November 15th was a high-stakes day. Women around the world held our breaths, anxiously refreshed our screens, and prayed to the WIFI Gods. 10 am hit, and the pressure was on.

Was it Ivy admission day? No, not until March, but it might as well have been. On November 15th, 2022, Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets went on sale, and chaos ensued.

For those of you who aren’t Swifties and don’t understand the magnitude of this moment, allow me to put it in perspective. Lawsuits against Ticketmaster were filed. Tickets were resold for as much as $30,000. A pizzeria in New Orleans offered a year’s worth of free pizza in exchange for two tickets. This was serious stuff, people!

Somehow, one of my best friends from high school, Meredith, made it out of the digital bloodbath with two tickets, so we booked our flights to Texas. And then….six months later, on the day of the show, our flight from Dallas to Houston was canceled at 2am.

Well, first it was delayed 11 times over the course of 10 hours, and then it was canceled. This was the last flight of the day, and Meredith and I had grabbed the last two seats on it after our original flight had also been canceled. Everyone’s flights had been canceled earlier in the day due to weather, so of course, again, chaos ensued. Telling an airport’s worth of Taylor Swift fans that the final flight to Houston has been canceled could not have been a fun job.

Between the noise, our lack of good options, and the fact that it was 2am, I did what I seem to do best in airports, which is cry. Internally, I cursed the thunderstorms for existing, cursed the emotionless gate agents who delivered the news, and cursed Texas itself for being so dang big and spread out. When I was done doing all that, I cursed American Airlines for losing my bag, which they had done almost immediately in Raleigh. That was the only thing they seemed to do quickly.

I couldn’t hide the fact that I was crying as I joined the back of the seemingly endless re-booking line. The man in front of me turned around, and embarrassed, I looked up to apologize. To my relief, he smiled. “I feel like crying, too,” he said. “This whole thing is exhausting.”

Voices all around us chimed in, and alliances were formed. I called American Airlines while he called the rental car companies. The man behind us searched for morning Delta flights, and the woman behind him searched for hotels. Meredith found two more women going to the Taylor Swift concert, and we made a deal to drive to Houston together.

All it took was one person (aka, me) having an embarrassing moment of vulnerability for a stoic line of travelers to all start helping one another. One by one, peoples’ individual struggles were solved, and the line grew smaller and smaller as they teamed up and left to rent cars, find hotels, and transfer to the Delta terminal.

We eventually left the line ourselves, and by 6 am, we had made it to Houston with the women from the airport. We slept half the day, finally managed to get my bag, and got ready for the concert with one of our new friends. Not-so-surprisingly, driving four hours through Texas in the middle of the night is a bonding experience.

Now that I’m back home (after an amazing Taylor Swift show), and a little more removed from the situation, I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Mr. Rogers.

Growing up, I was a big PBS Kids fan, and Fred Rogers was a staple in our home. I vividly remember watching as he sat in his cozy TV living room, feeding his fish. In one particular episode, I remember listening as he recalled advice his mother had given him as a child.

 “Look for the helpers,” his mother had told him. “[When something bad happens] you will always find people who are helping.”

That sentiment brought me comfort as a child, and it’s still true today. When you’re little, there are people helping you all the time, but the truth is, just because we grow up doesn’t mean the helpers don’t still exist. We all become the helpers.

When I visited the Museum of Happiness in Denmark, I learned that high levels of community trust are associated with the happiest countries. Happy people know there are others who have their backs, whether those people are friends, or strangers (who become friends) in airports.

This week, I’m making a point to try and be a helper. It doesn’t take much; just being a little friendlier, a little kinder, and a little more willing to step up goes a long way. The more of us who make the effort, the better all of our lives will become, and the happier the world will be.

So, thank you, American Airlines, Texas thunderstorms, Taylor Swift, and the people of flight 2790 for reminding me of that.

Last week, I wrote about how over testing and high-pressure environments during grade school left me feeling burned out in college. Now, I feel the need to balance out all the doom and gloom with something a little more uplifting. This week, I will be talking about my most positive experiences in education.

At the end of my last article, I talked about how the Scandinavians get a lot of things right when it comes to education. They understand the importance of collaboration. They encourage both creativity and logical thinking. They get students out of the classroom and into the real world.

After publishing that article, something dawned on me. I wrote that I wished I could have experienced that kind of education myself, but the truth is, I have. Not as an elementary student, but interestingly, in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

Coming into University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was already burned out. Yikes. Not the best way to kick off my college career. I was academically successful, of course, because I associated my whole value as a person with academic success. I didn’t enjoy being in the classroom, though. It was the Hussman School of Journalism and Media that taught me to be excited about learning again.

