The last year and a half seems like a blur. I couldn't keep up with life. My homesickness reached its peak and the pressures of graduate school crushed me - I was struggling to find a way to fit into this world.

My struggles with fitting into my community started in childhood. As an Indian girl, I grew up surrounded by outstandingly successful role models. These were people that have all achieved the unconventional, and I was taught that I should follow their path, so I knew a lot was expected from me by others. The culture I grew up in sometimes made me feel as though I could only satisfy those around me, especially my family, if I met their standards and fulfilled their expectations. Even when I became an adult, I carried the traces of this treatment. Hundreds of questions would hammer my brain constantly. Am I good enough for what I choose to do? Will I ever become that girl who is perfect at everything she does?

During all this, I lost the sense of who I am as a person. What do I like? What are my dreams? Who am I? As I reflected more on what I wanted, my inner people-pleasing attitude became even more upset with me. Who should I strive to make happy? Myself or those around me? Should I finish that article that has been pending for months or should I go out for brunch with my friends so that I don't feel left out? At points like these, I want to prioritize myself and my passions, but the guilt of not doing something that I know I could have done to make people around me happy is unbearable.

I felt as though there was too much noise around me as if everything outside got blurry. I started to question it all, which overwhelmed me as I felt like I lost control of my life while living for others. The trajectory of this foggy phase changed for the worse when I received a phone call from my brother on one of the nights when I was working in the lab. He was oddly silent, and I remember how unusual it felt because I was used to hearing him say "Hello!" with excitement whenever I picked up his call.

I asked him multiple times what was wrong, and (probably because he didn't know how to break the news to me) he blurted out that one of our family members had passed away due to a sudden cardiac arrest. Before I could even react, he burst into tears. I couldn't even comprehend what I heard. I thought he was talking about some acquaintance I didn't even know - or maybe I wanted to believe he was.

Though I was confused at the time, I remember that moment so vividly. I turned the vacuum pump off and asked him multiple times to confirm who passed away. My first instinct was to call my mom to ask how she was doing and if everyone else at home was okay, and reality didn't hit until I did it.

I remember the numbness, to the point where I couldn't shed a single tear until hours later. I came back home from the lab, closed the door and sat on the floor against a wall. I called my brother again and begged for details, hoping that hearing more about it would make it sink in. I felt my heartbeat speeding up, the ground under my feet falling apart and my chest eating itself up - everything around me was crumbling.

It was around 2 a.m. when I picked myself up, had a glass of water and sat down on my couch. I thought about the family member I had lost. I thought about all the times I was laughing with him, running to him the moment I came home, teasing him about how I can run faster than him even though he served in the military. I couldn't even remember the last conversation we had, because I never thought that would be the last time. Being away from home and not being able to see him or even talk to him one last time made everything worse. Going to school abroad seems all bright and shiny, until a certain breaking point and you end up questioning every single decision you made along the way - decisions that distanced you from home in the first place.

I felt beyond exhausted and completely out of control, conflicted with my dilemmas on how to keep moving forward. I tried to go on with my daily life as if I was fine - as if I didn't have several unanswered questions in my mind. I thought I could avoid thinking that way, yet I always found myself forced to face them. I took a break from the lab and decided to get my life together because I was missing the old me and how happy I was. I started by giving myself some time where I isolated myself from the crowds and thought about how I could restart everything. I pondered on how I could stop stressing about things that I can't control and learn to choose my happiness over others', so I could focus on what I truly want.

I always assumed I was strong enough to handle the challenges in life because I was forced to be like the role models I grew up seeing. I never shared my fears with other people and always put up a strong face, but that only led to loneliness. The biggest block of my sorrow came from not knowing how to express my feelings. I wasn't used to revealing my vulnerabilities as I grew up thinking it was wrong.

However, I decided to be patient with myself and get to know who I truly am. Now, I understand that at the end of the day, it's about finding your own people and not being afraid to embrace yourself around them. This way, I neither selfishly prioritize myself nor make extreme sacrifices for others.

I am exploring things that make me genuinely happy. They are as simple as cooking and eating a meal alone while watching Grey's Anatomy, calling a friend while walking back home from the lab, or taking a walk with my best friend and stopping by at Bird in Hand to get a matcha latte on a Sunday afternoon. All these help me remember I have a bright and happy future ahead of me and that I will manage to overcome it all. By getting to know myself, I no longer hide my weaknesses and embrace a fake persona - someone who doesn't need anyone else. Now I feel like myself again and know how strong I am, and it's like the first rain after a really warm summer.

I am aware that I have felt this way before, like I was picking myself up and everything was going to be fine, and I know I ended up crashing into the same corner of my apartment regretting my past decisions. However, now the comeback is much faster and I'm hopeful that I will be okay. The early 20s are tough: a lot of self-discovery goes into them and lots of difficult decisions await me. Yet here I am - trying to be myself and become better every day, picking myself up repeatedly by letting myself be with my people and having all of them there for me in case I need it.

Sudha Yadav is a graduate student from North India in the Department of Chemistry. Her column talks about the roller coaster ride of grad life, seeing beauty in chemistry and getting inspiration from nature.

I'm sitting here writing my last piece for my column in The News-Letter, and I am at a loss for words. I've thought about this moment for a while: what I'd write in my last piece, where in my life I'd be and what closing words I'd share.

While the last four years have shaped who I am and influenced who I have become, I've come to the realization that, at my core, I'm the same I've always been: discovering myself through my writing and growing from my experiences.

I look back at this photo above: it's of me sitting on Arpoador Rock in Rio de Janeiro, a place I've been coming to see the sunset with my family for ages. However, this past spring break, instead of coming to Rio with my family, I was here with friends from college. I was really excited for the trip, but also slightly worried to see what my friends would think of a city that I've loved my whole life. I was scared "Rio wouldn't be Rio" without the familiarity of staying at my grandparent's apartment and following my traditional routines with my family.

Nevertheless, I've come to learn that life is about mixing the familiar with the unknown. I had never taken any of my American friends to Rio before, and seeing the city through their eyes gave me new perspectives and amazing experiences. Further, showing them the sunset on Arpoador, a nostalgic experience near and dear to my heart, brought me so much comfort, connecting me to my childhood and all of my memories here with my family.

Reflecting on my memories, I think a part of me is scared of losing my identity with new, unknown experiences. Ever since my grandma passed away last year, coming to Rio has been marked with immense grief. I marvel at the wonders of this beautiful city yet at the same time I deeply yearn to see my grandma, my vovó, in the corners of her apartment, on her on her favorite reclining chair or at the dining room table. Rio now holds a complicated dichotomy of emotions for me that I'll never quite be able to describe, but these experiences speak to my struggles with transitioning and moving on from loss.

In the same way that I have been scared of losing my family experiences in Rio, I'm scared of losing my outgoing college self as soon as I graduate. Despite this fear, I've luckily come to learn that that's not how life works. Instead, I'm an amalgamation of all of my past experiences, of all the people I've ever loved and of everyone who has made an impact on me. For instance, my grandmas have both always taught me to unapologetically forge my own path, while my grandpa has always taught me to value the importance of the people I surround myself with. I get my emotional sensitivity from my mom, my sense of humor from my dad and a sense of belonging and trust from my sister. All these factors play a key role in who I am today.

Whether it's nostalgic dinners from my childhood surrounded by my uncles, aunts and cousins, or meaningful new adventures with my friends from college, like this trip to Rio, all these memories form an all-encompassing mosaic of who I am as a person. I carry these people and experiences with me everywhere I go, and I will continue to do so as I move into this next phase of my life.

From writing, I've learned that life is about absorbing everything around me and gaining perspective as I grow up, keeping elements of the familiar but at the same time making room for the unknown.

I started writing for The News-Letter in the fall of my freshman year (during the peak of the unknown) and it's surreal to be here now on my last piece as a graduating senior, looking back on all the time that's gone by.

I started this column to express my feelings about starting college during the COVID-19 pandemic. I wrote about the necessity of keeping an open mind to the unknown and paired it with the joys of apple picking, in my first piece, titled, "When life gives you apples, make apple pie." Since then, this column has been a constant outlet for me to communicate my feelings, learn from my experiences and shape my identity. I've written about homesickness during my first weeks on campus, nostalgia and saudades for my childhood, grief from the loss of my grandma and gratitude for my family and friends. I said "Goodbye to Hopkins for now" when I studied abroad and "Welcome back" when I returned, reflecting on my insights from the months in between. I titled my column "The Road Lesser Traveled" to represent my explorative journey through college, paired with reflections from my childhood and lessons from my upbringing.

I'm so proud of it all. Thank you so much to The News-Letter for giving me a place to express myself as a writer - the joy it brings me every time one of my pieces is published is indescribable. And here I am now, saying goodbye one last time. Or, as I prefer to say, closing a chapter, because the truth is, I'll never stop writing. This journey continues, with whatever the future has in store: a mixture of the familiar and the unknown. Here's to exploring more of "The Road Lesser Traveled."

Gabriel Lesser is a senior from Westchester, N.Y. studying Neuroscience and Romance Languages. His column explores his memories, along with his current reflections and the lessons that he has learned.

Pick 1: Chicago Bears (traded from Carolina Panthers): Caleb Williams QB, University of Southern California

There's not much that needs to be said about Williams other than the fact that he has been penciled in for this pick for nearly two years now. Williams is a generational player, and the Bears should have their QB for the future.

Pick 2: Washington Commanders: Drake Maye QB, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC)

For a player that was generally agreed upon as a top two pick at the end of the 2022 season, Maye has certainly fallen in public consensus. However, I still believe that the Commanders will stick with the young QB out of UNC and pick Maye. He has displayed all of the necessary traits to be a top QB in the NFL; it might just take a couple of developmental years to reach that full potential.

Pick 3: New England Patriots: Jayden Daniels QB, Louisiana State University

Franchises often don't find themselves picking at the top of the draft, especially in a year when there are so many QBs worthy of selection, so I think that the Patriots will go ahead and select Daniels with the hope that he can become their franchise QB. There is some skepticism that Daniels's game won't transfer to the next level given the fact that he didn't perform well until his fifth season, but the potential that he possesses will likely outweigh any concerns and put him in the top five of the draft.

Pick 4: Arizona Cardinals: Marvin Harrison Jr. WR, Ohio State University

The Cardinals should be thanking their lucky stars if the draft falls this way because, in any other draft, there's a chance that Harrison Jr. isn't available after pick two, let alone at pick four. Harrison Jr. is almost a perfect WR prospect, and, for a team severely lacking in receiver talent, he would be the perfect addition to the roster.

Pick 5: Minnesota Vikings (projected to trade picks 11, 23 and a 2025 second round pick to the Los Angeles Chargers for the fifth pick): J.J. McCarthy QB, University of Michigan

Every team is looking for the winning lottery ticket QB, and I think that the Vikings will trade up in hopes of landing their signal-caller of the future. It will likely cost them a lot to move up, but they have the perfect infrastructure with which to surround a rookie QB (as long as they can extend Justin Jefferson), especially one lacking a lot of experience like McCarthy. McCarthy certainly has a lot of potential, but it remains to be seen the extent to which a team will be able to tap into it.

Pick 6: New York Giants: Malik Nabers WR, Louisiana State University

In what is a bit of a trend for this draft class, Nabers would be the first WR off the board in any other year; he just happens to be draft-eligible in the same year that Harrison Jr. is. Possessing a rare blend of athleticism with a knack for getting open, Nabers arguably presents the highest upside of any receiver in the draft, and the Giants would finally have the star WR they have been desperately seeking since losing Odell Beckham Jr in 2019.

