Voxcali

After discovering anime just three years ago, I've developed a deep appreciation for its storytelling, characters, and emotional depth. In this episode, I share my favorite anime why I believe these stories deserve to be appreciated as more than just cartoons.

Kelli (00:00)

For most of my life, I never really understood why people were so obsessed with anime. I knew people loved it. They had their favorite characters, shows, favorite fight scenes. But I just was not too interested in it. I wasn't ever really a cartoon girl either. I never watched American cartoons. There was always something entertaining, funny that a lot of people watched, and a lot of the time it was anime. But about three years ago, I started watching it for the very first time.

And I completely understand the appreciation now. I wouldn't necessarily call myself an anime fanatic.

There are still so many classics I haven't gotten around to, but the shows that I have watched genuinely changed the way I think about storytelling. What surprised me the most is how emotionally invested I became in these characters. And anime is so much more than just fighting superpowers and dramatic animations.

There are lessons about friendship, loyalty, grief, sacrifice, and what it means to be human. And I think that's something people who have never watched anime don't always understand.

I don't want to discredit American animation, but there are so many different things about anime that American cartoons do not capture in any way at all.

Japanese anime naturally combines incredibly imaginative worlds with very real human experiences. And that's what makes it so special to me. So today I really wanted to talk about some of my favorite anime series and what's made each one really memorable and why I think anime deserves so much more appreciation as an art form than it gets.

Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything or give away any major plots. I'm strictly just discussing my favorite animes and what I loved about them.

So the very first anime that I've watched was Samurai Champloo and I think that was an incredible introduction to anime. For anyone familiar with it, Samurai Champloo is a 26-episode series set in Japan during the Edo period.

The story follows three very different characters, Mugen, Jin, and Fuu. Mugen is the unpredictable one. He's reckless. He's a fighter doing anything he can to get what he wants. Jin is the complete opposite because he's disciplined, quiet, a traditional samurai who really approaches everything with a lot of control.

And then you have Fuu a young girl who brings these two completely different men together and convinces them to help her find a mysterious samurai who smells like sunflowers. Basically, that's how their journey begins. And what makes samurai shampoo so good isn't just the destination or the mission. It's about everything that happens along the way. These three characters started off.

As strangers. They were not best friends. They argued all the time with each other. Half of the time you're wondering why they even were traveling together. But as they encounter different people and they're put in different situations, you watch their relationships develop. And that's one of the first things anime taught me is that sometimes the people who will change your life

are people that you never expected to become close to.

And sometimes a journey becomes more meaningful than whatever you were originally trying to accomplish. What I also loved about the show was the style. It combined traditional Japanese samurai culture with hip hop, lo-fi music. There was breakdancing inspired fighting. Just really different visuals than your normal anime that you would imagine. The soundtrack is incredible.

It really gives the show a nostalgic feeling and it's such an interesting combination because you are watching a story that was set hundreds of years ago, but the music and creative direction makes it a more modern anime.

and because this was the first time I've ever watching an anime, I really had that realization that anime is artistically different from anything I've ever watched before. This is not just about the storyline, it's about all the music, the animation, and the whole atmosphere

of the show. Everything in Samurai Champloo just worked so well together and created a very particular feeling. And I think it was a very great introduction to the medium.

The next anime I watched is Trigun and this one is a little bit personal because my dog is named after the main character, Vash the Stampede.

Trigun follows Vash, who is a legendary gunman who's traveling through a futuristic desert world.

He has this enormous bounty on his head because destruction seems to just follow him everywhere. So when you first hear about him, you're really expecting a terrified, ruthless criminal. But then when you actually meet Vash, he's kind of ridiculous. He's very goofy. He loves donuts. And he really doesn't behave like the dangerous outlaw everybody thinks he is.

That's what makes him such a great character. Underneath that goofy personality is somebody carrying an incredible amount of pain and responsibility. And one of the biggest themes in Trigun is Vash's commitment to protecting human life.

He believes in avoiding killing, and throughout the entire show, Vash the Stampede really made that known.

He was not going to kill anybody, even if that made his own life much harder. And that's really what made this one so interesting, because it's easy to say you believe in peace when nobody's challenging you. But what happens when doing the right thing actually puts you in danger? And what happens when showing mercy actually has consequences?

I think Trigun does a very good job at exploring the difference between being kind and weak, because Vash is absolutely not weak. He's an incredible fighter, but his strength comes from the fact that he tries to maintain his compassion even when it's difficult. And I really do love that message. I think in real life people mistake kindness for weakness, but being able to show restraint, forgiving someone, or just standing by your values can require so much more strength than reacting with just anger.

Trigon also uses a lot of humor, so you can be laughing at Vash in one episode and then suddenly find yourself seeing something incredibly emotional. That balance between comedy and tragedy is something I've really come to appreciate about anime. And every time somebody asks me about my dog's name, I love explaining that he got named after one of my favorite anime characters.

Another one of my favorites is called Juni Taisen. It's a very short anime with a more dark message. If you're somebody who wants to test out the waters of anime, but you don't want to commit to a very long series, this is a really good one. Juni Taisen: Zodiac War. It's only 12 episodes, so you can finish it very quickly. And it's completely different from the first two shows that I mentioned. Juni Taisen is essentially a full battle royale.

There's 12 warriors, each representing an animal from the Chinese Zodiac. They're all brought together for a deadly competition where the last standing survivor gets one wish granted. So at first, you might think this is just going to be a straightforward action series where one person wins in the very end and defeats everybody else. But what makes the show so interesting is how the story explores the backgrounds and the motivations behind each of the warriors.

Everyone, all twelve of them have entered the competition with their own experiences, beliefs, and reasons for fighting. There are some characters who are driven by pride, some by survival, and some have experienced very intense trauma.

Which leads to each of them having different ideas about what winning even means. And because it is such a short series, the story moves really quickly, so you're constantly learning about new characters in each episode while knowing that not everyone is gonna survive.

One thing about Juni Taisen that really stood out to me was how the show makes you think about the relationship between violence and human motivation. Because oftentimes the characters who appear the strongest are not necessarily the ones with the clearest sense of purpose. And some people who seem the most dangerous are carrying the most complicated and personal histories. It's kind of dark, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a feel-good anime.

But if you're interested in a shorter series that has a lot of action and psychological themes, it's definitely worth checking out.

