Arriving to class late is disruptive of the learning process. I think that it is disrespectful to both the instructor and the students. I generally find a problem with students being tardy to my 9:10 a.m. class, in which students would come in thirty minutes late to this fifty minute class. I started locking my door at 9:15 second semester.

Look. I have a strategy. Why expect anything? If you don’t expect anything, you don’t get disappointed.

When I have run out of words to copy, I look out the window at this strange place called India. Inside the train, the people around me are snoring. I don't understand how they can close their eyes when there is so much to see.

Instead, we linger over a luxury that costs nothing: Imagining what may be.

Inside my head I carry: my baby goat, my baby brother, my ama's face, our family's future. My bundle is light. My burden is heavy.

You show you care, you die.You show you fear, you die.You show nothing, maybe you live.

Then I placed the blade next to the skin on my palm. A tingle arched across my scalp. The floor tipped up at me and my body spilled away. Then I was on the ceiling looking down, waiting to see what would happen next.