PRESENTS
HUMANS OF FLC
Dear readers, Welcome back from winter break. I hope this issue finds you in good spirits after what I hope was an enjoyable break from the stresses of school. As you flip through the pages of our “Humans of FLC” special issue, it is my hope that we realize how each person we meet has a life as intricate and complicated as our own. We are all going through our own personal triumphs and troubles, yet we tend to ignore the fact that everyone else is going through their own as well. While reading through the stories, I kept coming back to a quote my mom put on her mirror. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” We can’t possibly know the totality of what our peers are going through, but we can be aware that everyone is going through something. I hope these stories, shared by your peers, will resonate with you as much as they did with me. As the new semester begins, the Indy will undergo several changes in an effort to improve our craft as journalists. Though we say goodbye to several key staffers after they graduated last semester, the returning staff is extremely dedicated to fulfilling our duty to serve as the student’s number one source for news. All of us here at the Indy are extremely excited about this opportunity we have, and we can’t wait to share these changes with you. Lastly, I want to personally thank all the Indy staffers who are moving on from the Independent. This semester was a wild ride for all us, and I’m proud of the work we have created. I also want to personally thank our former Editor-in-Chief, Luke Perkins, for all he has done for the Independent during his time here. Luke leaves the Independent having significantly improved its overall quality and I feel extremely lucky and blessed to have learned under Luke’s leadership and direction. I’m looking forward to sharing our work with you this semester. Thank you supporting the Indy! Alex Semadeni Editor In Chief The Independent News Organization Anyone who is interested in providing feedback on The Independent can reach out either through Email (Independent@fortlewis.edu) or through Facebook (The Independent FLC) and Twitter (@flcindependent). If you are interested in providing feedback about specific departments please visit Theindyonline.com where you can find contact info for our departmental editors.
“This past October late one night I was coming back from the airport, returning from Chicago where I had just attended my grandmother’s funeral. I looked down for a second and when I looked up there was a deer in the middle of the road. My instincts told me to swerve, so I swerved and then I felt my car wobble.And then as my car was flipping, I thought I was dead. It flipped over and spun so I was upside down and I ended up in the other lane. I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt so I ended up in the passenger seat when everything was over. As I was sliding I saw sparks and I knew I had to get out quick, just in case if it was going to catch on fire. I tried to get
out on my left side, but ended up crawling out on the right side. I ended up getting out and a bunch of people came up to me and helped me pull myself together. And that made me realize that life can change real quick. All of a sudden I didn’t have a car. I’m lucky to be alive. It also impacted me because it was my grandfather’s car, and he passed away when I was in 7th grade. Once I was old enough to drive it became my car, so I cherished it because my grandpa and I were really close, so now I don’t know where the car is because it’s totalled. So it sucks because that was my last piece of him that was with me.” - Jimmy Cocalles
Photo by Drew Lovell
“The first few years of school, I was placed in gifted classes.Then as I got older it became a lot harder for me to keep up, because I do have some learning differences. I was removed from my gifted classes and I didn’t really fit in with a regular classroom or special ed. A lot of my teachers didn’t know how to classify me, and I didn’t know how to classify myself either. I was a really angry person, I think I looked at school as something to get past, and I didn’t even consider going to college. I always thought it was more my parents’ dream for me than my own. Especially for my dad. He took 32 years before he went back to college to get his bachelors, because he had the same struggles as me. When I was in third grade I was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia. He knew that I was struggling, so he went back to school himself to prove a point for me. I used to always see myself as a victim. I would think, why is this happening? Why me? But looking back, if I didn’t have some of things happen to me, I wouldn’t be as motivated to push myself to be a better person and to be a better student. So yeah, things happen to you, but it depends on the way you look at it.” - Deanna Hutton
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“It is really really helpful to have somebody that you can talk to about kind of the same thing every single day and they’re still interested and they still care because, for the most part, telling someone over and over and over ‘I’m so stressed about school,’ is not that interesting and you probably don’t want to hear it that often. But having somebody that actually listens and takes your feelings into account is a huge stress relief and for someone to be like ‘oh, that sucks. I’m sorry,’ instead of like ‘here’s the ways you can fix it,’ is really helpful. I don’t need to fix it right now, I just need the emotional validation of ‘that sounds hard.’” -Addy Santese
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“The national educational body that runs my major (athletic training) has recently changed the minimum requirements. They want everyone to get a master’s degree before they get their certification to work. I’m right in the middle of that transition. I can get my bachelors and get certified, but I’m scared that in the future I’m going to get over looked for jobs because I don’t have a master’s degree even though I might have more experience. People reassure me that that won’t happen, but I’m skeptical. I’ve applied to four graduate programs across the country, but now I’m worried I might not get in. It’s been stressful trying to research programs that I’m interested in and finish this semester. I’m not sure I have good enough prerequisites to get into my top schools, but I applied anyways because what’s the worst that could happen? I get rejected and have to find a new top choice. Or I just go get an actual job somewhere, which wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to me either.” -Nikki Fry
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Photo by Celeste Matovich
Photo by Lucy Schaefer
“My boyfriend’s going through cancer treatment at home. He’s in his last chemo now. It’s hard to focus sometimes, but I’ve been good at it, given the circumstances. I’ve maintained a 3.0. You kind of have to separate your school life from your family life and your relationship life. I’ve been living in the moment more. I guess that’s my biggest struggle coming to college. Because obviously I wasn’t expecting that, and then it hits freshman year, October, a month into school basically. But he’s almost done now. Most of the stuff we’re going to do to celebrate is over the summer. Like we’re going to Hawaii for two weeks, and then I rented this Airbnb for spring break for a couple days. It’s Pirates of the Caribbean themed. We’ll try and go to Mexico also. There’s a lot of different trips we want to do, but we don’t want to do everything right away. We have so many more years.” -Sarah Beisswanger
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“Things in my life right now that I am focusing on a lot is music. Mostly street performing, like busking on the street. I do it like every weekend, generally two or three times over the course of the week. I find it super rewarding. It shows that people really enjoy their music. I just play the violin on the street and sometimes I juggle, but mainly it is music oriented. It’s just really nice because people throw money at you and it’s not only just a good way to meet other musicians, it’s just a good way to meet nice reliable people that are really genuine. Most of my friends that I have met outside of school have been downtown, just street performing. I think it has definitely taught me to not judge people. I mostly deal with the homeless people down there.You wouldn’t usually talk to these people if you were just walking along but instead you get to hear their stories and kind of hear about their life. It has gave me an understanding of their situation and made me care a little bit.” -Joe Bruemmer
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Photo by Celeste Matovich
“Lately I have been trying to find a path for my future and it has brought me great fear. I can’t imagine it filled with a desk and paper work Monday through Friday 9-5. I need to find my niche, the happiness of my heart and my best approach is to shut my brain off to dismiss itself. My hope is through my search I’ll find my hidden gold string that will help pull me to my life’s purpose that in hopes will be all I expect it to be!” - Sara Squirrell
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(Editor’s note: Both Kabotie and Sullivan spent their 2016 Thanksgiving Break at the Standing Rock SIoux Reservation in North Dakota protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. Both of their quotes are about their experience at the reservation.)