Pick 7: Tennessee Titans: Joe Alt OT, University of Notre Dame

After Williams to the Bears, Alt to the Titans seems like the next-most likely pick to happen on draft night. Alt has shown everything on tape that would suggest he projects as a top-tier tackle in the NFL, and the fact that he will likely slide to the Titans at seven is a blessing for a franchise that needs to beef up their offensive line.

Pick 8: Atlanta Falcons: Dallas Turner Edge, University of Alabama

Turner is another in a long line of athletic freaks out of the NCAA Southeastern Conference at the edge rusher position, following the likes of Travon Walker, Nolan Smith Jr., and Will Anderson Jr. After signing Kirk Cousins this offseason, the Falcons look to be solidified on the offensive side of the ball, and they should look to add some help on the defensive line. Turner is a handful for any lineman to deal with off of the edge due to his athletic profile and collection of pass-rushing moves, and he should slot in immediately and be a favourite to win Defensive Rookie of the Year.

Pick 9: Chicago Bears: Rome Odunze WR, University of Washington

As I discussed in my earlier article about my five favourite fits for the first round, Odunze makes perfect sense to the Bears. By pairing up their young QB with another young promising WR, the Bears will have set up a very bright future and the ability to contend - hopefully - from the get-go.

Pick 10: Cincinnati Bengals (projected to trade picks 18 and a 2025 second round to the pick to the New York Jets for the 10th pick ): Brock Bowers TE, University of Georgia

This is the position that makes the most sense for the Bengals to trade up to take Bowers, and giving up a 2nd round pick is a casualty that shouldn't make their front office think twice. Bowers fits perfectly for the Bengals, giving them a dominant weapon in the slot who, when paired with Joe Burrow, should give defensive coordinators nightmares.

Pick 11: Los Angeles Chargers (trade from the Vikings): Olu Fashanu OT, Pennsylvania State University (Penn State)

With the hiring of Jim Harbaugh, it would make perfect sense for the Chargers to trade back, acquire more assets to build up their depleted roster and address the most important position in a Harbaugh offense: the offensive line. Harbaugh will be looking to instill a culture that resembles what he had at Michigan that prioritizes domination in the trenches, and Fashanu, when paired with star OT Rashawn Slater, would be the perfect player to begin that with.

Pick 12: Denver Broncos: Bo Nix QB, University of Oregon

The Broncos have had an interesting offseason, electing to waive their QB Russell Wilson, and, more recently, trading for the disappointing Jets QB Zach Wilson. I ultimately don't believe that these moves will stop Sean Payton and his team from taking "their guy." Nix should fit seamlessly inside of the West Coast offense that Payton runs and take over the helm from day one as the most experienced QB in this class.

Pick 13: Las Vegas Raiders: Terrion Arnold CB, University of Alabama

The talent in this year's cornerback class is very close with no one cementing themselves as the surefire best; however, Arnold is a very talented player and is definitely in contention to be the best out of the bunch. After a dominant season at Alabama, it would make sense for a team lacking CB talent to take the red-shirt sophomore with the promise of developing him into their number one CB for the future.

Pick 14: New Orleans Saints: Taliese Fuaga OT, Oregon State University

The Saints are another team that are desperately in need of offensive line help (especially considering the disappointment that Trevor Penning has been), so Fuaga makes complete sense. At 6 feet 6 inches, Fuaga is an imposing figure, and he couples this with impressive play strength and quickness out of the gate at the line of scrimmage that should allow him to be a productive player for a long time.

Pick 15: Indianapolis Colts: Quinyon Mitchell CB, University of Toledo

Colts General Manager Chris Ballard has shown that there is a certain type of player that he targets throughout the draft process: the athletic freak. I believe that this trend will continue by selecting Mitchell. 6-foot-tall Mitchell is far and away the most athletic corner in the draft, having run a 4.33-second 40-yard dash, and, when evaluated in conjunction with the performance he put on at the Senior Bowl, it's easy to see why many teams would have him as their No. 1 CB in the draft.

Pick 16: Seattle Seahawks: Laiatu Latu Edge, University of California, Los Angeles

Latu is the most league-ready edge prospect in the draft and should help make a difference on the Seahawks defense immediately.

Pick 17: Jacksonville Jaguars: Nate Wiggins CB, Clemson University

For a team lacking CB depth, the speedy Wiggins would be a valuable addition and help secure one of the Jaguars's biggest weaknesses.

Pick 18: New York Jets (trade from the Bengals): Troy Fautanu OT, University of Washington

While the Jets signed veteran OT Tyron Smith this offseason, Fautanu gives the Jets a tackle for the future who also has the ability to be a backup anywhere on the offensive line this year.

Pick 19: Los Angeles Rams: Byron Murphy II DL, University of Texas at Austin

The Rams lost their Hall-of-Fame-worthy DT Aaron Donald to retirement, and they look to find his replacement with a player molded in a very similar archetype.

Pick 20: Pittsburgh Steelers: Amarius Mims OT, University of Georgia

After taking Broderick Jones in the first round last year, the Steelers should pair him up with his former teammate, Mims, to shore up the other side of the offensive line.

Pick 21: Miami Dolphins: Jer'Zhan Newton DL, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

One of the biggest moves during free agency was the departure of Christian Wilkins to the Raiders, and the Dolphins will be looking to find his replacement with the defensive lineman out of Illinois.

Pick 22: Philadelphia Eagles: Jackson Powers-Johnson IOL, Oregon

Powers-Johnson is the best IOL prospect in the draft, and, following the retirement of legend Jason Kelce, the Eagles should be able to find their long-term replacement at center.

Pick 23: Buffalo Bills (projected trade Vikings to Chargers for picks 28, 128): Brian Thomas Jr. WR, Louisiana State University

The Bills are in desperate need for any kind of WR, and Thomas Jr, while being raw as a prospect, should be the perfect addition alongside Josh Allen.

Pick 24: Dallas Cowboys: Jerome "JC" Latham OT, University of Alabama

After losing Tyron Smith, the Cowboys find themselves landing the talented OT out of Alabama to be his replacement.

Pick 25: Green Bay Packers: Cooper DeJean CB, University of Iowa

DeJean is one of the most versatile players in the draft, and he should be able to play immediately out of the gate on the boundary, in the nickel or even as a safety.

Pick 26: Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Jared Verse Edge, Florida State University (FSU)

Coming off a dominant season at FSU where he logged nine sacks, Verse would be a valuable addition to a team looking to make it back to the playoffs.

Pick 27: Arizona Cardinals (trade Houston Texans): Ga'Quincy "Kool-Aid" McKinstry CB, University of Alabama

Kool-Aid came in to the year as the favorite to be the first CB selected in the draft, and, while he has fallen a bit, I believe the Cardinals will be happy to land a talented player on a roster lacking a lot of direction.

Pick 28: Los Angeles Chargers (trade Bills): Graham Barton IOL, Duke University

Going along with the direction that the Charger's first pick was made, I think Harbaugh will continue to build up the offensive line with a player who has flexibility across all five positions on the line.

Pick 29: Detroit Lions: Zach Frazier IOL, West Virginia University

The Lions don't have that many holes on their roster, so adding a guy who can be a proficient backup on the offensive line could be the perfect move in case of any injury.

Pick 30: Baltimore Ravens: Edgerrin Cooper LB, Texas A&M University

After losing Patrick Queen this offseason, the Ravens could look to find his replacement in the athletic LB out of A&M.

Pick 31: San Francisco 49ers: Demeioun "Chop" Robinson Edge, Pennsylvania State University

Robinson had an up-and-down final season at Penn State; however, the athletic upside is most definitely there, and the Niners would love to have someone to match up across from Nick Bosa following the departures of Arik Armstead, Randy Gregory, and Chase Young.

Pick 32: Kansas City Chiefs: Andrew Ladd McConkey WR, University of Georgia

Against all odds, Patrick Mahomes somehow found a way to win the Super Bowl with practically no help from his receiver position. If the Chiefs are able to land a route-running maestro with a strong pair of hands in McConkey, it could be a scary time for the rest of the league.

In an interview with The News-Letter, Interim Director of LEED Charles O. Norman III, who succeeded Calvin L. Smith Jr. last month, defined the main goals of the office.

"Our mission is to help students grow as well-rounded individuals outside of the classroom," he said. "I think our goal is to make sure that everyone feels supported, and we try to do our best in that."

As RSO activities returned to pre-pandemic level after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted completely, there was an increased need to utilize services provided by LEED. Students assessed how effective these services have been this academic year.

A survey conducted by The News-Letter, which polled approximately 100 Hopkins students, revealed that 84% of respondents were part of RSOs. On average, these students rated their perception of and experience with LEED at a 5.2 and 5.3 respectively, on a scale of one (bad) to ten (good). However, when focusing on respondents that are part of clubs' executive boards, whose tasks most frequently involve interactions with LEED, this figure fell to a 4.4 rating.

Though many students said LEED was doing well with duties like event forms and approval of events on CampusGroups, nearly a quarter of respondents said the office does not complete any of its duties well. The biggest complaint, shared by almost half of all respondents, was that LEED lacks effective communication.

In an email to The News-Letter, senior Jonah Smith, the president of the Rocky Horror Picture Show Club, expressed discontent with LEED. He pointed out that one of the largest problems is the office's slow approval of events.

"Last semester I submitted events in August, and they were not processed until days before the event was supposed to happen in mid-September," he wrote.

He added that LEED expects student groups to complete their work by specific deadlines, but they do not meet their own deadlines and often complete things at the last minute. On several occasions, he submitted events prior to the deadline, only to have LEED deny them because, by the time the office got to the requests, they were past the deadlines.

Jonah Smith described that the uncertainty of whether LEED will approve the events is a major challenge of running Rocky Horror, especially as a performance club that needs to coordinate its schedule with the cast.

"It's even harder when I have to ask everyone to keep their schedules open in case we have rehearsal approved at the last minute," he wrote. "Whether I book an event 15 days or 45 days in advance, I usually don't have a response till the week of."

Norman explained that there are multiple offices involved in the event approval process. Scheduling services make sure the room is scheduled for the RSO, which is then passed on to category coordinators. Lastly, LEED consultants meet and overview risk management before approving.

Norman apologized for any events that were approved after significant delays or denied. He aims to streamline the event approval process with an improved system that will be implemented in August.

"There were some cases where things just fell through the cracks. There's no excuse for that," he said. "All we can say is we'll do better, and the approval process is changing."

In addition, Jonah Smith noted that the event scheduling forms are long and repetitive, requiring students to enter the same information multiple times. He criticized that the forms are overly time-consuming, as it usually takes him over 20 minutes to enter all required fields.

Norman stated that the form is divided into two sections: The first page can be seen by the public, while the second asks about potential risks. He emphasized that while similar questions may be asked across both sections, it is necessary to have them for risk management purposes.

"I know it's redundant sometimes, but it's very necessary for us to make sure that we're following University policies and that you all are safe," he said.

At the beginning of each school year, LEED requires two executive board members from all RSOs to attend a training session. However, they do not allow one person to represent more than one organization.

Jonah Smith explained that this policy caused problems, because the entire executive board of Rocky Horror held leadership positions in other RSOs and had to attend the training under those other organizations. As a result, they did not have anyone to represent the club.

"LEED provided no solution other than having regular members attend instead, which is ridiculous because those members never deal with anything related to the training. There is no reason me and our treasurer could not have done everything ourselves," he wrote.

Norman asserted that such policies will not repeat under his leadership; one student can represent multiple RSOs. He also added that training will not take place on Labor Day weekend again.

