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Thursday September 20, 2018 vol. CXLII no. 70
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STUDENT LIFE
ON CAMPUS
Self-service package lockers replace old pickup system By Isabel Ting Assitant News Editor
Self-service package lockers have replaced the old package pickup system in Frist Campus Center. The new package lockers are located on Frist’s 100 level and have been in service since late this summer. Students can open lockers through self-service kiosks or directly from their smartphones through the Princeton Package Lockers app. Previously, students had to wait in line during staffed hours to pick up packages. Now, students receive an email notification that includes a specific locker bank location.
Students can use their University ID card or a specified PIN, which is included in the email notification, for their package. The lockers are available 134 hours per week, compared to 59 hours per week of package availability through the old system. Students who spoke to The Daily Princetonian said they have mixed feelings about the new package system. Ashley Roundtree ’21 said she likes the lockers. “They make getting packages more efficient and you don’t have to wait in line,” she said. However, Roundtree experienced some technical difficulties when the system did not
successfully scan her PUID. Instead, she had to use the PIN provided in the email that notified her of the package arrival. Christopher Huh ’21 appreciated the convenience of the PUID, but he pointed out other difficulties with the new system. He explained that he had to go to three different lockers for his three packages. “It’s a little inconvenient to walk all over the place to pick up individual packages,” he said. “I would prefer if the packages were just stuck in one locker.” After one business day, packages may be removed from the See LOCKERS page 2
ALBERT JIANG :: PRINCETONIAN CONTRIBUTOR
Boxed water replaces plastic water bottles in Frist Gallery.
Campus Dining takes steps to eliminate plastic By Albert Jiang Contributor
C-Store, campus retail cafés and eateries, and all University-catered events. Additionally, silverware is displayed more prominently in the Frist gallery to promote the use of non-disposable utensils and containers, according to an email statement by Christian Vasquez, the director of retail and catering at Campus Dining. “We recognize that plastic pollution is a complex global challenge. We wanted to identify ways that we could take first steps towards reducing
Students receive emails notifying them that packages are available at newly installed package lockers.
Campus Dining has implemented a series of changes in campus cafés and the Food Gallery of Frist Campus Center involving menu changes and an effort to promote plastic alternatives. All plastic water bottles, bags, and utensils have been eliminated. Paper bags, as well as plastic and paper straws, are available only upon request. These changes will affect all retail locations including the Food Gallery, the
ON CAMPUS
U . A F FA I R S
CBLI now called ProCES
Joe Stephens to lead journalism program
ISABEL TING :: ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
By Jonathan Lam Contributor
On Friday, Sept. 7, the Community-Based Learning Initiative (CBLI), a University program connecting students’ academic work with their interests in real-world communities, was officially renamed “The Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship” (ProCES). This new name will high-
light the “expanded vision for service in the curriculum that builds on twenty years of CBLI’s successful, pioneering work,” according to the ProCES website. This change comes with the program’s move from the Office of Religious Life’s jurisdiction to that of the Office of the Dean of the College. “I think the name change is a good one because it accurately reflects the focus of the program on both community
and scholarship,” said Alex Michael ’17, a former CBLI Derian summer service intern. He added that he is glad that the program is being adopted by more students, since exposure to real communities was an important part of his Princeton experience. Amanda Haye ’19 offered similar sentiments, saying that it was “valuable to put [herself] outside of the ex-
See PLASTIC page 2
See SERVICE page 3
COURTESY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY HUMANITIES COUNCIL
Stephens is an investigative reporter from Washington Post.
staff writer
COURTESY OF PROCES, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
This fall, ProCES is offering courses from 18 different departments and programs.
In Opinion
Contributing columnist Gabe Lipkowitz argues for a stronger distinction between art and science, while senior columnist Leora Eisenberg describes why saying sorry is a fulfilling practice. PAGE 4
The University Office of Communications announced last Thursday, Sept. 13 that journalism professor Joe Stephens will serve as the founding director of the Program in Journalism, effective since July 1, 2018. “The outpouring of enthusiasm for the new program from across the nation has been
Today on Campus 4:30 p.m.: The Humanities Council welcomes members of the University community to the new academic year with a kick-off colloquium on “Capturing the Human.” Burr Hall 219
amazing,” wrote Stephens in an email to the ‘Prince.’ “It’s exciting to take on this role at a time when there has never been a greater need for serious, trustworthy reporting.” In addition to being the Ferris Professor in Residence since 2014, three-time George Polk Award winner, and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, Stephens has been a prominent figure in the struggle to creSee STEPHENS page 3
WEATHER
By Linh Nguyen
HIGH
74˚
LOW
58˚
Cloudy chance of rain:
20 percent
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The Daily Princetonian
Thursday September 20, 2018
Roundtree: You don’t have to wait in line LOCKERS Continued from page 1
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package lockers and moved to the Oversized Package Room in Frist 106. Ariel Fonner ’19 tried to retrieve her packages from the package lockers, but the packages weren’t there when she went to fetch them. Fonner said they had been sent to the OPR, which closes at 6 p.m. on the weekdays. According to Fonner, her packages ended up being sent to the Oversized Package Room, which closes at 6 p.m. on the weekdays. Fonner said that because she’s only free after 6 p.m. on most days, she has had to wait a long time to receive her packages. Fonner explained that she
did not experience such difficulties with the previous system, which allowed packages to be picked up until 9 p.m. “I see the potential of this new system,” said Fonner, “but I would say there are still too many kinks for my liking.” Employees at the OPR deferred their comments to mail operations manager Dave Balitz. Balitz was not available for comment at the time of publication. Students can pick up packages from the OPR between 10 a.m.and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday or between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday. The Frist mail room is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. The University’s Print & Mail Services website does not list the hours of the package lockers.
