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I dated a psycho By: Matt Harmon I can remember where I was the first time I ask her out and where I said goodbye. And thinking back the feelings of exhilaration and empathy were pretty much front and center for both. The content of the relationship for me can best be described as a two‐and‐a‐half year ride on an underwater rollercoaster. You know the one with triple loop‐de‐loops and death defying falls that make you hold your breath to the point of unconsciousness. For all intents and purposes I will refer to her as Emily. I think that a fictitious name might be deemed appropriate for this situation. I had known Emily since kindergarten. Well, the term “known” might be inappropriate, as we really never talked or hung around in the same circle of friends. I started to notice her more during high school as we were always in the same art classes. She was a very cute girl, somewhat on the quiet side. Emily fit well into the dark artsy personality stereotype. Her art skills were extraordinary. I ran into her after shortly after graduation. She was at the mall with a group of friends that I knew. I don’t remember the contents of the day but somehow we ended up spending the entire afternoon together. I ended up asking her out and without hesitation she said yes as if she had been waiting for years for me to ask her. I remember our first date because it was in the middle of December so naturally our house was lit up to the point where you ran the risk of third‐degree burns entering the front door. We spent the evening watching movies and talking. We seemed to really have a lot in common and fit well together. Months went by and things seemed to be going ok. Some days she seemed a little moody or sad. I would do my usual tricks to try to cheer her up. I remember one day when I was at her house her mother asking her if she took her medication. I asked her what was wrong. She told me she had some problems with anxiety but it was no big deal. No big deal!! Yeah, well that was an understatement. NO BIG DEAL when she took her meds! She suffered from anxiety when she was in a situation she could not control or her emotions just got the better of her. And I think a lot of the time she used this excuse to get her way or get attention! I started getting text messages at night or while I was working, “Matt I’m having an anxiety attack please talk me down”. “Matt, I think we need to break‐up”. It started getting worse and worse. Some days she would spend the day crying. Then there were the times she would call to say she wanted to break up. Then calling back to say she was sorry. I was in a relationship with a PSYCHO! I wanted out! I needed out! Was I a bad person for thinking and wanting that! Empathy for Emily!!!! I always felt sorry looking at her. We broke up after two and a half years of total madness. Moral of the story…. TAKE YOUR MEDS!!!
Donald Wu Publication Design What Is Your Freedom
What does freedom mean to you? I’m sure everyone has their own definition of what it means to be free. For me, freedom is more of a feeling, than a concept. To be free, is to be alive. And to be alive in my opinion is to be here, present in the NOW, face to face with the reality around you. Personally, I believe that there is no better freedom than riding a bike in the streets of Chicago, especially on a nice sunny day. I have a heavy steel frame bike weighing at about 35 pounds. Towards the front of the top tube are old school gear shifters, I am pretty sure this bike was manufactured in the 70s. The handles bars are wrapped up with beige-colored foam grips, which used to be white. It has a black saddle mounted on the seat post. I put a sticker of a head of the Buddha on the fork. My bike will stand out like a sore thumb because the frame is painted in a reddish burgundy. Despite a few chips and exposed rusty spots, my bike can still catch up to some modern road bikes. This is the love of my life. It has become a joy to take my bike out for a cruise into the streets of Chicago and not knowing where I might end up. You don’t get the same feeling from driving a car. Something special happens when you physically engage your full body with something. Just like working out, you detached yourself from the mental conversations that your mind normally have. The reason being that you put all your focus away from you mind, and into your BODY. When you get on a bike, you become one with the bike. A bike by itself, is just a bike. A bike controlled by a rider, is an adventure waiting to happen. All of life’s problems no longer exist once I get on my bike. I become a participant of a HUGE world, where the road is the sea, and my bike is my ship. That is freedom to me. Everyone has a calling in life, and I believe that mine is to travel around the world. I have this deep inner urge to go out into strange and unfamiliar places. Maybe everyone has this inner desire to want to explore, I mean our ancient ancestors were a nomadic species after all. As much as I want to set sail into the ocean like Christopher Columbus, my current life situation provides me a narrow chance of pursuing my dream. But for NOW, my solution to channeling my urge to travel is my bike.
