Ode to a Restaurant
Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post, although a free sandwich would be nice…
Thinking is hard. Thinking is tiring. Thinking makes me hungry. As a graduate student, I spend much of my day deep in thought, trying to understand convoluted equations, engineer a successful experiment, or daydreaming about skiing down a mountain. The result of this academic brainstorming is a roaring thunderstorm emanating from my stomach by one […]
Obituary for Getfit
Saying goodbye to MIT's annual physical activity challenge after 21 years
I remember the first time I walked into the MIT Zesiger Center (Z-center for short) to try to fit a workout in the last hot days of September. I saw varsity athletes and crop tops abound, grunting around weights or running fast speeds on the treadmill. Meanwhile, I had never run a mile in one […]
All by myself
Beating loneliness when you live in a studio
My complete home (containing my sofa, kitchen, and bed) is very compact—370 square feet, to be exact. I live in a studio apartment, where I am the sole occupant of an elongated room containing my full living space. I really like having my own place to return to at the end of the day, but […]
Centering Myself by Looking Up
A Story About My Journey Into Birdwatching
Having just started a graduate program in a new city, one of the questions I’ve been asked most over the last few months is “Where are you from?” I usually take a quick beat, chuckle, exhale, and then say “Well … it’s complicated, but I was born in and grew up in New York, and […]
Observations from the 2024 Geophysical Plasma Expedition
Chasing the aurora from Cambridge, MA to Fairbanks, AK
We stand spread across a frozen hilltop, gazing North at a pale green band low above the horizon. The landscape around us is blanketed in unbroken snow, appearing almost extraterrestrial in the flat light of the waxing crescent moon. We fidget to stay warm and murmur to one another about the slight undulations of the […]
