March 8, 2023, I was released from a psychiatric facility with two diagnoses: schizophrenia and bipolar I. A year later, I’m doing better than ever. I’ve got a nice job as a multimedia journalist, I’m close to graduating, and I have a great group of people who care about me. Getting here wasn’t easy – I had to reconstruct myself as a person. It took a lot of support, therapy, and medication, but I did it.
I went back to the fundamentals of me. I left Humboldt and moved back into my childhood bedroom in Redwood Valley. The pink walls with pastel butterflies and flowers, my rock collection, and my numerous stuffed animals helped gently bring me back to where I needed to be.
The first few weeks of being back in the world were scary. I wasn’t in psychosis anymore, but the paranoia and hallucinations of onset schizophrenia were still present. I had been started on medication for it a few days before I was released, but it still took some time and help to be manageable. I’ve been in therapy since the day I got out of the facility, which has helped tremendously. Of course, I chopped off my hair. Some people believe that hair holds on to memories, so I got a bob. I loved it for a while, but I eventually mourned my long hair.
Per my routine-abiding father’s suggestions, I started by waking up early, making my bed, walking the dogs, and making breakfast. I took it one day at a time and eventually, I was thriving. I had to drop advanced photojournalism, and I couldn’t use the school’s camera anymore, but I love taking photos, so I bought my own.
Photography is another form of therapy for me. It’s relaxing and lets me express my creativity. I got a job doing photography and blog writing at a mini golf course in Ukiah. I continued with a few of my classes from home, doing online work when I wasn’t taking pictures. I finished out the semester and by the summer, I felt that my medications had leveled out enough to feel “normal.” I didn’t feel like I was moving through jello anymore.
Halfway through the summer, I decided that I wanted to go back to Humboldt, despite my parents’ protest. I found out my friend had a vacant room, so I moved back to Arcata and went back to school in person. I was a bit nervous, but I was confident that I would be fine. I worked on The Lumberjack and continued to take photos. I started doing sports photography and made some money doing it. I even did my first wedding photography gig. In January, I got my job at Redwood News. I’m just getting started in my career, but I’m optimistic for the future.
After being released from the psychiatric facility, I had no idea where I’d be in a year. I was hopeful that I’d be somewhat successful, but I didn’t expect to be working as a professional journalist. If I had to do my year of healing all over again, I’d do it the same, because I’m very happy with how I turned out.
Every good game has music. Usually a game’s music plays in the background and has no actual effect on the gameplay. This week’s game uses music differently, it’s not just in the background of your gameplay, but part of the mechanics of the game itself. Justin Crittenden, a software engineering major, recommended “HI-FI Rush” to me, a rhythm-based action game released in 2023. Before I played this game, I was under the false impression that it would be like other rhythm games, but “HI-FI Rush” isn’t like anything I have experienced before.
This game has a really simple story, but it was well executed and had my complete attention throughout the playthrough. It did a fantastic job taking a simple plot and making it feel entertaining and fresh. One aspect of the game that I enjoyed was the art style. The characters are cel-shaded, giving the game a comic book like appearance and the main bosses of the game each had beautifully detailed freeze frames that contributed to this design. Another aspect I enjoyed were the characters; each character had clear motives and reasoning behind their actions which is extremely important. The characters were also very entertaining, the main cast had fantastic chemistry with each other and it was fun to see them interact and grow together.
The main aspect of the game that makes it memorable is the gameplay – the combat is amazing. There is a constant beat playing throughout the game and combos performed exactly on this beat increase the effectiveness of your attacks, which is also used to parry enemy attacks. The beat is useful in ways outside of combat too. It is used to move faster and assists in traversing through the levels. The style of gameplay temporarily switches a few times in specific portions, it even becomes like “Guitar Hero” in a few battles with buttons needing to be pressed exactly on time to the song playing in the background.
Like always, there are a couple negatives that I would like to address. The first is the design of the levels. Most of them have a similar feel, following the same general outline. This is okay though, the main focus is the combat, which is fun enough for the repetitive nature to not really matter. The other issue is how difficult the timing can be. In the later stages of the game, there are just way too many enemies attacking you all at once to be able to focus on hitting your opponents with rhythm. Instead, it turned into me just dashing around chaotically, randomly swinging at everything close to me. If this is a problem, you can just turn the difficulty down and it’ll make staying on rhythm more manageable.
“HI-FI Rush” took me a grand total of nine hours and one minute to complete. It is evident through playing the game that the developers had a blast making it, and it feels like a passion project. I rate this game a 4 out of 5, and if you like fast paced, hack-and-slash gameplay, then I strongly recommend this game to you. “HI-FI Rush” is definitely worth the purchase.
If you have any games you would like me to review you can email marsgaminggarage@gmail.com.
326 million years ago, Arkansas was underwater and teeming with an unusual, gill-covered shark, a shark that is now called Cosmoselachus mehlingi after a years-long project led by Dr. Allison Bronson, a Cal Poly Humboldt professor. The unique conditions in the Fayetteville Shale preserved the precious cartilage that was critical in digitally reconstructing an accurate image of the ancient shark, which was named to honor Carl Mehling, a senior museum specialist for the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). The shark’s ancient origins and recent identification have been made possible by CT scans, digital reconstruction, and years of careful work carried out by Bronson alongside Alan Pradel, John Denton, and John Maisey. The findings were recently published by the journal Geodiversitas.
Cosmoselachus mehlingi is distinctly important, according to Bronson, due to the fact that its ancestors survived a catastrophic mass extinction that killed 95% of the fish population in the Devonian period.
“In the wake of these extinctions, we often have what we call an adaptive radiation where the groups that make it through can then diversify into all these niches that were left open,” Bronson said.
The acidic and anoxic environment of Arkansas’ Fayetteville Shale preserved the shark’s delicate cartilage for millions of years until the 1970’s, when Royal and Gene Mapes, the husband and wife duo, discovered the fossil. The Mapes would eventually donate the specimen to the AMNH.
“Cartilage is really rare in the fossil record, because it’s soft and squishy, and usually microbes break it down before it can fossilize,” Bronson said.
The rare preservation of the shark’s cartilage allowed Bronson and her collaborators to use CT scanning to digitally reconstruct the ancient shark’s biological structure and identify one of its most unique attributes, gill covers.
“It’s made of little rays of cartilage that grow off of its gill arches,” Bronson said. “In our shark, unlike anything that’s been described in any cartilaginous fish, they’re all fused together.”
The gill covers may have functioned to help close the gill openings, according to Bronson. Though gill covers are found today in ratfish, Bronson and her colleagues’ statistical testing showed that it is unlikely that ratfish are descendents of the group of fishes that includes Cosmoselachus mehlingi. Additionally, the digital reconstruction revealed that the ancient shark had widely spaced teeth with tooth-like scales in between.
Bronson and her colleagues’ work to identify Cosmoselachus mehlingi gives scientists a valuable glimpse into our ancient world and another datapoint that aids in our understanding of evolution over time.
“Once you have an understanding of the long branching pattern of evolution, you can reconstruct the way that traits evolved over time with a group like cartilaginous fishes that’s been successful for more than 400 million years, and made it through multiple mass extinction events to now be the dominant predators of the ocean,” Bronson said. “A lot of evolution is just like, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Cal Poly Humboldt fisheries professor is working with local tribes to create better fishing stewardship practices.
By Gabriel Zucker
Jose Marin Jarrin is a new assistant professor in the department of fisheries biology at Cal Poly Humboldt. He is leading a new form of fishery science in Northern California, using empathy and understanding when talking with impoverished communities. He is originally from South America and he never forgets where he came from.
“Being Latinx, I’m also from a historically excluded community,” Marin Jarrin said. “So I saw a lot of similarities.”
Marin Jarrin was recently awarded a little over $1.1 million from the California Climate Action Seed Grant to research climate change resilience by looking at tribal fishery practices. His goal is to reinvigorate Northern California fishery research, while also building a center that will last for years.
He is working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and multiple local tribes, such as The Blue Lake Rancheria, Resighini Rancheria, Tolowa Dee-Ni’ Nation, and other smaller indigenous communities. Each native group was able to pick a fish that has historical and cultural value to their tribe. The fish that are being mainly researched are green sturgeon and smelt. Five grad students are working with Marin Jarrin, acting as liaisons for the different Rancherias. On top of doing research all over Northern California, the tribes and researchers have a monthly meeting where they go over the progress and find where they can improve.
Creating a trusting relationship with the Indigenous communities is important. To solidify this relationship, Marin Jarrin signed a data sharing agreement with all of the tribes, giving them final say on what information is published. Historically this has not been the case, and some even admitted they had never been asked to do this before.
