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(11/14/25 12:21am)
IKEA. Meatballs. ABBA. That is usually what you think of when Sweden is mentioned. Honestly, I did too at first, with the bright yellow and blue signs, tiny pencils to write record aisle numbers and a food court of Swedish meatballs as a reward after getting lost in endless showrooms. But beyond the furniture stores and dancing queens, Sweden holds a different kind of charm for me. It is a country that has seemed to figure out happiness, balance and living life at a slower and more intentional pace.
(11/14/25 12:16am)
I want to theorize that no one actually likes flowers. People swoon over the lovable stage: a beautiful bouquet bloom — a proud, delicate beauty perched in front of them, pleasing their senses. To them, a bursting bouquet represents specialty, as if to say, yes, you deserve the beauty that surrounds you now. I am one of millions of girls who swoon over any pink rose bunch delivered to my door, carefully wrapped in a brown paper casing and a matching pink tinted ribbon. But truth be told, flowers require consistent attention to remain in their embellished state. Whether they’re on their bush or already cut, they are temporary by nature. Their beauty exists in an intermediate stage, suspended briefly between life and death. People love flowers when they’re blooming; few love them when they start to fade.
(11/13/25 11:08pm)
I firmly believe that all you really have to do to get to know someone is to look through their bag (with consent, of course). The contents of a college student’s backpack tend to be fairly uniform: a water bottle, lunch (maybe), pens, pencils, an iPad — but the weight of those objects is not immediately visible to an outside observer.
(11/13/25 10:52pm)
I wrote a poem once titled “The Modern Prometheus,” one that had to do with Victor Frankenstein and the curse of ambition. I don’t mean for it to be as dramatic as it sounds — even though I tend to play into the tortured genius angle too much sometimes. Victor and I share a bad habit: we can’t stop creating things that destroy our sleep schedules. While Victor made a monster, I make Word documents. His creation terrorized villages; mine terrorizes Google Docs with track changes and coffee stains.
(11/14/25 12:19am)
I have a horrible habit of really only ever writing about writing. Every Voices piece that I write somehow incorporates some part of my love for literature, and my characteristic diction bleeds into every aspect of my life.
(11/14/25 12:35am)
I have never experienced unadulterated joy like my first listen to Sam “King of Soul” Cooke’s 1963 epic, his album Live at the Harlem Square Club. Hidden beneath a steadily strumming upright bassline and lightly up-tempo drum swing, Cooke’s masterful crowd work combines with a raucous, enraptured audience to create one of the most magical 36-minute sets I’ve ever heard. It’s the kind of music that makes you want to roll your windows down on a quiet summer night, the type of songs that find a way to penetrate a bad mood with a specific kind of impossible-to-ignore, jumping-up-and-down passion.
(11/13/25 10:25pm)
The other day, in a desperate attempt to procrastinate on my dreadfully boring report on the microstructure and nanostructure of 304L grade stainless steel (sorry, Dr. Gracias), I navigated away from the dozens of review papers on my screen and into the promised land of BuzzFeed quizzes. After a few minutes of mindlessly scrolling, a few holy pixels found their way to my eyes: a quiz promising to tell me what kind of a potato I was. I froze. Was I Yukon Gold? Fingerling? Bintje? I simply had to find out.
(11/13/25 10:21pm)
Someone once asked me if I would rather live in a city, coastal town, mountain range, countryside or cabin in the woods. My answer to that question is this: all of them, at once, simultaneously… somehow.
(11/13/25 10:27pm)
“You’re a Taurus, right?”
(11/13/25 10:45pm)
Welcome! Sorry the elevator took so long — it tends to do that. You can take your shoes off by the door.
(11/14/25 12:25am)
In 2026, I’m going to stop believing I owe anyone anything beyond my own peace. I want to stop doing things out of obligation or guilt and start making space for what truly aligns with my energy. I’m learning that happiness isn’t something others can give you — it’s something you create for yourself. As Buddha said, “You are responsible for your own happiness. If you expect others to make you happy, you will always be disappointed.” Life will always have struggles, but I want to start viewing even challenges as reminders of the light that still exists. By letting go of expectations of others and focusing on my own growth, I’ll make room for joy that feels genuine and self-made.
(11/13/25 11:11pm)
Fall always feels like a pause I didn’t know I needed. The air shifts from the sticky ends of August to something sharper and quieter. It feels like a change that pulls me back to focus on myself and escape the chaos. Between long study nights, half-finished conversations and the constant rush to keep up, I forget what it feels like to just be.
(11/13/25 10:12pm)
A tornado spins around me. The world moves fast, chaotic, unpredictable, loud, and I’m somewhere at the bottom of it, trying to hold still.
(08/17/25 2:14pm)
Is Baltimore romantic? Perhaps not in the same way Paris is, but there are still soft, rosy moments that can make your heart skip a beat.
(08/17/25 3:35pm)
Freshman year at Hopkins: something I’d dreamed of saying all throughout high school. When it finally became real, I was thrilled: ready to dive into challenging classes, live in a dorm and experience college in the way I’d always imagined. But after a tough first week, things didn’t get easier. Week after week, I found myself struggling, more than I ever expected.
(08/17/25 2:52pm)
College is a transformative time in many people’s lives, and a major aspect of this experience is the people you meet and befriend. However, making friends can seem intimidating when you first step on campus. While there is no single “right” way to go about making friends, here are some things to keep in mind to help you as you begin this chapter of your life.
(08/17/25 3:28pm)
Even though I meet the basic requirement to give roommate advice by having lived with one (second floor, AMR II), I hesitate to provide a numbered list on how to be a good one. There are generalized tips to follow that are abundantly provided on the internet, and living with roommates is a dynamic setting that requires adjusting. Having one roommate requires different behavior than having two, albeit some common themes. So to reach the universal, I’ll try to offer my particular. Take whatever lesson or detail that feels appealing. And since I love the epistolary format:
(08/17/25 3:14pm)
For a while during my first semester of college, I could not separate Mondays from Tuesdays, Tuesdays from Wednesdays, Wednesdays from Thursdays and so on. My days were a blur of class, some form of lunch from Charles Street Market, studying, dinner and then more studying until midnight at minimum.
(08/17/25 2:30pm)
When I first moved to Baltimore, I began to notice the city’s street art but initially reduced it to vandalism — a trademark of crime I had become accustomed to in Chicago. I failed to recognize street art as anything beyond the illegal placement of spray paint. I had never grasped the weight it carried in the past nor the possibilities it could hold for the future. I never expected my perceived symbol of crime to become a window to understand and appreciate culture.
(08/17/25 2:56pm)
Out of the one or two things I learned about college, probably none of them prepared me for the unique obstacles that international students face. Just because I had to figure everything out alone doesn’t mean you have to. So, here are a couple of things I learned.
