Since the chunkiness of the squirrels on the Diag reached a new level this year and became a sensation, I thought of doing a short but cute appreciation post just for these (not-so-)little guys 🙂
Tag: Umich
A Day In Our Lives #6
Hey guys!
I’m writing this post just as I get back from Thanksgiving break. I have a lot of things to be thankful for! This is a drawing of what a typical Thanksgiving layout would look like at my house. It is still missing a few items! I was fortunate enough to be able to see most of my family over this break. I was even able to see my long-distance best friend for a few hours. Thanksgiving is a really important time for us college kids to connect with our families that we may have not seen in a while. I hope everyone had a restful break. We are getting ready for finals!! Only a few more weeks left in the semester. Luckily, Christmas break is right around the corner!
See you next week !
Marissa  
A Day In Our Lives #5
Hey guys!
This week I decided to focus on a common winter activity that I know a lot of artists like to do. A lot of my art friends take up crocheting or knitting when it gets cold. This year for my family I am crocheting scarves. I have about twenty-five people on my list to make scarves for. I can make about one daily, so I am on a very strict schedule. I like to sit with my MacBook and just watch TV next to my snowy window. I am excited about the upcoming break. I like drawing these little windows in the back of the images because I feel like it gives the image more depth.
See you next week!
Marissa 
A Day In Our Lives #4
Hey guys!
The weather here in Ann Arbor is insane. I have lived in Michigan my entire life and every year I forget how fast the weather can change. One day it’s scorching hot and the next it is snowing! This week I wanted to talk about the weather we are all currently enduring. If anyone is wondering what I draw these images on I use my iPad with procreate. (Unfortunately a paid program but if anyone wants a recommendation for some free programs I have some!) I went to a football game for the first time in college and of course, it snowed! I thought I could handle it with four layers, but I get cold so fast. I was freezing. What I wouldn’t give to move somewhere warm. I hope everyone is getting excited about the upcoming Thanksgiving break. I plan to post over Christmas and Thanksgiving breaks. See you next week!
– Marissa 
A Day In Our Lives #3
Hey Guys!
This week I wanted to bring back the squirrels since you all liked them so much the first week! I personally don’t like football very much but I know a lot of people do! It is exciting that we’ve won last weekend. I saw a photo of a squirrel eating a candy bar on the Diag on Snapchat and I thought it was pretty funny. I love the cute little culture we have around the squirrels on campus. I really like drawing with this like cute shading style I have been doing for these posts. If you have anything that you see or experience on campus or around Ann Arbor comment below or get ahold of me! I’d love to include your ideas in my posts.
See you next Sunday!
Marissa
Looking Forward: Mentality Magazine
Happy Saturday!
We are rapidly approaching the end of the semester which means I only have a couple of posts left. This week I’m posting a day late because my organization, MUSIC Matters, held our biggest event of the year. If you attended SpringFest day festival or the night concert featuring Hippo Campus – I just want to say thank you. We all appreciate it so much and hope that you enjoyed it.Â
Moving on, this week we are talking about Mentality Magazine! I had the opportunity to speak to Liz Hoornstra, the current editor-in-chief of the publication. She explained that the magazine aims to do two main things: 1. Create a sense of community for its members and 2. Destigmatize mental health through writing. As someone who has been focusing on taking control of my mental health for the past year, I was really excited to learn more about how the magazine has done this and how others can support their mission!
Mentality Magazine typically publishes digital issues, with a printed copy done once a semester. This semester marks an exciting milestone for the organization: 10 printed publications (and 5 years of being an org on campus!). Some of the topics they’ve been focusing on most recently deals with the impact that the pandemic and racial injustice towards the BIPOC and AAPI communities have had on peoples’ mental health. This follows in their larger commitment to diversifying the magazine’s staff and writing focuses, including highlighting marginalized voices in mental health discussions. I was excited to hear that they’re taking on these topics so directly, as they have affected us all in different ways over the past year and are, in many ways, directly tied to some of the most widespread mental struggles on campus.Â
Mentality Magazine has also recently partnered with steps wellness, “the mental wellness platform for college students”. The platform helps connect students to licensed therapists, provides safe, private spaces for them to have therapy sessions in person or through video call, and allows them to share and read about their peers’ experiences with mental health. This is something that I found incredibly important. Especially in college living situations with many roommates and with most therapy sessions being virtual right now, it can be hard to find a space where you can talk about your struggles without worrying if others will overhear or barge in. This partnership shows that Mentality Magazine is really committed to helping students at every level of their mental wellness journey.
Liz also explained to me that COVID has sparked some important conversations regarding mental health equity and accessibility, things that people were sometimes skittish to talk about before.
“We welcome any and all members to Mentality, but we also are very open that mental health is not a topic that you can be apolitical about and we have to recognize that, holding a space in the mental health community here at Michigan means that there are certain times when we cannot stay silent. I hope that going forward, that is something that we are prioritizing.”
If you’re interested in getting involved in Mentality Magazine, you are welcome to join at any point! They look for writers all through the year, so you don’t have to join at the beginning of the year or semester. You can visit mentalitymagazine.org and fill out the contact form and a member of their exec team will get back to you about the next steps. If you don’t have enough time to be a writer, or that’s not your personal skill set, you can still do other things to help support the magazine and its important mission on campus! Reading and sharing articles is so important – de-stigmatization can’t happen without conversation.Â
That’s all from me this week! Thank you so much for reading and I will be back next week with my last post of the semester featuring a capella group 58 Greene!
Stay safe & stay well,
Lucy
