“On your marks.” “Get set!” “BAAAAKE!” These are the three commands that Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas exclaim at the start of each challenge in the Great British Baking Show. The competitors waste no time pulling out their recipes, aware that they only have limited time to complete their ambitious baking projects. As the challenges progress, viewers can watch the bakers run back and forth between their workstations and fridges while others stir their batter at a speed that is telling of the stress they are under. In the heat of the moment, one baker forgets to preheat their oven while another burns their caramel in a moment of inattentiveness.

In short, besides baking talent, the competition features stress, chaos, and quite often also disaster. Ironically, what sounds like a very stressful show to watch, has become a form of entertainment known for its calm, uplifting effects.

This feel-good content is available in bulk. Streaming-service subscribers can select from at least a dozen different baking shows from different countries that all feature different skill levels as well as baking and entertainment purposes.

Is it Cake? features skilled cake artists deceiving and astonishing the judges and viewers by replicating objects as extremely realistic-looking cakes.

On the other side of the spectrum, Nailed It! delivers hilarious baking comedy in five different countries. The idea of the show is to let completely unskilled but certainly confident amateur bakers with a terrible baking track record fail at recipes that require professional skills.

And somewhere in between, The Great British Baking Show is a light-hearted competition of highly skilled amateur bakers who get to prove their skills in a variety of baking disciplines.

According to Rachel Johnson from MovieWeb, many viewers turn on episodes of baking shows to escape stress in real life. But what exactly is it that makes viewers think of these shows as calming?

Johnson said, “Watching exceptional bakers motivate and encourage one another without the negativity of drama is a refreshing feat to witness, which makes the uplifting British baking competition The Great British Bake Off one of the most wholesome and enjoyable programs available today.”

What is wholesome about baking shows is their lack of hostility and abundance of encouragement between contestants. Across the different shows, competitors often help each other and celebrate everybody’s successes as if they were their own. The judges are typically renowned baking professionals in their respective countries yet are down to earth and always up for cracking a joke with the competitors and hosts.

The shows also live up to their name and status as reality TV shows by featuring ordinary people as well as genuine dialogues and interactions. In many shows, the audience gets to find out about the competitors’ backgrounds and aspirations which adds a level of relatability.

Former Morningside student Parker Stoffle prefers to watch the category of calm and light-hearted baking shows because they depict how the bakers deal with difficult situations. “It shows how even someone with a lot of talent in their own field can struggle or forget common things under a time constraint,” he said.

An added benefit of watching baking shows is the amount of knowledge viewers can learn for their own baking endeavors.

Junior Jil Hellerforth likes to watch American wedding cake shows and the German version of the Great British Baking Show – Das Grosse Backen/The Great Bake – for that reason. She said, “I like learning how to make all these foods. It’s crazy how a cake comes together and how much work is behind it but how at the same time it’s simple steps.”

She added that it is nice that the candidates bring their own recipes with them that they have developed and worked on for a long time.

Baking shows are particularly popular during the holidays. Some of them are innately created with a holiday theme in mind while the most successful non-holiday shows are replicated into festive spin-offs.

Freshman Moriah Dixson said she watches baking shows randomly but tunes in more often during the Christmas season. She particularly enjoys the competitive aspect of the baking shows and has watched a variety of different shows – from Cupcake Wars and Nailed It! all the way to the Holiday Baking Championship, Halloween Wars, and the Great British Baking Show.

Stoffle also particularly watches baking shows during holiday seasons when the competitors are asked to create desserts with a festive theme. Among his favorites are Cupcake Wars and the Great British Baking Show.

And Hellerforth said she generally watches the shows on a weekly basis when she needs a break from studying but also watches them more often during the cold months when she spends more time inside.

The success of baking shows really took off in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic when people in lockdown were taking up baking as an activity to keep their minds busy. With their newfound interest in baking, they also turned to the shows as a way to further enjoy their new hobby.

In October 2020, the Great British Baking Show was among the top 10 streaming list of Nielsen. Since then, the success has not lessened and has even spilled over into the sale of cookbooks. The book of Great British Baking Show judge Paul Hollywood and former host Mary Berry was among the three bestselling baking cookbooks in November 2021.

Whether it is a fresh batch of bakers looking to dive deeper into their newfound hobbies or people realizing their calming potential, the demand for baking shows on streaming platforms is big. So is the variety of shows available. While not all shows may be able to get renewed for several seasons, they all add their part to the variety of light-hearted, stress-relieving content that people seek.

Chasing carefreeness in college

Sitting at a table in the student government office on a random Thursday morning, I find myself attempting to paint a flame on a tote bag while listening to the newest Top 40 songs on the radio. The acrylic paint is all over my fingers and it has made it hard to continue snacking on the Snickers I received upon coming to the event.

