Connections: Futures, Spring 2024

Letter from the Editors

Dear Reader,

Coming into the fourth year of Connections, our team has continued to grow and change, adapting in new ways as we work to establish the literary magazine. It’s been mesmerizing to see how we have grown coming into this year.

Since its inception, Connections’s themes have focused on where we come from, our roots, our foundation. Last year, we began the process of emerging from that past and looking into the future. Thus, our theme for the year came into being. The concept of futures encompasses a wide range of things: from individuals to collectives, the hopes and dreams that people have for what is to come, the uncertainty of what could be. From this theme, we have received various pieces that look at these different aspects of futures.

In the fall semester, we had a SIMS workshop so our team could become familiar with InDesign, creating a stronger foundation for the work in the spring. We also had a workshop event where we encouraged people to work on submissions with prompts and art supplies. We introduced a new role to our team in the form of the Social Media Chair. We also rebranded this year from an Asian American literary and arts magazine to a BIPOC literary and arts magazine, as we find it important to be a home for as many voices as possible.

This year, we are saying goodbye to the final founders of Connections, our seniors Allie and Vi-Yen. Allie has served as co-editor-in-chief for the past three years, and her commitment to this literary magazine will be greatly missed. Vi-Yen has been a core part of our team, diligently helping us create a warm environment. Both have been a part of Connections since they were freshmen, and now we part ways with them as they embark on their journeys into the world. We thank them for their work, dedication, and love that they’ve put into Connections.

We thank you for picking up this edition of Connections, and we hope that you enjoy this issue as we look forward into the future together.

With much love,

Allie and Alicia

It is difficult to grasp that my time being an Editor-in-Chief of Connections is coming to an end. My freshman year, like many others, was spent in the confines of my bedroom at home, away from my peers. Joining BAASA and Connections as a freshman representative and Assistant Design Editor was my gateway to building community at Brandeis at a time where it seemed so impossible. It felt as though I was experiencing the mission of Connections in real time: to heal through our connections. For the first time, I was in a community of other Asian students, predominantly women, who believed in the power of communal healing through art.

I will dearly miss coming up with silly check in questions, brainstorming the yearly theme, and perhaps even the stress of putting off my own submissions until the very last minute. It is impossible to separate my time at Brandeis from my time in Connections, and the memories I’ve made in the ICC and Sims lab are precious to me.

Our team has always been small, but I have known them to be nothing if not creative, dedicated, and passionate. I couldn’t be more grateful for a group of people who share the mission to make BIPOC artistry visible on campus. The love that has been poured into this magazine over the past few years is so strong, so encompassing to me, and I hope it is evident to you too.

I want to thank past BAASA presidents Ellie, Juliana, and Heather for seeing my potential and bringing me on to the eboard my freshman year, and for sparking my passion for this project. Thank you to Amanda, my former Co-Editor, for laying the foundations of this magazine with me. Finally, thank you to Alicia, for being my rock and such a wonderful Co-Editor this year.

To say it has been an honor would be an understatement. I am so proud of what this magazine has grown to be in just the past few years, and I am so excited to see the ways that future generations of Connections editors bring life to the magazine and the community. I hope that Connections can grow even more and live on to be a home for those who choose to accept it.

Love, Allie

Being a member of the Connections team for the past four years, I can say it has truly lived up to its name. I am so grateful to have been a part of this team who have been incredibly dedicated to bringing together an inspiring community. I am so happy to be able to help share the amazing work that has been in the magazine throughout the years and I hope this project continues to grow and evolve. I am not only thankful to the Connections team, but also everyone who has submitted their work to the magazine and shared their passion and vulnerability through their artistry.

Love, Vi-Yen

Futures Introduction

Cover and Theme by Jessica Lin ‘26

This year’s theme inspired us to create the cover in a more mysterious and magical style, as futures tend to be the same. The basic design was based off of a wonderful sketch from our Co-Editor-in-Chief, Allie. I also sketched up a few other cover ideas with different layouts and styles, and a club vote decided the final design chosen. The purple functions as a connection to last year’s cover, while also incorporating subtle hints of analogous colors. It was also a perfect bridge between warm and cool, existing at a crossroads, lending itself to the core of our theme. The future, although as uncertain and shadowy as the hands in the cover, can be just as bright and attainable as the hands holding a glowing glass ball. The grasping hands bring movement to the cover and charge the word “futures” with an action, paralleling the efforts of BIPOC students at Brandeis reaching out towards their futures.

Although “Futures” seems to only concern one direction of time, it has also helped me reflect on the past. Last year, like many other freshmen, I wanted to join a club that had a supportive and accepting environment. I came to Connections seeking a creative community with those who understood where I came from, and ended up with that and more. I got to know and grow with even more amazing people this year, and hope to meet even more next year. This year’s theme has helped me think about my efforts to reach a future I want, and how even though I may try to control it, the future will always be unforeseeable and enigmatic. Working on the cover this year was a big honor for me, and I want to thank both Co-Editor-in-Chiefs for being so patient and kind, and the entire Connections team for receiving my illustrations so enthusiastically. As my journey at Brandeis continues, I’m looking forward to being with Connections, with BAASA, working with and supporting the AAPI community here and beyond.

Mission Statement

Connections aims to create a multicultural network of BIPOC artists and writers and illuminate their voices. We are committed to fostering a community where Brandeis students feel empowered and can claim their identities proudly. We hope to be a safe space for students of varying identities and experiences to share their stories, beccause we believe it is our connections that allow us to heal and move forward.

Connections Team

Co-Editors-in-Chief

Allie Smith ‘24

Alicia Wu ‘25

Creative Director

Jessica Lin ‘26

Senior Advisor

Vi-Yen Blackwood ‘24

Assistant Copy Editor

Gretchen Wang ‘26

Copy & Graphics Team

Amanda Chen ‘25

Vincent Lian ‘25

John Mauro ‘25

Ramya Tolety ‘27

Grace Toscano ‘27

Scan this QR code to view our Connections ‘23-‘24 Spotify Playlist!

times change, and so do i

Anusha Koshe ‘26

days pass in a haze time flies by quickly i realize, remember the days gone by fondly, in a hauntingly beautiful way

i change seasons, turn the clock i watch as the me i know sheds layers of the past and faces the morning sun

nostalgia finds me in quiet corners, an old photo turns the key of dusty memories i tried to forget but the past never truly leaves you the moon follows the day’s goodbye

and like a plant, the child grew up nourished and nurtured struggled and suffered i face the sun every morning and i shield my face from moonrays tell me who i used to be looking towards tomorrow and bathing in the last of the moonlight.

