By Stanford Professor Hakeem Jefferson, hakeem [at] stanford [dot] edu

Hi everybody.

I write to you from my desk in a quiet apartment. It’s been a long, 12-hour workday, as I had a manuscript deadline to meet, but I can’t log off without sending you a note regarding the turmoil that we are seeing in cities and towns across the United States. Like so many of you, I have spent the past few days in a state of grief. I have grieved for the family of George Floyd. I have grieved for George Floyd, himself. I have grieved as a Black man who knows well the history of this country, and who understands that regardless of my great privilege, to many I am still but a Black man with “no rights which the white man [is] bound to respect.” I write to you as your professor, but I also write to you as a human being with emotions that are so raw, so complicated. I am angry. Frankly, I am pissed off. For the murder of George Floyd reflects one of the few constants of American life — the perceived disposability of Black lives.

I arrived at the University of Michigan in 2011, and during my time there, Trayvon Martin was murdered by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood vigilante who took the life of a 17-year-old high school kid who was armed with Skittles and an Arizona Iced Tea. In 2014, Michael Brown was killed by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. And later that same year, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black boy was shot while playing with a toy gun, seconds after officers arrived on the scene. In 2016, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old Black man was shot and killed by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. One day later, Philando Castille, a 32-year-old Black man was shot and killed by a police officer while in the car with his girlfriend and her four-year-old daughter. And the list goes on and on and on.

I remember, too, the frequent acquittals, the refusal to hold police officers to account for the harm they had done to people who looked like me, who came from neighborhoods and communities like the one I had grown up in. And I thought often about the friends I had left behind in these spaces — friends who were far less protected from the abuses of the state than I, a graduate student at a prestigious university, surrounded by the gates of White privilege, who lived in a town where the police mostly turned a blind eye to all manner of law-breaking behavior. I remember waking up early in the morning to pen poems like this one:

**

No Justice? No Shit.

The verdict is in.

NOT GUILTY.

Angry. Frustrated. Sad.

Surprised? No.

Because the system has not failed us.

It is working as designed.

Inherently biased against those who commit the unforgivable sin of being born Black in America.

Yes, “criminal” accurately describes our system of justice

Maintained by men whose Klan suits are now bespoke suits.

Sustained by the silence of millions who don’t give a damn

that a kid can’t walk the streets of his neighborhood;

that a man can’t drive a car with his kid in the backseat;

that a woman can’t question an officer’s authority

without facing a death sentence at the hand of the state

with no trial by a jury of their peers,

no due process or right to counsel,

no day in court.

All rights afforded the ones responsible for their deaths.

Because though all are created equal,

A parchment guarantee can’t guarantee that Black lives will matter to he who doesn’t believe

that Black lives matter or that all should be free —

Free from the worry

that at any moment, for any reason, or for no reason at all

all could be lost at the hands of one

whose pledge to serve and protect

clearly didn’t include everyone.

**

The tags on the poem remind me that I wrote it a year after Philando Castile’s death — 10 days before the officer who killed him was acquitted of all charges.

Tonight, as I prepare to go to bed, my heart breaks for all of us who live in the shadows of this country’s racist past and its racist present. It breaks for the moms and dads forced to explain to their children that, because of the color of their skin, they have got to be extra careful all the time, lest they become another hashtag. And even when they are as careful as can be, there can be no guarantee that they won’t face the same unfortunate fate visited upon those who commit the age-old crime of being born Black in America — a crime punishable by death in so many corners of this country.

I wish I could give you optimism. I wish I could tell you that history suggests things always get better. To be sure, they often do, but optimism isn’t quite what I want to offer you. I want to offer you something slightly better, instead. I want to offer you a reminder that you are more powerful than you know. A reminder that you, with all of your brilliance, with all of your intellect, with all of your strength — you have the power to imagine and create new realities. At a moment when those in positions of power stoke division and hate, you have the power to sow seeds of love and community. But more than that, you have the power to demand the future that you want for yourself and your loved ones. No, I can’t offer you optimism, but hope for me has never been rooted in some fantasy of a shining city atop a hill. Instead, it has always been rooted in what I know about people who have struggled to advance the cause of freedom across generations. It is rooted in my deep and abiding respect for those who traveled paths more difficult than I could ever imagine.

And make no mistake, we ought not romanticize suffering, for there is nothing beautiful about burying a loved one who has died at the hands of a state whose job is to protect and serve. So, look skeptically on those who tell you that there is something magical or idyllic about suffering. But, as Douglass reminds us, there is something quite powerful about struggle.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitations, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

I invite you to struggle along with me.

In solidarity,

Prof. Jefferson.

Republished from The Stanford Daily.

LJL

Hump day came and... humped. The usual meetings, only two and a half hours, then more data crunching on my current project.

I'm still not sleeping well. I get tired early in the evening, then after the sun sets I come alive again until the wee hours of the morning. At least I'm sleeping through once I get to sleep most nights. Problem is, my naturals sleep hours are 4 am to noon, but work has "core hours" starting at 10 am, and my boss starts at 7 am.

The last two evenings I haven't done any sewing. Monday night I made "Comfort Pilaf" which is a comfort food staple at my house. I still need to unearth my shredded cheese and make some mac and cheese with bacon before it get too warm again. We tend to put entrees into re-usable plastic bento boxes, freeze them, and then pull them out in the warmer weather. My house has only room A/C, and none in the kitchen, so we really can't cook a lot except at night or in the microwave during the summer.

