5. Tortellini 2025

Image Credit: https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/the-secret-formula-for-resilience This is a sentence I have told myself so many times, a sentence that has carried me through so much of life: “I have made it so many times before. Thus, I will make it again.” We have all endured difficulties in life: familial and relational tensions, academic challenges, and our own thoughts and emotions. We seek to carve out a place in a world that often feels like it’s not made for us. These are difficult asks made of young people, but as time goes on, the demands only increase. At least in my experience, the challenges of high school are greater than the challenges of junior high, which are greater than the comparatively small issues that crop up in childhood. But in my personal efforts to stay resilient, one of my most valued strategies is to remember the past. I am of the opinion that some of our most important memories are the less pleasant ones. It doesn’t matter how small or b...

  https://www.thespruceeats.com/perfect-banana-split-recipe-305712 Ever since my sister and I were little, whenever our parents took us to the store or to a restaurant, we would always ask the same question every time we laid our eyes upon something new: “Can we pretty please get that?” And the answer was always no. My father was particularly strict with us to the point where our family friends would joke that if they left their children with him whenever they were disobedient, they would be behaving properly after a single day. One of the items that my father did not allow in the house was sugar. Pure sugar. And that meant no Sour Patches, Airheads, Haribo Goldbears, Nerds, rainbow sour belts, or milk chocolate (dark chocolate was fine)—you name it. In stores, he would zoom past the candy and ice cream aisles, forcing my sister and me to chase him down with our short legs, missing the opportunity to be mesmerized by the candy extravaganza. During winter breaks, my family and I wou...

  https://www.austral.edu.ar/cerebroypersona/en/presentacion/preguntas/memoria-e-identidad/ What makes you, you? Some might say it's the DNA that constitutes who we are, as it is the foundation of our every trait, programming who we are. Others might say that we are a result of our environment, molded by every single thing surrounding us. While none of those answers are inherently wrong, I feel like they overlook something that simply cannot be ignored: memories.  If you went back and visited your past self a year ago, how much has changed in that time? What about in the past five years? What about ten years? Would you be the same person? It’s easy to say at a glance that you’d be the same person as when you were younger but it’s hard to justify that idea when there’s in fact nothing that is the same besides your DNA. All those experiences in those years between the past and present change a person so much that chances are, if a person relived their life, chances are, it would...

I remember my first few months in America, when my mind was still thought in Hindi while my tongue tried to keep up in English. I was pretty slow at speaking English. The words I used felt like puzzle pieces that didn't always fit together. Home I spoke my mother tongue with my parents holding on to the familiarity of my childhood but at school English dominated every conversation which kinda was annoying for me even though I spoke English back in India in school here her accent was Harder to keep up with this made me feel like I had to leave parts of myself behind to just belong. Some birds hold entire memories. Badminton reminds me of the summer evenings in India playing with my friends and my cousins, guinea pigs bringing back the movements I became responsible for two tiny lives. And Diwali carries the scent of home cooked beets and firecrackers with every kind of firecracker which is basically not allowed over here because of wooden houses. Language ties these memories togethe...

  Our brain is a complex organ that controls a variety of our being as a human. Our senses, the ability to move, thoughts, emotions, and memory. Memory is a vital aspect of being who you are, as it quite literally shapes you through the way you think or make decisions.  In 1894, Sir Francis Galton, cousin to Charles Darwin, coined the term “nature vs nurture,” the psychological argument of whether a person’s biology shapes them the most, or if their environment and the circumstances surrounding them do. The true answer to this question does not really take a side. Who a person is depends on both their birth and their situation—nature and nurture working together to form an identity.  As one progresses through life, memories are made and stored in the cerebellum. As I am writing this blog, there is a memory of me typing each word in this sentence. Is that not fascinating to think about? The concept of time, and the fact that we are constantly pressing forward with no pause...

  Let's say you wake up tomorrow as a completely different individual. New name, new face, new life. But you still have all the memories of the "you" that you are today—your childhood, your family, your favorite songs, your worst heartbreak, that one time you sneezed and farted simultaneously in front of your entire class (hasn’t happened to me, I promise). All of it. You still have it all. So… who are you? There's a theory that asks this exact question: What if you're not the same person every day? What if your body changes, your identity resets, but your memories stay the same? Are you still you? Is it your body that makes you who you are, or are your memories the real you? Memories—they're the ultimate chameleons. They shift, lose definition, distort, and sometimes disappear altogether. And yet, they anchor us. They tell us who we are, where we've been, what we've lived through. They're the reason a song from ten years ago can pull you back into...

Vacations and trips. Who doesn’t enjoy them? A chance to relax and temporarily forget some of your many responsibilities that would usually be swimming through one’s mind. A chance to explore a new world by yourself or bring along family and friends to augment the experience. A chance to bond and create new memories with others. I have always enjoyed taking trips, especially the one I took two years ago to Toronto, Canada. That trip is my most memorable since I had the most fun there out of all the trips I have taken to this day. My family had taken this trip because my cousins live in Toronto and my uncle and his family would be arriving during that time too. This was especially exciting because we hadn’t seen each other in over seven years. It was upon seeing them that I truly realized just how long it had been since I had seen them (my mom almost began crying out of happiness)! This trip also helped me come to the realization that above other things, I value the time spent with my f...

  My family and I went to Hawaii for a vacation—my birthday vacation! I turned 16 amongst the sunny beaches and tropical forests and it was amazing. Two days later, we went to Waikiki beach. On the way there, I borrowed my mom's phone to use her hotspot. I was wearing a cute tennis dress with pockets to match with my sister. When we reached the beach, I wanted to continue using my mom's hotspot so I shoved her phone in my left pocket and my phone in my right one. We arrived at the sandy shores and my sister and I immediately ran to the water to take pictures. I ran around giddily trying to get the best shot of me at the beach. Five minutes later, my mom arrived and I decided to give her phone back. I reached down into my left pocket to get her phone and stopped dead. I felt nothing. Where did it go? I looked around in the sand quickly to see if it had fallen but it was nowhere to be seen. No way anything bad happened to it, right? Maybe I accidentally left it in the car and I j...