On the first day of fall break, I flew from Baltimore to Toronto to visit my best friend, who is studying engineering at the University of Toronto (popularly abbreviated as U of T). The last time we saw each other was in July, during the final leg of our grad trip in Seoul. It had been about two months since then, which I realized was the longest we've been apart - that's the thing about high school, you're never really separated from your best friends for more than the two months of summer break - so, after many tearful phone calls, she finally convinced me to visit her.

I would consider this my first real visit to Toronto. (According to my parents, we came once when I was one year old while they were scouting for a city to settle in after immigrating from China to Canada, but, because it was the dead of winter, they chose Vancouver instead.) The flight from BWI to Pearson was supposed to take two hours, but only took one. After I breezed through the Canadian Citizens line, the customs officer glanced at my passport before saying, "Welcome home." It was strangely comforting, even though Toronto wasn't really home.

My friend lives in Chestnut Residence, home to most of U of T's first-year engineering students. A fifteen-minute walk from campus, it's a renovated three-star hotel that directly faces a much fancier DoubleTree by Hilton. The security guards are strict there. You have to wave your daily colored guest pass or room key every time you line up for the elevator, or they will call you out with an irritated "hey" or "excuse me." My yellow guest pass somehow worked for three days straight without being checked, which made the whole routine feel somewhat pointless.

My friend carved out time from her hectic nine-to-five class schedule to give me a tour of downtown Toronto. On the first night, I helped myself to three orders of heart-shaped mango pudding soaked in mango sauce and condensed milk. For the first time in months, I had congee, which I had yet to find in any Chinese restaurant in Baltimore. I saw the right type of custard buns (the runny kind) on the menu and was given chopsticks instead of forks with my takeout. I walked under office buildings, past yoga and Lagree and pilates studios and botox clinics, by chain hotels and through Eaton Centre while sipping Molly Tea.

On campus, I waited at food trucks with lines around the block and snuck into a chemistry lecture with 300 other students. Between classes, I sat in libraries with crammed tables and eavesdropped on arguments during group project meetings. Everything seemed a lot bigger and livelier there. Even the drama was interesting. One night in the common room, my friend pointed out all of the "opps" she had already made in the first two months of school.

I suppose my other reason for visiting my friend was because I subconsciously wanted to escape. I was halfway through my first semester at Hopkins and felt stuck in the eat-study-sleep schedule I had fallen into. The closest thing I had to comfort me was Instagram reels with comments from lonely classmates who felt the same thing and promises from alumni that it would all get better by graduation. Still, I couldn't see myself here for four years.

I thought it would all be better in Toronto, and in a sense it was. But this alternate life that I lived for four days didn't feel the way I thought it would. Even though my best friend was by my side, I couldn't help but feel like a trespasser in every space we visited.

At U of T, I really didn't belong. I didn't instinctively know where the card readers were on the wall or how many seconds you needed on the microwave. I didn't know their café's equivalent of Kitschenette's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" or which soups were the least salty in the dining hall. I didn't recognize anyone we walked past in the dorms. All of these things I know at Hopkins, and maybe I don't need to wait until graduation before I feel like I belong.

Angel Wang is a freshman from Vancouver, Canada studying Writing Seminars. In her column, she writes about the people, places and passages that help make sense of what's in her mind.

What feels like just a few days ago, my biggest frustration was Grey's Anatomy characters ragebaiting me: it was the COVID-19 lockdown; my last year of middle school had come to an abrupt halt. Another day later, I was speed-walking from debate practice and frantically trying to grasp basic thermodynamics concepts in AP Chemistry, which seems so trivial today. Yesterday, I was frantically journaling every minuscule event in hopes of a killer Common App essay topic, binge-reading college application guides at 2 a.m., convinced that one obscure extracurricular would determine the course of my life. Today, I am 20 years old. Blink, and somehow those "days" stack into an entire span of five years. Just like that, being a teenager - and more importantly, the vast majority of my youth - is already behind me.

Milestones like these are, understandably, exciting for everyone. At 13 years old, you're a teenager and can have your own cell phone (but I didn't have mine until high school) and even create your social media persona (which I secretly already had since 5th grade). At 16 years old, you can get a driver's license and finally drive yourself (I still don't have a driver's license nor can I even drive). At 18 years old, you unlock many "adult" privileges such as legally entering into contracts (I have no idea what I am even signing) and scheduling your own doctor appointments (my mom still does that for me). Soon enough, I'll be a middle-aged woman and then a senior citizen who won't know how to operate whatever technology will exist.

I can no longer say that I am "barely legal." Although if I were to ask for the kid's menu right now, they wouldn't question it. Despite my looks fitting in with teenagers - and, mostly, my feeling like one - the responsibilities and looming "adult decisions" are slowly making it clear: childhood is over and adulthood isn't optional. As an adult, I am supposed to handle my own finances and my own living conditions. However, being confined to a college campus where every necessity is just a short walk or meal swipe away, everything is already handed to me. Still being a student, my only responsibility is to study for exams, partake in my extracurriculars and sprinkle in some self-care.

Absolutely nothing about my daily life screams "adult." My dining dollars disappear faster than my motivation to study for midterms as I live off overpriced café food with my only cooking expertise being a meager avocado toast. My nervous system can't tell the difference between being attacked by a bear and having to make a single call to deal with any kind of "real-life" adult task.

Every little decision feels monumental: figuring out what classes to prioritize, calculating a way to distribute my dining dollars and days to order UberEats or remembering to do simple errands such as picking up a package that's already been left in the mailroom for a few days. I can't shake the idea that entering the real world where I am employed (hopefully), where I am actually an adult, will be exponentially worse.

I can't help but wonder if I have even spent my youth well. Did I have the teenage experience? Now that sophomore year is almost halfway done, have I even had a college experience yet? Am I meeting every single expectation and achievement I have set myself as a highly ambitious person or am I just treading water while time slips fast? I never snuck into places I shouldn't have, never had late-night food runs or gossip sessions with a friend, never even attended homecoming or prom.

Feeling like a chaotic person myself, I can't help but feel like I was supposed to have a messy, unpredictable and unforgettable reckless phase of youth, filled with moments that just feel so cinematic in hindsight. Instead, I lived a structured routine - each day planned down to the hour, chasing productivity over spontaneity. My nights were filled with bedrotting and doomscrolling while panicking over upcoming midterms instead of making questionable memories. Every moment felt like preparation for the next, leaving little room to actually live in the one I was in.

Sometimes I go through this strange spiritual awakening, staying up until 5 a.m., where I give myself an entire ultimate guide on getting my life together. I'm convinced that I unlock a beast mode version of myself where I will be locked in 24/7, finally cut down on spending by actually prepping my own meals and pile my schedule with activities to craft the perfect CV, all in hopes of becoming a distinguished accomplished adult.

By noon the next day, my peak productivity fantasy quickly collapses, replaced by a strong urge to nap, a craving for a single Fruity Pebble waffle that costs $10 at the Student Center and a truckload of deadlines that seem to multiply (hence, me submitting this article a couple days after the deadline) met with the overwhelming realization that adulting and ultimately becoming a wiser version of myself is much messier than a single past midnight epiphany can prepare me for. However, small victories sneak in despite the chaos even if that's using my coffee machine instead of going to Brody's to spend $5 or attending every single lecture, including my 9 a.m.

Yet, maybe that's part of it: the growing pains of figuring life out without a script. Maybe the beauty of it all isn't in the chaos I should be experiencing or in a thought that I'm missing, but in the quiet moments of learning to exist: finding comfort in the uncertainty, laughing through the stress and realizing that not every memory has to be cinematic to matter. Maybe navigating these awkward, unglamorous parts of becoming an adult is the real coming-of-age story after all.

Grace Wang is a sophomore from Tuscaloosa, Ala. majoring in Neuroscience. Her column chronicles life's unpredictable, beautiful mess - never neat, always honest and willing to show the chaos, contradictions and awkward truths we usually try to hide.

Hollywood versus Big Tech

"I'm a little PO'd, you know," said Morgan Freeman in an interview with The Guardian. "I'm like any other actor: Don't mimic me with falseness. I don't appreciate it and I get paid for doing stuff like that, so if you're gonna do it without me, you're robbing me."

He is not alone in these sentiments. On March 13, over 400 Hollywood creatives signed a letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to uphold copyright protections in response to the Trump administration's request for public comment on the White House's AI Action Plan. In their letter, they said that AI companies could use copyrighted material by negotiating licenses with copyright holders. At the same time, tech companies like OpenAI and Google sent letters arguing that the "fair use" doctrine allows them to use copyrighted material to train their AIs without permission. They added that exceptions should be made for them to have broader access in order to stay ahead of other countries in the AI race.

