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.