Category: Junior Literary

Were you once a kid who was chronically online and watched those cringey animation memes as a child? Well, I can tell you right now half of those song samples belong to Carvan Palace. Now here is where I admit something embarrassing and that is that I love their music! They are such good songs to imagine yourself in a club or even re-enacting those cringe worthy dances that animators would animate their Oc’s doing. Now you may be wondering well what are some of their songs that could take me back to that era or have such amazing daydreams?  Today I will be listing some of their best (in my opinion) songs and ones that will take you back in time! 

My first song recommendation has to be Lone Digger for sure. This song is based around a lone digger which is in that world essentially someone who dances to their own beat. The scene takes place in what looks like a bar/ club complete with dancers and drinks and gives the overall them of a risqué night. I love this song because you truly can imagine it with the songs tone and beat. Later in the club a fight goes down between a gang of cats and dogs who are portrayed as humans with the cats being in streetwear and the dogs in suits and ties. The song is also sung by a woman which could allude to being one of the dancers there which in my eyes just changes the perspective so much. All together it is just a well put together song for both memorabilia and to listen to on the regular.

My second song recommendation would have to be Wonderland this song is just truly about escaping reality. Its melodies are bright, upbeat, and fast paced and overall, just set the scene for one to imagine themselves escaping reality. It is also personally one of my favorites because it takes me back to some memories that I otherwise would not think of. Such as scrolling through YouTube mindlessly and watching any animation videos I could get my hands on.

My final song recommendation is Aftermath. This song gained quite a bit of popularity on Tik Tok before eventually being forgotten like most music tends on the app. Though it was not popular in a cheerful lighting it was mostly known to be used for people depicting their poor mental state and to vent. This is what the song is about though with repeating lines such as “let it go” goes on to help with the underlying message of hardships and that a person has to let go! I also love this song just for its beat in general it can truly be perceived as a light song if one wasn’t to pay any mind to the lyrics or it can be seen and interpreted very deeply. I love songs which can be taken in multiple ways because at the end of the day it is all up to the viewer!

TW: mention of death/loss of a loved one. 

This year, my favorite holiday doesn’t excite me like it used to. Everyone is getting in the Christmas spirit and decorating, while I’m cooped up in my room. Christmas was once a holiday of joy and taking time to spend with your family. 2024 has been a rollercoaster of events and emotions. My mom passed away earlier this year and my brothers and I became separated across the coast. The time I’m supposed to be spending with family feels nearly impossible. Many changes and separations have happened before, but this Christmas will be the hardest. I have an amazing new family I can spend the holiday with, although it’ll never be the same. I put up my Christmas tree in my room at home and started to feel this emptiness come over me.

When my family was together, we listened to Christmas music and decorated the tree. It would take all of us since we used to get a huge tree to go in front of the living room window. I used to have a special task to water and feed the tree every day before Christmas. While my brothers and I decorated the tree, my mom would start on our decorations outside. Our neighborhood had a decorating contest and it was always fun to try and win.

My mom used to bake sugar cookies and make edible paint so we could decorate them. She would also make Christmas candies to give out to friends and loved ones, we used to help by putting sprinkles on them. On Christmas Eve each year, we would always watch the same movie: The Polar Express. My mom would make us each a box for this night. It included pajamas, a body wash/shampoo set, perfume/cologne, a hot chocolate packet, a mug, and a bag of popcorn. All of us kids would put our Christmas pajamas on and make the hot cocoa and popcorn before starting the movie.

On Christmas day, we would wait for my mom to wake up. My little brothers would try to open the presents without her, but my older brother and I would stop them. My mom always needed coffee before we opened anything, my little brothers were bursting with anticipation and excitement. Finally, when we opened presents, the youngest would go first. After presents, all of us kids would take our new items to our rooms. My mom would then start on the mouthwatering food. She would take hours to prepare dinner because the food always needed to be slow-cooked for the flavors to meld. I used to go into the kitchen and help in any way I could. I always loved cooking with her. This year, none of that will be happening. Hopefully, we can continue some of our old traditions but also create new ones to better fit my and my brothers’ situations. While my mom isn’t physically here to make the candies, put together our boxes, or cook dinner, I could always continue in her place to keep her Christmas spirit alive. 

Whenever I meet new people, one thing I love to mention is the fact that I was born in Indonesia. Sometimes I feel like it’s my only defining trait. Even if it’s the only thing people remember me by, at least it’s unique. I mean, I’m proud of where I come from… I think. It definitely wasn’t my favorite time in my life, but I was also 4 so I wouldn’t even know. I moved to America in April of 2014, which was over 10 years ago now (that’s INSANE to me) and because I was so young, I barely remember it. 

