Sandie Cheng '12 offers 10 life lessons for readers to ponder.

Sandie Cheng '12 enters a beauty pageant, and finds things to both love and loathe.

Sandie Cheng '12 remedies her anxiety about the future by taking inspiration from someone who chose to follow his dreams.

Sandie Cheng '12 considers how her life aligns with Julia Roberts'.

“No single event can awaken within us a stranger whose existence we had never suspected. To live is to be slowly born.” — Antoine de Saint Exupery

It’s a sunny and cloudless day in Ithaca, and I’m sitting amidst a crowd of students gathered in the Arts Quad. The usual cold and unwelcoming atmosphere of Cornell melted away with the rest of winter, as spring timidly approaches us. People are laughing, smiling and absorbing all the warmth that the day brings them. Colored balloons float into the air, weaving their way around the Frisbees and footballs being passed between friends. Despite the recent tragedies that have occurred, the rest of us continue with the ebbs and flow of life — with more vigor and spirit than ever.

As winter casts its dark shadow over Cornell, I can’t help but feel more suffocated and restless than usual. The overcast skies accompanied by gray faces make Ithaca seem even more hopeless and depressing than it has ever been. My bright pink backpack, bought only to contrast the colorless campus, is now dirtied and has tinges of brown. For my own sanity, I bought a bright highlighter-yellow jacket because I couldn’t take being just another gray mass in the snowy tundra. I told my friends that I was going for, “loud,” as I bought a bright neon shirt and a big flower headband at Forever 21. I also bought these fabulous purple heels, but I guess that’s a story for another time.

A few weeks ago, I happened to be craving some overpriced food made by some (probably) exploited workers, so I stumbled into Green Café. After circling the buffet a few times and deciding it wasn’t worth it, I resolved to get the Teriyaki chicken. As I waited for my food to be made, two white guys walked toward me and waited on either side of me. For simplicity’s sake, we will call these two guys Guy #1 and Guy #2.

After a grueling and torturous year of starving at Cornell, all I wanted was to go home and eat my mother’s delicious cooking for an entire summer. I wanted to walk through the kitchen on a sunny afternoon and let the tantalizing aroma envelope my body and soul. My lips would begin to quiver as I bring the food closer to my mouth. My taste buds would tingle and a glistening tear would fall down my cheek as I slowly chewed, savoring every moment, every second, thanking God that I lived to experience this once more.

Some things are never quite left behind from high school: the acne, the immaturity, the insecurities, the need for social acceptance, but most importantly, the unexplainable urge to create drama. We all claim to hate it and that we’re too good for it. But, come on. Who are we kidding? We’re not in high school, but our mentality is perpetually stuck in it. We thrive on drama because it’s probably the most exciting thing that happens in Ithaca other than a frat party and maybe acing a prelim. It always starts with something small. Then through a series of he-said-she-said miscommunications, one thing leads to another until it finally explodes and turns into an episode of Gossip Girl. And I’m not going to deny it: girls do start most, if not all, of the drama and insist on adding fuel to the fire. Sometimes, for absolutely no reason. Just because, y’know, you have to tell someone if Amanda is being, like, such a bitch — gawd!

When you were a kid, what did you do during Halloween? You were probably in a cute or scary costume, telling ghost stories with a flashlight and, best of all, going from door-to-door to get free candy. There was something both frightening and magical in the night air.

Now that you’re all grown up, what do you do on Halloween? You’re probably going to dress up in a skanky or stupid costume (or not dress up at all), take too many shots and, worst of all, black out by chugging too many Keystone Lights. Well, I guess things change when you grow up, and you just have to go along with it. But the true spirit of Halloween — the imagination and the magic you experienced as a child — has vanished.