I have been inside my university’s chapel three times: once for opening exercises freshman year, once for a chapel choir concert (and I had a massive crush on someone in chapel choir), and once for a senior thesis performance of a passion play that my friend was stage managing.  It’s a beautiful building, all gray sandstone on the outside and dark wood pews inside.  Alumni get married there every weekend in the spring.  I pass by it almost every day on my way from the library to the late night café that serves free cookies (which is right under the Office of Religious Life).

I was not raised in a religious household, and I’m still very nonreligious in college.  But religion happens to be a large part in the lives of some of my friends, and contrary to conventional thought, college is not quite a Bastion of Sin and Depravity.  I’m not lying and saying that college is a tame, sleepy educational institution.  But faith does have a place in a college campus.

The physically imposing presence of a university chapel aside, there are plenty of places on a campus to find people of your own faith—often through student-run groups.  On my campus, there are several Christian groups of varying involvement and denominations, for those whose other extracurriculars might take precedent (or might not).  Mission trips over breaks are planned for several, while others just involve a weekly Saturday night dinner.  We have a Center for Jewish Life that serves kosher food every day—it’s available to the entire student body, as well, and the building itself offers great study rooms (and it has a printer, too, so I can print out my labs on my way to class after lunch).  The CJL also holds a range of services for various movements (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform are the main three denominations), and it often presents its own cultural events to accommodate certain restrictions.  For example, there is a yearly CJL-produced play (the play does not have to be about anything Jewish) that does not perform on Shabbat, unlike most of the other theatrical productions on campus.

Furthermore, the university administration isn’t the only source of religious needs for students.  There are many student groups on campus who offer support and resources in varying capacities, again depending on your personal commitment.  On my campus, there are several Hindu and Muslim groups, some which provide services and some which simply provide a social group for its students on religious customs (such as navigating the dining hall offerings or leaving bags of treats outside its members’ dorm rooms on holidays).

My high school history teacher once described colleges as the Bastion of Liberalism and Secular Thought.  And while there is certainly a lot of freedom and hedonism, if you’re looking for people who share your faith, to whatever degree—you’ll find them.  There’s often a large activities fair at the beginning of the school year where you can add your name to a group’s mailing list, but if you don’t sign up in September, it’s not a big deal—groups will publicize their activities throughout the year, and it only takes a minute to show up and talk to the people already involved about involving yourself.

Naturally, most of these groups will throw study breaks and other large free food events (free food in college is always dependable).  When you become involved in them, it’s probably good to scope out a food venue that gives student discounts or bulk discounts.  Fuji Sushi, for example, has this great deal for 20% off catering college events.  And college students, of whatever faith, love sushi.

x

Robin Yang (Princeton Univeristy)

I tweet while I’m at work.  I’ve yet to master the hashtag.
My blog of hedonism and liberalism and other college mainstays.

Photo from Wikipedia

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I’ve been on a Scandinavian music kick lately.  Not the ABBA/Roxette wave of the 80s, but more recent bands, like Jonsi or Veronica Maggio—poppy, top 40 hits from Northern Europe as well as more indie-cred artists.  I like the un-ironic umlauts over the vowels.  I like the combination of English and Swedish/Icelandic/Norwegian that peppers the lyrics.  And regardless of whether I actually understand the language, the songs are still catchy as hell.  In the same way that a lot of my friends have loads of K-pop and J-pop on their iPods, one friend and I are collecting the popular music stylings of a more pale-blonde inclination.

scandinavian stylings

I wouldn’t classify my core friend group as “diverse” in that statistical way that colleges like to quantify.  We’re all American citizens, all but one from East Coast suburbs, Anglophiles with soft spots for Paris or Rome, Diet Coke addicts, and inexplicably almost all English majors (I promise I didn’t plan that one).  We have our fair share of personal drama and “real world” problems, but on paper, we’re culturally monotonous.  It’s only in the things that we do and consume that cause us to become “diverse.”

