Senior Literary – Literary Arts Blogspace

going analog (kind of)

Since Christmas, I’ve been making it a goal to be more disconnected from my phone, and social media. I know it’s not that original of an aim, but I think that I’ve been doing pretty well with it. With how purposefully addictive technology has been designed, I’m trying to take back my attention span, because it’s completely shot. I find that I can barely pay attention to a book for as long as I used to. Now, I can’t say I’m going completely analog because that’s nearly impossible in this day and age and it would be incredibly hypocritical saying that on an online blog post, especially when so many aspects of my life are online, but I’m doing my best to minimize my time on social media specifically. I’ve implemented a lot of tools to do so, like using single-purpose tech instead of the swiss army knife lodged in my gut all the time (my phone). I’ve disabled all of my notifications except for texts, calls, and emails, and I’ve set up a grey-scale filter on my screen so that my phone looks just as soul-sucking as it feels. I’ve also installed an app called OLauncher that is designed to remove all of the colorful app icons that distract me so easily. It’s set up so that I only have 5 apps readily available on my homescreen, and the rest are hidden in a tray, all formatted as lists so that there’s no pretty images to grab my attention. I’ve also Marie Kondo’ed my apps. Anything that is not a genuinely helpful tool has been removed from my phone, no games, no shopping apps, nothing except for what I actively use every day. If I don’t use it in more than a week, I delete it and redownload it again in the future if I need to.

Another thing I’ve done is I’ve bought myself an off-brand IPod to keep all of my music on. I’ve cancelled my subscriptions and have started buying my music myself. It’s much more costly, I’ll admit, but at the end of the day, I’ll never lose the license to access music that I truly own. Buying off of apps like Bandcamp also comes with the added bonus of knowing that I’m directly supporting the artists I’m listening to, rather than a monthly fee being divvied up into fractions of a cent for each artist I listen to, with the lion’s share going to a corporation. While it’s not a perfect system, I really enjoy having so much agency over things that mean so much to me. I’m also very excited about the personalization I’ve done. While the Innioasis Y1 is a great device out of the box, I’ve downloaded a program called RockBox. RockBox is designed to bring new life to old IPods, but since it’s main goal is accessibility and improvement, it has been developed for the Y1 as well!

Going analog is completely impossible for me currently, but I’m doing my best to be more mindful about my media consumption and tech interactions. I’ve noticed that I’m much less pessimistic than I used to be because of it, and I’m so much more okay with missing a text or a phone call when it used to make me panic. This really felt like a slap to the face when I remember what every mom on earth has said to their child: “It’s that damn phone.” I really do think that we have the power to step away from being mindless phone zombies, if we’ll only try. I hope this inspires you to be a little bit more present in your life and set down the phone once in a while.

2026: My Most Dreaded Year

I’ve written about the new year about three different times, and I don’t think I’m going to stop anytime soon, even a month in. 2026 is going to be my biggest year yet: I’m graduating high school, I’m starting college, I’m traveling, and– I’m graduating high school?

I’ve heard the phrase “Class of 2026” for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t understand what it actually meant until elementary school.

“Class of 2026 means you’re graduating in the year 2026,” my extremely patient teacher told me probably after I walked up to her during recess.

“What’s graduating?” I probably asked her, like an idiot.

“It’s when you’re done with school and maybe go to college.”

“Why would we do that?”

I already knew I was going to become the girl that I am today: terrified of growing up and unhealthily attached to the past. When I turned eight, I thought I wanted to be six years old forever. And then I turned ten and wanted to be eight years old forever. That continued until I became a teenager and realized I would never want to live in objectively the worst, most awkward stage of my life any longer than I had to.

But I couldn’t fathom a time in my life where I didn’t go to school. Obviously I knew adults that were out of school with jobs and kids, but I never imagined that being me. I thrived off of getting good grades, taking notes, and showing off my report card. So I became terrified of graduating and with that, the phrase “Class of 2026”. I would hold back tears when the teacher went on long rants about preparing us for college and I would cover my ears when my friends talked about how excited they were to graduate.

