issue ii

campo review ‘16

campo review NOVEMBER 2016

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THE CAMPO REVIEW NOV. 16 2

“And to the young people in particular, I hope you will hear this. . . . I’ve had successes and I’ve had setbacks. Sometimes, really painful ones. . . . You will have successes and setbacks, too. This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it. It is—it is worth it. And so we need—we need you to keep up these fights now and for the rest of your lives.”

campo review ‘16

From Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Presidential Concession Speech, November 9th, 2016 3

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letter from the editor We began, of course, compiling the work for this issue before the results of the election became known to us. While the rest of the issue follows in its original form, I’d like to use this space, in which I am allowed, I suppose, as much as I am allowed a note on the contained work, a brief editorial tirade, to digress with such. Considering that this issue’s intended theme was ‘identity’ (an idea which accounts for the interview-derived work featured in the ‘cr interviewed’ section), I think it’s be appropriate to include here my own response to the election, given what has been its horrific and powerful influence on our own identity as a nation. Without further ado, ‘An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton.’

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Thank you. Thank you for teaching me the importance of grace in the face of adversity.

Thank you for teaching me the power of my words. Thank you for teaching me to be strong.

Thank you for teaching me that I can do anything men can do. Thank you for teaching me to hold my ground. Thank you for teaching me to take the word ‘bitch’ as a compliment.

Thank you for teaching me that we are not our surroundings, but what we make of them.

Thank you for inspiring me to seek change in a world that seems concrete. Thank you for inspiring me to work hard for what I want. Thank you for inspiring me to be a fighter.

Your words have touched me. Your actions have invigorated me. However disappointed I am to be an American today, it is due to your graceful and conciliatory words that I understand I will not always be so disappointed. It is due to your graceful and conciliatory words that I understand that not winning does not mean giving up. However solemn this day might have been, I want you to know that you have touched my life in an irreversible way, as you have touched the lives of many young female Americans.

It is hard to accept such a disparaging failure. It is hard to watch it. Because in watching your concession speech today in class, dressed all in black, I saw in your eyes what most of America has been denying you for many years. As you gave your graceful remarks today, I saw the effect of failure, of disappointment, as I’ve recognized in myself, in classmates, in friends. So as sorry as I am for the red takeover of our country. I am as sorry for the chiffon which swished 4

campo review ‘16 at my knees as I settled into the sink-down couch to watch the results last night. I am sorry for my grandmother, who might not see change in this life, and sorry, too, for my young cousin, age nine, who wore Bambi-eyes and wet cheeks this morning, who knows not of other than men in power. I am sorry I still feel a little ashamed of kissing a man by my own initiation, and I am sorry that I have female friends who feel it is their place to tell me when and when not my legs look too long in shorts or a dress.

I am sorry the America we share today is not the America you have fought vicarious for as long as I can remember. I am sorry that the America I woke up to today felt more like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone than the beacon of egalitarian progress I’d wished to wake to, champagne stale on my tongue. I am sorry that my eyes hurt from bawling and that in addressing my father while he was dressing for work, in addressing my mother preparing a humble breakfast, they could do not else but hug me as I shook.

It is disappointing to see sexism thrive. It embarrasses me that Princeton did not accept women until forty years ago. It embarrasses me that we are where we are today. It would be a lie to say I am ready to accept these results. It would be a lie to say I am ready to accept further sexism. It is hard to listen to those who try to appease. It is hard to listen to those who say we must go on. It is hard to listen to those who say: “Life is for the living. Let us live.” How do you live when six Advil don’t kill a headache conjured from crying? How do you live when ‘feminist’ is a dirty word even after a tragedy such as this has ensued?

Hemingway once wrote “You could not go back. If you did not go forward, what happens?” Well what happens? What happens when America stagnates? What happens when the vote has been counted and people are broken, rioting in the streets? We cannot go back, and yet how do we progress? How do we progress? I am studying now, so I can further progress as you have. I am missing my role as a nameless protester tonight so that one day I may touch the world with my words the way you have touched me. I am studying, I am crying, I am thinking of your human strength, the dignity in your conciliatory grace. I am sorry. I am sorry.

There is an unopened bottle of champagne in our fridge.

Alexandra Reinecke, EIC

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from the issue “There is an unopened bottle of champagne in our fridge.”

“And I couldn’t romanticize it enough / To fix anything.”

“But my body isn't public land / to be reaped and sowed.”

“I am my own color; it is not something that can be defined / By a hexadecimal code, it is not something that can be / Painted.”

“My only saint is Dad. Was he your Son?” “Bought myself bottle of water. . . . A seriously spot on example of adulting.”

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“The Girl and The Friend . . . get hit on by strange boys who look more like men.”

“Go back to when I called you beautiful.”

“It sounded slick . . . like a thick curry.”

“The only thing I could think about was you of every second of every day.”

“They left a photo for me to keep seeing them, but any kid in an orphanage would be hesitant.”

“My daughter and my dog have kind of a hit or miss relationship.”

“She was guarded against it through tunnels and hills.”

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editorial staff EDITOR-IN-CHIEF alexandra reinecke MANAGING EDITOR elena koshkin SUBMISSIONS MANAGER brigitte jia SUBMISSIONS TEAM athya uthayakumar (poetry) katie nunn (fiction) betsy alter (art) isabel owens (photo) WEBSITE DESIGN tanya zhong PUBLICTY MANAGER fiona deane-grundman ADVISORY COUNCIL lindsay webb-peploe sarah morgan emmanuel williams

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contributors alexandra reinecke (’18) elena koshkin (’18) brigitte jia (’18) athya uthayakumar (’18) katie nunn (’17) betsy alter (’18) isabel owens (’17) tanya zhong (’18) fiona deane-grundman (’18) henry carr (’17) sierra warhsawsky (’18) stella burford (’18) jessica gerson (’18) david gomez-siu (’18)

katie klein (’18) julia blair (’18) kate ginley (’18) audrey nathanson (’18) hannah eberhardt (’18) muppy gragg (’18) adam frost-venrick alicia long (’17) zoe del-rosario (’18) emma quimby (’18) lily goldman (’17) sara lemelin (’17) gabriela vascimini (’17)

interviewees claire stewart (’18) julie waters (’17) matt ridenour brandon arenson (’17) anna jiang (’18) morgan langstaff (’17) meera ramesh (’17) hannah eberhardt (’18) kevin deng (’18) petro petreas 9

campo review ‘16

tCr contributed

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food for thought from the campo review editorial staff

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august 13th, 12:55PM by athya uthayakumar In March I sat on a bench I wrote For myself, like I do, Trying to escape the iron cage of my ribs Telling myself I could think my way out Of the insecurity in my chest, Of the way my throat rose to my mouth, awkward, Searching, Of the way I sell my voice before I know what it is.

I’ve always struggled with complexity.

I don't remember how long I sat there.

It was at school, couldn't have been more than an hour.

I want to say I wanted To wring my heart out But the truth That I know Is that I wanted To feel safe in, as my own heart.

I felt an ocean, but not the ocean— I mean Dripping Meaning Always being pulled by the moon— Meaning I wanted You to like me Before I could even think and Think about How I wanted Me I wrote And I saw purple skies And gray high school And I couldn’t romanticize it enough To fix anything.

There are going to be poems where you cannot solve anything.

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campo review ‘16 I forgot that I am more than “Is”.

I am.

of beautiful parts by fiona deane-grundman i am a headache, i am an artist, i am a song but i am a girl, so i am a cliche an ingenue the complexities of my identity reduced to simplicity because of the machinery between my legs i am a traveler, a stargazer, a writer my gender doesn't define me i am an individual my mind is a garden not a hormonal wasteland but my body isn't public land to be reaped and sowed don't tell me i’m predictable for writing poetry and loving pretty things don't tell me i’m revolutionary when I demand to be seen as more than a womb and two breasts your gender lends you strength and authority and mine has been twisted into means to demean and invalidate i am proud to be a woman we are a mosaic of beautiful parts a web of love and strength but that does not mean i'm not a human don't forget it

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branches by sierra warshawsky

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figure by stella burford

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me in the form of a beverage by tanya zhong I am a cup of coffee.

I am not always the latte in a tall and elegant glass bright and sweetened with milk and sugar like I should be or a bitter espresso swirled into a solid mug, dark and mysterious as I would like to be but something in between.

Know that I am not found at your average overly productive coffee shop with people filing in and out and the door constantly swinging open and closed like the unceasing pendulum of a clock.

I am your cup of coffee found inside on a rainy day, or a sleepy day or any other day, that keeps you company.

As the door pendulum swings on, I will lift your spirits up and rescue you as long as you give me the time.

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demonstration by katie klein

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society by audrey nathanson Right off the bat, before I say anything else, I just want to let you know that you are beautiful. Yes. You. Now, I know, some of you are probably scoffing and shaking your heads like what the fuck is she talking about? I look like a potato. Others of you might smile and or blush as you whisper out a thank you. But, let's be honest here and with yourself. That “smile” on your face, is one that you had to force out, and it's more of a cringe. Oh, and how you blushed? Yeah, that was because you felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. Uncomfortable that someone called you beautiful. Now at this point, some of you might be quite offended and or bewildered at what I’m saying. Calling this entire spiel complete and utter bullshit, but before you stop reading, those of you who don’t agree with me, just wait. And if you’re still dismayed, after what I say next, then by all means, stop reading or listening. All I ask you right now, is to be honest with yourself in answering these questions. That’s it.

Go back to when I called you beautiful. To those of you who responded with a thanks, why did you thank me? Was it because you actually believe what I said wholeheartedly, and are grateful that I said it? Or is it because that’s the appropriate and proper response you do when someone flatters you? How about, the reason why did you whispered your thanks? Was it because you don’t want anyone else to hear you validated a compliment? Or was it because you’re not comfortable stating the fact that you are not actually a bad person? And what about those of you who automatically put themselves down, even though we both know you aren’t this monster that you say you are? Why is there this need to do this to yourself? Well, I guess it’s because that’s the only way you think people will express their care for you. Is if you bad-mouth your self worth, that people will take pity on you and give you that attention you were missing.

Now, instead of getting all defensive and denying that you bash yourself in order for others to pick you up and tell you you’re wrong; realize that you’re not alone. Most, if not all of us, push ourselves down so we can be and feel approved by others and this, leads us to the million dollar question; why?

Well, the answer to this problem is our society and the pressures that have been thrusted upon us. Is it not true that society and it’s ideals have been shoved down our throats since a young age? And how these ideas that had been ingrained into our minds, still haunt us every on a day to day basis? Fed to us by the media and its perception of “perfection” that has been plastered on the fronts of magazines. We were taught as kids that if you were famous or successful in life, you would be on the cover of a magazine. But, in order to do that you had to be beautiful, and that meant you had to look a certain way. And if you don't naturally possess these “commended” attributes, you were automatically on the other side of the spectrum. Just because you didn’t have certain admired qualities, you were “different” and different wasn’t beautiful, but ugly.

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campo review ‘16 So, we started to compare to ourselves to those models on the magazine, and we quickly learned that all of them had these specific features. And in turn, we started to glorify those “good” traits and degrade all the others. We also learned that those models weren’t famous because they were the only ones who thought they were beautiful, but because society thought they were beautiful because they had these desired qualities. Therefore, it taught that us that we couldn’t love ourselves, because that made you conceited and egotistical, but if you fit into society's “norms” then you were beautiful.

This validation from others is the nutrients that fuels our society. So, I just have one thing to say in response to all this. Fuck you society and your impossible standards. You have detrimentally damaged our generation by implanting these absurd concepts into our young and vulnerable minds. Warping our comprehension of self love and self worth with your fucked up formalities. You degraded our self esteem, by distorting our perception of what reality is, with this idea of “perfection”. You lied to us and labeled us as ugly, just because we didn't fit in. But, you are what’s fucked up in this world. Not us. The only fucked up thing about us, is that we believed your lies, which caused us to treat and perceive ourselves in a negative way. We have inflicted pain upon ourselves, and diminished our self confidence because you convinced us that the world was black and white. You were either perfect or not, right or wrong, and there was no in between. But in actuality, the world was full of color and always had been, you just confined us to these chains. Making us a slave to your unrealistic objectives, using social media as your weapon. So, it's time for us to break these bindings you have shackled us in and become our own person. And this time, our goals aren't going to be fueled by perfection, but self reliance and love.

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cottontail by hannah eberhardt

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race by david gomez-siu There is no doubt about it, that the color of my skin Has impacted the way that I view the world around me, And has impacted the way that others view me.

As someone whose skin is ethnic, a deep tan color, Others can’t help but wonder about my cultural background, Asking me “What are you? Where are you from?”

When I begin to interrogate the topic of my identity Through the lens of my skin, through the lens of my culture, Through the lens of my heritage, I can’t help but realize That I am not really interrogating myself but rather questioning the preconceived notions attached to the color of my skin: When someone sees me, do they view me as my skin?

As a person of mixed race, half Hispanic and half Chinese, It is easy for me to say to others, “I am Chinese;” “I am Spanish.” It is only now that I realize that is not My skin that defines me, but me that defines my skin.

I am not the color of my skin. My identity, my being, Has colors that are beyond simply tan or white-skinned.

When I look into the mirror I see my culture and my ethnicity, Not because of the color of my skin, but because I live the culture and I experience the reality of my ethnicity.

I am not Chinese because my skin is yellow; I am not Spanish because my skin is white.

I am not mixed race because my skin is a blend of the two.

I am my own color; it is not something that can be defined By a hexadecimal code, it is not something that can be Painted onto a wall with a paintbrush, it is not something that Can be bought in a bucket a dime a dozen.

I am my own unique color, something that nobody else Can change, a color that transcends what the eye can see.

Race is not a skin tone. My skin is not my identity.

When I meet someone new, I do not see the color of their skin, I do not see white or black or yellow or brown or red or in between; I see a blank canvas who has yet to show me their color.

It is up to them to define their own unique, vibrant identity.

I am not the color of my skin. I am so much more.

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white culture by henry carr

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eulogy for attractive drunks by alexandra reinecke I don’t know your names, or what your brows look like, or what your mouths do in exultation: whether you have small teeth like chalk candy, or lips like Dad’s that slide back at beauty like opening a bag of popcorn.

I don’t know your names because Dad and Gene say remember when and exclude them like the negligible price of a thing bought devoid of thought: Ring Pop thrown on conveyor at checkout. I know you died young. That you never saw a swimming pool except inside a bottle. Smelled like: scotch. Tell me what our common blood means. Where’s the truth? I can’t infer whether you resembled young Gregory Peck except in the one photo—did you? Your hieroglyph eyes say you bought plastic jewelry for your daughters, but were those convictions chipped after the fact? The blocky 1931 etched by men playing Antony a few hundred too late?

Dad doesn’t deal in illusions: that’s how he escaped. How he’s stoic with his dishwasher green eyes and his I’m a PC sweatshirt and his not speaking of you because he knows making martyrs is like mounding the batter for peanut butter cookies: making one and not another is against instinct’s throes like an object in motion tends—Tell me how to be German: history says I shouldn’t be proud. That we made the world wars consecutively, like cakes baked for amusement, one after the other. Tell me something other than that our country makes my hands large, crafts my mouth wide in defiance against the Dillon’s irishness 23

campo review ‘16 like soda bread baked too long. In America you belong to your mother’s family but maybe I think that because you never were given the chance to sculpt me. How would you have done?

If you were my father I think I’d bear the weight of wine on my mouth and the comfort of studying in comforter and fingers dusty from powder donuts the hue: cocaine.

If you were my mother I think I’d witness the cheap glory of objects I was never allowed: faux silk curtains and plastic rubies stamped China rather than the gold band of a country for whom my features are too large. Tell me: was Dad’s discipline lifted of yours? Was it only that you misused it? Abused it to the cause of your own war like: caked your lives into a red dirt disaster, into enjambment of all the broken beauty of SoCal condensed like dragonfly wings dismembered and repurposed to fit McDonalds soft-serve instead of healthcare and the pleasure of touching glass at the fractured spot? Was the line between responsible and parent blurred like milk frozen instead of water? Like John and Gene are fighting with fake sabers and bits of: LA? How was God? Did you drink with him? I can’t imagine you believed in anything outside yourselves. My only saint is Dad. Was he your Son? Beauty and poverty, do they not sound the same?

Was your failure ever stark? Like trying to push a plywood circle into cutout made for square?

I’m not sorry I didn’t know you. Lost things are candy dropped with sugar intact like lemon drops only chip at teeth when you suck them white. Dad says we get what we deserve.

Did you find that? Did you discover the world is not: made of sequins, or did it break you because you wouldn’t bend? Tell me, glass raised: were you reckless to the end? I like to think you made Dad in scars. That in poverty’s clamp of uncooked pasta and one room living you provided the sympathies required success. Tell me your names.

I want syllables for the chaos from which he sprung: bits of bits of highway foil which, at random, 24

campo review ‘16 conjured somehow a spark, or Apollo, or: my father. You abandoned more un-footed bills than that. But words will do. So, tell me.

Beat me the sounds in my blood from which to run.

I’ll write them down.

mr. lincoln by fiona deane-grundman

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compassionate creatures, watercolor by muppy gragg

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that god awful sound by adam frost-venrick 9:15: I wake up and take a painkiller for my hangover. Before six months ago, I hadn’t thrown up for ten years. Not since age fifteen, when I got really dehydrated at band camp.

But now, it’s pretty much a regular occurrence. And I haven’t been piss-my-pants drunk just yet, but I’ve been plastered and shitfaced one or two times before.

10:00 (ish): I think about how I don’t need you while I style my still-wet hair. There was a time when I loved how it looked. Now it could just as well fall out, and I probably wouldn’t care.

10:15: Breakfast. My coffee at Starbucks came back with the wrong name on it. It said: Mark, instead of Matt. I would’ve thrown a fit about it, but I figured what the hell? No one in there knew me. I may never see any of them again. And if I do, then they probably won’t remember me anyway.

11:30: Thinking of calling you. I jerk off thinking of Heidi Klum instead. In my opinion that was a much better use of my time.

Noon (ish): Sunglasses needed to go outside to photograph things..

12:45: Saw the Hollywood sign. When I was a teenager, I always figured I’d be living here full time instead of just blowing through on vacation.

1:30: Christ on skates it’s hot out.

