I didn’t fly across the world to eat a Crunchwrap Supreme in a strip mall. But it happened anyway. Today marks 30 days since I’ve been in Thailand. I’m on the island of Ko Samui, staying in a hostel situated right down the road from the most traditional-looking mall that I’ve seen in my month here. It contains a Starbucks, a Subway, a Cold Stone Creamery, and of course, a Taco Bell. It has intricately landscaped green spaces next to the escalators and little Christmas trees s

We were not designed to know so many people. We were not supposed to have as much access to the world as we do. As their names suggest, an in-group is a social group to which a person identifies as a member. An out-group is of lesser, semi-alienated status. In-groups hold superiority. In the 1990s, British Anthropologist Robin Dunbar found a correlation between the size of a primate's brain, specifically the neocortex, and the size of its social group. According to Dunbar’s n

I made the mistake of sleeping 15 hours during the day after 36 hours of travel. In retrospect, it seems both reasonable and simultaneously weak. I woke up at one in the morning, too afraid to get up in my hostel dorm after I was heinously scolded by my bunkmate upon arrival. I waited 6 hours to use the bathroom. Every step I took, every time I unzipped a zipper, opened my locker, I imagined her eyes staring into mine, and her shushing me. Is it a cardinal rule that if one tr

I graduated from college in March. Four excruciating and thrilling years of trying to figure out what I'm good at, and wondering if I'm...