final_thp_4thedition

7

PG | 3 PG | 4

Ariel Sobel 

It’s 4 AM. Do you know where your mother is? 

I do 

I always do 

She’s a floor above me screaming 

Heaving up cries 

Capsules of air won’t penetrate her lungs 

She’s got the runs 

She’s literally trying to run away 

Evaporate 

Escape 

From a prison I can’t locate 

So I guess I don’t really know where she is 

I hope it’s dreaming 

I can’t tell when her body swells with heavy breathing 

Seething cries beneath her eyes 

I don’t know 

Where her PTSD has taken her 

Mom has been kidnapped 

Trapped in a memory of a man they call father’s hands 

Beating her 

I hate the name 

It’s not a game 

No one wins 

Unless score is kept by the bruises on her skin 

But it’s been years since she left him 

Something’s underneath, beneath, within 

The following spectrum of poems were presented during an 

event held by USC’s Health Sciences Education Program, a 

group dedicated to providing insight into various health 

professions. Slamming Down the Stigma was an event 

specifically held in order to help destigmatize mental illness. 

When my mother got diagnosed with PTSD 

I didn’t believe her 

I thought it was just for soldiers 

Men crushed by bullets or boulders 

Marines in Vietnam burnt down by the Vietcong 

Running 

Flying 

Dying 

But I kept trying to understand 

To demand 

That my mother be normal 

I didn’t see cuts so I ignored the bleeding 

She was the parent 

I wanted to be a child so I acted like one 

PG | 5 PG | 6

FIG. A 

Her mental illness didn’t fit the media’s depiction 

so I disregarded it as fiction 

Reduced pain to self pitying addiction 

But Mama had too fought a war 

But even her own country told her to surrender 

The courts speculated she was too educated for abuse 

Her PhD outweighed her battle wounds 

Calling justice was no use 

Friction and affliction wore sores 

She didn’t live beneath the poverty line 

So they sketched her out as crazy 

Told her she was insane on enough papers 

Until it was a diagnosis 

A psychosis 

And as I woke up every night to sound of my mother screaming 

She didn’t sound human anymore 

She sounded like a statistic 

It wasn’t realistic 

That she loved me with every letter 

But was reduced to 4 

PTSD 

An acronym for 

Polite Talk of Someone’s Damage 

Pushing Titles on Suppressed Demons 

Persistent Tremors Shuddering Down 

Panic Terrorizing Simple Days 

Pleasant Talk for Structured Destruction 

You can’t function when you’re defined by 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder 

hammering behind your eyes 

My reply: 

Please Talk about Something Different 

Stop saying that you’re crazy 

in love 

about me 

without me 

Would you say you’re retarded to get in my pants? 

Crazy is a slur 

To demean conditions 

Reposition 

I’ll tell you what’s crazy 

Mom needs revision 

But Dad won’t pay child support 

Yet still works as a pediatrician 

Equal pay and abortion is a fortune 

We’re obsessed with JLaw undressed 

Not Angelina saving orphans 

A PTA will support a PSA against PDA 

But when my friend’s PTSD won’t go away 

(she can’t escape last years rape) 

USC’s administration states 

get a service cat 

Reassemble yourself tape 

They claim that they care 

But over there on the row 

you know 

The only stand rapists are put on is a keg 

I won’t peg it all on them 

that’s too far 

But what’s really crazy 

is that we take people with emotional bullet holes 

And don’t let them heal to scars 

It’s 5 AM and I wish I knew where my mother was 

She’s been with all sorts of peoples 

and done all sorts of things 

Has so many memories 

Identities 

Reduced to a disease 

Mama please forgive me 

I didn’t believe things I couldn’t see 

I can’t take back history 

But demand the world understand 

Your initials will always be 

MOM 

not PTSD. 

PG | 7 PG | 8

FIG. B 

Contributed Anonymously 

I am not looking up when the elevator doors open 

but I know it is her because she walks too quietly. 

and I have never been in the presence of a ghost before 

so I wouldn’t know for sure 

but as a person used to being stepped on, 

there is something holy to me 

about the kind of person who walks like her feet don’t touch the ground. 