As I sit there and carefreely paint and snack and hum to songs, a thought suddenly strikes me: What on earth am I doing here painting when I have a thousand assignments and other responsibilities desperately waiting for my attention?

While this thought induces slight feelings of anxiety, it does not impact me enough to abandon the tote bag and behave like an adult. “I’ll just finish my assignments at night,” I think while dipping the paintbrush into orange paint, fully aware I will be up until 4 am to get everything done.

A carefree morning? Yes. Behavior a 22-year-old college senior should exhibit? Probably not.

I take some consolation in the knowledge I’m not the only student who escapes their overwhelming assignments and responsibilities by letting out their inner child. Several times a semester students can be found meeting up on campus to paint, handcraft, ice skate, sing, laugh, or play bingo.

These recreational events are hosted by MAC, short for Morningside’s Activities Council, and have been a constant part of student life since 2010. Once a week, and on special occasions like Homecoming several times a week, MAC hosts events for students.

The organization’s current president, senior Brett McEachern, sees MAC’s purpose as multifaceted. Most of the events serve the purpose of entertainment while also including a social component. McEachern said, “We also attempt to provide a forum for students to entertain other students when we do events such as karaoke and lip sync battles.”

In McEachern’s experience, college students are drawn to MAC events because they find them enjoyable and because they can attend them without having to be in a club.

The success of recreational events as a fixed part of college life is visible in the number of students that flock to the MAC events. Most events have attracted major crowds. According to McEachern, 350 students for example gathered at Stuff-A-Bear, 240 students “hugged” a cactus, and Homecoming Bingo with its promise of shimmering prizes lured 294 students out of their dorms.

He said, “If you want to define success as students coming to our events, our events that do the best would probably be the events known as our Make-And-Takes or Novelty Events. In these events, MAC buys things for students to make or decorate in their spare time.”

The high number of students in attendance have not been a recent development. If one goes far enough back on the MAC Facebook page, pictures of all kinds of activities show up. Some activities are more college campus appropriate than others but what they all have in common is a major crowd of college students enjoying themselves and socializing.

Morningside is not the only campus that has recognized and integrated the benefits of leisure activities into campus life. MAC is a part of the National Association for Campus Activities, short NACA. NACA started in North Carolina in 1960 and has since extended its program to the whole US.

Once a year, the country’s campus event organizations can join their region’s NACA conference to connect with new talent. In a talent show-like format, member organizations pick and choose which acts they want to come to their campus the next year and have the chance to book them right away.

Besides NACA’s main focus of entertainment, its member organizations’ activities have been found to hold several other benefits which consciously or subconsciously attract students. Taking part in psychologically engaging activities has been shown to lead to lower stress levels, a lower heart rate, and a better mood.

As a result, events like those hosted by MAC allow students to break the stress cycle and attack their assignments with new energy. A healthy version of procrastination so to say.

MAC’s former public relations executive Ashley Duncan knows of the mental health benefits of the events she helped host during her time at Morningside. She said, “The events are a good way for students to take a little break from everything else.”

Freshman Aleisha Thayer is sitting on a table a few feet away from me, drawing a flowery meadow on a bag. With concentration written across her face, she outlines the flowers with skillful flicks of the pencil before taking a paintbrush and painting the background a sky-blue color.

Since she arrived on campus in August, Thayer has taken advantage of a variety of MAC events. The ones she has enjoyed the most have been hands-on activities like painting and sporty activities like the trampoline park. “The events are a fun way to meet new people and make new friends,” she said. “They also help me to just get away from all the stress that may be going on.”

The perspectives of Thayer, McEachern, and Duncan have put the activities in a new light. The benefits of the events that students seem to intrinsically sense, justify their existence on campuses. Maybe instead of worrying about wasting time attending MAC events, I should take even more advantage of them and their benefits. Besides getting a degree, socializing and building a network of friends and acquaintances, after all, is one of college’s main purposes.

Chasing carefree moments in college

Sitting at a table in the student government office on a random Thursday morning, I find myself attempting to paint a flame on a tote bag while listening to the newest songs in the charts. The acrylic paint is all over my fingers and it has made it hard to continue snacking on the Snickers I received upon coming to the event. So, as I sit there and carefreely paint and snack and hum to songs, a thought suddenly strikes me: What on earth am I doing here painting when I have a thousand assignments and other responsibilities desperately waiting for my attention?

While this thought induces slight feelings of anxiety, it does not impact me enough to abandon the tote bag and behave like an adult again. “I’ll just finish my assignments at night,” I think while dipping the paintbrush into orange paint, fully aware that that means that I will be up until 4 am to get everything done.

A carefree morning? Yes. Behavior a 22-year-old college senior should exhibit? Probably not.