Perkins: It’s something I’m very willing to try PLASTIC Continued from page 1
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plastic on campus,” Vasquez said. Campus Dining estimates that waste from tens of thousands of plastic water bottles will be avoided this academic year. “The University continuously looks for ways to be more sustainable and environmentally responsible,” Vasquez explained. “Whenever we make a change we need to take into consideration a number of factors — customer preference, product availability, taste, and sizing, to name a few. The biggest challenges involve educating consumers about the changes we’re making and why we’re making them.” The switch from plastic water bottles to paper ones, called “boxed water,” has been particularly controversial. “It feels like a milk carton. It smells like a milk carton,” Lydia Headley ’21 remarked.
“It’s hard to hold in your hand. I understand that [paper cartons] are more sustainable, but they’re also a lot more inconvenient.” She added that she feels the water cartons hold less liquid, and that she’s also less inclined to take a box of water to the gym. However, other students were more accepting of the University’s sustainability initiatives. “I greatly appreciate that the school is addressing both the environmental and the health-related impacts of plastic bottles and utensils. Although drinking water from a box is a new experience, it is one that I am very willing to try,” Sarah Perkins ’21 said outside late meal with two water cartons in hand. The changes have been discussed with the Office of Sustainability and the UN Environment Programme, according to Vasquez. The Office of Sustainability declined to comment on this initiative.
Recycle your paper!
The Daily Princetonian
Thursday September 20, 2018
page 3
Feng: Stephens is a really captivating and inspiring teacher who really cares about what he does and about journalism STEPHENS Continued from page 1
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ate the journalism program. Although the University has offered journalism classes for more than 50 years, it is offering a journalism certificate for the first time this year. The Program in Journalism will fall under the Humanities Council, whose mission is “to nurture the humanities locally and globally, engage diverse perspectives past and present, and enrich public dialogue with humanistic approaches.” Stephens noted that he hopes the program will “emphasize public service, diversity, and the importance of verified facts in a participatory democracy,” because University students “have the ability to change the world.”
“We’re going to do everything we can to provide [students] with the tools and insights they’ll need,” Stephens said. Stephens’s former students responded enthusiastically to his new position, including Andie Ayala ’19 and Newby Parton ’18. “Professor Joe Stephens is not only an excellent professor, but also a very attentive and wise mentor,” Ayala said. “I think that, as the head of the journalism program, he [will] do a wonderful job at guiding students in meaningful and engaging reporting.” “The Program in Journalism is in very good hands,” Parton added. Parton is a former head opinion editor for the ‘Prince.’ Matt Miller ’19 also spoke fondly of Stephens as both a professor and a mentor.
ProCES grants JP, senior thesis research funding SERVICE
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tremely academic atmosphere at Princeton and translate coursework into something useful and beneficial for someone with a completely different background.” ProCES offers over 25 service-oriented courses each semester. This fall, ProCES is offering courses from 18 different departments and programs. “Our courses show the range of ways that service can be a part of a course,” said Director of ProCES Trisha Thorme. Service can be integrated into courses through community-based research, historical and theoretical reflection on service, and course content that helps students explore and formulate responses to pressing societal issues. Thorme also noted that a number of new courses will be offered each semester through ProCES. ProCES courses also provide an appropriate curriculum for students in Service Focus, a program at the University that offers summer service internships to first-year students to reflect on their service and to extend their learning from the internships. According to Thorme, ProCES also offers a number of summer internships in the Princeton area each year and supports students’ summer work with community partners in other locations.
For example, the Derian Research Internship is open to all freshmen, sophomores, and juniors and challenges students to use their academic skills to serve the information needs of local nonprofit organizations. In addition to internships, ProCES also grants funding to facilitate junior paper and senior thesis research conducted in partnership with local communities and nonprofit organizations. The independent work of students can then provide useful information to nonprofits and the communities those nonprofits serve. Thorne explained that students who are looking for funding for community-engaged independent work can find ProCES through SAFE. In addition, support for students interested in community-engaged independent work has increased with the addition of a third team member, ProCES Associate Director Leah Anderson, who joined CBLI last December. She was previously a faculty member and department chair of political science at Wheaton College. Anderson now works with students and faculty to develop courses and projects that connect service and learning. “Part of the idea of the name change was to mark the program’s growth and maturity. The new name is more descriptive, and the acronym is especially fitting. Students suggested that we say ‘Trust the ProCES,’” Thorme said.
Oop s, sorly, Dos theeS butherr u? Join the ‘Prince’ copy department.
“Joe Stephens is an amazing journalist, an even better man, and one of the best professors Princeton has to offer,” said Miller. “He is already responsible for leading the Princeton Journalism Program and for its successes so far, and will be a fantastic founding director.” Prior to becoming a professor at the University, Stephens was on the Washington Post’s investigative projects team, which he joined in 1999. Stephens has written extensively on the U.S. Energy Department, political corruption, the Middle East, the federal judiciary, and drug experiments conducted on children in developing countries. Alice Maiden ’19, another one of Stephens’s former students, was first taught by Stephens after her sophomore year, when she participated in his summer journalism seminar in Greece.
Maiden recognized Stephens as a professor who left her “with the burning desire to work with journalism.” “I think one of the coolest parts about the journalism department is that we have a rotating faculty, so we’re always getting new professors,” Maiden said. “But as journalism at Princeton is growing, I think it’s important to have that backbone as a department, and Joe is definitely that backbone.” This fall, Stephens is teaching the journalism class JRN 445: Investigative Journalism: Accountability Reporting. His current students, including Lloyd Feng ’19, expressed immediate support for Stephens and the new program. “As someone who is taking his first journalism class and is still really fresh to journalism at Princeton, I think that
this is a super exciting time,” Feng said. “Stephens is a really captivating and inspiring teacher, and he obviously really cares about what he does and about journalism. I think that it all ties back to the mission of Princeton, which is service.” Despite the fact that it is his senior year, Feng anticipates that the experience will be extremely rewarding. He noted that journalism classes are a great supplement to education at the University and “will be beneficial to students even after Princeton.” The certificate program in journalism will require students to complete at least five courses in the department, participate in at least six weeks of sustained fieldwork, and present a journalism piece at an interdisciplinary colloquium at the end of their senior year.
