours and expected time commitment. This is especially the case for well-educated workers who hold high-prestige jobs. The “greedy professions” have become more commonplace. In greedy, clientfacing professions such as law, finance, and consulting, it’s seen as a virtue to be willing to dedicate all of your time and energy to your work. Working overtime is encouraged as people who work over 50 hours can earn up to 8% more per hour compared to those who work the normal 9-5. It’s not just about working longer hours. Companies expect more of your time, dedication, and attention. The “grind culture” expects workers to feel that their life’s purpose should be centered around work. The companies aim to “encompass all aspects of people’s lives.” Examples of greedy professions include consulting firms who increasingly expect their employees to work until midnight and on weekends; or software companies who provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner, in hopes of keeping workers at the office for longer hours. It’s frowned upon to view work the way my dad does: as a meal ticket to expense the other interests in his life. Instead, work should be a passion and a hustle, all for the benefit of the higher management and CEOs that reap the rewards.
Now at the start of COVID, my mom wasn’t nearly as busy with childcare as she used to be. By COVID, my brother and I were young adults: I was in my second year of college and my brother was just about to graduate. We could cook our own meals and manage our own schedules. And if you look at her schedule, daily work around taking care of us is rarely included. However, this doesn’t mean that child care was fully off her plate. The emotional turmoil that came with COVID and a series of other unfortunate events took a toll on us, but more so on our mother. I was dealing with an identity theft crisis and the transition to at home schooling. My brother was starting a new job, just as his company was attempting to transition to remote work, leaving him feeling isolated and supported in the first few months. So, my mom’s attention and care was essential to our sanity. No, she didn’t bathe us or feed us. She wasn’t watching us around the clock. But her constant check-ins and the fruit she’d take time to peel for us no matter how busy her schedule were childcare in a sense. But considering both her care for us and her commitment to her work, it meant that she had double the expectations with little time to dedicate to either. And my mom isn’t alone in this struggle. Women are expected to take up the majority of the child care burden, despite increasing labor participation rates.
Mothers are not only restricted in how they can treat their children, but also in their choices between their career and their family. American culture promotes a society centered around “the republic of choice”: individual households must make the decisions on how to earn a livable wage while at the same time
taking care of their kin. This choice is rooted in the American beliefs of individualism and liberty. However, the “choice” isn’t much of a choice at all given that it’s “covertly gendered”: in reality, only women have to make the choice. It seems to be a given that the burdens of childcare will fall upon the shoulders of the wife in most marriages and thus, it’s up to the mother to decide how to balance the two equally important time commitments. You’ll often see the phrase, the woman who ‘has it all’ when describing a successful career woman who also has children. Yet husbands have balanced careers and families for centuries, but why don’t we hyperfocus on their ability to juggle the same responsibilities?SylviaFederici, a renowned social scientist, has explained this phenomenon as an unfortunate byproduct of capitalism. Capitalism relies on infinite progress and production and in order to maintain the necessary labor to produce such production, female work in terms of child care and home-making — also known as “reproductive labor” to Federici — was degraded to free labor By devaluing reproductive labor and pushing its burden solely onto women, men could dedicate longer hours at work and justify the amount of labor necessary to continuously increase production. So, with women increasingly entering the workforce, the disregarded, but essential reproductive labor has become a burden on American households. It seems as if we are now expected to constantly ‘juggle’ a normal life; and it’s because we’ve deemed half of our workload as necessary, but “unproductive.” ON HER MOTHER Out of all her jobs, this was inarguably the most difficult; in fact, the job itself would be difficult for anyone — before or after COVID — with or without a career and children. My grandmother was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2018. But luckily, we were able to find a medicine and treatment that suited her body’s disposition. We were told it would keep the sickness at bay for around 18 months, but at the time we were grateful we had
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I’m sure nurses go through this everyday; and I have such respect for the amount of work that goes into this type of care after seeing it firsthand, especially since they have more than just one patient. But out of everything: the medicine schedules; the late nights; the unappetizing sanitary care; the worst of all was the emotional hurt. It was the day she finally forgot my mom’s name; the day we realized we weren’t nursing a sick patient back to health, but rather easing the pain for a slow death.
14 spring 2022 / calibermag.org more time with her. The medicine worked amazingly well; other than the common effects of old age, I hadn’t seen any particular changes with my grandma for the first year; I almost forgot that she even had cancer. But the stars didn’t align in our favor and the medicine wore off just as COVID was coming to its peak. My grandmother fell incredibly ill, incredibly fast, and her vulnerable immune system made her susceptible to COVID and other illnesses. After coming home for the mandated quarantine in March 2020, she was already bed ridden. A month later she contracted shingles. Two months later she was dead. Since hospitals were already filled to the brim with COVID patients, my mom decided to take care of her at home. We didn’t want her contracting COVID, and worse, we didn’t want to leave her in the hospital alone, surrounded by medical staff who spoke a language she didn’t understand and without the comfort of her family beside her on her deathbed. But caring for a dying patient — especially by people as clueless and untrained in the medical fields as my mom—was an incredible and constant struggle. We had to follow a regular schedule of pills, medications, and drugs. At first, it was only vitamins and over-the-counter pills, to boost her health. Then vitamins turned to medicine and antibiotics to treat the shingles infections. Then morphine and painkillers to stop the screaming pain. When her mind left before her body could, she would constantly get out of bed in the middle of the night, thinking she could go to the bathroom on her own. But at the first step out of the bed, her legs would give out, her knees buckle and her entire body would grow limp, hitting the ground. We’d wake up at 3 in the morning, to see her shriveled on the ground — head bleeding. And after enough times, my mom and I began to take shifts; constantly nervous that the next fall would be her last.
And it seems this trend has spread outside of just immigrant communities like ours. In the past, American families have often opted to place their parents in retirement homes. However, this practice has been scorned by more recent generations, as the culture has turned towards multi-generational homes instead where adult children live with and care for their elderly parents.
CONCLUSION It’s a miracle that my mom was able to survive those few months, juggling her work, her children, and her mother all while experiencing a world-wide pandemic. But sometimes I forget that she’s been juggling for most of her life: it’s been over 20 years since my brother and I were born and over 10 since my grandparents began living with us. Now, digging into the societal trends and systems that perpetuate this problem, it baffles me that this is an expectation for over half the American population.
And we’re expected to give our all in childcare, and for longer stretches of time, as 20+ year old children still hold emotional dependence with their parents. If you don’t, you’re a bad mother. And we’re expected to let our parents live with us, taking care of them in their old age just as they did for us when we were kids. Oh but also remember that they’ll probably have more serious diseases that require treatments and healthcare with higher costs. And if you don’t, you’re a bad daughter.
As awful as the experience had been, my mother wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. In Chinese culture, it’s expected that children take care of their elders in their old age, as a sign of respect and a way to pay back all they have done for us in the past. Just as my mother took care of both her parents up until their death beds, I will do the same for them.
We’ve left these piling expectations on women while giving them less and less support as a society. By privatizing both expectations for childcare and eldercare, we’ve cultivated a toxic “she has it all” ideal, in which we praise women for their ability to juggle these hopeless schedules and scorn those who fail at the impossible task at hand.
We’re expected to hold fulfilling careers in greedy jobs that expect us to dedicate our lives to the company profit. If you don’t, you’re a bad feminist or a lazy careerwoman.
More specifically, adult women are often the ones to take in their elderly parents. A study by the AARP Public Policy Institute shows that the majority of caregivers (60%) are still female, similarly to how my mother and I have taken up the mantle of eldercare in our family. However, despite increased pressures to take care of our elders, health factors have also made this new job more difficult. For one, the elderly are beginning to contract illnesses much earlier and much more severe than in previous generations. A 2017 study showed that 50-year-old Americans suffer from more serious illnesses and impairments, such as memory and thinking problems, compared to previous generations at that same age. This, coupled with increasing healthcare costs, means that the sandwich generation and following generations of mothers will not only have to take care of the daily needs of their elderly parents, but also more serious illnesses that have higher price tags.
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A child’s brain is meant to be formed around comfort, love, safety, and support, but my parents had a different plan for me. I was made systematically, to analyze and predict — created to play chess with human behavior, to know every possible outcome, to be ten steps ahead and to fix issues before they arose. I was my mom’s therapist, my dad’s therapist, their middleman and their emotional punching bags.
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My dad has this wonderful ability to control every aspect of another person’s life and yet somehow still be perceived as the good guy while pulling each string to fit his agenda. As his child though, you have no way out, you need him and he knows it. He knew I couldn’t — I wouldn’t — say anything. So I put his socks on in the morning, I found places to live and moved our belongings at 14 and 16, I picked up all the slack behind the person he played and I felt the rage he hid. I was his “Cinderella,” always cleaning up his messes, as my therapist once said, and he was absent and uncaring. My mother’s fears turned into anger. In her eyes, she could do no wrong and my actions were only right if they fit her perspective, which generally meant they were wrong. My parents taught me not to trust my own perceptions of reality, they taught me to rely on myself, and most importantly, they taught me how to balance on the ledge they put me on.
eetering on the edge, each gust of wind, each blow, threatening their seemingly inevitable plummet. Rough, dangerous, cold and isolated, the edge is barely suitable for life, and yet it has an inhabitant of one. One who knows nothing more than this balancing act and has grown comfortable in the constant fight. Each minute, each day, on the brink of oblivion, urgently grasping for any hold to keep themself from falling, but each new blow, each new gust, loosens their grip. And they are growing tired — I am growing tired. Each day, each week, each month, each year, convincing myself that the next would be easier, that once I met one of these landmarks, the wind would cease long enough for me to climb off the ledge. Playing “never have I ever” with the wind, as it hits me with each new experience and one by one each finger loses its grip. With it goes my grip on reality. The first storm A blur of blustery winds, rain turned hail, misplaced lightning, and blunt force trauma swept a young, fuzzy version of myself to this habitat. Living in a blur of raising myself and my parents; a blur of keeping the picture together, of invalidation, manipulation, and emotional abuse. From an external view, we hid well; all you could see of dysfunction was the recession, moving onto my grandma’s creaky pullout couch, the divorce, and a father hundreds of miles away for a forgettable period of time. No one questioned my attendance record. No one saw the fear behind my plastic smile. No one saw the emptiness.
a girl onbrinkthe
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Most of my friends buckled under the pressure of my stress, school authorities only ever told my parents or ignored the signs, and boys took advantage. I was constantly tiptoeing around tacks, yet still pricking myself at every step. There was no direction to turn for salvation. Left: “I don’t recognize you anymore, you are not my daughter,” said my mother; right: “We all think you are so strong, so either you WORDS BY MARIE BELLEVUE VISUALS BY CHARLENE WANG
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I don’t want to recall the memories I lost — forgetting tells me enough.
Seven fingers left Marie, you need to go to your dad’s now,” she said. She was my childhood horse trainer and the mother of the family my dad liked more than us. I shouldn’t say “liked more,” rather he needed them to further his twisted agendas and therefore “needed” to become the person he knew they wanted — a father. I entered his stuffy house to see a pool of blood painted around the skull of a barely-conscious being who lay on the stone cold tile.
“I need an ambulance, my dad collapsed.”Thequestions, the EMT’s, the ambulance — everything whisked by. All reduced to an incoherent blur as I shut myself off and turned on damage control. My dad rolled into the ambulance and the hospital, alone. In his delirious state and with no one by his side, he named my horse trainer his emergency contact and therefore the person to make decisions on his behalf if necessary. A few hours later he was placed in a medically-induced coma. My 19-year-old self and 25-year-old brother were at the beck and call of my horse trainer each time her phone vibrated. A little jingle called a swarm of people to scour the earth for me and deliver me to her side to speak to the doctor. A heart attack had led to the collapse, which led to head trauma, which led to head and throat swelling, which led to the medicallyinducedWithcoma.my dad in a coma, my mom and I took in his two dogs. Her house overflowed, as her two dogs, his two dogs, and both my brother and I resided there. We had pleaded with my dad to get Mira spayed for years, knowing he would never actually take her to the dog shows he claimed he would and yet we were the ones who reaped the consequences: she was pregnant and due in two weeks. My dad hadn’t noticed her dangling belly or even considered the chance of her being pregnant, despite a scare months prior.