And I’ve never asked her her name 

but I see her in the elevator every week, 

on her way to mail letters with no postage stamp. 

When I finally found the courage to ask her who they were for 

she just looked at me 

and said “Somebody far away” 

and since the elevator doesn’t have enough space 

for anything other than small talk, I left it at that. 

But it took me a while to understand the absence of stamps 

until I tried it for myself 

and found my mail returned to me a week later, 

like it had never left. 

So this poem is for her. 

the girl who writes love letters and sends them without post 

so that when the post office returns them to her, 

she could remember what it feels like to love herself. 

maybe this is a prayer 

maybe this is because elevators don’t have enough room 

for a heart as big hers but i want to know her story 

even if I don’t have the courage to ask it. 

I want to know every mile she’s walked even when people 

couldn’t hear her getting by 

and I want to know every hymn that lives at the bottom of her throat that she hums to herself 

when the world gets too quiet. 

Because the elevator is going up — just like it does every day 

but when I get back to my room 

I can’t help but think about it going back down and 

why I think it matters so much that I hear her story 

and how I imagine that every floor we stop on 

opens up and shows me another part of her life — 

like the days she couldn’t get out of bed cause there didn’t seem to be a reason to and the 

nights she couldn’t stop crying cause the darkness got too bad. 

Like she is my favorite morning coffee shop, 

I can’t get on with my day until the moment she opens up to me 

until she tells me how her heart broke but how when it did she was surprised to see all of the 

light she was keeping in there. 

She keeps the pieces in a shoebox under her bed back at home, I know it. Next to the 

playing cards and the sixth grade diary. 

This is just an elevator prayer about a girl whose name I don’t know, 

but every week I think she can tell me about the time she climbed to the top of a roof in 

Nicaragua thinking she’d finally jump but the stars were so beautiful she forgot how to use 

her legs. 

I’ve heard that strangers are usually the only people who can save you 

so I wait for her to tell me that I’m not alone in this sadness 

that I’m not the only one who liked the sound of life 

until it became my alarm clock and I woke up less of a person and more of an emergency. 

I want her to tell me the dark— 

is just the dark. 

There is nothing there I can’t see in the light. 

And the earth- the earth is just spinning so on the days when we can’t get up, we’re just 

getting dizzy. 

It will pass. 

This too shall pass. 

So i finally do it 

I do it like the coward I am when we reach her stop 

and I ask her “Why do you do that? Why do you write to a person who never writes back?” 

And in reply she hesitates, 

before she says, 

“Because then she remembers there is someone waiting for her to come home.” 

PG | 9 PG | 10

Jay Dent 

I think my sadness is turning into sickness and my sickness 

is turning into sadness. This overwhelming sense of fear is 

now turning into madness. I heard the definition of anxiety 

is a vague sense of danger, but the images of death in 

front of me are the vague images of my neighbors. 

I experienced two deaths in one month, specifically my 

birthday month, and because I have not expressed these 

feelings my body is having a somatic response. The fear 

and pain has now affected my body, I wish I could turn 

back the hands of time but I can’t- and now I have a 

curved spine. 

You think the mind and body are not one? The sickness sin 

your mind can cause sickness in your life. Anxiety and 

worry creep up on me like a thief in the night. Tip-toeing in 

my bedroom, trying to take my IPhone, and trying to steal 

the peace God gave to me. I thought being in a long 

distance relationship would help, but that just took more 

pieces away from me. 

25 percent of the population will have an anxiety disorder. 

So while you’re clapping your hands after a performance, 

someone is getting frightened because it reminds them 

of the abuse they’ve endured. When you say hi to your 

friends, someone is wishing they had friends to say hi to- 

But this overwhelming sense of sadness holds their personality 

with Ivy and turns it Blue. 

I wonder of Jay and Bey ever dealt with mental disorders, 

you know depression, anxiety or even eating disorders. 

You know the pressure to be great and stay relevant in 

this game, that’s enough pressure to drive anyone Kray. 

