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As I wait for the exams to be carefully distributed row by row, I remain patiently seated; at least, that is how it appears on the outside. However, internally, my heart is pounding as if it wants to break through my chest, and my mind is at war, scrambling thoughts running frantically around.
The first time I was ever complimented for my spoken Chinese was about two months ago as I sat cross-legged on my maternal grandparents’ bamboo rug. I had been in bed most of the day trying to entertain myself with my new Taobao copy of Mario Kart and whatever morsels of YouTube my international plan could push through the Great Firewall. After a couple of hours of filling myself with various xiaochis and lounging around with my younger brother, there eventually came a knock at the door. Answering the door was really the only real responsibility I had that day.
“So, what do you do for fun?” How many times have we heard this question, asked or been asked this question, in the past few months? As the year started up, so too did the process of meeting new people — the unending chain of, “Hi, I’m [ ]”, “I’m from [ ]”, I’m majoring in [ ]”. But the question of hobbies signifies something a little bit deeper. In contrast to a name or home-state, hobbies supposedly represent what someone really cares about, and what they’ve truly chosen for themselves.
Letters Without Limits, founded by students at Johns Hopkins and Brown University, connects volunteers with palliative care and hospice patients to co-create “Legacy Letters.” These letters capture memories, values and lessons that patients wish to share, preserving stories that might otherwise be lost. By honoring these voices and preserving legacies, Letters Without Limits hopes to affirm the central role of humanism in medicine, reminding us that every patient is more than their illness and that their voices deserve to be heard. As you read these powerful Legacy Letters, we invite you to pause, reflect and recognize the beauty in every life.
I want a Labubu desperately. Ever since I saw those furry creatures adorning bright pink backpacks while scrolling through Vietnamese TikTok, I knew I had to have one.
This year’s Hispanic Heritage Month feels different. It is filled with not only the joy and orgullo of celebrating our culture, but also the weight of fear, this fear of being othered, of being silenced, of being chased.
In biology, a key method for determining the function of an element in a complex biological system is, perhaps counterintuitively, to inhibit it. See, when an element is working as normal, it is near impossible to separate it out amidst the jumbled and interconnected cocktail of life. Yet when once inhibited, its absence is unmistakable and only then does its longtime role clearly emerge.
As it turns out, good things are supposed to come in pairs. That’s what they tell you.
This summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to study abroad in Shanghai. And while my mind was preoccupied with the exciting prospect of being in a new city, learning and growing from this month of exploration, there was still a nagging hesitation in my heart.
A six-year-old girl slouches on her wooden chair. Standing barely 4 feet tall, that damn chair must’ve been bigger than herself. Her first-grade workbook is opened in front of her, with a pencil lying beside it. She sees her classmates quietly reading and writing while listening to the random classical music the teacher left playing from her Pandora playlist.
Unpopular opinion: I don’t like warm drinks — whether that’s tea, coffee or the like. They never feel soothing, and if I have a sore throat, I would prefer to down a glass of ice water, letting the coldness spread throughout me and numb the pain. When I came to Hopkins, that didn’t change about me. However, I value the comfort that arises from sipping a cup of tea; it provides a chance to relax, pause and reflect — time that I would rarely carve out for myself. For the longest time, I felt guilty for slowing down; I believed that I should constantly strive to make the best use of my time and to do something.
This summer, I built Ikea furniture. Well, not exactly. I had many pieces thrown at me at once. The instructions were written in a completely different language, and every time I put one shelf together, my work table collapsed under the weight of all my other half-built shelves. Most of my time was spent panicking, since I needed to have a giant complex-shaped shelf with interlocking pieces, that included functional drawers and sliding panels with many fragile components, fitted together in just a few days. I was expected to know how every single piece fit together perfectly. In case it wasn’t obvious, I completed Organic Chemistry I in just one month this summer.
I’m living The Simple Life.
It’s been about a week since I packed up my suitcase and flew across the Atlantic to start my study abroad journey in St Andrews, Scotland. In the few days that I’ve been here, I’ve met a good bunch of American students who are studying something related to politics or diplomacy, and lots of English students who wouldn’t dare touch politics with a ten-foot pole.
Over the summer, I read Tess Gunty’s novel The Rabbit Hutch, which was a wonderfully weird and captivating book that left me heartbroken at the abuse of a teenage girl at one moment and giggling at the concept of a man drenching his entire body in glow-stick juice the next. Like I said: captivating and weird — like all the best books ultimately are.
The first time I felt void of meaning was in my bedroom, hidden somewhere between the third and 86th pages of my sloppily written stanzas. For a second, my reflection in the deathly glow of my Mac split who I was and who I was trying to be. A blank document that had brimmed with possibility was now filled but shapeless; I was a writer with nothing to say.
College has started, and with it comes the never-ending cycle of assignments, quizzes and events that tug at me from every direction. On paper, this is what I wanted: a new chapter, a place to grow and a chance to shape my future. But when the noise of the day quiets down, when I finally return to my room at night, I am reminded of the people who aren’t here:
You always got somеthing you wanna prove
I know that this is going to be a messy goodbye and I don’t quite know how to put my thoughts into words. I’ve felt it in the group chats we’ve made with other graduating editors as we’ve transitioned from Slack messages into text conversations. It’s in the deep sense of pride I feel as I watch the new editors step up to their roles. It’s in the hint of anxiety as I try to stop myself from stepping back into the role I’ve just vacated — stopping myself from becoming that person who’s still clinging onto something that isn’t theirs anymore. It’s in the relief I felt when I allowed myself to turn off my Slack notifications for the first time in years.
As the semester progressed and the end of my tenure as Editor-in-Chief got closer, I expected to feel grief, dread and the desire to prolong my time at Hopkins. Instead, I’ve surprised myself by feeling the opposite and being at peace with the changes to come.