A letter expressing my endearment to Vietnamese coffee

I know I’m not the only one who feels like this, as AP Calculus AB tested everyone’s math performance. Kumon set me up for the class quite nicely — I breezed through the course, getting a 4 on the exam. For a lot of my peers who took the class, however, it was a nightmare.

On the evening of October 30, 2022 following recent renovations, the Gujarat Bridge along the Machchhu River collapsed, plunging many citizens into the river. The 137-year-old pedestrian bridge’s cable appeared to have snapped. With 200 people on the bridge at that moment, the death toll has now reached 135, 54 of them being children.

At six years old, you would’ve seen me playing with Barbies, wearing rainbow shirts and horizontally striped skirts, and enjoying my naivety. Today, I still look the same, despite puberty and a dramatic style change from rainbow shirts. My Vietnamese skin is still pale, and my child-like smile remains the same. I get unicorn ponchos as gifts from my family members, even as a senior in high school, and I often receive things in pink, probably because of the Barbies I used to play with.

Maybe in a year or two from now, I hope to grow out of my naivety and turn into a person that knows what she knows, and learns from her surroundings.