Spring 2021

CWU’S STUDENT-RUN LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE | SPRING 2021

PULSE ADAM BIGHILL: FROM CWU TO THE NFL

THE ART OF SUSHI

VAN LIFE DROPPING THE LABEL SPRING 2021

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FASHION

what’s INSIDE

O N T H E C OV E R Pictured is a California Roll, which is a popular option for sushi lovers. Inside is imitation crab, white rice, cucumber and avocado. It is traditionally wrapped in seaweed (nori).

Photo by Kassandra Eller Design by Sara Roach

OUR TOWN 1 0 Kayaking in Kittitas and Beyond 1 4 Gardening 101: A Guide to Growing Your Own Herb Garden 1 6 The Year of Living... Differently PASSPORT 1 8 Van Life 2 2 The World of the Polyglot

SPORTS 2 4 Why Fight?

2 6 Adam Bighill: From CWU to the NFL SPOTLIGHT 3 0 Dropping the Label 3 6 Backpacking Basics: Gearing up for the Pacif ic Northwest 4 2 A Friendly Voice on the Other End of the Crisis Line

Photo by Kassandra Eller

FOOD + DRINK 4 8 The Art of Sushi 5 4 Quarantini Recipes 5 6 Spilling the Tea on Tea MIND + BODY 6 0 Addressing Plus Size Inclusivity 6 4 Reiki: A Hidden Gem in Healing 6 6 Dealing in Divination: The Practice of Tarot

AFTER DARK 7 0 Sexual Violence Thrives in Silence 74 Spores Galore 7 8 Bar & Weed Calendar

SPRING 2021 LEADERSHIP STAFF THROWBACK

EDITION

Kassandra Eller editor-in-chief

Spencer Clifton editor-in-chief

Allison Clowers associate editor

Sara Roach art director

Lexi Wicks assistant director of photography

Nidia Torres assistant editor

Mike Powers assistant editor

Theresa Daigle copy editor

Taylor Johnson social media manager

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Autumn Reed web manager

PULSE STAFF Editorial

Design

Multimedia

co-editors-in-chief Spencer Clifton Kassandra Eller

art director Sara Roach

videographers Lexi Wicks Alex Groom

associate editor Allison Clowers assistant editors Mike Powers Nidia Torres copy editor Theresa Daigle writers Abby Duchow Laynie Erickson Jessica Fryberger Daichi Ichikawa Elisa Lopez Paije Maas Autumn Reed Joshua Smith Tony Smith Bailey Tomlinson Lexi Wicks

designers Itzel Montoya Katie Jo Stewart Chandler Vanous Hinako Yutakata Lisa Zhu

social media manager Taylor Johnson web manager Autumn Reed

Photography

Advertising

director of photography Kassandra Eller

business manager Cait Dalton 509-963-1026 cait.dalton@cwu.edu

assistant director of photography Lexi Wicks photographers Peighton Bortle Samantha Cabeza Alex Groom

Advising faculty adviser Jennifer Green 509-963-3216 jennifer.green@cwu.edu

PULSE magazine is a student-run lifestyle magazine, both in print and online at www.cwupulsemagazine.com. PULSE produces one issue an academic quarter. Student editors make policy and content decisions for the magazine, which serves as a public forum for student expression. PULSE serves the Central Washington University community with informative, engaging and interactive content covering campus and community life, trends and issues, and providing practical magazine and multimedia training.

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NOTES FROM If you would have told me a year ago that I would be writing this letter, I would have thought you were crazy. Today, I think of my experiences in this position, and I don’t know what to share out of the many memories I made here at PULSE that would encapsulate just how much this opportunity has done for me.

My time here at PULSE magazine has been as equally rewarding as it has been challenging. I am sad to say that my time here as the Editorial Director is coming to an end; however, the cliché saying about endings really being beginnings echoes in my head as I set out on what awaits me next.

I received the news that I am going to be father just one hour before I came into our first PULSE class this quarter. I like to think of that as the strongest cup of coffee I have ever had, because I felt as if I was bouncing off the virtual zoom walls. I am very excited to one day share with my child the experiences this magazine brought me, and some of the lessons it provided. One being: you are capable of anything if you just put your mind to it.

These words feel bittersweet as I reflect on how much I have taken away from the people I have gotten to work with here. From the editorial staff to our writers, photographers and designers, I have had the upmost pleasure of learning and growing with the PULSE staff.

This quarter we worked exceptionally hard to deliver you a high-quality magazine. The time and effort put in by leadership staff this quarter has been outstanding, and a key component of what makes this issue so great.

Kass and I have further developed our skills as leaders. Having two editors-in-chief is something that we started last quarter, and I am happy with the collaboration this opportunity brought myself and our team.

You will see that this quarter we continued to play with designs, photographs and the reporting process to further define PULSE’s signature style.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get back out into the restaurant and bar scene. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, sushi is one of my favorite summertime meals. Flip to page 48 to check out a mouthwatering sushi photospread and to learn more about this culinary artform. And don’t forget to hangout on the back page to see the local bar and dispensary sales!

You may be unaware of the impact that crisis hotlines have made in Washington state, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Turn to page 42 to learn more about how these people have made a difference.

Has the stress from the last year gotten to you? Flip to page 64 to dive into reiki, a unique practice in energy healing.

So go on, grab your favorite beverage, stop at page 54 to see PULSE's favorite martini recipes, and happy reading.

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THE EDITORS As I am sitting at my desk, writing this letter to you, the sun is shining in through my window and I am reminded of how fast summer is approaching. This quarter has come and gone in a whirlwind bringing both excitement and worry along with it.

Many of the people I have come to love are getting ready to graduate and begin their new lives. As happy as I am for them, I feel a bit uneasy, and I wonder how my life will change without them right by my side.

The PULSE staff is feeling this same sense of urgency as several members are beginning their journey into post-college careers. We have been so lucky to have such a strong, hard-working leadership staff this quarter! Without their support, this magazine wouldn’t be possible.

I want to give a special shout-out to our Art Director, Sara. This year has been an unusual one as PULSE switched up the frequency of the magazine, the size, and the logo. Not only this but Sara had to put up with a change in Editor-in-Chief from one person to two people sharing the role. Even with all these modifications to the magazine, Sara was able to bring every design to life and continue to produce an award-winning magazine. We owe her so much and I can’t wait to see the amazing things she does in the future. Thank you, Sara!

Continue flipping through this issue to see the wonderful work Sara and the rest of the PULSE staff has produced this quarter.

Do you recognize the name Adam Bighill? Well, you should! This NFL football star was once a Central Washington University student, the same as you and me. Turn to page 26 to read more about this famous alum!

With the sun shining daily and the temperature warming up, staying hydrated is essential. My personal favorite thing to drink in the summer is tea because there are so many flavor options, and each comes with different health benefits! To learn more about the benefits of tea turn to page 56.

Unsure what to do with your backpack now that school is drawing to a close? Swap those books for granola bars, sunscreen, and a tent. To begin your backpacking adventure flip to page 36.

This issue includes numerous stories to get you in that summer mindset. Whether you are looking for something that will dive deep into an issue or a light-hearted story to lift your mood, it can be found within these pages.

We hope that you, dear readers, enjoy this magazine as much as we do. So, without further ado, grab a glass of iced tea, get comfy in your hammock, and read on my friends.

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G O O D B Y E SENIORS Contributions by PULSE Staff | Design by Sara Roachart Getting ready to take that first step after graduating college is a moment all seniors are looking forward to. These seniors have worked hard to help bring you a high-quality issue, all while getting ready to take that big leap into the world. Some have been here for a while, others just for a quarter, but all of them represent the PULSE magazine you see today.

Here are some parting words from PULSE’s graduating seniors.

Writing for PULSE helped me realize the passion I have for telling a story. I’m so grateful for the experiences it has given me and the friends I have made along the way.

Thank you PULSE for all of the memories!

Love, Allison Clowers

The decision to join PULSE was probably the best thing I did during my time at Central. The staff I have worked with have all been amazing and the real world experience is invaluable. I am eternally grateful for that. Thank you.

Itzel Montoya <3

Dear PULSE, Though I haven't been able to work here long, I'm glad I've gotten the experience and knowledge to better understand what it takes to work at a magazine. Doing photoshoots and videos professionally has been amazing. Thank you guys for everything.

Alex Groom

I’m so grateful for the awesome team of writers, photographers and designers I’ve gotten to work with at PULSE. Everyone is driven and sharp and fun and dedicated to their work. When I look back on my time at Central, writing and editing for PULSE will definitely be a highlight!

Mike Powers

My time at PULSE over the last three years has taught me more than I ever could've imagined, and has also brought so many incredible people into my life. I will forever be grateful to the team for taking a chance on me as a young sophomore in the graphic design program. I hope you all enjoy my last magazine as art director!

Joining PULSE was a great experience. I've worked with an amazing leadership staff and was given a great opportunity to grow and learn as a designer. Although it was a short time, it was fun and I had a blast, so thank you. Keep up the great work!

PULSE has been such a great and unique experience for me.

I really loved my time there and meeting a lot of new people.

Three things I learned from my time here: 1. The more sources you get, the more you have to talk about.

2. Be curious! You'll notice you will have a natural need to know more about a topic you are interested about.

3. AP Stylebook is YOUR FRIEND! I'm really going to miss being in PULSE! It was such a blast!

Nidia Torres Although my time at PULSE was short, I'm so thankful for all the opportunities and amazing people I met through class and through the stories I wrote. PULSE was a fun and unique experience I won't forget from my college career!

Much love, Autumn Reed

Lisa Zhu :)

Love, Sara Roach

C O N G R AT S C/O 2021!

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KAYAKING IN KITTITAS AND BEYOND Story & Photos by Lexi Wicks | Design by Chandler Vanous

The sun on your skin, the breath of fresh air, the feeling of bobbing up and down on the water - this vivid scene is an escape that has many kayakers counting down the days until summertime. Since the weather is getting nicer and COVID-19 restrictions are loosening up, it’s a great time to start a new hobby or for returning kayakers to get back out on the water. Here are the best prices and places for your next kayaking expedition.

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OUR TOWN

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WHERE TO GO Mattoon Lake • 4 - 10 minute drive from Ellensburg, WA. • It is small, but great for short trips.

• This is great for fishing!

Yakima River • 10 - 35 minute drive from Ellensburg, WA. • Kayaking with a group? Park one vehicle at Roza Recreation Site and another at Ringer boat launch.

Start at Ringer and float down the river!

Lake Easton • 40 minute drive from Ellensburg, WA. • It is a big lake so it is great for a long day trip!

Cle Elum Lake • 45 minute drive from Ellensburg, WA. • It is a huge lake, so it is definitely a day trip.

• Great atmosphere and lots of places to launch!

Quincy Lake • 57 minute drive from Ellensburg, WA. • Great for fishing.

• Surrounded by smaller lakes so it can be a fun adventure!

WHERE TO RENT Outdoor Pursuits Rentals Single Person Inflatable Kayak: • One Day - $21.56 for students and $25.68 for non-students.

• Weekend (2 - 3 days) - $30.81 for students and $35.95 for non-students.

• Weekly (4 - 7 days) - $51.36 for students and $61.62 for non-students.

Two Person Kayak: • One Day - $26.69 for students and $32.87 for non-students.

• Weekend (2 - 3 days) - $41.09 for students and $48.28 for non-students.

• Weekly (4 - 7 days) - $61.64 for students and $71.88 for non-students.

WHAT TO BRING • • •

Bring lots of water.

Wear sunscreen.

Always wear a life vest!

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GARDENING A Guide to Growing Your Own Herb Garden Story by Theresa Daigle | Photo & Design by Katie Jo Stewart

Rosemary roasted potatoes, fresh basil in a tomato and mozzarella salad, refreshing mint infused water – all of these recipes start with picking herbs from your home container garden. With a little time and a small amount of money, you can enjoy fresh herbs all summer long.

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CHOOSE YOUR CONTAINER

Containers do not have to fit into the traditional garden store variety. Be creative. Anything that can hold soil, can hold plants – from an old lunch box to a pair of rain boots, even a small trash can transforms into a home for beautiful summer herbs.

Upcycling containers gives your herb garden its own personality. Go to your local Goodwill and think outside the box!

• • • • •

An old wheelbarrow Colanders Baskets Rain boots Large Vases

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GARDENING TOOLS

Once you have decided on the containers, you will need a few basic tools to make your job easier.