I’m always asked, “What do you remember about Indonesia?” and I usually answer, “Not much!” But that stupid question always kickstarts the rusty little cobweb-covered gears in my brain to start remembering the foggiest time of my life.

One of my favorite memories of my life before America was playing online games with my dad. I’ve mentioned it before in my other blogs but not in detail. I’ve also already mentioned the fact that my dad gave me my first laptop at 4 years old. I still can’t tell if that was a good or bad parenting move.

For those of you that didn’t experience the most magical form of childhood joy, Pixie Hollow Online was Disney’s Tinkerbell MMO thing. Key word “was” because it shut down in 2013 and I was there! I remember logging on and waiting for my computer to crash or something. I don’t remember many details, just a blurry feeling of sadness as my favorite fairy game was ripped away from my little 5 year old hands. I’ll never forgive Disney for that…

I remember one time I was redecorating my house, and I’m sure it looked great because 5 year old me must’ve had amazing interior design skills. I don’t remember what the house looked like, but I do remember having a trash can made of leaves and my dad did the little sitting emote on it and told me he was “using the bathroom” in my trash can. I remember getting so mad because obviously it was for trash! Sorry if that detail was weird, it’s the only thing I actually remember about playing that game. Clearly, you can see who I get my potty humor from…

While I was doing research to see if my brain was lying to me or not, I found a Pixie Hollow blog post from the exact day Pixie Hollow shut down and it is so funny and also so sad. I’ll share it HERE!!! if anyone is curious about what happened in my little fairy world.

Watching all the Tinkerbell movies and playing Pixie Hollow unsurprisingly led me to believe in fairies. Like seriously. Until I was 10. I moved to America when I was 6 so I don’t know what on Earth was keeping my fairy beliefs up for 4 more years but it needs to come back. Anyway, the sweetest memory I have from Indonesia is going outside with my dad and placing doll-sized chairs and tables and coming back the next day to find glitter sprinkled all over it. My dad would wake me up and tell me, “The fairies came last night!” and I would run out to go see the “pixie dust” and that was the only kind of running I ever did as a kid.

Also, I did not believe in Santa Clause – I believed in Christmas fairies. I loved Legos as a kid, and I remember one Christmas where I woke up to glitter all over my (unwrapped) presents and found a little red fire truck Lego set. While I was building it, I was eating watermelon in one hand and playing in the piles of glitter with another hand and my dad mistakenly thought I was eating the glitter. 

I have so many little memories that stand alone without any leading moments. I wish I remembered more but it’s physically impossible for me to. Like this one ad on YouTube that I would watch multiple times a night for a few weeks where it was some sort of dollhouse with a waterslide. It wasn’t for Barbies, it was for little toys and I don’t even remember if they were little humans or animals. I think about it a lot, though.

As a preschool aged child on the internet, I loved My Little Pony. I’m still a fan, I have a bunch of MLP stickers all over my water bottle (thanks Richie!). A memory that honestly haunts me probably sits somewhere on a digital camera’s SD card somewhere. So I watched a lot of skits made with MLP toys. And guess who had a bunch of MLP toys…

Inspired by all of the skits I watched, I decided I wanted to make a video. So I set up my dad’s digital camera in between me and 2 of my MLP toys and I made AppleJack (and whoever the other one was) talk! Except they weren’t talking… Because for some reason I thought the camera would hear my thoughts. So I was humming. Like talking in my head. Apparently a little too loud because my dad interrupted my (totally amazing) video to ask me what I was doing.

I remember watching the video back and being so disappointed that the camera didn’t pick up the words I was saying… in my head. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that’s what I did every time I played with any of my toys. I probably hummed so loudly because I didn’t know what kind of conversation my toys would have because I didn’t know many words.

Now back to shorter memories once again, my dad worked a lot so I had a lot of babysitters. One time, it was a hot sunny day (like most were in Indonesia) and I was sitting on my bed with the babysitter doing something I don’t remember. And then I saw a big, fat rat come out of our shower drain and run around the room until my babysitter hit it with a broom. That’s all I remember. Now I don’t know if the rat was super big because Indonesia had crazy big rats or because I was a tiny 4 year old, either way it was huge.

I’ve mentioned the fact that I grew up living in a motel in Indonesia before. I think the only reason we were able to stay so long was because my dad was friends with the motel owner. This motel was built on a huge hill that had a little concrete balcony connected to the parking lot. They had potted ferns with the kinds that curl up when you touch them so every morning I would go outside to harass the ferns because I thought it was so cool. I’m still looking for those kinds of ferns by the way, I want to have one and touch the leaves every morning. That would be a nice full circle moment.

