Mood Ring

Volume 10 | Issue 4

Standford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

BROOKLYN BLEVINS APOORVA GAUTAM Editor-in-Chief

Publisher

Creative Director

Marketing Director

Operations Director

ABBY RAPOPORT

NEHA KOTAGIRI

AVA BEN-DAVID

Design Editor

Print Fashion Editor

Print Features Editor

Print Photo Editors

MARGARET LAAKSO

DANA GRAY

CATHERINE AUGUST

ALEX LAM SINYU DENG

Video Editor

Digital Fashion Editor

Digital Features Editor

Print Beauty Editor

CARLY NICHOLS

JANAE DYAS

JANICE KANG

ELISSA LI

Finance Coordinators

Events Coordinator

Managing Photo Editor

Digital Photo Editor

HARINI SHANKAR ERIN CASEY

SENA KADDURAH

EMMA PETERSON

SUREET KAUR SARAU

Public Relations Coordinator

Digital Content Editors

Member Development Coordinator Social Media Coordinators

SARAH LINDENBACH

LUIZA SANTOS MARLEY DAVIS

ANGELA LI

JESSICA CHO ESTHER MURRAY

Design Team Liza Miller, Terri Kang, Ashley Glabicki, Emily Sun, Katherine Kell, Sebastien Triplett, Tiya Madhavan, Bailey Hwang, Milcah Kresnadi

Fashion Team Melissa Yu, Tzu-Yun Fun, Faith Tang, Reagan Hakala, Janna Jacobson, Paula Luput, Annabelle Ye, Mary-Katherine Acho Tartoni, Elena Shaheen, Taylor Stevens, Juliana Ramirez, Jessica Li, Ligaya Galang, Jessica Kroetsch, Ansie Kruse, Bobby Currie, Ankitha Donepudi, Niko Smith, Sidney Vue, Angela Li

Features Team Lynn Dang, Sailor West, Shelby Jenkins, Meera Kumar, Ava Shapiro, Mya Fromwiller, Melissa Werkema, Emerson McKay, Lucy Dover, Emma Edmondson, Tara Wasik, Sebastiana Hobey

Photography Team Riley Kisser, Oliver Segal, Paulina Rajski, Yueshan, Jiang, Carly Nichols, Tess Crowley, Maggie Kirkman, Taylor Pacis, Anisha Chopra, Vivian Leech, Anika Minocha, Emmanuelle Cubba, Audrey Eng, Mary Katharine Acho-Tartoni, Patrick Li, Harrison Brown, Ava Muntner

Videography Team Juana Mancera, Takara Wilson, Johannes Pardi, Kaelin Park

Digital Content Team Aurelia Hudak, Sigourney Acharya, Ally Chang, Kiana Pandit, Irem Hatipoglu, Shari Frazer, Sophie Ding, Haniya Farooq, Emily Jennett

Finance Team Elena Reyes, Riya Gone, Elise Hsiao, Emily Farhat, Taylor Jones

Member Development Team Maryam Hamka, Amory Tin, Cynthia Qian, Erin Segui

Public Relations Team Lily Fishman, Grace Donnelly, Zoey Tink, Fiona Huang, Alia Gamez, Bella Yun, Olivia Wimpari, Rianna Kingra, Annie Zhao, Tyler Beck

Events Team Tara Nayak, Erin Segui, Tiara Blonshine, Paris Rodgers, Allie Cain, Sanjana Ramanathan

Social Media Team Frankie Smith, Grace Wang, Lily Shaman, Subin Pyo, Jessica Li, Jessica Kroetsch

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS 04 SHATTERED 06 ENDLESS EMOTIONS 16 SURPRISE 18 CLAWING THROUGH TOXIC WEALTH STANDARDS 26 GENERATIONAL JOY 28 SORROW 38 GET BORED 44 AWE 46

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In an ever-evolving society built on constant innovation, we’re often taught to repress our feelings in favor of productivity. Specific feelings are socialized as barriers, inconveniences that we must learn to ignore, for repression is critical to success. And although we’re all undoubtedly busy, exams and midterm projects quickly piling up before our eyes, forcing us into autopilot, what would happen if we took a moment to reflect? To be truly in touch with our emotions, feel them to their fullest extent, wondering not how we can rid ourselves of them, but instead how we can use them to better understand ourselves?