A Beacon of Prosperity

Ramya Tolety ‘27

Everyday I walk and see My family’s hope for prosperity

Chasing them over far seas, To a cold and windy place not home.

“Study”, they tell me

A book is your life

A goddess herself, ask her for forgiveness if you step on Her

Even in your mind

A beacon of prosperity you are You will be greater than your forefathers

Of ever so distant shores

But what about you?

These parents who give their lives

(And their memories and troubles)

To their children

At the altar of prosperity

(Remember, she’s a goddess too)

Lighting lamps during Diwali

“Welcome”, they wish so desperately to tell her

Always placing their children’s textbooks

At Her feet

Never their own ambition

Sacrificed to Lady Prosperity

Everyday I walk and see My own life—my future

Ahead of me

Stretching out before them—these parents Must also see a future—as old as they can be Within uncertainty must come a great ferocity for peace.

Author’s Remarks:

This poem, from an abstract third-person perspective, describes a child’s immigrant parents and their hope for their child’s future , symbolized by the Hindu goddess of prosperity, Lakshmi, a deeply important and respected goddess. Through this poem, I hoped to somewhat convey my experiences of the hopes of immigrants for their children, a child’s hope for their own fulfilling life as well as for their parents to also have fulfilling lives outside of them, especially through the lens of a religion that is deeply important to me.

something from the core

easy love doesn’t exist whoever told you otherwise was lying (nobody taught me how hard love destroys you) i once only knew about simple love in quantities of apple slices my dad slicing them for my mom without her asking putting one aside for our little dog which becomes the highlight of his day and i thought if that’s not love then what is they didn’t tell me until i was older how it wasn’t easy for them to be together my parents sacrificed family culture and expectations for a suburban life of apple picking and multiracial children and if that’s not love then what is (i taste sour envy when I observe and i feel a little rotten inside but under that is longing a daydream for someone to cut me apple slices and love me simply during next autumn)

A-Gong

Gretchen Wang ‘26

New Year’s passes and I am folding lotus bases for my grandfather’s funeral. A-Gong, how well you choose these times. How kind of you to pass when I am here, after I saw you one last time.

Somewhere in the sanheyuan, my cousins watch the New Year’s shows and make scones, their laughter floating through the narrow corridor between the kitchen and the main house. Close by the altar, my youngest cousin dutifully burns paper money in a neverending circle to lead you on your way. Wind rustles, crickets chirp in the cool night air. I fold each corner of the base in methodically, tie a lotus on, start a new one. Time passes and I do not feel a new year, yet I feel time nonetheless. The air has quieted and is still.

Memories flit through my mind constantly, yet I can barely name them. I remember you holding up a crudely nailed-together frame and telling me you were trying to invent a peanut sorter, to make farming life easier. I remember telling you about 100s on my midterms and finals as a child, and how you would then go to the little side cabinet on the wall of the living room, with the baby pictures of my cousin and my brother wedged between the two glass sliding doors, and take out a hundred NTD to give to me. Above that cabinet, you kept framed photos of your sons’ graduation photos, with two for my father–one for his masters, one for his doctorate. In the cabinet alongside the far wall, next to the medicines that had expired in 1998, you kept several more photos, one of you and my brother at my father’s graduation.

Education was so important to you. Despite only having an elementary education yourself, you had all your children pursue higher education. When my uncles failed entrance exams, you encouraged them to try again. When my aunt wanted to leave nursing school, you had her kneel outside until she found the resolve to study again. When school bills piled up, you borrowed money to put everyone through school. And when my father attended a dead-end university to save money, you cried and begged him to transfer somewhere with a better future. Years later, I remember you visited us in the US several times, to see the son you raised in a nowhere farming village and put through college, to a master’s degree, to a government-funded scholarship to the US. I remember going to Walmart with you and my brother to get popsicles. That was the first year that Walmart opened, I think. None of us knew what the right ones were so you bought

the cheapest ones, and they dyed all our tongues blue.

I remember moving back from the US and staying in my family’s room all day when I visited. I remember that, three months after your accident, you were supposed to come to my music recital. You were one of few who supported my parents’ decision to let me continue music. I remember trying to hold in the tears after seeing you in the ICU, after your brain-crippling accident. I remember feeling hopeful when you recovered enough to speak my name, thinking that I must’ve meant so much to you, that you remembered me first, but I also remember the resignation after you never spoke again. I was reluctant to visit you then, terrified of seeing you silent and uncomprehending, terrified of the sorrow that threatened to envelop me each time. I’m sorry that I didn’t spend my time with you well. I’m sorry that I was scared and feigned indifference.

After this night, we will offer prayers, and we will burn everything we’ve made for you, all the paper lotuses and ingots, and have the daozhangs lead us home with the ringing of a bell, a ghostly procession of funeral garbs at midnight, following the side of a rural road. And after that we will hold your funeral, and we will go with you to the cremation parlor, and we will meet you again to let you go at your final resting place. And once its done we will have stinky tofu together, and I will wash off the negative energy of the funeral, and I will head home with my family, and the next day I will pack, and the day after I will get on the flight to the US and arrive in Boston, where I will lay my things on the floor for days afterward while I read assigned paper after paper and books after books, continue my studies, and walk into a future you are no longer living in. And I cannot say that I have worked as hard as I should, but I have tried. I cannot get 100s anymore. I will never see you take a furl of money down from that little cabinet on the wall again, carefully thumb out a hundred NTD bill, and give it to me again. A-Gong, can you forgive me for not being good enough?

Some may say that a death is an end, a finality. Yet in my last hours with you, when I saw you at peace, I could not say any parting words, give any finality. All I could say was, I will work hard. I will study hard and make something of myself. I will work hard, so I will not squander the future you have given me. In that moment, I felt that all I had was my future, that future I would use to make you proud. That future I must now embrace and make the most of. Every step of my life is a future you have given me.

阿公，我會認真。阿公，我會共該做的代誌攏做好。

A-Gong, with the blessings you have given me, from my father’s youth to my present adulthood, I will forge a good future.

