Only Time Will Tell | SCene Magazine Issue No.9

The Time Capsule Issue

Issue No. 9

Spring 20261

Issue No. 9 | Spring 2026 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | Solana Espino EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | Kayden-Harmony Greenstein DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND MARKETING | Ashleigh Azarraga DIRECTOR OF WRITING | David Sosa DIRECTOR OF COPY | Sammie Yen DIRECTOR OF PHOTO | Fin Liu DIRECTOR OF DESIGN | Carlee Nixon DIRECTOR OF MULTIMEDIA | Chiu Yen Vergara WRITING India Brown Sean Guzmán Halle Hunt Amelie Melsness Elsis Saravia Claire Sloniewsky Liam Wady Lauren Worley PHOTOGRAPHY Kamryn Arjoon Danya Auda Hanna Morley Giselle Ohm DESIGN Nicholas Corral Lara Graves Phoebe Piserchio Nayeli Romero Erin Wijaya 2

MULTIMEDIA Lyric Campbell Erin Chang Audrey So Olivia Smith FUNDRAISING + PR Jamie Choe Tiffany Im Vera Riabova Miya Sugihara TALENT + CREW Viviana Aviles Rishika Bathwal Will Bundon Minervita Diez Seth Elkins Ethan Ellington Nikia Fenix Nothando Gilika Katie Havens

Halle Hunt Jonathan Iysale Valerie Lin Venus Lordson Sophie Martinez Christian Mitchell Dorothy Amézquita Monahan Ivy Ng Kate North Jade Pretell Vera Riabova Elsis Saravia Lena Fukuoka-Schreiber Sophia Suzanne Skylar Wesley

TABLE OF CONTENTS

4-5 | Letter from the Editors + Creative Director 6-15 | Terms and Conditions of Young Adulthood Today India Brown A hermit-crab story in the form of a contract about being 21 in 2026.

16-25 | 24 Hours on Long Island, New York Claire Sloniewsky Welcome to my hometown, and all of my memories.

26-37 | Daddy T and the Making of a Home Amelie Melsness Schrödinger’s Papi only exists in friendship-forging filmography.

38-47 | As We Decay Liam Wady Hum your way into a memory.

48-57 | New Decade, Same Me Danya Auda A photo essay honoring digital eras of the past.

58-65 | Meditations on Love & Temporality Sean Guzmán Reckoning with love, loss and everything in between.

66-73 | The Cigarette I Never Smoked, But Still Keep Elsis Saravia Should you part with your ex’s things? I never do.

74-81 | The Friends That Never Go Out of Style Lauren Worley Some friendships fade. The best ones never do.

82-93 | I Know I Am, but What Are You? Halle Hunt What it means to peak in college.

94-95 | Behind the SCenes An exclusive look at our creative process.

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Back in my hometown, time seems to move the way it always has. But when I return, everything feels different. The small town I knew is now lined with chain restaurants, and somewhere over the past few years, traffic has started to build on the road toward the nearest city. Even when Solana and I look back on past issues of SCene, we struggle to remember which image or spread belonged to which publication. Time does not wait for you. It simply keeps moving.

When we first began imagining this issue, I felt a deep urge to freeze things as they were, to hold on to a moment before it slipped away. But as we brought this issue to life, it became clear how impossible that really is. Time has a way of reminding you it is in control. I would pass the models that our photographers just shot a week earlier, with freshly dyed hair and new looks. I would sit in meetings with Solana, presenting ideas while almost forgetting that, by the end of the semester, she would be leaving SCene and USC behind.

SCene itself has always been in a constant state of growth and change. It feels less like a publication and more like a living, breathing thing. In hindsight, we were a little naive to think we could ever freeze it.

Instead, this issue has become something else, a kind of time capsule. It holds the 4

present as it exists now, but it also carries the weight of what will soon become the past. Every time we revisit it during edits, it feels slightly different, shaped by where we are at that moment. It is not fixed.

I know that when I look back on this issue a year from now, as I approach graduation, it will mean something entirely new to me.

That is the beauty of this magazine. No matter where you are in your life, it meets you there, and somehow, it always makes you feel SCene.

Queue “Tongue Tied” by GROUPLOVE. Could you give a soon-to-be graduate some space to be sentimental? SCene has given so much to me, from the time I joined the design team to serving as Editor-in-Chief for the past year. In how much it’s given, I hope I have given as much back into it.

From pitch to print, seeing how our theme is interpreted by the team and how they run with it to create the next issue always amazed me.

This issue feels like the perfect send-off as EIC. An innocent question was posed from an observation on my feed: “Why is everyone obsessed with 2016 again?”

No, seriously, the mustache finger, Rio de Janeiro filters and pictures of people from 10 years ago flooded my Instagram overnight. It got me thinking about trend resurrection, in fashion, in slang and how we love to romanticize time.

#yolo moments. At its root, it looks at our continuous pursuit of reminiscing. It looks at the resurgence of physical media: photostrips, polaroids and records. It looks at the body: the shivers down your spine that start when that song involuntarily sends you down memory lane.

Which is exactly why I chose “Tongue Tied” for your read through of this letter.

In my premature recollection of college, this song ties all the feelings of indecision and promise, no matter what year I was in.

And when we inevitably come back 10 years from now to revisit and romanticize 2026, open up “Only Time Will Tell” as the historical reference.

Thank you SCene, you always made me feel heard.

I brought this idea to Kayden and the spring team to begin our research to understand why. What this issue discovered is that time is more than resurrection; it’s a reflection, one that only time can tell.

We look to the past to inform our future.

When we feel lost, we use it as an anchor.

Issue No. 9 brings to life the unspoken rules of youth, one devised from latenight debriefs, inside jokes and a lot of 5

written by India Brown photographed by Kayden-Harmony Greenstein designed by Erin Wijaya

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Terms and Conditions of Young Adulthood Today Effective as of [MAY 2, 2026]

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PLEASE READ CAREFULLY. BY CONTINUING TO EXIST, RESIDE, PARTICIPATE, OR OTHERWISE REMAIN PRESENT, YOU AGREE TO THE FOLLOWING TERMS. DEFINITIONS For purposes of these Terms and Conditions: 1.1 “You”: The individual to whom these terms apply, roughly 18 to 24 years of age, identified as a member of a generation situated at the threshold of pre-human-controlled technology and post-technology controlled humans. YOU are the first party for whom this distinction is not theoretical.

YOU may be defined as someone keenly aware of all the unknown that surrounds YOU. 1.2 “The Phone”: The portable device or fifth limb YOU carry and cradle in bed, in which compulsive consumption of forgettable entertainment occurs, communication with people sitting directly beside you occurs, outsourcing of navigation to the same coffee shop YOU could otherwise find via sleepwalking occurs, reception of advertisements disguised as serendipitously personal recommendations occur, and which CANNOT be lost or misplaced for greater than eight minutes. YOU may feel eerily understood by the PHONE. It is not clear that this has made YOU feel known.

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1.3 “The Current Moment”: The jurisdiction in which this agreement is executed and enforced, which applies to individuals outside its scope of availability but instills YOU in particular with a psychic sense of doom and a paralyzing fear of the unknown, which in said CURRENT MOMENT, encompasses almost everything.

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PERMITTED ACTIVITIES 2.1 YOU are permitted to read no fewer than FOUR (4) articles per week about the positive effects of morning sunlight, outdoor movement, and microdosed, uninterrupted silence, provided said reading occurs within the air-conditioned interior of YOUR bedroom, concurrently with another form of stimulation, the sun and songs of birds outside notwithstanding.

2.2 YOU are granted permission to the purchase of ONE (1) flip phone upon urging from a minimum of FIVE (5) advertisements and on the condition that YOU post content about the benefits of said flip phone, and more generally, “unplugging,” via other social media channels on the PHONE, which will of course remain the primary electronic device, eclipsed by the flip phone only on select nights out or “cute” walks to a coffee shop in which YOU may be seen by others who YOU wish to perceive YOU as blasé, unique or nostalgic. Actual use of said flip phone, and thus termination of the need for the PHONE, is prohibited.

