I hate to think of friendship as transactional; I truly do– but when should you stop putting effort into a friendship?

Friendships, as well as people, grow and change. Some weeks you are in your personal hell, and cannot be truly present for the people in your life who matter. Other weeks, you are fully present, a shoulder to cry on and a helping hand. I’ve been a terrible friend who ignores my phone for weeks, but I know that I show up when it matters. I also know that I have been on the receiving end. Whether it’s something small like a friend offering to grab you a coffee, or the big things like holding your hand as you confess a terrifying truth. But when is friendship too much? What do you do when you are pouring everything into a relationship that the other person doesn’t care about? I’ve always believed that actions speak louder than words. Someone can say that they “love you.” This is a phrase that I think we’ve become all too comfortable with, but do they show it? Friendship is not hypothetical; it’s actually showing up and proving it every day. People generally understand and practice this principle in their romantic relationships, but forget about this with platonic ones. What would you do if your long-term partner constantly stood you up because they had homework, or told people your secrets, or consistently spent time with people you couldn’t stand? In any relationship, we cannot control the other, but there have to be boundaries; everything gets to a point when suddenly you cannot stand it. 

I know that I am a good friend. I am fiercely loyal. I also don’t waste my breath on people I don’t want to. Some of my friends are definitely people pleasers and do a better job at fake niceties than I do. Maybe they’re more mature than I am, but at the end of the day I have no desire to waste my breath on people who have their minds made up on me. My therapist has constantly cautioned me from seeing the world in black and white; grey areas are possible! Because of this, I think I allow my friends to get away with too much. The people in my life are so important to me; I am busy, but I choose to make time for them. Because I know them, I see their struggles, and I justify their actions even when they hurt me because “They didn’t mean it”. In a sense, this is me acting as the people pleaser and pacifying the issues through justifying them. A good friend should understand their friends, and at times I think it is vital to justify small mistakes. But what do you do when it gets to be too much? Confront them? I find that if you need to confront friends, the focus should not be on where to place the blame, but instead focus on how you feel. Maybe it’s juvenile advice, but leading with “I feel” statements truly do make a difference. Maybe the conversation won’t go well, maybe they’ll refuse to change, but at least you tried. You cannot beg someone to change, and you should not have to. You are deserving of a friend that makes you feel loved and valued. If a friend hurts you, they should apologize even if they did not mean it. Friendship means giving up your pride and showing up, even when it’s hard. Yes, we cannot always give another person everything, but the little things make a difference. Friendship is not hypothetical; it’s showing up and practicing it every day.

In the month of February, the average morning in my hometown looks something like this: half-melted snow, very few cars, and fog so heavy you can just make out the road in front of you. It always felt suffocating to me. There was nothing in my town I hadn’t explored. 

According to my mom, the average day here in the mid-90s didn’t look much different than it does now. There have always been the same gas stations on every corner and the same dreary winter weather. 

My mother is, and always has been, a completely different person than me. She used to ride the bus to school with her headphones on and a pack of cigarettes hidden in her pocket. I always had hair dyed as bright as a highlighter, but would have never dreamed of talking back to a teacher. Immediately after graduation, my mom eloped with her high-school boyfriend and moved to Massachusetts. She was divorced and living in South Williamsport by the time she was 20. This might seem like the kind of story that comes with bitterness, and in a lot of ways it is. My mom lost years of her life to a man who treated her badly, all because she was already tied to him. Although she regrets many of her decisions from her late teens, my mom says that she has never regretted coming back home. When I was younger, I resented my mom for returning. All I wanted to do was escape South Williamsport, and she had decided to stay. But as I’ve grown up, I realized just how brave she was to return. She made a new life for herself in a place that felt suffocating to her, picking only the good things in her life to bring with her. 

Being 19, I can’t imagine how isolating and scary it would feel to be hours away from my family and closest friends, living with someone who treated me badly. When I’m home now, I appreciate how comforting it feels for me, and must have felt for her, to be suffocated by family and overpriced gas stations. 

 In the month of June, the average day in my hometown feels a lot brighter. Sidewalks are crowded with families walking their dogs, graduation parties are in every other backyard, and every local motel fills up with tourists starting to arrive for the Little League World Series. The mornings are slower and calmer, and I’m never awake in time to see the early morning fog.

I’ll always belong to my hometown in a way. It makes me smile when people point out my central PA accent, and I can never resist a Sheetz run. While I don’t plan on raising my daughter there like my mother and grandmother, I hope she picks up on some of my hometown quirks: My love for nature, folk music, and my affinity to trust strangers (maybe in a safer way). They’re a huge part of me that wouldn’t exist without my home.