You may want to invest in some gardening gloves and a trowel for scooping soil. Pruners or a good pair of scissors will also be helpful when you start to harvest your herbs. Finally, you will want a watering can that can also be used to mix fertilizer with the water.

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ADD YOUR SOIL

Choosing the soil you will use is important. You want to provide a nutrient rich home for your new plants to thrive. Look for potting soil, as it has the right amount of moisture retention as well as soil aeration.

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PICK YOUR PLANTS

Seedlings are easier than starting with seeds. All herbs tend to do well in containers. Look through your favorite recipes to get an idea of the type of herbs you would like to use in your kitchen.

The most common herbs to plant include basil, oregano, rosemary, chives, mint, sage and dill. You can find many of these seedlings at your local nursery, hardware store and grocery store.

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FIND YOUR LOCATION

Find a spot, either inside or outside, that gets a good deal of sun throughout the day. If your containers are going to be inside make sure to not locate them near a heating vent, as this may dry out your soil and plants much quicker. The basic rule for watering is two inches of water every week for each container. Dig a hole about three inches, add a bit of organic fertilizer and mix it into the soil, then place your seedling, back-fill the hole and gently press to firm the soil around the plant.

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HARVEST TIME

Now comes the fun part, harvesting your herbs. Don’t be shy; the more you harvest the better it is for your plants. Harvesting frequently increases productivity and you will have happier, healthier plants. As it gets toward the end of the summer, you can dry or freeze your herbs to continue to use them throughout the fall and winter in your soups, stews and pastas.

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OUR TOWN

the year of living... DIFFERENTLY Interviews by Elisa Lopez | Design by Itzel Montoya It’s said that the true character of a person is revealed when they are faced with adversity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed adversarial conditions on people all around the globe, forcing everyone to adapt to these new circumstances.

PULSE interviewed several people about their experiences during this time and how COVID-19 changed their lives forever.

Diane Acosta Healthcare Worker and Mother - Tacoma, WA

Q: When did you realize that COVID-19 was significantly impacting your day-to-day life as a healthcare worker?

How do you feel you adjusted, and was it difficult?

DA: Late February, before the shutdown happened, patients

started asking about it and we just had no information … Then, in the beginning of March we started having to reschedule appointments. Then it got very real when there were reports of that nursing home and that’s when we started realizing, “ok, it’s in the community.” It probably started affecting daily clinic life a couple of days before the Washington State shut down, because we were having to start rescheduling patients because there was a lot of concern around resources … I’m still a registered nurse so we just didn’t know how we were all going to potentially be resource shifting, providing healthcare in the community. So, there was a lot of uncertainty.

Q: Did you ever feel unsure of your job stability?

DA: Absolutely, because the first cases were recognized in

Washington. Then, pretty quickly, it was evident that New York was the epicenter. I went to graduate school at Yale and it’s right alongside the metro by the train, so I still have a lot of colleagues and friends in healthcare and that are still in the New York metro area. So, I was hearing from friends and colleagues about it.

But then, I was also hearing from colleagues throughout the U.S. that institutions were shutting their doors and if you’re in private practice then you’re not working. Offices were closed down.

People were not doing routine healthcare maintenance. It was crisis care only. I mean there are a lot of positions and [Physician's Assistants] and nurses that did lose their jobs, especially in the early stages. Like, really the first six to eight months. So, I didn’t know day to day what it was going to look like.

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Courtesy of MultiCare Medical Center

Q: Being on the front lines of this pandemic, what feelings did you have about your individual safety and/or your family?

DA: That was really scary. Especially because it wasn’t just me.

It’s only been probably like the last couple of months that there’s been a couple of studies showing maybe it’s on clothes. I was still seeing people in person and that’s why I switched to wearing scrubs instead of normal clothes … I was terrified that I would bring something home and I was terrified even more because of my son’s underlying health conditions … That was probably the biggest shift. Having school-age kids and working during the day, and my husband working nights.

Q: What is a hope you have for the future?

DA: I hope that we can all learn from this. We’re going to see

more pandemics. So, if anything, I hope that we can prepare better and I’m not saying like stockpile toilet paper and groceries.

Basic hygiene has a huge impact in the community ... you don’t know whether the person you’re standing behind in the grocery-store line has an underlying health condition or is immunocompromised. We have such a mindset for individual rights and when we live in a society and if we choose to live in a community, we have to have some individual rights take a backseat to do what is necessary.

phones would not stop buzzing. There was a point where we just wanted to throw our phones out the window. It was so stressful. That was a hurdle we had to overcome; realizing we had to hire employees.

DP: We are working on an app right now and we’re almost

done. We have online ordering so you can submit a resturaunt request form, and then people can also text in orders.

Q: Did you anticipate the boom in business when COVID hit?

JZ: I remember back in March when they were talking about Courtesy of Rodney Harwood

Ano Delivery Dante Palmisano & Juan Zamorano Food Delivery Services - Kittitas, WA

Q: What made you decide to discontinue school and start your business?

JZ: Both of us realized we were learning more about business

in the real world than school could ever teach us. It was a little bit difficult going to school and being a full-time business owner.

DP: I would be doing homework and working. It was super

hard and super stressful, but I made it work … When [an] opportunity is right in your face you either take advantage of it or you don’t, but school is always going to be there; not those opportunities. So, we saw this opportunity and said, "we’re just going to go with it." Now we’re meeting new people and investors and business owners, and if it doesn’t work out, there’s always an option to go back to school.

Q: How was your experience starting Ano Delivery pre-COVID? JZ: We went from about 100 deliveries a week to 50 a day. So,

we just tripled in size and we were able to hire a lot of people and all that stuff … It was just too good to be true. Though, unfortunately, it was a terrible thing that had to happen. People were telling us stuff like “it wasn’t going to work out,” “you guys should just give up.” But we knew what we were doing. We believed and we stuck with it and it’s been a blessing ever since.

Q: How did you navigate the startup of Ano Delivery through the pandemic, and what do you feel was challenging?

what they were going to do with restaurants and with the shutdowns … I remember I was on my phone reading the news, trying to read articles and it said something like “all restaurants are shutting down.” Then I kept reading it and I was like, oh wait, for dine-in only ... delivery and to-go is okay. I was like, “that’s good news for us!” It was pretty back-and-forth emotionally just reading it though, and then we just took off from there. It was pretty crazy with those stay-at-home orders. Driving around doing deliveries and the roads were just empty. There was never a point where we thought, “dang, we can’t do this.” It was more like, “we can’t wait to get started.” Me and Dante became very comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Q: How has starting Ano Delivery changed your life?

JZ: We look back at videos from us three years ago and just

the maturity and growth and the mentality we have now is so different. Now we are looking at things constantly as opportunities and being like, “how can we invest in this and how can we make these things better?” We are always asking ourselves these questions … It’s just crazy once you really start doing what you enjoy, you’ll notice how many doors open. The first year was really hard … Everyone’s doubts and opinions started to stack up and we thought “hey, maybe they’re right,” but at the end of the day we just didn’t care and pursued what made us happy.

Q: What vital steps do you feel you took in order to be successful?

JZ: I would say just being ourselves. We have strong relation-

ships with our customers and the people we work with … We are very talkative, we are very outgoing and we’re the first to make conversations with strangers. That’s what really sets us apart.

Communication is everything for us. We mess around with customers and we joke with them, and I think that’s honestly what had to do a lot with our success.

Visit cwupulsemagazine.com to read more interviews from people who have adapted to the adverse conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

JZ: I think what was very challenging was trying to keep up with the demand of the food delivery. Just because we were doing about 10 to 15 deliveries a day, then started doing 50. Our

*Interviews edited for clarity and length.

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PASSPORT

Story & Photos by Lexi Wicks Design & Illustration by Chandler Vanous

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You have nowhere to be and everywhere to go. The freedom of unlimited possibilities and nothing but road to travel. To many of you, living inside of your van or on the road may seem strange, exciting or downright crazy.

To these individuals, the open road and the back of their van are everything they need. This is Van Life.

“I always say it’s a really interesting alchemy of comfort, difficulty and adventure,” explains Zach Daudert, co-founder of Van Life Outfitters, a boutique that creates a carefully curated catalog for camper vans that makes the DIY build out process easier for van lifers.

Van life is an alternative lifestyle where people turn a vehicle into a home on wheels. This allows them to live practically anywhere and cut down significantly on average, everyday expenses. This lifestyle gives people the freedom to travel on a budget while still living in the comfort of a home they can call their own.

Daudert says these vans become a part of their persona because it is not just something they make everyday errands in, but it is integrated into their lives.

For most people, their vehicles are simply a machine to get them from place to place; however, for van lifers, these vehicles become a home.

Jessica Shisler, co-founder of VanLifeApp, says the concept of van life goes beyond the vehicle. It can also be a state of mind.

“Even if you are not in a van, you can definitely live by the principles of a van lifer,” Shisler says.

“I don’t get attached to really anything, but I am pretty attached to this,” says part-time van-lifer, Eli Liske.

Liske’s journey into discovering van life started with mountain biking and camping. Liske notes that he wanted to “just pick up and go.” But what exactly does this look like?

Realities of Van Life People enter van life for different reasons. Numerous join the community willingly and ready for adventure, but there are a lot of people who are living this lifestyle as a financial necessity.

Van life can be a way to take back some control of your life.

Although van life can be full of novelty and adventure, it has its fair share of challenges.

Shisler says everyday is a race to fulfill all basic needs. This means finding a place to go to the bathroom, shower or get wifi for her remote job. She mentions finding these basic needs everyday can be very taxing, and may limit access to other needs, such as connection.

“Literally, where you are going to be that night can be difficult.

But, it is also kind of rewarding in a way,” says Daudert.

After traveling as a full-time van lifer, Shisler noticed the van life community lacks resources. With the help of her cofounder, Breanne Acio, Shisler launched the VanLifeApp that aims to help bridge these gaps.

“We are connecting people,” Shisler says. “We are helping them share resources and then we are helping share knowledge within the community. Which is really how you can be successful and live a sustainable nomadic life.”

Despite the lack of resources that Shisler has noticed and the challenges that come with this nomadic lifestyle, millions are flocking to the van-life aesthetic all over social media.

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PASSPORT

Growing Popularity If you search #VanLife on Instagram, images of beautiful landscapes and built-out vans will flood your screen. The hashtag that started as a joke by a photographer named Foster Huntington in 2011 is now representing a lifestyle.

In many ways, the growing popularity on social media platforms is beneficial to the van-life community. Daudert explains that it creates social proof for the lifestyle and the potential that it has. But he cautions that van life is

“definitely not the perfection you see on social media.”

Online platforms allow users to post the most positive and exciting parts of their lives, but many people do not always share the challenges.

Social media allows others to bring awareness to different lifestyles and shows that there are options beyond what some may consider the standard way of living.

The Nomad Neighborhood “The van life community is absolutely amazing,” says Liske.

“Anybody will help anybody in van life, whether it’s in person, even online or on the phone.”

The unique lifestyle is definitely something they all have in common, that helps bring the community together. Bennett Phillips, youth pastor at Mercer Creek Church and part-time van lifer, calls this an “instantly shared connection.”

“It’s as diverse as the community at large,” Daudert says.

“You might get the impression that this is like a younger person’s endeavor, but it is actually not. It’s all age groups, all socioeconomic backgrounds, all kinds of people across all political spectrums.”

As the popularity of van life grows, the van life community benefits from the growth as well. Although a bigger van life community is welcomed, Shisler urges that the more people that come outdoors also need to take the time to get properly educated. “For us, it is really important that as more and more people are getting outdoors, that they know how to respect and leave that outdoor legacy for the next generation,” Shisler adds.

Common Misconceptions

we are good.” Many van lifers contribute greatly to the overall economy. While working remotely, many have started their own businesses.

“If anything, we give ourselves more time and space to be the good humans we want to be, instead of being too busy to care.

The only difference between ‘them’ and ‘us’ is our propensity to pursue a life that isn’t ‘normal,’ but makes us happy,” says the VanLifeApp website advocacy page.

The wrongful stigma of van lifers being “bad” or careless follows them into daily struggles on the road. Daudert talks about “making public spaces public again.” Many public spaces “close” at dusk in order to discourage nomadic communities from staying the night in that area.

Daudert says the van life community “are good neighbors, and through the process of demonstrating that, hopefully, [they] can work with the managers of campgrounds and public spaces to change the rules a little bit and be more welcoming.”

