We’re already moving full steam
into the new semester, but I don’t
think I’ve fully recovered from the
previous one. Part of me wants to
forge ahead and never look back at
any part of 2020, but things don’t
suddenly change when the clock
strikes midnight, and the debris from
the catastrophic year still lingers
everywhere. It lingers in the unease
and the discomfort of upending
my first year of college. It lingers
in my detached concept of home
since we got sent back last March.
And it lingers in my diminished
sense of self caused by the agonizing
purgatory that was quarantine. I
know better than to think that the
new year will change any of that, so
here’s to looking back and finding
comfort in the chaos of an otherwise
cruel semester — to rediscovering
what home feels like, above South
University Avenue.
As the last weeks of August
approached, it was finally time to
come back to Ann Arbor. It felt like
coming back to life. After a six-month
long haze, I was back to the most city-
life experience my small suburban-
upbringing self had known. And here
I’d stay for the semester, in my room
on the 16th floor of my apartment
building. It was my cramped little
space that allowed me to catch my
breath for the first time in months.
Things were different now. I was
different. But the essence of my
college coming-of-age was imminent.
As the brilliant colors of the sunset
faded into the first night of my
post-quarantine freedom, I looked
through my living room window to
the street below. A line had begun
to form outside of Brown Jug, and
friends stumbled around, linked at
the arms and masked up. That was
the beginning of my infatuation with
the eccentric character of South
University Avenue.
The semester would go on like
this, and the weekend bustle would
start as early as Wednesday, due to
asynchronous schedules brought
about by a new normal. 8 o’clock
would bring the earliest sounds of
soft laughter and music seeping
through our windows, signifying the
end of Zoom calls and the beginning
of something more familiar. During
a normal semester, I would be on
my way to the UGLi for late hours
of studying, but a long day of screens
calls for more frequent breaks and
new nightly routines. In time, my
roommates and I took comfort
in living vicariously through the
people that walked down South U
— it filled the void that came with
missing out on what were supposed
to be the best nights of our lives, in
the name of public health safety.
From above, we would drink along
with the carousers, crafting the
most ridiculous stories about those
we saw and heard 16 floors down.
Down there, that was Trish. With
a skip in her step, she was on her
way to meet up with the guy from
class she kept pinned on her 11 a.m.
Chemistry Zoom screen. She found
home in romanticizing even the
most reckless first dates.
On nights when Pizza House
take-out was calling my name, I’d
stay outside a bit longer, taking in
the spirited characters of the street.
From the rare political bar fights to
the two people waiting outside of
Champs Liquor Store standing too
close to be just friends, I found home
within the strangers that roamed
South U. And slowly but surely, the
deep disquiet of the past six months
started to fade.
And when night turned to day,
the sidewalks would populate with
skateboard heads and students
looking for a place to study. I’d peer
down through my bedroom window,
questioning the need for a sweatshirt
in the early September morning.
A woman running in shorts and a
group of boys walking in t-shirts
discouraged the extra layers as I got
ready to make my own trek across
campus. In those couple of seconds I
spent gazing into the daily activities
of people on that street, I felt comfort.
I felt comfort in knowing that no
matter how difficult the semester
would get, we were in it together: me
and my window view of this city and
its people. And maybe that’s what
coming home feels like.
I remember the mess that was
our first week of classes: from
clashing Zoom calls in the living
room to the dynamic sounds of the
powerful Graduate Employees’
Organization
strikes
further
down the street. It felt surreal
and chaotic. That week stood as
a painfully accurate precedent
for the months to come, and as
October turned into November,
I promptly sensed the aftermath
of an experimental semester gone
wrong. But even in the chaos, I
felt at peace in the home I had
created. With the new lockdown
order across campus, the street
that once had so many stories to
tell was empty, and my routine
gaze down had lifted higher to
the LED-lit living rooms and
newly-decorated Christmas trees
in the windows of the high-rises
across from us. Every square was
a different color; every square
was a different story. Now,
midterms and finals were upon
us, and there was no time for idle
people-watching. Nevertheless, as
night time approached and lights
flickered on, I was reminded of my
pact with the view of South U.
It’s hard to find what home is
when you’re still caught in between
who you are and who you’re
becoming — when your concept of
home continues to evolve as you do —
and it’s even harder with the added
uncertainty of the inexhaustible
pandemic.
Michigan in Color
Iced Coffee, Four and Four
I’ve always ordered an iced
coffee, four and four.
