6. Sauerkraut 2025

Earning the Best Indie Game and Game of the Year award titles (along with many others) in 2017 and even more in 2018, What Remains of Edith Finch is a captivating story-telling game that takes you through the Finch family tree—containing a collection of unfortunate deaths caused by the family “curse.” Despite the seemingly crystal clear plot, the game still leaves much up for interpretation as to what the supernatural deaths are outside of their face value.   The game is told from the point of view of Edith Finch as it is read posthumously by her son Christopher soon after her passing. As the story progresses, more unfolds about the history of the Finch family as Edith reads accounts from members of the Finch family about each death in memorialized, museum-like rooms—perfectly preserved, even though some of them passed away decades ago—created by Edie Finch, Edith’s great-grandmother.  To discover more about her family, Edith Finch makes her way through each room with ...

Memory and identity are closely connected. The memories we carry and will continue to carry with us throughout our lives have helped us shape who we are and how we view and observe the things that occur in the world. Every moment, experience, and interaction we have gone through has left an imprint on our identity and affected how we act, think, and feel. My sister, friend, and I at the park  (I am the one on the shell with the  blue pants and my sister is the one with the red pants) If you really think about it, our memories are like pieces of a puzzle that came together to create the bigger picture of who we are. From small childhood moments like going to the park with friends and the late nights in said park with your sisters, to big life events like losing a loved one, every memory plays a role in building our sense of self. For example, if you remember a time when you felt proud of an accomplishment like maybe being complimented on your intelligence at a young age, it wi...

Throughout my life, I have always been intrigued by sports. One particular sport that plays a huge role in my overall development is basketball. Ever since I was young, I have always been playing basketball. Thanks to my brother, I was always so hyped to go play with him in the backyard, and then play with my friends who lived nearby on my street. As I progressed through the grades, the one thing I always played during lunch was basketball. I had always worked out and played with my friends, and that was the one thing that I always looked forward to on a regular basis.  One of my favorite memories in basketball was when I was in elementary school. I was on one of the best teams, and had so many good friends that created a positive environment that I loved to be a part of . The people that made up the team were so competent in their individual role, and they never failed to contribute their skills to our team. I had so much fun playing with them, and that is primarily because we had...

A few weeks ago, my friend came across a recent physics article talking about a novel discovery in quantum particles. I don’t exactly remember what this paper was describing, but through my friend’s explanation, I was able to learn that even if time travel were possible, physicists believe that it would be difficult to actually determine if it happened since it wouldn’t be able to change the past. Essentially, this article was able to prove the idea that the present timeline can only be temporarily changed by going back to the past, supporting a famous theory proposed in 1990 describing how events will always be self-consistent and how actions will already have been accounted for in the past. And although this topic was interesting in itself, what really struck me was when my friend connected this idea to our feeling of déjà vu, proposing the theory that this feeling may be caused by us “forgetting” an experience after our timeline has been altered, yet still retaining the feelings an...

Most of us can probably recall what we ate yesterday or recall the names of our fourth-grade teachers. Some of us might even remember hazy memories from when we were four. But try to think back further. How far can you go? For most people, their memories fade at around the age of three. Those who claim to remember memories before the age of three usually unknowingly fabricate memories, blend dreams, and weave random anecdotes into memories that feel real. Memory is not as reliable as we think. Our memories are fickle at around the age of three due to a phenomenon known as “ childhood amnesia .” Childhood amnesia is a result of the immature hippocampus being unable to store memories from when you are born to around the age of three. Additionally, emotional content is found to have a corollary relationship with memory accuracy: negative emotions contribute to erroneous memories while positive emotions increase their accuracy . Confirmation bias also plays a role in the accuracy of ou...

I have lived on the same street for 17 years. The yellow bus dropping me across this street. Walking home from the bus on this street. The bed that has grown weary as I’ve grown older on this street. I have changed in endless ways, but this street has stayed the same. A steady key as I’ve grown older, where other households have emptied and filled with new families, but we stay. This street has seen me grow from playing nerf guns or water balloons with the neighbors to me driving back home from school on this very street, and soon, leave this street for four years to call another street, another building, my address. As I walk down, I am enveloped by nostalgia, especially contrasting to my parents’ experiences. My father attended boarding school, missing out on the sense of home I’ve cherished. My mother, the daughter of an Army doctor, moved constantly, never settling in one place long enough to be comfortable. Their histories highlight how seemingly, mundane, but unique my experience...

 During this year, a huge fear of mine has been being unable to remember things. Not just little details and conversations, but events that feel important to me. There are so many thoughts that we have, people that we are close to, and emotions that go along with them that will simply fade from our memory over time. When I try to recall significant events from the past years I can only remember parts of them, almost like a snapshot of the memory, but I can never quite emulate the same thoughts and feelings that went along with that moment.  This quickly became scary to me and I began to wonder, throughout my day, whether I would even remember what I was currently doing a year later or if it would be forgotten in a week. Everything that felt so important could just as easily disappear from my memory and I would never notice. Even now, there are so many parts of my life that I will never realize were once memorable to me because they cannot be resurfaced.  This bothered me ...

I am bound in my life by a ludicrous notion: that I remember all the important parts of it. When I reflect on parts of my identity, whether it’s for filling out applications, writing a note to myself, or crafting an I Believe poem, I am always a little impressed by how much information about myself I have subconsciously gathered and expressed in the present. In this way, I feel that each small output I have created holds a piece of me, and if you added all of them up, you would get my complete self.  However, one detail I learned in my English class last year protrudes in the back of my mind at times when I become overconfident in my self-awareness of my life; apparently, your subconscious mind can control as much as ninety-five percent of your life.  I believe there is an undeniable entanglement between memories and consciousness, as a memory doesn’t really exist until you’re conscious of a moment and think back on it. A memory that holds a lot of value to you is likely one y...

Kanye West performs at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010 via Billboard Memory is defined as the faculty by which the mind stores information. It can also be defined as something remembered from the past. Following my recent shift in blog type, I've decided to voice my thoughts and personal opinion on music and the personal reminders certain songs or albums assume. The music I consume/examine may be niche and somewhat alternative compared to most tastes in music, but I feel they are intricate examples that still effectively portray the relationship memory plays a part in.  After more than three decades since the shocking death of Kurt Cobain, his well-aged work and his persona continue to captivate and occupy fans. As the lead guitarist of Nirvana, Cobain made waves in the grunge and the alt-rock scene. As a musician, Cobain was different from most. Instead of worrying about sales or commercial success, Cobain made it a priority to find and play a “raw” and emoti...