Family Tree

Eric Lee ‘26

Bananas, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Vanilla Essence and Oat Milk

blended in the Ninja until they fused, entangled like our eyes across the kitchen. Cinnamon stuck on the back of our tongues as we aristocat-sip this philtre-ambrosia. And we can’t help exchanging cheshire smiles— Damn.

I’m doing it again.

I’ve shared this before.

Recipe showing the other, so special… I raise Eiffel-Tower-tall pedestals under their feet ‘til they can’t see themselves sipping the smoothie with me. My bottle-collared lips dribbling cream colored sweetness out the corners of my mouth, down my throat. Around my throat, coiling, asphyxiating until my eyes are bloodshot red with obsession when she couldn’t stomach my cup— Damn.

I did it again.

I’ve shared this before.

Our eyes lined up, you take a peek past my lovestruck stare drawing nearer to me incredulous,

Kenyatta David ‘24

pensive, scared. Mortified my forehead’s temperature’s more than high. Feverish that if I pry my heart cup open, you’ll drink your fill and retreat.

Hands over mine, you take it out and gulp.

There weren’t those melancholy Monarchs beating my belly queasy, bracing for your leave. The ones that coalesced trepidation and joy.

Your eyes—blue, cheeks—roses, smile—stagnant— baited me to risk everything again.

Why?

You gave me a Lady-And-The-Tramp-slurping-spaghetti calm I can’t shake.

Damn.

I’ll do it again.

I’ll share this with you.

Cotton Candy

Damon King (pseudonym)

My hand dips a cone into cycle of thread, spooling silky string—a spiderwebbed torch. A flame-less fire to bite, ripping right through you.

Azure and flamingo clouds touch the tongue, blue raspberry swirled in pink vanilla, melting, melding to butt taste buds.

Savor the sweetness, the sweetness my savior, for I’d find myself lost in your lines.

Tracing tips over Fingers.

Hips.

Dips.

Lips. Lick.

Lick.

Lick until you drip cotton-candy nectar. I crave the flavor, roping my mouth like your arms garland my neck. Your hair drapes over my smile-stuck face as my fingers clump inside your web of threads like wet cotton candy. You panting, sweating while I spool sticky silk about my fingertips willingly entangled in this intoxicating trap, hoping praying my lips forever stay clouded in your sweet sap.

Our Game

John Mauro ‘25

Whenever I tell a joke, before I even laugh, I look to the corners of your mouth and hope to see them raised in a smile, free.

too often, though, I see you confined, captured, contained in a cold cage of self-made expectations and parental pressures. We often fought, and you would shut the door to that cage of yours, shut me out.

I would often think that it would all end here. And, when things would get better, with a outwards masking smile I would wonder

How long can this go on? But time passed and you dragged me down into your lovely cage too. Well played – if we are both trapped, then I’ll have to fight harder to break the bars that imprison your beautiful smile. In the future, you will be free.

An American Narrative of Transnational Adoption

XiHu Arfa ‘24

Yuri Kochiyama

Gene Kang ‘24

The digital collage depicts the career of prominent Asian American activist Yuri Kochiyama. The collage emphasizes the largely background role of Kochiyama’s activism in the Black Power Movement as a messenger, meeting coordinator, and archivist. The image attempts to illustrate how history relegates the stories of Asian American and Pacific Islander women to the wayside, but that their contributions are invaluable to solidarity between minority groups and social movements. The work is heavily rooted in Diane Fujino’s chapter, “Grassroots Leadership and Afro-Asian Solidarities: Yuri Kochiyama’s Humanizing Radicalism” in the book WanttoStartaRevolution?:RadicalWomenintheBlackFreedomStruggle.

What About My Climate Anxiety?

Leo Zhang ‘25

Thursday, October 12

As an Environmental Studies major, I am constantly exposed to natural disaster news. They happen in Maui, California, Canada, and Australia. Places I have never been to. Do I have enough empathy for every lost and damage? When climate change is happening everywhere what about the change inside of my head? Climate disasters are so proliferated now, but the psychological impacts of climate are too often left behind.

By now we all know the climate has never been so unpredictable. Climate action is often quoted as the antidote to climate change. Action, they say eases your anger and sadness. In trying to combat my anxiety I started with what I can do. I started to follow climate organizations on Instagram, digital climate action. Greenpeace, The Nature Conservancy, and The Sunrise Movement were the first ones I followed. I took the time to learn about the nuances of impacts as well as solutions. Initially, informing myself of the environmental movement made me feel less alone. The Sunrise Movement’s direct actions were fierce. I recall reading about their sit-in in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office1 and feeling so much hope and gratitude for their action. Youth activists stormed into the speaker’s office, arm in arm, then got arrested by police. It felt empowering, to know my peers feel the same urgency as I do. Yet as I swipe out of their feed, I am back in my dorm room. My digital climate action provides a limited, one-sided relationship with the greater movement.

Therefore, in trying to expand my action beyond the internet I tried action IRL (in real life). In September of 2022, Brandeis organized students to attend a climate protest2 in Boston. We marched in the Boston Commons, shouting “What do we what? Climate Justice. When do we want it? Now!”. Together with about 30 students I held the warming stripes banner crafted by us and Professor Warner. I stood in front of the Massachusetts State House wondering: are we all aware how limited

1 https://www.sunrisemovement.org/past-action/pelosi-sit-in/

2 https://www.brandeis.edu/environmental/news-events/2022-mycc-climate-rally.html

time we have to reverse the worst effects; will someone scream out how ridiculous the governments are being? Will someone step out of the awkwardness and express that hysteria? No one did. No one shared my panic for the dire climate. As the bus came back to campus, we all went our separate ways. I felt like I cared too much.

Greenpeace advocates on Instagram that climate action can beat the blues, but my experience gifted me with more apprehensions than satisfaction. From there I hesitated to do more climate action. I felt like I needed to step out of my budding activism to understand my frustrations.

If reading the news makes me sad then no more reading the New York Times; if following climate organizations on Instagram becomes another internet rabbit hole, then unfollow the accounts; if doing climate action IRL just showed me how irrational my feelings were, then action only added to my anxiety. These steps I took eventually contributed to the collapse of my mental stability. It felt like whatever I was trying to do was not enough. The science says we only have a few decades to reverse an apocalyptic future.

