Blue light radiates from my phone to my face, and I bask in the glow as it breaks the darkness surrounding me. Over time, I’ve sort of developed this habit: every night, no matter the hour, I enter the endless cycle that is scrolling through Instagram. I know,…
UCLA students are required to take a year of a foreign language in order to graduate. Luckily, students are given many options to choose from, ranging from commonly taught foreign languages such as Spanish to other languages such as Swahili. I chose to take Chinese to fulfill my…
I flip through the book, page after page. The coarse, off-white paper lightly scratches the pads of my fingertips. The earthy smell of the ink wafts up to my nose. As my eyes scan the words, I imagine the scene folding out in front of me. There’s something…
Growing up, I always watched Bollywood movies because, in some ways, they are designed to fill you with joy. Songs, dance, and colorful costumes fill the screen while melodrama plays out in the background. While I love this genre, it never showed real people—at least, not the big…
It was 9 p.m. on a Wednesday night. I was sitting at my desk, typing mindlessly for an assignment due that night. My phone lit up with a notification from the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) app. It read “Explosions heard as Russia launches ‘full scale invasion’ on Ukraine.”…