3. Moon Jellies

The “nonchalant” personality was popularized over the past year, originating on TikTok and spreading like wildfire across the United States and beyond. Being nonchalant in this day and age entails forgoing any outward expression of emotion, particularly in intense situations that would call for at least some form of emotion, to appear effortlessly cool, probably to impress someone one is interested in. Although there definitely are many nonchalant people who are truly indifferent to the whims of life, many of the nonchalant personas simply imitate the next best imitator to put on a mask of being cool. Despite there being nearly 4,000 emojis in Unicode 17.0, the most recent update to the total number of characters able to be typed on the Internet, modern Internet unironic emoji usage is limited to just a handful. Two emojis stand out in particular: the broken heart emoji (💔) and the wilted rose emoji (🥀), both primarily used to signify laughter or light-hearted mockery. For a period o...

I never used to be the kind of person who was obsessed with theater. I always considered myself as more of a movie kind of person, and I never cared for plays or theatrical works of any kind.  Then, I watched Hamilton with my family on Disney+ during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite not being able to actually witness this production in real life, I was instantly enamored with the world of theater. I couldn’t believe that someone had taken a concept as nonfictional as American history and produced an entire musical, especially one that was so engaging and intricate.  Ever since the opening of its first theater in 1735 , Broadway has been a powerful symbol for “global entertainment,” dubbed the “ centerpiece of American theater ” by Roger J. Stilling. Today, Broadway has become one of America’s most significant aspects of culture, as it represents American creativity in a unique and expressive way. The very scale of Broadway is a direct reflection of the sheer amount ...

→ If you want to edit photos (and you do), Adobe products are likely your best friend. The most popular (and perhaps the most feature-rich) editing software is Adobe Lightroom, which, until recently, could be purchased for $150. Recently, however, rather than being a one-time purchase, Adobe products are now subscription-based. Lightroom is now $120 per year, meaning that users would now have to continuously pay for access to a product that they will never truly own. In outrage, Adobe users… obediently handed over their money. Every year. Adobe, raking in millions of additional dollars per year, has been perfectly content to do this with all of its products, becoming yet another participant in a trend of extracting as much money as possible from each customer. Arguments against media piracy grow weaker by the day. → It’s night, and I’m in New York City—perhaps the most celebrated place in America. I’m tired. All around me, bright flashing LED and LCD and OLED screens openly brawl in t...

What a typical day in a pattern-seeking primate's (my) life looks like Fun fact #1: the Italians, during their Renaissance movement beginning in the 14th century, were utterly obsessed with proportions and ratios. The perfection of man as a vessel (see: Vitruvian Man), a philosophical movement known as humanism, was highly emphasized. The golden ratio, and shapes made using it, are prevalent throughout the art produced in that time period. From architecture to painting to sculpture, the Fibonacci sequence, golden rectangle, etc. are all found in Renaissance art. Of course, the Renaissance, strictly speaking, was nothing “new.” Technically , “renaissance” literally means “rebirth.” In other words, the Renaissance was simply a rebirth of old art: art from the ancient Greeks or Romans. The love of ratios was also similarly inherited from them; the golden rectangle, for example, is derived from the numbers in the Fibonacci sequence and is seen in the Pantheon. Fun fact #2: the White H...

If you asked seven-year-old me what her deepest fear was, she’d probably say the darkness. Pitch black nothingness; the formless entity that lives in the corridor halls, engulfing anything and everything.. But it wasn’t so much the darkness itself that I feared; it was more so…  Slenderman . A humanoid silhouette who is typically six to seven feet tall , yet with eerily elongated limbs and a blank slate of face without any facial features; this creature was anything but human. Perhaps the fear amplified by the uncanny valley effect is how that THING left its terrifying imprint in my young, impressionable mind. What if he spawns in my house one day, accoutered in a pristine tuxedo, and begins rapping at my chamber door??? Gahh… — Stepping away from creepypastas, America’s urban legends have plenty of horrors to satiate anyone’s thrill for fear. Take the Mothman , first sighted in West Virginia with glistening red eyes and unproportionally massive wings. The infamous Sasquatch has...

