Tell us something crazy or interesting about your summer.
Mingyi Hei ’29: “I’m from Beijing, China, it’s a long trip. We went to Dubai, and the food there was the best food, like super good. And then we came here, and the food is also great. I’m pleased. But the food in Dubai is too good!”
Ben Parada ’28: “I did something really different compared to other people. I worked at a bike shop as a mechanic and stuff, so I was just like working with 50-year-olds — so a completely different demographic than I’m used to here. There was this one guy … we call him ‘Stabbing Kevin.’ He’s a regular at the bike shop and, one time, he got into a little tussle with someone and stabbed him. He was on the Most Wanted List, fled to Texas for a couple years, came back with a whole new look — so, now when he comes in, the head mechanic works on his bike for a very discounted price.”
Kobi Gyan ’28: “I don’t know if I can really go into the nitty gritty, but I went to Toronto with my dad. It was just the two of us which was cool.”
Devin Malhotra ’27: “My summer was good. I got to live with my girlfriend, near my friends. I don’t have any like explicitly insane stories, but it was a good time.”
Brandon Castaño ’27: “I went to LA. That’s like the craziest thing that happened. It’s like Mecca for Mexicans.”
Akira Tanglao-Aguas ’27: “There were floods where I was doing my internship in Manila in the Philippines where I had my internship, so I couldn’t go for a week. And then when I got back to where I was staying, everything was covered in mold, and that was my life. I had to wash a lot of fuzz off of stuff, and I kept getting emails, because there were also a lot of political things going on at the time and I was living in the capital city. So I kept getting emails from the study abroad office that was like, watch out for protestors, don’t engage. So that was weird.”
Sean Tian ’29: “Last summer, after my senior year of high school, I went to UC Berkeley for summer school, and I’m pretty sure my TA was a triple major. It was crazy. And one of the craziest things that happened to me was one time, when I was sitting outside doing homework, a squirrel just hopped on the table asking for food. All I had was a Taki, though, and he just smelled it and immediately ran away.”
Arthur Wang ’27: “Nothing special really. I did go to Tanzania on a safari for a couple weeks. The rest of the summer was just pretty busy at an internship. Pretty busy, took a company public. Just working around the clock — deal was announced last week so at least something was done.”
Kyara Hernandez Duarte ’29: “I’m from Nevada so I moved fully across the country, drove to New York with my family. It was my first time in New York and I really liked it. It’s definitely hard to navigate, though, so I need to get better at that.”
What are your thoughts on the recent drama involving SEPTA’s budget and reduction in service?
Kobi Gyan ’28: “As a student here it was nice to be able to go into Center City with my teammates late at night and have some fun there. So, losing that would be unfortunate. I also use the train to get home some days, so coming back for breaks, getting in late from my Amtrak, it was nice to be able to hop on SEPTA to get to campus.”
Brandon Castaño ’27: “I can’t say what I’m actually feeling, because it’s violent. I was just really upset. It’s gonna hurt a lot of people, people who have jobs who rely on public transportation and people who go to school as well. I don’t personally rely on it, thank God, but I do find it very convenient.”
Akira Tanglao-Aguas ’27: “My dad uses SEPTA to commute. So if it had gotten cut, he would have had to buy a $600 parking pass and then also pay for the gas. But I guess now we’re good for the next year. Live, laugh, love.”
Sean Tian ’28: “I’ve taken SEPTA pretty often, and I think the proposed cuts would have affected me a lot. I’m going to meet my family in late September and I have to catch an Amtrak in Philadelphia, so it would be very inconvenient for SEPTA to be cut.”
Arthur Wang ’27: “It probably wouldn’t have affected me too much. Only if I were to take a class at Penn or something like that.”
Kyara Hernandez Duarte ’29: “I honestly haven’t really gotten into Philly yet, but when I came for DiscoverSwat the free and easy access to transportation was super advertised and that was a super big incentive for me to come here. So it was a bit deceiving, or at least jarring, right when I got here that there was a prospect of such a big reduction in SEPTA.”
What is the weirdest lore you’ve ever learned about a teacher or professor?
Ben Parada ’28: “One of my teachers was in the running to be on Jeopardy, but he didn’t want to have to travel and all that.”
Devin Malhotra ’27: “One of my high school teachers was super nice but he was always a little too comfy, and I heard that after I graduated he was in an open relationship and he had reached out to some former students after they graduated, which is like maybe legal but definitely icky.”
Kyara Hernandez Duarte ’29: “My old speech and debate coach kissed Katy Perry … by association. He used to be a valet in a really fancy hotel, and one time Katy Perry and her dog were there and the dog loved him so much that it would jump up and kiss him every time it saw him. He found a picture of the dog kissing Katy Perry, so technically, if the dog kissed her, so did he. When I joined his math class, he dedicated an entire class period to telling that story.”
Brandon Castaño ’27: “I’m not gonna name names, but this one professor apparently tried talking in an Indigenous language to his colleague assuming he spoke it, and he didn’t.”
Akira Tanglao-Aguas ’27: “I heard about a professor who married one of his students.”
Sean Tian ’28: “One of my high school teachers, my geology teacher, once told us a story that he once fell in love with one of his students. He told that story himself and was pretty comfortable with it. He was happy about it. I don’t know whether they got into a relationship but, according to him, there were a lot of girls into him. He was 30 and the student was like fifteen. And he was proud of it.”
