I can’t even put into words the heart-wrenching pain that I’m feeling, but I will try my best.

I just keep falling in and out of sadness and periodic breakdowns trying to come to terms with everything that has happened in the past few days. It has been 3 days since my father’s death as I am writing this, and every day that passes, it feels like a fever dream having to wake up and realize that he isn’t here with us in this physical world anymore.

The hardest part with a sudden death is really reconciling with the fact…

I was planning on journaling all of my experiences at the end of my sophomore year, but when I get that surge and necessity to write, there’s really no stopping me from just dropping everything that I am doing to write everything. It’s 1:07 AM as I am writing this currently and quite a few things are going through my head:

• My CS31 midterm is tomorrow, and if I don’t get a decent mark after studying C++ for essentially a year now, I will probably scream. And then try again. …

Preface

Creative Labs this past winter quarter has been by far one of the most transformative experiences in my pursuits in product design. This organization at UCLA gathers innovative students together who want to start and/or work on impactful, creative projects over the course of 10 weeks. Prior to this project, I had no experience in product design, let alone have made any prototypes worth sharing with my team. …

I have always been a huge proponent of putting mental health first, whether that may be indulging in your favorite food you haven’t eaten in a while, rewatching your favorite movie, or just getting a sufficient amount of sleep. I do a lot of reading on Medium in my free time about opinions on self-care and psychology articles to make my life better, and it is actually one of the reasons I decided to go a therapist this year. For that, I am extremely thankful to have found a resource that makes my life better.

But people who aren’t familiar…

Throughout high school, there were many times that I felt like the world was caving in on me. I had a rough time crafting solidified relationships with my peers, went through several breakups, and even dealt with coming out to my parents my junior year. High school was just a culmination of all things bad, but I made the best out of my situation and found a silver lining in my Internet friends, specifically Galen.

I met Galen the summer of my freshman year over the Internet. We became mutual followers on Tumblr and Instagram, as I was drawn to…