Opinion
Thursday September 20, 2018
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Sorry really is the hardest word Leora Eisenberg
Senior Columnist
Every year, when Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, rolls around, I find myself staring at a list of people I’ve offended. It takes me hours to put it together; I go through my phone contacts, Facebook, and even class rosters to mark everyone I’ve annoyed, hurt, or disappointed. The process has become automatic at this point, but it’s nonetheless unpleasant. I don’t enjoy being reminded of all the times I’ve screwed up. Over the course of a week or two, I apologize to a few people every day. I knock the easy ones off first: the people I don’t know very well. “Dear so-and-so,” the email begins, “I’m sorry for that time I said that mean thing to you in class.” People are often surprised by this (or don’t remember the interaction to begin with) and respond very warmly: “I ask for your forgiveness, too,” they say. I grant it and
feel pretty magnanimous. That said, the majority of the people on the list are those to whom apologizing is much harder — those who actually remember how I’ve wronged them, like my friends, parents, and teachers. Apologizing to them takes more work because I have to admit that I’ve let them down; or, in the case of my parents, admit that I haven’t properly internalized all of the values they’ve tried to instill in me. I haven’t always been kind, patient, or empathetic, as much as they’ve tried to make sure that I am. I feel bad about it and can’t always bring myself to say I’m sorry. We all have a similar list, even if we might not write it down. It’s impossible to spend four years at Princeton without hurting anyone. You remember those to whom you’ve made nasty comments (and later ignore them when you pass them on the street). You remember the fights you’ve had with your exes but don’t apologize because you don’t want to say sorry first. It’s impossible to forget the times you’ve let down your friends, whether you’ve
meant to or not. During the year, there are times when I’ve desperately wanted to apologize and clear my conscience, but I can’t bring myself to admit that I’ve done something wrong — especially to someone else. And some years, I’ve chickened out. A few years, I’ve been too scared to apologize to my parents out of fear of disappointing them. I didn’t want to tell my ex that I was sorry for what I did. This year, there were a few people on my list that I couldn’t bring myself to ask forgiveness from. I couldn’t work up the courage to apologize, and I’m no better person for it. But in the cases when I haven’t been too nervous about it, I’ve often come back with a better relationship and gained a better understanding of my weaknesses. I’ve often been hesitant to apologize for fear that it would be awkward or that the other person wouldn’t want to hear it — but that’s never been the case. In admitting my wrongdoing, I’ve developed my sense of empathy and recognized what character building still needs to be done. But that’s not all; it
opens up the door for others to do the same. When I’ve apologized to people, their response is striking — they ask for my forgiveness, too. Two years ago, I had a fight with one of my best friends, and we didn’t talk for several months. I hurt him very badly, and only once I’d apologized to him for what I’d done did I better understand how to not repeat the same mistake. I learned how to become a better person and friend. On the other hand, there are a few people in my life to whom I just can’t apologize, although I know that doing so will cost me nothing and will teach me some valuable lessons. I’m not saying you should apologize to everyone right away, and I’m also not saying that you should keep a list. Do whatever works for you. But try saying you’re sorry to someone you’ve hurt this past year. It might not be as bad as you think, and you may find yourself growing every time you do. Leora Eisenberg is a junior from Eagan, Minn. She can be reached leorae@princeton. edu.
There is no art of science Gabe Lipkowitz
Contributing Columnist
This year, for the eighth in a row, the University has put up an exhibit in the Friend Center on the “Art of Science.” These exhibits display images of scientific phenomena — cells, computer simulations, chemical reactions, the like — and assign them the magnificent and ambitious classification of “art.” In a proverbial pat on the back, the curators — all scientists, no artists — claim these exhibits form a new “synergy” between art and science. It is a cute story to tell and a good effort on the scientists’ part to explore the meaning of the arts. But it is unjustified. These pictures are not art. More broadly, there is no “art of science.” And to say there is constitutes an insult to and assault on the special qualities of artistic pursuits. Art is defined by the Oxford English Living Dictionaries as “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as paint-
ing or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” There are several reasons why these pictures of scientific phenomena or experiments do not fit this definition. To begin, they are not the “expression” of human creative skill. Of course, both science and art are creative pursuits. I can tell you that from experience, as a molecular biologist myself and the son of a visual artist, directly by virtue of the former and indirectly by the latter. Imaging the natural phenomena a scientist observes is not a visual expression of that creativity. It is a picture of nature, utterly devoid of the human element. Neither are photographs of science “applications” of human, creative skill. The ultimate results of scientific experimentation, be they models, graphs, or even pictures, do not leave room for human subjectivity. Rather, they reflect natural truths that necessarily exclude human expression. Finally, science does not produce works to be appreciated for their “beauty.” Again, using Oxford’s definition, beauty is defined as “a combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially
the sight.” No matter how much it pains me as a scientist, science is not pursued for this purpose. Rather, it is produced for its rigorous analysis, its logical conclusions, its practical applications. No matter how “beautiful” a microscope image is, if it does not prove a scientific point, it is completely useless. Of course, some may make the claim that aesthetically pleasing images can be found in Nature. The scales of an insect may form an interesting pattern. The oil bubbles that form in an aqueous solution may adopt curious and differently sized shapes. But there is a key difference between recognizing such patterns with complex and sensitive instruments and creating those patterns ourselves with a particular intention of crafting something with aesthetic beauty. What if the scientific image displayed does constitute a human intervention, one may ask, and not merely a photograph of Nature undisturbed? Indeed, one photograph in the “Art of Science” exhibit displays a fruit f ly expressing an orange f luorescent protein, such that the Princeton University logo appears on the embryo. Aren’t scientists using the fluorescent protein to make a picture
— just like artists using paint to make watercolors? No, they are decidedly not. The scientist has made an image — true — but its subject is extremely simplistic: in this case, a literal copy of something else. As in any academic field, copying constitutes plagiarism, not creative work, let alone art. In those few works in the exhibit that are not copies like this — and they are few indeed — the subjects are extremely crude, do not go beyond superficial and instantly recognizable depictions, and thus do not provoke further thought or commentary. Perhaps if you gave a real artist a fluorescent protein, the result would be a true work of art, which expressed the views and outlook of the individual in an interesting and thought-provoking way. But that takes years of serious practice and training that, as is evident in the exhibit, the scientist simply does not have. I am all for scientists having an artistic appreciation. Art and science, in their own ways, enrich our human experience. But to conf late the two is to underappreciate their unique characteristics.
