What do you wish you could see, hear, read, or experience for the first time all over again?

This is a pretty tough question, but I think there’s one answer that stands out. It’s an experience unique compared to every other, yet ironically we’ve all gone through it together. If I could experience something for the very first time again, it would have to be the very start of quarantine. 

In case you don’t remember, this was around March of the 2019-2020 school year, right around spring break. Covid hadn’t yet ransacked the area and the idea of shutting down was only a possibility at this point. I remember the teachers told us about how we might have to stay at home for “a couple more weeks” after break if the virus got worse. We know how that went. At the time though, I’m pretty sure everyone secretly or maybe not so secretly hoped to extend their break by a couple weeks. 

Partway through our vacation, we all got hit with our first lockdown order. If I remember correctly, the first lockdown we had in the area was only planned for around two weeks. That eventually got pushed to the end of the school year and beyond of course. However, it was that period between our break and the end of the school year that I found really special. Something about that moment in time was so surreal. School stopped being so stressful, and we became less and less busy as things shut down. We didn’t have much to do, but we didn’t care. Every day sort of blended together and it was really the only time that we didn’t have to worry about most day to day things (except the pandemic of course). I think that it was maybe the only moment that I can truly describe as timeless for most.

As I’m writing this, I think I’m realizing why I want to revisit specifically the start of quarantine so much. Ironically, it was at the start that I felt I had the most freedom to do what I wanted. It sounds stupid considering we were all locked up and struggling at basic things like buying toilet paper, but at that time, our entire life structure had been essentially reset. In the start of quarantine, there was a lot of excitement and buzz about the situation. We still held onto hope for an exciting lockdown, but were happy about spending the unexpected time gifted to us. It was exactly the break that we had all asked for.

Before I began writing this post, I thought that there were so many things I could mention about the start of quarantine. However, I’ve found it harder than expected to articulate how it really felt. This technically happened less than two years ago, but it’s felt like ages since then. If anything, I guess that just goes to show how crazy of a time it was.

How would you describe Central Illinois to someone who wasn’t from here?

It’s surprisingly okay.

I’m just kidding, sort of. I think this is an interesting prompt to talk about since I myself am not initially from this area. I used to live in upstate New York and moved here when I was in elementary school, so at one point I had a newcomer’s perspective of the area. There are different ways I can go about describing Central Illinois, but for this post I think I’ll split it up into its physical qualities compared to its atmosphere/how it feels to live here.

Central Illinois is flat and empty. I know it’s shocking, but it's true. Did you know that Illinois is actually the second flattest state in America? Somehow, Florida beat us as the number one spot, but that’s besides the point. With so much flat open land, Central Illinois is the dream destination for farmers. Driving around the area, you’ll find oceans of corn and soybean plants growing in huge block fields. If you like corn and/or soy, then you’re in luck; other than the occasional town or forest preserve, that’s all you’ll get. When you do come across a town, it’s usually quite small and simply a collection of some homes, shops, and other everyday properties. I don’t know how to describe it, but with these towns, it sometimes feels like houses were just randomly scattered down from the sky. 

Speaking of the sky, Central Illinois has some incredibly beautiful views of the big blue. Because of how flat it is, no matter where you look, you'll probably see a beautiful skyline of some sort. Sunsets and sunrises are especially nice with nothing to obstruct your view. On some evenings with really nice sunsets, you'll look up and see the sky painted a blend of purple, red, and orange. At night, if you find yourself on a quiet road or  near the outskirts of town, you'll be able to see the stars dotted above. The sky here seems so vast when there's nothing to obstruct your view of it. Looking up at the sky, Central Illinois suddenly seems so big and wondrous, despite its rather small towns and 'plain' living environment.

