Wednesday, August 10, 2022 — 5
Michigan in Color
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Ghosts are real. Maybe not in the
ways you’ve heard, but I assure you,
they’re very real. I’ve seen ghosts
nearly everywhere in my hometown all
my life — in every corner of my house,
in every school I’ve attended, in every
nook and cranny of my neighborhood.
Every so often, I take it upon myself to
collect these ghosts from their spots —
not with a positron pack or vacuums
or exorcist tools, per se, but to simply
visit them and ask them to come along
with me. It’s not so hard when you’ve
been doing it for as long as I have. You
just have to know the exact right thing
to say.
Throughout my time in Ann Arbor,
I’ve spotted three such ghosts. In my
hometown, I have my car, which makes
it easier to get to every haunted spot,
but it isn’t here. I do have a bike. It’s no
ECTO-1, but it’d have to do. I slipped
on my New Balances and jogged down
the apartment stairs while plotting
my round trip on Google Maps. This
method of ghost hunting might seem
mundane, but trust me when I say
these are the best tools for the job. Like
I said, I’ve been doing this for a while.
As the sun sets, I set out too.
The ride didn’t take much exertion.
I
rolled
down
Plymouth
Road,
conserving my momentum for the
changes in slope and switching to the
bike lane when I could. The bridge
over the Huron River was another
small challenge in elevation, but
nothing would stand between me
and my ghosts that night. Navigating
through Kerrytown until I reached
the border of downtown Ann Arbor,
I saw my first spot. The mostly white,
slightly color-sprinkled tiles of the
Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum shone
in the distance.
For many of us, thinking back
to when we first started to learn
how to read and write seems like a
huge mystery. When did I learn to
pronounce the word “nonchalant,”
and am I still saying “açaí” wrong
in my head? The answer is probably
yes. In elementary school, I was
always in the lowest reading level,
heavily struggling with reading
comprehension. When I read books,
my goal was to finish them as soon
as possible. If you asked me who
the main character was, I wouldn’t
even be able to tell you. In middle
school, my essays received average
grades, and I dreaded any writing
assignments at all.
So, you may be wondering, how
did I become a columnist for The
Michigan Daily? When did I start to
enjoy writing?
My rocky writing journey started
during my freshman year of high
school. I had just graduated from
using
generic
essay
templates
to
writing
specially
structured
argumentative essays. In my ninth-
grade English class, we wrote essays
on literary works ranging from epics
like “The Odyssey” to novels like
“The Catcher in the Rye.” We often
had assignments that were only one
page long but required us to make an
argument in SPA format — statement,
proof and analysis — about the
reading.
I
remember
enjoying
challenging myself to create bold
statements but struggling to explain
the proof to defend that argument.
Each assignment returned to me
would include blue ink in the analysis
section with the phrases “Explain
DAISEY YU
MiC Columnist
more” and “Why? Explain.”
This issue continued into my
sophomore year. Despite a change in
teachers, I still received comments
about needing to expand my analysis,
specifically with closely examining
the connotations of each word in the
sentence. (Maybe it was because my
sophomore English teacher had been
on the track to become a lawyer but
decided he liked teaching more.) In
his class, I had a downward trend in
my grades, and I seemed to be missing
this “wow” factor in my writing.
I often met with this teacher one-
on-one to discuss how I could improve
my writing. I asked him about what I
was missing in my writing, and why
my analysis section always seemed
to be lacking. For the first time, I
received detailed feedback, and we
had very productive conversations
about how to put what I want to
say on paper. In the past, I’d only
received comments like “How?”
and “Why?” which didn’t help me to
understand what exactly needed to
be changed. I would get frustrated
by these one-word questions, and I
felt that a teacher was being picky
for no reason. However, this teacher
thoroughly explained what he was
expecting and offered examples of
how I could improve and expand
on sentences he made comments
on. Instead of completely taking
out the sentence in question, he
would build onto them by adding
another
sentence
that
delved
deeper into my analysis. Because of
his encouragement and clarity, I felt
more confident and excited about
writing.
While I had well formulated
ideas for my analysis, I forgot that
people couldn’t read my mind,
Design by Tamara Turner
Ghost hunting in Ann Arbor
My writing journey: Why I decided to pursue a writing minor
Read more at michigandaily.com
SAARTHAK JOHRI
Mic Columnist
so I needed to explicitly jot my
thoughts down. When explaining
my thought process to my teacher,
I noticed that I wasn’t including my
ideas in the paper. Those additional
points would’ve made my argument
stronger. To fix this problem, I started
thoroughly analyzing blocks of text
and
organizing
everything
that
went through my mind into bullet
points. Then, I would mold together
all my points into an argument
and eventually a paper. Before, I
wouldn’t even outline my argument
and tried to be as conservative as
possible in my writing. Oftentimes,
that bad habit would lead to clunky
and disorganized work. But after
the meeting, I constantly thought
about his advice and applied it to my
writing.
August
August is undoubtedly my favorite
month. It’s the last full month of
summer. And to me, it’s the most
meaningful. August is the month
of late blooming flowers since my
father planted them two weeks later
than what was recommended by the
gardening videos he used to blast at
an unnecessarily loud volume back
in May. It’s the month of refilling the
bird feeder in the backyard so my
father can continue recording slow-
mo videos of blue jays and sending
them in our family group chat. It’s
the month of strictly scheduled
weekly picnics under the beating sun
to get the most out of our time before
school starts again. And as a result,
it’s the month of the tannest skin and
the frizziest, puffiest hair that I no
longer care enough to worry about in
the way I did in high school, combing
and slicking it down with coconut oil
— the only “hair product” my mother
would allow me to put in my hair to
avoid damage. It’s celebrating my
father’s birthday, with my dog eating
most of the cake. It’s the ending of a
summer fling. It’s goodbye hugs and
bittersweet late night drives home
after, not knowing when you’ll get to
see them next. It’s Pinterest boards
and shopping lists filled with a few
apartment essentials but mostly a
large amount of decorations that
don’t get put up until three months
into the school year solely because of
how much my roommate (the same
one from my first and second year)
and I put things off. And at the end of
August, it’s finally moving into a new
temporary home, the place I’ll have
some of the best and worst moments
through the next year. It’s wasting
my money on too many boba runs
with my friends, dancing in random
houses with people I just met and
will never talk to again, making a day
out of finding where all my classes
are. And the most memorable, it’s
walking through the Diag to my first
class on the first day of school with
an outfit that I thought was cute but
ends up making me sweat from the
thick material under the blistering
sun, all while blasting “August” by
Taylor Swift through my knotted
earbuds.
“August,” the eighth track on
Taylor’s
eighth
studio
album,
Folklore, has become my and many
others’ go-to fall song. While fall
technically starts in September,
the end of August feels like the
ROSHNI MOHAN
Mic Columnist
beginning of autumn, disregarding
the
weather.
The
school
year
begins, the back-to-school section
at Target now has pumpkins and
a couple costumes mixed in, every
mannequin now sports the newest
trendy sweater or matching sweat
set, a couple leaves on every tree are
no longer the perfect shade of green,
and Starbucks starts advertising
and selling their much-awaited fall
drinks.
The lyrics of the song and the
music behind it contrast with
each other, at first. When I put my
headphones on, my ears are blasted
with the sound of new beginnings.
Faster-paced strumming paired
with Taylor’s calming vocals along
with an overall upbeat coating
on the song evokes this cleansing
and blooming feeling. The song is
a newer sound for Taylor, much
different than the rest of the album.
Roshni Mohan/MiC
Read more at michigandaily.com
Read more at michigandaily.com