Why Choose Van Life?

Van life is a lifestyle that rejects the social norms and allows people to take control of their life, or maybe even lose a little control in the best way.

Shisler says that one of van life’s best benefits is experiencing the beauty we have in our backyard. “There are just so many beautiful things about the spaces here," she says. "They are worth seeing and experiencing.”

Reasons for jumping into van life are going to be different for everybody. “There’s the travel and adventure motivation, some see this as an alternative lifestyle … and then there are a lot of people who really aren’t doing this by choice,” says Daudert.

Van life may not be for everyone, but if you are working from home and wishing to see the world around you, this lifestyle may just be the best opportunity.

“There are choices you are going to be able to make and I think it is more about empowering people to feel the opportunity to make those choices," says Shisler. "Sometimes the scariest thing is the right thing to do."

Visit cwupulsemagazine.com to watch an exclusive video on van life!

You may have heard that van life carries the dominant narrative that all people living a nomadic lifestyle are homeless due to bad choices.

The VanLifeApp website advocacy page says, “We are NOT homeless, our homes just move with us. We are different, but

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PASSPORT

THE WORLD OF THE

POLYGLOT Story by Nidia Torres | Design & Illustration by Chandler Vanous

Out of the 7,139 spoken languages that can be heard across the globe, most people only know one, two or maybe three. Polyglots can often understand or fluently speak five or more languages and are always itching to learn more.

These people, who have a desire to immerse themselves in new languages and cultures, enjoy a wide and endless sea of languages to explore.

Out of the Norm

Assistant Professor of Spanish in the World Languages and Cultures Department, Andrea Herrera-Dulcet fits the role of a polyglot. Herrera-Dulcet knows a total of seven languages.

“I can understand and speak fluently in English. I have two first languages, like many bilinguals, which are Spanish and Catalan; the languages spoken in the area of Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain,” Herrera-Dulcet says. “I can also have conversations in Portuguese, Italian and Mandarin. I could probably fend for myself, if I had to, in French.”

Herrera-Dulcet explains she never really thought of herself as a polyglot. “I think that with speaking a lot of languages comes an innate humbleness and I never even thought about it,” she says. She has never considered her wealth of knowledge as “special” or “unique.”

Herrera-Dulcet has lived in China, Europe, Spain and South Africa and it was not until she arrived in the U.S. where she realized that learning a lot of languages was considered something “out of the norm.”

“In many places, if you speak three languages, they think that’s cute because the norm is between four and five languages or dialects that people are juggling daily,” HerreraDulcet says.

As with many people, especially here in Washington State, the languages more commonly known are English and Spanish, according to City-Data.com. Many people learn two languages during their childhood. The first one being the one they grew up with, the second one being the one they learned at school.

Learning a Language

That was the case for A Tong Miyar, freshman science major.

Just like Herrera-Dulcet grew up with her native tongue, Catalan, and learned other languages on the way, so did Miyar. Miyar knows a variety of languages from her home in South Sudan.

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Miyar can fluently speak and understand Dinka, Nuer and Gaza. While she does not consider herself a polyglot, Miyar is still knowledgeable in languages that she is passionate about.

Besides those three, Miyar can understand a little Arabic and is currently learning Japanese for fun.

“I grew up with it because my mom spoke Dinka, but my aunt was married to this man who spoke Arabic, which is like Southern Sudan Arabic,” she says. According to Miyar, Arabic is harder to learn because different areas adapt it to their own customs.

“It’s all going to sound different based on your location. I’m from the south … but if somebody from the north decides to speak Arabic to me, I can understand them just from our closeness,” Miyar says. “But say, someone from Morocco, they also speak French in their language, so it sounds more French to me than Arabic.”

Although she won’t further her learning in Arabic, Miyar will stick to what she knows now.

Senior Public Relations and Spanish double major and former reporter for PULSE, Kim Nguyen is another language learner who grew up in Vietnam, making Vietnamese her native language.

She is also fluent in English and has a basic understanding of Japanese and Mandarin.

Growing up, she attended an international school, which is where she learned English. “I’ve been learning English since I was four. I formally learned English before I actually learned Vietnamese,” she says.

Nguyen’s goal is to become multilingual. At the moment, Nguyen finds it difficult to learn Spanish. When she was learning English, she found it less challenging because she opted to watch TV shows and movies in English with Vietnamese subtitles.

For Spanish, Nguyen started to listen to Spanish music and soon developed an interest in reggaeton, a genre of Spanish music inspired by Latin American culture. “I listen to a lot of Spanish music. A lot of my close friends are from Spanish speaking countries. I turn on Netflix [and my] Hulu account to have Spanish subtitles so they are just there even when I’m watching a U.S. movie or something,” says Nguyen.

Nguyen struggles with Spanish, as she learns best with interactive learning, but this has become a challenge with her courses being online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The best way for me to learn is to practice and to [do] it, but since [COVID-19] happened … I haven’t really gotten any practice in,” Nguyen says.

Even with Nguyen’s situation in her learning, she continues to find ways to improve. She enjoys singing in Spanish to work on her pronunciation, listening and reading skills.

Addressing the Learning Barriers

When it comes to learning a language, you have to put in the effort and time to not only take in the language, but the culture as well. According to Herrera-Dulcet, having the opportunity to learn languages is not just to satisfy job requirements or standout.

“It never comes as a standalone package. Language is always like a compound package,” Herrera-Dulcet says. “It comes with the speakers of the language, with the culture of that language ... [and] with the history of the language.”

She adds that when a person is learning only the language, it makes it difficult for people to take in everything else. She describes it as “unnatural” for people to do that. Without the culture, people are potentially losing the experiences that come with it.

Nguyen explains how she was supposed to attend a study abroad program in Spain last summer, but due to the pandemic, it was cancelled. “[It] would have been way better because ... learning and [being] in that immersive environment is better than learning through a laptop screen.”

Learning the culture that comes with a language is an important step in understanding the language as a whole.

Learning the culture may help provide context to the language and help you learn new skills.

Because of the languages she knows, Herrera-Dulcet has been able to travel, meet new people, grow in terms of “empathy and cross-cultural competence” and improve in things such as “mediation skills or problem solving.”

While the skills learned by Herrera-Dulcet during her crosscultural experiences have shaped who she is today, she mentions that she did not get here without making a few mistakes.

Stepping Stones: Learning From Mistakes

Everyone fails now and then and is expected when learning a new skill. Failing gives you the opportunity to grow in that skill and as a person. For language learners, Herrera-Dulcet advises people to continue learning even when committing mistakes.

“When I was learning English when I first came to the U.S., I remember it was near Christmas time and I was at Target trying to find paper to wrap the presents. I couldn’t find it,” HerreraDulcet says. That is when she decided to seek help and ask an employee. When Herrera-Dulcet did, she was shocked at the employees’ reactions. “I was asking for assistance at Target for

paper, and they just kept laughing and laughing at me and I had no idea what it was called,” she adds.

She realized that instead of asking for wrapping paper, she had asked for ripping paper. In the end, no one really helped her at all.

“I found it awful that they were laughing without correcting me, but that did not stop me from wanting to better my English,” Herrera-Dulcet says. For that reason, she advises people to not be intimidated from the learning process.

Herrera-Dulcet offers three important principles for anyone learning new languages. First, understand that when you are first learning, you are not a native speaker and will not sound like one. Second, language is not just for people to read from in textbooks, it is messy, and it will change and vary from place to place. Lastly, language learners should enjoy the process.

“Enjoy the ride that comes with learning a language," HerreraDucet says. "Enjoy the mistakes that you are going to make."

When it came to learning Portuguese, Spanish and Italian, Herrera-Dulcet had more of an advantage because of her Catalan roots.

Nguyen herself wishes to learn Portuguese as well. That is, after learning Spanish. “I think if I do learn another language, I would probably learn Portuguese because it’s very close to Spanish,” Nguyen says. “I’ll learn something that is similar to Spanish instead of trying to learn a whole different set of languages.”

According to Herrera-Dulcet, these languages have Latin roots that make it a little easier to learn and understand.

Mandarin, on the other hand, had Herrera-Dulcet studying and putting in more effort.

“I do remember studying a lot, especially Mandarin," Herrera-Dulcet says. "When I say a lot, I mean three to four hours a day on top of going to Mandarin class four hours a day.”

With time, she ended up receiving a master’s degree in Chinese studies and was granted a scholarship. With the multitude of languages Herrera-Dulcet knows, she is confident that they will remain stored but ready for use.

“You do not forget a language. When you speak a language, you have it on standby in your brain," Herrera-Ducet says. "It may seem like it’s not your dominant language at the time and missing … but once you are thrown into a situation or a context where that language is spoken all the time again and you’re forced to use it, all the knowledge comes back to you.”

Although having the ability to understand and fluently speak in a multitude of languages, being bilingual should be seen as something positive rather than lacking according to Herrera-Dulcet.

“Anyone who is bilingual in the U.S. right now needs to be seen, needs to be celebrated and it needs to be acknowledged how difficult it is to be bilingual because the U.S. is a country that embraces monoglossic language ideologies, which is that they present monolingualism as the norm,” Herrera-Dulcet says.

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WHY FIGHT? Story by Joshua Smith | Photos by Kassandra Eller | Design by Hinako Yutakata

One-on-one. No holds barred. Full contact.

Two fighters, locked in a cage prepared to fight to the bitter end. To win means to fight another day. To forfeit means to die.

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is a full-contact sport incorporating, as its namesake describes, multiple martial arts in order to defeat an opponent. Unlike other popular martial arts, there is no belt to signify your mastery of the craft, instead relying on victories in the ring to speak for the athlete's proficiency.

“It’s the truest form of human combat in a sanctioned form,” Amateur MMA fighter, Dylan Hutchinson says. “When someone taps out it is an admission: I will kill you in a public setting.

It’s a very intimate thing.”

This all out battle, which may seem more like a bloodbath, is not something to be taken lightly, as the physical damage to one another can add up. In an article published by bleacherreport.com, Beau Hightower, director of sports medicine for the Jackson-Winkeljohn MMA team, says, "I would liken it to being in several car wrecks. When fighters get up the next day, they oftentimes can't walk for a few steps, and then they're hobbling around."

But it’s not just short-term injuries fighters have to contend with. Anthony Arreola, a Washington based chiropractor who specializes in sport related injuries, explains that it’s the long-term damage that leaves a lasting impression.

“The damage to the joints will be apparent, as most will battle joint damage their entire career,” says Arreola. “After the joint has sustained an injury it is unlikely to come back to 100 percent. The more sprains/strains, the more scar tissue formed.”

According to Arreola, injuries aren’t limited to just the physical body, stating that fighters are likely to subject themselves to concussions and the proceeding side-effects: loss of memory, dexterity, balance and even a shift in character such as personality or mood changes.

It sparks the question, why would anyone in their right mind willingly participate in such a bloody sport? According to Megan Matheson, professor of psychology, there are several possible reasons. One of which she likens to an experience she had while working with the Rhesus monkey, a species of primate known for its aggressive behavior. She explains that even in captivity, when all the animal's needs have been met, they still act out fights for no other perceived reason than to fight for fighting’s sake.

“I remember one of my professors at the time asking: do you think it’s recreational aggression?"

Matheson says. "And that’s kind of what it reminds me of when we talk about sports like MMA. There may not be anything to compete over, but there’s still this competitive need and that can be met with something like a violent sport like MMA.” Matheson also explains that there is a chemical component that goes beyond the competitive need. “There’s a release of endorphins when you’re injured,” she says. “It was suggested that people could get hooked on that internal endorphin rush.”

What Matheson suggests as being an endorphin rush, some MMA athletes, such as Hutchinson, view as more of a meditative practice. “There is no gain from freaking out,” Hutchinson says, stating that being punched in the nose or pushed to the ground forces you into a state of calm.

But can the desire to compete really be broken down to simple biology?

“Why fight?” Arreola says, “Every fighter has their own reasons for the reward: fame, financial status, self-worth, overcoming adversity, being the best, accomplishing something most can’t even dream of.

The reward far outweighs the risk.”

PULSE FAVORITES: TOP 10 “DON’TS” IN MMA 1. Butting with the head.

2. Eye gouging of any kind.

3. Biting or spitting at an opponent.

4. Fish hooking. Generally, Fish hooking is the placing of fingers into the mouth of your opponent and pulling your hands in opposing directions while holding onto the skin of your opponent.