Kray to the point where the last option is the letter “Z”, and 

you add it to that word and you’re no longer cool you are 

now crazy. 

FIG. C 

People think mental illness is psycho’s talking to themselves, 

homeless, and living under freeways - but your 

mind is prone to sickness anyway. Stop telling your 

church members to just pray about it, or blame them 

for having it because mental illness develops from brain 

vulnerabilities and stressful life events. So just be someone 

they can talk to, give them a place where they can vent. 

We’re all here on this Earth trying to find meaning. And I 

would rather have people be mean to me, than have my 

mind play tricks on me. 

So just listen, don’t judge. Take care of your mind and body 

as one. 

Charles D. Romeo Jr. 

I was once sane, but this place made me crazy 

They even stop you from pushing up daisies 

Diagnosis as 5150 by mistake 

Take me out of this straight jacket 

Relieve me from this fate 

They gave me more pills 

I’m in a trance and lost 

I told them I was sane 

So, they place me in a vault 

I wish I would have chosen a better place 

But it’s special when you really are diagnosed 

And need the space 

PG | 11 PG | 12

Before 

I was able to win 

I could conquer 

And take 

And fight 

And succeed 

And not feel guilty 


FIG. D 

Now 

I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be fighting 

I’m not sure if I’m the last left on the battlefield 

I’m not sure if my war cry has turned into just a cry 

And if it’s the only one echoing in an empty war zone 

This armor is heavy 

My sword is blunt 

I’m waiting for an enemy 

That won’t stop making me believe 

That they already left, 

But I swear they are still around 

I swear they keep getting into my head 

They keep overpowering my body 

Conquering what I had won once 

They are here 

Now 

They are creeping out from the shadows but have forgotten to turn off the lights 

They are cutting off my breath and creating my nightmares about drowning 

They are ripping out my skeleton but forgetting that I have skin 

They are stealing my sounds so they can make my words meaningless 

They are pulling me apart so they have something to rearrange 

They are making me into something I’m not 

Blaming me when I act differently 

Now 

They have me in their grasp and I’m losing 

I’m losing everything I had won 

Everything I had become 

Every title I had taken 

Every victory 

Now 

They are taking me down 

I’m going out 

With no glory 

With no blood 

With submission 

I’m going out weak 

I didn’t train to be weak 

I didn’t fight to be weak 

I don’t want to be weak 

But I’ve forgotten how to be strong 

And I’ve forgotten how it feels 

How it feels to win 

PG | 14

FIG. E 


Everything Belongs; Where It has been, Where it is, and Where it will be 

Pardon my lack of composure walking through communal lives 

But we’ve only been nauseous posers in high school. 

I was once close to posing death because I wanted you to know this: 

I was the poster child for post mortem boredom 

You would’ve never noticed otherwise 

That the words we learn become the voices in our heads echoing into 

their respective places and moments, preferably ordered in our time… 

nonexistent until needed or called forth 

But recently my heads been regurgitating everything. Or has it always? 

When I think of breakfast I think of my mom and how much I miss her 

and even this distant, conquered nostalgia brings me to the darkest 

depths. 

I swear I’m not diagnosed but the image of who we are is our own 

self-diagnosis. 

And I’ve sometimes prescribed myself the darkness from our world to 

dip into the insane: 

I could give my limbs to the quadriplegic 

I could summon Satan with Dick Cheney 

I could reject all those who’ve tried to embrace me 

I could love and forgive murderers as my children 

I could sacrifice my flesh to cannibals 

I could share happiness to those most deprived 

Kiss whatever ugliest being and Reject the radiant 

But I’d have only written a poem of what I could. 

When my mind zooms back into my senses and I become me again, 

Me whose covenant with the world I swore to protect and to fulfill; 

I know I have grown from the fetus basking in the warmth of infinite unknowing, 

to knowing knowledge of myself impossible to be unknown 

and un-owned again in this lifetime. 