Shelby Norman Thoughts Amid the trees in the distance, a small clearing began to come into view. Although dimly lit, due to the casting shadows of the weeping tree branches ahead, I could make out a small bench. The path looked alluring. As I made my way closer, I could feel the sun beam on my shoulders from above through the tangled tree leaves, making the temperature just right. Walking further, I came across the bench and decided to sit for a moment. My mind wondered as it usually does when I’ve had far too much coffee and neglected to catch up on sleep. I let my mind run wild. I thought of moments in time that are changing and circumstantial due to the actions of others as well as our own. What if? What if I had been five minutes earlier or five minutes later? Who would I have met? What would I have seen? How would something as insignificant as five minutes affect my life as well as someone else? What kind of person would I be if I had grown up somewhere different, learned different things, and accumulated different interests? What if I had said yes, or no, or stopped for a second to tie my shoe, or maybe worn different shoes that day? What if I had taken the earlier train rather than the later one? What if I had moved to a different city, filled with different people and experiences and inspiration? What I have seen and experienced thus far in life will determine who I will become later in life. There are a million different molds of people we could potentially be. The possibilities seem endless. What if, because of some minute detail in time, I would have missed out on something incredible? What if, while sitting here on this very bench, I was to witness something incredible? Maybe someone would walk by and change my life forever. Or perhaps I would stumble upon a great book left by someone who sat here before me. Maybe I would happen upon the realization of a question that I had struggled before to find an answer to. Maybe I would change my mind. As I walked past the small clearing I wondered what would have happened if I had taken a moment to sit on the bench in the distance.
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Puffer Fish As I sit on the edge of the tub making tiny ripples with my index finger, I wonder what she’s thinking about while she lays under the water. The last bubble came up about a minute ago, but beneath the still surface of bath water I can see her eyes gripping mine with pain and betrayal. Her stare does nothing to me; I no longer feel anything. This is why I can watch the love of my life drown. FLASH Almost as if a camera had gone off, I’m back to when she first asked me to see a therapist. “Nathan, Nathan are you listening to me? Where do you go inside your head? I feel like I’m losing you. You don’t sleep at night and you won’t talk to me. I love you and hate seeing you like this. Will you please see someone?”
“Huh? Yeah sure I’ll get around to it. Don’t worry about me, Ellen, you know
how I get sometimes.” I recalled saying and…. FLASH
I’m back in the bathroom dragging my finger across the top of the water.
Only a few moments have passed, even though it felt like I’d just re-‐lived an entire memory. I sit and watch Ellen’s perfect twenty eighty-‐year-‐old breasts slightly move, not from breath, but from her heart desperately pounding to keep her alive and… FLASH
I am sitting on an expensive leather couch with a therapist talking at me and
I’m not listening. My mind is wandering on about some movie I saw about a neurotoxin that is derived from a puffer fish. It causes a person to be conscious, but
paralyzes all voluntary muscles at the same time. That’s when Mr. Ph. D. says “Nathan, I’m putting you on Ambien” and… FLASH
I’m back in the bathroom. Again hours seemed to have pass, but I am
suddenly back in the moment. I see Ellen is in the same exact position as she was before I drifted off. It doesn’t matter if what is happening is wrong or right because at this point I am an empty shell. Watching Ellen drown is about the same to me as the power going out, or forgetting to take the garbage can to the street on Tuesday night… FLASH
I am taken back to earlier today, coming home to find a brown UPS package
about the size of a shoebox on my front porch. I walk in with the box, Ellen greeting me with love as always. “What’s in the box, babe?”
“Oh, it’s an herbal relaxant I ordered from this obscure online teashop. Would
you like to try it? I ask, and… FLASH I’m back at the tub. I look at my watch and what I thought was only moments had turned into an hour. Still submerged, Ellen is surely dead. I slowly pull the phone out of my pocket and dial 911, “I would like to report an emergency.”
