As my last undergraduate semester quickly approaches, I’m realizing that for the first time in a while, I’m able to look at my college experience with a lot of clarity. Winter break has given me a good pause to reflect on what went well, what went terribly, and what I wish I knew going into these last four years. I really believe that my reflections on that last category could help provide some insight and perspective for anyone who was as terrified as I was going into the whole experience. Take everything with a grain of salt — none of these lessons/warnings/takeaways/whatever you want to call them are universal, but I do think they provide a good balance to the plethora of the more “typical college experience” advice out there.
Continue reading “Retroactive Advice for College Freshman Me”Be where your feet are
In my late elementary, early middle school years, every basic girly such as myself had an inspirational quote in their instagram bio. Mine was copied from a Bachelor contestant’s instagram caption, adding to the cringe level. The quote itself was quite simple and beautiful though: “Be where your feet are.” Though I didn’t think much about making this the phrase that would introduce me to the people looking at my profile, over the years it has become an extremely grounding reminder for my young-adult self.
Continue reading “Be where your feet are”Body hair’s lack of space in society
My eyelashes are easily my favorite thing about my physical appearance. They are longer and thicker than some of the fake eyelashes that I’ve seen in drugstores, they never need any mascara, and they require literally zero maintenance to look as gorgeous as they do. However, when anyone expresses any jealousy or desire to have similar lashes, I always remind them that there’s a big trade off: intense body hair. It makes sense logically – if the hair on my eyelids is long and thick, so is the hair everywhere else. While I’ll always be thankful that I can give a great butterfly kiss, the other consequences of having lots of body hair have been nothing less than challenging and often debilitating.
Continue reading “Body hair’s lack of space in society”Passion vs Balance
Everyone is encouraged to have passion. We are taught at a young age that having hobbies or beliefs that you are fiercely devoted to is a good thing, and that life without passion is dull at best. However, we’re also encouraged to have balance as a core element of our lives. We’re reminded that most things are bad in excess, and that being so obsessed with something that it takes up all the space in your brain and all the time in your schedule can lead to isolation and disappointment. Most of us thus strive for a form of ~balanced passion~ in which we pursue the things we care about in a rationally timed, fair-minded way. This approach seems like the best solution we can realistically achieve, but the more I reflect on it, the more dichotomous balance and passion seem to be. Passion shouldn’t be a logical process; it should be something that radiates out of you. In contrast, balance should uplift holistic wellbeing instead of perpetuating narrow life focuses. It seems as though simple hobbies can exist in a balanced state, but true, devoted passion cannot. Unless, of course, the very passion you’re talking about is a passion for balance.
Continue reading “Passion vs Balance”How Justice Reform Can be Bipartisan
I consider it a huge blessing to have grown up with parents who were on one side of the political spectrum and friends that were on the completely other side. I’m thankful for it, not because it made me adopt an exact midpoint of those different views, but because it challenged me to think critically about what I truly believe in. Having such different inputs at home and at school allowed me to become more confident in my own perspective and encouraged me to see the validity in the other side’s points. This balanced approach augments my passion for criminal justice reform because I see so many of the issues that encompass it as something that people from all different political positions could theoretically agree on. These issues are not rooted in values that everyone can agree on, but I believe that reforming them would support the separate values that each party is known for believing in.
Continue reading “How Justice Reform Can be Bipartisan”Losing the writing spark
For as long as I can remember, writing was my favorite outlet. When I was in first grade, I filled up more writers’ journals than anyone in my class. These journals contained everything from narratives of my family vacations, to make believe storylines about my American Girl Doll, to acrostic poems about each and every one of my friends. I would often choose to stay inside during recess to write, and even though my teachers looked at me like I was crazy, there was something so satisfying about putting pen to paper even at such a young age.
Continue reading “Losing the writing spark”Why I Won’t Make New Year’s Resolutions Anymore
Throughout my whole childhood, I made sure to designate some time each winter break to crafting a well thought out New Year’s Resolutions list. The holiday season has always elicited a strong sense of inspiration and made me super hopeful about the potential of the year ahead. I tried to be specific when it came to making my resolutions, having two separate lists: one for tangible goals to achieve in the coming year, and one for more intangible goals: such as personality traits and habits to work on developing in the year ahead. The first list always featured big benchmarks, from getting my driver’s license to running my first half marathon. The second allowed me to do some introspection. I would encourage myself to improve my Russian and practice guitar for fun more often (both of which were featured on the lists too many times throughout the years before I gave up…oops?) I was decent at accomplishing everything I set out to do because I’m the kind of person that thrives in accomplishing things when the steps to get there are within my control. I knew the exact measures that I had to take to achieve each goal, whether it be the more tangible or more character-based ones. At the end of each year, I would sit down for my annual ego boost as I checked off resolution after resolution. And then came 2020. The year of absolutely no control.
