he was Asian, but never quite Asian enough. She looked like everyone else on the subway – brown eyes, black hair, tan skin. At first glance, she blended in. But the moment she opened her mouth, people could tell she was strange. She spoke elementary-level Mandarin, often pronouncing the simplest words incorrectly. There was always a slight hesitation in her tone, an unnatural rhythm to her sentences. They knew instantly she was not from there. She was a foreigner.  Back in No

“I see you everywhere, the sweetest torture one could bear.” - Olivia Rodrigo, lacy. I see Change as someone I both admire and fear. She’s someone I see everyday whether it's through her small gestures that greet me, or her presence to punish me. To be honest, I was never in a good relationship with my friend Change, our personalities never really aligned. I simply preferred to stay in my comfort zone at home, whereas she liked to wander off into the ocean to find adventure,

The empty bottle bounces into another; a slight thwop sound echoing through the bustling plastics factory. This is the start of its story. The polyethylene terephthalate it once was, transformed into the shape of a drinking bottle. It doesn't know it yet, but this is the beginning of its brief and eternal life. Its first trip is to the bottling plant, carbon dioxide exuding through the truck’s exhaust along the bumpy ride. Now arrived, the bottle patiently waits in line among