Several court cases have been filed against AI companies over copyright infringement. One such example includes a court case filed by actress and comedian Sarah Silverman and 12 other authors against Meta over copyright infringement. However, the case was recently dismissed solely on the basis of incorrect arguments made by the plaintiff's lawyer. Judge Chhabria emphasized that because this was not a class action case, the decision only affects the 13 authors and not "the countless others whose works Meta used to train its models."

Additionally, a trio of writers sued AI company Anthropic for training its AI - Claude - on copyrighted books and lost. Presiding Judge Alsup concluded that the ability of the AI to take in thousands of written works and turn them into its own text qualifies as transformation, or the act of changing a work through additions and deletions until it is something entirely different from the source material. However, the company will face trial in December over how they obtained these works.

However, not everyone is as wary about the rise of AI. Some members of Hollywood are embracing the opportunities and possibilities that this technology introduces to the creative field. Oscar winners Matthew McConaughey and Sir Michael Caine have teamed up with AI company ElevenLabs, giving the company permission to use their voices.

"It's not about replacing voices," Caine said in a statement. "It's about amplifying them, opening doors for new storytellers everywhere. I've spent a lifetime telling stories. ElevenLabs will help the next generation tell theirs."

Caine and McConaughey are just some of the most recent additions to the company's catalogue of famous voices that already includes Dr. Maya Angelou, Dr. Alan Turing, Liza Minelli and Art Garfunkel. ElevenLabs has also partnered with Lucasfilm and Google's Gemini to introduce Darth Vader's voice to Fortnite (with the late James Earl Jones' permission and close collaboration with his family).

Rise of the machines

As these cases continue to arise and the law is confronted with managing the demands of creatives and tech companies alike, there is another query: Can AI really create?

Some, evidently, are not keen on the idea.

"My concern is not artificial intelligence, but natural stupidity," said Frankenstein director Guillermo del Toro in an interview with NPR. "AI, particularly generative AI - I am not interested, nor will I ever be interested. I'm 61, and I hope to be able to remain uninterested in using it at all until I croak."

Meanwhile, Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader claimed in an interview with Vanity Fair that AI is a tool: "When you're an author, you have to describe someone's reaction. You use a code - you use a code of words, a certain number of letters, and so forth, and you express their facial reaction. An actor has their own code. Well, now you're a pixelator, and you can create the face, and you can create the emotion on the face, and you can sculpt it the same way an author sculpts the reaction in a novel or a story."

In this vein, there is AI actress Tilly Norwood created by Particle 6 Productions. SAG-AFTRA quickly issued a statement after her unveiling, stating that this computer-generated character "creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing livelihoods and devaluing human artistry."

Particle 6 founder Eline Van der Velden defended her creation, stating that it is not a substitute or replacement for human actors. "Just as animation, puppetry or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories," she stated.

James Cameron, the director of Titanic and Avatar, has taken a more dual-sided approach. In an interview with Rolling Stone about his upcoming movie Ghosts of Hiroshima, Cameron discussed his stance: "I'm leaning into teaching myself the tools of generative AI so that I can incorporate them into my future art, but I utterly reject the premise that AI can take the place of actors and take the place of filmmakers and all that sort of thing."

Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski will return to the big screen for the first time in a decade with his film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, which is about a time traveler trying to stop AI from taking over the world (again). He gave his opinion on AI used in film and television to Dextero.

"I think there's no doubt that you're going to be able to go, 'I want to watch a movie, surprise me. I want to watch a movie that's, you know, The Godfather with talking frogs,'" he explained. "It's gonna be there, it's gonna be good, there's no doubt. But what did it just take away? Isn't there something in us that makes us want to create whatever you love? You love fly fishing, it'll fly fish for you. 'No, I mean, I want to go fly fishing!' I think it's weird to take away what makes us human."

Does AI dream of generative sheep?

There is no question that the decisions made in the coming years will have great effects on creatives across all mediums. Looking into this field myself, I wonder how the landscape will change. One issue that comes to mind is how AI is perceived as a whole. It has become an umbrella term in the media that is used to grab attention, strike fear or inspire wonder in the reader.

Perhaps the best way to handle the AI discussion would be to begin with more specific, clear-cut terminology. The AI used in ChatGPT, for instance, is not the same as the de-aging AI technology used in movies or facial recognition in the security field - yet they all fall under the same moniker. Of course, there is also the question of whether AI can truly create. In my mind, AI will never be able to create on its own, as the art of creation is inherently human. Art comes from the soul, from lived experiences that make up our personalities and our character. As a machine, as something synthetic made to train on the thoughts and experiences of humans, it can never produce something unique of its own mind. It may be a tool, but it can never be a creator.

To be continued...

Whether you support or oppose the use of AI in any capacity, the truth is that this technology is here to stay. It will continue to evolve, and to be integrated into almost every facet of our lives, if it hasn't already. But how do we as a society intend to approach this? How will the law determine the rights of creatives? How will creatives utilize or abstain from partaking in the use of AI? Hollywood has long warned us about the existential threat of artificial intelligence (through The Terminator, The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey and WALL-E, among other movies). Only time will tell how they choose to respond now that science fiction has become science fact.

Although Geese, one of Brooklyn's most promising indie rock bands, never exactly answers these questions for us (its music normally raises more questions than any human being could ever hope to answer), the group still manages to reach that very same part of the human soul in its newest album, Getting Killed.

The band, from the very beginning, was always a loud, unforgiving product of our contemporary times. Its first studio album, Projector, has driving dance rhythms and intelligent yet chaotic instrumentals that caused the band of high school friends to receive widespread acclaim and begin to establish itself within post-punk circles online. Geese only continued to deliver on its potential with 3D Country, an album with an unexpectedly heavy dose of Southern, country and blues influences, given the band's New York origins.

One may expect that a band is supposed to eventually find its sound: It grows into a particular style and carves out a niche for itself as band members get older and more entrenched in their ways. However, with 3D Country and its follow-up deluxe edition, 4D Country, Geese only seemed to grow even more chaotic and unpredictable in its sound as it started earning its stripes in the rock scene.

The transition between 3D and Getting Killed was characterized by the departure of founding guitarist Foster Hudson (if I had a nickel... maybe two...), an absolutely breathtaking cover of Justin Bieber's hit single "Baby" and the release of a heart-wrenching solo album, Heavy Metal, from lead singer Cameron Winter. After such a tumultuous period of growth, if we were to expect any single thing from Geese, we would inevitably be proven incorrect. In signature Geese style, the now-quartet managed to find new ways to give people, music and life the biggest middle finger you've ever seen on Getting Killed.

The album's opener, "Trinidad," is about as smooth as a transition into the album as a plane crash into the Pacific. As listeners, we are forced to sit through the full brunt of an auditory airbag to the face and have our lifeless, comatose body dragged into an apocalyptic, industrial soundscape. With hi-hat reminiscent of steam valves and glitched out, distorted guitar screeches indistinguishable from Winter's impression of the souls of the damned, "Trinidad" is a deeply destructive, personal Hell of a song. The narrator seems to have nothing left to lose in life, including anything to place his anger on, painting a listless and vengeful picture of dead daughters, "burning lead" and a people "force-fed or else baked into bread." The song is perfect at deconstructing its listeners, leaving at least me feeling like nothing but a detached heap of atoms discarded into empty space. If a good album opener is like a meat tenderizer, opening up the listener's heart for the experience that is yet to come, then "Trinidad' is one powered strictly by nuclear fusion and hydrogen bombs.

One of the most poignant decisions on the album comes immediately after the opener, with "Cobra" suddenly giving way to a heartfelt yet acutely bitter, pleading ballad. Even in isolation, the song is an incredible exploration of the conflicts of love, with Winter comparing a speaker resisting romantic temptations to a cobra refusing to be hypnotized by a pungi. But, when contrasted with "Trinidad," "Cobra" feels like love as absinthe: a beautiful, addictive experience that feels like it's going to kill you on the way down.

If Geese was able to "see [itself] in" other people on 3D Country, then it has never been more alone than on Getting Killed. In an age where 80% of artists on one of the world's biggest platforms garner fewer than 50 monthly listeners, Winter's cries on the album's title track begin to make a lot more sense. What does it even mean to be together when everybody's "trying to talk over everybody in the world"? How can we cope with a world where we don't feel allowed to be sad because our tears just go and rain on some "sadder bastard"'s leaking roof? Despite being one of the fastest songs on the album, driven by a tribal chorus, the album's title track is one of desperation and fruitless search for meaning. It is the frantic convulsion of an absurdist living under Instagram capitalism that precedes the collapse into a sad heap of nothing.