vol. cxlii
editor-in-chief
Marcia Brown ’19 business manager
Ryan Gizzie ’19
BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy L. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas J. Widmann ’90 Kathleen Crown William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John Horan ’74 Joshua Katz Kathleen Kiely ’77 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 Lisa Belkin ‘82 Francesca Barber trustees emeriti Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Jerry Raymond ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Annalyn Swan ’73
142ND MANAGING BOARD managing editors Isabel Hsu ’19 Sam Parsons ’19 head news editor Claire Thornton ’19 associate news editors Allie Spensley ’20 Audrey Spensley ’20 Ariel Chen ’20 Ivy Truong ’21 associate news and film editor Sarah Warman Hirschfield ’20 head opinion editor Emily Erdos ’19 associate opinion editors Jon Ort ’21 Cy Watsky ’21 head sports editors David Xin ’19 Chris Murphy ’20 associate sports editors Miranda Hasty ’19 Jack Graham ’20 associate street editors Danielle Hoffman ’20 Lyric Perot ’20 digital operations manager Sarah Bowen ’20 chief copy editors Marina Latif ’19 Arthur Mateos ’19 Catherine Benedict ’20 head design editor Rachel Brill ’19 cartoons editor Tashi Treadway ’19 head photo editor Risa Gelles-Watnick ’21
NIGHT STAFF assistant chief copy Lydia Choi ’21
Gabriel Lipkowitz is a senior concentrator in molecular biology. He can be reached at gel@princeton.edu.
Revealing the truth, one story at a time. join@dailyprincetonian.com
copy Elizabeth Parker ’21 Ava Jiang ‘21 Design Irina Liu ’21
Thursday September 20, 2018
Opinion { www.dailyprincetonian.com }
how to spot a cyclist ellie shapiro ’21 ..................................................
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Sports
Thursday September 20, 2018
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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } MEN’S FOOTBALL
Football by the Numbers
Princeton (1 - 0, 0 - 0 Ivy) takes on Monmouth (2-1) in its home opener this Saturday. Here are some stats to get you ready for the matchup!
50
334
326
points scored by Princeton’s Of-
passing yards by Monmouth
rushing yards for Princeton
fense in their 43 point victory
quarterback Kenji Bahar in
against Butler; senior running
over Buter to open the season
the team’s 24-20 win last week
back Charlie Volker led the way
against Lafayette, his career best
with 162
26
39.3
65.4
seconds it took Princeton to
average points per game for the
percent of Princeton’s total pass-
score their first touchdown of
Princeton offense in Sean Glee-
ing yards (214) caught by Jesper
the season on a 63-yard pass
son’s 11 games as offensive coor-
Horsted in last week’s win at
from senior quarterback John
dinator
Butler
Lovett to senior receiver Jesper Horsted
319
33.0
1980
combined rushing yards by
points per game allowed by
the last year Princeton played
Monmouth running back Pete
Monmouth through the first
another team from New Jersey
Guerriero in Monmouth’s last
three weeks of their season
WOMEN’S HOCKEY
No. 5 field hockey drops first home game of season to No. 3 Terrapins By Chris Murphy
Head Sports Editor
Whether it was fourthranked Duke (6–2 overall), 13th-ranked Delaware (4–4 overall), or even unranked Monmouth (3–5 overall), the Tigers’ field hockey team (5–3 overall) has been able to defend its home field throughout the early part of the season. But after their double-overtime thriller against No. 3 Maryland (9–0 overall), the fifth-ranked Tigers no longer have a perfect record at home. Facing their eighth team this season and their fourth match against teams in the top five, the Tigers met their match at home, falling 5–4 in stunning double-overtime fashion against the Maryland Terrapins on Bedford Field Tuesday night. Leading 3–1 at halftime and then 4–1 early in the second half, the Tigers gave up four straight goals en route to their first home loss of the season. It was an uncharacteristically highscoring game for the opposing team, as prior to Tuesday night’s contest, the Tigers had given up two goals or less in every game. This was also the first time all season that the Tigers gave up more than one goal in the second half. In the first half, the Ti-
gers looked poised to garner a win against another top five team. After a goal in the first minute from the Terrapins, the Tigers rattled off three goals in the next 25 minutes. Sophomore forward Clara Roth scored the first two goals for Princeton, the second being a redirect, to give the Tigers the early 2–1 lead. In the 28th minute, Roth tallied her third point of the game after assisting senior midfielder and forward Jane Donio-Enscoe, who gave the Tigers a 3–1 lead at the half. Following a converted penalty by sophomore midfielder Julianna Tornetta, the Tigers were up 4–1. But the Terrapins rallied, scoring three goals, dominating possession, and constantly forcing Princeton back into its defensive zone in the final 20 minutes. The last goal — surely the most heartbreaking for the Tigers — came with 15 seconds remaining in the game; with the Terrapins playing without a goalie, the 11-player attack was able to cause enough ball movement to redirect a shot into the Princeton goal just before the final horn sounded. All of a sudden, the game that looked to be in the Tigers’ grasp was tied. Carrying the momentum into overtime, it took a second overtime for Maryland to
Tweet of the Day “Defending ECAC Hockey Champion Princeton has been selected No. 2 in this years preseason coaches poll” Princeton Mens Hockey (@ puhockey),
finally finish the comeback win. The Tigers played hard defensively throughout the overtime periods, but in the end couldn’t stop a hard Terrapin shot in the 81st minute.
