The Dartmouth Mirror 5/3/17

MIR ROR 5.3.2017

BALANCING NARRATIVES ON ALUMNI | 3

TTLG: "FEMINIST SHAKESPEARE" AT DARTMOUTH | 4

GUO: VARIATIONS ON A DATE | 7 ERIC WANG AND HANA WARMFLASH/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

2 //MIRR OR

Editors’ Note

Mirror truth-o-meter STORY

ELIZA MCDONOUGH/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Let’s play a game, readers! We’ll give you a chance to get to know your Mirror editors — the opportunity for which we KNOW you’ve all been hoping when you run to the newspaper stands on Wednesday mornings, fingertips eager to grasp a freshly printed edition of the Mirror, sometimes fighting off crowds to get your own copy as they fly off the shelves. Anyway, hopefully we can entice you with a game of two truths and a lie — or in this case, considering the weekly theme “fiction,” two facts and a fiction.

Annette: 1) She’s only ever ordered one item from the Hop grill. 2) Her parents met in the AXA backyard. 3) She is a psychology major with a secret passion for math.

May: 1) She has visited upwards of 15 countries in the last three years. 2) She goes to the gym four times a week. 3) Michelle Rodriguez, who stars as Letty in the “Fast and the Furious” franchise, babysat May as a child.

Lauren: 1) She has gone viral on Twitter multiple times. 2) She grew up in Maine but doesn’t know how to ice skate or ski. 3) She thinks her life is full of meaning.

ANSWERS: Seeing as how Annette has an overt hatred for math (and avoids it at all costs) rather than a secret passion for it, her lie is the third statement. For May, considering that the only time she’s ever had to run is away from someone she dislikes, her second statement is false. Lastly, Lauren’s rather dark fictional statement is the third — it’s been a rough term for the Mirror team’s funniest editor.

Annette wanted to include Ray, our beloved editor-in-chief, in this fact/fiction game as well. Throughout their exhilarating production night in Robo, she took note of the following statements he declared: 1) “Mother’s Day is in March, and Father’s Day is in October.” 2) “I’ll stop playing my country music.” 3) “I’ll supply you guys with Boloco tonight.” Which statement is fictional? Trick question. Unfortunately for the Mirror editors (and to their confusion), all three comments were false.

This week’s issue explores many aspects of fiction, through stories focusing on student workers, financial aid, famous alumni, a “truth-o-meter,” feminist Shakespeare and creative writing. Enjoy the issue!

By Cristian Cano

Dartmouth students may be held to the highest standards of academic honesty, but they’re not always so truthful outside of the classroom. To help determine the probability common Dartmouth sayings are true, the Mirror has constructed a Truth-OMeter. From the most genuine to the most untrustworthy and everything in between, this helpful tool will clear up any confusion the next time you’re unsure what to believe.

Always untrue: “Be there in 5.”

One of our most prominent structures may be a clock tower, but Dartmouth students have yet to master the art of estimating how long it takes to get from point A to point B. When you still have to get out of bed, shower, get dressed, do homework, watch Netflix, take a nap, wake up again, clean your room, leave your dorm, stop by KAF, sunbathe on the Green, fall asleep on the Green, wake up a third time, go to the gym, get on the Ivy League Snap story and THEN make your way to your final destination, chances are that you might need just a bit more than five minutes to get there.

Usually untrue: “Let’s get a meal sometime soon.”

Those who say this usually have good intentions but struggle with commitment.

Maybe one day, you’ll finally have a Foco date with that person from your freshman fall Writing 5 class. In the meantime, though, endless club meetings, x-hours and exams will keep this saying from ever being more than an empty promise.

Probably untrue: “I totally failed that exam.”

For the last time: a B+ on an exam is NOT a failing grade. Please have some empathy for the ones who actually failed — chances are, they’re too busy trying to drop the class to complain about how they were only slightly above the median.

Could go either way: “I’m not sleeping tonight.”

This saying is a wild card. Sometimes, people say this but then get to bed before Baker-Berry closes — relatively speaking, not late at all. Other times, those who say this will eventually greet the sunrise, overcaffeinated and emotionally numb, from the solace of Novack’s couches. If that’s the case, then may the Lou’s gods be with you.