My one relieving thought is that I’m definitely not the only student who escapes their overwhelming assignments and responsibilities by letting out their inner child. Several times a semester students can be found meeting up on campus to paint, handcraft, ice skate, sing, laugh, or play bingo.

These recreational events are hosted by Morningside’s Activities Council, short MAC, and have been a constant part of student life since 2010. Once a week, and on special occasions like Homecoming several times a week, MAC hosts events for students to participate in.

MAC’s current president, senior Brett McEachern sees the council’s purpose as multifaceted. Most of the events serve the purpose of entertainment while also including a social component. McEachern said, “We also attempt to provide a forum for students to entertain other students when we do events such as karaoke and lip sync battles.”

In McEachern’s experience, college students are drawn to MAC events because they find them enjoyable and because they can attend them without having to be in a club.

Besides easy entertainment, MAC activities may have several other benefits which consciously or subconsciously attract students. Taking part in psychologically engaging activities has been shown to lead to lower stress levels, a lower heart rate, and a better mood. Events like those hosted by MAC allow students to break the stress cycle and attack their assignments with new energy. What seems like childish behavior for a college student in reality can be healthy for their brain and general health.

Freshman Aleisha Thayer is sitting on a table a few feet away from me, drawing a flowery meadow on a bag. With concentrated eyes and skillful flicks of the pencil, she outlines the flowers before taking a paintbrush and painting the background a sky-blue color. Thayer is here because she enjoys the benefits of the events.

Since she arrived on campus in August, she has taken opportunity of a variety of MAC events. The ones she has enjoyed the most have been hands-on activities like painting and sporty activities like the trampoline park. “The events are a fun way to meet new people and make new friends,” she said. “They also help me to just get away from all the stress that may be going on.”

Morningside is not the only campus that has recognized and integrated the benefits of leisure activities into campus life. MAC is a part of the National Association for Campus Activities, short NACA. NACA started in North Carolina in 1960 and has since extended its program to the whole US.

Its main purpose may have once been to bring entertainment to the masses of college students, but its member organizations have since consciously or subconsciously taken on different roles, including that of stress relievers.

The success of recreational events as a fixed part of college life is visible in the number of students that flock to the MAC events. Most events have attracted major crowds. 350 students for example gathered at Stuff-A-Bear, 240 students “hugged” a cactus, and Homecoming Bingo with its promise of shimmering prizes lured 294 students out of their dorms.

This has not been a recent development. If one goes far enough back on the MAC Facebook page, pictures of all kinds of activities show up. Some activities are more college campus appropriate than others but what they all have in common is a major crowd of college students enjoying themselves and socializing.

Maybe instead of worrying about wasting time attending MAC events, I should take even more advantage of them and their benefits. Besides getting a degree, socializing and building a network of friends and acquaintances, after all, is one of college’s main purposes.

My enemy, the /th/

Fear comes creeping into my mind as my soccer team forms a circle during warm-up to begin team stretching. For our stretching program, everybody does the same stretch while we one by one count out loud to ten in a counterclockwise direction. While everybody else focuses on doing the stretch correctly, the one thing I can think about is how I don’t want to have to be the one to yell out the number three. Five is fine, eight is alright, I’ll even be ok with my least favorite number six. But three I don’t want, for the simple reason that I cannot for the life of me pronounce /th/.

My teammate on the other side of our 34-girl-strong circle begins. “One,” she says, and so the counting begins. At this point, counting ahead to see which number I’ll be while also focusing on the stretch is impossible for me. I’m too stressed to figure it out so I reluctantly decide to leave it up to fate. The first time around the circle, the odds are in my favor. My number is five. For a moment I’m relieved, but I remind myself that it is not over yet. We do a total of 10 exercises, meaning that I will likely have to yell out two more numbers today.

So, the process begins again. Attempting to predict which number I will be. Giving up and leaving it to fate. Again, fate (or maybe just simple mathematics) prevents me from embarrassing myself. “Nine” is my next number and I gladly say it out loud.

A moment later, a realization hits me. Going from number five in the first round to number nine in the second means that I always skip six numbers. So, the dreaded scenario after all does come true once it is my turn again.

Left with no other choice, I yell “Free!” What a nightmare.

Feeling embarrassed by mispronouncing /th/ is a daily occurrence for me. Living in the US, I use words with /th/ in every conversation but almost every single time I end up pronouncing /th/ as an f or a t.

The process of exchanging /th/ for the easier version of f, t, and sometimes v is generally known as th-fronting. In the entire world, there is only a handful of languages that include th-sounds, most likely because it is a difficult sound for people to pronounce. Those growing up with /th/ tend to learn how to pronounce it in their childhood years but those learning English as a foreign language have to actively practice pronouncing it.

