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Pepop Taught Us Perserverance

Two weeks ago, my pepop (my dad’s dad) passed away at age 84. My dad, knowing he had taken a turn for the worse from complications from recent strokes, was able to drive down to Kentucky from Chicago to be by his side along with other vaccinated family members...

Thesis Submitted!

Last week, I submitted my honors thesis, The Political Economy of Cellular Agriculture: Delineating Tension Points in the Development of Cultivated Meat Products. Writing this thesis was a culmination of two years of research on the lab-grown meat industry and...

How we greet people matters

Something that the pandemic has realIy taken away from us are the many ephemeral, fleeting, momentous interactions with strangers that come with daily life. Walking past people on the street has become an act of avoidance rather than acknowledgement, standing in line...

The Horrors of the Industrial Meat Complex

As many of you know, I frequently grapple with the environmental and ethical impacts of the meat industry. The Western diet has long relied on a commodified detachment from the animals from which meat products are derived, as the imagery of slaughter is replaced with...

America’s Mass Shooting Epidemic

*TW* This post discusses gun violence. After two tragic mass shootings in one week, one that resulted in the death of six Asian women in Atlanta and another in Colorado that killed ten people in a grocery store, the nation seems to be grappling with our gun violence...

What we can learn from Nomadland

Last night, Charles and I watched the brilliant new film by Chloe Zhao starring the stoic and exceptional performance by Frances McDormand, a woman named Fern who has lost everything after the gypsum mines of Empire, Nevada closed amid the Great Recession and her...

Tutoring an Elementary Schooler Throughout the Pandemic

This year, I have had the joy & challenge of volunteering to serve as a tutor and language learning partner with a student in the Philadelphia School District through an after school community development program, primarily for immigrant families. I have been...

Grieving our Family Dog

On Wednesday night, my parents tearfully Facetimed my sister and I to let us know that our dog, Bailee, had been diagnosed with metastatic cancer in her lungs and spleen and only has a few days or weeks left to live. This came as a sudden shock and we are all...

Environmental Sociology & Activism in Research

This year, I am taking an Environmental Sociology class through the CED program, which studies “community in the largest possible sense,” weaving together how our (1) economic and material conditions, (2) culture and ideology, and (3) governance and politics impact...

Towards Becoming a Yogini!

Something that has kept me sane, grounded, and physically healthy over the past year is yoga; both the physical pose practice (called asanas in sanskrit) and the ‘off the mat’ foundations of yoga that can take on the form of philosophy and spirituality, reflection and...