1:35: Bought a myself bottle of water. I’m gonna give myself props for that. A seriously spot on example of adulting. Go me.

2:45: Went out and did my whole freelance routine again. Took a photo of a homeless man lying by the curb with a bag in his hand. I bought him a chicken parm sandwich as imbursement. So maybe I’m not as heartless as I like to pretend to be, but he just looked so damn pathetic. Also took a picture of a guy in a suit. He told me to go fuck myself. I told him that I already had today. So much for acting like an adult. I guess you were always right there, Jan. I can be way too immature.

3:30: Photos coming along well.

3:45: As I was walking back to the hotel, a ninety-something-year-old woman told me that I looked like shit. I’m sure she was drunk. She was also right.

4:40: Storm’s rolling in.

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campo review ‘16 5:00: Listening to Nine Inch Nails. Mouthing along to the “I want to fuck you like an animal” part of “Closer” just to seem like a badass. You always hated that song, didn’t you? Oh well, I guess maybe it’s best that we didn’t do the whole “together forever” thing.

5:20: And then, just like that, I started missing you again.

5:50: Met a guy in a bar who claims that he once gave Max Von Sydow a colonoscopy.

6:10: Remembering my mother holding little five-year-old me’s hand after the divorce. She fingers closed over mine, saying over and over again that it was going to be alright.

6:20: I came this close to calling you just now.

6: 25: Came this close to calling home.

6:45: Kebabs for dinner!

7:20: Two things I noticed immediately upon walking out of the restaurant. I smell fucking terrible, and have all day. And the other was this little garage band type group sitting on the steps leading up to an apartment. They were playing something that sounded familiar, but that I didn’t know the title of.

They had a little bucket out for money. And don’t get me wrong, they sounded God awful. But I still threw in the crumpled five dollar bill I had in my pocket all day.

8:00: Found out that one of the photos I took when we were together got accepted to a magazine. Feeling proud. You’ll remember it when I describe it to you. It was the one I took the night we went to that horror movie that you hated. You remember it, the one at midnight, when we held hands.

You remember what happened afterwards? We drove out to that field because you were feeling drunk but didn’t want to go home. Do you remember, Janice, how we sat out on the blanket, looking up at the sky?

Do you remember that night?

I try not to, you know. But I fail sometimes. It was one of the better nights of my life. And that was the only time you let me photograph you.

I never told you this, but you did look beautiful.

That night, I really got it in my head that it would work out between the two of us.

That night, I actually told you that I loved you. I’ve never had the guts to be the first one to say that before.

I don’t know if I ever will again.

9:00: I can’t explain why, I really can’t, but I didn’t just go out tonight and get hammered. Every time I tried to stand up, I just couldn’t do it. I was happier in bed.

9:10: Am I bad person?

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campo review ‘16 9:15: Wish me luck, okay. I’m going to call my mother. It can’t be too late, right? She still wants to hear from me. Right? Please…

11:45: It’s raining outside, but it feels so nice in here.

7:30: I woke up this morning sans hangover. It’s nice to wake up for once and not feel like dying. Look, I’m going to leave you alone, if you want. I’m sorry if I bothered you. Oh, but before I go, I showered this morning, and you won’t believe what I caught myself singing.

bud by alicia long

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wounded by lily goldman The first day of high school, The Girl and her Friend sit outside during lunch, under a bright white California summer sun. They eat together, alone. They are both new to the school. Neither friend knows anyone except the other, the girls have been dear friends since kindergarten. They share a lot of history; their parents are friends and both families go camping together every year. The first week of school goes quickly, together The Girl and The Friend start making friends and are invited to smoke marijuana and get hit on by strange boys who look more like men.

As schoolwork becomes challenging and San Francisco’s annual autumn heat wave takes over, The Girl and her Friend begin making their own friends from their separate classes. They had vowed to always stay friends the previous summer, so The Girl does not fret. The Girl and her Friend still eat lunch together most days, anyway.

Then The Girl turns fifteen. She invites several girls from middle school to celebrate with her. The Friend arrives last, late, because she had been spending time with new people. All the girls catch up, each genuinely interested and honest, while The Friend boasts about her new friends and experiences. The Girl opens her gifts one at a time, and hugs each friend after reading the cards drawn just for her. Card, hug, gift, a rhythm.

The Friend hands The Girl an envelope, and the Girl pulls out a gift card for a coffee shop. The Girl immediately remembers a time when the two girls were at the mall in third grade. The Girl was helping The Friend shop for a party that The Girl had not been invited to. The Girl suggested that The Friend give a gift card. The Friend explained to The Girl that she never gives gift cards. “They are the least thoughtful gift a person can give,” The Friend had explained. For The Girl’s fifteenth birthday, The Friend had not even written a note. The Girl does not hug The Friend. The Girl knows The Friend well enough to know that The Friend notices.

For a month, the Girl refuses to believe she and the friend are no longer friends. The Old Friend still talks to The Girl in art class—when she is not talking to other people, that is. Then homecoming week arrives, a huge ordeal at The Girl’s school. She walks into the gym for an assembly. She finds The Friend, but The Friend is standing with people The Girl had never spoken to before. The Girl knows who these people are though, and she knows she is not welcome to join them. She feels a punch in her stomach.

A sophomore in art class notices that The Girl and The Old Friend are no longer close. The Girl confides in The Sophomore, who is supportive of The Girl. The two sit together during class, The Old Friend has moved next to a new girl. The Friend no longer speaks to The Girl.

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campo review ‘16 Time passes, The Girl makes friends with ease through an organization outside of school. But now she eats lunch at school with someone she has known since she was eighteen months old everyday. She wonders why no one else at school wants to be her friend.

Winter break comes and goes, and suddenly, The Sophomore whom The Girl had befriended begins sitting with The Old Friend, and The Old Friend’s new friend in art class. The three girls whisper and giggle and gossip. The Girl sits alone.

The Girl feels alone. She thinks no one in the world notices her, but she begins to notice that her voice sometimes shakes when she speaks at school and she feels like she is too tall to fit in and she wants to cry a lot.

On days when her only friend has lunch with other people, The Girl walks home for lunch. Some days it rains. She lives one mile away from school, too far to make the walk a regular habit. It takes her thirteen minutes to walk home. She has nineteen minutes at home, where she eats a mini-pizza and listens to “Old Soul Song” by Bright Eyes on repeat. When Conor Oberst sings “...and just when I get so lonesome I can’t speak…” The Girl feels sort of okay. She walks back to school in thirteen minutes.

Some students in The Girl’s gym class begin to warm up to The Girl. A neighbor of The Girl asks her about The Friend. The Girl responds cautiously, but The Neighbor seems like she cares. The Neighbor tells The Girl, “She’s awful for leaving you.” The Girl thinks she might actually have a new friend.

Soon, summer nears with promise of sunshine and the mountains. The last day of school, The Girl gets invited to a party by some of her classmates. She decides not to go, because she fears she will feel out of place, though she feels happy to be included.

After a summer filled with other friends, campfires, and new memories, The Girl returns to school with newfound strength. People she had not spoken to before take an interest to her. One boy even asks The Girl about what happened with The Old Friend. “I heard she was a bitch to you,” he says, but he means well.

The Girl comes to understand the dumb cliché “time heals all wounds.” On the second day of school, she passes The Old Friend in the hallway between classes. Last year, she would have averted her eyes as she briskly walked by. This year, The Girl smiles and gives a slight wave.

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stroll by julia blair

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a cursed gift by kate ginley Honestly, I was in love Head over heels, restless sleep kind of love.

The only thing I could think about was you of every second of everyday But then yesterday, it all changed.

Yesterday, you gave me both the best and worst present I have ever received.

It was a hundred notes from everyone I met, Each one with a message I'll never forget.

But you had a few paragraphs among the pile of notes of what I mean to you.

You'd think this would have caused me to love you even more somehow but no.

In your paragraph, all kind words, you signed off with a "love you forever."

Not an "I will love you forever."

Since I realized you were the only person I truly cared for, I have always said "I love you."

No matter what we've been through, yesterday made me realize we could never be.

You simply just don't love me.

I understand you care but it was never in the same way and I guess that's just my curseTo love with all my heart but to never have it returned.

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operation black watch by gabriela vascimini That sticky glue smell and fresh markers out of the cardboard box at the front of the classroom. The hum of the radiator cut by constant, birdlike chatter, words tossed back and forth and caught loosely between third graders.

“I’m going to be an FBI agent, probably.”

The other two twisted their necks to look at me, long hair sweeping onto the poster spread out on the classroom floor.

“If you join the FBI,” Luisa said, as if she had given the possibility great thought, “You’ll never get married or have babies.”

“Not true.” I started sketching a polar bear.

“Yeah, it is too, ‘cause you’ll get shot and die.” she picked up an electric pink marker and began filling in the outline of an iceberg.

“Icebergs aren’t pink,” I removed the marker from Luisa’s grip and replaced it with a pale blue one. Much better. She narrowed her eyes but said nothing.

A shrill tone interrupted the rhythmic scratch scratch scratch of markers pressing on paper. “Girls, clean up your social studies materials and get ready to walk over to the auditorium. Our very special visitor is waiting for us!” The scratch scratch scratch stopped and was replaced by the rumpling of oversized papers, folded haphazardly. Special visitors were rare. And while they often turned out to be either too condescending or too convoluted, the lack of math workshop they often brought was appreciated. Except for animal man. I hoped the visitor was the animal man. Once he brought a snake and I touched it. It was cool.

The trip to the auditorium was short, but long enough that the end of the neat single file line peeled off into a jumbled mess of hair ribbons and jumpers with their noses pressed up against the hall windows, straining to glimpse the season’s first snowfall brightening smoky gray brick and tree and sky.

“I want to go and eat some,” said a pigtailed blonde with a two-syllable name, “It tastes like vanilla ice cream with sprinkles.”

“That’s because snow is made of ice cream and the clouds are whipped cream,” said the girl next to her.

“No they’re not,” I said, leaving no room for argument as I peeled my nose of the glass and returned to the line.

The auditorium was too dark. A single spotlight hovered near the lectern, like it was trying to tell a secret without releasing all the gory details. Mme. O’Shawn read a too long introduction in the microphone that no one bothered to listen to before asking them to join her in a warm welcome for Mrs. Dinah Oleander.

Dinah Oleander. It sounded slick and oily and full on the tongue, like a thick curry. She was an average sized woman with a severe gray haircut and severely round dark sunglasses. Her nails were long and gold and her coat was long and gold and her shoes were pointy toed-long and gold. Her dress was black.

“Good morning, girls,” she said, her voice hot liquid, “Thank you, Mme. O’Shawn, for that lovely welcome. It seems as if not too long ago, I was sitting in these very seats, in those very uniforms. Now, I’ve returned to share a little about my work for any of you who might be pursuing a career in the fine arts.” She smiled but her face did not. Two hundred and ninety nine expectant round faces stared back. I stared at a brick on the auditorium wall, slightly discolored. Strange.

“Now, I’m not an artist myself, per say, but rather an advisor of art. I provide art with a voice, create a conversation with the collector…” About two thirds of the round faces had become occupied with 34

campo review ‘16 other diversions. Scuffs on their mary janes, buttons on their jumpers, woodchips they had forgotten were stashed in their pockets. I narrowed my eyes and leaned forward in attention. This lady was interesting.

Strange, but interesting. Not as exciting as the animal man, but interesting. “… Collectors, people who collect artwork, come to me when they have their eyes set on a piece that is particularly difficult to acquire,” she was saying, “that means it is very, very, hard to get. Just like the American Girl of the Year around Christmastime.” I scoffed. Acquiring a Monet was nothing like acquiring a Kailey or Lindsey.

Still, I leaned my chin on my palm and tried to listen. “… and there is nothing quite as fulfilling as restoring a Cassat. There’s something alive in those canvasses, something the years can’t quite erase. You can’t kill a painting like a houseplant,” Mrs. Oldeander nodded with another icy smile and stepped away from the lecturn.

I hadn’t realized Louisa had been sitting next to me until she jabbed me in the ribs once the applause had trailed off and we were ushered out of the auditorium while Mrs. Oleander took pictures with Mme. O’Shawn and the art teachers.

“Why don’t you do something safe, like that?” Louisa hissed into my ear.

“Because I’m going to be an FBI agent.”

“Well, you should be an art person,” she said, “They don’t get shot and die.”

antidote by emma quimby

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sketch by zoe del rosario

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suede in mauve by jessica gerson

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tCr interviewed

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japonisme an interview with claire stewart by alexandra reinecke INTERVIEWER You’ve expressed a difficulty in fitting yourself to either the label ‘American’ or the label ‘Japanese,’ having expressed that in America you don’t feel American due to your connection with Japanese culture and that in Japan you don’t feel Japanese due to your connection with American culture. How would you describe the difficulty of fitting into either and both of these categories?

CLAIRE STEWART Well I’d say that definitely there’s always ‘gonna be a part of me that feels really conflicted over which country I fit more into, especially more so when I’m in the other country. So if I was in America I often think I feel a closer connection to Japan and vice-a-versa when I’m in Japan I feel a closer connection to America. But I also think that just being away from the other country contributes to feeling just kinda missing the other country more. But I think it’s hard because there’s always aspects of the other country that I’m reminded of, and then it’s hard for me to completely let that go.

INTERVIEWER Out of your Japanese and American view of yourself, which one do you find easier to fit into?

STEWART I would personally say my Japanese culture but that’s mainly because I’m really close with my mom and from a young age she taught me a lot of traditional Japanese values. I also lived in Japan as a kid and I think that impacted me a lot because a lot of the memories and values I grew up with was when I was living in japan so a lot of what i know now and kind of believe in was from those years in japan.

INTERVIEWER How would you describe America as different from Japan? What are some of the greatest differences in our cultures?

STEWART I would say that America’s definitely more open minded to different things. I definitely think a fault in Japan is that--for example there’s sexism whereas in America people try to gain more female equality and just kind of equality in all senses. I realize that Japan’s kind of like a homogenous society so it’s really hard for them to be more open to different things.

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campo review ‘16 INTERVIEWER I understand your Dad had what could be called a typical New England childhood. Could you describe how he was raised? Do you see your situation as similar in any way to his?

STEWART I would say, well my dad grew up—as a kid he was put into a boarding school so he wasn’t really close with his family, so that was definitely a difference. He was raised really to be invested in sports and those kind of extracurricular things so I kind of see myself in that aspect.

INTERVIEWER How would you describe your childhood as different from that? Would you say that the biggest difference is that you’re closer to your family?

STEWART Yeah, definitely. I know my mom, for example, when she was growing up she would live with her grandparents and parents and siblings, so she had an extremely close-knit family, and then my family now, although I don’t live with my grandparents, we still—I have a really close relationship with my parents and my sister.

INTERVIEWER I understand that your mom grew up in Japan. Can you describe her childhood and do you see it as similar to yours in any way?

STEWART So kind of like the idea of having a close family was similar to my mom’s. But my mom was also raised under really harsh like strict ideals and values because especially when she was growing up in the 70s and 80s it was common for parents to be strict on children, especially in Japan so my mom couldn’t be as free as she wanted to because there was always expectations from her parents. My parents are more modern in the sense that my mom’s really easy on me and I have more freedom to do what I want, but I’m also close with her so I can share things.

INTERVIEWER If you had to choose a religion between your dad’s Protestantism and your mom’s Buddhism which one do you identify more with?

STEWART As of now I just think of myself as agnostic because I don't want to completely push off one religion or the other but while both my parents associate themselves with one religion or the other, they’re not super religious so they don't really push any religion onto me that kind of leads them to be like ‘you can just choose for yourself,’ but I feel like I haven't been exposed to it enough for me to just decide one religion or the other.

INTERVIEWER What was your experience in coming back to America from Japan after you spent part of your childhood there and what has been your experience in returning to Japan for vacations?

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STEWART I remember when I came back from Japan, and I came to third grade in America, it was kind of like a culture shock. I would say it was really like sensory overload because a lot of the pop culture and media in Japan was completely different from America’s so people would bring up different songs and music and I had no idea what they were talking about. Or different social media, or TV they were talking about but I—or children’s books or movies I never saw any of them, so when people were making like references to any of those I had no idea what they were talking about. I think adjusting at first was definitely hard, and then now when I go back to Japan I actually find it easier to adjust to because it’s a lot of what I remembered it being as a kid, and it’s kind of like really nostalgic. I don’t know. It’s one of the places where I’m happiest.

INTERVIEWER Can you briefly tell the story about how your mom was concerned that your sister Fiona wouldn’t be able to speak in Japan, and then how do you think this shows your sister’s connection to Japan versus your own connection?

STEWART My sister, I would say she’s really like the opposite of me. From a young age she was extremely independent and I think that kind of came with being the older one in the family. So she wasn’t as close to my parents, or she isn’t as close to my parents, now either, and I think that kind of caused her to not be as interested in her Japanese heritage, because I would say I’m mainly, I have a strong Japanese pride kind of because my mom taught me to appreciate where I’m from and all that, but Fiona wasn’t really around as much to like learn or actually hear my mom talk about that. She kind of just lost interest in anything Japan-related once we moved back and she kind of immersed herself in American culture a lot.

I often watch a lot of Japanese media and I still always talk to my mom in Japanese but because Fiona didn’t keep practicing she ended up getting really frustrated when she couldn’t completely translate exactly what she wanted to say to my mom so it kind of became a routine habit where she would just give up and start speaking English to my mom. That caused her Japanese to get a little broken, like she couldn’t remember a lot of words, and then that’s why when my sister was going to Japan over the summer my mom was concerned because whenever Fiona was frustrated in speaking Japanese she would give up and switch to English, and that was okay because my mom could kind of understand, but she couldn’t do that in Japan, so it was kind of bad.

INTERVIEWER Could you talk about how there’re three different alphabets in Japanese?

STEWART Yeah, so there’s basically hiragana, katakana, and then there’s kanji, so there’s kinda like three, the third one’s like the characters which is really similar to the Chinese characters and then the first is hiragana, which you learn in elementary school usually, and it’s basically used, you could really use it for anything, but the characters are used more for words and then you can use hiragana as like filler spaces. Then katakana is for when you’re translating foreign words, so like if I were to write my own name, Claire, because it’s an American name, I’d write it in katakana.