Not doing enough, that feeling of smallness took away the hopes of my action. Instead, despair comes around again, and this time it is stronger. Climate doomism takes over my mentality. Audre Lorde, the great black feminist writer, says our feelings are our most genuine path to knowledge. If these feelings are trying to say something, what is the message?

I later came to understand the overwhelming emotions clouded my ability to see that I over-estimated my power. That resolving climate change is slow, it is a long marathon not a sprint. Like learning the violin, I thought I can play the Carnegie Hall with a few lessons but that was too ambitious, and unrealistic, an overestimation. The twist for climate though, is that there is a ticking clock on when the Carnegie shuts down.

Climate anxiety is the term I later learned, which explains what I felt was not just anxiety. The American Psychological Association3 refers to climate anxiety as “a chronic fear of environmental doom, ranging from mild stress to clinical disorders

3 Clayton, S., Manning, C. M., Krygsman, K., & Speiser, M. (2017). Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, and ecoAmerica.

like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide.” A phenomenon on the rise for teens and college students like me. Qualitative research4 provides evidence that some people are deeply affected by feelings of loss, helplessness, and frustration due to their inability to feel like they are making a difference in stopping climate change.

From my personal experience, I believe that we need to pay attention to how disaster news and climate action make us feel. Bits and pieces of emotions makes up our mental health, and uncomfortable ones have shown to lead to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Not addressing our feelings is not addressing the very first personal effects of climate change. What we need to hear more is that climate anxiety is real, and we need to understand and care for this ‘disaster’ in our mind.

4 Clayton, S., Manning, C. M., Krygsman, K., & Speiser, M. (2017). Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, and ecoAmerica.

mother nature

Grace Yang ‘25

through my eyes

Stina Mei ‘26

chen, angela (captured during baasa secret santa hangout)

bagla, khimaya (pictured at sims lab)

koshe, anusha (restaurant candid)

mei-liu, yangtang (cooking dinner candid)

luu, rita (painting candid)

waring, christina (pictured with goose plushie phillip)

My digital media piece, “through my eyes”, is a series of photographs taken via digital camera—hence the name of my piece as the camera lens serves as a metaphor for my eyes. The photographs focus on snapshots of Asian American Pacific Islander women that are central in my own life living out their daily lives and thriving in their own elements, breaking the Orientalist monolithic narrative of Asian American Pacific Islander women as hypersexualized, submissive, alien, and whose sole purpose is to prop up white men while coveting the position of white women. The brief glimpses in their everyday, mundane life place AAPI women as human and real within our society, bringing them to the forefront as characters rather than having them remain in the background as accessories to white men whose fate is to die in the end when they have served their purpose.

I was inspired to create my own series of sorts after viewing the mockumentary project series created by Ramona Wang titled “Myfriendsarecyborgs,butthat’s okay” featured on the DOCUMENT Journal that was made to imagine a world where Asian bodies navigate as ‘cyborg’ figures in a human society, exploring the “complex state of being cyborgs and Asian — fluid, transgressive, marginalized but also stereotyped as unemotional and inhuman”.

With my photograph series, I hope I am able to bring to life this message I am trying to convey in how AAPI women are human and complex and also emphasize hope for the future that we continue to exercise agency and break free of the stereotypes that bind AAPI women founded in Orientalist ideals that silence their voices, reducing the complexity of AAPI women to two-dimensional caricatures that are shallow and cyborg-like.

What Binds Us

Alicia Wu ‘25

When Winnie Xia first met Anna Zhang at age four, the two nearly didn’t become friends. In another universe, they definitely didn’t.

But in this one, they were the last two in class when, on the first day of school, all the kids were lined up and given name tags. And, in true Chinese American solidarity that they would experience for many, many years moving forward, both of their last names were butchered. It’s an unfortunate casualty, quite like their inevitable ending.

Neither girl remembers their meeting much after the years, but since they both deemed Anna to have the better memory, they elected to trust her recollection. She was wearing some colorful outfit, something similar to what her parents would continue to dress her in well into late elementary school. They do remember her bow though. Anna’s hair was tied into a ponytail, a bright pink bow nearly the size of her head plopped on top. Winnie was wearing a light blue ruffled shirt with matching blue sneakers, a clear image only because her parents took a photo of her on the first day of school every year until she became a sophomore in college.

The two stood silently next to each other at first, Winnie tugging at a ruffle on her shirt, Anna looking around the room. When the students were divided up into different tables, they were the only ones left at theirs, all other groups being of threes.

Winnie stared at Anna’s bow.

“It’s very big,” is what the two cite as the first thing said to each other. Anna looked up, as if that would allow her to see it, before turning left and right.

“Yes! My mom got it for me from China!” she nodded sagely at this.

“It’s pink.”

Anna grinned widely. “Pink is my favorite color! What’s yours?”

“Not pink.”

The two would laugh at this years later, in some universes. In others, something as simple as the difference in color choice would lead to something irreparable.

“Oh.” Anna was no longer smiling, turning away to face another table.

“I like blue,” Winnie continued, looking down at her shirt. “And ruffles.”

Anna glanced back. “Ruffles are cool. I like your shirt.”

Winnie tried for a smile. “Thank you.”

They must have introduced themselves to each other after at the teacher’s request. At recess, Winnie trailed after Anna, and the two ended up at the tire swing.

Anna, having reached it first, climbed on top, wiggling into the center. Winnie stared from the side.

“Can you push me?”

Winnie nodded, moving behind her seatmate, and took a deep breath.

Anna nearly fell out of the swing.

She let out a screech that caught the attention of the two teachers on standby who rushed over and righted the swing.

“Winnie!” they exclaimed, and she felt the icky feeling rush over her.

She looked down at her blue sneakers. There was a smudge on the left toe now.

But Anna was laughing when she was back on the ground.

“Did you see that? I was flying! I can fly!”

The teachers fussed over the two, making sure they didn’t have an injured kid on the first day of school. After recess, they must have read some simple picture books. And at the end of the day, when the students were being picked up, Winnie and Anna ended up next to each other once again, sitting on the bench as parents in their cars drove by.

“Anna Zhang! Winnie Xia!” called the teacher up front reading name tags.

The two girls got up. Before they reached the door to leave, Anna turned around.

“We should play tomorrow too! And tomorrow’s tomorrow! And tomorrow’s tomorrow’s tomorrow!”

Winnie’s eyes widened in surprise, but she quickly nodded vigorously.