As if they were some aura-farming mafia group, the news calls them “the Cornell 7”. No, let’s call them what they are. The Cornell Assaulters, the Cornell Rape Gang, the Cornell boys who never learned to respect women and decided it was a fun idea to objectify and strip a woman’s dignity. The foul things that were spewed in that Snapchat group chat prove the regression our society is spiraling into. Calling a human being “free pussy” and encouraging the other fifty boys in that group chat to enter the room and assault a woman under the influence is more than enough to send them a one-way ticket right to the deepest pits of burning hell.  

“Don’t walk alone at night”, “carry pepper spray”, “learn how to defend yourself”, “let him down easy”, “don’t dress provocatively”, “be quiet and submit.” This is only the tip of the iceberg. Now, I know I don’t attend one of the most prestigious Universities in the country, like Cornell, for example, but I sure do know it is never, EVER the victim’s fault for causing their assault. Why do we tell our girls to do better and never hold the boys accountable for their behavior? I don’t have to be a genius to understand empathy because women learn that from the get-go. Give a man time to understand the Golden Rule, and suddenly he is a Plato. Are we okay right now? An essay? AN ESSAY!? Girl, I write essays all the damn time, and you're telling me that instead of going to jail, where they all belong, all they need is a typed paper about what? Being sorry? Their Turnitin better have zero AI detection.  

Every woman I know has a story about how they have been assaulted or harassed by men. This is sad. This is disgusting. Fraternity culture is rooted in misogyny, and it is stereotypical for these boys to make fun of consent and neg women to oblivion because that is “brotherhood.” The patriarchy wins again, and no surprise, the glass ceiling is 7 boys walking free for their crimes as a woman suffers the consequences of trauma. Tell me something I don’t know.  

Sometimes I dream in the third person. I can see my body from above. Sometimes I don't appear in my dreams at all. I am merely the medium for which my dream and its remnants exist. I am the dream’s earth. I am the dream’s oxygen. I am none of the dream's characters, and yet I'm within all of the dream’s characters. I am the dream’s stream of collective consciousness. I can feel the presence of myself in the dream as if I'm a ghost haunting its walls. Or maybe I am its walls - after all, I am the one dreaming. Though the dream isn't bound to my brainly interior. My dream takes the shape of no shape at all. My dream transcends. The workings of my dream are known only to one part of me. The part of me that doesn't entirely exist while I'm awake, but is still quietly alive. My dream is me. My dream is not me. My dream is other worlds and intangible unknowns communicating to me and through me.

I was never a child who eagerly went to bed. I wanted to experience more day, more people - more life. As I got older, I looked forward to sleeping. But not because I viewed it as a source of replenishment, but because I was excited to dream. I would intentionally think about certain people before bed to see if they would appear in my dreams. I was interested in the extent to which my external life impacts the content of my dreams. Were my dreams my subconscious coming to life, or were they simply interpretations of the day I had while awake? 

Every morning before reaching for my phone or getting out of bed, I dedicate time to recalling my dreams. I try to recall the colors in my dream - that is, if  I dreamt in color at all. I try to recall if I had multiple dreams. I consider whether my dream was more of an abstract feeling or a series of events. This process of trying to recall is difficult; thus, I know it's good for me.

Working through my mind like this gives me a sense of autonomy. It's self-exploration that requires no external aid or consumption. It's the calisthenics of mental growth. There's no dumbbell needed, just me and my mind. Solving a math problem challenges your brain, but you'd have to be given the math problem to solve. When I ponder the concept of dreams and attempt to recall my own, the challenge is already within me.

I think we (ladies) can all agree that being a girl has both upsides and downsides. I absolutely love being a woman, I could sit and talk for hours about how wonderful it is. Honestly, I have gone on endless rants about being a girl and the good that it brings. And across all the conversations that I’ve had, there’s one specific feature about being a woman that I adamantly believe is the crowning jewel: sisterhood. The backbone, the foundation, the essence of being a woman lies in the unspoken bond we have with each other.

I’m sure almost everyone is familiar with girl code, the unspoken rules that we somehow know and abide by. I don’t absolutely love this term. I feel like the foundation of “girl code” and what it has become with time is all twisted. In recent years it has almost turned into a way to punish or restrict each other. I’m suspicious where these “rules” even came from and what they really represent. I recently heard someone explain that girl code feels like a defensive measure that developed during a time when men had serious authority over women. Like when women couldn’t vote and couldn’t own property or couldn’t build any wealth of their own. During that time, the moment when women had the most (still not a lot) influence was during the “courtship” period.

