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(02/18/25 11:30am)
The dining table was overflowing on the Tuesday evening — sliced century eggs placed in a flower shape, crisp-skinned Peking duck, steaming vegetables in pork broth: These dishes were full of the taste and smell of home. My grandmother ladled out bowls of hot fish soup, reminding everyone that in Chinese, “yú” (fish) sounds like “abundance.” We displayed the Lunar New Year Gala on TV in the background with (less funny than usual) skits that we half-listened to while passing around plates of dried tofu snacks and pastries. It was a warm familiarity I had missed. For one night, it felt like I had never left for college.
(02/13/25 9:29pm)
It’s a running joke between my friends and family that I’m always talking to the wind. The breeze hears my bitterness, my overzealous conversations are lost to the zephyr, the gusts gather my grievances and my chattering chases the currents as they’re scattered like secrets never meant to be uncovered. Being at a school filled with big personalities and opportunities that I could barely even dream of, I often feel like I’m even less heard.
(02/01/25 5:00am)
We are back in Baltimore and the real feel has been closer to ten degrees than I would like. How utterly tragic. On my first day of classes, I donned two layers of pants and three layers of tops and treated my walk to Gilman like a treacherous journey (it was, in fact, treacherous). I spent the rest of the day in bed, under every single blanket I own, with my heater blasting.
(02/04/25 5:00am)
I probably have around 10 tabs open on my laptop at all times. As I write this, I have a record low of eight: today’s Wordle (3/6 — great starting word), a 30-page reading for class, a video essay on Kafkaesque, LinkedIn, a guide on simple living, Outlook, an assignment that was due last week and an article on high protein vegetarian recipes that I will never look at again. Each tab feels like a microcosm of the chaos in my life.
(02/03/25 5:00am)
British author Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day is my favorite type of book. Instead of a fast-paced plot with witty one-liners and gritty characters, the mind space accompanied by the story is a bit like having an entire afternoon to run one errand. Eventually, the task has to be completed, but there seems to be an abundance of time to meander while daydreaming, prod at a few things that catch your attention and stumble across a memory to unravel. You pause. Bracing yourself, you tug.
(01/29/25 5:00am)
There’s a hidden pseudoscience behind every child’s dream job. Just as people scrutinize the skies under which they were born to determine their star chart — to figure out why they are a caretaker, why their last relationship didn’t work out or why they can’t eat raw carrots but only stewed — one can extract an unfathomable amount of information based solely on what they wanted to be when they were kids. Or at least I think so.
(12/16/24 5:00am)
There’s a Maya Angelou quote that’s always resonated with me. It goes, “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
(12/12/24 5:00am)
I recently got coffee with a professor and I was, of course, ranting about school, classes, friendships and family. With a voice thick with frustration, I said, "People act like they're entitled to your time and energy.”
(12/12/24 5:00am)
The bus ride to the med campus will never cease to amaze me. I love seeing the city shift with the seasons, passing through different neighborhoods and watching new parts of town fly by outside the window. There’s a word for this, and it’s on the tip of my tongue... ugh, what is it? In Spanish, the term would be recorriendo la ciudad.
(12/07/24 5:00am)
Two weeks into starting college, I joined my first lab, a number of student clubs and enrolled in many pre-med classes. As a first generation student, it was safe to say I was led in a blind eye, never knowing which step was the right one. As long as I moved forward and kept on doing what I was doing, that was all that mattered.
(12/10/24 4:53pm)
Tuesday, 11/26
(12/05/24 5:00am)
It is 1994. She’s shopping at Pottery Barn with her boyfriend.
(12/07/24 5:00am)
To go back to my one-square-mile hometown for Thanksgiving is to buckle my younger self into the passenger seat of my mom’s red Kia and take her for a drive. At every stop sign in my old high school parking lot, there is a new wave of nauseating nostalgia.
(12/04/24 5:00am)
From the first time I stepped foot in New York City, I’ve been fascinated by it. The sense of relentless ambition and the feeling that everyone in the city was chasing a dream larger than themselves was completely intoxicating. Even further than that, I wanted to be one of those people: the person who was running from one place to another, trying to grasp any semblance of success that they could. It felt like the perfect place for someone like me: a girl who was always striving for something bigger than herself.
(12/10/24 5:00am)
Wednesday, Nov. 6, 9:25 a.m. Leakin Hall, Peabody Institute. A studio that had once been filled with dynamic pulses of expectant energy had now been reduced to a foreboding hush. I caught myself avoiding the despondent stares of my peers as I walked apprehensively to my spot. Drafts of how I would one day illustrate where I was when “it” happened flooded my head. Within these floods, I attempted to search for a polished response to indicate my dissidence, but everything felt too forced. In the end, I had abandoned my grand gesture of outrage and took a seat among the mass of wary bodies.
(12/02/24 2:34am)
Exhaustion and boredom have been ornamenting my dialogues recently. I get asked how my day has been, and without even thinking, I respond with “Tiring.” I come home to my roommates and all of our conversations about school conclude with “I need a break so bad.” At this point of the semester, I don’t recall a single day where I did not overhear the statement “I can’t wait until the semester is over.”
(11/20/24 9:00am)
I’ll never forget the moment I saw “You’re Admitted” flash across my screen. I was sitting criss-cross applesauce on my bedroom floor, working on an AP European History project when I received an email notification saying there was an update to my portal. I set my phone up to capture my reaction. I tried to tame my excitement by muttering, “Who cares if I get into Johns Hopkins,” but inside, I craved the validation of an acceptance. As the screen lagged, my anxiety built and I covered my computer, shielding myself from the possibility of rejection. Finally, the page loaded, and there it was: a banner of acceptance. I laughed, clapped and immediately shared the news with my family.
(11/19/24 5:00am)
To everyone and everything that I have ever loved,
(11/22/24 1:48am)
I was optimistic. I was ready to be in the nation's capital, not only to witness history unfold but to simultaneously analyze it within a historical context. I wanted this semester to be the semester — the one where I would finally explore all of D.C. (long overdue as a Northern Virginia native). The semester where I would begin crafting myself into the person I’ve always envisioned: waking up at 7 a.m., going on runs, interning, cooking my own meals, finishing my work ahead of deadlines and getting a full eight hours of sleep each night. I had mapped out my ideal version of myself, and it felt like this was the time and place for me to finally transform into her.
(11/11/24 2:52am)
This year, my younger sibling Ellis was finally able to start receiving gender-affirming care to support their journey as a transgender individual. Ellis has always been their own fiercest advocate, using their voice to fight for their right to existence in a society that has extended unspeakable amounts of hate to children who just want the basic right to live authentically as themselves. Without a government to fight for them, I have watched Ellis use their voice at doctors offices, at rallies, around the family dinner table. It has been as inspiring as it has been heartbreaking.