She had just made her first friend. ***

In universes where their friendship falls apart in elementary school, it’s sometimes due to silly squabbles. Like in one where another person joins the two at their assigned table, causing a rift in the friendship. Or when Anna dare lay claim to blue as well, and Winnie can’t find it in her to bond over the new shared favorite color.

More often than not, though, their friendship fizzles out due to events

entirely out of their control, the hand of chance taking hold and steering the ship away from shore. There’s the universe where they were put in separate classes, and by the time they’re back in the same one—a mere year later—they’ve formed new alliances in the battleground of childhood. In another, Anna moves away, and while Winnie wonders about her, in time, she no longer spares a thought for that pinkloving girl she once knew.

And while there are some universes where reconnection does occur—a few years later, ten years later, or even farther into the future—well, perhaps in those specific ones, fate finds something worth saving.

In this universe, at any rate, Winnie and Anna managed to clutch tightly at the threads that bound them together. Bonding over mutual understanding at differing favorite colors turned into playdates hosted by their families. At each birthday, Winnie’s parents captured a moment of them, carefully creating a photo album of just the two girls.

They were very close. If someone asked where Winnie was, the answer was probably “with Anna!” And it was often harder to find the two apart than side by side.

It was just a shame that middle school was its own battleground.

The Halloween Dance of sixth grade was special because it was actually held on said day. On that Friday of 2014, students of Willow Middle School gathered in the auditorium during the evening. A school dance was more sophisticated than going door-to-door trick-or-treating now that they were eleven. That’s what Anna said at any rate, and Winnie agreed.

It was still light out when Winnie was dropped off; dusk had barely started to stretch her fingers over the sky. She was wearing a store-bought costume of a witch, a classic that allowed her to be alliterative: Winnie the Witch. She had already anticipated her hat being a bit of a nuisance, and she was glad that it was made of a stretchy, malleable fabric should she need to tuck it under her arm.

The doors hadn’t opened yet, but Winnie was early because, well, she liked to be, and the excitement of the first dance of her life had fueled her for the past week at the least. An inflatable ghost waved at her by the closed door, a preview of what was to come. She was studying it when Anna arrived.

Winnie had already seen her friend earlier in the school day, but it was still a delight to look at her costume. In true Anna fashion, she had created her own costume, now for the third year in a row. In past years she had been a hippie,

complete with a tie-dye shirt with sticker peace signs stuck all over her and a rainbow braided thread in her hair, then a movie star wearing a red dress and faux fur shawl.

This year she landed on a costume that, coincidentally enough, paired nicely with Winnie’s. Anna had a black dress, brown boots (she didn’t own black ones just yet), and a black cape that dragged on the floor. A statement skull necklace dangled around her neck, layered with a choker of black velvet and a necklace of stars. Black and white bangles jingled as she moved her arms, and various rings adorned her fingers, among them a snake, a dragon, and thorns. She was, as she proclaimed dramatically that morning, “The Empress of Evil.”

In the future, Winnie would attempt to draw parallels from Anna’s costume to her actions, but the truth is that it would always be too exaggerated. Real life villainy was always more subtle. She wouldn’t have known that at the time of course.

“Hello, my darling witch,” Anna announced as she strutted toward Winnie.

Winnie snorted in return. “Good evening to you too, oh Empress of Evil.”

“A good evening indeed! Lots of villainy to be had around here, eh?”

Winnie indulged her dramatic friend who, in another universe, might have pursued acting instead. “Yes—why, I think that we will be able to do much tonight, Empress.”

“That’s Empress of Evil to you.”

“Yes, yes, my apologies, Empress of Evil.”

The back-and-forth between them devolved into snickers and gentle bumps at each other at the shoulders. The minutes passed quickly, and the doors were opened.

The Halloween Dance had begun.

The first thing Winnie marveled at upon entry into the decorated auditorium was the many bulletin boards that lined the walls that now sported various designs on top of black construction paper as opposed to the usual neat and orderly information. There were bats and spiders and even cobwebs made from white, pulled-apart fabric. They reminded her of cotton candy—of which there were some in carnival pink and blue at the long tables that held snacks. There were drinks, labeled blood (pink lemonade, darkened under the dim lights), witch’s brew (green tea with boba), mummy mash (coconut water with some coconut pulp still included), and more. Some creatively named treats sat on top of the table, alongside candy, of course, and a chocolate fountain with marshmallows nearby to dip with.

Winnie and Anna wandered past all this towards the stage, Winnie trailing the Empress of Evil. Smoke machines muffled the image of the fantastical backdrop

on the stage, an exaggerated haunted house that seemed to creak and groan into reality. Fake trees loomed in and out of the fog.

It seemed their school spared little in making this experience one worth to place so highly in terms of importance.

“Fireflies” by Owl City was playing from the speakers from a playlist curated by the teachers with some suggestions from previous weeks included.

At first the crowd was rather small, but as half-an-hour went by, the majority of the students had shown up. Winnie mostly stuck to Anna’s side, but more than an hour-and-a-half in, Winnie had drunk a couple cups of witch’s brew (she had to stay in character) and had to go to the bathroom. When she emerged, Anna was no longer waiting by the entrance.

The auditorium wasn’t particularly big by any stretch of imagination, but with all the people milling around, Winnie realized it wasn’t going to be easy to find her friend. She began making her way through the crowd, weaving in and out and around clumps of people.

It was when she passed by a group of fellow six graders that she realized something was off. One of the boys seemed to be whispering something to them all, and they were looking in her direction. She glanced over her shoulder to see who they could be looking at, but there was no one behind her. When she looked back, they were still gawking, a few with narrowed eyes now.

Winnie turned and tried to slip away, but unsuccessfully walked straight through a group of eighth graders. She muttered “excuse me,” as she got to the other side, gradually starting to see the looks and the hands up to shield prying eyes from a hushed conversation. She caught some words nonetheless—something about her and a dance and a boy in her class.

She walked around the auditorium, once, twice. A teacher walked up to her and asked her about something Winnie only half heard—why would a teacher ask if she was going to dance with someone?

It was all a blur, really, but she remembered the confusion she felt, the way it felt as if everyone was in on a secret—everyone except for her. At some point a group of her classmates did come up to her, and the friend of the boy at the center of this rumor said something like “say yes!” But she backed out with a quiet “no.”

Winnie didn’t understand why she couldn’t find Anna. The space was too small for that to happen, and there were too many people, and none of these pieces were making sense.

