I already half-expected that my four years of cross country would end with a bang when I tripped and fell face flat onto the finishing mat of my last high school Baylands meet on Oct. 18, 2022. Don’t worry — my chip did manage to record my time, and I…

What I learned participating in an English Youth Exchange Program — What a fascinating thing language is. Bits of words, here and there, combined miraculously into a life of its own. A river of sounds flowing down a page into the vast ocean of human communication. Languages are what make us human. This intricate communication is what makes our species different…

When I look back to the “pre-pandemic” era, I think of those days as wisps of clouds in the evening sky –– although they pass quickly, each of them is memorable in their own special way. Now, however? Days seem to routinely run like this: Wake up. Breakfast. Work. (The…

Aaah, the good ol’ teen years — fraught with the transformation from adolescent to adult, caught in the midst between a child’s mind and an adult’s body. A brief five years of history converted into a long twisted road of angst, acne, and overall misery. At least, that often seems…

Today was the first day of school in 2021. I was back in online learning, and it was pouring rain outside. …

In 8th grade, I remember sitting in a group of three students as our teacher passed back a science test we took the week before. As naive as we all were in middle school, we began comparing answers and test scores the second we got our exams back. The exact…

During this past summer, while I was on a soul search for a meaningful article I could read for my favorite *New York Times Summer Reading Contest, I came across a piece titled: Billie Eilish: Gen Z’s Outrageous Fashion Model. Normally, I’m not a big fan of modern pop music…

This 2020 year has been a tumultuous ride of rising COVID-19 cases, social unrest, political mayhem, remote learning, and to top it all off: unbearable isolation. I miss the normal person-to-person interaction from school that I’ve come to appreciate in hindsight, from racing to the lunch line before the garlic…