2.3 YOU are granted permission to the purchase of ONE (1) hardcover journal, with a retail value to fall between FORTY-TWO DOLLARS ($42) and TWOHUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS ($220), and 10

a pen that feels significant, on the condition that the journal remain positioned within eyeline on YOUR desk or nightstand as documentation of YOUR interiority and general depth of character. Entry shall be limited to the date, the sentence “I need to start doing this more,” and, in some cases, a list of things YOU are grateful for that YOU will not return to. The journal may additionally be positioned beside a book YOU are also not reading.

2.4 YOU are permitted to allocate an unspecified monthly sum toward the optimization of YOUR face, body, and general biological situation, including but not limited to: a microcurrent lymphatic drainage device, another microcurrent lymphatic drainage device for the other side of YOUR face, a red light, a different red light, a vibrating thing, a cooling thing, a heating thing, and a small device whose purpose YOU have not yet determined but whose retail packaging was sufficiently convincing. A new anxiety regarding the correct order, temperature, and pressure of application shall be included at no additional charge. This anxiety may be resolved by purchasing additional products.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF YOUNG ADULTHOOD TODAY| India Brown

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tly ren an r cu as ow ‘27 e w t sh n h ar ow S w Br ism. Ste ia al ha nd urn art I r jo e M rite s h W die on t . stu tra hild ex a c as

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OBLIGATIONS 3.1 YOU shall place an order for food via third-party delivery application at a cost not to exceed THREE TIMES (3x) the price of its preparation at home, to arrive in no fewer than FORTY-FIVE (45) minutes at a temperature indistinguishable from the ambient air of YOUR residence. YOU shall consume approximately half, abandon the remainder, and experience a brief but sincere grief over the THIRTY-SEVEN DOLLARS ($37) spent on this acquisition, which YOU shall repeat tomorrow.

3.2 YOU shall submit no fewer than FIVE HUNDRED (500) applications via LinkedIn, attend the requisite networking events, and present YOUR prior experience serving ice cream as evidence of “leadership,” “bandwidth,” and “synergy.” In the event that YOU are not selected for a position, it shall be noted for the record that the selected candidate’s father plays golf with someone.

3.3 YOU shall submit no fewer than ONE (1) assignment per week composed entirely by artificial intelligence, and shall experience, in the approximate forty seconds between submission and opening a new tab, a genuine and suffocating fear for YOUR intellectual future, the erosion of YOUR curiosity, and the direction of YOUR generation. YOU shall not do anything about this.

Subsections may continue indefinitely…

ASSUMPTION OF RISK 4.1 YOU assume all risks associated with the nightly ritual: the couch, your friends, shoulders pressed together, each of you absorbed in a separate screen. A podcast clip, a daily vlog, nothing you will remember. You will notice that you cannot conjure one thing to say to your alleged second family, privately terrified by the knowledge that, without realizing it, you have traded all the honeyed voices that once made the music of your life for a blue glow and the sound of strangers. The living room will feel larger, suddenly, and darker. The night will feel longer. You will pick up your PHONE, and for a moment, you will forget again.

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MODIFICATIONS & CONTINUED ACCEPTANCE 5.2 NOTICE OF CHANGES: YOU will wake up one day and find the terms have changed, and YOU will not be able to say exactly when. YOU will be exhausted in a way that is new and also very old. Underneath everything, YOU want what every young person has always wanted: to be known, to matter.

5.3 CONTINUED ACCEPTANCE: The terms do not cover this. YOU will continue anyway.

Do you agree?

SIGN HERE:

TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF YOUNG ADULTHOOD TODAY| India Brown 14

Model Christian Mitchell ‘28, a Dramatic Arts major from San Antonio, Texas. He can play the trumpet.

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24 HOURS ON

LONG ISLAND NEW

YORK

WRITTEN BY CLAIRE SLONIEWSKY 16

DESIGNED BY CARLEE NIXON

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W

hether your ferry sank somewhere off the coast of Connecticut or your car began coughing smoke on the way to the Hamptons, you somehow washed up on the North Shore of Long Island.

WELCOME TO MY HOME! HOMETOWN! Lucky for you, I’ll be your tour guide for the next twentyfour hours. If you only have one day here, this is exactly how you should spend it.

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5 A.M. The best time to wake up in Stony Brook, NY, is just before 5 a.m. Early enough that the sky is still blue-black, your neighborhood is especially quiet, and crickets are chirping relentlessly. The roads won’t be busy with carpooling parents and coffee shop regulars just yet. Still, shuffle on an extra layer and grab an energy drink on the way out. It’s going to be a long day.

Your first destination belongs to the high school senior version of you, in the last few meaningless school days before summer. This morning, you’re visiting the neighborhoods of Belle Terre.

“As the sun rises, stay on the sandbar long enough to feel both cluelessly eighteen-yearsold in suburban New York and suddenly nineteen in Los Angeles.“

If you’re anything like me, you’re blasting a carefully curated senior-year nostalgia playlist, volume cranked high enough for rare passersby to hear familiar choruses about growing up and moving far away. You’re (definitely not) speeding to make it for the sunrise.

The walk to the waterfront Belle Terre village requires weaving through Port Jefferson, a harbor known for its easy transport to Connecticut, ice cream shops with exotic flavors and docks extending into the lapping Long Island Sound. There will be time later to peruse sun-bleached bed and breakfasts and the turquoise public library.

Keep walking straight up the hill until the street ends.

On the left, there is a driftwood staircase. The beach below is almost always empty, and the sandbars stretch out farther than you’d expect, thin and walkable.

Sink into the wet sand and watch for dancing fiddler crabs.

As the sun rises, stay on the sandbar long enough to feel both cluelessly eighteen-years-old in suburban New York and suddenly nineteen in Los Angeles.

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7 A.M. Still exhausted from the early wake-up?

Drive to Stony Brook Village for Georgio’s Coffee. Order iced coffee for homemade syrups and coffee-flavored ice cubes that clink against your glass.

My order: Iced vanilla latte with oat milk If coffee isn’t your thing, make your way down the street to the cherry-leathered Crazy Beans café. They sell lavender lemonade that tastes pastel and floral, like spring dissolved into a cup. Awkward middle school, you would absolutely agree.

Walk to the Village Green, where you once smiled for prom pictures and mailed letters to Santa outside a chipper post office. If you happen to be there in early December, attend the annual tree lighting.

These memories will be replaced with study sessions in Leavey Library and first-semester final exams sooner than you think.

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10 A.M. Moving backward to when you’re about eight years old, pushing open the excessively heavy door of Emma S. Clark Memorial Library. The air is cool and papery. Upon entering, you veer toward the children’s section. Ask your mom to grab anything from the Berenstain Bears collection. It’s always on the top shelf, and you can’t reach it yet.

Pile your arms with Roald Dahl, Kate DiCamillo, Astrid Lindgren and Natalie Babbitt. Once the stack reaches your nose, it’s time to sit cross-legged on the scratchy carpeting, scooting into a corner where your legs will inevitably fall asleep. Years later, you’ll claim this library was the reason you chose to study English Literature in college.

12 P.M. Next stop: the 169-year-old St. James General Store.

Fun fact: It' s the oldest continuously operating general store in the United States.

A small bell will ring as you enter, encompassing you with scents of settled dust, powdered sugar and something sweetly artificial. You’ll pass glass cases of chocolate-covered pretzels beside mason jars of electric blue rock candy and mood rings. There is a massive stuffed bear in an apron guarding the children’s section, where tea sets that look identical to the purple one from your childhood bedroom sit nestled on wooden shelves.