In the coming weeks, the information started trickling in. Someone had spread a rumor about her during the dance. Somehow everyone got wind of it, and the idea of a six grader as quiet as she asking a boy out for a dance was juicy and

sweet, a tender fruit that everyone wanted a piece of. And Winnie thought she knew the culprit.

Now the obvious answer here is Anna. Or perhaps that feels so strange you may wonder the validity of my statement. But here’s how it played out—in this universe at least.

In this universe, Winnie would find out, in time, that it was, indeed, Anna’s doing that created this ball of yarn that was unspooled and would not be gathered. Best as she could piece together, Anna, while loving Winnie dearly, thought her friend needed to branch out more—even if those words were said more cruelly at the time: “if she would just talk to someone else besides me, then maybe she wouldn’t be trailing me all the time. Maybe I wouldn’t have a shadow.” And maybe Winnie would be less attached to Anna and only Anna, and they would not be “AnnaandWinnie” all in one breath, all the time.

Children do not know how to regulate their emotions and thoughts. That was what doomed them here.

In another universe, well, things were more complicated. A classmate Winnie had deemed a long-time frenemy spoke life into lies, created a rumor that wound its way through their grade into others, into the ranks of the teachers. Sure, it was childish and didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But when you’re eleven and the idea of romance is taboo and scorned, a rumor about you liking someone is more than enough to send the students around you into a frenzy.

And Anna watched. And learned and heard and didn’t say a word.

When Winnie found out all of these things in the following weeks, felt the fallout and sought shelter with the one person she thought would hold her forever, she found that Anna didn’t believe in her accusation.

“Isn’t it obvious?” but it wasn’t to Anna.

“I just don’t think she would do it.”

This betrayal felt like the final stroke against glass, shattering it beyond repair. It hurt, and it hurt hard. She would say it hurt more than the rumor itself.

In that universe, Winnie never spoke to Anna again.

***

In another universe on October 28th, 2018, this memory came as a jolt. It was lunch, and Winnie was sitting on the ground in the hallway of the conservatory when she remembered what day it was.

“ . . . are you going to be for Halloween?” someone passing asked their friend,

voice carrying over the low buzz of ambient noise.

“Halloween?” The reply was confused.

“Yeah, it’s almost here, after all.”

“Oh, wow, yeah—three days . . .”

When they wandered down the hall, Winnie could no longer hear them, but it didn’t matter anyway, because she felt herself still when she did the math.

It was Anna’s birthday.

She couldn’t use Instagram on her high school wifi, so she waited until it was night, and she was home. She pulled out her phone, found their chat. The last time they spoke had been three months prior. She had asked about her schedule, so they could find some time to meet up. They never did.

Winnie stared. Before she lost the nerve to say something, she quickly typed up “happiest of birthdays to you! hope you had a nice day and a good year ahead :)”

The reply came quickly: “thank you! omg how have u been? it’s been forever since weve texted lol”

The two texted for a bit that night. Then they don’t for another twelve months. ***

When Winnie first listened to folklore by the one and only Taylor Swift in the summer of 2020, one song immediately jumped out.

The few times she left the house, “exile” was immediately queued up, her car now familiar with the rhythm and her sometimes muttering along to the lyrics, at other times sullenly quiet at the words. She played it around the house when she could, filling the space with something.

Now, it came from her phone’s speakers, the audio quality not the greatest, but she hadn’t gotten headphones yet. Taylor’s voice called out, “I think I’ve seen thisfilmbefore,andIdidn’tliketheending.”

Winnie lay on her bed, music playing freely from her phone, feeling like she was in some teen movie that would come out that summer. Her parents never let her paint her room, so instead of looking at lavender walls, she stared at the tacky glow-in-the-dark stars she stuck to her ceiling. Just last night, the moon had fallen.

“You’renotmyproblemanymore,sowhoamIoffendingnow?”

Although about a romantic breakup—it’s always about a romantic breakup— she couldn’t help but latch onto the lines. The words thumped around in her heart, shaking her thoroughly. She couldn’t help but think of Anna, of the end of them. They’d promised forever, and they were foolish enough to believe it.

“Youweremycrown,nowI’minexile,seein’youout.”

No, she decided, notfoolish.Justyoung.Andhopeful. It didn’t get them anywhere in the end though.

“IthinkI’veseenthisfilmbefore,soI’mleavingoutthesidedoor.”

And in this universe, they just didn’t make it out together. ***

In most universes, their friendship would fall apart during the college years, regardless of if they went to the same school or not.

Maybe that’s surprising, but when two people from the same place end up somewhere bigger, somewhere with more activities and opportunities to meet more people . . . well, sometimes things fall apart.

Anna always knew what she wanted to be, do, and pursue: designer, study graphic design, go to Rhode Island Institute of Design. Applying to this top-notch school across the country was daunting, but less so when it was exactly what she had dreamed of since they were in seventh grade. Winnie . . . not so much. All she knew was this: get out of California and see someplace new—at least for four years. She had always wondered what life would be like if she had grown up somewhere else.

But when the middle of December rolled around and early decision for various schools were being released, Anna found herself staring at a rejection letter. Winnie tried her best to comfort her, but the two girls’ different aspirations meant that most of the sympathy Anna garnered rolled off of her like water on a duck. She was bitter and angry and, perhaps most of all, downright disappointed at having to go back to the drawing board and apply to more schools. She didn’t understand what went wrong in the process, but the denial of entry was firm and final.

The two girls ended up attending Boston University. For Winnie, the school felt big and grand, something different and someplace she could find herself—a cliche, dreamy idea, but one she believed nonetheless. As for Anna, BU was simply the best school for design that she got into.

But it still was comforting to both girls that she would know someone—and not just anyone, but her closest friend, her future roommate. After all their years as friends, the fact that they would have a forever sleepover was still too good to be true. They could finally get all the things they had wanted: a lavender rolling cart (it was something lavender at least, Winnie thought), pink and white bed set (mundane, maybe, but something other than the plain eggshell white ones Anna

had all her life), a kettle to make tea when they wanted (or just Winnie really), a cute fluffy rug for floor time.

Planning to live together was a dream, one that Winnie wished lasted longer than it did. Moving in was a party. They both flew over at roughly the same time, both sets of parents present and chatting away as the girls set about making their dorm their own. Winnie raised her bed, Anna did not; Winnie started making her bed first, Anna organized her dresser; and, in time, Shields Tower 404 became their home away from home.

