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Table of Contents

Games

Video Features

Podcast: Lets hear it OCSA

Podcast: Ocsa Snack time

Trying Out Evolution Recipe Archives

The Evolution Dispatch

Games

Let’s hear it OCSA!

OCSA Shears: Shaved Head Showcase

Jackie Blom, Amelie Muro

OCSA Snack Time

Tabitha Finamore, Michael McDonald, and Rajsi Rana

What Are OCSA Students Listening To?

Tabitha Finamore

Cinfully Delicious Citrus Rolls Recipe

Selah Sanchez

The Best of Halloween

Michael McDonald and Brian Lin

Baking Through the Evolution Recipe Archives

episode two - Winter liner cookies 🌠🍪

Tabitha Finamore and Selah Sanchez

episode one - hot girl strawberry shortcake 🍓

Tabitha Finamore

 OCSA Snack Time!

Tabitha Finamore, Michael McDonald, Rajsi Rana

episode four - finale

episode three - holiday snacks

episode two - halloween candy

episode one - pumpkin spice

The Evolution Dispatch

Mia Soumbasakis

Fall was upon T305, with crisp air, crisp pants and the crisp click clacking of fingers against keys. Up against the painted waves on the wall, Isabel sat in a tall chair, wearing a hunter green sweater and long grey socks. Elena was at her side, the tinsel in her hair gleaming under the projector light. She was typing in new story ideas for the December Evolution issue while Emma stood in a beige collared sweater with a computer in her hands. The class was buzzing with incessant chatter about being rushed across the street while trying to avoid stepping on glass after the Main Street car accident, whether or not people were going to tree lighting, Taylor Swift’s re-recorded songs, and the blooming fame of Andy’s TikTok account after a junior asked him for an autograph. Mr. Peterson reminded the class that whatever we wrote for this issue would have a quick turnaround, especially with Thanksgiving break in the middle of the writing period, and that the newspaper would likely be out during finals week. What would people want to read during finals week?

I tried to think of an article idea, but really my mind was on the movie I’d seen a few days prior: the French Dispatch. How were the stories woven so seamlessly together with all the different timelines and perspectives? Was the writer a part of each of the stories by nature, and is that true for pretty much any story a writer writes, true or fiction? Who did that lady in the orange dress story remind me of? Effie from the Hunger Games? A limited edition Barbie? 

At once the autumn leaves parted and so did the clouds and an iridescent bolt of lighting struck down through the tower and into me. I raised my hand and said I’d write the Evolution Dispatch. 

Minus the obituary, of course. Although Mr. Peterson said he wouldn’t mind fake dying for the story.

ART

Helen sat at the end of the bus near the window on their way to the Hilbert Museum at Chapman University on an Ekphrastic Poetry field trip, looking out at the Main Street sidewalks they had walked many times before. All around him was commotion—people loudly playing hangman as Kaon, Dylan and I talked about being hungry and laughed about the Brokeback Mountain-esque Deep Springs College, the cowboy school that until recently only accepted men. We would later sneak away from the museum to get Ruby’s fries and chicken tenders. Windows clicked up and down, the bus engine hummed, the world spun, but Helen paid no mind and thought of the art they were about to witness. She hoped there wouldn’t be too many landscapes. After the bus stopped, Helen thanked the bus driver and a blonde lady came out of the museum and told Ms. Campoy that we were supposed to have been there 30 minutes ago. As she emphasized the importance of the wealthy Hilbert family, Dylan thought about how she probably had thin lips beneath her mask. 

To Helen’s dismay, there were many uninteresting California landscape paintings, but certain ones sparked their interest, such as a painting with colorful rabbits and a warm-toned beach scene. The bright red representing the sand reminded her of the wings of the quetzal she painted for a mural she had painted while in quarantine. A jubilant rush overcame him as he remembered the community—college students, adults and children painting and people rolling down their windows to thank them. Sometimes, people would admire the mural without knowing Helen helped create it, which Helen liked. It made them think of the countless unsung Santa Ana artists who left their art around the city. 

POLITICS

The day after Halloween, Chamina was sure they had eaten poisoned candy. They went home sick, pet their two Dachshunds, one pretty but mean and the other speckled with grey fur, and worked on the Filipino Myths & Folklore zine for the Philippine Student Coalition (PSC). They drew and researched the Aswang, an umbrella term for Philippine monsters, and the Manananggal, a creature with bat wings who sucks out unborn fetuses from their mothers by night and disguises as a beautiful woman during the day. A few days later, Dylan was up at 3am with over 50 sheets of glossy, expensive paper after rushing to print out the zine pages at Staples earlier that day and going through the roundabout process of emailing the file to Staples, receiving a QR code, and then waiting for a sample to be printed. The zine was now 8 pages long after Dylan and I had added to it and Dylan was realizing that although creating the zine started off as a simple and engaging project to avoid giving presentations during club meetings, it was soon becoming something more stressful. They individually stapled and cut each zine without thinking of doing them all at once, like gathering spilled marbles one by one. It was taking forever, but 15 minutes before falling asleep, they found an easier way to cut them. They felt like they wanted to bite someone as they quickly cut and stapled all the other zines.

