Wrestling

Dieting for six months. Sprinting in a room heated to around ninety degrees. Starving in order to be the perfect weight, limiting myself to only palm sized meals and bottle caps of water. Facing the constant threat of permanent deformity and infectious skin diseases. Yeah, it sounds crazy.

Kombucha Club

“Are you serious?! How are we supposed to run a Fermentation Club without kombucha?”

Family Impact on My Character

On Christmas morning, I found a gun under the tree. Must be for Uncle Tim, I thought, since he was going hunting soon.

Diversity

My parents introduced me to the significance of diversity — inadvertently.

Connecting Cross-Culturally

I grew up with sticker burrs from the thick, dry brush tangled in my hair and creamy enchilada sauce dripping down my face. I spent most of my childhood in remote South Texas on a ranch that has belonged to my family since the late 1800s. (Written for Wake Forest)

Harmony

“Alexa, turn on the bedroom.” “Okay!” my trusty AI robotically replies as the entire room lights up in an orange glow, sparking all of my pent up creativity. Outside, the Texan cicadas are buzzing away, and together with the crickets make a symphony.

Rocks + Stars

I’ve always found myself in two worlds—one that looks to the sky and one that looks to the ground, one in the future and one in the past.

Variety vs. Continuity

For as long as I can remember I’ve never been able to sit in one place. The minute the break time bell would ring, I would sprint outside onto the field and consider my choices. Did I want to climb on the playground’s monkey bars or join a soccer game on the grass field? My love for variety would constantly put me in the middle of a decision between this or that.

Immersion & Experience vs. Learning & Knowledge

I sit writing a paper about the song “Across the Lines” by Tracy Chapman. Chapman narrates a race riot caused by the beating of an African American girl. My mind races, connecting this to riots in response to George Floyd’s murder and wondering what has and hasn’t changed.

Magic + Science

I believed in magic. At 11, I excitedly swiped through various contents of the Book of Potions, an alternate reality videogame by fictional wizard Zygmunt Budge. The closest person in my life—my grandfather, a Nepalese palm reader—often encouraged me to believe in inconceivable things that could occur in the future, even if there wasn’t a rational explanation for them. So, that’s exactly what I did.

Stories

It was on my aunt’s lap that I fell in love with the drum-beating gadhanevaalas — nomadic storytellers who would frequent her village, singing praises of swordsmen from the Himalayas and fortresses in the skies.