One of the standout highlights of Getting Killed remains Winter's unceasingly layered, cerebral songwriting paired with his uncanny ability to modulate and contort his voice into all the right esoteric drill bits to unlock all the emotions that we bolt behind the mind's security screws. My favorite example of Winter's command of emotion comes from "Au Pays du Cocaine," where he sings "you can be free, you can be free and still come home" in a Will Toledo-esque lilt. That "still" stands out in my mind as a golden brick in a Great Wall of poetry - implying that, in a way, being "home" chains us to the comfortable and the known. What does it mean to be free and belong? How can we ever do both?

After the final beats of "Long Island City Here I Come" left my stream of experience for the first time, I literally took off my headphones, put on a hoodie and went on a 2 a.m. walk because I just didn't know what to do with myself. Getting Killed is an album that will be remembered for its chaotic timelessness. Its rhythms, its melodies, its messages are all so complex that they would take lifetimes to dissect, but somehow, all it takes is 45 minutes to experience them in their entirety. I can only write so much about the album. The only way to truly experience it is to just go and listen to it.

Wyman Quad, stretching in front of Shriver Hall, was packed with booths and buzzing with students as long lines formed for an array of free giveaways, ranging from T-shirts to the highly coveted LOTQ mugs. Despite the cold, the atmosphere remained lively as students weaved through the quad, treats in hand.

"[My favorite part is] definitely the mug," freshman Adelyn Lovejoy said. "I came here for the mug, and everything else is just a plus."

Among the many displays was the Student Health and Well-Being table, manned by members of the Preventive Education and Empowerment for Peers (PEEPS) and the gender-based violence prevention team. The group handed out bingo cards that encouraged students to visit different booths around the quad. Students who completed their cards and submitted a photo were entered into a raffle for a seasonal effective disorder lamp.

Glow-in-the-dark condoms and stickers were also available at the booth, drawing both curiosity and laughter from passersby. On the anonymous social media platform Sidechat, many students also expressed amusement and appreciation for the unconventional giveaways.

From cupcakes to light-up headbands, each booth offered something unique, as LOTQ also offered plentiful stations for photo-opportunities and miscellaneous food items such as hot chocolate. However, as students ventured from booth to booth, many found the layout difficult to navigate, citing unclear organization and crowding near the most popular tables.

"[The HOP] organized it really well [but] I think having a layout for students so they know what they're getting into and not just wandering aimlessly [could be an improvement]," Lovejoy said.

One of the night's most unexpected attractions was when an artificial "tree" suddenly stood up, revealing a pair of feet. After initially responding with kazoo noises, The News-Letter learned that the person inside the costume was Resource Sharing Library Specialist Holly Tominack.

Tominack had worked in public libraries for 23 years before transitioning to academic libraries and beginning her work at the University. Although the Hopkins Sheridan Libraries typically host a table at LOTQ, they were unable to do so this year. Instead, Tominack decided to create her own costume and spread joy independently.

"The idea for the tree was just to make mischief in public events," she said. "I can kind of pass for an actual inanimate object. When I stand up, it is a surprise and a delight."

Sophomore Mihir Sharma also shared his thoughts on the event in an interview with The News-Letter. Sharma noted areas for improvement, such as crowd control and the emphasis on staff-led distribution of free goodies. Despite this, he explained why he was eager to join the celebrations again this year.

"Maybe [we should] let students handle the event themselves," he said. "I was there last year, and the fireworks were the best part [...] all the sweet treats and cupcakes were fun and [enjoyable with others]."

The event also consisted of musical performances and entertainment spectacles by various Hopkins student organizations. Hopkins acapella groups such as Musical Dynasty took part in showcasing their talents on the steps in front of Shriver as the audience slowly grew. The celebration also featured the Johns Hopkins Entertainers Club, a flow arts organization that utilizes unique performative skills such as fire spinning.

Following the performances, President Ronald Daniels addressed the crowd after students transitioned to Decker Quad. In his address, Daniels reflected on the semester and the importance of shared traditions at the University. The night concluded with a fireworks show that lit up the sky, drawing cheers from students gathered across campus.

As the final sparks faded and students began to disperse, LOTQ ended as a celebration and a moment of collective pause, a respite from finals season and a reminder of campus community.

A note from the News & Features Team: As the next semester approaches, the News & Features team would like to extend a warm thank you to everyone who read our pieces, wrote for our section and allowed us to pester you for interviews! Without your hard work and readership, we would not have the resources to cover exciting events. Have a wonderful new year!

The office siren aesthetic, popularized by TikTok creators and fashion influencers, blends corporate power dressing with femme fatale energy. Think about silky blouses, sharp eyeliner and the aura of a woman who's always a little too good for her 9-to-5 job. But behind the smoky eyes and monochrome outfits lies a deeper cultural question: Why are so many young women romanticizing the workspace, especially when the workplace itself has historically been hostile or inaccessible to them?

Of course, I, too, have fallen victim to the endless scrolls on Pinterest (one of my Halloween costumes this year was in fact an "office siren," so let me not be a hypocrite). I would be lying if I said that I didn't see the appeal of the aesthetic. It's clean, it's chic, it's adult (or at least the version of adulthood that most of us imagined when we were 12 and pretending to type on our mom's laptop). It promises control in a world where most young people feel like they have very little. And frankly, who doesn't want to feel like the main character of their own workplace drama?

But that's the irony. The office siren isn't a celebration of actually being in the workforce, but a fantasy built at a time when many young people are terrified of entering it. Currently, it's undeniable that job markets are unstable, wages aren't keeping up with inflation, burnout is expected and the corporate ladder is a corporate treadmill. The aesthetic gives all the power, without requiring any of the lived experience that usually strips that power away.

In simple terms, it's escapism dressed in a blazer.

Young women have always been asked to perform adulthood before actually arriving at it. In the '90s, it was the "girlboss" prototype: a woman with a latte conquering male-dominated spaces with confidence in a blowout. Later, it was "that girl," whose life consisted entirely of green juice and 5 a.m. Pilates. The office siren is simply the next stage of this lineage as a version of femininity that claims empowerment while still being shaped by the male gaze.

There is also something deeply ironic about romanticizing the corporate world at a time when so many people are pushing for alternatives. While Generation Z has been known for rejecting traditional career culture, the generation is idolizing an aesthetic rooted in the very structures that we wish to escape. Rather than fully opposing the suffocating nature of corporate culture, this trend has rebranded it as stylish and aspirational, allowing our generation to engage with the corporate world without fully committing to its values. This contradiction reveals the following: young people crave both autonomy and stability.

And that is the crux of how and why the office siren aesthetic has taken hold. She is the version of adulthood that seems almost impossible to achieve right now. As for whether the aesthetic is harmless fun or something more insidious, we must realize that the answer is both.

On one hand, fashion has always been a way for women to reinvent themselves. If a smoky eye makes someone feel unstoppable walking to class, who am I to judge? But on the other hand, we must be cautious of any trend that glamorizes a space without acknowledging its consequences. The workplace is not inherently empowering just because we add a red lip. It becomes empowering when its structures are able to support the people inside it.

So yes, dress like an office siren if it makes you feel good. I certainly will. But we must not confuse fantasy with the truth. Power doesn't necessarily come from a pencil skirt but from demanding a world where women don't have to rely on aesthetics to feel strong.

Kaylee Nguyen is a sophomore from Pensacola, Fla. majoring in Medicine, Science and the Humanities and Writing Seminars. She is a News & Features Editor for The News-Letter.

Rajabi is a second-year Iranian graduate student in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences in the Department of the History of Art studying Islamic art and architecture. In mid-August, upon Rajabi and his wife's return to the United States from a visit to Rajabi's brother in Toronto, the pair's visas were canceled on site, leaving them stranded in Canada. Subsequent denials of visa reapplications followed President Trump's travel ban, which prevented individuals from 39 countries, including Iranian nationals, like Rajabi, from entering the United States. In his open letter on his visa cancellation, Rajabi confirmed an exception to the rule in Section 4 of the June 4 Presidential Proclamations because the two were already in the United States before the proclamation was passed.

"My visa application was denied under the current travel ban, even though we should be exempt, as we were already in the United States with valid visas on the proclamation's effective date," Rajabi wrote.

According to Rajabi's open letter, he had asked the University to facilitate connecting him to Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, to no avail. Pending his appeal, Rajabi also proposed a work-study exchange with the University of Toronto, to which the University stated it was unable to resume his salary while he was not in the United States.