Now, of course, I want to talk about one of the classics, which is Dragon Ball. When I say Dragon Ball, I'm talking about the original series, not Dragon Ball Z, because it is such a charming, cute place to start. Dragon Ball is one of the most recognizable anime franchises in the world. Even people who have not watched anime ever a day in their life can recognize Goku.

I think the original Dragon Ball has a totally different feeling from what people expect when they think about it. Dragon Ball follows young Goku as he meets new friends. He trains in martial arts and goes on these adventures searching for Dragon Balls. And honestly, it's just so cute. It's funny, it's adventurous, and you don't have to take it too seriously and pay attention while watching it all the time.

You get to really see Goku experience the world for the first time with his childlike innocence. He is so strong, he's so curious and naive about everything, and that's what makes this series so endearing. There really is something comforting about watching a character who approaches life with so much excitement and happiness.

I also do love the emphasis on training and improvement and never giving up because Goku is not somebody who just wants to be strong so he can dominate everyone else. He wants to be strong because he likes challenging himself and he likes to learn and he really just wants to be the best fighter in the world. And he respects the people who push him to improve.

I think that right there is a very simple but meaningful lesson in Dragon Ball. You don't always have to view people who are better than you as competition in a negative way. Sometimes those people are just trying to help you grow the most, and not every anime needs to leave you emotionally devastated or questioning humanity. Sometimes you just want something fun and lighthearted and Dragon Ball is great for that.

Now we're stepping in to my absolute favorite animes of all time. One of them is Yuyu Hakusho. I love this anime so much, and honestly, one of the hardest questions you could ask me about it is who my favorite character is, because I genuinely have such a hard time choosing.

For anyone who hasn't watched it, Yu Yu Hakusho follows Yusuke Urameshi He's a teenage delinquent who unexpectedly dies while saving a child. And because his death wasn't anticipated by the spirit world, he eventually is given an opportunity to return to life. And from there, he becomes the spirit detective and gets involved in conflicts involving humans and the supernatural world.

Now, what makes this series so special to me is not the fighting at all. It's the friendships. We see an incredible group of friends develop between Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei. They're not all friends in the beginning. They all have different personalities, motivations, and different backgrounds. Yusuke is stubborn and impulsive.

Kuabara is emotional and passionate and so loyal. Then you have Kurama who is very intelligent. He's kind of seen as the pretty boy, but he is a very calm and strategic fighter. And then you have Hiei who's reserved, very intimidating, and not somebody who really expresses affection openly.

Somehow they all work so well together, and over time you see how much they come to respect and care about one another. And that is my favorite thing about Yu Yu Hakusho because it portrays friendship as something so much deeper than just simply getting along with people. These characters argue, they fight one another, and they have disagreements. In the beginning, Yusuke and Kuwabara are literally fighting each other, and Kuwabara will not stop until he beats Yusuke.

This group of friends, when it really matters, they are there for each other. And that's such a realistic depiction of genuine friendship in the real world because your closest friends aren't always the people who are exactly like you. Sometimes they're the people who challenge you and tell you things that you don't want to hear, but these are the people who will show up when you're going through something difficult. The loyalty in this series is immaculate. I think Yu Yu Hakusho also has some of the most memorable character development.

Even the antagonists can be complicated and will have you wondering if you really want them to survive or not.

And then of course with Yu Yu Hakusho we have to talk about the opening theme, Smile Bomb, because it is one of the greatest opening songs of all time. It's nostalgic and upbeat and captures the spirit of the show perfectly.

That's another thing about anime that's done so well is that the music becomes a part of your emotional connection to the story. You hear a particular opening or a soundtrack years later, and suddenly you're reminded of all the characters and all the friendships and everything that you felt while watching the show. Yu Yu Hakusho is one of those shows for me. If somebody asked me for a great anime with the best characters, meaningful friendships, humor, action, this would be very, very high on my recommendation list.

And now we can get into probably one of the greatest animes I've ever watched.

It's arguably the greatest anime of all time and it constantly ranks

As one of the best TV shows of all time alongside live-action TV shows. Attack on Titan. I'm sure there's people who have watched hundreds of animes who will have their own opinions and disagree with me, but out of everything I've watched, nothing has affected me quite like Attack on Titan. It's one of the most impressive stories I have ever experienced.

Animated or otherwise. And if you have not watched it, the basic premise is that humanity lives behind enormous walls to protect itself from giant creatures known as titans.

The story initially follows Eren, Mikasa, and Armin as they confront the terrifying world outside of these walls. And when you first start watching, you think, what kind of story is this going to be? It's probably just about a group of kids who are trying to fight these giant monsters. You don't know if the story is just about people protecting their loved ones, if it's about revenge, but as the story develops, you realize what you're watching is so much more complicated.

This is what makes Attack on Titan so extraordinary. The level of detail is unbelievable because things that seem insignificant early in the series actually become some of the most important parts later on. There's conversations, character decisions, historical details that take on completely different meanings once you understand the bigger picture.

And that's something I really admire about the writing in Attack on Titan, because the story is going to reward you for paying attention. Beyond the plot twists, what makes Attack on Titan so powerful is the way it explores humanity.

It questions freedom, war, prejudice, revenge, history, and the way people justify violence when they believe they're fighting for something important. One of the most interesting things about this series is how your perspective changes the more you continue watching. At the beginning, it's easy to really identify the heroes and villains, but as the story progresses, those distinctions become so much more complicated.

You are going to start questioning why characters believe what they believe, and then you'll find yourself sympathizing with the people whose actions you completely disagreed with in the beginning.

This is such an important storytelling achievement because in real life people rarely see themselves as villains of their own stories

People grow up with different histories, beliefs, and understandings of what is right and Attack on Titan forces you to think about how those perspectives are formed.

It also explores this cycle of hatred and revenge that can continue across generations. People are not starting the conflicts in this show. They were growing up hearing the stories about who their enemies are, and they were just acting upon those stories.

It reflects patterns that we can recognize in real human history. But what's even more impressive is that the show never loses its emotional connection to the characters. Underneath all the political themes and all the complicated storytelling, you're still just watching people experience friendship, loss, fear, and sacrifice. By the time you reach the end of the show, you've spent so much time with these characters that all of their decisions feel personal.