"It's not something that we'll be doing going forward, because that's something that I have control over right now as the director," he said.

Seniors Iris Lee and Daniela Rodriguez, leaders of the Marque Magazine, shared that the organization had issues with the funding system of LEED in an email to The News-Letter.

Marque Magazine requests approximately $3,500 of funding each year to print their publication. However, they found in January that their organization is in debt. LEED told them that this was because the club did not get any allocation in the previous semester.

"However, at the start of that previous semester, the balance on our portal read $3,500. So, thinking that we had $3,500 - money that we had applied for and, seemingly, received - we made a payment request and printed our magazine," they wrote. "It was only the next semester in January that the negative balance of $3,500 appeared. We were completely blindsided."

Lee and Rodriguez found in a meeting with LEED later in the week that this had been a recurring issue for the past two semesters. However, they were not informed about the debt in the first semester.

"In the meeting, the LEED staff were condescending and passive-aggressive, implying that we had been financially reckless, despite never once communicating about this year-long issue until it had snowballed into a larger debt," they wrote.

The leaders expressed confusion about the situation, as the organization should have gained access to the money if LEED had approved their requests in previous semesters. Now, the missed printer costs have accumulated to $7,000.

"[LEED is] asking us to recoup funds that they would have given us anyway, and that they in fact did use to pay the printer," they wrote. "We now are in the situation of soliciting funds from college students, which feels exploitative."

In the interview, Norman admitted that he was unaware of such cases because he only became the director of LEED in March. Nevertheless, he stressed that he will work with the finance team if any similar issues arise in the future.

Additionally, he stated that LEED will not allow RSOs to go over the allocated funds. The office will proactively communicate with clubs, so these cases of "debts" should not happen.

Jonah Smith faced problems with the financial procedures of LEED as well. He claimed that it is extremely difficult to make purchases from vendors other than Amazon due to LEED policies, and orders are not processed by the deadline.

"As a club we wish we could support local businesses when buying props and costumes, but that isn't possible with LEED's restrictions," he wrote. "When we do place orders through Amazon, it is never done in the time frame LEED says it will be."

Norman noted that the delays are sometimes caused during the delivery instead of the order. After the finance team makes purchases, packages go through the University's central receiving space and then get delivered to the LEED office once a week.

However, he acknowledged that there are occasions when the delays are caused by untimely orders. Norman shared that he plans to coach the staff over the summer to ensure that their work is done in a timely manner.

"For stuff that's not being ordered on time, that's something that we have to be proactive about," he said. "It is important that we hold up our end of the bargain, to make sure that the students are getting the experience that they deserve."

Norman also commented that he hopes to expedite the ordering process so that students do not have to make purchases with their own money before getting reimbursed.

"I don't think any student should have to pay for anything out of pocket - that's not ideal, whether it's a student who is low-income or not," he said. "I'm working with the finance team to make sure they're handling the purchase requests as they come in."

Going forward, Norman hopes that students feel supported by the LEED office. He emphasized that students are welcome to share their input with the office at any given time.

"One thing that I always tell people is, 'If you have a problem, my door is open and we are here to listen to your concerns,' because ultimately, for me, this job is so much better when students come and co-create their experience with me," he said.

Calvin L. Smith Jr. declined to comment.

As editors of The News-Letter, watching breaking news notifications about our peer institutions roll in makes us wonder: What is the role of a university newspaper? Are we even making an impact? What can we do better?

The News-Letter has a rich and storied history of reporting on issues important to the Hopkins community. From documenting the Vietnam war protests in the 1970s to tracking the development of the Johns Hopkins Police Department, we have served as an archival source for the news and events on campus since 1896. Professors and students alike turn to our paper to research the history of Hopkins and Baltimore.

In the pages of The News-Letter, pieces of history that have shaped the world as we know it are immortalized. When editors of decades past return to the Gatehouse during Alumni Weekend, they flip through old papers to find their coverage of 9/11, the Iraq War and student sit-ins. This is the history of Hopkins, written by and for the students.

We are proud of our work, both past and present. The News-Letter has broken important stories, informing the Hopkins community of critical matters that would otherwise go overlooked.

Just last week, our News & Features team published an investigation into the University's real estate holdings, from the well-known and controversial East Baltimore Development Initiative to the lesser known acquisitions around Charles Village. Earlier this academic year, we were the platform that the Hopkins faculty turned to in order to publicize the open letter demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. We also reported on the increasing salary inequity between tenure-track faculty and non-tenure track faculty at the School of Public Health.

Our Science & Technology section highlights the research of Hopkins students and their efforts to advance scientific knowledge. Our Arts & Entertainment section showcases creative events on the Homewood Campus and across the wider Baltimore area.

Our Opinions section gives history a personal form and provides insight into how Hopkins students have felt at varying points in history. Decades from now, students can read The News-Letter to better understand how the campus felt about the TRU-UE protests or the renovation of Milton S. Eisenhower library.

While we remain committed to our founding mission, The News-Letter has faced recent challenges. We have a small news team, and while we do our best to cover the pressing news on campus, we cannot report on everything that we'd like.

We pride ourselves on being an organization that is entirely financially independent from the University, but our limited budget makes it difficult for us to provide the level of journalism that we aspire to. We may be the world's last users of InDesign 2008 - who else, if not a financially-strapped college paper, would use a version that was released before the first iPad graced the earth?

Though creating The News-Letter is a labor of love, it is definitely still labor, and we don't get paid for it. Our staff spends hours each week attending events, interviewing sources and writing articles. The lack of pay is a hurdle for students who need to put those hours toward Federal Work-Study or must support themselves through college.

Our paper is our pride and joy, but we recognize that The News-Letter still has a lot of room for growth.

Firstly, we should do more to better connect the Hopkins campus with the Baltimore community. Each year, we love to talk about the "Hopkins bubble" and encourage students to pop it. Yet, our coverage often falls victim to the same logic as our weekend plans - it's just easier to stay near campus. Our responsibility as a college paper is to inform Hopkins affiliates of what's going on around them. Seeing as Hopkins doesn't exist in a vacuum, our coverage shouldn't either.

In the future, we hope our staff ventures to other Baltimore neighborhoods more frequently to highlight the events, stories and people found away from N. Charles Street.

Likewise, we should be covering more on other Hopkins campuses. Peabody is only a JHMI ride away, and the same can be said for the School of Public Health or the School of Medicine. Homewood may be the paper's home, but we should be doing our part to represent our peers at other Hopkins locations.

Even on the Homewood Campus, we could be highlighting more diverse perspectives. Though any student is able to contribute to the paper, we should improve our outreach to ensure better representation of the myriad backgrounds, experiences and opinions found at Hopkins.

We acknowledge that much remains to be done, and some of our goals may be unrealistic. At the end of the day, The News-Letter is run by students. That person who you saw collecting interviews on the Beach or who wrote that op-ed you despise might be your classmate or neighbor. We try, and we are always open to feedback on how we can be better.

Journalism is an underappreciated profession. Without it, many of the important stories of our time would go untold and unseen. We don't claim to be the pinnacle of modern journalism, but we hope to foster a culture of open dialogue, and above all, we try to serve as a record of the Hopkins that exists today. It certainly won't be the same Hopkins that exists tomorrow.

We hope we've done alright this year, but we know the job isn't over. To our new editors, who have officially been passed the batons this week, good luck!

The News-Letter: How did you become interested in humanitarian aid?

Ilil Benjamin: I read an article about Palestinians who were living in the West Bank. American psychologists had come to do mindfulness therapy with them, supposedly to help them cope with the day-to-day difficulties of living under a military occupation. These were well-meaning psychologists who wanted to use their toolkit to provide assistance, but many Palestinians saw that as a depoliticizing act. They were worried that it would distract from larger political and social questions.

I interviewed some of the psychologists later on, and [people in the West Bank] said that they don't want to be pacified, and they don't want to live more comfortably with this reality. They wanted to remain angry and to resist it. They worried that, with mindfulness therapy, the focus is turned inward when really the world's eyes should be on the external forces.

I thought that was very interesting. How is it possible for psychological aid and humanitarian aid to distract from a larger question? That was my initial question. I later discovered that it was much more complicated. In some cases, it's useful to have different kinds of humanitarian assistance, but you also need a human rights complement. You also need activism in aid that is more macro, that strives to hold larger parties accountable.

N-L: What was your experience working in a humanitarian organization?

IB: I was struggling to get aid workers to answer my requests to interview them. [My great aunt] knew a doctor who was volunteering with a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization called Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and she told me to contact him. I did, and he said, "We are having a medical mission this afternoon in the West Bank. Do you want to come join us?" And it really all spiraled from there.

I was mainly in their open humanitarian clinic [in Jaffa] for refugees from Sudan and Eritrea coming to Israel. Even though many of them were hoping to become officially-recognized refugees in Israel, very few of them have been. The majority of them [live in Israel] on short-term stay visas with very few work rights or health care rights, without access to the Israeli state single-payer health-care system. The NGOs fill the gap by providing free medical care for this population.

Suppose you have the flu or you have a minor burn. You go to this humanitarian clinic, they give you flu medication and they could treat it on-site. But what happens if you have cancer, and you're a refugee, and you don't have access to a formal health-care system? Sometimes, they were able to get surgery in Israeli state hospitals. There is a patient rights act that says if you have an immediate, life-threatening emergency, you can't be turned away from a state hospital even if you don't have access to the state system. But, even if you have stage four cancer, that doesn't necessarily mean you qualify under this law because you might still have a few weeks to live.

There was one asylum seeker who had Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was still working in construction despite the illness [because] he needed to make ends meet. I remember we connected him to our volunteer oncologist, who would collect chemotherapy pills from patients who were deceased and from other oncologists who would send their pills that were no longer needed. She wasn't able to use her professional facilities [to treat him] because this person was not technically permitted to use them. So, she would mix [the medicine] in her kitchen and drive to the scaffolding of the construction site where he worked. She would inject him with the chemo, and then he would pull up his pants again, go back up and continue his work.

But the thing that was always difficult for me is, What happens if this oncologist goes on vacation or burns out and decides not to volunteer at the organization anymore? If you don't have these charismatic, extremely dedicated individuals, then you can't count on there being treatment for patients when it's not grounded in rights. It's not an empowered contract between the doctor and the patient.

N-L: What were some of the dilemmas you faced as an aid worker?

IB: There was one middle-aged asylum seeker from Eritrea who was working as a cleaning lady. She had a complex orthopedic condition that was quite debilitating. She begged for us to help her fundraise for surgery. My shift supervisor bent down to this woman crying in this crowded and cramped clinic and said, "I'm so sorry, but orthopedic conditions are the hardest for us to find volunteers for." She was trying her best to comfort the woman.

But, when the woman left, the supervisor privately told me that, while it sounds really horrible, who is going to care about this refugee's ankles? This woman was not dying. There's something about the humanitarian encounter that requires a very arbitrary and unjust hierarchy of deservedness. People who seem to be suffering more are often deemed more deserving and pluck the heartstrings more, and it becomes very difficult because that's not all of suffering. There are many forms of suffering and, unfortunately, this clinic was really only able to deal well with certain kinds of suffering, ones that were more acute. It was really heart-wrenching, and I would come home sometimes crying myself to sleep.

I remember thinking, Why don't we just expand the clinic? There are so many patients that need help. We're clearly not providing them with a quality medical solution. When I would go to my supervisors, they would say, "That's the state's responsibility. We cannot become the permanent solution for this population. It needs to be grounded in rights. We're lobbying for the government to change its laws, but, in the meantime, we do what we can."

