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Covered Mirrors and the Souls of the Dead
What is that one thing you wanted as a child? I bet you eagerly wanted to be an adult. Being an adult meant doing whatever you wanted to do. Why can't you do the things adults do? Why is the answer always "no" whenever you ask for a cool toy, snack, or game? This question I often asked myself, and finally when I was six years old, I was able to come up with an answer.
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The Price of Addiction
Alcohol abuse runs in my family. It seems like a curse passed down the generations. That said, I also struggled with substance abuse in my early adult life.
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Whispers To My Starry-Eyed Crush
I have always dreamed of visiting Dubai, the city of skyscrapers, luxury, and opportunity. I heard stories of how people from different countries and backgrounds found success and happiness in this cosmopolitan hub, and I found myself wanting to be one of them. That's why, in November of 2016, I decided to take a bold step and travel to Dubai from Kenya, where I was living, in search of a job.
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Moving Away From the Cliff’s Edge: A Mum’s Story of Her Child’s Mental Health
It is no understatement that the last few years have been difficult for various reasons. It's almost too obvious to state that we, in the West, consume a lot of environmental, social, and political information that clogs up our web browsers and mental state.
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Counterfeit World 3.0
Roscoe has defiled Doyle's living room, again. So, Doyle was siphoning resources—not much, about a tenth of one percent—from RAMPART's projection of a post-Great Lakes Midwest to figure out what to do about the dog. Head down, avoiding the gaze of tenured professors and project managers, he played with parameters: what if I'd had Roscoe since he was a puppy? What if I was his first and only owner? What if I was still with May and wasn't trying to take care of him all alone?
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Ye Olde Plastic Knight
I awoke at the crack of noon. My first order of business was to determine my whereabouts. I appeared to be home, although one can never be certain. I searched for my chalice to soothe my parched throat, but it was empty. I resolutely made the journey from reclining to standing.
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Toxic Words
Every language has thousands of words, and the ones we choose, I believe, almost always reflect who we are, what we feel, and what we want to communicate. I say “almost always” because I have never been fond of certainties, and I consider doubt an essential element of life, as to not judge people based solely on what they say.
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From Academia to a Gompa and Back: How Retreats Brought Me Full Circle
Enmeshed in a busy year working at my academic office at my university, I thought about attending a retreat. I wanted some relief from the tiresome routine. As a postgraduate student, I was embroiled in a substantial project of completing a research dissertation. The subject I was working on was philosophy/theology and ecology, and I enjoyed it. This was the year before the arrival of Covid-19, and there was still a bustle around the corridors and offices of the School of Humanities.