“The researchers would go in, ask the tribes to participate, and then the tribes don’t get a say on how the data is used,” Marin Jarrin said. “And so, one of the things we wanted to ensure is that the tribes had complete ownership of that data. For the most part, they’re not too concerned about fishery species, they’re more interested in preserving their cultural data and history. What they don’t want is for people to just take information from them and disseminate in ways that are sometimes not correct or hurtful to the tribe.”
Laurie Richmond is an environmental science and management professor at Cal Poly Humboldt. She has worked with the tribes for years, working a quarter time for California Sea Grant as an extension specialist. Where she connects local communities with coastal science knowledge. Her role for the study is in a partner advisory role, where she offers advice and direction when grad students need a new perspective. She has been working with Marin Jarrin since the beginning of the grant and is elated at the way he is going about his research.
“I think it’s a really new way to be a scientist that I think [Marin Jarrin] is pursuing,” Richmond said. “It’s really exciting and it requires a lot of skills that scientists don’t always have, like building partnerships and facilitating and thinking about ethics. He’s done a great job of trying to learn those things, and he has some of those because of his unique background that he brings as a scientist.”
To record the biodiversity of the fish in different areas, grad students are using environmental DNA metabarcoding techniques, giving them data about all of the animals that have come into that area.
“If a fish swims by, it’ll leave its DNA in the water column,” Marin Jarrin said. “If you were to collect a sample and filter out the DNA from that, you can identify what species of fish was there. The idea is that if you then go around taking samples throughout the whole coast, you can identify all the fish – actually, not just fish. From bacteria all the way to mammals.”
Before conducting this research, they had to work with the California Fish and Wildlife department. The advisor on the grant is Kenneth Oda, a former Humboldt State University student, who is with the Marine Region and works on the State Managed Finfish Research and Management Project. Oda gives advice and helps review the proposals before they are submitted.
“I was just asked to be an advisor… we approve protocols, if they’re gonna be taking fish, we need to have that spelled out, and the methodologies as well,” Oda said. “We review their permit application and then approve it. I also help them with protocols regarding surf perch and red tail.”
Olivia Boeberitz, one of the graduate students on the team, just moved to Humboldt. She chose Humboldt partly because of this research project, and the opportunity to work closely with Indigenous tribes. She has been studying fisheries since 2020, focusing on fish that inhabit both freshwater and green water. This made the transition from inland to coastal easier.
“I’m working specifically with Blue Lake Rancheria on green sturgeon… I’m designing a project to get some baseline information on how green sturgeon are using Humboldt Bay,” she said. “There hasn’t been much of any research, at all, of green sturgeons in this area.”
Boeberitz is in the methods phase of her research project. She is running through a couple ideas for data collection. She wants to use acoustic receivers, alerting if any previously tagged fish are using these areas. She is also planning to use satellite tags on fish off the coast. None of the actual research will be conducted until the summer.
Right now, she is most excited about working and meeting with the tribes. She has worked with tribes before, but never one on one.
“I see and talk to them very frequently,” Boeberitz said. “As soon as I produce any drafts for my proposal, as soon as I come up with a schedule, they’re going to be incorporated every step of the way. Their feedback is both incredible and extremely valuable. I’m working on this project for them, they’re the center of this project. They’re guiding me – giving the guidance they need to start putting together what our goals are.”
Marin Jarrin is changing how people view the scientific process. He is finding paths of communication that are not usually seen in western science. He is not just doing research, he is creating positive social change.
“I want to help communities that have been historically excluded, to be better – better informed and the different techniques and methods they could be using to manage their fisheries,” Marin Jarrin said. “We want to empower people right. Our community to tribal communities, but to the community at large in the far north of California, so that they feel they are more capable of being stewards of their resources. But also, the students that we bring, we want to prepare the best students we can because they can go out… and bring this idea of diversity, equity, and inclusion to the next job that they take.”
Last Sunday, in the middle of a warehouse bustling with families and dog lovers alike, I stepped into the compact demo area, waving nervously to the packed bleachers on either side. The president of Humboldt Disc Dogs introduced me and my dog-child athlete, Oscar Meyer, as newer members of the club with a lot of promise.
While Oscar leaped into the air trying to grab the frisbee from my hands, I lead him to the center of the demo area and gave a thumbs up to the president. The familiar start cue before every disc dog game echoed through the warehouse.
“Ready, set, go!”
I had the honor of participating and volunteering at the annual Dog Expo hosted by the Humboldt Dog Obedience Group. After a grueling five-hour set up the day before, I was ready for Oscar to show his skills – and to buy dog supplies that I didn’t need.
Even though the expo was hosted in one building this year, it was still packed with visitors. Thirty dog breeds were present for visitors to meet and learn about, ranging from the Golden Retriever to the Lancashire Heeler. There were also demos for dog sports like disc sports, rally, carting, and agility.
Only a few Humboldt Disc Dogs members were interested in participating in the demo, and I wasn’t surprised. We normally have our games on an expansive, lush green field in Fortuna, and we were now having to show off our sport in a 30-foot long rectangle with rubber mats for traction. I was determined to make it work.
I thankfully had the foresight to practice on set-up day and realized that my plastic discs would either a) hit a spectator, or b) go skidding out of the demo area and Oscar would follow suit.
Equipped with a new rubber disc that would not injure anyone or send Oscar flying over the fence, I demonstrated the games 4-Way Play and Throw n’ Go along with a few other teams. As Humboldt Disc Dogs is a newer club, I felt its reputation weighing on my shoulders. I felt obligated to prove that my dog had the skill and focus to catch frisbees while surrounded by cheering spectators and barking dogs.
Brimming with energy, Oscar caught the first frisbee throw with ease, drawing cheers from the crowd. I yelled, “Good boy, Oscar!” as he ran back to me, frisbee in mouth. Before I could tell him to drop the frisbee, he started to violently spin and thrash it around. He had too many ants in his pants. The more I chased after him, the faster he spun away from me. Once I grabbed the frisbee, we engaged in a brief game of tug-of-war as the audience roared with laughter.
Besides the spinning shenanigans, Oscar did fantastically and I did not hit anyone. I left the demo area with a relieved smile and gave Oscar lots of love and treats for a job well done. After the fact, the president told me Oscar was a crowd favorite.
I spent the rest of the conference sprinting around trying to recruit booths for the upcoming All Breeds Show in July and observing the demos. Keeping myself busy helped me resist the urge to spend hundreds of dollars on dog-themed hoodies, leather collars, leashes, homemade dog treats, dog art, ceramic dog bowls, and wooden dog coasters.
As someone who is just starting out in dog sports, I was glad to have the opportunity to see demonstrations of the sports I haven’t tried yet, especially agility. I have been told by several members of the dog sport community that agility is a rich man’s sport. Coming in at a whopping $22 per entry and hundreds of dollars for classes, it would not be an ideal sport for a college student. However, watching a poodle go flying over hurdles and diving through weave poles is really convincing. I might have to consider it despite the state of my checking account.
One of my favorite parts of the expo was getting to meet dog breeds I otherwise wouldn’t see out and about in Humboldt. I got to meet a lovely 8-year old Drentsche Patrijshond named Mr. Tickles. The more I pet him, the more he drooled, and he’d paw at my hand if I dared to stop. The Irish Wolfhound, whose back reached just below my chest, stared at me blankly while I ran my fingers through his wiry coat. Vinnie the Lagotto Romagnolo’s entire body wiggled with excitement before I even approached him. One of the Greyhounds, Maxwell, wanted nothing to do with me and refused to sit still for a photo. Maxwell was my favorite.
While I enjoyed the expo as a dog nerd, this event is especially important to the casual dog-lovers and families visiting. The Dog Expo exists to educate the public on responsible pet ownership, how to take care of different dog breeds, and all the amazing skills dogs are capable of. Maybe next year I’ll suggest a rescue dog booth for Oscar and I.
In the death of Saint Patrick came a holiday of green beer, dancing, Irish pride, and this year, an excuse to get day drunk on a Sunday. However, I had one goal on my mind this St. Patrick’s Day: to try every corned beef dish I could get my hands on before my 6 p.m. shift. It started organically as my roommate and I were anticipating the Irish dancers at the Logger bar, but our agenda spontaneously unfolded into trying all the salt-cured meaty goodness our college student budgets didn’t have the room for on Paddy’s Day, but all in good fun.
I bring you almost all of the corned beef dishes I tried in Humboldt County to quench your FOMO. Not all are mentioned, but here’s an idea so you can start marking your calendars for next year. I’ll be ranking the dishes on taste, restaurant festivity, and price.
The first plate of corned beef I had that fateful Sunday was around noon at Six Rivers Brewery in Mckinleyville. The plate was $20 for two slabs of corned beef, two boiled potatoes, one chunky boiled carrot, cabbage, a hunk of soda bread, and a little dish of stock. This plate was probably the biggest and most authentic corned beef dish I bought that day. $20 seemed pricey at first. I almost opted for their corned beef Reuben, but that would’ve been cheating.