18 spring 2022 / calibermag.org are stronger than you think or weaker than we thought,” said my father; up: “Your life is too much. I don’t even want to hear about it, it stresses me out too much,” said my friend; down: “C’mon Marie, it’s his birthday and he’s waiting for you upstairs. You know you want to join him in that bedroom,” sang a chorus of people I thought were my friends over and over again until I gave in; backward: the past kept creeping up; forward — forward was all I had. The fragile energy maintaining my position on the ledge was drawn only from my picture of the future, the hope that I would one day depart from the storm — a hope that lay in the cold claws of college admissions decisions.
Eight fingers left The parents began to email us, questioning our practices for protecting their children. We had organized an overnight host program for prospective Berkeley students, but we were just students ourselves, thrown into a position of leadership in a new world that we had yet to receive the orientation for. We sat in a dingy campus apartment, speculating what was going to happen in the state of the world, what was going to happen to us. What even was Coronavirus, was it really deadly, were we all bound to get it at some point? I arrived at my dorm only to leave again with a swift tap of a green button. My dad had called, proclaiming that he needed to go to the ER. Hours, years went by in that waiting room, the last hospital waiting room that allowed guests before the healthcare system came to crumble — and with it, the world. I worked, I emailed excuses, I slept, and I worried, all from the sleek, unfeeling couch in his hospital room; afraid to leave, afraid to breathe for fear that he might notice I had strayed from my post. He left the hospital a week later with a guess at what was wrong. Stomach ulcers, gallbladder surgery, kidney stones, jaundice, a host of reasons why he was in excruciating pain and yet no way to fix him. He was bedridden and I was back by his side when my perfect picture got ripped away. Classes were to be online for the rest of the semester and I had to return to the life I had fled. I barely got by, barely passed my classes back home and those few months remain a distant, blurry, suppressed memory. The few recollections I can muster feel foreign and distant, as if I am watching someone else’s life on TV.
Just days before I was set to move back to Berkeley, I suddenly had a dad in a coma, four dogs to care for, and puppies to birth and raise. Just a few more months I told myself. Just hold on a few more months and then you will get to go back, back to Berkeley; where the wind will slow and you will be able to regain your grip. After almost a week my dad was awoken from the coma. They monitored him for a few more days, before sending him home in what seemed like a rush. I didn’t recognize the man we picked up: a frail, scared individual who looked like a mere gust of wind could turn them into mere dust. He could barely walk, stay
“911, what is your emergency?”
Nine fingers left The stark walls of my new college dorm laid in wait for their inevitable defacement, the cement floors stung their new residents with a shiver, and the bleak desk chair held my short stature. The emptiness was comforting. I was finally alone, finally free. I was on top of the world, going to my dream school, best friends with my roommate, making amazing friends — until I wasn’t. My body would lay paralyzed in my bed for days, no ability to crawl its way up to a functioning human. The thoughts in my head swirled around, went to war with each other, and attacked my tear ducts. Every memory and emotion I had been suppressing for the past 18 years exploded out of their sealed cages and took me as prisoner. A corpse attended lectures when it wasn’t physically or mentally too sick, but flashbacks remained on a reel in its mind. First semester ended as a blur of fun, friends, and forgetting, coupled with mono, car crashes, coming to terms with sexual assault, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Seconds later I lost him again. Six fingers left Winter lived with my dad, but she was my baby, a rescue my dad and I had adopted while I was in high school. A beautiful white shepherd mutt, almost wolf-like, who had been born and lived in a dirt hole in the ground, malnourished with her other littermates and mother. She knew nothing of the scary world she was soon to enter or the lanky, two-legged beings that would soon drag her out of her hole, taking her away from the only habitat she knew. We adopted a skittish four month old puppy, afraid of human touch and almost everything else. I took on most of her training and needs, and for the rest of my high school career she was always by my side. Both afraid, we became pieces of each other’s confidence, each other’s rocks. My dad was barely able to keep up with her needs in the first place, and after his heart attack, I knew she needed something better. She deserved stability, exercise, love, and care, but he could no longer provide that and, as a college student, neither could I. I began looking for new homes, working with a reputable rescue who found what I thought to be a perfect situation. A couple had just moved into a home with a large yard in the Bay Area, were very dedicated to dogs, and were interested in adopting one of Mira’s puppies alongside Winter. They were near me, Winter adored the puppies, which would help with the transition, and most importantly they didn’t seem phased by any of Winter’s extensive issues. Hopeful for her new life, I dropped Winter and the puppy off and finally returned to Berkeley. The relief began to set in, I had survived. I was beginning to regain my grip and I thought I might soon be able to climb off the ledge, but my hope was swiftly stolen. The couple had lost her and she had been hit by a car on the freeway. I was back in Berkeley for only a week before I left to pick up my mangled dog, unable to carry her own weight, and drove back to my hometown to nurse her back to health.
awake, or do anything for himself. He reappeared for a glimpse when I let him know Mira was pregnant.He simply told me that that was impossible, despite the vet and her evidently large belly disagreeing.
Five fingers left A whirlwind romance, a guy who couldn’t commit, and a girl who was afraid of men. They met in the driveway of their small apartment building. She was an easy target, already broken and exhausted. I don’t know when exactly he set his sights on me, but once he latched on, he wasn’t letting go. He morphed himself into the understanding, supportive, and patient person he knew I needed, all the while planting hints of sexual pressure, of reasons to physically fear him, and of manipulation. A few misteps camouflaged by an impeccable script later, he sexually assaulted me. Never admitting to his misdoings, yet delivering wine to my doorstep the following day as a peace offering. Everything was normal in his
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Two months of dating turned into over a year of being afraid to walk out my front door, afraid to do my laundry, and afraid to merely exist in my own apartment. Finally in Berkeley, finally out of my family’s grasp, and yet still just as stuck and unsafe in my own home as I had always been. Four fingers left Out of fear of living in my apartment alone and yet to my detriment, I visited my family for the first few weeks of the summer. But a week after returning to Berkeley, I had to pack myself back up and head home again to San Diego. There was a fire at my childhood barn. Two men at the barn that I had known for years, alongside all of the homes on the property, were reduced to dust. I worked at the barn full time to help care for the horses for almost a month, while also working a full time internship and taking two summer classes. I couldn’t afford to pay back my summer financial aid that I had already spent on rent, so dropping my classes was a luxury that I simply couldn’t afford. Instead, grieving and overworked, I kept pushing myself to the brink, knowing if I stopped moving I would shatter. My only motivation to survive was the distant fantasy of Berkeley.
eyes. I broke up with him a few days later — under false pretenses of course — but we both knew the truth. In the following months, he clawed at any millimeter of an opening he could find to drag me back in. One day he was dying, the next he needed a security reference that only I was suited for, and the less I responded or interacted, the more agitated he got. With each pound on my front door he stole my ability to breathe, as he would appear on my doorstep as punishment for each failed attempt to appease him. I would entertain his sly attempts to deduce whether I was home alone, never really knowing what the consequences would be if I was.
San Diego finally released me from its shackles after I suffered a concussion from a horse related accident and was no longer of functional use. Berkeley acquired a grieving, exhausted, and physically unhealthy, yet hopeful individual. The slightest bit of relief was all that kept me going, but soon my fantasy crumbled and with it, my last bit of hope. I had learned to always look forward, to see hope in the future after each unfortunate event turned to memory, but the chaos didn’t stop coming. One after another, my ability to hope grew weaker and mustering the energy to crawl forward became ever more difficult. I begged for a moment to regain my grip, but the wind never ceased. Three fingers left I had attended an overnight host program at Berkeley in my senior year of high school that gave me hope. It provided me with my first piece of hard evidence that Berkeley could be better, that I could be ok — it started the fantasy. The committee that organizes the program became my people, my home, but some drama and miscommunication later, it was gone. I lost a community that I cared about, a community that I could always rely on, and the place where I felt I belonged; and without it I was aimlessly floating. Berkeley’s sparkle faded and so did my fantasy.At the same time, I was getting test after test done to no avail, desperately trying to understand why I couldn’t stop sleeping, why my brain felt as though it was swelling inside my skull, and why I felt drugged every other day. Living in an
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endless cycle of missing class after class, desperately working to catch up when my symptoms temporarily dissipated and falling ill again from overworking myself each time. I was practically living at my partner’s apartment, unable to muster the courage or energy to go home to face the ex who still lived in my building and over a year later still hadn’t loosened his grip. I was waning with only a few weak fingers keeping me from my inevitable plummet. There was no end of the tunnel, no future fantasy that would suddenly provide me the relief I desperately needed. The little glimmer of hope I had lived on for the past three years had lost its power and the last few shattered pieces of my fantasy were growing further out of my reach. My few fingers strained to keep me from dropping, off the cliff and out of school. But dropping wasn’t an option. I was living in fear of fading into nothing if I had to return to my family. I was stuck in the shackles of financial aid. Though the school may have recognized my financial need, helping me only mattered if I fit perfectly into their agenda. Dropping out for even a semester was not part of this agenda and as motivation to stay on their track, I would be required to pay back an unknown sum of the financial aid that I had been using to live on, on top of losing the aid I needed to afford rent on the one year lease I shared. I couldn’t keep living, keep feeling this way — something needed to change. I scoured the internet to discover any new ways to work on my mental health. The extremes were to check myself into an inpatient facility, but I couldn’t afford to drop out. Get a therapist, workout, go outside, journal, hang out with friends, sleep well, eat well, drink water — all things I already or used to practice, and either weren’t helping enough or were rejected by my unhealthy body. I had been in therapy for almost two years; barely felt well enough to get out of bed, let alone workout or go outside; couldn’t make time to journal or see friends when I was struggling to keep up with school; was already sleeping at least eleven hours a day; and had very little energy to cook for myself. Almost all of my coping mechanisms and almost all of the ones the internet suggested were now inaccessible to me. I was left to the resources of my own brain, and so I scavenged for anything within my control. I developed a new fantasy.Icouldn’t fix my health, I couldn’t regain the community I lost, I couldn’t revive the men we lost, I couldn’t fix my dad’s health, and I couldn’t change my family. But I might be able to feel safe in my home again. So I fixated on the idea of moving, idealized it; I convinced myself that once I made it into a new living situation, the weight would lift and life would be better — I would be better
Two fingers left I was grateful that she had come to my aid, I couldn’t have made the move mid-semester without her. So I held my composure at each demeaning and hurtful comment, latching on to the day my mother walked out the door and didn’t return. But every time I thought I had grasped freedom it would slip away. Weeks passed, until one day I made a grave error. I had learned long ago to keep my mouth shut; nothing bothered me, and nothing hurt. Admitting the anguish, asking her to apologize only led to the same exact script of defensiveness, guilt tripping and retaliation; only led to more frustration
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So I fixated on the idea of moving, idealized it; I convinced myself that once I made it into a new living situation, the weight would lift and life would be better — I would be better.