"[The University] instructed me to contact the senator myself, offering to step in only if the issue remained unresolved after six months," according to Rajabi's open letter address.

Four months later, the pair remain in Canada awaiting a change in their status, contemplating returning to Iran. To offset the gravity of significant financial expenses, such as Rajabi's inability to receive a salary, work in the United States or Canada without a valid visa and pay monthly rent for his and his wife's Baltimore flat, Rajabi had sought assistance from the University's Office of International Services, which declined to provide monetary support for legal representations. In an official statement, a representative stated that the University can not alter visa cancellations due to the dependency on federal policies.

Lauren Cook, a fourth-year Art History graduate student and TRU-UE affiliate, attended the demonstration and shared her frustration with the University's inaction in an interview with The News-Letter.

"Ehsan is a colleague and friend of mine. What's happened here has been a real travesty. I'm very disappointed in the University - especially after last spring, where it made such a strong commitment to help international workers," Cook stated.

In an interview with The News-Letter, retired French professor Claude Guillemard agreed with Cook, pushing the University to help Rajabi's situation.

"[It is] not that Canada is a bad place to be stuck in. Absolutely not. But when the visas of my students - our students - got canceled, we all knew it was illegal, unjust and unacceptable… I expected my institution to fight, and I'm so horrified that they don't when they have the power to do so, when they have the money to do so," said Guillemard.

In an interview with The News-Letter, sophomore Taiyo Tagami shared how, if thrown into a similar situation, he would feel devastated.

"If you're coming here to do research, have a job, and you have everything planned - especially as an international coming all the way to the US - that doesn't just mess with your life. [A visa cancellation] is going to ripple into your future; the stress, all the relations you need to maintain, all the opportunities you miss out on," said Tagami.

According to TRU-UE's written statement on Rajabi's visa cancellation, the noise demonstration's sole purpose was to raise awareness of Rajabi's situation and call for the University to provide funding and legal representation for Rajabi's legal proceedings.

Some students had expressed concerns over the noise disturbance during finals week. However, Cook shared that the demonstration was intentionally planned to take place during reading week.

"Even though a lot of us are studying for finals ourselves, in order for protests to be effective, they have to be disruptive, in a sense. And that's why we thought a noise demo during finals week would be an effective way to let Hopkins know that we haven't forgotten about Ehsan," explained Cook.

Sophomore Darena Ho is among many students who do not feel negatively impacted by campus demonstrations.

"I don't really see them that often - and honestly, they haven't impacted my life. [When] I go to class and I see one, I just walk past; no one is harassing me or anything," says Ho.

Guillemard approaches demonstrations like this one with a hint of optimism, regardless of any concrete outcome.

"I think [demonstrations are] a way to spread the word. If one more person today knows about [Ehsan's] case and is a little less trusting towards Hopkins, I think it's good, because it's really about trust here. Hopkins does not protect its own students when it's not convenient. And it's good for people to know that. I have the personal justification for any good demonstration when it's, to me, on the right side of history. It's at least for the future generations. Because when they look back and wonder what Hopkins, the Hopkins community, did, well, they stood up," said Guillemard.

Wicked: For Good continues the story of Wicked, which is a spin on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz where Elphaba, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West, is discriminated against for her green skin. She eventually finds companionship in a cast of characters at Shiz University, most notably G(a)linda, who later becomes Oz's Good Witch. After learning some devastating truths about her idol, the Wizard, Elphaba vows to fight against him in defense of the animals of Oz. The sequel to the first film, better recognized as Act 2 of the musical, explores political upheaval and tumultuous relationship dynamics introduced in the first film, especially centering on the friendship between Elphaba and Glinda.

Longtime fans of the stage show are unlikely to be surprised by the more tepid reception the sequel has endured thus far: Wicked has an infamously weaker second act, with many of its iconic tunes and story beats taking place during Act 1. The film, although over twice the length, remains faithful to its source material for better or for worse.

Inevitably, many of the story's weaknesses carry from stage to screen. While many of the ways the plot ties into that of The Wizard of Oz are lovable winks to the audience, the attempt to shove in the fundamentally incompatible plot unnecessarily stifles the chance for Wicked's original story to become fully fleshed out: the Wicked Witch of the East plotline in particular has never felt very organic. The sequel ramps up the political and darker elements touched upon in the first film, pushing the fascistic undertones of the Ozian government and the commentary on propaganda to the forefront without grappling fully with the ideas spotlighted. By the second time Fiyero waves around a gun to assist a dramatic escape, the cracks in the suspension of disbelief begin to appear.

If I can offer any defense, the film does succeed at stating the essence of its thesis statement: that propaganda, public opinion and the squabbles of those in power hold greater sway than the truth alone. Do not be fooled by the broomstick: for all her magic, Elphaba wields very little meaningful ability to enact the changes she strives for, especially in comparison to a certain someone with no magic at all. While Chu does sweeten the ending, he retains the ultimate tragedy of Wicked, and most importantly, the promise that at the end of it all, there is hope that the characters won't "let good be just a word."

The movie's small changes do improve the shift in focus from the first act's college shenanigans to more complex relationships and political intrigue. For one, Elphaba is actually seen trying to help the animals that drive her motivation throughout, including with a new song that ironically opines "There's no place like home." The focus on the love triangle is also mercifully reduced from Broadway, although I must express disappointment that its strongest moment - a reprise of "I'm not that Girl" transitioning directly into "As long as you're mine" - is sadly discarded in the film.

The "Wonderful" sequence must be especially commended: The movie presents a far more convincing version of Elphaba's brief initial temptation to put her cause to rest, and likewise through a cleverly edited sequence juxtaposing Glinda's and Elphaba's situations makes her reaffirmation much more compelling. This also marks one of the few times the movie bursts with color; for a film with such strong ties to perhaps the most famously technicolor cinematic achievement, most of Wicked: For Good looks washed out and dull, watering down the impressive achievements in practical effects and costuming behind the scenes.

The movie's slower pacing also introduces tonal whiplash that the audience did not have time to grapple with in the stage show's breakneck pacing, with the few comedic sequences feeling misplaced with the generally dour mood.

Luckily for the movie, the key emotional beats are anchored by the film's best songs (which were always a saving grace for a musical). "No Good Deed" explodes with desperation, a booming orchestra chasing to keep up with Cynthia Erivo's powerful vocal showcase. Ariana Grande does an excellent job with the complex characterization of "Thank Goodness," although the cleverly incorporated depth of emotion is reduced when the later ballad "Girl in the Bubble" clunkily renders the subtext overt. Fortunately, the emotional climax "For Good" is about as good as a farewell duet gets in musical theater: say what you will about Grande and Erivo's endlessly memetic press tour, but pink does go well with green.

Wicked: For Good is far from perfect, and I would wager many will hold the first part much closer to their hearts. Nonetheless, it has a place as a suitably expanded and bombastic character-driven second half culminating in what is, at its core, a tragedy about a society unwilling to accept those that are different. It is made with clear heart and love for the story that shines through despite its stumbles, and it is worth the watch for longtime fans and those seeking to complete the first film's journey.

And yes, I would be lying if I said I didn't smile when I saw the final shot.

We're getting to the time of year when it's easy to be lost in the past. The same red bows are tied on lampposts in parks and outside dingy shopping centers. The same massive wreaths decorate even more massive malls. But with every passing year, the bows seem a little more at eye level and the wreaths are a little smaller. You bake the same cookies, and then suddenly a research project on salmonella makes you no longer want to lick the batter out of the bowl. While wading through homework, I've been reflecting on the holidays, which used to be documented by where I performed and when, but can now be tallied by which Christmas movies I watch, which treats I decide to enjoy and which cities I want to visit.

I started ballet when I was three or four. I was never flexible or invested enough to end up doing much more than taking classes and performing as a background character now and then. Still, it was a musical way to get my abundant wiggles out, so I kept at it throughout high school. When I was in second grade, I was cast as a mushroom in the Washington Ballet's Nutcracker. This meant that for three months, I spent my weekends in windowless dance studios drilling my two minutes of stage time. I learned those two minutes so well that I could to this day perform it flawlessly, with or without the music. I was always a little sad to miss, or make an early leave from, yet another fall birthday party or sleepover, but the fun of putting on a show and my excitement for when I'd be under those stage lights in a pretty costume, smiling out at the formless audience, made it all worth it.

I started performing more frequently as elementary school became middle school, then high school. I played different parts in the Nutcracker, including at one point, a giant frog. I sang at Christmas masses and in choral winter concerts. I sacrificed a lot of social experiences, but performing was always exhilarating enough for me to consider myself the lucky one.