It’s impossible to leave without a bag of candy corn. In October, the store sells the traditional orange and yellow. In spring, it turns into pastel “bunny corn,” colored with vibrant pink, purple and green. That type is a personal favorite.

“Years later, you'll claim this library was the reason you chose to study English Literature in college.“ 21

3 P.M. Now it’s a Friday in September of your junior year of high school, and you are deep in an iced pumpkin chai latte phase.

The Setauket Farmers Market hums with live acoustic covers and the smell of sourdough. What’s not to love about live music, handmade jewelry, and pickles on a stick? Walk around, window-shop, and observe Dr. Samuel Thompson’s 1709 house from the American Revolution. The blips of local history you barely glance at would seem unusual anywhere but here.

No one else you know grew up crafting dolls out of corn husks and twine.

Make sure to eat the black-and-white cookie on your way out, even if it’s the size of your face.

5 P.M. The first warm day of spring might be the best day of the year. It marks the start of picnicking, eating dinner al fresco, long runs after school, and doodling with thick chalk in the driveway.

Park near the Three Village Tennis Club ​​and begin your run toward Old Field Lighthouse. As the hills lessen, the houses grow bigger. You should see the lighthouse come into view about three miles in. I recommend running with a parent, especially if you have a fellow English major for a dad. That way, you can both spoil the endings of your current books with no shame.

As for the lighthouse, it’s impossible not to return to. Winter walks with soaked Uggs and every solar eclipse is spent on the grass outside, head tilted back against the cool stone of the keeper’s house.

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7 P.M. For the next activity, you’re going to need guacamole.

Here is my family recipe: Ingredients: 1 to 2 ripe Hass avocados 1/4 to 1/2 cup tomatillo salsa 1-2 T finely chopped red onion 1/4 cup cilantro or to taste 1/4 cup diced grape tomatoes pinch of coarse salt Instructions: Mash the avocado flesh until it's mostly smooth. Add enough tomatillo salsa to make it creamy and spoonable. Fold in the red onion, cilantro, and tomatoes.

Sprinkle salt to taste. Serve with tortilla chips and the sweet soundtrack of an evening Mill Pond concert.

Bring your dish to the pond, prop up a lawn chair, and watch a different local band play each Sunday. Watch turtles nap in the sun from the bridge, sway alongside the elderly couples, or slump in your chair with another hefty book.

Keep watch, the guacamole will disappear before the sun does.

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Writer and model Claire Sloniewsky ‘29 currently studies both English Literature and Communication. She once hiked to the top of an active volcano.

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9 P.M. End your day at West Meadow Beach.

Santa Monica is beautiful, but nothing compares to an East Coast beach. Climb onto a vacant lifeguard stand and watch the sun sink into glassy water. One time, you sang original songs to the ice cream man in exchange for a free cone. One time, you gorged on watermelon cubes under a canopy of striped Costco beach towels. One time, you learned to empty every garbage can before locking up at your favorite summer job.

The rocky sand carries familiar memories of cousins and takeout pizza boxes and longboard riding for a sip from the freshwater spring. Don’t even bother riding to the spring now; they demolished it while you were away.

The pictures you just took are the ones you will scroll through in a dorm room three thousand miles away. They are the ones you will be showing to college friends you haven’t even met yet.

12 A.M. Go home.

For you, as a guest, that might just mean the last place you parked. Or, maybe it’s any of the new memories you visited today. For me, it means lying on the hood of a car still warm from the day’s driving. The crickets are loud again, and the fireflies will land in the palm of your hand.

“What matters is how long you stay.

I love my hometown, but it has become a collection of coordinates, a list of recommendations I casually give to strangers, and the physical time capsule of the past eighteen years of my life.“ life.“

It does not matter how you arrived on Long Island’s North Shore. What matters is how long you stay. I love my hometown, but it has become a collection of coordinates, a list of recommendations I casually give to strangers, and the physical time capsule of the past 18 years of my life.

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PHOTO GRAPHED

BY HANNA MORLEY DESIGNED

BY LARA GRAVES WRIT TEN

BY AMELIE MELSNESS

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DADDY T AND THE MAKING OF A HO ME

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M

y roommate Ciara and I attempted to stifle our roaring laughter for the sake of our neighbors. It was past midnight on the first Thursday of November 2025, the aftermath of Halloweekend still haunting us. We were reviewing footage of the final leg of three preposterous nights. Moreso, a singular artifact, a seemingly unassuming one that turned out to be hysterical upon further inspection: Ciara’s snipe of Daddy T and me dancing together.

Ciara’s phone showed us standing by the outdoor couches a ways away from TKE’s muddy, outdoor dancefloor, a violet glow illuminating our frames as Tinashe stuttered with anticipation for the “No Broke Boy’s” beat drop. AirPlay’s setup screen waited for interaction on a TV immediately behind us.

We played the clip on a loop, dying from amusement, transfixed

by Daddy T’s courtship display. After around half an hour, I whipped out my own phone to record a video of our reaction.

I’ll transcribe it into script format for your convenience.

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INT. AMELIE’S BEDROOM - NIGHT CIARA’s words are indistinguishable as she tries to verbalize DADDY T seemingly twerking on AMELIE in the opening frame through hyperventilating laughter. She buries her head into Amelie’s duvet to gain composure.

CIARA

I’m gonna slow that down, bro.

As she toggles, Daddy T lifts from his bent position to look back at Amelie.

AMELIE Noooo, stop.

The video begins to play in earnest.

CIARA

Ok, ok, ok. So we go for the- we go for the CIARA AND AMELIE The claps.

After spinning Amelie around, Daddy T claps on beat.

CIARA And then CIARA AND AMELIE The wings!

Model Will Bundon ‘29 is a BFA Acting major from Charlotte, North Carolina. He has a twin brother.

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IN THE DAYGLOW | Kylee Warden

Arms outstretched, Daddy T windmills slowly at his widest wingspan, peering into Amelie’s eyes.

AMELIE

And then he’s gonna get up, he’s gonna get up.

Daddy T steps onto the couch with his first foot, then, after suspending his second for a deliberative millisecond, he safely plants his tootsies back on the floor.

CIARA

And then we’re gonna fly away again!

Daddy T repurposes his full-feathered windmill motion, except this time, his arms are so enthusiastically outstretched that they sort of go back behind his body. The camera gets shaky as Amelie gasps for breath.

A short offscreen “HAH” cuts through Tinashe’s vocals as the video automatically replays.

AMELIE

(through a chuckle) Kennedy laughing…

They watch it again. Amelie gasps for breath again.

CIARA

I’m literally in tears!

----------------------------------------------------------------------And she was. We both lost some hydration from that impromptu ab workout.

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Now. You may be asking yourself who Daddy T is. I was asking myself the very same question.

However, I did leave our PG-13, 120-minute interaction with a goodie bag of fun factoids about him.

1. His DJ name is Daddy T.

2. His height (approaching Jacob Elordi stature).

3. He is a senior at A-Bay-Area-UniversityI-Can’t-Tell-You-theName-of-For-TheSake-of-Anonymity.

4. An intimate preference of his which, I will make known, was unprompted.

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5. He unabashedly loves a Californian habi t, realized in the alle yway abutting Century Apartments as he walked me home.

6. The circumstances surrounding his first and only relationship; he seemed to enjoy my doting sympathy.

7. He had a flight to catch at 6 a.m.

8. His phone number was given by my apartment’s front gate. I saved it as his sobriquet, as I already couldn’t remember his real name for the life of me. He wanted to see me when I was back in the Bay.

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I opened my front door to the ruckus of Ciara, Kennedy and Bridget bouncing off the walls of our barren living room. Debriefs were devolving into reenactments. Burnt grilled cheeses were flying off the griddle. The fire alarm went off due to said burnt grilled cheeses flying off the griddle. Bridget lifted Kennedy into the air to end the din, the pair of ballerinas dancing to cacophony. My eyebrows furrowed in worry for the surrounding occupants. It was considerably late, we had zilch in our common area to absorb sound, and the windows were opened to let smoke out in a stroke of pure genius.

