As a child raised on two continents, my life has been defined by the “What if . . . ?” question. What if I had actually been born in the United States? What if my parents had not won that Green card?

My town, being average in most respects, doesn’t make it into the news a lot. But when we do, we do it with gusto: one recent event that got us on TV was when a man drove a bulldozer through several neighbors’ houses.

Several years ago, my mother told me I listen to “white people music.” And I suppose that’s true—rock ’n’ roll tends to spring from the middle-class basements of young, white men.

A loud fart greeted me at the doorway of the ICU suite. Tim, a scrawny child of nine years, was sprawled across the bed, clutching a deflated Whoopee Cushion.

I was in 9th grade the first time I stumbled upon a copy of Newsweek.

0x=0. This expression of mathematical mockery tells me that I know nothing; ambiguity pervades my world.

“What are you ‘dying’ of this time, Lauren?”

Language is not the sole domain of humans.

“Paint this vase before you leave today,” my teacher directed as she placed foreign brushes and paints in my hands. I looked at her blankly.

I shouldn’t be here right now. My life could have never been.

I’m better at writing other people’s stories than I am at writing my own.

Languages have played a central role in my life.

The summer after my freshman year, I found myself in an old class- room holding a blue dry-erase marker, realizing what should have been obvious: I had no idea how to be a teacher.

Canvass the people who know me—friends, family, teammates—and I’m certain they would all agree on one description of me. I’m a good student. I’d offer that label up myself.

When I failed math in my sophomore year of high school, a bitter dispute engulfed my household—“Nicolas Yan vs. Mathematics.” I was the plaintiff, appearing pro se, while my father represented the defendant (inanimate as it was).

Growing up in a society in which any sign of femininity is associated with poor intelligence and lack of logic, I have had people frequently doubting my abilities and discouraging me from pursuing my academic goals.

The event that has most impacted my life and shaped my identity was my mother’s life and death. My mother and I never had a conven- tional relationship. However, we did share a special mother daughter bond.

Nothing could have prepared me for the first time I heard the jangle of John Lennon’s Rickenbacker guitar that opens the theme song of the Beatles’s film A Hard Day’s Night.

Like it does on most nights, the smell of toxic fumes drifts through my room.

Surrounded by thousands of stars, complete silence, and spectacular mountains, I stood atop New Hampshire’s Presidential Range awestruck by nature’s beauty. I realized that I must dedicate my life to understanding the causes of the universe’s beauty. In addition, the hike taught me several valuable lessons that will allow me to increase my understanding through scientific research.