5. Hair pulling.

6. Strikes to the spine or the back of the head.

The spine includes the tailbone.

7. Throwing an opponent out of the ring or caged area.

8. Intentionally placing a finger into any orifice, or into any cut or laceration of your opponent.

9. Clawing, pinching, twisting the flesh.

10. Timidity. This is the avoidance of contact, consistently dropping the mouthpiece or faking an injury. *as of 2017 Unified Rules as seen on MMAreferee.com

To read more about MMA visit cwupulsemagazine.com

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ADAM BIGHILL FROM CWU TO THE NFL Interview by Gabriel Strasbaugh Photos contributed by Adam Bighill Design by Itzel Montoya

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When you search the internet for information on Adam Bighill, statistics from his Canadian Football League (CFL) career dominate the page; however, if you look a little deeper you will find what makes this man more than a football player. Bighill works to create a legacy that benefits both his family and his teammates.

Born and raised in Montesano, WA, about 200 miles from CWU, Bighill encountered his first obstacle in life as a baby when he was diagnosed with a bilateral cleft lip. He has taken that experience and used it as a platform to create awareness for people with facial differences.

Bighill, who graduated from Central in 2011, took some time out of his busy schedule to talk with PULSE about his life on and off the field.

ing back on it ten years ago, they are looking for the next Adam Bighill. The next body type that looks like me. Linebackers that look like me aren’t considered undersized in the CFL anymore.

It’s pretty special to come from that guy that no one knew about, to being able to be the guy to prove that anything is possible. It’s putting the hard work in and [going] out there and get the results you want.

Nothing happened by accident. It’s purely because I was out there to make it happen. Granted, I had some great coaches and teammates along the way that have always helped me, but when it comes to making plays and doing it consistently, you know that comes from a great deal … of work that doesn’t happen overnight.

Q: What was your first goal when you made it to CWU?

Q: What was it like when you got the opportunity then to go play in the NFL with New Orleans?

A: The big picture was making it to the NFL and professional

A: Coming from the CFL, you know the NFL build[s] teams

football, and I knew coming to Central was a stepping stone. I knew there were a lot of things I wanted to achieve [at CWU], to even be in the conversation to even play at the next level professionally.

Coming in, it was to see if I could start as a true freshman, which I did. And then goals kind of arose from there of being able to be considered All-Conference to Defensive Player of the Year for the conference to being considered an All-American.

That was a big one I wanted to achieve by the time I got done playing and was happy to say that I was able to do that.

through the draft, so if you don’t show up as a drafted athlete from college, nobody kind of knows who you are. You gotta go in there and prove it.

Q: What did it feel like when you got your first opportunity to play with the B.C. Lions?

A: It was special because it’s what I’ve always wanted to do since I was a kid. When I was seven, that’s when I said I wanted to play professional football, and that was my first opportunity in 2011 to play the game I love. It was awesome and I had to start making some new goals because that was the goal I had my entire life. I couldn’t imagine anything [passing] that.

It was a crazy year. Weirdly enough it started off being the worst team I’d ever played on. Oddly enough we were 0-6 to start the year. I had never been on a team that lost six games in a season let alone six in a row. Then we won one and lost one.

We were 1-7 and then we won 12 in a row to get to the playoffs and won all the way through both of the playoff games and it was special. The first championship I had ever won.

Q: In between your championships, you are a 2x Defensive Player of the Year, so what do you take away from those accolades?

A: I was a guy that people thought couldn’t play college foot-

ball; then I was a guy that got underlooked when it came to the potential of playing professional football.

When it came to the CFL … I was an undersized linebacker and they weren’t sure how I was going to fit in. And now look-

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I came in as a highly decorated CFL player with nobody really knowing too much about me. The fanbase welcomed me very well and that was awesome. They took the time; they looked at the highlights of what I could do and they were fans of me right away. I was very thankful for them.

But the business of the NFL, it’s a bit more of what round you’re drafted in and what was your signing bonus that kind of helps dictate who plays and who doesn’t. Being a guy who was undrafted, a guy who had a very small signing bonus, I impressed [them] enough to stay around and play an entire season and play in Monday Night Football and go through the playoff run while playing alongside hall of famers.

The film says and shows that I can play in that league so by the time it was all said and done, the NFL experience wasn’t what I’d hoped. I firmly believe I could be a pro bowler in the NFL, I just couldn’t get the right opportunity to do so. It was a great experience. It is something I have always wanted to do as a kid, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

Q: Obviously, you play because you love the game. But does the true satisfaction come when you get done with your games knowing you are providing for your family and that you get to put food on the table for your wife and kids?

A: You never really think about that until you have a family.

Then you’re forced to think about everything you do reflects upon them good, bad or ugly and at the end of the day, yeah, you play football for the love of the game and also to provide for my family.

With having a family, it means a lot to me that I can provide for them and there’s a lot of satisfaction knowing that all the hard work I put into showcasing on the field, it’s more than myself now. It used to be about building a legacy and it definitely is, but the legacy now includes them.

Q: You stood up for what was right at the end of the day with the Wendy Williams situation [her controversial comments] about people with a cleft lip. Does it cross your mind that when you speak up in those instances that you are making a difference to not just yourself, but to many others?

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A: Over my time, I realized as a professional athlete, I have

a pretty good platform and everything I do, say or act on is amplified. One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is use my platform for good to help others and issues like this that come up. I'm going to tackle them head on and do the right thing on behalf of people. I’m pretty adamant on trying to make this world a better place.

Q: Out of all the stuff you’ve accomplished in your career, what is your next goal you’ve set for yourself in your football career?

A: I would love to win another championship and go back-toback. I think that’d be pretty special to cement, no doubt about the team we’re on and the organization.

Q: When you are able to step back and think at the end of the day, what do you want your legacy to say?

A: I’d say Adam Bighill is one of the greatest linebackers to ever

play the game. I’ve never done anything just to be good. I’ve always wanted to be the best. I’m so competitive that I never wanted to just be average, I never wanted to be just good.

That’s why I came up with the quote: “Outwork your competition so there is none.” I firmly believe if you put in more work and time that you should be able to be better than your opponent. *Interview edited for clarity.

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Story by Laynie Erickson Contributions by Abby Duchow Design & Illustrations by Itzel Montoya 30

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Soda Woodyard recognized in high school that he didn’t identify with traditional sexual identity labels. As a trans man it was a time of exploration as he realized that he wasn’t “perfectly straight” or “completely gay” either so he decided to go searching. “For my sexual orientation I am a demisexual panromantic person,” he says.

Woodyard is not alone. Many people in the LGBTQ+ community struggle to define their sexual orientation along with gender identity. While some do end up discovering a term that they identify with, many young people are refusing to use a label at all.

Understanding the Labels According to Kevin Toovey, PFLAG’s (Parents For Lesbians and Gays) regional director for the Pacific Northwest, there is a strict distinction between labels defining sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.

“Sexual orientation is really going to be about who you are attracted to or maybe who you would like to have a relationship with,” says Toovey. “Gender identity is not really about who you are attracted to, it’s about who you are on the inside. And then we look at gender expression, and that’s really going to be about how you demonstrate your gender on the exterior. The way that you act or dress or behave or interact.”

PFLAG is the first and largest organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) people. “PFLAG is at its core, a group of friends, families, allies and advocates for the LGBTQ+ community. We are really just a bunch of people who are either looking for some support for our personal lives or we’re looking to support others,” Toovey says.

Alyssa Mobley, airman first class in the Airforce, is someone who made the purposeful decision to not label her

sexuality. She has dated both men and women and appreciates a deeper connection regardless if they are male or female. When it comes to matters of a sexual orientation Mobley says, “I just think people should accept people for who they are, not what they identify as.”

Just as the general public may be getting comfortable with the more traditional labels of LGTBQ+, many more labels that describe an individual’s identity are emerging. However, even as more individuals resonate with such sexual identity terms such as pansexual, non-binary or demisexual, many are going a step further like Mobley and choosing not to be labeled at all.

According to Cynthia Coe, philosophy and religious studies professor and former director of the women, gender and sexuality studies program, homosexuality was once considered a psychiatric disorder, and the language of “queer” or “transgender” was not initially applied by people to themselves, but was applied by medical authorities, psychiatric authorities and others. She says there’s been a reclaiming process of these terms.

For many, assigning labels to their sexuality or identity may not encompass their preference of their sexual or gender identity.

Judith Hennessy, director of the women, gender and sexuality studies program and sociology professor, says there has been greater awareness of a range of sexual identity and how people express themselves, including people who don’t “need others to assign them a particular identity” and remain unlabeled. She says that while some may find a label that fits them and stick strongly to it, others may not because they feel their sexuality is more fluid than a label could portray.

Hennessy says these concepts of people not fitting into a box and having fluid identity aren’t new, but are more open than in the past. An example she gave

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about fluidity is that a woman can be attracted to a woman and not necessarily be a lesbian, or be attracted to a man and it doesn’t necessarily make her heterosexual.

Coe explains that a label “can be an important element of your identity, even though it’s abstract [and] it doesn’t capture everything about you, it communicates something important about you.”

Woodyard admits the journey he took to find a sexual orientation label he was comfortable with wasn’t easy and he completely understands those who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community but don’t recognize a specific designation beyond that.

Woodyard explains his labels “mean I don’t experience sexual attraction unless I get to know the person really well, no one-night stands that sort of thing. And I’m panromantic which can often be confused with bisexual or biromantic … it’s really just a label preference meaning you don’t mind the gender of your partner."

Woodyard describes that he really struggled to find a label that fit his gender identity. “For about three days of my life I went by they/them pronouns and it wasn’t right and it wasn’t fitting correctly so then I started going by he/him pronouns and I was like ‘woah, that’s way better,'” he says.

The struggle Woodyard experienced in finding the right sexual and gender identities may not be a foreign feeling for others within the LGBTQ+ community.

Coe shares a recent conversation she had with an older trans woman who explains, “just having the language of transgender made me realize I was not the only person ever in the world to experience this.”

Coe says having a label is “a form of validation or affirmation” that someone is not alone in having this experience, even if no one’s experience is exactly the same as theirs, and that there’s a shared community of similar people.

The Other Side of Labeling Hannah Bierman, a junior business administration major, explains trying to communicate to others her sexuality in the form of a label can be complicated because the label may hold an expectation.

“I’m tired of having to explain myself to everyone because they’d be like ‘oh, you’re gay? But you just dated a man,’” Bierman says. “So then I just started saying queer because I don’t [have to] explain it anymore.”

Coe says there are ways in which labels don’t allow for fluidity or flexibility, and can lead some to believe that someone who labels themselves will fall under that label for the rest of their lives. In this instance these labels do not lead to fluidity and flexibility.

“The label can be alienating and problematic, but there are also advantages to having the label, just in quickly communicating who you are and finding people who have some similarities to you,” Coe says.

Bierman, like many others, has chosen to identify as queer, an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. Bierman explains, “Honestly I would just say queer because it’s really anything you want it to be.”

Likewise, many choose not to label themselves at all for this very same reason: to avoid complications or having to explain to others their sexual preferences. Instead, they may choose not to subscribe to a specific identity because it may be misunderstood or they may feel it limits their identity.

The Choice is Yours While whom people are attracted to is not always a choice, how they choose to label themselves is, and that includes the choice not to label themselves at all.

Toovey speaks to PFLAG’s mission, as well as their support for those who

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choose not to label their sexual orientation. “Really at the end of the day our message is to let everyone be themselves and express themselves the way they see fit, and just love them anyway,” he says.

Hennessy says, “Some people, yes, feel really strongly one way, and that’s where they’re comfortable, that’s where they fit.

Others, we just think of as far more fluid than [living up to] heteronormative assumptions, and those are strong societal pressures on individuals who do not feel compelled to follow along.”

Toovey has seen the culture change when it comes to societal norms and the pressure to label their sexuality.

“What I love now though, is that people can be so much more vocal about expressing themselves, who they truly are, but also we have so many more advocates and allies who are just as expressive in fighting for the same things that we are. Really what that comes down to is just allowing people to love who they love, and allowing them to be who they are,” Toovey says.

Whether people are firm in their sexual and gender identities, others may be living without really knowing who they are.