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and pain than I had started with. I knew better, but I tried. Regret consumed me as the script began and I crumbled into 20 years’ worth of anguish. I told her it was alright, asked her to just continue on with the day, but she didn’t believe me. My mom wouldn’t let go. In following my therapist’s advice, I tried advocating for myself, asking her to leave for a little bit to give me some space, but she wouldn’t; I left instead. I ran to collect my belongings, as she screamed, physically refused to let me leave and slapped me across the face; profusely bawling and yelling at her to let me out while she shoved me backwards each time I tried to leave the room. When she finally removed herself from the doorway, she took my purse captive instead. I walked out the door in the eye of her tornado: I have done so much for you, how dare you be so ungrateful; you really don’t care about me at all do you; I don’t even want to live anymore; you can’t leave me like this; I am just going to kill myself then. Armed only with my keys, dog, phone, and nowhere to go, I aimlessly walked through Berkeley; through my lost fantasy with tears streaming down my cheeks, afraid to return to my own apartment. My new safe haven had been tainted.For weeks after she left, my apartment only triggered flashbacks to every time I felt unsafe as a child, and reminded me of how scared and trapped I felt. The place that was supposed to provide me relief and safety, had been scarred by every picture, every memory, and every emotion of the home that I had run from. Just like that the hope I had manufactured disappeared and I was left with only the gravity of reality. One finger left Eventually, my apartment began to feel my own again, and I gave up the grudge against my mother — as I always do. The move gave me the opportunity to bring Winter to Berkeley. A year and a half after her accident, with a permanent limp and scarring hidden beneath her fur, she finally regained her confidence and I regained mine. I can’t erase the car crash, or the neglect she faced with my dad, but she is happy now, happier and more comfortable than she has ever been — and I intend to make sure she lives the rest of her life this way. But, this is no happy ending. I am still exhausted, still misplaced on campus, still struggling with my health, still holding onto an excess of trauma, still mourning my fantasy — but for once the dust has settled. For the first time in as long as I can remember, the storm calmed and the wind ceased long enough for me to begin my ascent atop the ledge. I am no longer surviving off of a fantasy; I am no longer merely surviving. I am appreciating the moments I have to breathe while they last; meeting, learning about a version of myself I have never known — a version not living in survival mode.
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I don’t know how long it will last, or when the storm will return, but I am grateful I got to meet myself and for the time I have with her; and I am grateful to my fantasies for getting me here.
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25spring 2022 / calibermag.org picnics 1 JUSTIN NGUYEN / 2 KYLE GARCIA TAKATA 3,4 CHARLENE WANG / 5 MELODY GARZA A PHOTOSPREAD
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WORDS BY RINA ROSSI / VISUALS BY CHARLENE WANG
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ou’re gorgeous,” said an unknown man behind my ear as I reached for a bag of plantain chips in a Trader Joe’s aisle. The whole ordeal was quick; too quick for me to see who this individual was and too quick to stop them. His voice was deep; it sounded like a grown man. I was 13 and confused.Ihadactually been confused for a long time, now. For the past three years, since I was 11, I could never go out without getting catcalled by strange men who made nauseating comments about my body. Sometimes it was by men in their 20s, and coupled with some of my peers telling me I looked older for our age. I couldn’t tell if these men had truly just mixed up my age. But equally as often, I was catcalled by men who were older than my ownWhenfather.Iwas 11, a change occurred in the way my body was viewed by others. I got my first menstrual period — a common signifier in many cultures that a girl is becoming a woman. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to happen that early; I was a thin, seemingly-undeveloped girl and didn’t think my body was even capable of it yet. I was growing, and while I still thought I looked like a child, I would often get mistaken as a sales associate at stores, or simply as being much older than I really was. I thought that people were just starting to perceive my body as anything but the silhouette of a child, but I slowly began to realize that perhaps people had viewed my body, and the bodies of other girls my age, in this same sexualized way — for a while now.
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When I first moved to my California elementary school from the East Coast, I became fearful of the repercussions of breaking the school dress code because they were much more draconian than that of my previous school — no straps thinner than two fingers, no skirts or shorts above the fingertips, no sandals, no midriff-baring shirts, and no halter tops. My female peers and I broke these codes several times in third through sixth grade, and were punished for it, while our male counterparts were rarely dress-coded. One day in the sixth grade, nearly all of the girls in our gym class were dress-coded for wearing shorts that fell just above the knees, yet the boys who occasionally took off their shirts were never penalized. When I was nine years old, an old man told my mother while I was walking through the aisles of a marketplace that I had “beautiful legs.” Around the same time, I was complimented by a woman at a diner my family and I frequented. She praised my looks, but warned me to “watch out for those boys,” as they could easily be distracted by their female peers. I felt like I was living in a shadow I never knew existed; a silhouette of a woman I was too young to embody, overshadowed by the venomous gaze of man. These situations continued. I cannot recall a single time in my teenage years when my female friends and I were able to enjoy ourselves in public without getting a taste of the male gaze, communicated explicitly in our innocentWhenfaces.Iwas 13, I attended an art gallery as a volunteer and the private chef catering the event turned down his toddler daughter’s offer to let me try the chocolate served at the event — he assumed I only ate
The Nude Gaze
On my 14th birthday, a man in his 70s made sexual comments about how much he liked my short dress as my friend and I were shopping at the mall. When I was 16, a man took pictures of me as I was taking mirror selfies at a thrift store on Fifth Avenue, and followed me on the other side of the road for at least 600 feet laughing, as he knew there was nothing I could do about the pictures on his phone. My disgust and confusion during these experiences were clouded by the frequency at which they occurred. At the art gallery, I was offended by the comment made by the chef, but I tried to forget about it since I had tasks to do as a volunteer at the event. At the mall on my birthday, the old man who catcalled me walked away so quickly that I did not have time to process it, and especially did not want to appear fearful in front of my friend. On the other hand, the Fifth Avenue situation occurred in a much slower, prolonged manner, but I knew there was nothing I could do to a man laughing at me on the other side of the road. I kept brushing off experience after experience until the pressure of someone else’s eyes glued to my behind or the shrill whistles calling me at the end of the grocery aisle felt normal.Despite these negative experiences, I actually felt very comfortable in my own body — which probably contributed to my confusion as to why random men would make such vile comments about my body.
Looking back now, ages 11-16 seemed like a time in my life when I pursued interests that involved my body the most. I had developed a strong interest in seemingly everything related to fashion, such as runway fashion, fashion history and modeling. I had the names and biographies of nearly every fashion model who had walked in a Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show for the past ten years memorized. I dressed up for every occasion possible, simply because I loved fashion. I also took risks with my fashion decisions; I thought it was illogical and inherently misogynistic that people said only those with small breasts could go out without a bra. Thus, even though I knew my nipples would be visible through my sheer shirts, I went braless anyway, as I could never find a bra that was comfortable enough to wear. I also regularly took part in photoshoots for my older sister at the time, who was very interested in photography.Myfriends asked me how I could be so confident wearing such creative outfits which often showed more skin than theirs did, or how I felt comfortable posting yet another photo of myself in a bikini, especially given how disrespectful random men had been in my life before. But quite honestly, I didn’t feel particularly confident, nor did I feel exceptionally self-conscious. My body was my body, and I simply felt that every day I wore a shirt with my nipples slightly visible was just another day of a person walking around, despite what others might say. While ignorant men perceived a braless girl as someone who was flaunting her body and inviting sexual escapades, to me, I was simply doing away with an article of clothing I found uncomfortable. The slight visibility of my nipples poking through my shirt didn’t bother me, nor did it add any more confidence to myself— I just thought it was human.
Similar to how English actress Jamila Jameel has publicly embraced body neutrality — rather than body positivity — I viewed the body in a nude, or neutral manner through my own nude gaze (“What is body neutrality, the new trend loved by beautiful celebs?”, The Guardian). My body, or even the nude, didn’t phase me; I completely embraced it as a fully natural state.
Today, at 19, I’m rather content with the relationship I have with my body and am grateful for my friends and family who have always supported me in the event that someone or something has made me feel uncomfortable. My female peers can attest that the experiences of receiving unflagging support and feeling comfortable in one’s own body despite the sexualized culture is not one that everyone is able to relate to. Additionally, young girls in the media have undoubtedly suffered trauma as a result of oversexualization. Actress Phoebe Cates, better known as Linda from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, also starred in a movie called Paradise in 1982, performing in full-frontal nude scenes at age 17 and later said she would never do a movie like that again. As a result of her discomfort, she refused to do some of the film’s promotion (“Hollywood: Nude scenes too much for Aames”, The Orange County Register). Also, Britney Spears, who we have seen stripped of her autonomy for years, as made clear in her recent conservatorship case, spoke out about the oversexualization she received as a minor by the media, noting that she felt “tricked” into posing in a sexual way for a Rolling Stones photoshoot when she was 16 (“Britney Spears, Megan Fox, & More Celebs Who Spoke Out About Being Sexualized at a Young Age”, SheKnows). While I’m not a public figure and haven’t been oversexualized to such a grand extent, I’m able to identify with these uncomfortable experiences of being overly sexualized at a young age. But I’m still able to
32 spring 2022 / calibermag.org “coffee and cigarettes” to maintain my physique.
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wear the same clothes that I was wearing when I was blamed for getting catcalled so often, and so far, I don’t think I’ve developed much trauma from the seemingly constant sexualization of my body by strangers.
Quite honestly, I’m still trying to pinpoint why I’ve been so indifferent to the nude, especially after I’ve had crude, unsolicited comments made about my body; comments that started from day one of my life as a woman when I was disproportionately subjected to dress codes in elementary school and as I watched my fellow friends and female actors in the media suffer from trauma as a result of being oversexualized. Sometimes, I feel frustrated that the male gaze undoubtedly fueled my nude gaze, potentially making me numb to the gross comments that are too often made about my body. After all, I’ve been getting catcalled since I was 11, and after the first few times, I felt myself getting used to the disgusting act. But at the same time, I was progressing into puberty as a budding tween. I didn’t want ignorant men to stop me from pursuing my interest in fashion and expressing myself by wearing the clothes I wanted to.
Perhaps I can attribute the strong feminist figures — who were comprised of all genders — that have surrounded me since I was an adolescent and always taught me that the nude wasn’t disgusting. Rather, they emphasized that the nude was a natural state and made it clear that female bodies in particular were disproportionately stigmatized and sexualized. Schools embark on crusades to impose dress codes for female students who wear shoulder-baring shirts and the public is disgusted when women breastfeed in public. Similarly, there is a double standard where women are frowned upon when showing their nipples, while men are not. It seems like women aren’t allowed to show skin without being crucified.
While getting catcalled so often when I was young was disgusting, I think I can undoubtedly say that I am empowered by the fact that viewing my body in a neutral way has been liberating for me and has saved me from self-esteem issues — an epidemic that affects so many young girls. The nude — a complex, highly stigmatized and sexualized form, is just the opposite for me.
The nude is not sexual; it is not particularly beautiful nor is it at all ugly. It is simple, it is individualized to the wearer of the body and it is natural.
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On WeStarsHeartbeatandBordersCross
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WORDS BY ANUSHKA RAM MADHAN / VISUALS BY ARIEL CHU Infinity
In the grand scheme of our planet’s life, humanity has only existed for a speck of time, and yet, we have changed the planet in unprecedented ways, for better or worse. Our entire history has been painted with the colors of cultures lost to time and stained over with the bloodshed of plenty more. We are a species that loves as deeply as we hate, and sows violence with every innovation we bring to the world and to the rest of humanity.From when humanity had to traverse oceans and deserts to meet, to the advent of modern technology and the ease of connectivity it brings about, we have changed the world with every step we made to find our companions. Like all our ancestors, we carry this base human instinct to find something new and mold it into the exact shape we envision, and that is what has allowed us to create and destroy in the scales that we have. Each of us carry this human condition — find, shatter, rebuild, repeat – and that makes us living paradoxes; Heartbeat stars caged in flesh. Before To truly understand where we stand as a species today, we must analyze our past. Though our ancestors existed in worlds unrecognizable to our own, they felt and acted the same as we do today. Prima facie, we are their children; Generations removed, albeit, but their children nonetheless. Blood and bone of all the humans who have lived before us. To begin, we start with the notion of globalization. The concept, in and of itself, is often understood to be a thing of modernity, but it’s existed far longer than even our written history can claim. Silk roads, spice routes, and weapons found half a world from where they were smithed — that is the legacy of trade that founded the conventional age of globalization. When Mespotamian coins were found in the ruins of the Indus Valley, the discovery came with the sudden implication that humanity crossed a continent to trade, generations before the wheel was even created (Fábri, C. L. “The Punch-Marked Coins: A Survival of the Indus Civilization.” The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 2). We crave connection, and modernity is simply another era in a long history of coexistence and finding each other.
Like heartbeat stars, throughout our history, we have gravitated towards each other, crossing continents and oceans to find others like ourselves. Humanity has found itself when it had nothing to its name but brick and wheels and it reaches to the stars today all-the-same: together, but racing to say, “I got there first.”