I'm still hoping to lay in some fruit before fall, but we need to triage the freezer space for that. I don't think we're going to be back in the office before next year, quite frankly, so my annual "jam fest" will not be as big because I won't be jamming for the office. I do have some processed apples (pulped) for apple butter, and I may try lemon marmalade this year. The latter won't be low sugar. We don't have any strawberries yet - we haven't bought any from our local vendor because my wife doesn't want to clean them and cut them up. We pre-proccess and freeze our fruit while it's warm, and make jam when it turns cold.

I finally was able to order some hand sanitizer refills for less than $1 and ounce. I hope the description and count were accurate, or I'll be mad.

I want to go out.

I miss dancing to Lil John.

What's a lass to do?

— a trio of recent grads who decided to write a poem over Facetime

Mikaela Brewer, graduating senior sheltering in Barrie, ON, Canada

On May 20th, you seem to have arrived,

on your own time, of course,

peeking through the painfully slow

absence of

cold,

white blankets,

much like this year began,

and continues to.

To you I can run,

arches padded against the rigidity of road,

by five red tulips,

a dandelion epidemic, and

stale, overgrown open fields,

but only as far as the dirt paths

to old country homes and

1700's fences, unprotected by the white powder,

almost staged, lining County Road 27,

the city limit,

the edge of a matrix,

in which I am elated by un morceau de changement.

Why rush now,

when, with lukewarm, mocking effort,

the sun has begun to shine?

tags: change

A poem, titled "Burning Questions":

Should I get a philosophy PhD?

I've asked this question to everyone I know.

I've wanted to,

intermittently,

since I was a Teen Philosopher,

the name of the blog I started,

when I was 14.

I guess it's ten years later,

and I'm still thinking,

and asking.

But the real question is:

Should I get a tattoo?

A tree?

My favorite tree from quarantine?

The enormous eucalyptus by the EV low-rises?

But will people judge me in law school?

DM me with thoughts

please.

Anyway,

what do you think of this one:

Should I join the Revolution?

I hope I didn't miss that boat.

I want to,

but I don't know how to fight.

Maybe I'll learn,

in law school?

— Mohit M.

a friend

This is in memory of...

When my uncle, aunt, and cousin came to stay with us. At night, we decided to play Taboo together. When it was my uncle’s turn, he started saying random words. We were all confused, trying to figure out what he was trying to get us to guess. Then we realized that he didn’t have his glasses but didn’t want to admit that he couldn’t read the card. So he was making it up all along. He lost the game. But we stayed up for hours together.

When my two friends and I went for doughnut burgers late at night. We only bought one burger because they said they weren’t hungry (I was). The restaurant was full so we decided to eat in the car. First one asked for a bite. Then the other asked for a bite. And then the first one asked again. And so the cycle continued. We bought a second burger. They finished that too.

Iftar at Stanford last year. Sitting on the floor next to all the people I care so deeply about, sharing a meal. We’d spend all night together- studying, eating cookies, sharing stories. And somehow we’d manage to still make it through the next morning going to classes while fasting. 11pm Krispy Kreme runs. 4am avocado toast.

Sharing a bed with two of my friends during sleepovers. Waking up in the middle of the night because someone turned the air conditioner on and I was freezing. Waking up half an hour later because someone else turned it off and I was at risk of getting heatstroke. Falling asleep in the middle of sharing stories, moments of silence when we needed time apart but had no where else to go.

Killing bugs on my roommate’s ceiling at 1am. Waking to her screaming because there was a spider which fell on her bed. Proceeding to lose the spider and running to find high ground. Eventually killing the spider, realizing it was pretty harmless, and being unable to sleep afterwards because of the adrenaline rush. Staying up talking instead of sleeping.

This is in memory of the goodbyes without fear, when “see you soon” wasn’t so uncertain, when hugs weren’t so dangerous. I am so grateful for the moments we’ve shared, so hopeful for the moments we will.

tags: friendship, closeness

from an ex-swimmer

Recently, people have been sharing on social media and other channels their last memory of "normal life" before global lockdowns - birthday parties, weddings, game nights, roaming grocery store aisles, reading at coffee shops. For me, one of the last "normal things" I did was go swimming.

This was a calculated choice. In those strange and uncertain days after winter quarter classes went online but before all students were forced to leave campus, the threat of coronavirus was on my mind and I was already avoiding closed social spaces like the gym. But I chose to go swimming because I could at least be outside and crossed my fingers that the chlorine would prevent transmission of the disease.

Swimming is an immensely lonely sport, so perhaps it prepared me well for the confines of shelter in place. My parents used to joke that they signed me up for swimming because the submersion in water would keep me from running my mouth. Swimming is lonely because you never hear the sound of your teammates cheering you on; it is just you, the water, and the clock. Music can be a source of company on long runs or at the gym, but does not apply to the pool. You can share a lane with other folks, but in order for everyone to be able to productively swim, distance must be maintained.

That day, I remember swimming to the end of the pool after my session and peeling off my tinted goggles to squint in the bright sunlight. I could feel the comforting waves lapping at my shoulders from the combined movements of other swimmers. Fellow Stanford students lounged in the sun, an elusive promise of the spring quarter that never came. Bikes whizzed past, the Marguerite chugged along. I rinsed off in the communal gym showers and blissfully forgot to wear shower shoes. I didn't feel lonely at all.

Angie Lee, a junior sheltering in the Bay Area

My mother plays the piano for a living, and when the virus hit she said, only half-kidding,

that there is no job less essential than that of one who accompanies another’s music.