But the smile on my face persisted. I could tell this was the beginning of something special. I had officially ended a dwindling relationship two days prior, the last of a tangle of romances and humiliationships (oh boy) stretching the entirety of my college years thus far. Taxing, one-sided friendships were a thing of the past.

And now, characters introduced only recently were becoming flesh and bone, forged together through the disastrous magic of Halloweekend.

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Writer Amelie Melsness ‘27 is a creative marketing and culture aficionado. She got materials to embroider her clothes three weeks ago and hasn’t yet, and is mildly stressed about it.

Daddy T was the comfort movie I fell asleep to in the following weeks. I became familiar with two fuzzy frames where light hit his face, trying to decipher if and how much my festive openness and post-party confabulation contributed to his attractiveness. Then, I pressed play and leaned back. An infinite blur where he should have been flickered onto my eyelids and jumped to different places in the frame, as there were many, many missing. But, I’ve always had a knowing appreciation for student art house anyway, especially when it has a vaguely happy ending.

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In daylight hours, Daddy T was a running joke turned small-time deity, similarly defined by his absence. Ciara and I developed a pronunciation for his name unbeknownst to him as we discussed the possibilities for his birth-given one. To our dismay, my precious list of factoids wasn’t enough to spot him in the internet’s ether, and no one apart from us quite understood our obsession with that 30-second clip. Ciara suggested we print Daddy T from a still and paste him on the wall. I agreed that it would be a welcome addition to our still very empty living room and added that his iconic T-pose lent itself to a cross; we should consider investing in one when we go thrifting next.

Cackling, we wondered what he’d think of all this (and quietly hoped he wouldn’t be offended by the latter suggestion).

As it turned out, Big T didn’t even bat an eye.

He only observed that his courtship dance, however awkward, had worked, and told me to text him a pic when he was crucified in the big ‘26. He offhandedly mentioned that he didn’t “even DJ like that,” and as he became frontlit, the halo of light surrounding him dimmed. As I predicted it would.

1 A.D.T. was off to a great start. Jake calmly dropped freshly minced garlic and breadcrumbs from the counter into an olive oil-lined pan. All in all, the vegetarian cacio e pepe was coming together. This was the second time out of many he’d invite himself over to make us dinner and order me to pick up wine from TJ’s. He kissed Kennedy behind the tulips Ciara got for Valentine’s Day, as my roomie rambled about her latest tattoo.

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Behind us, my record player spun “Who Really Cares” by TV Girl from Ciara’s amp, and her bass stood between the couch we dragged up from the street and the flimsy pseudo-sofa I got for $150 off an Amazon gift card. Masculine douchebag movie and music posters from an Amoeba excursion with Kennedy hung next to polaroids Jake took of us, all draped in fairy lights. There was nary a lick of Daddy T, only the home we made that could fractionally be attributed to a butterfly effect caused by his ridiculous flapping.

My bedtime trailer viewing has turned into a routine. I love sifting through my camera roll before hitting the hay. There’s something so cool about seeing the timeline of my life visually, the big moments, the silly moments, the accidental sidewalk pics, the random screenshots that seemed important at the time. But one I always land on is the video of Ciara and I losing it on my bed, and I giggle quietly along with us.

Model Rishika Bathwal ‘26 is a Business Administration major from Chicago, Illinois. She has been a trained dancer for over 14 years.

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As

We

Decay he song jolts me back into consciousness. I am walking, halfasleep, in a light drizzle to my neighborhood grocery store when the sound of piano keys throws me into a field of memories I’ve been attempting to forget. The song hurls me back into the dormitory halls and its ominous absence of eager undergrads. It hurls me into the body of my eighteen-year-old self and his absolute terror of dying alone. It hurls me into those four corners of my bedroom where I saw the world primarily through a phone screen and an old window that sighed whenever opened. But I still hear the music so clearly.

T

I hear it now as I heard it then. And it’s daring me to tell you about the piano boy.

The piano boy lived only on the other side of my dorm room. I first heard him play one mid-afternoon in the early days of the infection, when even virtual classes were halted. My mood was in a constant emotional state of pure emptiness, where I felt a complete detachment from my own body. I would wake up at noon and rot in bed until 3 a.m. watching videos of people dying or people telling their loved ones not to die.

There were so many darkened, white hospital sheets and masks and tears and doctors struggling to articulate in the proper words the extent of what they were witnessing in the hospice units. There was a video reporting how a Philadelphia hospital put all its patients in the building’s basement because multiple nurses passed out from the stench. Another video showed a Texas senator declaring in a gruff, smokers’ voice that the infection was sent as a punishment from God for allowing the “woke vermin” to squirm their way into taking over the Senate.

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Written By Liam Wady 39 Photographed by Fin Liu Designed by Phoebe Piserchio

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AS WE DECAY| Liam Wady

It was one video after another. From screen to window, window to screen; swiping my thumb over my phone robotically to get to the next 20-second clip. My tears couldn’t flow. There was a frustrating distance between the outside world and me, which brought not a single pull to my heart.

I learned that feeling nothing was the most agonizing emotion of all.

I was supposed to be in a lecture hall. I was supposed to be a college freshman at USC, reading a book in front of the Leavey Library fountain, or telling people for the millionth time that my major—philosophy, politics, and law—was indeed a real major and also a

mouthful of words. I should’ve been worrying about the simple things: turning in papers on time, making friends, the 20-minute walk to the Parkside dining hall from my room.

All I wanted then was the simple things, and the piano boy’s music was so uncomplicated. I heard the tune behind my almost entirely bare bedroom wall that hung only a single photo of my five-year old golden retriever. He typically practiced in the evenings after I returned from my scheduled dinner pickup from the dining hall, removing my gloves, mask, and other assortment of required layers in a feverish frenzy from the Los Angeles autumn heat.

“I learned that feeling nothing was the most agonizing emotion of all.”

I never recognized any of the music he played. I just knew that I liked it. He tended to play a breezy, pastoral melody that reminded me of skipping rocks and building little stick structures for ants as a kid.

That song was my favorite. It made me feel like I was in the backseat of my mother’s vehicle, eagerly wondering when my favorite sugar-coated pop song would play on the radio again. It was the song he practiced the most, and I could feel the love he had for the tune in his determination to perfect it. It made me feel less detached from my physical self.

Here was this boy, stuck in his own four corners, in his own crumbling world, finding some sort of purpose for himself in this handsome piano that played such pretty sounds. There were so many words I wanted to shout out to him, but I would flush with worry over the possibility of rejection from him. I was never the best with people. I spent my first two weeks of university struggling to break into a friend group that spent more time speaking at me than with me.

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But, once the infection cases began to rise — first starting near my hometown of Orlando — everyone instantly scattered. There were no goodbyes, barely even hellos from the start. The surviving “friends” who never contracted the infection don’t even remember my name anymore. They probably barely registered my existence in the first place.

My roommate at the time, a San Diego native who seemed to own only flip-flops, rushed home to hide away with his family. Lucky him, because I was stuck here, in LA, in my four corners. All the airports were closed. There was not a single plane up high, only a gaping black sheet of sky that felt so far away.

Writer Liam Wady ‘27 currently studies journalism.

He is a former sergeant in 44 California Cadet Corps. the

The piano’s boy’s tune reminded me of that sky and how easily I could drown in all its vastness, how there would be more to my life than simply looking out a dorm room window. I began to journal, scribbling down any thoughts I could muster onto the page. I wrote about the rocks I skipped onto the lake in that eight-year-old body of mine; my father’s soft hands and my mother’s rambunctious laughter. I loved hearing her laughter over the phone. It reminded me that I was still allowed to laugh.

