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”Tag: change
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”The Summer In Between
A few weeks ago I saw someone post a poll on their Instagram story that said “does the summer in between high school and college feel weird?” I honestly don’t remember what the results of the poll were, but I remember feeling an immense sense of relief in knowing that I wasn’t the only one who felt a sense of uneasiness about this chapter of life we incoming freshmen are experiencing.
Keep the Curtains Open 