Again, like I've mentioned before, the music is so important in an anime and the music in Attack on Titan is phenomenal. It makes the action scenes feel so enormous and also makes the emotional moments so much more powerful. When you combine that music with the animation and the voice acting and the script, it creates an experience that's very difficult to compare it to anything else.

After talking about all these shows, I think what's the most interesting to me is how different they are from one another.

Every series offers something different. If you want to laugh about something, there's an anime for that. Maybe you want to see an exciting adventure, or you just want to escape reality for a while. I think people really underestimate how much fictional stories can influence us. Even though these characters aren't real, the emotions that they're experiencing are the fear of losing somebody, the desire to belong, the difficulty of forgiving.

Anime has this incredible ability to explore them through worlds that are completely different from our own. And that alone is worth appreciating how much creativity really goes into these productions. There is so much artistry involved, and when you watch a really good anime, you can feel how much thought has gone into creating this.

So after about three years of watching anime, I can confidently say that I'm glad I gave it a chance. I still have so many more shows to watch, and I'm sure my list of favorites will continue to change as I discover new series. But these shows have already given me so many memorable characters, incredible stories, and meaningful lessons.

I truly understand why people become so attached to anime. It's not because the fight scenes are cool or because the animation is amazing. These stories make people feel something. You become invested with these characters. You celebrate their victories and you feel their losses. And you just really see how beautiful the storytelling is in anime once you watch it.

So if you've never watched anime before, I really encourage you to give it a chance. You don't have to become a super fan, and you don't need to know every single character in every popular series. Just find a story that interests you, and you might be surprised by how much it really sticks with you.

That's all for today's episode. I hope you guys enjoyed listening. Thank you guys so much. I will see you in the next one.

Five Asian players across the country are poised to make an impact in the upcoming men’s college basketball season.

As we anticipate the upcoming college basketball season, several players will look to build on their previous performances and establish themselves as key contributors for their teams.

Xaivian Lee headlines the group after a winding college career.  The Korean Canadian guard spent three seasons at Princeton, earning two-time Ivy League honors, before transferring to Florida this past season, where he averaged 11 points and 4 assists for a team that earned a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament.  After playing in the Summer League for the Cavs, he transferred to Gonzaga. Now, the 6-foot-4 playmaker brings a wealth of experience to Mark Few’s high standard system.

Thomas Batties II is entering his fourth season playing for the Harvard Crimson.  The 6-7 Filipino American forward looks to extend his reputation as a proven perimeter threat.  Batties averaged 12 points and 5 rebounds last season, while shooting 45% from three-point range.  In his collegiate career he’s also accumulated 97 blocks, which ranks 10th in program history.  His two-way efforts make Harvard a contender for the Ivy League title.

After four seasons at Stanford, Texas-native Ryan Agarwal is completing his final year of eligibility with the Loyola Chicago Ramblers.  The 6-foot-6 Indian American guard appeared in 32 games last season, starting 19, where he averaged 6 points per game.  He showcased his scoring ability in a career-high 20-point performance against North Carolina.  Agarwal will look to build on that success as he takes on a larger role in the Atlantic 10.

Sophomore guard Narit Chotikavanic established himself as a three-point specialist at Stephen F. Austin last year.  The Thai American guard averaged 9 points per game, connecting on 87 three-pointers, at a 39% rate from beyond the arc.  After SFA finished first in the Southland during the regular season, they were thwarted from the Big Dance after being upset by McNeese in the championship game.  Chotikavanic will seek redemption for the Lumberjacks.

Shooting guard Wei Lin is entering his second season at Oregon after contributing 6-and-a-half points per game as a role player.  He scored a career-high 23 points and 5 assists against Rutgers, hitting six three-pointers, and will look to turn that scoring potential into a more consistent impact for the Ducks.

After earning two Stanford degrees, Sophia Chun built a career that combines advanced analytics with professional dance on an NFL sideline.

Sophia Chun can analyze data for one of the world’s largest social-media platforms during the week, then perform in front of more than 60,000 football fans as a Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader.

Originally from Orange County, California, Chun began dancing when she was only three years old. Her late grandmother enrolled her in classes because she had so much energy and that early decision eventually helped Chun build a life combining two fields that are rarely associated with one another. 

She attended the Orange County School of the Arts, where she earned the school’s Junior Honor Guard recognition for maintaining a strong combination of academic achievement and artistic performance. In 2020 she received a $5,000 Dragon Kim Foundation fellowship that helped her develop science focused art projects for underserved elementary school students.

After high school, Chun enrolled at Stanford University in 2021, majoring in Data Science and Social Systems. She has explained that she wanted to strengthen her computational knowledge and develop analytical tools she could apply to her work. Beyond the classroom, Chun served as a data-science peer adviser, helped grade Stanford’s Introduction to Matrix Methods course and participated in research through Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and School of Medicine. In 2023, Chun was selected for Stanford’s CS+Social Good Fellowship and worked with CareerVillage, allowing her to apply her technical education to a project with a larger social purpose.

Throughout her studies, Chun was also prioritizing dance as she performed with several campus groups, including the Stanford Dollies. Unlike a conventional cheerleading squad, its members create original choreography and carry forward routines passed down through generations of Stanford dancers. Chun was part of the 2022–2023 group.

Chun graduated from Stanford in 2025 with a Bachelor of Arts in Data Science, then completed a Master of Science in Management Science and Engineering. She has since moved into a full-time career as a data scientist at Instagram, but she still did not abandon her lifelong passion for dance. She auditioned for the Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders and earned a place on the 2026 squad as a rookie.  Her presence is especially meaningful because she challenges two limiting stereotypes at once: that dancers cannot be serious technical professionals and that people working in data science must give up their creative ambitions.

Sophia Chun did not choose between the analytical and artistic parts of her identity. By building a career at Instagram while performing on an NFL sideline, she is proving that a person can write code, interpret data and still chase the dream that began in a childhood dance class.

This Filipino folk tale depicts a grudge match between a tiny firefly and several large gorillas.

Come closer, my darlings. There’s room for both of you, and for that corner of the blanket that always seems to wander away. Tonight I’ll tell you a story from the Philippines, where a little firefly once had a very large problem. This is our gentler telling of an old tale about an ape called Amomongo and a firefly called Iput-Iput.

One evening, when the sky was turning the purple of a ripe plum, Iput-Iput flew along a village path. Banana leaves whispered overhead. Supper fires were fading, and the first stars shone above the palms. The little light beneath his wings blinked gold, then disappeared, then blinked again, as though someone were sewing tiny stitches of sunshine into the dark.

