My mother always says, “When you marry someone, you marry their family, so pick who you’re dating well.” It is something she has repeated for years, part warning, part wisdom. When I was little, I did not fully understand it, but it stayed with me. I remembered it again in second grade when my math teacher, a Christian man, stopped class after one of my classmates said he had a girlfriend. He told us that dating was meant to prepare you for marriage, and that if you were dati

I never thought of myself as a good writer. I grew up in an artistic family, so people assumed I was naturally creative, naturally talented and naturally capable of anything in that world. My house was full of love, but it was also full of expectations. Expectations that always, somehow, pointed to me. My mother reached the highest academic and professional positions. The message was clear. I was supposed to honor the efforts of everyone before me by going even further. And b

SPOILERS AHEAD If you’ve been in anime spaces for longer than five minutes, you’ve probably heard about JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure —the meme-fueled, genre-defying and beautifully unhinged series that has been running since 1987. Hirohiko Araki’s magnum opus has influenced everything from modern shonen  to high fashion, proving that posing dramatically while discussing bloodlines is, in fact, peak storytelling. As a filmmaker and storyteller, JoJo’s  has impacted the way I think

Based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel of the same name, “The Handmaid’s Tale” premiered as a television series on Hulu in April 2017. Created by Bruce Miller, the show quickly gained critical acclaim for its chilling adaptation of Atwood’s dystopian vision. The series is directed by various filmmakers, including Reed Morano, Mike Barker, and Daina Reid. It stars Elisabeth Moss as June Osborne, a woman forced into servitude in the totalitarian regime of Gilead.  The adaptation

When I first met Sydney, she was tucked into her own little world: a beanie pulled low, a hood covering her head, slouched in a classroom chair. She looked more like a construction worker surviving winter than a college student. We weren’t close then; we just happened to take the same class. Then life twisted, as it often does. Suddenly, I wasn’t just sitting near Sydney in class; I was living with her. A stranger turned roommate, with the oddities and rules that come with le

I want to tell you about my friend Josh. There is something about the way Josh looks at the universe in this photo—calm, still, undisturbed by the infinite possibilities stretching before him. He doesn't seem overwhelmed by the vastness of it all, nor does he look like someone desperately searching for something more. He is there, in the moment, in that moment's fullness. And that, in itself, is a quiet kind of power. Josh is one of the kindest, most intelligent people I've e

This might be the most important photo I have ever taken.  I started taking photos when I was 12 with the first device I ever got, my iPad.I wanted to immortalize my memories, so I would never forget.  I am still at the beginning of my photography journey, but something about this moment feels like the first time the world handed me a story that was bigger than me. Street photography is part of my life. I am taking photojournalism as an elective this semester, and I promised