adrift in tokyo - by April Qiu Cheng - winter in april

i can’t believe i’m graduating, we said, over coffee and maseeh dining and the harvard bridge. yeah, me neither. then, on the morning of friday, may 31, 2024, we lined up by our majors and walked across a stage to circular orchestral music. we shook hands with important people. we took pictures with friends and our parents and each other bye, we said over our bouquets. see you later. and just like that, we graduated (and i never saw her again) the last few weeks have been a fever dream. before graduation i was trapped in a daze of graduation denial, and after graduation i went straight into a family mini-vacation to rhode island, to packing up all my belongings (of which i have too many), to a solo trip1 to tokyo. i have been graduating in stages—my last final last fall, my last class a few weeks ago, my commitment to grad school two months ago, my last day at MIT before my parents arrived, two separate graduation ceremonies, my last ice cream with my research mentor, my last coffee wi

i can’t believe i’m graduating, we said, over coffee and maseeh dining and the harvard bridge. yeah, me neither. then, on the morning of friday, may 31, 2024, we lined up by our majors and walked across a stage to circular orchestral music. we shook hands with important people. we took pictures with friends and our parents and each other bye, we said over our bouquets. see you later. and just like that, we graduated (and i never saw her again) the last few weeks have been a fever dream. before graduation i was trapped in a daze of graduation denial, and after graduation i went straight into a