A Eulogy for Items Lost, but Not Forgotten

I

On Wednesday, December 18, my Bejarano family gathered together for the funeral of my grandpa, Heriberto Wilson Bejarano Paredes, or Papa Hery, as we affectionately called him. After the funeral, we went to one of his favorite buffets in Salt Lake City.

While we were there, two men in a white Cherokee shattered the front passenger side window of my sister's car and stole her purse. They proceeded to make large purchases at WalMart, Smith's, RedBox, and other nearby stores.

When we left the restaurant, we found broken glass strewn across the asphalt. Although my sister was in intense shock, she gathered herself together and began making calls to cancel her credit cards. I called the police and filed a report. A police officer met us at the restaurant, where he was able to access the surveillance camera (which is how we know a little bit about how the crime was committed).

My sister's fiance jumped into the restaurant dumpster, hoping that maybe the thieves took the wallet and ditched the purse. After his search came up empty, he, along with several of our excellent cousins, drove to nearby stores to see if they could find any leads (or useful surveillance footage). Over two hours passed, and they came up empty.

II

The good news is that all of my sister's credit cards were cancelled and that she is not liable for any of the purchases the burglars made. Also, we found a local business to repair her car window the next day, and they charged us a reasonable price.

The bad news is, many of the items in my sister's purse are irreplaceable. Credit cards, iPhone earphones, chapstick, and the purse itself are items that can all be fairly easily replaced-- but there were other items in my sister's purse that, although worth little monetarily, were worth a lot sentimentally.

There was a USB drive that contained many of the essays she had written during her time as an undergraduate economics student. Many of these essays were not saved on her laptop and do not survive in paper form.

Since we had recently come from my grandfather's funeral, my sister had copies of the program in her purse. She specifically sought out English and Spanish copies to keep in her collection. My sister's fiance designed the programs, and her contribution to the funeral preparations was to print the programs.

Before my sister's fiance bought a "real" gold-and-diamond ring, he made my sister a ring out of twine and string. It is a simple ring, probably worth only a few cents if we're talking materials, but to my sister that ring means a lot. I remember receiving a text message photo of the ring when her fiance gave it to her-- she was ecstatic.

There was a joint-journal she kept with her fiance. Earlier that day, while we sat at the funeral service, my sister took time to carefully record her feelings about our Papa Hery. She could try to re-write the memories that were in her journal, but she will never be able to replicate the entries with same emotion that comes when an event is still fresh in one's mind.

And even though the bag itself is replaceable (I found an identical one online), even it has memories attached to it. When my sister came to California for my graduation, we decided to buy matching tote bags at Target. I still remember that trip to the store, and when I see my own bag, I think of my sister's identical one.

III

Now, you might be thinking, why did she have all of those items in her purse? Why did she leave her purse in the car? Those questions are easy to ask after-the-fact. My sister is torturing herself with those very questions. The truth is, we've all done careless things like that before-- and the purpose of this post is not to educate you or anyone else on proper safety precautions, but to mourn the loss of items that, by meaning so much to my sister, have come to mean a lot to me and our immediate family.

The last two days have been really rough for my sister. It would be one thing if the thieves merely took her credit cards, it is another thing to know that two sinister people have items so close to your heart. A journal, two funeral programs, a USB drive, a square knot ring.

We cannot reasonably expect to get any of the contents of my sister's purse back, yet we still hope that maybe something unexpected will happen. That the police will bust the perpetrators for another crime (and find the purse), that the thieves will have a change of heart and return the items, that somehow we'll wake up tomorrow and realize this was all a dream....

As I reflect on this small tragedy, I am impressed by how quickly we mobilized to help my sister. I am amazed at the calm, eloquent way she went about calling her bank and her credit card company to cancel her accounts (even when that included sitting through a slew of automated messages).

I think it is really cool that she has cousins, and a fiance, that were willing to drive from store to store trying to track down information about her lost bag. (If a guy jumps into a dumpster for you, you know he must really like you).

IV

So, a message to my sister: we all care about you and love you very much. You won't stop making great memories. And at the end of the day, while the items you own are important, the people that surround you are the most important. :-)

This is what my sister's stolen bag looks like.

Vegetarian Etiquette

Recently, I made the decision to be vegetarian. Truthfully, it's one of the easiest decisions I've made in my twenties--compared to deciding to be a full-time Mormon missionary, get married, study English at Stanford, etc.--choosing to be vegetarian was really simple. In fact, I didn't even really consciously decide to be vegetarian, I gradually just "became" vegetarian. As my mom pointed out when I told her about my new lifestyle, "you never really liked meat any way."

Now that I'm part of a growing Vegetarian Clan, I have become aware of the many mildly offensive things non-vegetarians say. I'm ashamed to admit that I, too, once said things like that to friends of mine who were vegetarian, vegan, or had another type of dietary restriction.

During this time in the world (or at least in America) where many people are choosing to eat (or to not eat) certain foods for health, moral, or other reasons, I think it's time all of us learned a quick lesson in the etiquette of how to treat and interact with people who do not eat what you eat.

I am not writing this from the viewpoint that vegetarians are morally superior or smarter than non-vegetarians-- the majority of my family is non-vegetarian and I am totally fine with that. I am writing this from the perspective of someone who is in a minority and who is just asking for a little more respect and understanding from the non-vegetarian majority.

1. "There's a salad!"

If you're vegan or vegetarian, chances are you've probably heard this phrase A LOT. You show up to an event that serves a meal and realize that everything has meat in it; when you ask the host/ess if there is anything vegetarian, s/he surveys the table of food and offers up the phrase: "There's a salad!"

I really don't like hearing "there's a salad!" when there is a table full of food for everyone else to eat-- but hey, I know that the person saying that is usually just trying to be helpful, so I usually just shrug it off and make a mental note to grab myself some food after the event is over.

