Last April, I attended a birthday party for a friend. Rather than looking back at the shared laughter and happiness of this gathering, I remember this night for a white person who, after complaining at length about their “difficult” straight hair, gestured toward me and my “easy” curls. Without my[Read More…]
Off the Board
Sarah Koenig is not perfect and neither is ‘Serial’
On Jan. 13, 1999, Hae Min Lee, a senior at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore, disappeared. On Feb. 9, 1999, her body was discovered in Baltimore’s Leakin Park, and on Feb. 25, 2000, her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was found guilty on charges of first-degree murder. Fifteen years later, Rabia Chaudry—an[Read More…]
Greek life, behind closed doors
“Welcome to the club. You’re, like, one of the few pretty girls at McGill. Use it wisely.” No, that’s not a quote from a Mean Girls production at McGill. That’s a genuine thought expressed to me by a sorority girl at my first—and only—frat party. Following that linguistic beauty and[Read More…]
Crossword crannying? A morning ritual, say
I began doing the New York Times Mini Crossword during the pandemic, and after a year of practice, I could proudly complete it in under a minute almost every time. It was a solitary experience, a permanent fixture in my routine where I could compete with myself from the comfort[Read More…]
Why everyone deserves therapy
Therapy. There, I said it. A word that, despite its immeasurable benefits, carries the heavy weight of unrelenting stigma everywhere it goes. In the industrialized world, 25 per cent of adults experience significant mental health problems each year that require intervention in the form of psychotherapy and/or medication. In particular,[Read More…]
Don’t publish—and flourish
When I looked down the barrel of the microscope, I could see everything. I saw exploding galaxies of green fluorescence, and a network of nebulas dotting a dark, surrounding infinity. I saw the edge of a coastline studded with city lights, and islands surrounded by swirling oceans, like I was[Read More…]
Redefining the I’s in Identity
The first year of university is a major transition for all students. For me, the biggest change was not just moving across the country, but additionally learning to adapt to a completely different environment, both culturally and socially. Culturally, as I grew up as a Taiwanese immigrant in a small,[Read More…]
Every conflict deserves equal coverage
A month ago, I opened my social media only to be met with a flood of panicked posts. Ranging from tweets to reels and everything in between, the message was the same: How unbelievable it was that our generation was experiencing live coverage of war––a statement with which I did[Read More…]
The feminine urge to be a bit of an asshole
My mother is an assertive woman. When I was younger, I was often baffled by her abilities to command the attention she deserved whenever she walked in a room. Maybe it was because she spent years working as a manager at an engineering firm, or maybe it was because she[Read More…]
Changing the norms of university instruction
One year into my degree, in Fall 2021, I became aware that I spent more time studying at the university of YouTube, or the university of free online textbooks, than McGill itself. I woke up at 5:30 a.m., a despicably early time, to watch my 8:30 a.m. lecture all the[Read More…]