And things were great! Well, at first at least.

Those first few days, the girls stayed up late at night, laughing and trading stories about what they experienced in the daylight in those moments when they weren’t in the same space. But as classes began, both became busier. Anna seemed to call her family every day, and while Winnie had initially agreed that that worked out fine, it was finally beginning to grate on her by early October.

But she adjusted, started studying in the library, even when it grew dark, and the place grew sparse. She’d walk back with her jacket hood up, scarf tucking her hair in.

Winnie wished she spent more time with her closest friend than just coming back at night to sleep in the same room. She remembered seeing things about how married couples needed to make sure that the romance stayed even after moving in together, to not just become roommates, and she mused over that in relation to her and Anna.

But she brushed it off, thinking that things would be better in a few weeks when Anna’s birthday rolled around. They could go out and have a work-free time! They’d hang out—just like the good old days.

And so Winnie awkwardly, tenderly brought this up over the weekend.

Winnie had already been up for several hours when Anna rolled out of bed. Lately, the two had begun taking to different habits. Anna’s sleep schedule was the worst it had ever been: she stayed up late, pushed her body to its limits, and slept in when she could. Winnie recognized that she needed to do the opposite, and set about going to bed at 11 p.m. every night.

Winnie gave Anna some time to get up and be presentable before standing up from her chair to face her friend.

“You know, I was thinking, your birthday is coming up.”

Anna looked up from pulling her boots on. She was about to head out to eat breakfast (brunch at this point) from a dining hall.

“Uh huh,” she mumbled, lacing up her shoes.

“How about we go out? Do something fun? A good ol’ work-free night. What do you say?” Winnie was smiling, eyes fixed on her friend.

“When’s that?”

She stilled a little. “Well, you know, it’s next Thursday, but I was thinking of doing something next weekend.”

Anna blew a stubborn strand of hair out of her face. “Can’t. I got a midterm due the Monday after.”

Winnie’s face fell. She was vaguely reminded of when they were four. She brushed it off.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be big! Maybe dinner?”

Anna looked back at Winnie from the door.

“Hmm. Maybe.”

The door shut after her.

But a week later, the two did not go out. Winnie left to grab breakfast Saturday morning and returned to find Anna up and getting ready. She didn’t ask what was up, perhaps presumptuously assumed that the other remembered the plans.

She didn’t see Anna until 2 a.m.

Winnie wouldn’t have stayed up waiting, but she felt that it was important, since it could be their first special birthday celebration. She was nearly falling asleep on the couch when their dorm door opened, and in spilled Anna, hair a mess, a grin slapped on her face.

It slowly vanished when she spotted Winnie, now wide awake.

“Hey.”

Winnie stared back.

Anna moved to get ready for bed. It was only after she had peeled off her shoes and was hanging up her jacket that Winnie spoke.

“Did you have fun?”

Anna looked back.

“Um, yeah.” A beat. “Did you have a good night?”

Winnie shrugged. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

Anna looked at her, like she was waiting for an answer.

They were still for a few minutes, Winnie unable to get herself to do or say anything, Anna feeling the awkwardness seep into her.

Anna broke first.

“Um, is there anything else you want to say? I was planning on going to bed

otherwise . . .”

Winnie wanted to say something, wanted to scream, to yell. At least ten different things flit through her head, and in ten different universes, they were said. But not in this one.

She turned to climb onto her bed.

Their forever sleepover lasted only a year. ***

Oct 28, 2021 at 6:06 AM happy birthday! hope you have a lovely day and a lovely year ahead~ aww thanks!

yeah, of course!

Oct 28, 2022 at 12:20 PM happy birthday!! hope u have a good day :) haha thank u! ofc!!

Oct 28, 2023 at 10:41 PM happy birthday! tysm!

Oct 28, 2024 at 11:59 PM

What Binds Us: a Playlist

“exile (feat. Bon Iver)” - Taylor Swift, Bon Iver

“We’re Going To Be Friends” - Samica

“multiverse” - Maya Manuela, PEMBROKE

“cut my hair” - MICO

“Older” - Alec Benjamin

“

成长 (Older)” - Alec Benjamin

“Far Away” - EASHA

“EXPIRED” - jenny nuo

i’m 14 and nothing matters

Mikey Wu ‘24

In the future, I’ll be dead. Ideally, my life will be claimed by old age or natural causes and not by some cruel tragedy. Yet death itself, no matter how peaceful, is tragic, and as I fade into nothingness, all the ways in which I have learned to love myself will be for nil.

In the future, our species will die out. Indeed, even as the self-proclaimed rulers of our planet, we too will one day return to the soil whence we came. The question remains: what will be our greatest accomplishments before this inevitability? World peace? Wealth equity? Intergalactic dominion? Or will our perennial gluttony bring about our accelerated demise, before we’d ever dream of progress?

In the future, the sun will set one last time beneath the Earth’s horizon before it ceases to burn forever. At the end of its life, the star which has unconditionally nurtured the Earth since its conception will be the same which swells into an uncontained torrent of hellfire, swallowing our planet and erasing any sign that we’d ever existed. Who knows if anyone—or anything—will be there to witness its dying light.

In the future, the pace at which the universe expands will exceed the speed of light. Things within the nothingness will move apart before they could be ever perceived and will never be perceived again. Should civilizations exist in the future, their citizens will tilt their heads towards what we called the heavens and be met with the endless void. I pity them for their loneliness, for they will never know that something else exists within the nothing.

In the future, the universe will grind to a halt. Entire galaxies, whose stars once glimmered with fervor and promise, will fade into cold, desolate obscurities. One by one, the lights of existence are extinguished; the somethings within the nothingness will be no more.

In the future, the last thing to ever happen will happen. Cursed with the anguish of unending solitude, the lone, remaining star will deliver its final tantrum in a brilliant display of radiance and rage. Suddenly, the endless, desolate void roars

to life with the most luminous rays that will ever grace this universe, if only for a moment. There will be no one and nothing to bear witness. Finally, as the star is soothed, whether by exhaustion or by the meek acceptance of nihil, its piercing beams which illuminated the universe moments before will falter. At long last, the end of time, the conclusion of eternity, the completion of future.