Continue reading “Why I Won’t Make New Year’s Resolutions Anymore”Why Unpaid Internships Shouldn’t be Overlooked
The search for summer internships this year was anything but easy. Last year, I was lucky enough to be hired for the only internship I applied for, and it just so happened that it was my dream position. This year, however, my luck very much shifted. Like many college students, I applied to more positions than I can remember and didn’t hear back from 90% of them. It was extremely frustrating to spend hours and hours researching different organizations, writing countless cover letters, and not knowing when/if there was an end in sight to the search. By the beginning of May, I gave up and became set on working at a fast food restaurant instead to make some extra spending money. It wasn’t the ideal outcome, but I became more content with the idea of it as the days passed by. I was thus very pleasantly surprised when I got an email from the customer service representative at the Pennsylvania Prison Society, explaining that my email somehow went to their spam folder and that they were still looking to fill some internship positions. I very much felt conflicted after reading this email – do I write yet another cover letter that they very likely won’t read? Do I pour a bunch of effort into this application when I’ve already accepted the fact that an internship is likely not in the cards for me this year? Why do I even want an internship so badly – Is it experience that I genuinely want to gain, or is it the toxic work culture that begins building the moment you step into college? What’s the point of wasting all that time when I could be studying for finals or spending some last-minute quality time with my friends as the semester winds down? At the end of the day though, I decided to bite the bullet and send in that last application. The more I researched the organization and its mission to help the incarcerated and fight for just prison reform, I knew this was a group I would genuinely enjoy volunteering my time to.
I interviewed with the representative the next day, and the interview went extremely well. When I got hired a few days later, I felt a real sense of peace about the upcoming few months. I knew the once-a-week commute to the Philly office would be a challenge at first, as I had never walked the Philly streets alone before. I also knew I wouldn’t be earning anything, as the organization is a non-profit and cannot offer compensation. Most importantly, I knew that committing to a full-time position for the very first time would require a huge learning curve. Nonetheless, I had a gut feeling that all of those challenges would be worth it, and I was very much correct.
Continue reading “Why Unpaid Internships Shouldn’t be Overlooked”My Train Ride with a Capitol Attacker
Amtrak has become a huge part of my life over the past few years. Though it’s often quite pricey, it gets me from college to home and vice versa safely and soundly. I used to be quite scared of sitting on the train alone for 7 hours, but after a couple of solo trips, it became a pretty natural process for me. Those 7 hours give me the space to catch up on a good book, process the things in my life that I’ve been too busy to give real thought to, and get ahead on work or school. The alone time does me wonders, and it’s something I was really looking forward to as I stepped onto the train to Richmond last week.
The train was fully booked, so our seats were assigned to us. I made my way down the aisle, eventually finding my seat – D14. In the seat directly next to mine was a middle-aged white man. He offered to lift my huge suitcase onto the overhead compartment, and my noodle arms were quite thankful that he did. I thanked him, sat down, and remained quiet for the first two hours of the train ride as I typed up some articles for my internship. Most people on the train weren’t talking unless they were sitting with friends or family members, so the lack of conversation between me and my seat-mate did not surprise nor disappoint me. As I chipped away at my work for the week, I noticed him taking pictures of the scenery that we were passing by, just as I often do when I am blessed with the window seat. When we were pulling up to the 30-minute Washington D.C. stop, he turned to me, explained that it was his first time taking Amtrak, and asked if it was a bad idea to leave his belongings on the train while he finds the bathroom. I told him that it’s a pretty safe train, but that I usually take my bags anyway. He thanked me, and we talked briefly about our respective destinations before getting off the train.
Continue reading “My Train Ride with a Capitol Attacker”My Mental Health Journey
Mental Health Awareness Month has been at the back of my mind for the past 28 days, as I contemplated whether or not it was worth it to share my own journey and insights on the topic. I feel slightly wrong commenting about the struggle when I’m still in the middle of it, and I was quite worried that this post would only add to the stigma behind mental health. Nonetheless, I know that there is no better time to take the risk and open up about this part of my life than during a month dedicated to exactly that.
Continue reading “My Mental Health Journey”
Keep the Curtains Open 