As a healed doomscroller, I don’t remember when exactly I became addicted, but I do recall why.
Despite being the shortest month in the Gregorian Calendar, February — the month of love and Punxsutawney Phil — can feel endless. As someone from the Northeast, I’m used to the cold. However, the grey slush barricading the Baltimore roadways is not a very welcome change. The winter Sunday is a short, dark blip marketed as a day of rest in the vein of the long-standing religious tradition observed by people across the world: the Sabbath.
At first, it seemed like things were falling into place. But, despite how hard I tried to deny it, cracks were forming within me.
Growth is a complicated thing. We often think about it in a positive lens, like shedding our old skin to reveal something beautiful beneath it. Growth can be finding your fashion style, pushing yourself to start a new hobby or learning to love a part of yourself you’ve hated. But, it can also be letting go of a friend, giving up on something you no longer enjoy or picking up a bad habit.
I want to start by opening up about two weaknesses of mine that I am actively working on: one, being more confident in making decisions and two, speaking up. I have always been someone who views situations from many — perhaps too many — angles and perspectives.
Every human lives life aiming to be happy. We pursue jobs, careers, money, friendships and relationships looking for joy. We yearn for stability and consistency, a permanent state of calmness and joy. Research has kept up with this innate human search for dopamine: Psychology and neuroscience have started looking for the neurobiological basis for contentment.
It’s been a good eight years since I first left China for high school in the US. All these years of going back and forth with fifteen-plus hours of flights, living with host families, Covid quarantines in both countries and college feel like a whirlwind, but I indeed lived through every second of it.
Bharatanatyam is an ancient, classical dance form that originated over 2,000 years ago in Tamil Nadu, India. As a result of its distinct quality of movement and emphasis on storytelling, Bharatanatyam has grown in popularity over the years and is practiced around the world. In a typical, full-length Bharatanatyam presentation, pieces are performed in a traditional sequence, known as the Margam, which translates to “path” in Sanskrit. This structure is a skeleton that is followed for every performance.
Do you also have those words, phrases or idioms that exist in your native tongue that you could never translate to another language? When I moved to the U.S. last year after living in Turkey for 19 years, I had plenty: I still remember the first few weeks of being here and how naked I felt without my witty Turkish vocabulary.
I grew up in the world of films and Hindi tunes, colloquially termed “filmy music,” a world that extended beyond wedding Sangeets and obligatory family-friend parties. No nightly meal was complete without my parents’ favorite childhood songs quietly filling the room with their nostalgic rhythms and beautiful words, and no car ride was truly perfect without playing either the Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara or Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani soundtracks with the windows down. I can still recall three-year-old me falling asleep to my dad singing Aa Chal ke Tujhe, a song I still know every word to despite not having heard it in years.
I used to say that I was from nowhere, everywhere or from the South China Sea. All were true enough. I spent my childhood between places. When I was visiting my grandparents in the Philippines or in Malaysia, people would ask me if I was happy to be back home. I never quite knew what to say. I’d experienced both places for a maximum of several weeks out of a year.
My journey started in a bit of an unusual way. I was born prematurely, and, after talking to a doctor, my mom was told that exercise would help with my development. So, she took me to a nearby pool. Before long, I was really making a splash. I got pretty good and ended up spending about 10 years swimming competitively. But I was just a little girl, and, after a while, I got bored; swimming laps can only hold your attention for so long.
In Irish, “sláinte” is the colloquial term used for toasts and other cheers. My Irish grandmother often uses it at birthday and holiday celebrations to start a meal and celebrate our family’s togetherness. This summer I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Ireland for two and a half weeks. Going into the trip, I was relatively nervous because it was my first time traveling alone internationally, but I was mostly excited for the chance to experience a foreign yet familiar culture in such an immersive way. So I boarded an Aer Lingus flight with my suitcase and guitar, looking forward to the time I would spend across the pond.
“What does zhong 忠 mean to you?” I scrambled for words when asked. Every strand of eloquence I gained in high school Model United Nations disappeared when I searched desperately for it. I hated admitting it, but I simply didn’t know. I hated that I didn’t know how to pronounce nor understand words in a class where everyone else seemingly knew everything. Later I found out it meant “loyalty.”
I was halfway through Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist when the Black Sea appeared outside my plane window. The hills of Istanbul soon joined the view of the soft silhouette of the morning sun. Knowing the plane was approaching its destination, I decided to stow the tray table and put away the book. I smiled when I thought of how the young shepherd boy in The Alchemist was robbed of all the money he had on him right after he landed in Africa for his great adventure. It was probably a bad sign for me. But like the shepherd boy, I found it too late to turn back.
Today, I share with you some experiences from living in Brooklyn, China and Hong Kong: three places that have shown and given me a greater appreciation of my own life and the meaning of home.
This summer, I had the opportunity to study abroad for two weeks in Germany. As a pre-med who’s always wanted to study abroad but has always had obligations preventing her (I’m looking at you, Organic Chemistry and Physics), I jumped for joy when I realized I’d found an interesting program that fit into my schedule and took me to a country I’ve always wanted to visit.
Little did I know that what I had crashed into was only the tip of the iceberg. Languages are a double-edged sword, enabling communication but also miscommunication. Another day presented another realization of how I was being misunderstood — or perhaps semi-understood.
If you are a cuisinomane (a Quebecoise amateur food connoisseur), look no further than this recipe of apple turnovers cherished across generations, made with many hands and ingredients chosen with love and enjoyed with family, old and new.
During my time in Cape Town, I was able to navigate the country of South Africa for six weeks with seven other Hopkins students. As I reflect on my time, I think about the memories I gained at CampusKey, the residential site I stayed at. CampusKey is home to many South African students studying at the University of Cape Town. There, I was able to be vulnerable and compassionate and, most importantly, learn from those around me. No matter if they were raised in the townships or in mixed (Coloured) communities, they treated us as family and welcomed us with open arms.
