Jan 11, 2021My Immigrant Mother’s AmericaToday, my parents went with my brother to get his passport renewed. My brother came back annoyed and ready to vent. My mother has an accent and occasionally speaks in “broken” English as a result of being an immigrant to America in adulthood. My brother told us that while they…Immigration2 min readImmigration2 min read
Oct 23, 2020The Time I wasn’t Impressed by a Multi-MillionaireOne of my friends had been interning at a large bank and was invited to their annual holiday party at a glamorous rooftop lounge. I convinced him to let me come as his date- I liked the excuse to dress up, and wanted to know what the rich of the…Business3 min readBusiness3 min read
Oct 22, 2020Looking for Holes in New ClothingRecently, I was walking around an extremely wealthy suburb that my roommate and I visited on a Saturday afternoon. We ate overpriced sandwiches and drank overpriced chai lattes (which honestly do not hold a candle to the ones my mom makes), and then walked through the quaint, fall neighborhood, where…Poverty2 min readPoverty2 min read
Published in ILLUMINATION·Jun 16, 2020Why Abolishing the Police isn’t a Radical Idea.Amidst recent events surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, I’ve found myself reconsidering a lot of my opinions on different policies. Recently, the idea that the police department should be abolished has been circling around, and to be honest, I didn’t take it seriously until Minneapolis pledged to abolish theirs. …Police3 min readPolice3 min read
Published in ILLUMINATION·Jun 5, 2020I went to USC during the College Admissions Scandal- This was my ExperienceThe median family income of a student at USC is $161,400, and 63% of the student body comes from the top 20%. On March 12, 2019, the federal government announced the prosecution of 33 parents who in total paid upwards of $25 million to William Singer to get their children…College3 min readCollege3 min read
Jun 5, 2020With a Looming Depression, Employees are Tightening their Golden HandcuffsAccording to Wikipedia, golden handcuffs refers to “financial allurements and benefits that have the objective to encourage highly compensated employees to remain within a company or organization instead of moving from company to company.” We see these handcuffs all over Silicon Valley and Wall Street, on employees who essentially sacrifice…Economy2 min readEconomy2 min read
Jun 2, 2020Here’s an Explanation of the Call Her Daddy Drama that No One Asked forWhen the CHD Drama started a couple of days ago, I went to my parents and three brothers to discuss it, and was shocked to learn that none of them have heard about the show, or cared to hear about some interesting drama. The only person who entertained my explanation…Pop Culture3 min readPop Culture3 min read
May 19, 2020I’m not a fan of Ramadan in Quarantine- Here’s WhyToday marks the 26th day of Ramadan, a month-long holiday where Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset each day. This year, it coincided with a worldwide shelter-in-place order, meaning that the vast majority of the 1.8 billion muslims of the world are having a dramatically different Ramadan experience from past…Ramadan2 min readRamadan2 min read
May 18, 2020Good morning to everyone except those who aren’t respecting quarantine guidelines!I re-downloaded Instagram today after going on a social media cleanse for a couple weeks. I was clicking through people’s instagram stories (I thought it’d be a good way to think of things for me to do) when I saw a gathering of a group of kids from my hometown…Covid 192 min readCovid 192 min read
Published in ILLUMINATION·May 18, 2020Why I No Longer Feel Guilty about the Irony of Owning a MacBook while on Food StampsMy freshman and sophomore year of college, we had to download virtual machines onto our laptops (think of it as downloading another computer onto the one that’s already there) for all of our programming assignments in computer science. …Money4 min readMoney4 min read
