AnthroManTalks

First of all, I am so sorry for disappearing for so long! It's been a while since my last post, but I promise I have a pretty good excuse. A LOT has happened since then, and I'm now officially a Northwestern student. Let's rewind a bit... I finally graduated high school!! After four years of classes, exams, extracurriculars, research, college applications, and so much more in between, it was so nice to finally celebrate everything with the people who made it worthwhile. Gradu

I’m officially done with every AP exam I will ever take in high school. Thank goodness. I had AP Gov on Tuesday, which I self-studied because I couldn’t fit the class into my schedule this year. Somehow the most memorable part of the exam ended up being... a banana. I had one in a Ziploc bag under my desk, and the proctor called me out in front of everyone for it. I had to do the walk of shame all the way to the back of the gym just to put the banana in my backpack while peo

The Science Alliance Fair this year was one of my favorite days of the entire program out of all 4 years. We started the morning by setting up our bubble station, which is always a buddy favorite. Once everything was ready, I headed off to judge while the rest of my Cal High team ran the station. I went through project presentations, posters, and interviews, and it was amazing to see how much effort all the buddies put into their work. The day was split up so that while one g

I still can’t fully believe I’m writing this, but I’m going to Northwestern!! This whole admissions cycle has been a rollercoaster. I’ve been lucky enough to get into some amazing top schools -- Rice, USC, WashU, and all the UCs -- which already felt surreal. But seeing that Northwestern acceptance hit different. Knowing I’ll be heading to one of the top universities in the world, especially as a premed, is just insane to me. The acceptance rate this year was around 5.3% RD,

I just started Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues by Paul Farmer, and the first few chapters have already made me rethink how I see disease. It’s not just about biology or germs. It’s about where people live, how much money they have, and what kind of systems they’re stuck in. It's very much dependent on the diasporic community in which one lives. One thing that stood out to me is how Farmer connects things like tuberculosis and HIV to poverty (wrote one of my s

The past couple of weeks have been pretty surreal. College decisions are finally starting to come out, and it’s starting to feel real that the next chapter of my life is right around the corner. So far, I’ve been accepted to UPitt, UC Merced, Villanova, and Occidental. Just a few days ago I also got into UC Riverside and UC Santa Cruz, and yesterday I opened my portal (super late at night, too) and saw that I got into UDub! Seeing those acceptances pop up has honestly been su

We’re officially five out of six meetings into Science Alliance this year, and it finally feels like things are super smooth. The first few meetings were all about getting every buddy’s project approved. We had to make sure their questions were testable, their variables were clear, and that they had a realistic way to collect quantitative data. A lot of them start with big ideas like “How does sleep affect people?” and we have to help them narrow it down into something measur

I finally did it. Every single essay, supplemental, activity description. Submitted. Done. I don’t think I realized how much room college apps were taking up in my head until I hit that final submit button. For months, it’s been drafts and redrafts, late night edits, rereading the same 634 words until they didn’t even sound like English anymore. My Notes app is full of random ideas I wrote at the most random times of day because I thought they might turn into something meanin

We kicked off the new year with the January Tap Trip at Fa Yun Chan Temple, and it felt great to get back into the groove. This trip was pretty similar to what we’ve done before. Lots of digging, moving dirt, and just getting our hands dirty to improve the temple space. I think that there’s something satisfying about seeing an area slowly take shape after months of work. Everyone jumped in, passing buckets, shoveling, and helping each other out. Teamwork really makes the diff

The fourth and final section of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down really stayed with me after I finished the book. It was so meaningful, because by this point you understand everyone involved so much better. You’re not just reading about a medical case anymore. You’re reading about real people who were trying their best, even when things kept going wrong. What I liked most about this section is how honest it is. There’s no clean ending where everything magically works

Over winter break, I was fortunate to get to spend Christmas in New York, which was honestly such a fun way to end the year. The city felt alive everywhere we went, even with the freezing cold weather. No snow, unfortunately, but still very much coat weather. One of my favorite parts was doing a food tour through Chinatown and Little Italy. We tried so many local spots and little cafes that I definitely wouldn’t have found on my own. I'm a big believer that everything tastes

Just wanted to do a quick life update because the past couple of months have been kind of chaotic. Like, everything happening all at once chaotic. It started with me getting sick, and somehow that lined up perfectly with getting my wisdom teeth out. 0/10 experience. Being sick while recovering from surgery is not something I’d recommend to anyone. I spent a lot of time on the couch, surviving on miso soup, pain meds, and YouTube videos. Right after that, I went to LA to visit

After the summer break, the September Tap trip felt like a nice way to get back into things. The morning started off the usual way. We grabbed some tools, got assigned to a plot of land, and get to work. We were moving and leveling out dirt , but for a different section of the temple grounds than last time. It was one of those jobs that sounds simple until you’re actually knee-deep in it. Even though it was hot and dusty, everyone kept the energy up. There’s something kind of

Section 3 of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down really got me thinking about how much communication (or the lack of it) can shape everything. This section focuses on Lia’s medical treatment and how her parents and the doctors keep misunderstanding each other—not because they don’t care, but because they literally come from two completely different worlds. The Hmong parents see Lia’s seizures as a spiritual issue, while the doctors view them as a medical emergency. Both

I just wrapped up my first set of supplemental essays for one of my schools, which feels like a milestone. It’s kind of surreal to think...

Club Fair this year was insane. Over 200 clubs set up posters, games, and food all across the quad. You could barely walk without bumping into someone trying to hand you a flyer or bribe you with food. My club’s table was stacked with cookies and brownies, which we’d spent the day before preparing for. I actually bought all the food myself and had to stash it in my car until the extended lunch period. My backseat smelled like sugar the entire morning, but honestly it was wort

Section 2 takes a step back from Lia’s story and talks about the history of the Hmong people. At first I thought it was kind of random,...

The August trip was another day of putting in the work to make the temple space better. We started off with the main task of the day: shoveling dirt and bringing it down to fill the planting sections. It sounds simple, but after a few trips back and forth with buckets, you really start to feel it. Still, there’s something satisfying about watching those empty sections slowly fill up and knowing it’s all going to help the temple gardens grow in the future. After finishing

S ection 1 introduces Lia Lee, a young Hmong girl with epilepsy. Her family sees the seizures as more than a medical issue. They believe...

After taking April off for AP exams (which definitely took enough energy on their own), we came back strong for the May Tap trip. This time, the main mission was simple but intense: move dirt. A lot of it. We were helping prep the area for future construction, so the goal was to clear and level out a section of the yard. It started off feeling endless, but once we got into a rhythm: passing buckets, digging in teams, and building those mini dirt piles. We actually made sol