In MOOD RING, we let our emotions run wild, casting repression aside in favor of vulnerability. There’s something therapeutic about a good cry. Something extraordinary about witnessing the ones we love feel joy beyond belief. By embracing the depth of our emotions, both good and bad, we can become more grounded, empathetic, and compassionate people.

Of course, our feelings are not always so easy to name. While we can catalog their shape–the physical manifestations of their impacts–this doesn’t necessarily make them easier to articulate. Sometimes we get lost in our emotions, unable to decipher the tangled feelings unfurling in our chests. In her piece, “Endless Emotions,” Emerson McKay explores how overwhelming feelings about our past can sneak up on us with little warning or explanation. Often triggered by subtle reminders of what once was, how can we make sense of feelings combining our past and present selves?

But perhaps sense is not the solution. Instead, join us as we celebrate the abstract.

So bask in the playful color of “Surprise.” Feel the sharp intensity of “Shattered.” As you make your way through this issue, allow your fleeting thoughts and feelings to take root. Let us foster a space for feelings to freely wax and wane, craft an ebb and flow of joy, curiosity, anticipation, anxiety, love, and fear.

Brooklyn Blevins Editor-In-Chief

If you ask me how I am doing on any given day, the answer I give you will likely differ by the hour. I cycle through myriad emotions each day, one bleeding into the next into the next, often beyond my conscious notice, in a kind of “mood ring” of sorts.

Every project in this issue is a focused attempt to capture the essence of our experience of an emotion, to render a concentrated, distilled portrait of a single feeling. Rarely do we ever get to see our emotions singled out and spotlighted in such a manner in real life, and in this issue, our writers have taken the opportunity to dissect, dramatize, and make demands of them to their hearts’ content.

Society instructs us to box up our emotions and deposit them in the far recesses of our minds. We are taught to view our feelings as weaknesses and liabilities, as if embracing them is a vulnerability and not a venerable ability. In MOOD RING, we choose to place these emotions not in wooden storage crates but in glass boxes, clear display cases for all to see. Here, we wear our emotions on our faces, our fingers, our sleeves.

Janice Kang Digital Features Editor 5

SHOOT DIRECTOR CARLY NICHOLS PHOTOGRAPHERS OLIVER SEGAL CARLY NICHOLS KAELIN PARK FASHION PAIGE TUSHMAN ANKITHA DONEPUDI VIDEO KAELIN PARK MODEL BIANCA TRIHENEA GRAPHIC DESIGNER TERRI KANG

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EnDlesS E T

h e sun started to set following another long, gloomy day of cold weather and little sun. After doing my nightly routine, I figured it was time to get into bed, the weight of the day still resting on my shoulders. To calm my mind and attempt to ease my stress, I scrolled through Spotify looking for something that would reflect my mood—melancholic and slightly introspective. I settled on my illegally downloaded files of the album Endless by Frank Ocean, a visual album only available on Apple Music. I put my headphones on and pressed play. Suddenly I felt an immense spatial and temporal disorientation come over me in a whirl, pulling me out of my conscious surroundings.

Once the spinning in my head stopped, I realized I was trapped in an old memory. I was in my shitty old car, sitting in my high school’s parking lot towards the end of my junior year.

This car always brought me a strange sense of comfort, growing up with it while it was my dad’s before it became my older brother’s, and then mine. I had left school early that day, overwhelmed and tired, and as I got into my car, feelings of sadness took over me. A general feeling of directionlessness, the trials and tribulations of being a teenage girl, and the lingering emotions of heartache after an unexpected breakup were flooding me. My drive home was only ten minutes, but that day it felt ten minutes too long. I just wanted to be home and in the sanctuary of my own room. Before pulling out of the parking lot, I decided to put on some music. I pressed play on Frank Ocean’s Endless, an album that always brought me joy.

As Frank Ocean’s rendition of the Isley Brothers’ “At Your Best (You Are Love)” began to echo through my car, I put my keys into the ignition, my foot on the brake pedal, and I should have started reversing out of my parking spot, but I could not. Instead, I sat there motionless. The immense sadness was paralyzing me in a sense, robbing me of the energy to start driving. As the ambient music continued, a creeping shadow of sorrow pulled me into its depths. Once happy memories of listening to this album and talking about it with my ex played through my head as I sat in my car listening to Frank’s raw vocals. I decided to hit pause so I could switch the music and build up the motivation to drive home. But as soon as I hit the pause button, everything once again turned into a haze, and I was dragged back to the present day, back in my bed, feeling the nauseating effects of time travel.