The sickly sweet drink has been
my specialty since high school. It
was a joke amongst anyone who
knew me; they would pester me
with well-meaning quips about
the fact that every day, just like
clockwork, I’d walk into class late
with that predictable beverage in
my hand. Even now, years after
the fact, I can’t get myself to order
anything else.
I’ve always been a creature
of habit. My interests, routines,
favorite
songs
and
foods
remained stagnant as the years
went on. I never saw a problem
with it –– these things brought
me comfort, and I indulged in
them for so long that they started
to become mine. In my mind, I
was defined by my unwaveringly
long hair, unchanging music taste
and steadfast coffee order. But
this past year, I’ve felt a gnawing,
incessant need to change. The
familiarity began to feel less like a
comfortable security blanket and
more like a suffocating character
flaw. I was petrified that years
had gone by and I’d been standing
completely still.
Perhaps this fear was rooted
in the fact that lately, everything
has been changing. With so
many things out of our control
–– a shut-down world, the loss of
family members and friends, our
compromised routines and sense
of normalcy –– familiarity feels
foreign. We cut our quarantine
bangs, rearrange the furniture
in our rooms and look for ways
to reinvent and seize control over
lives that suddenly feel a little less
vibrant. I’m no different. Rather
than embracing my penchant
for consistency, I felt an urgent
desire to change something,
anything, about myself.
So instead of shuffling through
the same Taylor Swift album I’ve
listened to since freshman year
of high school, I forced myself to
listen to experimental post-punk
records. I started to never use
the same car air freshener scent
twice. I tried (and failed) every
15-day ab challenge, 15 times over.
I took risks at the drive-thru,
and feigned surprise when I
hated the way that black coffee
bitterly coated my tongue.
My
miniscule
vies
for
spontaneity were rooted in this
need to have changed in some way
over the course of the past year.
However, I’ve found that those
small acts were disingenuous for
me. The bizarre need to prove
that I’ve evolved, as if such a feat
is dictated by new hair or music,
just convinced me that any of my
“normals” made me boring and
needed correcting. Even worse, it
presupposed me as a static, two-
dimensional creature, discrediting
the real change I’d made –– the
kind I couldn’t immediately see.
That change, the gradual kind,
sneaks up on you. I don’t think
you realize it until it has already
shifted your perspective and
simply becomes you. For me, the
change that I had been actively
pursuing was happening all along,
quietly and unsuspectingly.
One day, that particular bad
memory I could never speak
about without crying no longer
evoked tears when I told the story.
One day, my friend off-handedly
mentioned that she was so proud of
how much I had matured, and that
she’d noticed it over the past few
months and never said anything.
One
day,
the
“end-of-the-
world” embarrassing moments
and heartbreaking rejections I
thought I could never get over
began to take up less space in my
mind, until I didn’t think about
them at all. I had never noticed or
appreciated this kind of change,
but it’d been happening all along.
I think that the pressure to
have a new, exciting version of
yourself to parade doesn’t require
compromising the things we
define ourselves by now, in fear
of being boring. In some ways, I
think that we are a new, exciting
version of ourselves every day.
Time necessitates change, and
this change shapes us whether
we like it or not. The things we
learn and the experiences that
strengthen us culminate silently,
even if your coffee order has
never changed or you’ve had the
same favorite song since middle
school. I realize that now and
can appreciate the growth that
I’ve made when I wasn’t even
looking.
Today, I ordered an iced
coffee, four and four. I never
liked black coffee anyway.
YASMINE SLIMANI
MiC Columnist
Semester above South U
EASHETA SHAH
MiC Columnist
Notifications are ruining my life
MARINA SUN
MiC Columnist
I have 997 unread emails. 188 texts
to open. 2 Instagram direct messages
about the latest viral food video. And
I’m feeling overwhelmed.
As the winter semester grinds to
a start, I’ve realized that a malicious
byproduct of virtual learning has
emerged:
notifications.
Endless
Facebook
postings
about
club
recruitment, classmates blurting their
existential crisis in the 200+ person
GroupMe,
or
automated
Piazza
Activity Digest emails –– I’m over
it. And as a new semester welcomes
an opportunity to start fresh, I’m
coming in with a new perspective:
Notifications are ruining my life.