He was on his way to visit a friend. He’d washed his face in a dewdrop and brushed his legs together, which is quite enough dressing up when you’re a firefly. Beside the path sat Amomongo, a great shaggy ape with enormous hands, enormous feet, and an opinion of himself larger than either.

“Where are you going with that lantern?” he called.

“To see a friend,” said Iput-Iput.

“Can’t you go without a light?”

“I like to see what’s coming. There are mosquitoes about.”

Amomongo threw back his head and laughed so loudly that a sleeping bird tucked its head beneath its other wing.

“Mosquitoes! You’re afraid of mosquitoes!”

“I don’t like being bitten,” said Iput-Iput. “Do you?”

But Amomongo wasn’t listening. Some creatures become so pleased with their own voices that they forget what their ears are for.

“A coward with a lantern!” he boomed. “That’s what you are!”

The firefly hovered quietly. His wings were trembling, though whether from anger or hurt he couldn’t have said.

“Being careful doesn’t make me a coward.”

“It does if I say it does!”

Now, that was a very large claim to make while sitting on a very ordinary stone. Iput-Iput looked at the ape for a moment, then flew on. His friend was waiting, and he wouldn’t let Amomongo spoil the whole evening.

By morning, however, the ape had told everyone his joke. He told the birds. He told the lizards. He told a water buffalo who was standing in a muddy pool and would have preferred a little peace. Each time he told it, the firefly became more frightened and Amomongo became more splendid. That often happens when a boastful creature tells his own story.

When Iput-Iput heard what was being said, he settled beneath a leaf and thought. He could go on visiting his friends and leave the ape to his boasting. But the ape had begun calling other small creatures cowards, too. A gecko no longer wanted to pass his stone. A young bird had stopped singing there.

That evening, Iput-Iput flew back.

“Please stop saying those things,” he said. “You’re making the path unpleasant for everyone.”

Amomongo leaned close. His nose looked to the firefly rather like a small hill.

“And who is going to stop me? You?”

“I’m asking you.”

“Then let’s see how brave you are. Come to the clearing tomorrow at dusk. If I catch you, you’ll admit I was right.”

“And if you can’t catch me?”

The ape waved his hand. “Then I’ll stop. Of course I’ll stop.”

He said this carelessly, because he couldn’t imagine failing. He’d already begun imagining the story he would tell afterward.

All the next day, Amomongo gathered companions. One ape became five, and five became twenty. Soon there were so many shaggy shoulders beneath the trees that you might have thought the forest had grown a second forest made of fur.

“We’re catching a dangerous opponent,” he announced.

“A crocodile?” asked one.

“Bigger trouble than that.”

“A wild boar?”

“Much trickier.”

“What is it, then?”

Amomongo cleared his throat. “A firefly.”

There was a silence. Somewhere, a coconut dropped with a plop.

“A very troublesome firefly,” he added.

At dusk, Iput-Iput arrived at the clearing. He saw the waiting apes, their long arms and broad hands. For a moment he wished he were safely beneath his leaf. He could feel his heart beating inside his little body.

Then he noticed something else. The apes were crowded together. Their elbows poked one another. Their feet tangled in roots. They were watching Amomongo, waiting for him to tell them what to do. Iput-Iput took a slow breath and looked for the open spaces between them.

“Where are your helpers?” Amomongo demanded.

“I came by myself.”

“By yourself!” The great ape looked over his shoulder, inviting everyone to laugh. A few did. One scratched his ear and looked embarrassed.

“You promised to stop teasing us if you couldn’t catch me,” said the firefly.

“Yes, yes. Ready?”

Iput-Iput’s light glowed once. “Ready.”

Amomongo lunged. His hands closed with a clap, but the firefly had slipped above them. He settled, light as a falling seed, on the tip of the ape’s nose.

Amomongo went cross-eyed trying to look at him.

“Hold still!” shouted the ape behind him. “I’ve got him!”

He reached forward. Amomongo ducked. The reaching ape stumbled over his captain’s foot and landed sitting in the grass, looking rather surprised to find the ground so close.

By then, Iput-Iput was hovering beside another nose.

“Here!” cried its owner.

“Where?” cried his neighbor.

“Here, here, here!”

Three apes turned at once, bumped shoulders, and collapsed into a heap of elbows. The firefly rose gently above them. He wasn’t the strongest creature in the clearing. But he was paying attention, which was proving much more useful.

Amomongo tried again. He crept forward with both hands open. Iput-Iput waited until the last moment, then slipped sideways. The ape caught a banana leaf instead. For one glorious instant he believed he’d succeeded.

“I have him!”

Then he opened his hands.

The leaf said nothing. Banana leaves are very sensible that way.

Around the clearing, the other animals began to chuckle. Amomongo grew hotter beneath his fur. He charged after the little light, skidded on fallen leaves, and sat down in a shallow puddle with a splash that startled even himself.

Iput-Iput landed on a low branch. He could have flashed around the ape’s head. He could have called him names and invited everyone to laugh harder. Instead, he waited while Amomongo climbed out of the puddle.

“Shall we stop now?” he asked.

The ape wiped water from his chin. Behind him, his companions were helping one another up. One was removing a twig from another’s ear. Nobody looked eager to continue.

“You wouldn’t stay still,” Amomongo muttered.

“You wouldn’t listen,” said Iput-Iput.

For once, the great ape had no quick answer.

The clearing became quiet enough to hear the leaves moving overhead. Amomongo looked at the little creature on the branch. He remembered how certain he’d been that something so small couldn’t possibly matter. Now he stood dripping before a whole clearing of witnesses, and the firefly hadn’t even raised his voice.

“I said I would stop,” he said at last.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll stop.”

Iput-Iput blinked his golden light. “Thank you.”

The apes went home more quietly than they’d arrived. Amomongo walked at the back, brushing leaves from his fur. When he reached the narrow path, he paused. Under the trees, the darkness was thick, and a root lay across the way.

The little firefly floated beside him.

“Would you like some light?”

Amomongo opened his mouth, then closed it. At last he said, in a voice that didn’t disturb a single sleeping bird, “Yes, please.”

So Iput-Iput flew a little way ahead. His light showed the root, a stone, and the bend where the path turned toward home. The ape followed carefully. It was a strange pair to see beneath the palms: such large footsteps following such a little glow.

