I was lucky. I was able to sit down with my mum and tell her how scared I was. The people I love supported and watched out for me. When I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn’t see, my dad was there to drive me […]
Off the Board
Becoming a Canadian in Canada
Before I went on exchange last winter, my mum sewed a small Canadian flag to my backpack. I was apprehensive: It felt like a a bold, definitive declaration of my nationality. As an anonymous traveller, your country of origin comes to define you, and I wasn’t sure I was ready […]
“But, you don’t seem autistic!”
Last October, my best friend, who has autism, told me that he thought I might be on the spectrum. I was skeptical: I’m not into trains, I take turns in a conversation, and I’m good at giving relationship advice; I’m not autistic. Still, his comment prompted me to do some […]
Reflecting on the Quebec mosque shooting two years later
I remember crying when I first heard about the Quebec City Mosque shooting. I saw the faces of my father, my uncles, and my friends in the faces of the victims. I remember asking how this could have happened in a country that claims to value immigrants and diversity. I […]
Light your academic fire
In the first few sessions of every graduate seminar I’ve taken at McGill, a particular routine has unfolded without fail: The class goes around the table introducing themselves, their progress in the program, and how their research interests relate to the course. When my turn comes, I take a deep […]
Pork before synagogue: Growing up at a cultural crossroads
Born in Queens, my mom was raised in Westchester county, New York, a predominantly-Jewish area surrounded by fellow first and second-generation Ashkenazi relatives. Meanwhile, my Arkansas-born father was growing up with Methodist parents who have deep southern roots and distant Scottish ancestry. So, when they married in 1992, a strange […]
One-tweet wonder
The thought of achieving any form of popularity had always seemed light-years away for someone like myself who is accustomed to mediocrity. I had never found the prospect of widespread admiration particularly attractive to begin with. As cliché as it sounds, external validation has always seemed a little shallow to […]
What my parents’ polyamory taught me
It was a peculiar sequence of events: I remember walking downstairs and seeing my mother lying down with someone else in our living room. I remember my dad coming home from yet another business trip. It had been about two weeks since I’d last seen him. I remember sitting in […]
The elephant in the room
Among other deeply instilled habits I’ve developed as a socially-anxious introvert, I make a point of not sharing my political opinions. Somewhere in the midst of the chaotic depression of high school, I found myself a political outsider in my liberal home state of Massachusetts. I was convinced I would […]
The art in athleticism
When I was eight years old, I got the first hit of my competitive softball career. I don’t remember where I hit the ball to, but I remember standing tall on second base, feeling shock, pride, and pure happiness: An exhilarating combination. Hits came more regularly after that. I spent […]