Sometimes it feels like the small towns of Central Illinois aren't seemingly built around anything, unlike the less frequent, but bigger towns/cities like Springfield, Bloomington, Champaign, etc. However, this contributes to their charm and I think it perfectly represents the atmosphere that I feel of Central Illinois: a sort of feeling of quiet purpose. No matter how empty Central Illinois is, you’re always surrounded by land that's been worked and cultivated by others. States like Nevada are empty and filled only with its unpopulated rocky desserts. However, in Illinois, even when you’re seemingly in the middle of nowhere, you’re still surrounded by soy and cornfields, which have been grown through the work of the farmers on the land. When I say Central Illinois has a quiet purpose, I mean that despite its seemingly aimless nature, no matter where you look, purposeful work has been done around you. 

It’s surprisingly difficult to describe Central Illinois, even if I do live here. In fact, I think it would’ve been much easier for a visitor of Central Illinois to describe it. Despite its emptiness I keep raving about, there's a lot to Central Illinois that I find is hard to articulate into words. I may have left out some details because of this, so I’m curious how you all would describe Central Illinois. 

Thanks for reading!

What was your most memorable meal?

It’s hard to think of my ‘most’ memorable meal. I mean, we’ve eaten a lot in our lives and each meal has probably been unique in its own way. I don’t want to waste a lot of time juggling choices though, so for this prompt, I’m just going with the first meal that popped up in my head; I think that’s a pretty good indication for the meal being memorable. Most of my memories of this meal don’t even come from the food itself, but rather the experiences leading up to and during the meal.

We had this meal years back, when I was still in elementary or middle school. My family and I were in China during the summer to visit relatives. On this day, my parents had to spend the day doing boring adult stuff, but my older sister and I were left to have a free day. Our aunt and two of our cousins decided to take us out to eat at a hot pot buffet. The place wasn’t too far from where we were staying, so we decided to walk there. I don’t remember much about that walk, except two things. One, I learned from my cousins that they could somehow eat something like 4 Big Macs each in one sitting. Also, we got lost.

When we got to the buffet, it was a weird time between lunch and dinner. We were starving, but getting lost proved to actually help us because we showed up to a near empty restaurant and beat the lunchtime buzz. The buffet had an entrance fee so my aunt went up to pay for each of us. When she was paying for my fee, my aunt told the worker something and they had me stand up by the wall next to a sign that measured height. My sister whispered in my ear to crouch a little bit under the line on the measuring sign. I didn’t know what was going on so I went with it. Only afterwards did I realize that we lied about my height to get the child discount. I still don’t know how that worked, considering I was noticeably taller than the sign. Whatever the case, I ate free that day.

Now comes the actual meal: the hot pot buffet. If you don’t know what hot pot is, it's pretty simple. You’re given a hot pot of soup broth and you get different meats, vegetables, and foods that you dip and cook into the soup. It sounds pretty boring, but it’s great; if you’ve had Korean BBQ, it’s a similar experience. At this buffet, you could just pick out small platters of different cuts of meat or vegetables and bring them to your table. We were all really hungry, and combined with an empty buffet you already know we crushed that meal. Remember how my cousins could each eat 4 Big Macs? Just imagine how many platters they could go through. By the end of our meal we had two towers of empty platters that were both nearly the height of the table (when we put them on the ground). I didn’t eat as much as them, but I remember there was a slushy machine there that I went crazy for. 

I still don’t really know why this meal is so memorable to me. It wasn’t an especially important occasion and the food was good, but not unforgettable. I guess if anything though, this meal goes to show just how important the people and places we visit are. Had it not been for the people I ate with, I probably wouldn’t have remembered this place at all.

Describe a recent moment of happiness in your life

I think this is true for everyone reading this, but the past couple weeks have been pretty relentless with work. It’s slowed down recently, but for a while there, I felt like I was piloting an airplane spiraling out of control. However, there was a moment in those weeks where I was able to retake control and replace the stress with happy memories, all by just doing one thing: watching a movie. 

