Marquette Journal - December 2013 by Marquette University

EDITOR IN CHIEF & ART DIRECTOR REBECCA FRENCH

MARQUETTE JOURNAL MANAGING EDITOR KATIE CUTINELLO DEPARTMENTS EDITOR ALEXANDRA WHITTAKER PHOTO DIRECTOR REBECCA REBHOLZ COPY CHIEF ALEC BROOKS DEPARTMENT EDITORS COLLEGE LIFE: OLIVIA MORRISSEY ACTIVE: CATELYN ROTH-JOHNSON CULTURE: EVA SOTOMAYOR WRITERS PAULO ACUNA PAIGEE LLOYD STEPHANIE BAGHAI CAITLIN MILLER ELIZABETH BAKER OLIVIA MORRISSEY BRITTANY CARLONI CATELYN ROTH-JOHNSON KYERSTIN HILL EVA SOTOMAYOR CASSANDRA KIDD KEVIN WARD PHOTOGRAPHERS VALERIA CARDENAS REBECCA REBHOLZ MELINA MORALES MATT SERAFIN KAREN OLIVA DENISE ZHANG STYLE TEAM STEPHANIE BAGHAI HANNAH O’CONNOR JESSICA CLARK FRANCHEZKA REICHARD ANTONIO ESTRADA RGINA RUBIO ELLE GEHRINGER ELLEN WAUGH COPY EDITORS CLAUDIA BROKISH SARAH SCHLAEFKE ELENA FRANSEN WYATT MASSEY

CONTRIBUTORS PUBLICATION ADVISER DR. STEPHEN BYERS BUSINESS MANAGER KIMBERLY ZAWADA

editor’s note Procrastination. We’re all guilty of it at some point in life - especially with the impending doom that is finals week. The best part about college is that we can learn from those experiences and never do them again....right? As the holidays approach and 2013 comes to an end, we decided it’s best to reflect on those moments and learn from our mistakes. Instead of dwelling on the negative, we decided to select a few of our favorite things from this crazy adventure of a year (page 5). But sometimes, procrastination can be good, and when we get down to crunch time, our true colors show and what we really want becomes apparent. During the holidays, gift giving can be one of the easiest things to put off, so we helped you with some of our favorite last minute ideas for the ones you love most (page 28). In December’s issue we focus on making the most of pressure and provide a guide on how to deal with almost everything. Whether you’re deciding exactly what major suits you (page 7), attending fashionable holiday celebrations (page 12), or preparing your skin for the coming winter weather (page 25), we’ve got you covered. As with everything, there is always room for adventure. Procrastinating is not as likely when you enjoy what you’re doing. We help you plan a holiday road trip with your friends (page 22) and show you how to make the most of a Milwaukee Christmas (page 24) if you’re stuck here over break or spending time with family in the city. When we procrastinate it can be difficult to think of anything but ourselves, our priorities and our plans for the future - whether that’s weeks, months or years. As you take the time to plan out your busy schedules, think about scheduling volunteer opportunities to give back to the community (page 18). It’s amazing how much we take for granted this time of the year. Ultimately, I hope this is a December issue ‘yule’ never forget and something you can gift for the holidays! Cheers, Becca French

MAGAZINE CONSULTANTS DR. ANA GARNER DR. PAMELA NETTLETON DEAN, COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION DR. LORI BERGEN TECHNICAL DIRECTOR MICHAEL ANDRE MARQUETTE WIRE DIRECTOR ERIN CAUGHEY

And in the Milwaukee Christmas spirit, here’s a little pun: If Santa rode a motorcycle, what kind would it be? A Holly Davidson

