On the whole, I'd have to say I'm a fairly happy person. Scratch that. I'm an expressive person. It doesn't take a lot of effort to know how I'm feeling, as it's usually written right across my face like a human emoji. Seems pretty normal, right? That's what I thought too, but after I lived abroad, I realized that smiling and how we convey emotion is heavily influenced by local culture. I'm not saying that people aren't biologically hardwired to smile when they're happy, I'm

One day in 2016, when I was traveling with my class in Prague, I found myself in an odd situation. It was one of the first weeks of the program and they had taken us on a day trip to Česky Krumlov (10/10, would definitely recommend). It was nearing the end of our trip and we had watched the sunset from the windows of our motor coach careening at questionable speeds through the Czech countryside. We were all that bone-achingly tired that only comes with jet lag and the majorit

I was sitting in the living room of my sorority house the other day, working on my Czech and, like many student houses in the spring, the topic of graduation is the sleeping beast in the corner. Everyone tiptoes around it, lest a wave of panic wash over the graduating seniors. It's a delicate balance between being excited for the future and horror at the fact that someone, somewhere let us be full-fledged adults who are going to have real jobs and their own insurance and take