“Sexual identity development is a process, especially for people who have a non-normative sexual or romantic orientation,” says Emily Lund, assistant professor of Counselor Education at the University of Alabama. “Many people go through several labels and identities to

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describe their sexual and/or romantic attractions before finding one that fits.

And some people never find a label that quite fits.”

Many who never find the right label, may believe that their position is already challenging enough. Feeling pressure to have to narrow that down even more may prove difficult to those who already struggle to feel like they do not fit in.

“There’s a desire to have that fixed ‘check a box and you’re done,’ and human nature is not necessarily like that, even though we would like to believe it is. I think part of that is the notion that people’s identities are not necessarily fixed,” Hennessy says.

Some may be able to define their sexuality or gender identity, some may still be figuring it out and some may be confused on who they are or whom they are attracted to. Either way, it’s okay to not be ready to vocalize it.

“What do we want the labels to do?” asks Coe. “How are they supposed to function? And, if they’re functioning to kind of tie people down to a permanent identity that doesn’t feel authentic to them, then that’s a problem. And could we, as a society, allow that much flexibility?”

Glossary of terms Asexuality

The lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity.

Bisexual

Refers to people who are sexually attracted to both men and women; not exclusively to people of one particular gender.

Cisgender

Refers to people whose sense of personal identity and gender is the same as their birth sex.

Demisexual

Refers to people who only feel sexually attracted to someone when they have an emotional bond with the person.

Gay

Refers to people attracted to members of the same sex, although it is more commonly used to refer specifically to men.

Lesbian

Panromantic

Having the ability to feel romantic attraction regardless of gender.

Pansexual

Not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender or gender identity.

Queer

An umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender.

Transgender

People who have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from the sex that they were assigned at birth.

Trans Man

A transgender person who has transitioned from female to male.

Trans Woman

A transgender person who has transitioned from male to female.

Source: www.lexico.com

Refers to a woman who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation toward women.

Non-binary

An umbrella term for gender identities that are neither male nor female, identities that are outside the gender binary.

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B a ck pa c k i ng Basics:

Gearing up for the Pacific Northwest Contributions by Kassandra Eller | Photos by Samantha Cabeza | Design by Lisa Zhu

One foot in front of the other. Your heart is pounding and your eyes grow wide as you finally reach the peak of the trail. Washington’s incredible landscape stretches on for miles and this beautiful scene full of trees and mountains opens up in front of you.

This euphoric feeling is known by backpackers all over Washington.

Backpacking is the perfect summer activity as the weather is warming up. Carrying all of your items in a backpack allows your afternoon hikes to turn into multi-day excursions. So grab your favorite backpack and let's explore!

Passes Some trails in Washington require backpackers to have a pass to camp on their trails. Here are the different types of Washington State passes you may need. Check your trails website to find out how to apply for a permit or a pass.

Backcountry/Wilderness Permit: For some areas such as Mount Rainier National Park, North Cascades National Park and Olympic National Park require different types of wilderness permits. Research your park as prices range for each.

Northwest Forest Pass: For if you plan to hike on federal land such as national forests and parks.

Annual pass: $30

Discover Pass: For if you plan to hike on state land such as state parks and forests, and conservation lands.

Day pass: $10 Annual pass: $30 America the Beautiful Pass: For access to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites across the country.

Annual pass: $80 Source: Washington Trails Association

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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ch & d mat ing pa p slee

energency supplies

water bottle

food energy backpack

extra Essential Gear Tent, sleeping bag or sleeping pad, portable stove and fuel, kitchen utensils, water treatment supplies, weather appropriate clothing, small repair kit, a map and compass, headlamp and flashlights, sunscreen and bug spray, and a knife.

Source: rei.com

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hiking boots

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Places to Backpack in the pnw Palouse Falls State Park: If you like chasing waterfalls, this is the place for you. Palouse features three different points where you can view Palouse Falls and expansive views of Palouse River Canyon.

Required Pass: Discover Olympic National Park: This park offers trails spanning many different ecosystems such as the coast, temperate rainforests as well as lowland forests.

Required Pass: America the Beautiful North Cascades National Park: In this park the mountains are always out. There are trails that are steep uphill climbs as well as short strolls that allow you to take in the scenery.

Snow falls heavy in the winter which may cause this park to be closed until later in the season.

Required Pass: Northwest Forest Pass Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest: With 3.8 million acres to explore you won’t get bored in this forest. Activities such as fishing, birdwatching and hunting can be found here. This forest also offers both developed campgrounds and backcountry wilderness areas for you to rest up.

Required pass: Northwest Forest Pass Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest: Placed between Seattle and the Canadian border, this forest features snow capped mountain tops, wide open meadows and old growth forests. There are many places to explore.

Required pass: Northwest Forest Pass Sources: nps.com and fs.usda.gov

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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FASHION

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SPOTLIGHT

A FRIENDLY VOICE

ON THE OTHER END OF THE CRISIS LINE Story by Bailey Tomlinson | Contributions by Jessica Fryberger | Design & Illustration by Sara Roach

Maintaining mental health has been at the forefront of almost every mind over the past year, as unprecedented numbers of isolated people found themselves spending more time than ever sequestered within their living spaces. Even with a partner or roommates, stagnating in the same condensed spaces and habits for a year may have made slipping into feeling deeply alone easier than most have ever expected it to be.

In these moments of depression, anxiety or overwhelming feelings of loneliness or loss, reaching for the phone is a way to reach for a helping hand. Friendly voices trained to assist any level of distress are ready to answer any call made to a crisis line.

Crisis lines range from general support to specialized services for youth, addiction or those looking to speak with people from similar walks of life. Some are available 24/7, many are anonymous and all are there to help. Even in the face of a pandemic, crisis centers have stepped up their services to quickly accommodate growing needs within their communities.

Washington Listens

One program to come from this effort is Washington Listens.

Made up of 13 partnering agencies working together, it takes calls statewide from people primarily looking for a support specialist to assist with pandemic-related mental health struggles, anxieties or other problems.

“The call can be about anything,” Casey Forsyth, a crisis counselor with Washington Listens, says. “From ‘My cat died,’ to ‘I just tested positive for [COVID-19.]’ Most people who call just want to talk and for someone to listen. They identify extreme loneliness, chronic pain, health problems, job loss, [mental health] issues, fears of catching COVID-19, fears of

side effects of the vaccine, family members who are sick, what’s on the news ... most callers just want to talk to someone because of isolation.”

Something crisis center workers across the board wanted to emphasize is that whether you are actively having a crisis or just an off day, they are here for you.

Lila Lopeman, a support specialist with Washington Listens, says that everyone answering calls is really encouraging and greets the public enthusiastically. She, and those who work with her, want to get the word out that the support line is a really good resource for people, and for everyone to know it’s available to them.

“Anyone can call. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do,” Lauren Rigert, senior director of development and community relations at Crisis Connections, says. "Your ethnicity, your immigration status, your income, your gender, it doesn't matter to us. We want to be able to provide the service no matter what.”

At the beginning of the pandemic, some existing resources at crisis centers were adapted to take in COVID-19 related calls. Crisis centers like Crisis Connections have been seeing immense boosts in call volume throughout the pandemic.

According to the Healthier Washington Collaboration Portal, Washington Listens was created in response to the pandemic.

The program has since been expanded to also support those affected by wildfires.

"The 2-1-1 Network was activated by the State Department of Health back in March of 2020 to answer the COVID-19 information hotline," Rigert says. "At the end of 2020, we'd taken around 25,000 phone calls on that line statewide."

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SPOTLIGHT

Community Cornerstones

Although the pandemic has caused these crisis lines to see spikes in call volume, some have been facets of the community for over half a century.

Crisis Connections specifically was founded in response to a need for mental health support and resources following a traumatic event in the community. Back in 1963, a United States Postal worker struggling with mental health but unable to get support or resources stabbed a little girl in the neighborhood, Rigert says. The little girl lived, and instead of the community response being retributive, Crisis Connections, at the time called Crisis Clinic, was born. “[The community] said, ‘Never again should someone be looking for support and resources. They should be able to find them and get the help that they need,’” Rigert says. “And so that’s when the Crisis Clinic … was born.”

According to Rigert, it started in the basement of one of the clinician’s homes using rotary phones, with clinicians answering the crisis line after hours.

“The central mission [that Crisis Connections began with] is definitely still there,” Rigert says. “All of our programs and services are related to our mission in terms of being a support and resource for community members. The community just happened to grow a little bit more.”

According to Rigert, Crisis Connections is still providing the same thing that they provided back in 1964 - support at the moment of crisis for an individual, as well as support and resources for the next step.

They offer six core programs outside of their involvement with Washington Listens, which includes a 24-hour crisis line, community training programs, Teen Link (which is a youth peer-support line) and the Warm line (which is an adult peer-support line). They also offer resource-related lines, like the King County 2-1-1 program (which is a referral program for social services), the Washington State Recovery Helpline (which provides support and resources around substance use disorders and problem gambling) and a support after suicide program. All of these programs, except for the community training programs, are free to utilize.

Rigert says all of their programs are centered around the idea of a continuum of care for crisis, from prevention to intervention to support.

“What we say is, ‘Crisis is self-defined.’ There’s no crisis that is priority over another. So we handle a whole variety of different crises, so, it could be someone calling up saying they’re just having a bad day and want to talk to someone all the way up to, ‘I’m on the bridge and I’m ready to jump.’”

Rigert says what they consider a crisis is a “wide spectrum,” and the majority of their phone calls and contacts are not from people who are on the verge of suicide.

“I think around 15% of our calls or contacts are suicidal ideation,” Rigert says.

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Crisis Connections, and many other crisis centers like it, is not meant to be the end of the line for somebody seeking help, support or resources regarding mental health. These hotlines are more of a place of transit to help callers find where to go next.

“Think about a centralized location or a centralized safety net, if you will, for folks to be able to say, ‘I don’t know where to go for this particular service, I don’t know even who to call or what to do,’” Rigert says. “They can come to us and we can help them figure out what they need and make sure they get to the right place.”

A CWU student, who will remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the content, says that they have called the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the past, and that the experience was “very helpful and grounding.” “[It] definitely helped me in my situation, to just kind of come down from that stage of freak-out to being grounded in where I was,” the student says.

The student explains they know it can be hard, especially when experiencing a crisis, but to keep in mind that there’s no need to “tone it down” for the crisis counselors. Their job is to help those in crisis, and making things seem not as bad as they may be won’t help either party.

“Don’t be embarrassed to call. That’s what they are there for, they literally have volunteers that want to help you for that reason, so don’t even start to second guess it,” the student says.

“Because, even if it’s a minor thing, and after ten minutes you feel like you’re better, that’s okay. That’s what they’re there for.

So don’t second guess it, just do it. They are there to help you, so take advantage of that.”

Rigert says calls have been coming in from out-of-state college students during the pandemic who are quarantined or stuck in Washington and do not know who to talk to or what resources are available around them and do not want to further worry distant family who may not be able to directly help. These calls are often about COVID-19 fears or feelings of isolation.

Director of CWU’s Office of Case Management, Joy Stochosky, says that her department refers students to crisis hotlines all the time. Automatic email responses from the department always contain references to local crisis lines and the national crisis line number, and they work closely with the local Comprehensive Healthcare, which is contracted with the local crisis line, according to Stochosky.

“Our primary responsibility is to follow up with students who’ve been identified as having extenuating circumstances, often crisis-related extenuating circumstances,” Stochosky says.

“I think anytime that we can help a student feel a little less overwhelmed and a little more understood is a win.”

Stochosky says with the pandemic making face-to-face interactions less possible, they have also gotten a lot more familiar with using virtual spaces to reach out to and meet with students.

SPOTLIGHT

Listening to the Listeners

Something that all of the support specialists interviewed agreed on is that the rewards of answering calls from those in crisis outweigh the challenges.

“For me it’s just giving people somewhere to call and help them ease their anxiety, that’s what I like the best, is just that they know that they’re not alone,” says Nora Cornelius, team lead for the Washington Listens team at the American Indian Community Center. “So many people are isolated, and it can get scary.”

Forsyth says one of the rewards of answering calls, in addition to the reward of helping others, is that each day at work is different.

"The most rewarding for me is," Patty Campbell, a support specialist working with Washington Listens, says, is "reassuring [callers] that their feelings are absolutely normal, that they're not over the top, that they are experiencing things that are common. They oftentimes feel very comforted by that, and by the time we come to the end of the call, they're in a much better state mentally and emotionally."

