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They say everything you ever wanted to know about yourself, you can learn in 42km. This may sound dramatic, however as it turns out the road really is a brutal teacher, as well as a mirror. For most of my life, I would have rolled my eyes at this. If someone had told little me that I would go on to cross three marathon finish lines before the age of thirty-two, I would never have believed them, probably laughed, and definitely presumed they were talking about someone the

Throughout life, women often experience a series of shared transitions. From menstruation and reproductive health to pregnancy and motherhood, and later life stages such as menopause, quietly creating forms of connection and community. My own experience with menstruation was one of the first times I noticed how these unspoken communities began to form. When I got my first period, it felt like a secret I was embarrassed to carry.

As I approach the end of my master’s degree and find myself once again confronted by the question of what comes next, I am reminded of Sylvia Plath’s 1963 semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. In this book, Plath beautifully illustrates indecision and future possibilities through her fig tree analogy. “I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked."

It seems that I do have a trend of finding life lessons from my hobbies and interests. Two years ago, I wrote a piece on how ballet taught me life lessons. Then, I wrote about the deep symbolism of children’s movies, and finally, Taylor Swift. These are just some of my hobbies and interests alongside my full-time job as a researcher, and part time PhD.

I am running for the animal world. I am running the 2026 London Marathon in support of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the charity that runs the London Zoo and a range of amazing international conservation programmes. The adult in me – and hopefully those of you who want to support my 42 km of sweat and tears – is proud to support the conservation charity, but I would be lying if I did not also acknowledge the child in me who still feels so excited at visiting the Zoo

Last year, I spent six months living and working in Japan. I worked at the World Expo, a role that allowed me to meet people from a wide range of backgrounds. It was an experience that stayed with me long after I left, not because it was extreme or overwhelming, but because it quietly changed how I understand belonging and mental health. Being in a place where I didn’t fully fit in made me more aware of how much our sense of well-being is shaped by whether we feel connected

Community building has become something of a trend, especially over the past year. The more I scroll through social media, the more events I see. While I enjoy seeing people come together, it can also feel overwhelming to be flooded with Instagram posts and WhatsApp groups promoting countless events and gatherings. Traditionally, communities are formed by groups of people connected through shared spaces or common interests, religion, culture, ethnicity, or values.

When I was studying in high school, I came across a quote by Karl Popper, a philosopher and academic, that really caught my attention. He once said: “Avoiding mistakes is a narrow-minded ideal. If we don’t dare face those challenges that are so difficult as to make the error almost inevitable, knowledge will not be developed. It is from our more daring theories, including those that are wrong, that we learn the most. No one can avoid making mistakes, but the important thing i

I've been curious all my life—from collecting samples for my microscope as a kid to investigating psychiatric biomarkers as a PhD student now—but for me, this curiosity didn't belong in the same box as dresses and pink. I was never girly. I put up a fight against my mother whenever she tried to put me in dresses when I was a toddler. Throughout my childhood, my wardrobe mostly consisted of my brother’s hand-me-downs, and even now in my late twenties, it’s a sea of black, blu