Still, in the afternoons, from the nook of my room, I hear her practice, as if in secret,

La Campanella, the flurried notes of a song she will never need to play. When her fingers

slip and the notes clash, she tries again, and when she finally stops for the day, the house

feels more empty. I am reading, usually, while she plays, and when we’ve both finished,

we meet in the kitchen, where together we consume the essentials: food and water, which sustain

us only for the hours until the next meal.

tags: poetry, music, art, writing, essential, work

An Update from the Co-Creators of The Planted Trees:

Rob: Signing a publishing contract for a general audience book on tech & ethics 🖋️

Coop: Going on a Canoe ride in the creek behind his house in Houston 🛶

Samsara: Taking a long walk on Sunday, a rare warm day in Chicago ☀️

Janna: Finally activating her new Berkeley email address for grad school 🐻

Court: Receiving feedback from trusted friends on final stretch of honors thesis 📚

Mo: Getting to work on some spicy, opinionated writing 🌶️

Leigh Lucas, Stanford 2010

Every family has a famed recipe. Mine is Liza’s Granola. It has just the right amount of sweetness and a surprising subtle salty aftertaste. It’s crunchy but never chunky. It’s earthy and nutty and seedy. It’s the kind of food your mom hides in her desk drawer with her secret chocolate until every kid is back for the holidays. Then it’s presented like found treasure. At family reunions, my several aunts arrive with their heaping bags of the stuff, each well-traveled to be with us in zip lock bags and recycled holiday popcorn tins, then nestled in suitcases and emerging from hot car trunks. Each is slightly different, tinkered with, over the years, by their respective chefs. We spend the weekend speaking with our mouths full, “Are these chopped pecans?” “Did you substitute molasses for brown sugar?” Sharing granola is the inherited love language of every woman in my extended family. It is mine.

Like every good urban millennial, I have reinvented myself many times. I have dallied in short-lived careers as a comic book maker, a florist, a cocktail waitress, a customer support specialist, a tech marketer, and for about six months, a granola chef. I cooked my mom’s version™ of Liza’s Granola in such quantity that it required ordering the oats farm-direct. My roommates attempted to conceal concerned faces as I manically took over the kitchen, the pantry, the laundry nook and the living room, with boxes of spices, sugar and nuts. Sesame seeds stole away into every un-vacuumable nook and cranny of our shared space. Even the bedroom at the end of the hall soon smelled like a Yankee Candle factory. There was an ever-moving birthmark of caramelized brown sugar gripping the hairs of my forearm. Meals were replaced with batch after batch taste-tests necessary for quality control. I cooked granola until I could do it with my eyes closed, late into the night, for nights and nights.

My venture was not entirely misguided. My friends loved the stuff. One even designed funky granola jar labels and I named my soon-to-be-Forbes-touted business Granola Empire. It felt like an honest take on how much granola had taken over my life. My friends attended my so-called launch party, hosted in my kitchen and sent me lengthy, glowing, truly literary reviews of my experiments with coconut, cinnamon, and sugar-free flavors. I had graduated into a true Lucas family granola-maker—high enough on my own supply that I was ready to venture into creating my own signature style.

I’ll spare you the details and tell you that the business failed. There was the hard realization that I couldn’t sell the stuff beyond my circle of friends, and that each kind soul was only willing to house a few jars of the stuff per week. Also, the economies of scale weren’t working; I was spending more on making, packaging and shipping each granola jar than I could straight-faced sell one for.

Right now, a global pandemic rages on outside my apartment window. While it feels unreal, impossible, we have all come to grips with the fact that it’s neither. At this point, we have all spent so much time within the bounds of our living spaces that we’re well-versed in its every deficiency, each loose cabinet pull and wall scuff. We also have learned deep appreciation for its comfiest couch section and sunniest place to eat. We’ve cleaned everything; we’ve reorganized every drawer. The last place to face my restless fingers is the cabinet above my fridge, the one too high to reach without a stool. Inside it sit patient rows of label-pre-affixed jars, holdovers from my former empire. My short-lived dream of taking the world by oat-and-sugar storm subsided but my love language remains intact. I am armed with spatula and uniformed in apron, ready to fight back the only way I know how.

Many loved ones will soon receive this little bit of love, shipped in not cost-effective packaging. I ask that it’s with big hearts that they accept it; it’s what I have to give right now.

tags: recipe, cooking, granola, baking, family, COVID, coronavirus

Alex L., recent graduate sheltering in Houston

The last time my hair was this long, when it began tickling my ears, I was 12 years old. The last time my hair was this long, we were writing essays reflecting on a certain historical 2008 win, and I was journaling shamelessly through Facebook statuses. The last time my hair was this long, I was convinced I would become the next big YouTube sensation.

I am 12 years old, running down the halls of my middle school with a Flip camera attached to a tripod with 2.4 functioning legs. I am filming a “horror” movie, during school hours, among rooms illuminated by blinding fluorescent lights. Our “security guard” carries a pen light way too dim to be standard issue; our “jock” is identifiable minimally by his dad’s leather jacket and the gym’s football; our “slasher” wears a mask crafted from a recycled Whole Foods bag. Literally from the recycling bin. I bark directorial orders, glancing periodically at the back pages of my art class sketchbook, where storyboards far outnumber the available time during lunch periods.

I am 23 years old (it occurs to me that my life is now remembered on the order of decades), sitting in my one-bedroom apartment on a wholly different coast, in a wholly different time. I’ve traded in the Flip camera, tripod, and trash bin props for happy hours, work benefits, and the increasing pressure of adult self-actualization.

