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Movie Review: Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

Themes discussed in this post: adolescence, sexuality, puberty, friendship, faith/religion, family

A few weeks ago, I watched this really good movie called Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. Even though I have not read the book by Judy Blume, I still really wanted to see the movie because I really love the actress Rachel McAdams, and she is in this movie, so I really wanted to see it. It is about this young woman named Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) who moves from New York City to New Jersey with her parents, Herbert (Benny Safdie) and Barbara (Rachel McAdams). Margaret struggles with puberty, friendships and her religious identity, but she ultimately realizes that it all is just a part of growing up. I love this film, too, because I watch a lot of coming-of-age movies. Somehow watching coming-of-age movies makes me feel less alone, because even though I am no longer a teenager, it is cool to see how other young people navigate their young adulthood in movies. I didn’t go to a lot of parties or date growing up, so I always find watching coming-of-age movies fascinating because these kids in the movie are going through all of these different developmental stages and figuring out who they are, and it has helped me gain a new perspective on what growing up is like based on people’s individual experiences. Young adulthood isn’t going to be the same for everybody because each individual grows up with a different cultural background, and each culture has its own traditions and beliefs about what it means to be an adult and enter adulthood. I am still a young adult even though I am no longer a teenager, but I sometimes feel behind because I have not accomplished all of these traditional milestones of adulthood, like buying my first mortgage, getting married and having a child. That’s why I love watching coming-of-age movies, because watching them reminds me that growing up is just a part of life and you are still figuring out your identity and your brain is still developing, so it is important to set your own timelines and milestones because everyone develops differently.

One of the key themes in this film is religious identity and faith. Margaret’s father is Jewish, and her mother grew up with conservative Christian parents. Margaret’s teacher has the class write a personal essay about a topic of their interest and Margaret’s teacher suggests that she write about religion because she wrote that she doesn’t like religious holidays in a writing assignment done in class. When the teacher asks her to explain more about that, Margaret tells him that it is because her father is Jewish and in New Jersey she is around a lot of kids who celebrate Christmas and are Christian, so she feels embarrassed because she grew up in a different faith than everyone else. Margaret’s mom, Barbara, won’t tell her why her parents never come to visit the family. Margaret is close with Sylvia, her grandmother on her dad’s side, but she doesn’t know anything about her mom’s side of the family. One day after school, Margaret approaches Barbara and asks her why her mom and dad don’t come to see them or why they are not in contact with Margaret’s family. Barbara at first doesn’t want to talk about it, but after Margaret expresses genuine interest in knowing why, Barbara tells her that her parents disowned her for marrying a Jewish man because they are strict Christians and thought marrying a Jewish man would go against their beliefs. It is a really painful moment for Barbara to tell her daughter this because it caused her a lot of pain that her family didn’t want to speak to her simply because she married someone of a different faith than Christianity. Throughout the movie, Margaret goes on her own journey to figure out what religion she should uphold, Judaism or Christianity. When she goes to New York City to visit her grandmother Sylvia, who is Jewish, she asks her grandmother if they can go to the local synagogue for one of the services. Sylvia is super excited to take her granddaughter to the synagogue, and when they arrive, she introduces Margaret to everyone there and helps translate what the rabbi is saying during the service since Margaret does not know Hebrew and the rabbi is speaking in Hebrew. After the service, Margaret talks to God and tells him that she isn’t sure how she feels about it because she thought it would be different somehow. However, her grandmother wants Margaret to commit to being Jewish and thinks that is what Margaret wants. Margaret’s mother, while writing greeting cards to loved ones, decides to send a greeting card to her mother and father, Mary and Paul Hutchins, without telling anyone, even though she knows deep down that her parents do not like her husband because he is Jewish. She thinks that her parents might have had a change of heart in the time that they have not been speaking to their daughter and her family, and they surprisingly write her back and let her know that they want to come to New Jersey to visit her. Margaret, however, has already made plans with her grandmother to come down to Florida and visit her. Her grandmother left New York City to go to Florida because she lives by herself after her family moves to New Jersey and is feeling lonely, so she moves to Florida to live in a retirement home. When Barbara tells her husband that her parents want to come visit, he is upset because he knows that they don’t like him because he is Jewish. Even though Barbara tells him that she is sorry and that she only wrote to them because she thought it would help mend her relationship with her parents, but Herbert is not convinced. When Margaret comes home from school, Barbara breaks the news and tells her that her parents are coming to visit them, but Margaret is upset because she wanted to visit her grandmother in Florida and already made plans to see her. Barbara gets on the phone and tells her that Margaret has to cancel her flight to Florida because her grandparents are coming to see them, and her grandmother, Sylvia, is upset because she wanted to spend quality time with her granddaughter. Honestly, I was worried that Margaret’s grandmother would unexpectedly die and that Margaret would regret not deciding to stick with her plan to visit her in Florida. However, Margaret’s grandmother decides to fly to New Jersey with Morris Binamin, the man she met at the retirement home, to visit Margaret and her family, even if Barbara’s parents are coming.

