Author: sarahshu

Its no secret that coffee shops are places students always frequent. I’ve always thought that  its the vibes they give off, not too quiet, not too noisy but the perfect amount of white noise in the background. Sounds of coffee grinding permeate the air, small talk ensues between the cashier and customer and the creaking sounds of the door open and close. I’ve loved coffee shops for its ambience it gives off. You can chill with a cup of chai, catch up on homework and even readings over coffee or have short catch up sessions with friends in between classes. The coffee shop embodies warmth, especially with the coming winter.

I was very disappointed when Michigan Union closed down for renovation because I was really fond of the Starbucks there. The bar stool seating is my favorite, tucked away perfectly near the coffee machines, private and public all the same. I usually camp out there for two hours, writing or reading. Bumped into a lot of friends while we both get coffee. One even commented, saying that she always finds me there. Another personal favorite coffee shop of mine is Comet Coffee, hidden in the nook of Nickel’s Arcade. It looks very hipster and a passerby might think that the drinks are expensive but that isn’t true. The food and drinks here are surprisingly reasonable given that it is in Ann Arbor. Its affordable in comparison to Starbucks. I find myself coming back here so many times, alone and with company. I suppose everything about the shop attracts me, from the affordable tea/coffee and the interior design, with the barstool seating overlooking Nickel’s Arcade. You can sit there, sip tea and people-watch or do work. Maybe even ponder upon your place in life. Engage in some meta-thinking.

Another reason I really like coffee shops is because of the memories I’ve had there with people. I gone to the Michigan Union Starbucks frequently with a good friend of mine after class. We each grab coffee and get into small talks. Some of the times, those chats turn into deeper discussions, from how tough Michigan is on students to the double standards we face as women in the family. Other times are when I brought family friends to Comet Coffee and we each ordered different drinks so we could try different drinks together, great times I’ve missed now. There are moments when I was stressed out and needed advice, so I met up with a friend and told him my frustrations. I left the coffee shop feeling lighter, finally understanding that sometimes I needed to leave some situations be just as they are, so it sorts itself out.

Funny how a small tiny shop contains so many memories, and that it can mean so much.

Some of my friends have always asked me how I came around to writing. Most of them didn’t know I started out 4 years ago, back in high school. Embarrassing poems were penned down in small notebooks, in between my worksheets and elsewhere. I wasn’t much of a good writer then. Nonetheless, I’ll have to credit my high school friend for prodding me to begin my writing journey:

1. Get a notebook. Yes, I’m all for the old fashioned way. Nonetheless, you can always type down in your phone notes whenever you feel the writing fever coming on to you.
2. Write about what inspires you, your thoughts, your observations. In light of my great-grandmother’s death, I wrote a short piece about her, which what I eventually used as my admissions essay.
3. Read, a lot. Thats a really great way to explore what writing styles, phrases you’d like to incorporate in your pieces.
4. Decide what kind of writer you want to be. I decided early on that I wanted to be a writer who can relate to people who don’t write, and to not use super fancy words to references that weren’t ultimately relevant.
5. Write down any quotes, excerpts that you find particularly interesting. You can use these quotes to inspire you further.
6. If you can’t find anything to write, write about your surroundings. A lot of my pieces revolve around the weather, the rain, how the cars seem to blind me as I cross the roads, how the cold bites my hands as the wind blows. And sunsets.

(Awashed by Nur Sarah)

In moments when it seems classes and assignments are starting to become overwhelming, I find this poem I wrote myself hidden in my notes. “It can’t be dark forever”, the phrase I need so much right now.

Often times, it can be tempting to think, “Why is university life centered around so much studying?” as if we have no other purpose. It can seem daunting, thinking about our assignments that await us, the gnawing feeling that we always need to study, to catch up with things. And all for a scroll of paper from the university.

Even during my internship, I found work genuinely more enjoyable than just studying. Sure, there were work performances due every year but besides that we were not graded every three weeks on how we were doing. I was learning a lot while trying to figure out how to do my work. I also did not find my degree to be particularly useful for my internship, leading me to question the usefulness of the degree altogether.

Maybe, just maybe I have yet to see the benefits of studying for my degree. Perhaps things will make sense later, as they always do. Time will tell but until then, don’t give up. Keep living, stay afloat amidst all the incoming work from classes. And take care of your mental health.

Despite not being an eligible voter here, I realized that there is a stark irony happening to American students in Umich right now,  midterms during midterm elections. I joked about it with my friend Ammar, who is minoring in Political Science, about it and he laughed at the irony.

I feel rather grateful towards my advisor back at home, who suggested that I take American Government in prep college. I didn’t know much about the American political system and taking American Government had helped me by giving me a small gleam into how voting, check and balances and etc works. I entered Umich just as America faced the 2016 presidential election and was able to understand whenever the word ‘electoral college’ was thrown around in overheard conversations or in between pages of the Michigan Daily. I remembered some of my White classmates telling me, “I’ll vote for your safety”, reassuring me that things will be okay. I was deeply touched by the gesture of affirmation.

