Introspection
I tell myself it wasn’t rape
I tell myself it wasn’t rape if I liked him. I never found him physically attractive, but there was just something about him — or about the way he made me feel — beautiful and desirable. I think part of me must have liked that.
Harvard in My Mind, Pt. II
Just months ago, I wrote a letter detailing the surreal condition of being a student at a place I had not yet stepped foot in. Now a sophomore living on campus, I have already begun approaching the ordinary in a characteristically pre-pandemic way. So here I am, writing to remember.
Harvard Night Shift
I’m not prone to frequent all-nighters. In fact, I’m more prone to falling asleep as soon as the movie starts. But I wanted to write an article about staying up all night, and there’s only one way to do that.
“Do you want to watch a movie?”
My dad isn't the most emotionally expressive guy, but somehow sitting in the living room and watching a random movie he picked that neither of us particularly cares for says a lot more than "I love you."
A Negotiation with Reality
Given the devastating, mind-twisting time we’re coming out of, doesn’t derealizing almost make more sense?
Thick Blood
"I thought that my throat was closing up every morning. That my heart would suddenly stop. That I might choke on my dinner and require an emergency tracheotomy. "
From Me, in Cambridge, with Love
Letters sent by mail are outdated, yes. But they are snapshots of time, the culmination of a friend’s life between the day they mailed their last letter and the moment they sat down to write this new one.
Are We Home Yet?
At the time, everyone thought the virus would pass in two months. I thought I’d get home by July 2020. It’s September 2021, and I haven’t been home for 20 months.
The Big Blue Unknown
There is something captivating about the freedom of the clouds — the way in which they trust that they will somehow float wherever they need to go, if they need to be anywhere at all. They seemed so unlike me, someone always tempted to plan and prepare for the next semester of classes to take, activities to join, or careers to pursue.
A Form of Hesitation
What happens when the lost object speaks; when, given these material and psychic limitations, we do try to express our malaise? What forms exist to communicate and grapple with Asian Americans’ public and private racial grief and outrage?
Twenty Minutes in My Empty Mind
Over the past year, during the months living in my childhood bedroom, I often found myself taking aimless drives – canyon, freeway, shortcut to nowhere – discovering and rediscovering my favorite music. It is the only place where a spontaneous two-hour drive feels less like a chore and more like a gift.
Ever Nestled
Do other people still snuggle with their parents? Is that normal? I decide to talk to some people, maybe find some answers. I start by talking with the experts: professional cuddlers.
We're Really Not That Nice
Finally, one of them broke the heavy silence and asked me, in all seriousness, “Do you not have racism in Canada?”
Welcome to the Club
How could I have felt complimented when I knew I was being denigrated? As the entire ethnicity group to which I belonged was being effectively erased, how could I have felt, however briefly, seen?
Unpacking the Baggage of Hawaii's Tourism
The portrayals of Hawaii as a party paradise for slender college kids holding beers or backflipping into blue water rubs me the wrong way. I find this kind of vacation porn reductive: It erases the state’s complicated identity.
Vision: "both and"
KNR sets out to explore the tension of “existing both within and beyond the projection of Otherness" through self-portraiture.
To Love a Stranger
The silence was in no way uncomfortable; most times, it was pleasant, even relaxing. But underneath was a low thrum of pent-up frustration, which I only became aware of every once in a while. There was so much I wanted to tell her — about my high school track meets, the school paper, later my college roommates — and so much I wanted to ask, that I simply could not.
How Things Fall Apart
I left later that night, relieved that I wouldn’t have to see Gayatri until the next winter but also wondering whether I had said too much. And sure enough, that one genuine moment came back to bite me.