Probably true: “I haven’t done laundry in weeks.”

You might be one of the lucky ones who purchased the laundry service or who have family nearby. For the rest of us, though, it’s miraculous how a finite wardrobe can be extended nearly indefinitely. As the weeks go on, priorities like matching socks and colorcoordinated outfits lose importance and the only thing that really matters is having clean clothes. If you’ve made it that far, the I hope that you give in and do laundry before having clean clothes also ceases to be a priority.

Usually true: “I’m running low on DBA.” We all have that one friend who offers to buy everyone KAF at the end of the term to avoid wasting DBA. We also all have many friends for whom -$200 by week 5 is a very, very grim reality.

Always true: “I’m not going out tonight.”

This should hardly come as a surprise, but no student in the history of Dartmouth has ever been persuaded to hit up Webster Ave after vowing to have a productive Friday night in the library. After all, who has time for fratting when there’s homework to be done?

ACTUALLY always true: “I saw the cutest dog today.”

Thanks to Dartmouth’s dog-friendly campus, it’s never hard to find the doggo of your dreams playing on the Green, reducing students’ stress at the Student Wellness Center or drastically increasing the appeal of fraternity houses. Dartmouth students’ fluffy best friends never disappoint.

follow @thedmirror 5.03.17 VOL. CLXXIV NO. 73 MIRROR EDITORS LAUREN BUDD ANNETTE DENEKAS MAY MANSOUR

ASSOCIATE MIRROR CAROLYN ZHOU EDITOR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RAY LU

PUBLISHER PHILIP RASANSKY

EXECUTIVE EDITOR ERIN LEE

PHOTO EDITORS ELIZA MCDONOUGH HOLLYE SWINEHART TIFFANY ZHAI

TANYA SHAH/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Balancing narratives on Dartmouth alumni STORY

MIRROR //3

By Julia O’Sullivan

The esteemed community of devoted Dartmouth alumni is one of the most significant, frequently-touted aspects of the College. With a reported $4.5 billion endowment and a student population filled with legacy students, it is no wonder that Dartmouth prides itself on its almost 80,000 alumni from undergraduate and graduate schools combined. Alumni constantly return for events such as reunions and Homecoming, proving their love for the school.

Many alumni attribute their later successes to their time at Dartmouth. Likewise, the current Dartmouth community is very proud of its alumni. One would be hard pressed to find a student who couldn’t name a handful of successful alumni. Many students who participated in First-Year Trips recall the sanctity surrounding Robert Frost’s ashes. One of the most lauded alumni is, of course, Theodor Seuss Geisel ’25, better known as Dr. Seuss. Shonda Rhimes ’91, the head writer, producer and showrunner of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” is a veritable head of an empire. Millennials will also refer to Mindy Kaling ’01, writer and actress in “The Office” and “The Mindy Project,” as one of the greats. Die hards will also know about her comic strip series for The Dartmouth, “Badly Drawn Girl,” about a Dartmouth student trying to navigate the perils of student housing, a capella groups, Greek life, dining options and Dick’s House. “Friday Night Lights” fans will know Connie Britton ’89, while “Saturday Night Live” fans will know Rachel Dratch ’88. Even the co-creator of “Game of Thrones,” David Benioff ’92, once graced Dartmouth’s fair halls.

However, not all Dartmouth alumni have such a clean record within the school’s “hall of fame.”

The beloved Dr. Seuss, for example, didn’t always create the classic, PG-rated children’s books for which he is known and loved. Before “The Cat in the Hat” and “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” came depictions of other races as savages. Geisel was known as a liberal, with some of his books even interpreted with politically left undertones. However, his depictions of black, Native American, Japanese and Chinese people are appalling in the modern age.

