“Asking Stanford” is a series of small stories from Stanford students that come together to highlight the diversity of experiences and perspectives on campus.

When I first moved to Stanford, one of the many little keepsakes I brought with me was a Smiski that a friend gave to me in 2018 for my birthday. Smiski is a line of blind-box collectible figurines from Japan, depicting nondescript green glow-in-the-dark guys who are nearly three inches tall and possess perfectly blank, open-mouthed expressions. My friend had gotten it from Daiso, back when everything in Daiso was still $2.25. She gifted it along with a box full of other, more useful trinkets and I only found it half-cute, so I paid it scant attention. But after I propped it up on my desk, I spent the next few years enamored by how it would stare at me in the dark before I went to sleep. Soon enough, it went straight in my suitcase as I moved to college.

Nowadays when I go to Japanese lifestyle stores, I see Smiski figurines going for upwards of ten, fifteen, even twenty dollars. They sit next to the Labubus and the Sonny Angels, but whereas I regard these other Pop Mart-type cash grabs with derision, the strange green creatures hold a special place in my heart. They are a testament to how the things you have become more precious over time, both literally and figuratively. The joys of inflation! — Kaylee Chan ’27

I fell in love with fine stationery in middle school. Now, the happiest things on my bookshelf are two bottles of fountain pen ink, a fountain pen and a journal. I love the physical act of journaling: the touch of paper, the gloss of ink as it loops from my pen. It is also, of course, where the turbid impressions of the day are pulled into reflection, and when I feel most at peace. I bring these items with me not only so I can journal, but because it is nice to have a place for precious things, a sort of shrine. My inks make a corner of my bookshelf into such a place. — Lily Zou ’29

The summer before my freshman year, I bought a box of unique postcards and swore to my friends I’d empty the box before we met again. I’m entering my senior year, and the only things I’ve mailed out of this campus are my ballots. It’s been quite humbling packing and unpacking the box out of storage each year. Perhaps this article can hold me accountable –– I vow to use every postcard by the time I graduate. Possibly. — Ribka Desta ’27

A delrin wing plate! A small memento from my days as a robotics girlie, this laser cut piece of delrin has traveled across the states of California, Texas, North Carolina and Tennessee. Originally a part of our robot, I ended up “stealing” it and having every team member sign it so I could always remember the highlight of my high school experiences. I recently learned that my fellow team members (who also stole similar parts) proudly hang them on their dorm walls across the country, physical representations of our last hurrah together. — Sharis Hsu ’28