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INTERVIEWER I understand that Japan has certain cultural fascinations that America does not have and vice-aversa. So, how would you define these Japanese cultural fascinations?

STEWART I would say japan tends to have, there’s a lot of like cultural fascination with like anime and like cartoon character things. Japan’s really into character goods and kind of the story behind it all and I think in a sense, that kind of makes them more childish and kind of--not in a bad way--but they’re more open to reliving their childhood favorite things and then through adulthood they’ll always appreciate it whereas I think that America, one they get to a certain age, they stop like marketing anime or cartoon-related goods to older people. That’s kind of a difference.

INTERVIEWER Could you speak briefly to your white friends’ response to the “lazy egg” and explain what it is?

STEWART Okay, so (laughing), the lazy egg is basically this character developed by this Japanese company called Sanrio and in Japanese it’s Guetetama, which, basically—the concept’s really simple. It’s just a, uh, lazy egg character that kind of has like a whole personality and it’s whole thing is like being really lazy and not wanting to do anything, which is what I like associate with myself a lot with, and I kind of fell in love with it. But when I came back from my vacation in Japan last spring, I brought home a lot of the Guetetama or lazy egg merchandise and I got like a lot of questioning looks and kind of judgements, because I think it’s hard—I mean, I was kind of raised with appreciating these like weird, quirky things, like finding joy in just having this like inanimate object have this whole like story behind it, but I think America doesn’t really have stuff like that, so seeing it for the first time, and especially at like my age to still love things like that I think was weird for my friends.

INTERVIEWER In terms of a moral sense, how do you think America and Japan are different?

STEWART I would definitely say Japanese people are more quiet and they kind of restrict themselves, and then I think there’s not as much freedom for Japanese people to say what’s on their mind whereas in America it’s like if you want to express something to someone, you just go out and say it, and if you like disagree with someone you would just like explicitly express that. But in Japan, they really encourage people rather to accommodate someone else’s opinions and try to match that rather than assert their own ideas.

INTERVIEWER For women specifically, would you say that Japanese women are quieter or more submissive to men than American women are?

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campo review ‘16 STEWART Yeah. Definitely. I think that’s kind of the fault in Japan, because you still see in Japanese media where women if they’re something going on, women are under harsher criticism than if a man were to do the same thing, and I think it’s always been that way and it’s hard for Japan to shift from that.

INTERVIEWER Why do you think Japanese culture has evolved in this way to hold on to more traditional values while America has shrugged them?

STEWART I think because Japan has a longer history, so a lot of those values are kind of deeply rooted from what they used to believe in. I know America’s like a newer country, it’s kind of like a baby, so a lot of the—they kind of like paved the way for revolutionary new values and things like that, but I think that because Japan has such a rich history and culture it’s harder for them to break apart from that. While they’re still trying I think there’s just too much history and too much rooted values that it’s hard for them to suddenly change.

INTERVIEWER Do you ever find there are words or phrases you can’t translate between the two languages and is there anything between your Japanese and American identity that you feel like you can’t keep in both places?

STEWART Yeah. I do know, especially like, for example, right when I came back to America from japan, there would be some words, or like slang, that I didn’t understand were English, and then when I would try to say a word I would forget the English meaning, so I’d say it in Japanese and then people would get really confused because I couldn’t remember what it was in English so I’d just say it in Japanese, but I was able to get by doing that in Japan because when I was in an international school most people spoke both Japanese and English, so if there was a word in Japanese that didn’t have a complete translation to English, I could just say it and it would usually get along fine because my friends would also speak Japanese. We kind of spoke in a bilingual conversation.

INTERVIEWER Is there anything between the ‘American Claire’ and the ‘Japanese Claire’ that you feel you can’t have both of them together?

STEWART When I’m in Japan, I think I’m not as loud, or I don’t really say as much as I would say because I think it’s really easy to come off as rude or really bold in Japan so in America I tend to be a little louder and I don’t worry too much as coming off or being too brash or rude in any sense. In Japan I try to be more polite and quiet, but I also think that’s just because my mom always, she’s always really quiet with her friends and she—I don’t know. She expects me to be well behaved, too.

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INTERVIEWER Can you tell the anecdote of your family’s modeling history in Japan?

STEWART (Laughing). Firstly, my sister, so I was born in America so when I was a baby I was in America, but she was born in Japan so when she was a toddler she was like raised there, so she was offered to do a lot of baby modeling, which she did. So apparently my mom wasn’t too surprised that she received offers, not that she was like a crazy beautiful baby, but because Japan, especially the modeling industry, it’s really popular to have models who are half, or kind of culturally diverse, like in Japan they’re called hafu or happa and that’s specifically if they’re half American, half Japanese because there’s some like fascination with just being like half American, half Japanese, that was really popular. And then my dog, I have a long haired Chihuahua, which is one of the most ideal dogs in Japan, because they’re really small and easy to maintain, so it was kind of a really popular dog at the time, and still is, so she was, she did like modeling for dog couture goods, because that’s also really popular in Japan because everyone has small dogs. She also was a model for commercials.

INTERVIEWER Can you describe her name and what it means?

STEWART My dog’s name is I, but you’d say Ichun because girls’ names you’d put a chun and boys’ names you’d put a coon, but I means love in Japanese, and we named here that because when she was younger a patch of fur on her forehead had a heart on it, so we named her that, but now that she’s old it’s kind of faded, so her name’s just love now.

INTERVIEWER Why do you think small dogs are more popular in Japan whereas big dogs are kind of the thing in America?

STEWART I think because Japan’s just a smaller country in general, so even housing’s really tight and small so it’s really uncommon for you to have a big backyard, or even a backyard at all because most people live in apartments, like I myself lived in an apartment. It’s really hard if you did have a big dog in Japan because you could only really take it to a dog park and even then all the other dogs are small, so dogs would be pretty scared of the big dog, whereas in America I think it’s just a bigger country. There’s more room. Most people do have backyards.

INTERVIEWER If there is something that you could bring from Japanese culture into American culture what would it be? Like some sort of cultural value or even a manufactured good, but something you could bring to America to introduce, what would it be?

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campo review ‘16 STEWART I definitely think anime and those kind of things I would love to bring to America because it’s something I love to do as a pastime or watch, but as for like a value I would bring, more so I would bring the safety that Japan has to America. Japan’s one of the safest countries in the world whereas America can be pretty dangerous. Like you shouldn’t really be out, on your own, at night in a place you don’t really know, whereas in Japan it’s normal for you to do that. I would bring the characters, like the fun, anime things that’s popular in Japan, but also like the overall safety that Japan has.

INTERVIEWER So if you could bring something to Japan from America, what would that be?

STEWART I think I would bring, at least like an ideal would be like America’s idea of being really openminded because I still do think Japan is like too close minded for its own good. I think if that was brought over to Japan, and also just being able to be more verbal about what you think, I think Japan could grow a lot from that.

INTERVIEWER In your opinion, have there been any successful marriages between the two cultures thus far? So is there anything that’s part Japanese and part American? Is there anything that America has taken from Japan or that Japan has taken from America that you think has been a success? So like an example could be how now we have a lot of Japanese food in America that we didn’t have 50 years ago. Is there anything like that you see as a successful merger between the two cultures?

STEWART Yeah, I would say a lot of style, like clothing style in particular, Japan has been influenced a lot from America. I think that’s kind of been a success because it’s helped them grow from being extremely traditional, at least in the past with wearing kimonos and ugata a lot more, to changing to like modern clothing. In America the fact of bringing more like Japanese food and bringing into America more Asian cultural things has been really helpful.

INTERVIEWER How do you think being caught between two cultures has shaped you unique personality?

STEWART I think it’s definitely made me unique because not many people can say that they’ve learned from two countries, most people usually associate themselves with one country, and I think that kind of gives me a different perception because I can see from two different countries who have two different sets of ideals and viewpoints and I think that makes me different.

INTERVIEWER I know you’re going to have to choose which one you want to be your primary country in the future, so how do you foresee your being stuck between the two cultures affecting you in the future?

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STEWART As of now, because I have dual-citizenship, that’s not ‘gonna—I have to choose which country I like align myself with I think by the age of twenty-one. I talked with my sister, because she’s eighteen now so she’s closer to making that decision, but she’s, she like right off the bad said America to be her citizenship of choice, but I’m still really indecisive but I think as of now I would say America because there are more job opportunities, at least for me, because I’m a woman, if I worked in America whereas there’s still vast and equal pay in Japan with women and men and I don't think that'll change anytime soon, but I think it would be hard for me to give up my Japanese citizenship because I associate myself with a lot of their values.

gold rivers, or a brief and reconciliatory comment on half-moon cookies by alexandra reinecke (from “japonisme”) I read somewhere that “when the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filing the cracks with gold.” I read somewhere that “they believe that when something has suffered damage and has a history, it becomes more beautiful.” This is what I was reminded of when my best friend, who is half Japanese, half white, acquired bruises on her knees from falling against the tennis court clay. Whenever she says hafu to speak of her split-heritage, I think of the two sides of those Vermont half-moon cookies, but I like what I read better than my more often thought over simile. I like this idea of her, this idea of there being, in fracture of the two cultures, in that space of incompleteness, a different sort of value.

I often ask her about her father’s New England heritage, this half of the cookie that is maybe a recollected Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, a passage lifted a winter climate, because there is something glamorous to me about it, something handsome in a simple, 46

campo review ‘16 wholesome way, though in having heard her speak of it I now understand it to be different: boarding school not a familial tradition but an antidote to divorce, constant extracurricular involvement not a means of an acceptance letter from Dartmouth, but a psychological distraction from chaos, so that in the snow now I comprehend what is the more than simple interaction of the various pieces, the various releases and pulls and forces which combine to form life, the road salt melting preventing the coupes from skidding, how little plants can be caught in ice, the manner in which the brown places, like bruises, exist where the dirt shows through.

During the February of freshman year, we talked about this at the beach, threading the buttered kernels of corn on the cob with our teeth, mouths cold from the air, cold from the gray landscape indifferent to the commanding mood of my birthday. We talked about Choate, about the meaning of life, about what the inherent meaning was to my large and masculine hands, about what the inherent meaning was to anything, or whether there wasn’t any inherent meaning at all. We ended up scrapping it all together, this dilemma, and when we walked back up the wooden steps to the drive out front of the beach where we waited, as we had so many of those days after tennis, for my father to pick us up in the black BMW to drive us home, and we talked about the terror of understanding our own smallness as we picked the messy embroidery of the corn kernel refuse from our teeth with the darts of our respective tongues.

It is this attention of hers, this quiet awe for what surrounds her which led for the transgression which occurred last spring, when she brought home, with all the freshness of countryside hills, with all the terse excitement of Tokyo marquees, the lazy-egg pen, these school supplies in a little pencil case from Japan which people didn’t understand. It was during that time that it occurred to me, for the first time, that difference isn’t a subject to everyone, that what is foreign is not always, to others, terrain to encounter, to come to comprehend. The very unfamiliarity I had been contented to have encountered in her presence—the saffron yellow plastic of the creature affixed to the lazy egg pen, the hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant we had gone to with her parents, where her father, without speaking, had recognized my necessity for a fork, that Japanese was not a language, as English was, but a quilt composed of three parts—had made confused others, had made them feel somehow threatened.

Others did not understand the lazy egg pen she used in math class, others were bored by her fluorescently-animated stories of Tokyo, of home, but there was a nostalgic inclination my own which empathized with her feeling of discord, I found sympathies similar among my own for each of hers, so that when she spoke of taking the subway to school I remembered the old wood-lined station houses of my youth, the Hudson spread like gray and white frosting along the neat rectangles of the train windows, the little yellow stamp tickets which attested my love affair with the MetroNorth.

There was a confliction in her, a tugging of two sides, which had made her capable of comprehending me, which was responsible, almost single-handedly, for our having been very good, close friends. Though I’m sure she found herself sometimes bored by them, she let me read her essays on Friday and Saturday nights, and when she listened to me, lying on my bed, she laid perfectly still, as though an effigy of herself. When she read a story I submitted for a literary contest she smiled at the milk cup she recognized, from the text, in original form on my desk; for two or three weeks afterward she outwardly protested the treatment of a character she had thought ought not to have suffered as he had, pouting “But Tom! Poor Tom!” with a solemn, 47

campo review ‘16 indignant quality in her voice for what she believed was the maltreatment of a perfectly kind, a perfectly handsome and equine-featured undergraduate. She protested so indignantly after him.

She protested after him as though he were real.

Sometimes I wondered whether her respect for my language came from what she had experienced to be a disrespect for her own, whether she understood my small literary feats, my little fiction publications and journalistic rants because as content she was, as eager for and invigorated by life as she was (she lived closet to life of all the people I’ve ever known), there is also a dissatisfaction in her, a want for recovering something, the great green hills of Japan, the tiny apartments, the trains which had been safe to ride far out at night, which had been lost to her and which had wounded her thus, this old life, this fluorescent, anime-speckled pastoral, merely for its quality of being somehow, and forever, irretrievable.

There were words she didn’t understand were English, she said, when she came back to America from Japan. She would forget, at first, the English meanings of words and so revert to the Japanese syllables, which were older, which were dulled by use, which did not catch in her throat. She said sometimes people didn’t understand her. That it was frustrating. It was thus that she understood me, understood what I was trying to do with my words and stories, because she had an intimate understanding of the weight of sounds, the meaning of words which governed her every action, because things were not given to her, but had to be derived. We shared a dissonance, a mutual and situational discontent.

The best thing I ever said to her was, “I think in Times New Roman 12.” The best thing she ever said to me was that one our classmates, who had the kind of old money which lent itself to racehorses and stone houses, to extravagances of all sorts, and to sweeping lawns, had a horse which must be fed gold, because an article on Wikipedia had valued the animal at a sum of $5 million. “Must eat gold bars,” she’d said. “Must eat gold bars mixed in with bags of oats,” she’d said, and I wrote it down because I liked it so well. I liked lots of things she said to me back then and it amused her to see them reflected back at her in stories, in the paper flaps and written columns of publications no one will nearly ever read.

Maybe it was my curiosity, my want to follow, as one followed a river to its bed, the origins of the world’s sounds, the meanings of the world’s words, which led me to inversely comprehend her. Maybe it is my want for taking Latin, because it is the base of all sounds, in college, something about my habit of watching the way words fit on the tongue which has contented me to hear her speak on the phone, in the car, to her mother in Japanese, which fosters in me an appreciation for words, even those I don’t know the meanings of, can’t connect to their respective objects, because even these sounds, which are not grounded anywhere to me, are accompanied with the laughter between them, which are punctuated in gestures that form the familiar amidst the unfamiliar, which are part of that interaction between people, mitigated by but not secondary to speech, which is transcendent of continent, of country.

It used to amuse me that we watched Gossip Girl together, that we identified with the title character, a dark haired and academic high schooler whose goals—Ivy League college, indeterminate but notable career success—ran parallel with our own. It used to amuse me that Blair had a little gold pin she affixed, in the course of four seasons, two the wool of three different boyfriend’s sleeves—Nate’s a cream wool cuff, Chuck’s a near-black hunter green, Dan’s the particularly deep navy blue reserved for and claimed by Yale—and that this pin, a 48

campo review ‘16 little gold heart, matches that which came affixed to the taupe-colored bow which is knit into the structure that fits at the hard part of the chest, which hangs in these beige bras we bought one time at Victoria’s Secret, a flat, camel color and with the miniscule mountains, that run over the shoulders and down the back-blades, of tiny caramel-hued lace.

It used to amuse me that we were similar. That our respective goals melded into some kind of marbled future, like colors swirled into milk. It used to amuse me that we had made stupid calculations which projected we would achieve, in four years’ time, those respective honors we understood to be doled out in unbelievably small ratios.

It used to amuse me that her sister could not talk to anyone in Japan because she’d become so Americanized. That she could not read the street signs when she went there, or order a drink, and that when she went, after graduation, she’d rejected a family trip to see her homeland through the eyes of her handsome and white American boyfriend, to see her homeland through the eyes of a foreigner. When she had used to say her sister had given up on Japan, had gotten frustrated at those little mistranslations, those places between the languages which gave one the feeling derived of folding a paper and coming up with a bit over the end or come up a little short, and knowing the result incomplete, losing part of what you’d intended or meant.

These encountered mistranslations used to remind me of outfitting the table for Thanksgiving and finding the tablecloth unable to stretch to reach the corners. Now they sound sad to me. Now there is something solemn in how her sister’s American assimilation “caused her Japanese to get a little broken.” Now what she’d said about her name being an American name and thus existing outside the bounds of the primary Japanese alphabet sounds sad, too. There is a certain tragedy to that comment, a certain brokenness to it: “Katakana is for when you’re translating foreign words. If I were to write my own name, Claire, because it’s an American name, I’d write it in katakana.” The suggestion that this fracture should be emphasized with filament sounds now sacrilegious.

Having gold run in her tennis scars, however, sounds suitable, because tennis always was a kind of self-harm, a kind of battle. Whenever we played tennis we played it to the death, though we never fought, not once, off the court, though whenever we had momentarily moved away from each other it had been a quiet thing, it had been an unspoken break which had left things so there was always a place left where we could fold seamlessly back into our old ways again, how geese fold, by mere nature, by fundamental inertia, into their old flying V’s. I was distracted that week with trying to get into Princeton, I’d say, and she had a similar such excuse only with Princeton interchanged for UPenn.

We found these excuses suitable, because we are both hard on ourselves, hard on ourselves in that fundamental way which cannot be taught, and so we did not fight. But it was this very mutual quality which accounted for our brutality on the court, because when we played tennis our competitive fervors fed off one another to make something mean. We made questionable line calls. We threw ourselves at the court. We both preferred to sustain bruises than lack in the tally we both knew to have been kept between us. There was an effort in that, we shared, an effort to reconcile the two halves, mine my goal and my reality, hers those two cultures I understood to be separate, and yet together, to be two sides of that Vermont mooncookie she was always struggling to keep from being breaking down the middle.

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campo review ‘16 She explained this once by saying something that came close to that aforementioned culture inclination toward filling the cracks with gold. “In Japan,” she said, “especially the modeling industry, it’s really popular to have models who are half, or kind of culturally diverse, like in Japan they’re called hafu or happa and that’s specifically if they’re half American, half Japanese because there’s some like fascination.” She used to explain many things to me, such as those dreams I had when I partook in the infrequent pastime of sleeping. She used to tell me how things would be, based on symbols decoded from my dreams. It’s been a while since we talked that way. It’s been a while since we talked at all.