The corned beef itself was tough and chewy, but still able to get through with teeth and/or a steak knife. I think it lacked that mouth-puckering saltiness I usually attribute to the meat. Having the stock separate from the veggies and beef in a dipping dish was an interesting choice, but aided in adding that saltiness to the beef. It still just wasn’t salty enough for me and I wish the meat and veggies were sitting in the broth. There was a little chili kick when I indulged in my first bite, but every bite followed was very beef broth-y, which could easily be zested up with a squirt of yellow mustard. No horseradish was a bummer, but I also didn’t ask if they had any.
The veggies were perfectly tender and as simple as you can get flavor-wise, but the beef broth gave them that extra butter flavor that a plain old boiled veggie wouldn’t have. The ambience in the restaurant was fantastic and very loud. There were rainbow balloon arches, live music, and an anniversary banner with crossed out numbers in sharpie to signify the brewery’s 20th anniversary celebration alongside the St Patrick’s day festivities.
There were lots of cute families and strangers to chit chat with, including our table neighbor who questioned, “Where was I gonna put all that?” when I explained my corned beef agenda for the day. I told him he was underestimating me. Overall I give this plate a 6/10. I wish the beef was more tender and served in the stock, but the energy in the brewery and kind service really made the dish special for me. Also, a women-owned brewery, hell yea!
The next pit stop on my journey to the center of corned beef was South G kitchen, a food truck located in the Redwood Curtain Brewing Company in Arcata. They had been slinging their corned beef special for about a week before the holiday out of their tight-quarters food truck which is super impressive. Their dish was $17 and included corned beef, collard greens instead of cabbage, and crispy potatoes. It was a smaller portion than Six Rivers Brewery, but this dish was smokey and delectably dense. Their corned beef was melt-in-your-mouth tender with a crispy skin. You could have enjoyed it with a spoon if you wanted to. They also topped it off with some stone-ground mustard which I thoroughly enjoyed.
The greens were super tender and umami from the rich bowl of brown broth they were bathing in. There were pieces of thick cut bacon in the greens, which really brought me back to eating my highschool best friend’s grandma’s greens out of tinfoil serving dishes on Thanksgiving. The portions of this dish were definitely for a single serving, but they provided the perfect balance of salty, crunchy decadence that left you satiated. The collard greens absorbed most of the broth, making them saltier than the beef, but complemented the dish well. The outdoor seating at the brewery was a lot less festive and didn’t really encapsulate the holiday, but was still a chill environment. This corned beef plate was definitely not traditional, but the culinary spin on it really wowed me. It was cheaper than Six Rivers but a smaller portion with a creative take. I’d rate this dish a 9/10. My roommate and I were able to house it down after a previous plate of corned beef, so it was pretty damn good.
After a quick outfit change and brief state of comatose in the sun, I arrived at the Logger Bar in Blue Lake. They were having an all day St. Patrick’s Day bash, but weren’t serving corned beef until 5 p.m. so it was my second time there that day. The first time involved a lovely conversation with Tina Catalina, a Blue Lake resident who gave me a copy of her song on green paper and informed me that the entire meal was cooked by the Mad River Old Crows, which is the men’s service and drinking organization according to the Mad River Union.
The line for food was wrapped around the bar when we arrived. It was served buffet style with chafing pans and portable burners. This felt like a family reunion which made the experience that much sweeter. There was a jar at the start of the serving table that had a sliding scale of $5-$10 for donations, but they weren’t necessary to get a plate. I ended up donating $10 for a plate of corned beef, a few pieces of olive raisin soda bread, potatoes, cabbage, and a chocolate cupcake with green frosting. They actually had horseradish, unlike other locations, which I indulged a little too much of with teary eyes. There wasn’t much space to eat inside as the talented Irish Dance Academy students doing Irish dances in their tartan skirts took the floor during serving, but it was enjoyed outside in the sun.
The corned beef packed that salty flavor I was looking for and wasn’t sitting in any broth, though it was dripping juices after each bite. The potatoes weren’t too special, but I will always appreciate a boiled carbohydrate. The cabbage really was the prize winner for me. It was extremely moist and flavorful. There was even a whole onion in the scoop we got. You could see all the spices they used within the cabbage as well, which gave it a much more meaty and spicy flavor than just the broth as marinade compared to other places. Overall I rate this dish an 8/10. A home cooked meal makes all the difference, no matter the taste (this one was delish), and the community was so heartwarming and supportive at that little bar. Who wouldn’t love that Old Crow corned beef?
The fateful and final stop of this voyage was Murphy’s hot bar in Blue Lake. I was on my way to The Pub in Arcata, but had to stop by after getting wind of their corned beef. It was 5 p.m. at this point and an hour before I had to be at work. The potatoes were combined with the shredded corned beef in one charing pan and the cabbage was dry and crispy in another pan to the left. At this point of the day, I was scraping the bottom of the pans to get something of a portion. After checkout, my plate came out to about $4 – may I add it was majority cabbage. The corned beef was extremely fatty, but also fried to a crisp under the heat lamp,which created an interesting texture. The cabbage was basically raw with a slightly buttery flavor if you got into the inner layer. The bigger pieces of corned beef weren’t too bad if gnawed around the fat. The beef was pretty bland, but had the essence of peppered beef jerky taste at the end so I can’t complain too much. The potatoes carried the dish, but again I don’t believe a person can mess up vegetables that bad. The employees at all Murphy’s locations are always wonderful and I can’t bash on a late stop to the hot bar too much. It was my fault. I rate this dish a 4/10 all together.
This Sunday service of corned beef was something I was grateful to take part in. In less than six hours, I was able to cover four stops of beefy, salty, and starchy goodness. The Pub was unfortunately sold out and my lovely friends who offered to bring it in for me during my work shift tried to get their redemption by calling Gallagher’s Irish Pub in Eureka for any corned beef briefs. They were left with the dial tone.
At this point, I was barely moving and had a dry mouth from my salt intake, so I decided to call it a day. I had found peace, love, and happiness while exploring some, but not all, of the corned beef dishes of Humboldt county. Next year, I’ll make sure to start my excursion at 9 a.m. so I can really savor all the salt beef I want.
There’s a group of about 20 students parked outside of the Reese Bullen Gallery screaming their best chants at the university administrators and jet-setting donors who are supposedly inside. None of the protestors have seen them in the hours they’ve been there, and the windows are covered in cardboard anyway.
At the top of 12 stone stairs facing the buildings opposite stand a few people with a megaphone speaking to those down below — and across the quad, and across the street, too. Their megaphone is crackly, but effective.
“All he cares about is getting more students and then fucking them over by making us pay more tuition and more in housing!” Mary Mangubat said, clad in a blue surgical mask and an undone black zip-up hoodie. The protestors nod, as does student Richard Toledo, who is holding the megaphone for her.
Mangubat and Toledo are constant presences at protests in and around campus. They’ve supported everything from Palestinians in Gaza to professors striking this semester. Mangubat even got a protest in her honor when the megaphone usage and other violations of the university’s Time, Place, and Manner restrictions on free speech at the Reese Bullen Gallery on Jan. 23 got her and Toledo yanked into a meeting with Dean of Students Mitch Mitchell and handed a “deferred probation”— in other words, a slap on the wrist. The next time one of them breaks the rules, they may face measures such as expulsion. As it was, they had to write a reflection essay on how to be a better organizer.
Signs from the student protest on Feb 8 prompted by Toledo and Mangubat’s deffered probation following a violation of the university’s Time, Place, and Manner restrictions. Photo by Griffin Mancuso.
Though many of the things people see Mangubat and Toledo do are similar, such as leading protests and showing up to meetings, how they approach those actions contrast heavily.
Mangubat, 20, started protesting when she was attending high school in San Francisco’s SoMa district, where she said there were issues with things like outdoors accessibility. Mangubat, a Filipina, said she had an early awareness of concepts like intersectionality when she noticed the other students working to raise awareness of those issues were richer and went to private schools.
She occupies many roles on campus. She’s the environmental educator at the Women’s Resource Center. She interns for the Student for Quality Education chapter at Cal Poly Humboldt. She works for the Environmental Science and Management department on their Justice Equity Diversity Inclusion committee. All of these titles add up, but at the end of it, Mangubat sees herself as a coordinator, setting people up with resources they need.
Toledo, 32, defines his role on campus similarly. However, the route he took to get to Humboldt was vastly different than Mangubat’s.
He developed an early sense of the unfairness in the world after watching his mom struggle to afford to house them while he was growing up. When Toledo was 18, he tore his ACL skateboarding a few days after his insurance provider dropped him and got thousands of dollars worth of debt when he couldn’t afford to pay it all. He hopes others can avoid that fate.