English is not my mother tongue. I grew up speaking German and only began learning English as a foreign language at the age of 10. The German language doesn’t use the letter combination /th/. In the beginning, my teachers attempted to teach us children how to pronounce it, but they never put enough of a focus on it that I would have learned how to say it correctly.

I didn’t realize that I was mispronouncing one of English’s most often-used letter combinations until I was told by a professor in my sophomore year of college in the US. While working on a project together, he suddenly remarked that in the two years he had known me, he had never realized that I am unable to pronounce /th/. He didn’t know that neither had I.

Even though this presents only a minor problem in the grand scheme of life, at that time it felt like a punch in the gut. Had I really been running around mispronouncing English words without realizing it for eleven years? Because of my realization, I suddenly felt self-conscious and a bit inadequate.

I thought about all of the people I’ve met and talked to in English over the last few years. I wondered if people generally noticed and whether they gave as much as a second thought about my problem. For reasons I cannot explain anymore today, at the time I especially worried how mispronouncing /th/ would go in my future career as a journalist. I thought about having to talk to hundreds of people in my career and all of them possibly not taking me seriously because of how unprofessional I sounded.

Most of all, the realization mentally catapulted me back to my childhood, when I had to attend German speech therapy lessons because I tended to pronounce the letter s with a lisp. Over several years, I was taught how to say it correctly, earning a pretty sticker as a reward from my teacher for every lesson I completed. In speech therapy, learning to not lisp meant learning to not touch my tongue to my teeth when I pronounced an /s/. I did successfully lose the lisp, but I seem to have lost it to an extent where I was unable to relearn the part of it that was needed for the English /th/.

When first learning English, I remember feeling uncomfortable during the few times my teacher wanted us to practice pronouncing /th/. For years, I had been told that pronouncing s with a lisp was incorrect which made me think of it as being somewhat embarrassing. Because of that, I couldn’t imagine that there actually was a language in which a lisp wasn’t embarrassing.

In recent years, I have not perceived it that way anymore, but at this point, I have spoken English for so long that mispronouncing the /th/ is a hard habit to break. When practicing pronouncing it correctly, I now face the issue of not knowing how to produce the sound at all. I also don’t really hear the difference between the way that native speakers say it and the way that I say it.

Because of all of that, I have given up on trying to pronounce it correctly. Today, I don’t see the issue as strongly as I did upon first learning /th/ and upon my first realization that I can’t pronounce it one and a half years ago. Even though I’m still hyper-aware of mispronouncing words with /th/, I mostly make fun of my issue now, especially because it leads to some hilarious moments. Words like thriller, Thor, and three are only some of the words my friends have to decipher on a day-to-day basis.

Mostly, I’ve come to the conclusion that people don’t notice or simply don’t care that I pronounce things (quite literally) incorrectly. There is usually enough context for people to know what I’m talking about and if not, they will just ask if I can repeat what I said.

So what if I announce “free” instead of the number or ironically the number “four” instead of the superhero?! Having a problem articulating certain sounds in another language should not be seen as an embarrassment. Acquiring a foreign language is hard work and one can be proud of being able to speak it fluently, even if it is not perfect. Maybe I shouldn’t care so much whether others hear my difficulty with /th/ as long as they can understand what I’m trying to tell them.

My resolution for the next practice: I will not attempt to predict which number I’ll have to say out loud. I will not let anxiety take a hold of my brain. Instead, I will make sure to extra proudly announce “free” when it is my turn to count out loud. Take that, /th/!

My enemy, the /th/

Fear comes creeping into my mind as my soccer team forms a circle during warm-up to begin team stretching. For our stretching program, everybody does the same stretch while we one by one count out loud to ten in a counterclockwise direction. While everybody else focuses on doing the stretch correctly, the one thing I can think about is how I don’t want to have to be the one to yell out the number three. Five is fine, eight is alright, I’ll even be ok with my least favorite number six. But three I don’t want, for the simple reason that I cannot for the life of me pronounce /th/.

My teammate on the other side of our 34-girl-strong circle begins. “One,” she says, and so the counting begins. At this point, counting ahead to see which number I’ll be while also focusing on the stretch is impossible for me. I’m too stressed to figure it out so I reluctantly decide to leave it up to fate. The first time around the circle, the odds are in my favor. My number is five. For a moment I’m relieved, but I remind myself that it is not over yet. We do a total of 10 exercises, meaning that I will likely have to yell out two more numbers today.

So, the process begins again. Attempting to predict which number I will be. Giving up and leaving it to fate. Again, fate (or maybe just simple mathematics) prevents me from embarrassing myself. “Nine” is my next number and I gladly say it out loud.

A moment later, a realization hits me. Going from number five in the first round to number nine in the second means that I always skip six numbers. So, the dreaded scenario after all does come true once it is my turn again.

Left with no other choice, I yell “Free!” What a nightmare.