4 December 2013 | The Marquette Journal

EDITOR IN CHIEF & ART DIRECTOR REBECCA FRENCH

CONTRIBUTORS PUBLICATION ADVISER DR. STEPHEN BYERS BUSINESS MANAGER KIMBERLY ZAWADA

MAGAZINE CONSULTANTS DR. ANA GARNER DR. PAMELA NETTLETON DEAN, COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION DR. LORI BERGEN TECHNICAL DIRECTOR MICHAEL ANDRE MARQUETTE WIRE DIRECTOR ERIN CAUGHEY

And in the Milwaukee Christmas spirit, here’s a little pun: If Santa rode a motorcycle, what kind would it be? A Holly Davidson

4 December 2013 | The Marquette Journal

culture

@ MURPHY'S

“When it was alumni weekend in the summer of 2012, and I saw an alumni do a naked beer slide over the middle bar.” - Eric Bremicker, Senior “When I chased a shot of tequila with a shot of Rumple Minze. It was awful.” - Cara Lewis, Senior “Last year at Summerfest, my friends and I were dancing on a bench while fun. was on stage singing ‘We are Young.’ While we were dancing, a very large man, Cordarell, came up on the bench and started to dance with us. We went with it and started to incorporate him into our ridiculous dance moves. Mid-song, we asked him for his ring. Obviously he said no. He was not about to give his very large gold ring to the three girls he just met. But, he offered up something else to us. His expired driver’s license. Not knowing what we would do with it, we took it anyway. We knew it would come in handy. Come in handy it did. Around 1:30 a.m., my friends and I did not want to go to bed. The idea of going to Murphy’s was tossed around. The only issue was that some of us were underage and one friend did not have an ID. While we were underage, we had Cordarell’s ID. Something I have neglected to mention is that Cordarell is a 300-pound black man. One of my friends, who previously had an ID taken away from Jimmy, boldly went up to Jimmy and handed him Cordarell’s ID. This 5-foot-6-inch white girl, decked out in J. Crew, tried her hardest in convincing Jimmy that she was in fact Cordarell. My friend explained that she had lost her tan, lost a ton of weight and had recently undergone a sex change. She said that she had no time to make it to the DMV, and so she was forced to use an expired license. Jimmy, surprisingly, did not find this situation particularly funny. He immediately took the ID away. Cordarell has not been seen since. We have tried to get it back for the past year, but Jimmy says that ID is long gone. RIP Cordarell.” - Morgan Mekertichian, Senior

@ THE ANNEX

“One Saturday afternoon, around 2 o’clock, a family of four came into The Annex. The family consisted of a mother, father, daughter and son, and that’s what we’re going to call them. Said family bowled and drank for a while before coming to sit at The Annex bar where they continued to drink but had been drinking prior to bowling as they came in to the building already trashed. The two most visibly drunk were the daughter and the mother. While the family is sitting at the bar, still imbibing, an Annex cook comes out to the bar from the kitchen to get a glass of water. The cook, who we’ll call Fred, notices the daughter and decides that she’s pretty good looking. Fred, being the guy he is, immediately starts hitting on the daughter. By this time of the day, the daughter is drunk enough where the bartender has declared her overserved and stopped serving her alcohol. Fred sees his opportunity for some late night companionship and asks the daughter if she would like to come over to his house for some drinks after he gets off work. Daughter turns to mother and says, ‘Mom, can I (blank) Fred tonight?’ The mother, not even slightly caught off guard, looks Fred up and now and replies, “Sure, he’s good enough sweetie.” The bartender, the manager and even Fred himself were completely dumbfounded, but Fred managed to wipe the look of shock off his face, give the daughter his phone number and walk back into the kitchen, but not before jumping in the air, clicking his heels, and saying ‘It’s a good day to be Fred.’ -Anonymous

@ MISS KATIE'S

“I walked out of Miss Katie’s and there was a kid passed out on top of a car. Like on top of it. Not on the hood, but the roof of the car.” -Sam Manka, Senior “I tried getting into Miss Katie’s through the front door which leads to the restaurant. It was locked. I didn’t realize that the door to the bar of Miss Katie’s was around the corner, so I told everyone to go home because it was closed! Then we went to Murphy’s, where I tried to get in with my Marquette ID, and got kicked out.” -Carrie Hanson, Senior