I avoided the phrase until middle school when I decided that 2026 was so far away there was no reason to worry about it in the first place. I shrugged off the phrase whenever it was mentioned and I breezed through middle school only focusing on the present. I’d say it was an alright time. Then high school arrived…

I was in concert band, so I got the chance to meet and get close to seniors as a freshman. And in May, I attended a graduation ceremony for the first time. It was only when I was sitting in the second row of woodwinds, clutching my oboe in my sweaty hands, in the middle of playing “Pomp and Circumstance”, I realized that I would be walking that same stage in less than four years. That’s when the fear came back.

I would get nauseous when I imagined myself in a cap and gown and, again, I would cover my ears when my friends talked about how excited they were to graduate. It was like I slipped right back into the elementary school version of myself – terrified of growing up, constantly avoiding the phrase. But I couldn’t stop time, so my sophomore year came and went, then I left to come to MSA.

I certainly feel different about graduating now. Not only am I going to be walking across a completely different stage, but I’m actually excited to graduate. I don’t mean MSA isn’t serving me anymore, it’s not like that at all. I really enjoy being at MSA and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I mean the future has so much that I’m extremely excited for. And graduating is the first step to getting closer to that.

I would shock my elementary school self by saying that I’m completely comfortable with the idea of graduating, maybe even my middle school self too. I don’t avoid it, brush it off, or completely crumble at the thought of it anymore. I’m equally as happy with the present as I am excited for the future. There is so much here and there is so much waiting for me at the same time. After hearing “Class of 2026” my whole life, and having very complicated feelings about it, I’m excited to confront the phrase head on by taking it to heart and holding it above my head when I walk across that stage in May.

I originally meant for this to be more on my feelings about 2026 and what it’s like being a part of the Class of 2026. I think, somehow, I hit the target enough to be happy with this and what I’ve said. There’s a lot to be said about the time passing between first discovering what Class of 2026 actually meant and now finally earning that title but I highly doubt I’m emotionally ready to go in depth about that. But it’s really beautiful when you can actively watch yourself change and see how much you’ve grown. I hope I continue to be this conscious of my growth and the way time passes when I enter, and eventually graduate, college. Honestly, I just can’t wait for my brain to fully develop and travel, have my own place, and achieve all my goals. I think I just dislike being a teenager, which is weird. If you asked 16-year-old Steph anything, she would tell you about how much she loved being a teen girl completely unprompted. It’s really funny the way we change in such a short amount of time.

January Journal blurb

My dog gave birth to seven puppies in September. While I was away at school my mom sent me a photo of her and I was shocked to see a small pile of black and white puppies laying under her, feeding. Of course, I couldn’t see the puppies until a few weeks after they were born, but when I finally got a chance to see them, I was ecstatic.

The puppies were unbelievably cute! I played with them in the pin my parents built for them in the backyard. When I picked one up and held it in my arms, I was saddened to see it covered in fleas. I knew my family couldn’t afford flea treatments for seven dogs, but I didn’t want the puppies to suffer. To help with their fleas I gave each dog a bath. I put them in a plastic tub my family didn’t use anymore and rinsed them with soap and water. As I continued to clean them, I discovered more fleas. Clusters of them were living in their fur, around their necks, and in the crevices of their legs.

I couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable it was for the puppies. I took an old hair comb we never used anymore and attempted to comb as many fleas out of their fur as I could. The process was long, and even with the flea comb, I couldn’t get nearly as many fleas out as I would have liked. When I finished washing and combing them, they piled into a corner of their pin. They cuddled and slept for a few hours, and thankfully it was hot enough outside that they could dry without getting super cold.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about how I could help them without financially burdening my parents. So, I searched the internet for safe at home remedies to help lessen fleas for puppies. I found a lot of good remedies and some questionable ones, but I was hopeful that a specific remedy would work. I decided on this water and white vinegar mix that many dog owners said worked for their dogs. I was extra careful to avoid their faces when I sprayed them with the mixture. It was noon when I sprayed them, so I knew they wouldn’t be at risk for hypothermia. (it was cold outside and young puppies aren’t good at creating their own warmth)