I don't have any Christmas performances this year. I haven't had any Christmas performances since going to college. Now the time I used to spend in dressing rooms under concert halls and opera houses is spent watching the Hallmark Channel and visiting Christmas Markets with my friends while visions of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree dance in my head.

My friend and I spent this entire semester, like last fall, discussing the super awesome, unbelievably cheap trip to New York City we were going to have once they put the big tree up. We both followed that tree as it made its journey across the country on Instagram. We didn't actually end up planning our trip beyond sending each other reels of holiday markets and skating with the words "this will be us," so we're coming to terms with the fact that we'll be staying close to Baltimore again after all. We'll watch all the best Christmas movies and drink hot chocolate and bake Christmas snacks and go see Santa come to Fells Point on a Tugboat and watch the Washington Monument get lit up and venture into DC for the DuPont Circle Holiday Market or Old Towne Alexandria's Holiday Market - or we'll, more likely, get to do a small combination of a very tiny fraction of these plans that require no planning ahead of time.

When I go home, I'll make the rounds with all my hometown friends and our traditions. I'll go ice skating with my oldest friend at the very rink we frequented as eight-year-olds. I'll end up at my high school's Christmas celebration because my closest high school friend's mother is making her go, and she doesn't want to suffer alone. I'll go to my old choir's winter concert and watch the class who have never aged past sophomores in my eyes as the leaders of the group. I'll probably find myself in the audience of that same Nutcracker show whose choreography I could perform in my sleep. I'll relive past Christmases with no less enthusiasm for Christmas present. Over the years, whether I've spent my Christmas as a mushroom or dreaming of being a New Yorker for a day, the bows outside the shopping center have never ceased to make me smile.

Amelia Taylor is a sophomore from Potomac, Md. studying Writing Seminars and Voice Performance. In her column, she draws insights from seemingly random experiences that present themselves in the course of ordinary life.

There are few things so contagious as Christmas in Manila. The streets come alive with spiraling lights and glowing parols. Mariah Carey reigns in every mall and, out from each corner of every barangay spills the sound of belting karaoke and sappy ballads. With everyone home for the holidays, the usual city crowds multiply. People pour out onto the church steps at mass, some so far away as to only hear the sound of the sermon from outdoor speakers, keeping the heat at bay with abaniko and pamaypay fans. The city stays awake for Noche Buena, with whole pigs skewered on the table for lechon, pancit and lengua and platters of baked kakanin ready for grazing throughout the night. Temperature aside, the Philippines warms even more at Christmastime.

Christmas at home was a childhood highlight. My Lolo would string the stairs up with tinsel, and the papier-mache snow man I'd made as a child would somehow find its way back onto a table. A dancing life-sized Santa Claus (long story) would wiggle in a corner beside a Christmas tree laden with ornaments and flickering with rave-like strobe lights. My mom would take me around my favorite bookstores until we'd meet my Lolo at the only Cinnabon to catch one of the last English movies before the Metro Manila Film Festival took over, showing exclusively Filipino films at all cinemas from Christmas through to the new year. At various lunches and dinners in the days to follow, we'd see more family than I remembered having.

All my life, there has been so much joy tangled up with Christmas. It only made sense that, when joy became difficult for me, Christmas was hit the hardest. It's hard to forget the years I spent fighting to feel anything in December. Though this was at a time when joy was difficult all year round, Christmas festivities introduced a new level of dread and guilt. I teetered off the edge of joy and into a quickfire fear. A fear that I would fail to feel joy enough, that I would fail those around me by not rising to the level of happiness meant for the occasion.

With work and time, this fear has loosened its grip. I'm thankful to be able to say that I found my joy again - for Christmas, and for life. But, remembering this dread as a passing echo in this grim late November, I'm reminded of how strong emotions can often occupy neighboring spaces. A step too far in wanting to feel joy and I pushed myself into despair. A step too far and care morphed into fear.

With senior year upon me, there has lurked this sense of finality. Fall's end has meant the end of a college fall. With every shift in color on campus trees, I'm reminded that this is the last time I'll ever see each particular tree in these specific shades. Recounting this fearful rumination to a friend, I was met by the surprising remark that maybe seeing blazing autumnal leaves was beautiful because it meant that I'd see more beautiful trees in the future. Each tree was a proof of concept, seeing one now shouldn't ignite the fear that I'd never have this particular moment again, but instead serve as evidence that more was to come. "Like how every end," my poetic friend said, "is also a beginning."

I try so hard to be present. I try so hard to be a good student, a good friend, a good daughter that sometimes I worry that I cultivate my care from fear. Like with Christmas, when I wanted so badly to care for the thing I loved the most - even when I couldn't - that I put myself in a constant fear of doing wrong by it.

In philosophy the other day, we talked about the paradox of hedonism: how pleasure-seekers, ironically, push themselves further away from a pleasurable life by making choices that will result in long-term dissatisfaction. We also touched on the paradox of utilitarianism, how defining your morality by trying to minimize the suffering caused by your actions becomes unachievable if the expectation is to run moral calculus for every little thing. In both paradoxes, too much of one thing shoots it in the foot. To achieve that Goldilocks level of "just right," rules must be slackened.

My mistake with Christmas, when I was at my darkest, was to soften it into a one-dimensional ideal. I couldn't feel sad, otherwise I'd fail. But that meant that I'd started seeking joy from a place of fear. A far, wrestled cry from the joy I'd had to begin with. Re-learning my joy meant learning to be okay with having some sad Christmases. In that same way, wanting to be a good person for fear of being a bad person has to be intrinsically different from wanting to be a good person for the joy of it. Wanting to savor every moment of my senior year before it's over must be different from embracing it.

I think too often in terms of losses and finalities, ideals and achievement, but as the weather gets colder, I'm trying to get closer to that early instinct to be driven by joy, not fear. This Christmas, I won't be home. My Lolo and Lola have passed on. Just months ago, their house was locked up for sale. I won't hear Tagalog into the new year. But instead of running from the uncertainty of this Christmas, of this fall, of whatever's to come with the new year, I'm choosing to face it. If every autumn tree is an emblem of beauty to come, every experience not a door closing but a new room, then there is much joy to guide me.

​​Kaitlin Tan is a senior from Manila, Philippines, majoring in Writing Seminars and Cognitive Science. She is the Voices Editor for The News-Letter. In her column, she tries to parse through the everyday static for something to hold onto.

When I was a child, I thought that eating turkey on Thanksgiving was a historical myth, like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow on St. Patrick's Day or getting hit by Cupid's arrow on Valentine's Day. Each November, I would make as many hand turkeys as I could possibly fit in my sparkly pink backpack, and then go to my Abuela's house to eat a traditional feast of pan de bono, empanadas, ajiaco, mazorca, platanos, arroz con leche and jugo de maracuya. Like we all do every year, right?

It wasn't until third grade that I realized not every family was following the same traditions as mine was. When my best friend told me that she was helping her mother prepare that year's turkey, I was shocked, probably responding with something along the lines of "My family has never done that," with an air of eight-year-old superiority. I quickly realized that I was indeed the odd one out, and that not everyone had a special soup to look forward to once a year. How tragic for them. Naturally, I went home and asked my mom why Camryn's family was eating turkey for Thanksgiving while mine was not, and thus discovered the backstory to explain the lack of stuffing and cranberry sauce at my Abuela's house each year.

Thanksgiving can be a contentious holiday: not only because your relatives will most definitely ask you about your plans for graduation that you have not thought about at all, but also because of the roots it has in colonization and political oppression. As Colombian immigrants, my family was able to build a better home on land that did not originally belong to the administration that had reluctantly let them cross the border, a country that hoped that they would quickly and seamlessly become as American as possible (although, I must note that their way of doing this was certainly interesting, as my mother was required to take an ESL class at the exact same time that everyone else in her year took U.S. history). Nevertheless, my Abuela, the matriarch, was determined to make the most of the major U.S. holiday by celebrating something else to be thankful for.

Her first fall in the U.S., my Abuela had a potentially cancerous cyst removed. When her lab results came back benign, she decided that the American holiday of gratitude was to become a new family tradition. That year, ready to throw a Thanksgiving feast that Uncle Sam would be proud of, my Abuela marched to her local library and borrowed a traditional Thanksgiving cookbook. She cooked all day, serving up stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole and, of course, a turkey. After all of that elbow grease, my family hated it. Why would this celebration of thanks involve eating food that did not hold a candle to her arroz con pollo or her sancocho?

That was the last year my family attempted a traditional Thanksgiving, and by the time I was born, the new tradition had been longstanding. As we drench our Colombian food in my Abuela's homemade aji, we remember all that we do have to be thankful for: health, food on our table, a family to share it with. We get our pan de bono from the local panaderia, and it tastes just like what it feels like to be sitting in my Abuela's living room, comforting and soft.