Margaret is super excited that her grandmother is there, but things take a turn when the family has dinner together. Barbara prepares a delicious pot roast, and everyone is enjoying the meal, but Sylvia decides to propose a toast during dinner and says “l’chaim” which means “to life” in Hebrew and is similar to saying “Cheers” in English. Barbara’s parents, Mary and Paul, are confused and upset even though they are trying to be polite. Even though Barbara and Herbert try to keep the tension low and change the subject, things erupt when Mary and Paul ask Margaret if she would be interested in going to Sunday school and becoming Christian, but Sylvia tells them that she is not going to Sunday school because she is Jewish. Sylvia argues with Mary and Paul about which faith Margaret should choose, and Herbert and Barbara try to intervene and say that Margaret is not going to choose what faith to take up until she becomes an adult. Finally, Margaret, sick and tired of hearing them argue, tells everyone to be quiet and that she is sick of them fighting over what faith she should uphold. She angrily runs up to her bedroom and slams the door. The adults feel bad that they caused this argument and Sylvia and Barbara’s parents leave in separate cabs. Margaret ends up writing in her essay to her teacher, Mr. Benedict, that she realized that religion causes conflict and war, and leaves the classroom in tears. I grew up practicing a different religion, so I could not relate to what Margaret was going through, but I can’t imagine how difficult it is to have adults fighting over what religion you should practice at a time when you are still developing your own identity and figuring out what you want in life. I thought about this experience I read about in this Buddhist magazine I read, and it was about this young woman who grew up in three different religions: Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism. She wrote about how she wanted to help end religious conflict, and looking back, after watching this movie, I really appreciate her for wanting to make that cause of helping end religious conflict. I grew up with parents who grew up Christian but started practicing Buddhism later on after seeing how it helped them transform their lives, and they raised me and my sister to practice Buddhism. But they never put pressure on us to accept Buddhism or chant every day. I still practice Buddhism because I have seen the positive changes and personal growth that I have gone through in the course of practicing it, and as I get older, I still feel like every day is a new day for growth. I think without having this philosophy in my life, I would not know what purpose my life was for.

And honestly, as I am writing this, I am reflecting on how important it is to have dialogues between people of different faiths. In college, I was really happy because they had an Interfaith Council club on campus, and even though I didn’t get to go to a ton of meetings since I was busy with schoolwork and orchestra, going to even just a few meetings felt really comforting. Everyone was respectful of each other’s beliefs, and I learned a lot from listening to people talk about their personal experiences being Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu and other religions. I also got to talk about how I was born into a family that practices Buddhism and how I apply the principles of Buddhism to my daily life.

Another theme in Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret is fitting in, being true to yourself and finding genuine friendships. When Margaret’s parents tell her that they are moving to New Jersey, Margaret is upset and tells her parents that she doesn’t want to move because she has so many friends in her hometown and would miss all of them if they moved. When they first move into their new home in New Jersey, the family is still unpacking and there are boxes everywhere. A popular girl in the neighborhood named Nancy invites Margaret to come over to her house and play in the sprinklers, and right off the bat tells Margaret that her house is much larger than hers. Nancy’s family is wealthy, and they live in a big house, and when Margaret changes her clothes to put on her bathing suit, Nancy looks at Margaret’s body and starts making comments about how she is flat-chested. Nancy is obsessed with boys and growing breasts, while Margaret is shy and isn’t at first interested in that stuff. However, Margaret, like the other kids, wants to fit in, so she goes with what Nancy tells her to do. One of the rules of Nancy’s exclusive club is that they cannot wear socks. Margaret’s mom tells her to wear socks and asks her why she isn’t wearing socks on her first day of school. Margaret doesn’t want to tell her that Nancy told her to not wear socks, and she endures blisters on her heels instead of deciding to say “Fuck it” to Nancy’s no-sock rule and wear socks. Nancy also loves to gossip about her other classmates, including a tall girl named Laura Danker who has large breasts and keeps to herself. However, later in the film, Margaret sees that Nancy is deeply insecure about herself and is just an insecure mean girl. Nancy also lies to Margaret about when she gets her period. Even though she sends Margaret a postcard from a family trip, excitedly saying, “I got my period!” to prove she wasn’t the last one to get it, during a restaurant dinner with Nancy and her family, Nancy goes to the restroom and is crushed to find out that she actually didn’t get her period during the family trip. She got her period that evening during the family dinner at the restaurant. Margaret witnesses the entire exchange between Nancy and her mom, who has Margaret fetch Nancy a pad from the sanitary pad dispenser, and when Nancy comes out of the restroom stall, her face stained with tears, Margaret gives her a look of disappointment and anger because one of the rules that Margaret formed for the exclusive girls’ club was that everyone had to tell the truth, and even though Nancy swore she would tell the truth, she did not keep that promise.