@ ANGELO'S (RIP) “That one night when I used my Qdoba loyalty card to get into Angelo’s. It worked.” -Lizzie Esslinger, Senior The Marquette Journal | December 2013 9

Cary Gibson volunteers at St. James Episcopal Church weekly making meals for The Gathering

Giving Season Story by Alexandra Whittaker // Photos by Valeria Cardenas

Cary Gibson is a nice man. He sponsors a little girl from Indonesia, his wide set smile is infectious and he works for a charity program that feeds the hungry in Milwaukee, where he tries to connect with and inspire those who are down on their luck. It’s hard to believe that only a few years ago, Gibson sat among them. For more than 20 years, Gibson, 57, lived as a homeless man on the streets, having to hide his few possessions in nooks around the city to prevent others from stealing them and living for a year under the Bronze Fonz statue on the Milwaukee Riverwalk. He went six months without a shower, taking “mini baths,” where he’d only have the time to wash one part of his body at every bathroom he’d find before having to leave. 18 December 2013 | The Marquette Journal

He would binge drink, staying drunk for five or six days straight to numb the cold and the reality of his situation. “You just get numb cold,” Gibson says. “Do you see the people in the summertime with big heavy coats on? I understood why they did that because those are kind of like blankets and were warm. Out in the cold, you’ve got a chill inside you that just don’t go away. Even when it’s 60 degrees outside, you keep that night chill with you all day. You could get up and it could be 70 degrees, but you’ve still got that night chill and you can’t get rid of that.” Instead of worrying about Christmas shopping lists, Gibson worried about freezing to death in the cold, something that wasn’t uncommon for the homeless in years when the temperature hit below zero.

college life There was a silver lining, though, and it took the form of The Gathering, an organization working to feed the community that has served 121,958 meals to Milwaukee dwellers in need. Gibson works at The Gathering now, and Marquette’s hunger service group, Midnight Run, partners with them to contribute student volunteers to the project. On days when Gibson would wake up in an abandoned garage with his beers in his sleeping bag (because it was so cold, they’d freeze to the point of being undrinkable if left alone), he would make the journey over to St. James Episcopal Church on 833 W. Wisconsin Ave., where The Gathering has one of its locations, in order to have a freshly cooked meal. After spending almost 10 years as a recipient of The Gathering’s generous meal program, Gibson quit drinking and decided to pull himself out of his situation, and he used The Gathering for support. Now he works as the breakfast cook, making meals for people who are living out the ghosts of his past. Gibson has been an employee at The Gathering for the past three years. He has a nice apartment and a steady income - a far cry from his days sleeping under The Fonz downtown - and he attributes this positive change of lifestyle to the work of The Gathering as well as Community Advocates, an organization that provides services to low-income and at-risk individuals and families. America can be seen as the land of the plenty, but more than 50 million people like Cary Gibson still go hungry every day. Programs like The Gathering and Midnight Run are working to decrease this number, but they can’t do it alone. With a university dining program conscious of these problems and a multitude of convenient on-campus hunger-related service organizations, Marquette students have a golden opportunity to step up to this hunger challenge and be the difference. As members of the Marquette community, the homeless may seem worlds away, but a glance at the mix of people along Wisconsin Avenue on any given day proves that Marquette isn’t as far removed as some think. Keeping this in mind, the Marquette dining program has worked to contribute leftover dining food to the fight against hunger. Most of the salvageable leftover dining food is donated to the Marquette branch of a program called Campus Kitchens, an on-campus organization that provides student-powered hunger relief to the Milwaukee area by taking advantage of Marquette dining hall leftovers, among other things, in order to assist the community while avoiding wastefulness. The Marquette branch of Campus Kitchens operates right under students’ noses out of the O’Donnell Hall basement, which used to house an additional on-campus dining location. The bones of O’Donnell’s culinary past have been revived and now serve as a home for Campus Kitchen Marquette, which makes good use of