The curriculum at Hussman is not easy. It is a professional school at UNC after all, and work is taken seriously. But there is something in the air at the J-School, as we call it. There is kindness, there is mutual respect, and there is understanding.

The moment you walk in the doors to Carroll Hall or Curtis Media Center, you can feel the positivity. Students are — for the most part — excited to be there. Every single one of my professors at the journalism school has taken the time to get to know me, not just as a student, but as a human.

I will always remember Deb Aikat‘s laugh and Marshele Carter‘s kindness. I will always remember Gary Kayye💜 CTS holding class outside when there was beautiful weather, even though the technological aspects were trickier out there. I will always remember Livis Freeman’s office, which is packed floor to ceiling with Star Wars and Harry Potter collectibles. I have never doubted that all of these people care about me, and for that, I am grateful.

Before entering the Hussman School, I had never asked for an extension on a deadline. My freshman year at UNC, I became very sick and quite literally didn’t leave my bed for weeks. I had a 106 degree fever, but I still propped my laptop up in bed and emailed my work to my professors on time. I was willing to work myself to the bone to “be the best.” The culture at Hussman does not subscribe to that thinking, though. There are high expectations, but there is also grace.

Every professor I have had at the J-School has encouraged students to be honest when they are overwhelmed academically. They don’t just throw the required blurb about wellness in the back of the syllabus; they have a hands-on approach. Every professor I have had at the J-School has spoken about mental health. In 2021, when a shocking number of students at UNC committed suicide, we talked about it. We talked about the impacts of COVID-19, and the subsequent mental health crisis. Last week, in the wake of the Michigan State shooting, we talked about mass shootings at colleges, and how many of us are scared to sit in a classroom. We talk about real life.

Some might say all this talking is a waste of time. That couldn’t be further from the truth. It is the best use of our time, and the standards at Hussman remain sky high. I will never forget getting a 50% on a midterm because I spelled a name wrong on a journalism report by a single letter. That’s the standard at the J-School. But I also remember walking into office hours, crying, and being met with kindness. The standards weren’t lowered, and my grade wasn’t changed. My perspective was.

The Hussman School has taught me that there is room for both academic rigor and humanity. Slowly, I learned that academics do not have to be sterile or emotionless. Collaboration helps everyone; not everything has to be a competition. There is room for joy in learning. I have learned important things in every one of my classes, but these are the lessons I will hold with me forever.

About once a day, somebody in my apartment (usually me) loses a phone. We always start out calm—recruiting our roommates to look through couch cushions, under furniture and even in the freezer (surprisingly, it’s in there a lot of the time.) As minutes pass, though, we become increasingly filled with anxiety. I’m not a big crier, but soon the tears make an appearance. Losing a phone feels like losing an extension of myself, and in a lot of ways, it is exactly that.

Our entire lives are documented in our phones—from photos to banking apps. And if you really want a reason to cry, check your screen time. I just looked—in the past week I’ve spent 11 hours on TikTok. In other words, in the past week I spent 11 hours watching other people live their lives instead of living my own.

I’ll go ahead and say it—I’m absolutely addicted to my phone, and so is nearly every millennial and member of Gen Z I know. If you were born in the 90s or early 2000s, you grew up with technology. Sure, we weren’t iPad babies, but as soon as a new technology was released, we were the first to adopt it. While our parents learned to write in cursive in elementary school, we skipped straight to lessons in the computer lab. No need to learn to write in a digital world. And I couldn’t tell you the last time I picked up a physical book. All my college textbooks were online. After all, in this hyper-busy world, why would I read, especially when Audible exists?

What’s the consequence of all this? Well, for me, a shockingly short attention span. If I had to guess, unless I am actively trying, my attention span is under three minutes. Which, not coincidentally, is the length of the longest option on TikTok. The sad thing is, for someone born in the year 2000, that’s pretty good. The average member of Gen Z loses active attention for ads in just 1.3 seconds, according to Insider Intelligence.

I vividly remember being a small child and reading (real) books for hours under my dining room table. The summer of fourth grade, I plowed through the entire Harry Potter series in under three weeks. If I had my American Girl dolls and my backyard, I was good to go. I’m not sure when that all changed, but I know exactly why it did.

The idea of quitting TikTok fills me with dread. Which is exactly why I know that I need to do it. The fact that we’re addicted to our phones isn’t necessarily our faults—it’s hard not to be in a society that revolves around tech. But I know spending 11 hours a week on TikTok is 11 hours a week that I could be spending living my life.

So, for the next week, I’m going to *try* to quit TikTok and fill all those hours with something more meaningful. Maybe I will go on more walks or spend more time with friends. Maybe my attention span will finally make it past the three-minute mark. Or maybe, just  for old time’s sake, I’ll actually read a real book again.