Margaret also realizes that Nancy isn’t a very great friend and realizes that Laura Danker, who was the target of everyone’s bullying, is actually a good friend. Unlike the other girls, Laura doesn’t gossip, and she also has integrity. During a party at their classmate’s house, the students play a game where they have to go into a bathroom in pairs and kiss each other. Laura gets paired with a shorter boy and everyone snickers at her, making Laura feel humiliated. Nancy spreads rumors about Laura, telling Margaret that Laura lets the male students feel up her breasts. While Margaret and Laura are in the library working on an assignment for class, Laura catches Margaret cheating on the assignment. When Margaret shrugs it off, Laura tells her that what she is doing is dishonest. Margaret gets angry with Laura and lashes out, telling her that she knows about Laura letting the boys feel her breasts. Hurt, Laura storms out of the library and Margaret runs after her, apologizing. Laura goes into the Catholic church where she confesses to a priest and Margaret follows her. Margaret decides to confess to the priest even though she is not Catholic, but she is so embarrassed for how she treated Laura that she ends up running out of the church and not confessing to the priest. Margaret realizes that everything that Nancy told her about Laura Danker was not true, and that Laura, unlike Nancy, is a genuine person. I remember when I was in middle school and I felt insecure about myself. To cope with low self-esteem, I decided to get involved in gossip about other classmates. I also wrote in my diary how much I hated my classmates, but looking back, I hated my classmates because I deeply hated myself. Margaret comes to understand that she doesn’t have to act like Nancy or anyone else in order to make friends at school. She can just be herself and she will find people who like her for who she is. I think that is why I love practicing Buddhism, because my mentor, Daisaku Ikeda, who was an educator and writer, encouraged young people to be true to themselves and not worry about following superficial trends or pretending to be someone they weren’t. When I chant this Buddhist mantra called Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, it gives me the courage to live in a way that is true to myself. Even though I do a lot of nerdy hobbies like reading, painting and knitting, I have learned to not feel bad about doing those things. I also consider myself to be an introvert at heart even though a lot of people think I am an extrovert. Growing up, I used to hate being called shy and quiet, but as I got older, I learned that I don’t need to really worry too much what other people think about my personality, and that as long as I am working on developing myself and growing as a person, then I am on the right path in life. Even though it is a challenging process, it has been very rewarding in the long run. Sometimes I read my old journals and think, Wow, I am so glad I journaled during my teenage years because I had so many emotions to process. I didn’t experience the same ecstatic enthusiasm about getting my period, though. I was too busy having painful menstrual cramps to enjoy it. I do remember my mom and I eating chocolate cake and ice cream while watching School of Rock with Jack Black to celebrate me being on my period, though. However, the brief celebration about getting my period was, well, short-lived. While watching the girls in the movie chanting “We must, we must, WE MUST INCREASE OUR BUSTS!!!” and squealing about who was going to get their period first, as hilarious as it was to watch this scene, I couldn’t really relate to be honest. In school, my big boobs got a lot of unwanted attention. Boys would constantly stare at them, and it made me feel uncomfortable. Also, as I got older and my breasts increased in size, it became harder to fit in clothes. Also, period cramps were–and always will be–very painful. My period cramps were so painful that I found myself in the high school bathroom stall vomiting and curling up on the floor in fetal position until my parents came to pick me up from school. I REALLY hate period cramps. They were the bane of my existence throughout high school, college and even well into my early 30s continue to be the bane of my existence. I remember watching a commercial from a menstrual products company called Hello Flo, and the girl in the commercial pretends to get her period by putting red nail polish on a pad. All of her friends got their periods except for her, so she pretends that she got it. Even though her mother secretly knows that the girl put red nail polish on the pad, she pretends to be excited and throws her daughter a “first moon party,” inviting her grandpa, friends and other people in the neighborhood to celebrate her daughter’s first period. The daughter is extremely embarrassed, especially because her mom chose a bunch of corny games like “Pin the Pad on the Period” and had a fondue fountain with red fondue to look like period blood. The mom reveals to her daughter at the end of the commercial that she knew her little red-nail-polish-on-the-pad trick and gets her daughter a Hello Flo period starter kit. It is a really funny commercial. Here it is below:

I know this was a really lengthy review, so if you have made it this far or even read a paragraph, let alone a single sentence, thank you for your long attention. Long story short: I recommend you see Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. 2023. Runtime: 1 hr 46 minutes. Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving sexual education and some suggestive material.

Some Really Sad News

Yesterday, I was browsing through the news, and on the top of the page, one of the headlines read that Sophie Kinsella, one of my favorite authors, died at age 55. Even though I knew about her cancer diagnosis from reading about her social media posts, it was still shocking. Death is just one of those things that is really hard to process, even if you know that the person was dealing with a terminal or serious illness and didn’t have much time left in this world. Sophie Kinsella was one of my favorite authors. She wrote this book called Confessions of a Shopaholic, which is about this young woman in England named Rebecca “Becky” Bloomwood who has a compulsive addiction to shopping. I have read all of the books in the Shopaholic series except for Christmas Shopaholic, which I checked out from the library weeks ago but haven’t even started yet. I am glad that I still have renewals on it because this holiday season, I really could use a big old hug from my fictional friend, Becky Bloomwood. Rest in Peace, Sophie, and thank you for all of the literature and laughs.

Book Review: The Book of Jose

I was browsing the local library, and I went into the adult non-fiction section. They had a section of books about music and musicians, and some of these books were memoirs that musicians have written about their personal lives and their careers. To be honest, I didn’t grow up listening to a lot of old-school rap music. Whenever I would listen to hip-hop on iTunes, I would want to listen to the clean versions that did not have any swearing because I thought swearing was bad and I didn’t want to repeat the explicit language on the album. When I was in my orchestra class in sixth grade, there was this Black kid named Christopher Weaver and he was showing his friend, a Black kid named Austin Stevens, a music CD disc. The disc cover had an African American baby on it just sitting there against a white background. In the right corner there was this sticker that read in big capital letters: PARENTAL ADVISORY, EXPLICIT CONTENT. I was so religious about avoiding CDs that had that big old black and white sticker on them that I was rather taken aback when I saw that Christopher had that CD in his hand.

“What’s that?” Austin asked him.

“A bad CD,” Christopher told him.

I remembered reading in a music CDs catalog around that time (I think it was either Best Buy or Fry’s Electronics. I cannot remember) and they were selling various music CDs. A few of them included Follow the Leader by the rock band Korn, which shows a bunch of children playing hopscotch as a little girl runs towards the edge of a cliff and proceeds to jump off of the cliff. There was another Korn CD called See You on the Other Side that had a disturbing-looking album cover of this pale frightened boy holding a decapitated teddy bear staring out as a rabbit places a crown on him and as a horse holds the decapitated teddy bear’s head. And then I saw an album in the catalog of an African American baby sitting in this empty white void, and the title was Ready to Die. At first, I thought that Ready to Die was a heavy metal rock album similar to Korn’s music. But then I finally reached my 20s and realized that Ready to Die was a hip-hop album by the late and great Christopher Wallace, also known as The Notorious B.I.G., also known as Biggie Smalls, and also known as just Biggie. Like I said, I did not grow up listening to a lot of old school hip-hop. The only times I would hear hip-hop was from school dances or kids rapping the lyrics. If I did hear rap music on the radio, it was always censored. I grew up with Soulja Boy, T-Pain, and Ludacris. I did not grow up listening to The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac and other 1990s rappers until I was older. During my sophomore year of college, I enrolled in a course called Introduction to Black Culture by a really sweet man named Kevin Quashie. The course was an introductory class in the Afro-American Studies department (they changed the name to Africana Studies around my junior or senior year) and we watched movies such as Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and studied artworks by African American painters in the 20th century. We also read a graphic and disturbing excerpt from a non-fiction book about the lynching of African Americans during the 1900s. One of the parts of the course I remember, though, was the unit on hip-hop and rap music. In class one day we listened to songs like “Lose Control” by Missy Elliott and “We Don’t Need It” by Lil’ Kim and Lil’ Cease and also studied the origins of hip-hop and pioneers of hip-hop like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. After the course, I started exploring more hip-hop records out of curiosity. As I have gotten older, I have gained a deeper appreciation for hip-hop music that came out in the 1990s and 2000s. Hip-hop is part of my African American heritage and it has provided solace and inspiration for a lot of young people. I consider Tupac and Biggie Smalls to be poets and even though the lyrics of the music are misogynistic and homophobic, I have to remember that at the time that these artists were rapping, there was a lot of anti-gay sentiment and the AIDS crisis in the 1980s disproportionately impacted LGBTQ people, causing them to face scapegoating and ostracism from American society. Hip-hop emerged during the 1970s and 1980s so it coincided with the sexual revolution and the AIDS crisis. Art is a product of what is going on in society, and while artists have used their music to speak to racial discrimination and injustice, they have also used their music to speak negatively about groups that they perceive to be a threat. This also comes from a lack of education about the LGBTQ community because unlike now, where we have social media and online resources that non-profits such as The Trevor Project and The Human Rights Campaign have provided for people, people lacked the education and resources to meet the LGBTQ community where they were at and provide them with the support and resources that they needed. It does not in any way justify the use of bigoted language such as the F word and the D word, but looking at the use of homophobic slurs in hip-hop from the context of history helped me understand why rappers use this kind of pejorative language in their music.