The last time my hair was this long, I styled my aesthetic after Disney Channel stars. Most recently, I do so out of necessity. But, as I feel those early pokes from my coarse hair, I feel 12 year-old me tugging at my pajama shirt, hobbled tripod in hand. The boy who could spin movie props from rubbish, who finessed special effects from Movie Maker XP — he looks at me and says, “Hey, let’s go create something!”

graduating student

I've never been a huge birthday person. Nice birthday messages and posts are always welcome of course, but I've never been one for big celebrations or surprises. If anything, if you were planning on throwing me a surprise 24th birthday party to mark my #KobeYear (too soon?), I would tell you don't bother. So when it slowly dawned on me by late April that I would be celebrating my birthday this year in quarantine, I was relieved by the thought of having a pretty low-key day to myself, with a nice dinner and cake with my family for dinner. This relief was a bit premature.

I'm thinking of that adage - "we always want what we cannot have" - as I write this. As my birthday waned on through the day, I felt a sharpened and deeply unfamiliar craving for human contact that has been simmering in the background all through quarantine but threatened to bubble over on a day usually marked by gatherings and friends, both of which are not really options at this time. The pandemic has thrown in the foreground so many things that we often take for granted. Birthday celebrations may not be "essential" right now, but they are avenues for genuine human connection - our greatest collective power that feels so elusive these days. This connection is certainly essential.

I am grateful for the yummy Malaysian dinner and matcha/tiramisu cake I could enjoy with my family for my birthday this year. Next year however.....I'm throwing a huge rager with all my people, friends and family, with newfound awe and appreciation for the magic that happens when people come together on joyous occasions.

ljl

Ah, Wednesday. I've been super busy this week, which made my necessary grocery trip and subsequent stress migraine yesterday less than ideal. Going shopping around clueless people is stress inducing. I see people who don't know how to wear a simple mask doing stupid things, and I cringe. Sure, we have our process down to an art, but other people make me nervous. The fact that hours for the elderly and disabled are all early, like 6 or 7 am early, and I don't do early for shit doesn't help. Yes, I understand why the special hours are early, but I still hate having to get up at the ass-crack of dawn to go get fresh groceries is a safe manner. This, plus weather changes, is a recipe for a migraine.

I have meetings all afternoon, from shortly after noon to 4:30 pm. All on Zoom. My headset starts to hurt after the first hour. I think I need a different one. I can't wear earbuds, due to ear infections, and headphones can cause similar problems, plus pinched ears. I definitely need a new sound configuration.

A few projects related to COVID-19 and return to work have an unreasonable urgency to them - they wanted them done this week, but SIP is continued through May 31. I don't see why the rush, except for managers who feel insufficiently powerful when they can't demand your presence in a open plan office. I guess the sight of banks of people toiling in rows at computers all day is a powerful drug. As a worker, it's distracting, demeaning, and counterproductive.

I love WFH, I hate commuting. But some people are advocating for us all returning to our open plan offices. I want to slap them. Even before the pandemic, open plan offices have caused me more illness than real offices or even cubes. They start out stressful, then add in exposure to every idiot that won't stay home sick and won't wash their hands after using the bathroom, and boom, you have community spread of every bug that people's children bring home from school right into the workplace. Someone who is older, like me? Gets every frigging bug brought in by the clueless idiots who won't/can't stay home. Ultimately, I get less done when managers demand butts in seats in open plan germ pits. I hope after this that that kind of penny-pinching "collaboration" fraud goes the way of the dodo.

Not having to commute is such a joy. I knew I hated the wasted time, and I suspected that it was a lot of stress. But this whole thing has proven that not commuting has health benefits for me that offset some of the stress that the coronavirus added. As an introvert, I have never been fond of sharing office space anyway. Not having to drive, or worse, take crowded public transit, to go spend 8 plus hours in a big room with a bunch of people that make audio and visual noise all day is wonderful.

Anyway, my meeting marathon has started. I have things to do, stuff to hear, before I sleep again.

tags: commute, WFH, meetings, shopping

ljl

Ah, Friday. After a very busy and somewhat stressful week, we are finally at Friday.

I'm just finishing up my fifth hour of Zoom meetings for the day, and I have two hours left to go, including another scheduled meeting. That will be seven hours for the day. My ^$%&#& ears hurt. They have hurt for the last two hours.Collaborating via Zoom is great, except that I can only tolerate about two hours a day in headphones. I would have to reconfigure my computer to go back to speaker, and that would conflict with my wife's video conferences.

I've had the urge for naps the last couple days. When it gets too warm, I just want to crawl off and sleep. Between the heat and the pollen, I'm not a happy camper. I lover spring, but spring sucks.

My meeting load keeps going up. I don't know whether it's because of the level of busy I have, or that people are just doing more meetings. Everyone thinks their stuff is urgent. My IBS keeps flaring up, because I have too many balls in the air.

I managed to make nine masks this week. It's a personal best, in spite being hit by nap attacks two days in a row. I'm making a new type, too, which is a little easier to pleat, in the pleated type.

There is a new study out with filtration efficiencies of different types of materials and material combinations. I'm trying to find materials that are inexpensive, lightweight and good filtration. I've been using 2 layers of cotton with one layer non-woven interfacing. I will try cotton-interfacing-silk, cotton-interfacing-chiffon-cotton, cotton-chiffon-cotton, etc, What I wish I could get is some sort of facility to test these things, before and after washing. But I'd need a lab to do that.

