4. NZ Sea Lions 2026

(Credit: UCSC, Our Mascot: Sammy the Banana Slug) Imagine attending a football game where your school’s mascot is a fierce tiger, while the opposing team’s mascot is a banana slug. One is known for strength and speed; the other slowly moves across a rainy field. Yet, somehow, both of these have become symbols of school pride at American universities. I’ve always found college mascots to be really interesting, especially considering how unusual they all can be. While many schools choose animals with strong character traits for their sports teams, others take a completely different route on what makes a good mascot. Take the University of California, Santa Cruz, for example. Their mascot is the Banana Slug, a creature not particularly known for its swiftness and strength. The University of California, Irvine, has the Anteaters , while Stanford University has an unofficial mascot known as the Tree. Even Dartmouth has an unofficial mascot called Keggy the Keg. Considering how many univers...

Valley Fair Mall ( Image Credits ) With Cyber Monday and Black Friday approaching in a month, I would like to take the time to discuss the growing problem of overconsumption in America. Overconsumption mostly stems from America’s capitalist society. After World War II , as the country emerged from the Great Depression, they needed people to start purchasing many goods to keep the economy in a good place. This is when mass consumerism began to be promoted more heavily. Businesses started to realize that in order to keep selling their products, they needed trends to cause some things to grow in popularity and other products start to go out of style. This constant cycle of trends fuels the overconsumption in America, but is also what fuels the economy. Without trends shifting from Hydro Flasks to Stanleys to Owalas, people would not spend as much money and therefore, not as much money would be exchanged. It seems that every month (or even week sometimes!), there is a new trend that promot...

                                                                                                              1. Trump Ai Slop “Remember everything you learnt last year? I want you to forget all that.” I was so confused; every year in history I was told that the former year was all but useless, why was that? As I grew older I began to piece it together: it was not that the previous years were useless, it's just that they were all full of idealized propaganda. Throughout elementary school, teachers fed us watered down versions of the truth behind our “great” nation, depicting America as this flawless symbol of freedom and peace. However, as you ascend through t...

Growing up, I always felt less Asian than my elementary school friends, who had ethnic origins in various parts of East Asia while I was born in the Philippines. You might think that that makes no sense. And on the surface, it doesn’t. How can one person be “less Asian” than another if both of them are from Asia, albeit different countries? But it’s not that simple. American television only likes to portray one Asian caricature on the screen: pale skin, straight hair, narrow eyes. They’re intended to be East Asian, but the producers clearly didn’t pick a specific ethnicity because they don’t even know the difference between them.  An Asian kid sits down at the lunch table. It’s his first day in America and he’s nervous to make new friends.  He opens his lunchbox.  “Eww!!” the children cry in unison. “What is that?” The poor kid leaves the lunchroom crying to play with his calculator alone, or something. We’ve all heard the story. The message is really for white kids–telli...

(1) The colorful array of books. Coming to the realization that it was library day in elementary school filled the classroom with such joy and excitement. It was almost as good as a Friday. Everyone, those who like reading and those who don’t prefer it, spends library time choosing a book of choice, or one recommended by a friend, or even a choice from the librarian. Then we would head over to the tables, surrounded by bookshelves, ready to dive into a new wonderland.  Everyone did. It was like an unspoken rule. Not according to my fifth grade little sister, at least. My mom asked my sister to do a bit of reading of her library book; however, my sister says that she didn’t borrow a library book. So, I asked her why she didn’t want to borrow a library book. She said that none looked interesting to her. Promoting reading to elementary students has been a struggle for schools, especially after the pandemic. About two years ago, my sister’s class had a field trip to the library. I was ...

  What other way to start a new blog theme, but with a little bit of rhythm? And a 5—a 5, 6, 7, 8! My dance teacher hits the sacred brick with a stick. The sounds of bare feet, stomping on the ground, echo through the hallowed halls of bustling studio. “From the top!” someone yells.  Music from an old speaker starts playing, the sound of a high-pitched flute starts. The studio is quiet, filled with the anticipation of entering on the right beat. A singer starts off with a vocal riff, so our cue is coming up. We hear the first words of the song, and immediately start walking in.  “Walk like a dancer,” I was told.  “Allapadma,” is the hand gesture for representing something blooming or flowering in Bharatnatyam, an ancient form of Indian classical dance. The dancers in my school are taught this movement in their first year of dance (usually at the age of 6). I joined my dance school when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I had done ballet and tap-dancing for 2-3 years befo...