Even for a task as simple as selling insect repellant, he depicts African men as primitive figures with black skin, proportionally enormous lips and imagined tribal attire. During World War II, he produced a great deal of propaganda depicting Japanese men in an unfavorable way. One drawing even reads, “What have you done today to help save your country from them?” It portrays a grinning man, intended to be Japanese, with lines for eyes, an upturned nose and a toothy grin. Yet another depiction reads “Jap Alley” and is filled with cats who share the same facial feature as previously mentioned. Though his propaganda did not rest at Japanese people in Japan. He also drew a line of Japanese people alone the coast of the western United States, picking up TNT blocks with a caption that reads “Waiting for the Signal From Home…”

Even a booklet he created to spread awareness about malaria safety among soldiers has uncomfortable elements.

He likens the infected mosquito to a calculating prostitute, a long way from his later kid-friendly illustrations that earned him such critical acclaim.

Though his propaganda work can be traced back to his career after graduating from Dartmouth, he also created questionable work as an undergraduate.

He often published his work in the Dartmouth Jack-o-Lantern, a student-run humor magazine. In 1923, he depicted a conversation between two figures, using similar strategies for his later depictions of African people. The figures are surrounded by human skulls and bones and a cauldron, while one is holding a bat and the other is wearing a crown. The crowned figure says to the other, “‘You’ve got to quit knockin’ your neighbors.’” The other responds, “‘I notice you roast a few yourself.’” The only perceivable joke here is a reference to the African people practicing tribal cannibalism, which is not exactly the kind of international acceptance that Dartmouth currently claims and encourages.

Another member of the College community who might cause similar discomfort is Nathan Lord. Though he did not attend Dartmouth, he served as the president of the College from 1828 to 1863. In 1854 he wrote “A Letter of Inquiry to Ministers of the Gospel of all Denominations, on Slavery,” arguing that slavery is justified in the Bible. He also refused to grant Abraham Lincoln an honorary Dartmouth degree.

Lord was even controversial at the time. In an 1855 issue of The Dartmouth Oestrus, a front page article discusses his harmful impacts on the school.

It reads, “For a long time we have watched him closely, and so long as his eulogies on slavery were confined to the College walls, we cared not a snap; for his antiquated old lectures were read to each succeeding class, only to occasion laughter and be sneered at for a week,” and, “His ideas are about 2,000 years old, and in this age of steam, he can’t begin to keep up to the mark.”

In these situations, the Dartmouth community has and will continue to face challenges to its brand of school pride. However, the reality of the matter is that history and people are complicated, and not every Dartmouth alumnus has always had a pure heart of gold. There will always be people who cause controversy and do things we don’t agree with, and a college degree will not change this. In fact, many times throughout history the College’s own professors, and even the president as exampled above, will propagate controversial ideas.

The question then does not become whether we can erase these figures in shame to promote our illusion of a perfect community. Instead, we must make our individual voices known, as The Dartmouth Oestrus writer did, using our platforms to self-define our stances. College is not about homogenization, after all. It is a place for discussion, change and self-discovery.

Alumni will never be great simply because they attended dear old Dartmouth. They may pick up tools along the way here that contribute to their success, but it is important to keep in mind an individual’s own agency, regardless of the origin of a degree.

Though a community is only the sum of its parts, it will always be up to each part to act as positive and conscious individuals.

4// MIRROR

TTLG: “Feminist Shakespeare” at Dartmouth COLUMN

By Kelly Gaudet

I w ro t e a n d d i r e c t e d “ Fe m i n i s t Shakespeare (or, Unsex Me Here),” which ran in the Bentley Theater on April 29 and 30 after three weeks of exciting and chaotic rehearsals.

I have always been fascinated by women’s voices — what they say, how they sound, to whom they belong. As a child, I listened to the different tones of my female family members’ conversations as they chattered over morning coffees, the deep, strong timbre of my aunt’s voice mixing with my mother’s bubbly laughter and my grandmother’s thoughtful recounting of stories about so-and-so’s son (you know, Uncle Andy’s daughter’s ex-boyfriend).

Women’s voices carry so much power, so much unity, such a legacy of struggle and of companionship. I found women’s voices and experiences to be sources of inspiration as I began writing short stories, and later as I moved into screenwriting for part of my film and media studies major at Dartmouth.