I often see her outside of class. The few times I’ve seen her in my old J-Crew hand-medowns I get this feeling which is similar to that which my dad explained he had last week upon stumbling across one of his old college friend’s Facebook page, a handsome guy, one of his old water polo buddies, who died in a car crash three years ago. I wonder how she would respond to me if I told her that even now I feel I know her the way you know someone who you will know forever. That I see her as a constant, if not a distant constant, in the hectic pattern which composes my life.

I wonder what she would think about my recurring memory of the Vermont half-moon cookie I’d eaten driving up to somewhere (you were always driving up to somewhere back east), to the gothic monstrosity our white-bread cousins had bought out in the middle of nowhere in which they kept half of the rooms closed off, which had used to be a school, or up to Maine, or up to near Choate, and how from afar, from across the room and across this acquired distance, I can still pick out which of her features belong to which half of her heritage—her father’s hair and nose, her mother’s eyes—as though picking out the members of two respective baseball teams by their jersey colors, from the stands.

I wonder if I asked her now, what she’d say my dreams mean, if you can have dreams within the space of two, three, four hours. I wonder if it’s supposed to mean something that last night I dreamed of the UPenn flag I was going to and neglected to buy for her to hang above her desk freshman year.

I wonder if she could tell me what the things outside of dreams mean, our quitting tennis and quitting each other. I wonder if she still has the same tortoise headband I do, with the little teeth we used to complain about. I wonder if I wrote her a story or an article, if I returned to that old habit of featuring her speech, whether she’d have words for her words. I don’t have to wonder if I give her the tube of Chanel lip-gloss, the overpriced kind which comes in a rectangular prism with little gold flecks floating in it, whether she’d make the connection about our invariably bitten-over lips and the Japanese inclination toward filling the cracks. That I know.

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ukraine an interview with julie waters by isabel owens INTERVIEWER Where were you born?

JULIE WATERS Ukraine.

INTERVIEWER Tell me about how you were adopted.

WATERS I was 4. When my parents came, they were only going to adopt one kid, and then all the single kids they didn’t have a connection with. The people in the orphanage bribed my sister and I with cookies to be good so then they showed us to my parents and my parents said, ‘ok, we choose them.’ But then my sister got adopted first because there was this list of medical issues and she was on that for something. She went home in 19 months and I was 3 at that point. They came back a year later and I was 4 and I came home.

INTERVIEWER Did you know for that year when you were 3 to 4 that you were going to go home with them, or were you not really aware of what was going on?

WATERS I probably had an idea, because they left a photo for me to keep seeing them, but any kid in an orphanage would be hesitant.

INTERVIEWER Do you remember a lot of the orphanage?

WATERS There was one mean blonde lady, that’s all I know. There was, I guess, this big dog that they used to scare the kids. It was a really poor orphanage.

INTERVIEWER Do you think more parents should adopt kids instead of having their own?

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campo review ‘16 WATERS No. For me personally, I’m going to both have my own kids and adopt, but there’s definitely something about having your own kid. I mean, if they can’t have their own kid, then definitely.

And I do think more people should adopt. But I’m not saying adopt before you have your own.

INTERVIEWER So when you adopt a kid, do you think you’ll feel less connected to it?

WATERS Probably not, only because I’m adopted myself.

INTERVIEWER Do you ever wish that you still lived there?

WATERS I honestly cannot say, because I don’t know what my life would be like there. It would be different because I have siblings over there, but I don’t know them. No idea who they are. Don’t know what they look like. The next oldest one is, I think, 12 years older than me.

INTERVIEWER Do you think it’s given you a different perspective than people who have just grown up here?

WATERS I don’t know. Yeah, I have a different background, but the majority of what I remember is from here. It definitely has shaped my view on abortion.

INTERVIEWER How? WATERS You know how a bunch of people always say, ‘don’t get an abortion, just put them up for adoption?’ Well, there are so many people up for adoption already, that no one even realizes.

INTERVIEWER Do you think people don’t have an accurate understanding of what it’s actually like to be in the adoption system?

WATERS If they’re in foster care, and depending on how bad the home is. I don’t think they had foster care in Ukraine. I think they only had orphanages. You don’t really hear about orphanages here; it’s all foster care. And neither one is great.

INTERVIEWER Is foster care worse?

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WATERS Oh, yeah. A good amount of people who do foster care do it for the money that they get from the government to pay for the kids. It doesn’t always go toward them.

INTERVIEWER You want to be a foster parent, right?

WATERS Yeah. I’d foster one kid at a time, instead of 20, but yeah, I’d want to.

INTERVIEWER Anything else you’d like to add?

WATERS One thing that sucks is that they closed international adoption in Ukraine. I think they closed it the year after I was adopted.

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portrait in black curated by isabel owens, captured by sara lemelin (from “ukraine”)

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parental guidance an interview with matt ridenour by alexandra reinecke INTERVIEWER I’ve heard you talk about recognizing yourself as a different person after you had children. How would you explain the difference between the person you were before you had children as compared to the person you became as having been made a father?

MATT RIDENOUR I would say the biggest difference is that it finally made me feel like an adult. I think that even in my early 30s, there was this thing where I didn’t feel like I was really grown up yet. It’s weird kind of accepting getting older and maybe I was like in denial about the aging aspect but you know, you just second guess yourself a lot. I think finally having kids kind of just made me recognize like okay, I’ve ‘gotta just trust my instincts and I’ve ‘gotta make these decisions, so I think it, it shifted my mindset whereas before I could blame the fact that I didn’t really feel like I was an adult to completely trust myself to make some decisions, you know, and there weren’t that many big decisions to make, and I think it just made me feel like I’m more of a grown up now, I guess.

INTERVIEWER If you had to describe yourself in your younger years what would you say? What personality traits did you embody, what were your goals etc.?

RIDENOUR I think the biggest thing is that I was always a really hard worker and everything, I was never the smartest kid in any of my classes, I was never the best athlete on any of my teams as a kid, but oftentimes I would win the MVP award for sports just because I worked at it year round, and I was just passionate about it, about doing it well, so I’ve been kind of thankful—I think my parents had a part to play in this, but I think part of it is just my innate personality, like I just always want to do my best at things and so it’s just a natural work ethic that I have. I mean, my older brother is smarter than me, he’s smarter than I am, but he’s lazier than me so I was more successful than him academically and also through sports, like he was bigger than me so he was more athletically gifted in ways, but he didn’t work at it as hard as I did, and so, yeah--I think that’s the biggest way that I would define myself.

INTERVIEWER Would you say that any of that has changed since your daughter and son were born, or has it kind of remained the same? Do you think your hardworking personality has changed since your children were born, or do you think you’ve kind of carried it over?

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RIDENOUR I would say—yeah, I think I’ve definitely carried it over. I think it’s been like a necessary aspect, like I just don’t have the amount of time to get work done at home as I used to so I just really have to be able to take advantage of the moments that I do have.

INTERVIEWER Can you briefly explain your daily coffee routine? How does this routine vary from that which you employed during college or high school?

RIDENOUR I never drank coffee in high school. I don’t even think Starbucks was around in the bay area until I was in college. I think I’d had a few coffee drinks in college, more like a social thing, like I remember specifically, I was running the steeplechase when I was at Diablo Valley College and I couldn’t do the water jump properly, like you’re supposed to have one foot on the wood barrier and then land on one foot, and I would always put two feet down which would cause me to stop and it would delay my, whatever momentum I had, and so I went out one night with some friends and had a coffee drink and it made it so I couldn’t fall asleep, so then I just rationalized through my problem with the water jump, and I figured it out, and I went early to practice that day and filled up the water pit and was able to figure out how to do it—so in college I didn’t really drink coffee either, I started drinking coffee more as a pick me up when I was teaching cross country and track early in my career to have energy for the meets in particular, and then it became more of a necessity as I got addicted to it.

INTERVIEWER Would you talk about your addiction a little bit?

RIDENOUR (Laughs). Uh, okay. I don’t—I mean, I have on average two coffees per day, sometimes three on the weekends, you know, so like lattes, we have an espresso machine, so I make myself nice kind of frou-frou coffee drinks, I’m not like a real hardcore black coffee drinker, so I still think I’m not a real coffee drinker, but it’s just something that, I don’t know, it just relaxes me, which is like the caffeine it’s like having that warm beverage to kind of drink—I like the hotter coffee drinks, because it takes longer to drink, even in the summer, I like the hotter ones better than the iced ones, because it kind of takes a while to sip, and it’s there.

INTERVIEWER What kind of dad would you describe yourself as? A recent Huffington Post article described fatherhood as something that men already know instead of something they have to learn. Would you say you agree with this?

RIDENOUR I think that a lot of my qualities are the same, but I try to be especially heightened just in born innate biases that I might have, especially like around gender stuff. My wife and I were very careful about making sure there was no pink in—my daughter was the first born—in her room, so it’s like a light gray color and orange accents. My wife picked everything out because she’s 56

campo review ‘16 much more artistically inclined than I am, but we’ve been really carefully not to have like the princesses, you know, and stuff like that. We didn’t want to enforce this like gender specific stereotype that culture enforces. That being said, she’s four now, her favorite color’s pink and she’s totally into Disney princesses and she went through a period where she probably changed her outfit like ten times a day when she was three years old, so she’s become a total girly-girl and so, I don’t know how much of it is that the kid is going to be what they are and you just try to accept that.

Another example of that is my son Gavin started being able to scoot on his belly when he was six months old, he went to Paige’s like toy cars, like her Barbie car, or a train, it wasn’t like, if there was a doll there he was not interested. So I always kind of figured kid would be kind of, conditioned by TV and stuff like that, to go into these things, but we didn’t have the kids watch TV, and we had them pretty isolated, especially Gavin when he was only six months old, so to get back to the question, just trying to be hyper-aware of not putting any biases I might have on them, and allowing them to be as open and explore themselves as much as possible.

INTERVIEWER In terms of judgement within the bounds of fatherhood, do you think there are any stigmas or outdated beliefs connected to fatherhood that are not affixed to motherhood or vice-a-versa?

RIDENOUR I don’t know about like stereotypes and stigmas, I do know my father-in-law warned me about this before my firstborn was born, like the attention’s ‘gonna be the baby, then the mother next, then you’ll be on an equal playing field as the dog. And that’s kind of how it happened. Both of my kids were more kind of mommy-kids, my son, I think I’m kind of on the same level as the dog, like he’s a dog boy. My daughter and my dog have kind of a hit or miss relationship, so at least I beat out the dog there, but I don’t know as far as stereotypes, though.

INTERVIEWER Do you see yourself as acting within the traditional gender role of the father as a parent, or do you kind of share all the roles of parenting with your wife?

RIDENOUR We try to share all the roles. I think that some things just because of the dynamic of my wife and myself, fit into gender stereotypes. My wife loves to cook. I’m not very skilled, so she does more of the cooking and I do more of the dishes so I think maybe some of that cooking stereotype. My wife is 5’3 and a half, I’m 6’3, so, I reach the high stuff in the cabinets, so there’s certain stuff that, you know, things like that but my wife is handier than I am, so I’ll carry the heavy stuff and then she’ll fix it, so I think that we do a good job, mainly through my lack of skill, to kind of be debunking that stereotype. I think that we really try to be a team.

INTERVIEWER Since you have become a father, how has your idea of yourself changed, and do you feel more or less interconnected to the outside world?

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RIDENOUR I think that the identity has definitely shifted and I think it's more like you put more ahead of yourself, and so I kind of take a back seat, you know the kids are kind of our main priority and then my wife and I are trying to make sure that we work on like the two of us, you know, we’re actually ‘gonna have a date night tonight, while grandparents watch the kids, and so as far as like my personal interests, I’ve just slowly over time gotten rid of those as I didn't have time for them and haven’t kind of come back to those, but it’s something I’m ok with at this point. I don’t know if I’ll start to resent that at some point--I don’t know how that’s ‘gonna play out.

INTERVIEWER How has your idea of yourself as a father changed you in a different way than you kind of giving over your individual identity in different transitions in your life, such as going into college or getting married?

RIDENOUR I think it’s just that whole shift of putting others before yourself, you know, I think that when you get married it’s more of a balance of wants and desires whereas having kids it’s kind of putting their wants and desires ahead of yourself, so I think it’s much more selfless, in that sense, the other things were a little bit more about me, just, you know, taking a step back and allowing the kids to kind of be at the forefront.

INTERVIEWER Pablo Picasso once said “It took me four years to paint like Raphael but a lifetime to paint like a child.” So he’s expressing an idea that older people that can learn from the young. Is there anything you’ve learned to see differently because of your children?

RIDENOUR Yeah, and I’ve heard a lot of parents say this as well, like you just learn to see things again for the first time, you know, like you experience—like my son this year finally, like he’s two and a half, Halloween like coming up I think he’s ‘gonna be understanding, kinda, what’s going on, he’s super excited about his Thomas the Train costume and wants to wear it every day, so seeing that excitement again, you know, you go through a period where it’s Christmas and you get together with family, but having kids that brings the whole Santa Claus thing, that Elf on the Shelf’s actually cool, the kids are totally into the Elf on the Shelf thing, we didn’t have that when I was a kid, but just to kind of see their spark and their excitement about things that—like as a parent, you know, an older person, I haven’t had that excitement for a few decades, so it’s kind of nice INTERVIEWER Can you briefly tell the story of what has been your most difficult experience in fatherhood?

RIDENOUR Yeah, with that one, I think--and my wife and I knew this before we had kids, like, we knew that my wife was ‘gonna be the one that was more okay with a lot of things and I was ‘gonna be the worry parent, you know, I was ‘gonna be the one that’s like ‘okay, you’re ‘gonna break your leg 58

campo review ‘16 if you do that.’ That kind of thing. And so, that definitely is the case, like when our kids are playing in a dangerous position like I’m freaking out, my wife is relaxed and sometimes I think it’s good I’m freaking out because a couple of times they’re doing things they really shouldn’t be doing and it is kind of dangerous for them, we have been to the emergency room already. But sometimes as well, I need to put a check on those initial fears and let them be who they want to be. Even though I hate Disney it kind of reminds me of Finding Nemo and Marlin, I guess I’m kind of like Marlin in that sense, in the early stage of the movie.

INTERVIEWER Can you briefly tell the story of what has been your most difficult experience outside of fatherhood?

RIDENOUR Yeah, I guess that—my mom has always had really bad issues with her back and neck and she really has a hard time getting around, so that’s always been kind of a hard thing just to kind of see her in pain and also just not very mobile, she’s got these two grandkids now and she’s super excited about that but she’s not able to function with them as much as she would like and that’s been something she’s dealt with since before I was born and so it’s always been just kind of difficult and challenging to kind of live through that and see her in pain consistently.

INTERVIEWER Can you tell me about your proudest achievement or realization as a father?

RIDENOUR I think that these happen like all the time. It’s not necessarily a certain experience, but just like when your son or daughter reaches a new milestone in a sense, so first words, or I don’t know, describing what their favorite color is, for the longest time Gavin, he’s just over two and a half, and he could only say Ga-yin, like he would pronounce it with a ‘y’ to go, I was helping him get dressed and asked him something and he said Gavin, used a ‘v’ and I said ‘what is your name’ and he said ‘Gavin’ and it was exciting to see him pronounce his name properly for the first time, but at the same time, like, it was kind of cute that he’d say Ga-yin, you know, so that stage is gone, you know, there’re consistently like little things like that all the time.

INTERVIEWER What would be your proudest achievement or realization before you were a father?

RIDENOUR Proudest achievement or realization before I was—a father. I don’t know. I think this was one I couldn’t really think of. I mean there’re certain things, like work related I’ve been proud of, in seven years of teaching at Las Lomas before I came over here I was asked twice to be the faculty speaker at graduation, so it just kinda showed that the kids appreciated me and wanted me to speak at graduation so that was nice. I think just, my wife and I have done a really good job of our relationship from the beginning, like we haven’t fought and we’re really good at talking things out, and I think that relationship is something I’ve been very proud of. Yeah, just different things like that.

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INTERVIEWER Do you note any pattern or trend in the nature of these high and low points? Would you say that those before you were a parent were more self-centered, or do you think they never really were?

RIDENOUR I think that, more self-centered in a sense that, like, my life was much more about me, so I think that there’s definitely something that goes with that, like once you have kids it’s much less about you, and so I think it just naturally separates out in that sense. But I don’t know if I recognized another kind of pattern to it.

INTERVIEWER Between who you were before your daughter was born and the identity you are now, is there an identity you find easier to embody?

RIDENOUR Not necessarily, and I think, I think you learn to embody a lot of different personalities based on the situation of people you’re with, and I think probably a lot of students can relate to that, like you are different with certain groups of friends than with other groups of friends, different with this family member versus that family member, and so you learn to take on different roles and have different personalities like if you work a job you’ve got to behave differently on the job than when you’re with your friends and so on and so forth. So just kind of recognizing, this is who I am as a teacher, and I’m different at home as a parent, and I’m different with my friends.

That kind of continues.

INTERVIEWER If you had to sum up fatherhood in one word or phrase how would you do it?

RIDENOUR This one was also really tough. I don’t know if I could do that. Because there’s so many different facets of it. So I mean, definitely, it has some of its challenges, like my kids wake up super early and so sleep deprivation is a little bit of a challenge, like we’ve shifted our like, kind of schedule to go to bed a lot earlier, we just anticipate our kids are going to wake up earlier.

INTERVIEWER So if you had to pick your favorite aspect of being a parent?

RIDENOUR I think it’s just watching like a personality develop, you know, when you’ve got your newborn baby you’re super proud, and you know, I remember people saying ‘oh, they become much more interesting as they get bigger,’ and being offended by that, like ‘my daughter’s beautiful, like what are you talking about?’ But then as they learn to talk and they learn to walk and they learn to develop their own social skills with their friends at preschool or whatever the case is, just seeing that kind of development, like the personality come out. Like my daughter she’s completely goofy. My wife and I are much tamer, as far as personality goes and she’s just like off the wall goofy like I have no idea where that came from.

