They came to me in the middle of the night. They were young and beautiful and dressed up like they were about to go out. I had about an hour’s warning, and their knock on the door was light so as to wake no one who wasn’t already up. When they got to my doorstep, I was ready. I knew it would be hasty and impromptu, but there’s no reason even a simple wedding can’t be beautiful.

We shared grapes and wine, and I told them that what begins as new and perfect fruit can end up a rich, fermented, much-changed substance that the vine might not recognize. They tasted both and said their vows, and we signed the paperwork. With a little help from their friends, they were married.

In the state of California, any recognized member of the church clergy can marry individuals to one another if the couple has a license. Over the years, I’ve married a handful of couples in the woods and in my living room. I’ve seen the state and the nation struggle over the definition of marriage, and I’ve seen it take many forms. I’ve heard the academic and feminist arguments that marriage was, for many centuries, a primarily economic arrangement to secure the merging and inheritance of property. Much about marriage has changed, but for the very rich and the very poor, the economic part remains the same.

The rich have assets to protect. They draw up contracts and agreements to ensure no one is seduced into a holy and blissful union by a heartless and calculating gold digger.

The poor have other arrangements to make. We are more likely to cohabitate to save money, whether it is appropriate for the relationship or not. In my life, I have known men and women who choose to stay with partners who are abusive or merely unsuited because breaking up means giving up a place to call home.

My friends who were married that night in my living room loved one another and probably would have chosen to marry at some point. The reason they came to me with so little notice, however, was not a pregnancy or a shotgun or even a romantic whim. It was the deadline for FAFSA submissions for the following academic year. Too young to be considered independent from their parents, they were desperate for enough financial aid to transfer to a four-year university. They were the children of vanishing middle class. On paper, their folks could afford to contribute to their tuition, but real life is complicated with gambling addictions and jobs that don’t offer health care.

It wasn’t young love. It wasn’t an impetuous gesture or an adherence to belief. It was a financial decision. Like many decisions forced upon us by poverty, it was a decision that puts the future in jeopardy — no money down, crippling credit terms down the road. The FAFSA considers married students independent and places a student in a wholly separate category for aid. Choosing to marry now to qualify for aid may result in a possibly messy and potentially expensive divorce later, but in the moment, we do what we must. In the meantime, we give one another the gift of an education otherwise out of reach.

Tuition has outpaced the cost of living, outpaced inflation and shows no sign of slowing. People all over are taking drastic measures to afford school, and at the University of California, we are no different. A recent discussion on the cost of housing led some of my classmates to speculate on the appearance of quad dorms with four bunks to a room and the feasibility of (not kidding) camping on the Glade and writing a blog called The Great Outdorms. The idea of getting married for mercenary causes may rankle the romantic soul, but in the scheme of desperation, it seems almost a tame solution.

In my tradition, couples being wed grasp hands and are gently tied together to symbolize their bond. When this couple was tied, I told them to remember that it’s only one hand they’ve given and that the other remains free. True of their marriage, this also became a symbol of their shared commitment to helping one another get through school, support one another’s dreams and be good partners; they were not entirely bound, but they were also not entirely free.

Marriage was never pure. It is sometimes undertaken in the spirit of perfect altruism and true love, but my friends’ practical decision was perfectly in line with the long and fraught history of this evolving institution. They might have given up, waited a few years or taken on crushing loans to move forward with their education. A license to marry costs $97 and takes effect the moment both people say “I do.” They’re responsible to one another and for one another, and they take that seriously. This year, they’ll both graduate from a UC school with their respective bachelor’s degrees.

I now pronounce you educated to the minimum degree necessary to get a decent job.

Meg Elison writes the Monday column on financial issues affecting UC Berkeley students.Contact Meg Elison at melison@dailycal.org.

The post For richer or for poorer appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Over the past few days, I’ve become the most unproductive, groggy, exhausted human being. This is no doubt a result of my erratic sleeping patterns. My sleep schedule has consisted of going to bed no earlier than 3 a.m., waking up no later than 2 p.m. and taking obscenely long naps throughout the day when the exhaustion becomes too much to handle.

This isn’t something we students are unfamiliar with — during the school year, it basically becomes the norm. Days chock-full of classes, meetings, job obligations and extracurriculars leave the wee hours of the night as the only time to do homework, party or continue procrastinating. Our to-do lists are so cluttered that sleep is typically the last item on the list. No one disputes the necessity of sleep, but many of us downplay its importance — some of us believe it’s something we can be successful without. Even if you run consistently on four to five hours of sleep and manage to get the grades and have a social life, you’re definitely not as healthy as you could be.

In an April 2013 National Institute of Health newsletter, sleep expert Michael Twery explains that sleep regulates the immune system, growth hormones, appetite, cardiovascular health and blood pressure. Lack of sleep has also been linked to higher risks of heart disease, obesity and depression, according to the newsletter.