There are times where the work can be challenging, however.

On an administrative side, Karl Beall, programs manager for Community Integrated Health Services, says reworking infrastructure to accommodate such a large community need quickly enough to help those who are seeking it is an undertaking.

Beall says rewards and challenges are often tightly intertwined. While taking part in a team that can overcome barriers to community support is rewarding, shifting some team members to the Washington Listens line required the adaptation of processes, resources and thinking around remote work.

“It’s been quite a ride,” Rigert says. “But you know, we’re up and running, we’re there for people who are in crisis. That’s what we do.”

The work has been a different kind of difficult at times for those who are directly interacting with callers. Some callers are hostile, or convinced that COVID-19 support is founded in disinformation.

“I’ve had a few [callers] that will yell at me and say, ‘[COVID-19] isn’t real,’ or things like that,” Cornelius says. “But of course, we’re not here to argue.” She says that’s the hardest thing about the job.

The length of time the pandemic has gone on can also wear down on some callers, Forsyth says. “Everyone is experiencing the stress, and there is no break from it.”

Despite these challenges, support specialists still look forward to being able to help those who call.

“Washington Listens is here to, well, listen,” Beall says. Washington Listens is a temporary program, currently set to expire in July of 2021. However, an extension has been applied for, and the crisis centers involved in the program are waiting to hear back on whether or not it will be approved. If so, it will be given resources to operate for another nine months before being up for expiration again.

“As it stands, the contract ends at the end of July of 2021. But we know that the behavioral health ramifications of the pan-

demic are going to be for a while. And so we think that this particular resource, this line, is definitely something that we want to keep going for a while,” Rigert says. “So we're hoping, fingers crossed, that it will be extended another nine months.”

Many of the support specialists expressed a desire to continue helping wherever they can do the most good, and say that Washington Listens has put them right where they need to be.

“Something that we want our callers to understand, and the public, is that what they’re experiencing, however it comes out, is normal and to be expected,” Campbell says. “They’re not alone in the feelings that they have, and the fears and the anxieties and all of that. And as far as mental health and emotional health, it’s okay to reach out for help.”

WASHINGTON LISTENS pandemic-related help available Monday – Friday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and weekends from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

+1 (833) 681-0211

NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION LIFELINE available 24/7

+1 (800) 273-8255

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FOOD + DRINK

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Contributions & Photos by Kassandra Eller Interview by Spencer Clifton | Design by Sara Roach

Sushi comes in many shapes and sizes. From rolled sushi to raw fish and octopus, there is something out there for everyone. Originating from Japanese culture, sushi has become a popular dining option in the Pacific Northwest.

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FOOD + DRINK

Sashimi features fresh seafood that is served raw. It is sliced thin and can be served over daikon radish and pickled ginger. Many different types of fish can be included in this dish such as salmon, tuna and yellowtail, as pictured here.

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Although sushi typically is made using fish, there are vegetarian options that are offered at most sushi restaurants. Typically, there is a veggie roll that will be on the menu, but also look for sushi that includes ingredients such as avocado, carrot, asparagus and cucumber.

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FOOD + DRINK

Q&A - WITH KOKI YOSHIZAWA Koki Yoshizawa, a CWU junior studying tourism through the Association of Universities of Asia and Pacific (AUAP) program, may not know exactly what they want to do when they graduate, but they know they want to connect with different cultures and different countries.

PULSE reached out in order to gain a unique perspective on how sushi relates to Japanese culture and to Yoshizawa personally.

Q: Can you tell me what sushi means to you?

Q: What does sushi mean to your culture?

あなたにとって寿司とはどんなものですか？

あなたの文化にとって寿司とはどんなものですか？

A:

A: In Japan, there are conveyor belt sushi, which is

Sushi is a very nostalgic food for me. I've been in the US for about 3 years, but out of all the sushi restaurants in the US, there are only a few sushi that I find delicious and the prices are very high.

So it's easy to eat and delicious sushi is a nostalgic food for me.

僕にとっての寿司はとても懐かしい食べ物です。僕は アメリカに約3年いますが、 アメリカにある寿司レスト ランで、美味しいと感じる寿司はほとんどないし、 とて も値段が高いです。なので手軽に食べられ、美味しい 寿司は懐かしい食べ物です。

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a cheap sushi restaurant, and a fairly high-class sushi restaurant made by sushi chefs. There are both affordable sushi and luxurious sushi, so it is deeply rooted in our food culture.

日本には回転寿司という安く食べられる寿司屋さんと 寿司職人が作るかなり高級な寿司屋さんがあります。 手頃に食べられる寿司と贅沢に食べる寿司の両方が あるので日本人に広く浸透し、私たちの食文化に深く 根付いてます。

Q: What is your favorite kind of Sushi?

A:

Yes! Of course I have eaten sushi in the US! However, American sushi is expensive. The conveyor belt sushi I went to for the first time was $ 5 per a plate. Also I can't really feel the freshness of the raw fish, and the rice was too big, and the balance was messed up. But I like California rolls as a completely different food from Japanese sushi.

A:

はい！もちろん食べたことあります！アメリカの寿司 はまず高いです。僕が初めて行った回転寿司では一 貫$5しました。笑 刺身の新鮮さも正直感じられな いし、 シャリも大きすぎてバランスがめちゃくちゃでし た。笑 でも、 日本の寿司とは全く別の食べ物として カリフォルニアロールは好きです！

自分の好きな寿司のネタは大トロです。大トロの脂は しつこくなく、 ほんのり甘く大好きな一品です。

*For the full interview visit cwupulsemagazine.com

あなたの好きな寿司のネタは何ですか？ My favorite kind of sushi is Ootoro, which is fatty tuna. The fat of the fatty tuna is not greasy, but slightly sweet and I love it.

Q: Have you had sushi in the US? How does it compare to sushi in Japan?

アメリカで寿司を食べたことはありますか？また、日 本の寿司と比較してどうでしたか？

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Quarantini Recipes Contributions & Photos

by Kassandra Eller Design by Sara Roach Are you tired of being stuck inside? Do you miss Friday nights at the bar with your friends?

Quarantine Martinis, or quarantinis, may just be the fun and refreshing drink you need to push you through the rest of quarantine. Read on to see some fun recipes for you to try at home!

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Seven Seas Martini • 1 ounce Amaretto • 1 ounce Malibu Rum • 1 ½ ounces pineapple juice

1. Add all ingredients to a martini shaker filled with ice. If you like a strong drink use the amount of alcohol listed. For a sweeter drink, try adding 2 ounces of pineapple juice.

2. Shake well and strain into a martini glass. Be careful when doing this, because if there is too much air in the martini shaker, shaking will cause it to explode. Try wrapping a towel around the tin while shaking to help soak up any escaping liquid.

3. Garnish with lemon, fresh pineapple or even shark gummies if you’re feeling playful!

Recipe inspired by Mantitlement.com

Raspberry Lemon Drop Martini • ¼ cup of fresh raspberries • 4 ounces of vodka • 4 tablespoons of lemon juice • ¼ cup of lemon lime soda • 4 tablespoons of sugar 1. Mash raspberries with the sugar. Do this in a separate bowl and crush the raspberries first. If you want to get rid of the seeds, mash the raspberries through a metal strainer before mixing in the sugar.

2. Mix the raspberry mixture with vodka, soda, lemon juice and ice in a martini shaker. Shake to combine.

3. Strain the mixture to get rid of any seeds and pour into a martini glass. Add raspberries or lemon for garnish.

Recipe inspired by thecookierookie.com

Cucumber Mint Martini • 1 cucumber (peeled) • 5 mint leaves • 2 teaspoons of sugar • 4 ounces of vodka 1. Slice peeled cucumbers and add ¾ of them to a blender with ½ cup of water. Blend until smooth. Strain this mixture through a metal strainer to eliminate any cucumber chunks. Muddle mint to extract the juices from the leaves. This is best done with a mortar and pestle, but can be done using a spoon and a bowl.

2. Combine cucumber juice with vodka, mint juices and sugar in a martini shaker. For a stronger mint flavor, add 1 teaspoon of mint extract, or add another teaspoon of sugar for a sweeter drink. Shake to combine using a towel around the shaker to catch any drips.

3. Strain into a martini glass and garnish with mint and cucumber.

Cheers!

Recipe inspired by lipglossandcrayons.com

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Spilling the

Tea on Tea Story by Theresa Daigle | Photos by Kassandra Eller Design by Hinako Yutakata

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea,”

author Fyodor Dostoevsky

Maybe Dostoevsky was on to something, as life feels just a little bit calmer when your hands wrap around a hot cup of tea. Taking your beverage to the next level, tea blending gives you the opportunity to create flavors that are specific to your own palate and it is easier than you may think.

The first decision is what base of tea you would like to use. This could depend on if you want a caffeinated beverage or something that will help you fall asleep at night. According to WebMD, tea also provides many health benefits. Once you decide your tea base, you can build your flavor profile on top of that to create your own unique blend.

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Black Tea

Caffeine Level

Black tea tends to be bolder in flavor and has the highest caffeine content of all teas.

English Breakfast Tea and Earl Grey are two popular types of black tea.

Potential Benefits:

Health benefits of black tea may include lowering blood sugar levels. Because this tea has the most caffeine of all teas, drinking black tea can have a positive impact on focus and concentration as well as increasing strength and endurance during exercise.

Green Tea

Blending Notes:

Add a pinch of lavender or rose to your Earl Grey tea to give it a floral twist; however, just a pinch. Too much will overpower the tea. You can also add star anise to your tea to get a black licorice flavor or vanilla bean for a French vanilla flavor.

Caffeine Level

Green tea is more delicate than black tea and has less caffeine making it a great option for blending.

Potential Benefits:

Green tea is thought to have many health benefits, including improved brain function, and weight loss. Green tea is also high in antioxidants, which may decrease the risk of certain cancers and heart disease.

White Tea

Blending Notes:

Lemon, mint and chamomile tend to be the most common blends for green tea. Break out of the norm and try something different – dried ginger with lemongrass or dried orange and almond.

Caffeine Level

All tea comes from the same plant. The only difference is how it Blending notes: is processed. White tea undergoes the least amount of oxidation Adding dried apple and a cinnamon stick and is the least processed of all teas. It has the lowest amount of makes a great drink either hot or cold. caffeine of all the traditional teas, excluding herbal.

Other interesting blends are coconut and safflower or a savory blend of rosemary and spearmint.

Potential Benefits: White tea contains the lowest amount of fluoride compared to other teas. If you drink a lot of tea, this might be a better option as excessive amounts of fluoride can cause damage to your dental enamel. Black tea has the most fluoride.

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Herbal and Rooibos/Red Tea Caffeine Level: none Herbal tea is a combination of dried herbs, spices, berries and flowers that are steeped in boiling water to release their flavor.

Potential Benefits:

No tea leaves are used in herbal tea, which makes it the most unique of the teas and may offer many medicinal benefits, depending on the flavors you are blending. For example, turmeric is known to decrease inflammation in your body.

Therefore, you can create an herbal tea that highlights turmeric as its main flavor profile.

Blending notes:

Good examples of herbal tea blends include mint, basil, chamomile and lemon peel. Try blending rooibos with chocolate nibs and dried cherry for a sweet end to a delicious meal.

Health benefits sourced from WebMD, a health information and medical news organization. Some herbs and supplements may interact with medications or preexisting health conditions check with your doctor before blending.

Tea Bag vs. Loose Leaf Bag tea is convenient and easy to use.

Loose tea

Look for tea bags that are larger, allow-

penetrate the tea, causing it to swell and

ing the tea to have movement within the

release more flavor. If you are making

bag. Steep for 2 - 4 minutes, depending

one cup of tea as opposed to a pot, invest

on how strong you want your tea and do

in a tea infuser that can be easily cleaned

not squeeze the tea bag before disposing.

and reused. Store tea in your cabinet

Squeezing the bag releases bitterness

or pantry in a canister or container for

and tea dust into your tea compromising

freshness.

the flavor and appearance.

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allows boiling water to

For more information on the potential benefits of tea, visit https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/ tea-types-and-their-health-benefits#1.

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MIND + BODY

INCLUSIVITY

PLUS SIZE

Addressing

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Story by Paije Maas | Photos by Peighton Bortle Design & Modeling by Katie Jo Stewart

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MIND + BODY

It is 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning and you have a very exciting shopping day ahead of you. After finding a parking spot, you walk up to the shop’s doors and step through the threshold. Your heart begins to pump as you scan the store and see the wide variety of clothing options available. There are racks of spring dresses with floral designs and denim jeans with fringe. New prints and fabrics are screaming to invade your closet space.

