He didn’t close his door. He sat in his desk chair. With those two simple things, I could relax. Together they screamed, “I realize I brought you to my bedroom on our first date, but I’m not trying to push any boundaries.” The night didn’t start off so promising. He had texted to say he’d…
It rained yesterday. Okay, I know, it’s not breaking news. But I’d forgotten what winter rain was like. When I lived in Portland, I never thought anything of the rain. I rarely checked the weather report, because let’s be real, it was going to rain almost daily from October to May. I donned my purple rain shell every…
As a child, Halloween meant preparing a costume, planning which neighborhood to trick-or-treat in, and waiting for the sun to go down to begin prancing from house to house asking politely (or not so politely) for candy from strangers. In college, Halloween means coming up with up to three different costumes, asking around for addresses…
As a freshman, I never participated in the various traditions that most students here accomplish in their first few months. Returning for my second year, I knew it was time to start crossing off items on the unspoken Ithaca bucket list. My first trip to the gorges was a battle: walking a mile or so to…
I spent fall break in New York City, and it was nothing short of incredible. Each time I visit the city (this trip marks my fifth experience in NYC), I try to discover something new, which means I don’t stick to midtown Manhattan. I’d rather spend two hours taking the subway to a different borough than simply…
Pop culture loves to glorify men who love their women au naturale (Drake and Bruno Mars, anyone?). In response, researchers in the UK have studied this preference. The study is problematic: small sample, biased methodology, condescending analysis of the results. The comments section emphasizes that women don’t necessarily wear makeup to please men. Instead, many commenters argue,…
Your search history says a lot about you: your interest (or lack thereof) in current events, your medical symptoms, your Facebook stalking habits. It makes sense that our search histories match our interests, since the Internet is where most people turn for information. So what do your open tabs tell you? They represent the two extremes…
It’s been a long time since I’ve been asked, “What’d you learn in school today, Sabina?” It’s a question that I don’t think should disappear as we age into high school and college. We should always be sharing things we’ve learned, discussing their implications, thinking critically about their importance or lack thereof. Today in my Basic…
I’ve lived in the same suburb of Portland my entire life. We moved once, but only up the street into a house with new construction. How first world of us. During junior high and high school I often hated our suburb. I was different from most of my classmates: I wasn’t particularly interested in sports, my…
Tomorrow I turn 18, so to celebrate and/or speed up my last hours of being 17 years old, here are 17 things I learned this year: 1. Fax machines ROCK when you live 3,000 miles away from your parents and can’t sign medical release forms because you’re a minor. 2. Make your friends your family. 3. In comparison…
Victim to Charm 