The environment at UC Berkeley inevitably leads us to believe that sleep and academic success are mutually exclusive. While I’m clearly no paragon of sleeping — there have been countless occasions when I’ve gotten out of bed in the morning only looking forward to the nap I’d take a few long and miserable hours later — it’s important to re-evaluate the way we sleep in the context of our daily lives and commitments, regardless of how difficult change may be.

The first step to getting a good night’s rest — finding out how much sleep is actually necessary. That amount of sleep actually varies from person to person, and what makes some people feel rested and refreshed may be completely different for others. On average, according to UC Berkeley’s own Tang Center, adults should sleep seven to eight hours per night to feel alert and free of fatigue.

But this fact doesn’t help much — simply knowing how much sleep you need doesn’t mean you’ll get it. So how do you fix your sleep schedule? It means going to bed before 3 a.m. in order to get more hours in. It means establishing a schedule and sticking to it — yes, even on weekends — which is something just as important as the quantity of sleep. Waking up at 8 a.m. one day, snoozing until noon the next and sleeping in all day during the weekend disrupts the body’s natural rhythms and makes you feel awful. By getting quality sleep consistently, you can prevent stress and psychological strain, according to a Clayton Sleep Institute study.

This same sleep quantity and consistency should also be supplemented with regular exercise and maintenance of a well-rounded diet free of stimulants late in the day to maximize the quality of sleep each night.

What happens when we hit the mid-afternoon wall and just can’t function? Well, that’s when our buddy, the nap, comes into play. Napping shouldn’t replace a good night’s sleep, but if done right, it can seriously improve concentration and focus. The Harvard School of Public Health concluded that the likelihood of developing heart disease is 40 percent less in people who nap regularly. The benefits are so potent that UC Davis health professionals have begun to encourage their students to accompany a full night’s sleep with 20- to 30-minute naps to improve productivity and boost academic success. But the key here is to not overdo it — a nap longer than 30 minutes might backfire, making you feel more tired and sluggish than you originally were.

So if you’re sick of constantly feeling fatigued and lethargic, try this experiment: Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day just for a week and notice how you feel. Our commitments and obligations are hopefully a little less intense now than they are during the school year, so use the next month to gear up for the school year by stocking up on sleep.

Our generation has done a great job of giving sleep less priority than everything else, but its importance is on par with developing healthy eating habits, exercising and maintaining proper hygiene and psychological health — all things we vehemently try to pursue. But without the energy and and restorative benefits of sleep, we’re mistaken in thinking that health and general wellness are attainable.

If we truly want to take control of our health, we have to start prioritizing sleep, even if that means getting a little less done. Our post-college lives aren’t going to get much easier. The next four years aren’t the peak of our responsibilities and commitments, but they may very well be the peak of our youth. We need to establish proper routines and sleep habits now, because our bodies won’t be able to withstand college-style sleep patterns forever. The earlier we start, the healthier we’ll be in the long run.

Shahin Firouzbakht writes a Thursday column on health issues affecting student life.
Contact Shahin Firouzbakht at sfirouzbakht@dailycal.org.

The post You snooze, you gain? appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Corn tortillas were being warmed over an open gas burner, perfuming the kitchen with that taco night scent. A simmering pan bubbled and spat, and I spotted a mounded bowl of shredded jack cheese. Tomatoes, lettuce and onions were arranged like birthday balloons in bright colors, and bottle of crema with a Spanish label lorded over it all, the white-robed lord of the condiments.

I was spending the night at a friend’s, and I was very excited. We had played for hours, and when her mom finally called us in for dinner, we were starving. There was an assembly line, and we could make our own meals. I got to the pan full of shredded beef and looked at it for a minute before getting nudged to get a move on. I was polite and didn’t say anything, but I was very confused.

When I got home, I asked my mom about it.

“So I spent the night over at Yesenia’s.”

“Yeah, I know you did. I met her mom.”

“Her mom made tacos, but she didn’t put any potatoes in the meat.”

“No kidding.”

“It’s like they weren’t even real tacos.”

She laughed a little and sat me down for one of the first adult conversations of my life.

My mom raised four kids on her own. She worked retail jobs and drove broken-down cars, but we never went hungry. She just got creative. Whenever she made beef, she explained to me that she could extend it with potatoes. They were filling, they’d soak up the flavor of the meat and they cost pennies to keep in the pantry. The more recipes she mentioned, the more I realized that she loaded all of my favorite dinners with the cheapest grains and produce she could find to make more out of less. Cabbage rolls with rice and carrots. Meatloaf that was more than half tomatoes and bread crumbs. Dark meat chicken and the heels of rye bread.

Up until I was 12 years old, I thought fettuccine Alfredo was just buttered noodles with pepper. My mom joked that she never cooked more than a pound of ground beef, even when the table was set for eight.