the large freezers and pantries that can hold the sizable amount of food that Campus Kitchens requires. “They have their own offices, their own kitchen, their own equipment, all that good stuff so that they can really take it to the next level,” says Kevin Gilligan, general manager of Marquette University’s Dining Services. “Last I looked, they were at about 500 meals a week.” Most Campus Kitchens volunteers are students, with 8 to 10 volunteers every week night. Part of what makes volunteering for Marquette students so easy is that it is conveniently located and doesn’t require a weekly commitment, which is a problem that full-time students sometimes run into with other hunger relief volunteer programs. Angelica Shanahan, junior in the College of Nursing, praises the program for its flexibility, explaining that if a student has some spare time or is invited by a friend to join in at the last minute, like Shanahan was, there isn’t a standing commitment to Campus Kitchens beyond each individual day. “We show up, sign in and put our little hairnets and aprons on, and then there’s a recipe that the leader has of a dish she wants us to make. It’s usually something like a casserole or something we can kind of throw together,” Shanahan says. Unlike a standard food pantry, Campus Kitchens does not focus on giving out canned and frozen foods to the hungry, but rather collecting these things and turning them into pre-prepared meals, filling stomachs with hot homemade food. Many of the people that Campus Kitchens serve may not have access to hot meals regularly, so staying particularly health-conscious is important in order to fit the needs of the people they help. “We keep it really healthy because we never know the people who we’re serving and if it’s their

only meal for the day or not,” Shanahan says. “A lot of them are little kids, too, so we want to make sure that we get them something healthy.” While the dining halls are the main source of food for Campus Kitchens, they aren’t the only donors. After they finish serving up peppermint mochas and caramel macchiatos during the day, the Starbucks on 1610 W. Wisconsin Ave. also sends over their leftover pastries to O’Donnell for Campus Kitchens, adding to the supply of spare baked goods that are wrapped up in neat little bundles and used for desserts. Despite the care and attention that Campus Kitchens pays to maintain an environmentally friendly foundation with their use of leftovers and garden project, according to Gilligan, not all leftovers from the dining halls can be donated to Campus Kitchens. If a food item “crosses the counter,” or is served to a student, it is considered compromised and must be thrown out, without exception. The sushi rolls sold at The Brew and the AMU must also be tossed, and while these exceptions are unfortunate, they are necessary for sanitary reasons. Brandon Placher, a former Cobeen dining hall worker and sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, described this issue as somewhat of an inevitability during his time at Cobeen. Placher recalls his days of serving up crispy French fries at Cobeen with fondness, though it is precisely this food item that seemed to end up in the garbage cans behind the dining hall at the end of the night. While Campus Kitchens comes around to pick up food from the dining halls and The Brew, according to Placher, they generally do not take cooked food, even when the food is in good condition. The result is typically a wasteful exhibition out in the alleyway with a garbage can of untouched food.

The Gathering welcomes volunteers and serves the greater Milwaukee community. The Marquette Journal | December 2013 19