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Together, they were born — billions and billions of years ago; Together, they will die — billions and billions of years from now. Stellar soulmates who will outlast even Earth herself, heartbeat stars are binary stars — two stars that orbit each other at the center of a shared solar system — in unique orbits trapped in a timeless waltz. It takes them tantalizingly close to their companion star, then rips them to ten times that distance in a single orbit. The fluctuation creates a pattern to their luminosity that, if mapped out over time from Earth, would look like an electrocardiogram — thus their name. Their kindred existences go even further: the gravitational pull heartbeat stars exert on each other at their closest encounters is a phenomenon similar to that of tidal waves in our oceans; a constant tug-of-war of energy between themselves. Most beautifully, they vibrate at the same frequency for their entire lifetimes, singing a soundless song around each other in the vacuum of space (Landau, Elizabeth. “Heartbeat Stars Unlocked in New Study | NASA.” nasa.gov). They paint a cosmic tale of giving and taking; one so fundamentally similar to the manner in which we humans interact with each Scientifically,other.ofcourse, we share very little than base atomic composition with stars, but it’s the foundational concept of heartbeat stars that we embody: giving and taking; an unbreakable orbit around each other; infinity with the rest of humanity in revolution; an endless cycle of growth and destruction.Whatever may exist in the universe beyond us, ultimately our solitary Earth is all we have right now, and even within all that lives, our form of intelligence only exists within us. That being a given, human nature essentially keeps us from ever abandoning each other — for better or worse.
We want the same intimacy, but can never forgo our chance at survival and victory, so are we different after all? Where has our evolution led us, then, if we are still the same creatures that forge and break bonds like wooden sticks for the sake of survival?
The destruction of something else was the mutual survival of a species that banded together, and now we set each other alight to soothe our ambitions.
Humanity has always strived to find its companions, and that so incredibly distinguishes us from the rest of Earth’s sentient inhabitants. Our predecessors set off on voyages and expeditions to find more within the travellable confines of Earth, and today, we seek this more-ness from the extraterrestrial beyond.
The apex animals of Earth, humanity has not changed, connecting and destroying - for survival, for those we love, and for those we hate.
Whilst with discovery came violence, of course, finding each other also fostered scopes of trade and barter that have enabled most modern cultures to develop with the traditions they hold, and for the predatesofviewthatperspective,stancethroughViewingasworldcontemporarytoexistweknowit.historyabilateralisanarrowoneblockstheoftheextentconnectivitythatus.Forallthebad,
Beyond Why do we do what we do? Why do we crave identity, why are we willing to sacrifice everything to save those we’ve deemed saveable? What makes us as selfish as altruistic as a race, and what makes us destroy as quickly as
Now Humanity’s history of togetherness has reached a point in which its definition has become far more complex. Even in our past, our sense of connectivity has been defined by a thin line striking a tense balance between violence and collaboration.Thisnotion has only complexified more with the modern advent of the internet, and the unprecedented reach it grants us. An almost-portal to the other side of the world dances at our fingertips at any point in time and an array of knowledge beyond the imagination of our ancestors is accessible to us with a few clicks of a keyboard. The internet takes us to a new realm of human interaction altogether: one in which we stand more as a united front than ever before, but concurrently find ourselves divided just as much. Individuality is at an all time high, but so is group conformity. The entire paradigm of existence right now is on a faultline of odd paradoxes.Thisconstant, wide access, though affecting our manner of expression, scarcely affects the base human condition. That human nature of creating and destroying, loving and hurting exists all the same though, just in another format.In the modern world, we are still the mirrors of our ancestors — feeling the same human emotions and impulses. Our world is just more favourable to find camaraderie in our unique perspectives, and more likely to find opposition to individual philosophies. The internet is an ephemeral, yet eternal, war ground upon which the newest generations have forged childhoods, and connectivity is a boon we are unable to imagine a world without.Millions of likes on a Tiktok show mutuality, just as millions of vicious Twitter comments show disagreement, and by the next week, both are forgotten and the next new thing has trapped our attention. Families that live half-aday apart can get on a video call at any point, and when Russia invaded Ukraine, the entire world was informed within minutes.We live in an ever-changing world, and parallel to all the conflict and strife that has come with the onslaught of internet connectivity, humanity is more tied together than ever.
we have done good, and for all our good, we have vowed and delivered immeasurable violence. No matter what extent of isolation any group has craved, nothing has kept humans out of others’ business — in trade, or war, or academia — and nothing has acted to deter us from continuing this search for connection and understanding.Humanity is incapable of being alone, and there’s a need rooted in the fundamental human nature to connect all but simultaneously tear apart all that makes us human — all that ties us together in a bond we can never succeed in shattering.
Social isolation is close to impossible in this contemporary world, and there is no returning to a life where this doesn’t exist.
Even as the only creatures on the planet granted with this ability, we are still the same at our cores as we were thousands of years ago. We exist in this manner that is so fundamentally human, so reminiscent of our ancestors, only in a world far more advanced than theirs. What makes us so different from our ancestors if we crave the same identity but the same connection they did? If we seek out companionship just as they did, only to end up with clashing ideas as so many others before us?
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Once upon a time, our ancestors set the world around them alight to defeat everything above them on the food chain.
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for a tomorrow we will never witness? Humans, Stars, and The Atoms that Make Us Both.
we create? Why can we never move away from what ties us together as a species - from this endless cycle of paradoxes and
Heartbeat Stars, humanity’s base condition is another complex phenomenon that makes us very difficult to merely just categorize and reason with. Our behavior extends dimensions far beyond simply just practicality.Justas the stars are, we are drawn to each other and we exist on the same frequencies, but our mere existence to each other is a painful thing, and we are forever orbiting each other. Taking and Giving, Loving and Hating, Creating and Destroying.
Humanityhypocriticism?haswondered for generations, and somehow, not even cognizance has stopped the way we function.Where does that leave us and our successors?Whatever comes ahead of us will bring with it its own facets of kinship and enmity, far beyond our imagination, just as the world today was beyond those before us. Regardless, as humans, we will never leave this behavioral pattern we are familiar with. We will love and hate with just the same intensity, and we will keep looking to connect with the same vigor we seek to break. It is why, after all, we seek life beyond Earth. We use our own progress to craft a path to the stars, and we look outward, now that we’ve reached all the inhabitants of our little planet and brought us together in an infinite global network.Otherworldly civilizations, wherever they may be, likely have histories chock-full of innovation and discovery as humanity does. Whilst, regrettably, that could be nothing but speculation, humanity claims we will never know unless we venture out from the conventions we are set in. The universe is neverending, and the possibilities of the evolution we could undergo within it are equally countless. We venture further and further from our humble home each day, all because of this inherent human nature we can never escape for a future we will never know. This future is born today and everyday after, with us; one that will never belong to us, of course. But what is legacy, if not dreaming
Something in us is made to thrive in this never ending cycle — more and more and more. Like the yet to be understood
It comes down to that core principle: we are all we have, but we love and hate and want with such intensity that we could never simply do just one of those and merely survive, not like the rest of Earth’s inhabitants can.
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B
efore me lies a great expanse of pure white, open to the infinite colors and possibilities that it can contain.
WRITTENBEAUTY
Expression is a simple idea inherent to us as people, yet it is simultaneously enigmatic and deceptively difficult. We all feel emotions, we all are conscious human beings with thoughts and ideas that we want to say and do, yet how does one convey these seemingly idiomatic feelings? The limitations of every possible medium of expression has plagued and tormented us for as long as we have had brains, from issues as simple as an inability to find the precise word that conveys a singular notion to being unable to comprehend or process a complex, interconnected web of emotions. I was confounded by my inability to crystallize my passions and conceptions into concrete words and phrases that could be conveyed and understood by others. I could certainly feel these ideas, see their effects on myself, on my language, on the way I communicated with others, and maybe even understand them — but the specific language, the English words that had the capability
WORDS BY VED KULKARNI / VISUALS BY JUSTIN NGUYEN THE LOST ART OF
Menacingly, it sits, awaiting the first drop of ink to impassion it into a work greater than itself, greater than its simple blankness. As I struggle to comprehend my own thoughts, this canvas becomes not the reflection of all colors, but their absorption; my mind, unable to understand the order of words that can express my emotions, becomes a turbulent, consuming vacuum; a mind full of ideas becomes blank and so too does the white, now black. Blind and confused, unable to express… my blank page remains unused and unwritten.
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An article from Medium describes how artificial intelligence has been used to create a program called Aiva, the world’s first virtual music composer that has been trusted by companies like TED to create realistic “emotional soundtrack music” that matches music created by humans. More than a proof of concept, it can be used to replicate and replace the role of human-composed music with little discernment. As a CS
It’s a tragedy, especially considering the sheer number of essays I’ve brazenly written for my classes. The number of words written must exceed the hundreds of thousands — possibly the millions — yet those big numbers meant very little. I’ve come to learn that writing about personal experiences exists in a different world, perhaps a different universe than any form of academic writing. The clarity of thought one has when thinking of abstract ideas about history and English literary analysis and their given structure crumble when approaching an idea that has a personal effect on them. The goal is not a grade nor some perceived ranking by a grader — the goal is satisfaction; it’s having comprehended yourself in a manner that exists in more clear language, rather than in the tangled mess of neurons in your head. I learned to achieve, or at the very least better approach this goal, with cursive writing (and a special pen).Cursive is a method of physically writing latin characters such that each character flows into the next, and whose many ‘scripts,’ or ways of being written, both pragmatic and lofty, made it the dominant form of writing in the past (in case you are not one of the 15% of readers who statistically use or know cursive according to the College Board). Contrast this with print, the form of writing we are all familiar with, where each letter is distinct and independent of the others. Given how few people know about its existence and print’s dominance on every variation and variety of media, this all probably seems pretty irrelevant. But it’s not. The notion of communicating in a different yet familiar way is not novel; multilingual people relish the ability to communicate unique feelings in different languages. Shouldn’t this also apply to writing?
Historically, print was borne out of a need for an efficient way to print letters from a machine, but in the modern day, it provides a clarity, uniformity, and modularity that allows the English language to prevail in nearly any format, anywhere, from small watches to expansive posters. It enables communication to become more ubiquitous and expedient, because communication has ballooned well beyond the constraints of any piece of paper. With speed and the nearly infinite editability of technology comes the convenience of being able to type as fast as one can think, with the ability to change any word or phrase anywhere anyhow, all while maintaining a pristine, almost clinically clean look to the writing. In contrast, cursive is rustic, raw, and messy; performed by human and not by machine, it can never be perfect. Its imperfections define each writing, as no two writings by the same person will be exactly the same, let alone two distinct authors. But more important than any of these opinionated and subjective variations is the critical objective difference: they empower the writer to write precisely how they wish to, down to the individual gradients of the curve of every letter. Cursive specifically has unique demands: words in cursive are connected, requiring confidence and consistency from the writer, and the style itself can be changed and adapted to the writer’s preference. For every technical demand there is a creative upside, an ability for the writer to express in a way typing simply cannot. No number of fonts can replicate the infinite variability in writing or cursive styles. This begs the question…Doesthe pursuit of physical freedom in writing and other expressive works act to the detriment of creative freedom? The natural inclination is to believe that more freedom automatically grants us greater degrees of creativity, but there must be a limit to this logic. After all, it is far, far easier to finish an assignment with one hour left than an entire week. Adversity, not just liberation, is an essential ingredient to true freedom; the limitations we impose on ourselves are not limitations, they are merely a barrier intended to be built over. We, as human beings, are designed to think outside the box, not in the empty expanse of nothingness.Ofcourse, we almost never think in an abstract space of nothingness; nearly everything we do are attached with limitations and are done for a very real purpose and reason. Yet, despite how much meaning our everyday activities create for our lives, we for some reason always have the inclination to always find ways to make life easier; to lift the stresses and duties from our lives. What happens when we lift… all of them? When very few limitations exist to encumber our creative engines? We get lazy.
to reflect these ideas to the same magnitude as I felt them, were nowhere to be found.
