HI EVERYONE!! I'm Mei (she/her) and was active on the CB from ages 11-13, from around 2015-2017. It's been almost a decade now, which blows my mind. Some of you guys here could have been newborns when I first started posting here. I've been reflecting on how the CB affected my development, since I was so young when I was here. While being on a screen from such a young age probably wasn't the best for me, I think it was super valuable having a place to connect with other kids and develop my writing skills. I loved reading the magazine and I loved connecting with other kids. I've dug up some of my old writing from when I was 12/13ish thinking I would cringe and hate it, but surprisingly was pretty impressed at myself. I've of course gotten better, but for a 12-year-old I had a surprisingly good grasp on sentence structure and pacing. All of that was due to practice on the Chatterbox. To this day I am the friend/coworker who's good at writing and I think the CB helped me develop that skill early on in life.

Life updates: I'm currently a junior in college studying neuroscience and health policy/health science. I want to be a doctor, specifically a neurologist, and I want to do research and treat chronic neurological disorders like chronic fatigue syndrome. I switched over to neuro from a psych major because I realized that I could handle the more hard science aspect of things and because I realized that neuro would bring me closer to my goals.

Right now I do research in a neuro lab and I'm on a fellowship to study how temperature affects a specific neural circuit. I was a big climate activist in high school so getting to do research that connects to climate change is special for me. I also am an EMT and drive an ambulance! It's really fun and it's super cool being able to help patients when they're having an emergency.

I'm also a dancer–I do ballet, contemporary, Chinese dance, and kpop. I'm currently choreographing a group kpop dance and doing a solo Chinese dance for my school's culture show, which has been stressful but very fun! Activism-wise, I've been doing some organizing around Asian-American issues, menstrual equity, climate justice, and healthcare. It's definitely a lot and activism is pretty hard nowadays but I feel like the work I do is important, and it can be really fun. I was at my state's State House last week for lobbying on climate and menstrual equity bills, and while legislative advocacy can be really frustrating I've seen it make a difference in the long run.

Fandom-wise, lately I've been really into Chinese novels like Mo Dao Zu Shi (The Untamed), Heaven Official's Blessing, Scum Villain, and Jing Wei Qing Shang. Mo Dao Zu Shi and The Untamed specifically helped me through a spate of deep depression my senior year of high school whenI was getting rejected left and right from colleges, lol. Since I was 15 I've been in love with Avatar: The Last Airbender, particularly the Kyoshi and Yangchen spinoff novels. I also love Fullmetal Alchemist. Music-wise, I have been a Linkin Park fanatic since I was 14 (so not long after I left the CB) and their music has helped me through some very tough periods of my life. I also listen to a lot of OP/EDs from animes or donghuas I like, particularly Fullmetal Alchemist and Mo Dao Zu Shi, as well as kpop. Hands-down my favorite kpop group is Dreamcatcher–I adore their concepts. They combine rock/metal with kpop which are both genres very close to my heart. Their vocals and dancing and acting are unparalleled and their choreography is insanely cool formations. 

I'm so happy to see so many names I recognize here! I'm glad to see everyone doing well!

nooo i completely forgot </3 

hi, hows everyone doing !!!  

Hello, Everybuggy! My name is Magic, and i'm one of the new CBers! (kind of) I joined SOMEWHERE in late January, and i'm only starting to get to know people. Also, i'm Writing_in_the_dark's little sister, they are really cool. I'm Demigirl and Lesbian, I hope that's okay! I'm also a BIG FAN of "Glitch Productions". If anyone knows Glitch, TELL ME. ok, bye!

-Magic

P.S. 

To all of the CBers out there i just wanna say Hi and i hope you have a good day! <3 

Do you like Poetry? Or Animating? 🙂

Hey lizards! I'm a little late, but here we go.

I'm not sure whether to introduce myself as a returning or current CBer. I lurk around a bit, but I mostly keep up with LE's "the terminal" on Inkwell. I usually type in lowercase, but I used to use proper grammar here, so I'm doing that now. 

I joined here in 2019, I think, but I was most active during the pandemic, and have been very sporadically active ever since. I'm probably most known for all the picturings I did, idk!

I turned eighteen a month ago, and I'm a senior in high school. I got waitlisted from my top college, which sucks, but I'm still waiting for most of the others, some of which I quite like as well. Right now I just have to believe everything will turn out alright. I'm planning to major in English and minor in Environmental Studies, and I'm thinking about doing journalism or maybe being an editor, but who really knows!

I'm doing aesthetics and props for Phantom of the Opera at my school, which is super fun. Theatre provides such a great community & experience, I really wish I'd done more of it in high school (this is only my second show).

I'm hoping to get more into environmental activism, and I've recently gotten involved with an organization, Citizens' Climate Lobby (not sure if naming the org is allowed on here?) I'm also president of my school's environmental club, which I feel incredibly unqualified for, but hey!

I love writing poetry, which this website helped foster. I think I'll post a few poems on PP, it's been a while. I also love visual art; I'm taking a ceramics and a mixed media class this year, both of which are fun (but hard). I actually wrote a few of my college essays about creative communities, including this one 🙂

Media I've been into lately: Arcane (I'm on s1 ep8), the band Nana Grizol, and The Weatherkins… the last book I finished was Fahrenheit 451; I've mostly been reading for school lately but I've  recently started reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion and The Sandman.

Okay, time to go reply to people! 😀