But what really, really gets to me is when someone notices that I haven't had any salad, and tries to follow up with, "you're vegetarian, you must love salad," or worse, "you're vegetarian, but you're not having any salad!?"

That just really makes me upset. You'd never say, "you're Mexican, but you're not an illegal immigrant!?" to someone, or "you're Mormon, but you don't have seven children (or wives)!?" Why? Because those stereotypes are offensive, and you would never just assume that because someone affiliates with an ethnic or religious group they necessarily fit the stereotype.

But for some reason, it's okay to assume that vegetarians love salad. (Because what else would they eat, right? ...Wrong.)

The truth is, I don't usually eat salads. Sure, I'll have a little garden salad if it's served with a nice panini or heaping portion of pasta. If it's a candied walnut, apple, and goat cheese salad, topped with a nice raspberry vinaigrette, I'll eat an entire dish of salad. But more often than not, the salads you see at your every-day event are not fancy salads full of nuts, fruits, veggies, and fine cheeses. They're often mixed greens (with tiny shreds of carrot) that made their way to your nearest grocery store in a plastic bag. 

Fun fact: basically everything in that bag, no matter how it's marketed, tastes the same: bland.

If you're a meat-eater and you're not interested in taking more than three bites of that salad, chances are your vegetarian friends aren't interested in eating a whole lot of it either.

So please, if you realize that you forgot to bring a vegetarian dish to your event and can't quickly remedy the problem, be kind enough to just apologize and promise to do a better job in the future. Don't try to shove all your salad off on your poor vegetarian guest.

And if you will soon be hosting a party, remember that a regular old salad-in-a-bag does not satisfy your vegetarian item requirement. (Unless your guest is Jared and it's baby arugula).

Addendum: Vegetarians, vegans, and others with food restrictions have commented that they don't expect people to cater to their diets. So, I should revise: don't sweat it if you don't have something prepared for your food-restricted guest, but still, please don't guilt us into eating the bagged salad.

2. Be courteous when making decisions about where to eat and what to cook.

My sister decided to go vegan this past year, and when we tried to explain this to my 91-year-old grandmother, she said, "I'm not modern like you young folk." She doesn't really get what being vegan or vegetarian entails, but she knows we have dietary restrictions and whenever we go out to eat, she gives me a few options of places to eat beforehand, so I can choose a place that has something vegan/vegetarian on the menu.

This is such a nice gesture, especially coming from someone who doesn't understand the appeal of eating vegetarian. It is the same kind of courtesy you might extend to someone who has an allergy to seafood, or a strong aversion to a certain type of cuisine. So please, extend that courtesy to us vegetarians, too! (And in return, we'll try not to drag you to a raw food cafe).

My grandma, sister, and I end up going to Olive Garden a lot... but hey, they serve a great vegetarian minestrone and their tasty breadsticks are vegan! 

3. No, it's not "all in my head."

Some people find it funny to give vegetarians food with meat products in it, because they believe "if it doesn't look like it has meat in it, it's probably fine." Or, just as bad, they give vegetarians meat because they're careless.

Please don't be the waiter that brought Jared a ravioli sampler and forgot to make a no-meat request to the chef. I know you're busy, but let's return to the allergy analogy: if someone breaks out in hives and swells up in the face from eating peanuts, you'd probably try pretty darn hard to make sure you didn't feed them a peanut-laced meal.

Now, you might be thinking: yeah, but an allergy can make someone sick, unless you're allergic to meat, you'll be fine eating some! False.

Here's another fact: once your body has stopped digesting meat, cheese, or another type of animal product for long enough, it becomes very hard for your body to break down those food products. The result? You get sick-- sometimes you feel nauseous, sometimes you vomit. Whatever happens, it isn't pretty, so in effect, it is comparable to having developed "an allergy" to a type of food.

Trust me. And even if you don't, just be courteous, and don't tell your vegetarian acquaintances, "it's all in your head."

Recently I went to an event that served a dish that looked vegetarian. When I asked one of women in charge of the event if it was okay for me to eat, rather than just assume it was, she went to the person who had prepared the dish to verify the ingredients. Turns out the dish wasn't vegetarian, which was kind of sad, because it looked delicious, but the woman who figured that out deserves a commendation for going out of her way to be helpful and understanding.

4. "Can you eat _____?"

Some people have trouble distinguishing between vegan and vegetarian and gluten-free, etc., etc. And that's completely fine and understandable. After all, there are lots of new and specific diets out there!

But what really bugs me is when people decide to play the "can you eat [insert type of food]?" game. For instance, a few days ago, I was at a dinner and a woman sitting near me noticed I wasn't eating much. I told her I was vegetarian and that lots of the dishes at the get-together had meat in them.

When a server came by with ice cream, the woman near me pointed at her dish and asked, "so you can't eat ice cream?" To which I replied (somewhat snarkily), "does that ice cream have meat in it?"

When you ask questions like that, what you're really doing is making an assumption about someone. You're not sending the message that you're open-minded and would like to learn more about a different way of life.

Vegetarian Stuffed Bell Peppers

As a Mormon, people have asked me questions like, "so do you wear weird underwear?" Or "is it true that Mormon men have many wives?" I really don't like talking to these people, because they really have zero (or close to zero) interest about my beliefs-- they just want to reaffirm their own belief that Mormonism is wacky by asking me to answer yes or no questions. As a full-time missionary who spent a lot of time knocking doors and street contacting, we'd get questions like that with some frequency. Turns out, people who ask those kinds of questions are almost never interested in genuine discussion.

When people try to play that: "what [regular things] can you not eat?" game, I feel like all they're looking for is validation that vegetarians are nuts because they don't eat steak or soup made with chicken broth, etc. I imagine it's only worse for vegans.