ADVERSITY, NOT JUST LIBERATION, IS AN ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT TO TRUE FREEDOM
The dilemma with computer-generated or assisted creative work is that computers are not emotional. They may be smart, intelligent, capable of calculating or even imitating certain functions of the human brain, but they, most certainly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, are not emotional human beings. They cannot be avant-garde, they cannot think of the unexpected, the unpredictable, the imperfections that not only make human things human, but also lead to unpredictable yet delightful innovations. And even if they could, this now great repertoire of skills for the computer would leave even less room for creative aspirations for us mere mortals. Writing is far, far more than just its product; the experience, the thoughts, the struggles, the mental revisions, and the writing itself are all a fulfilling process that speaks to and of the mind. Likewise, style, from the most elegant and gallant of scripts to the most pragmatic, can be borne out of the invention of human thought when the technique of writing cursive script is a prerequisite for expression, but is unlikely to come from a computergenerated word processor whose many selections of fonts have already been preselected and provided for you. Sure, some talented individuals are inventing those fonts, but I’m not one of them, and you probably aren’t either. These ideas led me to explore not just cursive, but the pens that (possibly) write cursive best: fountain pens. All fountain pens are different, each one with unique quirks that require one to write ever so differently with them. Pens with ‘wet’ nibs, or tips, write thick and luscious script that encourage quick and plentiful writing, but make slow writing look sloppy and unappealing. The weight affects how much pressure you apply, how to tilt and grip the pen, the caress of your hand across the page; the range of color inks, from India black to sparkling violet, provides the writer a color palette that encompasses an unimaginably wide spectrum; the chamber that holds ink can vary in size and mechanism, and, if you happen to get unlucky, can detach and splatter ink everywhere. These are all properties that necessitate a level of finesse; they require the writer to have enough technique to consistently write without fear. They are also more or less taken care of with a standard pen from the store or when typing on a computer, arguably democratizing writing and freeing the writer of all these worries, allowing them to focus solely on the pure act of writing itself. I’m not here to put on my top hat and rant about how the old ways are better, but in making the process of writing more efficient, the brain is freed from the subconscious act of creating an artistic articulation of expression.Fountain pens and cursive writing are like bread and butter; with skill, the pen provides a level of agility and smoothness that directly accompanies the cursive script, allowing the writer to write each letter with as much ease as possible. I cannot in any capacity call myself an expert or a professional, but I do not think absolute proficiency is a prerequisite to enjoyment. Sure, one may be slower, and sure, one may wait longer for their handwriting to catch up with their thoughts, but ultimately, the experience of learning an entirely new way of expressing the same language I’ve grown up with has allowed me to understand myself more intensely than I ever could have otherwise. Am I advocating for you to go out right now and try this out? Well, you could try learning cursive, and I definitely encourage that, but fountain pens are quite an involved hobby and probably aren’t for everyone. However, I think that from my ramblings, you may develop a curiosity for how you may think about your own thoughts and themselves, how you think about the language and phrasing when you type your next class essay, or, if you’re struggling to think of ideas, perhaps approach the very same essay with a font different than Times New Roman or Arial. As I was typing this up (because yes I am not submitting a handwritten article to a magazine), Google Docs has provided me hundreds of writing suggestions, some benign and minor such as a simple connection between phrases, and some more prominent, directing the language and direction of the writing. Whether or not I accept these suggestions, just being provided them subconsciously alters the way I articulate an idea. I could surmise about the limitless number of ways my writing could change as a product of these suggestions, but ultimately, a writer’s voice is something that is considered almost irreproducible. Nobody would expect another writer to write 1984 with the same literary signature as George Orwell, and yet Google thinks it can, at least sometimes. I can try to resist, attempt to assert my creative voice above that of the AI, but sometime, somehow, it may find its way into the crevices of my mind, relaxing as it slowly molds itself into parts of my writing, and perhaps yours too. The best we can do is not to depend on devices and conveniences to tell us what to think and what to feel, but to find a way to reveal and convey what is authentically us.
44 spring 2022 / calibermag.org major, this appears both very exciting and very dystopian to me, but also, its very existence and prevalence sings to the desire for people to want less work — to enable composers to delegate part of their creative work to a machine. With the prevalence of advanced computational capabilities and computer-audio programs that once required entire machines, the creative possibilities for editing, mastering, and producing music are far greater and far more accessible, and yet, instead of this creative expanse encouraging even greater creativity, it has encouraged composers to limit themselves to the creative box of an AI. Likewise, have we willingly limited ourselves to the creative box of print?
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“Nice, even without it, you don’t have much time left.”“I guess…it would be nice to see my family though, after four years. What about you?”
“You know what I mean. I’m not the best with words. But if we help each other we might be able to get out sooner.”
“Yeah. Well, that technically is my name, but I go by Puck.”
Dedication vs. Favoritism Who Do You Know?:
“Puck.” I nodded as a sign of affirmation. “What’s your full name?”“Amie Beth Jar.” She was waiting for a reaction from me,
“I’ll tell you what.” I looked at her and made a “hmm” sound. She continued, “We could help each other out, you know. We should help each other. Woman power or whatever.”
“There we go, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” She got up and walked over, her wide smile making all of her teeth show and her nose look bigger than it already was. At first the only reason she stood out to me was because of her thick eyebrows and her somewhat-of-a-crow-shaped nose. As she walked over she didn’t take her eyes off me for a second, then extended her hand to shake mine. I got up and shook her hand. I still wasn’t sure if she was genuine — hell, I wasn’t even sure of her name — but I tried to smile so she wouldn’t think I’m that much of a bitch.
“I guess you have a point.”
“Plus, it would be good to have a friend in this place.”
“Alright you win. I’m down.”
“We’ll see about that.” She wanted me to trust her out of the blue? Don’t be ridiculous honey, not even in prison, who trusts someone blindly in general? I guess someone who’s lonely…
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How much time do you have left?”
“Or whatever? And I’m supposed to trust you?”
“About 18 months, but they said I can get out at 12 with good behavior.”
“I appreciate you making the effort, Amie, was it?”
“About the same. Don’t know if I can get parole though. My lawyer said they don’t usually do that with my kind of case, unless I know someone in the higher ups.” She scoffed sarcastically and turned her head to her newspaper to keep reading: “Maybe I should sleep with the warden. Heh.” Sleeping with the warden. Solid plan, I thought. I laughed at her joke and wondered if anyone had actually done that before. It wouldn’t be too hard considering everyone who is involved with the prison system is miserable somehow; whether they are locked up, work in it, or in charge, they’re all miserable. That’s not my plan though, I’ve survived these last four years and if I can keep up my good attitude then I have a chance at freedom.
WORDS BY AVYSSA ABBOUTORABI / VISUALS BY HANNAH YANG
“You’ve gotta trust me if we’re doing this. What would messing up your sentence do for me?” She stared at me with her black eyes and thick eyebrows waiting for an actual answer. I didn’t have one. “Nothing!” She said, “Stop being so closed off and trust someone for once. You’ve been here for four years and I haven’t seen you make any friends. It’s kind of sad, Tara. People need friends in their lives.” Damn, she knew my name. Maybe she did care. Maybe it was a good idea to do this with her.
The next day Puck and I went to the electric workshop. She had convinced me to volunteer to fix some of the broken appliances around the place. “It’s good behavior to volunteer,” she said. We walked into a shed-like space where the class on electrical engineering was held — not as advanced as it sounds. The teacher was also a guard; I guess the prison didn’t have enough money to hire someone with an actual degree. Though, why would someone with a degree want to even come to a place like this? A bunch of stuff I had never seen before was lying on each wooden table in the shed. He explained that we were supposed to use those parts to fix the broken microwave he had brought from the common area. Fixing the microwave didn’t take that long. Apparently, we just needed to change some wires and didn’t even need half of the stuff on the table; he just wanted to give us a hard time. Males and their toxic masculinity or whatever. As Puck and I were walking out I gave him a look, one that said, “Yeah I did that on my own, you asshole,” but not so harsh to get me into trouble. You never know what can set these guys off. v It wasn’t just the electric department Puck dragged me to; she was possessed by this urge to become known in the prison. From cleaning the showers to helping in the kitchen, Puck was always there. One day I woke up earlier than usual and couldn’t go back to sleep. I decided to go and see if Puck wanted to exercise together, but she wasn’t in her bed. I couldn’t find her anywhere. What if she’s actually screwing a guard right now? That would be funny. Then I went into the yard and saw she was helping some of the older ladies in the garden move their soil bags for them. Puck not telling
I smiled and let go of her hand. “Any special reason why you like to go by Puck?” She shrugged, “Nah I just like it. I’ll see you around Trine, that’s what I’m gonna call you from now on.” Then she winked at me and walked away.
47spring 2022 / calibermag.org but I didn’t know what to say. “Cool.” I introduced myself as we were still shaking hands, even though she, weirdly, already knew my first name. “TaraSheSavoys.”laughed and said, “I know.”
I stood there confused. What had just happened? I couldn’t tell if I just got hit on or found a new friend. “Puck,” I repeated to myself. God I hope this doesn’t bite me in the ass. But really, Puck? Doesn’t that mean evil or something? I made a mental note to look it up. The nickname seemed too specific to “just like.” And how did she think of a nickname for me that quickly? Trine. Trine…that’s also specific. She said she’s not good with words, but her knowledge of ancient names says otherwise. I’ll have to look that up too. I wasn’t sure why, but I had a pit in my stomach, so I decided to proceed with caution. Innocent until proven guilty, right? I decided to proceed with caution.
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I sat on my bed with my legs hanging and responded, “You know me so well.” We walked to the dining hall and grabbed our breakfast. We sat down next to the old ladies Puck was helping out and they all started thanking her for her help: “She is such a sweetheart,” “Oh I don’t know what I would do without her help,” “I’m so happy you’re stuck in here with us dear.” I couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous. She could’ve told me, then I would’ve gotten praised for moving a couple bags too. My thoughts got interrupted by one of the guards banging on a table and yelling, “Listen up everyone, the warden has an announcement!”
“Well look who’s up early!” She said, catching her breath. They obviously made her work those muscles this morning.“Yeah,I couldn’t sleep. But look who’s up and productive.”“Isthat another one of your snarky comments?”
40 minutes later all the lights turned on, indicating it was time to get up and ready for the day. Puck removed her hand from my hip as she yawned and said “Good morning lovely, ready to work our asses off?”
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I could feel her eyes on me as she said, “It’s not like it was a secret Trine…you always say you’re tired so I didn’t want to put more pressure on you.” Maybe she was right. Maybe she didn’t want to bother me. Maybe I was being paranoid. We walked back to my bunk with still an hour before breakfast. Puck made herself comfortable in my bed, and even though I didn’t like her dirty shirt rubbing on my sheets, her arms were all I could think about. Get yourself together Trine, that’s what she would tell me if she knew what was going on in my head. We talked for a while, and then Puck asked me if I wanted to cuddle until it was time for breakfast. I said yes, but I wasn’t sure why. Do friends cuddle? Is this normal? Are we friends? After only three months of volunteering together, had we become closer than I thought? I tried to shut my mind off and relax as she wrapped her arm aroundAboutme.
He moved aside and the warden walked toward the center of the hall with a microphone in his hand. “Good morning everyone” — His microphone was connected to the speakers all around the prison so it was like an echo — “As you probably noticed, we’ve had a lot of staff changes in the past couple of months. Certain rules have changed, some with my approval, others without. I know a lot of you have had meetings with me and other staff in regards to a possibility for getting out on parole. I want to assure you that my staff and I have noticed all the effort you’ve put into your jobs — some of you even taking on additional work, volunteering, studying, and adopting a good behavior overall.” Puck and I gave each other a look of satisfaction, of approval, and of worry. What was he getting at?