Feeling embarrassed by mispronouncing /th/ is a daily occurrence for me. Living in the US, I use words with /th/ in every conversation but almost every single time I end up pronouncing /th/ as an f or a t.

The process of exchanging /th/ for the easier version of f, t, and sometimes v is generally known as th-fronting. In the entire world, there is only a handful of languages that include th-sounds, most likely because it is a difficult sound for people to pronounce. Those growing up with /th/ tend to learn how to pronounce it in their childhood years but those learning English as a foreign language have to actively practice pronouncing it.

English is not my mother tongue. I grew up speaking German and only began learning English as a foreign language at the age of 10. The German language doesn’t use the letter combination /th/. In the beginning, my teachers attempted to teach us children how to pronounce it, but they never put enough of a focus on it that I would have learned how to say it correctly.

I didn’t realize that I was mispronouncing one of English’s most often-used letter combinations until I was told by a professor in my sophomore year of college in the US. While working on a project together, he suddenly remarked that in the two years he had known me, he had never realized that I am unable to pronounce /th/. He didn’t know that neither had I.

Even though this presents only a minor problem in the grand scheme of life, at that time it felt like a punch in the gut. Had I really been running around mispronouncing English words without realizing it for eleven years? Because of my realization, I suddenly felt self-conscious and a bit inadequate.

I thought about all of the people I’ve met and talked to in English over the last few years. I wondered if people generally noticed and whether they gave as much as a second thought about my problem. For reasons I cannot explain anymore today, at the time I especially worried how mispronouncing /th/ would go in my future career as a journalist. I thought about having to talk to hundreds of people in my career and all of them possibly not taking me seriously because of how unprofessional I sounded.

Most of all, the realization mentally catapulted me back to my childhood, when I had to attend German speech therapy lessons because I tended to pronounce the letter s with a lisp. Over several years, I was taught how to say it correctly, earning a pretty sticker as a reward from my teacher for every lesson I completed. In speech therapy, learning to not lisp meant learning to not touch my tongue to my teeth when I pronounced an /s/. I did successfully lose the lisp, but I seem to have lost it to an extent where I was unable to relearn the part of it that was needed for the English /th/.

When first learning English, I remember feeling uncomfortable during the few times my teacher wanted us to practice pronouncing /th/. For years, I had been told that pronouncing s with a lisp was incorrect which made me think of it as being somewhat embarrassing. Because of that, I couldn’t imagine that there actually was a language in which a lisp wasn’t embarrassing.

In recent years, I have not perceived it that way anymore, but at this point, I have spoken English for so long that mispronouncing the /th/ is a hard habit to break. When practicing pronouncing it correctly, I now face the issue of not knowing how to produce the sound at all. I also don’t really hear the difference between the way that native speakers say it and the way that I say it.

Because of all of that, I have given up on trying to pronounce it correctly. Today, I don’t see the issue as strongly as I did upon first learning /th/ and upon my first realization that I can’t pronounce it one and a half years ago. Even though I’m still hyper-aware of mispronouncing words with /th/, I mostly make fun of my issue now, especially because it leads to some hilarious moments. Words like thriller, Thor, and three are only some of the words my friends have to decipher on a day-to-day basis.

Mostly, I’ve come to the conclusion that people don’t notice or simply don’t care that I pronounce things (quite literally) incorrectly. There is usually enough context for people to know what I’m talking about and if not, they will just ask if I can repeat what I just said.

Having a problem articulating certain sounds in another language, in the end, should not be seen as an embarrassment. Acquiring a foreign language is hard work and one can be proud of being able to speak it fluently, even if it is not perfect.

In a continuation of its modern armada of self-produced movies, Netflix dished out another low-quality thriller named End of the Road. The movie’s creators seemed to have put a lot of effort into finding a brand-new idea for a thriller but ended up with an increasingly unrealistic and abstract plot that is anything but thrilling. From forced seeming social issues like racism, over graphic moments of violence, to attempts at comedic relief and unrelated moments of sadness – the creators of End of The Road wanted to do too much and delivered too little.

End of the Road is a freshly released Netflix thriller about a Californian single mother, her brother, and her two kids, who have to foreclose their house and move to Texas after the children’s father died. During their three days long road trip through the desert, the family becomes witness to a murder and subsequently gets pulled into a fight for their lives against a mysterious drug boss.

The movie which was released in September 2022 is directed by Millicent Shelton who is mostly known for directing episodes of the show Titans. End of the Road stars anything but an A-list cast, with the main characters being rappers Queen Latifah and Ludacris. Both have starred in movies before but have not come to fame because of their acting experiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, End of the Road reached a whopping 33% on the “Tomatometer” and an audience score of 16%.

This low score can not only be attributed to the poor acting of rappers turned actors. In its 90 minutes of running time, a hundred things happen, but barely any of them contribute to the main storyline.