“Cooked food really can’t be kept, so obviously that just has to go, otherwise it’ll go bad,” Placher says. “Preserving it wouldn’t be healthy.” Without a recipient to donate the food to, unused food needs to be tossed, not stored, in order to maintain sanitary conditions. Scott Marshall is the Director of Development at Hunger Task Force Milwaukee, an organization that grows, collects and distributes food donations to food programs in Milwaukee like The Gathering. Marshall explains that prepared food has a shorter shelf life and requires a plan or donor/ recipient relationship in place to set up what he calls a “food rescue.” “Say we knew over the weekend that Marquette would usually have leftover ‘bladidy blah’ of food. We’d have to determine if it’s efficient for us to go out and get that food, and we’d probably have to set up for it to be used as a meal, probably that next day, because we can’t hold on to that,” Marshall says. “But we need to know when we’re picking it up, we know when we’ll have it in house, we have a ballpark idea of how much it’s going to be every time, and so we set up to receive it immediately. We don’t sit on prepared food, we have to have a plan.” It is here that the problem of connecting the dining halls to food banks and shelters reveals itself; the amount of Marquette leftovers each night is inconsistent. Marquette actively attempts to minimize leftovers to be cost-efficient and less wasteful, which means that getting a “ballpark idea” of how much food will be left on each particular day is almost an impossible feat. In addition to this, Placher insists that typically, not much has to be thrown out in the first place. Anything uncooked at Cobeen gets put back into freezers and is marked so that it can be used before it expires, and nothing at any of the deli stands on campus is thrown out since sandwiches are made in front of students in the dining halls. Like the deli foods, grilled foods are made-toorder, meaning there aren’t leftovers at all because there is never a surplus. The exceptions to this include Placher’s very own French fries, as well as the meals of the day, such as the creamy mac-and-cheese and chicken nuggets at Cobeen. With these foods, the difference between wastefulness and resourcefulness is a matter of correctly estimating when to stop cooking more food, creating a system vulnerable to small mistakes. Even though the operation is susceptible to these wasteful errors, Placher 20 December 2013 | The Marquette Journal

insists that the full-time workers are familiar enough with the ebb and flow of the dining halls to predict how much food is needed. “I wouldn’t say too much gets thrown out, unless someone makes a mistake in their line. That was kind of a nightly thing, so it would vary, but it’s not like things were getting wasted left and right,” Placher says. “Not much” typically translates to about one small trash can a night, nowhere near enough food for a donation to a hunger-relief program. Cobeen and the other dining halls work with hot, prepared food, which the leftover process reflects. The Brew, on the other hand, works a bit differently. Since the food sold there is mostly pre-packaged by Sodexo, with the exception of the sushi, it can all be donated to Campus Kitchens after closing, with the pastries going toward dessert packages and the prepackaged goods sent to be deconstructed for raw materials that go into the meals that Campus Kitchens creates. Even the fruits are composted at the garden project outside of O’Donnell. The pastries sold at The Brew are made in the bakery in Humphrey Hall, which Gilligan says makes as much use as possible out of the dining hall leftovers, from the French fries to the bananas.

“When bananas are just past their prime, they’re great for baking, so we collect these bananas that are just past their prime and we send them to our on-campus bakery, and they’ll do banana bread or banana bread muffins,” Gilligan says. While increasing the number of banana bread loaves using recyclable means is certainly positive, there are problems with The Brew leftovers that slip through the cracks. The Brew has a special system for their excess food that is laid out by Sodexo, but it is a system that isn’t implemented on a daily basis. Kaitlyn Rose, barista at The Brew Bayou and junior in the College of Arts & Sciences, wakes up at the crack of dawn every Monday at 6:15 a.m. to open The Brew and make six pots of coffee. She kicks off her week to the smell of fresh brewing coffee as she brings pastries made in Humphrey from a special cooler to their designated spots at The Brew, making sure to open the register while she’s at it. Each morning, she typically brings about one hundred bagels out for hungry students to grab and munch on before 8 a.m. classes begin. Each item is meticulously counted and placed, but by the end of the day, whatever is left is up for grabs. “Some days it’s like cleared out,” Rose says. “I worked a Sunday night and there were two bagels left, which is great, because then we don’t have to throw those out.” Campus Kitchens does come around to collect the leftovers, as they do with the dining halls, however, Rose says that they don’t come every day, which can be problematic. “It kind of sucks because it’s on them to show up. So if they don’t have a representative show up, then we’re like ‘oh, we have to leave,’ so we have to throw this stuff out,” Rose says. “But if they show, they take everything. I worked a couple weeks

