The scenario is all too familiar. You push a button and pace until the elevator arrives. Doors open, revealing you won't be alone on your trek to the eighth floor. You nod to your fellow passenger, step inside, press the button, and fumble with your phone or watch while a looped track of bland jazz blares overhead. "ACHOO!" "God bless ... [Read More…]

Mom, I have a confession: when I was younger, I used to fake sick. When I faked sick, I understood I had to be smart about what symptoms to have. Trial and error told me faking a fever didn't work. Too easy to check, dang it, and I was sent off to school. I knew from "ET," that apparently holding the thermometer up to the light bulb worked, but ... [Read More…]

"Follow your passion." It's common advice for every soul-searching college student. If you stick with what you love, everything else will fall perfectly into place. But I'm starting to think maybe this isn't always the case. To be honest, people who chase their passions scare me. It seems as if they trust so fully in the one thing they love ... [Read More…]

I have never liked animals. I don't want a puppy, I think cats are the embodiment of Satan on earth and I've killed every fish I've ever owned. I am also a carnivore. Eating meat is one of the most fulfilling aspects of my life. Or, at least it was until I stopped eating meat altogether. It started this summer when a boring project at work drove ... [Read More…]

I've been in America nine weeks, which is the longest I've ever been in this country. For the most part, I think I've gotten used to the culture, the jokes and the fads. But just when I think I know America fairly well, it throws a new surprise at me. Recently, it's been showing me how things get real here, or in my case, how things get unreal. ... [Read More…]

I spent a week of summer vacation at the beach with my family. My parents, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and I loaded our cars and caravaned to Surfside Beach, a tiny town nestled on the Texas coast. We stayed in a rented beach house named the "Boat House," a blue dwelling situated on Coconut Road off the Blue Water ... [Read More…]

Beginning a new school year and learning the ropes as the new editor of the Optimist has been a very humbling experience for me. In times like these, you find out exactly how much you don't know. You get lost and show up to the wrong classroom. You forget to respond to your name when attendance is called. You can't find a seat in Chapel. It's ... [Read More…]