I knew about Fat Joe when I was younger, but because I didn’t like songs with explicit language (I was worried about repeating it), I listened to the clean version of “Lean Back” by Terror Squad. When I finally got over my days as a language prude, I decided to pop in some rap music and listen to the full explicit lyrics. Recently, after getting Spotify Premium, I listened to full albums, and some of these albums were hip-hop albums. As I read The Book of Jose, I became curious about Fat Joe’s music. There was an album of his that came out in 2005 called All or Nothing, but I never listened to it. A month ago, I listened to it on Spotify and really love the flow of Fat Joe’s rhymes. As a queer person, I did wince each time I heard him use slurs like the F-slur, but I did my best to listen to as much of the album as I could.

There was a lot about Fat Joe’s history that I didn’t know about. He was born and raised in the Bronx in New York City and he grew up in poverty and around a lot of gun violence. What saved him was hip-hop music. He started to collaborate with other rappers and put himself out there and eventually he became a number one-selling hip-hop artist. He not only discusses his career, but he talks about meeting his wife, his children and his family. It was sad to read about the death of his friend and fellow rapper, Big Pun. To be honest, reading this book reminded me of this piece of writing that was published in the 1200s called “The Eight Winds.” It is by a Japanese Buddhist reformer named Nichiren Daishonin and it discusses how important it is to not let external influences like fame, criticism, suffering and pleasure, cause Buddhist practitioners to lose faith in their Buddhist practice. Practicing Buddhism reminds me time and again that even if I achieve fame or success in my music career, I cannot let it get to my head. Also, I need to give back to my community because that is the best way to express my gratitude for all of the wonderful music education and opportunities that I received growing up. I also need to be true to myself and not think that I am better than people just because I have trained for so long as a classical musician. The minute I act like my shit doesn’t stink, it’s over. I’m fucked.

What I Am Actually Thankful For

I am grateful for a lot of things in my life. My family, having a car, having a job, my friends, my Buddhist community, food, water and the list goes on. However, I also understand that for American Indian and First Nation peoples, Thanksgiving is a day of mourning, to remember all of the brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers lost in the genocide that the white European settlers committed against American Indian folks. As someone who is not a member of the First Nations, I now use this day as a time for education and awareness. As a kid, I went along with the typical traditions and cultural brainwashing of Thanksgiving as this harmonious ceremony during which white settlers at Plymouth Rock coexisted with American Indian people.

And then, when I grew up and started reading more books and talking with actual American Indian classmates and people, I realized that perspective on history was incorrect. So, I had to educate myself and un-learn a lot of the white colonial bullshit that my elementary school teachers fed me, and I threw that pile of shit back into all of the shitty textbooks that taught me that Thanksgiving was this beautiful holiday. That shit stank, but the truth sometimes has to piss you off in order to set you free. As I grew older, I started reading more literature by First Nations authors such as Leslie Marmon Silko, Joy Harjo, Sherman Alexie and Tommy Orange. For an online book club that my college alma mater does, the moderator chose a novel called Five Little Indians by Michelle Good, a Cree Canadian author. The novel describes the traumatic history of residential schools in Canada and the impact and legacy that these schools has had on the Indigenous Canadian adults who survived its horrors as children. I don’t know much about Canadian history, unfortunately, but reading Five Little Indians gave me much needed insight into how fucked up the residential school system was. It also helped me understand that like the history of the United States of America, you cannot fully understand the history of Canada unless you learn about the countless atrocities that Indigenous men, women, children and non-binary peoples faced throughout the nation’s history. In this government-funded residential school system, many Indigenous children were abducted and separated from their families and placed into these residential schools in an attempt to erase Indigenous education and cultural traditions from Canadian history and assimilate Indigenous children into white Canadian society. There was a significant lack of resources, the staff abused children and white authorities at the schools punished Indigenous children for speaking their own languages. I watched a video to learn more about the history of these schools and when the survivors were describing to the reporter the abuse they experienced and witnessed, it really fucked me up, but I needed to get my mind fucked up because I needed to know how fucked up the residential school system was. I cannot begin to describe the horrors that the kids experienced at these schools. I will just say that reading that book, Five Little Indians by Michelle Good, will stick with me for a while.