"Hello, will that be all today?" “Yes, thank you.” “Ok, that’ll be $4.99.” “Here’s 5. Can I get change?” “W-what? NO.. NO!! I DONT HAVE CHANGE AHHHH!!” *cashier crashes out* That’s what some people imagine would happen after November 12. As we probably have heard about now, the production of pennies has ceased as of November 12, ending its 232-year circulation in the US. Some people have gone into mass panic after hearing this news, hoarding pennies in the hopes of selling them for a higher value in the future because of their “rarity.” But has anyone really noticed the difference? Even though it’s hard to tell its impact because production stopped 5 days ago (as of when this blog was made), billions of pennies will still be in circulation. And honestly, part of me is happy because prices will now be a perfect, whole number $5.00 instead of $4.99 (yes, prices really bother me just like how our school schedule has not-so-perfect numbers like 1:31pm and 11:18am).  On a more ser...

The concept of invasive species is not all unfamiliar to even those without significant environmental knowledge. Invasive species originate in one environment and spread to other environments where they can more easily exploit resources—due in part to the lack of natural predators in their new environment. Most invasive species are also generalists, meaning their diets and behaviors are more adaptable to both their original and new environments (as opposed to specialists, such as koalas). Invasive species run rampant in countries across the globe; so much so that there is an entire Science Olympiad event (I’m sorry, I had to) dedicated to solely studying invasive species called, fittingly, Invasive Species .  The spotted lanternfly, a.k.a the "please kindly curbstomb on sight" insect Now, there is absolutely no shortage of invasive species: the emerald ash borer, spotted lanternfly, Asian longhorn beetle, Asian tiger mosquito, cane toad, American bullfrog, and zebra mussel ar...

  One of my all-time favorite shows is releasing its culminating season in exactly three weeks. Since it is genuinely taking everything in me to contain my excitement for these very long three weeks, I thought I would get through it by giving the show some much-deserved love in this blog. Stranger Things is beloved by many in America (and beyond), and for good reason, as it is the perfect blend of action, supernatural occurrences, friendship, romance, etc. But beyond that, the show effectively captures the charming, vibrant feel of the 1980s, as that is the decade in which it is set. Viewers are drawn to the feel of a time period that existed an entire 45 years ago, to the point where even people who haven’t lived through that decade are still able to feel a sense of nostalgia for it. Television shows like Stranger Things are not the only example of this nostalgia, either. The fashion trends of the 90s have made a significant comeback in recent years, with clothes like crop tops ...

Since the very beginning of the Revolutionary War, we as Americans have seemed unbelievably persistent in our efforts to stray far from the British. In fact, basic aspects of our society, such as the side of the road we drive on and the way we spell certain words, have been intentionally selected to create a distinctive American identity. Undeniably, the very origin of America was a rejection of the British—one which has blossomed into something bold enough to significantly shape the newly emerging global society. This increasing global unity, however, has had the opposite effect of making cultures more homogeneous, to the point where it becomes difficult to make distinctions. Take, for example, The Killers. Their biggest song, “ Mr. Brightside ,” has become an instantly recognizable classic, popular to this day (from 2004!) in British pubs and on popular radio stations. Additionally, despite their wavering international popularity after their first two albums, they have had seven cons...

  We’re really living in the peak of an economic downfall, huh? From ridiculous inflation rates (especially in California) to increasing unemployment rates, it seems like our main concerns in life aren’t going to be to buy an apartment anymore, but rather to get into college and pray for a job opening.  Recently, Billie Eilish made a huge donation of 11.5 million dollars from her Hit Me Hard and Soft tour to climate change organizations. In comparison to her wealth, she donated around ¼ of her net worth. If that wasn’t enough to cause attention, she also made a speech at the Magazine Innovator Awards stating how “the world is really, really bad and really dark,” promoting the idea for wealthy billionaires to “use [money] for good things, maybe give it to some people that need it.” Eilish at the Music Innovator Awards “If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire?” Now this isn’t saying that Billie Eilish is a small artist. But relative to the fact that Billie, a multi mi...

*Insert stereotypical final showdown theme here.* Today, one might think of the United States as a diverse population with a vast amount of viewpoints to match. There might not be a single quintessential “American,” but there certainly was before the contemporary period. During the era of rapid westward expansion in the United States, a new lifestyle emerged: that of the cowboy . At first glance, the Old West is perhaps the most undistilled and emblematic of truly American ideals—freedom at any (and all) costs, offering the unrestrained life of the rebel.    Ironically, this idea of the Old West that we collectively hallucinate—a picture so commonly associated with “America”—would probably be exactly contrary to what the Founding Fathers intended for America. The United States of America isn’t actually a pure democracy; instead, it’s a representative democracy. Technically, the president is decided through the Electoral College rather than being voted in by U.S. citizens in a ...