Why my friends will never be just other Asians — Growing up, I was exposed to a lot of different people of different races, cultures, and backgrounds, so I sought out companionship with people of different races and cultures. I think universal principles like unconditional love, kindness, and respect can make any friendship work, but I naturally do just gravitate…

When someone you were close with falls off the face of the Earth — There were some nights when we texted and chatted until 3 a.m., lamenting our feelings of hopelessness and pain. We were both in tough situations, sorting out who we were in our early 20s and knowing the other person would pass zero judgment on us and keep everything confidential. I…

Why do some people act so superficially when others die? — I’ve known people in my respective work, school, or other communities who have died recently. Two colleagues I worked very closely with died in the past year. It is very tragic, but I’ve never been the closest person to them. I wouldn’t have considered them in my circle of close…

Asian American and Pacific Islanders have a greater rate of behavioral addiction than other races — I looked at the clock and almost 12 hours had gone by. I’d been doing the same thing all day: staring at the computer screen, fighting monsters and accomplishing quests. I barely ate anything or drank water. My parents were not home. My brother didn’t care and probably did the…

It’s not perfect, but it’s better than most — Warning: spoilers for The Lincoln Lawyer Watching season 2 of The Lincoln Lawyer made me feel like I was smart and like I had actually learned something after my first year of law school. The show has a lot of legalese, and this past season used words like “relevance,” “impeachment,”…

A recent ADHD diagnosis makes it feel like I’m claiming a hardship I don’t have — I have been applying to jobs and internships in the summer of 2024, in anticipation of the full-time job transition I would have after I graduate law school. On all of the questionnaires, especially those from law firms, there are the standard questions about race, gender, and sexuality, mostly, I…

There are too many ~7.6/10 IMDb star shows, and it’s bad for TV writers — In light of the Writers Guild of America strike, a common grievance is that streaming platforms like Netflix and their writers are under constant pressure to keep making more and more content to keep their subscribers. In hearing about this from The Daily, the trend on Netflix all started to…

There is still substantial animosity over Japan’s atrocities in WWII — There is an entire segment of the Chinese and Korean population that very much hates Japan — particularly among older people who lived during World War II and bore witness to the atrocities of Imperial Japan. Younger generations are largely moving past this, and Japan’s soft power in anime, video…

Learning to accept your own unique preferences this summer — When I’m on vacation, I like to sleep in until 10 or 11 a.m., sit around, watch TV, scroll on my phone, and do nothing. I like to play video games, read books, and simply not have much of my day complicated by too many activities. Unfortunately, a lot of…