Your eyes lock on a nude off-the-shoulder dress and you begin to search for your size. Your fingers briskly move through the tags, but you notice it’s nowhere to be found.

The largest size available is a size eight. After searching for your size throughout the entire store, you notice that they don’t carry it. The manager says that is their largest size in the store, and you leave feeling discouraged.

This is something millions of women across the world experience when shopping. For some plussize women, they begin to feel that their size is not as represented as standard sizes. Katelyn Richardson, a junior food and science nutrition major, relates to this.

Richardson says she always asks herself, “is there a wide variety of styles as well as sizes for all body types?” when shopping. Her expectation is that there should be.

Sarah Smith, a junior apparel textiles and merchandising major, shares a similar expectation. “I don’t consider my mom plus-sized, but it’s sad to hear that I can’t treat my mom to clothing from my job because they don’t offer her sizes. I really hope to see an expansion in the plus-size community for clothing,” she says.

Some businesses are moving forward to break the stigma behind plus-size clothing by providing a more size-inclusive shopping experience for their customers. Megan West, the owner of Claim Clothing in Ellensburg, hopes to spread a message of body positivity to all who shop in her store.

“We try to provide a range of styles and sizes for as many people as we can,” she says. “When we first opened our shop, we offered a wide range from small [through] 3XL, but the merchandise did not turn over quickly and we couldn’t sell through seasonal items. Ultimately it wasn’t making much sense for our small shop to dictate so much inventory dollars to this department.”

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This is a recurring issue for many small store owners.

They provide size-inclusive products but those products never sell and it in turn causes them to lose money.

Fashion Department Director and Professor of Apparel Textiles and Merchandising, Andrea Eklund touches on the business side of owning a clothing store. She explains, oftentimes the reason behind a store not carrying size-inclusive clothing is primarily due to their floor space, their demographic and how much money the store has to purchase the clothing.

Eklund says that plus-size clothing is her area of research and her passion. While many small clothing stores do not carry plus-size clothing, she explains that there are tons of clothing companies geared directly towards plus-size women. “Torrid is an amazing retailer who is so size-inclusive, their sizes start at a size eight and I believe go up to a size 30," she says. "It does cost a bit more due to the extra fabric needed, but it is worth it.”

While there is still a divide in the fashion world between plus-size and standard sizing, Eklund believes we are moving in a direction towards more size inclusive models on the runway. “There are people like Christan Siriano, who makes clothing for women that are plus-size and his reasoning is that they are women. The average woman in the U.S. is moving towards a size sixteen and I think more companies are finally starting to realize that,” she says.

Companies are indeed realizing this after Vogue released their October 2020 issue with Lizzo on the cover.

Lizzo is a three-time Grammy award winning singer, and during her shoot with Vogue she was named the first plus-size black woman to be featured on the cover.

Ashley Graham is another plus-size influential celebrity that is paving the way for size inclusivity. She is the first plus-size model to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated and she has since created her own clothing line.

There is no doubt that this gap in equality for plussize individuals is getting more attention. These influencers have shaped the way fashion companies see women and how they create their clothing. The fact that they are creating size-inclusive luxurious formal wear may be a sign that change is on the way.

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REIK I

A Hidden Gem in Healing Story by Daichi Ichikawa | Design and Illustration by Lisa Zhu

Pills. Prescriptions. Procedures. You may be very familiar with these common practices of Western medicine. Whether you have dealt with physical or psychological pain before, you may be surprised to learn of a completely different and spiritual method to tackling pain.

Reiki, an art of energy healing that originated in Japan, may be able to help you in a significant way to any countertop medicines you buy from the store.

Sharon Lawlor, the founder of Sharon Lawlor Massage & Energy Healing in Ann Arbor, Michigan, explains that Reiki started as “a spiritual practice with healing capabilities” and was adopted by “Western practices as a healing practice with spiritual capabilities.”

What Is Reiki?

Reiki healing is often seen as a hands-on approach to treating the mind and body. Lawlor explains that Reiki is performed by placing hands around the body to release negative energy from the body.

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“We are concentrating it through the hands, but it first comes through the heart,” says Jennifer Nervo, holistic practitioner and founder of Healing Redefined Holistic Wellness Center, in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

It is not as simple as placing hands on someone, it has a deeper meaning. “The word Reiki itself actually comes from the Japanese [words] for ‘rei’ which is ‘universal’ and ‘ki’ which is life-force, so [together] ‘universal life-force,’” says Tina Bowman, Reiki master at Healing Connections, in Brighton, Michigan.

The idea of the practice is “based on the foundation of belief that there is a universal life-force energy running through all of us, all of nature and all living things,” Bowman says.

For the Reiki practitioner, the main role is to “clear a channel for the [universal] energy to come in and go wherever it needs to go in a person’s body.”

According to Lawlor, Reiki is more than just the hand placements, it’s about “getting into more of the heartspace ... to be able to [get] the energy to come up through them, like they’re the conduit.”

The practice of Reiki may be a more life-changing approach to healing both physical and psychological pains than the common Western medicine.

Experiences with Reiki

What does it actually feel like to be treated with Reiki?

“I think it can be different for different people, with what their state of mind and what their physical bodies are at,” Lawlor says.

“Some people just feel extremely relaxed after [the treatment],” says Bowman. “Some people feel warmth or cold, like temperature differences, and some people feel tingling sensations, almost like pins and needles.”

Bowman, who was a victim of child abuse and other trauma, claims that her first Reiki treatment was an emotional experience. “There was a physical sensation of a pulling of energy kind of coming out of the center of my body, like a clearing.

And it felt like a release, but there was a lot of emotion, because I was processing a lot of things at that time.”

Spirituality into Science

As it stands in Western culture, Reiki’s benefits may be left up to personal interpretation and experiences. “[Reiki] is not complicated, and it’s great because it leaves a lot of interpretation to move this into science,” Nervo says. “So, we talk about the medical side of Reiki, which, we’re not medical doctors … but Reiki’s in over 800 hospitals. Reiki is used in the operating room. Even Dr. Oz used it in his operating room.”

Nervo explains Reiki is “working on the electronics of the body. Our body is full of electromagnetic frequencies; Reiki works with those.”

According to Portsmouth Regional Hospital in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, “Reiki helps many people experience a deep relaxation measured by a decrease in blood pressure and heart rate and a slowing and deepening of the breath, as well as a sense of warmth and peacefulness.”

Portsmouth Regional Hospital offers integrative care to their patients and “recognize that the interactions of mind, body, spirit and community have a direct impact on recovery and well-being.”

Nervo explains how she works with patients to “reach that inner physician, that inner healer, that everybody has.”

Bowman adds, as a Reiki practitioner she is only trying to “clear a channel for the energy to come in, and go wherever it needs to go in a person’s body.” The Reiki practitioner is mainly there to help guide the energy through the body, ultimately you are the one who is making a change and bringing that peace into your life.

“We’re made of energy," Nervo says. "The more harmonious vibrations we put into our body, the more it can heal.”

Whether you believe in the healing powers of Reiki or not, it may be just the thing that relieves all your aches and pains, and brings you some inner peace and harmony.

Reiki in Japan and the West

According to Bowman, Japanese Healer Mikao Usui was the first person to bring Reiki to the West in 1922, but adds that it had likely been practiced for thousands of years before coming to the West.

The evolution of Reiki over time is similar to that of someone’s family tree.

“Reiki was considered to be only for a few chosen or a select few students, it wasn’t widely available, and it wasn’t taught to everyone. So [Usui] had a few disciples, and then they had a few disciples, and kind of a lineage has come down the line over the years,” Bowman says.

While we know where Reiki came from and who practiced it, much of the rest of its story is unclear. However, we do know that it saw some troubling times around World War II. Founder and President of the International Center for Reiki Training William Lee Rand writes in his article, "An Evidence Based History of Reiki," one of the biggest reasons that Reiki has had few records on how it originally started “is due to the fact that when World War II ended … laws were enacted that banned all Eastern healing methods and required that only Western medical methods be practiced.”

The article goes on to explain that while some healing methods in Japan were legalized by the government, Reiki healers decided not to go through the licensing process. This would cause them to practice in secret, which obscured Reiki’s history.

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Dealing in Divination: The Practice of Tarot Story by Autumn Reed | Photos by Spencer Clifton Design & Illustration by Hinako Yutakata There’s a row of cards laid out in front of you with pictures and symbols on them. Each card represents something in your life, revealing where you have been, what your future could look like and potential paths you may follow. Your whole life story could be laid out on the table right in front of you.

The practice of tarot can shift many people’s outlooks on life. Tarot can bring mindfulness, value and a chance to slow down to look at your life in an overall perspective. When you approach the practice with an open mind, it may open the door to a path of growth.

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Defining Tarot

Theresa Reed, author of “Tarot: No Questions Asked Mastering the Art of Intuitive Reading,” says “tarot is the language of symbols. A tarot reader looks at the images and interprets the story they are trying to tell.”

According to Reed, people choose to do tarot for a variety of reasons, “to find information, see the future, work out personal issues, introspection or entertainment.”

Tarot has the potential to guide you in life, especially when you have a pondering question you want answered.

Alyssa Mobley, airman first class in the US Air Force and friend of PULSE reporter Tony Smith, says “If I have anything that’s really pressing on my mind, or kind of stuck in a hard place, I’ll find someone who knows how to do [tarot readings] and get the answers that I wouldn’t, per se, know myself.”

Barbara Meyers, psychic entertainer, has been doing tarot readings professionally for 32 years. For Meyers, she had forgotten how much fun tarot was after leaving the practice for 12 years. It was not until a friend showed her what she learned about tarot that Meyers got back into it, and pursued it professionally.

When Meyers does a reading, she believes that the card you need will come into your hand. “I’m not looking for specific cards to illustrate a point,” Meyers says. “The cards that come up create a story.”

Tarot has not always been associated with divination.

In the 1400s, the practice of tarot was originally created

as a trick-taking game, according to Reed. A trick-taking game is a card game that goes through a series of rounds called tricks to determine a winner. It wasn’t until a couple of centuries later that tarot became associated with divination and the practice took off.

Addressing the Skepticism

There is no doubt that tarot readers or people who believe in the practice of tarot know about the skepticism others may hold. A common theme that has been associated with the skepticism is closed-mindedness.

According to Reed, there are various reasons why a person might be skeptical of the practice, and she believes it is due to how tarot is portrayed in popular culture. “Tarot is often portrayed as something spooky or silly,” Reed says. “Movies will often have a character dressed in fortune teller duds delivering a scary message as they pull out the death card.”

Reed adds that tarot is portrayed as “comic relief ” or a joke to the public. She notes, these common portray-

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few readings and did some self-reflection … it opened my eyes to see what was really right for me. Ellensburg had all the right things.”

This was the first major decision where tarot made an impact on Smith. “It gets you the keys to unlock your own path for growth,” Smith says.

For Reed, the practice has made her a more mindful person. “When I was younger, I tended to be impulsive, which led to some pretty disastrous decisions,” Reed says.

“I’ve learned to slow down and look deeply at my motives.”

Mobley uses tarot for guidance. “It doesn’t straight up tell you the answer that you’re looking for,” Mobley says.

“But it’s almost like very good advice.” And in her experience, tarot has always made a positive impact.

“I would never say I had any negative impact at all,” Mobley says. “It’s only been positive.”

“There is no better feeling than knowing you’ve been able to help someone,” Reed says as she explains the impact of reading tarot.

Whether you are reading the cards or having your cards read, there will be some sort of impact on your life.

Where to Begin als are what have “created a stigma around tarot and the people who read the cards.”

Meyers has had people try to get into her head when she gives them a tarot reading. “They’re trying to twist it around into something bad … you try to give people good news for them, and sometimes they do twist it a little bit,” Meyers says.

Johanna Birch, tarot reader for 20 years and mother to PULSE co-editor in chief, Spencer Clifton, chooses not to do readings on people she knows. “It’s people you know that a lot of times they’re looking for you to be wrong, it seems like,” Birch says. “People who are already critical you have to watch for."

A Lifelong Impact

Tony Smith, PULSE Reporter, has personally been influenced by tarot with his decision on where to go to school.

