How I trained for my first marathon (and qualified for Boston!)
November 14, 2021
This past July, I ran my first ever marathon, managing to get myself over the finish line 1 minute and 56 seconds under the Boston Marathon qualifying standard for my age group. I was ecstatic– after four months of rigorous training, nearly a year of preparation (i.e. making plenty of mistakes and learning lessons along the way), and over a decade of having "run a marathon" on my bucket list, I'd finally run it. I learned so much throughout... continue reading
RUNNING MARATHON TRAININGTunisian Hospitality
July 16, 2018
I don't think I've ever experienced such hospitality the way I did in the four days I spent visiting my friend Wissem Gamra and his family in Tunisia. To provide just a snapshot of their generosity: weeks before Nat (who also came to visit Wissem!) and I arrived, Wissem planned for us a packed itinerary from the ruins of Carthage to the Atlas Mountains to the Great Mosque in Sousse. He chauffeured us around the entire time, answering our... continue reading
TRAVEL TUNISIA HOSPITALITY AFRICA SOUSSE TUNIS DESERTA Reflection on my Semester Abroad
June 05, 2016
After four and a half months of traipsing around Europe (yet at the same time, saving thousands of dollars compared to paying a semester of Yale tuition), I'm back at the place I initially departed, in Stamford, Connecticut. The cliché things to say would be that "I can't believe it's over," and that "I had the time of my life," and who knows, I might even default to one of those responses when the 100th person asks me about Budapest and... continue reading
REFLECTION TRAVEL BUDAPEST ACADEMICS CLASSES AIT-BUDAPEST MOMENTS RANDOM YALE PHOTOSHostel Crisis in Berlin
May 25, 2016
I've dreamed about visiting Berlin since I was 14, sitting Herr Stark's German I class and being immersed in the loud, vibrant language that is Deutsch. In Frau Michalak's German II class, we even created presentations for a project called "Reise nach Deutschland," in which we planned a week long trip to Germany, complete with Jugendherberge (youth hostel) bookings and public transportation plans. A few weeks ago, that dream became a reality,... continue reading
HOSTEL BERLIN PHOTOS TRAVEL CRISISMy Quest to Join a Hungarian Soccer Team
April 27, 2016
About a month into my semester in Budapest, I felt that something was amiss. It'd been two weeks since I'd been immersed in Hungarian at the Babilon Language school, and my schedule had started to become… mundane. I'll write more in depth about the AIT-Budapest program in a future post, but my point is, I was taking computer science courses in English, attending classes with (almost all) Americans, and living with Americans. Moreover, I spent... continue reading
TRAVEL BUDAPEST SOCCER FUTBALL CONVERSATIONS LANGUAGEHow to Create a Facebook Messenger Bot
April 18, 2016
Last Wednesday, Facebook released its hotly anticipated Facebook Messenger Bot API, allowing developers to, for the first time, create bots that can respond automatically to messages on Facebook. After a few days of trial and error and scrounging around the Facebook Bugs forum, I successfully got a bot up and running (and even picked up two hackathon prizes along the way)! This tutorial will lead you through the process of creating a... continue reading
FACEBOOK MESSENGER BOT HACKATHON TUTORIAL TECH#sb2k16 #london #photodiary
April 11, 2016
While most of my Facebook and Instagram friends posted spring break pictures of scenes like this: My spring break looked more like this: Just kidding. Thanks to friends and family, not even occasional volley of hail could make a dent in what for me was the perfect spring break. My Wizz Air flight to London took off at 6 am on Saturday morning. Although the process was inconvenient and the service nonexistent, the roundtrip ticket only cost me... continue reading
LONDON BUDAPEST PHOTOS MOM FRIEND SPRING BREAK PLANES FLIGHT VISITING RECAPS TRAVEL EUROPEI Return to Zürich, 11 Years Later
March 19, 2016
There's something special about returning to a place that you visited long ago. Looking across a bridge and seeing Grossmünster, that massive stone church on a hill with two hulking towers. Seeing the white and blue striped storefronts that unexpectedly trigger a memory of exploring Zürich with mom and Carra while dad was in meetings, walking and re-walking the same route until we felt we could call it our own. Sipping hot chocolate in the... continue reading
ZÜRICH SWITZERLAND TRAVEL EUROPE HACKTHON AIRPORTDaily Recaps from Jen
February 29, 2016
My wonderful high school roommate Jen flew into Budapest last Monday and has been giving far higher quality and more consistent daily recaps on Instagram and Facebook than I could ever hope to provide. 1) She's a fantastic writer. 2) She takes incredibly artsy pictures. Thus, I've decided it'd simply be easiest to embed her posts here and update the links everyday! So far, we've spent a week journeying through Budapest and Krakow. Next... continue reading
JEN REN RECAPS BUDAPEST KRAKOW FRIEND VISITING TRAVEL