So, during that window women had some leeway in who they gave attention to, who they went on dates with, etc. But that “power” only works when a man is pursuing one woman at a time. I kind of think about it like two competing businesses: customers buy the best deal, and availability affects price while demand increases it. In this analogy, men are the market but also somehow get to decide the price. That leaves only one area where a woman can exert any influence: availability!

This is what made it so important for ladies to not hook up with each other’s exes, it wasn’t just because of morality or loyalty (though this of course played a huge role), but because it increased availability and decreased price! (I hate having to compare women to products, it's gross, but that was the logic of the world back then.) Whether this interpretation of girl code is perfect or not, I think it has some truth to it.

That’s why I’d much rather say that sisterhood is what ties us together. Girl code was a set of rules created so we could gain a bit more influence over our future, and I don’t think that the values we live by should be shaped by or the result of men.

Okay, so we’ve established that girl code is out. Now let me convince you why sisterhood is in.

Throughout my childhood, I was a Girl Scout. We had weekly meetings, an hour and half of pure girl time. I learned some important skills during those years, but what mattered even more were the friendships I made. I’m talking about girls who will absolutely be my bridesmaids one day (if I ever manage to get over hating men). We ended each meeting standing in a circle, holding hands, and repeating the Girl Scouts Law, which ends with “and be a sister to every girl (scout)!” We’d scream it at the top of our lungs and then immediately fall into a frenzy of hugs and laughter. Can you imagine repeating that mantra every week for your entire childhood?

We were celebrating sisterhood.

I can’t take you back with me into those precious moments, so I’ll try my best to sum up what I mean when I talk about sisterhood: Have unconditional love for the girls around you. Accept each other wholeheartedly. We all know what it’s like to be a woman — the beautiful parts, the exhausting parts, the heavy parts — so we must stand together, support each other, and try our absolute best to understand one another.

And most importantly…

Sisterhood is knowing that no matter what phase of life you’re in, there is a woman out there who gets it. Someone who will hype you up, defend you without being asked, cry with you in a bathroom stall, laugh with you until your stomach hurts, or sit with you in silence when that’s all you can handle. Sisterhood is the feeling of being seen — truly seen — by people who share your battles, your joys, and the tiny, intimate experiences that only other women fully understand. It’s choosing to lift each other up instead of competing. It’s believing in abundance over scarcity. It’s the soft, steady reminder that you are never, ever alone.

Because at the end of the day, being a woman is not just about individual strength — it’s about the collective strength we build together. And there is nothing more powerful, more comforting, or more profoundly beautiful than that.

To approach or to be approached? 

I’m no stranger to unintentional self-sabotaging, but I think one of my most detrimental habits is being a “wallflower.” I specifically put myself in situations to be social, but would feel out of place amidst so much conversation happening without me that I would resort to going on my phone to look busy. Then afterwards I would feel defeated and wonder why no one talked to me. 

There’s a lot of implicit assumptions we make, but one of the ones I made is that people will approach me simply because I’m there. And then when they didn’t, I wondered if it’s because I was having a bad hair day, or my outfit was ugly, or maybe I’m not pretty enough. But who actually makes friends based on appearances? 

I kept expecting that things would happen the way they do at the beginning of college—you jump straight from strangers to friends, skipping the stage of being acquaintances. But as an adult, this becomes increasingly less realistic. You need acquaintances to make friends. You need to talk to people so they remember who you are. 

It quickly became second-nature for me to sit in the background, silently judging everyone. I thought that I wouldn’t fit in with them, so it was an unconscious defense mechanism to rule them out before giving them a chance—to feel dejected on my own terms. I started having thoughts like “this person looks so cool, they would never wanna be my friend,” even without realizing I was assuming the other person was as shallow as I was proving myself to be. 

Somewhere along the way, I forgot what kind of person I want to be. I know that I love talking, and making friends, and giving compliments. So how did I become this? What’s stopping me from being the person that I look up to? It sounds silly to say that I’m shy, because that feels like something that only kids are allowed to be—something you’re supposed to grow out of. 

If you’ve ever been considered a ‘quiet person’ before, you’ve probably also had people assume that you’re mean. I don’t know who came up with this, but it’s not like I can be mad because my assumptions about others weren’t much better. When you don’t know someone, it’s easy to use the information that you have to fill in the blanks. So what if you only see them across a classroom or on social media? I’m sure you still think something about them. We can’t help it. 