Music has an unpreventable ability to awaken dormant emotions, with a mere intro of a song acting as a vessel for traveling through space and time. No matter how much I have gone through in the past few years, or how much I have grown and evolved since then, this album still has the power to jerk me back to high school and make me relive the same somber emotions this album made me feel back then. The power of memories and emotions are strong, and though I am now able to listen to this album with a level of understanding and clarity I hadn’t felt before, that slight sting of sadness is still always there, lingering in the background.

EmotiOnS

WRITER EMERSON MCKAY GRAPHIC DESIGNER LIZA MILLER

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SHOOT DIRECTOR ELENA SHAHEEN STYLISTS ELENA SHAHEEN JESSICA KROETSCH PHOTOGRAPHERS RILEY KISSER MAGGIE KIRKMAN MARY ACHO-TARTONI VIDEOGRAPHER EAMAN ALI GRAPHIC DESIGN KATIE KELL MODEL JAHARI UKOMADO

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Clawing Through

Toxic Wealth Standards

WRITER TARA WASIK

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GRAPHIC DESIGNER EMILY SUN

he University of Michigan is rightfully praised for its incredible academics, arts, sports, and so much more. But the ugly side of attending this institution is the deplorable lack of socioeconomic diversity. As this is a school where 9.3% of the student population comes from the top one percent while only 4.47% of students are Black and 9.07% are Hispanic, there have definitely been some infuriating interactions I have had with an out-of-touch wealthy student.

d o o F r u o Y t a E d n a Shut Up

Sitting in the Mojo dining hall, I once overheard a group of loud male students discuss the term “first-generation” as it pertains to attending higher education institutions. They found the concept stupid and irrelevant, and claimed that since their parents didn’t attend the University of Michigan, they should be able to say that they’re first gen as well. Listening to their conversation made me want to pull my hair out. How dare they try to undermine the adversities first gen students have to go through?

Without an experienced adult to help them navigate the college experience and application process, this can be very daunting, and to lack the compassion to try to understand that is obnoxious and insensitive.

I’m sick of people who refuse to recognize their own privilege, as if it’s a bad thing to do so. But your privilege exists and you benefit from it whether you like it or not, and minimizing the struggles of others doesn’t magically place you on their level.

Canada Goose Grievances Another memorable instance for me was when I heard another student complain that their Canada Goose jacket was ‘ugly.’ Canada Goose is an expensive brand, and it’s wise to invest in good winter material in a state like Michigan. But merely being able to afford this brand is a luxury, as prices can range from $1,125 to $1,875. Logically, I know that that student is allowed to not like something they own.

But the offhanded audacity to complain about such a luxury completely threw me for a loop. That deep part of my internal exasperation was lit up like a firecracker. My Macy’s jacket is perfectly serviceable, but somehow your Canada Goose isn’t up to your standards? What standards even are those?

The cynical part of me thought the student should just sell that jacket and give me the money to pay for my tuition, since they seem to have enough disposable income to buy a thousand-dollar jacket without even really liking it. Honestly, I am so envious of the ability to afford to turn a blind eye to matters concerning money (which is basically everything) that the saying “green with envy” has transformed for me into “red with rage.”

University Hypocrisy

Like any other major college, the University of Michigan flashily pushes for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives despite the widespread knowledge that we have one of the country’s worst student demographics for economic diversity. What a joke.

Keeping rich students in a bubble with other rich students doesn’t prepare them to interact with regular people, and as much as I want to place full blame on these people for their removed mindsets, the University atmosphere is just as much to blame. As a state school, this university is supposed to represent the people of Michigan. Instead, we are getting ratioed with this ridiculous amount of rich students, and this rhythm of inequity is preserved like sticky hands being deprived of a fresh wash.

GREATER CHANGE Yes, I am resentful of these disconnected affluent students, but I would like to address the university at large. Finding a way to promote equality begins with actually having a proportionate representation of students and actively supporting an open dialogue for financial matters. We attend a school that perpetuates wealth inequality and a fixed view of America’s socioeconomic issues, and a continued lack of change is going to enrage each and every incoming student who has to deal with these annoying, stupid comments.