In a way, ironically, there was also this perverse incentive to not get too good at saving lives. If we recruit too many volunteers and if we become their main solution, then we basically become a pseudo-Ministry of Health for them. Then, the state will have no incentive to take responsibility, give them refugee status and give them access to state health care. The dilemma: If you expand, you exonerate the state of its responsibilities because the state will use you as a pawn to continue its exclusions. But if you don't, if the suffering exists, the state won't be able to look away.

Maybe there'll be a legislative change in 10 or 15 years. But does this matter to people who need surgery now, who are in pain? Is it really fair to tell them you need to suffer so that the future people who come will have it better? That's why so many of us were really torn about this tension between aid and advocacy, and I'll never forget how bitter it made a lot of us. We understood there was no win. And it became a really horrible choice between two really complicated and imperfect decisions.

N-L: What did you learn from being a volunteer on the field instead of an outsider researcher?

IB: Unfortunately, the public image of humanitarian aid is very different from how it feels to actually be inside and faced with impossible decisions. This is not a dilemma that's unique to this region; you find it everywhere. You're always going to have the same kind of dilemma because, if these [organizations] were not there, then the suffering, public protest and outcry would be so great that the state would have no choice but to act. But the fact that they are receiving so much assistance from well-meaning humanitarian organizations, churches, advocacy groups and nonprofits is, in some ways, allowing state neglect to persist. And that's a troubling problem that I don't think we'll ever really find a solution to. You might think that the humanitarian clinic or volunteer is full of really grateful patients and very fulfilled aid workers, but, in practice, it was a zone of deep, moral ambiguity.

Patients were often upset with us for not providing better quality of care, and we were often quite sad that we couldn't or that there was kind of a worry that, if we did, we would be there indefinitely. Humanitarian aid is often a way to keep people temporarily alive but does not improve their condition permanently. That's why human rights advocacy as a complement is so important. I was really intrigued by how aid workers were trying to play both games at once, trying to do advocacy while they were also providing aid. Listening to them, talking to them and understanding what dilemmas they faced, I felt that even I would be able to maybe cast a little bit of new light on the dilemma that aid workers have lived with for centuries.

It's a situation that sets you up for permanent frustration and dissatisfaction. None of the people I worked with then are still there. They all left within a year or two, all burnt out. [I asked] one of the clinic managers [why she] left. She said, "When I first started as clinic manager, I would have a heart attack over every kid's snotty nose, but, within a year, I didn't even cry when they were dying of cancer. So, then, I knew I shouldn't do this anymore."

N-L: What do your classes look like?

IB: We usually read ethnographic frontline reports and analyses of ethics and politics and then discuss them in class. I tried to combine the theoretical texts with experiences and examples from my research. One of the more controversial themes in [Refugees, Human Rights, and Sovereignty] is what is the difference between an economic migrant and a refugee. In theory, according to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, a refugee is someone who is fleeing outside their home country and has a well-founded fear of persecution on grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or social group membership. The perception is that forced migrants have no choice [whereas] economic migrants have the choice and that it's not as urgent. But, in actuality, the line between the two is much blurrier and muddier than it seems. We spend all semester exploring that kind of idea from different angles.

For example, a lot of Sudanese and Eritrean people who are seeking refugee status would go to the Israeli border, where they would be intercepted by the Israeli military. Israeli Defense Forces soldiers would interview them sometimes and ask them, "Why are you here?" Many more than I ever thought would say they came to work. I completely understand why they would say that; they don't want to be seen as a burden on the Israeli economy. But, actually, that's the worst thing that they can say because they're going to be applying for asylum. The asylum regime assumes that there is a clear distinction between economic migration and forced migration. If you are applying for refugee status but you are perceived to have economic motives, it would make it exceedingly hard for a judge to believe that you're fleeing persecution. Some of my colleagues [in NGOs] would rush to the border whenever there were rumors of an incoming group of migrants, trying to get to these asylum seekers before the soldiers and tell them not to say they came to work.

Of course, the asylum seekers came for safety, but they also came for work. Everybody needs to live; everybody needs to work. But the refugee system is so exclusionary and only admits those who can demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution. It doesn't really provide any protection or assistance to economic migrants.

[In my classes], we also do arts and crafts, decorate cookies, and do t-shirt competitions. Before I came to Hopkins, I taught for a year at a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin. There, the relationship between professors and students was much closer, and we did a lot of these kinds of activities. I thought it would be nice to bring some of that atmosphere to Hopkins because, from what I understand, a lot of my students take a lot of large lecture classes where they feel just like a number and they don't really get to do fun things in class.

N-L: How does your class relate to your research?

IB: One of the most surprising findings that I have seen over and over, both in the classroom setting and in my research, is that the official structures in place to help people dealing with war or with forced displacement don't do justice to their real stories, lives and priorities. We also see that with refugee policies. Asylum seekers who want to be considered for refugee status have to tell a very clear narrative that identifies their perpetrators, talks about their victimization and explains why they have a well-founded fear.

I once volunteered with a legal aid clinic. It was a nonprofit helping asylum seekers by doing a first read of their narratives and helping them to reframe their narratives to be more persuasive to asylum officers or judges. We had one asylum seeker from Nigeria, and, in his first narrative, I remember he titled it, "Dear Brethren of my Savior Jesus Christ." The lawyer immediately said, "Take that out. That's not going to help you. Just because they might be Jewish people who are the brethren of your savior doesn't mean that they necessarily would empathize with you as a Christian. Better for you to just say, Dear Sir - or Madam - and then tell the story of a persecution." But this asylum seeker was a very faithful, devout man. He really wanted to talk about Jesus in his asylum narrative. He kept coming back week after week with new versions that still mentioned some kind of divine being saving and protecting him, and the lawyers would tell him repeatedly, "We understand that this is important to you, but you need to take it out or else it will bias the judge against you. You need to be factual and specific."

As one of my friends who was a refugee brilliantly put it, our lives are just papers on someone's desk, and we have to fit their rubrics and their requirements if we are going to win protection. It shouldn't be like that. We should be able to tell an honest story.

I've never seen a solution to this, and I don't think there is one. How could you provide assistance or adjudicate refugee claims fairly in ways that also allow people to retain their honest selves, stories and dignity? The trade-off is that to win protection, you have to appear in a certain way. That may be the most complex and troubling dilemma that we talk about in my classes, too.

I haven't graduated yet and don't have enough money for a car, nor do I have the courage like McCandless did. I did, however, have a badminton tournament in Boston and needed to drive the team up to the venue. 300 miles on I-95 along industrial New Jersey doesn't quite compare to a tour of the American Wild West but, at this time of my life, it's close enough.

So with the Enterprise vans rented by the school, we set out on our eight-hour trip to rural Massachusetts (I admit, the tournament venue was nowhere close to Boston). However, we didn't make it very far before stopping at the Safeway near Morgan State University, because, after all, road trips are not complete without a backseat full of snacks.

We had a weekend's worth of badminton matches ahead of us, so it wasn't like we could stuff ourselves with junk food - most of our shopping cart was filled with bananas, granola bars, bottled water and Gatorade. But of course, to satiate at least some of our cravings, a bag of assorted fun-size Snickers and purple Doritos made it into the mix.

I had a backup driver, but I genuinely enjoyed the sensation of flying down the Interstate (at less than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, of course) and shooting the bull with my buddy in the passenger seat, so I drove the majority of the eight hours there. It was not without breaks, of course. Being from California, I was originally a bit shocked on my way up to Boston last year when I saw the frequent rest stops every 20 minutes or so. On the West Coast, we were used to stopping at a local town with McDonald's and gas stations scattered along the highway, not government-funded rest stations.

They were a pleasant surprise, actually. We stopped at a few on the way up, and each of them were incredibly clean and modern, equipped with an assortment of fast food and coffee chains. The food was terrible - it was obvious that they were just warming frozen chicken tenders in the toaster oven. But at least it was convenient. I didn't have time to stop for other amenities like the massage chairs, but they are probably not the most sanitary anyway.

I didn't need the coffee to keep myself awake, despite Vishnu threatening to give me a boring lecture on the physics midterm I had coming up. Instead, we talked about literally everything else, from one person's journey to his PhD to the other person's experience living in Indonesia. As it turns out, eight hours is about enough time to learn almost everything about four people's lives.

To kill time even further, we played all the classic road trip games: punching each other at the spotting of a yellow car or a Volkswagen Bug, 21 Questions and Contact. My dad always stopped me from playing these games since they would "distract me from driving," but I've only found that they help the car bond. This sounds corny, but the best part of road trips is always the conversations that you have in the car, the stupid games you play to pass time and everything that you learn from each other. The destination always matters less in the end.

People always look at me weird when I tell them that I don't have a particular desire to travel internationally. Road trips are just my preferred way to spend my vacations. For my high school senior trip, my best friends and I drove from San Francisco to Oregon, then Idaho and back. And to move into college, my family and I drove from California to Baltimore, passing cities and parts of America that we would never otherwise see.

Sure, seeing the Eiffel Tower and Machu Picchu and the Sydney Opera House would be cool, but the friendships and the relationships that I get to foster on long drives are so much more valuable to me. My friends and I could've flown down to Puerto Rico and gotten drunk like the rest of our high school class, but I cherish the memory of chatting around a campfire and playing a game of chess at sunrise over Crater Lake so much more.

Of course, to each their own. I don't judge people on how they spend their vacations, and I hope you don't judge mine. But I hope that one day, when you and some friends find a weekend with nothing to do, you might think about renting a car and driving away as far as you can. You might be surprised by what you find along the way.

Additionally, there has been a strong wave of anti-feminist movements across the country, boosted by the election of the conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol. Yoon claimed that structural gender discrimination no longer exists and promised to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. However, according to a 2021 survey, 1 in 3 Korean women have experienced some sort of gender-based violence, and their perpetrators were most likely current or former romantic partners, with most of these cases going unpunished or unresolved.

In 2023, a woman was killed in a Seoul subway bathroom, prompting new waves of organizing. The perpetrator, who stalked his victim by calling her over 300 times and threatened to hurt her if she didn't date him, was deemed too "low-risk" by police to be detained.

Enter the 4B movement, a movement about decentering men that should be implemented in every country in the world.

Bihon, bichulsan, biyeonae, bisekseu: no marriage, childbirth, romance or sex with men. It is so simple and nonviolent that one may wonder why this wasn't a popular movement earlier. Yet, it has sent men into a tizzy, with President Yoon blaming feminist movements for South Korea's low birth rate - the lowest in the world - rather than looking into the root reason why: men. Women no longer need to deal with abuse or the fear of it when breaking up with men if they never get into a relationship in the first place. They no longer feel the need to have children or have sex due to societal and male pressure once they decenter men in their lives.

The 4B movement isn't organized or centralized - it has no leader, no official website and no physical building to go to. Nobody knows how many women are followers of the 4B movement, because it's so silent. It is the ultimate protest against men and the patriarchal system, showing men that it is men who need women to live, not the other way around. Women who take it even further may cut off friendships with women who only talk about makeup, clothes and boys, distance themselves from their male friends and buzz their hair off, but that's the beauty of the movement: One can go as far as she deems necessary in completely decentering men and focusing on her personal growth.

My sociology class recently discussed this topic, and one person raised the question, "Why don't we just try to bridge the gap between men and women? Why should we continue to fuel the gender war?" My answer was simple: There is no gender war. Women are generally not pursuing the war-like tactics the way men are. Men are psychologically and physically torturing women who dare to oppose them.