“Maybe. Do you do this every morning?” She started walking. “Eh, sometimes.” Her nonchalant attitude annoyed me. I tried not to show it, but I also wanted to know why she hadn’t told me about this. “Cool. so you have a mini project you weren’t going to tell me about.”
me about what she was doing was a bummer, it made me wonder how long she has been doing this for and keeping it from me. As I was thinking about Puck’s secrecy, My eyes followed her from inside the gardening house, to where the ladies were pointing her to. She didn’t have big arms but they were defined. She was wearing her white uniform t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, taking the attention away from her short messy hair. I caught myself smiling a little bit, and while I was trying to regulate my breathing and focus on why she hadn’t told me about her mini project this morning, I saw her walking towards me.
He continued, “That being said, I don’t know how to nicely break the news so please just be adults and don’t make a big deal out of it.” He paused. I could tell he was worried. He looked at the two guards behind him, nodded
his head, as if he was expecting us to lash out, and said “Due to budget cuts and some private matters regarding the parole board, we have been told only one prisoner’s case will be reviewed for parole each year. This means even though many of you have been trying to get parole, very few of you might get a chance to go in front of the board, and only one of you will be able to get out. I’m sorry for the unfortunate circumstance, but I hope you can swallow this pill like adults.” He then walked away without looking back. I was shocked. Only one person per year? They seem not to know how many of us are actually in here. I looked over at Puck. Her head didn’t move the slightest, she was staring at an orange peel on the table, then got up and left without acknowledging me, or anyone for that matter. I was left at the table with a bunch of old ladies. “Jesus, it’s about to be a bloodbath in here, huh?” I said, while smiling awkwardly and holding my fork in the air. They ignored me. Well, one of them raised an eyebrow.
“What?? I didn’t do anything.”
She looked like she had drunk something, God knows what, but she wasn’t sober and it was obvious. “You take things too seriously, Trine. I thought you were mad so I gave you space and you never came back. Now can I go enjoy this party? Nothing good ever happens here, don’t take this away from me.” She turned away from me. I firmly grabbed her wrist and said, “No you don’t get to fuck up and walk away from me.” She suddenly turned around with a weird look in her eyes. Anger. Unleashed anger was bursting out of her eyes. She shoved me so hard I hit someone behind me, causing a domino effect of pushing and yelling. A few people got mad and started yelling at me collectively. In the midst of that chaos I looked over at Puck, but she was no longer there. Someone took a swing at me, I jumped back and while I was trying to stabilize myself, I saw Puck whispering to a guard. She and I locked eyes for a second, as she pointed at me. The guard signaled others and they all ran toward us. They yelled and separated people from one another.
“Save it for later. You’re done for now.”
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fuck off Puck. you knew they were going to change the rules didn’t you?” She closed her book loudly. “Are you on drugs or something? How would I know?” She stood up. I wasn’t thinking, I was so taken aback by the news that I felt words just bursting out. “I don’t know maybe you actually fucked a guard and they told you!” She stood there staring at me. Point blank. No emotion, no words, no movement. Just, nothing. The regret began to seep in as I knew I had hurt her. “We’re done,” she said. As she walked past I reached for her waist. “Look, I’m sorry. Obviously, I didn’t mean that. I’m just trying to process this whole thing.” She took a step closer to me and said, “I’ve lost all of my friends Trine, the last thing I need is another untrustworthy “friend” on my side.” I apologized again; I didn’t want to lose my only friend. For the next couple of hours Puck told me about how her past friendships had ended, how she felt all alone, how no one wanted to stick around long enough to know her. It was the first time she was vulnerable with me. I’ll be different, I thought. “Puck, I won’t leave. okay?” v I didn’t leave. But Puck did. She stopped waking me up in the mornings and I’d arise to her already helping others. Days went by slowly. I tried volunteering in the kitchen to prepare meals, wash dishes, or clean floors, but volunteering without Puck felt weird. A rare isolation perhaps only noticeable by me. I thought she would come back to me, or that things would simply work out. My cellmate asked me about the “butch lesbian with the funny name” I used to hangout with. I didn’t know what to tell her. How do you tell someone you and your best friend have “broken Lonelinessup”?crept in at night and lingered during the day. I would see Puck hanging out with the older ladies she helped, with our formerly mutual friends — even the kitchen ladies loved her. The love people felt for her made me envious of her, and doubtful of myself. Why did they love her, and why couldn’t I be as loved as her? My body was like a kingdom: the rulers being modes of self-hatred, anger in the place of the auxiliaries — set to protect me — and the lowest chain of all, the common man, the biggest part of any kingdom — the only group that gets ignored by the people in power — being trust issues.
v “Did you know?” Puck was reading a book and was shocked to see me standing by her door with my hands in myI“Knowpockets.what?scoffed.“Oh
Closure, that’s what I needed. I tried talking to her once during an inmate’s birthday. She told me she thought I was mad at her, that’s why she hadn’t reached out. I was mad. I was mad she hadn’t reached out, was it that hard to understand?“Puck,we had an argument and after you just pretended like I didn’t exist! All of our friends hangout with you and don’t even care to check-in on me. It’s like I never existed. Like our friendship meant nothing.”
“Savoys you’re going to solitary.”
I knew I wasn’t going to help my case by kicking him off of me, but I had lost control over my body. Fear, anger, confusion, even delusion had taken over all my thoughts and actions. Two other guards grabbed me and dragged me out of the room. By then my body was paralized, I couldn’t move a single muscle. As I was being dragged to solitary confinement, I saw Puck smirking. She looked at me with
IReputationbroken.—shattered.kneweverythingIhadworked
All of a sudden my body got very warm. I started sweating excessively, feeling uneasy, angry, furious even. Furious enough to aggressively take off all my clothes and throw them at the wall. I screamed at the top of my lungs, and a guard banged on the door, “Shut up in there.”
I did. I did shut up, because why was I yelling in the first place? Because I trusted someone who purposely chose a nickname for herself that means mischievous? Because I was dumb enough to take her word for it when she said she wanted to help me? Because I had begun to let my walls down remotely and started catching feelings for her? Everything came back to me. It was my fault I was here, not Puck’s. I was the one to blame. I sat on the ground in my underwear. Not knowing what to Andthink.allof a sudden, I wasn’t angry anymore — just empty, numb. I sat there staring at my left thigh, tracing my finger along the only vein that was visible. What had trusting her done for me? Nothing. I had a plan before she came along. Before she called me that stupid nickname and winked at me. And yet, she was out there right now charming her way through the system. Knowing she can betray and lie, and still get everything she wants; knowing there’s people out there who dedicate themselves to hard work and forget that favoritism is always the more powerful force.
for had gone to waste. I had to wait a whole year to see my family. In a poor attempt to convince myself I tried to convince myself that the parole wouldn’t matter anymore anyway. I was getting out in about 12 months either way. “The parole doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter,” I kept repeating it out loud. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said as I walked from one side of the cell to the other. “It doesn’t matter, Trine…”
The thought of not being able to see my family, to touch them, to sit and have a proper meal with them, it ate up my brain. How could she do this to me? And for what? I thought we had left off on a good note. I thought she knew I had her back, that I would never betray her. But she made no such promise…Trine. Trine. Trine… that thought was a nonstop repetition. Indeed, she made no such promise.
51spring 2022 / calibermag.org that devilish grin, not breaking eye contact, then winked and started talking to someone next to her. v Silence — loud silence. The only sounds I could hear were my thoughts, getting louder and louder every time I rolled over on the cold bed. Failure; I had failed my family. I had failed myself. Trust —
A PHOTO SPREAD BY
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The Marías KYLE GARCIA TAKATA
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My family is spread across northern California. My sister up in San Francisco, my parents in San Jose, and I in Berkeley. As we found our lives pushing us further apart, in the last weekend of January we got together to celebrate Lunar New Year as a family. At the end of the night, at my older sister’s insistence, we went out to the backyard to perform an ancestor worship — my very first. After some chaotic back and forth, we placed photos of my mother’s parents and my father’s mother at the center of our makeshift altar. Surrounding them sat incense, offerings of oranges and egg tarts, and fake money burning in a bowl to bring wealth. As I stood there, I found myself suddenly overwhelmed. Overwhelmed because I was looking at pictures of my grandparents, of people I never got to know, time and circumstance preventing us from seeing them more than twice in the past 14 years. Overwhelmed because, though they never knew me I felt somehow sure they loved me, something inexplicable linking me to them. Overwhelmed because the oranges we placed on the table came from the tree in our front yard. The first tree in the first front yard that was ever truly ours, my parents becoming first-time homeowners last summer. Overwhelmed because we burned money in a bowl that had traveled with my parents across two countries and over two decades.AsI stood there, shivering in our backyard wrapped up in my dad’s coat — the one he insisted I wear — as I bowed 13 times facing our ancestral home, our 老家, I saw for the first time the pieces of a life that I’d never fully realized I had lived. For as long as I can remember, “Chinese-American” has sat uncomfortably on my skin. Growing up in Kansas, in a town with a 4% Asian population, growing up as one of five Asian kids in my grade, my story was typical: A day was not complete without a classmate pulling their eyes at me, asking if I ate dog, or if my Vietnamese friend and I were sisters. In middle school a teacher would regularly ask me to teach him Chinese and I had a few too many “How can you see?” jokes directed at me. At the same time, every Sunday my parents shuttled me off to Chinese school — stuck in a religious community center for three hours, going through a workbook I never pulled out except in class.
Much of my childhood was spent feeling utterly stranded. I wanted so badly to be accepted by my peers, by real Americans, corn-fed and red-blooded. These kids, born to and raised by parents born and raised in this very same town, these kids who aspired only to go to our most popular state school and continue this very same cycle. These kids who had never felt the pressing responsibility to make their parents’ immigration worth it. Yet I was also raised by Kansas, I came into my own with English on my tongue. All I had ever known were the pretty white faces that surrounded me and for a long time, all I believed myself to be was the same thing they were. But, the circumstance of my angled eyes, the duck my family ate for Thanksgiving, and my parents’ accents and foreign names barred me from ever being able to belong in their world. Yet still my eyes and our Thanksgiving duck and my parents’ accents and names could not amount to a Chinese girl. My middle school art teacher was an exuberant Korean woman, a short black bob streaked with reddish brown highlights framing her face and rainbow clogs permanently adorning her feet. I remember every couple of months she would march into class, the skin of her face pulled back taut, and report to us that she went and got botox that morning. Mrs. Choi was the kind of teacher that made you feel loved. No matter who you were she treated you with the same teasing guileless heart. One of the first classes we ever had, she remarked that we were “sisters.”
I could tell, even then, that she doted on me more than other students. I remember her being the first person I had ever been able to talk to about 888, one of the only Asian grocery stores within a reasonable distance from us.
Once, she assigned us the task of constructing and decorating a drum head. As we designed, she encouraged me to incorporate aspects of my culture into my piece. Her words grated against me. I could barely write my own name in Chinese, let alone understand how to incorporate aspects of my “heritage” into art. So her assignment, though kind-hearted, left me grasping for purchase. I ended up asking my parents how to write my last name in Chinese and pieced together something that could pass as “imbued with culture.” Looking back on it now, I think Mrs. Choi was the first person that ever treated me like being Chinese was something to be proud of and that I was valid in occupying that space. But no amount of warmth could undo the knots that had tangled themselves inside of me. The circumstances of my childhood left me resentful of being Chinese, of all the things that had set me apart my entire life and so I hid my eyes behind glasses and had long forced my parents to stop enrolling me in Chinese school. Yet still, my inevitable distance from my “Chinese-ness” became a reason for shame. For a long time, I left myself without a place to belong and without the belief that I deserved to. Years later, the summer before my sister went off to college, we went back to China to visit family. The last and only time I had been to China and met anyone beyond my immediate family, I had been five years old. Back then, with my SpongeBob shirts and Dora haircut, it had been easier for me to stand silently behind my sister or tucked under my mother’s arm. Back then, it had been easier to write off the ways in which the people and places that surrounded me felt entirely foreign.
