Alia stands before me in splendor, gleaming with what I can only describe as a victor’s light. She smiles so brightly that even under the ample lighting of the mall, she somehow manages to stand out. But it’s not a friendly smile. She twirls before me in her summer dress, holding a pair of heels she’s yet to try on, as I sweat and puff with the weight and bulk of bags upon bags of new clothes… Alia’s new purchases, of cou...

I’m in hell. I’m walking through Alia’s front door, and I’m in hell. And not in one of the nice circles, oh no. This entire evening has been a gradual, but unstoppable descent into my worst nightmares. I’m wobbly on my feet. My heels – which I hate wearing – have hurt my feet, my cocktail dress is a pallid imitation of Alia’s that only seems to emphasize rather than reduce our differences in wealth and status, and I’ve lo...

“How do I look?” Alia twirls in a deep green dress before me, giggling for all the world like we haven’t spent most of the afternoon trudging through the mall. Still, I’m a good sport, so I give her a smile. “Very pretty, Alia.” God, I feel like I’m in the Say the line, Ralph! scene from The Simpsons. “You should try some of these dresses yourself!” Alia says, picking another dress to try out. “Come on Zainab, live a litt...

As the pale light of a cold autumn midday filtered through the trees, I wondered how the hell it had come to this. I loved Brian, and he loved me. This was no passing infatuation: I’m talking about four, long happy years of smooth sailing together. How could they come under threat so suddenly? And as for Maddie, well, she was my… friend. Yes, my friend still. No matter what happened, how far we had drifted apart over the...

For the last five years I've held the chair of Korean History (Early Modern) at my university, which I consider the crowning achievement of my life. I'm the first woman to occupy this particular chair, in a field normally dominated by old men, and at the age of 35, I'm definitely not stopping here. The prospect of what I could accomplish in the future thrills me even more than the achievement itself. In case it wasn't obv...