Notifications are skewing my self
worth. I used to watch my Instagram
like a hawk after posting a self-
indulgent picture, dragging my finger
down the screen to refresh the like
count, and believing so intently that
off-red digital hearts could quantify
my popularity or impact my personal
happiness. There was something
terrifyingly instant about the way
a two-sentence update could make
me feel like a sudden sensation or an
invisible nobody, and with each glance
at my phone I felt an increasing sense
of anxiety to keep momentum with an
ever-moving online atmosphere.
Notifications are cluttering my
digital and mental clarity. Even before
the fall semester had begun, my
newly created university email inbox
was inundated with a never-ending
avalanche of notifications. “Join our
Physical Activity Study,” “Alumni
Association Welcomes You” and
“MPrint Maintenance Tomorrow”
were amongst the endless stream of
messages that occupied my digital
space, and the sheer volume of niche
information often overshadowed a
rare important update from a professor
or recruiting opportunity. Checking
my email became an unappealing
chore, as my mental disorganization
simultaneously worsened with each
increase in unread messages.
Notifications are overwhelming
my daily schedule. I nervously refresh
application portals or my email inbox
for hours, burning precious time while
awaiting news of a club acceptance
or internship application decision.
Hours have genuinely been wasted
this way, as any thoughts of other
priorities or personal nourishment are
pushed aside in favor of capturing the
exact moment an update rolls onto the
screen. I depend on notifications for
validation, let them control my moods
and watch helplessly as my personal
connections dwindle until all I am left
with is my own anxiety –– and that has
to stop.
Notifications are ruining my life, so
this semester I’m turning them off. The
emails, the texts, and yes –– even the
Bachelor Twitter updates. I’ve been
prioritizing connecting to the wrong
network for too long, losing focus
on my mental health and the simple
benefits of human communication.
Now I check my phone when I want
to. If something is urgent, people will
call. Suddenly the tense feeling in my
shoulders has eased, and I experience
a rare moment of control.
I don’t know how many emails
I have. And the air is oddly quiet
in the absence of a text vibration.
Refreshingly, each step is fueled by a
calmness and conviction to resist any
urge to glance at my phone — I’ll check
my Instagram direct messages later,
after this walk.
Revisiting Jonestown: What we can learn from the 1978 mass-murder suicide
ANCHAL MALH
MiC Columnist
Content
warning:
this
article
discusses abuse and suicide.
Growing up in New York City, my
mother always tried her best to ensure
that I felt connected to my heritage
and the land my ancestors came from.
This meant only having pepper-pot on
Christmas Day, learning how to play
cricket on the weekends and watching
Indian movies every Saturday night. On
Wednesday nights, after I had turned
nine years old, she sat me down with a
notebook and pen and began teaching
me Guyanese history. Her eyes always
lit up with pride as she educated me
about the colors of Guyana’s flag and
their symbolism: green for the beautiful
forests that encompassed the region,
white for the ever-flowing bodies of
water, gold for the country’s abundance
of minerals, black for the people’s
perseverance to make Guyana a better
country and red for the dynamic nature
that holds together an independent
nation. However, for this week’s history
lesson, the dim light in the corner of
our living room fell on her face, but the
light in her eyes faded as she recalled the
horrifying mass murder-suicide that
occurred almost 43 years ago.
We often say, “Don’t drink the
Kool-Aid” to warn individuals not
to blindly believe everything they
hear. However, people may not know
that this phrase stems from mass
manipulation and false promises
that ultimately led to more than
900 dead bodies abandoned in the
rainforests of Guyana –– the largest
loss of American civilian lives pre-9/11
(excluding natural disasters).
Jim Jones was born on May 31,
1931, in Crete, Ind. He would go on
to become a preacher at the Peoples
Temple, an Evangelist group based
in San Francisco. In the 1950s, Jones
became a leader who promoted
desegregation and racial equality. He
eventually gained a large following
of primarily elderly, Black women
and children due to his charismatic
personality and ideas that preyed
on an audience seeking acceptance
in society. “My life was in turmoil,
I had a failed marriage and I was
looking for a place to be political in a
safer environment after a series of bad
decisions,” Laura Kohl, a survivor of
Jonestown, stated when questioned
about why she felt a sense of comfort
in the Peoples Temple. However, with
Jones’s newfound fame as a preacher,
he became increasingly paranoid of
the American government’s scrutiny.