Poor doesn’t always mean going hungry. There is legitimate hunger in this country, but most of America’s poor suffer from a lack of options. People who grew up like me, on rice and bread and potatoes and convenience food, weren’t starving — we were slowly developing diabetes and gout. Our eating habits were formed early, and I still note the price of ramen noodles, holding steady at four for a dollar in my neighborhood store. However, I am trying to learn from the examples set for me by both Lil Wayne and Junot Diaz. I am trying to retain the parts of my identity that were forged by being poor while shedding the bad habits of poverty. My stories come with me, but the ramen and the purple drank have to be left behind.

The national debate about childhood obesity and the eating habits of the very poor isn’t just political. It’s deeply personal. I remember my friends in grade school who ate uncooked ramen sprinkled with the super-salty flavor packet for lunch every day. Not some days, not bad days, but every day. I remember living in a food desert and choosing between dinner at 7-Eleven or Pizza Hut about five nights a week. My mom made the best choices that she could, but there’s no denying that there is a great deal of privilege that can be read in our diets.

Living in the Bay Area, we have access to a great deal of local and imported produce. We can buy organic every day if we choose — and if we can afford it. Restaurants in this area are prepared to answer questions about the origin of ingredients, methods of preparation and even the moral philosophies of how and why they cook what they cook. Our options are numerous; our standards are high. This is the privilege of people who aren’t too hungry to worry about it.

When I visited home this summer, I could see I wasn’t the only one moving on. Like many women who had children when they were very young, my mom is still growing up and still finding herself. I opened the freezer, expecting the 19-cent burritos I grew up on, but I found it full of frozen quartered squash, my mom’s homemade chicken stock for soup and a couple of whole free-range chickens. She’s stopped using anything processed or artificial in her cooking, and she’s not scrambling to feed a bunch of kids anymore. We’ve both changed our circumstances enough that our choices are dictated by what we like rather than what’s cheapest.

We went out to dinner together and talked about what’s changed, and I think she said it best.

“When you kids were growing up, if we went out, I could only look at the right side of the menu, where the prices were printed. Now I only look left.”

We think back, we look left, we look forward. We keep the good and leave the ramen on the shelf.

Meg Elison writes the Monday column on financial issues affecting UC Berkeley students.Contact Meg Elison at melison@dailycal.org.

The post Top ramen wishes and taco night dreams appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Despite the title of Robin Thicke’s new song, when a friend of mine first mentioned the “rapey” undertones of “Blurred Lines,” I was taken aback. The fact that the song’s music video is grotesque and objectifying wasn’t new to me, but I had failed to recognize these more problematic undertones as I heard the catchy tune around Berkeley.

However, after taking a closer look at the lyrics and reading Tricia Romano’s take of the song in The Daily Beast, I have come to understand its impact more fully. Sure enough, the song is suggesting that the line between rape and consensual sex is “blurred.” This is blatantly portrayed when a model is carrying a stop sign on her back only to have Thicke sing “I know you want it.”

Lyrics aside, the footage alone is objectifying. Three women are orbiting around the three singers in nude thongs and heels, shaking their asses and licking their fingers as the men move around in full-body suits and sunglasses. The women are exposed, sometimes on their knees, playful and vapid. The men stand tall and assured, promising, “Just let me liberate you,” and referring to their physical proportions in a way that asserts their masculine dominance. It’s fair to say the balance of power isn’t exactly in the women’s favor.

But what’s that line about liberation all about?

In an interview with GQ, Thicke said of his song, “We just wanted to turn (everything that was taboo) over on its head and make people go, ‘Women and their bodies are beautiful. Men are always gonna want to follow them around.’” He added, “Right now, with terrorism and poverty and Wall Street and Social Security having problems, nudity should not be the issue.”

First of all, the issue with the video is not the nudity per se but the context surrounding the nudity — how the nudity creates an imbalance of power. If the purpose of nudity was to point out the beauty of the human body like Thicke claims, then why were the men fully clothed? Why not expose their beauty as well? And why were the screenshots moving so fast between one beautiful nude body to the other without sufficient time to actually reflect on it the way you would below Michelangelo’s David or the Sistine Chapel ceiling? Thicke speaks of his song as if it were revolutionary, “blurring the lines between men and women,” when it really adheres to longstanding patriarchal standards.

I can see why Thicke would think his song is empowering. The song’s about a “bad girl,” one who’s challenging the social norm by practicing sexual freedom — even though this sexual freedom is being offered to her by a man — in a society that expects her to remain monogamous at the least and otherwise dubs her a “slut.”

Sounds like a misguided attempt at empowerment, right? But Thicke isn’t the first to consider sexuality when trying to “empower women.”

The idea of empowerment through sexual acts is endorsed on a daily basis by some of the most iconically “feminist” female artists. Take Beyonce Knowles, for example. Yes, I said it: Beyonce, the “symbol” of female empowerment. Looking at her “Single Ladies” music video, I found nothing empowering about three women in leotards and high heels shaking their asses yet again. Granted, this video had no men in it at all, but who was the sensual choreography targeting? What was it meant to achieve? And what messages does Beyonce’s video send to young women who use such an influential figure as a role model?