“Diversity” has become some quantifiable commodity in college, where the statistics of so many different races and social classes and sexual orientations have some high number to hit in the demographics.  Which is, of course, nice, but it doesn’t quite tell the story of these people’s cultural interest differences.  Especially in a city like New York, where authentic recreations of different cultures are condensed and immediately available, the statistical “diversity” can be overshadowed by the culture that the students want to embrace.  For example, I count as several minorities in the eyes of my univeristy, but realtalk: I could just as well have been a suburban daughter of the vast whitewashed-collar South.  I wouldn’t count myself diverse if we’re talking about my origins.  I’d count myself diverse only in my current experiences.

I’ve lived in London and Shanghai.  I’ve visited Edinburgh, Paris, and Amsterdam.  I’ve seen both coasts of continental America.  I’ve hand-made croissants, climbed up a waterfall, read Hemingway at his café, haggled for pirated DVDs in Chinese black markets, trespassed multiple times to get good views of a city, bummed at a beach house for a week, taken a power shower on a fire escape.

It’s important to keep in touch with your roots.  I won’t deny that.  There’s a host of literature (and literary analysis) on the personal destruction that ensues when protagonists attempt to erase their origins.  But there’s also something to be said for personal exploration once we’ve reconciled ourselves with our past.  There’s no point in being diverse if you’re just going to be the same diverse your entire life.  That’s a huge disservice to all the people who do come from obscure backgrounds.  They have to carry that culture on their own.  There are no questionnaires on our diverse experiences once we get into college, which is really what should be encouraged.  It’s nice that there’s been such an effort to surround me with different people, but that’s no true incentive.  More direct exposure, more real opportunities to study abroad, less insular summer programs.  Less expensive cultural experiences.

I’ve never taken a Scandinavian class.  Historically, I’ve been a Western European kind of lady.  But I’m super into this music coming from a lot of Swedish artists (Miike Snow and The Knife are also Swedish.  True facts), I’ve begun writing some fiction with German characters, and there’s a $1.50 student special on Brazilian coffee at the O Cafe (Brazilian coffee ≠ Colombian coffee ≠ New Zealand coffee. Try them all!)… so…

Adjö, ses nästa vecka.

x
Robin (Princeton University)

I tweet while I’m at work.  I’ve yet to master the hashtag.
My blog, where I post all my European interests and more.

Photo from flickr, creative commons license.

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My mother has always told me to take care of myself; told me I had to look beautiful and dressed up in order to truly feel beautiful. My mother is the old fashion type that wears diamonds and red lipstick.  She was a trend-setter in the 80s and wore the sparkles and electric blue dresses with no shame. My mother has never been cheap when it comes to beauty. My sisters have gotten their hair colored and straightened and perfected since middle school and I have been wearing makeup since I was 14. My mother always had the best intention for my sisters and I, but somehow in the middle, beauty became an unattainable dream. For me going through puberty, the worst years of ALL teenager’s lives, was like being told: “this is what beautiful is, and kid, you just don’t got it.” Instead I had acne and sudden stretch marks (fries and junk food were immediately cut after those appeared). I had self-consciousness that would control my life for the following 5 years. I would get facials and new clothes and my hair done and nails done all the time; but I still wasn’t happy. My mother did everything she could but no matter what I still felt ugly. The last straw came when a boy talking to me said, “she’s really hot but she’s got acne everywhere, you would know what that was like. She’s kind of like you.” That day I went home and told my mom I wanted to go on Accutane, the powerful prescription drug that eliminates acne from the inside out. It’s a pill you take everyday that has a side effects list that’s two pages long.  I took the pill for six months and luckily only got the most common side effects of bloody noses, extreme chapped lips, and paper thin skin. I had to get blood tests done every month to make sure my liver wasn’t shutting down and to make sure I wasn’t pregnant. It was a very serious medicine and taking it was the biggest medical risk I’ve ever taken. Once I got off the medicine I was healthy and had flawless glowing skin. The only lasting side effects was my skin being drier and needing to be heavily moisturized (very manageable, no complains) and that I was still self conscious, only this time it was another issue. Instead of my skin being the problem it was my weight or my hair or my teeth. I realized rather quickly that no matter what I changed, I would never be happy. I was just unhappy. So the summer before going into college I decided that I was beautiful. As simple as that. I worked hard, people genuinely liked me and I was off to start a brand new life in college. I realized at that point in my life, I was the only one bringing me down. When the boy said that nasty comment to me years earlier, it should have registered in my brain that he was also saying something really mean about that other girl with acne. I realize now that that kid was just a jerk and just one of the reasons why high school is so hard (another reason being that nobody skips out on the awkward phase of teenage life and we’re all full of raging hormones and awkward conversation). He didn’t have to say anything at all but instead he hurt not one, but two people. You have to remember that high school isn’t meant to be enjoyed; it’s meant to be endured. And who you were then isn’t who you are now. You are stronger, smarter and better than you ever were back then. The most important lesson I learned going into college was to leave your troubles behind you, leave all those nasty remarks and all those negative feelings of self doubt behind because its not only that you have to look good to feel good, its actually more that you have to feel good to look good.

