After a near cancellation a few weeks ago, a federal judge has decided that New Yorkers will have the chance to make our voices heard in the presidential primary. Previous primary dropout, including Bernie Sanders, will be on the ballot in June. None of candidates will be able to gain enough delegates to put them […]

As the end of the 2020 English honors seminar nears, my peers and I find ourselves mulling over the year-long process. This year’s honors seminar,  “The Power of the Popular (or, All Our Faves Are Problematic)” has been taught by the spectacular Dr. Caroline Hong. In this seminar, we engaged with popular works and analyzed […]

I’m grieving. I’m sure you are too, dear reader. I think it’s easy, or at least it has been for me, to look at everything we’ve lost. And we’ve lost so much, right? Some of us have lost graduations, family, an accurate sense of time. So I’ve chosen instead to list something that I gained, […]

Health experts will berate you for eating after eight pm. They will warn you that the ramifications include but are not limited to weight gain, irregular eating habits, and a disturbed circadian rhythm. This may all be true, but there are few pleasures and one of them is the late-night supper or more accurately termed […]

“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead Note: Please be advised that as things are changing quickly during this pandemic, the information available on the conditions inside will continue grow exponentially. It is and has been increasingly difficult to keep up […]

I couldn’t tell time until the fourth grade. Don’t even get me started on long division. I was not even a student with potential. I stalled the class. I was infamous for needing that extra shove to graze mediocrity. Granted, I was an incredibly lazy child. While my siblings recited multiplication problems, I idly gnawed […]

Over the past three weeks I’ve used memes like an optic salve. Sometimes they soothe, inducing laughter, bringing a necessary emotional release. Other times memes deliver a brief sting—the truth buried within their healing properties can go deep.   During this quarantime, I am grateful for the selective surroundings I’ve curated on my social media. I see friends uplifting the voices of immunocompromised folks who have been organizing mutual […]

  Dear “moderate” Republicans asking for a “moderate” Democratic nominee,  You had your chance. Four years ago. You blew it.  It’s not up to Democratic voters to make sure that you have someone to vote for in November. If you really are a “Never Trump”-er then you’ll vote for the Democratic nominee no matter what. […]

“Perhaps, most simply, idleness is reserved contemplation through the tranquilizing of productive and unproductive time.” I am productive. I like to think so. I must be working toward something, or I will feel defective. Rather, I must be validated by a finished-product, the thought of incompletion knots under my skin. I have this recurring dream […]

Picture this: I’m at a family gathering. People who have not seen each other in months are telling each other what’s new, the smell of masala and jeera fill the room, my cousin and I go back and forth sending each other links related to the things we’re talking about, I open my camera app […]