When you listen to songs like “Run the World (Girls)” you immediately think of female empowerment. The lyrics seem to be giving and not taking away agency from women. But the music video says a completely different story — starting with the woman in her underwear trapped in a cage to the army of women dancing in strapped leggings and skintight dresses. The message? Yes, girls run the world, but only using their sex appeal. And listeners go on to use this message as a model for empowerment!

Now, there’s nothing wrong with practicing sexual freedom — at least what Beyonce is modeling doesn’t undermine consent. What I find problematic is when sexual acts are marketed as the only means of practicing freedom and equality — entirely ignoring education or self-sufficiency. Perhaps women aren’t represented as sexual objects in Beyonce’s songs, but sexuality is still used as the primary tool for women to yield any type of power, which isn’t much better, in my opinion.

So yes, Robin Thicke’s song — as well as half the hip-hop and rap industry — is extremely problematic. It perpetuates the objectification of women and rape culture. That is clear enough. What is more perturbing are songs that are not identifiably objectifying, songs that are seen as empowering even though they perpetuate the same problematic norms.There is much more to empowerment than the body, be it female, male or transgender empowerment. And as far as I’m concerned, the truly blurred lines are the messages we choose to admit into our lives in the name of empowerment.

Amy Mostafa writes a Thursday column on cultural issues. Contact Amy Mostafa at amostafa@dailycal.org.

The post Blurred lines of empowerment appeared first on The Daily Californian.

“We’re going to go on an adventure.”

My mom had woken me up sometime after midnight to tell me this news. I blinked in the low light, trying to wake up fully.

“What?”

“You’re going to pack up your backpack for a trip. Bring clothes and the stuff that’s most important to you. Whatever doesn’t fit in your bag, we have to leave here.”

“When are we coming back?”

“We’re not. Hurry up.”

I was 7 years old. This was the first time we had to leave in the middle of the night.

We stole quietly out of the apartment. The notice on the door read “EVICTION.” I knew that word. My little brother lay curled up on the floor of the car, under the glass dome of the hatchback. He was asleep with his favorite stuffed animal under his arm. I hoped my mom had packed for him, but I didn’t ask. I had done a terrible job of packing for myself, choosing books and forgetting my hairbrush. The next time it happened, I was better at it.

In my life, I’ve moved more times than I can count. I’ve lived in more states than most people have driven through and more countries than most have seen on vacation. As an adult, I moved for jobs, for school, for love and for fun. As a kid, I moved because we were with the army. After my parents divorced, we moved because we were dirt-poor and could never seem to stay anywhere. Like most kids, I hated it. I could never stay in one school for very long or make friends I could keep. More often than not, we left in the middle of the night, abandoning our belongings, never to return. For a long time, I hated the word “adventure.”

This week, I moved again. But this time, I chose to move. I have lived in Fremont for a whole year, from CalSO to finals, and I never had to worry about packing to leave in the middle of the night. This time, I chose the time and the place, the neighborhood and the size of my new home. I chose the length of my commute and the distance I would have to travel to a grocery store, a library and a freeway.

These changes brought on by my choices got me thinking about moving and privilege. Privilege can be largely represented in choices. These simple choices about how and where to live were choices we didn’t have when I was growing up, because we were poor. We couldn’t choose to stay or go. We couldn’t choose not to live in the ghetto or in a rent-by-week motel — because privileges like that have to be bought. The old saying goes that beggars can’t be choosers, and that is more evident in how and where one lives than in anything else. It is inescapable.

My escape in growing up brought me choices. I get to choose who I live with, where we will live, where we will go.
Living in the South Bay was a hard choice. As I’ve written previously, my choice was between a commute lasting between an hour and a half to three hours, and at a distance from campus that made a social life or club involvement really difficult. Circumstances have changed enough this year that we were able to make the move to the East Bay to a home in West Oakland. The maximum length of my new commute, even if I take the slowest no-cost option, is 40 minutes. It is a new world.

My friends are almost as excited as I am. Everyone is very supportive of this change, and strangers touched by my story tell me they have been rooting for me all along. Our new place is bigger, better located, and packed with better features than anything we’ve had before. There are more good things about this move than I can list, but it feels incredibly fragile to me. To have so much freedom and so much choice is hard to accept after a lifelong habit of being the beggar who could not choose. It all seems too good to be true. I am hanging up pictures, making my bed and making it real. Our choices become our lives, they make up who we are.

I caught the bus in downtown Oakland for the first time a few days ago. The ride was over so quickly that I barely had time to distract myself with emails and texts. The bus pulled up to Bancroft Way, and I was momentarily overwhelmed by the small changes in fortune that led me here. I had my packed my bag for a day, not forever. I have the keys to my new place, and I know it will be there when I get back. The long car ride of eviction and the long bus ride of the beggar have ended.