When I inspected them a few hours later, I saw a big decrease in their fleas! I could already tell the puppies were more comfortable and they were more playful too. Although the mixture did not work as well for some of them, I was happy that I could help in any way. I’m still looking for better remedies. Hopefully ones that don’t make them smell like vinegar…

Also, a more current update, my parents found homes for four of the puppies! The other three are still with us and are healthy. I’m thankful. I’m also hopeful that we’ll give the other ones away to owners who care about them. Aside from my dogs, January has been a nice month. Since I’ve begun applying for colleges, I’ve worried a lot about what the next few years will look like. Spending time with my family and pets has been an amazing way to take my mind off things. It has also reminded me of how far I’ve come as a person. In the past two years or so my life has changed drastically, from losing two of my closest relatives to moving away from home. Despite all of this, I’m grateful for the change, and I believe it has helped me become a better version of myself.

Road Trip

In my last blog, I talked about college preparation and how I had somewhat of an idea of my future and how I knew I wanted to move out with a friend and live off campus from the University of South Carolina. But I also stated at the beginning that one day I would look back at that blog and see how different things worked out. Now, just as I predicted, my plans have almost completely changed.

I realize now that I am not made for being in one place. My freedom is something I hold very dear to me, but right now it feels restricted. I have spent years waiting for the day I graduate so I don’t have to be tied down by the title of teenager or student. It feels very inferior to me, and I know that I am more than just that. And I also know that there is more to life that just being told what to do and how to do it. So, after all this waiting, why would I subject myself to go to a place that’s going to make me work like a dog for the rest of my life just to pay it off. College, though I understand its importance, is just another cage to me now. I do not want to spend so much money on something that gets me nothing. I do not want to be one of those people who spent four years working on a degree just to not be able to find a job anywhere and have to pay off debt for the rest of my life. It would all be a waste. I understand many don’t see it that way, but I do.

I have a primary plan right now that I cannot talk about yet, so if it doesn’t work out, I have a backup plan that is just as good to me. The world is full of beauty, and I want to find it all. When I graduate, I want to move to South Carolina with my father and work on a project with him. After a lot of working and saving, I plan to buy a van so me and him can renovate it for living capabilities. I wouldn’t need much. Just a bed with storage space under, an electric generator or solar panels (most like not solar panels), and whatever else I find I may need. Once this project is done, I am on the road. My first destination is New York City. I have dreamed of seeing it my entire life, no matter how many people say it’s not all that. I’ve been jotting down the places I want to go in New York, allowing me to learn a lot of cool things about the area.

After New York, I will start heading up and down the U.S. going through all 50 states. This will obviously be over the course of a year or two. While doing this, I plan to work a freelance job in journalism while writing a book and documenting my travel. Once I’m done with the U.S. it is time for the world tour. That’s likely to be planned a lot later.

I understand that this is somewhat unrealistic and kind of crazy, but I know that in today’s world, it is better to chase your dreams than try to make money. And the price of college in just as unrealistic in my opinion. I hope this made sense. There is so much more but then this would be one-hundred pages long. If you want to know more feel free to ask me about it.

My New Obsessions with Superheroes

So, I know my last blog was about Superman, but this is so important guys. I’ve fallen in love with superheroes 18 years into my life, like both Marvel and DC, which is weird because I’ve always only liked DC since it felt like they had more cartoons, and for all my life I’ve ONLY ever watched cartoons, but this all started with Superman… And Deadpool, which isn’t that surprising.

My Grandma never had cable while we were growing up, so she collected movies. She had X-Men, Spiderman, Superman, Batman, and Wolverine. So, my interest in Superman was already talked about, and I watched Man of Steel and the Newest Superman movie. Along with the Dark Knight movies (I cried at the end of Dark Knight rises), and the newest Batman movie. I was so scared that I would watch them and not like them, so I procrastinated it for months until Christmas break because my grandma bought me the new movies for Christman! (Love her) where I binged them all. I even have Superman Vs. Batman which I haven’t watch yet, but I have some memory of it for some reason.

