Landing at San Francisco International Airport in the summer of 2021 after a long flight from Incheon, South Korea, I was greeted by an unfamiliar country with unfamiliar customs. People spoke a language...
After school, I would lean my head against our dinner table — our house too empty, too quiet. With my father gone for business trips and my mother busy writing countless documents for work, their absence...
9:00 a.m. Everyone eats breakfast in front of a zoom screen.
9:30 a.m. I stick my head into my brother’s APUSH zoom room.
10:00 a.m. I watch my siblings giggle in front of a blue screen, wondering...
I pause at the hallway intersection, hands tightly gripping the wheelchair handlebars, eyes darting between two corridors. I rack my brain, trying to recall the routes I had spent weeks memorizing. Is...
Coming home after a long day, I collapse on my bed, thinking of what to do to let off steam. It doesn't take long before I head over to my garage. With the flick of a switch, a stark light illuminates...
Contrary to the traditional glittering red and white ornaments and popcorn-cranberry garlands, my family’s Christmas tree looks like a five-year-old’s art project, adorned with macaroni-bordered pictures,...
In the middle of the summer before my senior year, I laid in bed, the same moving frames playing over and over again in my mind. I saw myself running, panting, falling. Flat on the ground, completely expressionless.
...
Abandoned and neglected in overflowing bins of grapes, baby carrots and raw broccoli bags, healthy snack options often sit untouched as students avoid the salad bar on their way out of the cafeteria during...
A stone’s throw away from the Atlantic Ocean and on the sharp crags of Cape Finisterre, Spain, stands a solitary boot cemented into the rough-hewn surface. It is relatively unnoticeable to most: its...
Before buying clothes for a new school year, I found myself constantly choosing items that were a size larger than my body in an attempt to conceal my shape. These were also the clothes that I got complimented...
Perfection. A word that pervades modern society.
What do you associate with perfection? Exquisite penmanship, immaculate rooms, straight A’s? Many believe perfectionism is good. I once did too.
Today,...
You’ve heard the importance of first impressions, right? That people decide in the first seven seconds if they like you or not. That changing an initial perception is extremely, extremely difficult.
So...