One author I really love is Tommy Orange. He is an author from Oakland, California who is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. I really love his writing and recommend his novels There There and Wandering Stars. Movies-wise, I recommend Killers of the Flower Moon and Fancy Dance on Apple TV. Fancy Dance is a movie directed by Native American filmmaker Erica Tremblay, and it is about a young queer Cayuga woman named Jax who investigates the disappearance of her sister, Tawi, while caring for Tawi’s daughter, Roki. I didn’t know much about the history of missing and murdered Native American people before watching this movie, but watching Fancy Dance made me want to learn more about the history of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples. Even though I really loved Killers of the Flower Moon and thought Lily Gladstone was fucking incredible in their role as Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone goes by she/her and they/them pronouns), I really loved that in Fancy Dance Gladstone got to play the main character in the movie and also that their character, like Lily Gladstone in real life, is part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Some Music Albums I Really Love (I Have Too Many to Choose Favorites), part 1: Christina Aguilera

For my biology class in ninth grade, we had to do a science project. I love music and so I decided to do an experiment where I had people listen to music while they played cards, and then I wanted to see if listening to music helped them memorize the cards. I mainly just did it for myself, not really for the grade or to submit for science fair, because I love music. I checked out a ton of music CDs from the library and just listened to each and every one. I loved hearing these artists. Even before I did the science fair, I was into listening to various albums by artists, and I loved listening to the entire CD from start to finish. Each has their own unique style, and each artist has their own influences for their music. One album I really love is Christina Aguilera’s Back to Basics. One summer before ninth grade, I watched a lot of MTV and knitted scarves, hats, and other things, and I remember watching Christina Aguilera’s music video for “Ain’t No Other Man”, which is a song from her Back to Basics album. It definitely had a different feel from her 2002 album, Stripped, because the songs on her album Stripped deal with a lot of topics like relationship abuse, sexuality, and trying to be yourself in a society that tells you that you need to fit in. It just felt very raw and personal, and a lot of the songs made me cry because there were definitely times when I felt like I wanted to fit in and felt bad for being different. Christina’s song “The Voice Within” always moves me to tears because it’s about trusting yourself even when society tells you that you are not enough. It is a very moving song. Honestly, I kind of wish I had listened to this album when I was in sixth and seventh grade because I really struggled to love myself and I had bad depression. When you are depressed, you feel worthless and like no one cares about you. I listened to the album in my 30s, though, and it still hit hard because even though I am an adult and no longer a teen, I still struggle with low self-esteem and insecurities.

There were a few songs from the Back to Basics album that were sad, like her song “Hurt.” The music video for that song is absolutely beautiful. I remember watching it for the first time that summer before ninth grade and it was a really touching music video. Christina Aguilera plays a young woman in the 1940s who is grieving the death of her father, and she is performing in a circus and sees the vision of her father as she takes autographs and does circus stunts, and wrestles with a lot of regrets about not being able to mend her relationship with her father while he was still alive. At first, I thought the song was about Christina Aguilera’s father, but I looked on Wikipedia and the song was actually inspired by the death of Linda Perry’s father (Linda Perry was one of the songwriters of “Hurt.”) The song kind of reminded me of this song I heard a lot on the radio growing up by Mike + the Mechanics called “In the Living Years,” which is about a son regretting not patching up his differences with his father while his dad was still alive, and dealing with the grief of losing his dad. As a five-year-old, I didn’t really understand much about grief because my parents were still alive and I hadn’t lost anyone close to me. I think I just loved the song because the singer’s voice was so incredible and it was a very beautiful song. As I got older and listened to the song more than once and looked up what the lyrics were about, it took on a much deeper meaning. Even though my parents are still alive, a lot of my friends have lost their parents, and I can’t really fathom what it is like to lose a parent. Going to my friends’ memorial services for their parents is a sad experience. It makes me reflect on my relationship with my own parents and how I can enjoy the time I have with them. It also makes me reflect on my own mortality. Even though I am in my 30s, I do not want to take that for granted anymore. In my 20s, I thought if I hated life, I would just kill myself and things would be easier. But getting older made me realize that all the stuff that I struggled with in my 20s was going to be different as I got older. I am really glad my parents have supported me because I struggled to fit in and wondered if I was doing something wrong by having different interests than my peers, but my parents have always encouraged me to follow my own path even with all the difficulties that come with forging your own sense of self and your own path in life. I really appreciate them for respecting my individuality even when I didn’t feel like I had anything unique to offer to society. Even when our relationship with our parents is complicated, they gave us life and there is still that deep inexplicable bond between parent and child. Of course, everyone experiences grief differently, and I am not going to know what grief of losing a parent is like until the time comes when my parents pass away. I really want to make the most of my time with my parents while I can.

I really love the other songs on the Back to Basics album. There is one song called “Here to Stay” that makes me think of this poster I saw for the movie Babylon, and it shows Margot Robbie crowd-surfing at a party in Hollywood in the 1920s. It is a glamorous-looking poster and Margot is drunk and high and enjoying the party. (I haven’t seen the movie, but I heard it is actually dark and depressing.) The theme of Back to Basics is very 1940s circus, and the music videos feature a lot of things from the 1930s and 1940s. “Candyman” is a really awesome fun song, and the music video shows Christina Aguilera dressed in these 1940s outfits as she sings about finding a young WWII soldier hot and how she is sexually interested in him. I love reading historical fiction and learning about history, so I really love the 1940s theme of Back to Basics. She has a great song on the album I still remember called “Understand” and I love it because it is in the key of G major and I love G major. During the chorus, she sings in the key of E minor, which is a sad key that I really love. For some reason I love listening to songs over and over again, and I listened to “Understand” and every time I thought of the song in my head, I would start crying. I think I would cry because Christina’s voice is so soulful and beautiful. There is an amazing performance of Christina Aguilera singing “At Last” by Etta James on her Stripped tour, and it is raw and beautiful. Etta James was a huge influence on Christina Aguilera’s music, and Christina even got to perform “At Last” at Etta James’s funeral. When she hits the end of the song, “for you are mine,” she just belts out the “mine” part and just holds that note for a good long minute or two before finishing with “at last.” Her performance of “At Last” reminded me of Joss Stone’s performance with Motown singer Gladys Knight. These two young women love soul music, and as a young person who loves old soul music, I would get goosebumps whenever I heard Christina and Joss singing these old Motown songs because they were so powerful and raw. I could really tell that these young ladies feel the music with their lives.

