6. Schnitzel 2025

  Birthdays, old phone numbers, the delicious food we had for dinner last week- amidst all of that some things stick with us longer than others- more specifically some words stay with us longer. Sometimes positive, sometimes negative. It could be a compliment from a teacher, an insult from a classmate, or a whispered apology.  And you might be wondering why certain words stick with us while others disappear? And this is usually because of the emotional impact they leave us with. Events like winning an award, losing a friend, or moving stick with us because they’ve changed our life in some way. Another reason words can stick with us is simply because they’re rare to hear, and they mean something to you.  Interestingly enough, it’s not necessarily the word’s meanings that determine whether they stick with you but the circumstances revolving around those particular words. I remember when I started playing the piano, my piano teacher was very strict and we were preparing fo...

For this week’s blog, I could not think of a good topic to write about. While brainstorming ideas, I went about the rest of my night, doing homework and watching the Warriors game. The win last night made me recollect all the old moments about the team, from watching Curry and Klay rapid-fire three-point shots in the 2010s to Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green lock teams down on defense this year. In 2015, when the Warriors won the first championship of their dynasty run—unknown at the time—my parents asked me, “Do you want to skip the last day of school to go watch the championship parade?” I knew that I did not want to miss field day and enjoy myself in school. So, my seven-year-old self simply replied with, “No, I’ll go when they win again next year.” My parents and relatives were shocked and some laughed at my response. What happened? They almost won again in 2016, then won back-to-back in 2017 and 2018.  The trend of this next part of my life ironically correlates with the team’s...

  “But why?” “Why would she do that?” “Why would he do that?” “Stop asking why, just watch the show”  I was always attacked with the same answer, “stop asking why.” I always knew of the phrase: curiosity killed the cat, but I never questioned why curiosity killed the cat. My younger self thought the cat was killed because it knew something it shouldn't have, or it died on the journey searching for the answer. From then I never stopped asking questions or finding the rationale for everything, but I kept all the queries and answers to myself. I always thought I kept my curious side a secret because I knew not everyone enjoyed questioning the world or being questioned.  But I didn’t (at least not as well as I thought).  A year ago, a close friend of mine confessed to me what they thought of me. They told me I was weird and almost insane sometimes. They told me I always questioned their actions, their behaviors, and even their feelings sometimes. I didn't know what to sa...

Before moving to Fremont in 8th grade, I lived in Irvine for 9 years, completing all of elementary school. Something I learned was that every single school district has their own fun way of giving their students emails. FUSD’s unique system is the first three letters of your first name, first three letters of your last name, and the last three numbers of your ID. However, in Irvine (IUSD) it would be your graduation year, last name, first name. So mine was 26goelruhika@iusd.org. Upon receiving this email when I was only in kindergarten, I genuinely thought that the year 2026 would never occur. It was just so far away that it seemed impossible to ever reach that day; approaching 2026 was so exciting for young Ruhika, as she genuinely looked forward to being an adult. However, now I find myself trying to freeze time for as long as possible, because I don't know how quickly time is passing by in the blink of an eye.  Today during Flex, I was rotting. I had just completed my stressful ...

Parents don’t remember yelling at their children; bullies don’t remember the torment and torture they inflict. Hunters don’t remember the exact amount of deer they’ve shot, they don’t remember the fawns they’ve orphaned. The people who hurt you don’t remember doing so; that doesn’t mean they can’t feel remorse, just that they won’t remember the scared look in your eyes or the pain written across their face. I can recall a plethora of times where I can hear my own heartbeat louder than anything else, where my hands have been shaking, where blood rushes to my ears and tears threaten to spill out of my eyes. I can’t remember more than a handful of times where the sun seems a bit brighter, where my smile feels natural on my face, when I can take the time to look up at the sky and smile. No one remembers the pain they inflict, just the pain that they feel. Source: NicoDelG on Threadles s No guillotine remembers the slices it makes—and it’s not a problem that can be fixed. No one apologizes ...

HBO's cast for the new Harry Potter TV series. Image source: GQ Have you heard about the Harry Potter HBO reboot ? I’ve known about it for some time, but thought it would be cancelled eventually due to lack of support. No such luck; they just announced the casting for some of the Hogwarts staff. Really? Can’t we leave a story with a satisfying ending alone, and—more importantly—stop funneling money to J.K. Rowling?  No. Hollywood is addicted to reboots. Whether it’s creating sequels that fall flat in comparison to their originals or relentlessly pushing out live-action Disney remakes, the film industry won’t stop creating unnecessary additions to classic franchises. But we still eat it up every single time because of our nostalgia.  Reviving old shows is essentially an emotional shortcut for streaming services. They don’t have to go through all of the work of creating a new one when they can instead build off of an existing series that has a guaranteed audience. Fans remembe...

  I have fallen in love with URINETOWN , its satirical yet powerful anti capitalistic stance was quite relatable recently. For those unaware, it was the recent AHSPA production, retelling a classic tale “of the dangers of unfettered capitalism” and its danger in a town where a drought has led to the privatization of public toilets. The story sets up a battle between Bobby Strong, the everyday man turned revolutionary, and the brute monopolist Caldwell B. Cladwell, while a love story unfolds between Bobby and Cladwell’s daughter. It was able to effectively deliver what I had been thinking of for a very long time. I loved writing the essay over the weekend but I also want to state how the play helps preach the importance of remembering our history. That is a very pertinent question, as a great man once said “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” We are living in a very late stage of capitalism where humans have been reduced to statistics, to mere numbers or the wal...

Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones, dubbed "the world's fastest couple." Source: USA Today From the first Olympic Games in ancient Greece to this year’s March Madness tournament, humanity has always been obsessed with sports. Its appeal isn’t just limited to its entertainment factor; there’s something inspiring about how only the most hardworking, dedicated, and passionate athletes can win. Or, alternatively, the athletes with the best drugs can win. Despite strict bans, there have been tons of doping cases in professional sports. One significant instance of this would be the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) scandal. BALCO was founded in 1984 by Victor Conte, a college dropout. Though he lacked formal education, Conte was convinced that he had cracked the code to maximum athletic performance: balancing mineral levels in the human body. He crafted a business plan to provide these services to athletes for free in exchange for them wearing BALCO merchandise at major sp...

I love to watch athletes compete and go against each other in the best of games. Ever wonder why some, especially the ones not favored to win, end up winning or even dominating the whole game? It has to do with mentality. Mentality is, in my opinion, the most underrated attribute when it comes to an athlete; whether it has to do with their mindset going into a competition or even coming out of it, the human mind is wired to produce the outcome that the athlete believes in.  Obviously, you cannot win them all. Some athletes expected to do well end up falling short. But there are the ones who bounce back from a bad performance and others who continue to fall, the difference being the thought process between the two.  My first track race this year was horrible; no improvements, no plateau either (staying consistent), only bad times that stuck in my head until a few weeks after. Although I have improved a bit, I know that if I moved on faster from a poor performance that I could h...

Who are you? I know this is a very banal rhetorical question, but philosophically entertaining. The main premise of this blog will be a common philosophical tale, commonly known as the ship of theseus. "   The ship on which Theseus sailed with the youths, ​ They took away the old timbers from time to time, and put new and sound ones in their place and eventually the entire ship was replaced, now is the new ship still the ship of theseus (Epicurus of Albion). What if you take up all the old parts of the ship and make it into an old copy of the ship, which one is the ship of theseus now. Now imagine this argument regarding your body and your mind. In a matter of time all of the cells in your body are replaced, well except some cells in the central vaga of the nervous system. Those cases can be solved by looking at all the atoms in your body, even more all gluons are constantly destroyed and created again using the heuristic models from quantum mechanics.  Who are you? Are you a...

You lay in bed, moments from drifting off into sleep—and it hits you. The image of that cringe-inducing thing you said when you were eight, the time you tripped over nothing and fell in public, and that embarrassing Michael Jackson impression you did during your POAS presentation even though your presentation wasn't even focused on Michael Jackson (that one might just be specific towards me) all flash through your mind. Shame and humiliation all run rampant; you feel a blush heat up your face as you’re being haunted by all of your embarrassing memories. Source: Glamour UK When thinking of the topic of memories, nostalgia and meaningful happy moments tend to come to mind—embarrassment is sort of the anti-nostalgia. It’s what keeps us in check; it makes us realize that there was never a better time. For all of the memories you have laughing with your loved ones, there are also the times where you’ve felt lonely, angry, spiteful—and yes, embarrassed.  It’s easy to forget these negativ...

I hate bugs, dirt, and sand. Bugs are horrifying; I know they are a couple millimeters to a few centimeters big, meanwhile I am many centimeters big. However, their exoskeletons and buzzy noises scare me. I don’t mind the dirt directly, but I hate getting dirty. I don’t like the grime under my nails, and the powdery wet feeling enveloping your body when you trip and fall. I hate sand. It gets in every nook and cranny of your body and feels like for weeks sand is coming out of all of your belongings. And yet, I still love the beach. Some of my best memories live with me in the water, floating as if I'm weightless in the rush of a wave pulling me forward. Last summer when I was at UCSD for a program, I spent the entire day at the beach with my friends, swimming out farther and farther until my feet were no longer touching the sandy ocean floor. It was both terrifying as I was in so deep, but at the same time I felt exhilarated. The deeper I went in, more land disappeared and less sho...

Some of you might remember my presentation on Kate Moss (if not, she's a supermodel). In my early stages of research, I wanted to mainly focus on her influence on fashion. During my deep dive into global fashion history, I found something fascinating . Fashion theorists created something called the “hemline index.” The hemline index basically suggests that the higher up the hemlines of women’s dresses are, the better the economy, and vice versa– the lower the hemline of women’s dresses, the worse the economy.  Let's take a look a real life example:  This could be reflective of how many economists today are claiming that the United States’ economy is going towards a recession. As we can see, I did a simple Google search of “2025 women fashion trends” and while there were one or two short skirts, many of the women were wearing long dresses.       If I do a Google search of the Roaring Twenties women’s fashion trend, as shown below, women are wearing knee leng...

Music has a way of capturing moments in time, embedding them so deeply into our memories that a couple of notes is enough to trigger a wave of emotions. Last Friday, Ariana Grande released “Eternal Sunshine (Deluxe): Brighter Days Ahead,” and I played it at 9 PM sharp, ready to soak up each new song. But the moment “intro (end of the world) [extended]” started playing, I barely made it a minute in before tearing up. The original version had been my most listened to song last year, and hearing this new version felt like unlocking a time capsule. It wasn’t the song of the lyrics—it was the memories associated with it, the emotions I had initially experienced, which came rushing back as though no time had passed. It’s not a new feeling for me. Music is linked to memory , something scientists have studied for centuries. Music activates the hippocampus, the past of the brain responsible for storing long-term memories. That’s why you can be transported back to a specific moment by one song...