On their trip across the desert, the black Californian family is confronted with a case of extreme racism, which then, however, plays little role in the main plot. Meanwhile, for a hint of family drama, the family members’ behaviors, reactions, and problems are continuously artificially related to the death of the main character’s husband. While the other main characters’ behaviors are still somewhat understandable, though, everything the uncle of the children says and does seems unrealistic and forced.

The same goes for the dialogues between the characters which are lacking authenticity and seem artificially created with the sole purpose of connecting scenes with each other. Most of the topics the family talked about felt like they were included because they foreshadow the issues and reactions that are to follow. Because of these descriptive dialogues, while it increases in abstractness, the plot also becomes oddly predictable.

The one good thing about the movie was the scenic shots of the desert and the choice of this location. The rough terrain of the desert adds more feeling of danger to the movie than any of the evil antagonistic characters could elicit. Because of this small positive factor, the movie deserves 1 out of four stars.

Overall, Netflix will need to reevaluate what is more important – the 10^th released thriller of the month or the creation of actually valuable films. Otherwise, the strategy of quantity over quality might become the End of the Road for their self-produced movies.

Home To-Go

For national and international migrants, there is no harder question to answer than “Where is home?” or “Where are you from?” Generally, some people consider home to be a place or building while others think of home as certain people. Some might even consider home to be a feeling.  For expatriates and national migrants in particular, the concept of home is most often fluid and goes beyond the scope of a singular place or person.

22-year-old international student Rena Ketelsen is one of those who have uprooted their lives to try their luck in another country. The urge to leave her home country had been living in her heart for as long as she could remember. While most of her high school classmates decided to remain in Germany after graduation, she didn’t feel the need to stay. So, she decided to enroll in Morningside University in the United States and start a new adventure as an international student.

“The reason why I came to the US is just because I wanted to try something completely different” Rena recalled and added that another big part in her decision was to get away from home. Further reminiscing about her decision, she said, “I think everybody at some point wants to get away from their family. I just went as far away as I could.”

Rena’s move to the US was not the first time she had changed her address. Originally, she was born in Birmingham, England but at the age of three her family moved to Germany. In Germany, the Ketelsens then changed cities another two times and finally ended up in Wrestedt a year before Rena came to the US. This has made 15 years the longest period that Rena has ever lived in the same place.

What does home mean to a person like Rena whose location of home has changed more than just once?

Lounging on the couch in the living room of her on-campus apartment in the US, Rena reached a conclusion, “I don’t really have one home. My home is here at Morningside University. I’ve lived here for over three years. But at the same time obviously my parents, my parents’ house, my siblings, just Germany in general is also home because I’ve lived there all my life.” Home to her, she found, “is mostly the people” rather than a specific place.

Answering the question of home becomes an even more complicated task when one considers factors like the feeling of national belonging or geographical technicalities such as borders. One to know that struggle is international student Annemiek Goedhart who is from a German town called Emmerich right on the border between Germany and the Netherlands.

Despite having lived at her parent’s house in Germany almost her entire life, she said “I usually say I’m from the Netherlands because it’s easier.” Thinking about it more deeply she added that she considers herself Dutch mainly because of her family’s origins but also because she spent the majority of her time in a Dutch city near the border. Both her school and her soccer club were in the Netherlands which resulted in most of her social contacts being Dutch as well.

No matter her national identity, however, until she moved to the US for college, she had always considered her home the place where she lived with her family. “The first semester, the US definitely felt just as kind of a second home,” Annemiek contemplated how her concept of home changed with her move. “But then after that, I realized that I was like, “Oh, can we go home?” and it’d be Dimmitt.” Sitting in the formal lounge of said residence hall on Morningside University’s campus, she added, “I feel like this is my home right now. But then whenever I go home, it never really feels like I left.”

Because of that, similar to Rena, Annemiek also thinks of home as more than just one place or person. “I think it’s more the people I’m surrounded with,” she said and explained that while being in the US, she misses her family but when going home for break, she finds herself missing her friends from college.

In the end, Annemiek, Rena, and the rest of the 272 million expatriates worldwide have one tool that enables them to stay in touch with whatever their definition of home is – video chatting. For Annemiek, this tool has made it easier to cope with being away from home for so long. “I think especially because of FaceTime and all the other technology we have right now it’s really easy to stay in touch,” Annemiek said and added that she just calls her parents whenever she wants to connect to her German/Dutch home.

Video chatting may not provide an easier answer to the question of where a person’s home is. However, it certainly gives national and international migrants the possibility to connect and combine their several concepts of home into their own unique and fluid version of it.

The result? A portable and personalized version of home. In other words, a home to-go.

