When I was 18, I started learning French. Three years and many French exams, essays, and presentations later, I packed up my bags to move to Lyon for the semester. I was hoping that, finally, immersion would provide me with the key to the elusive bilingual fluency I had been working so hard to achieve….
Modern hipsters enter a thrift store looking to repurpose grandma’s Christmas sweater from ’73 into a high-fashion statement of individualism and irony.But every friend of said hipster is also a hipster, complete with their own version of grandma’s Christmas sweater from some decade recognizable by its experimental haircuts. If grandma’s Christmas sweater ceases to be…
The color of my skin and my accent have always made it difficult for people to identify my ethnicity. This first became apparent in primary school, when my classmates were shocked to find out that I’m Indian. I was constantly asked, “Why are you white?” and “Were you adopted?”, making me question what culture and…
If there are three things I love, they’re the smell of coffee, a hot bath after a long day, and watching attractive people be brutally murdered in sequential order. Before you ask, you aren’t on the same campus as a beauty-abhorring psychopath, but a slasher movie fanatic. In the existentially draining chaos of this world,…
When people find out that my youngest brother has autism and is nonverbal, they often tell me the same anecdote: “Did you know that Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was four years old?” This story (which has never been proven to be true) used to give me a flicker of hope. Nearly nine years…
I didn’t wear makeup for over a year. I highly recommend this to every girl who has been regularly applying makeup since those middle school days of uncomfortably large blobs of colored eyeshadow. It gave me a new perspective, and not just of my own face. In my sophomore year of college, I defined myself…
On the largest wall of my dorm room hang three maps of America’s national parks. The National Park Service manages over 400 public lands, historic sites, and protected areas, but only 59 of these—the best and brightest—are referred to as national parks on my maps. All 59, from Shenandoah to Gates of the Arctic, are…
Content Warning: This piece discusses substance abuse and death. “You made him do it. This is all your fault. I’m 100% blaming this on you. Kill yourself.” After Mac Miller died of an apparent drug overdose on September 7, Ariana Grande, international popstar and Miller’s ex-girlfriend, received countless hateful messages on social media, blaming her…
My memories of the Jesuit Values Panel of NSO are strikingly clear. Sitting in McDonough Arena, I heard thoughtful presentations from various spiritual leaders on campus, like Imam Yahya Hendi and Rabbi Rachel Gartner. I heard inspiring words about how Georgetown is a “Community in Diversity” that encourages spiritual growth and exploration. But more and…
From the moment I entered the magical world of NSO, I knew this wasn’t going to be Hogwarts, no matter what Healy Hall’s appearance suggested. Moving across the country and starting over is overwhelming for anyone, especially a freshman in college. The forced small talk, the rats, the stress of schoolwork, the rats… But amid…