Over the course of the pandemic, I’ve found less and less of a reason to go to the movie theater. Nothing that was released especially caught my eye, and if anything I could just watch a movie at home. However, recently one movie got the attention of me and basically everyone I know: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I watched the trailer and was blown away. I had to watch that movie. The only problem was that there was never a good time to go. Also, going to the movie theater with Covid around was still a very scary thought. 

Despite this, I still managed somehow. There wasn’t a good time, but that didn’t mean there was no time at all. My friends and a few other friends who still hadn’t seen it eventually made a plan to go on a Monday after school. The logic was that no one could or would watch a movie on a Monday afternoon, except us. That way we didn’t have to worry about Covid risks. This plan turned out flawlessly. We showed up at Savoy 16 a Monday after school, and it was completely abandoned. The only people working there looked to be the managers of the place. We bought our tickets from them and walked into Theater 1. There was no one. We were 15 minutes late for the start time at this point, but it looked like we still had the theater all to ourselves. This was our first time back in a movie theater since before the pandemic, and ironically we were still movies alone, just like in quarantine.

Watching a movie in an empty theater is as cool as you’d expect, but it’s also a surprisingly soothing experience. When you’re in there without other strangers, it almost feels like time slows down. You can mess around and do whatever you want (within reason of course). Watching Shang-Chi turned out to be an even better experience because of that freedom. The movie itself was amazing, but the empty theater was the cherry on top. The fact that we were alone there on a Monday when we just had school gave a childish thrill, like staying up past your bedtime as a kid. Speaking of childish thrills, during the end credits we started making shadow puppets in front of the projector which was an incredible thing to see in such a big theater.

Stepping out of that theater after the movie finished felt like I was in a dream. I mentioned that time felt slower there, and that really contributed to the daze that I felt I was in as we walked out. Watching that movie felt like a detached experience from all the crazy stuff the week had and was going to throw at me. If you ever have the time, go to a movie with some of your friends on an unconventional day. It gave me a moment of happiness that came at just the right time to keep me going. 

A family tradition I want to carry on when I get older

My family isn’t exactly one that holds up very many strict traditions. We’ve thought of establishing new ones, but we'll probably drop them before we even get the chance to start. However, the traditions that we do continue to commemorate have been done pretty reliably. The tradition I’m sharing today isn’t super unique, nor does it seem to hold some inclusive, inspiring importance specific to my family. All it is, is making family brunch on the weekends together. I feel that this tradition is meaningful enough that I’d definitely see myself doing this as I got older with my family. 

The thing about this tradition is that no one officially established it as one within our family. When we first started, my mom had been going through a cooking craze in which she attempted to cook anything and everything she thought looked good on the internet. For a while we cycled through some pretty good recipes that she added to her cooking arsenal, but eventually we hit a wall. My mom attempted making Chinese meat pies. If you’re particularly against eating meat, I will warn you we’ve gone through a lot of these. At first my mom struggled with the filling; too salty but she fixed it. Then it was wrapping it with the dough, which we came to expect to be reliably unreliable. Then there was cooking it, which either gave it a really nice crust or just made it not raw (I’m exaggerating on that part, it was always pretty good). For a while, my mom would make these every Saturday morning, and every time they would slowly get better. 

One day when all of us happened to wake up earlier than normal, we all met up in the kitchen. My mom was in the process of making the pies and she invited us to try making one. At this point, she had gotten a lot better, so we split up the work and she began to teach us. My dad was in charge of the filling, my mom was working the dough, and I manned the stove. This was the beginning of our legendary meat pie-making trio. Since then, we’ve continued to do this almost every weekend when we get the chance. 

The best aspect of this tradition, besides eating the food, is that it affords my family a chance to bond, especially when we aren’t busy or grouchy. It’s rare to wake up on Saturday morning in a bad mood, and in that momentary weekend high, my family and I are able to get together and have some fun together that we may not have had during the work/school week. For this reason, I would definitely keep this tradition up for when I get older; the feeling of connection while making food together is irreplaceable. Although, we might have to lay off the meat pies a bit and branch out, I’m not sure how many more I can handle.