It’s been exactly two months since I’ve been back in the states. I have since found it unnervingly easy to fall back into my old routine here at Penn. I still go to bed around 2 am despite my resolve every morning to be in bed by midnight. I still frequent PAACH to nap in the back […]

As I sit in the airport waiting for my flight to Viet Nam with my eyes half-closed, this is what I’ve managed to remember after having traveled pretty often: I can pack lightly and quickly. I learned how to fit a week’s worth of essentials into one backpack and still have room for a package […]

George Bernard Shaw said that apparently. He also co-founded the London School of Economics. A fellow economist and food enthusiast? I appreciate that. I think anyone who knows me knows how much I love food. And I think oftentimes the best way to immerse myself in a culture starts with food. I studied abroad in […]

McDonald’s was something of a treat for us when I was growing up. We rarely ever went out to eat because it simply wasn’t economical. Every Friday afternoon, my dad would pick us up from school and our whole family would drive half an hour to the nearest mall. My sister and I would spend […]

One of my favorite books comes from my 12th grade reading list, a thousand-page literary masterpiece from John Irving called A Prayer for Owen Meany. I still remember it was a thousand pages because we were given a week to read it, and everyone in the class panicked. I think I was one of the […]

Technically, I’m also an economics major. But biology had always come first in the list of academic interests, right below learning how to perfect the chocolate chip cookie. Any research I have has always been done in a lab, whether at a bench or animal facility or computer station. Before this summer, I had no […]

When I was younger, I used to sit by my mother’s feet and watched as she carefully sewed buttons onto a shirt cuff for her next client. I’d been fascinated by the colorful cloths, threads, and ribbons she kept lined up against the wall behind her sewing machine, daydreaming of the dresses and purses just […]

Hi all! My name is Chan Nguyen and I’m coming from the tiny town of Gettysburg, PA. I’m a rising senior studying biology and economics in the College, and I’m one of four interns for Shahi Exports, a large garment factory based in Bangalore. We will be spending a couple weeks in Orissa and the […]