Sometimes judgments are automatic, and we don’t even realize. We just have this gut feeling when we see them, some call it intuition, and maybe sometimes we’re right. But also what if we’re wrong? 

We can’t stop ourselves from forming heuristics, but we can stop ourselves from letting them influence our behavior. In my case, I shouldn’t let my assumptions about people deter me from approaching them.

A couple weeks ago, I went to a club meeting after going back and forth about whether I had the energy to leave my apartment. When I got there, everyone was talking amongst themselves and the girl sitting next to me also wasn’t talking to anyone, so I turned to her and, without even taking one deciding glance at her first, said, “Everyone else is talking and I feel awkward,” and that’s all it took. It was that easy. She laughed like I was making a joke (I wasn’t) and then we talked the rest of the meeting. 

When you don’t feel the greatest about yourself, and you’re living in the same world as the rest of us, it’s easy to think the worst of others. But what if you gave everyone the benefit of the doubt? 

It felt weirdly self-deprecating to view myself as a shy person, like I don’t have the confidence or courage to hold my own in a conversation, so I decided to stop seeing myself that way. When I see myself as an equal with the people I admire, it makes me admire myself. 

Sure, I can’t magically change my entire personality and become an extrovert, and there will be days when I’m tired and my social battery has run out and I feel like keeping to myself, but reframing my mindset has opened so many doors for me.

Your go-to shoe says more about you than your zodiac sign. And before all of you astrological fanatics come after me, please hear me out. Shoes offer a glimpse into your personality, whether you’re the type who prefers comfort over aesthetic or even classic styles over trends. Unlike zodiac signs that stay the same your whole life, your go-to shoe can change from year to year, not tying you down to one trait or quirk. Eventually, you have to retire shoes as they wear down or as your feet grow. And while you can buy the same pair, you have the opportunity to mix things up, and I don’t think you can say the same about your sign.

I recently switched up my go-to shoe. Last winter, I would die for my New Balance 327s that I bought while visiting my friends studying abroad in London. They saved me from blisters and sore soles that would’ve ruined my trip. (For whatever reason, I only packed boots for London, and I’m as equally confused as you are.) I’ve always loved wearing New Balance shoes because of the “N” on the side. When I was younger, my dad told me the “N” stood for Nina, my name, and from there, they became my go-to shoe.

But this winter, I looked at my New Balances at the bottom of my closet and thought to myself, these don’t fit my personality anymore. I wanted a shoe that was still me, but a little mysterious. A shoe that suggests I could be passionate like a fire sign or grounded like an earth sign. A shoe that represents a girl who has a never-ending TBR, a soft spot for craft nights, or even a collection of refrigerator magnets. I desired a pair that could match both my feminine and masculine sides.

After endless scrolling on Pinterest and TikTok, I decided the 1461 Bex Smooth Leather Oxford Shoes by Dr. Martens were the perfect fit. I’ve been wearing them to work, to class, on nights out, and to the library. They match every nook and cranny of my personality–at least, for my current personality.

Throughout your life, you’ll have many different friends.

I have been fortunate enough to call a group of 7 girls my best friends since I was 11 years old. Tess, Sabrina, Grace, Katherine, Olivia J., Shoshi, and I make up “The Cheezit Squad.” The Cheezit Squad is exactly what you would imagine. The cringe middle school girl group of your dreams (or worst nightmare), that branched out in high school, and now as sophomores in college are finding our way back home. 

Each of these girls and I have a different story. A different relationship. A different invisible string that brought us together. I’ve learned a different lesson from each girl that has shaped me into the person I am today. My mom has always said that the bond we share is different than other friends, and for the longest time I shrugged it off. It wasn’t until I moved into college, moved back home, and went away again that I realized how truly special this bond is. Do not get me wrong, I have amazing friends here at school, but there’s something calming about being with people who watched you grow up, they’ve slept in your childhood bedroom, met your parents, and been picked up by older siblings in your pre-driving days. You don’t have to explain yourself to them because they just get it. While I can always rely on my amazing friends here at Pitt, these are the girls whose advice I never forget because they have watched me grow. When I’m having the worst Sunday scaries, I call them, and they remind me who I am. 

