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(04/26/18 12:40am)
I spent almost the entire two first years of my college experience wondering if there was something wrong with me. I never liked going out to the Street — every time I’d tried, I hadn’t had a great time. Maybe I hung out with the wrong people or went to the wrong clubs, but when I reflect on the time I’ve spent on the Street, I mostly remember my general discomfort around people I don’t know and dances I don’t like.
(04/11/18 12:21am)
It only took one less-than-ideal grade to find myself jumping from one fatalistic thought to the next. Within mere moments, I went from seeing a grade on a paper to convincing myself I would never get into grad school. The weather was gray and cloudy. I had a massive headache. Nothing was going right — and it didn’t seem like it was going much better for many of my peers, either. It’s not like everyone around me was getting A’s and enjoying the weather.
(04/05/18 12:32am)
We don’t always say hello. The worst part of it is that we know each other — and maybe in a different context, we would say hi, pretend to be excited to see each other, and engage in a polite, boring small talk ritual. When not at a back-to-school barbeque, however, I pass probably dozens of people on campus without acknowledging them. It’s not that I don’t like them (except in some rare cases). It’s usually that I don’t feel like I know them well enough, or that I feel I’m not invested enough in our relationship for me to make an effort.
(03/12/18 12:48am)
It’s a fight for me to not judge people on their shoes. I’ve even created a sort of rubric for them: leather men’s wingtips indicate intelligence; tennis shoes (especially in less casual settings) show a lack of social awareness; women’s heels generally suggest elegance; boat shoes make me think you’re preppy. I’ve joked before that I refuse to go on second dates with guys because of their shoe choice. I was only half kidding.
(02/27/18 2:10am)
Somewhere on the walk between stats class and my dorm room, I lost all self-control and began to cry. The misty air outside grew heavy with tears as everything around me faded from view. I struggled to catch my breath in between tears, hiccups, and debilitating fatigue.
(02/13/18 2:24am)
I’ll be honest: I didn’t bicker because I was terrified of being hosed. As I wrote in an article earlier this year, I felt rejected by every group I auditioned for and every person I spoke to. I tried out for groups and spent hours waiting for pickups that never happened. I applied for ideal internships, only to receive emails beginning with “thank you for your application” — the classic rejection opener. The idea of having my personality put up for judgment was daunting. I couldn’t put myself through it again. But more than anything, I was scared that I would treat a potential rejection the way I had gone through previous experiences this year: by blaming everything on myself.
(01/12/18 3:16am)
I only learned what “Netflix and chill” meant after I once suggested to a guy I liked that we do so sometime. He quickly texted me back to say that he was shocked by my honesty. “You’re usually pretty shy,” he said. “Are you sure?” I couldn’t understand why he was so hesitant. “What do you mean?” I responded. “I’m only inviting you to watch a movie.”
(12/15/17 12:54am)
“On Wednesdays, we wear pink” is perhaps the most recognizable statement of clique culture. The “mean girls” always sit together, they date the cutest guys in school, they wear the prettiest clothing. But we tend to laugh at satires like “Mean Girls.” “Come on,” we think to ourselves. “Who really does that?” And in truth, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a friend group distinguish itself by the colors of its members’ outfits — so, at face value, bemusement is definitely appropriate.
(11/30/17 3:26am)
It’s only Thanksgiving season, and I’ve already been rejected by three academic conferences, three a Capella groups, two fellowships, two summer internships, and one guy I really liked. I’m not even done yet; I’m applying for a multitude of other programs, with the hope that maybe I’ll be accepted to one for the summer. I once thought that rejection meant other people didn’t find me good enough — my voice doesn’t blend enough; I don’t have enough experience writing policy memos; I’m not pretty enough. Living with this idea can make life look pretty grim.
(11/08/17 3:35am)
Occasionally, in our efforts to be students, we forget to be friends. In a place as stressful as Princeton, we surround ourselves with difficult classes, meaningful extracurriculars, and abundant internship applications. But, beneath it all, so many people on campus have turned to me and said that they feel as if they haven’t really set aside time for their friends this year. One friend put it well when she said that “friendships are the one extracurricular they haven’t really focused on.”
(10/18/17 12:56am)
I used to cry for hours because I thought I didn’t know how to make friends.
(10/05/17 12:26am)
As a Princeton student, in between dinner dates and study sessions, you sometimes find yourself completely alone. Maybe you have a phone in your hands, maybe a good book, or even a piece of homework to distract yourself with. Other times, you’re alone with your thoughts, but you look to your left and right: you see couples lovingly gazing at each other, best friends sharing secrets, and acquaintances sharing opinions on the problem set. You see so many people having fun with each other. And as you look at the invisible people next to you, you wonder: are you the only one who is totally alone?
(09/21/17 1:12am)
More than anything, it was my interactions with the watermelon sellers that taught me about myself. Every day, I would hear them come around our neighborhood and yell at the top of their lungs that the watermelons were fresh, that they were the best, and that they only cost four somoni (about 50 cents). I was often tempted to buy one for my host parents, but I never did. Every once in awhile, we would pass each other on the street, and as any proper Tajik girl should, I looked down. But they still asked my 12-year-old host cousin for my number. My host sister told me to never give it to them.
(05/12/17 2:45am)
On a mischievous afternoon in my childhood, my cousin Michael and I were looking for something to do. “We are going to make some prank calls!” he announced proudly, beaming at the prospect of teaching trickery to his naive younger cousin.
(05/09/17 11:55pm)
On May 3 and 4, J Street U held an exhibition of photos by an Israeli non-governmental organization called Breaking the Silence, whose goal is to “expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories.” I applaud its desire to better Israeli society, but I do not feel the same about the accusations that have come out about the organization.
(04/18/17 12:37am)
I’ll admit that I take part in my fair share of “man bashing.” Any evening with my girlfriends used to involve talking about how much we “hate men,” how terrible our dating experiences have been, and how foolish our exes were. But we also spend hours getting over ex-boyfriends and complaining about being single, often to the detriment of our other pursuits. Our obsession with dating took valuable time out of our lives that we could have spent on self-improvement and learning, while we created an atmosphere of negativity and hopelessness instead.
(03/29/17 1:15am)
“It’s late,” I say. “I try to be in bed by midnight.”
(03/07/17 4:14am)
I’m afraid to say it out loud sometimes because it’s become a bad word of late. I believe in Israel’s right to exist and its necessity. I put great faith in the Jewish right to self-determination and have a deep love for the State of Israel. This makes me a Zionist.
(02/15/17 3:49am)
A year or two ago, P!nk’s song “Perfect” was blasting on radios across the country. Her powerful refrain implored us “[not to] ever, ever feel like you are less than, less than perfect.” People — myself included — drank in her lyrics as a powerful message of self-affirmation and acceptance. P!nk meant well when she asked us to remember that we are perfect just the way we are, but she neglected to mention that we are humans and thus, inherently flawed. I remember listening to that song on repeat and telling myself that I was indeed perfect, but then I remembered that I was rude to a friend earlier that day and that I had yelled at my brother. These were hardly the actions of someone perfect, but P!nk was still telling me that I was.
(12/13/16 2:22am)
It was a few years ago; I remember the commotion and stress. People were glued to their screens and social media, scanning CNN and NPR’s Twitter feeds for any insight or information on her current status. Several news outlets quickly jumped to be the first to say that she had been killed; a few minutes later, they revealed instead that there were conflicting reports on her condition. Eventually, they all issued corrections stating that Representative Giffords was in critical condition; she was, however, alive. News sources rushed to be the first to write these headlines, knowing we would be hungry to consume it, but not question it.