Mama Instant Noodles Shrimp Flavor (Tom Yum). That squeaky wrinkle sound became pleasing when I tore open the foil packaging. I dumped the brick of ramen and the powder of spices into a bowl, and my fingers darted to the switch on my electric kettle. I now had only a minute to get everything ready.
I dip a tiny strip of photographic paper into a vat of developer and I watch it sink. Tapping it gently with popsicle-stick prongs, I let my mind wander for two whole minutes. I’ll stop the developing process by running it into the “stop bath” for half a minute, then into the fixer solution for ...
A review of 2014’s Spring Weekend from the Brown Daily Herald describes the concerts as “primarily successful.” 11 years later, and I can only chuckle at this subdued summary of a series headlined by one of the most prolific DJs ever and arguably the greatest artist of all time whose sound pioneered ...
I purchased my first ever Spring Weekend ticket while on the treadmill. I was #1998 in the virtual queue and the little figure on the screen walked atop the progress bar from left to right, imitating my leisurely pace, dragging itself to the finish line. Every day felt like that at the time. Between ...
Learning to hate is both easy and hard. It is easy in that once felt, hatred takes close to no effort to maintain. It persists through all kinds of weather. Learning to hate is hard in that you need to get hurt to begin. And then it hurts to keep hating. And then when you’re finally tired of hating, ...
There’s something sweet in the air. It usually hits me at night on the walk back from North Campus, right between Wriston and Keeney. Each time, I’m left disoriented, unable to keep walking. It’s a green, sharp, scent–one of freshly mowed grass, sweat, clear sky, crisp morning air. It’s youthful—gentle, ...
I practice curling my tongue, enunciating, moving my mouth in unfamiliar directions. The sounds of the spoken language ring true—I grew up listening to my mother tell me Chinese folktales of a woman stranded on the moon for infinity, or hovering above my shoulder to reprimand me for my poorly drawn ...
Houses are living things. Maybe not quite as sentient as Encanto’s Casita or the literal living house in Monster House, but they have hearts—a pulse beating through the pipes, a unique personality built into the walls, memories ingrained in the foundation. There's credence to the saying, home is ...
I stand in the kitchen of my off-campus apartment, staring at the lumpy sack of Japanese sweet potatoes on the counter. The shape is wrong. They are smaller than the ones Mom buys from the Asian Food Markets back home, their skin covered in little scabs as if they’ve made a hard journey to get here. ...
let’s go to the movies
Imagine your text messages were for sale. Imagine a girl, much younger than the usual patron of an antique store, digging through a box of your most intimate correspondences. Imagine she buys them, takes them home, and tries to piece together what you might have been trying to say—who you might have ...
At the start of school, everyone said they had moved out of their homes to come to Rhode Island. I didn't move much. Two suitcases: a few sweaters, sheets, New Balances, a bottle of wine that was finished in a week. Toiletries. My home was in Connecticut. It was close, so close that I didn't bring much. ...
I don’t believe in signs, but then again maybe I do.
Soft, hazy flashes of warm oranges and yellows paint the window, leaving speckled imprints in my memory that recede with the ever-changing images of infinite leaves. Humming reverberates from where I gently rest my head against the wall—an illusion that I am hearing the spirit of atoms themselves. ...
People are hoarders of various things. Some collect antiques, dolls, shoes, or clothes; some dedicate their entire lives to the unfulfilling quest of storing mounds of money. I guess you can call me a hoarder of memories, of experiences. I am a journal enthusiast. Nothing delights me more than using ...
The red bench stands out in the stark whiteness. The tarp above, which sits at a slight tilt from the weight of the fallen snow, protects the bench from icy remnants. The steady shiver of my hands, a few brave fingers dangling out of my parka, is perhaps a sign of the harshness of winter. If I tasted ...
There is a street in Charlestown that carries my last name. A small bypass that converges Broadway and Mystic Ave into that infamous Sullivan Square rotary, Maffa Way stretches a quarter mile at most. Despite its unassuming length, I would guess that this is one of the most frequently traveled roads ...
Solutions by The State News