“I find purpose in anything that I can tell is making a difference of some kind,” Toledo said. “That’s why I want to work in restoration science as well. I think that being on the ground and watching those seeds literally grow – not even just metaphorically, but watching the seeds that I’ve planted grow, the things that I’ve done, develop. That makes me happy. Seeing an actual difference from my actions is something I really enjoy.”
Now in his third semester at Humboldt, Toledo is in his second go-round through a university. He got a multimedia production degree from CSU Northridge in 2020, but after a few years of working as a web developer, he decided to quit and get a degree in environmental studies.
“It turned out that I was pretty good at coding and there was a lot of money in it,” Toledo said. “So, I just kind of fell into it, and I ended up despising it. Something about just how tedious the work was, and seeing the news everyday, and watching what was happening outside of my bubble at work, and wanting to do something about it as well and not just be sitting behind the computer. After a certain point, you see enough climate headlines that the pay doesn’t really matter anymore, and you just want to do something good.”
Toledo, a self-described “de-colonial Marxist,” is deeply into studying leftist theory, and idolizes people such as Marxist revolutionary Thomas Sankara and Black Panther Fred Hampton. He’s currently working on organizing a chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society. His earliest memory at a protest was during the Occupy protests back in 2012, when he was 20 years old. Toledo met everyone from garden-variety Democratic Socialists, to anarchists, to socialists to full-blooded commies. The experience left a large impact on him. Now, he has too many books to store them all on the dorm bookshelves and leaves them in piles on his floor.
Mangubat’s style tends to be more accessible, not founded on turgid leftist musings or obscure revolutionaries. Though these self-appointed guardians of campus operate on distinct levels, what does make them come to the forefront of every anti-something shindig on campus is a love of disruption.
It’s what Toledo and Mangubat use to explain college students protesting events happening both half the globe away and close to home. Student activists get a lot of flak from the general student body because of the perceived irrelevance and disconnect from Arcata to places like Gaza or Washington D.C. They argue that that’s part of the point.
“The only avenue that people have is disruption,” Toledo said. “And if you disrupt as many things as possible, even if they may not be wholly related, it’s going to cause more problems for the people at the top. They’re going to take notice of that. If you have whole businesses shut down, if you have schools that are shut down on certain days, if you have more and more people that are sympathetic to the cause and getting out there in the streets, making noise and demanding things on the local level, that reaches up to the top. They realize that and they start to change their narrative, and they might even start to change things.”
Both Mangubat and Toledo feel the Time, Place, and Manner (TPM) restrictions they violated are excessive and defeat the point of protesting and organizing. One of the TPM restrictions requires organizers to make it clear to administration when and where they plan to protest, a rule Mangubat hates.
“The rule of protesting is that you’re disrupting systems,” Mangubat said. “You’re disrupting the place and the people who are oppressing you, so it’s not productive or efficient to just be like ‘Hey, here’s everything I’m doing,’ and then, admin will be like, ‘OK, now we know what they’re saying…’ They have every step to prepare to cover their own asses if they had to.”
Both Toledo and Mangubat do not have mixed feelings when it comes to Cal Poly Humboldt’s administration, which they characterize as aloof from campus and not held accountable often enough for things like last semester’s eviction of the van lifers. At the Jan. 23 protest, Dean of Students Mitch Mitchell called the university police department on them — something campus employees are supposed to do when there’s a protest on campus. It wasn’t a move that went over well with the students that were there, especially after he talked to some of the protestors there in a way many of them thought was overly confrontational. Mitchell left when protestors booed him and chanted the word “Shame” at him over and over again. Mangubat feels that outburst was reasonable because of his position as an administrator.
“From my perspective, I think it’s justified because every step that they had taken since my disciplinary notice to the students trying to put on this protest, they had been escalating everything …” Mangubat said. “So, I think in some way, it was needed for admin to see what students are capable of doing. Not in a harmful way, but in a human way, like a human response type of way … it’s a complicated situation because, you know, at the end of the day, people are human, they have feelings, but your hierarchy stands out so much more. And you’re acting in that position.”
“I’m proud of what we set out to try to do to try to get the attention of Tom Jackson,” Toledo said. “I’m not proud of exactly how it turned out.”
7:24 a.m. – Welfare Check – student’s phone is pinging to the area of the D street neighborhood center and parent says he should be in his dorm. Didn’t answer the door but his vehicle was on campus.
1:23 p.m. – Medical Aid – Alcohol related – Willow Residence Hall on Granite Ave.
Subject laying on ground with scratches on him in front of building.
Monday March 18, 2024
1:12 p.m. – Citizen Assist – Library
Subject reported unattended E-bike charging with keys still inside of it. Subject states bikes are not supposed to be in the library. Unable to locate owner.
Tuesday March 19, 2024
4:09 p.m. – Suspicious Circumstances – Nelson Hall West
Subject states there is a suitcase outside near a green electrical box.
6:05 p.m. – Grand Theft – Campus Apartments
Anonymous report of an E-bike that was stolen between March 18 and 19.
8:08 p.m – 911 Abandoned call – Shasta Resident Hall
8:16 p.m. – 911 Abandoned call – Humboldt Ave.
9:30 p.m. – 911 Abandoned call – Lot FS-6 on Plaza Ave
Laughing heard in the background.
Wednesday March 20, 2024
8:49 a.m. – Emergency Elevator Button – Behavioral and Social Sciences
1:53 p.m. – Vehicle Booted – Lot Library South on Laurel Dr.
Vehicle booted for unpaid parking citations.
5:13 p.m. – Vehicle Boot Removal – Lot Library South on Laurel Dr.
Fines paid, boot removed.
Thursday March 21, 2024
2:34 p.m. – Suspicious Person
Subject and her friend were walking through the community forest when a male approached them and made a concerning statement regarding doing harm. Unknown if he is associated with campus.
4:20 p.m. – 911 Hang up/ No Response
Two 911 hang ups from two different 911 only phones.
6:17 p.m. – Drug Activity
Subject enroute to address a possible marijuana related incident. Residents are refusing to open the door for the RAs. Negative contraband, handled by housing.
11:35 p.m. – Patrol Check – Creekside Lounge
Subject calling to report hearing a female scream in unknown area of creekside
Friday March 22, 2024
3:36 p.m. – Disturbance – Library
Female in the first floor women’s restroom heard yelling and cussing. She was escorted out of the building and going to take the bus home.
Saturday March 23, 2024
3:16 p.m. – Suspicious Person – Craftsman Mall on St. Louis rd.
Subject wearing a raincoat walking through the property.
Sunday March 24, 2024
2:31 p.m. – Suspicious Person – Craftsman Mall on St. Louis rd.
Report of person walking through property. Only described as wearing a yellow rain jacket.
Monday March 25, 2024
2:46 p.m. – Disturbance – Library
Subject in the lobby filming another member. He is currently sitting at the cafe wearing an orange jacket. Subject contacted and decided to leave the premise for the day.
2:58 p.m. – Public Intoxication – Kinesiology & Athletics on Gymnasium Ln.
Intoxicated subject falling down the stairs. Arrested.
These days, there are multiple forms of sightseeing. There’s the typical guided tours, pub hopping, gift shops, and getting lost. Then, there’s Tinder.
Using Tinder abroad took sightseeing to a whole new perspective—that perspective being from the depths of the dating pool.
I am writing to you from across the pond, all the way from Ireland, where I am currently sitting on a bus on my way to Cork.
Besides writing for The Lumberjack and watching raindrops roll down the bus windows, there are limited activities for these long travel days.
Social media is pretty boring when most of my mutuals are still sleeping. The seven hour time difference means when I’m sipping on my morning cappuccino, or on my mid-day bus ride, the only people up are the night owls and insomniacs.
That’s when I switched to Tinder, social media for the single and bored. I’ve noticed two things about Irish Tinder: half of the men are named Seán (or some other variation of Shawn) and 99% of Tinder cover photos are group photos. When you figure out who in the group the profile belongs to, it’s never the one you had hoped for. It’s especially difficult when the European men are friends with people who look exactly like them. I can go through an entire profile never knowing who’s who.
So, here I am, scrolling on Tinder as I’m leaving Galway, and I see another familiar face. This person however didn’t have a group photo, didn’t have a stereotypical European profile and what caught my attention the most was a photo from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This man is either a tourist in Galway or has been a tourist around my stomping grounds. Either way, there’s some commonality.
I swiped right and it was a match. Immediately, I asked if he was from Ireland.
“Yes! I lived in America for a good while… didn’t we go to school together?” He asked.
Then it all clicked. His face was familiar because we attended the same small town high school in the Santa Cruz mountains. Turns out, he moved from Ireland to California, and then back to Galway. What are the odds?