The problem is that the materials they test are not adequately specified, or are not available. Who TF uses poly-cotton flannel, or polyester/spandex chiffon? Most flannel is 100% cotton and chiffon is 100% polyester! The previous study used "tea towels", which had no fiber or weave type specified at all. It's like these people don't actually sew or use ordinary textiles, they just grab random stuff from a thrift shop and assume it's "standard". No one I know has a bunch of silk scarves around to cut up for masks. I'm going to try to use basic bandanas, and stitch cheap chiffon in. Bandanas are very low thread count, IME.

Anyway, I now have to go to the bathroom, then do my last meeting of the day. Ugh.

tags: masks, zoom, work

ljl

So, Shelter In Place (SIP). For me, as an introvert in a household of five people, the problem isn't loneliness, it's too much togetherness with people who might want to roam more. Most of the household is homebodies. One roomie works as a clerk at a major store. Her health is the worst, so we are encouraging her to stay home. But we sometimes rub shoulders "too much".

I am really enjoying working from home (WFH) full time, and I find that I don't miss the open plan office. Yes, a few people in meeting are harder to hear because they mumble or otherwise don't speak clearly, and you can't see them talk on Zoom because of a bad camera angle, or they don't even turn their camera on. But a few incoherent meeting participants don't warrant driving over an hour each way to get from San Jose to Redwood City to sit in an open plan "modern" nightmare of noise and lack of personal space and privacy. If I "had to" WFH for the next year and a half I'd be thrilled, but I understand that most people would go nuts if they had to SIP, alone, for that long.

(Rant about open plan offices and their unhealthiness deleted.)

OTOH, I'm over 50, a stroke survivor, plus other minor health issues, so I'm definitely in a high risk category. The rest of my household is worse - three diabetics, all over 55, one over 65, one with a history of bronchitis and pneumonia, etc. If any of us get C19, probably several of us will, and we are likely to not survive it. If I get it and die, the entire household will not have adequate income. So SIP protects me and mine a lot. Until there's a vaccine, my household needs to greatly minimize its social contact.So SIP is good for me, both on a work practice level and a social distancing and immunological level.

I've finally figured out what is borking my productivity:

1) Worry about my household and their continued health. Two of them are on disability, one is retired, the fourth is unemployed. This makes me anxious.

2) Stress about the risks to me and my household, plus the horrific mismanagement of our nation at a national level, and how much the GOP is trying to screw over my state specifically, and poor folks generally. I am worried about my fellow citizens, even the idiots who are in the thrall of propaganda and cultic conditioning that makes them ignore science and common sense. I have had to stop reading the news, it was making me too angry.

(Rant about politics deleted)

Of course, today I am fighting a migraine, the pollen count is high, and the only thing I miss about the office is the filtration of the indoor air to eliminate the pollen. I may need to spin up my "poor folks' indoor HEPA filters" to reduce the indoor impact.

student

I am currently sitting in a large, puffy leather chair with a mug of decaf earl gray tea, two dark chocolate (okay, they're milk, but the Trader Joe's kind) peanut butter cups on deck. I am listening to my favorite Bon Iver cover and wearing a groutfit - properly poised to embark on this mental road trip.

1. Roller blading in SF! I went roller blading once and it was exhilarating. I was incredibly unstable and fell so many times, sure, but it was freeing and fun and "retro" and cool. Since it was my first time, I was stoked when I got a compliment from a seasoned pro skating backwards on the track. I then made it a goal for this school year to visit the Church of Eight Wheels in SF. It’s one of those places that people used to get drunk with friends and go to on their birthdays, but this old church-turned-roller disco seems like a colorful experience in the best way. SF is full of these gems that I never made enough time to discover. Since I had intention of going there this school year, it’s been on my mind lately.

2. Montgomery, Alabama to visit the Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice. An important piece of our history to grapple with whose shameful legacy continues in deeply entrenched ways today. The museum was also funded by some incredible philanthropic organizations. I’ve heard it’s a powerful experience.

3. Campus, once the crisis has settled. I miss the people, the field where I normally bask in the sun, the top of McMurtry where I’ve written some of my best papers, racking up several miles a day on my bike as I zoom around campus, the gratitude that overwhelms me when I bike past Memorial Church in Main Quad, the stair master at the gym, the dry lakebed where the sun sets every evening, putting on real clothes to go to class, CoHo's trademark smell that follows a late night studying there, the endless stream of people to see and places to be, and honestly so much more. I am lucky to be safe, healthy and with loved ones. I hope that we all have the opportunity to return to campus and appreciate all of the little things that make it special. In the meantime, take care of yourselves and each other :)

Emma Hard, female graduating senior sheltering in New York City

This is an audio clip/song/creation of mine inspired by Guy Paul's performance of "A Shimmer of Something" by Brian Doyle. My younger brother, Clay, plays guitar on the track as well. This poem celebrates a side of connection that I miss dearly these days. It also let me experiment with making a beat of sorts for the first time! Creativity and experimentation are getting me through these days.

Tags: voice, touch, sound, brian doyle, guy paul, a shimmer of something

ljl

Ah, shopping. We made it for the early set-aside for elders and disabled this morning. The store wasn't crowded, but there were still a few things missing, like fresh spinach. I still wish the set-aside hours weren't the early ones, but I understand why they do it that way - it's the first accesses after the store has been cleaned, therefore less risk of contamination. I just hate getting up three hours early.

My sleep has gone bad again. I had a migraine yesterday, had to knock off work, take meds and sleep it off. That made it hard to sleep last night. Needless to say, I'm tired today. I'm thinking of taking a half day off tomorrow.