Anyway, one day I was running up (or down) the huge slope of the driveway, and I fell. I rarely did anything active so I rarely got hurt, but this one was bad. (This is super gross so skip to the next paragraph if you’re easily grossed out!) Somehow, I scraped almost all of the skin off of my elbow. Like gone. I get so uncomfortable thinking about it now. 

To my knowledge, I don’t have a scar to prove it but I remember my dad making me wear an arm sling that used to belong to him. Actually, when I was looking through my paperwork to apply to MSA, I found a picture of him wearing that exact sling!

It was fun to finally write down all of these memories that might fade out as I get older. Spending so much time thinking about the past made me really sad. When my dad found videos of me playing with my toys and putting my stuffed animals to sleep, I cried so hard. At this point, I was like 10. I don’t even know why I started crying, but if he found those videos again I would probably cry even harder.

I miss being a little kid, and that’s so strange to say. I have so much now and I have so much ahead of me, but I can’t help but miss the past so much. Honestly, my life was probably worse back then but I just want to go back. Writing this blog made me realize how often my dad was in my favorite memories. I miss him, which is something I haven’t said since I was a kid going off to elementary school for the first time.

Sometimes I get these visions of my childhood, like I knew that moment wouldn’t last forever so I decided to remember it until I was 16 and writing about the few memories I have from Indonesia. Watching memories of my childhood is like watching short clips of a TV show that grows more static as time goes on. Something that’s just slightly out of my reach now, but it’s slipping away more and more as the years go on. I don’t want to grow up, but I can’t do anything about it now. I think I should text my dad.

For my English class, I read a short story called “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.” Like most of the literature we could choose to write about, this story was written a long time ago- 1968 by Gabriel Marquez. It’s filled with a bunch of irony although it deals largely with religion. In today’s blog, I’ll be diving deeper into how Marquez uses this literary device to comment about religion and society as a whole.

The story follows the arrival of a poor angel in a small coastal, religious town. Contrary to the villagers’ religious belief about angels, the angel wakes up speaking an unknown language, has very little hair and teeth, and is dressed like a beggar. The villagers are confused about the angel’s un-angelic appearance and are unsatisfied with the angel’s inability to help them with their problems. They lock the angel in a chicken coup, exploit and seer him, then they deny that he is truly an angel.

1. Irony of the angel.

-The angel in this story is not like an angel at all. Angels are strong, beautiful creatures with high authority in Christianity. In fact, angels symbolize purity, hope, intelligence, innocence, and love. The irony of this angel is that it doesn’t have “greatness” or “divineness” that we instinctively expect. As the villagers shun the angel for this, Marquez develops the idea that society punishes those who don’t meet requirement or expectation, but he does it through a fantasy genre that we don’t expect. Although the creature is odd and unknown, the villager’s negative reaction is plausible. Some things are still the same, but others have changed.

2. The priest’s reaction.

                The villagers contact the priest when they realize that the angel might not be who they suspect. Once the priest sees the angel, and all the flaws about him, he questions the nature of the angel and the villagers who look up to him. He even goes as far as saying the villagers who paid attention to the angel were enwrapped with the devil. Though the priest is supposed to encourage others to respect the angel, he does the exact opposite. Angels have great authority in Christianity and are important to Christians and religious leaders. However, there are no signs that the priest trusts the angel; he clearly judges him by the way he looks above anything else. This is clear, and I think Marquez is trying to depict the nature of religion when it is not glamourous, as well as the reactions of people when they are faced with something different than what they know.

2. Exploitation of the angel.

Pelayo and Elisenda exploit the angel by charging villagers money to throw things at him like a carnival show. The villagers seer the angel, poke him, make horrible remarks at him, and treat him like an animal. Despite the monetary gain the angel is bringing Pelayo and Elisenda, they keep him in a chicken coop, instead of offering him a bed and food. They treat him horribly, and I think this is the most ironic message of all. As a village of Christians, there should be nothing more important than equality among god’s people. However, the villagers don’t show the angel any compassion and they would rather let the poor thing die than go against the wishes of others. Marquez uses ironic and symbolic circumstances, like the angel not being able to fly despite having wings or the priest rejecting a religious symbol, to highlight society’s negative mentality toward those who are different and vulnerable.

Mitski has to be my favorite artist. She got me through my whole tenth grade semester. I’m at the point where I can guess most of her songs just from hearing the first few seconds of it!! I will be naming off my favorite albums from her, why it’s my favorite, and my favorite song from it without going into a deep dive because I have no idea what these albums are actually about! (This might’ve been the hardest thing I’ve ever done.)