Superman (2025) | Beenama The Batman - Superando todas as expectativas - Crossover NERD

I also watched the Deadpool trilogy, which encouraged me into Marvel, and I also watched the Spider verse movie for the first time a couple of weeks ago! Watching Deadpool & Wolverine encouraged me to search my grandma’s house for the Wolverine movie, which I haven’t watched just yet. There is also this youtuber named Mike’s Mic who I love watching. He made videos on both the Fantastic Four, which I forgot how much I loved them, and videos on the X-Men, and for some reason the movie my grandma had disappeared in her abyss of movies, but she will be found soon… Fantastic Four (2005) summary & plot - Spoiler Town

Prime Video: Deadpool & Wolverine

Now, I have huge plans to collect comics and physical DVD’s because not only has my love of superhero’s grown, but my love of having physical copies of things has a well. Soon, I’ll dust off those Spiderman movies, and I’ll live my dream of actually liking superhero’s. Growing up in a household that loved superhero’s and not liking them was NOT for the weak. I have to make this my whole personality for as long as I possibly can.

Being into superhero’s has also like done something to my morals. I’ve always had subjectively good morals, but this really opened my eyes. Especially like watching the lives of these fictional characters who feel so real. I cried during the Superman movie when he talked about how he was more human than most humans, and I cried when Alfred told Bruce that all he ever wanted was for him to live his life in the Dark Knight Movie. And Spoiler, I guess?? I sobbed during the Batman when Alfred died, and had been dead for almost two hours, and Batman couldn’t do anything about it. It’s like unlocking this secretly sensitive side of me. I’ve always been an empath. Most people are, but it’s usually so hard for me to actually feel for someone, but these movies have encouraged me to continue to do my best to make big changes in this world.

Be like Superman who lived most of his life being a hero, and even though it wasn’t what he was meant to do, he continued to!

Be like Batman, who doesn’t have powers, but still fights for what’s right even if he has to make sacrifices. (Also, he’s so freaking rich, so get that bag too)

Be like Spiderman, who even when his life got flipped upside down, he still did what he could to prove himself and be a hero.

Be like Deadpool who cared for his family so much, that he fought battles that he didn’t even think he could win.

Idk smth about being Punk rock…

"Deadpool" Is A Genuinely Funny Action-Comedy - San Francisco News

How I’m Healing My Inner Child

Since I’ve started my senior year of high school, I’ve adopted a very special personal project. Unfortunately it’s not a YouTube channel, a new sketchbook, or a novel (yet!). I’ve started a journey to heal my inner child! When I began, I didn’t intend for this to be a fully structured journey. It was more so a way of living that I wanted to establish for myself. I simply decided: I’m going to start doing things for little me rather than anyone else.

Everyone’s heard the term “healing your inner child,” maybe even too much. But as a 17-soon-turning-18-year-old, I think it’s a really important journey for everyone to go on regardless of age. In teenagers, it directs you on a path that might help limit the stress of graduating, college-searching, and the incoming terror of officially being an adult. And if you’re not a teenager, maybe an adult, I think healing your inner child is still a worthy journey to go on. Your childhood years are even further from your moment in life so I can see it being even more gratifying.

I think an idea I see a lot is that you can get to a point where your inner child is healed and you’re done forever. I don’t really see it that way, I believe it’s a constant practice. You can’t go back into time and actually change the way that things happened in your childhood. Even if you think your inner child is “healed”, you wouldn’t be the same if your childhood was never hurt (as sad as it is to admit). So why stop there?

While healing my inner child, I’ve learned that it gets worse before it gets better, but that can be said for a lot of things in life. There’ve been many dips in my journey and I honestly think those are very necessary in doing it effectively. (Note: I thought about saying “right” rather than “effectively” and I want to use this as an opportunity to say there’s no right way to heal your inner child. My description of my own journey is no way a series of instructions. It’s more of a preparatory description of this kind of project and what I’ve been experiencing.)

