“Weigh the seas you swallowed to swim here” is a line from Lê Thị Diễm Thúy’s poem “sans papiers.” I could not help but connect this line to the stories from my family coming to America. My father and his sisters wading through the salty waters off the coast of…

After reading Haruki Murakami’s speech, “Always on the side of the Egg,” I found myself wondering if the egg would ever be able to win. Murakami states that “between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, [he] will always stand on the side of the egg.”…

As a young Asian American girl, tears would always rush down my face when someone would try to shame me for the smell of my food or the shape of my face. I can picture the numerous times my face flushed with a deep crimson red as I got yelled…

After reading Ananya Udaygiri’s essay “How Animal Crossing Will Save Gen Z,” something that stood out to me was a quote about the game Animal Crossing. In this game, you “[perform] basic, everyday functions… [You] simply… live,” as stated by Udaygiri. This quote disrupted me as I considered the current…

While reading the poem “To converse with the greats” by Vera Pavlova, I found myself struck with the first three lines. Pavlova writes, “To converse with the greats by trying their blindfolds on; to correspond with books” ( Pavlova lines 1–3). I find that the individual is mentally placing themself…

After reading Seth Godin’s essay “Getting picked,” I found myself wondering what it means to be chosen for something. When someone chooses you to do something, they think you’re the right person for the job or whatever task at hand. You are the best option out of all the other…

As I read through Ananya Udaygiri’s essay “How Animal Crossing Will Save Gen Z,” I found myself thinking of how often we immerse ourselves in nature. Udaygiri talks about how in the game Animal Crossing, you’re a villager that “performs basic, everyday functions. You fish. You catch bugs. You grow…

After reading Brian Doyle’s “Joyas Voladoras,” I found myself taken aback by a single line from the piece. “The animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs” (Doyles). While it’s understandable that the larger the heart an animal has, the more powerful it will be, it’s…

Agnes Martin states that “‘Beauty is in your mind, not in the rose.’” In this scenario, Martin refers to a physical rose that remains beautiful, even if it is unseen. Beauty is a concept that is both incredibly subjective and also very similar in sense that we can perceive it…