Columns

Ever since I can remember, my family has always been health conscious, to say the least.

I didn’t realize my family’s extremely health conscious ways were weird until I began having play dates with my friends in elementary school. They would come over and the only snacks I would have at my house were fruit and other healthy foods. Apples. Yogurt. Granola bars. No one wanted them but me.

“She’s hot, hot, hot!” My eyes bulged out as I stared blankly at the Facebook comment. Each additional word cut like a sharp knife into my growing anger. I’ve let it slide when I heard guys call my sister tall, pretty, even cute — but hot? Hot is one step away from the word that starts with an “s” and ends with –exy. 

It all happened the week after winter break. I was sluggish and irritated at school from not getting my standard 12 hours of sleep while operating on break schedule. Clearly taking those two blissful weeks for granted, I stumbled back home red-eyed and full of unpleasant thoughts.

School and college essays were indeed tough for me, but I placed most of the first semester stress on myself when I made a dreadful mistake on my first college interview.   

Upon hearing that there was a winter sports challenge this issue for newspaper, I enthusiastically signed up, but that excitement only lasted a brief moment. Later that day, when I found out that my winter sport challenge was for soccer, excitement quickly turned into panic. 

I have a new addiction and I’m not too flappy about it. 

Most of us wouldn't recognize Christmas in Russia.

“Did I sound abstract? I hope it sounded more confusing than that,” rapper and producer El-P said in “Tuned Mass Damper,” a song off his 2002 album “Fantastic Damage.” For the better part of the last 20 years, El-P has been a leading figure in the underground hip-hop scene and a part of some modern day classics in the genre.

I take a lot for granted, which isn’t right. It is during times like Thanksgiving when I think of what I have and appreciate how lucky I am. I’m most thankful for my life inside one of the greatest communities around.