There is so much sky we all share. How could I possibly be all alone? The piano keys were telling me all of this. So, when the music didn’t play at its normally scheduled time slot one day, I immediately knew something was wrong.

“...there would be more to my life than simply looking out a dorm room window.”

“There is so much sky we all share. How could I possibly be all alone?”

I heard a soft weeping through the wall then, and, deciding to wrangle in my nerves for once, shouted, “Are you alright over there?!”

I heard the wiping away of snot, then the sound of him struggling to drag his body closer to the wall.

I waited a moment and suddenly, I heard a quivering voice say, “I’ve got it. It’s in my hands and feet. I’ve got it.”

My flesh went cold.

He’s got it. I repeated those words to myself several times.

The infection had now entered the fifth floor of Birnkrant Residential College. And although I felt a flame of fear, it didn’t compare to the overwhelming sadness I felt knowing that this boy, who owned the handsome piano that played such pretty sounds, would die in his 18-year-old body and forever stay in that 18-year-old body.

And as my hands quaked at the thought, I could hear the piano boy stammer as he continued his words. He was nervous. It was as if he feared the Gods would strike him down for what he was about to say. But he said it, and it all felt so much truer: “I’m going to rot. I’m going to freaking rot. It hurts, and I can’t feel the life in my hands anymore!”

He pleaded, shattering into sobs.

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I pictured him decaying. Starting from toes and fingers, then knees and elbows, to shoulders and waist, and up to the neck and the chest. It’ll look like his skin has turned to coal, blackening into a crisp. He must’ve also felt like he was suffocating.

The piano boy continued, seeming eager to voice his dying frustrations to finally someone other than himself: “I thought I was doing everything right! I wore my gloves—all the required layers!” He poured out more tears. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

He said all of this like he was to blame for the infection. He said it all with such guilt.

We are living in a world where an infection can cause people to rot alive, but we are also living in a world where there is music we can hum along to.

And the boy I was then, as I am now, just wanted to hold onto that one simple thing. So I hummed the piano boy’s tune to him.

It caught him by surprise—he didn’t expect that anyone would have paid attention to his music playing. But I did. And maybe, for just that moment, this made him feel that after all, his life was worth at least something.

Model Seth Elkins ‘26 is a BA Theatre major with an emphasis in Acting. He admits he has an 46 unexpected fear of ferrets.

And then, as I was humming, I heard another voice in the distance. What are they saying? I listened more intently to their words until I realised there weren’t any—they were humming the same tune as I was. I was pleasantly surprised, and even more surprised when I heard another voice on the left side of me. Then another on the right. Then there were so many voices I could no longer distinguish my own from the others. All our individual voices melted into one another, and what a sight it was!

The voices seeped through the walls like they were hands reaching out for just a single touch of skin.

We were reaching and singing and my plain ceiling started to slowly crack open to reveal the open sky.

As the piano boy decayed, we all sang his tune. And I would’ve forever carried on singing.

Now—as I am more wide awake than ever, walking down the street towards the grocery store under the murky clouds—I have the leaping desire to walk into the boutique, blasting the song and ask the cashier for its title. I quickly erase the idea from my mind, though. This is the piano boy’s song, I tell myself. This is his, only his. And I want it to stay that way permanently in my memory. I want it to stay that way permanently in your memory. But, sadly, as the past continues to color more vividly, it starts to settle inside me that I never even got the piano boy’s name.

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New Decade, Same Me 48

SCene

Photos by Danya Auda

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“Songs are time capsules, they capture a certain way you were feeling, they capture a historical moment.”

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Model Sophia Suzanne ‘29 is from Boothbay, Maine. She loves capturing stories through songwriting, acting on stage, and photography.

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is 2026 the new 2016? is 2026 the new 2016?

Model Viviana Aviles ‘28 is from Diamond Bar, California. She can flip her eyelids.

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Okay?

Okay.

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Model Dorothy Amézquita Monahan ‘28 is from San Diego, California. She has central heterochromia.

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Meditations on Love & Temporality

Written by Sean Guzmán Designed by Solana Espino Photographed by Kayden-Harmony Greenstein 59

T

ransition states are highly volatile periods of instability where subjects of transition are forced to grapple with their future while mourning their past.

I believe that this is a part of a natural routine for humans, with some entering transition quicker and more often than others. The past and the future merge to meet us in the present moment, where our energy is distorted, and a common side effect is disillusionment.

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needed a second to process that. After about five seconds of processing, I was on the defensive line, “You’re the only one who says that.”

Despite completely ignoring the meat of her comment in the moment, I thought about it for a long while thereafter. It was not because I seriously pondered the answer to her question.

I had definitely received enough love as a child, but somewhere within me knew that I still had an unwavering avoidance of As graduation day looms “I can’t believe that maybe love. After that realization, closer, I cannot help but one day, there will be I was transported to my overanalyze aspects of my life. someone whom I look at 18-year-old self.

Transitional periods always cause me to enter intense and feel as though their love On one of the final days stints of introspection, and for me (and mine for them) before leaving Choate I’m heading into probably is proof of humanity.”

Rosemary Hall, the boarding my biggest one yet. In this school I attended from ages case, however, I’m doing some pre-emptive work. 14 to 18, I took a literal trip down memory lane Before I’m thrust into the world of nine-to-fives as I revisited my favorite spots in Wallingford, and cubicle-living, I am inclined to take a closer Connecticut. As I stood underneath a rusty spiral look at my life and remind myself of who I am staircase in the basement of the arts center, I cried and how I got to this point. This rumination shall silently. I didn’t know it then, but my life would be serve as a spiritual practice—hopefully, the first of permanently changed. many. With intention and care, I hope to deepen my understanding of my current sense of self and Just a few months before, I met a boy who would thus forge a pathway to a clearer future. I enlisted take me up those stairs, into a dark crevice, and some of my fellow soon-to-be-graduates to come introduce me to a world of intimacy I didn’t think practice with me, too. existed for me. When a couple of weeks later he abandoned me for a girl skinnier, prettier, and This past winter, I visited my family back home whiter than me, I’d lock myself into a prison that in New York City. On an extra cold night, as I I’m still not sure I’ve broken free from. No one passed my mother to make myself a cup of tea, she would hurt me like that again. squeezed me tight and said, “I love you.”

For most of my life, I feel as though I have been I basked in her warmth, but not before she in the pursuit of love. Something greater than interrupted the feeling by saying, “You give bad platonic, something greater than sexual, and hugs. Did I not hug you enough as a child?” something greater than familial. The feeling of being loved, though it terrifies me, is utterly It rolled off her tongue so easily, I could tell she beautiful. To be willing to give someone so much didn’t think twice before she said it. It almost of yourself? To hand them your heart? There is made it that much more impactful. Something so something so devastating about it. For me, that is, obvious, something so pertinent that she didn’t the uncertainty of such a commitment. even have to miss a beat. I, on the other hand,

Model Katie Havens ‘26 studies journalism and is from Fairfax, Virginia. She has tattoos from around the world.

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MEDITATIONS ON LOVE AND TEMPORALITY| Sean Guzmán

I wish I could say I was exhausted from the pursuit of love, but the truth is, I feel so lucky that it is something that even exists to aspire to. I can’t believe that maybe one day, there will be someone whom I look at and feel as though their love for me (and mine for them) is proof of humanity. From my conversations with friends, it is clear that this is a familiar sentiment.

In meditating on our lives, there seemed to be a common thread apparent among my friends and I. Whether it was caused by university life, familial pressures, or a lack of self-direction, we all found ourselves in a similar predicament: transition states caused us to fall out of love with core parts of ourselves. For me, that was my ability to love. For others, it continued to be that personal.

