Archive | Issue 5: 2019

You hear a wood-on-metal click as the heavy door closes behind Vespas buzz by. A friendly nasone fountain flutters fluid to the surface Cold and rich with minerality from running through calcium-cluttered underground Garbage collectors clink bottles from a whole neighborhood’s night of drinking You pass the wall populated by painted eyes, reflecting the Roman […]

Sitting on the terrace, accompanied by the strong smell of espresso sitting idly on the wire table in front of us. Downtrodden. He looks tired. Just four years ago his life was completely different. In Spain, he had a job; he could get by with food on the table and a roof over his head, […]

The first morning I was by myself in Beijing, I was starving, and I had no idea what I was going to do for breakfast. The past week, I had relied on my dad to use his magical Mandarin speaking skills to get us the best dumplings, congee, tofu, or soy milk. But, now, here […]

I’ve got Seattle in my bones. This city has raised me, loved me, and bored me. We’ve experienced all twenty years of my life together, all within this same five-mile radius. I was itching for a temporary escape. So, I applied for Scotland on a whim. Skipped a concert that night and coerced a classmate […]

These photographs were taken just two weeks into my program, during a 36-hour-long trip to Hampi, an ancient village located in east-central Karnataka. During my time abroad, technological communication with those back home was limited, and while I found solace in the slow nostalgia of cards and letters sent by friends and family, I struggled […]

Stardust: Do you think the quest for change futile? Don’t you know?             The sky isn’t the limit.   Going abroad didn’t change nothing. Just clarified what I already knew. The darkness finally shone. Truth once averted, now spilling from my soul. See how broken the world is? Whatever seemed daunting before, seems unattainable now. Because, […]

Here we tell of serendipitous revelations that crystalize out of the fluidity of chaos. Stardust by Chantalle Bell Postcards from Hampi by Kana Johnson Years That Answer by Bella Brown All the Small Things by Katie Chua Miguel by Ashlyn Carlson From Via Goffredo Mameli 59 to Palazzo Pio 95 by Alex Zhu There Was No Lace in Nottingham by Victor Hugo […]

With so many expectations, Japan did not let me down at all, not even a little bit. In fact, my trip there was so wonderful and smooth. The only chaos I felt was the chaos of exploration, trying to capture as much as possible within the limited time I could spend there. I had tasted […]

I have always thought that a city’s architecture should just be associated with its history and the culture behind it, such as how and why it was built, or the major events that happened in particular sites. Everyone should have the same feeling toward it, it seemed to follow. In London, however, I happened to […]

these pages are from my journal during my creative writing study abroad in italy. the drawings are from one scorching day in the depths of pompeii’s ruinous hell. i sat in the short slivers of shady spots that i could scavenge and made a studio in the ruins. the list of questions and answers are observations […]