After that, the gecko passed Amomongo’s stone whenever he pleased, and the young bird sang there again. The ape still had enormous hands and enormous feet. He was still occasionally rather pleased with himself. But when a small creature spoke, he began to listen.

And Iput-Iput kept his light. He carried it to visit his friends, over wet leaves and sleeping flowers, through evenings scented with rain. Sometimes he used it to find his own way. Sometimes it helped someone else find theirs.

Now settle down, my darlings. Let your heads grow heavy on your pillows. Imagine that little golden light moving slowly beyond the window, shining once, then resting, then shining again. The path is quiet. The trees are still. And everyone, great and small, is on the way home.

Thai American entrepreneur Ann McFerran left the pre-med path and used her artistic talents to build one of beauty’s most recognizable lash and press-on nail brands.

Ann McFerran turned the false eyelashes she once used to build her confidence into Glamnetic, a beauty brand that generated approximately $50 million in sales during its first year.

McFerran was born in Bangkok, Thailand, and immigrated to the United States at seven years old with her mother and sister. The family settled in Manteca, California, where she was one of the few Asian students in her community and often felt alienated because of her appearance. As a teenager, she discovered that makeup and false eyelashes gave her a creative outlet and helped her feel more confident.

She was studying psychobiology at UCLA with a plan to attend medical school, but eventually McFerran realized that medicine did not offer the creativity she wanted. So, after graduating, she pursued work as a fine artist instead, following her mother’s footsteps as she was also a painter.

The idea for Glamnetic came from McFerran’s frustration with traditional false eyelashes. She loved their appearance but lash glue was sticky and difficult to apply. At the time, magnetic eyelashes were available, but many early versions required users to sandwich their natural lashes between two magnetic strips, creating another uncomfortable process. McFerran spent a year researching and testing different prototypes before developing her own system, which paired magnetic lashes with magnetic eyeliner. The tiny magnets along the lash band attached directly to the liner, allowing customers to apply the lashes within seconds and reuse them multiple times.

In August 2019, McFerran launched Glamnetic from her Koreatown apartment in Los Angeles with approximately $5,000 of her own money. Rather than paying professional models, she used Bumble BFF to invite women over for a free photoshoot and her friends helped pack orders in exchange for pizza. 

She was creating videos showing how quickly the lashes could transform someone’s appearance and they spread quickly across Instagram and TikTok, helping Glamnetic generate approximately $50 million in sales in 2020 without any traditional venture-capital funding. By 2021, the company had sold more than 100,000 products, employed around 70 people and was preparing to enter more than 1,000 Ulta Beauty stores. McFerran later expanded Glamnetic beyond eyelashes into colorful press-on nails, which became another major part of the business. 

Her accomplishments have earned her a place on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for Retail and Ecommerce in 2021, along with recognition on Inc. 's Female Founders lists in 2021, 2025 and 2026. By combining her artistic background with a problem she personally understood, Ann McFerran transformed a few thousand dollars and a small apartment operation into one of the beauty industry’s most recognizable magnetic-lash and press-on-nail brands.

In this podcast Unc Wis tackles the question on the minds of many Americans about the man leading the United States.

Tom Kagy (00:01.119)

Some people wonder is Donald Trump really a racist or just a racketeer exploiting an underserved constituency?

Yes, that is a trick question. The answer is he's both.

Donald Trump has not only made no secret about his racism, but has made sure the racism is loudly embodied in his policies and well reported. Why? Because his brand of official racism is what gives him the political muscle for his racket. Let's start with the racism.

Who else would have dared to cut down the US political refugee program to just whites from South Africa? Why? His fabricated claim is that whites face genocide in South Africa. Who would believe such an outlandish claim? Racists, of course. The notion that a black majority nation would commit or even allow genocide against its white citizens.

can only find acceptance in deeply racist minds because it suggests that African blacks are incapable of running a law based government. Trump doesn't limit his racist projections to Africa. Right here at home he claims that American universities' efforts to achieve a degree of diversity in their student bodies is racism against white people.

And he's been suing them to drop their diversity efforts and has withheld tens of billions of dollars in necessary research funding from many leading universities, like Harvard, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, and perhaps three dozen other universities and med schools. He has threatened lawsuits against American corporations to keep them from spending resources on programs.

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That breed of racism encouraged the ferocity and viciousness with which his ICE officials abuse and kill non whites, even if they're legal migrants or citizens. Yes, it is completely surreal that this crazy situation exists in the United States of the twenty first century.

I suspect loss of literacy is largely to blame. Almost a third of Americans are functionally illiterate. They can't comprehend a headline, much less actually read the body of an article that presents factual information about how the world works. Their comprehension of the world is limited to absorbing one-liners delivered by rabid MAGA influencers on YouTube and various racist forums.

These people cheer on Trump's racist policies because it fits their frighteningly simple minded understanding of the world. A world that they think is full of dangerous brown people looking to kill Americans and destroy Western civilization. And of course, anyone willing to engage in actual large scale racism is most certainly a racist at heart.

So how does it affect us that an American president is bent on serving the mandate of simple minded racism? First, I am an Asian American who, to Trump, represents an encroachment on the white prerogative to exclude people not descended from Europeans. He and his ilk know whites stole the land from Native Americans. Not only do

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has begun to despise Trump's racist America. The rising anger and hatred has been aggravated by our racist leaders' apparent delight in launching pointless attacks on non white people while trying to weaken the economies of other nations with pointless tariffs and import restrictions on quote national security close quote grounds. In fact, he's making sure to inspire

Generations of non white foreigners who would love to see the United States destroyed. As for his tariffs, he justified it as simple payback, a way to quote, get even. Payback for what? Payback for industrious Asians profiting off American consumers by providing them goods at low prices. So when it comes to national security,

The reality is that Donald Trump is the main threat to our security. He's making the world a dangerous place for Americans and for the United States.

As the world quietly but determinedly reroutes its trade and political alliances to reduce reliance on a racist US, our allies are distancing themselves from alliances that have kept them and the United States safe from foreign aggression.

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Is now turning against us. Americans have become persona non grata in China in Canada, and the level of Canadian travel to the US has plunged by double digits and continues falling. If Trump's racist views can destroy relations with our nearest neighbor, imagine what it's been doing to the attitudes of the other hundred and twenty nations on earth. They aren't stupid.