WORDS BY CATHY WANG / VISUALS BY KYLE GARCIA TAKATA
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At 13 years old, it became a lot less easy. Eating out with groups of family members, not an inch of the lazy Susan visible, I felt huge and out of place sitting in my seat. Here were family members I didn’t even know the names of, my cousin that I had only known as a nine-year-old suddenly eight years older, and I couldn’t say a word to them. But I heard them, heard how they talked about me (She doesn’t know what we’re saying does she? She never learned Chinese?), or left me entirely out of inquiring questions about school in America, about how I’d been in the eight years that had passed. My sister, so much brighter and so much braver, occupied their attention. On a trip to my maternal grandfather’s hometown, I met my great aunt. That day had been particularly lonely, walking through his village in the rain. The roads were little more than dirt paths and left our shoes caked in mud. Other members of my mom’s extended family had been sure to go grab gifts for my sister — slippers and clothes to treat her with. Later, my extended family settled in a courtyard just outside the entrance of someone’s house. We sat and cooked noodles (酣水面). After eating, our group inevitably broke into smaller pockets of conversation and I found myself standing alone, biding my time. My great aunt, a woman I had never met before that day, walked up to me. She was short, the years wearing her already small frame down, her hair cut short and tidy. There was a kind of unassuming power that surrounded her, almost like a reassurance to anyone around her that she could handle 59spring 2022 calibermag.org
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whatever was to come. Though I can no longer remember what she first said to me, I know that I stumbled and shook over my words, well aware that my Mandarin, though workable, was awkward and unfamiliar with the full force of attention on me after so long without it. But all she did was smile. She squeezed my arms, her eyes seemingly surveying me, and said in a voice so very much like my mother’s, “You’re just shy aren’t you?” I remember not quite knowing how to react, how to communicate to her just how much that meant to me. Traveling to China had long been a nightmare for me, even as a kid. I felt so thoroughly out of my depth, so unworthy of even being there — seeing family and this place that should mean something to me — unable to even interact with it or feel that I deserved to. In one fell swoop, this woman, as cheesy as it sounds, made me feel seen. Like she knew I could understand what she was saying, what everyone was saying, but I didn’t yet have it in me to try and use my broken Mandarin to connect with the people around me. In her, in this embodiment of someone that could so easily leave me feeling less than, I found an empathy and kindness I didn’t know I needed. Immediately after, I declared to my mom that she was my favorite relative. The summer after eighth grade, I moved to California from my little Kansas town. I was struck by the Chinese community embedded in my new home. Suddenly, I found myself retelling stories of childhood that rang true for so many. For the first time, I felt like I wasn’t the only one who had ever felt like this. In my senior year, while I was applying for colleges, I would call my sister all the time for advice. In one particular call, her boyfriend at the time was in the room with her. At its end, I heard his voice crackle on the other end, “What do you keep calling her?” For a moment, I tried to figure out if my sister had called me a nickname or if she’d ever even had one for me. And then I realized: Kessie. In Mandarin, there’s no “th” sound like the one in Cathy so my family has always pronounced my name as something closer to Kessie or Cassie than Cathy. But, before that moment, I had never realized they ever called me anything other than exactly what my name is. To me, Cathy and Kessie are the exact same and I am unable to differentiate between the sound of them, both as familiar as, literally, my name. I had long believed that to be truly Chinese-American I had to cross some threshold for both, some unmistakable line that made me unquestionably Chinese enough and American enough. Kessie made me realize that I’m not and that I never will be. Kessie, an unmistakable mark of my and my family’s immigration and assimilation, of perhaps falling short of American yet still not being Chinese enough, has never been anything but warm. Safe and so familiar I had never even realized it was there, a branding of my past. Kessie is me and she — I — am, unmistakably, Chinese-American. Standing in my backyard in the biting cold that last weekend of January, I finally started to see the threads of how far I had come. When I was in middle school, sometimes, Mrs. Choi would drive me home from school. I’d step into her classroom and sheepishly ask and she would unfailingly agree. During our last car ride she told me how excited she was that I was moving to California. She told me I would thrive. “All of the Asians” she whispered conspiratorially. And though it came out like a joke, I knew she meant it. And I did. I have. Now my parents go hiking almost every weekend, plan even bigger hiking trips for themselves every so often. They go out in the mornings and fill boxes with oranges from our tree. They find joy for themselves and they keep moving forward. My sister has built a community for herself in a city I don’t think she ever thought she’d settle down in. She teaches kids at a Chinese immersion school and she loves each and every one of them. She fearlessly pursues the things that make her happy. I sit in a rickety little chair in Dwinelle 283 every day from 1-2PM learning Chinese. I sit amongst a small but mighty group of kids all trying to reclaim a part of themselves. I cook tomato and egg, a classic Chinese dish (西红 柿炒鸡蛋) in my apartment. I try to use Chinese in texts and phone calls with my parents. I’ve carved out a life I think little Cathy (Kessie) would be proudAsof.I stood in my backyard in January, as I smelled the incense, as I thought about my mother, about my father, about all they had lost and still continue to lose, at the tears that stung behind my eyes, I realized how far we — I — had come. I still feel unsteady more often than I’d like to admit. I want to feel like I belong; I want to make my parents proud. But, we’ve managed to cobble together something beautiful and broken and we all still so desperately try. I still don’t quite know where I belong, am still unsure of where to go from here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still have something real. I’m not sure I’ll ever learn how to be a “real” or “authentic” Chinese girl. That was out of the question a long time ago. But, I think I’m finally beginning to understand that that is not a shortcoming of mine. All I can do is try to be Chinese-American in the truest sense of the word. Embody that stupid hyphen.
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BECOMING APC: A PLAYER CHARACTER
WORDS BY CHASE MCCLEARY / VISUALS BY MELODY GARZA
1. You approach the citizens.
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3. You punch their lights out, steal their meager savings, and pay the fare. Within the next hour you have found the Degree, won the girl, beat the game, etc. And you walk away from your console feeling satisfied and hungry for more Doritos.
The plundering may seem like a cold decision, yet it is one considered reasonable and appropriate in the eyes of many. After all, the gardeners are insignificant, pre-coded characters, collections of ones and zeros fated to collect rutabagas, hold some amount of pocket wealth, and possibly carry on a basic, scripted conversation about the plentiful rutabaga crop this year. And yet their innocent request for help in rooting their rutabagas strikes an empathic nerve that sends guilty shivers down one’s Dorito-dust covered fingers. This simplicity might inspire empathy and compassion in a player and beg the regretful, introspective reflection: Was that the right thing to do? Why do I feel guilty for mugging these artificial computer-generations? How can I be a more principled and upstanding player and person? The gardeners, the ogres, and other Non-Player Characters may provide more of a model than first expected.
Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are controlled by a computer rather than the player. They typically act with little to no agency, operate on a carefully designed code of scripted lines and predetermined actions and responses, and with a simplistic role in assisting or obstructing the main player. Game developers code NPCs to interact with the playable characters, and because they are coded, they often act unrealistically and inhumanly — like the pedestrian walking repeatedly into a wall or the trader that continues bartering while being robbed.
2. They ask if you’d like to help harvest their rutabagas.
You are walking down a dirt path, bow in right hand, a faded map in your left, and a leather satchel containing arrows and modest provisions strung across your back. After a multitude of selfless days assisting townsfolk with various trifling tasks, you have finally completed enough side quests to progress on your main journey — or so you think. As you near the entrance to the legendary Calopolis — home to the fabled Degree of Perpetual Wealth — you realize you don’t have enough gold to pay the toll fare. You click between your arrows, your provisions, and your map, hopelessly searching for anything to trade, but when you offer some stale bread and an obsidian arrowhead, the two warted ogres standing guard snort in your face. They are heavily armed — so forcible entry is not an option — and apart from a few citizens gardening nearby, there is no one for miles around. What will you do? For many, the following:
The Non-Player Character takes many forms and fulfills many roles, ranging from vendors like Tom Nook in Animal Crossing — a racoon shop owner who provides tasks and sidequests — to quest givers like Navi in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time — a sprite who helps guide Link, the protagonist. Beyond vendors and quest givers, NPCs can be found as service providers, enemies, storytellers, sidekicks, and allies.Regardless of their shortcomings, NPCs are integral parts to a successful game, and theorists and game designers conduct extensive research towards crafting more believable characters. Many emphasize their ability to conduct simple social interactions — like turning and facing others during conversation. Researchers have found that the factors with the
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Central to Buddhism is the concept of the Middle Passage or the Middle Way, most simply defined as avoiding the extremes of self-gratification and self-mortification. The teaching encourages pursuing a more balanced existence, and by dissecting the extremes of the NPC and MCE, one discovers traits which might improve our own immersion and moral selves.Instead of becoming flustered and inept when faced with change, we can learn from the NPC and increase our levels of adaption and crisis response. For example, while talking
Consequently, pro-Trump internet trolls have co-opted the term “Non-Player Character,” using it as a left-wing insult labeling liberals as “brainwashed sheep who have been conditioned to repeat left-wing orthodoxy, in the manner of a scripted character. Though this may be an overinflated example, it does reveal the fundamental weakness of the NPC: lack of agency. Without agency, the Non-Player Character remains a product of culture and society as opposed to a producer of culture and society. When translated to the real world, it becomes apparent that lacking agency can be a potentially detrimental characteristic. However, there is a remedy to such complacency and infectivity — another social media-propagated diagnosis to one’s psychological and existential challenges: Main Character Energy.Main Character Energy (MCE) is the feeling of being “ineffably in charge” of one’s life and living “as if the world were there for your personal satisfaction.” For example, TikTok influencers preach buying groceries for only a couple days at a time, dancing to music and not caring what people think, and bathing in phone-filter sparkles on a blanket by the beach. All that virtually glitters is not gold: Main Character Energy, bursting with egoism, plasticity, and a volatile craving for social acceptance, has since devolved into “Main Character Syndrome.” This TikTok-born diagnosis criticizes others for being self-centered, for framing themselves as being perfect, and for seeking validation within their out-of-control lives.
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foremost negative impact on player immersion — the ability for the player to become completely immersed in the game — is a “lack of awareness” and a “lack of understanding of context.”
Additionally, NPCs must be “imbued with a sense of rationality and intentionality,” demonstrated by a “guiding consciousness.” This is a defining differentiator between non-player and player characters; those without an understanding of the circumstances or context of the situation appear lifeless, machine-like, and disengaged from the world. Beings that repeat non-sequiturs in response to player questions — that appear unaware of changing weather or potentially harmful threat, or that continue gardening despite being attacked by a stranger — display an absence in cognizance and consciousness that reveals their artificiality. This might be measured in terms of the Turing Test — a method of recognizing and discerning human and artificially intelligent beings based on their abilities to “‘think’ instead of ‘parrot.’”
So if we can’t be Non-Player Characters and we can’t be Main Characters, who can we be?
Instead, the conversation monopolist should embrace turn taking and cede the floor to other speakers; the silent breakout room black-boxer should display group making abilities by turning on their cameras, turning on their microphones, and contributing to deliberations and discussions; and the absentee project member should exhibit cooperation skills by adding to their team’s efforts. Though these improvements may appear obvious and straightforward, they are improvements that many fail to recognize and act upon. Thankfully, the NPC underlines this exemplary behavior for any and all to follow.
Finally, NPCs must achieve the highly impactful characteristics of awareness and understanding of context.
Another Skyrim NPC failed to understand when it was and was not an appropriate time to speak and would often interrupt others already in conversation. Researchers describe this as low “turn taking value” and “group making” abilities. Examples of turn taking might include speaking over someone when conversing or cutting in line without regarding other waiting characters. Instead, the NPC should have focused more on cooperation, which may be as simple as supplying supportive facial expressions during difficult missions or helping train and boost the strength or experience levels of central characters. Many would benefit from developing their turn taking, group making, and cooperation skills — like the conversation hog who monopolizes class discussion, the camera-off, muted blackbox in a Zoom breakout room, and the absent project member who contributes nothing more than their first and last name.