I am no longer afraid of adventure.

Meg Elison writes the Monday column on financial issues affecting UC Berkeley students.Contact Meg Elison at melison@dailycal.org.

The post Moving on up appeared first on The Daily Californian.

A friend of mine recently talked to me about an experience he had after smoking marijuana — after getting high enough, he objectively looked at himself in a mirror and saw his face, his body and his total being. Because he wasn’t imposing his own subjective self-perception on his body, it was as if he was seeing himself for the first time from the perspective of a stranger. He then started to worry how that stranger might unfairly judge him on the basis of his appearance with no knowledge of his personality. He said this feeling made him feel strange, almost sad.

I didn’t think anything of it at first. But strip the story down to its core and forget that it was drug-induced, and there is something to gain from it. There are people who struggle with these same thoughts every second of every day and who go to unfortunate lengths to meet societal standards of beauty, body and appearance. And most commonly, they must live with the effects of self-criticism and and debilitating eating disorders.

We meet different kinds of people and have such varied experiences at a fast pace at UC Berkeley that it’s almost inevitable that the way we perceive ourselves comes into question at one point or another during our four years here. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as that self-exploration can lead to inner peace. But when self-criticism becomes so deep that it points us in a completely different and much darker direction, there is a real cause for worry. Intense self-criticism results in negative body image, which stems from a dissatisfaction with physical appearance but sustains the dark emotions that come along with those perceptions.

Left untreated, these feelings can fester and build up to an overwhelming urge to dramatically alter physical appearance. One manifestation of this is eating disorders, which cripple 25 percent of college students who try to control their weight through behaviors similar to bulimia nervosa, according to a Renfrew Center evaluation. Eating disorders aren’t the sole indicators of body image issues — 91 percent of college students have used dieting as a means of weight control. Why have we made it so difficult for people struggling with their body image to reach out and get support for the effects of constant societal and internal pressures?

Appearance has dramatically taken precedence over health, and with that shift comes negative body perception. Body Peace, a UC Berkeley student organization dedicated to promoting positive body image, provides tips to prevent appearance from being the primary motivator for physical change. Become aware of what your body and mind can do every single day. Start thinking about what you can achieve with the time and energy you would have used to spend focusing on self-perceived imperfections. Challenge yourself to think of 10 positive things about yourself that are completely unrelated to your appearance. Then keep adding to the list until you can accept yourself.

If you at least try to strive for wellness, things will fall into place. Dieting or exercising more often, for example, shouldn’t be done with the intention of being able to fit into new shorts or looking less “fat” but rather with the intention of becoming healthier. When we lose sight of what actually matters — our well-being — we start to focus only on the societal factors that try to influence us to change ourselves, and that has disastrous consequences.

Harsh external stimuli in the form of media and pop culture have persuaded us to accept flawed notions of gender, sex and relationships that end up getting projected onto our real lives and enhance negative body image. We need to stifle the influence of TV, movies and advertisements that slowly brainwashes us into accepting stereotypes — that the most attractive women are perfect, thin and of a certain skin tone, or that men need to be muscular to convey dominance. Instead of accepting these unrealistic and one-size-fits-all definitions of beauty and character, we need to develop our own notions of beauty by shutting out external noise and focusing on realistic expectations for ourselves that will actually make us happy.

There’s one overarching solution at the root of positive body image — being comfortable with your body and with yourself. Appearance doesn’t dictate your value and self-worth, and that value is worth finding and cherishing. As long as you’re comfortable with your body regardless of its appearance, you’ll maintain a sense of self-worth and be healthy — mentally, socially and physically — no matter what you do.

The accepting atmosphere here at UC Berkeley is conducive to shattering the barriers that block you from being comfortable with yourself. John Lennon says it best: “We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create.”

Shahin Firouzbakht writes a Thursday column on health issues affecting student life.
Contact Shahin Firouzbakht at sfirouzbakht@dailycal.org.

The post Loving you appeared first on The Daily Californian.

If you attended high school in the United States, you probably read a story called “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant. It’s a story about a poor woman who borrows a necklace from a friend and loses it. She then panics because she believed the necklace was worth a great deal of money. She decides to replace it and never comes clean about the mistake. I remember when I read it — I was a freshman in high school living in a bloodthirsty little town before the anti-bullying crusade began. I knew from experience through elementary and middle school that there were many things I could hide, but being poor was not one of them. Poverty was in my lunchbox, on my clothes, on my no-name brand shoes.

I read “The Necklace” knowing that I’d never make the mistake of borrowing a diamond necklace from a friend — but also that I could just as easily end up a slave to a simple mistake and to my pride. The woman in the story could have just told her friend what happened. I could just tell my friends that my mom had lost her job and that we had to move in with friends of hers. Instead, the woman in the story works 10 years in menial labor to save her pride, and I came up with implausible lies about not wearing my nice clothes to school or doing a science experiment on how fast sneakers fall apart. Pride is the great barrier.

