Back home in Nashville, crisp fall air always signaled that football season was coming. But the game itself was never the important part. Tailgates, homecoming parades, and student section cheers became the backdrop to every conversation and hangout. Seas of high school students, families, and alumni alike, decked out in bright red and glittery gold, […]
In October 2016, about 700 Harvard University Dining Hall Services members began striking for fair wages and adequate health insurance—a dissent that has persisted even a decade later. Harvard is no stranger to the divide between workers and administration. Earlier this year, faculty layoffs and department funding cuts exacerbated existing tensions between staff and the […]
Most warning signs appear in neon; John Harvard’s right foot is no exception. When you see the shiny, worn-down, urine-yellow shoe, your first instinct should not be to rub your hand all over it. Yet evidently, it is. A gaggle of tourists, holding various devices, stops daily to pose in front of the statue. And […]
I once saw an old man in the pub. He had sad eyes: that’s what I remember most about him. Sad, slightly glazed eyes that stared into the frothy foam of an undrunk Guinness, waiting to be met with kindness. I pulled up a chair to talk to him, but he didn’t seem interested: “Waiting […]
Earlier this year, I found myself roasting in the Tercentenary Theatre—otherwise known as the Yard—for my older brother’s graduation. The speeches went on and on and on and … you get the gist. There were just so many speeches—a lot of boring ones, some funny ones (thank you, Conan O’Brien ’85 and Ronny Chieng). What […]
Baba Yaga is hard to categorize. Depending on whom you ask, she is a Slavic witch, a folkloric ogress, a wise and helpful woman, or a combination of all three. She travels through the forest on a flying mortar, carries a pestle as a weapon, and—most famously—lives in a wandering wooden house balanced on two […]
What does it feel like to drown? It takes a while for the realization to hit—you might not reach the surface again. Eventually, you gain awareness that the subtle waft of air flowing in and out, a sensation you once took for granted, is now gone. Contrary to your instincts, breathing deeper doesn’t help; it […]
A priest and a worshiper, not of the Christian faith but of the priest himself, sit beside each other in silence at a nondescript bus shelter in the middle of the night. The worshiper has an interesting name: Fleabag—an odd thing to call a child. (I doubt it is her real name.) The silence is […]
It was a Thursday afternoon. Perhaps the only cold thing that day was the bead of sweat tracing the groove of my spine as I tried to position a worn-down copy of “1984” to shield my face from the sun. New Mexico’s swelteringly hot summer afternoons, such as this one, are practically unbearable. Even the […]
I began my first year at Harvard in peak physical condition: a bruised hip, aching legs, ten wasp stings, and—possibly—an incubating giardia infection (but thankfully not). I had just survived my first wilderness backpacking trip. I attended Harvard’s First-Year Outdoor Program the week before setting foot in any college classroom. FOP is one of Harvard’s […]