-Jackie Aqel

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Every summer, parks across the city hold screenings of free movies, usually starting at dusk. One of the best places to catch one of these free showings is at Hudson River Park. There are two HRP options for moviegoers, River Flicks for grown-ups, shown on Wednesday at the Pier 63 Lawn, and River Flicks for kids, shown on Fridays on Pier 46. The movie selection is great, including such recent hits as The Social Network, Toy Story 3, and (what I’m personally most excited for) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Perhaps you saw this movie when it came out last August. I certainly hope you did because it was hilarious. You guys have probably all seen the trailer: Scott Pilgram, played by Michael Cera, falls for the alluring Ramona Flowers, yet has to duel all of her ‘Evil Exes’ in order to date her. Maybe you’ve grown tired of Michael Cera’s awkward-teenage-boy-who-tries-to-get-the-girl act, or perhaps you enjoy it now more than ever (The Social Network’s Jesse Eisenberg sure still has me going), but in either case, I think this movie is worth your time. The exes that Scott has to battle (including his own ex-girlfriend, Knives) keep the story moving and the laughter flowing, from the guy who has psychic vegan powers to an ex-girlfriend bitter from being labeled an ‘experimental phase.’ Throw into the mix a funny gay roommate, an ex with the power of mind control, a constant garage band musical background, and a comic book theme to tie the whole thing together, and you’ve got something for every viewer.

And best of all, you can see it for free! It’s playing on the Pier 63 Lawn on August 10^th, and I’ll try my best to be there. Hopefully you’ll get to see one of the films too.

Movies start at dusk, often around 8:30 pm. The full schedule of movies follows:

@ Pier 63:

• The Social Network, 7/6
• Easy A, 7/13
• The Kids Are All Right, 7/20
• The Other Guys, 7/27
• The Fighter, 8/3
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 8/10
• The Town, 8/17

@ Pier 46:

• The Karate Kid (2010), 7/8
• Despicable Me, 7/15
• The Princess Bride, 7/22
• Toy Story 3, 7/29
• How to Train Your Dragon, 8/5
• Shrek Forever After, 8/12
• Tangled, 8/19

Some other parks that also show movies over the summer are Bryant Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 1, Coney Island, and many more. See some more listings here and here.

If you’re out with friends for the night, I’d suggest grabbing some food from Café Mercato, since it’s right near a few of the parks that are showing films.

/elizabeth Kaleko

Image from: http://kotaku.com/

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When it comes to packing a suitcase the most practical of us often start defying reason. One of my cousins, despite being one of the smartest people I know, packed seven pairs of shoes for a two day trip and, of course, she ended up wearing only one pair. This need to pack a number of options either comes from the fear that an occasion may arise for which you might not be prepared or simply to have the luxury of choices. The fear can be overcome by being prepared for all likely situations and as for the latter, you simply have to face reality and learn how to come up with a well styled outfit with limited options.

The right suitcase: To pack a suitcase properly, you will first need to find a practical suitcase. The ideal suitcase for most trips would be a small roll on that you can use as a carry on. It will prevent you from waiting at baggage claim and from losing your luggage. Try getting a lightweight one that looks different. Also, carrying a large handbag or an extra tote, if your handbag is small, is always a good idea when travelling.

Checklist: Once you have a suitable suitcase, the first thing you will need is a checklist of all the things you wish to pack. When making the checklist, be mindful of the weather of your travelling destination and consider all the possible situations you might have to face. My mother always says that no matter where you are travelling, you should have at least one outfit fit for formal occasions.

