During my senior year of high school, I took an Honors English Seminar. Its thirteen spots were awarded to a cohort of rising seniors who satisfactorily completed a pre-requisite essay response to Roland Barthes’ From Work To Text. Each week we dove headfirst into different subgenres of literary theory, ...
I wonder when I started being afraid of alone time. It’s been an unconscious, foreboding feeling for so long; I’ve adopted it to the point that I feel like I exist as a result of the feeling. What happens now, when I’ve grown used to relying on others? Memories of my childhood sporadically come ...
September, 2021
Listening to an album start to finish can often feel strangely laborious to me. Maybe the high commitment (which is no more than an hour and a half) feels not worth it or, god forbid, I fear I won’t fully understand the narrative arc of the tracklist. Or maybe I’m scared that I’ll feel too much. ...
I sit in the passenger seat. My mother holds the wheel with both hands, staring ahead at the gray road under a gray sky. I know, without looking up from the electric-blue kickboxing wraps I twine around my knuckles, from the accelerations and decelerations of the car, which stoplight we’re approaching. ...
I am going to England this summer. It will be my first time outside of the United States—my mom and I will fly out of Georgia over the Atlantic Ocean together, both giddy and terrified. She will grip my hand hard if there is turbulence, and I will comfort her while secretly losing it. In preparation, ...
The cabin was dark. I sat amidst sleeping strangers and a baby crying nonstop. Maybe it was because everything from my hair to the provided blankets smelled like stale coffee that I sat wide awake, staring at the in-flight travel monitor—the only source of light in my vicinity. On the screen, a small ...
I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect going to the Avon to watch Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest revelation, Poor Things. For the uninitiated, Poor Things is an anachronistic, futuristic, Frankenstein-inspired tale of a physician, Godwin Baxter, who reanimates the body of a pregnant suicide victim with ...
Now that I'm in college, where it feels as if I meet new people in waves throughout the day, I worry I'm not choosing who I can be, but instead matching the personalities of others. It can be exciting to navigate the journey of being your most authentic and genuine self, but occasionally I stray into ...
If Punxsutawney Phil was right, as he always is, spring is well under way. That should mean that this return from Spring Break marks a period of rejuvenation. I left the bulk of my coats at home and switched them for garments that liberated my knees. Soon, the Main Green will be my go-to spot to sip ...
If you cannot find me, look for me in the grass. In the rich green patches of earth, where the clovers grow, I am seated as I search for lucky four-leafs of my own. I sometimes feel guilty for uprooting the magic for the sake of my own collection. But then I stumble upon a little boy crying, and as ...
As the theater shook with the shouts and crashes of the brutal action sequences, my parents and I sat in taut silence, broken only by the occasional crunch of popcorn and slurping of an extra-large Coca-Cola. The audience was entranced, eyes glued to the screen, even when the protagonist broke his leg ...
Driving into Medellín feels like skating across a blanket of stars. The city is nestled between two mountains, each of which is scattered with lit-up homes that make them glisten like a galaxy. When my cousin and I arrive at the park where La Solar Festival is held, the mountains glimmer in the distance. ...
I forget exactly when I first became uneasy with my photograph.
A microbial mat is a multilayered, thin sheet composed of aquatic microorganisms—most predominantly bacteria and archaea. Although nearly microscopic to the naked human eye, this small coating of microbes can proliferate within a conglomeration of chemical environments, independent of temperature ...
When I first saw my housing assignment in August, I had no idea what I was in for: I only knew I'd live in Everett-Poland. But what is it? One dorm? Two? And what is Keeney? I vaguely remembered Keeney from ADOCH (my tour group got lost in its halls), but…Everett-Poland?
