Book Review: A Darker Shade of Magic

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab takes us to a London where magic exists and those in possession of it can travel between alternate worlds. After Black London, filled with unquenchable and evil power, became a threat to the others, the doors were shut down to all except the Antari, a nearly extinct race of people who still have the ability to make these doors. To do so, they must use blood and a piece of the other worlds, which is only impossible for Black London, where no trace exists in the others any longer… or so we believe. The story has us follow Kell, an Antari from the lush and magically blessed Red London and Lila, a supposedly human girl with a penchant for trouble from the lacking Grey London, as they try to escape the power hungry White London’s rulers and return a powerful talisman to Black London.



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Book Review: The Love Hypothesis

In order to convince her best friend Anh that she is over the ex Anh wants to get with, Olive Smith, PhD candidate at Stanford, kisses a random man in the hallway to put on a ruse. It just so happens that that man is not only one of the department’s best researchers, but is also one who is rude, moody, and notorious for treating his students like trash. Yet, rather than filing a Title IX complaint, Dr. Adam Carlsen agrees to fake-date Olive for the time being so her plan could work. Shocked by his agreement, Olive goes on fake dates with him only to find the dates are feeling more and more real each time.



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7 Days 7 Languages – A Concept

Although I easily get bored while watching TV, I do really enjoy listening to videos or other audio (for some reason at 2x speed when in English, or else I also get bored) while working, whether that be putting together a PowerPoint for my students or painting my photo album cover. Lately my drug of choice has been linguistic videos again, and it is really inspiring me to put more effort towards my language learning journey. A few YouTubers, like Lindie Botes, for instance, often discuss how to balance multiple languages at once, and it makes me realize I need to better organize myself to actually make substantial progress. I keep jumping around languages too often, losing progress in one while I focus on another, then vice versa when my interests or needs shift again.



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I Still Print My Photos Part 2

In the last part, I rambled a bit about my thoughts on how society treats photography nowadays, but I want to switch gears to the little project I gave myself for 2021. To recap, in late 2020 I downloaded a HUJI camera app on my phone and have been taking pictures of things that make me happy or that I don’t want to forget since. I decided that starting with January 2021, I’d make a faux old-fashioned yearbook for just myself.



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First Tattoo!

Tattoos: poking ink into the dermal layer of your skin into aesthetically pleasing designs in hopes they stay there long-term. Such a strange concept as they do not directly affect our survival, yet still are found as an art form all around the world, past, present, and probably future. Their significance can be as simple as “I like this drawing and want it on me” to having deep religious and cultural meaning. In some places, such as Japan, they have negative connotations, such as tying you to gangs and other nefarious activity. In others, it demonstrates your rank in society, such as in some Polynesian cultures. For myself, personally, I find them a form of self-expression and art. It is not that I simply love every tattoo; I’ve seen some quite hideous ones or even ones in places that lead me to believe one’s life choices may be a bit skewed. Overall, though, I appreciate them and have wanted to both adorn myself with them and do the same for others. I still remember being in the limo on the way to prom and looking up with my friend what it takes to become a tattoo artist, a job I secretly still wish to have. Later, in university, I told myself that if I got into medical school, I’d get a tattoo as a form of celebration. What I’m trying to say is that this is something I’ve considered for a long time, and now that I will be starting graduate school, I decided I’ll actually go through with it.



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I Still Print My Photos Part 1

Photography is consumed at a considerably larger scale than ever before thanks to the Internet, yet the appreciation for the art of it is not proportional to these changes. It’s quite vexing that photography once was an esteemed, genuine art form in the public’s eye yet now is something we expect to see every time we open up our phones. But, if we see low quality, poorly composed photos, we mock it. On the other hand, photos that are museum-worthy are overlooked for someone’s travel photos laden with cutesy filters. Our eyes are trained to expect a specific type of photo and many of us expect nothing different. It has become something artistically undervalued and socially commonplace.



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Returning “Home” Poco a Poco

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and for me, this chapter of my life spent in Honduras has concluded, a brief intermission in Chicago has begun, and soon, a new chapter in Carbondale will follow. I do have my hopes there will be a “Honduras– Revisited!” at some point, but that hope I will tuck into my heart and allow myself to find again one day, a surprise for when I go to put it in the wash and check the pockets. I was only in Honduras for a little less than half a year, but it feels like much longer. I am grateful to have met so many incredible people, all of which have made an impact on me in various ways. I have been shown more kindness than I deserve and that I could never pay back in full. Honduras quickly became my second home, not necessarily only in the physical sense, but by the people who immediately befriended me, who stayed patient all the times I got tongue-tied in Spanish, who laughed at my (supposedly) Russian-sounding r’s, who taught me how to cook, who showed me the best hiking trails, who made it their goal to have me try the “essential” Honduran foods (cough cough all of them), who shared their music and eagerly received mine back, spent their evenings with me, and made me feel more welcome in a foreign place than I usually feel at home.



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Book Review: 21st Century Guidebook to Fungi, Chapter 4

Apical extension is a major characteristic of fungi with tubular hyphae. As exploratory organisms, being able to extend and dip their mycelia into the space around them is a crucial part of survival. They produce biomass, such as lipids and proteins, which are delivered to the tips of their filaments via vesicle trafficking, allowing them to add on their ends to keep growing outward. Once a fungus finds something of value, extension stops and branching begins to milk whatever food source they found. Other outwardly extending systems, such as blood vessels in humans, may seem similar, but these traits evolved convergently, such being that there are only so many ways to branch out radially with autotropism, or avoiding bumping into yourself. On a side note, sometimes positive autotropism is needed, specifically for hyphal fusions, but this is not the case most of the time.



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Una Eternidad Corta

Hoy quiero compartir un poema. Por favor entiende que todavía estoy aprendiendo español, y todavía estoy aprendiendo como escribir poesía. Para mi, las palabras me sienten más fluidas y abstractas en español que inglés. Es más fácil compartir un sentimiento o vibra. Disfruta.



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Semana Morazánica in Disney

Early in September, Karli asked me if we wanted to do anything for our Semana Morazánica holiday, to which I replied, “h-e-double hockey sticks-yes.” At the time I had just found out I had been accepted to graduate school and knew my GRE would be right before the holiday, so celebration was rightfully in order. After much Google Flights searching, as well as where we could get to via bus, we realized a trip to Disney World would be entirely possible and we booked it that night. $600 each before food costs later, we had our Florida plans in order (ironically, it would have cost more for us to visit Roatán). Now, I write this as I sit on my plane back to San Pedro Sula, so I want to share a little bit of our trip while it is fresh in my mind.



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