The summer is finally here!—well, almost here. Recently I’ve been thinking about some of my favorite things to do in the summer, and many of those things are specific to my home state of New Jersey. That’s right, I’m from what the rest of the country calls the armpit of America, but what I know to be the greatest state in the Union. I’m sure everybody in every part of the country has summers filled with pool parties and barbecues,…
Vassar always seems like a place that brings different fields together or highlights the diversity within a certain field. As a college that began as a women’s college, Vassar always seemed like a place that welcomed intellectual exploration in different fields regardless of what the social norms and expectations are for people. This week I had the privilege of listening to Hope Jahren, a woman who studies plants, while she shared some of how she came to be in her…
Midterms Week. That simple phrase which strikes students with a fear second only to the dreaded Finals Week. Many of us just went through one of the toughest weeks of the academic year. It’s that time which has been designated by all professors to do heavily weighted assignments at once. Just great, isn’t it? I’m sure there have been sleepless nights, lots of coffee, papers, tests, final projects, the list goes on. I for one will need Spring Break to…
Merry Christmas! …or happy holidays? I went to Catholic school since Kindergarten, so deciding which to say was never really an issue for me or anyone that I spent a lot of time with. When we left school for what we called Christmas Vacation, there was obviously never an issue with saying “merry Christmas.” I knew that there were all these issues with having employees of public places like stores or coffee shops saying “happy holidays” rather than “merry Christmas,”…
Take a deep breath—a real one: in through the nose; hold it for a few seconds; out through the mouth. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Felt good, didn’t it? When’s the last time you took a moment to do that—to breathe deliberately, with purpose—to really taste the air? I need to remind myself sometimes. A lot of times, honestly. With classes, and assignments, and music practices, and jobs, and food shopping, and eating, and laundry, and worrying about the future, and…
They say that as you age, time slips by: days become weeks, and months, and years. In the blink of an eye the leaves change, the snow melts, and the trees bud, relentless in their stride. To a child, each birthday is an eternity away, a distant milestone to be chased for cake; to an adult, birthdays hang like a millstone, a weight tainted by too many candles. Grown-ups move like molasses to the youthful view, stuck in a rut,…
As a sentimental senior preparing to graduate within the month, I have been trying to spend as much time as possible in my favorite places around campus. I have many, but an especially beloved spot is on the hill overlooking Sunset Lake, right near the broken bench. I go here to read. I sit on the grass (which is currently long and sprinkled with dandelions and forget-me-nots) because the bench is missing several bars on its seat—sitting on it requires…
Judging by the title, you might be thinking that I’m a senior about to graduate and move to the big bad rest of the world, and I am here to impart my wisdom unto you all. But alas, I am not. But I AM about to ring the symbolic bell that apparently signifies that next year) will be my last here at Vassar (provided that I don’t fail all of my classes this semester. I swear that it was just…
Over the summer, I worked on a photography project with the intent to capture graffiti as a way to look at the things that people leave behind. Something about the nature of graffiti always stood out to me, though. Occasionally, I would walk down the stairs to leave my office instead of taking the elevator, and on the walls of the stairwell, there was graffiti. But it wasn’t just on the walls; it was on the signs on the walls too. It…