Women's dislike (and sometimes hatred) of men stems from fear, as men are much more likely to commit intimate partner violence. Men's dislike (and a lot of the time, hatred) of women stems from insecurity and rejection, the belief that they are better than women and the need to control them. They retaliate with murder, rape and violence - with sexual assault being used as a weapon of war. That's the real gender war.

As for bridging the gap between men and women, women have been trying to "bridge the gap" - a gap created by men. Through educating men, doing emotional labor to get them to understand and giving them resources to educate themselves, women have been trying tirelessly to get men to understand their side. Men don't want to, so South Korean women have decided it's easier to live their lives alone rather than trying to get men to listen to them.

The 4B movement is a movement that should be implemented anywhere where it's needed and possible to execute. One of the most effective women's movements was the 1975 Icelandic women's strike, where women just walked out of their homes and workplaces onto the street, leaving their husbands to tend to everything. Obviously, men and companies caved under all the work women do, oftentimes invisibly. This one day has had a lasting effect on how gender equity has been implemented and maintained in Iceland, leading the country to be ranked the most gender-equal country in the world 14 years in a row.

This method is unrealistic nowadays considering population numbers, but its spirit is there in the 4B movement. Both movements are about prioritizing oneself, breaking away from gender roles and being wholly independent of every man - and everyone, for that matter - in one's life.

The 4B movement is far from perfect. The obligatory "not all men" statement rings true here. Further, some feminists have equated stereotypically feminine items, such as makeup and clothing, as anti-feminist, which may shame women who are genuinely interested in these things. But the beauty of the movement is that it is not mandatory, and a woman can take it as liberally or conservatively as she might want.

This overall message should be implemented around the world: Women should not need men to function, and they should decenter men from their lives. They should lead happy, fulfilling lives without the need for a man - if one happens to be in it, then great. In the wise words of Cher, "A man is not a necessity, but a luxury. Like dessert." Focusing on their own lives before being with a man, and then growing together as a couple, is the secret to an equal relationship for women.

Until the majority of South Korean men and government officials agree with that, however, the 4B movement will continue spreading throughout South Korea and the world, bringing men an opportunity for self-reflection - and women peace.

Isabella Madruga is a senior majoring in Writing Seminars and Sociology from San Francisco, Calif.

These were the thoughts running through my head as I sat, dazzled, in the audience of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)'s 30th Annual Benefit Fashion Show. This year's theme was "Upturn" and was meant to call "upon the artist, and therefore the audience, to question their relationship with society - and ultimately, with themselves." This is not easy, nor is it comfortable.

While certainly provocative, the designs I saw did not exclude comfort or ease. In fact, the show began on a particularly wholesome note. The opening collection was called "Hyphae-nate," and was created by designers Austin Chia and Anaitza Brown as a dedication to the creativity of five older residents at the Bolton North Apartments. Each of the seniors proposed and modeled their own outfits, and they were allowed to design whatever they wanted, limited by neither time nor material.

In an interview with The News-Letter, Chia explained, "We tried our best to cater to the interest of each senior. So each senior has different designs to celebrate their own stories, their own personalities."

Brown expanded on this in an interview with The News-Letter.

"We sat down with each of our models and brainstormed designs right there on the spot. We were sketching and coming up with, you know, what kinds of materials, what kind of colors, what are you interested in, things like that," she said.

And so the seniors shone. Each one took the stage in their custom outfits: a stately white lace gown, a colorful happy-go-lucky top and hairdo, a mushroom hat, a sleek gray tuxedo or an aluminum floral dress made entirely of cans. You could tell Chia and Brown honored each detail requested by the models down to the bulbous spires of the mushroom hat. In these get-ups which they conceived and the designers brought to life, the seniors danced down the runway with signature movement and expression.

After this, the music changed, and a new collection took the spotlight. It was called "Cat's Cradle" and was created by Quinn Spence. In their introductory video, Spence explained that the collection was meant to draw on soft inherited things (family quilts, multigenerational weavings) to explore new directions for healing, and it delivered on that promise. Using the infinitely light and foamy material of mohair and other knit or woven fabrics, Spence draped the models in cozy beauty.

In each of these productions, the designers made sure to devote attention not just to the clothing on the models but to the entire stage. Each collection came with its own temporary environment, carefully curated by the designers to perfectly accompany their work. In the case of "Cat's Cradle," the centerpiece was a blanketed table complete with a handmade tea set. As they returned from the runway, the models gathered around this table and took turns pouring out imaginary tea. Everything was made to look gentle and familiar, like a children's book.

Another carefully heeded aspect of the production was the movement of the models. In contrast to "Cat's Cradle," the collection "remember how it felt" made a special effort to make all of its models move stiffly and unnaturally. This made sense, as the collection itself was meant to evoke the feeling of constriction and confinement. In an interview with The News-Letter, designer Sasha Kramer shared that this was her first project in fashion, and that she had spent most of her time working in the sculptural field.

These sculptural, structural sensibilities definitely came through in Kramer's collection. Each model was dressed in jagged enclosures of striped organza fabric, wrapped up in ways that were obviously uncomfortable. Some were carrying purses made of cement and metal, which Kramer said was meant to juxtapose the sheerness of the fabric. As they moved, they resisted any fluid movement, staggering across the stage like sculptures brought reluctantly to life.

Part of what made this collection so cohesive and beautiful was the amount of labor that went into it.

When asked about her greatest challenge in creating the collection, Kramer said, "I think, honestly, just the amount of repetitive motions that I had to go through ... like sewing each one of the individual sleeves was definitely a lot more work than I was expecting."

Not only was this work labor-intensive, but it was also time-consuming. Kramer shared that she had been in the studio for eight to 12 hours almost every day for the past three months.

In an interview with The News-Letter, another designer, Solli Kim stated, "I spent more than four months [on this project]. It depends on the day, but usually I work for 10 hours per day for three days a week."

For all of the students, this project was additional to their regular coursework, so they had to find extra time to work on it - yet they were able to stay meticulous, ensuring that their final product was meaningful. Kim's own project, titled "stain of you," was a smudge-embellished streetwear collection made of umbrella plastic and other fabrics.

A thank you to Mathilde Mujanayi for sharing her photos with The News-Letter, as well as student director Abel Reyes for connecting me to the designers.

I studied abroad in Paris last spring and it still comes up frequently. Naturally, when people learn that I studied abroad, they ask me about it. Not wanting to kill the mood, I usually find myself lying, or, at least, oversimplifying the situation. Typically I'll admit that I didn't love Paris, but that I appreciated the chance to travel and my great trip to Poland. I'll say I made friends from other colleges that I'm still in touch with, and I'm lucky to have them in my life. I won't say that I regretted going, much less explain why.

In Paris, I was consumed by compounding feelings of grief and isolation following the death of my 21-year-old cousin, Thomas. I've written previously about dealing with homesickness in Paris and about making lists last summer, once I returned to the U.S., to get more in touch with my emotions, grief included. But I've avoided writing about just how terrible my time in Paris was.

I've always been close with my cousins on my dad's side of the family. Including me and my sister, my grandparents had eight grandchildren. Five of us grew up on Long Island. The other three, Thomas included, lived in Connecticut, and then moved to California in 2008. Thomas and his brother, Aidan, were a year older than me and a year younger than me, respectively, so we were naturally close as young children. Even after their move to California, we remained close for a number of years, mailing a notebook of letters back and forth detailing our daily lives. We also still saw one another fairly often. I visited California with my parents and sister in 2009, we all went on an extended family vacation in 2010 and I went to California again in 2011 with my grandparents.

Thomas, Aidan and their younger sister, Ella, also came to visit us almost every summer, their parents shipping them off to Long Island for periods as long as two or three weeks. These summers are somewhat blended in my memory. Visits to Adventureland, an amusement park on Long Island. Fishing trips. Barbecues at my grandparents' house in Asharoken, where my cousins and I would walk along the beach, play Capture the Flag and watch the fireworks on July 4. It would be an especially exciting visit if my California cousins would be in town for July 4.

As we got older, the gaps lengthened between these visits, which had grown infrequent by the time I graduated high school. When I learned they would be visiting in June of 2021, I was cautiously optimistic but had no expectations of things being as they were.

We weren't children anymore, and we had new responsibilities. Thomas missed out on ice skating to type away on his laptop. I skipped a silly outing to White Castle because I was working my summer job. But the visit was nevertheless incredible; being older had also changed the way we interacted with one another, opening up new conversation topics.

It was the summer after my freshman year of college, and I surprised myself by talking to Thomas about the heartbreak I had experienced that spring. He told me the story of how he met his girlfriend. I don't remember the details, but I remember it was funny. I wanted to meet her. Still do.

Before they went back to California, a photo was taken of the eight of us. It's a terrible photo. It's the last one we ever took. It became my dad's iPhone wallpaper.

In September of 2021, Thomas was diagnosed with leukemia. After months of treatment, in May of 2022, he entered remission. He and his girlfriend had plans to visit Long Island in September of 2022 - but canceled their trip when the cancer returned that summer. He entered hospice in March of 2023. I was in Paris.

Due to the six-hour time difference, my mom told me she would only call me if he died.

She called when I was in my French politics class. I knew it was over, but I didn't answer. I think I texted her to ask if it was urgent, knowing it was, and I think she said no. I called her back in the hallway after class and received the news that he was dead, really dead, on a glitchy FaceTime audio call. I went and ate a sandwich in Luxembourg Gardens. Then I went back to my apartment.

I had already been crying for days at this point, dealing with anticipatory grief, but suddenly it was real. All of my family members were either in California, having flown out when Thomas entered hospice, or on Long Island, together in their grief at my grandparents' house. I was alone. I wanted to go home.

I cried. I scrolled through TikTok. I stopped crying. I realized I probably did have to go to my second class of the day since it looked like I would be missing future classes to attend a funeral in California. I started looking at flights. Then I stopped, put my shoes on and went to class.

I cried on the métro. I cried walking from Raspail métro station to school. A stranger asked me, in French, if I was okay. I said yes, but that my cousin had died, that he was in California. He wished me courage. I went to class.

My friends from Hopkins came to visit a few days later, for their spring break. I was a wreck. I tried to be fun. I wasn't very successful.

The funeral was scheduled for the first of April - when my parents had been planning on visiting me in Paris.

I wanted to go to the funeral. Everyone said I didn't have to go, that I was so many miles away and it was okay. I didn't go.

My parents came to see me as planned. It rained the entire time. The trip was horrible. I wished we were in California.

The rest of the semester followed a similar trajectory. I traveled, only to find myself feeling despondent in some of the most beautiful places in the world. When I arrived home, everyone told me how impressed they were that I had traveled so much, and how I had really taken advantage of every opportunity.

I was too ashamed to admit that I had only traveled to avoid sitting with my grief.

Madelyn Kye is a senior from Long Island, N.Y. majoring in Writing Seminars and International Studies. Her column discusses people and things that have entered and exited her life, often through the lens of growing up. She is the Voices Editor for The News-Letter.

Friday

Hopkins Spring Fair 2024, April 25-27

The annual Hopkins Spring Fair is back! It's the perfect way to wrap up the semester with friends. Enjoy a vibrant mix of outdoor activities, art vendors, food trucks and a concert. Reward your hard work with the fantastic gift from the Hopkins and Baltimore communities.

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, 8 p.m.

For classical music lovers, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) has another treat for your ears this weekend at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The BSO joins forces with pianist Yunchan Lim to perform Sergei Rachmaninoff's sublime Piano Concerto No. 2, along with Charles Ives's Symphony No. 2 and Carlos Simon's AMEN! Let the BSO's music set the perfect tone for your weekend.

