Hopkins is a diverse university where an incredible mix of cultures, academic interests and personalities coexist and thrive. Here is the section where you can publish your unique thoughts, ideas and perspectives on life at Hopkins and beyond.
We’re getting to the time of year when it's easy to be lost in the past. The same red bows are tied on lampposts in parks and outside dingy shopping centers. The same massive wreaths decorate even more massive malls. But with every passing year, the bows seem a little more at eye level and the wreaths are a little smaller.
All my life, there has been so much joy tangled up with Christmas. It only made sense that, when joy became difficult for me, Christmas was hit the hardest. It’s hard to forget the years I spent fighting to feel anything in December.
It wasn’t until third grade that I realized not every family was following the same traditions as mine was.
When I came to Baltimore my freshman year, I was surprised by how different the sky was — sunny days felt like a cage and cloudy days were only dreary. I felt as though I was caged up by an unseen force that prevented me from being able to relax and take in my environment.
Our apartment is more than a place with three beds, a sofa and a kitchen; it is the small home we have created for ourselves. Where our hearts beat easier, where the word “home” finally stretches enough to include me. The quiet miracle of finding people who make the simplest moments, pink sunsets, airplane rides and laughter, feel like something holy.
The person I am today was beautifully woven and built piece by piece by my mother; she built my wings to fly. The transition from having my mom right beside me to being 8,000 miles away from her is tough.
I have overcome my childhood fear of the dark and now rather appreciate it because only in darkness are you able to witness how brightly light can shine, whether it's the darkness outside or inside of you.
As expected, my first semester at Hopkins yielded a welcome amount of intellectually stimulating conversations. Yet one that occurred recently has stuck in my mind. It prompted a thorough self-examination of my beliefs, which is a place I didn’t think I would reach after only a few months on campus.
I may not be an artist, but I’ve become a translator of attention, a facilitator of curiosity, a witness to the moment a roomful of strangers begins to see together.
There’s a poem I keep thinking about: “Replica of the Thinker.” In it, a copy of Rodin’s famous statue sits at a museum, hunched over that familiar pose of “deep thought.” But he isn’t thinking. “His head is filled with iron and bronze,” the poet writes, “not neurons and God.” He looks like a thinker, but is he actually thinking?
Yesterday I took the MBTI test again for the first time in eight months: ISTJ-T. I didn’t think much of the four letters themselves — I’ve seen them enough times by now. What caught my attention was the last letter, a subtle change from A (assertive) to T (turbulent).
While I am not one to lecture people on the dangers of obsessing over Reality TV or developing a black-and-white form of thinking, I had never quite seen how social media could be wielded as a destructive tool in real time.
Apart from a single location pin on the map, Google knows little else of my home village. Tucked away in a cluster of villages surrounded by farmland, Jinchuanyuan remains a secret only the locals can tell. On a map, it’s unclear where the village starts or ends.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve worn my heart on my face. Joy, love and contentment glimmer in my eyes even when I attempt to hide my smile. The lump in my throat when I’m hurt shows up in the set of my lips and the hoarseness of my voice.
Sitting across from Tim Kahoe has been an absolute privilege and a joy. The sarcasm in his wisdom is something special. Tim’s a special type of go-getter. He wasn’t born with a vision to conquer the world. He’s just a man who recognized opportunities when they came and seized them with both hands.
But at the end of the day, the core question is the same one we were given as children for icebreaker worksheets. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My question in return, stated or not, was often “Can I pick more than one?”
There is a natural phenomenon where trees in dense areas avoid clashing with each other by tending their canopies at a respectful distance so that each woodland resident may have a fair bid at sunlight. From a utilitarian perspective, it seems strange.
It is 6 a.m. and my roommates and I have had a total of eight alarms go off from 6:00 to 6:40 a.m. for the Freshman Cohort’s Spring Semester Registration. (Can be read as: none of the alarms actually got anyone out of bed, but all of them successfully jump-started the kind of frenzy that feels like work even though it accomplishes absolutely nothing).
Nowhere on my list do I remember seeing writer. Perhaps I didn’t earn it, or maybe the quiz makers didn’t want to encourage that behavior — like those signs in parks, “please don’t feed the geese.”
Hey Alan, I hope sophomore year is treating you well. I know my sophomore year of high school was the eye of a hurricane. It felt a little bit like a calm, trial period of being a pseudo-adult before you get hit by junior year lock-in and college applications.
