Yale Daily News

At 17, I began to flirt with madness. My bipolar disorder started to take over my mind; and my thoughts suddenly became out of line, and quicker, too. Suddenly, almost overnight, I was thinking fast, and would stay up late into the night — seldom sleeping — yet feel energized the next day. Moreover, deep down, a part of me felt like a boy, and not a girl, and that gender dysphoria added to the internal chaos stroking my neurotransmitters. 

October 22, 2024

At the heart of prison reform lies the notion that murderers, pillagers, vehicular homiciders, arsonists, big-time thieves and rapists can be forgiven if they hold […]

October 13, 2024

While at Yale, I transitioned from being a pretty, long-haired Division I female cross country runner who wore pearl earrings to, by senior year, being […]

September 2, 2024

Herein lies the draw of the News. It is friendly to former columnists, and now, more so than my time in 2015 to 2017, has a more diverse staff — a talking point that was controversial years ago, when the paper seemed whitewashed. The News has an uncanny ability to pluck fine voices out of the student body, and also solicits non-university voices — something I witnessed when New Haven residents would write to me in emails. 

August 30, 2024

Recently, I reflected on what I could have done differently at Yale, and what I can do differently as an alumnus to improve my life. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, scaling the ranks of academia or another field was not one of them. Nor was writing a good book. I’ve chosen to focus, instead, on intimacy.

May 20, 2024

Before Dad worked at Raytheon, I was critical of weapons companies. But his salary helped pay for my college education debt-free. As a result, I was used to debating the ethical dilemma in being involved, in some way shape or form, with corporations that manufacture missiles, bombs, warplanes and other things. 

April 28, 2024

Students on campus are reading books for the wrong reasons.

April 12, 2024

In a Jan. 26 column, I explained why Yale needs to teach more of Toni Morrison. Chief among a whole host of reasons is that […]

March 27, 2024

I founded a chess club in Fairfax, Virginia. My grandfather taught me how to play chess from the age of eight, and the game has […]

March 1, 2024

After graduating seven years ago, I’ve learned that making money in America revolves around knowing finance, data and science. Making money means understanding economics and ways to do business, and working in geopolitics. Writers and people who study good books rarely make a lot of money. But their literature is what makes the world go round. 

February 15, 2024

In April 2015, I saw Toni Morrison speak at Harvard before her passing in 2019. My love for Morrison started after I read “Song of […]

January 26, 2024