After a PSC club meeting where everyone perused the zine and longer printed myths, Jackie wanted to go home and see what their family would think about the creatures. Their aunt told them about a ghost sighting she’d had of a white lady beneath a bridge and their Lolo (grandfather) told them a story about a persimmon tree in his backyard which had a Dwende (traditionally a dwarf-like mischievous creature) when he first moved in. I was elated when I learned that the zine had been approved by Filipino elders. In the car with Dylan and Chamina, I told Joselle, our Filipino friend who we do community organizing work with, about the zine. Joselle wasn’t surprised that we’d made a zine about mythology, because the storytelling and creatures are cool, but they felt a sense of worry building up as they told us that a lot of Filipino mythological creatures were weaponized by colonizing forces in order to mask the violence of Spanish colonization and US imperialism. 

The creation of many Filipino mythological creatures, such as the Aswang, were born as a tool to colonize the Philippines. The Spanish spread the myth of the Aswang, which built upon pre-existing religion in the Philippines in order to create a reason that indigenous Filipinos were dying in massive numbers and to spark fear so that Filipinos would turn to Catholicism. Filipinos at the time believed in a variety of deities who symbolized love and protection, but the Spanish forcefully and violently washed over newer generations with monotheism after killing the adults and elderly. When the US took over the Philippines after the Philippine-American War shortly after the country had won its independence from Spain, it used mythology as a tactic to prevent uprisings against the government. Corpses of those who protested or rebelled against the government were sometimes punctured with bite marks to make it seem like they had been killed by the Aswang. Again, this was to incite fear in the people. A secondary purpose was to villainize indigenous beliefs, as the Aswang was crafted from both indigenous and Spanish influences.

Upon learning how mythology had historically been used, Chamina reflected that it would make sense that Spain and the US would manipulate the Philippine population to cover up murder, especially since mythology relies on the political and social positions of any given area at that time. Chamina was reminded of Trese, a Netflix show with Filipino creatures that has a main character who acts as a bridge between the normal world and the supernatural world, portrayed as a warped, exotic and unnatural version of the working class. On a whole, Chamina recognized that our mythological creatures reflect the attitudes of those in power.

FOOD

Ben had been to South Coast Plaza many a time around the holiday season to see Scrooge do a somersault in the annual showing of A Christmas Carol at the Segerstrom Center, but never before had been to tree lighting. They had agreed to meet with friends beforehand, so after Frida confidently directed them and Agnes to Marugame Udon, they waited in a line with over 10 friends (the group had expanded as people joined their plans). Ami heard one of the workers grumble over the amount of customers as everyone went through the buffet line and took a seat. Ironically, I didn’t order anything because I had already had noodles at a pho place on First Street that afternoon to do last minute Inkblot revisions. 

Everything happened in fast succession. Ben loved the udon so much that they ate Agnes and Frida’s leftovers. I talked with Kavin, Arhana, Josh and Adan about how Kavin and Arhana had just won “the bestest of friends” for senior superlatives. We put spice in Josh’s food when he went to the bathroom, but he didn’t notice when he came back. Kavin thought the curry udon was better than the kake udon. We awaited a night where we’d see a tree set on fire. After eating, Josh posed as a mannequin at Old Navy.

Finding the tree was not an easy task. After gawking at South Coast Plaza fashion, including furry Louis Vuitton slippers and a gruff elderly man wearing knee length shorts with a suit jacket, we arrived at a large indoor already-lit tree and figured we were lost. After finding the real tree, which was outside across a walkway, Ben, Agnes and I went back to my car to get blankets to sit on. They had restocked the Santa hats on our way out, so we hid the hats beneath the blankets to try to get more for others when we came back in, but then the hats were out again. At the end of the night, we sang Last Christmas while walking through the parking lot.

OBITUARY

I lied. There is an obituary, for the December 2021 issue of Evolution, which will now be the January 2022 issue of Evolution. The newspaper was supposed to arrive on December 16, but it was not to be as of 9:34 a.m. in Journalism. The paper was well-loved and had a long lifetime of bumping up and down in the back of a truck in the rain.

People Mentioned in the Evolution Dispatch: Isabel Hahn (CW ‘22), Emma Han (VA ‘22), Elena Levin (IA ‘22), Helen Estrada (CW ‘23), Kaon Suh (CW ‘22), Dylan de Guzman (CW ‘22), Chamina Dormitorio (DM ‘22), Jacqueline Blom (BCD ‘22), Joselle de los Reyes (non-OCSA), Ben Dirghalli (IA ‘22), Frida Jauregi (CW ‘22), Agnes Volland (CW ‘22), Amelie Muro (FTV ‘22), Kavin Mohan (CW ‘22), Arhana Singhania (FTV ‘22), Joshua Normandin-Parker (CW ‘22), Adan O’Toole (VA ‘22)