Introspection
Corner Pieces
What is the organizing of a Zoom vigil supposed to look like? What kind of advocacy work are we expected to perform while we grieve? How do we protect bodies so tempting they seduce bullets?
Reading My Way Back To Myself
I read because I remember everyone before me who shared a piece of themselves through books.
Humility or Humiliation?
We are not all comedians, and we don’t all bear the same burden of trauma that Gadsby does, but her set made me realize that we are all capable of hurting ourselves through our remarks about ourselves, even when they are diffused by the intonation of a joke.
Mutation
This version of myself looks up and sees my mom’s shoulders heave up and down. I’m looking at my father’s back, and I don’t need to see his face to know that it is tearless, like mine. Only when I read these words does the memory float back to me. I described it as half-grief. Stuck in the wrong places, like sweat.
A Ride with Hatred
I am only half-surprised when a man spits in my face on the bus. What surprises me is my response, or lack thereof.
Crisis Mode
In lockdown, I felt like I was better able to see some things for how they were, but I was not always happy with the realities I had to confront.
Tuning to a New Key in Quarantine
This doubt reached a breaking point when I came to Harvard. Freshman fall, I fell flat on a scale during an audition and didn’t make the cut. I suddenly realized my peers were international and national competition winners. I stopped playing. My world fell silent, my violin case slipped under the bed, and my sheet music lay untouched.
Classically Abby is a Shande Far Di Goyim
"Pretty much every girl I know has seen advertisements for these videos. Her ads are like the Shen Yun fliers of YouTube: ubiquitous, pretty, and vaguely cult-like. All of her thumbnails somehow look identical, even though she is wearing slightly different hairdos in all of them."
How We Got From There to Here
“We visited her in the hospital.” “Who?” “My grandma.” “Oh! Is she still in the hospital now?” “No.” “That’s good!” She pauses and stops smiling. “That’s good, right?”
The 2006 MIT Integration Bee: A Manifesto
If the entirely volunteer operation of the 2006 MIT Integration Bee has taught me anything, it is that we all have the ability to lead a much more memorable version of the lives we left behind.