why i left new york
love, loss, and thanksgiving
hard-boiled romance My freshman year of college, I would schlep down to New York City once a month to see a boy from high school. We had a great time going to the Met and eating oversized pizza. By the start of sophomore year, however, my trips had become more of a chore than anything…
YA fantasy meeting reality
moving past the page
The Brown University Bookstore smells of burnt espresso and cardboard boxes, half-emptied after the initial shopping period mayhem. With some free time before classes and nowhere better to be, I meander past the Bestsellers and the Newly Recommended, glancing out the windows at the metal scaffolding and orange plastic of Thayer Street’s recent construction. The…
landmarks
a walk through campus
The traffic lights at the intersection of Waterman and Brook change despite the empty streets on Saturday mornings, flashing red and green against the usually wet asphalt. Broken glass and crumpled beer cans catch in the gutters littered with fallen yellow leaves. In the quiet, a RIPTA bus announces that it is turning. A flock…
in memoriam
mourning ian and missed college tours
I am living this autumn in a hollow timeline of things that should be happening, watching tour guides huddled beside Soldier’s Arch peer excitedly at the SciLi and Ruth Simmons Quad and thinking that I should be there with them. Ian should be there with them. It is still warm despite the shift in seasons….
grit and bear it
knowing when to grit and when to quit
At the brink of midnight and a mid-semester breakdown, four lecture-captures into studying for my second physiology exam, a Facebook notification disturbs my academic focus. I minimize the Canvas tab and check my feed. Everyone at Brown apparently has had the same idea, and the page fills with posts and photos from peers venting about…