Foster & Ravenswood by Einxel Reyes There I was sitting on the squalid curb of Foster and Ravenswood. Beads of sweat ran down the side of my forehead. Across the street, a large woman was selling elotes while her lively children blew bubbles and played with hula hoops. The once frozen mango paleta was now embedded into my skin from the blistering heat. I forgot how it felt like to be in this area during the summer time. Had I become too suburban? Did I lose myself from the sheltered streets of Skokie? I refused the idea of what I had become and knew deep down inside there still lived the same mushroom haired wild child that freely roamed the streets of West Foster. I decided to head back to my colorless suburban home through public transportation. Rays of sunlight beamed through the CTA windows, flashing on a gloomy-faced mother and child carrying an abundance of laundry and coin wrappers. In an instant, I was reminded of how it was to be so frugal yet live so blissfully. I remembered how my mother and I walked a few blocks to the Coin Laundry World with oversized trashbags full of our hand-me-downs from the Philippines. We spent the whole day there staring at loads of laundry spinning endlessly, but I didn’t mind. I had my mom and Batman and Robin action figures with me. Falling asleep in my mother’s arms, she sang, “What’s up?” by 4 Non Blondes. I looked forward to those Saturday mornings. I really did. In my room, I had an shoebox full of aged photos of myself. I looked deeply into the eyes of my ten year old self. I realized things had changed, I had changed, and there was no amount of forced forgetting that was going to make things exactly as they were before. The photos gave me a feeling of sadness that only West Foster had. I stepped outside onto my porch to enjoy the remaining days of summer. From a close distance, I heard a familiar noise. “Twenty-five years and my life is still. Trying to get up that great big hill of hope. For a destination.” With a sincere smile, I sang along to the Gen X song. It took me a back to a simple time where I felt confident and sure. I truly knew what love meant and gave everything I had. I was comfortable in my own skin. I didn’t know what it meant to look ridiculous or have the insecurity of people judging me. I was ecstatic to have a picture taken with a bowl cut. Every street we’ve walked down, every house we’ve lived in, and every film we see becomes engraved with the person we were when we did those things.
Sometimes some things same so easy, other times we might need to put some thought into it. Now and here now only I am sitting one place I would usually dare to think about anything. I am comfortable here and this is my place. I can proudly say that. No matter how much it takes from me. Ever since my father my left in this world, I only see him, everywhere. It’s hard holding the one you love and see them die right in front of our eyes. At times I only saw myself. But now everything is changed. From the way I moved to the way life and the world has evolved. Right across me I see wild flower ready to bloom for the spring time. Only one month from now bees and other creature would dominate this place. The fresh flower would rise as if they are a sleep for a thousand years and God has again sent out his blessing for them to bloom. The smell was still fresh of lavenders and jasmines fill my heart as if I were a little girl again playing around with my father. I would be the princess stuck in the castle by the evil dragon that my father would play. I remember so clearly, that then he would suddenly turn out to be the nicest dragon ever because I would give him a kiss on both of his cheeks. He would pick me jasmines and twirl me around as if I were a doll. Hours and hours would we spent playing around in the garden, and I always asked him one question; “Dad when is my prince going to come to safe me from the dragon?” and he answered by picking me a bunch of flowers getting down on his keen, picking me up throwing me in skies that were blue as if God had splattered his entire paint pallet. “You are a princess and every princess has a happy ending to her story, yours my darling, would be is when you know in your heart that he is the one that will safe you from the dragon.” The only thing at that time I did was smile and walk as if I had the world on my hands.
I would never forget the way my father made me feel. He gave me the feeling that I had the world on there knees and I would make them do anything just for me. I do regret, I wish I wasn’t there and maybe I would be a lot easier for me to expect the that he wasn’t in my life now. I could see him dress in an armor that knights would wear, the sliver that just shimmered in the night, the look that every women wanted in men, dangerous, challenging, handsome and my God eyes of a God. Though he was my knight ,that had protected me and raised my well and now the one who would proudly say that I am the daughter of James Cleft.