The loss halted the Tigers’ winning streak at two, and left Princeton with a 5–3 record as they begin the bulk of Ivy League play. Up next for the Tigers is a
showdown at home against Dartmouth this Saturday. The Tigers will look to take the Ivy League title again and will be hoping to kick things off on a high note.
COURTESY OF GOPRINCETONTIGERS.COM
Field hockey will match up against Dartmouth Big Green on Saturday.
Stat of the Day
5 Field hockey’s Clara Roth recorded five points in her fifth-career multi-goal game in Tuesday’s double OT loss to Maryland.
Follow us Check us out on Twitter @princesports for live news and reports, and on Instagram @princetoniansports for photos!
The Daily Princetonian
Thursday September 20, 2018
page S1
The stickers on our laptops
PAGES DESIGNED BY DIANA TANG & WILL RANDALL
STREET EDITORS: DANIELLE HOFFMAN, LYRIC PEROT, LUCY CHUANG
Claire Thornton Contributor ‘19
My MacBook and I have a very exclusive relationship and see a lot of each other. As a 21-year-old college student at an Ivy League university, I am hardly ever without my laptop. When not writing notes by hand in class, reading a physical book, out with friends, eating, or sleeping, my MacBook is within arm’s reach, usually open. My life revolves around a glowing metal box. But my metal box looks unique. I like to dress it up and show it off. Seventeen different stickers, ranging from political to purely decorative, make my laptop look like it belongs in a documentary film about punk skateboard culture. I added the first few stickers the summer before freshman year, then gradually filled up the empty space with more. Now, people see a collage of stickers instead of just seeing my laptop. “When I ordered my stickers off the internet, I was thinking about how they would look to the rest of the world,” Megan Tung ’17 said. Megan specifically bought a sticker from the HBO show “Westworld” to attract attention from other fans. She also said that her stickers help her personality come through to other people, because she sometimes has trouble expressing herself verbally. Putting stickers on our laptops shows how we perform a balancing act between embracing our personal identities and embracing the impersonal world that exists behind our screens, on the internet. Megan likes laptop stickers so much that she created her own sticker start-up, designing original Princeton-themed stickers and releasing them in batches on campus. Students could pre-order stickers and pick them up the following week at designated stations in the campus center. Besides designing their own stickers, students are also expert sticker-placers. Princetonians have been known to incorporate Da Vinci’s golden ratio of spacing and alignment into their laptop sticker arrange-
ments, according to Christian Bischoff ’19. Students who have bare laptops reported they don’t like the permanence of stickers. These students must be afraid of committing. Meanwhile, Christian’s laptop is a product of his tender loving care. Black and green stickers from a Korean barbecue restaurant, a butcher shop, and a hot wings eatery create an edgy meat-lover’s aesthetic. Christian said he felt his stickers must be spaced evenly, and their colors had to complement one another. Anna Zabel ’19 has a laptop covered in pro-choice political messages and characters from Studio Ghibli films. She also said her sticker arrangement is highly curated. When she had to get a new laptop this spring, Anna bought the same stickers that had been on her old laptop, because she liked them so much. Stickers are colorful, cool, and for the most part, serve a purely aesthetic purpose. But the machines we place them on are far more complex. The increasingly powerful function of our laptops and the amount of time we spend on them daily mean that we devote more effort to the marriage than they do. We pour out our lives into them, often sacrificing parts of ourselves in the process. “I think with the computer, there is a feeling of losing your identity,” University visual arts professor Eve Ascheim said. “There is a feeling of just being another number, another click, another like, another this, or another that.” The rise of the internet has caused us to experience less of the physical world around us and have fewer face-to-face interactions. While staying with a friend in Washington, D.C., last winter, she and I realized that her black lab Archie thinks it’s time to go for a walk when he hears the soft click of my friend’s MacBook closing. Princeton students I know use their laptops so much that the keys, screens, and mousepads become disgustingly covered in sweat, oils, and loose hairs. And we carry our laptop chargers with us
always. Carrying the computer itself isn’t enough — we must be assured of its immortality throughout the day. We’re living through our technology when we worry over how to keep its battery alive. But we’re totally in love with this way of life. Recently, I was walking down Nassau Street with another friend, who, looking down into her iPhone said, “I’m reloading my Starbucks card and paying for my Starbucks app with Apple Pay! I was born for the 21st century.” University history professor D. Graham Burnett ’93 said he thinks these aspects of technology blur the line between different sectors of our daily lives. “People think of themselves as freelancers, armed with their laptops,” Burnett said. “They have offices that consist of their laptop and wherever the hell they show up to,” he said. (The last class Burnett taught was a history course called “Things,” which had students “endeavor to heed Wordsworth’s bold injunction — to ‘see into the life of things.’”) Work and academic habits reflect our love for technology, but our passion solicits skepticism from experts in many different fields. In a March 2018 interview with Vox magazine, MIT sociologist and clinical psychologist Sherry Turkle said, “These new technologies can be empowering and they can help us connect with other people, but they can also divide us and make us more lonely and isolated.” It’s true, we sometimes give our machines more attention than our fellow humans. “Hanging out” can consist of friends being on their laptops together, not talking. People instinctively pull out their laptops when they sit down in a public place on campus, even when they don’t have an agenda. It’s a comfort mechanism. Walking through the dining hall, I’ll inev-
