Sarah Dairiki

The Zika virus recently surfaced in South America and since then has spread widely around the world. Today, majority of individuals have a general sense of what the virus is, knowing it is serious enough that whenever the virus is brought up, the conversation takes a turn, becoming solemn, melancholic, and serious. Although the virus is most often linked to being a big threat to pregnant women, the virus should be taken seriously by everyone, as it can affect anyone. Because of this, everyone should be aware of what the virus truly is, know how to diagnose it, and how to treat it. The Zika virus is a mosquito-borne virus linked to the Aedes species of mosquitos specifically. This virus has been written into our minds to be a threat to pregnant women, as being a pregnant woman with the virus can cause the infant to develop microcephaly, a serious birth defect where the infant is born with an abnormally small skull, and can have other developmental issues, such as problems with intelle...

So this post is about Christmas although I am writing it on Christmas Eve, but to me the whole month of December is filled with holiday and cheer, so I figured that writing a post on Christmas Eve was close enough!! I have been on winter break from college since December 9, and go back to school early January. I spent my first week of winter break in Santa Barbara participating in Christmas holiday shopping, making gingerbread houses while listening to Christmas holiday music, going on trolley tours of Christmas light decorated houses, and making my boyfriend's mother's holiday cookies. That first week in Santa Barbara really got me in the holiday spirit, and when I spent the second week in Tahoe I got more excited about the holidays. Tahoe had a gigantic Christmas tree decorated with lights and ornaments, everyone was Christmas shopping, and everyone was just in a good mood because of the holidays. For me, listening to holiday music while doing Christmas-like activities li...

The first week of my winter break just passed, and I spent it in beautiful Santa Barbara with my boyfriend. I spent a week there and I had the best time of my life. There were so many activities we had planned that really allowed me to engage with Santa Barbara's most attractive sites, and I had a really fun first week of my winter break! Friday - The first day we got there, Friday, we settled in, dropped all our stuff off, and went grocery shopping. Then we watched some TV and basically just got settled in from the 5 hour road trip. Saturday - My boyfriend and I went out to breakfast at a cute little restaurant where I had a delicious egg scramble with a biscuit on the side. After breakfast, we went shopping at Best Buy, Ulta Beauty, and Anna's Bakery, and then met up with his parents and went shopping at Costco. After, my boyfriend and I went to Trader Joes and a small Japanese market, then went back home. Later in the afternoon we went to dinner at Los Agaves, then wen...

I have been watching a lot of TV shows on Netflix, and have been jumping from show to show, therefore allowing me to have many favorite ones. Due to this, I have five that I want to recommend just in case anyone of my readers are looking for a new TV show to watch. Here are my top five favorite TV shows as of December 2016. 1. Greys Anatomy - This is my all time favorite show. I am on season ten out of twelve on Netflix, and am still loving it. This show is filled with sorrow, love, anger, and all the other emotions, as well as focusing on life inside a hospital and the personal and medical relationships within it. I love this show because it focuses on medical talk, but also because every episode keeps me engaged and has me laughing, crying, and most importantly, keeps my eyes glued to the screen, with each episode leaving me wanting to watch another one. 2. Parenthood - I watched this show a year ago, and just started watching it again after taking a long break from it. I am s...

I saw Moana yesterday on a whim with my boyfriend, and honestly, it was a fantastic Disney movie. My boyfriend and I were in downtown Santa Cruz to go to our favorite cafe for breakfast, and as we passed by the movie theater we saw that Moana was playing. My boyfriend immediately ran up to see what time the movie was playing and wanted to see it and so did I, so we did. I took a class this quarter on culture and art in the Pacific Islands and this movie corresponded directly with what I have been learning, as the movie took place in Oceania, a place filled with islanders who have a great connection with the ocean, with each other, and possess a great number of art pieces and relics that have a history behind them that is worth telling. There has been a lot of controversial talk about this film, as some Pacific Islanders believe the film was an inaccurate portrayal of Oceania, while other Pacific Islanders believe the film accurately portrayed Oceania. In my opinion, I thought the fi...

Finals week is next week... the week that is the biggest, most challenging, and most stressful for college students. I can safely say it is universally acknowledged that finals week is the week all college students dread the most, as we have to study our butts off to take tests that may, in some cases, make or break a student's grade. We are 3 days away from the start of finals week, and lets say that the tension is running pretty high among campus right now. I have three finals next week, but they are all take home finals. What I have to do for these finals is write 1 or 2 essays, and turn them into my TA or professor. This is the first quarter out of the four quarters I have been at college where I have take home finals, and although the stress is taken off slightly because I don't have to study significantly and take an exam in a 3 hour exam period, I am still facing the stress of preparing outlines, figuring out how to structure my papers, what sources to use, writing the...