I'm trying to realistically picture what happens when we lift the SIP. Sure, a slow, phased return to work, low risk(?) people first, still practicing physical distancing and masking. But who wants to work in a building in a mask if their job can be done at home?

Also, what about those people in "essential" businesses that can't work from home and have to wear a mask because their workplaces are so cheek-to-jowl and poorly ventilated (due to building management parsimony) that disease droplets are just re-entrained and spread? The meat packing industry is notorious for that.

Then comes things like movies, concerts, sportsball and conferences. What happens to those? Masks and hard to find hand sanitizer? High end stuff having some people there and the rest video-conferenced in via robots with display/camera combos? Just trying to figure out graduation ceremonies is difficult.

Now, I realize that most people might say that in-person ceremonies, like graduations, weddings, birthday parties, etc are not essential. And, to be frank, they aren't WRT the ability of people to go about their lives.

But.

They are psychologically and socially essential. The major ones, like graduations and wedding, mark major transitions in life. They are like an initiation into a new level of your lifepath. Humans need those social "coming of age" type rituals - graduating high school, graduating college or trade school, getting married, significant birthdays like 18, 21 and 30. Can we just as effectively conduct those ceremonies by videoconference in such a way as to trigger their meaning and transformation in the person and social circle?

Even in our secular society, rituals are important. Graduations are an example. The commemorate an accomplishment and a transition. I know that I probably missed out by not sticking around for my last year of high school and getting my diploma after summer school. But I couldn't stand high school enough to stay another year if I didn't have to. But my transition to college suffered a little for it.

Weddings are another thing. Technically, all you need are the two participants, an officiant and a witness. The vows are not mandatory - only the signatures on the marriage license. But even a JP marriage has the ritual. I believe that this is because it needs to spark a transformation in the participants. How does this work with the family and all in a quarantined world?

Funerals are the hardest to not have, IMO. Without a funeral, or memorial, there is often inadequate closure and ability to grieve. Can we do proper end of life ceremonies by videoconference? Will it trigger the right process of grieving?

Humans need our life transition rituals. Will we be able to reinvent them to have their proper affects in a social distanced society? We'll see...

tags: shopping, rituals, gatherings

Photos by Cooper Raterink

Over the past few weeks, as we’ve progressed through seasons of Avatar and moved on to its sister show, The Legend of Korra, more and more of our housemates have joined for the experience. Its become a daily ritual, of sorts, a familial gathering around the TV each evening. The show keeps getting better and better, expanding upon the premise and exploring the emotional resonance of each character’s journey. Is there a kids show I can think of with a better seasons-long arc and such solid character development? Probably not. A show that weaves multiple plot threads together to a satisfying conclusion? Game of Thrones wishes.

At the end of the third season (spoilers, again), an ancient lion-turtle tells Aang, “before we bent the elements, we bent the energy within ourselves.” As he faces the ultimate villain, the Fire Lord Ozai, Aang faces the dilemma of whether to let him survive, endangering the lives of hundreds and thousands of earth kingdom citizens, or to kill him. Remembering the lion-turtle’s words, he finds a third option: taking away Ozai’s ability to firebend. While the relationship between me and my mother is nothing like that between Aang and Ozai, I, too, am constantly searching for a third option.

Maybe, I’ll find it. Today I spoke with my mom on the phone, and she told me my other siblings and her were actually getting along. Watching shows together, coordinating schedules, helping out around the house. And for the first time in probably a couple months, our conversation kept a lighthearted tone—she believed me when I said everything was good, and didn’t press to find any hint of sadness to justify her own worries. I’m fine with my life here in LA; she’s more or less fine back home. We’re all staying safe and healthy, which is the most anyone can ask for in these times (she is a healthcare worker, though, about to have her salary cut while she’s out on the front lines, but that’s a story for another time). At a time when the elements outside of us are almost completely out of our control, perhaps we’re learning to bend the energy within.

Stanford Junior

They say a common enemy is the best way to unite a people. This global crisis has helped me realize that more than ever.

Until now, Stanford never really felt like a community to me. For the most part, my week was spent alone besides the occasional meal with the occasional friend. During breaks between quarters, maybe one or two of those friends would reach out to me. I didn’t particularly reach out to them either. They never found out that my summer break was spent with my dad in surgery, that my both my grandparents were suddenly diagnosed with Alzheimer's, that I was robbed at gunpoint. I didn’t know much of their struggles, their successes, their lives.

This quarter, however, I have friends from campus calling me every single day making sure I’m okay. Sometimes we call for hours to talk about life. Sometimes we play Skribbl. Sometimes we just video call silently while we all do our own work. They make an effort to make sure I’m okay, I make an effort to make sure they’re okay. I feel like I can reach out to them when I’m struggling. I feel like it’s okay for me to tell them that I don’t feel okay.

This global pandemic has caused what seems to be endless harm. It has also taught us endless lessons. The greatest lesson I have learnt is one of gratitude. It is a reminder that I must be grateful for having friends who care, and how important it is for me to make an active effort to keep in touch with them.

I am realizing now that I do not want things to go "back to normal". I want things to get better than they were before. I want to be better than I was before. And for me, that starts at friendship.

a queer undergrad whose identity is illegal in her country of residence

who would have thought

that after coming out,

i'd have to come right back in again.