1. Laren Hell

Laren Hell is one of Mitski’s more upbeat albums where it doesn’t sound like she’s gonna rip her heart out in the studio (not to say I don’t love that). The first time I listened to this was last year and I wanted to get up and dance! (I was in Geometry.)  This album came out in 2022 and has 11 songs that last for 32 minutes. This is me convincing you to listen to it. My favorite song from this album is Stay Soft!

2. Lush

Okay, everyone has heard a song from Lush rather that be liquid smooth or Abbey, you have heard it before! This album came out in 2012. It consists of 9 songs and is 26 minutes long and it also was a school project for Mitski (I think) So, unfortunately, I can’t add this to my record collection </3. Lush has some of Mitski’s best songs in my opinion, it would be in the first spot, but I enjoy Lauren Hell just a little more. My favorite song from this album is Real men.

3. Retired from Sad, New Career in Business

Retired from sad, new career in business was also a school project! This was released in 2013 and consist of 9 songs and is 23 minutes long. This is another album that had a few popular songs. Strawberry blonde and I want you are the most popular ones I’ve heard. This album makes me so sad, and I love it so much. It genuinely gives me chills because of how well she sings and conveys the emotions in these songs. My favorite song in this album is Shame.

4. Puberty 2

Puberty 2 is one that always makes me sad. This isn’t one I listen to often, but it is still one of my favorites. The songs have so much feeling in them, like there’s so much hope in these songs. It consists of 11 songs and is 31 minutes long. My favorite song from this album is Crack Baby.

5. Bury Me At Makeout Creek

This is one of Mitski’s more popular having songs like Drunk Walk Home, Francis Forever, First Love/Late Spring. You have most likely heard some of these before! It’s one of her louder albums, featuring more screaming or electric guitars more than her others. In this album the music feels like more of the focus over her voice. It consists of 10 songs and is 30 minutes long. My favorite song from this album is Townie.

6. Be the Cowboy

Be the cowboy! I feel terrible having this at the bottom of the list since it features some of her really good songs like Me and My Husband, Nobody, A pearl, Washing Machine Heart. I could go on! The only reason it isn’t is because a lot of these songs are overplayed for me. I mean, I could listen to Mitski alllll day long, but I guess since these are some of the first songs I listened to on repeat I’m a little burned out. I still love all of these songs and still listen to them daily! They just aren’t at the top of my list. This album consists of 14 songs and is 32 minutes long and was the first Mitski vinyl I bought! My favorite song from this album is Pink in the Night.

This is the first installment of a new series of blogs I’m going to be writing, focusing on remembering different events in my life through a narrative/diary like style.

I’ve been to a concert before. December 20th, 2019, I saw Greta Van Fleet at the UNO Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, LA. It was mediocre. For one, I wasn’t super interested in them, I really just went because my dad and my stepmother wanted to. The music was okay. I felt that GVF was really only popular because they sounded extremely similar to Led Zeppelin, so they didn’t strike me as incredibly original. There was also the fact that I was eleven and had a terrible sleep schedule, so I was exhausted from waiting in line and I fell asleep intermittently throughout the show. The people sitting in front of me were chainsmoking as well, so a headache made it a not very fun experience. Not to say that all concerts are like that, but I did not enjoy it.

Leaping forward into the year 2024 A.D., November 2nd, to be precise, I am in Atlanta, GA. Waiting in my hotel room, I do my makeup. Navy blue liner in my waterline, teal eyeshadow with seafoam green and blue glitter in my inner corners, and electric blue wings accentuate my eyes. I pick out something to put on my lips, a dark grey, almost black, lip-gloss. With my outfit pulled together, me and my dad walk about 20 minutes to the State Farm Arena through the somewhat crowded streets of Atlanta, with advertisements on the surrounding screens for Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard And Soft” Tour. The tour we’re all going to see. The foremost thing in my mind, There’s a lot of people here. I haven’t even stepped foot in the building yet. There is a line of people around the block, all waiting to get inside to see a woman on stage. It’s so odd how we idolize regular people who share talents with a large handful of the population. I love music and singers, but sometimes I think, maybe they were just in the right place at the right time to reach stardom. I say that as if I hadn’t been out of my mind with excitement the entire time, as if I wasn’t one in the throngs of people waiting anxiously to see this woman sing on a stage hundreds of feet away, less than that if you’re rich and lucky. It was absolutely astounding. I loved dancing around with crowds of people, singing along to songs written by someone who would never know who I am. I enjoyed how I couldn’t even hear my own singing, so of course it sounded terrible. The setlist also had some of my favorite songs by Billie Eilish, along with opener Towa Bird, who I’d heard a little bit before the concert but not much to say I enjoyed her music. Now I can confidently say I love her album American Hero. The music was amazing and I was really glad to have time to hang out with my dad in an environment like that. We both love music and it was really nice to have something that I can share with him.