At the age of twenty I am the youngest psychopharmaist. My father was a doctor the one people praised. He had created a drug that contronled mind developing activites. He’d found out that drug would be used to control one mind and see how one human is effected by cercent drugs. He’d done reseacreah about the human brain and was quite intrigned by it. He said that if he can created a medincie that can help humans through what problem was than we’d be able to figure most of the dieases. He created a drug that was suppose to help people out but instead it created problems. He never told me his problems, but I always knew something was bothering him but he never shared. Sometimes I asked him “Why don’t you tell me anything?” Smiling back at me he would rub his gentle hands on me and say, “ I don’t want to worry you.” He didn’t know that by him gone he had taken more of her then what is left behind for her.
“ Excuse- moi, Dr. Cleft.” “Oui, Helene?” “when is the meeting for the UIY drug foundation?” “Jeudi, dix a quelle herue.” I relplied turning away and foucsing on my work. “Merci, Doctor.” “Bein sur.” For now I will focus and focus hard, its not
Astro Luchador What if wars were settled on the ring and each country was represented by one person? Not just any person, but a masked hero, a luchador. Astro was only seven years old when the 2099 war was started by robotech, a japanese interplanetary weapons company who supplied androids to most of the countries in the world. One day robotech grew power hungry and secretly started building a new droid in an underground base. The “mechakasi,” a samurai soldier that could travel at fast speeds. Robotech also ventured into the discovery of world holes and einstein rosenbridges. They believed that portals could beplaced all around the universe through fields of high energy. The first attack happened on june 6th 2099 when japan invaded the shores of what used to be california, which now laid in ruins after being flooded by the effects of gobal warming. Astro’s father a masked general for the navy seals lead the counter attack. After three years of fighting back and almost half of the west coast brought down to rubble the battle was over. The U.S. managed to drive the mechakasi back to the shores of japan. His father however died in battle but not in vain. After the war the rest of the world decided to form the WWUN or world wrestling united nations. It was decided that wars would now be settled in the ring which in time evolved into a world wide sport. Countries would gather each year to fight for bragging rights. The winner would get to control the trade of space goods. Goods that were vital to the survival of human kind. Who ever controlled the trade controlled the world for one year. When his father died a fire grew inside of astro, a fire that would grow so intense and uncontrollable, no one would be able to stop astro from fullfiling his destiny, little did astro know but he would change the fate of the universe. Astro’s mask was blue with white trimming, he worked at a mine in planet ISO6, a planet with dangerous conditions and only good for the mining of plasma 6, a metal that was discovered to be stronger than any metal on earth. Astro lived there after his mother passed away from illness when he was 18. Now astro was 23 and felt like he had more to give more to fullfill. He decided to join the intergallactic armed forces. He joined the mask alliance and that’s when it all changed for him. He was trained in the art of masked wrestling and would be on the path to fullfill his destiny.
Everyone has a crush. It is the one thing that can tear you apart, or be a great learning experience. Crushes are what makes the world go round—you start them and then you get over them. For me, I was never the boy crazy type. I was the type of girl who the boys thought of as a friend. In Pre-K, I experienced my first encounter with the meaning of having a crush. His name was Mario. Mario was popular among the girls in Pre-K. He was a very sweet and gentle fellow. Parallel to his cute fashion sense, Mario had a great smile. I never knew how pretty one's smile could be until I saw him laugh and giggle about something. The next three boys were short lived. Neil was a play date boy I liked because he'd let me play with his Might Morphin Power Ranger action figures. Scott was a blonde hair, blue eyed boy who turned out to be a real douchey kid, even at eight years old. And Paul was someone i hung out with at after school care who I thought was cute and nice, but turned out to be yet another mean boy. But my everlasting crush on Michael felt like I have actually fallen in love with him; even at the age of 11. I've known him since kindergarten and as we got older, we got closer. But with all crushes, there were complications. Every girl in our grade had a crush on him and he knew that. Once we entered junior high, he got popular while I just stayed in the background. I never did stop liking him, even up until high school. After Michael there was David. Oh, David... He was my coworker at my first job and I thought he was the funniest guy I'd ever met. David was three years older than me, and to my delusion, I thought that he could be my first real boyfriend. We'd always flirt and make stupid remarks to each other, that I became so infatuated with him. It wasn't until we were at a small party that I embarrassingly professed my love to him in my drunken manner. My friends said that he didn't see me in that way and I tried my best to get over him. My friendship/lack of relationship with him was an on and off roller coaster. One day I say that I'm over him, the next I say that I'm not. It took me pretty much two years to get over him. And then there was Josh...the crush of all crushes that didn't crush my crushing. Not only has he become an important person in my life, he has become one of my bestest friends. Almost three years later, I'm so fortunate to still have him around.