I don’t know who I would be without these girls. True friends are the ones who have seen you grow, and don’t define you by who you were in past phases of your life. They see you where you are now, and remember who you used to be. I’ve always been someone begging to leave my hometown, and I did. I am so glad that I got out. But, I always find myself coming back to the people I call home. Going back to the people who have never let me down. Who has been there for every experimental play I did, waiting with flowers. Who has asked every guy I’ve ever dated what his shoe size is. Who were there when I went through my first breakup, my first college rejection. When you’ve seen someone with braces and a side part, you can’t help but cry when you watch them walk across the stage at graduation. You can’t help but marvel at how far they’ve come when you know everything that they’ve fought to be there. Maybe we’re so close because we’ve known each other for so long, but I’d argue that these are good friends. These are good people. This is what home is to me. 

Hurry, grab an ice cube and put it in your toilet. Don’t flush. Grab a silver spoon and place it under your pillow. Finally, wear your pajamas inside out and backwards. My 9-year-old sister told me that this will guarantee you a snow day, the type of snow day you'd have as a kid where the rest of the world stops.

Snow days meant 24 hours where nothing else mattered but the snow.

The automated call would come around 6:30 A.M. on our landline: “Hello, this is your superintendent of Hampton Township School District calling to let you know that our school district will be closed due to severe weather. Thank you, have a nice day.” One phone call changed everything.

I would run to our storage closet, dig around for my snow gear, and put it on over my pajamas. We’d sprint out the door and down the porch stairs to our garage, where we kept our plastic, red toboggan sled.

The trek to our neighborhood hill felt like miles in the blistering cold, but absolutely nothing could stop us. We’d take turns pushing each other down the hill until we were tired or someone's glove fell off, and they started crying that they were frostbitten.

We’d run inside to the hot chocolate waiting for us, probably made by one of our poor babysitters who didn’t get a snow day because adults don’t get snow days.

Adults still have to go to work. Adults still have assignments due. Adults have to worry if there is enough food in the house in case we get snowed in. Adults have to worry if the power is going to go out. Adults have to worry about keeping extra jugs of water in case the pipes freeze. Adults don’t get snow days. For adults, the world doesn’t stop.

What happened to snow days?!

What happened to the days of care-free fun we had as kids? When we didn’t have to get up for 8 A.M.s and walk through 2-degree weather to a class that even the professor doesn’t want to be at. When we didn’t have to carefully walk on the pavement with the fear of slipping into city slush. We didn't have to worry about making it through the weekend, because we thought it would all work out.

So with all this being said, if we do get snow, I urge you to take a snow day. Let the world around you stop. Hang with your best friends, make hot chocolate (and maybe spike it), have a snowball fight, go sledding in Schenley Park, and enjoy a day our younger selves once dreamed of.

There is an immense source of joy that radiates throughout our everyday lives that humans tend to overlook: the sun. It is scientifically proven to be a source of healing for humans, as the ultraviolet B rays are shown to interact with a protein in our bodies (7-DHC) which in turn transforms into Vitamin D3, promoting immunity, strengthening bones, and even acting as a hormone. The light of the sun seeping into our skin ignites a biochemical reaction within us that physically alters our health and becomes a remedy for healing. 

The sun has always been something that I have valued, as my grandmother has always told me during every inconvenience in my life (no matter how big or small), that the sun will come out again. When I was younger, it didn’t quite register with me. But after living through more experiences, I now value the simplicity in her words, because no matter what we endure, the sun will always shine again, which is at least one thing to be grateful for.

Over time, I have noticed that the concept of the Sun was prevalent in things I was consuming in my day to day life. A song that my friends and I loved to listen to was titled “When the Sun Hits”, where the Sun represents passion throughout the cycle of life as the Sun rises and falls. There is also a quote that is written on a loved one’s gravestone that I visit frequently, - “time flies, sun rises, shadows fall, let time go by - love is forever over all.” Another reminder that even through tragedy, the shining of the Sun is a constant, something you can count on.

Before I left for college, my best friend and I decided we wanted to get a matching tattoo. We went back and forth with some trends we saw online, but nothing really resonated until we decided on a matching sun and a moon. In this case, it represents our friendship and perpetuating bond through all phases, such as when the sun sets and the moon comes out. It’s definitely not a secret that as human beings, we all exist alongside suffering. This life does not exist without challenges, and it is sometimes difficult to find things to be positive about when that is the reality of living. Like anyone else, I am guilty of thinking this way, and I sometimes find myself focusing on the negativity that can also be prevalent in our day to day lives. However, most days all we have to do is look up to the Sun to find something to be thankful about; and even on a cloudy day, you can count on the fact that it won’t be long until those clouds part and the Sun comes back, just as always!

Written by Mira Savas