So, look, if you don't know the dietary restrictions that accompany labels like vegan, vegetarian, etc., you could either (a) Google them when you finish reading this blog post, or (b) next time you're with a vegetarian friend, politely make an inquiry as to what they eat. Try asking an open-ended question. Here's a sample conversation: "Jared, I know you are vegetarian. I am not sure what type of foods vegetarians can and cannot eat. Would you mind telling me?"

You might also (non-judgmentally) ask Jared about why he's vegetarian, or about his favorite foods-- you might discover that being vegetarian is not as limiting as you think! There are countless desserts, delicious entrees, and tasty appetizers that vegetarians enjoy. Chances are, non-vegetarians would probably enjoy a few of those dishes, too.

5. Disagree with me, but please don't try to attack my way of life.

My mom and I used to get into huge, heated arguments on politics when I was younger. They usually ended with me in tears and my mother wanting to disown me-- those were painful times. Lately, my mother and I have tried to find middle ground-- and when we can't, we've agreed to disagree. When we try to view political issues from each other's perspective, it is easier to understand why we feel the way we do.

You may not understand why it is important for me to be vegetarian. I believe eating less meat is healthy. I believe by choosing not to purchase meat, I can effect a small, but positive impact on the current meat market. I believe that not eating meat is a morally good thing to do if you believe that animal suffering should be minimized (just look up "factory farms"). And I also believe the vegetarian food is just tastier (because like I said earlier, meat was never my favorite thing to begin with). 

Me and my mom, smiling together in our Hawaii kitchen. 

Do you remember the quote from my mother I used earlier in this article? She has been a lifelong meat eater, but when I told her about my decision to stop eating meat, she said: "you never really liked meat any way." And not in a rude way, but in a, "huh, for you that really makes a lot of sense" kind of way. She tried to understand where I was coming from, and told me that when I visit for Christmas she will make vegetarian food for me. 

And for all of you vegetarians out there: try to be respectful and understanding of your carnivorous friends. We might eat differently, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends!

(Plus, you convince more people with kindness than you do with criticisms).

What's in a name (and three last names)?

This is the story of my name, which just so happens to be comprised of three last names. 

Two weeks ago I went to the Social Security Office, took a number, and waited in a crowded room (sometimes standing, but mostly sitting) for just under 2 hours. I was surrounded by people from different walks of life-- many of them old, waiting to meet with someone to discuss Social Security benefits, some of them young, waiting to submit applications for new Social Security cards, and some of them recently married, like myself, waiting to meet with a Social Security representative for a legal name change.

Since I was little, I assumed that I would change my name once I got married. This is horrible to admit (especially here, on the Internet!) but I never really loved the last name Hurst. I appreciated the fact that it identified me as a member of my dad's wonderful, hard-working family. I thought it was kind of cool that the name was derived from a word meaning "grove of trees," but I was never really a fan of the harsh sound the "u" makes. "Hurst" like "wurst" or "cursed." 

A Hurst among a hurst! How fitting.

When I was little I was also kind of embarrassed of my middle name-- Bejarano. I used to tell people my middle name was "confidential" (which in middle school, once led one of my classmates to believe my middle name was literally "Confidential"). It was hard to pronounce and people always wanted to know what it meant in Spanish. Hey, I thought, I never ask you what "Jones" or "Neil" or "Muhlstein" mean! Why do you assume that every non-European sounding name must have some specific, readily known meaning?

My sister Rebecca has what I used to think was a "real" middle name because it could also be a first name-- Marie. Rebecca Marie sounded so cool. In fact, on Facebook she goes by her entire name: Rebecca Marie Hurst, which just looks and sounds so pretty. Victoria Bejarano on the other hand-- that just sounded like a regular first and last name. (At least, this is what the young me thought).

Paul (dad), Paul Joshua, Victoria (+kitty), Rebecca

I started to feel some pride for my middle name when my little brother, whose first name is Paul, but who goes by Paul Joshua (since my dad's first name is also Paul), began to tell people that his full name was Paul Joshua Bejarano Hurst. He assumed that his first name was "Paul Joshua" and that he got to share both my dad's last name and mom's maiden name.

Once I told him that I was the only Bejarano. He started crying and ran off to my mom, who assured him (although it was a lie) that his middle name was also Bejarano. And you know how kids think-- as soon as someone else wants what you don't want, you suddenly begin really liking what you have.

I began to feel more Bejarano pride when I visited Peru and got to learn more about my mom's culture. Suddenly, Bejarano became my connection to an exciting past. It was the legal part of me that proved to the world that I really was Hispanic. When people asked me what my middle name was, or tripped over their pronunciation of it, that gave me an opportunity to talk about my Peruvian heritage.

I went from keeping my middle name confidential to proudly displaying it across my resume, essays I wrote for class, my poems, everything fit to print.

The Original Bejaranos: My mom is standing, upper right.

In March of 2010, I embarked on a year-and-a-half long journey as a Mormon missionary in Salt Lake City (well, the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Park City, and a little town that I love named Kamas). I wore a nametag that said "Hermana Hurst" (Sister Hurst in Spanish). I no longer went by "Victoria," but Hermana Hurst or Sister Hurst.

When people addressed me (or thought of me) they associated me with the name Hurst. It's kind of strange to think that more than half of the people I met on my mission will never know my first name. It must have been around that time that I really began to bond with my last name-- Hurst.

Sister Padilla and Sister Hurst, now Danielle Macias and Victoria Muirhead

When I talk to old mission companions on the phone or correspond with them via e-mail or Facebook, we often refer to each other by our "mission names"-- Dany Macias is still Sister Padilla for me. And I'm still Sister Hurst (or occasionally Hursty) for her. In twenty years from now, I'm convinced that I'll still think of Thacia Schmidt as Sister Schdmit, Lizeth Picuasi as Sister Picuasi, and Geraldine Chatter as Sister Chatter. The same definitely goes for the elders (guy missionaries) I knew on the mission-- especially since I don't even know all of their first names.