Synesthesia and sensitive ears

I have a confession to make. I have synesthesia. Or at least a rather mild form of this neurological condition. According to Cleveland Clinic (because I’m not a doctor and I experience only one form of synesthesia), “synesthesia is when your brain routes sensory information through multiple unrelated senses, causing you to experience more than one sense simultaneously. Some examples include tasting words or linking colors to numbers and letters. It’s not a medical condition, and many people find it useful to help them learn and remember information.” (Cleveland Clinic, “Synesthesia”, my.clevelandclinic.org) Whenever I hear songs in certain musical keys, I associate them with a certain color. Like when I hear songs in the key of F Major, I see the color pink. When I was listening to this song called “Last Worthless Evening” by this singer named Don Henley I just saw the color pink. I don’t know how to explain it, but it just happens. I remember when I was in my first year of college, and I was reading a book for school, and this young woman who lived in the dorm room across from mine blasted Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” on her stereo. While she and her friend were laughing as they sang to the song, tears flooded down my cheeks. Of course, there was other stuff going on at the time that was making me cry, but I think I mainly cried because the song was in a key that made me see this golden yellow color, and it was emotionally overwhelming. It was in F# Major, which makes me see golden yellow. As a kid I listened to this song called “A New Day Has Come” by Celine Dion, and honestly that song always makes me cry. It doesn’t help that the music video is emotional, too, and it always confused my family why I cried during that song. Then again, Celine Dion’s songs probably make a lot of people cry. I remember when I was really young and I was taking ice skating lessons at this mall called The Galleria, and when “My Heart Will Go On” started playing on the intercom, I couldn’t stop bawling my eyes out while I was taking my ice-skating lesson. I don’t know how, at eight years old, a song like that could have moved me to tears, but then in 2016 I finally saw the movie Titanic and was up crying at 1:00 am and then bawled even harder when they played “My Heart Will Go On” during the end credits.

I also have sensitive ears, so I cannot go to loud concerts. In ninth grade we had our annual orchestra banquet, and I told everyone I had to leave during the dance at the end of the banquet because the music was loud and my ears were sensitive. When I was in sixth grade, I went to a talent show that was held at my middle school, and these eighth graders who were in a rock band played their music VERY LOUDLY. It was earsplittingly loud, and also people in the auditorium were screaming with so much enthusiasm, and the screaming was pretty loud, too. I sat through the performance feeling miserable, and my mom and sister looked at me with sympathy because they knew I had sensitive hearing. It was really loud for them, too. But yes, this is why, even though I really wanted to go to big arenas and concerts, I just can’t. At least with Spotify or the radio, I can control the volume of the music. In a concert setting, I would have to bring the best earplugs because they would be very loud. I wanted to see HAIM a couple of months ago, but I knew that the music was probably going be loud, so I didn’t go. I do love classical music concerts, though. Going to the symphony is always a treat.

Books I Have Read So Far

  1. Americanah: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  2. Speak: Laurie Halse Anderson
  3. The Clique: Lisi Harrison
  4. Twilight: Stephenie Meyer
  5. About a Boy: Nick Hornby
  6. Rose Gold: Walter Mosley
  7. The Septembers of Shiraz:
  8. Tess of the D’Urbervilles: Thomas Hardy
  9. Pageboy: Elliot Page
  10. The Sound and the Fury: William Faulkner
  11. The Last King of Scotland: Giles Foden
  12. Trainspotting: Irvine Welsh
  13. Atonement: Ian McEwan
  14. Confessions of a Shopaholic: Sophie Kinsella
  15. The Little Friend: Donna Tartt
  16. The Book of Form and Emptiness: Ruth Ozeki
  17. Germinal: Emile Zola
  18. Oliver Twist: Charles Dickens
  19. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency: Alexander McCall Smith
  20. Daring Greatly: Brene Brown
  21. Together: Vivek Murthy
  22. Big Magic: Elizabeth Gilbert
  23. Free Food for Millionaires: Min Jin Lee
  24. PUSH: Sapphire
  25. So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’All Don’t Even Know: Retta
  26. Bossypants: Tina Fey
  27. Yes Please: Amy Poehler
  28. It Could be Worse, You Could be Me: Ariel Levy
  29. Being Jewish: Ari Goldman
  30. Caramelo: Sandra Cisneros
  31. Crazy Brave: Joy Harjo
  32. She Had Some Horses: Joy Harjo
  33. Everything is Illuminated: Jonathan Safran Foer
  34. The Other Americans: Laila Lalami
  35. Swing Time: Zadie Smith

List I prepared for a college interview back in summer 2011

In the summer of 2011, I visited Mount Holyoke College, a liberal arts women’s college in South Hadley, Massachusetts; Smith College, another liberal arts women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts; and Simmons College, a liberal arts women’s college in Boston, Massachusetts. I love talking about books, movies and music, and so I ended up gushing to the admissions people who interviewed me about my favorites.

Why I chose Simmons: I was searching through my sister’s college handbook and saw Simmons as one of the colleges listed. The more I read about it, the more I became curious about the college.

Books I’ve Read for Pleasure:

  • Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
  • The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
  • The Hours by Michael Cunningham
  • The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
  • Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
  • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  • Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Canter
  • Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  • Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
  • Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  • The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
  • The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
  • Miracle at St. Anna by James McBride
  • The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
  • The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
  • The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (Books 1-3) by Alexander McCall Smith
  • The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden
  • Atonement by Ian McEwan

A challenge I overcame: Not becoming arrogant in my junior year of orchestra and making it to the top orchestra

About me: I am a lifelong vegetarian and have been vegan for three years (since 9th grade). I have played cello since the 6th grade, and my dream is to play my cello at Carnegie Hall (the Carnegie Hall).