Giving Up the Stars By Amanda Lancey
With scabby knees and dirty feet, the girl laid in the bed of an old pick-up truck gazing up at the stars. The expanse of the night reached out and hugged her, so she smiled. The stars winked and smiled back, and the girl knew she was in love. How beautiful they were. Then the Breese came and bit at her feet, so she decided it was time to go. Days turned into weeks, and weeks to years as they often do. The young woman was too sensitive for hunting, too uncoordinated to dirt bike, and never quite developed a liking for Busch. She grew dissatisfied with the small country town she’d belonged to, so she left. Within her first month of living in Chicago, she felt alive. She toured world-famous museums while devouring all things sushi. She drank fancy cocktails atop a high-rise. She shopped at Chanel, but didn’t buy anything. She learned to commute, and forgot how to drive. She met friends from around the world, and learned curse words in various languages. She saw a ballet. She did a cartwheel in public, because she knew nobody would recognize her. She was happy. Once the buzz wore off, she found her rhythm as an urban warrior. She focused on school, and fought hard for her grades. She waited tables, and fought hard for her money. She built relationships, and fought hard to keep them. She was happy, but she was tired. Exhausted, actually. She sat on her roof, lit an American Spirit and inhaled hard. She leaned back, stretched her aching arms, and looked up for that ever comforting scene. Instead, she felt a sharp pang in her heart. Where were the stars?
I Killed Gucci Mane. I was selena gomez but I didn’t go home. What I experienced wasn’t apart of the reality. It was what I kept telling myself was supposed to happen. One long drawn out week was now a blur. The morning mimosa wouldn’t do the trick this time as our flight headed back home. Boobs.Bongs. Bikinis & beer. Was Harmony Korines 2013 season sensation, Spring Breakers, a soft porno or a salutation to the prime party week of college students across the nation? Easily both, but the film captures a greater meaning that most viewers don't recognize. Korine emphasizes in several interviews that his vision for the film was to create a feeling of transcendence. He emulated the desire of spring breakers. Stories that aren’t of what exactly happened, instead stories that easily exceed beyond the ordinary. Stories that go above the range of normal experiences. Getting trashed and wrecking hotel rooms was only the beginning. I (Selena) bible reader, firm believer, every night prayer sweated over the idea of misbehaving. Gallons of Malibu and liters of sprite later, I and two best friends found ourselves sun-kissed and splattered across the heavenly florida sand. What we fantasized about our spring break started to become true. We wanted more. Craving craziness led us to our own James Franco character. He didnt have a grill, corn rows, or blow a handgun. It wanst about his awkward accent, but his motive was the same. Korine saw that spring break girls envied over bad ass boys. Most of all a seven letter word starting with t... TROUBLE. For us the story ended here. There were no shotgun dance parties and no one got shot for real. Our bad boys boosted our confidence, bought us beer after beer, then our week was already over. Selena didnt get the chance to go home early because we didn't make it that far. But I would have stayed. All of the adrenline mixed with hormones...it felt like I killed gucci mane. What Korine does in the film is expose how we felt about our spring break trip. YEA SO WE FELT LIKE MAYBE WE MADE FRIENDS WITH SOME DRUG DEALER, RANSAKCED ALL OTHER SPRING BREAKERS, THEN KILLED GUCCI. Of course it would never happen in real life which is why people have no appreciation for the movie. The film uncovers the ultimate spring break story that no one would ever get away with, although its all how we imagine it. Its a perfect exaggeration. Perhaps it's a bit over the top. Yes, some of the shots and voice overs sound really awkward and forced. Then again so was my suitcase when I flet it was necessary to pack six different bathing suits and paint my nails neon orange.