Introspection
To Make Myself Up
Like Ipsy’s subscription service, offering a different rotation of rouge every month, I’m reminded that my life has indeed been fickle, and will continue to present many surprises. Yet, I’ve been reminded that inviting variety and recalling my creativity allows me to connect with a younger, arguably more clear-headed version of myself, and channel her imagination.
To Metro, With Love
Maybe that’s why I felt such a connection with the Wilson Report. It was a reminder that perhaps my work wasn’t fleeting. My mind traced back to the dusty pages covered with stories of real issues that mattered to real people and their lives in Cambridge.
Field Notes of an International Super Spy
Careful not to let my personal circumstances tamper with my operations, I resolved to fold these feelings away. I kept them in a suitcase, neat and small. I carried it to every home I investigated.
My Life So Far in Rapunzel’s Tower
It’s like watching your life in the form of a weekly reality TV special: you’re invested, you’re kept up, but a sense of fiction clouds your vision.
The War on Science
For a school project, I once asked my dad why he came to the United States. “For the science,” he told me. And then, as an afterthought: “And for a better life, obviously.”
Across State Lines
A polarized nation bled into the fabric of my family — left and right wing politics separating us more than our physical distance.
“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.
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.
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.