Saturday

Asia in a Bite Food Fest at Rash Field, Inner Harbor, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

Starting April 27, a new foodie event, "Asia in a Bite Food Fest," kicks off at the Rash Field in Inner Harbor and will continue on every last Saturday of the month from April through September. Sample a wide range of Asian cuisines, from Sichuan street food to Filipino chicken inasal, along with addicting boba tea.

Maryland Day 2024 at College Park, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Want to explore a campus beyond Homewood? The University of Maryland is hosting its annual Maryland Day this weekend! Head to College Park to experience a variety of activities, from art showcases to a petting zoo, with events hosted by various university departments. Don't miss this chance to see what the college has in store for the Maryland community.

Sunday

Orioles Game, 1:35 p.m.

This Sunday, catch the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards as they face off against the Oakland Athletics. Find a spot in the bleachers, soak up the sun and join in the excitement as you cheer on the O's with fellow fans.

1. Pick 9 Chicago Bears: Rome Odunze WR, University of Washington

The Bears have found themselves in an incredible position going into this year's draft - holding two top-ten picks (including the first overall pick) in what is projected to be one of the most loaded drafts in years. After trading Justin Fields to the Pittsburgh Steelers, their first pick should already be made with Caleb Williams, the quarterback that is seen to be the best prospect since Trevor Lawrence back in 2021. Williams is a bona-fide generational prospect, so the Bears will hope that they have accomplished the most difficult part of any rebuild - finding a franchise quarterback to build around.

In an effort to help their young QB develop, they have made a number of moves to load their roster with talent - most notably, trading for Los Angeles Chargers' wide receiver, Keenan Allen, as well as signing running back D'Andre Swift. While they have done a successful job at strengthening their offense for the present, I believe that they could give Williams a partner in crime for the next 10 years by drafting Odunze.

Odunze has just come off of a Biletnikoff-level season at Washington where he tallied up 1,640 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns while boasting an even crazier 70.8% contested catch rate. To put in perspective how absurd this statistic is, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers (the other two Biletnikoff finalists this season) both had contested catch rates in the mid-40s. Odunze projects as a surefire No. 1 wide receiver who can do it all - outside of being an elite speed threat - and, thus, would be the ideal player to learn under someone like Allen. Odunze has the potential to be a perennial Pro-Bowl-caliber player, in a similar vein to DeAndre Hopkins, and I believe that he would be a perfect fit to develop alongside their rookie QB for the future.

2. Pick 12 Denver Broncos: Byron Murphy II DL/DT, University of Texas

The Broncos find themselves in an interesting position going into this year's draft, not having any kind of stability in the most important position in any sport: the quarterback.

In all likelihood, one of the top three or four quarterbacks won't be available by the time their pick comes around, and, if head coach Sean Payton isn't set on Bo Nix or Michael Penix Jr., it may be better to try and build up the roster before investing in a QB. Murphy may be the best defensive player in the draft, and, for a team that gave up 70 points in a single game last season, that could be exactly what is needed.

Murphy, while lacking in prototypical size for the defensive tackle position, makes up for it with a combination of insane athleticism and a number of rushing win-moves to counter any double teams or larger offensive linemen thrown his way. Not only is he an incredibly effective pass-rusher - racking up five sacks during his junior season for Texas - but he also is an incredibly solid run defender, something the Broncos are severely lacking.

Currently, the Broncos are missing a game-changer up the middle, relying pretty much solely on the efforts of an aging D.J. Jones. Murphy would be able to slot in and make an impact immediately with his ability to be an every-down player, versatile in any kind of set - whether rushing the passer or defending the run.

As we've seen with the Kansas City Chiefs and Chris Jones, having a dominant force at the DT position can be the driving force of a deep playoff run, so I believe that it may be in the best interest of the Broncos to go with the big man from Texas.

3. Pick 18 Cincinnati Bengals: Brock Bowers TE, University of Georgia

With the possible departure of Tee Higgins looking more and more likely, I believe that getting Bowers would be as close to a guaranteed home run pick for the Bengals as any other player in this draft.

There's not much else to say about Bowers other than the fact that he is incredible; he is so incredible that he has been touted by some to be the greatest tight end in college football. Ever.

To put this in perspective, Bowers would have been a first round pick after his true freshman year, having put up 938 all scrimmage yards and 14 touchdowns. This kind of production is rare for a senior to put up, so a true freshman doing it is quite frankly ridiculous.

Bowers possesses a rare combination of exceptional route running, body control, hands and blocking ability that will allow him to transition seamlessly into being one of the top tight ends in the league from the get-go. The only question around Bowers will be how he projects physically into the league, coming off an injury in his junior year, as well as being in general slightly smaller than the typical TE.

In order for the Bengals to land their guy, they might have to trade up earlier in the first round; however, I believe that this would be completely worth it as it would allow the Bengals to cement their TE position for the foreseeable future.

4. Pick 21 Philadelphia Eagles: Quinyon Mitchell CB, University of Toledo

After beginning the season with a 10-1 record, the Eagles slumped in their last six games, culminating in a disappointing first round exit to the Baker Mayfield-led Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Notwithstanding the struggles of QB Jalen Hurts, one of the main issues that the Eagles faced was a lack of depth in their cornerback room, and that issue has still not been rectified during this offseason. With this in mind, I think it's a no-brainer for the Eagles to take a CB early on in the draft, and I have them going with my personal favourite prospect, Mitchell.

Coming from the NCAA Mid-American Conference, one of the biggest question marks surrounding Mitchell will be his transition from a significantly lower level of competition to the NFL. While this can't be disregarded completely, I think that Mitchell demonstrated through his performance at the Senior Bowl that he is more than capable of keeping up with higher levels of competition. To add to this, Mitchell also tested the best out of any of the cornerbacks at the NFL Combine, running a 4.33 40-yard with a 38-inch vertical and posting an absurd 20 reps on the bench press.

While there will be some concerns for Mitchell until he steps foot on the field, I believe that the Eagles shouldn't think twice if he falls to them. While he may not be a top tier CB out of the gate, he has all of the athletic tools necessary to ascend to that level. When paired with the ability to learn under some greats of the CB position in Darius Slay Jr. and James Bradberry, Mitchell has the potential to be one of the best corners in all of football.

5. Pick 30 Buffalo Bills: Brian Thomas Jr. WR, Louisiana State University (LSU)

Much like the Bengals with Bowers, I'm not sure if Thomas Jr. falls into the lap of the Bills at pick 30, so it may necessitate a trade-up into the early-20s. However, if Buffalo was able to land the LSU wideout, I believe this would facilitate a deadly pairing for a number of years with their quarterback Josh Allen.

Following the departures of both Stefon Diggs, and Gabe Davis, Buffalo is entering the draft with a clear hole at wide receiver, and they should be looking for their long-term replacement in what is a loaded receiver class.

Coming off of a stellar junior season at LSU, Thomas Jr. projects as a player who can make an immediate impact from day one. The most obvious standout in his scouting report is the immense athletic profile that he possesses. Standing at 6 feet 3 inches and weighing 209 pounds, Thomas Jr. already has elite measurables that put him in the 87th percentile of all wide receivers ever. However, when paired with his freaky speed and vertical ability, having run a 4.33 40-yard dash and jumped 38.5 inches at the NFL Combine (placing him in the 99th percentile), it's clear to see why teams have become enamored with his potential to become an X receiver at the next level.

The key for Thomas Jr.'s development in the NFL will be finding himself in an offense that caters to his strengths: most notably, his ability to win deep down the field. He has a few deficiencies when it comes to fighting through traffic and contact to get to the catch point, however, with Josh Allen at quarterback, he has the ideal signal caller to help compensate for this during his transition to the NFL. Being able to let his athleticism show on the field will be of paramount importance at the beginning of Thomas Jr.'s career, and I believe that, when paired with Allen's immense arm talent, he will be given all the necessary keys to flourish.

Curated by Hopkins and Morgan State University students, the exhibit features many primary sources, including never-before-seen material that provides insights into the Black Panther Party's Baltimore Chapter and political organizing during the period.

In an email to The News-Letter, Professor Victoria Harms, one of two Hopkins faculty members involved with the project along with Professor Stuart Schrader, shared the success of the opening panel.

"Over 100 people attended the roundtable conversation, and a record-setting total of almost 200 saw the exhibition on the first night! We were deeply impressed by the tremendous interest in our research findings and the history of the Black Panthers in the city," she wrote.

As a collaborative effort, the exhibition utilizes a variety of material from special collections at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the University of Baltimore, Hopkins and Goucher College, as well as documents by the FBI, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Freedom Archives and personal holdings.

Harms stated that gathering the artifacts for the exhibit was difficult. No organized collection could tell the entire story, and the history has been misconstrued in many sources.

"We started out with supposedly simple tasks such as discussing what secondary literature we were reading, compiling a list of relevant addresses to literally locate the Panthers in the city and identifying the members of the local chapter, associates and supporters, alleged and confirmed informants, police officers and representatives of the justice system who were involved in the repression, and so on," she wrote.

The exhibit aims to provide context of the racial segregation and bigotry that motivated grassroots political organizing as well as showcase how the police attempted to undermine and repress the Black Panther Party.

"Our team came together last year in response to the late Eddie Conway's passing. In many ways, the exhibition honours the late Mister Conway, a former Panther and political prisoner of almost 44 years, a lifelong organizer and political educator who used to speak to my 1968 seminar for three consecutive years," she wrote.

The main exhibition is divided into four distinct sections curated by Hopkins and Morgan State students. Each section explores a different aspect of the history of the Black Panther Party, from studies on the children of party members to individuals such as Rev. Chester L. Wickwire, former chaplain of Hopkins and founder of the Tutorial Project.

Emma Petite, a recent Hopkins graduate who majored in Political Science and International Studies with a concentration in Racial Politics, was one of four curators of the exhibit. Her section focused on carceral uprisings in Baltimore and Maryland over the period.

In an interview with The News-Letter, Petite described how she got involved with the project. Petite started by working with Schader, researching incarcerated people's experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, and through the courses "Introduction to Police and Prisons" and "Black Against Empire," became interested in the Panthers.

"My goal is to become a civil rights attorney, and a lot of my coursework at Hopkins has revolved around learning more about how the history of the United States has systemically disadvantaged certain groups while purposefully elevating others," she said. "This exhibit and research project really has been a continuation of my coursework and earlier research experiences at Hopkins."

Petite hopes that, from the exhibit, people will better appreciate the importance of incorporating opinions and perspectives from non-traditional media. She believes that the primary value of their work is in broadcasting voices and narratives that are often neglected and offering attendees a different perspective on the subject.

In an interview with The News-Letter, Jingxing Zou, a junior majoring in International Studies and Applied Mathematics and Statistics, described his motivation for visiting the exhibit.

"As an international student, having visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, I have become more interested in learning more about the civil rights movement, and the Black Panthers are certainly an important part of the story," he said.

Among the materials showcased to tell the story of the Baltimore Black Panther Party are News-Letter articles written at the time. Featured News-Letter pieces served as historical sources - a record of events on the Homewood campus reflected contemporary issues in the Baltimore community.

"While some tended to regard the Black Panthers as politically violent, I think the exhibit was successful in highlighting the Black Panther's societal contributions in creating many of the social programs, such as the Free Breakfast for Children programs," Zou said.

Harms encouraged visitors to the exhibit to consider the context of the Black Panthers and the resistance they faced, and to learn from it.

"We want to invite visitors to reflect critically on the history of the Panthers and the narrative that has marginalized and maligned them for so long," she wrote. "Many of the issues they sought to redress are still relevant today: poverty, especially childhood poverty, culturally relevant education, the carceral state, unaccountable law enforcement, community organizing among and together with the underrepresented and marginalized."