As I grew older, I became enchanted by the works of Shakespeare. I stuffed my suitcase for middle school vacations with swimsuits, baseball hats and four or five paperbacks of “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Hamlet,” “Macbeth” and the like, eagerly eschewing space allotted for such trivialities as sunblock and flip-flops (thanks, Mom and Dad, for telling me this wasn’t weird).

The poetic language, the wordplay and the liveliness of the characters drew me in, and I remained a lover of Shakespeare throughout my time at Dartmouth.

As I read more and became increasingly critical of texts, I found that, while

Shakespeare’s works were filled with powerful feminist moments, he often obscured them by forcing his female characters to deviate from their moments of power. In doing so, he redirected the attention back to the male protagonist, who was, without fail, driving the plot.

Consider Juliet’s musing, “Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?” — a nod toward a deeply-rooted fear of upsetting social norms by criticizing one’s husband, and a statement that she immediately dilutes with a (somewhat viciously self-deprecating) reminder of her love for him when she sighs, “Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, / When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?” As I began to take note of these occurrences, I imagined a text in which Shakespearean women’s problems, concerns, moments of pain and moments of power could be presented as phenomena worthy of the stage in their own right, not bound to any narrative driven by the male force.

Drinking coffee early in the morning and late at night, holing up in my dorm room or hastily jotting down phrases from an enormous anthology of Shakespeare’s works my brother gifted me, I compiled monologues and excerpts from 23 of Shakespeare’s plays. I created something that was half spoken-word performance and half modern play; I envisioned women speaking the most powerful female lines I could find in his works, voices mingling, repeating and occasionally speaking in unison. I relied on the incredible instruction I’ve received from professor Bill Phillips, my screenwriting

professor, and professor Tommy O’Malley, on the email to the cast containing the PDF my fiction writing professor, as I attempted of the script. I was terrified. to create a narrative by compiling these When rehearsals started, I found the excerpts from Shakespeare’s works into words I had compiled and the moments I had something that was neither screenplay nor strung together took on new lives as actors prose, but rather a story to be performed live, brought their own interpretations to the something ephemeral, something intangible. characters, who were amalgams of female D u r i n g t h e “ w r i t i n g ” p r o c e s s characters from many works. I didn’t know (really, I was compiling, rearranging much about directing, but I relied on the work and decontextualizing the writings of I had seen Tazewell Thompson produce, a Shakespeare), I found it most difficult visiting professor to decide when who directed to stop editing. “I have always been perfor mances at Between auditions, during fascinated by women’s voices Dartmouth I would rework the the fall of 2013 and final scene, change — what they say, how they 2016 (in which I was i n t e r a c t i o n s sound, to whom they belong an assistant stage between characters, manager and an carry so scrap entire scenes. ... women’s voices actor, respectively).

When I realized much power, so much unity, He has been a my only editor was and friend such a legacy of struggle and mentor myself, that I was to me throughout answering only to companionship.” my Dartmouth my own sense of the career, and I am finished product, it certain that, had I became incredibly -KELLY GAUDET ’17 not been exposed difficult to be to his work, I would satisfied with the never have gained script. I felt I always the skills necessary needed to improve to begin directing it or change things, actors. I tried to and more than once guide the actors, I sat up late at night but was continually staring at the script, wondering if I should blown away by the cast’s (Justine Goggin just start over. Perfectionism is, I think, many ’18, Angelina DiPaolo ’17, Alexis Wallace artists’ and writers’ biggest flaw. Finally, the ’17, Mimi Fiertz ’18, Virginia Cook ’18, day of my first rehearsal, I forced myself to Lucia McGloin ’17 and Maddie Dunn ’17) finish editing the script and pressed “send” talent, enthusiasm and dedication. It gave me goosebumps to watch something I had written come alive and change shape before me.

