Underneath my bedside table lies a very special box. It is a box that has never been opened by anyone else, but today I am opening it just for you. There are birthday cards that show the passage of time. The loss of old friends and the introduction of new ones reflected in the changing of the signatures at the bottom. There is my very first accelerated math test from 5th grade, where I got my first C. My first taste of true academic challenge. There are pages from my childhood diary, with unrecognizable handwriting and haphazardly taped photos from visits to family in Vietnam. There is a temporary tattoo from a fundraiser I ran in 7th grade for a friend diagnosed with cancer. There are notes of encouragement that had been left by my mom in my lunch box throughout elementary school. There is a photo from my summer at Space Camp, where I befriended a group of Australians. Over two years later, we’re still in contact. There are red lucky money envelopes, once filled with crisp two-dollar bills, given out during Lunar New Year. There is a card from my ong noi’s (grandpa’s) funeral. My first experience with death. My first time seeing my dad cry. Just like a sedimentary rock, the layers of this box provide a chronology of my life, through snapshots of my moments of joy, moments of loss, and moments of discovery. It serves as a reminder to appreciate everything I have and everything I have experienced throughout my life. The rest of the space left in my box, is left for the moments of my future, which I hope will be just as turbulent, and just as meaningful.

"I don’t understand. Why can’t you speak clearly? Why can’t you sit still? Why can’t you pay attention? Why can’t you just be like everyone else? I just don’t understand." I could not wrap my 9-year-old head around the answer to these questions I had about my younger brother. My parents would explain, “He has autism, so some things that we think of as easy will be more difficult for him.” But to a naive child like me, the word “autism” just sounded like an excuse. One can imagine my dismay when my parents told me I would be spending my summer with my brother at his therapy center. At first, I would only talk to the teachers, but that soon grew boring. I reluctantly began participating in class games, which eventually led to reading books together, then sharing toys at playtime. Soon enough, I was already a part of the class, laughing together with them at the lunch table. At some point, I realized I could get along with them the same as I do with my own classmates. I began to understand. Hands clammy and heart pounding, I was walking into possibly my greatest challenge in my 14 years of life. I would be teaching private swim lessons to kids with special needs. As each student came and went, each brought their own challenges I had to help them overcome. Benjamin had trouble getting his words together, but he was an enthusiastic learner. Daisy, in addition to needing her vomit cleaned out of the pool twice, required me to learn some sign language. Kyle, who towered about a foot over me, was so energetic, he would sometimes get carried away and risk injuring himself or me. Gwen was a chatterbox who talked so much, it sometimes distracted her from actually swimming. Over the two months I taught these kids, it was through the different strategies and styles I had to adopt to accommodate each one, that I eventually stopped seeing autism as a monolith. I learned, not just about the nature of autism, but how people in general each have their own unique set of personal needs that, with enough understanding and patience, can be fulfilled. Glancing over my brother’s shoulder at his computer screen, never did I expect to see my socially awkward brother, who can barely hold a conversation, arguing in YouTube comment sections and writing paragraph-long posts on anime discussion forums. I later found his anime forum account, which even had a few dedicated followers. Scrolling through and reading his posts, I barely recognized my younger brother. I began to wonder, just how has the internet changed my brother? How does that change compare to teens without autism? Has it been a positive or negative influence? Even after all these years, it seems there are still things about my brother I don’t understand. This curiosity intrigued me to the point that I began working on a research project into the influence of modern technology on social cognition in autism with the guidance of my lab manager at the UMN Decision Making Lab. We get along quite well now, my brother and I. What used to be constant fights and grudges, is now banter and inside jokes, shenanigans at the dinner table and weekend anime nights. And while I still don’t fully understand, may never fully understand, unlike my 9-year-old self, I now want to understand, and I will continue this endless pursuit of understanding, following this path wherever it takes me.