Products: Limit the amount of products you will carry by purchasing the travel sized versions of the products that you use or by getting a set of travel size bottles which can be found in almost any drugstore. Be sure to label them and to wrap the liquids and creams in a zip lock bag to prevent spilling.

Clothes: When deciding which clothes to pack, do not forget to count the outfit you will be wearing when you start off as you can wear it again during your travels. To increase your options, pack separates like skirts, pants and tops that you will be able to mix and match and create new looks with. You can pack a dress that you can wear for both casual and formal occasions by changing the accessories. If travelling for more than a few days, try to pack cotton t-shirts and other such clothes that you can easily wash and dry in your hotel room – it will save you laundry expenses and keep your luggage light. And, try to keep in mind that clothes like jeans weigh a lot, so it is best not to pack too many of them if you have a weight limit to maintain.

Shoes: At all cost, refrain from packing more than two pairs. When you think about it, you do not really need more than three pairs. You can have a pair of comfortable heels that you can walk around in and use for a formal occasion, should it arise, a pair of flats which can be either ballet flats or open toed ones and, a pair of sneakers if your travels include athletic activities. If you wear one of these shoes and pack the rest in your suitcase, you have your three possible options for shoes.

Make-up and jewelries: Also, try to limit your make up and jewelry options by carrying only the basics. For instance, a pair of hoop earrings will go with almost every outfit. And, you might want to carry your jewelries and make-up in your large handbag along with a book or a magazine for your entertainment.

Placing items in your suitcase: Try to put your camera and cell phone chargers in the side pocket of your suitcase to avoid misplacing them. If packing dresses, lay them out at the bottom of the suitcase with the neckline and the hem line sticking out of the two sides of the suitcase, then place your other belongings on top of the middle portion of the dresses and then wrap the ends of the dresses on top of them like a bundle – this way you will avoid creases and save space. You can also roll up your t-shirts at the end and use it to fill the empty gaps in your suitcase.

If you happen to break your camera or phone while you were travelling, you can get them fixed at Photo Tech with a 10% student discount.

Bushra Tawhid

Image credit: www.oldbirds.co.uk and www.sks-bottles.com

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For about two weeks at the start of this spring semester, I walked around campus with a navy ceramic mug in hand, my oxford shoes sliding over ice encrusted sidewalks and wool coat collar flapping against my chin.  I’d just spent my fall in London.  I only drank tea from the mug, which I did every morning on the walk from my dorm to my awful early morning class at 11.  It was a Look.  Then I slipped on some ice and spilled hot tea all down one leg, so the navy reusable, environmentally friendly ceramic mug retired to my window ledge.  I got a haircut, and I abandoned the chic-absurd European look for more college-friendly snow boots and sweatshirts.

the kind of look/impression/people I was trying to evoke

College is all about reinvention, whether fashionably for two pretentious weeks during the winter of junior year, or religiously for a while (as one of my friends became an evangelical Christian around the same time that I sought to represent Camden Town on our campus).  There’s the standard academic branching out: “There’s a class on African Dance that fills the physical exercise requirement and the social analysis requirement.  Let’s take that.  Also, it’s African Dance.  When else but college?”  You can become even more of a theatre geek (and within that there’s the Straight Plays camp and the Musicals camp), you might spend a summer in Korea and change your major to East Asian Studies, you might go to your first rave and spend the rest of your undergrad career learning how to DJ.  The college age is a volatile time in our lives; we have to create new identities to present an entirely new set of people.  College is the perfect environment for fertilizing our newly freed personalities; all the options are presented to us.  Every group wants you to join them, and we can reinvent our personalities and interests to better suit the people we wish we could have been in high school if it wasn’t for the small town/administration/parents.

