Protist Song

October 3, 2014

From Fantasy to Reality

It’s the opening game of the 2014 NFL season and I’m at Buffalo Wild Wings with friends. As always for such events, the restaurant is packed. It’s a good mix of Seahawks and Packers jerseys and the pregame atmosphere is already buzzing.

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Reborn in the USA

Campaigning for re-election in 1984, Ronald Reagan riled up a crowd in New Jersey by blasting Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” a song which sounds like a latter-day national anthem but which actually takes a critical stance on the Vietnam War and the state of American society left in its wake.

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Against the Clock

Things I collected during freshman year: friends (best, close, good, former), extracurricular activities, hook-ups, enough books to confidently shelve a small library, a GPA much lower than the one I had in high school, a battered but resilient sense of self-worth, a battered but resilient liver, and maybe some small amount of knowledge. All of this was great, except for one thing: I had no free time whatsoever.

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Super Smash and the Bros

I was one of the girls waiting to get to late meal. I was the one sitting on the couch, watching, completely unimpressed, as four boys sat around me fixated on a flat screen TV. They swore left and right, pressing buttons on the game controllers they gripped. My requests for them to please get up so we could leave and beat the crowds at Frist were ignored. Instead, they were busy whacking the shit out of each other in a virtual world.

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This Is Not A Love Poem

I don’t know how I know that but I do. The way turtles / Return home to give birth. Not really like that.

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Literally [Figuratively]

I’m surprised at what people don’t notice when privilege accustoms them to their environment, and what they therefore don’t know. One of the things that falls prey to this accustomedness is our words.

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Losing, the Art

Losses are lonely. They leave you grasping at the memories of entities that may never grace your fingertips again. Friends may offer “where did you last see it?” or even briefly join your search team. But when the search team tires of trying to undo your mistake, you’re all alone. The consequences of your actions—the shame, the anxiety, the grief—are felt only by you.

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Categorical Culture Shock

Hong Kong is a strange place. I’ve never lived anywhere so obsessed with the categorization of people. What you are defines who you are. Are you white, Indonesian, Chinese, a native Hongkonger? A banker, a lawyer, an engineer, a teacher? Rich, poor, middle class?

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A Taste for Iron & Wine

When Samuel Beam, better known by his stage name Iron & Wine, sidled his way onto the Peter J. Sharp stage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the crowd of New Yorkers in the auditorium took in a collective breath and began to applaud.

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Casual and Corporate

As I walked into Wu dining hall a few weeks ago, a new poster caught my eye: “Works for Teach for America,” the ad read, “Has never graded a paper.”

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Carbon’s Gotta Go

Nobody ever wants to wake up at 7 am, particularly not on a Sunday. But on September 21 after a few hours of sleep, I trooped out to buses in Lot 32 for the People’s Climate March at the behest of a particularly insistent friend.

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The Luxury of Choice

From Cambridge’s brick halls to the neo-Gothic spires of New Haven, the Ivy League universities have become a symbol of success, a name brand that conveys a sense of security and ability. They’re also bastions of wealth, built and attended by the nation’s chosen sons.

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Verbatim

More →

Overheard in Rocky Dining Hall

Freshman guy: The thing is...I could totally see myself being one of the guards who went too far in the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Overheard in Aaron Burr Hall

AEPi junior: Corporate finance is, like, an important life skill to have.

Overheard in Schultz Hall

Theta, on boyfriend: He always tries to get me something unique and different...But I’m not a unique and different person!

Overheard at the Climate March

Princeton Student: Hey, there’s Drexel!
Girl: Where’s that?
Princeton Student, cheerfully: In Philadelphia—we gave them meningitis!

Overheard on Tinder

Foreign grad student: im at clusters inn. pretty fun.

Overheard in Frist

Boy in salmon shorts: Is Bent Spoon the conservative ice cream choice? (later) I feel like ice cream is a very liberal construct.

Overheard on the TI lawn

Ivy male: He Instagrams like a poor person.

Overheard in REL 240

Tower male 1: Did you say you’d relish getting McCoshed?
Tower male 2: Oh, yeah.
Tower male 1: I wouldn’t. I heard it can fuck with your State Department security clearance.
Tower male 2: I heard that too, I think it’s bullshit.

Overheard at 2 AM

Cab driver, to Terrace senior via text message: Nice to meet bro let’s roll the dice for bitches in the city.

Overheard in 1901-Laughlin Hall

Chi Phi: Why do you want to be fratty?
Theta: Why do you want to be fratty?
Chi Phi: Uh, because it’s fucking SICK?!

Overheard near Frist

Girl: You don’t know what “Verbatim” is??
Boy: I don’t read our paper.
Girl, disgusted: It’s not the Prince. It’s the Nassau Weekly.

Overheard in 48 University Place

Colonial senior: I wanted to write an article about cunnilingus.
Learned freshman girl: Is that a circus act?

Overheard in the EAS library

Nass editor, whining: No, I was just being ironically basic!

Overheard in the U-Store

Theta, repeatedly: Am I still young and beautiful? Am I washed up? Am I still young and beautiful? Am I washed up?

Overheard in NES 201

Guest professor Michael Cook: Obviously, sexy music is a real bad thing.

Overheard near 1903 Hall

Drunk pledge, to other pledge: YOU’RE MY BROTHER. MY FRAT BROTHER. IF WE COULD GET ANY CLOSER...WE COULDN’T. YOU’RE MY FRATERNITY BROTHER, AND I’M OBLIGATED TO DEFEND YOU IN COURT.