Month: September 2026 (Page 7 of 8)

By Luna Ramirez Castellanos

Winnie Lin returns to her sixteenth birthday when asked about her favourite memory:

Glasses are fume-flogged up, utensils shimmer under a glazing sun, sweat runs down a treasured black apron: dad is on “cooking mode”. The sun burns, and the grill is a non-stop machine— plates of lamb chops, clams, and the star of the show: lobster.

Her father: a server, line cook, head chef and griller, all at once. He is out there for hours, prepping the machine, then setting the table, putting the food on the plates. It’s an all-consuming endeavour, “you could make a show about it”, she adds. In conversation, you can almost savour the final product: “It’s just marinated so well. He spreads mayonnaise on it. It is like, perfectly simmered. Oh my God, it is perfect”.

It takes time to put that lobster on the plate.

I asked if she had the recipe. “My dad is afraid of me handling seafood, because the pincers of the lobster are kind of sharp… But I want to try it. He was like, ‘No. Don’t touch it.’” It isn’t the food delicacies or the long list of visiting family relatives that she reminisces about, but getting to cook with her father: “But that day, I was helping my dad with it. I just felt so good, working with him on it. I think it just shows me how fast time flies by.”

Winnie grew up in Flushing – “the place with good food”, as she describes it. Her parents emigrated from China, an identity woven into the culinary scene around her. The annual family barbecue. She describes Flushing as a tight-knit community, a “suburban” enclave: her “bubble.”

Winnie’s day begins the night before, everything planned. Life at Princeton is busy for her; she wakes up at 8:30 AM, grabs breakfast, works for three hours at the library, gets lunch, goes to class and then meets up with her friends or advisees. 

Winnie Lin: a PAA co-chair, a PCA, and a great friend, all at once. Her first-year roommate and close friend, Prisha Maggu, jokingly notes, “If you wanna meet with Winnie, you have to be in her Google Calendar.” She carries a deep sense of admiration for her. Having known her for so long, she can only name about “70%” of everything Winnie does on campus. Mackynzi Adams, another of her freshman-year roommates, attests to this: “[Winnie] is always working for the community or a part of a club. She certainly cares about others and getting to know people deeply”.

When asked about Princeton, Winnie always goes back to community: her zee group from freshman year –whom she religiously grabs dinner with at 5 P.M. in RoMa- or making space in her (very packed) calendar to help her advisees.

It takes a hell of a lot of time to do all she does. But Winnie does it happily: “I’ve grown up with a mentality of giving to a community that needs it, being […] with people”.

Interviewer: Jasper Gebhardt

Interviewee: Frances Brogan

Frances Brogan was four when she realized that the chicken on her plate and the chicken in the picture book were the same animal. Now a Princeton senior, she hasn’t eaten one since.

Chris Bao is a man full of contradictions. 

He believes that “there’s a reason why only some people get obituaries in the New York Times,” yet he believes every story has intrinsic value.

As past head news editor of The Daily Princetonian, he has written more than 80 stories, but can’t find a word to say about himself.

He states he is ‘calm’ and ‘mature,’ and being “neurotic” is something many would not know about him, yet he rotated through brushing dirt off his pants, changing sitting positions, and drawing with a twig in the mud constantly throughout the interview.

Even when though he says doesn’t think he is “that interesting,” it’s clear there is more to Chris than meets the eye.

Interviewer: Winnie Lin 

Interviewee: Luna Ramirez

For Luna Ramirez, being on campus comes with an uncanny luxury: sleeping in until 6:50 AM. Back home in Bogotá, Colombia, her high school routine demanded a 4:45 AM alarm. Despite moving across continents, she bridges the gap through a phone call at 5:50 AM Columbia time to her eight-year-younger sister, Martina, each morning.

At just four years old, Devon Williams, announced to her parents that she would attend Princeton. She had been watching a lot of Disney movies and concluded, from the name alone, this is the place where one could find her prince. After falling in love with romance languages—she is now a Comparative Literature major in Spanish and Italian at Princeton—Devon maintains she has accomplished both goals.

When someone is talkative during an interview, ready to spout off interviews with little prompting, it can sometimes be a sign that they just enjoy hearing themselves talk. When Xavier Latimer speaks, though, about topics as diverse as his career aspirations (finance, but being a pilot would be cool) or a superpower he wished he had (the ability to communicate with Princeton’s squirrels), it appears that his ideas are ones that couldn’t possibly be expressed in fewer words.

Interviewer: Luna Ramirez

Interviewee: Winnie Lin

The Lobster

Glasses are fume-flogged up, utensils shimmer under a glazing sun, sweat runs down a treasured black apron: Dad is in “cooking mode”. The sun burns, and the grill is a non-stop machine— plates of lamb chops, clams, and the star of the show: lobster. Winnie Lin goes back to her sixteenth birthday celebration when asked about her favourite memory. It isn’t the food or the long list of visiting family relatives that she reminisces about, but her getting to cook with her father: “But that day, I was helping my dad with it. I just felt so good, working with him on it. I think it just shows me how fast time flies by.”

Devonne Piccaver was eight-years-old when she knew she would become an olympian.

Ellis Speagle was meant to be on watch December 6th, 2019, the day a Saudi Air Force aviation trainee opened fire at NAS Pensacola and killed three people. Seven years on, he is a sophomore at Princeton, doing whatever it takes to make things happen.

Interviewer: Marvel

Interviewee: Marisa

Marisa Hirschfield, a musical comedy writer who can easily make you cry and doesn’t understand you unless she can make you laugh, hates self-definitions. Still, she does self-define that she can best be described as a ‘character.’