When you wear a last name around like that, you get attached to it. The same way I have always been wholly attached to the name Victoria.

Victoria-among-the-Mountains

I have always been grateful to my parents for naming me Victoria. It's as if success is written into my being-- Victoria, victorious. Victoria, a delicate, yet powerful name. There is no way the war cannot be won. 

The day after I turned 8-years-old; with Rebecca at the Laie Temple

When it came time to change my name, I wondered whether I should keep Bejarano or Hurst. I wondered whether I should take on Muirhead. Ultimately I decided, why not take them all?

Victoria Bejarano Hurst Muirhead

Bejarano to represent my mother's family. Hurst to represent my father's. Muirhead to represent my husband Jared's family-- as well as the family of our own we'll have one day.

When I called my mom on the phone to tell her about my decision-- to keep all three last names-- she told me she had secretly been hoping that was what I would decide.

When I told the representative at the Social Security Office about my decision-- she told me the name was too long and that she would need to get special approval to go ahead with the name change. To her it was just a really clunky, long, maybe boring last name. (She also disapproved of me getting married at 24-years-old and in a state other than California, as she'd make clear during the course of our meeting). But what does she know?

The thing about names is, people endow them with meaning. I have made Victoria my own story, and I'm happy to represent the people, living and gone, who have made Bejarano, Hurst, and Muirhead theirs.

Am I as good of a person as I believe I am?

Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to meet and interview Christina Maslach, a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. She is known for her extensive research on occupational burnout and has won awards, such as the Professor of the Year award from the Carnegie Foundation in 1997.

But, for better or worse, Maslach is perhaps better known as the person who stopped the Stanford Prison Experiment in August of 1971.

Christina Maslach, photo from obweb.org

The Stanford Prison Experiment

At the time, Maslach was dating Phil Zimbardo, whom she later married. Zimbardo had designed and begun to implement an experiment in which college students, all male, all screened for prior criminal conduct, signs of depression, etc., were divided, at random, into two categories: prisoners and prison guards.

At the start of the experiment, prisoners were "arrested," dragged out of their dorm rooms in the middle of the night and taken to a location unbeknownst to them (that location was Jordan Hall, one of the buildings on Stanford's Main Quad), where they would be kept for two weeks. Prison guards, on the other hand, were not required to remain on-site for two weeks, but instead, worked daily shifts at the "prison."

According to Maslach, Zimbardo and his colleagues believed the experiment would be innocuous--boring, even. They predicted that the college students would just sit around, prisoners on one side, guards on the other, while the two weeks allotted for the experiment went by. Maslach underscored the point that the experiment was reviewed and approved by all relevant bodies (human subjects, legal, etc.)

Nobody predicted that the prison experiment would actually begin to resemble a quite disturbing prison experience.

Maslach was not directly involved with the planning and implementation of the experiment. She explained that while Zimbardo was preparing to conduct the experiment, she was finishing her doctorate work at Stanford. When the experiment started, she was getting ready to start her professorship at Berkeley, across the Bay. But partway through the experiment, Zimbardo asked her if she would help him collect data by interviewing the participants. She agreed to help.

Maslach had been on-site earlier on in the experiment, when she observed/participated as part of a mock parole hearing, however, she said she "didn't see much." This time, when she came to interview participants, she got a better look at what was going on in the basement of Jordan Hall.

Maslach described standing around, chatting with people in the basement, when she caught sight of the prison guards escorting the prisoners to the bathrooms. "I saw these guys come out with these khaki uniforms and they had a line of guys in white smocks with paper bags over their heads-- and the paper bags were so they were not actually seeing we're in the basement... And I saw that, and I just got sick to my stomach... I didn't understand what was going on. I didn't want to look."

When Zimbardo met up with Maslach, he escorted her to a space where she could see the prison yard, and she recognized one of the people she had been chatting with earlier that day. "Oh, that's the one they call John Wayne," an observer told her, "he's the toughest guard, so the prisoners call him John Wayne." "John Wayne" had adopted a Southern accent and gave harsh commands to the prisoners.

Maslach was upset-- she felt like what she had witnessed was wrong, but at the same time, nobody else seemed to find it all that disturbing. Other observers pointed out that she had recently gotten a degree in social psychology-- wasn't this just human behavior? "Can't you take it? Can't you look at it?" They asked her.

Despite others' opinions, Maslach shared her concerns with Zimbardo. The two had recently started dating, and Maslach was frustrated that he couldn't see things from her perspective. "The more we talked, the more upset I was getting."

"Is this really the man I think he is?" Maslach wondered.

Zimbardo and Maslach, photo from Lund University website

At the end of a long discussion with Zimbardo, he decided to end the experiment. All of the prison guards and prisoners were called in and the study was formally concluded. The last day was spent interviewing participants and debriefing as a group.

Remember John Wayne? Maslach explained that during the debriefing session, one of the prisoners asked John Wayne if he was being himself or if he was just playing a role. John Wayne claimed it was just an act-- but the prisoner pointed out, if it was just an act, why did John Wayne need to trip him? Why was his behavior so excessively mean?

Them, Not Me

During my interview with Maslach, I began to think, if I could have observed the Stanford Prison Experiment back in August of 1971, would I have been bothered by what I saw? I want to think I would be, I want to think I would not be comfortable watching a guard like John Wayne verbally abuse a helpless prisoner. But the truth is, I don't know. I don't know how I'd react.

As I sat there, the thought popped into my mind: I know I wouldn't be John Wayne. I know I could never be so cruel.

In retrospect, the Stanford Prison Experiment is considered by some to be unethical, and it is very unlikely that a similar experiment will ever be carried out again.