And maybe this coincidence wouldn’t have blown my mind so much if it was my first encounter within this teeny tiny world.
What I failed to mention was my plane ride to Ireland from SFO. I sat in the terminal with my friend waiting to board our Aer Lingus direct flight to Dublin. From the corner of my eye, I see another familiar face. Sure enough, I wasn’t the only Cal Poly Humboldt student who had traveled from Arcata to SF to Dublin for Spring break.
I felt a sense of déjà vu as a classmate from my women’s studies lecture sat right down the row, just like we had done in the classroom 48 hours prior. I wasn’t completely sure it was them until 11 hours later when we caught the same bus into town. It was clear we caught each other by surprise, experiencing our first moments in Ireland together. Again, what are the odds?
Needless to say, my first time abroad, from one rainy city to another, I’ve been feeling right at home and as the Irish say, céad míle fáilte – or one hundred thousand welcomes.
Welcome back to Mar’s Gaming Garage. This week’s game is “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,” and was requested by a rangeland resource science major. “Tears of the Kingdom” (TOTK) is the newest entry in a long line of Zelda games and picks up sometime after the events of “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.”
Going into the game, my expectations were through the roof. Its predecessor was awarded game of the year in 2017, so I expected TOTK to live up to this legacy. Thankfully for me and my wallet, this game exceeded my high expectations.
TOTK’s story is amazing, from the main quests to the side quests. The game does a great job expanding on the stories of previous characters and creating compelling stories for the new faces. The game stands out as a sequel when compared to others because of the brand new mechanics. Most sequels I have played take similar gameplay and insert them into a new world. TOTK does the opposite, taking a different style of gameplay and putting it into an expanded version of the “Breath of the Wild” world. These mechanics assist in making the game feel completely different than the original, despite sharing many similarities. The expansion to the world is massive; it allows for players to enter the depths of the original map and go underground in what is essentially a second full world. The sequel also introduced islands in the sky that can be explored.
While “Tears of the Kingdom” improves on the overall gameplay and provides more for the player to do, there are a couple things that fall short when compared to the precursor. The first of these shortcomings is the storytelling. While I enjoyed the story of TOTK more than “Breath of the Wild,” it was told in such strange ways at times. Multiple different questlines can be completed out of order, which can cause a lot of confusion. For instance, if you find the Master Sword before completing its dedicated questline, it completely ruins what I believe to be the most impactful cutscene in the entire franchise by showing it with none of the required buildup. The other issue is the graphics. The quality is a slight downgrade from “Breath of the Wild” despite being released six years later. This isn’t really a problem for me, as the reasons for the downgrade are the expanded world combined with the limits of the Nintendo Switch. While slightly disappointing, graphics were sacrificed for extra content and extra content is never a bad thing.
“The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” took a total of 63 hours and 42 minutes to complete and is arguably just as good as, if not better than, “Breath of the Wild.” I rate this game a 4.8/5. If you can afford to invest a considerable amount of time into a game, then I wholeheartedly recommend this one to you. “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” is worth the purchase.
If you have any games you would like me to review, you can email marsgaminggarage@gmail.com.
One of the distinctive qualities of a journalist is that they never truly stop working. They may finish working on a story or taking photos, but they are always thinking of their next story, their next assignment, their next grand idea to pitch to their editor. A great journalist can make a story out of almost anything.
One of my greatest qualities (and downfalls) is my ability to turn what was supposed to be my vacation into another article.
Every March, just before spring break, a handful of journalism students at Cal Poly Humboldt get the chance to attend the Associated Collegiate Press Conference (ACP), where we get to attend panels on journalistic practices, connect with companies and other students, and submit our work for the chance to win awards. It takes place in a different city in California every year, which gives us the opportunity to travel to new places and see all the local sights.
This year, the ACP conference was held in La Jolla, a sunny beachside town populated by rich people and entitled seagulls. Journalists travel from all over the country to attend this conference and, hopefully, win some awards for their student media. Apparently, this year had the most attending journalism students out of any ACP conference, according to a fellow journalist who interviewed me for an article. Even with the large number of attendees, there was an unspoken sense of comradery and understanding among us, even if we had never met each other.
One of the appeals of the conference, besides the opportunity to network and learn new skills at the dozens of panels, is getting to explore the city as a group. I didn’t have the opportunity to stick around and enjoy the city at last year’s conference, so I’m happy I had the chance to spend time with the rest of the Lumberjack team. We had a group breakfast of homemade eggs and potatoes made by our editors. We visited the Birch Aquarium where I stared at the leopard shark tank for a good ten minutes. We browsed downtown La Jolla and I made everyone visit my mother’s yoga teacher’s deli shop. I got to swim at the beach for the first time since high school.
I make an effort to attend panels with differing topics to broaden my knowledge and gain an appreciation for the other jobs in the newsroom. I learned about the particular but important art of typography, I got a refresher on inclusive design for newspapers and websites, I learned about covering LGBTQ+ communities in San Diego County, and I attended the panel on satire news hosted by our amazing adviser and one of our editors-in-chief. Everyone was laughing for a good half of the presentation, so I consider that a success. I smiled as journalists from other schools ecstatically told me how they planned to pitch a satire issue to their publications. Holding figures of authority accountable is much more fun when you get to be funny about it.
The biggest part of the conference for our newspaper is the awards. The ACP hosts its own award show, and a separate group called the California College Media Association (CCMA) has its own awards on the last night of the conference. ACP is a national organization, and out of all the schools with less than 15,000 students, we still won 5th place in Best in Show for one of our papers. Not too shabby for a staff of less than 30.
The CCMAs focuses more on awards for individual journalists and is where we get most of our recognition. We all watch with anticipation as the announcer reads off each category, waiting for our school’s name to appear on the projector.
Being unable to take a break ever, I took it upon myself to film all of our announced awards for social media. As the announcer read off the top three winners for Best Headline Portfolio, I narrowed my eyes as three familiar headlines rolled across the screen. I soon realized they were my headlines and I had won second place out of all California schools with under 15,000 students. I can now proudly put on my resume that I have the second best headlines in the state, and I have the piece of paper to prove it.
We embraced one another and cheered as we collected a total of 14 awards for the Lumberjack. We placed in categories like Best Social Justice Coverage, Best Feature Photo, Best Arts and Entertainment Story, and Best in Show. We were struggling to get a photo with all of our awards together on the table, even when I stood on a chair and raised my camera in the air. Our advisor soon approached each of us to get a snippet of our reactions for social media. At the time, I was so overwhelmed with excitement and pride in my team that I couldn’t give the groundbreaking, heartfelt speech I wanted. I can at least give that speech in writing.
I didn’t originally come to Cal Poly Humboldt as a journalist. I was an English major and I wanted to write novels. I joined the student magazine, Osprey, during my first semester and fell in love with it. I loved learning from people and giving that knowledge to the public. I knew I wanted to write. When I took the Lumberjack workshop, I didn’t expect to be writing for an award-winning paper. I’m grateful to be a part of the process and I am honored that our hard work gets to be recognized on a state and national level. The pressure of working on The Lumberjack is intense, but you take on that pressure as a team. No matter what else is going on in our lives, we get together every Tuesday, hunker down in the newsroom, and make a newspaper for our campus.
i’ve struggled since elementary to make friends, and i’m having the same trouble in college. i’ve developed bad social anxiety from bullying and a stutter when talking to people as well, which is a stark contrast with making friends online, as i’m loud and over excited when behind the screen. i know the answer isn’t just “go outside more” because i’ve been trying that for years, is there any advice you have?
While i may not have much advice that you haven’t already heard before, I can offer some comfort and solace in the fact that I’ve heard this same complaint from a number of my friends, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s almost as if being in isolation for damn near three years took a toll on everyone’s social abilities.
If you’re comfortably active online, there are various communities on different platforms, such as Discord, Instagram, even YikYak, where you can perhaps find someone locally to form a strong enough relationship online that it can be transferred to a physical friendship. obviously, when it comes to making friends on the internet, you have to be really careful about what information you give and who you give it to, but I have so many online friends that I’ve had since I was 14, that I’m still close with at the age of 21, so there are definitely good people out there.
If you’re a Humboldt local, I know the Humboldt discord is regularly and actively used. you could also find communities with similar interests on Instagram by looking up keywords relating to your hobbies. Rock climbing, skate night, Dungeons and Dragons – those are just a few activities in the community that I know for a fact gather frequently.
The most important thing you can do, and I know you’ve heard it before, is put yourself out there in those positions to meet people. However, if meeting people online comes easiest to you, try to find a local online community that you could potentially feel comfortable meeting with in person.
I’ve been single for a little over a year now and I’m starting to want to date again, but I’m having a hard time meeting people here. I don’t like parties, I don’t really like online dating, and I’m terrified to just walk up to someone and start a conversation. What should I do?