Food served at The Gathering at St. James Episcopal Church on 833 W. Wisconsin Ave.

ago and I gave them a whole garbage bag full of bagels and Simply To-Go sandwiches as well.” Mondays and Tuesdays attract big rushes of hungry students to The Brew, according to Rose, so many of the bakery items are sold without hassle, but Thursday nights are slower. This wouldn’t be a problem, but Rose says that Campus Kitchens only comes to The Brew Sunday through Wednesday nights, leaving three nights when the trash bin is the only option for leftovers. To compensate for this, The Brew orders fewer bakery items on off days so that not as much is wasted, but the disconnect between the days with heavy student traffic flow and the days on which Campus Kitchens comes is a shortcoming. Students care about these dining discrepancies, even if it doesn’t manifest as outright concern. For sophomore Bri Erhard, her concern over food and hunger means giving time on a weekly basis to The Guest House shelter on 1216 N. 13th St. as a site coordinator for Marquette’s Midnight Run, a Marquette volunteer group that focuses on the hungry and homeless people living in the community surrounding Marquette. “I went on CLR (Christian Leadership Retreat), a retreat before freshman year, and I heard about Midnight Run. I always participated in community service in high school, so I thought it would be a great way to connect to the Milwaukee community because I’m not from the Midwest so I didn’t really know anything about Milwaukee,” Erhard says. While there has certainly been progress with Marquette’s response to hunger-related programs, there have been unmistakable challenges along the way. Unlike Hunger Task Force’s challenge of finding enthusiastic volunteers, Midnight Run has the opposite problem. “We always have at least 75 students on the waiting list because, unfortunately, there are only so many spots we can have because we can’t take 20 people to a site that only needs five people serving,” Erhard says. In order to reward continued service, Midnight Run has two separate volunteer times at the beginning of each semester for interested students, but these times favor returning students over new volunteers by allowing veterans to sign up and acquire spots in the program the day before sign ups are open to other students. “Sometimes it fills up within the first hour,” Erhard says. A whoping 75 students every semester sit idly on waiting lists for Midnight Run, hoping to volunteer and contribute to the program, but not being given access to a weekly outlet. Those waiting for volunteer opportunties could direct their efforts to area programs like The Gathering, where formerly homeless volunteers like Cary Gibson are walking examples of how hunger relief programs can make a noticeable difference in the community. “I’d like to think I’m giving back to society a little bit by being here,” says Gibson, who volunteers alongside students. While Gibson isn’t a paid employee for The Gathering anymore, he still chooses to spend his Friday mornings volunteering in the kitchen. “Right now, I’m not even getting paid anymore, but I don’t care. I’ve spent a lot of time here, and now I’m giving something back,” says Gbson, “And that’s the way I think I should be.”

college life

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How to Get Inv

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The Marquette Journal | December 2013 21

Graffiti When I think about the holidays, I think about love. People are happy; they hold hands and kiss their loved ones. People share their love with the people around them. The holidays are about love. It does not matter if you celebrate Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or Christmas; all of these holidays are similar in that to get love, you have to give love. My favorite Christmas memory is when Milwaukee is lit up with Christmas decorations. Robes of garland strung around lamp posts, awnings that wished everyone a happy holiday and pine wreaths on every building. When I was eight, my mother and I walked through downtown Milwaukee to see all the decorations. She wore a plaid coat that tied around the waist. She looked fantastic, and so chic, even though there were paint stains on her hands. She was an artist, and therefore, by definition, a mess. I was jealous of her skill. I wanted to be an artist just like her. When we were walking, we held hands. I felt loved with my hand in her palm. In one window by Grand Avenue Mall was a display of Santa’s sleigh with presents spilling out, with reindeer tied to the sleigh in ornamental gold harnesses. “Now this is Christmas,” she would say once we got to the huge christmas tree by the Milwaukee Art Museum. The tree was twenty feet high, complete with a glorious star shining on top. The ornaments were glistening. All around us, there was a feeling of contentment. I sprinted around the tree. “Catch me if you can!” I taunted my mom. She was laughing while she started chasing after me. The tree looked like it was spinning round and round. Tree branches tickled my hand as I stuck out my arm. I started running faster, and I could see my mom’s reflection in the ornaments. “Gotcha!” My mom pounced on me. My head was spinning, but we kept laughing. When my eyes adjusted, I saw there was black spray-painted letters on a wall out in the distance, near the tree. I walked closer to examine the wall, taking in the first graffiti I had ever seen up close. On the wall was inscribed: “Give Love to Get Love.” “That’s the meaning of Christmas, right?” I asked Mom.