When retracing your steps to your most formative years, you’ll probably be reminded of unpleasant moments. You might also become depressed thinking about childhood. It sounds terrible to say that it’s normal but in this context, I’m sure it is. Starting your journey is difficult when you have to go back in time to the reason why your childhood doesn’t feel fulfilled. Also nostalgia is a sickening feeling and you’ll have it constantly in your journey, just adding to that depression.

I’ve realized that healing your inner child is also extremely embarrassing! I’m humiliated to admit that I watch My Little Pony, Aphmau’s MyStreet series, and 10-year-old LDShadowlady and Vixella videos. But that’s literally what it’s about. It’s embarrassing and that’s perfectly fine. If it makes you happy deep down in your soul, where the little you resides, that is all that matters.

After it gets better, though, it’s unbelievably rewarding. You feel free and your life becomes yours again. It’s fun when you live for that little kid you used to be. There’s still some major dips but I think that just comes with high school.

When you think you’re done, when your inner child feels healed enough to move on, it’s important to keep catering to that little you so your progress doesn’t get rewritten as you enter a new stage in your life. Keep watching that childhood favorite show when things in college get hard, keep pursuing that childhood dream as a hobby when your job feels like it’s asking too much of you, keep doing things the younger you loved when you feel lost.

The reason I think things like this are so important is because I believe our child selves are the truest versions of us. That’s us before any wrong doings from older generations, before the terrifying experience of growing up, before the stresses of society and adult life. Those things change us for the worse. They make us angry, scared, and small minded. Live as if the little you is controlling the organic machine of your brain. You’ll take more risks, say no to things you actually wanted to say no to and yes to things you wanted to say yes to, you’ll laugh more, play more, generally do more things that give you an archive of experiences that change you for the better.

I feel silly being not even 18 talking about the horrors of being an adult. I haven’t even gotten there yet, but I’ll admit that I am terrified. Imagine it’s not even that bad for me when I get there (I highly doubt it). Maybe it won’t be if I’m already preparing like this.

This was partially an excuse to be able to talk about how proud I’ve made my younger self. I’m pursuing her dreams of being an author and I’m working on fulfilling her dream of having a YouTube channel. I’m dyeing my hair the way she’s always wanted, and I’ve never been happier with how it looks. And I’m being extremely cringe like she always was. That’s really what this post is about, I just didn’t know how to gracefully fit it in here.

Things I’ve learned in philosophy class

As an online dual enrollment student, I take plenty of classes that I don’t necessarily have an interest in. Honestly, taking these classes isn’t all bad because I also take classes that I do like and genuinely enjoy. But there’s always that one class that I can’t fathom, no matter how many placebos I’m juggling at the time. Although I expected intro to philosophy to be included in this bottomless pit of classes, it wasn’t. In fact, I learned the most in philosophy I’ve ever learned in another online course before. I took a genuine interest in the material and learned valuable things about life. This knowledge not only had an impact on how I viewed the world, but it put into perspective what I could do to change my own actions. In this blog, I’ll be talking about what I’ve learned in philosophy class and how it impacted my understanding of the world and myself.

The mind and body as two separate entities:

There’s a famous philosopher who specifically studied the correlation between the mind and the body. The body, in this philosopher’s brain, is an unthinking, machine operated being, and the brain is a non-extended thinking substance. Rather than seeing the mind and body as one whole that works together to carry out life tasks, he sees them as two separate entities that work closely together but have little in common. He backs his belief up with the fact that the body is divided into multiple parts, whereas the mind is only one whole and can think independently. Thinking about the mind and body in this way makes a lot of sense because I feel that my mind is vastly different from my body in every aspect. So, because we deal with two separate entities, it’s important that we care for them individually and through different methods.