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INTERVIEWER In terms of a personal code or a habit of interaction, how would you describe that which you employed before you were a parent as compared to that which you employ now?

RIDENOUR I think I’ve always been—really tried to focus on being empathetic, and trying to be able to put myself in somebody else’s shoes and try and understand where they’re coming from before I rush to judgements—it’s always been something I’ve really tried to focus on, but I think being a parent forces you to do that, you know, even though there’re times you get frustrated with what your kids are doing, you have to just keep yourself in check and think about their situation and understand why they were upset at this point in time and really kind of excel at those skills.

INTERVIEWER In terms of a moral sense, how is that of the father different than that of a man without children?

RIDENOUR I don’t know if there really is one. I mean for me, I think my moral sense has stayed the same it’s just been heightened, a little bit, you know. Mainly it’s like being a role model for my kids, I want to exhibit behavior that I want them to kind of follow. I want to make sure I’m a good role model and so my moral values haven’t shifted, they’ve just become heightened. I think when you aren’t a parent you have a lot more freedom and you can kind of do things you want to do a lot more frequently and so maybe you behave sometimes in certain situations that you wouldn’t when you’ve got your children present. I think it just changes because you don’t have that time, you’re kind of always under watch like the kids are always around, so you have to watch your language and things like that.

INTERVIEWER What are some words or phrases you see as singular to each identity as well as habits or activities and do you find any of these to be mutually exclusive, or have you been able to like combine them?

RIDENOUR I guess with words and phrases I would say that like one identity is my profession, and so I’m Mr. Ridenour here, when I’m with my kids I’m daddy, when I’m with my friends and my wife I’m Matt, so there are like these three different distinct people, all the same, but I have to be different as daddy than I am as Matt with my wife or my friends or how I’m Mr. Ridenour at school. I would say a lot of the things that I used to do that I like enjoyed I just don’t have time for anymore and also because of the kids and what they’re able to do. And I’m a Cal grad and so for years I had Cal football season tickets, my dad started taking me to games when I was about six or seven, but my kids are too young to be able to sit through a game, you know, I haven’t been to a game in five years or something like that, so I used to watch sports a little more frequently on television but we’re pretty conscious about making sure the TV’s not on when the kids are awake and we’re interacting with them, it’s kind of an easy thing to sacrifice.

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INTERVIEWER Have you found any of those activities to be able to coexist between the three different versions of you?

RIDENOUR I’m looking forward to taking my kids to their first Cal football game, or seeing them having those experiences when they’re ready for it, so I don’t think it’s changed within me, it’s just changed based on circumstances.

INTERVIEWER If you could impart just one piece of advice on your children, what it would be and why?

RIDENOUR One, I think having a good work ethic and being able to separate your effort from the result of what you achieve is really important. My daughter she’s really kind of smart as far as ideas that kind of pertain to school subjects. She was quick with language, she understands numbers really well but she doesn’t have much patience when she can’t figure something out, so I kind of view her as, she’s going to be one of those kids who’s pretty smart in school, but as soon as she can’t figure something out like she’s ‘gonna just give up on it or make excuses as to why she can’t do it rather than just sit down and actually figure it out whereas my son’s almost the opposite in that sense, like it took him a lot longer to speak—and girls develop a lot quicker than boys, naturally—but a little bit longer to speak and, you know, he doesn’t figure things out as well as Paige does but he can sit down with a puzzle for, I mean, twenty minutes, and just try and put these pieces together, whereas Paige, ten seconds if it doesn’t work she starts throwing a fit. I think that being able to work through something and have patience and get that if you don’t get something the first time you can work at it and get better is a really important value.

INTERVIEWER How do you see yourself in the role of establishing and helping your children form a code through which to interact with the world?

RIDENOUR I guess I see it as more of like a facilitator, rather than as a teacher. I want them to--I guess, in a sense, it’s similar to like Atticus Finch in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ I think a lot of times in that book he recognizes as a father figure that it’s much more valuable if my kids learn this lesson for themselves, like he could say ‘I caught you doing this so you’re grounded now’ but I think that the character recognized that that’s not going to be the best method for them to learn. They need to learn it themselves and feel guilty for what they did and then they’ll learn that they don’t do it again. If I just say ‘you can’t do this’ it’s going to be that battle back and forth.

INTERVIEWER Describe your signature drink before fatherhood/now. How do you think they define your different stages?

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campo review ‘16 RIDENOUR I don’t feel like there are really stages, it’s not really post-fatherhood and pre-fatherhood, but I think it has to do with economic situation. So, as teachers we earn a little bit more each year and so I think earlier in my career it was cheap, whatever it was, coffee or a beer or whatever, or some wine, it was something cheap whereas now that my wife and I have a little more income we’ll get nicer coffee beans or a nicer bottle of wine or a nicer beer.

INTERVIEWER What material thing did you swear by when you were younger? What do you swear by now as a parent?

RIDENOUR I think part of this has to do with, like, I’ve got this aunt that’s like a pretty significant hoarder so I’ve been really good about not gaining like emotional attachment to objects. When I was younger that wasn’t the case. I was super—I was very superstitious and I had a certain shirt I wore for every sporting event through college that, like, got a lot of holes and started falling apart, and I would wear it all the time, but I think that part of me is kind of gone, like I just don’t have like emotional connections to material items or objects.

INTERVIEWER Describe a typical Saturday night in your life and could you contrast that to a night in your younger life?

RIDENOUR Yeah, so I think you had mentioned like ten years ago, so ten years ago my wife and I met, so our typical Saturday night we’d probably go out to dinner and we would typically come back and put on a Netflix movie or something like that, so we weren’t super into going out all the time and so now it’s more like Saturday night, once the kids are down, it’s kind of similar but it’s not going out to dinner, it’s just like the kids are in bed, let’s put something on Hulu, because we can’t make it through a movie, and we’ll watch like an episode of Modern Family or Fresh Off the Boat or something like that if we can get through it.

INTERVIEWER So it’s more about stealing the free time that you do have?

RIDENOUR Yeah, and I think it’s about catching up on sleep, so we just want to go to bed as early as we can.

INTERVIEWER How do you think your personality will be further influenced as your children grow older?

RIDENOUR I don’t see it as changing much. I think that I’m ‘gonna continue as the kids get older and they get involved in sports and different clubs and stuff like that, I think it continues, I would assume, it continues to be more and more about the kids and less about you. I think that’s just ‘gonna kinda continue.

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steeplechase by alexandra reinecke (from “parental guidance”) Do you relive life if you have more quarters for the slot? Do you relive life when you draw back the spring into: first words first wars first wasted breaths? You drank coffee to nail the steeplechase you chased coffee to watch your language: see it move down into coves where you once failed to place your feet: the corner office, the corner crib, a gray nursery perceived as pink; has it been five years since the Cal game? Five years since you’ve slept?

Do you relive life if a daughter is born, or a son? Do you relive life when you learn to pound the track into: first hurdles first deaths first severed bets? You drank coffee to nail the steeplechase you chased coffee to watch your language: see it surpass your brother where he once might have won: the college campus, the football shed, a Mark Cross suitcase his roommate hid; has it been five years since the Cal game? Five years since you’ve slept?

Do you relive life when you know where to place your feet? Do you relive life when you fix the water jump with: a Hulu show a kid time ripped in an old sports-shirt? You drank coffee to nail the steeplechase you chased coffee to watch your language: see it caption your marriage a team: the ER, a trophy’s dropped name, 6’3 preventing olive oil spills; has it been five years since the Cal game? Five years since you’ve slept?

Do you relive life with a new (Williams Sonoma) espresso machine? Do you relive life when you take a back seat to: Christmas in tinsel, v’s said as y’s, terrycloth 64

campo review ‘16 threads? You drank coffee to nail the steeplechase you chased coffee to watch your language: see it close around things you used not to love: nicer coffee beans, nicer wine, Saturday night’s early bed; has it been five years since the Cal game? Five years since you’ve slept?

poly-sci major eating some ramen an interview with brandon arenson by katie nunn INTERVIEWER Where and when were you born?

BRANDON ARENSON Valley Presbyterian Hospital on December 7, 1999 (at 7:34 AM).

INTERVIEWER Where do you live and how has it affected your identity?

ARENSON I live in Sherman Oaks California, it's definitely affected me as an LGBTQ male with a disability because SoCal is extremely accepting.

INTERVIEWER How has your family influenced you and how has that reflected in your passions?

ARENSON My family is pretty liberal and Jewish, they've influenced me by showing me that I need to work hard to get something good and sitting and crying won't do anything. I've shown that by taking huge actions in government.

INTERVIEWER What was the biggest life event that had the most impact on you?

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campo review ‘16 ARENSON The most significant life event for me is definitely the Global Youth Peace Summit due to the fact that I learned that trusting in myself is one of the most important things to do. I also met a bunch of amazing amazing people (including Katie my best friend).

INTERVIEWER What do you struggle with the most?

ARENSON 100% I struggle the most with the fact that I'm autistic. Though my family and friends are accepting, it's hard to live as a minority that truly is unrepresented.

INTERVIEWER How have your struggles and major life events influenced your passions? Have they influenced your passions at all?

ARENSON They have due to the fact that I take strong action in government as well as going to events such as the summit to show my passion for making the biggest and best change possible.

INTERVIEWER How have your passions defined you? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?

ARENSON I mean my passions basically craft who I am, they all have a story in my life and they're all part of who I am. In 5 years I see myself as a poly sci major eating some ramen in his USF dorm happily under a Michelle Obama presidency (here's hoping). And in 10 years I see myself either still in law school/grad school or having a career in the state legislature.

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and the trees listened by katie nunn (from “poly-sci major eating some ramen”) When she met him, it finally registered for her. After meeting him, she finally knew why she had come. The sound of the various languages unnerved her, the diversity intimidated her, the frankness of the people was threatening. She did not want to be the one to break down first but did not think it bad if she did. She would not be judged.

He knew why he was there. From the San Fernando Valley, he was used to diversity much more than she was, for, although she lived in the Bay Area, she was guarded against it through tunnels and hills making it impossible to be normalized to it.

Like children they spent all their time in a secret hiding spot they thought they alone shared. They had no knowledge of their shared space with nature, or how their absence affected the others. They knew the trees listened to their stories, the rocks listened, the bushes, the dirt, the way no one came to them, and how no melodrama followed them. They liked the quiet of the nature, how they left the hurt of humanity behind, the stories and the tears.

She knew that she had not made a mistake coming there when she met him. They were like twins, attached at the hip, almost in love, in a religious sort of way. He told her of LA, of his home, of his body, of his brain, of his identity. She told him almost everything, but her brain was greedy and kept things for itself.

She knew before he told her. When he told her, they were walking, hand in hand, hip to hip, and she said, “I knew.” In fact, it was almost as if she knew everything about him before they had one late night. She knew about his autism, his activism, how everything had led up, in a way, to this moment. All the hurt as a minority, both in autism, and in sexuality. They knew together that this experience would tie them together, as if became a part of their identities forever. Meeting the other, almost completing each other, but not so much in a way that did not challenge the other.

The others did not understand this. They only saw the physicality, and took it to mean a sign of sex.

The others did not know what it means to be autistic, and she knew that. She knew how difficult it would be for him, for others to return his love. For this experience to work. She wondered if it could work.

But she knew that an identity of uncontrollable fates was something they both shared.

The others should've known better.

Now they are across the state, intertwined through an experience, through a place, through tears, through trees that listened and feelings they remember.

They will never be forgotten.

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soy milk, sphere shapes an interview with anna jiang by tanya zhong INTERVIEWER When and why did you live in China?

ANNA JIANG I lived there during eighth grade. My mom, sister and I moved there since my mom was teaching temporarily at Peking University.

INTERVIEWER That’s in Beijing right?

JIANG Yeah.

INTERVIEWER How was going to school in Beijing different?

JIANG Yeah, in comparison to [Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School], kids at JM just kind of went to school, but kids at that school were a lot more focused on academics and did a lot of academic things outside of school.

INTERVIEWER What are some examples of what the other students did to welcome or be friendly to you?

JIANG They were all really nice and interested about life in America (and surprised it wasn't partying 24/7...), but they were just super inclusive! They were also so surprised I had my ears pierced.

INTERVIEWER How does Beijing look different from home? How is living in a big city like Beijing different from life at home?

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campo review ‘16 JIANG There's so many more lights and people and just activity. In Moraga by 7 or 8 p.m. it’s pretty much quiet and you only pass a couple cars driving around, but in the city it was much more nonstop. I would ride the bus at 6:00 for school and it was already pretty full, and there were tons of people walking around! At 4:00 to 5:00 when I went home the buses were so full people [and] packed like sardines and the doors often couldn't close because people would be half out, hanging onto handles (kind of a huge safety hazard).

INTERVIEWER Where have you travelled besides China?

JIANG In Asia [I have travelled to] Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia.

In Europe [I have travelled to] Great Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and some other countries when I was really young, so I don't remember…[I have been to] Mexico, Canada, and a bunch of Central American places but very briefly. In the U.S… East and West coasts pretty much!

INTERVIEWER What was your favorite food to eat there?

JIANG Boba definitely, but also soy milk (which is quite different from the soy milk here), a lot of spicy food, and noodles! and this street food dessert that’s like a waffle but a lot of little sphere shapes.

It’s kind of hard to describe.

INTERVIEWER While you were living in China did you go to any special events or visit any tourist attractions?

JIANG I spent a lot of time with my grandparents since we lived with them, and aunts, uncles, and cousins. We would go out to dinner a lot with more distant relatives or family friends. Since I go to China almost every summer after the first few weeks it was just going to school every day that took up most of my time. With a couple friends I would go to local malls and streets in the older part of the city to walk around, but a lot of people lived pretty far away from school and everyone had tutors or classes on the weekend so it wasn't too frequent.

INTERVIEWER What did you miss most from home?

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campo review ‘16 JIANG I missed all the people, and also just like how life was.

INTERVIEWER When did you miss your friends at home the most?

JIANG Probably in the beginning and the end. At first it was a little awkward because I didn't understand a lot of the other students just because we were used to different situations...and then at the end because it had been half a year. Even though I facetimed and stuff, it was still a pretty long time.

beijing by tanya zhong (from “soy milk, sphere shapes”) even though i've seen beijing, where constellations of city lights watch over a crowded street so full of life, it breathes and pulses as an organism and even though i’ve found sweetness in the soy milk i can buy from the store down the block, and in the fresh faces that greet me at school i lie awake at night, adrift, feeling as if i’m still missing something. home. where the streets are so quiet at night and i can hear the sound of pavement when cars roll by, home is not so bright and temporary as beijing but it glows a little warmer in my heart, for a little while longer.

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stability an interview with morgan langstaff by betsy alter INTERVIEWER What are three words that you would use to describe yourself?

MORGAN LANGSTAFF Three words I would use to describe myself are quirky, kind, and unique.

INTERVIEWER What life experience do you think has changed you the most?

LANGSTAFF In 7th grade, I went through some hardships with the friend group I was in and things got kind of rough. I grew dependent on them to tell me whether I was doing something right or looked good, etc. They also did stuff as a group without me and I felt kind of like an outcast and alone. I eventually broke off from them and started to become more independent and care less about what others think of me and more about how I think of it myself.

INTERVIEWER I know that you were adopted. How do you think that this affected your life?

LANGSTAFF I honestly don’t think it has really made a huge difference in terms of how other families are.

One of the major differences would be through that sense of unknowing. Like I do have siblings, or like who are my ancestors and stuff like that. As for how it has shaped me growing up, I don’t believe I have had that different of an experience from everyone else. My parents love me and take care of me, and I could not ask for anything more.

INTERVIEWER Would you change anything about your life if you could?

LANGSTAFF Probably not, because I believe that all the things that have happened in my life have shaped who I am today and by changing any of those things could change the person I am now. Although, I would not mind having a little extra cash.

INTERVIEWER Would you consider yourself more introverted or extroverted?

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campo review ‘16 LANGSTAFF I would consider myself more introverted than extroverted because I enjoy solitude and just being by myself a lot. I don’t mind going outside and doing stuff with my friends, and I do enjoy it when I out, but I’d much rather stay in bed and watch some TV or read a book. Socializing seems more like a chore or a duty than something of interest sometimes.

INTERVIEWER What do you think you have to contribute to society?

LANGSTAFF To be honest I don’t think I really do a whole lot for society. I mean I exist so that’s one thing, but I haven’t really contributed to it. I guess my role could just be voicing my opinion when necessary and giving advice to those who need it. As long as the advice is not academically related, I can help with pretty much any situation.

INTERVIEWER What do you consider your main goal to be in life?

LANGSTAFF My main goal is just to get a stable job and live comfortably and also not fail high school. I want to be able have a comfortable lifestyle so that I do not worry anyone in my life about my living conditions or life in general.

INTERVIEWER Would you consider yourself more of one who plans things out or one who goes with the flow and sees what happens?

LANGSTAFF I mostly just let things happen, I am not much of a planner. Even in strategy games, I most of the time just wing it. I am not a very organized person in general and I procrastinate so planning thing out in advance requires a lot of effort. Plus, I think the world just has a basic path laid out for us already, so what happens will happen.

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introversion by betsy alter (from “stability”)

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the word an interview with meera ramesh by athya uthayakumar INTERVIEWER Before we start the interview—of sort the question-answer part, I guess—is there anything you want to say about yourself as a writer?

MEERA RAMESH I don’t know. Just, it’s fun, I guess. I encourage people to do it, especially NaNoWrimo. Like I didn’t expect to do something like that, but you just sort of do it. It’s fun.

INTERVIEWER Is that how you came up with Of Penitence and Sin-- did I switch the words around?

RAMESH No, that’s right.

INTERVIEWER Okay cool. So, when did you start writing?

RAMESH In general, for almost like forever. I would always write stories, like in elementary school, but not always quite like that [Of Penitence and Sin]. Just like, kid stuff. I knew I liked that more, because I liked reading. But then I was like, “I’ll just read stuff”. In first and second grade, we had projects where we wrote, and I was like “Oh! This is the best stuff!”

INTERVIEWER That’s so cool. Did you have any authors you liked back then?

RAMESH Um, I mean, I guess obviously Harry Potter, but also the Redwall Series.

INTERVIEWER I’ve never heard of that.