30 December 2013 | The Marquette Journal

She kissed me on the top of my head before answering,”Yeah, I guess it is. Remember that Ems. Always keep that in mind.” Years went by and that graffiti was still there. It faded from the sunlight, but its message still spoke true. I always felt connected to that spot after first seeing that message. I did my first graffiti near that spot. I painted the Earth, and next to it I put the word “love.” I thought it was fitting; those two pieces complimented each other and belonged together. I tagged a lot of other buildings in the area. My graffiti was everywhere, but the piece I cared about the most was the one that I didn’t even do myself. Just last year, when my mom died, I went there again and just sat. All I could think about was the fact that she was dead. She died in a car accident. I couldn’t believe it. I felt connected to her in that spot and remembered everything about her. I remembered how she would kiss me on the head when we would sit down for dinner. I remembered the first time she saw my short hair, and gasped. “I love it!” When I was small, I started demanding she give me art lessons. Those lessons taught me everything I know about art. The first time we walked by one of my graffitis she didn’t know it was mine, but called it a beautiful work of art anyway. When Christmas came around again, I felt hollow. But life went on, thanks to my friends. Marc, my best friend, would go out with me and tag the city. Our graffiti was always next to each other. Yet, I couldn’t shake the fact that I felt empty. Christmas did not feel the same. And then it happened; one morning, the Christmas graffiti that I had seen with my mom was gone. All the decorations from years past were still there, but without that graffiti, it felt like Christmas was missing. I sat down, staring at the wall. I had on my leather jacket and a chunky black scarf, but I still felt cold. It was too blank. I wanted to see the familiar black letters. I wanted to pretend that my mother was next to me, talking about her artwork. There was nothing on the wall, though. The gaudy Christmas tree with its overabundance of ornaments and golden tinsel behind me didn’t resonate anymore. Three days until Christmas and it didn’t feel like Christmas at all. People shuffled around me. I didn’t recognize any of them, until I spotted Marc walking down the street. She had a leather backpack with buzzed hair and Ray-Ban glasses.

A fictional Christmas story by Claire Hackett

“Ems?” She walked over to me. I sighed. “There used to be art here.” “Yeah I remember there was something here - for years right?” she asked. “There was graffiti here. This was what got me into graffiti. I loved it. It said ‘Give Love to Get Love.’” Marc always had the ability to make me feel safe, and I leaned into her for a moment, letting myself feel connected to someone else. “Did your mom love that piece?” Marc asked. I looked at her, a little shocked. I didn’t think she would bring my mom up. “What? why?” Marc shrugged. “You have been a little standoffish lately. Thought it was because of your mom dying around Christmas.” “She loved graffiti because of me. After I saw that piece here, we would hunt around Milwaukee for the best graffiti. She started seeing it as art because of me,” I confessed. She leaned in and whispered, “I think you should give the city back some of its Christmas cheer.” There was a mischievous glint in her eyes. “That would be the perfect present for this city, wouldn’t it?” “You know what to do.” I smiled and Marc patted me on the leg before standing up. I grabbed her hands. I liked how they felt in mine. “I hope to see it when it’s done. Text me. I gotta run.” I woke up at 3:30 in the morning to go to the Milwaukee Art Museum. I wrapped my chunky black scarf around my face to mask the cold. The spray cans inside my backpack rattled. Taking out a black spray paint can, I began spelling out “Give.” The paint flew from the can and splattered on the wall. Slowly, I made my message – the same message that had followed my life for so many years. “Merry Christmas, Milwaukee,” I proclaimed to the city once I finished. My artwork was simple, black lettering at a slant, with no frills: “Give Love to Get Love.” Now Christmas could begin. I knew in the back of my mind that someone could paint over my artwork tomorrow, or the next day or the month after that. But that didn’t matter. Again, I felt connected.

