6. Sauerkraut 2025

Dave Grohl (Middle-right, Left Photo) emerging from Kurt Cobain's Funeral via Reddit and the Smoke Signal's official paper dedicated to Dylan Reagan's remembrance (Right Photo, Original). Over the course of our blogging assignment, I’ve slowly noticed something. Almost every one of my classmates or those in my cohort write about themselves or their personal experiences-each of which are unique and refreshing in their own way. My blog topics contrast greatly, however. Within the last semester, I’ve often chosen to cover artists or Youtubers unlike the familial connections and bonds I have explored in Semester one under the “Marine Otter” cohort. Given the drastic shift in life experiences I’ve gained over the past year, I’d like to return to a personal topic of mine. I’d like to explore a sensitive topic today. I’d like to reflect and explore the similarities and differences between the impact of Kurt Cobain and Dylan Reagan’s passing and how Dave Grohl and I responded to ...

All my life, I have been obsessed with different games. Whether it was board games like “Sorry!” or Monopoly, or even that Harry Potter game my family had, which we had lost. Those memories from those games represent a different age and maturity level that I held (not really).  Board games were the most fun to play with my family, and they represent my younger self, the one who was obsessed with acquiring Boardwalk and Park Place , only to get upset whenever my other siblings obtained it, or the absolute joy in my bones when they would land on it and not have enough money to buy it, maybe they should not have bought every thing on the board, but they were a little greedy like that. And I remember my mom’s key phrase, “I’ll buy it!” Whenever she landed on a place, even if it sucked, like those doodoo brown places in the beginning of the board. As I got older, we stopped playing as much. I would bring it up, but they were getting older and were more stressed with other things, so we ...

Have you ever caught a whiff of something like freshly baked cookies, a particular perfume, or the earthy smell after rain and been instantly transported back to a moment in your past? That is the incredible power of scent. Unlike other senses, smell is directly connected to the brain’s limbic system, which controls emotions and memories. This is why certain aromas can trigger vivid recollections, often more strongly than sights or sounds. Scents act like time machines. The smell of sunscreen might bring back memories of summer vacations, while a specific cologne could remind you of a loved one. These connections form because the olfactory bulb, which processes smells, has a direct connection to the hippocampus and amygdala. These are areas of the brain responsible for memory and emotional response. When you experience a scent during a meaningful moment, your brain stores that smell as part of the memory. Even subtle or fleeting smells can have a lasting impact. That is why some peop...

The question I ask myself the most: “How would it look on the apps?” The anticipation of college comes closer and closer, and the future awaits us. But I can’t seem to understand how close we’ve gotten considering this has been the point we’ve been working towards for so long. I find myself reflecting on the times where the expectations have stayed high in our family. With my brother off to his masters at Carnegie Mellon University for AI, and my senior friends leaving high school to great places, my anxiety and fear seems to inch bigger and bigger. Since the emergence of school from COVID, my mindset has changed its gears to start gearing in a completely different way. Every activity, hobby, and recreation I looked forward to became “How would it look on the apps?” This became a daily question in any of the decisions I made, or any of the goals I set. The way I spent my time became geared towards getting into college, and every time I wasn’t doing something beneficial towards these go...

Have you ever picked up your phone to do something, but ended up opening Instagram reels, scrolled for a couple of minutes, and eventually forgot what you originally opened your phone to do? (Don’t worry, you’re not alone.) When we do this, we experience a psychological phenomenon called “prospective memory lapse,” where we briefly forget the intentions behind doing something (like opening our phones). Over time, these slip-ups can accumulate and negatively affect one’s productivity, memory, and ability to focus on multiple tasks.  As short-form content dominates the online space, these memory lapses are becoming more common. Issues such as degrading attention spans and memory loss plague the younger generation. These problems are not confined to our generation alone: I have seen my dad scrolling on YouTube shorts on a separate monitor during work! YouTube and TikTok’s tailored algorithm ensures that people of all ages receive content that they would find stimulating, which is a ...

In my personal experience, most of the time in my life is spent on my individual pursuits, which often involve doing things alone. Yet, in many cases, we seem to remember the things people say to us more clearly than time spent on performing tasks, despite such a huge portion of our lives revolving around our actions. This is how my memory works, at least, so I’ve compiled a list of restated quotes that I think I’ll remember for a long time (or basically what I remember as I type my blog). 1. “To improvise well on the piano, think like a drummer.” Coming across this random Instagram reel a while ago led me to investigate how the inherent nature of jazz lies in its rhythms, not its chords. 2. “People can think they’re right, but they can’t know they’re right.” An earth-shattering, groundbreaking, bewildering statement given at two a.m. by my friend during a discussion of the anime Death Note .  3. “You truly are a cleric.” In fourth grade, my teacher hosted after-school sessions of ...