When people write about the Stanford Prison Experiment today, they often focus on the fact that seemingly "good" guys turned into mean prison guards. They made prisoners do counts, kept them from getting to sleep on time-- they went out of their ways to fulfill their roles. But Maslach pointed out, not all the guard were like John Wayne. He was an anomaly. Some of the guards were actually really nice to prisoners, or at least, didn't go out of their ways to insult or trip them.

Sure, it's scary that regular people can turn into monsters-- but in talking to Maslach, I realized that perhaps what's more scary is that the dozens of people around them can watch that transformation without doing anything about it, without even really realizing that it's happening. Zimbardo, his team of researchers, the other prison guards, they watched an ordinary college student turn into "John Wayne," yet didn't do anything to stop, or to even mitigate, his behavior.

When Maslach pointed that out-- when she pointed out that none of the other guards suggested John Wayne ease up on the prisoners or redirect his energy-- I suddenly realized that I was just as bad as the rest of them. Even if I could never see myself yelling at or directly demeaning prisoners the way John Wayne did, I could see myself, another prison guard on the prison yard, standing timidly by as one of my colleagues mistreated the prisoners entrusted to our care.

I suddenly thought of an event that had happened only a few days prior to my meeting with Maslach. My husband Jared and I were relaxing at home, in our small studio apartment, when we began to hear shouting coming from upstairs. It was the second time something like that had happened: a male voice yelling, a woman crying. The time before, we had heard what sounded like a woman being shoved to the ground. That time I had called the police. This time, I wasn't sure what to do. Would calling the police do any good? Should I try to find a security guard? Should Jared and I go upstairs and knock on our neighbors' door ourselves? I knew that whatever was happening, it wasn't right, but I felt powerless and ultimately did nothing.

Maslach explained that studies show that there are many factors that prevent people from intervening when they know something bad is happening. For instance, oddly enough, the more people that see something happen, the less likely someone is to intervene. Take a busy street or a crowded subway car, for example. How many times have you seen something that was off, yet reasoned that if there really was a problem, someone else would help?

That night, when I heard commotion upstairs, I used that line of reasoning. I thought, we live in a large apartment complex. Maybe some of our neighbors will hear the fight and do something about it.

Maslach also pointed out that people are less likely to help when they're in a hurry. That reminded me of the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan-- in an animated version for children that I saw years ago, the priest doesn't stop to help because he has somewhere important to get to. What could be more important than a suffering man about to die? I used to think as a child.

Now, I thought back to the 16th Street and Mission BART Station I used to ride to every day for my summer internship; how often did I pause to take a good look around and see if any of the homeless people sprawled out near the station's entrance were in need? I all but ignored them as I ran up the stairs and hurried to work, even when they waved their hands in my face and called out to me, I pretended not to hear them or politely said "I'm sorry, no cash" before I quickened my pace and sped away from the station.

When I shared some of my thoughts with Maslach (in particular, the anecdote about my neighbors), she explained that another barrier to intervention was when a dispute seemed like a family matter. That made me think of the rare, but painfully memorable, times that I have seen parents be especially mean to their children (I'm not just talking strict, I'm talking, scary) and have just felt my heart break in two, unable to say or do anything. I've felt afraid that my intervention would only make things worse or might result in a negative outcome for me as well. I worried that maybe I just didn't understand another person's family dynamic, culture, upbringing, etc.

I thought back to a recent campaign a friend of mine had posted about on Facebook: Save Our Sisters, a campaign to end violence against women in India. I was touched by the beautiful, devastating "Abused Goddesses" posters created for their latest campaign. I grew up in a household where all forms of physical violence were considered unacceptable, and the posters reaffirmed what I already believed. I wondered what effect, if any, these posters would have on people who lived in communities were certain forms of domestic violence were considered acceptable.

This is why nothing is done, I realized, because even though hundreds, thousands, probably millions of people, don't think domestic violence is acceptable, it's hard to summon the courage to go out of your way to directly confront someone who is abusive. On top of that, it's hard to convince the victim of violence that they deserve better than that, that they should not tolerate such abuse.

As part of Maslach's work on occupational burnout, she interviewed police officers. According to the officers she interviewed, the most difficult calls to respond to were domestic violence calls. Officers never knew what situations they'd encounter behind closed doors-- would the victim be grateful that they had come? Or would the victim defend their abuser, would the abuser and the abused turn on the cops?

I felt a little pang of guilt when I thought about calling 911 to report my neighbors.

I like to think that I am the kind of person who stands up to injustice, who speaks up when she sees inappropriate conduct, but maybe I am more of a "sheep" than I realize I am. While I might not be one of the John Waynes of the world, I don't know if I'm one of the Christina Maslachs of the world either-- if I'm willing to speak up in a situation where everybody else seems to think things are okay.

In my efforts to learn more about the Stanford Prison Experiment, I ended up learning a little more about myself. And I'm not sure what to do with that insight yet.

End Note: The interview of Christina Maslach, along with an interview of Phil Zimbardo, were commissioned by the Stanford Storytelling Project. These interviews, along with other interviews of notable professors and alumni, will be used to create a geo-tagged history of places on the Stanford campus. A special thank you goes out to Natacha Ruck for working tirelessly to arrange these interviews and many others.

University of Chicago Application Essay, 2007

It's college application season for high school seniors, and whenever that time of year comes around, I start feeling slightly nostalgic for late 2006/early 2007, when with no help and little idea of what to expect, I began writing my own college essays. 

My dream school was University of Chicago. I loved the fact that UChicago boasted an "uncommon" application (back then) and was excited about tackling one of their eclectic writing prompts. I wrote four drafts of the "long essay" and didn't finish the final one until the day the application was due.

Today I was sifting through old files on my computer and came across that long essay. The prompt was a quote that I vaguely remember choosing and writing about, but in the years since 2007, I completely forgot what I actually ended up writing about. Forgot until today, that is.

For the first time ever, I'm making my UChicago long essay available to the public (if you choose to read it, you'll be the first since myself and the UChicago Admission Committee). And if you're curious, yes, I was accepted to UChicago, but somehow Stanford managed to win me over.

