Well, to say it has been an insane week would be an understatement. With COVID-19 spreading like wildfire all throughout the world, it has been hard to focus on anything but getting sick. Everything has been cancelled on campus, including in-person classes. I honestly have no idea what is going to happen moving forward, but all I know is that I am tired, irritated, and stressed.

I am worried about my parents getting the virus. I am worried about my grandparents getting the virus. I honestly don’t even want to go home because I am scared I will somehow give it to them if I do. I know this post is short, but I am lost for words at the moment. All I know is that I am not in the same state of mind that I was when I started this blog. That being said, I think it is the best decision to end this for a while. I apologize, but I need to focus on me for a while. I wish you all the best and remember to wash your hands.

I stumbled upon a great post today on New York’s plastic bag ban and how single use plastics are a choice that we make every day. Growing up in Arizona, we were definitely not the front-runners for changes like these. Coming to school in Berkeley and not having access to plastic bags was a drastic change, but it was an eye-opening one. I realized how much harm single use plastics were doing and how we need to change as a society. Going to the beach for one of the first times I realized it wasn’t what I thought it was. The sand was littered with trash and plastics that were more than likely going to end up in the stomachs of sea life. It made me sad to see that and I begun to realize that the way we are treating this planet is terrible.

With highly conservative and religious parents, I never looked at the world like something we need to preserve. I was always taught that things were here to serve us and that we should be able to take as we please. As I got older, I realized that my generation and future generations will have to deal with the consequences. It completely changed the way I look at politics because I need someone in office who realizes that these things are urgent and we can’t wait until it is too late.

As many may have already heard, there is an ongoing, large scale graduate student strike that begun at UC Santa Cruz. They have been met with a ton of support from other students and faculty from the entire UC system, but have also faced threats and retaliation from UC administration. They are asking for a cost of living adjustment because the vast majority of students are rent burdened, spending at least two-thirds of their wages on rent alone. Personally, I am a large supporter of this strike as everyone has the right to ask for better working conditions without penalty.

People deserve to make enough to live where they work. The university has been overworking student workers with no penalty. Napolitano hid $175 million in secret funds while requesting more money from the state. They are also trying to increase undergraduate student tuition. With the public knowing this, it feels like a slap in the face while a lot of students don’t know if they will be able to afford their next meal.

All of this surfacing recently has made me ashamed to be a UC student. I can’t believe I am pay around $14 thousand in tuition a year to go to a school that refuses to pay students enough to live. I was considering going on to get my PhD somewhere in the UC system, but I have definitely changed my mind. I hate the fact that one of the only ways the I will be able to make enough to live later in life is by going to a money hungry institution like this. It is sad that HUNDREDS of UC employees make more than $500 thousand a year and they refuse to increase student’s pay enough to no longer be rent burdened.

If/when UCB students start to strike, I will be at the front of the picket line.

I enjoyed reading your take on modern website design. I found it particularly interesting that you brought up sites that do not allow you to highlight text, which therefore does not allow those with reading impairments to easily access the site, if at all. These poor web designers are not only doing themselves a disservice, but are also excluding people who need these things to access content on the internet.

I thought it was great that you brought that up. I was recently reading on Twitter and found a thread talking about subtle things that people say that are ableist. I definitely think this is one of them. Things like text to speech software are things that are very important to the every day lives of those who are less abled, whereas those who are abled may see them as things that just influence laziness. It is often sad how many great inventions are seen by people as lazy when they are needed for better living for those who are less abled.

Those are just my thoughts on some points you brought up. Thanks for your contribution to this website Sammy, look forward to reading some more of your posts.

I met someone. During orientation I met this girl who is amazing. She’s funny, sweet, and smart in every single way. We met in a group at orientation and exchanged numbers so we could hang out when school began in the fall. We have been together ever since.

This Valentine’s Day was honestly hard for me. My dad called me in the morning to wish me a happy Valentine’s Day, as he does every year. He normally surprises me with flowers and chocolates and other corny stuff on this day, but this year he sent me an e-card with a gift card apologizing for not being able to see me. He asked me what my plans were and I told him that I was just going to dinner with some friends who were also single. He told me to hang in there and that I would find a handsome guy soon.

I wish I could tell him what my real plans were. I knew if I had, I would no longer be welcomed home. My family is probably some of the most homophobic people I have ever met. I wish I could tell them my girlfriend and I were going to hang out at the beach and then get dinner together later that night. I wish I could tell them how happy I was and that at the same time I am hurting inside knowing I would never be accepted by my parents.

Valentine’s Day has its ups and downs for everyone. Some people love love and celebrate this day as it was intended. Others love to just practice self-care and get some chocolate and watch a good movie by themself. Others pretend it doesn’t happen and loathe all the decorations and celebration. I personally think that Valentine’s day is good in theory, but it gives many partners an excuse to neglect their partner; as long as I got you flowers and chocolate on Valentine’s day, then I’m good for the year right? To make a long answer short: No.

You should be romantic and speak your partner’s love language all year round. You should buy them flowers on a random Tuesday just because. You should leave them a sticky note when they sleep in after you leave for work saying you love them and hope they had a good day. Valentine’s Day is great to appreciate your partner, but the sentiment is empty if it’s not executed all the time.

Growing up, my father always made me feel special on Valentine’s Day because I am his little girl. He always made me feel special though. He did this because he wanted to show me how a future partner should treat me. Luckily, I have found an amazing partner that cherish’s me and makes me feel special and wanted. I personally love Valentine’s Day and this year it only got better.

