The CIA has a categorization of languages listed in order of how long it would take the average American to learn to speak them. At the bottom are languages closely related to English. It should only take around 600 hours to become proficient in Romance languages and fun language cousins like Swedish ...
Peet’s Coffee Charleston Rd.: Coconut Black Tie (Palo Alto, CA)
I have heard that people exercise control to avoid pain. If you can rationally list the changes in your life, then sadness might seem like just one more item to check off and move on; isn’t that a nice thought? Walking around the house, I notice the out-of-place pieces that announce, even if there ...
Morning dew twinkles on the twigs of grass, crisp in the dawn air. The smell of a fresh summer rain wafts off the asphalt, conjuring nostalgic memories of early July. Gusts of wind carry secrets between maple leaves as they start to blush with embarrassment. Puddles condense into sloshy heaps, liquid ...
I have one list on my Letterboxd account, an inside joke with myself: “movies men made me watch.”
As a graduate student in ‘71, there were maybe 50 Asian Americans on campus. If you walked across campus and you passed another Asian and didn't say hello, it became a big deal around campus, like why didn’t so-and-so wave? You can't imagine that today.
Whoops! You got COVID. No judgement—you have likely taken the proper precautions and simply fallen prey to the cruel knife of chance. This is an obviously heinous situation to be in. Quarantine is ten days calculated from the day of symptom onset or a positive test result (so either you actually feel ...
I’m in the room with her. I know my mom is there too, but I can’t say for sure who else is. My mom and I are fluttering around my sister like the little birds that talk to Cinderella before the ball. I’m not sure what this room is, what it looks like, or if it’s even a room at all. But it doesn’t ...
My favorite scene in Crying in H Mart is one in which Michelle Zauner, the author, makes kimchi. Although making doesn’t quite capture what’s happening: it’s the obsessive flurry of Zauner’s hands across the page as she ferments, seasons, spices, bottles, stacks. Up to her wrists in wet red ...
As I descend into the basement, familiar colorful murals surround me. In them, familiar Greek letters make appearances while cartoon Wile E. Coyotes and Road Runners eat spaghetti, re-enact the birth of Venus, and face each other as foosball figurines. I reach the bottom and begin making my way through ...
Our identity is where our best stories come from. Stories from the Asian community at Brown University covering relationships, self-acceptance, career paths, food, politics, and more, read in three minutes or less. redenvelopestories.net ...
Picture this: You are walking back from a friend's apartment late at night. You're feeling fine; you're a little tired, but you had a nice time. You decide to listen to music for a few minutes as you make your way back to your dorm. You press shuffle on your favorite songs on Spotify ...
It’s February in New York, junior year of high school, lunchtime. Outside it’s frigid and grey, and the locker hallway is warm, bustling, cacophonous. Lila looks over at me: “Want to take a lap?”
I like to stay as still as possible when I’m in the pool, slouching, my body submerged up to my eyes. I stay like this for as long as I can, holding my breath, letting the pressure build in my chest until I release it all at once. The bubbles come barreling out of my nose with a thunder only my submerged ...
Providence, Rhode Island. October 30, 2020.
In a McDonald’s somewhere between California and Rhode Island, I was waiting for an M&M McFlurry. I had one week and one car to get myself to Brown for the fall. I received a jarring text: “SALLY ROONEY HAS A NEW BOOK OUT?!?!?!”
It’s 11 p.m. on a Tuesday, and I’m with my friend Grace at the closing party for an exhibit at a hostel turned bar/art museum/tattoo studio/thrift store under the highway near downtown Austin. The scene is painfully trendy: loud house music, people wearing sunglasses indoors, and an open bar with ...
Can you believe it? No—really—stop and think about it for a moment: We’re all (for the most part) back on campus! For many of us, there’s an overwhelming sense of appreciation for some hint of returning normalcy after a year and a half since that fateful email from CPax. Now that everyone has ...
Solutions by The State News