You are in one of the best and worst positions of your life right now. The world is your oyster, but the oyster has parasites – the oyster being the dating pool.
While you have taken the time to become emotionally available, we unfortunately live in a society that feels like it prides itself on being lonely. There’s a whole bunch of new rules and games that seem to have appeared out of nowhere. The 3-6-9 rule, not texting back too fast, icks; every little move is analyzed and implies something. It can be hard to maneuver back into, but as long as you keep your heart open and don’t compromise your standards, the right person will stumble across your path.
Getting back into dating is more about practicing being out of your comfort zone than anything. I hate dating apps too, so don’t even bother. It’s a cesspool everywhere filled with poor intentions, but Humboldt especially has a heinously limited amount of profile swiping before you’ve completely lost hope in the dating pool around here.
Try talking to some people in your classes, joining a club either on or off-campus, or posting on the Humboldt Craigslist missed connections section. That’ll for sure get you some kind of response, though it may be a phallic photograph.
When you do approach someone new, or when you are approached, try thinking of it as making a new friend instead of meeting your future partner. This might help with the anxiety of striking up a conversation. Find something of theirs to compliment and feel out the vibe. More often than not, you meet your person when you’re least expecting it.
On my second day of public access with my service dog in training, I braved the crowded hallways of The Depot in search of brunch. After paying for my food, I found a booth and used the opportunity to practice deep pressure therapy with my service dog, which is his favorite task because it involves him laying on my legs and getting a bunch of treats. The pressure helps decrease my heartrate, and thus, lowers the constant buzz of anxiety any time I go into a public place.
A group of men in the booth next to me took notice of my service dog. I didn’t pay them much attention until I heard one of them say, “Hey, there’s a way you can point out a fake service dog, watch this.”
My blood ran cold as one of the men tried to call my dog over in an excited, high-pitched voice. Even though it was his second day on the job and he was seven months old at the time, my angel of a dog stayed put and watched them with the same amount of bewilderment I had. Apparently, that glance was enough for the men to start gasping and pointing. Feeling embarrassed and defeated, I rushed out of The Depot and hid in my apartment for several hours. Thankfully, that was the worst situation I have faced with my service dog. Since then, I gained more confidence in me and my service dog’s abilities and know how to advocate for his space. I also did a little bit of reading on the law.
According to California Penal Code 365.6, section A, anyone who intentionally interferes with a service dog’s ability to perform their tasks could be charged with misdemeanor. They can face time in jail for up to six months, a fine between $1500 and $2500, or both.
Two years later, I have realized that many people do not know how to interact with a service dog in public. Generally speaking, the key is to not interact with them at all. In fact, pretend like they aren’t even there.
The Americans with Disabilities Act defines a service dog as a dog that is trained to perform a task that alleviates the symptoms of a person’s disability. A service dog can be any breed and are not required to be certified or go through a professional training program. They are also not required to wear a vest or identification showing that they are a service dog, but most handlers will identify their dogs in some way to prevent access issues.
The types of tasks service dogs can perform include retrieving items, deep pressure therapy, acting as a brace if their handler falls down, alerting to rises in cortisol or blood pressure, reminding their handler to take medication, protecting their handler’s head during a seizure, and many more. In a legal sense, service dogs are medical equipment and can be life-saving. They empower their handlers to live independently and improve their quality of life.
Therefore, it can be detrimental, or deadly, if someone distracts a service dog, no matter what their intentions are. The Depot incident was the only time a person’s intentions were clearly malicious, but most of the time people just really, really want to say hello to my dog.
I’ve noticed that many passersby develop what I call doggy tunnel vision. They see the dog and feel intensely compelled to talk to them or approach them, without much thinking in between. I get it, I really do. I love dogs with my whole being. If you are an adult, I promise that you have enough self-control to leave service dogs alone. If you must say something, talk to the handler directly.
When talking to a handler, some may be more comfortable answering questions about their dog than others. I will put up with a lot of questions and comments. You’d be surprised how many stories I get about people’s dead dogs. Not everyone is as tolerant as I am, so please be respectful of the handler’s comfort level and save your stories for later. Most importantly, do not ask about their disability.
Some handlers are okay with their dog being pet, and some aren’t. Petting them may interfere with their ability to task or the dog is simply not interested in greeting strangers. Some handlers will have a badge saying something like, “Ask to pet,” but you should always ask before you reach your hand out.
Most of the time, if a dog is tasking, it is best to let them do their job. You wouldn’t go up to a cashier at a store and ask them if they need help.
If you pass by someone having a medical episode and their service dog is tasking, assess the situation before immediately dialing 911. Ambulance rides are expensive and not always necessary.
I am personally more patient with children when it comes to my service dog. They often don’t know any better and are following their parent’s example. Half of the time, parents will redirect their children away from my dog or take a few minutes to explain that my dog is working. Those are my favorite parents. My least favorite parents are the ones who are either blissfully unaware of their child approaching my dog or actively encourage them talking to or petting my dog.
Living in Humboldt County, I understand that I live in a pretty dog-centric area. Some people bring their pet dogs everywhere they go, including non-pet friendly stores. Most of the time, these dogs are behaved enough and not bothering anyone, but I have no way to tell if those dogs are a danger to my service dog. Service dogs come with the expectation that they will not lunge, bark, or attack other dogs while working. Pet dogs do not.
Some dog owners try to bypass this restriction by putting a vest on their pet dog and bringing them anyway. Legally, store employees are only allowed to ask service dog handlers if their dog is, in fact, a service dog, and what tasks they perform. This is meant to prevent employees from asking handlers invasive questions about their disability, but some pet dog owners abuse this system.
There is no definitive way to tell a fake service dog from a real one, so you’re doing a disservice to service dog handlers by trying to pass your dog as an essential piece of medical equipment. The best case scenario is that they are an inconvenience we have to avoid while shopping. The worst-case scenario is that your dog injures our service dog and puts them out of work permanently, or kills them.
Having a disability can be hard. We navigate a world that was not built with us in mind, and if the dog allows me to go to the grocery store and find the minced garlic without panicking, so be it. Please don’t make our outings harder than they need to be. We appreciate those who respect us and our service dog’s space, and we’d love more people to join that crowd.
Griffin Mancuso is the photo editor and a prolific graphic designer for The Lumberjack. He is also a service dog handler and overall dog enthusiast/nerd. You can contact him at gm249@humboldt.edu.
Welcome to the debut of Mar’s Gaming Garage. I will be playing video games that our fellow students recommend, good or bad, and give my honest opinions to tell you whether or not it’s worth buying.
For the first week of Mar’s Gaming Garage, I was asked by an anthropology major here at Cal Poly Humboldt to review the game “Dead Space,” the original from 2008, not the remastered one from 2023. This is a game that I have always wanted to play, but the survival horror vibe always sort of scared me off. With this request, I finally had a reason to set my fears aside and dive into this game. I am happy to say it was well worth it.
“Dead Space” thankfully wasn’t as scary as I had feared. Don’t get me wrong, I was still scared, but it was a fun fear. The storyline followed our main character Isaac Clarke fighting his way through a ship that was taken over by these creatures called Necromorphs. The Necromorphs appeared after the former passengers found an artifact called The Marker. The story of this game was fantastic and was honestly one of the best single-player survival games that I have ever experienced. The terrifying creatures were both gross and really cool to look at. It had very fun gameplay, heartbreaking losses, and multiple shocking twists that I genuinely never saw coming. The twist that concluded the game has been a constant in my mind ever since I saw it.
However, there are a couple issues I had that I’d like to share. First, the camera is at a weird angle, making the creatures rushing at you really difficult to see, especially in such a dim game. As a result of the camera angle, the controls are sort of awkward; when you rotate the camera, your character doesn’t turn in that direction like in other survival games, meaning you have to rotate the character and camera independently of each other. This makes it more difficult to get shots on anything rushing that’s not directly in front of you, this mixed with the weird angle can be slightly frustrating at times. These negatives are really just me nitpicking, this game was an absolute joy and if I could go back in time and play it for the first time again, I would.
“Dead Space” took me a grand total of 8 hours and 48 minutes to finish and was worth every one of those minutes. I rate this game a 4.6 out of 5. Whether you’re into survival horror or not, I recommend this game to you all. So yes, “Dead Space” is well worth the purchase.
If you have any games you would like me to review you can email marsgaminggarage@gmail.com.
I love bagels. Fresh, warm, crispy, chewy, and loaded up with toppings. There’s really nothing like a bagel on a Saturday morning, or a bacon egg and cheese on an everything bagel.
That being said, I have very strong opinions when it comes to bagels. I don’t like sweet bagels – no cinnamon raisin, no chocolate chips, and especially no blueberry. I also don’t think those flavors should be mixed into cream cheese.