Nikia Fenix

Nikia Fenix, a senior studying Media Arts + Practice, acknowledges that college has forced her to renegotiate her relationship to the practice of art. For as long as she can remember, art has been her outlet for expression. During her second year at USC, she faced an all-too-familiar challenge for students: impostor syndrome. Whether it was caused by burnout or some other mental block, she wasn’t sure, but what she was sure of was that things would be fundamentally different. As the pressure built, her creative output slowed. Without the north star of artistic expression, she, too, finds herself in a period of realization. When I asked her what this meant for her future, she said, “Even if I lose relationships with regular practice, I love seeing people being able to express themselves within.” Now, upon graduating, she hopes to pursue a career in arts education.

Venus Lordson

Venus Lordson, a senior in the film and television production program, found herself in a similar situation that also saw a sabbatical away from an art form she once cherished. When she was fifteen years old, she watched her parents navigate a divorce and

thus had to grapple with changing relationships not only with each of her parents but with things that she associated with them. One of those relationships was to music. Over the course of her life, she found connection to her father through music.

In her post-divorce reality, however, that connection would be severed. For a long time, she abstained from the art form in all capacities. It was not until USC that she dabbled in the medium again. Her friends, colleagues, and collaborators helped her rediscover her love for the medium and now, she’s back to performing, singing, and working in the industry. Today, she locates home within the very people who helped her explore music once again.

Jonathan Iysale

In my conversation with Jonathan Iysale, a senior studying cinema and media studies, he identifies the idea of home within his actual home, but only during a specific time in his life. During his sophomore year of high school, he found himself reckoning with transition. As distance grew with friends from middle school and the toll of attending a brand new school that was predominantly white settled in, his home served as a place of refuge. It provided a beneficial isolation where he could experiment with his identity and figure out who he was.

Soon enough, however, the hustle culture of elite institutions got in the way of self-discovery and, in some ways, self-preservation. It starts with the pressure of being an upperclassman in high school, where one is forced to prove oneself to the gatekeepers of higher education. All of a sudden, your time is filled with extra-curricular activities that you probably are not too passionate about and cramming for AP exams that mean nothing to you after you take them. For Iysale, this experience has extended to college. He mourns what the space represented: time to care for himself and figure out his true passions and desires.

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There will undoubtedly be tens or hundreds more small gestures that cause me to rethink the way I move through the world. Some will bring immense joy and others will come with spirals of anxiety that will feel like they’ll never end. Regardless, I’m learning to embrace those moments and the discomfort of them. In the end, feelings of instability will never waver when undergoing transition, so I’m reframing the way I think about transition. On the other side of these periods, I always end up learning more about myself and re-entering the world as a new, more secure version of myself.

Disillusion turns into enlightenment and destabilizing environments become homes.

I can’t wait to discover the next one.

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Writer Sean Guzmán ‘26 is originally from New York City.

When he was 5-years-old, he drew a family portrait with Beyoncé in65 it.

The Cigarette I Never Smoked, But Still Keep In frame: The model poses with an unlit cigarette, symbolizing the writer’s keepsake they kept after a chance encounter with a crush. No real cigarettes were smoked on set, and they were only used as artistic props.

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Written By Elsis Saravia Photographed by Giselle Ohm Designed by Nicholas Corral 67

If

you know me, you’d know that I hate college parties, don’t smoke, and am neurotic about any and all kinds of substance use. Yet, the night of my 19th birthday, I found myself at my first college party, enveloped in clouds of smoke, all in the hopes of seeing the pretty girl I had been swooning over all April long. As I dodged offers of cigarettes, the skunky aroma of weed, and the prying eyes of strangers, she tucked a capri behind her ear and pulled me in to dance. Slowly, the knots in my stomach began to unravel as her eyes entranced mine. The anxious noise of the world outside melted away. For the first time in a long time, it felt like I could be still and present. By the end of the night, the cigarette tucked behind her ear eventually found its way to the floor. It was half broken, wilting, and had no future of ever being lit. But before she could throw it away, I asked her for it. Not to smoke, but to keep. Fast-forward ten months, our relationship has come and gone. Yet, I still have it, and I have no intention of ever throwing it away.

I keep everything that my past girlfriends have ever given me. They are tucked away in various shoeboxes back home in Richmond, CA. When friends hear about them, many of them are puzzled by why and how I could keep so much of it. I’ve been accused of not being able to let go, been told that my “hoarding” is a crutch, and that I shouldn’t be wearing the vintage 80s button-down my ex got me years ago. As I continue to navigate the turbulent dating scene of USC, where drunken makeouts are forgotten on hungover mornings and regrettable relationships of freshman year are lamented over in the midst of midnight ventures on Figueroa, I find myself returning to this question time and again: what should you do with the photobooth pictures, love notes, and sweaters of previous lovers?

Should I throw away the hand-painted canvas crafted for me out of love? Should I burn the handwritten letters that traveled hundreds of miles to get to me? Should I delete all the pictures of happy moments? When people are moving in and out of each other’s lives faster than they can prompt ChatGPT, I find that I can’t bring myself to “let go” or “move on” so quickly. Believe me, I have tried. When I’d try, it always felt like I was throwing something away and that’s the last thing I wanted. The thing is, even if I could move past that, the truth is that I don’t want to.

Maybe it’s the lesbian in me, or as Agnès Varda puts it in The Gleaners and I: the gleaner in me. Or maybe I’m just borderline psychotic! In an increasingly digitized world, where things live and die in blip moments on the internet, what does it mean to remember and hold on to things? Especially when material objects that used to ground and commemorate the biggest and smallest moments of our lives are becoming obsolete in favor of all things digital.

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“What should you do with the photobooth pictures, love notes, and sweaters of previous lovers?”

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Writer and model Elsis “E” Saravia ‘28 currently studies Film Production and Screenwriting.

They are known as the butchest 70 butch in the world.

I have always been drawn to handcrafting letters and gifts for people I care deeply about. There is something personal and intimate about writing to someone and having them write back. My heart swells for the curious etch of letters, lipstick kisses that paint paper, and a signature scent that envelops words on a page. The same applies to other forms of physical media and writing, like mixtapes, film photography, and poetry. It’s why I thrift VHS tapes even though I don’t own a player, and why I can never say no to a printed movie ticket. When I look at my peers, it seems as though they feel similarly. There has been a generational turn toward all things analogue. It seems like everyone is trying to dumb their phones and get their hands on vintage camcorders, iPods and 35mm film cameras.

Somehow, even though we are all blips away from each other with a mere press of a button, we feel more disconnected than ever and are reaching for anything that can pull us closer to each other.

Interestingly enough, I got my heart broken for the first time by a girl I had only met in person once. For five months, our relationship took place primarily through late-night FaceTime calls, Netflix watch parties, and a whole lot of texting. But we also sent each other handwritten letters and postcards constantly. At one point, I got a custom mixtape, especially crafted for my 17th birthday. It’s here where our romance truly blossomed. These items came to paint my walls and litter every nook and cranny of my room. When we broke up, it was too painful to be around. So I gathered up all the things she’d given me, placed them in a Doc Martens shoe box I had lying around and tucked it under my bed.

Although it’s collecting dust, it’s still there now.

They weren’t as easy to do away with in comparison to the effortless act of deleting text messages, digital photos, and blocking social media profiles.

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Still, even among all my best efforts to remove every trace of her, I still saw her everywhere. I saw her in the Les Misérables billboards I passed driving across the Bay Bridge, the summer poppies growing along the street on my walk to school, and in the Haribo Twin Snakes at the grocery store. As time went on, I found myself returning to that damn box, revisiting old promises, hopes, and feelings that always managed to spark tears. To me, they served as reminders of love, lessons, and mistakes that I never want to forget, because as much as they hurt then and still sting now, there was so much good, so much love, and so much joy. They’re material and tangible, things I can touch and hold close to my heart. It’s these things that I cling to, because even amid the pain of loss and regret, I was loved.

