A not-so-helpful guide to balancing it all (sort of)

I was sitting in my research lab meeting the other week when my principal investigator (PI) looked over at my phone and saw a little plastic baby cherub peeking over my camera. In his eyes, I saw a silent What the hell is that? as I stifled my laughter.

“It’s a Sonny Angel,” I explained, holding my phone with the hipper attached. “He watches me while I work and keeps me accountable for getting stuff done.”

My PI didn’t look convinced. But honestly? Neither am I.

Because the truth is, sometimes my Sonny Angel watches me doomscroll for hours on end instead of processing the PubMed articles that I’m supposed to be reading. Sometimes he watches me write two sentences for my soon-to-be-due paper for publication before sprinting to Brody to meet my friends for a quick “chai-and-chat.” Inevitably, the “chat” turns into a two-hour existential breakdown about whether any of us are actually passionate about what we’re studying or just really good at pretending. (We are passionate. We’re also severely sleep-deprived.)

Balancing extracurriculars, social life and academics at Hopkins is like juggling chainsaws while doing ballet on an elephant walking down St. Paul Street. Even though it feels like you’re doing it (and you technically are), there’s still that nagging sense that everything could fall apart at any second. And, somehow, we make it work.

Let’s be honest, I juggle way too many things. I cram articles for The News-Letter (this one is already late...), throw myself into organizing Maryland Science Olympiad competitions and spend way too much time in three-hour-long psychology lab meetings that I unironically love more than anything. On top of that, I refuse to live a life where I am not impulsively MARCing to Washington D.C., grabbing food at Kajiken or pretending I’m being productive at Brody when I’m really just socializing while having my laptop open for ambiance.

Some weeks, my lab work is stellar (my PI actually reads my draft) and my articles for The News-Letter are delicious but I haven’t texted my friends back in three days. Other times, I’m the most supportive, present, coffee-date-going friend you’ll ever meet while my inbox is a war zone of unread Canvas announcements. But here’s the thing: Sometimes, that’s okay.

The Sonny Angel is a metaphor — a little guy with wings and silly sheep ears — watching over a girl who’s trying to eat the entire universe of knowledge while also texting her friends about what time to meet at Kong Pocha. He’s a reminder that I bring all of myself to everything I do: the student, the friend, the writer, the lab rat, the chronic oversharer, the girl who will spiral about cognitive theories one minute and send memes about them the next.

And here, as I exist only in my own head, I can forget about my 18-hour Google Calendar and forego the expectation that I must keep my academics pristine and my social life quietly nonexistent (unless it’s for “productive networking,” though I’ve still yet to download LinkedIn). 

I do my best work because I am out there in the world. I write better articles for Voices because I ponder over silly things like Labubus and Hinge. I come up with my best ideas for the next few edits of the Macksey Journal while half asleep on the JHMI. And my favorite lab days are the ones where I’m openly ranting about the nuances of molecular and cellular biology literature reviews while showing off my Sonny Angel hipper to my PI.

So no, I’m not necessarily balanced but I am blended. And honestly, my blend of chaotic curiosity, scrumptious ramen and regression models feels a lot more me than my title as a “Hopkins student.”

To the incoming freshmen: Let your weird plastic guardian angels watch you scroll, cry, finish a draft, bomb a Calculus quiz or ace a Chemistry exam. Let your life leak into your work and your work inspire your life. You don’t have to show up knowing exactly how to balance it all because most of us don’t. You’re not here to become a perfectly optimized version of yourself; you’re here to become you.

There will be weeks when you feel unstoppable and weeks when you question if you belong here at all. Let both exist. Let your passions, friendships and overscheduled chaos bleed into one another. Let your Brody coffee chats complement your lab work, and your impulsive ramen nights remind you that joy is as essential as discipline.

You are allowed to be all of everything at once: a student, a friend, an overachiever, an overthinker. If there is one thing that Hopkins has taught me, it’s that being unapologetically yourself is more than enough.

Kaylee Nguyen is a sophomore majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Writing Seminars from Pensacola, Fla. She is a News & Features Editor for The News-Letter.