RAMESH Well, it’s little mice and animals. It’s by a guy named Brian Jacques? Jacks? Almost everything—I would read almost everything.

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campo review ‘16 INTERVIEWER How do you think your writing has progressed now that you look back and think about what you’re doing now?

RAMESH Part of it is that at the beginning I was imitating books I liked. So it’s like, “Oh, I remember hearing this phrase,” like just that phrase, idea, thing. And now, it’s more like, “I understand English, writing, syntax stuff a little better” and so expressing was funner and [I was] better with ideas.

INTERVIEWER I’m guessing you didn’t have very complex themes you were focusing on back then.

RAMESH Yeah. It was more like a heroine and her sidekick, and they would go on adventures.

INTERVIEWER So, it’s good practice. So why do you continue to write? Do you write for the same reasons as before, or have they changed?

RAMESH At the beginning, it’s really just fun—it’s relaxing, and you can just pretend to be someone else in the story. And if you’re just like, “oh, I really liked books, but I can’t find something I can relate to”, I’d write something I could relate to. But now, it’s more, I don’t know, like getting ideas out there where you don’t have to talk as much. It’s a different way for me to express opinions. It’s like, most of my stuff is my perspective on things. It’s, like, first person.

INTERVIEWER That’s really cool. So, have any people in your life supported you in your writing? Like, I know you talk about your sister Maya on the back of your book, and I think one of your parents was with you at a writing event we did last year.

RAMESH They’re all supportive of it. Neither of my parents speak English as their first language, and they speak English well, but they’re, like, science people. And I feel like this part of me, is like, separate from that. That, like— INTERVIEWER No, I get that.

RAMESH They’re supportive, but it’s not the same. When they write stuff, it’s analytical, and I like to write in a different way.

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campo review ‘16 INTERVIEWER I get that. My sister likes writing, and my parents can be a little bit like that sometimes.

RAMESH Yeah, it’s like, they like that I do it, but they don’t relate as much. Because they’re like science people. And I’m not going to go and became an English major or anything like that, because it’s just expected that you do science. It’s fun, and they thought that this would look good on college apps. It’s like, “okay, not what I’m going for”.

INTERVIEWER Yeah, I mean, it could be cultural differences and things like that.

RAMESH It’s not a legitimate career.

INTERVIEWER Then again, that perception may be rampant in our society too. [At least where we live.] So, moving on, what motivated you to write Of Penitence and Sin? You started with NaNoWriMo [National Novel Writing Month], right?

RAMESH Uh huh.

INTERVIEWER So how did you find out about NaNoWriMo? RAMESH At the school I went to, there’s an English teacher that did it herself, she encourage people to do it too, and there was a prize at the end. It was beautiful. I loved the prize at the end. It was a school competition for whoever wrote the most words; in the real one it’s whoever writes 50,000 words. I didn’t have any friends, really, and I had a lot of time at home alone, because we had just moved. It’s was weird, it was the beginning of the school year, and so I was like, “Okay. I’ll do this. I like writing”. I had free time.

INTERVIEWER How do you think what was going on around you reflected in your book, then?

RAMESH I guess a lot of it, was like, because I moved to the Bible Belt, which crazy religious. I was like, “Hmm, I’ve never thought about religion like that”. You just sort of like—well, parents are going wherever they go to. But then that was like, “I wonder if this is real”, or what my take on it was.

So that was the basis of it, like are there angels, and stuff like that? And a lot of it was me feeling very left out of stuff.

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campo review ‘16 INTERVIEWER Yeah, I get that. Like, for me, I started writing poetry when I moved also. One of my friends introduced me to it and I just started writing it a lot.

RAMESH Yeah! It’s like a nice way of reflecting on that feeling, without feeling bad about it. Like, “I have no friends! But it’s okay, because I can write, and I can do this!”

INTERVIEWER Yes! Totally, I get that. So was Of Penitence and Sin the first novel you had every completed, or had you ever written a novel before?

RAMESH That was the first one. I guess it’s technically novel length, but it’s still pretty short, but it was the longest thing I had done, especially like as a kid writing short stories. It was like, for serious.

INTERVIEWER Cool. And have you done any other works after that?

RAMESH Yeah. I do NaNoWriMo every year and other smaller ones, but nothing like that. I had a lot of prep time, and for the other ones—I didn’t have as much time as freshman year.

INTERVIEWER And so what you say the themes of Of Penitence and Sin are?

RAMESH Um, I guess for me, it was isolation, somebody taken out of the world they’re familiar with. It felt like me moving. But it was also, “what are the morals I believe in?” because I was confronted with this whole religion thing. Mostly reflecting on that, like “I don’t even know what it means to be moral or good or bad.”

INTERVIEWER The relativity of that, I guess.

RAMESH It’s silly looking back now, but that was what I was thinking about at the time.

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campo review ‘16 INTERVIEWER No, that makes total sense. So, what was your writing process like? NaNoWriMo is pretty fast paced and it’s a lot to do in a month.

RAMESH That year, I had the benefit of, well, as part of school, we had a period of free time. So I’d write furiously then. Sometimes I’d get up early, or sometimes I’d stay up late, sometimes until like one or two o’ clock. That happens more now. You know, you try to hit your word goal, compensate on weekends by writing for eight hours.

INTERVIEWER That is dedication.

RAMESH It’s fun though. You get lost while you’re doing it. So like staying up is not intentional, you’re just writing—“Oh, I’m a thousand words past my word goal! Oops!”

INTERVIEWER That’s so nice! So it didn’t feel like work.

RAMESH Sometimes it does. The first twenty minutes, it’s like “I have no idea what I’m doing,” and then you get into the zone. And like crank out a thousands words, like “yes!”

INTERVIEWER So was it the first you’d ever done that kind of thing?

RAMESH Yes. INTERVIEWER So what was your process like before?

RAMESH Well, I would occasionally write down whatever I thought of. I used to write poetry-ish stuff, and short stories that would only be about a thousand words. One day, I’d sit down and write a random story. But for NaNoWriMo, you have to plan out in advance. Like, I had a chapter list and events I wanted to go through.

INTERVIEWER So it was your first time committing to something long term?

RAMESH Yes. It was rough.

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campo review ‘16 INTERVIEWER Yeah, I tried to do NaNoWriMo and I couldn’t do it.

RAMESH Yeah, I made it that first year, and second year, and I made it last year—but it was so bad last year.

INTERVIEWER So how has Of Penitence and Sin been received after your family self-published it?

RAMESH My dad gives it to our family members.

INTERVIEWER Oh. They’re family members, so— RAMESH Yeah. There’s one review on amazon, like “It’s a good afternoon read!” I’m proud of it. It’s like, yes, I have this thing.

INTERVIEWER So it was a learning experience. And so looking back on it—you keep saying it was a little silly, so do you regret anything about it?

RAMESH Well, I guess when I was doing it, I thought it was so sophisticated. Obviously, like three years later changed a person. So I’m like, oh I could express this better. It was so obvious, I thought I was being all subtle and clever.

INTERVIEWER Could you maybe give me an example of how you would want to change something? Would you even want to go back and change something? Sorry, that’s a lot [to answer].

RAMESH Just like, the worst thing is that it has these really awkward romances, but I was like twelve, so what did I know. It was really awkward, and I feel like the rest of it was… angry, so I felt like the rest of it should be complemented by something romantic. It was really weird like that. I think what I was trying to do-- it almost turned out too adorable. I was trying to get this idea across, but I did it so much it kind of made it lame. I think it would be making that a little more subtle, making the character less stereotypical.

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campo review ‘16 INTERVIEWER So, on a more positive note, do you think anything really shines in that book? Like, your ability to commit to something, or a certain theme? Do you pride yourself on anything in that book?

RAMESH I mean, I’m just proud of doing it. Like, getting through that. It was like a benchmark almost, like you’ve done it once and you can do it again, do it better, bigger. Something like that. Yeah. I mean, it’s weird talking about it, but I like the fact that I’ve done it. It’s one thing I’ve done that’s not related to my parents, it’s not related to anybody else—it’s just me, “I did thing” kind of feeling.

INTERVIEWER That’s really cool. And have you taken any of your experience from writing [Of Penitence and Sin] or from your writing experience in general to English class or other settings?

RAMESH Um, not much. I always feel like it’s pretty separate from writing in English—like my analytical stuff—it’s just way different from my writing. It’s really just my voice, like even if I’m writing for a guy or like somebody else. And English is like, cold, boring.

INTERVIEWER That makes sense. We focus on literary analysis, versus like, “how do you structure a story?

How do you bring all these different elements in?” So, do you want to do NaNoWriMo this year?

It’s right around the corner.

RAMESH I’m planning on it. I don’t have a story outline, but this weekend I’ll make an outline. With, like, college apps, I think I’m half done, like I finished all of them up through November, so i can catch up in December.

INTERVIEWER So, moving forward, what are your goals as a writer? I know you said you don’t want to do, like, an English major, but do you want to enter any contests or keep writing for you?

RAMESH Um, I don’t know. I haven’t entered any contests because I like writing long novel things, and usually it’s like short stories for a writing competition. But I like doing it, I want to keep doing it, maybe just trying to write an actual book to really publish. Like, as an actual good one. Like a real thing. I felt like [Of Penitence and Sin] wasn’t a real one, [since] it was self published.

INTERVIEWER What about writing in college? Or have you just not thought about it yet?

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campo review ‘16 RAMESH I think I’m going to keep doing NaNoWriMo. It’s like, you can do it all year long, if you don’t do the November one, and you can change your word count. I was hoping, if I went to a liberal arts college, to get like a English minor, so I could take classes to get better at it while doing, like, a science major. It was fun. I don’t want to stop doing it, but time— INTERVIEWER Yeah. In some ways it’s good because you have stuff to draw from as a writer, but you also need time to write that stuff down.

RAMESH Yeah. If you’re so stressed, everything I write is really angry.

INTERVIEWER And moving forward as a writer, do you want to focus on developing anything specifically?

RAMESH Most of it is about my experience. I guess being in high school, but also people around me, relationships, like people I see around me. It almost felt weird because when you write about things you’re not familiar with it starts sounding cliche and bad. I don’t know, an authentic feel of what I’ve seen.

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the story of a writer by athya uthayakumar (from “the word”) We discover a new world and we learn to put it on paper.

(And it’s fun, to put it plainly. No metaphors needed.)

We write (the way grammar tells us to) and we consume.

We hit ice at different times.

Paper is not something to burn, So we eat it inside out and Somehow loneliness is the warmest thing.

Somehow the fractals cracking into morning Under our eyes And into our coffee Tell us it's okay to Want to understand the world when it changes.

And maybe it gets out there.

Parental pride gleams on the leaves as you walk out to the one review on Amazon.

Selection from the whole rain forest— “Good afternoon read” and maybe There's a glow. The spiders come in the night. Sunlit webs in the morning and now there's a sliver of “thank you”!

Of course, there is regret, in the manner that regret regrets. What a shame— And yet what progress!

No plan.

We are young.

We keep going.

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an emotion that fits an interview with hannah eberhardt by elena koskin INTERVIEWER What kind of art do you create?

HANNAH EBERHARDT I mainly do graphite sketches of characters or settings. I also enjoy illustration and am learning digital art.

INTERVIEWER How often do you create?

EBERHARDT I sketch everyday. Even if it's never going to be a finished piece, I’ve made it my goal to draw a little bit each day and see how much I can improve.

INTERVIEWER What is your favorite thing to create?

EBERHARDT I love character design. Creating people and giving them unique personalities and styles is one of my favorite things to do.

INTERVIEWER Why is art so special to you?

EBERHARDT Art is a way to express myself and show the cool things I dream up. It's comforting to me and has a special place in my heart, as it constantly challenges me and pushes me to be better and to learn.

INTERVIEWER What sort of feelings do you experience/ what do you think about when you create art?

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campo review ‘16 EBERHARDT Sometimes my mind wanders when I’m drawing and other times I just lose myself in the piece.

Creating things is the way I relax and I am usually happy or filled with an emotion that fits the piece I’m making.

INTERVIEWER What inspires you to create art?

EBERHARDT Everything. Nature, architecture, people, music, anything that is unique and stands out influences me. Usually I don't need to be inspired to draw or sketch, but when I’m starting on a final work, I need some sort of inspiration or definite theme.

INTERVIEWER What is your biggest influence in your creations/ who or what has had the biggest effect on your art?

EBERHARDT My mom is the one who originally inspired me to draw. I saw her sketches when I was little and wanted to do that. Currently, I draw inspiration from illustrators and concept artists, many working for Disney or Pixar.

INTERVIEWER How has art become a part of your personality/character?

EBERHARDT Without art, I would be lost. I can't imagine doing anything else with my life. I have become devoted to improving and learning new things. I've given up my weekends and school nights to pursue what I love. It has helped shape who I am today by being an outlet for me to express myself with. By creating art I've learned so many things about myself and strive to continuously improve.

INTERVIEWER What sort of a future in art do you see for yourself?

EBERHARDT I definitely want to go to art school. My goal is to be a concept artist who designs characters, settings, and the beginnings of movies for Disney or another movie studio. I want to make people happy and bring joy to people's lives with what I create.

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share the figures by elena koshkin (from “an emotion that fits”) At 3 A.M. I sit, by dim lamplight, sketching, Finishing the piece I’ve been working on all day.

A figure appears before me, But I know I’m not dreaming— My imagination superimposes real life, Enthralling in its exquisiteness, A pulchritude never before seen like this.

Lost in the realm of invention, My thoughts are no longer on the sketch, Drifting into a sort of tranquility, Leading me to dream of every possibility Of what shape or form my art can embody today.

Amidst the confusion, the rapid bustle of the world, A sparkling serenity engulfs me…

Captivating.

An enigmatic wonder, A genuine curiosity for the quantified limit Of how great my art can truly be; A thirst for vivid colors, For defined lines, For shading, blurring, erasing, A constant drive to create, To share the figures, the depth and the beauty, To show them the world I see in my head...

And so I sit there sketching— And though it might be 3 A.M, in my mind it’s a revolution of color, the end of a new piece of art: Totally worth not going to bed.

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potential an interview and a response with kevin deng by brigitte jia The first time I sit down to write about the theme for this edition, identity, I am at a loss. I cannot find a subject; I do not know what to write about. As adolescents we try to add extracurricular activities to our list of accomplishments like parents packing for a road trip— stick everything in there and sort through what you need afterwards—and we spread ourselves so thin that we often cannot identify who we are afterwards.

But when I am glaring hard, devoid of ideas, at my blank Google Doc I realize that there is someone in my generation who has an excellent grasp on the way his extracurricular involvement shapes his person. Kevin is a prominent member of the parliamentary debate circuit in California and Oregon. With experience in winning (!) tournaments and access to a thriving circle of advanced thinkers, I think to myself, he must find enough debate influence on his identity to tell someone about the effects of it. Hoping that perhaps as an established member of the high school debate community he might be able to tell me about debate’s impact on his character, I inquire as to whether he is interested in being interviewed on the subject of his debate identity.

He agrees. In typical millennial fashion we conduct our interview through Facebook messenger, and I realize the extent to which debate, an EC that has often been used to beautify college resumes instead of intelligence, influences who he is as a person.

INTERVIEWER I ask him how it all began.

KEVIN DENG “I just wanted to try my potential,” he responds. “I remember that one of my friends brought me into the activity at the beginning of my freshman year. Now debate is an important part of my life.”

INTERVIEWER I ask him what he has gleaned from the activity.

DENG “I feel that debate,” he states simply, “not only provides me with an educational experience in a competitive setting but also shapes my orientation towards society.”

I am in deep thought for a moment; the statement is profound and to me it depicts a refusal to commodify debate as yet another resume-filling extracurricular. Then I scroll down through Facebook messenger to keep up with the conversation. “I definitely believe that the critical thinking process is an important takeaway,” Kevin says, as if the sentence preceding it hasn’t just blown my mind.

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campo review ‘16 INTERVIEWER I ask him about the debate community and the role it plays in influencing his identity.

DENG Kevin writes back that the debate community is “very progressive and inclusive, and accordingly the community functions on the interconnection of the debaters - young and old, novice and varsity.”

“Part of debate,” he tells me, “is collaborating with the same people in order to achieve certain goals, but I also value working with others with whom I may not have ever worked before.”

INTERVIEWER I inquire after the possibility of a debate-less life.

DENG “Honestly,” he says, “it’s difficult to imagine a life without debate because the activity always has a strong role in my perspective. Life without debate would be like living with a veil over my eyes; I would still be able to experience life, but would not be able to distinguish all of the intricacies in what makes society so special.”

Afterwards, I thank him with two emojis, three exclamation marks, a modern slang phrase for the word “perfect”—and I exit the conversation with a full and crystal-clear understanding of the influence that debate and the debate community have had on Kevin’s identity and his view of the world. It is amazing to me that an extracurricular that most would simply glide through superficially and then write in on a college application is in reality a thought-changer; I sit for a full hour at my desk before I can comprehend the intensity of the activity and just how tied it is to Kevin’s sense of self.

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traffic lights, a PhD in bubbles, and other notes on getting from A to B an interview with petro petreas by alexandra reinecke INTERVIEWER I’ve heard you talk about the solving of a math problem as a game or puzzle. How would you explain this perspective or approach you have to problem-solving in math?

PETRO PETREAS I think the simple answer is, you know, there’s a starting point and an ending point and it’s kind of like—I don’t know about a maze—but you’ve gotta get from here to there, and sometimes you have different options, different routes, or whatever. There’s a beginning and an end, you know.

I guess there’s a right way to get there, there’s maybe optional ways to get there, there’s definitely like wrong ways to get there, so, one thing I like about that is that it’s kinda very black and white, so, you gotta get from here to there and make it happen.

INTERVIEWER Can you briefly explain your first experience in which you enjoyed mathematics or in which you recognized your skill or talent for it?

PETREAS Growing up, I was always just kinda good at math, I mean I’m not like great at math or anything, but I was good at it, it was one of my stronger subjects, I don’t know if I ever had a realization that, like, I was better than most people, other than the fact that as a freshman—I didn’t even know what was going on—they put me in honors geometry, so I guess my eighth grade teachers, I don’t really even know how that happened. So when I was in honors geometry, I was like ‘Okay, I guess not everyone takes honors geometry,’ it wasn’t like—I’m not any sort of math prodigy, or you know, gifted child or anything like that. I think I’ve always sort of enjoyed doing stuff because, it’s not like I love math or I love numbers necessarily, but I wouldn’t mind having 88

campo review ‘16 to do a homework assignment on math problems whereas like, oh, write an essay on this, I’d much more dread that kind of thing.