There’s a lot of power in reflection:

For an assignment, we wrote about our feelings on Socrates quote, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I remember reading this and thinking that the quote was a bit too serious. But the more I read and wrote about it, I realized that the unexamined life really is as bad as Socrates believes. An unexamined life refers to a person who acts constantly but never reflects on the consequences of his or her own actions. This might seem easy for people to comprehend, but it’s not hard to get trapped in a cycle of doing and never reflecting. Reflection is how we achieve knowledge that can help our specific circumstance, and I feel that I especially stray away from it because it’s hard for me to accept criticism. It’s a harsh truth, but reflecting can do more inner work than we think.

Act now, reflect later:

This might contradict the paragraph above, but it’s just as important. I’ve heard a version of this advice in every school I’ve been to and I’m just now understanding how relevant it is to everyday life. My dance teacher used to tell us to say yes to everything and no to nothing when we are actively creating art. When we create art or make decisions, we often do so with a conscious, logical mind. Removing the inner critic that’s always within us can help us create better art, it can ease our minds, and it can prevent or limit the chances of thinking ourselves out of opportunities. This can be especially helpful for people who struggle with procrastination, as it encourages them to act rather than go through the process of convincing themselves. This advice isn’t always easy to follow, but it works as a reminder that simply acting on something is all it takes to get started.

Pentatonix

This may contain: a group of people standing next to each other in front of a wall with one person wearing — this is from 2012 but still so cute omg

Pentatonix, a name that is a play on the pentatonic scale, is an acapella group who started in 2011 with Kirstin Maldonado (Alto), Mitch Grassi (Tenor), Scott Hoying (Baritone), Avi Kaplan (Bass), and Kevin Olusola (Vocal Percussion). Kevin has also been known to play to the cello in many of their songs. The group mostly does acapella cover of songs but have made a few originals. One being “Can’t Sleep Love” that was very popular. There most popular cover video is Daft Punk which is a collection of songs from the group… you’ll never guess. Daft Punk. The music video is so freaking awesome like it just really takes me back even though the blue contacts always freaking scared me.

Official Video Daft Punk Pentatonix - YouTube — November 2013

Pentatonix - Can't Sleep Love - YouTube — September 2015

Pentatonix was such a huge part of acapella music becoming mainstream. They have made covers of so many popular songs with nothing but the sounds of their voices, and almost every year they come out with a Christmas album because Christmas is their thing. I’m 92% sure that they are a Christian group, but they’re so amazing and two of them are homosexual (Scott and Mitch), so the group is talented and inclusive! Both Scott and Mitch made the song Guy.exe in a duo group called Superfruit in 2017. They both planned to branch off and do solo things but just decided to do it together. The last music video was posted 7 years ago.

Superfruit – GUY.exe Lyrics | Genius Lyrics — they just want a guy who’s 6 feet tall and super strong

The group continued to grow in popularity but in 2017 also, Avi Kaplan left Pentatonix. It was said that he wanted to spend more time with his family instead of touring around. The group continued to be friends with Avi, but he was replaced by Matt Sallee just a few months after, I think. It didn’t take very long is the point, which is good because they need a freaking bass. It pulls it all together.

Buy Pentatonix Australian Tour Tickets 2024 | The Ticket Merchant — 2024, I think???

The group continues to go on tours and has been going strong since 2017. And also, they take awesome pictures like this, and their outfits are always so unique, and I think that’s awesome. Pentatonix has been one of my favorite groups for years and though I’m not as into them as I was, I still love their music, covers or original, they really do have some crazy talents. I know a group like this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but Pentatonix did have a really big effect on music back in the day, pop and Christmas music mostly, and I think that’s important to acknowledge.

Family Dynamics and Bob’s Burgers

One of my favorite television shows of all time is Bob’s Burgers. There’s a number of reasons for this: the writing is consistently amazing, the characters are complex and well rounded, and the humor is a comfortable mix of sophomoric and light hearted. My absolute favorite thing about the show is how similar the Belcher’s family is to my own. People often talk about the importance of seeing yourself represented in media and I’d like to raise another concept; the idea of seeing your family represented in media. Obviously your family is a part of who you are, but I’m specifically referring here to the dynamics at play between the characters and their friends and family. In this blog, I’m going to dive into my own family’s similarities to the Belcher’s family from Bob’s Burgers, as well as highlight how this representation has given me and my family a better and more sympathetic perspective of each other’s lives.