itably see students type and eat at the same time, while others watch Netflix with headphones during dinner. For the most part, everything we see on our screens is only visible to us. Other people in the room don’t know which websites we’re surfing. Laptops are called “personal” computers because we have direct oneon-one relationships with them. Psychologists have said that one of the worst things about forms of communication like email and texting is the silence they create. Back when everyone had to talk on the phone, young children could hear and understand what their parents were talking about, even though they only heard one side of the conversation. Now, everyone’s conversations and messages are relegated to their personal screen and blocked off from the rest of society. Yet, while we click on posts, apps, browsers, and files in private behind our screens, our stickers face outward, publicly and permanently. Anyone can see your stickers when they walk by your laptop, and you can see theirs. Laptop stickers are an inversion of what we do on the other side of our screens. Because our stickers are outward facing, permanent, and exist in the physical realm, tatting up our laptops is the bravest form of “posting” we’ve done yet. We do business and correspond behind our screens in ways that will never make it out of the ether or see the light of day. But our stickers help bring our laptops into the world outside the internet. Someone could see your laptop stickers, “like” them, and start a conversation with you about them face-toface, in a quicker and more physical way than any online social media cur-
rently allows for. Making these connections involves a targeted approach, according to University sociology professor Matthew Salganik. “The thing is, often when we signal our identities, we signal them in ways that make sense to the people that we’re trying to signal them to,” Salganik said. “I wouldn’t expect that everyone tries to signal their identity to everyone, right? It’s like secret handshakes and inside jokes.” Because our machines are such as big part of our lives, our efforts to communicate with them in the physical world says a lot about us. “They are intimate machines that change our sense of self, our relationship with others,” Turkle said. Placing stickers on our laptops means we’re embracing the power of our machines to make connections in the human world. Living life through a screen comes with certain negative effects, but at least we can take comfort in what’s on the opposite side of our LED displays. Computers are immensely powerful tools, yet stickers are old-school and simple, like pins and patches. Bringing the two together is our attempt to remedy the many imbalances in our relationship with technology. Our MacBooks are highly sophisticated and sexy, but they’re not human. We take pride and joy in putting stickers on our laptops because doing so helps our machines love us back.
Image courtesy of Flickr
Thursday September 20, 2018
The Daily Princetonian
Summer Reading
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Best of One Tiger’s Summer
ally settle on my shoulders. By the end of my freshman Contributor ‘21 year, the initial thrill and motivation of receiving my Nothing makes a new year first coursebooks had dried first feel real quite like a up — I didn’t totally feel trip from Labyrinth, feeling I was learning for myself the weight of the semes- anymore. At Princeton, we ter’s responsibilities literIsabel Griffith-Gorgati
all need ways of reminding ourselves why we do what we do, and, even more so, why we love it. As an English/humanities student, it’s easy to make a chore out of something that’s given me joy my whole life —
reading. I still feel some of that end-of-year fatigue, but I feel that reading for myself over the summer is what re-motivates and recenters me for the new year. Keeping a list of va-
cation to-reads on my own terms, at my own pace, can help keep me from getting burnt out over class material. These are the books that made me happiest in a bunch of different ways this past summer:
“Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing” are the opening words of this novel. Beyond providing the indulgence of reading a book very partially about Princeton, this is a truly feminist book written by the author whose speech on feminism is featured in Beyoncé’s song “Flawless.” This book is about everything, the personal and the political, and follows the internal and geographical journey of a Nigerian woman as she moves to America and then back to Nigeria. Reading this book reminded me of how much I love language and the expansiveness of storytelling.
This book is a very quick read — it can be finished in a couple days. Read it if you love Trevor Noah, but also even if you don’t. The story of his life made me laugh and cry; it also presents an image of Apartheid-era South Africa with honesty, nuance, and humor. Again, good storytelling makes things personal — and gives them staying power.
Images courtesy of Amazon.com
Images courtesy of Wanderer News
Malcolm Gladwell’s books are digestible smart people books: they give you loosely related facts and stories you can insert into any given intellectual conversation. The overall thesis of the book, that circumstance matters more than innate talent in determining success, is mostly intuitive, but the examples are fascinating. This book is a good idea if you don’t feel like reading a novel or want something that can be put down or picked back up at any time.
At the end of the summer, the craze surrounding this instant Netflix classic inspired me to revisit YA, once my genre of choice (now very much by the wayside). There’s something deliciously simple about the highest stakes in a YA novel like TATBILB — I recommend this occasional guilty pleasure to everyone.
Images courtesy of Snapdeal
This novel was recommended and gifted by a friend — the best kind of book. It’s a novel about loneliness posing as a love story, and it feels slow and full while still being easy to get through. The story meanders through the college years of a young man in 1960s Japan; his world feels distinctly different from Princeton, but each character is strange in ways that slowly grow jarringly relatable. The apathetic way in which Toru Watanabe, the frequently passive protagonist, recalls his most painful experiences only makes them feel sharper. Loneliness is rendered with both specificity and universality. After a whirlwind year of life changes, reading this book felt like a welcome meditation. This book by a lawyer who has spent his life advocating for the most vulnerable in the criminal justice system, including people on death row, is not only heavy and eyeopening, but also personal and gripping thanks to Stevenson’s use of storytelling. The titular word “mercy” is impossible without empathy, something Stevenson inspires even where it seems impossible. This guiding theme makes the book important even beyond its direct subject matter. Images courtesy of Amazon.com
Images courtesy of PBS
-Ask Auntie JThe Daily Princetonian
Thursday September 20, 2018
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Auntie J is back and better than ever after summer break, ready to get back in business. This week’s question is a real dilemma!