"Don't play what's there, play what's not there" - Miles Davis

I just don’t get it. 

I don’t get a lot of things.

I completely overanalyzed Rene Descartes’s “I think therefore I am.” I construed it to be an argument against nihilism, then I just left it alone. But months later, I was still baffled. I studied every single word, tried to find deeper meanings in “am” and “think.” What thoughts does he refer to? Dogs think, too. What about trees?

One day I told a friend of mine the embarrassing secret, that I did not understand what Descartes was trying to say. “You don’t get it?” He said, “it’s so simple. We think, so we are. There’s nothing to it.”

We think, therefore we are. Nobody must think as much as me. And it’s strange, because the more I think, the further from reality I feel. Sometimes I’ll honestly begin to cry; as my thoughts cave in on me I’ll feel utterly alone. What’s the point? What’s the point? I’ll ask myself over and over. But I don’t know what the point is. So maybe, the more I think, the less I am. “I think, therefore I am not.”

Now Miles Davis is advising me to play what’s not there. And I suppose it’s all very simple, go beyond the expectations, be original, right? But I can’t settle with that interpretation, logic (if you dare to call it that) forces me to contradict. Ultimately, the way I see it, what is the difference between playing what’s there and what’s not there? People may tell you it’s important to stand out, but why? So others will notice you. So you can become famous. [So you can get into an amazing college.] These things all appeal to us, but how important are they? How do we evaluate importance? Life is just an endless stream of questions and half of them can’t be answered. Skip the questioning, at the end,  playing what’s there and playing what’s not there are the same thing, in terms of “ultimate significance,” that is.

Then also, there’s the fact that the act of “playing” suggests an interaction with an object, once an interaction begins, what’s not there is forced to be there, or else there is no interaction. I mean, even Miles Davis played a trumpet, which is very much a real thing, which is “there.” He should’ve just said, “play something.” It would’ve been good advice.
But maybe (probably), once again, I’m looking at this the wrong way. Consider this new interpretation of mine, preceded by an orderly jumble of story/experience/thought from, and pertaining to, my childhood.

On particular days of the week I like to flip through a photo album I have. It’s a mess of pages between the cover of a worn flowery binder. In the beginning you have my birth certificate, “It’s a girl” congratulation letters, pictures of me when my skin was still awkwardly reddish brown. As you keep flipping pages, you come across me when I had chubby cheeks, me being held by every cousin, every friend, me when I started recognizing this place we call World. Pass a few more pages and it’s me with my first best friends, me when my sister was born, and then, at the end, my mother is expecting my younger brother.

Whenever I rediscover these pictures I start to remember all the hundreds of things that happened to me when I was little. I remember the house we lived in, a two story apartment on Yeager Road . It was a brick house, next to a playground. I’m going outside with my father, or my sister. It doesn’t occur to me that we live in government housing or that the people who used to live in our house did drugs and abused their children, or that the kids next door show signs of psychological damage because of their father leaving them. It doesn’t register with me that the woman a few doors down is a bad role model for her son, with her tendency to walk around her house in a bright pink bra and her lack of housekeeping. What about the weird groundskeeper-- the one with the mustache and green cap? Now that I think about it, I was entirely unaware then that he hinted to having a messy past of his own. Maybe back then I didn’t have the capacity to judge. I guess I must’ve seen people for what they were, not what I heard they had been.

I’ll admit that I’ve changed. I judge now. I gossip, too. I’m blindly enslaved by pragmatic pessimism. The summary of my childhood shouldn’t be told the way I just related it, because when I remember the feeling I felt, growing up on Yeager Road, I feel infinite peace with my past, like times could’ve never been better. I never thought the groundskeeper was odd growing up, I had so few people to compare him to. He painted doors, trimmed hedges, and came to the annual block party; he was hero of the neighborhood when he set up toy horses, the kind you could ride that were attached to the ground with a huge spring. The pink bra lady, I thought, was a fabulous mother, because she had a vintage Barbie collection. She let me borrow them once, and when I returned them she told me I could keep a few, which I still have today. Her house was a treasure trove and she was a daring pink pirate, who will forever remind me of cheddar cheese (although I‘m not sure why). A child doesn’t understand “psychological damage.” The girls next door and I would pretend we were cooks and make mudpies, or we’d pretend we were runaways and hide in each others’ bedrooms, all the time we’d push each other on the swings and my sister would say, “up to the honey trees” and reach for the sky. I remember one evening, before we went inside for dinner, I hugged Amy, the younger of the two sisters. “Friends forever,” she said. And that’s what we were, friends. That’s what we all were.

I’ve seen a lot and learned a lot since then, but maybe what I’m playing right now is all wrong. Maybe I think, therefore I am, is as simple as it sounds. I existed when I was five-years-old, I don’t see why my status should be any different today. Although I do think I’ve slightly twisted what Miles Davis says, he was only asking for it when he advised people to rise above normal. And right now, my heart remembers a song it always knew, but almost forgot it could play.

End note: Reading this 6 1/2 years later made me cry. When you read old writing of yours, you sometimes think of your young self not as yourself, but as your child. You suspend judgment and just let yourself acknowledge the talent the child possessed back then. 

Why the Reflektor Won Me Over

"Reflektor" - Arcade Fire

The self-appointed connoisseurs of music have either heralded "Reflektor," Arcade Fire's latest single, as AF's poppiest, danciest piece yet, or have gingerly laid its vinyl body on the turntable, and in between lyrics, have pronounced it "good" and not worth disregarding, but still a darker twin (a reflektion, if you will) of Funeral, Neon Bible, and the ever-popular, Grammy-winning, Suburbs.