Jones preached about creating a
utopian socialist society located in
the jungles of Guyana to his followers
who, believing in this, donated their
money to move to Guyana and create
a community named Jonestown. His
supporters believed they were going to
be welcomed by the tall palm trees that
graced the rainforests of Guyana. They
believed the wide and bright green
leaves would protect them from the
injustices they were facing in America.
However,
when
these
followers
arrived, they were met with small
and shabby huts located on nutrient-
deprived soil that was not sustainable
for large groups. Their utopian socialist
society resembled a prison camp.
Survivors of Jonestown recall having
to work long hours with minimal food
while suffering abuse from Jones.
He forced his followers to write him
letters explaining their fears and past
mistakes, and if he perceived that they
“betrayed” him, Jones would divulge
the information at weekly public
meetings. “He started to alienate you
from your families … destroy that
family unit,” said Jonestown survivor
Yulanda Williams. “So that then he
could become the predator, but also
the one who was the provider of
every need that you required in life.”
In addition, Jones would rehearse
mass suicides in which followers were
instructed to drink a beverage called
Flavor-Aid, which was concocted by
mixing a fruit-flavored powder with
water, similar to Kool-Aid. Jones
repeated this frequently as a test of
their loyalty to ensure that on the day
he officially decided to proceed with
the previously mentioned murder-
suicide, Jonestown would have no
survivors.
Friends and families of followers
that went to Jonestown became
concerned with the idea that their
loved ones were being held against
their will after receiving letters that
they believed were not truly written
with excitement and joy. Concerned
with the complaints from relatives
and from reports of horrendous
living conditions at Jonestown, U.S.
Representative Leo Ryan, D-Calif.,
wrote to the House of Foreign Affairs
asking to make a visit to the Peoples
Temple in Guyana. Initially, Jones
refused to have Rep. Ryan as a guest
but eventually allowed him to come.
On Nov. 18, 1978, Rep. Ryan arrived
on the Port Kaituma airstrip with
several journalists and was allowed
to visit the commune. During his visit,
people in the commune told Rep.
Ryan they wished to return home.
Tension rose within the community
as Jones became aware of this, so he
decided to finally conduct the mass
murder-suicide. As Rep. Ryan was
on the Port Kaituma airstrip, he and
several other journalists were shot by
gunmen affiliated with the Peoples
Temple. While Rep. Ryan was being
attacked, followers at the commune
were ordered to drink a grape-flavored
punch laced with cyanide. After
bodies dropped to the floor, Jones had
his gunmen traverse the commune
to ensure that all of his followers
died. When examining bodies from
Jonestown,
inspectors
discovered
injections on many, affirming claims
that those who played dead were
later injected with lethal poison. Any
remaining survivors were either asleep
during the event, posed as a part of
Rep. Ryan’s party or were sent by
Jones to retrieve supplies or carry out
negotiations with different nations.
As we move forward and reflect
on the events of Jonestown, we must
be mindful of the people who lost
their lives seeking a paradise and
liberation from constricting societal
bounds. We must respect the efforts
of the journalists who accompanied
Rep. Ryan and sought to unmask the
ugly truths of Jonestown. Survivors
of
Jonestown
are
continuously
reminded of the psychological harm
and danger they faced, many feeling
extreme guilt for making it out alive.
Saying “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid”
belittles the events of Jonestown and
mocks the people who were victims of
Jones’s terror. It reduces Guyana to a
mere shell of a horrific legacy.
When I think of Guyana, I hear
the sound of Tassa drums ringing
through the air on wedding days,
signaling a time of joy and celebration
in a neighborhood. I remember my
summer visits to Guyana as a child,
and I feel my bare feet touch the rocky
ground, the clay-like soil seeping
through my toes as I played hide and
seek with my cousins. I see the cows
roaming the neighborhood, heading
towards the trenches to graze on the
grass and sip water flowing through. I
see the local shops that sell traditional
Indian clothing, sarees and lenghas
covered in small crystal diamonds
with carefully hemmed neon flowers
at the edge of each piece. But when
the harmful idiom is said, it ceases
the tropical breeze, dries out the
water of my ancestor’s land, makes
the once vibrant green leaves wilt in
the sun and reduces Guyana to a mass
graveyard.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Design by Marina Sun
9 - Wednesday, February 10, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
“That change,
the gradual kind,
sneaks up on you.
I don’t think you
realize it until it
has already shifted
your perspective
and simply
becomes you. For
me, the change
that I had been
actively pursuing
was happening all
along, quietly and
unsuspectingly.”