And so, when I find myself in the midst of spring cleaning, sorting what I’m gonna part with and what I’m not, I think a part of me will always choose to hold on to things, no matter how big or small they may seem. For me, the half-broken, wilting cigarette is its own mini time capsule, commemorating a night I hope to never forget and a love I will cherish forever. Without it, one day I might find that the night never happened. My memories of it are already fading, but her cigarette is still intact. It’s not going to deteriorate as fast as my memories do, and it’s not at risk of being poofed out of existence by a faulty data center. Still, it’s going to wear and tear with time, growing and aging alongside me.

When I look at the cigarette now, my heart hurts. Yet, a smile never ceases to form on my face as I recall the warm embrace of her loving gaze that spring night.

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THE CIGARETTE I NEVER SMOKED, BUT STILL KEEP|Elsis Saravia

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The Friends That Never Go Out of Style 74

Written By Lauren Worley Photographed by Danya Auda Designed by Nicholas Corral

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n a decade defined by constant becoming, where everyone and everything around me is shifting, I’ve learned to hold onto the people who still fit.

Friendships, like fashion, are rarely static. They shift, soften, fall in and out of style. When I look back at old photos of me during my first two years of college, I don’t just see different outfits. I see different versions of myself standing beside different people.

In high school, my friendships felt like fast fashion. Trendy, cheap and immediate. My friends and I would purposely match. Each night, we would FaceTime and discuss which pair of jeans we should wear, along with what colored sneakers we would wear to match. It was less about individuality and more about conformity. My style began to reflect that. Temporary. Safe. Coordinated.

It’s 8:47 a.m. on January 12. The sun is beating down so hard, and I’m sweating through my makeup. I have Maps pulled up on my phone because I made the genius decision not to try to find my classes ahead of time. I’ve already gotten lost twice, and I’m speed-walking across campus trying to make it to my 9 a.m. lecture on time.

It’s my first day as a USC student.

No, not as a freshman. Not even as a sophomore. As a transfer. Which somehow feels scarier.

Transferring felt like donating half my closet and starting over. I had the basics: confidence, ambition and a few triedand-true pieces. But I wasn’t sure how they would translate here. Everyone else 76

seemed perfectly styled for this place.

Effortless. Intentional. Like they had been dressed for USC their whole lives.

When I finally walked out of that first class, heart racing and imposter syndrome screaming in my ear, I called my childhood best friend Piper.

I was in full-fledged panic mode, convinced that I had somehow fooled the admissions office and that everyone around me was smarter, more creative, and more deserving of a seat than I was.

She didn’t entertain that thought for even a second. In her eyes, my place there was never in question. She had always believed in my potential, even when I was still learning how to believe in it myself.

That simple conversation calmed every nerve in my body. It felt like slipping into my favorite oversized hoodie, the one that has survived every closet clean-out.

Soft. Familiar. Mine.

Long-term friends are like that. They are not trendy. They are not seasonal.

They have seen every version of you... the bad haircuts, the over-accessorizing, the identity crises. They do not need an introduction to who you are becoming because they remember who you were.

When I need encouragement, Piper is the friend I reach for.

The right friends are effortlessly timeless. They survive heartbreaks, identity crises, bad haircuts, and the kind of questionable decisions that only make sense at 2 a.m. They’re the ones who still fit, even when everything else in your life feels like it’s being replaced.

Model Jade Pretell ‘29 is from Rancho Cucamonga, California. She used to do competitive martial arts.

THE FRIENDS THAT NEVER GO OUT OF STYLE| Lauren Worley

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When I first got to USC, I felt like I needed everyone. Every coffee chat, every welcome week event, every girl in a matching Lululemon set who somehow looked like she already knew exactly where she was going. I wanted my social calendar to feel as full as my Google Calendar: color-coded and impossible to ignore.

So, I started collecting people the way you collect clothes during a sale, just in case.

Just to feel like I had enough.

Before I knew it, I had the social equivalent of twenty baby tees. Cute, trendy, worn once for the photo and then shoved to the back of the closet. Never reached for again.

It’s easy to confuse volume with belonging.

Just like with fashion, more doesn’t always mean better. You can pack your closet with pieces that photograph beautifully but don’t actually feel like you. And one day you find yourself standing in front of the mirror thinking, I have nothing to wear. Not because there’s nothing there, but because none of it fits quite right.

Friendship can feel like that, too.

The first week at USC felt like standing in the middle of a department store during a sale. Bright. Loud. Slightly disorienting and quite nauseating. Everyone is reaching for something. Everyone wants something “more.” On my third day of class, I had already exchanged numbers with more people than I could keep straight. My camera roll was filled with selfies next to girls whose majors I had already forgotten.

“We should totally grab coffee,” we’d say, the same way you say, “I love that miniskirt,” knowing you’ll never actually buy it.

It’s easy to confuse volume with belonging.

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Writer Lauren Worley ‘27 currently studies public relations and advertising.

She was raised Mormon until she was 12-years-old.

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The USC Annenberg orientation was in a huge auditorium.

Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, while alumni stood at the podium telling us that choosing Annenberg was the best decision they had ever made. Everyone’s name tags were already slightly peeling at the corners. The energy in the room felt intense, like everyone had already figured the social scene out except me.

Then, we were told to stand up for “human bingo,” a game designed to force connection. Find someone who studied abroad. Find someone from out of state. Find someone who speaks another language.

That’s where I met Emily.

We were strangers circling the same laminated bingo card, both half-laughing at how painfully structured the whole thing felt. Both of us groaned about how we are “too old for icebreakers.” I don’t even remember who spoke first. I just remember the mutual relief on her face when we realized neither of us fully understood what was happening. Somehow, we ended up talking about the TV show “Heated Rivalry.”

Within two minutes of meeting each other, we already had inside jokes.

Later, walking back to my apartment, I remember thinking, Oh. That felt different.

Emily is the structured blazer in my closet. Not flashy. Not loud.

But when I put her on, everything else makes more sense. She challenges me in ways that feel steady, not competitive. She sharpens my thinking. She reminds me of why I transferred here in the first place. In a school full of ambition, she makes it feel collaborative instead of isolating.

Mathilde came into my life quietly, the way some of the best people do. I always told myself I would never be a sorority girl.

Little did I know, a few weeks into the semester, I would walk into 813 28th Street, home of Alpha Chi Omega.

I remember the first time I really noticed Mathilde. Black boots.

Eyeliner sharp enough to cut glass. The coolest vintage True Religion jeans, as if she had just stepped out of a 2012 Tumblr mood board. Silver and gold hoops that somehow matched everything. She sat slightly angled away from the chaos of the room, not trying to be seen but impossible to miss.

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She is just so effortlessly cool. When she laughs, it’s subtle. When she speaks, it matters. And when she walks into a room, the attention shifts without her asking for it.

One night, we sat cross-legged on her floor. The 1975 played softly in the background. We spent the evening talking about everything and nothing all at the same time. It turned into the kind of conversation that stretches past midnight without you noticing. She told me things plainly. Honestly. Raw. No performance.

Mathilde is my leather jacket. The piece that makes you stand taller the second you put it on. She does not overwhelm a room. She anchors it.

Being friends with her feels like being let in on something rare.

And then there’s my trio. Maddie and Natalie Our nights rarely end where they start. Somehow they always land at Panda Express on Figueroa Street, heels in hand, eyeliner slightly smudged, debriefing the evening over orange chicken. We ran into half of USC’s campus on the walk there. We see someone’s ex. Someone we swore we’d avoid. Someone who suddenly wants to talk at 1:12 a.m.

We pretend we’re unbothered.

We are never actually unbothered.

There is always a Lana Del Rey song playing somewhere in the background of our lives. In the car. In the apartment, getting ready.

In the quiet moments when one of us is spiraling, and the others are pretending not to notice.