In light of the recent Coronavirus, I enjoyed Naive Healthy Lady Lu’s take on this topic. They mentioned that with this outbreak and widespread health scare, people are more likely to be washing their hands a lot more frequently, as they should in the flu season. As winter progresses, people tend to have drier skin, especially due to some of our habits during the colder months. Moving from Arizona to Berkeley was a huge climate change and dryer skin is definitely something that I have been experiencing. Lady Lu mentioned using a variety of creams, lotions, and even petroleum jelly to help combat the dry skin I have been experiencing.

This take on the Coronavirus was more enjoyable than a lot of the things I have been seeing around lately. There has definitely been a lot of racism spewed about China’s practices that is honestly quite upsetting to be seeing. I was on the phone the other day with my family and they were talking about how all Chinese are dirty and have the virus and any of them could get you sick at any point. The worst part is that they don’t even know the difference between Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, etc. They think all Asian people are the same. It’s ridiculous how much people have been using this as an excuse to be blatantly racist and have no remorse. Thank you Lady Lu for your vastly different and lighter take on the Coronavirus.

I was awoken by a call from my mother the other day and she was extremely excited. I asked her what was happening and she exclaimed, “Donald Trump was acquitted!” I lost my breath and ability to think for a moment. I halfheartedly said, “That’s great mom! I have to go to class so I’ll call you later.” I do not think this is great. I think this is (for lack of a better word) bullshit. Donald Trump is one of the most hateful, conniving, and despicable man in this country; that’s saying a lot. I can not believe that the Senate voted to acquit him. He does not deserve the ability to run for a second term.

Several of my friends texted me fairly stressed out about this new fact. His likelihood of winning the next election and possibly being president for another four years is scary. My last post was on the Roe V Wade anniversary. I am scared his election will start the anniversary of the decimation of Roe V Wade. I am worried I will lose some of my rights that we have fought so, so hard for.

I am scared.

I read through Twig’s post about the new Coronavirus outbreak in China and I have to say I agree that this virus has definitely brought out the ugly in our population. This lets people attack China for their “lack of sanitation.” What’s funny about this notion is that America has an extreme lack of sanitation with our own farm products, but of course we choose to turn a blind eye to it. Our farm workers have little to no access to sanitary restrooms, resulting in contamination of produce. This creates things like the Hepatitis A outbreak in blackberries. There is also improper disposal of animal products causing things like the salmonella outbreak in Spinach.

I am tired of the hypocrisy. Americans are the worst about that. We need to do better and stop being so racist when things like this happen. They are humans and just because their practices are different than our own does not mean they are wrong or bad. We need to accept other countries as they are and offer them assistance when stuff like this happens. We boast about being one of the best countries on the planet, then we need to act like it. We need to do better.

Well, today is the 47th anniversary of Roe V Wade! It has been 47 years since abortion was recognized as a legal practice federally and everyone was given the right to an abortion. Through this victory, we have been able to allow so many people the right to their lives, without having to worry about the thought that they would be forced into a pregnancy that was unwanted or unsafe.

I recently heard that the California governor passed a new bill saying that all college campuses have to provide some type of abortion by 2022. This is incredibly great news! This means that students will no longer have to go off campus and face high co-pays to access a termination. I have a friend at UCSC who recently found out she was pregnant. She had a few hoops to jump through, but knew from the moment she got a positive pregnancy test what her choice was. She was super supported in getting to a Planned Parenthood to have her abortion. It is not like that everywhere.

Abortion is important. It is a choice all people with uteruses need to have. I have been doing more research on the term “Reproductive Justice” which was created by the Sister Song Collective. They define RJ as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.” This is so important because there are so many factors that either force pregnant people to have their children or stop people from being able to get pregnant. There have been so many indigenous and people of color who have been forcefully sterilized. There also is very limited access to birth control and comprehensive sex education around this nation. People who are pro-birth always want to talk about how abortion is killing a baby, but never want to talk about the sheer pathetic lack of resources one that person has their child and is forced into raising them for the next 18 years.

Despite the government trying to chip away at Roe V Wade, we won’t let them take our rights. We deserve to have the choice of an abortion if we want one. We deserve to decide what is best for our own bodies. People in the government without uteruses should no longer tell us what to do with our bodies. No one knows my body, my life, and my desires better than I do myself. We deserve unlimited access to birth control, emergency contraception, comprehensive sex education, and abortion when we want it. My body, my opinion.

Before I head out, I will say one more thing. People have abortions for so many reasons; everyone of those are valid. You don’t need an excuse to have an abortion. It is okay to never want a child. It is okay to not be financially stable enough to have a child. It is okay to not want to parent a child/be locked into a lifelong commitment with your current partner. It is okay to not want a reminder of your assault. Every single reason for abortion is valid, even if you don’t really have one.

I was reading through some blogs on this site and found one ran by a fellow UC student just down the coast from me! I was reading their recent post about the Australian bush fires and the colossal damage it has done to the ecosystem in Australia. I totally agree with the thought that it is very hypocritical that people are freaking out about the deaths of animals in Australia but turn a blind eye to the slaughter of animals here. It is without a doubt that we are the number one reason that this Earth is declining at a rapid rate. I think that the way we see the deaths of animals different depending on the species is a product of our society. Especially in the US, we are taught that meat is a necessity and that it is one of the only sources of protein. We are also taught that milk is the only way to get enough calcium to sustain our lives. These teachings are important for our capitalistic society to prosper because mass uneducation keeps consumers buying products, no matter the ethics behind how these products were made. I am in no way defending these behaviors and I think it is great to start these conversations about how we view life. Capitalism has allowed us to become so desensitized to the mass murder of cows, chickens, pigs, and many other animals because it is in the best interest of their pocketbooks.In order to stop the hypocrisy, we need to change the way we teach children about the value of life.