Illustration by Cherry Bomb Creative Co.

HOUSTON — Dressed in a faded cotton t-shirt and gray sweatpants pilling at the thighs, Margarita hovered by the threshold of the house she had cleaned once a week for two years now, anxiously tucking in phantom strands of hair behind her ear while she waited. The father of the family she works for returned to the door and handed her a wad of twenty-dollar bills totaling $200, a two-week salary for Margarita, urging her to stay at home and assuring her she would continue to be paid. Thanking him, she knelt down to pet the family dog one last time, feeling his wary eyes following each stroke of her hand.

The threat of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China but quickly swept the world with its decimating effects, has been described as a threat that does not discriminate. However, as governments order citizens to practice...

Mexico City

Oaxaca

Chiapas

Chihuahua

Inside Tomball’s famed antique store, Nana’s Main St. Cottage

Along the Trinity and Brazos Railroad line, about 30 miles northwest of the heart of Houston, a dark wooden house sits on the side of the road leading into Old Town Tomball–one of the few buildings whose shade holds promise of reprieve from the petulant Texan sun. I would say blink and you might miss it, were it not for the 12-foot-tall twin metal roosters standing haughtily at the foot of the wraparound porch. I had driven through Tomball countless times before, dozens of uniform wooden storefronts announcing antiques, custom cowboy boots, railroad memorabilia, and “good ole Texan barbeque” flitting by, but this was a gem of southern kitsch I had to experience. It was those roosters, so ostentatious in their McDonalds yellow-and-red plumage–surrounded by a posse of smaller metal flamingos, cacti, and various barnyard...

A close look at Princeton University’s historic Joseph Henry House

Outside the eggshell yellow walls of Joseph Henry House, situated along the northern edge of Princeton University’s campus, the sky is an uninterrupted blue — a summer sky that could fool anyone into believing it is mid-June were it not for the snow adorning the bloated bushes standing guard around the house’s perimeter. The naked branches of the surrounding trees impertinently draw long afternoon shadows on the building’s face — grey veins that reflect the nearly two centuries lived by the house. Inside, in Room 16, a group of 16 sophomores sit. With the exception of two students whose slight unpunctuality has cost them a chair at the table, the rest are gathered attentively, notebooks in front of them, around a polished chestnut table that nearly spans the room. From the head of the table, John McPhee, prolific...

My name is Regina Lankenau and I suffer from Fickle Passion Disorder.

Hiiii Reginaaaa.

You may recognize the disorder for its symptoms: the eureka moment, where, eyes shining with unbridled enthusiasm, you learn of a new Thing — a new Thing that just clicks with you, moves you, turns the gears in your mind. You then share this Thing, at 1000 words a minute, to anyone and anything that will listen. A new Thing that you spend hours and hours researching, devouring any iteration of it — books, articles, movies, products —so that you can learn everything about it. A new Thing that becomes an obsession, a 24/7 plague on your mind, or worse — dare I say — a new Passion.

You might ask, well, what’s wrong with being passionate? Isn’t passion what everyone — from college admissions officers to your wife — is looking for?

The problem isn’t so much passion, but the inability to stick with...

Fat drops rain down in flurries. Without the biting cold to ease the weight of the humidity.

I enter, the little bell above the threshold rings, announcing my arrival. I sit on one of the faded, red striped chairs and drape my soaking raincoat on it; breathless. With my back to the wall, I have found the optimum spot to observe the comings and goings of the cafe.

I order freshly ground coffee and a salmon omelette with capers (the Bernard).

The whooshing sound of the espresso machine jumbled with the deliciously familiar sound of Spanish is the white noise to my typing.

A student, probably a junior, sits in the opposite corner to me, deeply engrossed in his studies. Computer in front of him, a coffee on the side. Great minds think alike, friend.

In front of him, three men sit: one, probably a senior at Princeton, the other looks like someone who could be his dad, and the third...

The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: “One cannot escape the world more certainly than through art, and one cannot bind oneself to it more certainly than through art.”

I was six when I experienced art for the first time. I sat there, huddled around a raised platform at Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace, a puppet performance of Mozart’s opera, Die Zauberflöte, unfolding before me. Though I didn’t speak German, the music–those achingly high arpeggios and heart-breaking arias–transmitted the universal values of love, fear, and joy, making me cry and laugh without really understanding why. And that’s the beauty of art. It transcends trivialities like language or age and captures something much more raw; it’s a solace and a transport for us when reality becomes too much, and yet, art is the clearest reflection of that reality, enshrining our human passions and sorrows in the swell of...

“Culture is what presents us with the kinds of valuable things that can fill a life. And insofar as we can recognize the value in those things and make them part of our lives, our lives are meaningful.” Gideon Rosen, Stuart Professor of Philosophy and director of the Behrman Undergraduate Society of Fellows, Princeton University.

“Work with it, not against it.” I stared, mouth agape, at my beloved masterpiece as Wojtek, my art mentor, walked away, his silver ponytail swinging to the step of his wry chuckle. There, reaching from the temple to the whiskers of my pastel Bengal tiger, lay the offending mark–a nonchalant streak of bright red that matched the colour of Wojtek’s fingertips, and had absolutely no right being there.

Every week from the age of ten to twelve I attended art lessons with my mom in Wojtek’s beautifully chaotic studio on the outskirts of suburban Warsaw. Eclectic...

“No temo la evaluación, temo la corrupción.” I don’t fear evaluation, I fear corruption, a sign reads, draped askew below the highway toll booth window. I avert my eyes as a man clutching a baseball bat, half of his face concealed by a red bandanna, approaches the car. My heart pounds against my chest. My dad drops the given amount of pesos, above the normal tariff rate, in the man’s hand, and two other bandanna-ed men, one carrying a knife and the other an AK-47, raise the boom barrier, allowing us to pass. I breathe a sigh of relief as we continue to Acapulco.

It’s the kind of stuff I used to only read about on the news. But I’ve learned that living in Mexico City, as exciting as it is, means living in the heart of it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. The message on the toll booth sign represents the sentiments of much of the country right now, as unions of teachers go on...