In my pompous English private high school, the importance of excelling in yearly exams was impressed upon us from age 13. I remember on my first day of physics class in the equivalent of freshman year, the teacher stood gravely in front of us and uttered the words: “Last year, all 23 of my students received A*s. Do not be my first A.” A* was the equivalent of an A+—the highest grade you could get.
Last weekend, I went to see the new movie version of Rent….The movie, like the play, is immensely self-congratulatory about its “edge,” and specifically its “queerness,” its portrayal of just these kinds of crazy gay things. I found it funny, because it made me wonder how much of the way I know how to act in gay relationships (and pseudo-relationships) was learned from Rent in the first place.
The first time I smoked a cigarette, I was sardined with six other middle-school aged girls in a shower of my boarding school dorm. The logic was that if Matron caught us lighting up we would hastily strip down, turn on the faucet, and pretend that we were just casually showering together in the middle of the night.
Nearly all my life, I have faced this question. More than a courtesy, it is a challenge, a demand: “Identify yourself.”
In my childhood, I was lost and unsure. Who am I? Am I that guy who carelessly shortens his name, soiling the greatest gift, after life, his parents have given him? Or am I that guy who insists on being called by his proper name, like some pompous Alexander or Maximilian?
My stomach is parched from having just peed into the muddled ground. And it hurts from having nothing to eat, no ring pops, no soda, no sunflower seeds. It’s an empty hole, a cosmic hole— it could collapse now into … Read More
Many people have remarked upon the similarities between Emma Yates’ recent op-ed in the Prince, “Getting unlucky on Valentine’s day,” (published 2/22/08) and Francisco Nava’s infamous op-ed, “Princeton’s latex lies,” (published 11/7/07).
Both take theatrical umbrage at the prevalence of a “hookup culture.” Both take aim at the imaginary misdeeds of university or student organizations: Nava objects to the distribution of condoms by University Health Services (UHS), while Yates objects to the cavalier advertisement of the availability of condoms through posters circulated by the Sexual Health Advisors (SHA).
