I'm Neha Sufi, and I grew up on the East Coast before landing in Athens, Georgia, where I'm a student at UGA working toward a career in medicine. Some of my earliest memories are in Annapolis, helping my grandparents with the things they couldn't get to anymore. Groceries, errands, whatever needed doing. At the time it was just Saturday. Looking back, it was the first time I understood that taking care of someone is mostly small, unglamorous, repeated effort, and that showing up matters more than saying the right thing.

I'm social to a fault. I can talk to almost anyone, and I usually do. It's the trait that gets me in trouble in quiet rooms and the one I'm most grateful for everywhere else. It's also why medicine makes sense to me. So much of it comes down to whether a person feels comfortable enough to tell you the truth about what's going on with them.

Travel is where that side of me gets to run loose. Aruba is my favorite place I've been. The food, the people, the way the whole trip felt like exhaling. I came back lighter than I left, and I've been chasing that feeling ever since.

I don't know yet what kind of doctor I'll be. But whether it's a grocery run in Annapolis or a conversation with a stranger halfway across the world, the thing that pulls me in is the same, and I'd like to keep following it.