Expulsions
by Grace Fang ‘23
We cement the road, cut the grass, create a man-made lake, plant a biodiverse city, arrange the flora. I mean, we don’t do that ourselves. The workers with brown skin and neon vests do.
Read MoreA Mourning Musing
By Jacqueline Roderick ‘23
CW: death of a parent
On a Saturday morning, three weeks after my estranged mother’s sudden death, I found myself walking in solitude along the shoreline.
Read MoreStep Back, Doors Opening: An Ode to the D.C. Metro
by Stella Ho ’22
Stay on a Washington, D.C. metro car for 24 hours, and you’ll see the stages of life unfurl on the leather seats around you.
Read MoreEscaping to Happily Ever After
by Sage Wentzell-Brehme ‘21
I did not read romance novels. Sure, I read some very bad YA novels that had romance, and I like a rom-com movie as much as the next person, but I read good books for the most part. Okay, let’s stop there. Why did I define romance novels as not objectively good books?
Read MoreFlashback in a Film Reel
A Review of Taylor Swift's album folklore
by Natalie Marshall ‘21 and Sage Wentzell-Brehme ‘21
On July 23rd (although who really knew what a date was by that point in quarantine), we woke up to a frantic text in a group chat: “Y’ALL, CHECK INSTA, THERE IS URGENT NEWS.” This is how we learned that Taylor Swift was releasing a new album the next day.
Read MoreNachos
by Sanjana Ramchandran ‘22
One of the best things about living in Sev was that Lulu was ridiculously close by, so my friends and I decided to hop over to Café Hoop to wait out the firefighters. Would you rather stand in the freezing Massachusetts air waiting for your dorm to reopen, or escape to someplace warm and full of delicious food? Yeah, I thought so.
Read MoreMy Lime Jell-O Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise
by Eleanor Nash ‘21
“Jell-O salad is one thing I know!” exclaimed my mom. Growing up in eastern Kansas in the 1960s and ’70s, she was on the receiving end of many Jell-O-based culinary experiments. Since their invention, Jell-O salads have evolved from show-stopping dishes at dinner parties and potlucks to quaint regional concoctions, a chronology that obscures both the marketing influence of the Jell-O Company and the creativity of everyday women.
Read MoreQuarantine Diaries
by Dallis Kehoe ‘23
The alcohol smiles through our eyes as we find ourselves flowing with the vibrations that pulse around us. I see your smile widen as your body is overtaken by the rhythm of night and sound. I see you, and you become mine for a second.
Read MoreTaglish.
by Samantha Elalto Cuneta ‘21
Language forms the basis of a culture, and Taglish, a combination of Tagalog and English, is a daily norm in the Philippines. Yet the concept of synonyms is almost nonexistent. “Nakakatuwa” translates into “funny” in English, and is interchangeable with “humorous” or “witty.” In my country, the word is almost never used in these contexts. To translate “nakakatuwa” from its native form—to strip it of connotations built up through three centuries of colonization—would dissolve the culture that invented this word and prevent its people from adopting a permanent culture of indignation.
Read MoreA Tribute to "Wild Geese"
by Emma Sullivan ‘24
CW: sexual assault
After I read Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese at the onset of quarantine, I thought, Yes, I just need to let my body “love what it loves.” I’d always brushed off the jokes about liking girls from the boys at my lunch table, or once from my father at Thanksgiving dinner. While I dodged the thought, I compiled a Straight-Girl-History for myself as refuting evidence. Now that I was in forced meditation, I had to address that, Yes, boys were fine, I guess. But girls made my breath hitch. I thought maybe, this is the thing I love and need to let myself love.
Read MoreLetter From the Editor
by Sage Wentzell-Brehme ‘21
Dear Reader, This was not the year any of us expected to have. Like you, I spent Spring and Summer in a state of suspended animation. Time became fickle, passing like molasses when you noticed it, but slipping through your fingers like water when you didn’t.
Read MoreThis Week in Social Anxiety Disorder
by Anonymous
CW: description of anxiety
Monday morning: I’m walking to the Career Education Center with a donut in my hand. I’m eating it in the Pendleton parking lot when I think: there's a professor in Founders who I haven’t spoken to in a while. She gave me an extension on a paper once—a couple of papers, actually. But I haven't visited her since then. I guess I would have felt awkward having us both know the favor she did for me. I wouldn’t know how to broach the topic, or if I should even broach it.
Read Morethe quest for the cool girl
by Stella Ho ‘22
The thing is, the cool girl I admire is a character. More often than not, she’s a character defined by men, whether they’re the writers that created her or the male characters that love her. This worshipful gaze turns her into the idealized version of woman that I saw onscreen and took as a representation of reality. Struck by her glamour, I applied that same male gaze to judge myself and all the girls I met.
Read MoreTwinkle Twinkle Little Star, Tell Me Who Your Makers Are
by Laura Chin ‘23
CW: implication of religious homophobia
I grew up on an interesting cocktail of religions. Every Sunday morning, my family would pack into our little blue car and drive to the San Marino Presbyterian Church. At night, my sisters and I would gather around my mother for bedtime stories from D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. At an annual family gathering in some glitteringly golden-red Chinese restaurant, I remember squinting at the jolly statue in the lobby. And, many miles across the sea, brushed with salt and a gentle island breeze, I listened, wide-eyed, to my grandmother’s tales of a whole new pantheon of gods: powerful commanders of the earth, wind, sea, and sky, beings as old as time and chaos and darkness themselves.
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