Laura Hinnenkamp

I was at a sleepover for my best friend’s birthday party when I saw my first and last scary movie. It was Orphan, and afterward I had to lie on an uncomfortable couch and try to fall asleep. I knew I never wanted to watch anything like that again. My friend’s basement had a sliding door that went directly out into the backyard, and even among a big group of girls I felt...

Over spring break, I was at Panera with my parents when my mom said something that offended my overly sensitive nature and within minutes I was fully crying in the middle of the restaurant. I am not a pretty crier--there is a picture of me when I was young on Halloween where I was crying in my devil costume, and my face certainly matched my ensemble. A friend of my parents stopped to say hi in the midst of my breakdown, so I had to try to discreetly wipe my cheeks, put on a smile, and hope that my eyes weren’t too red as my parents...

Often when we think of love, we think of a relationship between two people. Whether familial, platonic, or romantic, these relationships tend to define our sense of who we are. And when love relationships go awry, or become less than perfect, it can be difficult to not let that affect our self-esteem and view of the world. Here's the thing: we can't entrust our emotional health to our exterior relationships exclusively. We need to cultivate self-love if we want true emotional fulfillment.

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The beginning of the semester is exciting. We get to come back to Charlottesville to see friends we’ve been missing, we start new and (hopefully) interesting classes, and we all feel invigorated to rock this semester. But all that can also drain us of our energy. Before we know it, we’re a month into classes and feel drowned with work and February weather. During times of change or transition, I always feel a disruption in my mental health, and I never need to look any further than the start of a new course load or the new year for these feelings to resurface. After years of not even...