This year, before taking the Amtrak back to New York, my friends and I had our own little "Friendsgiving" celebration. We made all of the traditional fixings: mac-and-cheese, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with cinnamon and marshmallows, green bean casserole, corn bread and dino chicken nuggets (you can't really expect us to attempt to cook a turkey in our teeny tiny kitchen).

As a newcomer to this sort of cuisine, I was put on chocolate chip cookie duty. Despite my roommate's impeccable mac-and-cheese-making skills, and eating until I felt like my stomach could not expand even a slight bit more, I still found myself not understanding the hype of the traditional Thanksgiving supper. I think that I feel similarly towards turkey on Thanksgiving as I do to eggs for breakfast: I know it is traditional, and I certainly wouldn't mind enjoying it from time to time, but it will never be my first choice.

I feel lucky to have a Thanksgiving tradition that reflects my family's unique history, the specific things for which we like to give thanks. I am thankful for the flavors and textures of my mother's homeland, of the Spanish and English that float around my Abuela's home and mix into one language, and most of all, for the heaping bowls of arroz con leche that remind me of the simple sweetness of sharing a meal together, no matter what day of the year.

Hailey Finkelstein is a junior from Ardsley, N.Y. majoring in Medicine, Science and the Humanities. Her column shares miscellaneous prose on current issues, the collective Hopkins experience and growing up with a pen in hand.

I've always found peace in the sky. When I was younger, I'd look up at the clouds during long car rides and let my imagination go wild with stories of a fictional man jumping through the clouds. Even as I got older, my appreciation and admiration for the sky only grew stronger. I am from an area known as the Sun City. As such, I've always been able to define my home through beautiful sunsets and sunrises. When I came to Baltimore my freshman year, I was surprised by how different the sky was - sunny days felt like a cage and cloudy days were only dreary. I felt as though I was caged up by an unseen force that prevented me from being able to relax and take in my environment.

Leaving home for me was both exciting and terrifying. The idea that I was beginning a new part of my life was amazing. I was looking forward to making my family proud by being the first to attend college and I was determined to make the most out of my college experience. Additionally, I had imagined college life to be similar to the movies - late nights out with friends and large grand lecture halls. I even recall one time during orientation, when I was learning more about PILOT and how to be a PILOT leader, arrogantly thinking, "Wow, I just need an A? I'll be a PILOT leader for all my courses next semester!" (Oh, how naive I was.) As my freshman year began, everything seemed bright and I was optimistic about my 18-credit course load.

Three weeks into my freshman semester was when everything hit me. The excitement of beginning school ended, and the course work began to pick up. What I thought were supposed to be "Midterm Exams" turned into "Beginning-term Exams." I wasn't prepared for how intense the workload at Hopkins was going to be, and I felt anxious all the time. As the weeks went by, the temperature began to drop and the days grew shorter. Clear skies were quickly overtaken by cloudy and dark days, and the comfort I used to find in the sky was overtaken as well. During that time, I felt so isolated from my friends and peers, and I was overwhelmed with the feeling of not belonging. What I had originally imagined as late nights out with friends turned into late nights at the library by myself, and grand lecture halls became dreadful places. This feeling persisted throughout the semester, but I knew my family back at home was so proud of me, and I didn't want to let them down.

Over time, I learned to adapt to Hopkins and found solace even in darker days. I enjoyed sipping on hot tea from the FFC (hot take, the FFC is not as bad as everyone says) and sitting in Keyser Quad at night. Occasionally, I would catch the Entertainers Club practicing. I remember one night in particular, when there was something so cathartic about seeing those synchronized flames dance around. The sense of peace I found during that night carried on with me throughout the last few weeks of the semester. I began to go out of my way to meet new people and reached out to resources to better myself. The work I put in paid off and I was able to finish off the last few weeks of the semester with the same optimism I originally had when it started.

As a senior, I look back on my experience at Hopkins and I'm proud of how I've changed. I've been able to grow as an individual. I used to be so intimidated by new experiences, and now I seek them out. I've been able to adapt to the intensity of Hopkins and am no longer afraid of taking on more challenges - outside of Hopkins, for instance, I enjoy volunteering around Baltimore at soup kitchens, and it's made me appreciate the city. I've finally been able to enjoy late nights out with friends, and lecture halls do not feel dreadful anymore. Years later, and the sky at Hopkins is still very different from my home, but it's no longer smaller. Instead, the sky is a reminder that I can find peace anywhere that I go.

Gabrielle Chavez is a senior from El Paso, Texas majoring in Computer Engineering with a minor in Entrepreneurship and Management.

Another sunset seeps through my windows, staying for a moment. It paints my white walls with an orange and pink tinge, the type of color you think of when a warm hand rests on your shoulder. Each ray of sunlight finds its place: on the mirror hanging from my door, on the boxes filled with my belongings and on the suitcases leaning against the wall.

Beyond my door live my roommates, the two women I truly came to know just months ago. The ones that were sewn to me by invisible strings of life, strings that were pulled together when it was our time to meet, when our hearts were ready to love one another. They have taught me something I never expected to learn so late in my college career: the feeling of "home" is far closer than I had expected. Sometimes it's a laugh, a voice calling my name from the end of the hall or a light left on for me late at night, waiting for me to come home.

My happiness now curls itself into the sound of their laughter, mixing with mine. It stays within the rituals we have made in the months we have lived together, how we sit together in the living room without speaking, sharing silence as if it were a soft blanket, or perhaps in how we have late-night debriefs by the fridge.

If anyone ever asked, I could tell them endless stories of my college experience. Chapters varying in length: some about past loves, others about friends, classes and the things I had to face on my own. However, I know for certain that I would never be able to stop talking about my amazing roommates; those stories fill volumes of my life. Each word of our stories would ring in tremendous harmony on the page, they would dance as we do when we need to unwind with Just Dance on the TV.

For years, I doubted that friendships like this could exist, the kind where silence becomes its own language, where a glance can say I'm here or I get you without needing words. Where you begin to trust so deeply that you forget there was ever a time you didn't. Because with them, it feels as if our love has always existed.

When I moved to the U.S., I already knew I couldn't live alone. I knew myself well enough to know that isolation would pull me into shadows I didn't want to revisit. But since I moved into this apartment, not a single day has felt dark. These walls, once strange, now feel like they breathe with me. In time, the floorboards have remembered all of our footprints combined.

I have always loved the story in Plato's Symposium, where Aristophanes explains that humans once had four arms, four legs and two faces. After they attempted to attack the gods, Zeus separated them, forcing each to wander eternity searching for the other half. If this were true, I would argue for a triple human - one with six arms, six legs and three faces, because if soulmates exist, then soulmates of three must exist too. My roommates and I are proof of this: three separate hearts somehow beating in harmony. Three souls woven together by those invisible strings, or perhaps by the Red String of Fate, which in East Asian belief, states that certain people are destined to meet no matter the circumstance. Each of us is the perfect balance, the perfect contradiction, the perfect complement to the others.

We fit together effortlessly, like the ingredients in those recipes we make when one of us is hit by a craving. The most seamless combination since the invention of buttered popcorn, a small delicacy in our kitchen and our favorite form of comfort food, which tastes of softness and laughter when the machine pops far too many into the floor.

Our apartment is more than a place with three beds, a sofa and a kitchen; it is the small home we have created for ourselves. Where our hearts beat easier, where the word "home" finally stretches enough to include me. The quiet miracle of finding people who make the simplest moments, pink sunsets, airplane rides and laughter, feel like something holy.

Johnalys Ferrer is a junior from Arecibo, Puerto Rico studying Medicine, Science and the Humanities. Her column explores how culture, identity and the fight to belong live on, reminding us that heritage is not only remembered but echoed daily.

The person I am today was beautifully woven and built piece by piece by my mother; she built my wings to fly. The transition from having my mom right beside me to being 8,000 miles away from her is tough.

I remember my school day mornings. She would wake up as early as 5 a.m. to prepare breakfast for me, the most delicious food on this earth. [Mumma, I miss your food.] After getting ready, she would stand by the door with my snacks for the day (mostly nuts and water bottle), fuel for me to have a productive day.

When I came back home, before I even took my shoes off, the first person I sought would be her. From new friends I've made that day to interesting facts I learned in school, we would embark on hours-long conversations with my head on her lap. These moments felt like heaven.

I feared my annual dance performances when I was a kid. Yet, spotting my mom in the audience would ease my anxiety. She would applaud so loudly that I'd forget I was even on the stage. In the span of just a couple of seconds, the performance hall would become my living room, and I'd feel the comfort of putting my head on her lap.