They read the deep rooted racism animating virtually every one of Trump's policies, policies that can all be traced to the desire to keep non white peoples from enjoying the fruits of their labors. Can the US thrive in a world that's quietly begun blackballing us? Could we survive as a prosperous society in isolation? Most economists agree that

A decade of being blackballed would turn the US into an economic backwater that quickly loses the influx of motivated, talented people who have built and maintained our technological edge.

We would all be paying two or three times as much for goods made by US companies struggling to step into the gap created by a Trump blockade on imports from China, Vietnam, India, Mexico, Canada. The harsh reality is that we are no longer a manufacturing power. We're a tech power, an agricultural power, an educational power, a tourism power.

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that Americans would find our standard of living plunging below that of southern Europe, ultimately even as low as Latin America's. That's the biggest ultimate cost to Americans of Trump's racist notions about the US and the rest of the world.

What about Trump the racketeer? How does he profit from his endless series of irrational racist policies?

As with all racists, at the center of Trump's worldview is a deep rooted immorality that prevents him from caring whether his actions are functionable.

Only an immoral president could have fabricated a family owned crypto business, the world liberty financial it's called. It describes itself as a DeFi platform, a decentralized financial platform. What it actually is is the platform for buying access to Trump. It's precisely to make that access more valuable that Trump has done his best to

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Yes, he now sells advanced access to his tweets to financial firms and news organizations.

His erratic and unpredictable policies make those tweets and access even more valuable than if he were to employ normal channels for implementing policy the way all other presidents have. What a fantastic business model. All you need is the tin cup, the World Liberty Financial, and the Office of the Presidency of the United States, from which to issue executive orders and tweets galore.

It's already raked in an estimated three billion dollars in freshly minted wealth for Trump and his family. In other words, he's trebled his wealth in the first two years of his term.

And the folks who plunked down those billions have bought hundreds of White House and Mar a Lago meetings with him or with his close aides.

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When you're capable of seeing eighty eight percent of the world as less than human, you're not going to worry about violating the trust of the functionally illiterate American racists who put you in office. So what if your tariffs cause them the high cost of living from inflation that inevitably results from the inefficiencies caused by disruptive tariffs and policies?

So what if your deportations cause loss of the workers that farmers need to harvest their crops? That builders need to undertake construction projects, that small manufacturers need to compete against imports. Because racists are, by definition, immoral. The definition of an immoral person is someone who ignores the welfare of others to pursue his own selfish ends. Yep.

Sounds like Donald Trump, folks. May he be impeached and convicted in the near future to spare us all needless national insecurity and even more destruction of our prosperity.

By creating hit formats like Middle Ground and Surrounded, Jason Y. Lee turned a non-profit passion project into a media empire generating 400 million monthly views.

Jason Y. Lee has built Jubilee Media into a popular digital platform by producing videos that bring people with opposing viewpoints together to discuss politics, identity and social issues.

The company’s flagship YouTube channel has 11 million subscribers, and its content generates nearly 400 million monthly views across platforms. The platform’s content and reach helped set the stage for Jubilee’s partnership with CNN for a town hall featuring Texas state representative and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, a natural extension of the political discussions that have become central to its programming.

Jubilee’s signature formats include Surrounded, which places one person at the center of a discussion with a group holding opposing views, and Middle Ground, which brings people with conflicting beliefs together to explore their differences and identify common ground.  Its Odd One Out series challenges participants to identify an outsider within a group.  These formats have made discussions of ideology, identity and social issues central to the company’s programming, creating a foundation for its expansion into political events and partnerships.

Lee founded Jubilee as a nonprofit project in 2010, initially producing videos intended to inspire social change.  One early effort involved raising money for earthquake relief in Haiti through a video of Lee busking in a New York City subway station.  He later transitioned the organization into a for-profit media company in 2017, retaining its emphasis on human connection while developing recurring video formats designed for online audiences.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, Lee studied at the UPenn’s Wharton School, graduating with a bachelor’s in economics in 2009.  Before he took the entrepreneurial route, he worked as a consultant at Bain, organized HIV/AIDS research in Zambia with the Clinton Health Access Initiative and volunteered on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Under Lee’s leadership, Jubilee has expanded beyond its original YouTube programming into documentaries, live events and Nectar, a brand focused on dating and relationships.  The CNN partnership offers another avenue for the company to bring its discussion-based format to political audiences, building on a content strategy that has made conversations across ideological divides a defining part of its brand.

In this episode, we explore the stereotypes surrounding girls' sports and why certain sports have become associated with different expressions of femininity and sexuality.

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When I think of my childhood, sports were such a huge part of my life. I started doing ballet and gymnastics when I was very young. Then I transitioned into cheerleading, which I did from kindergarten all the way through sixth grade. And after that, I started playing volleyball,

which I continued until my junior year of high school. And honestly, volleyball was one of the best experiences of my life. The friendships, the practices, the games, the competition, these memories I will genuinely never forget.

And I think people who grew up playing competitive sports understand exactly what I'm talking about. Because it's so much more than just showing up to practice. Your teammates become some of your lifelong friends. You spend hours training together. You experience losing and winning together. And for me, volleyball gave me a sense of identity going into high school. I was very nervous, but being on the volleyball team really helped me throughout the whole beginning of the transition.

It taught me discipline, it got me into intense training, and even introduced me to working out in the gym at a very young age. And looking back, I'm so grateful for that. But recently, I started thinking about the sports that I played: ballet, cheerleading, volleyball. All sports that society tends to associate with femininity.

And that got me wondering about the sports I didn't play, specifically basketball. Because growing up, I did notice something about the girls who played basketball at my schools. A lot of them were openly lesbian or presented themselves in a more masculine way.

And when I started asking the people around me whether they remembered something similar from their schools, most of them said yes. Now, obviously, this doesn't mean every girl who plays basketball is a lesbian. And it doesn't mean you can tell somebody's sexuality just by looking at them. But it did make me curious. Why did I grow up associating basketball with a particular type of girl? And why did volleyball, cheerleading, and dance have such different reputations?

I decided to look into it and what I found was much more interesting than I expected.

So first, I think sometimes we talk about girls' basketball as though it's some small niche sport, but it's really not. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, more than 362,000 girls participated in high school basketball during the 2025-2026 school year.