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generational

joy.

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SHOOT DIRECTOR LIGAYA GALANG FASHION ANNABELLE YE MELISSA YU PHOTOGRAPHERS YUESHAN JIANG ANIKA MINOCHA EDITOR AKASH DEWAN VIDEOGRAPHER CARLY NICHOLS

GRAPHIC DESIGNER MILCAH KRENADI MODELS JANAÉ DYAS SIDNEY TALBERT NOVA BROWN OWEN SCALES DONOVAN ROGERS LIGAYA GALANG SAMITA RAO LEILANI BAYLIS TRINITY BROWN

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Butterfly - Trinity Barbara Penelope Ring - Trinity Barbara

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SHOOT D ANGE PHOTOG ANISHA C FASH TAYLOR S SIDNEY GRAPHIC D MARGARE MOD SOPHIA JASMINE

DIRECTOR ELA LI GRAPHER CHOPRA HION STEVENS Y VUE DESIGNER ET LAAKSO DELS A DAVIS INSAARD

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Get Bored T

his May I will graduate college, and for the first time in my life, no longer be able to claim the title of Student. While there’s some grief in leaving behind the joy of constant exploration that education encourages, honestly, I am burnt out. I am tired; mentally, physically, emotionally, and now that my early twenties are upon me, a particular question looms large: what the hell am I going to do with my time?

I have a complicated relationship with free time. Meaning, I really don’t know how to enjoy it.

That’s a sentiment I would be more than willing to bet the majority of University of Michigan, if not nationwide, college students share. From August to April, we exist within a strenuous cycle of always throwing ourselves forward, attempting to gain momentum to complete the next thing on our lengthy and evergrowing todo lists. Resting usually equates to failing and, for many of us, failing is an option we can never allow to become reality.

But then, smack dab in the middle of our

school year, we’re hit with a nearly month-long Winter Break, wedged awkwardly between the end of one semester and the start of the next… and suddenly there’s nothing urgent to do.

Most of us have no academic responsibilities or extracurricular commitments to attend. Our Google Calendars are blank for weeks on end and, if you’re anything like me, you start to freak out about using this massive stretch of time “right.”

College has programmed my mind to crave productivity, to make sure the task in front of me is getting done. But each year December rolls around, and suddenly there’s nothing left to mark off my checklist. Boredom is not a feeling I’m particularly fond of. I’ve never known how to relax into this block of time when nothing is expected of me.

I’ve tried hobbies! I learned to crochet, which was fun until I got mildly good at it and could no longer start a project without feeling like I needed to finish it as fast as possible. The

feeling of relaxation was quickly stolen from an activity I had picked up with the goal of finding it.

Exercise is another slippery slope. A mile or two walk is great, but my mind loves to kick in and demand more of me. If I’m not pushing myself to the edge of my ability, what was the point of starting in the first place? I fear the demands of productivity in higher education have fundamentally damaged my ability to just enjoy an activity. Which is…how do I put this…definitely problematic.

I want to be okay with being bored. I am literally twenty-one years old! I have decades of my life left to do everything I want—to travel the world, to meet thousands of new and interesting people, and to accomplish my dreams or even change them completely for that matter!

As the end of my undergraduate years inches closer and I have more free time during my days than ever before, I’ve been reflecting on how the various ways I spend my time really affect me. Am I being kind to my mind and my body if I don’t ever let myself relax? There may not be a singular “right”

“Resting usually equates to failing and, for many of us, failing is an option we can never allow to become reality.”

way to spend that free time but there are certain things that make my days feel a lot lighter. To my surprise, that usually ends up being the time I spend staring at the ceiling of my college house’s living room, emptying my mind of the constant overstimulation and allowing the minutes to just roll past instead of micromanaging them. I am starting to realize that fundamental fulfillment will not come from rushing, again and again, head-on into another task, but by learning how to take a step back and appreciate the moment, even if nothing is happening at all. Be completely and utterly, mind-bogglingly bored! It might just be the best part of your day.

WRITER SHELBY JENKINS GRAPHIC DESIGNER TIYA MADHAVAN

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MODEL ISABEL BERG

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