Because we must have been blessed; 

To come from the infinite variables and parameters of the universe to 

each of our perspectives and each of our trials, each of our friends, 

our families, our lovers, and our legacies – that will all be recorded in 

one communal world as we know and live 

From the first tears of nascence to the last tears of death, and smiles in 

between, 

I, and you, might as well keep growing and see what this ineffable 

pain will accumulate to, without losing our respective belonging 

I can buy into what I know of this world, find a place for me: 

Me who has not yet been noticed, and the 

Me who has vowed not to be noticed 

Me who has had the power to control my life all along 

PG | 15 PG | 16

PG | 18

ME, 

Why we should protect 

our not-so-dirty 

bacteria friends... 

MY MICROBIOME, 

AND 

Iby VIVEK SHAH 

Through sheer dominance, one small, 

physically incapable creature, once on the 

brink of extinction, has come to be the paramount 

species on the planet. Humans are 

at the center of the universe, a universe they 

have ironically constructed around themselves. 

As a species, humans have won the 

war against bacterial infections, expanded 

the quality of life, and reduced levels of absolute 

poverty. Our status quo now is perceived 

to be a healthy state and any deviation 

from that is simply an exception. We are 

wrong. This problem is especially poignant in 

the United States in which preventive care 

is being seen as a nuisance to protect from 

diseases that seem to be far and few to an 

invincible youth. However, the exact opposite 

is true: the use of antibiotics has rapidly 

increased, obesity has claimed more than 

half of America, and type II diabetes is on 

the rise— even when faced with our modern 

technology. In order to protect the health 

of this nation, we must be reminded that 

our advances in biomedical technology 

can often be heavy-handed. Medicine is a 

delicate art, backed by science, and practiced 

with respect to the patient as a whole. 

With the advent of modern medicine, 

such as antibiotics, life support, and new 

surgeries, illnesses such as infections seem 

innocuous, causing patients, and even 

doctors, to begin to build egos. This dangerous 

mindset has caused some doctors to 

over-administer antibiotics because doctors 

see them as tools to simply offset human disease. 

The antibiotics cure the patient of infection, 

and for most this is the end. However 

the microbial community has begun to 

retaliate. The antibiotics, administered without 

a second thought, have caused a resurgence 

of antibiotic resistant pathogens (2). 

When penicillin was discovered in 1928, 

doctors declared that the war against infection 

was over (5). But, in 1940 the bacterial 

populations began to become resistant 

to antibiotics (5). The resistance occurs due 

to simple evolution; in any infection, there 

are millions of bacterial cells present. Within 

this large population, there are bound to be 

variations such as some bacteria that are 

PG | 19

able to withstand the antibiotic. When the 

antibiotics kill all those except the resistant 

strain, the resistant strain is able to proliferate 

due to the lack of competition. Soon, 

the entire infection is overrun with antibiotic 

resistant bacteria. Even with the initial 

discovery of antibiotic resistance in the 

early 1940’s, doctors continue to prescribe 

antibiotics (5). This trend occurs because 

patients in developed countries have become 

accustomed to the quick fixes. For 

each patient, an infection seems rare, and 

so treatment with antibiotics is the best option 

to return to normal because the fear of 

antibiotics is only its overuse. The patients 

do not see the overuse. The doctors are also 

helpless; with the laws in place that mandate 

that treatment control is in the hands 

of the patients, the doctors can only but try 

to convince the patients to avoid taking 

antibiotics (1). While this patient control of 

treatment is important, it can only function 

properly if patients understand how the 

human body works in the face of disease. 

Until now, there was nothing incorrect 

about thinking of infections as an acute occurrence. 

Doctors used to think that infections 

were caused by abiotic factors or external 

stresses that change the composition of 

the internal human environment. For example, 

obesity was seen as a high fat diet deactivating 

insulin receptors on cells, prompting 

high amounts of fat storage. In previous 

models, every part that was affected was 

owned by the patient. Everything worked 

perfectly, until it went wrong. There was no 

gradient. There was no second party (2). 

