By Shun To my surprise, in a few days, it will have been two and a half months since I first step foot into Japan. Before my eyes, the hot humid summers, accompanied by shorts, a hand-held fan, and lots of water have quickly been replaced by the scent of fall, a crisp breeze, […]
Month: October 2020
Pandemic “Getaways”
There it stood, arrogant and adamant, heedless of the shrill herald of impending peril. I hastened my pace, smug in the certainty that the sudden acceleration would cow it into capitulation— but it hardly flinched in the face of the rapidly looming two-wheeled menace. With disaster lurking a mere hair’s breadth away, complacency swiftly transmuted […]
Project Floor: Complete
By Kayla I’ve been taking dance classes at home since March, training in the kitchen and trying not to knock anything over. This month, I successfully built a floor for a better ballet experience at home. I had never built anything more daunting than an Ikea shelf, so it took several DIY Youtube videos and multiple trips to […]
Untitled
By Leah After a couple of weeks of strict quarantine, I’m all packed up and ready to go for the next part of my gap year! I’ll set off early tomorrow morning for the first leg of my four-day drive–I’m going from my hometown of Alexandria, VA, to Knoxville, to Little Rock, to Abilene, […]
Restorative Justice
By Ray Hi there, This is Ray, and welcome to my third blog. Some say, “shooters shoot;” to that I respond, “bloggers blog”. Since my first blog, I have been working as an intern for Youth Transforming Justice – an organization based in Marin that focuses on restorative justice. I haven’t written about YTJ yet, […]
Being Part of a Social Experiment
By Maia The program I am on is called “Hevruta,” translating to ‘partners’ in Hebrew. As the only gap year program made half of North Americans and half of Israelis we are a bit of a social experiment. The Israeli Ministry of Health calls us an organic family because while we might not be a […]
Internship with Renegade
By Maya This last month I started an internship at Renegade, an NYC marketing agency. This was a huge opportunity for me that was realized by reaching out to a Duke alum. I began this process in August, contacting alumni who were working in fields that aligned with my interests. My more niche career aspirations […]
Experiencing an Empty Yosemite
As my family checked in at the front gates of Yosemite National Park, I began to realize that this was the start of a trip of a lifetime- an odd thing to say in the middle of a global pandemic that has practically shut down the travel industry. Assuming that we were entering the park […]
A New Independence
By Sammy An integral part of life is conversing with new people, making first impressions, and forming relationships. While meeting people is always exciting, after bursting out of a two-week strict quarantine into a crowd of 300 Americans, Latin Americans, and Israelis, we were all a bit overwhelmed. Conversations were a bit slow to start. […]
Kindles and Guitars
By Siddharth I’ve come to the realization – as have most people for whom it is the first pandemic – that it is extremely handy to have a hobby to keep yourself entertained within the constricting 4 walls of your house. In my case, however, the problem was not having a hobby; it was having […]