6. Bratwurst 2025

Reading my last blog, you may believe I am heartless. How could I not mourn the death of a family member, even if I never met them? Maybe you are callous too. Do you pity your ancestors? Your great-great-great grandparents, lost in the folds of history? Have you ever tried to find out who they were? Did you try to find their stories? Did you mourn them? I doubt any of us have. History is emotionless, unloving. Death tolls are mere numbers on a page—nothing more. You too will eventually fade into history, as will the people you love, until every trace of your existence lies forgotten, buried by dust and ash.  So why do we sympathize with people long dead? “Sixty Million and more” is but a figure, yet still we feel sorrow for the slaves. Why do we grieve those who died in the Holocaust , yet few remember the thousands of Romans who fell at Cannae ? The answer lies in literature.   Toni Morrison tries to find humanity in history —telling individual stories that make history...

  Having a slip-up can be considered funny. Oftentimes on the internet, I have seen people make shorts on things like going into a room and forgetting why they were there, and then everyone in the comments talk about how relatable that is. There are then scientists who also explain the phenomenon, hence further cementing the commonality of small memory slips in cases like these. According to Dr. Jessica Mcfayden from the University of London, this is called the “doorway effect” (Mcfayden). Essentially, we use doorways to “segment our experience” into “different events” and classify information based on rooms; therefore, when we cross these “event boundaries,” our mind “flush[es] out the information” from the previous room (Mcfayden).  https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/doorway-effect-why-we-forget-what-we-were-supposed-do-after-we-enter-room.html However, I cannot personally say that this has been a huge problem for me. While it does occur from time to time, my main problem lie...

What is your favorite memory? A question I was constantly asked, yet I was never really sure how to respond. I’ve always found it hard to remember things from a long time ago, but also things that happened recently. I know many of us struggle with this, and it’s definitely been a big issue I’ve been trying to fix myself. I must admit, sometimes it’s extremely difficult to recall past memories from elementary school and before, but I feel like that applies to most people. Maybe it’s because I have a bad memory and can’t even remember what was on my psychology test last week. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been repressing these moments in my mind, and shifting them to the unconscious .  Most people can’t remember painful or disturbing moments in their lives, yet I find myself forgetting almost anything and everything. I wonder what life would be like if I had a perfect memory, or if I didn’t have to try so hard to think about what I learned. There’ve been so many moments where I studied...

  Has there ever been a time where you have felt this exact moment has happened before? It’s a strange feeling, seeing the present unravel exactly how you remembered it happening before, keeping you stuck in a time-space continuum where it feels like moments are repeating themselves over and over again. This feeling has me saying, “I feel like this has happened before” to my friends and family, which they then continue to stare at me like I’m crazy. That creepy sense of familiarity, a rather quick and fading moment that we don’t recall even 2 minutes later. While many don’t put that much thought into this, I think it’s something fascinating to explore, and crucial to understand the complexities of the human psyche.  Deja Vu is peculiar, with science arguing that it has to do with age and fatigue. The feeling has you thinking you’re insane, or insecure on your own collections of memory. This is completely the wrong idea, as Deja Vu is actually associated with a healthy mind....

Okay, I have to admit something. I still sleep with my childhood blanket.  I know, EMBARRASSING.  But, I really can’t help it. My childhood blanket is hands-down the most cozy, warmest, softest blanket in the entire house. It's been with me for years now, and knows me inside out. At seven, I used it as a cape when playing make-believe “Little Red Riding Hood.” At eight, I draped it around me like a saree to imitate the Bollywood actresses in the movies my parents would watch. At nine, I used it as an indoor picnic blanket to have tea parties with all my stuffed animals.  Though the ways in which I use my childhood blanket keep changing, one thing has not: I HATE when my mother washes my blanket.  Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand the importance of cleanliness. This might sound strange, but my blanket has a particular smell to it that only I can recognize. I’ve noticed that I frequently smell my blanket to feel comforted and relaxed. Even when I sleep, it al...

That feeling when you look at your own baby pictures; that feeling when you smell that exact sense that takes you straight back to childhood but you're never able to identify where it's coming from; that feeling when you stare deeply at the colorful lights on a Christmas tree in the dark or at the flickers of a Diwali diya patterns of light are etched into the back of your eye; that feeling when you look at old playgrounds and swing sets and feel that intrinsic inclination to run out onto them: nostalgia is pretty powerful. An iconic picture of a Chuck-E-Cheese , a place  many people from my era have fond childhood  memories of. Many times I catch myself reminiscing about my childhood self. I catch glimpses of him in some of  the countless little energetic and curious boys I see and interact with at the Exploratorium. I catch glimpses of him through random scrolls on the  family Shutterfly account. I catch glimpses of him throughout little moments and memories that t...

Generational trauma is the topic that I researched heavily for my English 9 Honors public speaking final and the science behind trauma is proof that memory can last through several generations.  One day, while my grandmother was still pregnant with my mother, my grandmother was taking a nap after a very long, tiring day. That afternoon, my grandmother woke up to her mother-in-law hysterically throwing all the kitchen utensils on the floor. Culturally, daughter-in-laws in India are expected to pick up all the chores of the household and my grandmother rushed to clean up the mess. This incident rattled my grandmother consciously and subconsciously to such an extent that she refuses to sleep soundly till this day. When a woman is pregnant, she not only carries her child, but also her potential grandchild, causing future generations to exhibit trauma driven behavior or carry forward the effects of the experience even when they have not experienced the event themselves. This means that ...

On Friday, my paternal grandfather passed away. I suppose I should feel grief. In 2016, my maternal grandfather passed away. I suppose I should have felt sorrow. I have yet to mourn.  Am I a callous person? Do I lack the capacity to grieve? Wait. I’ve felt loss before. I remember. My dog died last year; I shed a tear then. Am I so heartless, so unloving as to grieve the death of an animal more than my own grandparents? Wait. I never really knew my grandfathers.  My maternal grandfather had Alzheimer’s. He was bedridden; he couldn’t even speak. I never once talked with him; I only talked at him. “Hi Gung Gung.” “Bye Gung Gung.” “I’m going home now, Gung Gung.” All the while Gung Gung would just lie in bed, staring at the white ceiling above him.  My paternal grandfather, by contrast, could speak. His health was decent—not perfect; his hearing was poor. But he could walk, talk, and take care of himself.  But I didn’t talk much with him either. He only spoke Cantonese, ...