journey

Journey Story by Kyerstin Hill // Photo by Melina Morales

Age: 19 College: Arts & Sciences Major: Undecided Campus Activities:

Xavier Duran-Ballen Many of us have an easy car ride, or quick train ride to return home to see our family and friends. We benefit from the usual perks of being home, like sleeping in a normal-sized bed, eating our favorite meals and watching hours of Netflix. We often take the convenience and accessibility of our homes for granted. Imagine living more than 3,000 miles away from that place you know and love, and having to fly for more than six hours to go to school in a different country. For Xavier “Xavi” Duran-Ballen, this is a reality. Xavi left his home in Guayaquil, Ecuador to become a full-time Marquette student. He lives in McCormick Hall and loves every minute of it. “I was looking for schools in the United States, and Marquette was in my top three,” he says. “I talked to my cousins, Luke and Liam Timmis, who also go here, and arranged a visit to Marquette. As soon as I came here, I knew this was the best place for me.” Xavi is the nephew to Sixto Duran-Ballen, the former President of Ecuador, but you would never know from his modest and easy-going demeanor. His cousin, senior Luke Timmis says, “’Duran-Ballen’ in Ecuador is like ‘Kennedy’ in the US.” He is no stranger to the United States,

though, as he takes annual ski trips to Colorado with his family and visits his cousins in Michigan a few times a year. With an older brother at Loyola University in New Orleans, and two cousins and a close family friend who also attend Marquette, Xavi has quickly become familiar with the American college culture. He says, “I like playing sports, going to parties, hanging out with my friends and enjoying the Marquette nightlife.” He has also been able to experience other college campuses with his cousin, Luke Timmis, who says, “Obviously Xavi doesn’t go back to Ecuador for shorter breaks (like mid winter break), so we always bring him back to Michigan. If we don’t go back to my house then we’ll take him with us on a college visit. He visited Michigan State for fall break.” Although his primary language is Spanish and his second language is English, he has had no trouble adjusting to the new environment and meeting new people, which he attributes to Marquette’s “friendly atmosphere.” Unlike most international students, Xavi’s first friends at Marquette were Englishspeaking midwesterners and he was quickly thrown into a completely new culture. He has also made friends with students from

Intramural soccer and real estate

Ecuador and other Spanish-speaking countries and says, “It is nice to speak Spanish once in a while at Marquette.” As a former high school athlete, Xavi has always enjoyed soccer and wanted to incorporate it into his time at Marquette, so he joined an intramural soccer team this past fall. He is also anxious for basketball season, as his cousins and friends have told him about the excitement surrounding one of Marquette’s favorite times of the year. Xavi’s high school experience was not much different from the average American student; He went to school, soccer practice, completed his homework and spent any free time with friends and family. Similar to many of our experiences of being away at college, he misses his friends, family and most importantly, his favorite food. Xavi says, “Ecuadorian food is another difficult part to leave back in Ecuador. I wish I could eat some shrimp ceviche (a native seafood dish) here at Marquette.” While he is still undecided on a major, he is soaking up everything Marquette has to offer. He hopes to live in the United States during one of his three summer vacations, but plans to go back to Ecuador to work this upcoming summer. He wants to pursue a degree in real estate and eventually move back to Ecuador after graduation. The Marquette Journal | December 2013 31