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.
When I was 10 years old, I was standing in the hallway at school talking with a friend. I was wearing shorts. Sometime during our conversation, my friend looked down at my legs, then back up at me, and said, “You haven’t started shaving your legs yet? Doesn’t your mom let you?” The answer to both questions was “no,” but I didn’t know what to say.
It’s a friends’ night, my mind is racing with all kinds of thoughts, my heartbeat is fast and I am trying to calm myself down after reading my current favorite book, A Century is Not Enough: My Roller-coaster Ride to Success. I am thinking about what completely transformed me from the most extroverted kid to a socially awkward girl who overthinks whenever meeting a new person.
My daily nightmare as a child stemmed from the classroom roster. I remember my first day of seventh grade; I sat in homeroom waiting for Mrs. Mitchell to say “Aashi.” I had made a bet with my friends earlier that day: She would be able to pronounce my name.
In September 2021, after two heavy rainstorms, Baltimore welcomed its fall season. Now, in the beginning of October, leaves have started turning yellow, winds are blowing harder and people are piling on a few more pieces of winter wear. These are just a few of the many observations I make as I stroll around campus to go to classes each day.
Content warning: The following article includes topics some readers may find triggering, including gender-based violence, sexual assault and death.
I first came across the term Myers-Briggs Type Indicator when I was still in middle school. I took the test for the first time and got ESTJ, also known as the executive type. I didn’t give it much thought and forgot about the result shortly after.
When I was 5 years old, I wished upon a shooting star. I was swimming in my backyard at night and saw a flash in the sky. Now that I’m older, I’m pretty sure it was just the blinking lights of a commercial airplane, but that possibility didn’t occur to me then. I had watched enough Disney Channel to be convinced my life was about to change.
Honestly, we met in the most curious of ways. Neither one of us could have imagined meeting such a close friend in the way that we did. Coming into Hopkins as newbies — and just barely making it through Orientation with all of the walking that we had to do — we were terrified of the workload that was soon awaiting us... thus, a night of Drag Bingo.
If you’re in college and you haven't learned something new about yourself, you're doing it wrong. These discoveries might not always be profound — maybe you find out you actually do like pesto (after frequently touting your dislike for it, despite never trying it.)
At my first Thanksgiving dinner, I didn’t have turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy or any type of pie. Instead, there was rice, kimchi, guk and various other Korean side dishes. In fact, at my first Thanksgiving dinner, I had no clue why I didn’t have school that week. I was just happy that I wouldn’t have to do more homework.
Sitting at my grandparents’ breakfast table as a little kid, I once had the brilliant idea of taking one of the die from a board game and stuffing it up my ear. When I tried to take the die out, I counterintuitively pushed it farther and farther into my ear canal. Worried but embarrassed, I hesitated to tell anyone about what I had done, until my parents finally noticed hours later.
There’s a sick dichotomy between Sept. 2, 2021 being my 19th birthday and Sept. 2, 2021 being the day my 20-year-old cousin, Thomas, was diagnosed with leukemia.
A friend of mine once told me that the health of one’s relationships with others is often the strongest indicator of one’s personal happiness at that moment. Regardless of the truth of this statement, it’s been very relevant to my life, especially recently.
Before starting grad school, people often told me this would be a difficult phase of my life in many ways. I didn’t know at that point what they were talking about. But when I moved to the U.S. six months back, the main thing that hit me was loneliness.
The night before the first day of classes, my roommate asked me if I would be able to find my way around campus. The next day came, and once I arrived, I immediately realized that I had absolutely no idea where I was going.
When my grandmother passed away last fall, I thought my world had ended. Honestly, I still do. She shared the fate of many unfortunate people during this pandemic. She died alone. She was in a nursing home and luckily, she had a window, so we could see her and wave for a bit, but it’s not the same.
Just like every other person, I have several substantial aspects to my personality that I make sure to mention on a daily basis. For example, every person on my floor is now very much aware that the state of Michigan obtained the Upper Peninsula after the Battle of Toledo.
Few things about sixth grade stand out as particularly memorable to me, but I do remember something my band director used to say to me when I meandered into his room complaining that I couldn’t wait for the day, the week, the year to end. He’d always say, “Don’t go wishing your life away.”
When I was in elementary school, I was always known as the girl with glasses. Due to an unfortunate mix of poor genetics and playing Wii and Nintendo DS during my childhood, I was forced to don wired spectacles by six years old.
One of my friends keeps joking that Hopkins has three classes of freshmen this year. And while I don’t want to make light of the serious loss we’ve all suffered in our education (and other areas of life), he’s not exactly wrong.
