Author: Rachel Wilson
Ancient Internet
Even today, going back to the sites of the 1990s is a blast from the past. The primitive web design is frankly laughable, though it’s like unfairly comparing cave art to Rembrandt. Websites from the 90’s aren’t bad per se, they simply lack the basic modicums of user-friendliness and aesthetics that we’ve grown used to.
by Rachel Wilson on
Young Kids of Instagram
I logged on to Facebook to check it out. Her sister was fourteen, a freshman in high school. She had about a thousand friends and did not have 113 likes—it was up to 115 now, in the thirty minutes that elapsed since Allie’s text.
by Isabel Henderson on
Unnatural Selection
It was just one week before that these same sophomores were sitting in my common room, nervously tugging at their hair and preparing themselves for bickering. Some were discussing which outfits to wear for bicker—in the case of some, this meant strategically picking shoes that could withstand intense moisture, snow, and beer spillage, yet still not appear sloppy. Some girls were flipping through bicker guides prepared for them by upperclassmen friends. I overheard two sophomore boys in Frist struggling to come up with five interests to write down on a pre-bicker survey.
by Lily Offit on
On Everlasting
She sits a widowed star beyond the rest, And whispers of the final kiss. Entrances souls who chance to look With promise of eternal bliss. She glared in through the eyes, and saw We lack it in our minds, … Read More
by Clara Wilson-Hawken on
Two Days in Tahrir
Last night Tahrir Square was a lawless place—masked young men roved, accosted, helped, threatened, fought; buildings loomed, burnt and crumbling, paving stones were absent, having been broken up and used as ammunition against the police a few months ago. But perhaps this experience only applied to Tahrir at 2 a.m. So I returned that afternoon to take photos of ongoing protests and developments. Daylight better illuminated the debris of Tahrir’s damaged past, but also cleared the fog of tension from eleven hours prior.
by Ben Taub on
Disney, Belated
It was difficult to pay attention to anything but the mass of people that seemed to constantly surround me. Throughout the day, I found fears of terrorist attacks—or disbelief at how a terrorist attack had not yet occurred at the park—infiltrating my mind. I remember being packed into a bus on the way from our hotel to the park, standing with my pale tourist arms and legs rubbing against child limbs and moms’ Bermuda shorts, and thinking how perfect of a target we would be.
by Eliza Mott on
Ireland, 2006
My family and I were in Ireland at the time of the zit’s arrival. It was the biggest vacation we’d ever taken. My parents chose Ireland because they had a special connection to it. They were engaged in front of a hotel in Sligo and my mother’s father owned a house in the county of Kerry. My parents wanted us to get a sense of our heritage. I find it ironic that they gave me a name that sounds like it belongs to Ireland’s British oppressors, but I am really quite Irish on both sides.
by Jane Pritchard on
Butterflies
I was eight, on the farm in India, catching butterflies. The pastel powder of their wings crumbled onto our fingers as we held them shut. We’d lift them up for examination, watch them wriggle, realize they were nothing but glorified ants, lose interest, forget we had lost interest and try to catch another one.
by Aranya Jain on
De Sabbatina
At school, I no longer had to wait. I was free to do as I pleased and ceased observing the day altogether. But strangely, immediately, Shabbat presented itself to me in a transfiguring light, the radical antidote to all that displeased me here.
by Joel Newberger on
Hellas Historic
Picture me this fall break, up on the Athenian acropolis, staring down the Parthenon, trying to figure out anything at all. It’s bright if that helps. I’m up there on a trip with Princeton’s Humanistic Studies Sequence. Written HUM, pronounced … Read More
by Eliot Linton on
Facebook Frenzy
Are people afraid that their deepest darkest secrets will make their way into the hands of their mortal enemies? Why do we see one person’s post on Facebook and instantly delve into a tumultuous back and forth between the meager efforts to protect our photos and the nonchalant I-don’t-give-a-fuck shoulder shrug?
by Bennett Alvaro on
No Shave November
As a man who is, how shall I say, genetically endowed with the gift of growing facial hair at a fast and heavy pace, I had always been a little curious about beard-growing.
by Tom Markham on