Leily Rezvani, undergraduate sheltering in San Diego

The last time I saw my grandmother, who we call Mamaney, was two years ago. During her stay in the U.S., we visited campus where she stopped us at every building and garden to take photos. Slightly annoyed, I asked her how she could possibly be enjoying the luscious ivys of the law terrace through her phone’s camera. Mamaney’s reply: “When I go back to my apartment in Iran, I won’t have you or your brother or your grandfather, but I'll have these pictures.”

Like every Iranian grandmother, Mamaney finds joy in caring for her family. Often, that love manifests itself in food, as she adopts the roles of an artist and a chemist, on her feet for hours at a time while she perfects dishes from memory. Many nights were spent just the two of us, laughing between spoonfuls of rice beautifully composed with saffron, cardamom, pistachios, cinnamon, and dates. Me in my turquoise pajamas and Mamaney in her ballerina pink nightgown, we would wash down our dinner with syrupy baklava and bitter tea, watching classics such as “Roman Holiday” and “The Sound of Music.”

Mamaney is in her late seventies and while she belongs to the “at-risk” population, she is decades younger, physically and mentally. On jogs, her endurance surpasses mine and at family gatherings, she is the life of the party, the “cool aunt” according to her nieces and nephews. To say that her elegance in face of hardship is inspiring would be an understatement. When my grandfather was in the throes of a battle with dementia during his final years, Mamaney cared for him at home while filling in for him at work in a country and industry that, to this day, doubts her abilities as a woman. She has never smoked, but the air quality in Tehran is so poor that she may as well have been a life-long smoker. As a result, her lungs have grown too weak to fight off a respiratory illness.

There have been 78,000 reported cases in Iran, with the death toll still rising every day. People’s attempts at protecting themselves from the disease by consuming mass amounts of tea and vitamin C has been to no avail. Although Mamaney does not need to leave her home, her cabin fever compels her to go for walks to parks and gardens. The energetic spirit she is admired for may come at the price of her health.

Quarantined in her apartment in the capital of one of the hardest-hit countries, Mamaney has been sending me family photos, including ones from our visit to “eh-Stanford” (Persian speakers have trouble pronouncing the letter “s”). Now, I hope that when I return to campus, Mamaney will be with me in more than only memory. But, for now, we are both thankful for the bond modern technology allows us to deepen while half a world away.

Graduating senior

Just sending some songs to listen to while you’re at home! No particular theme or order :)

Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra

All I want for Christmas is You - Mariah Carey

Washed - Dumbfoundead

Herside Story - GoldLink x Hare Squead

Prom Night - Chance the Rapper

Stop this train - John Mayer

There is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths

21 - Gracie Abrams

22 - Taylor Swift

Feel the Vibe (feat. Anderson .Paak) - BJ the Chicago Kid

The Visitor - IU

Hoping everyone is safe and healthy during these times.

Male, Class of 2020, sheltering in San Diego

Things I wish I hadn't taken for granted:

• The joy of living next door to my best friends, and the spontaneity of last-minute lunches, and late night hangouts. I miss the deeper connection that physical proximity offers.

• The freedom to be as productive—or as wholly useless—with my days as I desire.

• Real, physical classrooms, and the access to professors and their insights only found in in-person lectures.

• Restaurants, the communal experience of sharing a meal with people I care for, and gastronomic adventures (plus, great restaurant workers who make the experiences so memorable and engaging).

Things I'm thankful for:

• For now, my family has avoided COVID infection.

• Unexpected and newfound time with family, and all the laughter, joy, and frustration, that comes with being back home.

• Time for self improvement (and the realization that some of that self improvement is not as rewarding as I'd hoped it would be).

• Escaping the COVID reality for a few hours a week and losing myself in new books.

• Technology that keeps us in each other's lives, and friends who remind me to be more thoughtful and caring.

Things I look forward to:

• Starting the job that I've worked so hard to achieve and beginning my career with coworkers I care for.

• Moving beyond FaceTime and bringing back the active and experiential nature of my relationships that I value so much.

• Eventual graduation ceremonies, and being with all my best friends one last time in college.

• Visiting my family in Mexico who are 30 miles and one impenetrable border away.

• My father finally getting the pressing cancer surgery he needs after it was delayed by COVID.

• All of us being a little more thoughtful about our lives and thankful for what we have, and a collective acknowledgement of how we can better take care of one another in the future.

Alex Tsai '21, aspiring baker

Something about global pandemic screams “let's all become the next Martha Stewart" -- and in this spirit I’d like to share my grandma’s secret recipe for a quarantine.

Makes: dough, quantity: $1200 (yeah I’m hyped on that stimulus check). Yields 10 cookies. Serve at your next birthday celebration over Zoom.

INGREDIENTS

- ¾ cups of lost patience for siblings

- 7 episodes of Tiger King

- 11 Zoom lectures watched half-asleep in bed

- Handful of missing jigsaw puzzle pieces

- Sprinkle of “IS THE WIFI SLOW FOR ANYONE ELSE?”

- Dash of misinformation (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Wash your hands. Thoroughly.

2. Preheat oven to 350.

3. In a mixing bowl, sift the 11 Zoom lectures watched half-asleep in bed together with 7 episodes of Tiger King. Stir for 2 minutes or until the mixture resembles a mound of lost productivity.

4. Slowly add in the lost patience for siblings, missing jigsaw puzzle pieces, and the sprinkle of “IS THE WIFI SLOW FOR ANYONE ELSE?”. Channel your anger as you whisk the mixture vigorously.

5. Shape balls of dough and place, evenly-spaced, on cookie sheet. 6 feet apart, to be safe.

6. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

7. Let cookies and anger about slow wifi cool on wire rack.

8. (Optional) Garnish with dash of misinformation.

