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.
I want to spend my New Year’s in Boise, Idaho, watching a giant potato drop. At the start of every year, a 17-foot-long spud made of foam and fiberglass — over 17,000 pounds of Idaho pride — makes its way down from the sky in our city’s quirky twist on the Times Square Ball Drop.
On most nights, I’ll probably be returning from yet another 1 a.m. Brody study session, my headphones in, listening to whatever fits the vibe. Recently, I’ve been listening to Daniel Caesar, because he released a new album, Son of Spergy, on Oct. 24. Caesar’s been quiet for so long that just seeing his name on a new album feels unreal.
Over the summer of 2025, I decided to brave the hundred-degree heat of my hometown near Las Vegas (and its surrounding desert) to return to a hobby that, although dormant for years, has been vastly important over the course of my life: hiking.
It’s common knowledge that the job of Hopkins students is to complain about every exam and administrative decision ever made. I’ve found myself starting to participate in this culture as well. “Why was the orgo exam harder, even with the increased grade boundary? Why are my portions at Nolan’s so much smaller this year?”
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.
Most people dream of sunlit beaches or bustling cities for their next adventure, but I want to go where TikTok only shows the most terrifying whiplash: the infamous Drake Passage Cruise to Antarctica. The Drake Passage connects the Pacific, Atlantic and Southern Ocean.
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.
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.
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 don’t remember when exactly I wanted to learn how to make food, but I do remember why (other than the fact that I thought it was a useful skill and more economical). I liked eating tasty food, so trying to make it was the natural progression in my mind. My journey began with cooking.
Maybe from the 4,000 photos in my “Sky” photo album or the fact that I have always enjoyed researching deep-sky objects, you’d think that I am a sky enthusiast. However, I did not realize how much joy I find in the objects in the sky until this summer.
I’d been begging for a Build-a-Bear for years. Every time I visited the mall, I couldn’t help but notice how their storefronts were just so colorful, and the bears oh-so-plentiful. But BABs were expensive (pretty similar to today’s prices, but with less inflation). Imagine my surprise when one day, my mom took me to the BAB store.
My IB Arts teacher introduced me to the idea of the gratitude journal. She asked students in our class to identify three things we felt thankful for in our lives. Soon, students began competing to see who could be more inventive with their gratitude after realizing that even the most mundane objects could be worthy of a thank-you note.
Cooking is a friend that doesn’t hold your hand. It leaves you to figure things out on your own: mischievous, unforgiving and always watching. If you’re using a recipe, it can act like an unhelpful supervisor, setting expectations without ever checking in.
If you look past the chaotic mess of a college student’s desk — scattered with free stickers, pens, the half-empty Brita and a plant that’s probably a couple of seconds from death, you’re bound to see something that looks like “trash.” For my roommate and me, that trash takes the form of a round plastic box filled with cookies.
Fall always feels like a pause I didn’t know I needed. 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.
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.
I see her before she sees me. She lifts me from the desk, fingertips brushing the smudges from my lens, and for a moment, the world sharpens. We’ve done this before: she presses a button, and with a mechanical click, I capture her world.
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.