Perhaps the future is an illusion. Perhaps everything that will ever happen has already happened,

Seconds & Minutes

[ Hourglass ]

Natalie Omori-Hoffee ‘25

Self Portrait: An Exploration Through Layers

XiHu Arfa ‘24

Po Po

Catie Lee Bellone ‘24

Dear Po Po,

I never met you, but I think about you all of the time. I wonder what my life would be like if you were still here. Maybe our family portrait would feel complete. Mom’s siblings all look like grandpa, but she looks exactly like you.

Grandpa is 94 now and doesn’t remember much. I wonder what he would be like if you were still here. I see his younger brother, my Great Uncle Choo, and his wife still go on all of these adventures. They are so lively and seem much younger than 90, and I think part of it is getting to grow old with one another. I would give the world for you to be by his side during these last stages of life. Maybe he would remember more. Maybe he would be more mobile. Maybe he would be more talkative. I know he would be happier. Sometimes, he calls me Lei Fang, confusing me for you. I know it should sadden me that he can’t properly recognize me, but the fact he sees you in me means everything to me.

When I’m home, I help my mom put grandpa to sleep every night. One day over a year ago, in a room full of so much love and gratitude, I just started crying. I thought about how at the end stages of his life, how his daughter and granddaughter got to shower him with love. How I got to hear him say he was proud of me and loved me too. And he never got that for his mom. He left her to provide me and my mom this beautiful life, which meant he had to give up that opportunity. That pain, that guilt, that sadness eats away at me. I’m sorry Po Po you never got that either.

You came to the United States with a man you only knew for a year, leaving your family behind, not speaking a word of English. You must’ve felt alone and so scared. I can’t imagine that. My mom then lost you when she was my age. I don’t understand how you could go on without your mom and her without you? Being only 6 hours away, I miss my mom constantly. I couldn’t go on without her, I need her every single day.

This makes me question; how could I possibly be related to you? I look at your bravery, courage, and fearlessness, and it’s completely foreign to me. I look at your

life, then look at mine, and can’t comprehend why you had to endure tremendous pain to give me this life full of comfort and privilege. I’m not worthy to call you my Po Po.

I hear a lot about how moms carry their children’s pain. But just know, I carry your pain and sacrifice with me every day too. I’ll never know what it was like for mom to lose you, or for you to leave your mom in Hong Kong and to never see her again, but please know those scars are mine too and will forever live unhealed.

Everything I do in my life, I do to make you, grandpa, and my nonni proud. There’s nothing equal to your sacrifices, but I promise I will never stop trying to repay them. Po Po, I am so sorry I never got to meet and thank you, but I still miss you all of the time. Your story will always live on through me.

going, going, gone

Anonymous going, going, gone like 外婆 ‘s herbal tea on a hot summer’s day sweet lychees and brown sugar a taste so light, its fleeting, its going, going, gone like firecrackers at midnight a flash of light a trail of smoke

I trace its path, quickly now its going, going, gone like mandarins in 公公’s garden tender labour of love the last fruits on his mantle now he’s going, going, gone off the tarmac in my luggage, folded neatly: one 旗袍, tailored the seamstress was eager to work she said fabric like this? it was going, going, gone for 826 days, now the stairs are too short my outlets don’t fit, home? its going, going, gone like water pooled in my hands slipping further, I’m running but she’s i’m going, going, gone like a shadow I just can’t reach she is there and

i am here and yet we both yearn for the other

the big bang theory

Kiana Perez ‘26

i don’t believe in wrong decisions.

i believe that every single choice i have ever made up to this point in my life has brought me to exactly where i need to be–whether i allow myself to be aware of it or not.

i believe that every person i have ever come across holds meaning in my life.

everything happens for a reason.

i am the product of all that i have ever experienced.

when the sunlight hit my skin for the first time and i realized just how beautiful the world was;

when my friends and i stayed up until the moon sang us to sleep, cradled by the sound of our undying laughter, and i realized just how much i could love;

when i was swept off my feet by the arms of someone who believed i was worth a piece of their memory, and i realized that it was possible to be loved;

when i was accepted into a college that was a world away from home, the look in my mother’s eyes screamed that she would conquer heaven and earth if it would bring me greatness, and i realized that love will bring me home;

when i fell into my father’s embrace at the end of my first semester, at the start of my second, for the rest of my life–the familiar musk of his cologne seeped into my skin, and i realized that they are home;

when i looked at myself for the first time, and realized that i was capable of loving,

when i look at myself now and realize that loving myself has been the hardest thing

i am still trying to do.

i would not be here without my mind and my heart.

they may be fickle–i may think that everything is out of my control, but they have carried me through the last nineteen years.

i may not be where i expected myself to be, but that’s all a part of living.

i am the sum of all of my parts.

and i realize just how beautiful my life has been.

and i know of how beautiful my life will be.

if you have to arrive so soon

Allie Smith ‘24

i ask that you please be patient with me. i’m running late, still fixing my hair and messes from months ago, still trying to muster up the courage to open the door for you.

please take me in with all my mess. teach me to fall on my face and live anyway. teach me to feel human when i feel like a machine, when my heart pumps too much grief for the blood to flush my cheeks.

skip over the hard days as much as you can. the ones where i wore my mom’s jacket to bed because it was the only way for me to feel her embrace.

please spoon feed me love. just enough until i throw up every confession that sat in my stomach waiting, or until every version of myself that has ever lived is singing the same song.

i want to love you just as much as i am terrified of you. i ask that you remind me you love me. kiss me on the cheek and leave your lipstick smeared all over my face, the way my mom used to, except this time i won’t wipe it away.

this time i’ll savor it, admire the purple hue, and i’ll ask for it again, and again, and again.

Submission

Writers & Artists

Thankyoutoallofourwonderfulwritersandartistswhosubmittedtheir workforpublicationinthisissueofConnections!

XiHu Arfa ‘24

Catie Lee Bellone ‘24

Kenyatta David ‘24

Gene Kang ‘24

Damon King (pseudonym)

Anusha Koshe ‘26

Eric Lee ‘26

John Mauro ‘25

Stina Mei ‘26

Natalie Omori-Hoffee ‘25

Kiana Perez ‘26

Allie Smith ‘24

Ramya Tolety ‘27

Grace Toscano ‘27

Gretchen Wang ‘26

Alicia Wu ‘25

Mikey Wu ‘24

Grace Yang ‘25

Leo Zhang ‘25