  Growing up, some of my favorite memories have been spent with my grandma: our late nights watching thrillers, her delicious food, and her backyard with plenty of trees and the occasional visitors of deer, turkey, birds, and annoying gophers. Out of everyone in my family, she is probably the person I am the closest with, the person that I feel I can tell anything to and she’ll still react kindly. I lived with her for a few years when I was younger, taking daily adventures in her backyard and helping her around the house, but today it still surprises me how I still manage to learn more and more about someone I consider myself to be close with. When I was younger she would share her memories of working as a preschool teacher, a flight attendant, and on her major of anthropology after growing up on a farm. She would share about her adventures to Tokyo—exploring the city before her next flight across the world again—and her experiences with different types of children and parents—bein...

With all the technological advancements and new discoveries that humans have made in the past 300,000 years, it seems like the one area where we still lack so much information is with the human brain. It’s kind of funny—we have so many brains that work on and research this problem everyday, yet we still can’t even figure out how one of them works! We don’t know what our brains are made of, how our memories are stored, or even how we’ve formed consciousness and intelligence. But for me, one of the most interesting mysteries of our brain involves the Mandela Effect . The Berenstein Bears . The cornucopia in the Fruit of the Loom logo. Curious George’s tail. The Monopoly Man’s monocle.  These descriptions seem familiar, right? It’s what we’ve all grown up with and what we all remember, where we’re able to clearly imagine these images whenever someone mentions them. But what if I told you that none of what I’ve listed is real? It’s actually spelled The Berenstain Bears , with an “a” an...

   Kurt Cobain at the December 1993 "Live and Loud" concert via   Entertainment Weekly Upon saying goodbye to Ye’s character and listening exclusively to Kanye West for over a week, I’ve found it almost relieving to finally listen to other genres outside of rap or hip-hop. The pressure to nail the POAS presentation and Ye’s character placed a certain amount of strain on me, listening to his music alone. One of the bands I used to pivot from rap was Nirvana. As I’ve already mentioned late Nirvana’s guitarist, Kurt Cobain, I never got to focus solely on his legacy and the ideals he stood — and stood out — for. Almost thirty-eight years ago, Nirvana released Bleach , their first studio album, which met some commercial success and developed some of their fanbase. While the album’s sound and melodic structure was a far cry from what they would do in Nevermind (1991), it was their first album that received large success whilst also a stepping stone in each band member’s musica...

I have always been known to be quite injury prone. Ever since I was in 8th grade, I have sustained a multitude of injuries. These injuries range in severity, but most of them are pretty severe and have helped me become a stronger and more capable individual as well. Now, there is one particular injury that I just happen to keep attracting. My first one was during Freshman year, and then after that it was like I just kept on getting them. Want to take a wild guess which injury I am talking about? No!? I thought so…well, I am talking about concussions .  One of my favorite things about myself has been my memory. Both short and long term. My memory has always been something that I was always extremely proud of. I was able to remember things for a long period of time and also not forget things in an instant. It was something I took pride in. Something that gave me a lot of joy. One of my favorite experiences is when I only took twenty minutes to memorize a six-page long script for a pa...

In my eighth-grade band class, my friends and I played a piece called “ Nostalgia .” It sounds really nice when you listen to it from a professional recording (I’d highly recommend listening to it a little if you’re interested), but to my younger self, nothing could compare to how majestic it sounded when I was sitting amidst and playing along with its performers—untrained, amateur, nearly tone deaf, dedicated middle-school musicians. At the time, I had just gotten back from online school and wasn’t really used to in-person playing, so I had not been exposed to a lot of traditional concert music arrangements yet. Thus, “Nostalgia” was one of the main pieces that showed me how beautiful music could sound with so many different instruments included and so many musicians acting on the same wavelength. It is now a composition that I will always remember playing, the first of many others that hold personal sentimental value to come. The ironic thing about the piece is that when I played it ...

Have you heard of the idea that after someone dies, their memories of their life will play for seven minutes before “actually dying?” It makes you wonder what memories could play; how nice would it be? Who will you see? What will you see? What specific memories will show? Will the last image be the most meaningful? Will you be able to see the image of other people’s reactions to your death? Would these memories play sound, or would they be quiet? If only that were the case. The truth is that you will breathe your last breath, your heart will beat once more, your brain will stop functioning, and all your vital organs will stop. It is not as beautiful as one would hope, but it does make you think about life. What memories do you think would be played, and who would you see? Maybe you will see yourself take your first steps, the excitement that overtook everyone in the family. Or maybe you would see the first words you spoke, if the memories were quiet, you could just know whether or n...