“I was really stuck at Eastern,” Smith says. “So I did a

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If you want to start doing tarot readings, the advice that has been given by many is to find a deck that you like.

“Find a deck that talks to you,” Meyers says. “Even online you can see at least some of the pictures. And you need to say, ‘I know what that means’ just by looking at it.”

The next piece of advice that has been given is to just sit down and do tarot. “Start by drawing a card every day,” Birch says. “Ask what can I expect today? Or what message do you have for me today?”

Reed also recommends recording your readings in a journal. “Writing down your readings will help the information stick, plus looking back later might confirm the reading,” Reed says.

It is important to have an open-mind and find what works best for you. Just sit down, learn the practice and have fun with it.

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AFTER DARK

SEXUAL VIOLENCE

THRIVES IN SILENCE Story by Allison Clowers | Design & Illustration by Katie Jo Stewart

Imagine spending 20 years of your life keeping a huge secret from everyone you love in fear of being judged or doubted. Imagine spending those 20 years aching inside because you are ashamed of what happened to you.

This is a reality for many men who have been sexually victimized and have not felt comfortable enough to report their experience. Feeling lost and alone because they have been violated.

In many discussions, it may seem like women are the most common victim in sexual assualt or sexual harassment, and men are often times the perpetrators. While those are the situations that you may hear about more often, there are many other instances of sexual violence that we do not hear about.

ANYONE CAN BE A VICTIM When we think of sexual assault or sexual harassment we tend to think of women being the only victims, and we think of men as only the perpetrators. While those are the situations we hear about most often, there are many more instances of sexual violence that we do not hear about, specifically amongst males.

But what qualifies as sexual violence? The Rape, Assault & Incest National Network (RAINN) defines sexual violence as an all-encompassing term that refers to crimes such as sexual assault, rape and sexual abuse.

An advocate at Aspen Advocacy Services in Ellensburg, Melissa Osorio, explains, sexual violence can be: “harassment, inappropriate touching [or] inappropriate conversations.” Many people think of rape as the only form of sexual violence, but “it goes much deeper than just the rape aspect,” Osorio adds.

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“Sexual violence is a crime that can happen to anyone, no matter their age, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic status, it’s pervasive throughout our society and it affects both men and women, and people who identify across the gender spectrum,” says Heather Drevna, vice president of communications at RAINN. Anyone can be a victim, the unfortunate truth is, “sexual assault is equal opportunity,” says Jim Struve, executive director of Men Healing, an organization that provides help for male survivors of sexual violence.

“Sexual assault is really, in many ways, perceived as a woman’s issue which makes it very difficult for men to come forward about their experiences of harassment and abuse,” says Laura Palumbo, communications director at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

SEXUAL ASSAULT IS EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

“

-Jim Struve – executive director of Men Healing, an organization that provides help for male survivors of sexual violence

MEN DON’T ____.

“Men don’t cry, men don’t complain, men have to be strong,” Osorio says, as she explains the expectations society has placed on males.

One of the biggest reasons we do not hear about men being victims of sexual violence is because they do not report their cases as often as women. That is because many men do not feel comfortable enough to come forward and speak out about their experience.

Assistant Professor of Counseling at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, Doug Shirley, explains typically one in four to five men have experienced some form of sexual violence, with the belief that those numbers are drastically inaccurate because they only represent the reported cases.

While the victimization and trauma are generally the same

across all gender-identities, “what’s different primarily is the way in which men are socialized to respond,” Struve says.

He adds, “It stays more invisible for men because we don’t consider that men can be victims. All of the prevailing norms of masculinity are [that] boys and men can protect themselves.

The idea of violation of males is kind of hard for people to get their heads around.”

The notion of masculinity that all men face in our society creates an unwelcoming environment where men do not feel comfortable enough to speak out about their experiences, and make them think, “their inability to prevent what happened to them is somehow a reflection on their masculinity,” Drevna says.

“Men have been raised with a sense [that] to be powerful, to be dominant, is the way to be expressive, as opposed to being tender, or vulnerable, or hurt, or sad or to feel shameful,” Shirley says.

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Shame is an intense feeling that affects men every day, “shame is the orienting emotion for many men, meaning it’s the thing that they wake up and put on every day,” Shirley says.

He goes on to explain that it leaves them feeling like they have been dirtied, defiled, broken and tainted.

Drevna explains, “their feelings of self-blame and shame can deter survivors from seeking help, or from reporting to authority.” Which is why it is an issue we do not often hear about.

“Having experienced harm, and not being able to talk about it, not recognizing it means that shame becomes the primary experience for that young man,” Shirley says.

Another reason men don’t report their cases is due to the significant lack of resources for male victims versus female victims.

“There has not been as much access to services because rape recovery and crisis centers began by just providing services to women,” Struve says.

“The world of emotions is seen as a women’s world, so the resources that are out there for young men to go and get therapy and talk through what’s happened, might seem like an emasculation,” Shirley says.

Because society has painted the narrative that women are the only victims of sexual violence, speaking out and getting help “is very limiting for men and it’s limiting for so many other survivor populations,” Palumbo says.

Another consequence of men not feeling comfortable enough to speak out centers around their perpetrator.

“The fact that men face these barriers coming forward and are less likely to report also means that there are many individuals who are perpetrating sexual harassment and assaults that are never then held accountable or face any consequences for their actions,” Palumbo says.

Though a lack of accountability is a major issue, it can also create additional problems for the victims, specifically for individuals who know their perpetrators. Drevna explains that eight out of 10 victims know the person who has violated them.

Sexual violence is seen a lot within institutions and the perpetrators are often authority figures of some sort, which creates a different type of fear and betrayal in the victims than if it had been done by a stranger.

“You thought you trusted somebody, and they violated the trust, so it’s a betrayal,” Struve says. On top of the already traumatizing thing that happened to them, victims of institutional abuse have to deal with the feeling of betrayal and mistrust.

ANYONE CAN BE A SURVIVOR The biggest thing to remember is that “sexual violence thrives in silence,” Palumbo says. If there is no conversation about sexual violence in men, there is no progress.

“It requires the courage and the vulnerability of male survivors who have been getting help to make it safe enough to speak out,” Struve says. If more men speak out about their experiences, the more validating and welcoming the conversation will get, and hopefully that will lead more men to come forward and speak out.

He adds, “it used to be that … we didn’t see women in that regard, and the more we had courageous women who spoke out … now we know about it.” It takes a lot of courage for women to speak out about their experiences, and it will take that of men as well.

According to Palumbo, “there’s still a lot of room for our society to break away from this idea of a quintessential

survivor and to break away from this idea of a very limited narrative of who a survivor is, what they look like and what they’ve experienced.”

“No survivors should experience victim blaming or dismissiveness of their experiences of sexual harassment and assault, and our society will never be able to end sexual assault until we start taking the experiences that men have of sexual harassment and assault seriously,” Palumbo says.

Osorio says, “It makes people stronger when they get the courage, and actually decide to have this conversation, because it can completely change their outlook on life."

Advocates and counselors are all around to help open this conversation up and support survivors in the best way they can. There are groups and organizations that are dedicated to helping people move past the trauma caused by sexual violence.

Struve works to organize healing retreats for male survivors to meet other male survivors which gives them an opportunity to “have friendships and community that gives them support that they didn’t have before.”

Allowing survivors a chance to share their story in a safe and judgement-free environment gives them a chance to feel like it was not their fault, and that they did not do anything wrong in not being able to stop it.

Additionally, being able to share their story amongst a group of individuals who know what they are going through, gives them an opportunity to create a supportive community to help them through their trauma.

Palumbo says, “I think that there’s a lot of room for our society to become a more welcoming and validating space for male survivors of sexual harassment and assault,” and adds, “we all can play a role in changing the assumptions and stigma that male survivors face by educating ourselves and changing our beliefs and attitudes.”

Knowing about the prevalence of this issue in men is the first step to being accepting of everyone’s experiences, no matter what gender they are. “It shouldn’t be men versus women, it should be inclusive,” Struve says.

“For any or all of us who have experienced sexual harm, we can recover; we’re not tainted, we’re not defective, this doesn’t get to define us," Shirley says. "This can be an important part of our story, a part that we own and that we tell when the time is right, but it doesn’t have to haunt us forever, and resilience is grown as we work our way through hard things.”

FOR ANY OR ALL OF US WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED SEXUAL HARM, WE CAN RECOVER; WE’RE NOT TAINTED, WE’RE NOT DEFECTIVE, THIS DOESN’T GET TO DEFINE US. THIS CAN BE AN IMPORTANT PART OF OUR STORY, A PART THAT WE OWN AND THAT WE TELL WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT, BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO HAUNT US FOREVER, AND RESILIENCE IS GROWN AS WE WORK OUR WAY THROUGH HARD THINGS. -DOUG SHIRLEY, EED – ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF COUNSELING, THE SEATTLE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY

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Story by Tony Smith Design & Illustration by Sara Roach

The hippies from the 1960s may not have just been on something, they might also have been on to something.

According to Associate Professor of Philosophy Michael Goerger, who is currently teaching a class on psychedelics and philosophy, new research is being done on how the psychedelic component psilocybin, derived from psilocybin mushrooms, is potentially beneficial for people suffering from depression and anxiety.

Psilocybin has been used by people in a variety of ways for centuries. Early research began in the 60s, but there is more research being done across the country. Goerger says, “research really suggests that this is a powerful chemical for treating major depressive disorder.”

Jim Johnson, biological sciences professor, defines psilocybin as a “metabolic product of certain fungi. The main genome of the mushrooms is psilocybin ... It’s a metabolite that actually structurally it is sort of similar to some of our neurotransmitters which is why it actually has the hallucinogenic effect [on] people that it has.”

While psilocybin mushrooms are commonly known to have psychedelic properties, many of the reasons people have used this fungi are for multiple different purposes.

Psilocybin mushrooms have been used culturally and religiously in a variety of ways throughout history. “The people that discovered this were primarily Native Americans and there are a number of certain religious ceremonies and historical use,” Johnson says.

Goerger explains as people started to research the substance, their own experiences made them believe “that the mushrooms or the psilocybin may have this ability to provoke a major life change.”

Early research was being done on the effects of the psilocybin mushroom at Harvard. Georger notes an infamous experiment to come out of the research conducted in the 60s. The Good Friday Experiment was done in Boston with 30 people during a church service.

“They took psilocybin in the chapel during a Good Friday service and not surprisingly these people had deeply life-changing experiences," he says. "Twenty-five years later, they described it as one of the most important experiences of their lives.”

Fast forward to more recent years, research has turned towards the effects of psilocybin on people with depression, anx-

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iety and other mental disorders. “Results are suggesting that this could be quite a breakthrough treatment for depression.

Also, long-term, a recent study showed that six months out, people were still experiencing the benefit,” Goerger says.

Johnson warns that like many drugs there are always potential risks. “One of the things that people need to be aware of is that psychedelics and hallucinogens can be very difficult if people have underlying conditions, some of which they may or may not be aware of because they may not be serious enough to cause problems,” Johnson says.

For a CWU student, who chose to remain anonymous due to the personal information being discussed, psilocybin is something they use to cope with their depression. “The effects of shrooms have been really beneficial to me. Using it to help my depression is helpful, because I don’t feel any side effects that are negative,” the student says.

Georger says, “I would emphasize, as a lot of this research has a supervised setting part to it, treating depression with mushrooms without help is like treating any other disease without getting help from a doctor.”

There is still a lot of research to come but early results are promising. “It may be that once psilocybin enters the market

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for treatment of depression that it will be in a form that doesn’t create any consciousness alterations,” Goerger says.

“It’s the best for when I am feeling really uninspired or really unmotivated to do anything,” the student says. “It really helps me jumpstart my brain and find meaning to what I am doing in my life. I don’t think they are addictive at all. I am addicted to other things and I never feel like I have to do shrooms.”

Johnson cautions, “they occur in Washington state … [and] are not the easiest things to identify, and there are a number of species of other mushrooms that look fairly similar, but at least in a couple of cases are deadly poisonous. A very strong caution to people trying to self-identify these mushrooms.”

The answer to whether this peculiar fungus can really help people, and extend beyond its longtime negative stigma may just be around the corner. * PULSE does not condone illegal drug use.

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AFTER DARK

BAr

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Contributions by Spencer Clifton & Mike Powers | Photos by Alex Groom | Design by Lisa Zhu

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