This view has drastically changed with 

the sequencing of the human microbiome, 

an ongoing investigation. Within our entire 

body there are 10 bacterial cells for every 1 

human cell (2). These bacteria live in large 

communities of varying compositions across 

our entire body. The bacteria that live on the 

face are completely different than those 

that live in your mouth, which do not resemble 

the bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract 

(2). Researchers have found that changes 

in the human gut flora can prompt diabetes 

and liver disease. The health of the human 

body is closely tied to these microbes, and 

this new research highlights the very balance 

that patients and doctors have ignored. 

One area of specific research is obesity. 

With 65% of Americans being obese or 

severely overweight, the Surgeon General 

has called obesity our generation’s most 

pressing public health issue (6). Common 

treatments for obesity were to change 

the diet, exercise, and take medication 

that can lower the heightened 

blood cholesterol. These measures 

only fight the symptoms of the disease 

while ignoring a possible root 

cause: a change in gut bacteria. A 

study in 2014 looked at the bacterial 

colonies in a healthy, lean patient and 

compared them to one of an obese 

individual. What the scientist found was 

that even though the lean person and 

obese person were taking in the same diet, 

the profound differences in their microbe 

communities had altered how the two patients 

received energy (4). The astounding 

finding was that majority of human metabolism 

is controlled by the gut flora. Therefore, 

when they are altered in the wrong 

fashion, metabolism can be invariably 

changed, causing diseases such as obesity. 

Our greatest allies are at times coined out 

greatest enemies. These new studies that 

highlight the pivotal role that microbes play 

in the human body may illicit a moment of 

wonder, but that wonder is overshadowed 

with a sense of dread. American medical 

culture, for the part seventy years, has 

equated bacteria with disease. A cultural 

synonym for bacteria was pathogens. This 

mentality invariably turned the endeavors 

of public health into a fictitious “us against 

them” battle in which humans were seen to 

be a singular individual, capable of self-reliance. 

Our time on the pedestal has ended. 

The profound control that microbes play on 

our health shows that human health is much 

more closely tied with the surrounding natural 

communities. The actions and symptoms 

of patients are no longer isolated and 

must be taken in a much larger context. 

Most importantly, this extends to antibiotic 

usage. Broad-spectrum antibiotics, as 

per their name, kill many strains of bacteria 

by targeting what they all have in common. 

This is a useful tool when doctors do 

not know which bacteria are causing the 

infection. However, The cost is that these 

broad-spectrum antibiotics also kill the useful 

microbes in a patient’s gut. A study con-

ducted in 2011 took four different patients 

and monitored their gut microbe communities 

over a ten-month period. During those 

ten months the patients were given two 

courses of antibiotics with a six month gap 

in between each. Within three days of taking 

the antibiotics, the microbe communities 

in each individual plummeted (3). The 

change did stabilize, but it never returned 

to its previous level (3). 

This problem is not 

isolated to scientific 

communities; it is a 

cultural endemic. Our 

love for antibiotics is 

fueled by a doctor’s 

love to avoid lawsuits. With a large sum of 

a doctor’s initial, pre-tax paycheck going 

to medical malpractice insurance, and the 

lawsuits against doctors rising at alarming 

rates, preventative care has taken a new 

definition: prevent medical malpractice 

claims (1). With the overwhelming amount 

of things a doctor can cure due to modern 

medicine, patients have begun to expect 

a doctor with zero error in their treatment. 

Such a mentality on the part of the patients 

and insurance companies oversimplifies diseases, 

disregarding the complex balance 

that must be maintained to stay healthy, 

placing irrational burdens on doctors. The 

burden is then avoided by over-testing 

and over prescribing drugs in order to lower 

the possibility of missing something. This 

mass attack on diseases causes a lot of 

collateral damage; studies have shown an 

alarming increase of autoimmune diseases, 

allergies, and asthma concurrent with the 

increased use of antibiotics (2). America’s 

modern medicine is crippling Americans. 