That's a ton of girls, but here's where the comparison gets interesting.

During that same school year, girls' volleyball had more than 502,000 participants. So volleyball had almost 140,000 more participation entries than basketball.

And it's not like basketball is some unpopular sport. It's one of the most widely played high school sports for girls, but those numbers made me think about my own experience. Why did volleyball feel like such a natural choice for me and so many girls that I knew? Because if you think about it, these sports do have a lot in common. They're both competitive, physically demanding, they both require speed, coordination, teamwork, and both involves years of intense training.

But why do we assign such different social identities to the girls who play them? I think part of the answer starts long before high school.

Let's think about the activities parents introduce their children to when they're young. For little girls, ballet and dance are incredibly familiar options. So is gymnastics and cheerleading. For little boys, it's often basketball, football, baseball, or soccer.

Now obviously this is not every family. There are plenty of girls who grew up playing basketball and boys who grew up dancing.

But I think it's worth asking how much of our athletic identity is shaped before we're even old enough to understand gender stereotypes. Because when I started ballet, I wasn't sitting here thinking, I'm choosing a feminine sport. I was a little girl doing an activity. When I started cheerleading, I wasn't thinking about how society looked at cheerleaders. I was just having fun. And as we get older, we start noticing how people categorize us by what we're doing. The cheerleaders, the volleyball girls, the basketball girls, and suddenly the sport

you

play becomes part of how people see you. And it's almost like every sport comes with its own identity. That can influence which activities girls feel comfortable trying. And if you're a young girl who loves basketball, but all your friends are joining the cheer team, do you follow your friends or do you do something completely different? And what if people have already told you that basketball is for tomboys?

Even if no one directly discourages you, those little messages can affect how you see yourself. And I wonder how many girls have chosen or avoided a sport because of the social expectations surrounding it.

It's actually pretty interesting because the stereotype of female basketball players being masculine or lesbian isn't something that just appeared on social media.

It has a much longer history. Sports historian Susan Cahn actually researched how women's athletes were perceived throughout the 20th century. One of the things she documented was how women who participated in competitive sports were often criticized for appearing too masculine.

Historically, there were people who believed that women becoming strong, muscular, or highly competitive somehow threatened traditional ideas of femininity, which obviously sounds ridiculous now, but those attitudes influence how female athletes were treated for decades. By the middle of the 20th century, there was already a stereotype that women who played certain sports must be lesbians. And I think that's important, because the association between women's sports and sexuality didn't necessarily start with the athletes themselves.

A lot of it just came from society's discomfort with women who didn't fit traditional expectations. Women were expected to be graceful, feminine, attractive, and not really aggressive. But competitive sports require aggression. Not in a negative way, but in the sense that you have to be assertive and physically strong. You have to fight for the basketball and you really have to compete. Historically, those traits were often associated with masculinity. But

What about volleyball? Volleyball is also extremely competitive. I've played it, I know how intense it could get, and cheerleading also requires an incredible amount of strength and athleticism. But society tends to view these sports as more feminine. So clearly, it isn't just about how physically demanding a sport is, it's also about the image and the culture we've attached to it.

Why exactly does volleyball have a different reputation? I think it's because volleyball players are strong, they're competitive, they're constantly jumping, diving, sprinting, and many of them are tall and muscular. But when people think of a stereotypical volleyball girl, they often picture somebody who fits conventional beauty standards. Think about in the movies: the girl that plays volleyball, the star volleyball player, they have long hair, they wear cute athletic clothing, and a more

Traditionally feminine appearance.

This is a big part of how the sport is presented culturally. Volleyball is often associated with school spirit and girl friendships and a certain social image, but basketball has historically been associated with a more traditional masculine style of athleticism.

Now the thing is, these are images, not rules. There are feminine basketball players and there are masculine presenting volleyball players. There's lesbian cheerleaders and there's straight women playing basketball. So the more I thought about it,

the more I realized that I wasn't really noticing something about the sports themselves, I was noticing just the stereotypes around them. And those stereotypes can become so familiar when we stop questioning where they came from.

I wanted to look into the WNBA because I was curious whether there were any actual numbers behind the association between women's basketball and LGBTQ plus identity.

Approximately 25 to 35% of WNBA players have been publicly out as LGBTQ in recent years. Now that's not an official WNBA statistic, and it doesn't mean the remaining players are straight. It simply reflects athletes whose identities or relationships are publicly known. But here's another number.

For the 2026 WNBA All-Star game, Outsports identified at least 10 of the 22 players as publicly LGBTQ. That's more than 45% of the All-Star roster. And I thought that was interesting because it shows how visible LGBTQ representation has become in women's professional basketball.

These numbers don't tell us most high school or college basketball players are lesbians. We actually don't have any reliable nationwide statistics establishing that. And the WNBA numbers include LGBTQ identities beyond lesbian as well. But they do show that women's professional basketball has a substantial number of openly LGBTQ athletes. So that brings me to another question. Why might basketball be a space where queer women feel comfortable being open about who they are?

This is probably one of the most interesting parts of the entire conversation because instead of asking why there are so many queer women in basketball, maybe we should ask whether basketball has become a place where queer women feel comfortable being visible. Think about what it means to grow up feeling different from people around you. Maybe you don't fit into the traditional expectations of femininity or masculinity. Maybe you feel more comfortable dressing in masculine clothing. Maybe you're attracted to women.

Or maybe you simply just don't want to present yourself in the way society expects girls to. Finding a community where you feel accepted can be really important and really hard to do, but sports teams can provide that. I know how much volleyball gave me a sense of belonging. It was completely part of my identity. It gave me friendships and really a community. So I can understand how basketball could provide that same sense of belonging for somebody else. And when younger athletes see professional players who are openly LGBTQ, that visibility

may help them feel a lot less alone.

But there is an important historical contradiction here because women's basketball hasn't always been a welcoming environment for openly queer athletes. For years, players faced stereotypes and pressures surrounding their sexuality,

And early discussions about marketing in the WNBA often focused on presenting athletes through conventional images of femininity and family life. So the visibility we see today didn't happen overnight. It was a much larger, longer cultural shift.

Here's another question for you guys. What happens when a young girl wants to play basketball but doesn't identify with the stereotype? Maybe she is straight and very feminine and loves makeup and fashion. Could that make her hesitant to try the sport? I think it is possible, and the same thing can happen in reverse.

