Arcadian Rhythms
I sit and breathe and try to recall my whole life. I now sit serenely in the brush by this shouldering road. It winds tightly through the Peloponnesian town of Megalopolis, where I sit, through the pink stucco homes clinging staccato to the high side of the mountain our bus, heaving, climbed. Rapt speech in the restaurant behind is mere chatter.
Let’s Talk About Rape
Princeton students are special. We’ve been told this upon every rite of passage we have experienced. No one ever dares to contest that they have near-superhuman aptitudes for creativity and hard work, Renaissance men and women all, steeped in the finest principles of humanism. Yet there is one thing in which we cannot manage to surpass the national average.
Maybe I Said Yes
Your whole life, you hear about the milestones that are supposed to change something inside you. For me, they came and went largely unnoticed. Birthdays, first kisses, the loss of my virginity, the first truly random sexual experience I ever had—all left me unmarked and wondering at how it was that I never felt any different. The summer after my senior year of high school, I walked home after sleeping with a man six years my senior and, after years of falling for people too easily, congratulated myself for not feeling anything. I thought that sex could not hurt me and that—to me—was a triumph of self-defense over feeling, one I held on to in the years that followed.
The Name of God
My first reaction was an unsettled, “What the heck?” Followed by a pissed, “Wow, way over the line.” Finally settling on, “Crap—now what?” From the back cover of the Nass, the Hebrew name of God, the holy Tetragrammaton, was staring up at me with the menacing grin of a camper who just got away with stealing food from the kitchen.
Babes and Burgers
“I could really go for a good burger right now,” my friend says in a tone that conveys that a burger would fill not only her stomach, but her soul. She leans against the wall expectantly. All night, she’s been flirting with another friend, a certain kind of guy who likes a certain kind of girl: thin, glossy-haired, and intelligent enough to be a sparkling conversationalist, quick with a comeback, but not necessarily intellectually aggressive enough to call him on any of his bullshit.
Gods of Princeton
In six days God created the heavens and the Earth / but He gave us no way to determine our relative social worth.
Pitch Imperfect
It wasn’t a dare made on a drunken night nor was it a private joke made with friends—one that would make us splutter at random moments to the displeasure of a passersby. It wasn’t even one of those mental promises made casually to myself (CVS run, get pens; sign up for dinner with faculty) that eventually slips into languid oblivion.
Thomas Farrell Markham
As the firstborn in my family, I was a unique challenge for my parents. Of course there were all the new issues of how to raise a child, but first and foremost, what would they call me?
Apologetic Anne
As the recent New York Magazine article, “Why Do Women hate Anne Hathaway (But Love Jennifer Lawrence)?” thoughtfully explores, Anne Hathaway bugs people. Unlike the magnetic Jennifer Lawrence, Hathaway has always had trouble garnering public affection. For the most part, I try to stay away from the popular sport of celebrity hating that this article examines.
Real Madrid versus Manchester United: The Victor
For those of you unfamiliar with football and the Champions League, here is how it works. The top three or four teams from every league in Europe compete to win the biggest prize in club football. It starts with group stages, from which the two top teams in each group advance to the knockouts. Each […]
Real Madrid versus Manchester United: The Loser
For those of you unfamiliar with football and the Champions League, here is how it works. The top three or four teams from every league in Europe compete to win the biggest prize in club football. It starts with group stages, from which the two top teams in each group advance to the knockouts. Each […]