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The Tahoe Diaries: Cliff Jumps & Midnight Swims
When you’re napping and set to lounge around on a dock with your friend, and you get an invite to go cliff jumping, you say yes. Say yes to any adventure, for that matter. There’s nothing quite like climbing a makeshift rope ladder up an exposed rock 30 feet in the air during a thunderstorm. Especially when lightning is less than a mile off (if we counted right) and you’re scared of heights, like me. Climbing, however, committed me to the jump. I got up there after my friends, Katelyn, Jakob, and Patrick, and we immediately sorted out that I was going first. My knees trembled ever so slightly and…
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Friends, Figs, and Fruitful Frolics
It was the night of the supermoon and the three of us took to the water like wild nymphs full of giddy, nervous energy, offerings in hand. Three figs, one for each of us, and the branch of a fig tree that was collateral in our foraging. Our hands found each other, trusting and certain. It was just us, our breathing, the water, and the moon as witness. Swimming in dark moonlit water that felt like shadows and looked like glassy, luminous mercury made me feel like I was soaking up the moon’s beams and power. I pumped my arms as though I was making a snow angel on the…
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Channel Islands: UCSB Senior Year Bucket List
Senior year at UCSB meant trying to check off as many experiences as I could. At the top of my bucket list was making it to the Channel Islands. So when the opportunity presented itself, I pounced, blood pounding when a signup list came out for a trip in April. There were 15 of us girls, mostly strangers until we slowly gathered in front of UCSB’s Excursion Club house, exchanging names and distributing food while the sun rose over the ocean across the street, dusting the sky a light pink color. They would be my companions for the next two days, people I hoped to share my top senior year…
