I, like many others, often turn to literature as an escape from the real world— a way to step into the lives of fictional characters and momentarily leave my own behind. On BookTok, the TikTok community for readers, similar sentiments have been shared by followers; many expressing their desire to use reading as a shelter from societal issues, even going so far as to say things like “keep politics off of BookTok.”This statement, however, has never sat quite right with me. No matter what our inten...

I don’t quite remember when I stopped keeping a diary and started a journal, but ever since childhood, I’ve been an avid documenter of everyday life. Somewhere along the way, though, as my journals shed their glitter stickers and bubble-lettered headers, they also began to lose the color of my daily experiences. As I transitioned into my teenage years and began navigating the confusion and pressure of growing up as a girl, my journal became a place to untangle the mess being strung together in m...

Tough, ruby red skin peeled back to reveal jewels of blood tucked neatly in their pockets. You pop them out like loose teeth, your fingers stained pink from the fruit of your labor. The image of the pomegranate has circulated through nearly every branch of culture–literature, religion, myth, and now the internet. Taking every form, the fruit has been used as a symbol of fertility, a test of love, a marker of transformation, and a metaphor for consumption. You would think that after centuries of...

As we trudge through the closing weeks of the autumn quarter and get ready for finals, the stack of required course readings has formed a Brontë-saurus sized pillar in my room. Right next to it, however, lies my just as large “to be read” (TBR) shelf. Few things ache more than when a hobby shifts from feeling like an outlet, to feeling like a chore. As a child, I spent hours getting lost in the fictional worlds of Junie B. Jones and the Rainbow Magic fairies, devouring their stories one by one....

There is an acute skill required to be fully present – to truly notice things like the shape of the shadows that the tree leaves on the sidewalk, or the way the sun glows through the layer of clouds in the morning. When we rush through each day, constantly checking our clocks and reciting affirmations like “two more hours,” it is easy to miss these details and feel like we are being left behind by a world that seems to be spinning faster each week. But when we can slow down and practice the care...

Two years after her debut album “Messy,” Olivia Dean’s newest project “The Art of Loving” takes listeners on the journey that is falling in and out of love. Originally released on Sept. 26, this album has been pouring through my headphones ever since. With intimate lyrics weaved between thick, syrupy melodies, Dean covers it all – from love, to heartbreak, to the “something inbetween.”Dean opens the album with the title track, which lays out the rest of the album beautifully: “It wasn’t all for...