“People feel disempowered and alone. The hardest part about it is to come back to your community and have everybody become separated again and you don’t feel like your voice will do anything.” -Sidney Kabotie
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“It was pretty incredible to be a part of something bigger than myself. Really, what it was about for me was finding actual meaning in my life and feeling like I was actually making a difference in this world. I feel like our generation in particular, is really removed from reality in a lot of ways. To be part of a community that is voluntary and organic and dedicated to one particular cause that is a universal right to all – water- it really made me feel that there are still things that we can
do to make the world a better place. It just comes down to, for me, the battle between humanity and capitalism. I think these days, the way that the system, our society, is geared is to prioritize profit over people and I think that that removes us from and alienates us from each other and ourselves. To be a part of something that was in direct opposition to that was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever been a part of.” -Cannon Sullivan
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Photo by Lucy Schaeferr
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“I didn’t process it for a long time, I’m starting to... I think with seeing people die, you see all the good and what you love in that person come up and even if you had a really tumultuous relationship with them. After time you put all of it beside because it’s kind of just crap, and you see what the core of it was. So my dad died. I was pissed off. He was causing a bunch of turmoil with his family because he couldn’t get his stuff together because he was such an alcoholic. I was throwing a tantrum and then finally started to process it. I miss being able to talk to my dad. That’s how it has changed the person I am. I see other people, other men, the relationship they have with their dads and I never realized how important it was and how much I now envy it. Seeing people get to do cool things with their dad...I don’t know. All I ever want to do is call my dad.” -Colin Seiler
“Being an english communications major, you’re exposed to a lot of different cool elements in the media world going to Fort Lewis. One thing that really stuck out to me was the video department. It’s pretty related to the whole jockey world, like spinning music or spinning videos essentially. I like to get to a place where I am ultimately DJing and VJing at the same time so I can just have visuals going on with my audio performance. I have kind of just been really about the film world and what we can do with it. Ultimately what I hope to do with the whole video jockey and film world is to raise awareness about indigenous rights. Finding a way to be aware of situations that are going on in the world while having a good time and trying to enjoy yourself.” -Charine Gonzales
Photo by Crystal Ashike
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Photo by Allison Anderson
I am the first person in my family to graduate from college, so I feel an enormous amount of relief and excitement to have come this far. My future is looking bright; I am going to be walking across the stage in just a few more weeks to receive my diploma. These past 5 years have gone by so fast. It’s hard to really pin point the best times or the hardest times, there have been plenty of both. Really it’s just been 5 years of the craziest, fun, rewarding experiences. I will be sad to say goodbye to FLC, but I think that my time here has prepared for a lot of things that are hopefully coming my way after graduation.
I have a four-year old and trying to navigate suggestions and limit the amount of gifts that the grandparents give my child. I love generosity but then there’s a point of excess and your parenting style meshed with the grandparents like spoiling your child is probably one of the biggest issues that I have right now.
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-Jill Kolodzne
“I am the first person in my family to graduate from college, so I feel an enormous amount of relief and excitement to have come this far. My future is looking bright; I am going to be walking across the stage in just a few more weeks to receive my diploma. These past 5 years have gone by so fast. It’s hard to really pin point the best times or the hardest times, there have been plenty of both. Really it’s just been 5 years of the craziest, fun, rewarding experiences. I will be sad to say goodbye to FLC, but I think that my time here has prepared for a lot of things that are hopefully coming my way after graduation.” -Augustin Caraza
Photo by Crystal Ashike
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STAFF Editor in Chief Luke Perkins
Photography Editor Lucy Schaefer
Print Editor Alex Semadeni
Design Editor Allison Anderson
Online Manager Jarred Green
Social Media Keenan Malone
Business Editor Natalia Sells
Video Production Allison Kruchell
Cover photo by Crystal Ashike
REPORTING Chris Mannara Masheli Thompson Carolyn Estes Travis Good Izzy Farrell DESIGN/PHOTOGRAPHY Catie Welch Celeste Matovich Crystal Ashike Drew Lovell Cyril Glaser VIDEO PRODUCTION Alison Uralli Meryl Ramsey Gabrielle Silva Drew Lovell BUSINESS Alicia Koehler SOCIAL MEDIA Chris Mannara