Hello sweeties! Auntie J back from her longawaited summer break, eager to hear all about what you got up to on your breaks. For those of you that don’t know me (and, really, how can you not know about me?), every week I take an anonymously-submitted question about love, life, studies, friends, and everything in between, and I dish out a fair heap of Auntie love to answer. So, if you’ve got something that’s troubling you, head on over to bit.ly/ askauntiej, fill out our totally anonymous submission form, and watch out for an answer from yours truly every Thursday! So, let’s dive in with the first question of this great new
Image courtesy of freepik.com
year! were at with the relation-
What should I do if my boyfriend refers to my room as our room?
for a while now, and I think
ship, or with what you think with the new year, it’d be is comfortable. In either
a great time to think about
case, it’s something that’s
where we’re at.” Boundar-
troubling you, so it’s some-
ies are massively impor-
thing that’s troubling me.
tant in every relationship; if
Before talking to him (and I he’s a keeper, he’ll want to It’s tough to say where your boyfriend is coming from without knowing in depth about your situation — this could potentially be a really cute way of taking things a step further, to show you that he feels you two are now part of one unit. It’s definitely worth bearing this in mind — he may be trying to make (what he believes to be) a nice gesture, and he believes the timing and progression of the relationship is good enough to be able to talk in this way. For you, though, this could definitely come off as a hugely possessive statement that might be overstepping the boundary of where you considered you
think this is a perfect time
keep the relationship going
to reassess together where
at a pace you’re both com-
you both believe the rela-
fortable with. I hope I can
tionship is at the moment,
give you a little bit of Aun-
and where it’s going), you
tie’s reassurance and say
should sit down and think
that he’s probably just so
about your own boundar-
ecstatic to be with you that
ies. Are we a unit now?
he wants to spend all the
Is it cool that he turns up
time with you he can. But
whenever to my room,
if you’re not okay with that,
and sleeps over whenever
that’s something he really
he likes? For me, another
needs to respect.
hugely important question
If you have a question
is this: are these boundar-
about any aspect of life
ies mutual, or something
at Princeton — whether
he’s putting solely on me?
it’s about socializing, sex,
Would I feel comfortable
studies, or anything in be-
calling his room our room,
tween, Auntie’s always got
or do I not think that way?
her kettle on and an open
Once you’ve thought about
ear at bit.ly/askauntiej.
what you yourself are com-
And, going into the new
fortable with, have a word
year, my dear readers, re-
with him. It can be as easy
member one thing:
as “hey, we’ve been dating
Auntie loves you all!
Image courtesy of KeepCalm-o-Matic
Auntie loves you all!
Without Translation The Daily Princetonian
Thursday September 20, 2018
Emily Yin
Contributor ‘21
During my trip to northwestern China, I wrote that the Ganjia grasslands looked like “clay molded by a child’s capricious fingers, or yards and yards of hastily-unspooled velvet.” Such overindulgent description didn’t make good prose, I knew, but I wanted to preserve Gansu in its entirety — the yaks and prayer flags, the brilliant green expanses eliding into sky, the sky’s unblemished hue. A similar excess beset my photography. Why rely on the vagaries of memory when there was always a camera at hand? That summer, as I traveled from city to city with my global seminar, the number of photos
Francesca Walton Contributor ‘21
A helpful guide on getting back into the grind: “How was your summer?” rings through the hallways and dining halls followed by brief responses except for the occasional more meaningful conversation with a close friend that turns into a longer catch-up…. 1a) Don’t give the same, expected answers; inquire more into why their summer was good. 1b) When you say you will catchup over a meal, text a potential time right then. The summer days to the class grind is a transition, and in some ways we are eased into it: a few days of classes, Lawnparties, making sure precepts are in order, but it is easy to fall into a slump and slack, and the motivation to tackle work while visiting with friends you haven’t seen in a while can be hard. 2) Find balance as we get back into the swing of things. A new academic year can bring an incentive for resolu-
on my phone ballooned into the thousands. So too did the pages of my journal fill. I wrote about my first time navigating Beijing’s subway system, the sensation of being squeezed against double doors and coughing kids, jockeying wordlessly for space. I wrote about Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou. Even in my dreams, I can see every detail with a startling clarity.
I’m convinced that this fixation on photos and words stems from my love of revision. To revise is to prettify. For photos, there exist filters; for narratives, lovely words. Still, there were some things I was either unable or unwilling to varnish. The disjunction between my local features and foreign mouth; how I was only anonymous
until I began to speak. Culture shock. How terribly foreign the Beijing accent sounded to a girl who’d listened to Taiwanese Mandarin all her life, how coarse the social norms. A haunting note in the otherwise-cheerful, even childlike song played on Beijing subways. The color of smog: not quite white, not quite gray. And, ironically enough, the beautiful, too, resisted description. The way light pools in puddles after an evening rain. How I learned to disentangle webs of laughter over the weeks, assign each baritone chortle and bell-like peal to the people in my seminar. Bartering for a watch which proved to be completely non-functional. Our Tibetan tour guide crooning a folk song from his native village, a monk at Labrang
Monastery asking, “How can we know happiness without experiencing, first, its absence?”