I’ve been thinking a lot on the trajectory of my college reinvention lately, because I’m about to become a senior and the entire process of reinvention is about to start again—but this time without the impunities of undergraduate lifestyles.  I used to flake out on projects I didn’t really care about (let’s say I agreed to help because a friend of a friend asked); now I just say no if I’m uninterested.  I used to worry about the changing social scene of upperclassmen, and now that I’m an upperclassman I try my hardest to ignore the drama that so consumed my sophomore year.  My nights were filled with different friend groups and different plans.  But there’s a sense that anything I do from here on out goes down on some permanent record.  My pretentious Anglophilic phase won’t have a chance to resurface once I join the real world—professional mornings have no room for whimsically out-of-place utensils.  No room for quirky Salvador Dali-printed wallets.  Chipped white summer nail polish—perfect for blacklights—will have to be either retouched or removed every weekday.  I’ll have to reinvent a working personality and a personal personality.  I can favor the trend for white skinny jeans, still, or continue cultivating my place in the English major spectrum of graduates, but on my off-hours.  The task of establishing where I stand on postmodern minimalism, keeping in mind the impression it will make on other students and the judgments associated with my stance and the works that I’ll have to cite to explain my opinion—no longer my full-time job.  I have to choose now.  Will I be that flaky person senior year who everyone expects to flake?  Will that carry over in interviews and other jobs?  Am I the type to cheerfully champion what I know and ignore the rest, or will I bore my co-workers with the minutia of my personal research on Verizon versus T-Mobile, in both network coverage and variety of phones offered?  I might have to get recommendations from these people—I better figure out my work persona soon.

Of course, this dreadful sense of permanence is sort of panicky and young.  People change.  There are always new first impressions to make.  But I still feel that college is the best time to start over whenever you want.  There’s no better time to abandon a lifestyle—others are right there for you to pick up.  I could bleach my hair peroxide white (I’m a dark brunette) and fill my year with planning committees for formals and semiformals—I love planning parties.  I could get a tattoo somewhere conspicuous and take minimal classes and spend my fall camping every weekend on the nearby battlefields—I love camping.   Nobody cares.  And I guess I have a few months left to go through all the different identities I wanted to try on before I get thrust into that nebulous “real life” of rent obligations and job-hunting and impressing bosses that so many of my recently-graduated friends tell me about.  So I’m going to go get a haircut now (Shampoo on Avenue B has a student discount of 20% on all salon services, so maybe I’ll go there to see if I can do all the awful color-leaching processes to my hair that I want) and make plans to see a show.  Because that’s the kind of person I am this week.

x
Robin

I tweet while I’m at work. I have yet to master hashtags.
My personal blog: a chronicle of the shifting tastes that make up my student persona.

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I’m not a huge fan of tv, but when a good show comes around I can’t resist the desire to work my day around getting home to catch an episode. I watch True Blood, Boardwalk Empire and Dexter; all shows that require me to spend quality time at my sister’s house every Sunday night because my house doesn’t get HBO and Showtime. I’ve noticed that I tend to seriously follow only elite shows. But the average college kid doesn’t get the premium cable channels that such shows often run on, and as the summer ends and my precious shows run over into September, I have to scramble to find internet sites that will allow me to illegally watch movies and tv episodes that my basic cable college television prevents me from seeing. I even had to start buying movies from DVD Funhouse because I no longer had access to my sister’s massive movie collection.

I needed to find an alternative, find a show that wasn’t so hard to keep track of, no matter what season it was. All spring I gave every show a shot. I watched Swamp People, Deadliest Catch, Say Yes to the Dress, 16 and Pregnant (Yikes!), Intervention… the list goes on and on. If a show aired in March or April, I probably caught an episode or two of it. It wasn’t until last week that I caught the season premier of the show Wilfred on FX. The show follows a man named Ryan (Elijah Woods) that after a failed suicide attempt begins to see his neighbor’s dog, Wilfred (Jason Gann), not as a dog but as a man in a dog costume.  To everyone else, Wilfred is just a dog, but to Ryan, Wilfred is a trouble making, foul-mouthed Australian man. Wilfred has come into Ryan’s life at the time when he needs him most and gives him courage to go on with life. Though Wilfred is very smart, he’s a dog, and his animal instincts and doggy habits make him an incredibly funny character.  I couldn’t help but burst out laughing when Wilfred begins chasing after a car screaming “I’m going to kill you!!!!” and when Wilfred and Ryan are out to lunch and a waitress asks “does your dog normally eat nachos?” and you realize how crazy Ryan must feel.  By the end of the episode, Wilfred smokes a pack of cigarettes (he states he smokes because he has an oral fixation) and frames Ryan for breaking and entering their neighbor’s house.  The show continues this Thursday at 10 pm. I know I’ll be catching it. Will you?

-Jackie Aqel

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