To start off, Bob’s Burgers centers around a working class family of five as they do their best to survive whilst running their own business. While my own family is a family of four, this is the only main difference. The father of the family, Bob, runs his own business with his name attached: Bob’s Burgers. My own father runs his own law firm, also with his name attached: Law Offices of Wes Stover. The mom, Linda, doesn’t have an official job of her own (besides being a mother and a housewife, of course) but she does work as a sort of co-manager of Bob’s Burgers. My own mom has a very similar role at my dad’s office. She spends most of her day taking care of me and my sibling, but will work at my dad’s office as he needs. The Belcher’s family also has three children: the oldest daughter, Tina, a son named Gene, and the youngest, Louise. Throughout the show, Tina is portrayed as a middle schooler/eighth grader, making her about 13 years old. Gene is also a middle schooler, though younger than Tina. He’s supposed to be around 11 years old. Louise is the youngest and is meant to be about 9 years old. While my sibling and I are the only two children in our family, I think it’s pretty cool to mention that we have the same age difference as Tina and Louise: 4 ½ years.

Bob’s Burgers gives a wonderful perspective into the struggles of owning one’s own business. It shows that, even if you are extremely talented at your craft, it is extremely difficult to compete with wealthier businesses. When I was younger, my dad briefly worked with other attorneys before starting his own business. With three head attorneys running a law firm, you can easily handle a much larger group of clients. Now, my dad is the only attorney of his firm and his office struggles to make enough to pay workers. A lot of this is because of the economic impact that COVID restrictions had on small and family owned businesses. With quarantine and other strict barriers implemented for people’s safety, it was difficult for my dad to meet with existing clients and near impossible for him to meet new clients. Because of this, my family had to rely on government checks for a while. I think that, while never directly talking about COVID, Bob’s Burgers does a perfect job at showing how a family business can exist somewhat comfortably for years and also struggle the entire time with their income. Watching Bob’s Burgers at a young age helped me better understand my family’s situation. My parents constantly talked about money and I struggled to understand their concerns; clearly we had enough for the bare necessities so what was the big deal?

The main issue with self-owned businesses is the unreliability of income. There’s no guaranteed amount that my dad will make in a day or a week or a year. Sure, there are rough estimates he can make based on past years income, but there are so many factors that will impact those rates. COVID is the best example of this. Before COVID, my dad had an annual income that could not only support our family of four, but could also afford him multiple employees. During and after COVID, my dad’s business has struggled to meet those past income rates. For a while, he was only able to afford 1-2 employees. Recently, his business has started to even back out and we’re finally seeing rates somewhat similar to those pre-COVID. Bob’s Burgers discusses money quite a lot, as the Belchers’ financial position is an important aspect of the show. The kids struggle to comprehend their financial standing and that is often a conflict they have to get through with their parents. Seeing that in the show really helped me put my own family’s situation into perspective.

Besides the financial situation, the overarching family dynamics of Bob’s Burgers have also been very important in helping me understand my family. For example, Bob’s mother, who he was very close with, passed away when Bob was young. Because of this, the Belcher kids never got to know their grandma. My own father was extremely close with his mom and she passed when my sibling and I were quite young. While I was technically old enough to remember her, I don’t. I struggle with my memory and only have brief and blurry memories of my grandma. My dad really struggles with this because he loves his mom deeply and he wishes I could remember her the way he does. I struggle with comprehending death and it’s been hard for me to understand and relate to his grief. Believe it or not, the Bob’s Burgers movie helped me put things into perspective and find a way to relate to my dad. In the movie, Bob explains that Louise’s signature rabbit-ear hat is actually an homage to a hat that his mom wore all the time. Bob talks about how seeing the hat always reminds him of his mom and that Louise has a similar personality to her grandma (his mom) as well. Louise never got to know her grandmother, but she feels connected to her through the hat. My dad has mentioned many times that my hairstyle (dyed black and cut in a shag-mullet) is nearly identical to how his mom’s hair looked when he was younger. While I obviously didn’t know her back then, I feel a deep connection to her through my hair and through the photos of her I’ve seen where she has my haircut.