9. Serve.

Masks. IMO, essential workers need them. Some stores are providing them. But delivery companies? Aren't. Our regular UPS driver has been coming by with stuff since all of this started without a mask. We finally caught him today long enough to hand him two homemade cotton masks. So if you see a big guy with long hair driving a UPS truck wearing a black mask with yellow smiley faces, that's our guy. He does a good job, we want to keep him.

Other than that, well, I feel So Happy It's Thursday Today Yaay. (First letters...)

Across:

1 January concern

4 Verbal filler

6 "A bright greeting," to some

8 "May you live in __ times"

12 Not quite 4G

13 Under oath

14 With 9-down, April concern

16 Savannah locale (abbr.)

17 Risk-free socializing spot, casually

18 "In other words," (abbr.)

19 Waves I haven't seen in weeks (abbr.)

20 Early voter

23 Stanford CS: __ can solve it!

24 Stanford landlord (abbr.)

25 March concern

27 Staring (at)

28 "A term someone associated with dismay," to some

Down:

1 February concern

2 Virus killer

3 Highways, as written on a map

4 Cal constellation

5 Cut

6 Darkness

7 Word with "tap" or "soldier"

9 See 14-across

10 Perennial, long-stemmed plant

11 Mutual attraction

15 Agency est. 2001

16 Possible COVID-19 origin

21 Dissident Ai __ (x2)

22 Bother

26 Half of 2020, to Gaius

Every Sunday at two o'clock in the afternoon, my family and I video call my grandmother, Patricia. She has advanced Alzheimer's and was placed in a nearby memory care facility after my grandfather passed away last October. The facility closed down in the middle of March to prevent any visitors from bringing in the virus to the very vulnerable residents. We speak on phone for about half hour, but it feels so much longer sometimes. She asks my mom, Bridget, "How are Bridget and the girls?" She knows our names. The shadows of our identities are still there hidden in the folds of her memory. She just doesn't recognize who we are through the blurry camera and spotty WiFi.

This photo was taken on our most recent video chat. An old samurai movie was playing in the background behind the camera. In between bursts of laughter and half-finished sentences, she coherently narrated a chase scene. "They are running, running I say," she said, her eyes squinting without her glasses. They'd been missing for a week. Throughout the entire call, my grandmother played with a crumbled tissue and a piece of lettuce in her lap. She also picked up and hugged her stuffed animal cat, Kevin. It's white with a pink bow, but "he's always a very good boy." This photo is the best of eight tries to get her to smile without laughing.

By Courtney Douglas

Sedentary in Southern California, I shut off my Zoom camera for a moment to stare at the ceiling and wish that, just one more time, I could lean in toward a Stanford English roundtable, side-eyeing my friends’ annotations while their faces light up as they unpack something in the reading I hadn’t noticed before. These days, their boxed-in visages flash fleeting, neon borders instead. I think back to early March, when I saw them last in the flesh, my final visions of them blurred by the way I slammed my accelerator down the 101 toward San Diego, leaving behind a dorm room with espresso stains on the dresser and the desk lamp still plugged in, trying to make good time.

Only when I open my Moleskine can I trace, with clarity, the evolution from mid-winter to the present. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, I think everyone should document their daily experiences. Not because spring quarter has retained any sentimental value (it hasn’t), or even because creative expression can prove therapeutic through stressful times (though it can). Because the historical record needs us to.

As the pandemic tests our economy, our interconnectedness and our resilience, and as we vacillate between tumultuous anxiety and quarantined mundanity, we can stand to learn a lot about ourselves, as individuals and as community members. The richness of daily reflection can allow us to tap into this enhanced understanding.

Let me explain.

Our world is turning over faster than we can register in real time. Less than two weeks after the University announced it was “strongly encouraging” people to postpone events with 150 or more people, returning to campus became a violation of the Fundamental Standard. Just three months after the Chinese government announced that it was treating a few dozen cases of an unknown, pneumonia-like illness, half of the planet fell under some form of a lockdown order. I didn’t stop by my friend Ellie’s dorm room to hug her on my way home; unsure how the situation would evolve, I remained convinced that my departure wasn’t actually goodbye.

Continue reading in The Stanford Daily...

Terrified, then with that terror oozing into a feeling of numb defeat, I walked back to my bunk and crawled into bed. I laid on my back staring at the ceiling and anticipated some evil drug to hit. Suddenly, a wave of euphoria surged through me and my vision was filled with Fear and Loathing neon signage that read Happy Now. An advertisement streamed in my mind for a Silicon Valley startup selling happiness injections.

All of this was a dream of course, and somehow it was after the mind-ad rather than after the injection that I snapped back to my real bed with my heart beating fast. I woke several times that night due to small noises. A racing mind convinced me that creaking floorboards were people looting the living room downstairs, that neighbors stumbling in the night were assailants running up the stairs, and that the regular noises of the Caltrain shuffling past the window were in fact some nightmare train stopping and letting off dark creatures into our neighborhood.

Lying there in the early morning, having been traumatized through the night by my own mind, there was such an intense feeling of fragility. I hadn’t felt this sort of unknown since my nightmares during childhood. The world was certainly different than the one I remember from before covid-19.

Continue Reading...

There have many lots of changes in the the last few weeks amidst the COVID-19 situation. These changes have caused copious hardships around the world. In particular, people have been worried about the safety of their family, the impacts of social distancing, and for those that are graduating, sadness around not being able to celebrate their accomplishments.