INTERVIEWER In your own personal experience, have you found that a positive association with math is due to an inherent or understanding of it, and do you think that a skill in math is a God-given talent or something you can acquire?

PETREAS I think it’s a combination, but I do think there is an element of that some people just aren’t very good at math. Not that they can’t be good, but generally, like a sport, not everyone can be really good at all sports or whatever. I do think it’s a combination—I also think it takes a, work ethic isn’t the right word, but having the desire to want to get from that A to B kind of thing is sort of a personality issue, I suppose. I’m sure--I know just from teaching students—that some things click faster for some than for others and they’ve all had, like relatively the same math education, so I think there’s definitely some inherent ability that, it’s not that you already know how to do stuff, but like, you see it once and you get it. Some people pick it up much faster. Others have to really struggle and do a lot of problems to get to the same level. I don’t know if that’s good, but there definitely is an element of that.

INTERVIEWER What did math mean to you as a child and how did your interaction with math change as you grew older or how did it remain a constant in your life?

PETREAS I mean, I guess it’s the same with other subjects, but ever since you are in kindergarten you are doing math at every year in school, so, whatever level it is, you’re doing math every year in school, you go to college, you’re gonna take some math for sure. I have always taken a math class at all times, in my education, I have never not taken a math class. It was always sort of there. Even though I didn’t mind doing the work, it wasn’t like ‘oh, yeah, I get to do my math homework now,’ it was like, ‘I have to do my homework, and I don’t mind doing the math homework,’ you know. It was something I was always doing. I didn’t mind doing it.

What did it mean to me? Again, like I felt like we would learn things and I would be like, ‘oh, that’s kind of cool,’ like, it’s not that I really cared, but I would see, ‘oh, this was something kind of interesting.’ We were learning new techniques or new patterns or new things all the time.

INTERVIEWER So you would describe it as more of your favorite class at school than as a passion.

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campo review ‘16 PETREAS I don’t think I have like a lifelong passion for math. I’m sorry to disappoint you on that.

INTERVIEWER Okay.

PETREAS Yeah. And part of it was that I was good at it, part of it was just that—those things just kind of go hand in hand, I mean, if you’re good at something you’re probably more likely to enjoy it, but maybe the fact that that you enjoy it makes you want to be good at it. I don’t know.

INTERVIEWER I have a friend who’s one of your current calc-BC students who has described to me a recent frustration with math. She feels that she’s always understood math but that she’s reached a point where it’s frustrating because she doesn’t inherently understand things as easily. Was there a point in your math career where you similarly struggled or where it became less easy for you?

PETREAS (Strongly) Definitely. In college I took some calculus, which, I mean it was fine, I guess. The first class it was at the end of my first year of college, or maybe the beginning of the second year and it was called Vector Analysis, or whatever, and it was really hard. And like, I did fine with it, but I didn’t really like, understand anything, but the real whammy was, in my second year of college, there was this class called Real Analysis, it’s the only C I’ve ever gotten in my life, it’s basically doing calculus but like only doing proofs of things. It’s like take geometry, proving theorems and things like that but doing it with calculus.

And I remember I was just—I had no idea what was going on. I remember being like, I pick things up fairly quickly, not easily, but barely easily, and like, I’m not getting this at all. Like regular calculus, but the way they’re doing this, it was too abstract for me, doing these proofs. I remember I was like—and I had to take that class, and I had two take two semesters of it actually, two quarters, and it was, somehow I got a C the first quarter, and I think I got a B- the second quarter but it doesn’t mean I understood more or whatever. Yeah. Those two classes were, were brutal. Because again, I didn’t really feel like I knew what was going on and I didn’t enjoy them. I don’t mind struggling a little if I know I’m going to be able to figure it out, but these were like, I was over my head and I wasn’t getting it. I wasn’t making any progress. It was like, ‘I just need to get through this, because I don’t know what’s going on.’

So yes, I have definitely felt that kind of thing where you’re chugging along just fine and then all of a sudden you’re doing this topic, and then it’s just like ‘No. I am not getting this.’ Maybe I didn’t put in enough extra work, I suppose, I probably should have, but I never figured those 90

campo review ‘16 classes out. Yes. It was very frustrating and like ‘Alright, great. I need to pass. I understand that this is a gap, or a flaw in my mathematical ability, that’s fine with me, but I need to like pass because it’s brutal.’

INTERVIEWER Many students struggle with math. Were there other things during your high school or college careers which played the role math does for many?

PETREAS Uh, yes. I mean, I was more of a math science kind of person, and even though I liked English class, I like, writing slash explaining and putting together essays, things like that, I was never that good at, and even when I put in a lot of time I felt like, like I had some ideas, and I knew, this is what I want to write about, actually writing it, it just didn’t come out. It always seemed a lot better in my head. It wouldn’t come out right, or it wouldn’t come out as good. Yeah, writing essays was always kind of this big, you had to do it all the time or whatever, both college and high school, and again, it wasn’t necessarily that I didn’t like to do it that much, like I was interested in what we were writing about, but I had trouble going from I think I have an idea, a thesis. I remember thinking how I was excited to write this essay, but then I’d start writing and I’d feel like, I really don’t know what to write here, or I thought I had more evidence, or, it’s just sounded better in my head, kind of, and it’s not coming through. I can see how a math student, it kind of makes sense, but then when they’re actually trying to do it, they can’t do it, and I can see that being a similar parallel.

INTERVIEWER How do you feel about the attitudes most of your students or others around you have towards math, and would you describe them as positive or negative?

PETREAS I mean, it definitely depends on the person. I remember hearing a long time ago or whatever that there was some study that, like, most kids in elementary school would say their favorite class was math, but then like, once you go to high school, they’d say their least-favorite class was math. It’s like somewhere there’s some switch. I understand why people might not like math, I think most of it’s probably because we don’t do a good job of showing applications, or why you would care, and I guess what’s important is that that never was important to me. It’s not that I didn’t care how we were gonna use things, it’s not like I never thought about that, but, like, it didn’t really matter to me that I wasn’t going to use it.

But I can see how some people would be like this isn’t interesting to me because I’m never gonna use it or I don’t care why do I need to do it, whereas I was like, alright, this is interesting, I know I’m never gonna use it, but I find this kind of interesting. I can see how if you’ve 91

campo review ‘16 struggled, if you haven’t done well, of course that’s gonna make you like it less. So I’m not surprised, I’m not offended when people come in and don’t like it. I would hope that when I show them something that’s—granted, you’re solving a math problem—but when we do it in kind of an interesting, or cool way, that maybe they’d be kind of like, ‘oh.’ That’s what I’m going for, if they’d be like, ‘okay, that’s kind of interesting, like great, I can move on with my life now, but, yes, that was sort of interesting. I may never do that again, but that was sort of interesting for kinda just what it was.’

But I don’t know why the attitude’s changed. Yeah. There’re a lot more people who don’t seem to like math, maybe because it gets harder, maybe because you have to start memorizing stuff in middle school, I don’t know why it is, but it’s definitely a change between little kids and older kids. And adults, whenever I talk to people they’re like ‘what do you do,’ and I’m like, ‘I teach,’ and they ask what class, so I’m like, ‘oh, I teach math.’ They’re always like ‘oh, I was terrible at math,’ or, ‘I hated math in high school.’ That’s like everyone. Everyone says that, you know. It’s kinda depressing, it’s kinda sad that most people didn’t like that subject, but it is true. I don’t really know how to change people’s minds, but I would like to think maybe if I’m interested in what we’re doing then it will kind of rub off on some of the students.

INTERVIEWER Do you think that part of the aversion to math is due to its black-and-white nature? Because there’s less room for PETREAS Maybe. Maybe. Again, it’s not like—yeah, I mean, I guess. It’s hard to compare to like a history or a discussion or something like that, but science, that’s generally black-and-white also. I mean, on the other hand, it’s hard for me to understand why someone would be turned off just because you’ve gotta do it this way, like, alright, so just learn it that way. I’m not saying it’s easier, but, that’s what you do. You just do it that way, so— INTERVIEWER I guess for people whom math is less inherent.

PETREAS I’ll let you be the representative.

INTERVIEWER I know, from personal experience, that I would much rather get a question on an Honors English test where I don’t know what the answer is than face the same situation on a math test. Maybe I’m just—

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campo review ‘16 PETREAS So you’d rather, more like explain?

INTERVIEWER I feel like there’s more room to make up an answer, but because in math there’s only one right answer, unless you kind of know how to do it— PETREAS True. There’s only one right answer, but you’ve got access to all these tools you can use, theoretically. Like, you know what’s gonna be on the test, but theoretically you have all these tools that you have access to. Like, here are all my problem-solving tools, and here’s this problem, like, let me apply the right one. Like when you look at the English prompt, you’re like, I’ve read all these texts, I know all these thoughts, let me apply them, let me see which one. I think you could argue that it’s sort of a similar process. Mine is more kind of nuts and bolts.

Sometimes you could be critical and say, well you could just say whatever you want, but it’s hard to say who’s right or wrong, I guess, but as long as you justify your answer or whatever, it’s fine. I would see that as somewhat of a parallel to what you can do in solving a problem in different ways as long as you’re using the same background. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s the same. But I do think there are some similarities there.

INTERVIEWER When you were younger, when you were faced with problems you didn’t understand, were you able to just approach them and try and go about them different ways? Like when you were in English or history class, did you ever have that feeling of that you just didn’t understand?

PETREAS With English and history it wasn’t that I didn’t understand stuff, like I would read a textbook, or a passage, and I just wouldn’t get those like, ‘what is it trying to say’ questions. Like the deeper, the implied stuff was harder for me to pick up. Like I don’t know how you teach that, other than looking at a bunch of examples. Somebody saying, like—I noticed your Great Gatsby sticker— like, why do these colors mean this things? And how does this represent that? I had a hard time getting that on my own, I suppose. In general, I’m kinda lazy (laughing), I guess, so if I had trouble with something I would just stop or whatever, but I was really good about, if I was told the answer, I would remember that, and that would be fine. I learn pretty well by seeing other people’s work, or, when I put out the answer keys—because for me, that’s really helpful— like I can look at the answer key, and be like, ‘oh, okay, that’s how you do it.’

INTERVIEWER So you’re basically arguing that you could go about a math problem different ways the way you could go about an English problem in different ways.

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PETREAS I don’t think it’s a full parallel, there’s more open-endedness to an English thing, for sure, but yeah, generally. Sure. I mean, we don’t do a good job also of like, alright, the problem is we’re gonna build this house or something and now you need geometry, or angles. It’d be more interesting if you could do these giant things that incorporate different things that we’ve learned, whereas we do it very old-fashioned, like we’re gonna learn this, and we learn this and this and, this goes back to how we don’t apply things, in general. I mean, we learned law of cosines. You don’t apply that to something, you kind of just do the thing on the test, like ‘okay, do law of cosines.’ It’s pretty straightforward. It’s hard to compare an essay prompt to a specific math problem, but if it was a math application that involves different types of math, then, like, then I think yeah, you can approach it in different ways.

INTERVIEWER So how if you’re given a quadratic equation you could use the quadratic equation, or you could factor it, you mean there are different approaches?

PETREAS Yeah. I mean, you can solve a quadratic equation a lot of different ways. You can use the quadratic formula. You can factor. You can complete the square. You can go to your calculator to graph it and cheat. There are different options. Generally, yes, it’s typically pretty black-andwhite, there’s a right answer wrong answer, but, like, the identities, I have to grade your tests, people did them a lot of different ways. You can do identities very differently. A lot of people did them way different than I would do them, but it’s like, yeah, you can do that. That doesn’t happen all the time, but it does happen sometimes, probably not to the same extent. But it does happen sometimes, which allows for more creativity, which to me was never important. I don’t care about creativity, I guess. I was never very creative. But I would say there is some element, yeah.

INTERVIEWER If you had to make an argument or a case for math, what would you say, and what meaning or beauty do you find in it you think others might miss?

PETREAS There are always those people who say ‘We all use math everyday.’ I think the bottom line is that math and physics, right, are the foundation of the world or whatever. There is, I’m sure, like inherent beauty, like, you know, I’m not like one of those kind of guys, but I mean, the argument is just that it’s used in everything. It’s kind of a cop-out, like everything uses math. The streetlights out there are times by using math. It’s everywhere. You don’t see it, necessarily, but 94

campo review ‘16 it’s out there, it’s gotta be there, and people’ve gotta know because people need to design these things.

You know, I always admit that a lot of the stuff we learn you’re not gonna use in real life but it’s true, people are gonna use them and people are gonna benefit from that and I’m not trying to say that something’s more important than the other, but if you don’t understand what The Great Gatsby is telling you, like yeah, you miss something in your life but you can still live your life, whereas if you had like no math our lives would be totally different. I just think it’s very fundamental and important in everyday things we all use and we just don’t recognize those things.

INTERVIEWER Do you think the binary or objective nature of math is part of its appeal or is that what scares people?

PETREAS It definitely depends on the person. It’s really procedural. That’s good for me, like, I’m a man of routine, I like to do things the same way every time or whatever, like, alright, here are the steps you go through, you follow the steps. The problem with that is—I like that—but the problem with that is, for other people, you A, have to recognize what kind of problem it is, when to apply which procedures, and that can be difficult. But yeah, for me—for me, you just do what you’ve gotta do. You just follow the steps.

The problem for other people, it’s not that they can’t do it, it’s that thing about knowing which kind of problem is it, what kind of procedure do you need. Like, is now a good time to do the quadratic formula? Knowing when to use those tools is important. We all have those tools, but it’s a matter of—it might be hard to know when to use the tool whereas if we said, oh, do it this way, do it that way, they’d be fine. I can see how for the average person it might be tough to just, mostly just the recognition of when to do what and knowing when to apply the knowledge they have. And maybe, you know, that’s my fault, our fault, for not explaining it well enough, but I can see how that can be a good thing and a bad thing that our skills are very procedural and stepby-step, but I see how it can be hard to pick that up and to know where to go, I guess.

INTERVIEWER The mathematician Paul Erdos once said, of mathematics, “Why are numbers beautiful? It’s like asking why is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony beautiful. If you don’t see why, someone can’t tell you. I know numbers are beautiful and if they aren’t beautiful, nothing is.” Do you believe what he is saying about not being able to see the beauty in math unless you inherently understand it?

And why or why not?

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campo review ‘16 PETREAS I don’t think you need to understand it, no. You look at the Voodoo Method of factoring and you don’t know what’s going on but it still works, it’s not like it’s beautiful, but it works out even though you don’t understand what’s going on. A lot of like patterns, like the number nine, you know, where you’ve got the multiples, the digits always add up to nine, the whole nine times three is twenty-seven (folding his fingers), that kind of stuff, you know. People don’t understand why that works but that’s kind of cool. There’s a lot of patterns and fractals, which are like these crazy designs, like M.C. Escher paintings, or drawings or whatever. There’s a lot of cool stuff I don’t think you need to know why that’s true or why it is, or how it works or whatever, again, I’m not the kind of guy that’s gonna be like ‘this is so beautiful.’

That’s a great quote, I just don’t have enough emotion to say that kind of stuff, but I do think--so sorry, I don’t think you need to understand why it is beautiful, but I think there, yes, there should be some recognition that there is some beauty in there. I think that would vary by degree of how much you are about these things, but there’s clearly, no one can say there’s nothing interesting about math, maybe they just haven’t seen it, but there’s definitely some interesting stuff like, how interesting, it varies, and do you understand why it’s interesting doesn’t really matter, there is interesting stuff out there.

INTERVIEWER In terms of nature, or in patterns connecting to real life applications, what are some examples of beauty or meaning that you have discovered?

PETREAS Beauty, just—fractals. If you Google fractals, what’s it called, Sierpinski’s triangle, these crazy designs made on a simple interaction you do over and over again, like they can make really beautiful artwork, that’s mathematically based or whatever, that’s the only thing where I’ve ever thought ‘that’s really beautiful’ or whatever, if I was ever going to say that. But sadly, that’s just a flaw of my own personality, it doesn’t really matter to me if it’s that beautiful or not. I don’t know. Just like solving an equation, it’s interesting, I’m not like super excited about it. All math is somewhat interesting, some things are just a lot cooler, but really beautiful, I don’t know if I have any good examples of that.

INTERVIEWER Can you briefly tell the story of your greatest challenge or most difficult experience in mathematics, and how did you persevere or conquer the challenge?

PETREAS Sure. I don’t know if I’ve told this to the class or not, but I took a Real Analysis class in college and we had a mid-term. So I knew the whole grade was that the mid-term was 40% of the grade 96

campo review ‘16 and the final was 60% of the grade. Or it was 50/50. Something like that. And that was the whole thing. So, he told us, you know, like the mid-term’s coming up, you’re gonna get one week, you get ten questions, one week, it’s take-home, whatever. You have one week. And so he gives us the questions and I’m like alright so I suck at this class, I need to do well on this, I’d never do this, and I was like I’m gonna start on the first day. Like, I would never do that. So I started, I read through the questions or whatever, and the way I remember it, there were ten questions and two or three of them, you know, I could do, no problem. Two or three of them, you know, I knew it was saying, I definitely didn’t know the answers but like maybe could figure something out, I don’t know. Then there were two or three that, like I understand what it’s saying but I have no idea how I’m going to approach this, and then there were two or three where I was like I don’t even have any idea what’s even going on here. I have no understanding of what this question’s even asking me.

And he told me, our professor, he totally said, you know, you get a week, like you can’t use the internet, you can’t talk to each other, it’s a mid-term. So, I was like I need to do well on this, so the first day I actually went and tried a bunch of them, came up with whatever. The second day I was like I’m totally going to cheat and I went online and tried to look for stuff. I asked this other friend of mine, but unfortunately, he was the only other person I knew in the class but he was equally as good at math as I was or whatever. So I totally like tried to cheat and I didn’t get anywhere and so I definitely struggled the next five days or whatever it was.