There are many instances in which pride is the correct response. When you’ve accomplished something, when you have learned who you are or when you have overcome an obstacle, you should be proud. When your pride keeps you from texting your exes when you’re lonely or from selling out a friend when you might have profited in doing so, pride is a companion to integrity and self-respect. When pride is a companion to poverty, however, the two can get you into trouble. I can’t count the number of times I’ve laid down my debit card at a restaurant or a bar and said “I’ve got it” when I didn’t have it. Or the times I’ve agreed to go out in the first place when I knew that going out was not in the budget — and that once I was out, I would have to spend money to save face. I’ve had to learn to get over my pride as I’ve gotten older and tell my friends to come hang out at my place, pick somewhere cheaper or go on without me. My pride has often been too large to swallow, but I’m learning.

Part of the trouble is that here in America, we assign no nobility to the poor. We often treat it like a choice that people make not to be ambitious or industrious, forgetting that most people who were born poor will stay poor, because we never catch up. We forget that there are times in life when almost everyone is broke — like in college — and that it’s a temporary state we get through that is not something to be ashamed of. We forget that our friends will understand that we aren’t made of money.

When I finally get up the courage to tell a friend that I can’t afford to go, I’ve always been met with understanding — and sometimes relief. Honesty engenders honesty, and if you fess up to being broke, you might be surprised at who says, “Me, too.” Americans are trained to consume from birth, so saying no and admitting you don’t have the money isn’t easy, but it gets easier as you go. Once I got over the initial peak of my pride and admitted to a friend that I couldn’t always buy concert tickets or sushi, it all seemed to get better from there. I was not rejected because I wasn’t rich.

Economic cycles can sometimes help us out. In times of booming markets, it may be harder to tell people you’re not in a position to spend money for fun — because it’s what everybody does. However, the recent cycle of recession changed what people expected from adulthood almost completely. Most of us no longer expect to be married by 25 and own a house filled with kids by 30. College graduates move back home at an incredible rate these days, and scaled-back entertainments like game night, TV-watching parties and dining in have become trendy and even expected. It’s almost like being broke is cool.

“The Necklace” ends with a tearful confession, and the owner of the lost jewelry tells her friend it was a fake; the necklace was not worth much after all. What has been lost is 10 years during which the main character’s pride deprived her of time, freedom and friendship. Her pride kept her from admitting her poverty, and she suffered in ways that her poverty alone never would have caused. Being broke in Berkeley can be tough, and admitting it can be embarrassing. But refusing to admit it can be much more costly.

Meg Elison writes the Monday column on financial issues affecting UC Berkeley students.Contact Meg Elison at melison@dailycal.org.

The post The pride issue appeared first on The Daily Californian.

When I think of all the untold stories stagnating in the suburbs of Southern California, where I attended high school — in Santa Ana and Garden Grove — it saddens me that popular TV Shows like “The O.C.” and the “The Real Housewives of Orange County” have overshadowed the true face and voice of such a diverse place. I wonder what a strong spoken word community can achieve there, what stories it would bring to life and what cultural pride it would instill.

One of my first encounters with spoken word was a video of a poem by Jasmine Mans at the 2008 Urban Word Slam Finals. By the time I could find the words to describe my reaction to that performance, the only words I could use were “raw” and “powerful.” I knew this was something I had to be personally involved in. To be able to inspire someone in this way, to create a visceral, visual world using mere words — that is powerful. And that is the least of what spoken word achieves in the three minutes or so it takes a poet to perform.

Imagine a magical community where poetry is actually cool, where people express themselves through words, and do it well, and tell “untold stories” as CalSLAM poet Natasha Huey puts it. Narratives that make you gain a greater understanding of just how complex this human life is, and how connected we are through countless similarities in our intricate life reel — not to mention stories that entertain. That is exactly what I found within the spoken word community on campus.

CalSLAM, the university’s spoken word team that competed nationally this past year at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, has managed to grow by providing a space for writers to expand their creativity, be it in the form of an open mic, a slam (competitive spoken word) or a writing workshop.

That is spoken word to you: a group of people coming together to share their truths, using rhythm, using body language, using an ancient oral tradition and sharing it in the most original way they know how. These “identity stories,” as CalSLAM poet Gabriel Cortez referred to them, combine to form one of the most sincere multicultural platforms I have participated in on campus.

At such a diverse place as UC Berkeley, where each ethnic or religious group has its own organization, there’s little chance for integration other than through collaboration. Yet the spoken word community has managed to synthesize that multiculturalism, giving voice to stories that were previously either too controversial or too personal to be shared in public spaces. As CalSLAM poet and recent alumna Isabella Borgeson put it, this scene allows individuals to “write their own narratives in a society where their voices are often marginalized or completely absent.”