Hobbies: reading, writing, watching movies, talking with people/ family/ friends, and listening to music

My Favorite Music: everything (mainly rock and classical)

Favorite Artists: Death Cab for Cutie, Sia, Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, The Kooks, Keane, classical composers, Morcheeba, Madeleine Peyroux, KT Tunstall, Joss Stone, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Earth Wind & Fire, Coldplay, Phil Collins, Genesis, Elton John

My favorite snacks

  • Peanut butter and tortilla chips
  • carrots, celery, or any vegetable with hummus (I like carrots and celery with peanut butter)
  • Fruit

Favorite Movies:

Hmmm…that’s hard

  • Big Fish
  • Slumdog Millionaire
  • August Rush
  • Inception
  • The Kids Are All Right
  • My Cousin Vinny
  • The Breakfast Club
  • About a Boy
  • Avatar
  • Julie & Julia
  • The Great Debaters
  • Despicable Me
  • City Island
  • The King’s Speech
  • The Devil Wears Prada
  • Patch Adams
  • Temple Grandin
  • The Emperor’s New Groove
  • Mulan
  • The Parent Trap
  • Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2
  • Frost v. Nixon
  • Jumanji

Why I chose Mount Holyoke: while studying the 2nd Great Awakening period, our teacher discussed how women were prohibited from learning math and science because they would supposedly “get brain damage” and other health problems. I read about Mary Lyon’s female seminary and thought, “Wow, that’s empowering.” I also chose it for its high level of diversity and its campus dining options.

Why I chose Smith: great music program, studied about women’s education in the late 19th century and how women were denied education. I also chose it because of its strong academic programs.

Battle of the Sexes and My Love of Other Sports Movies about Badass Women Punching Sexism in the Face

Last week, I watched a movie called Battle of the Sexes, which is about a tennis match that took place on September 20, 1973, between 29-year-old Billie Jean King and 55-year-old Bobbie Riggs at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. It was amazing, and I watched it partly because I really love Emma Stone (who I found out actually prefers to go by “Emily” because that is her real name. Since there was another Emily Stone in the Screen Actors Guild, she had to go by another first name, and so she chose “Emma” after Emma Bunton, also known as Baby Spice, in The Spice Girls.) I don’t watch much tennis, so I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about this event in history, but I am glad I watched the movie because it was a pivotal moment for not just female players, but for the sports world in general, which has historically been male dominated. I am glad I rented the movie from the library because there are lots of free DVDs at the library and so I don’t have to pay for streaming (I am on a budget.) Also, I had to take the movie back to the library at some point because

Watching this movie reminded me of a documentary that I watched called LFG (an acronym for “Let’s Fucking Go!”). The documentary is about the U.S. women’s soccer team and their fight for equal pay. It features famous players like Megan Rapinoe, and at first, I didn’t think I would be interested in watching it because I don’t watch a lot of sports on TV in general, but after witnessing the #MeToo movement calling out decades of sexual violence and harassment against women, I needed to learn more about gender inequality so that I don’t think that women getting paid less than men is somehow ok. The women’s soccer team went to court several times to advocate for themselves because they were getting paid a lot less than the male soccer players. It was a serious battle of sweat and tears, and watching these women speak out against the injustice they dealt with in the male-dominated soccer world was empowering to see. I am actually glad I watched the documentary, because it is important to be aware of what is happening in the world, and most times I like to just hide under a rock and pretend like gender and racial inequality has nothing to do with me, which is wrong because it doesn’t just affect cisgendered women, it affects everyone. Also, Megan Rapinoe is freaking hot. Just sayin’.

Battle of the Sexes movie reminded me of LFG because in Battle of the Sexes, female tennis players were getting paid much less than the male tennis players and it wasn’t fair. In the movie, Billie Jean King and her manager, Gladys (played brilliantly by comedian Sarah Silverman), approach the promoter of the tennis tournaments, Jack Kramer, and demand that the female tennis players start their own tour because they are getting paid less than the men. However, Jack starts spouting all of these misogynistic beliefs about women competing in tennis and doesn’t budge. Billie and several other female members of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association, which is the governing board for tennis in the United States of America, start their own tour despite Jack’s objections, and Jack bans them from the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association, leaving them on their own to fund their own tour. The women encounter numerous battles to keep their own tour, and it gets even more complicated when Bobby Riggs, a pro-tennis player for many years who is much older than Billie Jean King, calls her in the middle of the night to propose that Billie and he play a match against each other. At first, Billie doesn’t want to participate, especially because Bobby, like Jack Kramer, holds sexist beliefs about women participating in sports and loves promoting himself. Bobby has a serious gambling addiction, which leads to him draining his money and tension between him and his wife, Priscilla, who has had to put up with his gambling addiction and is fed up. But then, Billie sees Bobby playing against Margaret Ward, and when Margaret loses against him and she sees Bobby walking around, gloating about his success, it provokes Billie to accept Bobby’s offer to play against her in a match called Battle of the Sexes, where female tennis players play matches against male tennis players.

Also, Billie Jean King realizes that she doesn’t really want to be with her husband, Larry, after she falls in love with Marilyn, her hairdresser. When Billie and the other female tennis players are getting their hair done for their public appearances, Billie meets her hairdresser, Marilyn (played by Andrea Riseborough) and they develop serious chemistry for one another. Even though Billie tries to act like she is in love with her husband, she realizes that she is a lesbian and her and Marilyn start seeing each other in private. They go to a party, and even though Billie tells her she is married, Marilyn knows that Billie is sexually attracted to her, and there is one scene where the song “Crimson and Clover” is playing and Billie declines to dance with Marilyn, so Marilyn dances with a random guy at the club, but as she sits at the bar and sips her drink, she watches how Marilyn dances with him and she sees Marilyn peering into her eyes. Marilyn and Billie end up having sex in Billie’s hotel room, and Billie tries to keep it a secret, but her tennis rival, Margaret Court, sees Billie and Marilyn leaving their hotel room together when Gladys has the female soccer players check out of the hotel so they can continue their tour. Margaret sees them together but doesn’t say anything to them, but then tells her husband that Billie is a lesbian and that Marilyn is not just a friend but is actually her lover. When Larry, Billie’s husband, travels to assist Billie with preparing for her tennis tournament, he finds a bra that isn’t Billie’s in her room and realizes that Billie has been having an affair with Marilyn. Even though Larry feels betrayed and that Billie lied to him, he continues to support her. There is a really memorable scene when Larry confronts Marilyn one evening and tells her that she and Billie need to end their relationship, not just because he is Billie’s husband but because Billie is focused on her career as a tennis player and the affair would distract from her achieving her goals.