For most of human civilization, philosophers have posited the existence of free will. This sentiment has driven many groups to incorporate free will as a central tenet of their ideology. For example, Christians' belief in free will has helped them reconcile God's all-powerful, all-good existence with the presence of worldly evil. In fact, the idea of free will permeates nearly every institution. We reprimand those who commit crimes because we assume that they have a choice to act in that crime.We award honors for academic or athletic excellence assuming that the winner had some agency that allowed them to achieve their talent.

There are a number of reasons why humans tend to gravitate away from arguments that disprove free will. Stripping our agency is scary but also dangerous. People could justify committing horrors if they accepted the absence of free will. Ultimately, we all feel like we have free will. Our decisions and actions seem uniquely ours. Surely, we would be conscious of the fact that we were being puppeteered.

The number of scientists and philosophers that are disproving free will has grown throughout the decades. In 1929, even Albert Einstein was quoted saying, "I do not believe in free will." However, their arguments against free will fall short of logical reasoning.

The arguments against free will rely on the existence of determinism, a term that means event A always leads to event B. Einstein, as did many physicists of his time, believed in determinism.

The brain's processes are complex sets of chemical reactions, and, if the universe was deterministic, these processes could all be modeled and perfectly predicted. You couldn't have free will in a deterministic universe because everything that has happened or will happen to you has been predetermined. However, I do not believe in determinism and neither does modern physics.

Werner Heisenberg's theory of quantum mechanics discredits determinism. In this new - and now accepted - theory of the universe, the universe is probabilistic as opposed to deterministic. The outcome of a specific event has multiple possibilities, and they are weighted by probabilities. There is a 50% chance that I find the electron at point A, a 30% chance I find it at point B and a 20% chance I find it at point C. The rules of quantum mechanics provide evidence that the universe is probabilistic, so the classical argument about determinism fails.

In classical physics, I can use Newton's equations to predict exactly how something is going to move: I know with exact precision where something will be at any given time. At the quantum level for subatomic particles, this argument fails. Instead of Newton's equations, we have wave functions mapping the probability that something is in any given spot at any given time. In summary, there is an inherent uncertainty about where and when particles are: They are purely random and dictated by probability. Because of probabilistic truths in the universe, I believe free will to exist.

Neuroscientists argue that information about your decisions is present in brain activity several seconds before you are even conscious of this decision. This would surely disprove free will. This is known as "the readiness potential," and it has been demonstrated experimentally many times, showing a delay of as much as several seconds between the neural processing of a decision and the agent's consciousness of this decision.

However, an article in Scientific American recently showed that these readiness potential experiments, while valid, do not signal the end of free will. Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet's landmark study, which first demonstrated the readiness potential effect, focused on the trivial task of pressing a button or participants' flexing their wrists. I argue that these actions are irreflective of our consciousness because they are meaningless. A decision such as breaking up with a long-term romantic partner is not quite as subconscious and cannot be explained by the "readiness potential."

Uri Maoz's 2019 study investigated if readiness potential can be applied to more significant decisions. In this case, participants were asked to decide which of two nonprofits should receive a $1,000 donation. The control group was also asked to choose but was told that each nonprofit would receive $500 regardless. The control group exhibited readiness potential while the meaningful decision group did not.

While readiness potential is a valid and experimentally robust scientific theory, it does not disprove free will. Smaller, trivial tasks such as starting your car may still actually be void of free will. However, the larger decisions that we make daily, such as taking care of those we love, are not predictable by an equation: We have free will when it matters. Your life is yours and uniquely yours because, when it matters, you are in control.

There is a scientific basis to free will, even though many point to its disagreement with the beliefs of many scientists. Physics and neuroscience show that we do undoubtedly have free will. No need to worry.

Neil Mahto is a freshman from Albuquerque, N.M., studying Chemistry and English. He is the Opinions Editor for The News-Letter.

Earth Fest was held in April to commemorate Earth Month by highlighting the importance of sustainability and renewability in our community. Earth Day itself took place on Monday, April 22.

The event included several interactive opportunities for students, including a bike that people could pedal to blend their smoothies. Paper passports were also handed out to students at a front table. If they collected stamps from all the Earth Fest stations, they received a free plant.

One student that attended the event, junior Galilee Best, expressed her enjoyment of the passport system at Earth Fest in an interview with The News-Letter.

"With the passport system, you walk around, going booth to booth. You go back, hand in your passport and you get a plant. I got a cute, little, sweet one," she said. "I really like plants. I'm a big plant person, and it's a great time to start planting things."

Through these passports, students were encouraged to explore the different tables at Earth Fest. Some included gluten-free pastries and drinks, while others were informative. All tables were hosted either by the Office of Sustainability or Hopkins clubs.

In an interview with The News-Letter, one of the main organizers of the event, sophomore Eden Teodorovici, explained the planning of Earth Fest and her work with the Office of Sustainability since the lifting of pandemic restrictions.

"This is our second year hosting [Earth Fest], and, last year, we really had to make an impact to make people remember what Earth Fest is all about," she said. "This semester, we had more of a head start, as we had some experience. The planning that went into this included tying in everything that would engage the student body - like the smoothie bikes."

Another organizer, sophomore Srigouri Oruganty, further commented on the collaborative nature of Earth Fest and highlighted other events hosted by the Office of Sustainability in an interview with The News-Letter.

"A big part of Earth Fest is bringing together different clubs and organizations that are on campus and committed to sustainability. We wanted to give them a chance to get the word out about the work that they do," she said. "We also have a stargazing sustainability event next Thursday [April 25] at the physics center."

Teodorovici and Oruganty are both Environmental Science majors and engagement interns for the Office of Sustainability. They encouraged students to get involved with the campus clubs featured at EarthFest.

One of these clubs is Life in a Bottle, a project group by Sustainability Hopkins Initiative Projects. Life in a Bottle promotes renewable practices, including upcycling glass bottles on campus.

In an interview with The News-Letter, sophomore Kayla Rabey talked about Life in a Bottle's activities in the Hopkins community and their stand at Earth Fest.

"What Life in a Bottle does is collect glass bottles from dining halls because they don't recycle bottles or glass on campus. We also accept student donations," she said. "We offer this event [at Earth Fest] where you can take a bottle that's been cleaned, and you can decorate it with fairy lights, washi tape and flowers. You can then take it home and use it as home decor."

Other stalls at Earth Fest provided information on sustainability practices at Hopkins and areas for improvement, such as greater investment in renewable energy on campus. Hopkins has already succeeded in decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by 51% since 2008, and members of Earth Fest encouraged administration to take further action.

Freshman Eva Breiland, an Applied Math and Statistics and Environmental Studies major, hosted a stall at Earth Fest with the Alternative Protein Project. In an interview with The News-Letter, Breiland explained the process of spherification and conducted a demonstration at her stall.

"Spherification is a process where we use a seaweed derivative and drop it with red food dye. Then, we drop it in a vase of calcium chloride to create a gelatinous substance that we can use to texturize plant-based products like vegan eggs and vegan caviar," she said.

Breiland also commented that she was interested in pursuing data analysis in the food space after college. With the Alternative Protein Project at Hopkins, she plans to continue research into protein substitutes to improve sustainability in food practices.

Organizers stated that Earth Fest will become a yearly tradition at Hopkins. The event was already hosted last year, and several hundred students showed up over the two hours that the event was open this year, even during heavy rainfall.

In an interview with The News-Letter, freshman Beatrice Bustillo explained that she didn't know about the event beforehand but was happy that she attended and took part in the activities.

"I didn't hear about [Earth Fest] until I saw it on the quad. I was curious and investigated, and it's a wonderful event with a lot of people who organized all these wonderful activities," she said. "There's good music and good food. I love the environment."

The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift's new studio album, came out on Friday with 16 brand-new shiny songs, and then, two hours after its release, Swift announced 15 more songs as part of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.

In this album, the highs are average and the lows are low. With the repetitive pop-synth production in the first half of the album and the recycling of the same melodies in the second half, as you listen, the album starts to lose its path. Suddenly, it feels like a bunch of words without meaning, like that reading for class you just can't make sense of. Don't get me wrong - despite Swift's clear attempts to show her writing expertise by using big words like "precocious" (which she uses in two songs in the album), the vocabulary is fairly average. Yet, she focuses so much on how pretty her writing sounds that she loses sight of making her words make any sense.

The Tortured Poets Department is extremely honest, blunt and personal - but it may be too personal. Swift outlines her wet dreams in "Guilty As Sin?," talks about her private moments with now-boyfriend Travis Kelce in "So High School" and discusses her disapproval of public discourse over her life in "But Daddy I Love Him."

Most tracks are in the same key (C Major) and have the same kind of pop-synth production that her main producer, Jack Antonoff, is known for. But, by the end of the album, you can't help but feel as though there is no distinction between songs, either lyrically or melodically - this continues for the second, third, fourth and fifth listens. Unfortunately for the Swifties, there's only so much blame you can put on Antonoff. Songs by her other producer, Aaron Dessner, also face the same problem of repetition and lack of originality. You can start to piece together the common thread between all of the songs - Swift herself.

For fans of Swift who know the backstory to every song, the album starts to feel like overconsumption. There are only so many minutes in a day I can stand to hear about what a heartthrob The 1975's Matty Healy was or how painful it was to leave him. When a trope is that overused, it becomes obvious that the songwriter might not have anything else to write about. Every song tells the same story in different ways. The point we are supposed to take away from this body of work gets completely lost in the attempts to make the album as poetic as possible and culminates in an exhausting two-hour experience.

At the end of the upbeat and dark "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart," Swift delivers the lyric, "Try and come for my job," highlighting her continued insecurities toward her fame and popularity. The fear of being outshone by a younger and newer artist is shared in songs like "Nothing New" in Red (Taylor's Version) and "Clara Bow" in The Tortured Poets Department. Yet, here she puts herself in an echo chamber, declaring herself unbeatable, as if she does what nobody else can. Though dealing with heartbreak is hard, the hyper-confidence Swift is using to cope is starting to look more and more like delusion.

The billionaire with the private jet, assistants and everything she could want at her fingertips has a really hard life that no one else can beat... Sure. In "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" Swift sings, "You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me." She was raised in a mansion in suburban Pennsylvania. Don't get me wrong - this is probably a metaphor for the pressured life she has had to live throughout her years of fame, but what seems to be overlooked is recognition that there are people in worse predicaments.

I am no Taylor Swift, but I dare say there are things worse than being rich and famous. In the same song, she goes on to say, "Who's afraid of little old me? / Well, you should be." This is one of the many lines that makes you cringe when you first hear it. She's putting herself on a pedestal and handing herself the medal she made from scratch. It's hard to recognize someone as a good artist when you have them shoving that idea down your throat. With that, one begins to wonder: Where does the confidence come from, and is it even deserved?

The Tortured Poets Department makes one thing clear: Swift is not bringing anything new to the table. And maybe that's what some of her fans want from her: consistency, reliability and predictability. But when compared to artists who are experimenting and bringing new life to the music industry, like Beyoncé, Sabrina Carpenter, SZA and Ariana Grande, Swift starts to fall flat. She's had her moments of reinvention with her pop album 1989, her folk and alternative albums Folklore and Evermore, and her pop-synth era with Midnights. Yet, The Tortured Poets Department becomes a weird mix of all of them that loses some of the purpose of what it means to produce music. There is no coherent thread, just a mush of words and already-heard sounds that, by the end, feel tiring and purposeless.

