Introspection
“It” Girl
To be an It Girl is the very antithesis of meritocracy; you either have it or you don’t.
Trains Across America
The cross-country train is, however, a profoundly American cultural space. Every person aboard the train has a reason to exist there, rather than on a more convenient form of transit that would probably already have them at their destination.
The Next Thing I Remember
For my disease to be real to others, sometimes I feel I need evidence, a physical trace of what was happening inside before it was made visible by the surgery, to have a story.
Pit Stop Before Sincerity Hits Too Hard
Back then, I never wondered who she was beyond my mother. Her life seemed fully formed, on track, speeding down a highway. I was the asshole who cut her off.
Scientists and the Face of God
I believed in science, but I also believed in agency. To think of myself as a machine driven by chemical reactions beyond my control felt outrageous. I knew myself to be more than just a body. I wanted to believe that I was also a mind.
Second Chance
She was taking commissions, she told me, off WeChat to fund her studies. I listened to stories about her strange clients, whom she called da laoban — in English, “big boss” — and her favorite artist exhibitions when she suddenly asked the terrible question: Have you drawn lately?
Losing (It): The Small Spectacle of Student Government
We relegate our classmates to mere voters, pawns in our political games. We debate in front of a nearly nonexistent audience for an election where most students don’t even vote. The emperor doesn’t know he wears no clothes.
Replacing: Self
Apple’s Migration Assistant, in all its sterile productivity, offered two options: transfer everything, or choose what matters. Though I wanted to bring it all with me, my storage had been 95% full for months, and it showed. Soon enough, I found myself sorting through the digital debris of a former life.
A Pale Shade of Green
I often feel as if I’m lost in a garden of blossoms, surrounded by bright stories of success and high standards. I am a barren branch reaching out in a field of fully bloomed magnolias.
Dear Senior Year
I love the life Harvard has given me, not because it’s been perfect, but because it hasn’t been. Freshman year exhilarated me, sophomore year disarmed me, junior year repaired me, and you, senior year, have made me proud.
In Pursuit of Knowledge
I have found my place at Harvard by leaving it, using Harvard resources to open my eyes to the broader world.
Nowhere Else (but Detroit)
A Harvard student and a fantasy footballer board a bus to downtown Detroit.
To a Syria Far Out of Reach
This year marks 28 years since my father last walked the shores of the Mediterranean in his home city, Jableh. It is a country that returns to me in flashes of memory, but does not anticipate my return.
As If Your Tears Do Anything
I want to write something — not to arrive at clarity, but to practice reaching for it. To trace the distance between where I am and where I think I could be. To say: I don’t know what I’m meant to do, but I want it to matter.