I am who I am because of her - a daughter molded by grace and authenticity, by my mother who gave me roots to hold on to and wings to fly high. Throughout my 19 years of life, there hasn't been a single day in which I didn't learn something new from her. She has shaped me the same way my nanu (maternal grandfather) shaped her.

The way I talk, dress, live: she has been the person to shape these. Years will pass and I will grow into an adult, but I know that I will always be a child in her eyes.

She is the person who helped me explore my inner talent. In kindergarten, she taught me how to draw and kept supporting me until I started sketching much better in high school. When I was 7, she introduced me to Bharatnatyam, an Indian classical dance. This journey changed how I thought and expressed my emotions. At the end of middle school, she enrolled me in a little orating without telling me. This was my first public speaking experience, and I was incredibly nervous about it. Yet, the first person I looked towards from the stage was my mom. Her smile was so bright and shiny that I forgot that anyone else was listening to my speech. Only one thing mattered to me: my mom.

I used to sit beside her whenever I had to spend hours studying in high school. Her presence was a symbol of comfort and warmth for me. Since I was a kid, my mom taught me "Hanuman Chalisa," a religious manuscript, which we would recite together every Saturday. It was a symbol of strength and togetherness. I still recite this prayer every time I have an exam or whenever I am missing my mom. It was a core part of my memory as a child, which helps me even now.

One of my favorite memories before leaving for Hopkins was my visa interview in Chennai, which was followed by our first interrupted trip - five days of simply being mother and daughter. From wooden boat rides in Mangrove Forest to endless pictures, street shopping and shared meals, my favorite moment was standing beside her in matching white silk saree at Tirupati Balaji. Through her closed eyes and devotion, I saw the same strength my nanu once instilled in her - a strength she now passes on to me.

As I try to navigate through my mom's absence, I try to relive the moments we shared together and hope that it will give me the strength to keep going. During these times, I thank God for blessing me with a person who understands and loves me to this extent. Now, eating a meal without her presence feels empty. But even from a distance, she is still the wind beneath my wings.

When I miss her and the tears come out, I remind myself that she spent years building my wings. Every lesson she gave me, every moment she stood beside me, was her way of teaching me how to lift off. As I face the hardship of being away from her, I try to fly using the strength she poured into me. Her influence will never leave me - it's stitched into the wings she helped me grow.

Hitarthee Tank is a sophomore from Surat, India majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology and minoring in Business.

When I was little, I always made sure to turn on my nightlight before heading to sleep. From the concept of monsters hiding under my bed to other unknowns in the darkness, I had my fears and suspicions. However, a tiny, dim light capable of warmly illuminating my whole bedroom was all that I needed to give me the assurance that it was probably just my mind trying to play tricks on me and that if a monster were really hiding underneath my bed, I would at least be able to foresee it instead of being blindly frightened by it.

Now that I live in a college dorm, of course, I have the classic dorm essential, a string of fairy lights hanging on the wall above my bed. It compensates for a nightlight, and although I may not possess those particular fears and suspicions to the same extent as when I was younger, I still enjoy falling asleep gazing at the twinkling lights.

Going to bed with a light on has been a non-negotiable part of my routine ever since childhood, its physical presence allowed me to see in the dark (so that my younger self could keep an eye out for monsters), but today/now, it also internally and symbolically provides me with a feeling of security and comfort amid the darkness. There have been days full of excitement and fulfillment that I never wanted to end. On days like those, I am resistant to falling asleep. On the contrary, there are days when it seems to take forever for time to pass, and that drains the life out of me, leaving my head clouded with doubt and negativity. But no matter how I'm left feeling from the day I've had, the warmth that my light emits is always the same. This warmth sets an ambience that quiets my inner monologue so I can properly rest and recharge. So, although my use of a nightlight may have initially served as the solution to my fear of the dark, its role has gone beyond that, serving to enlighten my mind as well.

Now, since we have officially entered the holiday season, with Christmas less than a month away, I have grown especially fond of my fairy lights. This is because they give the impression of incandescent lights wrapped around Christmas trees, garlands, light poles, the list goes on. As part of the holiday festivities, we have the opportunity to adorn these ordinary objects, making every detail of them come to life. It's a little unfathomable that just the simple addition of a string of lights on a tree can put me in awe, happy to admire it for hours on end, but it does. Light really just makes everything shine. There must just be an instant connection between radiating light and radiating joy as Christmas lights never cease to bring about a smile on my face.

When thinking about the joy of the Christmas season, there are endless moments I can recall, but my ultimate favorite has always been and still is the drive back home at night and seeing all the houses in my neighborhood lit up with Christmas lights and decor. No house is exactly decorated the same; each has its own special flair. However, no matter if a house simply hung warm-toned string lights around its trees or if a house went all out, making sure no part of it was without light, the magical holiday spirit is still the same.

I obviously won't be able to enjoy the lights around my neighborhood while I'm on campus, but as I walk back to my dorm from a late-night study session, I never cease to take my time admiring the strings of lights spiraling around the lampposts. I have overcome my childhood fear of the dark and now rather appreciate it because only in darkness are you able to witness how brightly light can shine, whether it's the darkness outside or inside of you.

Catherine Chan is a freshman from Potomac, Md., studying Molecular and Cellular Biology. She is a Social Media Manager for The News-Letter. Her column consists of reflections on various moments in her life, from the distant past to the current present, in pursuit of discovering the underlying impact they have on her life's story.

As expected, my first semester at Hopkins yielded a welcome amount of intellectually stimulating conversations. Yet one that occurred recently has stuck in my mind. It prompted a thorough self-examination of my beliefs, which is a place I didn't think I would reach after only a few months on campus.

To preface the story, I had been writing a foreign policy paper on the Iraq War (stick with me here) when a friend asked me what I was working on. Despite being in the early, rough-drafting period, I provided a brief description of the war itself and its various causes. When I finished, he looked mildly amused and wished me the best of luck. As I walked out of the building, he left me with a thought.

"It will be interesting to see how you keep your own bias out of your work."

To say that I was immediately taken aback at that point would be an understatement. I hadn't previously considered myself to be the pinnacle of intellectual humility, but it seemed a bit odd to be judged in such an outright manner about a topic that I had no stake in. Sensing my questioning look, he pointed out that each time I had referred to America in my explanation, I had really said "we." Momentarily dumbfounded, I walked to class thinking about why I put myself in the shoes of America, even in an event that had happened before I was born. Also, why would I even want to, given what we now know about the unspeakable tragedy that accompanied the invasion?

An identity is a complex mishmash of physical, psychological and social characteristics that make us who we are. And by us, I mean all humans. The part of me saying "we" with reference to the Iraq invasion felt a close enough tie to the notion of an American identity that it sounded like I had been on the front lines. That part quickly separated ingroups and outgroups into Americans and non-Americans, something that I wish I had been more cognizant of during the conversation, especially at Hopkins, where I have experienced firsthand the world of difference from the homogeneity of my hometown.

Being proud to be an American citizen and endorsing everything associated with America are not the same. Pride is often conflated with "Don't Tread on Me" lawn signs and a bald eagle posed defiantly behind the nation's flag. The stigma behind being on "Team America" lies in the inseparability of one's own identity with that of a group, even one in which they've always been a member. The intrinsic bias within my paper didn't come from cheering on the president or having my views summed up by a D or an R, but merely from growing up American. That isn't a bad thing, but it is something crucial to recognize when discussing US security policy with a friend from a different country.

Part of our identity is how we divide ourselves, whether that be through sports teams, political parties or geographical spaces. Teamsmanship is a double-edged sword. Forming these groups, whether consciously or unconsciously, allows people to create cohesive coalitions and hierarchies that benefit them. It also makes us strangely tribal, associating our identity with our favorite bands of twentysomethings on a sports team from our birthplace. To put it another way, teams are necessary, but the all-encompassing association of identity that blurs the line between the team and the individual can be problematic.

Americans are not a monolith. Teams are not inherently harmful. I was not in George W. Bush's cabinet during the Iraq War. These are fundamental facts. But what's greater is the realization that while bias and identity may be our first instincts, learning how to adjust and rebalance our (and when I say our, you know who I mean) mental calculus, we can try to understand how lines in the sand are drawn before we take out the stick.

Bryce Leiberman is a freshman from Madison, Conn. studying Political Science and Philosophy. His column records a search for authenticity exploring the past, present and restless work of becoming oneself.

"What's going on here?"