Home is where the heart is… or something like that

For national and international migrants, there is almost no harder question to answer than “Where is home?” or “Where are you from?” Generally, some people consider home to be a place or building while others think of home as certain people. Some might even consider home to be a feeling.  For expatriates and national migrants, in particular, the concept of home is most often fluid and not tied to a singular place or person.

22-year-old international student Rena Ketelsen is one of those who have uprooted their lives to try their luck in another country. The urge to leave her home country had been living in her heart for as long as she could remember. While most of her high school classmates decided to remain in Germany after graduation, she didn’t feel the need to stay. So, she decided to enroll in Morningside University in the United States and start a new adventure as an international student.

“The reason why I came to the US is just because I wanted to try something completely different” Rena recalled and added that another big part of her decision had to do with getting away from home. Further reminiscing about her decision, she said, “I think everybody at some point wants to get away from their family. I just went as far away as I could.”

Rena’s move to the US was not the first time she had changed her address. Originally, she was born in Birmingham, England but at the age of three, her family moved to Germany. In Germany, the Ketelsens then changed cities another two times and finally ended up in Wrestedt a year before Rena came to the US. This has made 15 years the longest period that Rena has ever lived in the same place.

So, what does home mean to a person like Rena Ketelsen whose location of home has changed more than just once?

Rena generally thinks that “Whenever you go somewhere, you lose a piece of yourself there – even if it’s just a week.” The result, she said, is that “I don’t really have one home. My home is here at Morningside University. I’ve lived here for over three years. But at the same time obviously, my parents, my parents’ house, my siblings, just Germany, in general, is also home because I’ve lived there all my life.” Home to her, in the end “is mostly the people” rather than a specific place.

Answering the question of home becomes an even more complicated task when one considers factors like the feeling of national belonging or geographical technicalities such as borders. One to know that struggle is international student Annemiek Goedhart who is from a German town called Emmerich right on the border between Germany and the Netherlands.

Despite having lived at her parent’s house in Germany almost her entire life, she said “I usually say I’m from the Netherlands because it’s easier.” Thinking about it more deeply she added that she considers herself Dutch mainly because of her family’s origins but also because she spent the majority of her time in a Dutch city near the border. Both her school and her soccer club were in the Netherlands which resulted in most of her social contacts being Dutch as well.

No matter her national identity, however, until she moved to the US for college, she had always considered her home the place where she lived with her family. “The first semester, the US definitely felt just as kind of a second home,” Annemiek said about how her concept of home changed with her move. “But then after that, I realized that I was like, “Oh, can we go home?” and it’d be Dimmitt.” She added, “I feel like this [Morningside University] is my home right now. But then whenever I go home, it never really feels like I left.”

Because of that, similar to Rena, Annemiek also thinks of home as more than just one place or person. “I think it’s more the people I’m surrounded with,” she said and explained that while being in the US she misses her family but when going home for break, she finds herself missing her friends from college.

In the end, Annemiek, Rena, and the rest of the 272 million expatriates worldwide have one tool that enables them to stay in touch with whatever their definition of home is – video chatting. That may not provide an easier answer to the question of where their home is. However, it certainly gives them the possibility to connect and combine their several concepts of home into their unique version of it.

Strained breaths, coughing, and pale skin. That is the condition Madelynn “Maddie” Stoffle was in when she was admitted to St. Luke’s Hospital in October last year. It was shortly after the midterm exam week came to an end for students at Morningside College. While her peers finally got a break to catch their breath, literal breathing became an exceptionally hard task for then-freshman Stoffle.

Catching a normal cold turned into being hospitalized for two days because of an upper respiratory infection. A healthy person would only have needed over the counter medicine and some rest, but for Stoffle it meant breathing treatments and heavy medicine.

The cause behind the cold turned infection was Stoffle’s asthma, which she has been struggling with since she contracted RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) as a child. Until recently, the 20-year-old developmental psychology major only ever really had to be concerned about the winter months and the flu season.

2020 however, brought on an entirely new challenge for her. Because of her weakened immune system, Stoffle is part of the group of humans who are at high risk of contracting the Coronavirus and developing a life-threatening version of COVID-19. When the pandemic first began spreading globally, Stoffle moved back home from college and entered a lockdown that was far away from the isolation period the rest of the country experienced.

After consulting with her lung doctor and mother, she stayed out of the public and away from everybody who could possibly be carrying the virus – for three entire months. As her mother is a nurse, Stoffle also had to stay away from her. The family had to create an area in the basement where her mother could live while Stoffle was at home.

“I was not able to be around and hug my mother for three months. We would have conversations from the base of the stairs while I stayed at the top,” Stoffle said about this surreal situation.

Whenever Stoffle’s younger brothers came into contact with their mother, they had to wear a mask at all times, shower right afterward, and also wash their clothes. While other people were fighting over the last toilet paper roll in supermarkets, Stoffle couldn’t even go to the store to get groceries. She only left the house to drive to the park when the walls seemed to close in on her.