What’s unique to spoken word is its ability to empower the audience, to “take the poetry back to the people” so to speak. Listeners can voice their affirmation by snapping hooting, and even stomping their feet when they’re feeling the words. In this way, a performance is not only a performance but a conversation between the poet and the audience.

That’s not to say that spoken word is perfect. As a microcosm of a bigger world, the spoken word community reflects some of the biases observable on a grander scale. Like with hip hop or academic papers, there are certain voices that gain wider approval than others. That’s referred to as “the slam voice” — those particular vocal intonations signaling when a line is important,  humorous or tragic, as CalSLAM poet Ariana Weckstein describes. On one hand, the voice manipulates the audience in the same way word choice manipulates the reader. On the other hand, the “slam voice” is extremely formulaic, and it can discourage poets from sharing their work because they don’t believe it’s quite “spoken word.”

Yet the campus spoken word community has done its best to counter this misconception. This is evident from the successful work of poets like Weckstein as well as Noor Al-Samarrai and Brandon Young, also CalSLAM poets, whose slam voice ranges from rapid and whimsical to paced and aloof — neither of which is standard “slam voice.”

“People take risks, shed heavy layers off themselves, hands or voice shaking and all, present and transparently sharing their truths, their reality,” explained UC Berkeley student Paula Kahn when asked about her involvement in spoken word. “We are able to learn so much from each other in these sacred healing spaces where our potential for understanding and changing our behaviors are activated.”

When I think of spoken word, I think of how lucky we are that we can boast such an empowering forum for cross-cultural engagement through art. If the same could exist in Orange County, perhaps the world could know of the overshadowed places there as well — of Centennial Park and the Santa Ana River bed, of the pho restaurants in every neighborhood and the boba on every block, and just how big of a deal a 7-Eleven slurpee is. These and a thousand other untold stories people can claim as their own.

Amy Mostafa writes a Thursday column on cultural issues. Contact Amy Mostafa at amostafa@dailycal.org.

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When I first met the guy I was going to marry, he told me he had a book called “Dating for Under a Dollar.” I didn’t believe him until he showed me. His parents had raised him in a lifestyle he cheerfully called “frugal” rather than “cheap.” Most of the ideas in the book were things we would never do — for example, camping in the TV display area of an electronics store for the free movies. We kept the spirit of the book alive, if not the letter. Some of our very best dates have cost us little or nothing to go on, and we never run out of good ideas.

His favorites have been literary dates. Once, we went to the public library and picked out our favorite books for a set of ages. We picked books for kindergartners, for 10-year-olds, for 16 and for high school graduation. We pulled our three current favorites. We talked for a long time about what we loved and why, compared how much we had read out of each other’s stacks and basically decided what books we would give as gifts for years to come. One year, for his birthday, we spent the whole day in a huge and friendly used bookstore where the owner didn’t mind if we hung out and read books. At the end of the day, we picked one book apiece and walked to a place where we could get a slice and a Coke. Total cost of both those book dates: less than $10.

My favorite dates have been a little more varied. Most galleries and a large number of museums are free. Viewing art of all kinds for free is one of the incredible benefits of a society that values expression. We’ve seen music, poetry, paintings, sculpture, performance art and dance performances at no cost. We’ve walked into galleries where owners treat everyone like a potential buyer, put glasses of wine in our hands, tell us about artists and processes of production and ask for our views. I keep tabs on the calendars of nearby community colleges and universities, watching for spoken word events, author readings and performances. The ones that aren’t free are usually cheap. We’ve always been able to go out and find culture without giving away all our cash.

Stay-at-home dates and staycations have also become more popular. It’s always cheaper to cook at home than to go out, and it’s something you can do together. Trying out a new recipe from the Internet or attempting to recreate a childhood favorite always starts conversations. When I introduced my husband to my mom, we had a stay-at-home date with an Italian theme. We cooked pasta and made salad together and watched “The Godfather,” which he had never seen. We’ve had other themed parties centered around movies, including whipping up competitive batches of butterbeer during a Harry Potter marathon and a rum-tasting arranged to accompany the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films.

It goes without saying that drinking at home is cheaper than going out. If you’ve ever seen those obscene bar tabs posted on the Internet, you know there are people out there who drink their tuition in a single night. Learning how to mix cocktails and figuring out what you like is a process best undertaken among people you trust in an environment you can control. Plus, bartenders may laugh at how much grenadine you want in your drinks — your significant other will think it’s cute. Drinking at bars and clubs only seems more fun because of the crowds and music and low lights. Hit the switches, invite some friends over and turn it up.
Game night is the old standby. People have been doing it since Monopoly was new, but it doesn’t have to be dull. Look up alternate versions of games you have, or make up your own rules for a more interesting time. Ever try strip Jenga? There are fantastic game stores within walking distance of campus. Need something new? There are great game reviews on YouTube, including shows like TableTop. If board games aren’t your style, download cheap or free games on your cellphone and try to beat each other at Fruit Ninja or Candy Crush. Then you can help each other through rehab for your terrible addiction.