What actually becomes clear from this album is how unrelatable Swift has become. Previously renowned for her personal and widely-applicable lyrics, Swift seems to lose touch with reality on this album. Her attempts to make this album honest and personal fail, and instead open the curtain to her position of privilege and the high regard she has for herself. Especially in the day and age we live in now, how can a pop star's love life be of any relevance?

The album lacks meaning, and it might be attributed to the identity crisis we see unfold before us with every listen of this album. Taylor Swift doesn't know who she is. Is she the victim, the hero or the villain? She can't pick a lane. In one moment, Swift places herself as the best in the world, yet labels herself as a victim in the next song. It becomes more confusing with each listen and detracts from any point or meaning this album should have. What does become clearer with each listen is what might be real purpose of this album - to torture us all.

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill calling for TikTok to divest from its Chinese ownership or face a ban in the U.S. However, the bill did not pass without eliciting concerns and objections from both sides of the political spectrum. While the bill should be passed, it is an incomprehensive step in the right direction; TikTok is only a part of more pervasive problems in our media landscape and culture.

Owned by ByteDance, a China-based company, TikTok has raised alarms within the U.S. since 2019. The grave national security risk that Chinese ownership of TikTok poses is clear when considering that Chinese law demands that Chinese and China-based entities "support, assist, and cooperate" with state intelligence work. This means ByteDance can be forced - if not the default already - to share private user data of tens of millions of Americans on TikTok with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Furthermore, the vice president of ByteDance is himself the head of the CCP committee at ByteDance - yep, that committee exists.

TikTok's nefarious and exploitative data-collection practices represent, however, only one aspect of its national security risk. With nearly a third of all Americans on the platform, Tiktok also grants the Chinese government unparalleled access to manipulate American public and political life.

It is well-documented that TikTok systematically censors and promotes content "on the basis of whether it is aligned with or opposed to the interests of the Chinese Government." While censoring "sensitive" mentions of Tiananmen Square or the ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs, TikTok sows cultural division in the U.S. by platforming Chinese-state media pushing political narratives. TikTok all but magnified this threat by explicitly engaging in American political discourse surrounding its banning, issuing an urgent pop-up screen prompting its millions of users to call their representatives. As China expert Michael Sobolik puts it, TikTok is "China's greatest asymmetric advantage."

To mitigate the national security risks posed by TikTok, the House of Representatives recently passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in a vote of 352-65. Yet, rare and bizarre coalitions formed among left-wing progressives like Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (AOC) and right-wing freedom-caucus members like Andy Biggs, who both voted in opposition to the bill. Citing that the bill doesn't address the root issues and raises privacy concerns, 50 Democrats and 15 Republicans voted against the bill.

While explaining that the bill doesn't comprehensively address data privacy issues, the Democrats and Republicans who opposed the bill also raised First Amendment and libertarian concerns. Representative Dan Bishop tweeted that the bill "infringes on the First Amendment and grants undue power to the administrative state." AOC similarly tweeted, "There are serious antitrust and privacy questions here, and any national security concerns should be laid out to the public before a vote."

First of all, this bill is not a violation of First Amendment rights. It is important to understand that this bill does not ban TikTok nor regulate the content of speech being posted; it merely calls for Chinese divestment (TikTok users, you can relax, but you probably should stop using the addictive app anyway). TikTok can still operate in the U.S., just under American ownership - not that of the CCP.

Some lawmakers, like Bishop, also opposed the bill on grounds that it would confer excessive authority to the administrative state (in this case, the executive branch), which could potentially use the authority to infringe upon civil liberties. While these concerns are certainly genuine, it is important to note that 1) this bill and its provisions are strictly specified, rendering the case for potential abuse tenuous and 2) issues of national security trump minor civil libertarian concerns. For example, it has long been established judicial precedent under the Fourth Amendment, which safeguards individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures, that national security considerations justify a delimited and circumscribed exception. This exception aims to strike a constitutional balance between security and liberty.

While caution must certainly be exercised in granting new authority to the executive, TikTok's national security concerns negate and the bill's specifications annul any civil libertarian concerns. And sorry, AOC - national security is not a "public" issue that we can relegate to the hip-shakers and trend-makers on TikTok.

That being said, for all the discussion on its constitutionality, does the TikTok bill truly address national security concerns? Not really.

While the bill purports to "protect" Americans from "foreign adversary controlled applications," it fails to regulate American companies transferring American data to foreign governments. The current bill only applies to companies linked to the four countries deemed "adversaries" of the U.S.: China, Iran, North Korea and Russia. While this makes the bill specific in its application, it is incomprehensive in addressing the issue. If the goal is to protect Americans' user data from foreign adversaries for national security purposes, wouldn't it make more sense to regulate any company that shares data with foreign companies, not just companies domiciled in foreign adversaries?

The necessity for such comprehensive legislation has already been warranted by numerous cases of American companies cozying up with our adversaries, extending beyond just social media user data. For example, before it pulled out of China following the pandemic, Airbnb (a U.S.-domiciled company) shared private, American user data and messages between American renters and hosts with the CCP, presumably as a condition to operate in China. In another case, BlackRock (another U.S.-domiciled company), which is the world's largest asset manager, has funneled more than $429 million dollars from American investors "into Chinese companies that 'act directly against the interests of the United States.'"

The threat American companies pose to Americans by selling, sharing or funneling their property - be it in data or dollars - to foreign adversaries is the same threat foreign companies pose when doing the same. Picking and choosing to whom regulation does and does not apply is cronyism - and, in the case of TikTok, defeats the purpose of any national security legislation. The only actors who stand to wholly benefit are TikTok's surreptitious rivals (Facebook and YouTube), whose lobbyists are undoubtedly drooling over the idea of a TikTok ban.

That being said, the goal should not - and never should - be to regulate American businesses that serve abroad to death, but rather to implement consistent and conservative regulation of companies accessing the U.S. market to preserve 1) national security, 2) public safety, 3) market integrity and 4) American values and democratic norms.

What we need is a thorough bill, irrespective of ownership or domicile, that declares it illegal for any holder of American user data to share that data with our foreign enemies. Period. These regulations would, therefore, apply to all social media applications, including Meta's Facebook and Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Google's YouTube and ByteDance's TikTok.

Till then, cutting its supporters some slack, this bill, while incomprehensive, is a step in the right direction. It addresses and establishes that TikTok - whose influence on American culture and youth is concerning, to say the least - is a national security concern. In doing so, it sets at least some legislative precedent for other, hopefully more inclusive, measures to follow.

Aneesh Swaminathan is a freshman from Plymouth, Minn. majoring in Political Science and Molecular and Cellular Biology.

While immunology fascinated him in high school, when Saahith Potluri entered Hopkins, he had no intention of continuing his research interests past college. Now, with graduation only weeks away, he is determined to keep his work alive in the next chapter of his life.

For the past two-and-a-half years, Potluri has worked in the Calabresi Lab which studies possible treatments for Multiple Sclerosis (MS). MS is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that causes neuron inflammation and destroys the myelin sheathes protecting them. As MS progresses, it can result in extreme fatigue, muscle weakness, loss of motor skills, loss of vision and numbness, among other symptoms. It is the most common disabling neurological disease for adults ages 20-40, and there is currently no known cure.

Potluri's work has primarily focused on NLRX1, a protein that has been shown to have an anti-inflammatory effect in combating other chronic illnesses including Parkinson's and GI disease. The lab hoped that it might have a similar effect in treating patients with MS. Using mice models with Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE) - a commonly used model for MS - Potluri analyzed neuron inflammation and degeneration in mice treated with NLRX1.

Potluri explained his findings in an interview with The News-Letter.

"We hoped to see that NRLX1 inhibits two aspects of MS. One was neuroinflammation - inflammation in the brain and spinal cord - and the second was neurodegeneration - the death of neurons in the brain and spinal cord. We found that NLRX1 does have a protective effect on nerve degeneration, so it actually might work to stop neurons from dying in the mice, but we found that it might not affect inflammation," he said.

Potluri's involvement with the Calabresi Lab began as a freshman when he reached out to several immunology labs, hoping to find research opportunities. While he wasn't initially interested in working in a wet lab, he was drawn into it by an intellectual curiosity sparked by Marjan Gharagozloo, then a postdoctoral fellow in his lab.

"I went to the lab and wasn't expecting much out of it. But how she talked about immunology convinced me that there's a lot of learning to be done here," he said. "She gave me an immunology textbook and said, 'Take this home and read it.' I went home, read the book and some papers she sent me, and I was interested. I didn't do any of my homework that night because I was just reading that. That made me go to the lab the next week for another meeting and then I eventually joined the lab."

While he fell in love with the work, he has learned first-hand the difficulties inherent in undergrad research, lack of knowledge chief among them. He explained that he felt doubly challenged having to both learn the biology of MS, a topic he knew nothing about before joining the lab, and needing to develop a researcher's mentality to receive unexpected results.

"When you're collecting data, more times than not you look at a screen and think 'What am I looking at?' You have to sit down with your postdoc for hours to discuss what this means and what to do next," he said. "Getting unexpected data, not necessarily bad data, that might mean something new or nothing at all, and trying to piece it together… is the most challenging thing, because it takes so much patience and courage to move forward with the next experiment."

He noted that overcoming these obstacles was a key component of the dynamic nature of research which, while slow, consistently demanded that he think in new ways.

Among the opportunities afforded to Potluri through his work, was the ability to present his findings at the 2024 Stanford Research Conference held from April 5-7. The conference brought undergraduate researchers from across the nation to Palo Alto to network, learn and share their work.

For Potluri, the conference offered an opportunity to reflect on the last two years of his professional life.

"The entire experience of presenting what you had to offer and then listening to everyone else was really fulfilling. I was definitely nervous the morning before [the poster session], but then I when it started, I looked at my poster and found a lot of comfort in seeing the same figures and data that I've looked at for the past year," he said. "It made me feel closer to my work [and] the work of the lab. I am thankful that my PI and my postdoc allowed me to come out here and present this."

With the end of his undergraduate career at Hopkins fast approaching, marking the end of his time in the lab, Potluri reflected on the significance of his research career. He explained that after conducting research for two years, he is determined to maintain his skills in medical school. More importantly, he shared his feelings on saying goodbye to such an integral and transformative part of his college experience.

"Leaving a place you've spent more than half a week in for the past two years is bitter, but it fills you with gratitude to leave this place, knowing that this place and these people will keep chugging on long after you're gone," he said. "I'm just grateful that I was able to be in some way, shape or form a part of this for such a small amount of time but able to impact it in some way. I am grateful for the people who taught me these things and accompanied me throughout this process and made me into a better person and a better scientist."

Executive President Stone Meng and President of the Senate Nasreen Naqvi discussed the general body meeting structure and potential modifications within the Senate. The presentation for members focused on expectations regarding attendance and general expectations on etiquette. Concerns over the new attendance policies were extensively discussed. Naqvi said that the amendment will be a work in progress over the summer.

Vice President Amy Li presented the details of her meeting with Sheridan Dean of University Libraries Elisabeth Long about the opening of new study spaces at the Johns Hopkins Club in light of the upcoming renovation of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library (MSE). Discussion points brought up by the Senate included the renaming of the MSE, sectioned rooms to better fit its purpose as a library and a way to honor affiliates. Li showed pictures of the Johns Hopkins Club and layouts in her presentation.

The Senate then voted on potential names for the Johns Hopkins Club and discussed the appropriateness of the names proposed.

On the topic of club funding distribution for the new year, Treasurer Brandon Benjamin presented a draft of new guidelines. One of SGA's major goals is to encourage clubs to increase individual fundraising efforts.