What if a girl is masculine presenting and loves ballet? Or she's a lesbian and wants to be a cheerleader? Does she feel like she belongs? Because when we associate sports with different types of people, we can unintentionally make other people feel like outsiders. And I think that's the problem with stereotypes. Even when they come with patterns we think we've observed.

they don't tell us everything about an individual. A girl should not have to worry about what people assume about her sexuality because she wants to play basketball. And a boy shouldn't have to worry about people questioning his masculinity because he wants to dance.

Sports should fully be about what you enjoy and what you're good at, not what people think your interests say about your identity. And the older I get, the more I realize how much social pressure can really shape our choices when we're young, especially in middle school and high school, when fitting in can feel like everything.

So when I started thinking about this episode, my initial question was pretty simple. Why did so many of the girls I knew who played basketball seem to be lesbian or masculine presenting? But after looking into the history and the research, I think there is a much more interesting question underneath that.

Why have we created such specific expectations for what different female athletes are supposed to look like? When I think about the sports I played, I realize how easily I fit into one of those expectations.

They were all sports that people generally considered appropriate or traditionally feminine for girls. I genuinely love them and I would not change my experience at all. But I wonder how much of our environment shapes the activities we become interested in. Maybe I would have tried basketball if more of my friends played it. Or I would have felt differently about the sport if I hadn't associated it with a certain social group. I honestly don't know, and that's kind of what makes this such an interesting conversation.

Because sometimes the things we think are personal preferences are really just influenced by the world around us. Our friends, our family, our schools.

The athletes we see on television, and even the stereotypes we've just heard growing up. Overall, sports shouldn't define your identity for you. I think one of the biggest things I took away from researching this episode is that sports have always been connected to identity. And that's not really a bad thing. Volleyball was a huge part of mine, like I said, and it really helped shape my confidence, my friendships,

my work ethic and really so many memories from growing up. And I'm sure girls who played basketball, soccer, softball, or any other sport feel the exact same way. But I think we should be really careful about deciding what somebody's identity must be based on the sport they play. Because being athletic doesn't make a woman less feminine. and being masculine presenting doesn't tell us somebody's sexuality.

People are much more complicated than that. and I actually think the growing visibility of different types of female athletes is a very positive thing. You can be feminine and play basketball. You can be masculine and still do ballet. There's no single way to look or act like an athlete, and maybe the more we see that, the less pressure young girls will feel to choose activities based on what other people expect from them.

So, what do you guys think? Do you think that certain sports still have stereotypes about the types of girls who play them? Because I think this one is one of those conversations where everybody's experience is just a little bit different. So that's all for today's episode, and I will see you guys in the next one.

From Natalie Nakase’s groundbreaking WNBA championship to Christian Yelich’s World Series victory with the Brewers, Asian American sports stars dominated headlines across pro and college sports.

Natalie Nakase led the Golden State Valkyries to their first WNBA championship on Saturday, defeating the Atlanta Dream 68-63 in Game 7 of the Finals.  The victory made the Valkyries the first expansion team in WNBA history to win a championship in just their second season.  Gabby Williams scored 30 points, including a critical three-pointer late in the fourth quarter to earn Finals MVP honors.  Nakase also became the first Asian American woman to coach a WNBA championship team.

Christian Yelich, who is of Japanese descent, finally claimed his first World Series championship as the Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in five games on October 28th.  The title ended a 57-season wait for the franchise’s first championship.  Yelich scored during the sixth inning on a William Contreras double, helping extend Milwaukee’s lead.

Japan’s Miyu Yamashita successfully defended her Maybank Championship title on Sunday, finishing at 22-under-par to beat China’s Yan Liu by two strokes.  The 25-year-old closed with a four-under 68, recording five birdies and one bogey in the final round.  The victory marked her fifth career LPGA Tour title and second of the 2026 season, following her dominant nine-stroke win at the CPKC Women’s Open in August.

USC quarterback Jayden Maiava led a Halloween night upset against No. 2 Ohio State in the Coliseum on Saturday.  69 of Maiava’s 222 passing yards came on the second offensive play, resulting in a touchdown for freshman receiver Trent Mosley, setting the tone for a win that handed the Buckeyes their second loss of the season.

Korean American quarterback Kyler Murray battled hamstring tightness during the Minnesota Vikings’ 19-15 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday, marking the team’s first defeat of the season.  Murray completed 17 of 29 passes for 210 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.  The Vikings will look to regroup ahead of their next matchup against the Bills on Monday Night Football.

Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jaylen Warren, who is of Polynesian descent, celebrated his 28th birthday with 143 rushing yards and a touchdown in Sunday’s 27-6 win over the Cleveland Browns.  His rushing total tied his career high, previously set last year against Detroit.  Warren’s touchdown put the exclamation point on Pittsburgh’s win as the Steelers secured their fourth consecutive victory and sole possession of first place in the AFC North.

Victor talks cheat meals and drinking.

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What have you, if you have a quote unquote cheat meal that takes you further away from your goals, right? It would be like in a race, you just sat on your butt instead of actually running.

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Physical activity, and as such, my body has manifested itself into something that is built for physical activity.

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your body will have the tendency to store more fat and regulate muscular hypertrophy.

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This investment analogy, you can think of being obese as being in debt, and you can think of being lean as investments. When you are in debt, you have compounding interest working against you as you hold an unfavorable body composition that predisposes you to gaining fat.

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in this lifetime.

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to put a deadline. I understand that deadlines may be important for goals, but for something like your fitness and your physique, it's a long-term pursuit. So there really isn't a point to get it right here, right now.

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immediately is due to some sort of external factor. Especially around the holidays, I find that it is usually tied to judgment from family members. I mean speaking from experience as an Asian, Asians can be very judgmental when it comes to your weight. Especially if you are a girl a lot of time.

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will be picked apart if you come into the holidays looking a little chubby.

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Self-improvement were really truly the case in these scenarios, then. Again, speaking from experience, why are they hosting these banquets with lots of catered food? Why are they smoking, drinking, playing poker, mahjong, etc. etc., instead of getting together and doing the turkey trot?

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You can always get some form of movement in. Just because you're not in the gym doesn't mean you can't just do push-ups or squat. Sometimes some simple bodyweight exercise is all you can manage. And if you're worried about looking weird in public, getting on an airport lounge seat doing pike push-ups, who cares?

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