Lots of people think that you can’t have fun dates without a lot of money. Some even hold back on asking people out because they can’t impress them with cash to burn. Dates aren’t about money, and relationships won’t be stable if you base them on what you’re willing to buy. Even if you’re broke in Berkeley, a fun night depends more on your creativity and sense of fun than what you can pay for. If you’re as lucky as I have been, cheap dates can pay off — with interest.

Meg Elison writes the Monday column on financial issues affecting UC Berkeley students.Contact Meg Elison at melison@dailycal.org.

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The first thing that comes to mind when I think of masturbation is the classic “American Pie”-esque movie scene in which a high-schooler furiously strokes away, wide-eyed in front of a computer screen, beside a trash can filled to the brim with sticky, crinkled tissues, only to be disturbed mid-ejaculation by his mother — a nightmare situation if I’ve ever seen one.

The idea of self-love has had an incredibly powerful taboo associated with it for far too long. It’s been labeled as shameful “self-abuse” and inappropriate — just a lustful way to release pent-up, well, lust. But our generation has made great strides in breaking down the taboo with masturbation. Ask any teenage guy whether he “wanks it” or “beats the meat,” and you’d be hard-pressed to find a negative response.

You can probably see the direction this is going, and I want to reassure you that I’m not trying to sensationalize masturbation. You might think that this kind of thing only belongs in the Sex on Tuesday column, but there’s a lot more that can be said about masturbation’s effects on our bodies and the social stigma surrounding it.

The UC Berkeley campus, with its strong support for sexual exploration, is contributing to the destigmatization of masturbation and the widespread acceptance of self-love. Whether it’s the person in the penis costume walking around on Upper Sproul Plaza sponsored by the Sexual Health Education Program or a presentation given by Good Vibrations — a Bay Area-based sex toy shop — in one of the residence halls, our campus is encouraging its students to turn cultural taboos into cultural norms.

And because people are beginning to create an actual dialogue around masturbation — separate from the jokes you can hear in any college dorm that seem to never get old — without cringing , we’re actually able to seriously discuss the concrete benefits of the act. Actual scientists, not horny teenagers, are studying the benefits of ejaculation through masturbation. A 2008 Fox News article raved about all the good masturbation could bring. Fox News, of all places. Imagine that.

The most obvious advantage of masturbation is that it’s a natural mood booster. During an orgasm, the largest natural release of dopamine and oxytocin occurs, which relaxes muscles and reduces stress.

An Australian study concluded that the more men ejaculate in their twenties, the less likely they are to develop prostate cancer later in life. Of the men in the study, those who ejaculated more than five times per week were “one-third less likely to develop prostate cancer,” which is the second-highest cause of cancer death among men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also increases cortisol levels, which can actually strengthen the immune system when released in proper amounts.

So men who masturbate are in great shape. Fantastic! But what about the women? As much as I’d like to consider our generation to be super progressive and liberal, the idea of “female masturbation” — which unfortunately has to be distinguished from “male” masturbation as a completely separate and less accepted form of sexual pleasure — is still a rock-solid taboo. Women who do masturbate are, as per the social stigma, considered promiscuous and excessively lusty, exhibiting no self-control, while their male counterparts are given a societal pass to fap at will.

But the health benefits for women are just as potent. Along with mood enhancement, female ejaculation has been shown to lower the risk of cervical and urinary tract infections by flushing out harmful bacteria and allowing beneficial bacteria to proliferate.

So why do women still feel guilty after this glorious act? Studies show that by age 20, 95 percent of men reach an orgasm through masturbation, compared to only 60 percent of women. The gender gap is indicative of the societal strain that women take with them into the privacy of their bedrooms, and it’s this societal strain that is depriving them of the opportunity to explore their bodies. There’s no reason to feel guilty after buying that first dildo, vibrator, velvet thrust kit, anal plug or lube shooter. In fact, this natural process should impart excitement, enthusiasm and eagerness.

Regardless of gender, the glory of self-pleasure extends beyond the realm of physical health. In my last column, I wrote about the impact that relationships have on our lives, our minds and our personal health, and this is no different. Regardless of your gender, you know your body better than anyone else, and exploring what you like and the limits of what you can do can drastically improve the nature of your romantic relationship.

Whatever your motivation may be, don’t let any preconceived notion perpetuated by societal ignorance prevent you from exploring your body. The days when masturbation was considered wrong and morally devoid have cum and gone. Today, it’s time to take matters into your own hands.

Shahin Firouzbakht writes a Thursday column on health issues affecting student life.
Contact Shahin Firouzbakht at sfirouzbakht@dailycal.org.

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