When I think of China, though, it’s not even those images that come to mind. I’d been put off for the longest time by its brusqueness, which was especially prevalent in the larger cities. You needed a certain hardness of heart, I’d thought, to survive in Beijing, with its scammers and inhospitable weather and a stream of beggars that, if you looked too closely, broke your heart. And yet — and yet — a dozen couples were dancing in an open square. I’d been heading toward a subway station, ready to call it a day, and stopped at the spectacle. Dowdy husbands were twirling their wives around, a mass of unfurling
limbs. The tiles beneath their feet were a mottled brown, their steps unsure, their faces veiled by darkness. Any one of them could have been the angry voice snapping at me to “hurry up” earlier that day, or the figure that cut in front of me at the convenience store. But they could just as well have been the countless people who gave me directions, or the bank officer who patiently wrote out Chinese characters that I didn’t know how to write, or the cashier who helped me count out my change. It struck me that I had never written about these small kindnesses, never photographed such ordinary scenes. That night I simply sat on the park bench, transfixed by the curiously tender scene before my eyes, and I didn’t think, once, to reach for my phone.
Rise and Grind
tions #newyearnewme 3) Let this start with your room. Is it situated? Where is your place of study, where is a place for a break and fun? Living on campus is convenient, but given day-to-day commitments and little time to do a lot, I have found that being able to work in almost any environment is necessary; however, it is said that working in the same environment can be beneficial — your mind can better click into gear when you are in a place where you always study. 4a) Never doubt the power of a calendar. Paper? Google for creating appointments with others? 4b) Are you filling your day with what you want to do? Classes should be inspiring (well, as much as they can be — take the courses you want to take; the requirements will fall into place. Shopping classes these two weeks can be stressful, and while the stress rarely lets up, the work may feel easier if you are taking classes you actually enjoy. 5) Explore! Don’t be afraid to change a class just because you fear being too far behind — that’s
what these days are for, and you can catch-up. While I think a lot of us felt that summer break was needed, we are hitting September hard. Sometimes I find myself secondguessing every decision I make: should I join this group weary that it will take too much time? Will I regret not spending more time on this assignment? 6a) Go forth with your eyes wide open, jump in head first, and trust that you can offer your own safety net in the riptide. Make mistakes to learn from them. 6b) “No one ever built character during the easy times.” A professor at Mpala, a University ranch and research Center in Kenya comforted me with these words a few months back after I found the work challenging. Ignorantly, I wanted to prove this statement false, but I think I am realizing how true these words are. When all is well and good, when times are easy, what are you learning about yourself? Success feels good but is often more rewarding after many trials and then a breakthrough.
Image courtesy of Francesca Walton
Off the Pine Barrens We Go Kamila Radjabova Contributor ‘21
My school year began with wandering off to the middle of the woods, leaving behind all electronic connection, and taking a group of nine first-years with me. We were heading into the Pine Barrens in New Jersey, a place known for its dense and sandy woods. Princeton’s Outdoor Action program takes about 650 first years to explore the outdoors, and every trip experiences something a little different. But my trip wasn’t just a little different, it was a whole ’nother ride. And I guess that’s what college is all about: doing the unexpected and meeting new people during the process. On the first day of Outdoor Action, my group had started its hike down the Batona Trail. It was a 90 degree day. We were chugging water, dodging cobwebs, and singing “Aliceeeee” as we made our way down to Buttonwood Hill Camp. It was when we got to our lunch stop that things started to change. About five minutes into our meal, one of the frosh noticed that he had about 20 ticks crawling down his ankles underneath his sock. What started off as a calm lunch quickly turned into everyone scurrying to untie their hiking books to take a look down their socks. And there they were! My hiking group had managed to walk into a tick larvae swarm during the first hour of our four-day hike. Image courtesy of Kamila Radjabova
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About four hours later, we found ourselves outside of a motel in the Pine Barrens. Outdoor Action had sent us back to civilization and we were tasked with removing all the ticks from our bodies. If there is one thing that I walked away with from that night, it was a newfound skill of being able to remove over 200 ticks pretty efficiently. But what surprised me the most was that spending the night at the motel became one of the best bonding experiences of my life. As the 12 of us sat cuddled in a small motel room with a colored nalgene lamp in the middle, speaking about our roses, buds, and thorns, I began to see friendships start to form. I ended up giving my hometown on the first night, a story that speaks of my background and where I come from. Jake Rodgers, one of the first-years on the trip, followed my hometown with his own. After the trip had ended, he told me: “My favorite day would have to be the first day. While we might have hiked three miles more than planned and [had] to be evacuated, I think we really bonded the most that first night over sketchy pizza.” The next morning, we were back out there, feeling the real adventure of the outdoors and no longer eating pizza in motel rooms. This time, we went canoeing at Goshen Pond. The pond is home to a family of beavers who built a dam that keeps the whole pond contained. That day went very successfully, so the next day we decided to try our luck with the Batsto River. Being on the Batsto River is like
canoeing through a deep forest. When you gaze up, there are trees hovering above you and the sky is barely visible. The water beneath you is the mirror image of the things above and everything looks otherworldly. It’s like rowing into a fantasy, expect every other second you’re woken up from your fantasy by stinging fruit flies and random branches that you have to keep dodging. Regardless, the unexpected canoeing adventure turned out to be pretty fantastic. Oliver Nusbaum, another first-year on the trip, said, “My favorite day was probably day three, when we went canoeing on a river. I kind of wanted a combo canoeing and hiking trip, so I was perfectly happy with our change of plans.” The experiences of my Outdoor Action trip may have been different, but I would not change anything about the way that things naturally happened. Because of our adverse conditions, we got to know each other better and it opened up the group dynamic. Nusbaum sums everyone’s experience up when he says: “each day the group had deep conversations about a different topic, which could be links between languages, Middle Eastern politics, or Brandon Sanderson books. I was completely surprised by how open, yet respectful everyone was, both during the day and when we did our hometowns at night. After five days, it felt as if I had a group of friends that I had known for months. Definitely the best orientation program I have ever been part of.”