It was the first question our guide asked as my First-Year Seminar (FYS) clustered around a statue of three brown rings at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA). I side-eyed my friend. Literally nothing, I thought. As we stood in complete silence, I could feel my STEM brain scrambling for a definition or some data to interpret, anything measurable or concrete. Instead, all I saw were… rings. Yet, the guide didn't look impatient or concerned at our obvious discomfort. She waited, as if the statue was offering more than I knew how to look for. Over minutes of looking and looking away, details revealed themselves: grooves, the texture of the marble, the impossible smoothness of the statue's curves, the deliberate shadows cast by the museum lights. At the BMA, I realized you aren't asked to solve anything; you're asked to truly see. That shift felt both unsettling and addictive.

During my first week at Hopkins, I spent more time surrounded by art during the Baltimore Arts pre-orientation than I had in my whole life. Wandering through the Walters Art Museum and the American Visionary Art Museum, I recall feeling overwhelmed by the talent and history that I was so woefully unprepared to understand. In front of a Mary Proctor collage of buttons and fabric, a guide unraveled stories of race, gender and spirituality seamlessly. It was like there was an invisible curtain separating me from an entire world I hadn't known existed. I wasn't an artist, and I was terrified of public speaking, but I wanted to belong to that world - to speak about objects that appeared ordinary with clarity and conviction until their histories spilled off the wall. So when my FYS professor forwarded a one-line email about a new BMA student guide program, I applied without thinking.

In our first training session, I stood before a hazy Matisse landscape without knowing anything about Impressionism or the industrial Europe it depicted. The other trainees included art history majors, physics students and pre-meds, and we built the picture together. Someone noticed a shadow that someone else turned into a boat. Someone pointed out faint sticks that, after two comments, reassembled themselves into smokestacks. I added an observation about the light on the water, half expecting it to be dismissed, but the instructor turned it into a discussion about the time of day the painting was depicting. It was the first time I felt that my eye mattered. I didn't need to be an "art person" - I just needed to trust that what I saw was worth saying.

Those questions at the core of our Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) rewired the way I directed my attention: What do you see? What do you see that makes you say that? What else can we find?

As training continued, they became a framework for approaching the world that felt radically slower than how I was used to thinking. Using VTS, we practiced examining sculptures from every angle, paying attention to orientation, mass and balance. We used the museum's arrangement to give us clues, and discovered how curators manipulate lighting not just to illuminate but to reveal: a ridge worn down by hands two centuries ago, a hairline groove left by an intentional chisel or an accidental slip. We lingered in front of portraits for half an hour, long after the average visitor's twenty-seven seconds had evaporated. The questions didn't go away; they kept multiplying, asking me to notice what I didn't know I'd seen.

Writing my first tour tested that for real. I spent a week trying to connect the Buddhist Water Guang-yin statue carved thousands of years ago with a Cézanne painting from the 1900s. At first, the pairing felt absurd. But the deeper I looked, the more patterns emerged: the human body shaped by devotion; the natural world softened, abstracted, made symbolic; the way artists keep returning to the same longing for stillness, transcendence and form. Guiding turned out to not be about delivering the "right" interpretation, but rather building a story with strangers. It was a mosaic of observations offered tentatively and held up to the light. Together, we moved from texture to intention to cultural meaning and then back to the work itself.

The invisible work mattered just as much as the visible. Choosing the order of artworks became a kind of choreography: when to shift rooms, when to linger, how to pivot from silence to discussion without demanding either. I learned to read the micro-signals - a visitor's foot tapping, hesitation before a comment, the instinctive glance at a label. I got to decide what to reveal, and more importantly, what to hold back so viewers could discover it for themselves.

One of the first questions we were asked in training was, "What makes you feel at home in a new space?" I wrote down warm lighting, somewhere to put my stuff, someone who expects me to be there. Later, I realized that was exactly what guiding asks of us - not to lecture, but to host. To create a space where visitors feel anticipated, where the bar for participation is simply being present and paying attention to what is already in front of them.

The museum has become a counterweight to Hopkins' acceleration. My academic life moves in deadlines, problem sets and meetings double-booked on my Google Calendar; the museum moves in stillness. There, I stand in front of a painting until my eyes stop scanning and start noticing the bristles stuck in the paint, intentional imperfections that point to a human behind the frame. That slowness has leaked into the rest of my life: how I walk across campus, how I listen to my roommate, how I remember to look twice before assuming I understand anything at all.

I entered the BMA student tour guide program convinced someone would tap me on the shoulder one day and expose me as an impostor. I thought guiding required authority in the form of knowledge I didn't have and language I hadn't learned, but the museum's visitors don't need expertise - they need space. These past few weeks, I've peeled back assumptions, returned to the evidence and built outward again. I've stopped trying to extract meaning from art and started creating an environment to look, wonder and share, where interpretation is collaborative rather than a personal performance. I may not be an artist, but I've become a translator of attention, a facilitator of curiosity, a witness to the moment a roomful of strangers begins to see together.

Vidhi Bansal is a freshman from Upper Saddle River, N.J., studying Neuroscience. In "Meanwhile," Bansal finds meaning in the unfinished and the unglamorous, showing how the in-betweens are often where life actually happens.

There's a poem I keep thinking about: "Replica of the Thinker." In it, a copy of Rodin's famous statue sits at a museum, hunched over that familiar pose of "deep thought." But he isn't thinking. "His head is filled with iron and bronze," the poet writes, "not neurons and God." He looks like a thinker, but is he actually thinking?

I read this and feel an uncomfortable echo in myself.

There are mornings when I sit with my breakfast the same way the speaker imagines his father did years ago - with oatmeal, coffee, a newspaper and a blank stare. The poem suggests something I've been circling around in my own life: that we can move through the world looking like people who think, decide and shape our lives intentionally while actually living as replicas. Copies of parents, copies of expectations, copies of a life we haven't had the chance to pause long enough to choose.

Real thinking is slow. It's messy. It requires an inwardness that can feel intimidating. And yet we treat thinking like the default state of being present, as if it simply happens while we check our notifications or rush from our current task to our next priority. Thought becomes background noise, running behind everything else.

But what the poem gets at, which intrigued me, is the difference between appearing thoughtful and actually thinking. Between living life and performing life. Between being the original and becoming a photocopy of a photocopy.

Each version of a copy loses something.

The speaker in the poem imagines the replica trying to access profound ideas, like "patterns among celestial bodies" and "free will." But his expression ends up "somewhere between agony and falling asleep." It's funny, but it also reminds us of the moments where we push ourselves to be insightful and creative yet actually end up mostly exhausted. When we strain for meaning with the same tense posture as Rodin's Thinker, we hope some answer will finally arrive.

But maybe the problem isn't that we aren't thinking hard enough. Maybe it's that we confuse the posture of thinking with the practice of thinking.

It seems that most of our lives are lived in the space between thought and non-thought. We drift into routines. We imitate the habits and expressions of the people who shaped us. We copy what seems to work. There's comfort in that, sometimes even relief.

But there are moments when mindless living is not only allowed but necessary. The brain needs rest, of course. The heart needs stillness. There are moments when we need to pull back from the constant pressure to define or redesign our lives. Not every moment needs to be original.

But when copying becomes the default, when we move through life without asking why, our days start to flatten. We become like the replica: shaped by someone else's mold, holding a pose that suggests depth but feels hollow.

The strange paradox is that thinking is what makes life meaningful, yet we often avoid it. Even I sometimes make myself busy and distract myself from my own thoughts. Genuine thought makes us confront who we are, what we want and our fears. It forces us to ask: am I living this life or repeating what I've seen? Am I choosing or copying?

If we stay in our minds too long, nothing ever changes. However, thinking too much may be problematic as well. Thinking alone makes us stuck in the bronze stillness of the statue, full of longing and potential, but unmoving.

So what does it mean to be an "original" in a world full of replicas?

Maybe originality isn't about being different from everyone else. Maybe it's just about being fully present in our own choices. Paying actual attention. Asking even the smallest questions. Slowing down enough to notice when we're acting out of habit instead of intention.

Maybe life in the making is exactly that, in the making. It's not perfected nor sculpted into permanence. It's a gradual, ongoing process of choosing how much we think, how much we rest and how much we allow ourselves to become who we are.

The poem ends with the replica holding his pose as if some part of the world around him is about to make sense, almost. I feel that "almost" too. The near-answer.

I think that the point isn't to force clarity but rather to stay awake to the possibility of it. To think when we can, to rest when we need and notice the difference between the two.

Kathryn Jung is a freshman from Silver Spring, MD, majoring in Biomedical Engineering. Her column reflects the process of creating and how the small things we make, notice and hold close bring meaning to everyday life.