Self

Catching fire in darkness: Celebrating Diwali during a pandemic

Catching fire in darkness: Celebrating Diwali during a pandemic

Aditi Desai

I love Diwali for all of the light it forges in my house, for the seven lit candles which sit perfectly aligned on my fireplace for 10 days, for the sweets that cover every square inch of my kitchen counter, for all of the shoes I trip over as guests pile into my home. As an Indian American living in New Jersey, my parents have adapted the way Diwali is typically celebrated. 

THE PROSPECT | 12/06/2020

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DISPATCH | Summer At Last

DISPATCH | Summer At Last

Samuel Li

The sun sets later day by day in the southern hemisphere. By an unfortunate combination of Princeton’s academic calendar and the onset of COVID-19, I have lived through three consecutive autumn/winter cycles, so it’s a refreshing change of scenery to finally roll into summer. This also happens to be the first summer that I will spend on a gap year.

THE PROSPECT | 12/06/2020

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COVID-19 cannot take our memory — unless we let it

COVID-19 cannot take our memory — unless we let it

Sally Jane Ruybàlid

 We had no affection for the privileges we had in a pre-pandemic life in the moments that we had them: therefore I feel that has been why we have been so eager to return to normalcy.  Nobody ever appreciated and “lived in the now” for the little things that made life flourish, until COVID-19 snatched them away. 

THE PROSPECT | 12/01/2020

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COVID-19 and ‘code red’: understanding the pandemic’s toll on frontline health care workers

COVID-19 and ‘code red’: understanding the pandemic’s toll on frontline health care workers

Harsimran Makkad

Rather than watching the case count on The New York Times or other news outlets, I track the number of cases by the times we are what my family calls “code red,” when we handle clothing with gloves and disinfectant and maintain distance until my mother, an anesthesiologist, has showered.

THE PROSPECT | 11/18/2020

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Seeking solace in solitude

Seeking solace in solitude

Claudia Frykberg

Of course, I miss people. Being alone is hard. But perhaps loneliness isn’t the evil we perceive it to be.

THE PROSPECT | 11/12/2020

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Texting home

Texting home

Paige Cromley

Before leaving home, my phone history with my parents was sparse, to say the least. Now that I’m thousands of miles away, of course I’m texting my parents more. But as a high schooler, I would never have guessed just how often I would find myself, in college, reaching for the phone to contact my mom. 

THE PROSPECT | 11/12/2020

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At home, I live in fear. Princeton offers no safe haven.

At home, I live in fear. Princeton offers no safe haven.

Anonymous

Since being sent to live with my family in March I have been trying to keep myself alive. I am gay and have been forced to live with my religiously conservative and homophobic family. I fear for my safety. But, the University cannot help me.

THE PROSPECT | 11/10/2020

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Reflections from a first-year: Establishing friendships over Zoom

Reflections from a first-year: Establishing friendships over Zoom

Anna Chung

In a normal semester, students may have been able to sow the first seeds of a budding friendship by turning to a peer in an orientation hall or large lecture class to exchange a few words. Now, side conversations have become relegated to the Zoom chat, where a quick private message about an assignment might just spark the beginnings of a new connection.

THE PROSPECT | 11/01/2020

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Recalling my French travels in two chapters

Recalling my French travels in two chapters

Mikaela Avakian

I blame Whole Foods’ Camembert cheese display for sending me down an agonizing rabbit hole of nostalgia, and making me pine after a pre-COVID-19 existence.

THE PROSPECT | 10/31/2020

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DISPATCH | Living near UChicago

DISPATCH | Living near UChicago

Lois Wu

I had decided to sublet an apartment a mere five-minute walk away from the University of Chicago (UChicago) campus for the fall and live with a stranger, rather than stay at home in New York, a decision that often warranted some explaining. The short answer is that I wanted to spend time near my older sister, who’s currently living in Chicago. 

THE PROSPECT | 10/18/2020

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Reflections on Baldwin and Jamaica: ‘for sinners shall be bound in hell a thousand years’

Reflections on Baldwin and Jamaica: ‘for sinners shall be bound in hell a thousand years’

Kristal Grant

Jamaica always seems to call me home — despite the fact that I haven’t actually been home since I had to flee two years ago.

THE PROSPECT | 10/13/2020

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Visual essay: What is the value of National Coming Out Day?

Visual essay: What is the value of National Coming Out Day?

Wendy Ho

Through illustration and prose, Wendy Ho reflects on the value of National Coming Out Day in 2020.

VISUAL ESSAY | 10/08/2020

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Chinatown Diptych: The Origins of a Writer

Chinatown Diptych: The Origins of a Writer

Jeffrey Liao

Growing up, writing was my haven. My friends teased me for carrying a marble notebook wherever I went, pages brimming with mediocre poems my 12-year-old mind thought Shakespearean. Words, I discovered, have the power to forge rivers, oceans, mountains. They immortalize the rise and fall of civilizations, etch our names in rock and dust.

THE PROSPECT | 10/08/2020

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DISPATCH | Getting used to the noise

DISPATCH | Getting used to the noise

Paige Cromley

It sounds strange when I explain it. Why Boston? Why these girls, who I barely knew before we signed the lease? I still have trouble picturing the series of events that led me here; the days after Princeton announced that fall semester would be online are a blur.

THE PROSPECT | 10/06/2020

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Making Princeton at home

Making Princeton at home

José Pablo Fernández García

With all this rumbling in the back of my mind, throughout the past months I stumbled into a habit of trying to bring home the remaining things that make Princeton, well, Princeton.

THE PROSPECT | 10/01/2020

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What is ‘Princeton’ without Princeton?

What is ‘Princeton’ without Princeton?

Wendy Ho

Wendy Ho reflects on this unusual semester.

VISUAL ESSAY | 09/20/2020

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Going home to ‘Trump’s America’

Going home to ‘Trump’s America’

Madison Mellinger

This summer I was fortunate to be supported by the John C. Bogle ’51 Fellowship in Civic Service to return home and assist Dr. Erika Kitzmiller with her research project, “Youth Inequality, Mobility, and Opportunity in Red and Blue America.” I took this valuable experience as an opportunity to explore the dissonance I felt while reading Vance’s memoir and reflect on my own experience growing up in Appalachia.

THE PROSPECT | 09/17/2020

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Triangle’s ‘Old Folks’ Home’ and the future wished for

Triangle’s ‘Old Folks’ Home’ and the future wished for

José Pablo Fernández García

The future I see in front of me for the next couple months is the white wall that stands behind my desk as I write these words. It looks like my friends and classmates and professors confined to Zoom boxes. It looks like more time hundreds of miles away from the place I’d grown to love as my other home. This is all so different from the future I so wish lay ahead instead.

THE PROSPECT | 09/16/2020

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The Orange Bubble and the Elixir of Youth

The Orange Bubble and the Elixir of Youth

Claudia Frykberg

Arriving home in March without a return date, I sought to reconnect with those I had lost touch with. In doing so, I learned what could have been and, more importantly, what Princeton has given me instead.

THE PROSPECT | 09/13/2020

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I thought I took every precaution. I still tested positive for COVID-19.

I thought I took every precaution. I still tested positive for COVID-19.

Grace Rosenberg

I thought I’d been careful, and indeed I had been — degrees more so than most, if not all, of my friends and family. Then came the email: my SARS-CoV-2 test, which I’d taken as a precaution before seeing my grandparents, and not at all because I was symptomatic, was positive. 

THE PROSPECT | 09/10/2020

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