Our love for antibiotics 

is fueled by a doctor’s 

love to avoid lawsuits 

In accordance to the American spirit, the 

battle has not been abandoned; several 

endeavors have been set forth to return the 

balance of American health. Researchers 

are pushing for a better understanding of 

out gut microbial community in order to develop 

antibiotics that can circumvent the 

beneficial microbes and attack only those 

causing infection. This will allow more delicate 

treatments that 

can eradicate infections 

with increased 

precision. This will alleviate 

the problem, but 

not stem the creation 

of superbugs; in order 

to counteract the creation of superbugs, 

doctors are urging the Center for Disease 

Control to launch a public service campaign 

to help patients understand the harms 

of overusing antibiotics. Most importantly, 

a general trend has been seen in medical 

communities to understand the balance of 

the human body; the new MCAT requires 

prospective students to take a course in 

evolutionary and ecological biology, and 

new programs in medical schools allow gastroenterologists 

to take classes on microbiology. 

Most importantly, patients around the 

nation are realizing that their health is more 

closely tied to a second party than previously 

thought. Knowledge is an infection that 

can save us from a self-inflicted epidemic. 

There needs to be a change in how patient 

and doctors interact in terms of overusing 

antibiotics; in the end, we patients 

must come to realize that more medication 

is not the same as better medication. 

And doctors must come to learn that we 

sit upon the shoulders of our microbiome. 

Works Cited 

Belk, David. “The True Cost of Healthcare.” Healthcare. Yahoo, 23 Apr. 2012. Web. 07 Dec. 2014. 

Blaser, Martin. “Antibiotic Overuse: Stop the Killing of Beneficial Bacteria.”Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, 

24 Aug. 2011. Web. 07 Dec. 2014. 

Dethlefsen, Les, and David A. Relman. “Incomplete Recovery and Individualized Responses of the Human Distal 

Gut Microbiota to Repeated Antibiotic Perturbation.” Pnas.org. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 

17 Aug. 2011. Web. 05 Dec. 2014 

Feehely, Taylor, and Catheryn R. Nagler. “Health: The Weighty Costs of Non-caloric Sweeteners.” Nature.com. 

Nature Publishing Group, 09 Oct. 2014. Web. 04 Dec. 2014. 

Markel, Howard. “The Real Story Behind Penicillin.” PBS. PBS, 27 Sept. 2013. Web. 04 Dec. 2014. 

Ogden, C. L. “Overweight and Obesity in the U.S. « Food Research & Action Center.” Food Research Action 

Center Overweight and Obesity in the US Comments. Food And Research Action Center, 13 Feb. 2014. Web. 

05 Dec. 2014. 

PG | 24

Global Brigades is the world’s 

largest student-led global health 

and sustainable development 

organization. These photos were 

taken on a USC Global Medical 

Brigade trip to Honduras. 

Global 

Brigades 

PG | 25

HONDURAS

Poem by William Brochinsky 

Art by Nicole Lau 

TO GONE... 

TO GOD 

Today, we laughed 

tomorrow, cry 

Future days to question why. 

Dynamics change 

Transitions alter trajectories 

what was a present today 

may be absent tomorrow 

waxing and waning of faculties 

like the moon’s orbit around her mortality. 

Spirit giveth and taketh 

a continual, unending, barter of dualism 

universality, fundamental expectations; 

we must embrace life, with tenacity 

when we can no longer deny the ensuing fate. 

Tomorrow may erode the particles of solidity. 

Wondrously replenished in darkness of rest. 

Then upon my awake, 

erodes again and again 

her world misplaces terrain daily 

even if she smiles buoyantly in void stare. 

We laughed hysterically, at a circumstance today 

were we to cry? To sob? To risk drought 

in a flood of endless tears? 

Today was not the day to purge 

leave that till tomorrow 

when I may have the strength to withstand 

or she may simply just forget 

a priceless back-handed gift 

no longer recalling. 

There is irony weaved into her exit corridor. 

Irony in her denouement. 

Lost expectations. 

A sea of uncertainty… that is dementia. 

Watching regression back to infancy 

While absent siblings sing their own melancholy songs. 

Odd callings to return to the heavenly womb 

go unnoticed to mere observers 

one has to be present to feel the pain of her desire. 