Recently, I went to a local bagel shop to get my classic order. An everything bagel with cream cheese, lox, tomatoes, capers, and green onions. The perfect blend of savory, salty, squishy, and crunchy, topped with that final half of a freshly toasted bagel. I ordered with difficulty as they looked at me with confused eyes. They questioned my order as if it was a long math equation, wondering how to make my bagel as a sandwich.
I waited despite the line being long, only to discover that my bagel was served to me with all of my toppings on one half, and a completely plain, dry, other half. No cream cheese, no butter; nothing. This made me question myself. Was my order complicated? Is a bagel sandwich a crazy thing to order?
I ate my unsatisfying bagel with these thoughts running through my head, finally coming to the conclusion that no, I’m not crazy. Bagels are sold all over the country, and the world typically, as a sandwich with both sides encasing the toppings. This open-faced, half-filled with toppings, half-plain bagel was in fact not the status quo.
Not only was I not satisfied with this bagel, but the bagels in Humboldt generally do not satisfy me. Coming from Los Angeles and the Bay Area, I’ve had the privilege of eating a truly fantastic bagel. Crunchy on the outside, fluffy and chewy on the inside, light yet filling, served as a sandwich.
My opinion is that bagels in Humboldt don’t hit the same. Maybe I have high standards, or maybe something is just objectively not as good as it could be. Either way, my search for good bagels continues. Maybe I’ll learn to make them myself and go above and beyond, or maybe I’ll find that one bagel that just really hits the spot.
My roommate and all my friends are super skinny. Any advice on how to feel confident when I see no representation for my body type?
These days, no matter how hard you try, it’s hard to not be bombarded by images and media that’ll make you compare yourself to what you’re seeing. When you’re constantly fed an image of what you’re supposed to look like, how you’re supposed to dress, what you’re supposed to eat, how is a person supposed to avoid feeling a certain type of way about themself? If it makes you feel any better, you’re not alone. A lot of people I know, including myself, struggle with their body image.
I’ve always struggled with body dysmorphia. When I was in high school, I was intentionally underweight. I wasn’t diagnosed with anything, but in hindsight, I very clearly had an eating disorder. Even at my thinnest, I wanted to be thinner. Now, I look back and I wonder what the fuck I was talking about.
Coming to Humboldt, I got older, started to find myself and ultimately, as I was growing, my body was growing too. It’s something I wasn’t used to, and honestly, still struggle with. Having to swap out your favorite jeans for new ones isn’t something they really prepare you for, besides the societal fat-shame known as the freshman 15. Even that, however, is said as a word of warning, as if it’s something you can avoid without becoming overly conscious about your body and eating habits.
The only way to be confident in your current body is to accept it and learn to love it. Our bodies are never going to look perfect to us when we’re in the moment. I’ve really had to teach myself to practice not comparing myself to my friends, who often fit the clothes I can’t even squeeze into anymore. I also have to avoid comparing my adult self to my teenage self. I’m turning 22 this year, and I don’t look 16 anymore. That’s okay.
You get older, your jeans fit a little tighter and the world keeps turning.
Whether it’s due to the rise of fast-fashion or the misogyny surrounding what is traditionally considered “women’s work,” sewing is often overlooked as a valuable life skill. Nonetheless, the opportunities that come with understanding the basics of sewing are endless.
Studio art major Sawyer Armitage is the host of the Sew Easy event held every Monday at the Makerspace in the library. They walked me through my very first fully finished sewing project: an itty-bitty, stuffed piece of pie.
Armitage has been working as a student assistant at the Makerspace since Dec. 2022. They only recently began hosting the sewing circle this semester, having learned the basics over winter break.
“I love to make tiny [things],” Armitage said. “I was lucky to have someone throughout my whole life who knew how to sew and was willing to teach me, and I wish I [had] taken them up on it. It’s been super empowering to learn, not only small alterations, but also to teach people how to hand-sew, to use the Singer sewing machine for the first time, hem their clothes, create new designs… it’s genuinely a good, functioning life tool.”
Armitage started me off by handing me a piece of felt, a pen and a set of shapes to trace onto the fabric. Afterwards, they handed me a needle and some embroidery thread. The endless struggle of getting the thinnest piece of string through the narrowest eye of the needle followed me throughout the entire sewing process.
Emerald Dowd, a wildlife major, joined us halfway through the first hour and almost immediately began crocheting a flower with the prettiest yellow yarn. By the time it took me to finish cutting out my pieces out of the felt, she was halfway through the first layer of her flower. I spent some time trying to figure out if she was fast or if I was just slow.
As we sat and worked on our projects, we talked about all different aspects of our lives and personalities. Different people joined and left us throughout our two hours together, some coming to work on unrelated projects, others just stopping by to chat or borrow supplies. As Armitage, with the occasional help from Dowd, showed me how to do a blanket stitch, we all shared our favorite musicals, what got us into sewing, Armitage’s new band that they’re songwriting for and everything in between. Sitting and engaging with each other, in what Armitage called parallel play, filled a sense of community that I didn’t know I was missing.
Nova Presley is an environmental management major who utilizes the Makerspace not only for resources, but for getting independent work done.
“I have really bad issues with getting myself to do tasks that I want to do unless somebody else is also doing [something] next to me,” Presley said. “The Makerspace is really helpful because, like, I’m not even here for sewing right now, I’m here for a different thing that’s graphic design. As long as everyone else in the area is working on something creative, it’s a lot easier for me to hangout and do something creative.”
Presley has found the Makerspace to be a good source of forming friendships on campus.
“It’s a very like-minded space, it’s fun to meet people outside of the typical avenues,” Presley said. “It’s hard to find people in Humboldt to hang out with.”
Learning to make and mend clothing is also environmentally and financially sustainable. Instead of having to buy an entirely new garment when something tears or a zipper breaks, you can fix it yourself – or better yet, create something out of quality materials.
“When you don’t have a lot of money, whether you’re a person crafting or a higher institution that doesn’t have a huge budget, you have to figure out how to make things work with what you have,” Armitage said. “Being able to change what you have, or make it fit something new, that’s what sewing is a lot of the time.”
Dowd sews for many reasons, starting with the love of creating and altering clothes.
“It’s a creative outlet, that you can then wear around and be like, ‘This is who I am, and this is what I like,’” Dowd said. “It’s this way of expressing yourself.”
Dowd comes to the Makerspace at least once a week for the Monday sewing circle. Otherwise, they often make use of the many resources that are offered, such as the communal sewing machine or the 3D printer.
“It’s a stitch-n-bitch,” Dowd said. “It’s a place for community; a place for people with similar interests to join together and to help each other out. If you’re just learning, and you’re like, ‘Hey, I don’t know how to do this yet,’ the people who are into sewing and into crafting are like, ‘I will indoctrinate you.’”
I am a person with mental illness. I have bipolar disorder and take my five medications every night. As a person with mental illness, I have mixed feelings about Prop. 1. I think it’s great that our state is finally doing something about homelessness. According to research done by UC San Francisco, over eight in ten homeless people in California struggle with serious mental illness and nearly two-thirds struggle with addiction. This proposition would increase treatment beds and increase care for people with addictions. I am unhappy that they are expanding involuntary treatment. Involuntary treatment is necessary under certain circumstances. I have been so delusional that I thought I was the Messiah, despite taking my medication. I didn’t think I needed as much care as I ended up getting. I credit involuntary treatment with saving me in certain situations. However, I am concerned that involuntary treatment will be overused.
It comes down to a very tricky dilemma. To what degree can a person, whose mind is impaired, make good choices for themselves? It’s a tricky line to walk. Often, we can’t make good choices for ourselves if we are severely ill, so we need to rely on others to do what is best for us. However, this inherently violates the rights of the mentally ill to a degree. Sometimes the current laws assume we can make choices for ourselves when the part of us that makes choices is impaired. Our current system doesn’t really know how to deal with this. Either they give us the freedom to make bad choices, or we have no choices at all.
It could be argued, though, that the situation really has become dire. I actually walked through Skid Row once, with company, and was shocked by the poverty. This makes me consider that maybe the situation with mental health has become so dire in our state that involuntary measures have become necessary.
Shit’s mad fun – really gets you filled with those OG childhood emotions. Skipping makes you feel like you’re on your way to recess in third grade, about to go undefeated in four-square or tear up the monkey bars.
I know that you’re in college, you’re an adult, and if we were all skipping around campus, it would look ridiculous.
You see, when we grew up, we gave up the playful activity of skipping for a more serious exercise: running. The thing about running is the impact. It’s impossible to avoid because the knee acts as a hinge for the leg, creating a negative impact on the knee and patella. The impact is part of the reason a lot of the running shoes we see coming out these days have insanely thick outsoles and almost look like Balenciagas. What if I told you skipping is better than running?