When we moved from rehearsals in various classrooms and rehearsal rooms into the Bentley Theater, we began to explore and play with space rather than strictly language. I asked actors to enter from behind the audience, to jump into the orchestra pit as though it were a sunken grave, to storm off the stage and pound on the wall just below the lighting designer (Will Maresco ’19) and yell their lines at him. The play took on new meanings as we explored the spatial aspects of the show, and we were able to discuss not only women’s moments involving domestic abuse, sexual violence, neglect and resilience in Shakespeare, but also the relationship between female tragedy and spectatorship. The play now aimed also to criticize itself and the audience for the fascination with the spectacle of weeping women. I was thrilled.

My entire life, I’ve loved writing. I have said more than once that I will write anything — poems, short stories, plays, screenplays.

Storytelling is a beautiful art across its many forms. It’s easy to tell yourself you’re not good enough or allow the fears of rejection, humiliation and criticism to sink in and bar you from submitting that application, finishing that play or even showing that short story to your friend for feedback. Half of COURTESY OF KELLY GAUDET producing art is ignoring that voice, finishing A student cast performs “Feminist Shakespeare (or, Unsex Me Here),” a production that reworks gender in Shakespearean women’s monologues. the story and hitting “send” on the email.

MIRROR //5

TTLG: Writing as a Process COLUMN

By Natalie Mendolia

I’m the kind of person who has eight writing painted my very special yet common different desktop screens for my laptop, each struggles with a color scheme that only fit with its own distinct wallpaper that inspires me my voice, my tears, my questions. I found a to perform certain tasks or match my specific way to take the fragile vocal chords that only mood. But that Type A level organization knew how to hum and give them a reason fades away when I’m working with the to sing, because although another teenager wallpaper whose orange, blossoming rose could be losing her father to illness or leaving lights my brain afire with the heat of summer home at 16, my pain spoke its own creed. I suns and the rouge of a cheek just tenderly could describe the exact same experience as kissed. As a creative writer, everything seems someone else but my adjectives had a different to speak a lyric or hum a poetic line, whether tone, my syntax a different style, my purpose a tree standing starkly under a white sky of a different breed. My footsteps may wash snow or a crushed can of keystone outside away in the sand but that doesn’t mean the of Rauner. You find the deepest meanings, imprint was never there. the most intricate puzzles tucked away in And, when you have nothing original the details of our haphazardly busy, iPhone- to say, that is when the true artist emerges. inculcated lives. Even on laptop screens.

The stage you enter every time the Word Creative writing is both a force utterly out document or leather-bound journal opens, of your control anxious and curious to test your and the most skill, feeling dim and empty without powerful way of “Creative writing is any flamboyantly costumed actors trying to grasp both a force utterly or enticed audience. onto a reality a wry smile on his face out of your control and andWith that is everlight-hearted laugh, one of changing. You the most powerful way my professors, a skillfully trained pass through of trying to grasp onto historian, recently mentioned how paragraphs or difficult it is to predict the past let pages of prose a reality that is everalone the future. Why do we try to that prod all the changing.” predict things, though? In order to “heart cells” in find meaning. When I put my pen your body, those to paper or fingers to keyboard, I delicate pieces -NATALIE MENDOLIA ’19 find myself on a journey through of human soul the present as I use the gifts of that lay dormant past experiences to light the way. under tax-filing, Creative writing helps me to draw dirty laundry, connections between seemingly ambiguous five-year plans. Phonemes become opposite things. It invites me to share my words as syllables traverse delicate structures task, my achievement, with others by telling of syntax, and sentences stitch subtle meaning a story about it that draws in the reader, just into the body of a paragraph whose story like Foco cookies do with every normal human could ignite a tiny universe. being. It adds jazz hands and ruby red slippers Nothing means more to me than the to basic assignments that I could complete moment my fingertips start to write a without growing or learning much at all. symphony of keyboard clacking as my stream This term I decided to lead a retreat for of conscious flows uninhibited, freely crafting the Catholic community at Aquinas House the world as I see fit. But that enchanting and was assigned to write a piece about my moment never comes so easily. It appears faith. Writer’s block thrumming in my head only when I seem to be in either my most as I slouched sullenly in the 1902 room, I muddled state of mind — head clouded finally struck gold. I described the room and with exam anxiety and the usual, baseline its paintings as vividly as I could, and out of existential crisis most writers perpetually that simple writer’s impulse I managed to face — or when my life seems to hum with find a flow of wisdom. its own peaceful rhythm, as if my lungs were You can never achieve perfection in writing. breathing in sync with the wind.