This includes both remaining true to themselves and their roles while “being capable of showing emotions.” Key markers of highly immersive NPCs were ones that not only acted rationally within the context of their character, but which displayed “interruptibility” and “models of self” as well. The most effective NPCs must demonstrate “models of others,” and “models of self,” a combination of internal and external awareness that aligns with the Buddha’s Middle Way. When pursuing a balance in Main Character Energy, it is critical that others be considered along with ourselves. One study found that players can develop empathetic relationships with the fictional NPCs that fill their games. At the start of a new game, players often reported an “expectation of triviality” towards non-player characters — an understanding that they as players are real and are, therefore, superior to the NPC. However, over time players began viewing these machines as “playmates’’ and could anticipate the “worries, wishes, or needs of [these] virtual companions.” These emerging empathetic relationships suggest that computer games might provide “a social ‘training ground’ for developing the necessary skills and cultural forms for [social] relationships.” By granting “some sort of ‘personhood’” to all instead of dehumanizing or “expect[ing] triviality,” one makes room for compassion that may arise.Onequestion remains: what do we become in this Middle Way between the NPC and MCE? I offer the following: A Player Character (APC). By becoming no more and no less than A Player, we recognize our agency and our role within the world while not positioning our journey above that of others. We are one among many, and we recognize and build upon our shortcomings towards fostering more significant, more empathetic, more meaningful relationships within our lives. This Middle Way dirt path may be complicated and confusing, but as APCs we will have the gardeners, the ogres, and ourselves to find the way, and perhaps even a few Doritos as well.
66 spring 2022 / calibermag.org with a main player, one Skyrim NPC was attacked by a large crab. Instead of defending himself, the NPC tried to finish the conversation while being attacked and died shortly thereafter due to crustacean-related wounds. This provides an interesting model for decision-making and flexibility: when facing unhealthy, potentially dangerous distractions — be it stressrelated self-harm or a large killer crab — it is important that one take a step back, adapt, and respond to the crises at hand. One’s social interactions might be improved as well.
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My relationship with planning was one of
Exploring WhyProductivity:ToxicDoYouPlan?
There’s a reason there’s a “J” in my MyersBriggs Type Indicator (MBTI). I’ve always been a planner. I’m the type of person that likes knowing what’s ahead and who feels calmer having prepared for it. “Ability to plan ahead” has always been a self-proclaimed strength of mine: it’s at the top of my resume and at the tip of my tongue when the right question prompts it. Admittedly, it’s one of the traits that I’m proud of, but it’s also a trait that, at a certain point in my life, I felt like I needed. Without it, I felt like I would have been paralyzed by the sheer amount of tasks and schoolwork of my overachieving high school days. Writing everything, setting deadlines for myself, and breaking up larger assignments helped me take things one step at a time and also gave me the satisfaction of crossing tasks off the list. Even now, in college, my planning system has saved me a world of avoidable stress and anxiety. While we’re at, I’ll go ahead and admit it. I do think I go overboard with preparations sometimes. Like, did we need a whole pack of napkins for a four-person picnic? Probably not. I digress. This semester, a couple of things changed for me, however. I’m a junior now, but to be honest, last semester felt like a replay of my first semester at Berkeley: a — slightly nauseating — rollercoaster of ups and downs, new experiences, and a general sense of overstimulation. I had underestimated how long it would take me to readjust to being at school after having spent over a year with my family at home. I had to get used to so many newly reintroduced aspects of life, like living in an apartment with housemates, going to in-person lectures, and balancing school life with personal life. I’d also forgotten more generally how draining simply being in the midst of Berkeley chaos could be for me: the pace of life, hustle culture, and the sheer amount of people around me at any given moment was overwhelming at times. The onslaught of emotions and lack of control I felt were the culmination of these aforementioned factors.
That doesn’t mean that I thought last semester was a bad semester by any means, though. Retrospectively, despite the stress and hecticness of last semester, a part of me does recognize that all of those struggles were growing pains. Growth doesn’t always have to be painful, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned at Berkeley so far, it’s that pain is often the prologue to growth. These growing pains that we experience during transitional periods of college life are difficult, but I’ve come to realize that it’s often during these periods of life that we learn the most about ourselves.
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WORDS BY KRISTEN YEE / VISUALS BY LYNN KIM
themany aspects of my life that I re-evaluated after last semester. Winter break gave me the time that I needed to decompress and reflect on all the events and adjustments that I’d made during the fall. Specifically, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about where I was spending my time. How much time was spent studying? How much time was I investing in the relationships that mattered to me? Didn’t matter to me? Did I spend any time trying new things? Resting? Realistically, I asked myself, where was my time most well spent? Where would I gain the most value and why? By asking myself these questions, I began to reprioritize the values with which I had lived my college life.
The immediate conclusion I came to was surprisingly simple: I decided to take the spring semester easy — let go of my pride, step down from a couple of clubs, and give myself time to do things I normally wouldn’t have had time for. Because I think it also hit me, during winter break, that I had already passed the halfway mark of my time at Berkeley not having done a lot of what I wanted to do. That’s why one of my housemates and I made a “Berkeley Bucket List” — fondly shortened to BBL. We wrote on little strips of paper the names of restaurants, places, or things we wanted to do before graduating, slipped them into a bottle and took a strip out whenever we both happened to be free. The items on the list aren’t anything particularly special; they’re little things, like getting brunch at La Note, exploring BAMFA, or getting coffee at the Hidden Cafe. That was precisely the irony: the things on the list aren’t anything special, but because I had focused so much on schoolwork or clubs, I hadn’t made time for myself to do the things that brought me growth and joy in different ways.
As a result of all these reflections, I don’t quite feel the same need to plan as much as I previously did. I have my planning system, consisting of a weekly agenda and to-do lists, but I don’t feel compelled to look at it most days — at least not anymore. Honestly, a part of me sometimes feels like I should jot tasks down out of obligation to the system I’m so used to. Don’t get me wrong — during midterm seasons or particularly hectic weeks, I still do rely on planning to get me through. But the more time I have on my hands, the more I realize I don’t need to portion out my time as exactly as I used to. One big takeaway I had was that there isn’t a need to be so precise with where my time goes all the time. Time is definitely precious — especially to college students — but micromanaging where it’s spent doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re using time to its maximum efficacy. You can block out all the parts of your day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that what you do during that time block ensures anything. Really, I’ve come to learn that a lot of the academic stress I felt in high school and early in college stemmed from a toxic relationship with productivity. do poorly on an assignment, essay, or exam. Putting in hours and hours doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily more productive than somebody else — and especially not so if you’re sacrificing your
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Personally, now that my planning system is more flexible, I’ve come to realize how liberating flexibility with time can feel. It’s almost as liberating as that first breath of fresh air after taking your mask off. “That’s probably a given,” you might be thinking, but I think my past self had always seen flexibility as a means for leaving room for error, rather than leaving room for me to rest. Flexibility has become increasingly valuable to me because it’s a way for me to live life the way I feel it’s meant to be lived by a college student. Some days won’t be productive, some days will be spent spontaneously with friends, and other days you’ll miss everything on your to-do list. That’s all okay. The world isn’t going to end if you go off track every once in a while. In fact, if you’re having a really unproductive day it’s probably your body telling you it needs rest, and that’s what you should give it. And those spontaneous outings with friends? Those are usually the best. For me, spontaneity has played a huge role in how I rest and relax. Of course, if you’re a natural planner like me, too much spontaneity can still be stressful, but there’s definitely something healthy in a balance of both. I’ve found that planning for flexibility is perfect for me. What does that look like? It looks like setting about half of my Saturday aside to do whatever I feel like doing that’s non-work-related. By blocking out that time, I allow myself to be spontaneous within a reasonably fluid boundary. This semester, a lot of that time has been spent exploring new parts of Berkey with my housemates, but there are also times when I just let myself sleep in or relax at home. Of course, this is all possible out of a place of privilege and a lighter workload this semester, but even just one hour has the same effect. You could take dinnertime to explore a new restaurant in Berkeley you haven’t tried. Haven’t been to the top of the Campanile? Get on up there! Or pull up that “feel good” Spotify playlist on your phone (come on, we’ve all got one of those), take a quick walk, and get some fresh air.
The key lesson is that it’s not how much time you spend on something, it’s how you spend it. Thirty minutes — heck, even an hour of rest doesn’t mean that your paper is going to get docked a letter grade. Feeling burnout is normal, especially for a Berkeley student, and you don’t have to power through it all the time. According to an article from the Harvard Business Review, “It’s essential to replenish your physical and emotional energy, along with your capacity to focus, but prioritizing good sleep habits, nutrition, exercise, social connection, and practices that promote equanimity and well-being, like meditating, journaling, and enjoying nature.” Notice that the good sleep habits, nutrition, and well-being mentioned in the article aren’t characterized as taking a backseat to one’s capacity to focus; they are aspects of your life that you should prioritize. It is through these practices that we can start to build a healthier relationship with productivity, so that rest and relaxation become a part of how we understand productivity, rather than something that comesRestafterward.andrejuvenation — whether that takes the form of sleeping, trying something new, or meeting
“ The key lesson is that it’s not how much time you spend on something, it’s how you spend it. “ mental wellbeing in the meanwhile. Trust me, I’ve been there — sleep-deprived, hours after hours trapped in my room, fueled only by anxiety-induced adrenaline — and it’s definitely not a sustainable lifestyle.
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with friends — is sometimes the most productive thing we can do. In a book by Silicon Valley-based consultant and writer Alex Soojung-Kim Pang called Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, Pang delineates “some of the fascinating research that shows how rest helps us to think, innovate, and increase our productivity, and what we can do to rest more effectively.” Even without this book, I know we’ve all tried pushing through burnout and fatigue: has that time ever truly been productive? Were you satisfied with the work you did while in that state? Probably not, and no wonder, because according to a study by the Official Journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), “burnout leads to lower productivity and impaired quality of work.” Burnout, thus, is not something to be powered through, because doing so can actually be counterproductive to whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish. Moreover, it’s a clear sign from your body of weariness that you should listen to. But then arises the question that if rest is so obviously critical to productivity, then why have we been programming ourselves to think otherwise?
For example, I use Notion, a project management and note-taking software that offers a number of templates meant for task management and organization. There are also mobile apps like Flora, a free productivity app that sets aside 25-minute work increments for users. During those 25 minutes, a little plant begins to grow on the screen. If users leave the app, the plant will die, but if they successfully stay off other apps for the duration, then users are rewarded with the sight of a fully-grown plant.
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These applications aren’t inherently dangerous, but they do tend to train the user by rewarding them for “time well-spent” and invoking feelings of guilt otherwise. Rather than avoid using productivity or planning applications altogether, it’s more important to be careful in choosing which ones we use, how often we use them, and understanding what purpose they should serve. Are we downloading them to keep us accountable, or are we allowing them to guilt-trip us when we can’t meet their standards of productivity?
One of the main reasons that I wanted to write this article was to ask you to re-evaluate your own idea of productivity and how planning plays into that definition. If planning is a way for you to maintain a healthy relationship with work and productivity, then by all means continue doing what you’re doing! Maybe you’re not a planner at all and like to play things by ear. But if you’re like me and planning began to become a stressor rather than a de-stressor, I’d encourage you to think through your reasons for planning and how you might make some changes. The process of making those changes might take time, as it did for me, but I think it’s ultimately an important enough endeavor to put work into.
Of course, the academic rigor of Berkeley is probably one reason. The grades that we receive falsely appear as measures of how productively and efficiently we’ve been using our time. Another reason, I think, is the rise of media forms portraying a “productive day in the life of.” These videos inadvertently set standards for what productivity looks like and imposes those standards on viewers. A third and increasingly problematic reason is the increasing usage of productivity apps. A study from the leading mobile data and analytics company data.ai revealed that consumers installed business and productivity apps 7.1 billion times in 2020, 35% more than in 2019. There are a plethora of productivity and planning applications on desktop and mobile devices.
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While Caliber is a part of the Associated Students of the University of California at Berkeley, the content of the magazine does not reflect the opinions of the ASUC in any way.
COVER PHOTO BY MELODY GARZA FEATURING ANA CASTELLO AND ALEX GOORAY
Caliber Magazine Issue 22 | Spring 2022