Introspection
To Metro, With Love
Maybe that’s why I felt such a connection with the Wilson Report. It was a reminder that perhaps my work wasn’t fleeting. My mind traced back to the dusty pages covered with stories of real issues that mattered to real people and their lives in Cambridge.
Field Notes of an International Super Spy
Careful not to let my personal circumstances tamper with my operations, I resolved to fold these feelings away. I kept them in a suitcase, neat and small. I carried it to every home I investigated.
My Life So Far in Rapunzel’s Tower
It’s like watching your life in the form of a weekly reality TV special: you’re invested, you’re kept up, but a sense of fiction clouds your vision.
To Make Myself Up
Like Ipsy’s subscription service, offering a different rotation of rouge every month, I’m reminded that my life has indeed been fickle, and will continue to present many surprises. Yet, I’ve been reminded that inviting variety and recalling my creativity allows me to connect with a younger, arguably more clear-headed version of myself, and channel her imagination.
The War on Science
For a school project, I once asked my dad why he came to the United States. “For the science,” he told me. And then, as an afterthought: “And for a better life, obviously.”
Across State Lines
A polarized nation bled into the fabric of my family — left and right wing politics separating us more than our physical distance.
Trains Across America
The cross-country train is, however, a profoundly American cultural space. Every person aboard the train has a reason to exist there, rather than on a more convenient form of transit that would probably already have them at their destination.
The Next Thing I Remember
For my disease to be real to others, sometimes I feel I need evidence, a physical trace of what was happening inside before it was made visible by the surgery, to have a story.
Pit Stop Before Sincerity Hits Too Hard
Back then, I never wondered who she was beyond my mother. Her life seemed fully formed, on track, speeding down a highway. I was the asshole who cut her off.
Scientists and the Face of God
I believed in science, but I also believed in agency. To think of myself as a machine driven by chemical reactions beyond my control felt outrageous. I knew myself to be more than just a body. I wanted to believe that I was also a mind.