They are my worn-in vintage jeans. Slightly chaotic. Always reliable.

I used to think belonging meant having options. A closet packed with people. Outfits for every mood. But the older I get, the more I understand that style is not about excess. It is about intention.

The right friends are not trends. They do not expire at the end of a semester. They do not wrinkle under pressure. They are the pieces that soften with wear. The ones that move with you as you grow.

As I move through my time at USC, I’ve realized the friendships you build in college are like a capsule wardrobe. You don’t need a closet bursting at the seams. You just need a few classic pieces.

In a season of constant becoming, I have stopped trying to collect.

Now I curate. And somehow, my closet feels lighter.

Model Kate North ‘29 is from Palos Verdes, California. She has a black belt in Taekwondo.

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I know I am, but what are you?

Written by Halle Hunt

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Photographed by Kamryn Arjoon

Designed by Erin Wijaya

“College was the best four years of my life!”

This simple phrase gets thrown around as if it were a prophecy. College was the best four years of your life, but what if I don’t want it to be mine? Don’t get me wrong, I have loved my four years at USC. But, as a fresh 21-yearold, I can’t help but worry that, with some 60 years ahead of me, none of them match these last four. Were the adventures of my undergraduate career generated by the power of USC’s brick-lined pathways, or were they a testament to the self-guided relationships I developed over the past eight semesters?

What does it really mean to peak in college?

I asked five people – all foundational to my college experience and all existing in different corners of USC – to share a new experience with me that is meaningful to them. I will write them each a letter to report my findings, with each letter pertaining to a value the recipient has instilled in me.

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Stevie S: Adventure [Objective: Be a seat filler at a 1iota event.]

Dear Stevie, I am officially a 1iota veteran! I was a seat-filler for a pre-screening of the new Mummy movie, and, wow, what a fun experience! Despite long lines and front row seats in a movie theatre, I had such a special time! Maybe it was the adrenaline pumping in me after seeing an intense horror movie, but it was so exciting to feel like I was a part of a larger process at hand – a larger community. I don’t think I would have prioritized an experience like this before you recommended it to me, but now? I’m checking the 1iota site constantly!

Ever since my freshman year, you have actively and subliminally opened my worldview to new cities in SoCal, new cultures, and new experiences, all while remaining a source of comfort and kindness in my life. You have a unique talent for making adventure feel comfortable and familiar. The Halle and Stevie that met during our rosebud semester of Helenes are not the same Halle and Stevie that we are today, and boy, am I thankful for that! I am so grateful that I have gotten to grow with you throughout Helenes, flag running, LEGO room, and everything in between. Your kindness and lust for life shine through everything you do, and I have no doubt that you are going to change so many more lives during your career in education!! I know this because you changed mine! You were one of the first people to make USC feel like home, and I am forever grateful for that.

Helenes love and all of mine ;), Halle

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PEAKING IN COLLEGE| Halle Hunt

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IN THE DAYGLOW | Kylee Warden

Elizabeth I: Patience [Objective: Learn how to knit.]

Dear Liz, I did it!! I knit a scarf!! It’s a white, basic scarf that I likely won’t ever need in Los Angeles… but it’s mine!

I was nervous when you challenged me to learn how to knit. Ever since I was little, everyone in my family learned how to knit except me – seven-year-old Halle was too easily frustrated and too easily distracted to overcome the Sisyphean task she viewed knitting to be. Twenty-one-year-old Halle was only slightly less frustrated and distracted… thus making a slightly sloppy and slightly short white scarf that is perfect to me.

As we’ve discussed at length, patience is not necessarily my strong suit and is something I admire the most about you. I think that patience can be seen in something as simple as your knitting. It has always showcased your patience, resourcefulness, creativity, and oftentimes, generosity! Whether it’s with your sewing needles or in the living room of the W 37th Pl apartment we were lucky enough to live in together three years ago, you do such a beautiful job listening to your body and your environment to simultaneously take care of yourself and offer, what feels like, infinite warmth to those around you (… a little like a scarf..? ;) Meeting my best friend during Fall 2022, living with her Fall 2023, and saying goodbye in Spring 2023 was not an easy transition, but I’m amazed at how much I still see you around campus (though not physically) and hear you in my conversations, and I am thrilled that I can still consider you a best friend! The next scarf I make will be for you (you might get a bit more use out of it in St. Louis)!

Love, Halle

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Writer and model Halle Hunt ‘26 currently studies Philosophy, Cognitive Science, and Occupational Sciences.

She once ate a block of organic yeast, thinking it was cheese.

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Zach G: Leadership [Objective: Prepare for the May USA bobsled combine.]

Dear Zach, There is no one I know who would challenge me to both complete a marathon and join them for the May USA bobsled combine except you. After a full field session working on my 40m dash and vertical jump, I can confidently say that getting to know you and constantly getting challenged by you has been one of the utmost honors of my college career!

From running flags together in the Coliseum to running in the suburbs of Indianapolis, to Wednesday lunches and everything in between, I have had the privilege of seeing your grit and growth-mindedness at all hours of the day. Ever since you started training me on the ‘Big Flag,’ I have experienced firsthand that the positivity and supportiveness ingrained in your character are simply unmatched by anyone else I have met. You have seen so much in me that I don’t always see in myself – making even the highest of peaks feel attainable.

It was over the summer, while you were driving us to the K-Town run club, that you introduced me to the phrase “pressure is a privilege,” and my mindset has since been rewired. The pressure you put on me to lead on the field, to run a marathon, to compete in the USA bobsled combine (when I’ve never so much as watched a race before), is the kind of privilege that I am grateful for every day. You, Zach, are a leader in the truest sense of the word – you lead by example, you lift up others at the expense of no one else, and more than anything, you believe. The kind of unwavering belief and determination in your toolbox is one that only a true leader can hold, and I hope to become a leader like you one day.

Thank you for your pressure, and I look forward to bobsledding soon.

Love, Halle

IN THE DAYGLOW | Kylee Warden

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I know I am, but are you? Peaking in College

Hannah N: Grit [Objective: Learn how to drive a stick shift.]

Dear Nelly, Despite feeling like I was about to break your car every five seconds, thank you for trusting me with your mini-coop and gifting me infinite aura points by teaching me how to drive a stick shift! I now owe you a road trip after the many hours you have driven me without taking a break, since only one of us could drive your car.

The mental energy and alertness required to drive stick for hours on end feels very emblematic of the way you lead your life: with grit, awareness and mental toughness.

During the past year and a half of playing rugby with you almost every day of the week, my admiration for you has only grown. From making banana bread the night before a road trip, to driving non-stop from Los Angeles to Arizona for a rugby match, to hustling after practice to catch a late-night showing of Pride and Prejudice. For someone with the least amount of time to spare that I know of, you are also one of the most generous with it.

You live your life driven by your goals, values, and curiosity – a way of living that can only be sustainable with the sheer amount of grit you contain. Whether it’s managing a stick in LA traffic or backing your teammates on the blazing rugby pitch, you are always prepared to put in the work and support those around you.

I can’t thank you enough for being the best teammate and friend I could ask for… (and for that, I am determined to play with you again after we graduate and part ways to explore the world).

Love, Halle

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So, what exactly was the point of exposing these personal letters that would normally be kept just between the writer and the recipient? I’d like to think they showcase how the exciting quests and crusades of college may be environmentally nurtured, but ultimately, they are self-dependent.

It isn’t the walls of USC that made my last four years so memorable — it’s the relationships I built that will extend past my time here. Maybe this finding is obvious, and maybe you, reader, had no concern that this wouldn’t be the case.

I still, however, felt determined to prove it to myself. I have lived a fulfilling college career without any regrets, but I’m proud to say that this will stay as one of many peaks in my life’s expeditions – not the one and only.

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U set the SCene. We tell your stories.

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