After my first listen, after my second, I was about ready to take the track off my imaginary turntable and shelve it besides Arcade Fire's 2003 EP, something I keep around because I love Arcade Fire so much, not because I actually listen to "My Heart is an Apple" all that often. Then, I gave "Reflektor" a third listen, and something began to stand out to me. So I played it a fourth time, a fifth, a sixth, and then I knew I had to write about it.

So here I am, on September 9, writing about a song that made its worldwide debut today. Writing about it right now, because I think you should know it isn't just the poppy, dance-y, shiny piece some would have you believe.

It's genius.

Not in the same way Funeral or The Suburbs were genius-- although it will make sense that the creators of those albums would have the intellectual capacity to come up with something so metaphorically beautiful and raw as Reflektor.

Now, before I tell you why I've changed my mind about Reflektor, I want you to watch the music video I've posted above and give a good listen to the lyrics as you do so.

"We fell in love, alone on a stage" is maybe a bit of a red herring-- how many times have we heard that? The thing is, this song isn't about falling in love "when I was nineteen," although that's another line early on. As the song builds, it's apparent that this love, no matter how seemingly cliche, is something real.

The talk about heaven, interspersed between anecdotes of young love early on in the song, becomes more and more eager, turns into a plea: "If this is heaven, I don't know what it's for. If I can't find you there, I don't care."

The search for "The Connector," which only yields a dim "Reflektor" becomes more than a catchy adage. To me, this is symbolic of the search for God, for a higher power that can infuse meaning and connection into our otherwise fleeting existences on Earth. The agnostic, even the devout believers, may sympathize with Win Butler, when he asks, "Will I see you on the other side? We've all got things to hide."

As one of the believers myself, I know that I have plenty to hide. If faith wasn't so powerful a thing, the sea of doubt would have washed the last lights of my faith away long ago. Sometimes I hide the fact that no matter how deep I search scriptures and immerse myself in the realm of prayer, I feel myself running into Reflektors, only guessing at whether or not there is a Connector.

Now that I am married to a man I love very much, I too wonder if I will see him on the other side. Will this lifetime be the only one we spend together? I desperately hope it isn't.

You see, before I fell in love with Jared, I didn't know you could love another person so deeply. I want to believe that the way I feel for Jared is a sign that we'll be together always, even after we die. I can't imagine living my life without him, and I certainly wouldn't want to live in any afterlife without him. Nor would I want our lives to end without the promise of a new chapter, rendering our love some earthly illusion, reflektion.

"I thought I found a way to enter, but it's just a Reflektor. I thought I found the Connector, but it's just a Reflektor." "Thought you were praying to the Resurrector, turns out it was just a Reflektor."

If we found a Connector, would we be able to tell it apart from a Reflektor?

Aspen Grove

For my best friends, Jared and Lauren

If kneeling to touch the graves of my friends,

the moss has not yet moved between the incisions

left in the ground, I will know there are children

who continue to bring the sad mysteries of their hearts

to this place above these tombstones;

children who speak their questions in voices so soft,

only the dandelions can hear them now

If in deep August, clouds of grey

move through the valley, leaving gossamer trails

of grief on my ankles, I will not stop to gather

the hens from beneath the eaves;

I will not forget to walk this stony garden

collecting the leaves that settle

with the weight of continuity

If the visitor who knelt here before me

has left seven mandarin oranges,

I will bite away wax and skin

and leave the sweet fruit for the sparrow

who, perched like the psalmist,

folds the beauty of this place

into a song only God can understand

An aspen grove, from above,

appears to be many yellow trees

but when the heat of the Colorado plateau

places fires between the fingers

of the Trembling Giant,

I will remember that an aspen grove

is truly one tree

that for eighty thousand years

has refused to let go

If in a blizzard I come to your graves

wearing only the thin dress I don in my sleep,

lead me back to the aspens

where one day a girl will find

the small emblem of my spine

sprouting from the sky above the mountains,

touching the embers of these trees

I could not wait to burn after the spring.

Trujillo

Pink centimeters of corn

the kinds that are too tough

you chose them in the market

Parakeet hanging up beside the linen

laundry line, low hanging electricity

My feet often burn when I sleep

Corn, feed the grey pieces to the parakeet

Pull a linen drape across her cage

Is it a pity that she does not speak?

The market: it is a cool day

for you to walk cane-less

one heel thicker than the other

You ask me to steady you

as we climb the ruin

you excavated as a child

before they brought electricity

washing machines

Take two rocks between your fingers

bend with your strong knee

to touch my burning feet

Kernels of corn -- I know you

Pull back the drapes

parakeet, one heel thick

Atlantic Letter, Third Draft

From this knee-deep tide, between the sand

and the tongue of the Atlantic sea,

the white of sails is reflected in the waves.

The fathers of our fathers stand

beneath the cosmic map, a western wind.

The leaves here are new,

though for many millennia they have grown

in the Old World; seeds caught between the heels

of knights crossing the desert of what is now

pronounced Lebanon.

Love is a strange thing.

When in the morning I drove to these low tides

I wanted to believe that I had forgotten

the hollowness in the center of your back.

We cannot choose the parts of the body we will forget.

The moon wants to forget that in one thousand years

she will break, scatter through the darkness

touching the arms and legs of her earth.

Dream Mappers

For your reading pleasure, a writing exercise. This morning I had a horrible case of writer's block. After what seemed like hours of nothingness, I did what I am sure my mother would have recommended I do-- I applied some essential oils to my wrists and the back of my neck. Then I laid in bed for approximately 45 minutes and just tried to clear my mind. Just before I got up, I was thinking the mantra, "as a writer, it is my job to build a bridge between the logic of the world and the logic of dreams." Where did that line come from? I do not know, but it was very helpful in getting this writing exercise done.

“When I’m dreaming, certain things make a kind of logical sense—but as soon as I wake up, the whole dream-structure of logic just collapses, it falls apart.”

“Yes, yes, that is very common.”