Now, enough of the sappy stuff- here is a lightning round of some random similarities that my family and the Belchers’ family have. Linda bonds with the wild raccoons in the back alley behind their restaurant; my mom cares for any and every wild animal she meets. Teddy, while not directly related to the family, sort of presents as a godfather or close family friend who is always around and quiet close with Linda and Bob; my uncle Scott not only looks identical to Teddy, he also acts very similar and has a very similar habit of showing up at random times to just talk with my mom and dad about whatever is going on in his life. Linda has a sister that she only sees from time to time; my mom has the same situation with her sister. The Belcher kids help around their dad’s restaurant, even when they don’t want to; my sibling and I help my dad around his office when he truly needs us to. Tina has an obsession with this horse show that’s clearly a parody of My Little Pony; I love My Little Pony. Tina is an author who writes a lot of fan fiction- me too. Gene loves to make music on his electric keyboard; my sibling can play any instrument they put their mind to. Louise, Gene, and Tina have a tight group of friends, many of them closer to Louise and Gene’s age; my sibling and I both have tight friend groups and I am also very close with my sibling’s friends. Louise has a loft bed, I have a loft bed. Tina wears glasses and Louise sometimes picks on her for it; I wear glasses and my sibling loves to steal and hide them from me. Gene talks often about not being a boy or feeling more feminine; both my sibling and I don’t identify with our gender assigned at birth and have found comfort in dressing and acting in ways that are somewhat androgynous/ both feminine and masculine. Bob and Linda are both very open minded and accepting people who influence their kids to have a similar outlook on life; my parents gave me and my sibling the gift of knowledge and empathy. And the list goes on.

I hope you enjoyed this blog. I love Bob’s Burgers for so many reasons, but this is such an important aspect of the show for me. There are many other details that I didn’t mention or go into detail on, but I’ve already written too much. I hope you enjoy and I highly encourage you to go watch Bob’s Burgers from the beginning- it is worth it!

the observation of morality

Three years ago, I started my practice of witchcraft. My father had grown up Methodist, and still held those beliefs even into his period of agnosticism. One day, he asked me something. “If you don’t follow the Bible, or have any major code of religion, what keeps you from murdering and stealing at will?” I didn’t really have an answer for him because I thought it was so simple that I didn’t need to explain it. I don’t go out murdering and stealing at will because it’s not conducive to my life and it does not aid me or anyone else in any way. I run into this “moral dilemma” a lot and sometimes I find that some really believe that they need something external to tell them how to be a person (not talking about any person or sect in particular). I do also think that this idea has the same emotional roots as the desire for external validation, especially in the context of social media. Performative kindness has seen such a rise in social media that it’s impossible not to have seen some sort of video where an influencer is offering monetary or food assistance to someone in need. Many of these videos have been outed as disingenuous, and I can’t help but wonder how we got to this point of performative morality. I mean, I’m sure that the original teachings of most religions speak strictly against things like this, so why do it and proclaim that one is following the words of their deity? Like most things in society, it’s to fulfill the needs of ego, either by directly appealing to such, or indirectly, like appealing to society. All of it really does circle back to ego, though. We mostly see performative morality in the form of purity culture, often based heavily in religion. Linda Kay Klein’s book, Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free, does a stellar job of investigating this relationship and the trauma that results from growing up with it from a young age. This type of morality shapes self-image, behavior patterns, brain chemistry, and trauma responses. It’s used as a shackle for many, preventing healthy relationships with things like the body, the mind, health, and with other people as well. When you become afraid of a perceived lack of morality, those fears ingrain themselves in the very structure of your being. It can take a person years to process their way through them, and some aren’t ever able to truly move past them.