The day after elections spelled a dark contrast to the burning hope of “as long as its not him” that many on campus desired. The weather itself matched the campus mood, somber, sad, gray and drab. My manager at East Quad spat out some swear words. My co-worker turned to me and said, “Sarah, when I last saw you the world was very different”. The diag seemed different, with heads down, students dragging their feet to classes they most definitely did not feel like going. My Israel-Palestine lecturer gave a short speech before beginning lecture. It was clear he was deeply upset. I sensed the gray mood, as if it was soaking me slowly. I myself did not know what to feel, or if I had a right to feel. After all, I wasn’t American.

Here we are again, same battle(s), different people. I am still wondering, “Will America disappoint me, a foreigner?”. Whatever it is, I have a choice, to leave this space, to isolate myself from the slow poison coming from Washington. I can return home, my safety net, all that resembles me, my safe space. But my co-workers cannot. My Muslim American friends cannot. My Jewish American friends cannot. My White American friends cannot. What will be of them? This is home.

In the end, we all want the same things, security for ourselves, for our family. We all want to be healthy, to feed our families and to have the freedom to choose what we want in our lives. We can disagree as much as we want but see ; we still have to live together in this shared bit of Earth. We have to make things work. We cannot afford to not talk to each other.

As everyone is scrambling to vote, I hope you remember us, the forgotten resident ‘aliens’ who also exist on campus. We’ve been watching, absorbing everything about this country in our journey to graduate. Our version of America is what we tell to our families back home. I hope America leaves a mostly positive imprint on me once I graduate. I really do.

(Soiled Counters by Sarah Shu)

After writing this poem, I thought to myself, “Do I really romanticize my experiences when I write them down?”. I kept thinking about that question. For some part, it rings true, because I’ve written about things that may seem rather dull to some people, such as the rainy days when I walk back to my apartment soaked, sad and miserable. Yet I write about those rainy days as if every moment of it begs to be noticed. I write as if every raindrop that soaked me had to be felt, deeply or otherwise. The raindrops have to be reflected upon, whether it be the damp sensation of it or what the dampness may mean in the overall context of my life or in the life of others. I jot down the vivid feelings I was feeling at the time and how it may or may not seemingly fit in the present timeline of my life. My thoughts needed an outlet, oh so badly.

As for this poem, after stress-cleaning the kitchen countertops, I was far from inspired to tackle my bottomless pile of assignments. At this point of the semester, I was in the phase of feverishly writing despite my lurking exams. I needed to make sense of my thoughts through writing while my adrenaline was high. At the end of writing this poem, I wrote down; why am I romanticizing chores? Because I can. 

I’m not here to make you watch the entire video. But you can if you want to. (Also: spoiler alert)

I came across this video when my friend Ameera tweeted it and the video mentioned the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, which is based on the real life of John Nash, an Economics Nobel Prize winner. I’ve watched this movie several times. The first time I watched the movie, I didn’t know about schizophrenia. Thus, I believed as John Nash did, that the hallucinations and delusions he believed and saw were real. Only towards in the ending did I realize that they were in fact, not. But it seemed so real. I suppose that was the point.

The second time I watched it was when I was taking Psych 270 (Intro to Psychopathology), which is an intro class devoted to mental health. Since I had a better understanding of the mental health, I appreciated the movie even more. John Nash, despite having schizophrenia, could still function just fine and he managed his symptoms by learning to ignore his hallucinations. Later, he went on to win a Nobel prize. He certainly lived a normal life with schizophrenia. Yet oftentimes, we view people with mental health issues as incapable of living a high-functioning life. While that may be true for some, it certainly isn’t true in all cases. The movie also highlights a key point, that John Nash can live normally and still manage to achieve.

The point here is, that we need to learn to view people with mental health issues as they are, people, and not their mental health issues. My professor in class noted an important point, that we needed to be careful with the labels we give to people struggling with mental health. E.g. ‘person with anxiety’, ‘person with schizophrenia’. These labels matter, because saying ‘he’s schizophrenic’ means reducing him to that narrative. Doing this means that we either view them purely through that lens or worse, that they will internalize the label and succumb to the narrative. However, I’m not saying that we should discount mental health issues entirely. ‘A person with mental health issues’ just means that the mental health issue(s) are only a part of them, never fully defining them.

The video also denotes just how important movies truly are, to explain, to help us understand and to give representation of mental health issues amongst everyday people. So, if you ever felt like binge watching movies, the movies in the video are a great way to learn about mental health issues and enjoy yourselves without feeling too much guilt. #breakthestigma