Inner Voices

They call it the American Dream, but no one talks about the weight it places on your shoulders.

When I took over the Tech Editorship in April 2023, I only knew one thing about journalism: it was going to stop happening at Caltech unless somebody stepped up to lead it. With a dream of remedying the post-pandemic admin-student animosity but zero reporting experience, I was in for a daunting task. Then Richard Kipling emailed me and offered to buy me a coffee.

The second floor of Kerckhoff had an unusual stillness that evening. People trickled into the small library room for the Science and Faith Examined (SAFE) talk, uncertain yet curious. I sat near the back, notebook open, listening to Tara—a physics PhD student and president of GCF—unfold her reflections on quantum field theory and the Bible.

10:30 p.m. Heavy eyelids slowly closing, a reassuring lethargy gets hold of the body, tired after training.

Jupiter was getting brighter than I’d ever seen it, brighter in real terms, closer to the earth, than it had been since 1963. And not only was it getting closer than ever, the online forums said it would be in “opposition”—directly opposite the sun from the earth’s perspective, like a full moon, only a full Jupiter.

Living in small, rural communities and learning organic farming techniques. In between our university semesters.

The Houston heat wrapped around me like an invisible shield as I navigated the city with the strange feeling that I was not walking to a lab or a museum, but to something that provided silence. The Rothko Chapel is hostile to sound: black walls, enormous canvases, light that doesn’t so much illuminate them as permeate through like some ancient sigh.

When I first set foot on Caltech’s campus, I felt like a contestant on a reality show called Survivor: Genius Island. I was fresh off the plane from Milan, armed with a suitcase full of dreams, a double major in biology and chemistry (because why not suffer twice as much?), and a secret hope to someday heal cancer. I planned to take the world by storm—or, at the very least, survive my first quarter without accidentally setting something on fire in the lab.

I had my mouth pressed into the sand. I was breathing hard—desperate, shallow, uneven. I could feel the grains entering my nose, throat, and lungs. Somewhere nearby, I heard the rapid thudding of hooves, the panicked exhale of a frightened horse. For a moment, I couldn’t remember where I was. I couldn’t piece it together. The memories didn’t come in order; they arrived like broken glass, sharp and disjointed. My helmet. My shoulder. The ground. Pain. Sharp pain. A blinding throb in my knee.

Symphony