Even though I haven’t gone through the struggles Billie had gone through in her tennis career, I kind of related to the idea of focusing on your career instead of a relationship. I remember when I fell in love for the first time with this guy in India and I thought that love was supposed to be this intoxicating thing where it was just you and the other person together, and nothing else mattered. However, I realized that this relationship didn’t need to be the center of my life because I had so many hobbies and extracurricular activities (and, of course, graduating from college) to focus on. Even though I am glad that my boyfriend and I stayed in touch during my last semester, I think it was best for us to separate eventually because we had grown apart. Not having that physical intimacy was hard for both of us, and I was just too preoccupied with a lot of stuff in my personal life to focus solely on this relationship. Also, I was chanting a lot for his happiness and I’m sure he has found a relationship where his needs are fulfilled, and he can be truly happy. Recently I developed feelings for a close friend, but at some point, they found someone else. I was pretty heartbroken, to be honest, but after chanting about it, it made more sense to just focus on my professional and personal development. A lot of times, the fleeting crushes I’ve had on guys have been a form of escapism to distract me from whatever painful stuff I was dealing with in life. I guess I’m glad that those guys were in other relationships because I realized that I wanted to focus on my personal goals, like my blog and other stuff I’m striving towards. I may want a relationship in the future, but I want to be with someone who supports my goals and doesn’t want to make me the center of their life. I want us to have our own personal hobbies and interests outside of the relationship.

I really love Steve Carrell’s acting in Battle of the Sexes. I didn’t know anything about Bobby Riggs before watching the movie, but after seeing it, all I could think was, Man, this guy was a hustler. But Steve plays him so well. Bobby Riggs completely underestimated Billie’s potential to beat him in the tennis match, and he even admitted to it when she won the match against him. Bobby and the men in the movie make all sorts of degrading statements about the female tennis players, saying they should stay in the kitchen and not be on the tennis courts, or that they are biologically not fit to compete in tennis tournaments. While watching the movie, I kept groaning every time they made these kinds of gross sexist comments, but I also had to remember that this was the 1970s and before the #MeToo movement called all that out. Of course, even if it’s 2025 and there is more discussion about reproductive rights and dismantling sexism, we still have a long way to go in establishing policies that treat cisgender women and trans women with the respect they deserve and afford them basic human rights. That’s why I love watching historical movies, because we need to learn from the past not just so we don’t repeat it in the future, but so that we can see people like Billie Jean King who broke through gender barriers and think, Dang, if she can persevere through all this sexism and men putting her down, then I can achieve my goals too even if I deal with a lot of obstacles along the way.

When I watched another tennis movie called King Richard, I felt so empowered seeing how Venus and Serena Williams fought not only sexism, but also racism, to win all these championships, and how they still stayed down-to-earth even with all of their success. There was this part in Citizen that really stuck with me, and that was when Rankine is talking about a tennis match during which Serena’s rival, a Danish tennis player named Caroline Wozniacki, impersonated Serena Williams’s curvy figure by stuffing her shirt and skirt with tissue paper and prancing around the tennis court, flaunting her fake “curves” and imitating Serena. I checked the comments from 2011 when they posted a video of her doing the impression while in a tennis match with another player, and while I understand that for many people this was harmless and Caroline was just trying to be funny, after reading Claudia Rankine’s take on it, I can see why Caroline’s impersonation was racist to many other people. Sure, Caroline didn’t put cork on her face and paint her lips red, but still, when you look at it from the perspective of US History, it was just as bad as an 1890s minstrel show. Of course, I do not know Serena or Caroline personally, but I am guessing they are friends and that Serena didn’t take it the wrong way. However, after learning more about the history of Jim Crow and blackface in the U.S. while I was in college, I realized that for Caroline, a white woman from Denmark who didn’t know anything about the history of slavery and racism in the U.S., it seemed like harmless fun, but viewed from a U.S.-centric context, it was offensive. Before reading Citizen by Claudia Rankine, I didn’t know much about the racism that Serena and Venus had to deal with as Black tennis players in predominantly white male spaces, but reading Rankine’s book made me more aware of all of the shit they had to deal with as Black women in a space where people gave them the message that they did not belong there. Of course, they have proven the haters wrong so, so many times with Grand Slam championships and other awards. However, it’s important for me to remember all the blood, sweat, tears and discrimination that they dealt with during their long careers. However, I was so encouraged to see the Gen-Z-aged tennis player Naomi Osaka, who is half-Haitian and half-Japanese, competing in the Australian Open and winning the tournament. To be honest, I don’t watch many sports on television, but my orchestra teacher from college told me about the Australian Open because he loves tennis. With nothing to do and nowhere to go that day (it was 2021 and I was able to work from home during that time and didn’t have to go anywhere), I woke up at 2 am to watch Naomi play against Jennifer Brady. Watching the Australian Open was FIERCE.

Overall, I thought Battle of the Sexes was a great movie, and I recommend that you see it.

Battle of the Sexes. 2017. Directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton. Running time: 2 hours 2 minutes. Genre: Sports/Comedy/Drama. Starring Emma Stone, Steve Carrell, Andrea Riseborough and Sarah Silverman. Rated PG-13 for some sexual content and partial nudity.