“A long time ago, I decided to give up trying to ‘understand’ my dreams. The whole business is just too frustrating for a rational thinker like me.”

“Many of our clients describe themselves as rational thinkers, Mr. Walker. Seeking to understand a dream is a rational pursuit; rational people seek to understand each aspect of their lives. And here at Dream Mappers we help our clients build a bridge between the worlds of sleep and wakefulness.”

Miss Sonari (at least, that was how she had identified herself over the phone) spoke in a quiet voice that at once calmed and unsettled Donovan Walker. Donovan imagined her sitting cross-legged in a dark, candle-lit room in the Midwest, perhaps surrounded by tarot cards and small trays of incense. He knew that in reality, she was probably sitting at a desk, reading from a Dream Mappers call center script while assessing how much she could charge him for an initial consultation.

The phrase, rational people seek to understand each aspect of their lives—the phrase was so good, it must have been canned. Yet, Donovan could not help turning it over in his mind—when he dismissed dreams as not worth understanding, had he dismissed along with that an entire sphere of undiscovered logic?

“In wakefulness,” Miss Sonari continued, “we are instructed on how to behave, speak, think. Are you an educated man, Mr. Walker?”

“Yes, I hold a master’s degree in engineering,” Donovan paused, and then continued, “I read often, books, newspapers, blogs. I have traveled to many places in the world. I do consider myself to be educated in the many ways one might come to be educated.”

“When you travel, do you travel alone?”

An odd question, Donovan thought. He could not anticipate where Miss Sonari was going with her questions, so, intrigued, he answered, “When I was in college, I used to travel with my friends—sometimes there were five or ten of us. But lately, I have preferred to travel alone. And I prefer to travel to places off the beaten track—the towns that are not accessible by railroad, the ruins that have not yet been restored. Why do you ask?”

“When Columbus discovered the Americas, he was with a crew of men. It was also known that thousands of native people already occupied the Americas, meaning, Columbus did not so much ‘discover’ the Americas, as he was among one of the first Europeans to disembark on her shores. Still, we love to imagine that one man single-handedly discovered two continents over eighty times the size of Spain.”

As Miss Sonari talked about Columbus, the strange aura that had cloaked her voice lifted. Donovan wondered if she worked at Dream Mappers part-time and studied history at the local state college part-time. He wanted to ask her, but she still had not made her point, so he tabled the question and waited for her to continue.

“We revere the lone hero. We have been trained to revere the lone hero. So it makes sense that you have developed a taste for traveling alone and for exploring the supposedly unexplored. Society has made you this way—has made us this way.”

“So, what you’re trying to tell me, Miss Sonari, is that my sensibilities, beliefs, values are nothing more than societal constructs?” Donovan had read his Nietzsche, his Foucault, his philosopher-of-doom just like the next college-aged disciple of truth, and he was getting impatient with Miss Sonari. Now he was sure that she was nothing more than a college student piecing together lines from a script with tidbits she had picked up from her professors. “Look, this isn’t anything I haven’t heard before. I was mistaken when I called Dream Mappers, and I am sorry for wasting your time.”

Donovan was about to hang up the phone, but being a generally polite man, he waited for Miss Sonari to say goodbye. Instead, what followed was a thirty-second period of silence, and then, “are you still on the line, Mr. Walker?”

“Yes,” Donovan responded reluctantly. He suddenly felt foolish for waiting for her to say goodbye. She was not a relative or business associate, not even an acquaintance; she was more like an automated operator than a human at this point, and he probably should have just ended the call.

“You are a rational man, Mr. Walker, but you have been recently troubled by a recurring dream. It is a dream so disturbing to you that after dismissing the logic of dreams for so many years, you have decided to call us here at Dream Mappers today, at 5:30 in the morning, for help deciphering your dream.”

Miss Sonari’s voice again became calm and quiet. The way she spoke, it wasn’t something you found in a call center script. “Please forgive me if I came off as pretentious earlier, Mr. Walker. What I wanted to tell you was that society trains us to interpret symbols in one way, but dreams, dreams are private, and teach us all our own individual brand of logic.”

Donovan lit up the screen of his digital alarm clock. It was now 5:53 AM, approximately thirty minutes until sunrise. “I have been having a recurring dream,” he said. Scenes from the dream began to flash in his mind, and he recalled how he suddenly woke up at 4:33 in the morning, on the ground beside his bed, with one arm fully extended under the bed, as if trying to grab hold of something just out of reach.

Miss Sonari was silent, and something about her silence struck Donovan as genuine. “Let me tell you about it.”

A bird flies over the Grand Canyon, a national park as dream inspiring as any. 

2013 Update

I've gotten the question "do you have a blog?" quite a few times in the last couple of months. The answer is, of course, yes I do have a blog. This is my blog. And it is woefully out of date.

I say woeful not just because it's been three months since my last entry, but also because a lot has changed in those last few months. Here is a quick list of what's up with the Victoria of 2013:

-- She has finally gotten really into creative writing again. Studying fiction, poetry, and doing a lot of non-fiction work this quarter. Writing is really the best.

-- She almost went vegetarian, but failed after her first grocery trip. Maybe in 2014?

-- She moved to a new house in East Palo Alto (and has amazing roommates, which makes it the best).

Here are a few things that have not changed:

-- She still procrastinates more than she should (exhibit A: writing this when she should be reading for class).

-- Her hair is still the same length. Had it trimmed over winter break and it has already grown back.

-- Same music tastes. Arcade Fire will forever be my teenage/twentyage favorite.

-- Same wardrobe. Donations always welcome.

-- Favorite book is still A River Sutra. Let me know if you'd like to borrow a copy, but be forewarned that you may not like it.

Happy New Year to all. Expect more photos, stories, and poems later. 

Here's a favorite from the Hawaii Museum of Art. Left hands are mischievous. Even decay thinks so.