Romanticizing Hopkins: the truth behind the fantasy
What happens when the fantasy of college life collides with deadlines, midterms and pressure?
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What happens when the fantasy of college life collides with deadlines, midterms and pressure?
Everything you know about me: miss nothing. Use all your memory and understand me completely. I need one word reflecting my single most significant flaw.
I clicked on The Summer I Turned Pretty out of mild curiosity as I was starting my junior year of high school. I was having a hard time adjusting to school and the infamous junior year workload. I’d just spent six weeks in the Berkshire Mountains surrounded by nature, music and people who shared similar passions, and now I was dragging myself to early morning Biology and Latin classes. To get myself out of bed faster, I decided that I would watch a few minutes of a show every morning while I was eating breakfast. This would persuade me to a) get ready for the day faster, b) actually eat breakfast and c) be a little less upset about school. I picked the show because I didn’t want to watch anything I’d get too drawn into and want to binge, and it didn’t look like the kind of thing I’d actually want to watch. Four years later, I spent this summer at the edge of my seat, worrying that the main character would pick the wrong brother.
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.
Am I doing this right? This question trailed me throughout high school, as I revised a single email twelve times or stared blankly at my math test. As an overthinker, I let that mantra play on repeat.
I wait outside of Remsen 101 at 9:49 a.m. Once the clock reads 9:50 a.m., the students from the room flush out, some munching on their breakfast, sipping their coffee, talking to friends, some waving at those waiting in the hallway. I patiently wait until I can trickle inside, then I find my seat and set up my laptop and tablet.
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.
Scattered amongst the alleys of my hometown’s characteristic brick houses are its numerous hole-in-the-wall convenience stores. Finding them requires a good eye and a lot of patience. With their rusted storefronts and yellowing strip curtains, they’re often built as extensions of family homes, and even referring to them as “stores'' is rather generous. Instead, we affectionately call them “Xiao Mai Pu,” which translates to “small concession stand.” Every summer, during my annual visit, my cousin and I look for them, wandering through the neighborhood until the telltale smell of roller-grilled sausage and cigarette smoke fills the air.
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.