Researchers at two universities in North Carolina conducted an experiment and found that the peak force of impact is 30% greater in those who run compared to those who skip. Additionally, up to 79% of runners reported that they suffer some kind of injury every year.
I’m someone who has dislocated my knee on multiple occasions, but skipping takes an immense amount of stress off of your knees. If you have knee problems, skipping is the way to go. However, if you have any issues going on with your calves or ankles, you may find some pressure in those areas while skipping.
I just can’t wait until it starts to warm up again, I’ll be skipping everywhere. Just imagine – the warm sun gently toasting your skin while you and your pals skip cheerfully across the beach, skip to the river to skip rocks, or maybe even skip to the lou… skipping could be the move. Not to mention, it is not much harder to skip than walk, yet you get to travel at close to running speeds.
I’m not saying that you should skip to class with your backpack on like a grade schooler, although that would be a riot. I’m saying skip around once in a while. Have some fun with your friends, take some airy leaps and bounds on your way to the farmers market or on your little hikes in the forest. You will thank me and come skipping back, because skipping is just so much fun.
I have a girl I really like and might’ve asked to hangout in a strange manner, and it came off a little weird. She didn’t reject me, she said something about being busy, but it seemed genuine. I’m in the midst of contemplating whether I shoot my shot, ask to hang, or what to do from here. My morals keep getting in the way of things and am trying to make a so-called comeback from here. What should I do?
Everyone gets nervous talking to their crush – especially if they’re trying to ask them out. So what, you acted like a little freak? Happens to the best of us.
What to do from here can be tricky territory. You don’t want to be pushy, but you also deserve clarity on the situation. If you genuinely think she was being serious about being busy, try and reschedule. If you guys have history, and she knows you like her, I don’t see why she would agree if she wasn’t somewhat interested. That is, unless you backed her into a corner, either physically or metaphorically.
When you say your morals are getting in the way of things, what do you mean in terms of morals? Are you sure it’s your moral compass and not your ego and pride? Sending a double text is scary, but in my opinion, being a victim of your pride is worse. You waste precious, unretrievable time when you let your pride get in the way of your relationships – whether it’s a double text to try and hang out, or reaching out to give an apology, our egos often interfere with solvable situations.
This seems like a common issue of miscommunication. If you’re not sure where her heads at, ask her. If she gives you a wishy-washy response, you have your answer. At the end of the day, you have to go back to the source.
The flicker of the TV from down the hall lit up my room just enough that I could still see the outline of my bookshelf in the corner. The flashes of light just barely illuminated the spines of books, dried flowers, a nesting doll my mom gifted me for a birthday so many years ago. It’s quiet, aside from the distant murmur of late night TV. Nights like these, I typically stay up pretty late. There isn’t much to do here other than hang out with my dogs or pester my mom while she’s working. And I can’t do either of those things because they’re all asleep. So instead, I conducted an interview with myself.
Mia: Hi, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you here.
Mia: Yeah, I usually don’t come around here too often. It seems I only end up here in moments of crisis.
Mia: Do you consider this a moment of crisis? Don’t you think that’s a bit of a reach? I mean, yeah it’s been a rough couple of weeks, but you’re still doing okay.
Mia: I guess you’re right. It feels wrong to call this a moment of crisis. I just can’t seem to get out of my own head. That is why I’m talking to you; I’m exhausted. It’s been hard to get out of bed. I’ve been forcing myself to shower, brush my teeth, and eat. I’ve been skipping classes because I can’t leave my house, only to obsessively watch the clock in fits of guilt. I made the drive up to Mom’s in part so that I could get away from Humboldt. But I don’t know if coming up here is helping or hurting.
Mia: I get that. It just feels a little self-indulgent to be so complicit in your pain. I know you are in pain, but lingering on it is only going to make it worse.
Mia: I don’t want to say that I’m complicit in my own pain or sadness, but I think a part of me is. This reminds me of when I first went on antidepressants. I didn’t necessarily feel sad or depressed or suicidal anymore; I didn’t really feel anything. The numbness was a completely new feeling and I wasn’t used to it. I was so used to being in pain that I almost kind of missed it; like, I had felt this for so long that it was a part of me, and without it I wasn’t the same. I hate when people say that their mental illness is what gives them their “sparkle.” I think that it can be really invalidating. There is nothing glamorous about not being able to get out of bed in the morning. When I’ve been wearing the same pajamas going on day six and I haven’t brushed my teeth, washed my hair or eaten a proper meal in days, I am the furthest thing from glamorous.
Mia: What will happen when you’re no longer in pain?
Mia: I’m not really sure. What will happen if the pain never goes away?
Mia: You’ll continue living. Just as you are doing now. I know it’s not always easy to do that and I don’t know if it’ll ever get easier. But regardless of ease, you’ll go on. It might seem impossible to go on at one point or another, but then you’ll hang out with your friends, or call your mom, or see a cute dog in a car across the street, and for a moment, the pain will subside.
Imagine this: you’re in your dorm room getting ready for a night out with friends with the cheap vodka your one friend with a fake ID supplied, and nothing but pure 18-year-old confidence. Adrenaline is pumping as you sashay around your roommates makeup bag strewn about your shared bedroom floor, careful to avoid speaking to them as they apply their liquid eyeliner. All of a sudden, your phone that was blasting some 2014 alternative indie throwback is buzzing. The music stops and everyone turns to you, wondering if your DJ rights should be revoked. You scramble to your smartphone, and as you flip it, over there lies an incoming Facetime call from your long-distance boyfriend. Pink heart emojis act as bookends to his contact name as you look at yourself on the screen and contemplate answering this call.
“Oh, it’s (some boring hometown man’s name),” you say to your friends.
They know the weight that generic name holds in that dorm household. It’s 9 p.m. and they already called a cab, which should be there in about two minutes. You look at your phone as it vibrates in your hand, you look at the flock of young girls on your bed giving you the look – you know the one. The bordering Kubrick stare and eyes of disappointment, non-verbally asking, “Are you really gonna answer it right now?” You gaze back at your phone and quickly say “I have to take this,” as you disconnect from the bluetooth speaker and rush out into the dank hallway of your shared living space, hoping to god your name isn’t part of the conversation that’s happening behind the door you just slammed.
I, too, was a victim of the unplanned long-distance boyfriend call. From my freshman year of college to my junior year, I was enraptured in my long-distance relationship. I wouldn’t say it was all bad but I will say it just took way too much energy in the long run. I was fresh out of highschool and still carrying the weight of my highschool boyfriend around. I spent nights having sleepovers over Facetime, or watching some movie that we had to perfectly time to sync over the phone. Long-distance relationships can truly show you love someone, but when does it reach the point of total time consumption?
It was fun in the beginning, when you were excited for each other and the different paths you took, but long-distance success is based on clear communication, and sometimes that isn’t even enough to hold the relationship together. When college and life in your new town away from your partner picks up, lots of factors come into play; jealousy, accessibility, and just the plain old feelings of missing each other.
When your time gets so constrained to the point of only being able to call your partner in your LDR (long-distance relationship) once a week, it can really throw an axe into your dynamic. Even if it’s clearly communicated and you’re transparent with your busy schedules, it can feel hard for your LDR partner to not feel neglected or forgotten about. They aren’t with you – they aren’t seeing your day to day schedule, and when you have to pencil in time to call them and try to keep their attention as you talk to them about your mind numbing statistics lecture, the spark can easily fizzle out.
You can try and keep it alive by doing movie nights for each other or sending care packages, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to feel truly loved and cherished when you’re six hours away from each other and not sure when you’ll see eachother again.
Honestly, I don’t think any 18-20-year-old has the emotional or physical capacity to do that either. These are such developmental ages, and trying to entertain an LDR partner in between it all can feel like a maze of confusion and a tow truck of effort. I’m not saying dump your LDR because it’s gonna ruin your social life. I don’t think I missed out much when I was in my LDR as a baby-faced college freshman, but I will say it caused some baggage in the long run.
Long-distance relationships seem to only be a blanket to hold on to the inevitable factor that you will break up; holding on to the very end until you have to throw in the towel. It usually isn’t pretty, and is the reason why most LDRs end over the phone or text with little-to-no closure at all. That’s gonna cause more pain in the end than just parting ways after highschool for the purpose of doing it for each other’s own benefit. Breakups are never easy, but it can give you a lot more peace of mind. You did it for your partner’s and your own self-preservation.
I can’t speak much on the mid-20s LDRs, but I’d have to say it’s the same. Open communication just isn’t possible without at least some weekly face-to-face conversations. Interaction in the digital world can feel awkward, less genuine and allows more time for feelings of neglect and loneliness to build up. Long distance has its expiration date; I can only see it as a temporary thing of a year max. Anything past that is just a waste of time.
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