Thank you 2021 for many things. A calling, a finished manuscript, a postgrad path, mentors and friendships, family and love, good health amid a seemingly never-ending pandemic. Four years ago, a fortune teller in Hong Kong told me that 23 would be an important year. A year when I’d accomplish things that will set the … Continue reading Thank You, 2021
Tag: Year In Review
Goodbye, 2020
2020 is a year of records set, plans broken, trajectories transformed, passions lived. It marks the first time I've stayed indoors for four months straight. For 120 days, I didn't take a single step out of the apartment. (!!!) It marks the most words I've written in a year, ever. All these years I've talked … Continue reading Goodbye, 2020
12 Top Reads in 2020
Hello dear reader, HAPPY HOLIDAYS! ✨ I was drafting my annual Year-in-Review post but became spoilt for choice when trying to narrow down my favorite read of 2020 to one. So a happy sidetrack: I pick my top read for each month of the year. What better way is there to sum up 2020 than … Continue reading 12 Top Reads in 2020
2019: A Tale of Many Cities
滚滚长江东逝水，浪花淘尽英雄。 是非成败转头空。 青山依旧在，几度夕阳红。 白发渔樵江渚上，惯看秋月春风。 一壶浊酒喜相逢。 古今多少事，都付笑谈中。 《三国演义》开篇 Roiling waves of the river flow, Rippling tides sieve out heroes, Wins and losses now hollow. The earth lies here still, Many sunsets come and go. A snowy-haired elder perches by, Seasons ebbing in his eyes. History’s many tales All washed down with wine, Drowning in laughter with … Continue reading 2019: A Tale of Many Cities
2018: An Autobiography of Seasons
The countdown of days to the end of the year starts with a burnt nose. As I am steaming my face, eyes closed in bliss, my head dips too far down the basin—nose first. The boiling hot water scalds the tip. When I whip my head back up, there's a pimple-shaped red blotch on my … Continue reading 2018: An Autobiography of Seasons
Two Takes on My Harvard Freshman Year (My Year in Review?)
TAKE ONE Here's how it happens: eyelids fluttering, an image rising, and a sudden plunge into the hot, wet mouth of memory. I'm walking on a boulevard and then this hutong catches my eye and before I know it I'm wandering down networks of neurons, lost. Or I'm talking to someone, laughing, and there's a … Continue reading Two Takes on My Harvard Freshman Year (My Year in Review?)
2017, Thank You for Everything
2017 is my most paradoxical year yet in that it is both the most monumental and the most peaceful one in recent memory. For the first time in a long while, I found myself without any clear-cut, measurable goals. Since I was a kid and could grasp the concept of a university, Harvard had been … Continue reading 2017, Thank You for Everything
Selina Xu 