After a long discussion with her mother, Stoffle decided in August to go back to college for the fall semester. Following safety regulations closely and making sure to stay away from those who don’t do the same is her key to staying healthy.

Stoffle is a very social person which has only made the lockdown harder for her. At College, she surrounded herself with friends who she can be sure take COVID-19 measures seriously. Because of that, she has managed to carry on college life almost like before.

One of Stoffle’s closer friends on campus and soccer teammate Megan Messersmith says, “I know she has a lot of health issues. She has said that if she gets COVID-19 she could potentially die so we try to stay as safe as possible in order to keep Maddie safe while still being able to hang out with her.”

But even though COVID-19 might mean that Stoffle has to take more precautions than others she is determined to not let that affect her life. Despite all the troubles of the last year, Stoffle has kept a very positive mindset.

She has set goals, friendships, and the usual amount of trouble college students typically find themselves confronted with. Every few weeks she sports a new hair color radiating positivity. Former roommate and friend Annika Zentel, says, “Maddie is a very sweet person. She cares a lot about others and always puts them first.”

Right now, Stoffle would need other people to care about others as much as she does. Stoffle has a clear opinion on those who refuse to wear masks and still believe the pandemic is a hoax, “I think this really shows how people really are and how they value themselves higher than even their children. I wished that people cared more about other people than themselves.”

She just wants other people to wear masks and be thoughtful about the situation. “Please wear a mask, please. It could and can mean the difference between someone like me living for a longer time and me dying before I get to celebrate my twenty-first birthday.”

The pandemic has caused a whole lot of chaos in most people’s lives but few of us were as drastically affected as people in the high-risk group. One of those people, Morningside College sophomore Madelynn Stoffle, offers an insight into the craziness of the past few months.

Strained breaths, coughing, and pale skin. That is how Madelynn Stoffle was admitted to St. Luke’s Hospital in October last year. It was shortly after the midterm exam week came to an end for students at Morningside College. While her peers finally got a break to catch their breath, literal breathing became an exceptionally hard task for then-freshman Madelynn “Maddie” Stoffle. Catching a normal cold turned into being hospitalized for two days because of an upper respiratory infection. What would have taken a usually healthy person over the counter medicine and some rest, meant breathing treatments and heavy medicine for Stoffle.

The cause behind the cold turned infection was Stoffle’s asthma, which she has been struggling with since she contracted RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) as a child. Until 2020, the 20-year-old developmental psychology major only ever really had to be concerned about the winter months and the flu season.

2020 however, brought on an entirely new challenge for her. Because of her weakened immune system, Maddie Stoffle is part of the group of humans who are at high risk of contracting the Coronavirus and developing a life-threatening version of COVID-19. When the pandemic first began spreading globally, Stoffle moved back home from college and entered a lockdown that was far away from the isolation period the rest of the country experienced.

After consulting with her lung doctor and mother, she stayed out of the public and away from everybody who could possibly be carrying the virus – for three entire months. As her mother is a nurse, Stoffle also had to stay away from her. The family had to create an area in the basement where her mother could live while Madelynn was at home. “I was not able to be around and hug my mother for three months. We would have conversations from the base of the stairs while I stayed at the top,” Stoffle said about this surreal situation.

Whenever Madelynn’s younger brothers came into contact with their mother, they had to wear a mask at all times, shower right afterward, and also wash their clothes. While other people were fighting over the last toilet paper roll in supermarkets, Stoffle couldn’t even go to the store to get groceries. She only left the house to drive to the park when the walls seemed to close in on her.

After a long discussion with her mother, Stoffle decided in August to go back to college for the fall semester. Following safety regulations closely and making sure to stay away from those who don’t do the same is her key to staying healthy. But even though COVID-19 might mean that Stoffle has to take more precautions than others she is determined to not let that affect her life.

Despite all the troubles of the last year, Madelynn Stoffle has kept a very positive mindset. She has set goals, friendships, and the usual amount of trouble college students typically find themselves confronted with. Every few weeks she sports a new hair color radiating positivity.

Stoffle is a very social person which has made the lockdown even harder for her. Former roommate and friend Annika Zentel, says, “Maddie is a very sweet person. She cares a lot about others and always puts them first.”

Right now, Stoffle would need other people to care about others as much as she does. Stoffle has a clear opinion on those who refuse to wear masks and still believe the pandemic is a hoax, “I think this really shows how people really are and how they value themselves higher than even their children. I wished that people cared more about other people than themselves.”

She just wants other people to wear masks and be thoughtful about the situation. “Please wear a mask, please. It could and can mean the difference between someone like me living for a longer time and me dying before I get to celebrate my twenty-first birthday.”