I guess it got a little better, but I never was able to—definitely half the questions, I know I got wrong, like for sure, half the questions, some of which because I didn’t understand what was going on. And, yeah, again, somehow I ended up with a C in the class, which, uh, to me was kind of a victory. I don’t know how, if he graded stuff easily or—I don’t know what happened because I don’t think I deserved that C, because I felt like I did not know what was going on. So yes, that was the worst mathematical experience of my life.

INTERVIEWER Have you had any formative or exceptional interactions with math? Were there any interactions with math which shaped or catalyzed your career?

PETREAS I think one of the most interesting things I ever did in math was I took a class in college on knot theory, like knots, like string or whatever, which sounds really stupid, but I don’t know, maybe that sounds really stupid, maybe it sounds really interesting. I remember seeing it and being like, that’s really interesting. Clearly that’s not gonna matter to me in my real life, like how knots work, but that’s really interesting: people have taken knots and made it into math. And I remember, I still remember there was this one day where we did this stuff where the way he broke it down was, okay, like, we look at these different knots, and based on—you could make 97

campo review ‘16 them into a polynomial, right, like, whatever, whatever. Each knot had a different polynomial and if it that polynomial was factorable then you could untie the knot, like by pulling one side, but if it was not factorable, you could not untie the knot. And I just remember being like wow, I mean, again, I’ve never used this in my real life, but that’s wow, I mean, that’s crazy. We spent like high school solving polynomials, quadratic formula blah blah blah and like if it’s factorable and if it’s not you have to use the quadratic formula, imaginary roots or whatever, and it was like wow, they’re applying this to knots, and that doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with anything, but it was just like, wow: that is a completely useless but really interesting, to me, really interesting application that I never would have thought of, I never would have understood, and just like, that was really cool. Things like that. The people—people research, I’m not saying I would want to do this, but some people research knot. That’s what they do. They study knots.

Like, I don’t want to do that, but that blows my mind. Like I have this friend—a good friend of mine—who went to Campo, and he became a math major, he got his PhD or whatever, and he researched bubbles, and that was his thing, the study of bubbles and like, what stuff should you put in the soap to make them stronger, or how big will they get, are they spherical, what if you put a bubble into another liquid? It’s like, wow, again, like I don’t really care about that, but I find that really, that sounds like interesting stuff, and you can apply like the math that we have used in high school to things like that that you’d never understand. I think that’s just really cool, I mean. And I’m the kind of guy, I was never going to be a math researcher, I wasn’t gonna make my own discoveries, but it was interesting to me to hear things that other people had done.

And again, what am I gonna do with that? Like nothing. But that blew my mind and that kind of stuff was really interesting to me.

INTERVIEWER Okay.

PETREAS I feel really embarrassed. I feel like people are judging me for saying that right now. Anyways.

INTERVIEWER If you had to sum up math in one word or phrase, how would you do it?

PETREAS I don’t have a good answer for this. Maybe it’s—I can’t help to think back to it’s necessary, but we don’t necessarily see it, right? So, I mean, I think math is an essential part of life but not everyone realizes or I guess technically needs to—it’s an essential part of life that people are doing for us, kind of. It kind of gets taken for granted, I guess. I don’t know if that was a word or a phrase but—

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campo review ‘16 INTERVIEWER That’s good.

PETREAS I don’t know if I can answer that question.

INTERVIEWER Among those you’ve observed who are skilled in math, are there any habits or traits that you’ve found exclusive to that group? Are there any activities or personal preferences you’ve found definitive of those who are so-called ‘math people’?

PETREAS I think it helps to be methodical, to be like good at following routines, you know. Careful, not making small dumb mistakes or whatever. A lot of the kids who come through here who are like exceptional at math, they just don’t make dumb mistakes. That just doesn’t happen. Their handwriting is like really nice, you know, and they just go from one thing to the next, no problem. I think that’s hard to teach, because that’s more of a personality thing. I think people learn in different ways. The math people versus the non-math people or whatever, like some people learn by just doing a lot of problems. Like, oh, I didn’t get that, let me just do ten more of these until I get it down, you know. Others, you know, are more just like, oh, let me see you do it, or see you do it, answer key or whatever, and then like, I can kind of apply it to my own thing.

People learn in different ways. We know that for sure. Some learning modes are just more conducive, I think, to that math thing, those math problems. So if you are methodical and you can follow procedures well, and you don’t make dumb mistakes, as long as you’ve kind of seen how problems work, then hopefully you can replicate that, I guess. It sounds kind of lame, but basically you are just replicating what you’ve done earlier. In English, like you read some books and then you come up with your own ideas, hopefully. In math, you see a bunch of problems, and then you do the same kind of problems on your own, like on the test, or you do ones that are similar, similarly-based, that you kind of apply stuff from there. So I think that, yeah, the people who are better at like, not just following the procedures, but like seeing what the problem is asking, being able to apply it, that’s definitely an advantage and if you can’t do that, that’s gonna make you less of a math person.

INTERVIEWER Could you describe, briefly, your favorite part of math?

PETREAS For my own—

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campo review ‘16 INTERVIEWER For your own experience. Let’s just say you’re doing math. What makes you happy about doing math?

PETREAS (Laughing).

INTERVIEWER Something had to make you decide ‘I want to do math for my job.’

PETREAS Well, that’s different. I mean, I became a math major in college mostly because I thought it would be an easy major. And I don’t say that to sound, like, super smart, because I’m not, but I was like, okay, let’s see, I’ll be a math major because you can take pretty much any math class you want, within the math department they offered different classes, like I took that knot theory class. There were a few you had to take, like the Real Analysis, which was terrible but then you could take whatever you wanted, so you’d take things that you thought were interesting. It was, you have to take a total of this many classes. So, for me, I need to be able to do them. If I can’t do the problem, I don’t find that enjoyable. Struggling through, maybe a little bit is okay, but I don’t find that necessarily enjoyable because I’m, like lazy and stuff. To me, this is gonna sound really dumb, but I do kind of enjoy just working it out. I like knowing at the end, like, ‘you got the answer.’ When I’m making your guys’ answer keys, I kind of (laughing) enjoy, making the answer keys because, it’s just like, you’ve got the problem and you’re showing that it can be done, and there you go. I don’t know. It’s not like it’s that rewarding to me, but I—it’s embarrassing, yes, that I do enjoy doing math problems.

INTERVIEWER In terms of majoring in math, could you talk a little bit about your experience as a math major?

How is that math different than how math is in a classroom setting in high school?

PETREAS It definitely, there’s more, once you get to the harder math classes that only math majors would take, I mean, they’re harder, obviously, but you’re interested in them. The best thing is that there’s more freedom in what you take. If you’re gonna be an engineering major, computer science, like, they tell you you have to take all these different classes, whereas for us it is more like, you have to take a few required ones, but it’s more like you take whatever you want, which I always thought was nice and which also let me take some classes outside the math department which were just strictly out of interest, because it wasn’t super overwhelming and so on. The downside, I guess, is that you’re taking—I think I was taking two math classes a quarter or whatever, so six in a year. Basically you’re taking two different math classes at once and some 100

campo review ‘16 people here take Stat and Calculus at the same time, but generally you only have one kind of math. So, you’ve gotta be able to, you’ve gotta want to do math problems, obviously, but you’ve also gotta be able to do things separately and be able to—it’s kinda like taking Geometry and Algebra II at the same time. They’re totally different, they’re both math, but they’re like totally different classes, and you kind of have to separate the two while you’re doing them, which, I can see that being a bad, or a hard thing for people, but again, if you’re kind of interested, then why not? I also did it because I was gonna say, like, oh, I’ll graduate as a math major and it’ll be on my resume and it’ll make it sound like I’m a reasonably smart person who can deal with numbers and who can probably be well-trained, who you can easily train to do stuff. Like, if you can learn to do these harder math classes, you can probably learn to like do the average job, or something like that. I don’t know. I just felt like that shows people, alright, he’s, I already said, like a reasonably smart guy who can do stuff that involves numbers and a lot of jobs involve numbers.

INTERVIEWER If you could impart one piece of advice to the mathematically-challenged individual in dealing with math, what would it be?

PETREAS I mean, if you’re challenged, you need to get some help, obviously. But like, I think you figure out kind of what help works for you, you know. Like is it ‘I need to do more practice problems’?

Like, I assigned five, but I need ten more. Is it more, you need to see them worked out? Is it more you need to see a similar problem and then you need to practice applying it? A lot of people, I mean, I get it, math class is not the most important thing, but a lot of people, they get their tests back, they look at the score, they kind of see what they did wrong, but they don’t try to figure out why they got the problems wrong. And it’s fine if you don’t really care, I guess, but I mean, if you want to get better at it, like, I would think that you’d want to figure out what you did wrong. Not just for that you don’t want to repeat your mistakes, but more so so that you’d learn something about a different topic. Like if you make a little mistake on one thing, you might make a similar mistake elsewhere, you’d think you’d want to learn from it. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you’re having trouble, like, that’s natural, get help, but like figure out what works the best. Like is it coming to ask me, is it asking your friend, is it looking online, is it watching videos online, is it watching people work problems out? There’re different ways to get help, and a lot of people A, don’t get help, but a lot of people, like, maybe they’re getting help in the wrong way. Sometimes people do a bunch of problems and they do, like ten of the same problems, and they do them all wrong, so you’re like, okay, that’s good that you practiced all these problems, but you’re doing them wrong. That’s not helping anything. I don’t know. Seek the appropriate help that works for your personality or learning style, and do it early enough.

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campo review ‘16 INTERVIEWER What advice would you give to someone who’s more ‘math-minded,’ such as you are, in a class like English or history?

PETREAS I guess it’s just kind of how some math students have to put in more time and effort, and that’s not really fair, that’s just how it is, like I might have to read a passage or a text or whatever more than once to really get it as deeply as you’re supposed to get it, you know. What advice do I have? I mean, sometimes you can, I’m trying to think of how your math can always be applied. I mean, I’m not a great writer, but I have the Campolindo education, like, they taught us how to write, how to put together an essay—do you guys still have the manuscript form? Like manuscript form. Basically, it’s like: here is you procedure. Yes, you can write whatever you want in the middle, just like when you’re doing math, you can put any numbers in the middle, but like, you’ve got an outline of what you’re supposed to do, you’ve got a starting point, you know what the ending point. You can apply some parallels of, you know, here are your rules, here are your tools, here’s what you’ve read. Think of it that way. It’s not about getting to the answer, but it’s like using what you’ve learned and putting it together in this way that you’re trying to get to that answer at the end. So I don’t know. What’s the advice? Look for the stuff that’s good for math, the procedural stuff, the being methodical, attention to detail, and try to see how you can apply that to these, like, abstract, kind of like bigger concepts. Try if you can break it down instead of like, what is the theme of this poem? Whatever that means. Like let’s break it down. What are some of the things that it’s saying, what are some of the devices that are used.

Use the mathematical techniques or tools in the more abstract way.

INTERVIEWER Have you found, I guess you kind of just spoke to this, but that your math problem-solving skills could be interdisciplinary?

PETREAS I mean, kind of, I don’t know. Generally just working with numbers helps you in all your science classes, right, I mean, it helps in—I’m a music guy. It helps in music. Yes, I’d say more just in terms of comfort with numbers, like in chemistry, I remember we were doing balancing equations, you know, and that was just absurdly easy to me, you just do the numbers. Familiarity with numbers, comfort with numbers, I guess a sense of what is reasonable, understanding that the answer can’t be ten, it’s gotta be like a thousand. You can do your problem and see, like, that doesn’t make any sense. Not that we’re always gonna go back and check our answers or whatever, but having a general understanding we can apply to other things, like sciences or whatever. If you’re not comfortable with numbers, you might not notice those things, like moving the decimal place. If you lose a decimal, that’s a really big deal. I’d think, in terms of that, that it would help. Again, in terms of like literature and history and so on, I don’t know if 102

campo review ‘16 numbers really matter. Though, I was always good at economics, you know, that’s basically just math, or like dates. I know a lot of phone numbers. My brain kind of knows numbers. Numbersense and comfort with numbers helps in a lot, not all, but of course in a lot of fields and other things that aren’t necessarily math specifically.

INTERVIEWER Do your activities outside of math connect in any way to math, and what are some of your pastimes?

PETREAS No, not really. I do like to joke and I do like to talk up the myth of me like doing math problems in the evening to unwind or whatever, which is totally not true. (Laughing). I do like playing a bunch of sports, and I could probably give you a bunch of BS about how when I shoot a basketball I’m thinking about parabolas and so on, you mentioned tennis or whatever, or like soccer, I’m thinking about the angles, but that’s totally not true at all. So, no, my mathiness comes through in just the way, in the outside stuff I do I think I’m very logical, I’ve got some of that procedural, methodical stuff. It’s more kind of a way of thinking clear; I think black and white, sort of. In thinking about how you interact with people and stuff. And having those numbers, I don’t know, you’re paying bills or you’re at the restaurant, it’s not that hard for me to calculate a tip. Not because I’m so good at math, I just understand how it works. But I can’t say that I really use math every day in my life, like for pleasure or something. That’s definitely not true.

INTERVIEWER Is there anything you’d like to speak to that we didn’t cover?

PETREAS I thought we were gonna talk some about how I got into teaching, so I would like to talk a little bit to that. So, I didn’t always know I wanted to be a math teacher, let alone at my old high school, but I noticed that my freshman year of college, my really good was friend was not very good at math. I remember helping him with what I considered to be pretty easy math and for him, it was just really overwhelming. He really didn’t like it, and so on. But he always said that you explain it really well, and it’s really clear to me. And I was like, I just taught him to do the math, it’s not that hard. And I kind of forgot about that. But then my second year of college, I, uh, became a grader. So basically they would hire undergrads to grade homeworks for Calculus classes, like the professor’s not gonna grade homework. So that was just to make money or whatever. It wasn’t because I enjoyed grading, I hate grading. But anyways, but then I did that once, and I tried to do it again the next, the end of my second year I tried to do that again, but they’d run out of positions, like there wasn’t a job or whatever and somehow, they were like, but you can be a TA, which basically, the professor teaches the class and the kids break into smaller 103

campo review ‘16 groups, like highschool-sized rooms where they kind of go over the homework or ask the TA questions. The TA doesn’t necessarily teach them, or maybe they do, but that’s not the goal. The goal is like, you learn in class and go to your sections with smaller groups to kind of go over that stuff and get help or turn in homework or whatever. So they were like, you can be a TA for this, it was essentially like Algebra 2-Trig for college students. So I became a TA, and it was crazy, I’m like 19 or whatever, and there’s like adults who are completely clueless in math, you know, so here I am, this 19-year-old college kid helping adults, and other people my age, with what I considered to be really easy, straightforward math. I just mean, I don’t know if I thought it was really rewarding, or whatever, but I was like, ‘this is a good experience.’ I enjoy taking something that I’m really good at, that I don’t have to think about that much, and helping them figure it out, you know, and so then I TA again for a Calculus class, and I did work in this tutoring center one day, and I kind of had this epiphany, because I was teaching, I was helping some kid do, basically, unit circle values. I remember having the connection of, I use the points, or whatever, and so who I had for math, Mr. Eaton, he taught the points, and I never really understood the points, I don’t think, but then I was teaching this kid in college how to do, you know, cosine of three pi over four or something, and I remember it just hit me. I had the realization that, that’s what he meant by the points, like I can see it, the short distance, the middle, the long. I remember just being like, this embarrassing, like wow, that’s really cool, I never understood what he was talking about. I remember teaching the kid and he was like, ‘wow, that really makes a lot of sense,’ and so I was like, I’m good at math, I’m a math major without really knowing what I want to do with that, and this is kind of interesting to me. So I took some education courses, and I was like, oh, this is what I want to do, like high school, college age is the right age, or whatever. I mean it just came from me being good at something and then, kind of realizing that, I think I’m kind of good at explaining things.

PETREAS I wanted to somehow incorporate that even though we are learning things that I even admit, frequently admit, the student aren’t going to use in their everyday life, if they did, it’d be really far-fetched or whatever, I do think the process of it, especially like higher level math, which becomes more and more abstract and is more and more or less and less useful in real life, I think learning those concepts, solving those problems, it definitely helps the brain and how we think logically. Not necessarily even about the steps and so on, but that you are doing these complex things, which is making you a smarter person in general, which is part of the reason why I felt like, if I’m a math major, that shows, you know, I’m a reasonably smart guy who can do reasonably difficult tasks, or whatever. So, even though what we might do might not officially help with real life, it will help with their later college courses in math, which is always a lame reason of why we’re learning stuff, but it definitely—I really do think it makes you just a smarter, more educated, better-thinking person, the fact that you can struggle through and accomplish these problems that maybe are not useful for applications you see, but they definitely make you a smarter person.

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INTERVIEWER Do you have any fun stories or anecdotes from your time as a math major? Not necessarily struggles you experienced, but-PETREAS Other than my painful memory?

INTERVIEWER What did you like about being a math major?

PETREAS There were occasional opportunities where I got to see math applications in ways I never would have thought of. For example, I remember somebody wrote a math opera, there was a screening that I saw, or whatever, I don’t know how great the movie—the opera—was, but the fact that they incorporated, it was like the struggle to find Fermat’s last theorem (an + bn = cn), so it was like a famous theorem that had to be proved, or whatever, and somebody wrote an opera on how this guy, who ended up proving it, struggled through it, which is like, wow, that’s really lame and nerdy, but it’s cool that people do that kind of stuff. Do you remember those little jigsaw-not jigsaw. The little puzzle where it’s broken up into a picture, and it’s four by four with one tile missing, and you move the tiles or whatever, I don’t know what those are called, but I remember one time we did a proof that showed that if you take the picture and flip just two tiles, they proved that it is impossible to solve it, you could break it up and fix it and switch them, and it’s impossible to get it back. It’s random little things like that, that, like, I’m never going to discover on my own, but the fact that people can use higher level math and apply it to random things. And not that anyone cares about the little box thing, not that anyone cares about the knot theory, but I just think that kind of stuff is really interesting. And I just mean, honestly, I mean, the classes that were really abstract and didn’t relate to the world, when they had these tiny applications, even if they were like stupid and useless, I still thought that was really interesting, and I always enjoyed learning something like that.

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optional mathematics by alexandra reinecke (from “traffic lights, a PhD in bubbles, and other notes on getting from A to B”)

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