“A city is more than a place in space, it is a drama in time.” — Patrick Geddes Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom, August 2025 Introduction It’s 6:14 AM in Shenzhen airport. I’m in transit to Seoul, wide awake on London time after a sleepless night on a Starbucks couch. Reflecting on ten weeks in the city I once thought I knew, the hum of London still purred in my chest. Before: The Bias of Memory It was an absurd luxury being in one of the world’s most expensive cities wi

We live in a world obsessed with adding more. But at Wulanhada in Inner Mongolia, I realised the real challenge is learning what to subtract.

I used to nod at famous paintings, snap a picture, and call it culture. Then somewhere between a cheese painting, Bath’s Georgian streets, and Van Gogh’s trembling roses, something changed.

One evening in Dubrovnik, when the horizon flashed with lightning and rain drizzled over the medieval buildings, I felt a spark of energy. I was dressed for the night — makeup done, black skirt and red lace top on, ready to join the young travellers drinking on the top deck — when something in me shifted. Instead of heading to pre-drinks, I leapt off the boat.

There’s a reason people say your environment shapes you, though it’s not usually in the way we imagine. It isn’t that sitting in a trendy lobby scouting out the CEOs by their Italian leather briefcases magically makes you more productive, or that surrounding yourself with ambitious people guarantees you’ll suddenly share their drive. The truth is subtler: environment shapes belief, and belief is the thing that tips you into action.

I remember my first circuit class at the gym with Tom. Well, technically, my second one—but that first real attempt where I made it through the full warm-up and thought I might actually die. I’d done my fair share of running, even dabbled in weight training, but five minutes into this class I was puffing like I’d never moved in my life. By the end of the 45 minutes, I was drenched, beet-red, and wrecked. I didn’t go back for a month. I didn’t like the pain.

I have 26,682 photos. Isn’t being part of Gen Z just wonderful? I tell myself it’s fine to take a hundred in one go of me posing in various ways because I’ll delete the bad ones later. So there I am, same background, same moody smile, same outfit. A hundred times. 

I was convinced that moving abroad—somewhere new, vibrant, exciting—would finally make me feel fulfilled. After all, when I was in Thailand on exchange, I was happy. When I was back in Auckland? Not so much.

Today I chatted with a 23-year-old cofounder of a $5 million technology startup. We connected on LinkedIn, set up a call, and what was initially planned as a 25-minute slot turned into an engaging hour-and-a-half discussion about careers, entrepreneurship, and mindsets for success.

I used to think vision boards were just star-sign-y, manifestation-y woo-woo—how could pasting colorful images onto blank white make your

During my three-month exchange term at Dartmouth in the fall, I started noticing people wearing handmade-looking rings. When I complimented them, they’d casually say, “Oh, I made it at the jewelry studio.” I added it to my mental bucket list… and promptly forgot about it.

This article will share all my insights about life at Tsinghua, particularly for those of you interested in doing an exchange or language pr

I have received $40,000+ worth of university scholarships in the past three years, such as the UoA Top Achiever’s Scholarship, Prime Ministe

As I closed my eyes, I envisioned myself atop a mountain, a breeze fluttering through my hair while being encompassed by lush green treetops

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“Call Me by Your Name,” directed by Luca Guadagnino is a coming-of-age romance set in the Italian countryside in the summer of 1983....