The slow shedding of what was 

strewn along her path... to gone...to God. 

PG | 29

PG | 32

Corpus 

callosum 

“Exploring creativity...” 

CoCa was co-founded in 2013 by a pair of 

twins, one a mechanical engineer and the 

other a fine arts major, looking to construct 

a collaborative and innovative space to combine 

their passions of artistic expression and 

scientific discovery. Through original projects, 

USC Corpus Callosum seeks to connect 

the varied domains of academia and 

demonstrate the benefits of open communication 

between different schools of thought. 

USC Corpus Callosum, affectionately known as 

CoCa, is a student run organization dedicated to 

bringing together creative minds of diverse academic 

backgrounds and facilitating an exchange of ideas 

with the express purpose of creating art by utilizing 

scientific principles, mathematical theorems, emerging 

technologies, and other disciplines not usually 

associated with artistic creativity. The club derives 

its name, Corpus Callosum, from the part of the brain 

that connects the right and left hemispheres, effectively 

forming a bridge between the creative and analytical 

minds. 

“...at the intersect of art and 

technology.” 

PG | 33 

PG | 34

Exploration of 

We aim to bring the heartbeat, 

something usually very internal, 

into physical space using color and 

motion. Focus is on the commonality 

of heartbeat between humans, yet 

maintaining the uniqueness of each 

individual. An iPhone app will be used 

to measure pulse, via the camera. Taking 

one’s pulse—an often undetected and 

average/unexciting aspect of daily life— 

and turning it into something bigger 

and colorful will provide opportunity 

for self-realization. For each peak in the 

pulse, an animation of a tree will grow. 

The original model for the project (seen 

here) was to send the signals to a halfdome 

of LEDs covered by ping-pong 

balls, to mirror the physicality of pulse. 

Entitled “Listen to You!”, this 

will essentially be a web-app 

style interface scaled up to a gallery 

installation. People will input their 

names, heights, moods, and perhaps 

get their pulses taken (with an 

Arduino finger monitor), resulting 

in a personalized song according to 

certain algorithms. We hope to enliven 

people’s self-identities by creating a 

beautiful musical manifestation of their 

uniqueness based on information that 

reflects both their constancy of being 

and their presence in a moment of time. 

The installation will be a laptop with 

noise-canceling headphones, to create an 

isolated and personal experience. 

Shape, scale, and wholeness/ 

halfness. For a long time, we’ve 

wanted to create a unique and 

immersive experience of space. It 

could go outside or inside, with a 16’ 

diameter and an 8’ height; the frame 

is made of metal pipes. The dome will 

be lit with a rope light weaved into the 

frame. Light and dark will play against 

fabric triangles which cover about half 

of the frame. Here we hope to create 

an opportunity for new encounters 

and exchange. The establishment of a 

boundary, which marks the separation 

of space into an ‘outside’ and an 

‘inside’, will delineate an intentional 

and immersive yet open-ended 

experience. 

Exploring the ideas of life, death, 

destruction and rebirth. Wax is a very 

malleable material that provides the means 

for both creation and obliteration, with 

which we can further examine how death 

provides the space for new life. We have 

scanned our own heads which we will then 

use to make molds for the wax. We will 

also use 3D-print skulls to place inside the 

wax cast. To observe this destruction, we 

will melt the wax faces using a rotating heat 

gun. There will be six wax heads that will 

each fit approximately into a 6-inch cube. 

A heat gun will melt wax into the molds 

which will be clear so that one can watch 

them fill. Once the wax is set, the molds 

will be opened and the same process will be 

used to melt the newly made wax faces! 

Boundaries 

PG | 35 PG | 36

PG | 37

THEEDITORS 

JANISYUE 

ADVISINGEDITOR 

PRATIKDOSHI 

CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 

NATASHANATARAJAN 

CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 

JENNIFERKIM 

PUBLICRELATIONSEDITOR 

ANAHILLEBOE 

DESIGNEDITOR 

ANDRESCORREA 

DESIGNEDITOR 

SARALYNNVARGAS 

DESIGNEDITOR 

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