It is a never-ending battle to create amidst Finding your voice can become one of a constantly transforming world through the most daunting tasks of being human, of which innumerable thinkers, adventurers, crafting meaning out of the life and spirit creators have passed. Cloaked under the given to us. From a young age, my family deep drapes of night, nestled between the endured many hardships from divorce and tattered sheets and blankets on my bed, I illness to non-existent bank accounts and late would write as if each word were crafting night emergency phone calls. I’m sure you’ve my legacy. At 15, I knew everything but read that line in many editorial pieces or nothing at all, and so those words were how memoir-like articles before: the heartwarming I made sense of my identity and found the yet stereotypical plea to understand that a freedom in being imperfect. I could craft Prince-and-the-Pauper life has nourished characters who embodied every strength I my art, given me a reason to create, yada- ever hope to one day have and could accept yada-yada (I’m ironically looking at you, all their weaknesses with grace. Because writing of my “Seinfield” people, since “Friends” is truly is a weakness. No matter how many downright better). That’s the whole point, weeks or months I go without tapping into though. My beautiful and disastrous college that neurotic yet magical vault in my brain, experiences so far have taught me a very I always come running back, pen in hand, precious lesson: everyone struggles. And for mind ready to explore. It’s the adrenaline the longest time, I felt alone in that strife. But rush you can’t resist when you find that perfect

adjective; it’s the ocean-side calm that calls your sadness home when the morning sun doesn’t feel so bright anymore.

I have hundreds of notes on my phone, one liners and phrases that come to life while I’m trying to sleep. Titles of books that I aspire to write line the electronic library in my notes app as if my life depends on it. All

unfinished, all with so much potential. That may just be the best thing about writing: shredding yourself apart and, like Stephen King said, sitting down and bleeding through your fingers to produce a mediocre piece but one that may just have enough beauty to inspire someone else to take a shot at this wild kind of art.

COURTESY OF NATALIE MENDOLIA

Daughter’s Dissolution POEM

By Hannah Matheson

hello, I’ll admit to me. the self propagates — I did it, my thighs expanding in concentric circles, fatty tree rings, nesting dolls of unshed skin, trapped inside ghost versions of myself. anything overripe will rot: grounded fruit. the moon waxes and then melts away into a crescent hangnail. mama, your body must have done this, flushed me out when it became too much. swollen in your sadness & then slipped through you. hungover or withdrawn, regardless my DNA needs watering. like if you’re thirsty how thirsty. what river do you lack. this is an heirloom too: eyes that are bloodhound bloodshot, half-hearted veins splayed & reaching to your cornea but, you & I, we won’t say it, instead I’ll chew my cheeks & draw iron, pool saliva, grind an alphabet skein as knotted as chromosomes between my teeth. masticated helix, sordid dribble down my chin with every I’m sorry because meaning leaks. amniotic from each word that cracks out of me the way you carried me in your stomach until it split and your rains spilled over everything. leached the ink from my scratchings, and now fissures. canyons. dirty trickle-down, my apologies my angries my self run together, all this time pretending there was someone to blame when my body began to crest like a wave about to break — can’t find a place for my accusation, wandering like an antibody that’s forgotten what poison it’s for. but there’s still this — this bile festering in my stomach — the nights you pour down your throat and go slack — nowhere to set it down. even so, with this rusty mouthful, I would forgive you in any language, except forgiveness.

6// MIRROR

Los Angeles at Night POEM

By Henry Woram Romulus pours molten incandescence down a concrete overpass & it slithers across ribbons of asphalt, chasing brakelights. (those swollen ruby demon’s eyes) yellow specks of light begin to shine in bright jack-o-lantern grins while you navigate the folds of her silken streets. your mouth’s dry cause the desert’s nearby & you’re thirsty. everybody wants to swim in hips of rosebud (but the waves crash in cursive) she discarded two palmtree stalks like a pair of stilettos & ran naked into Neptune’s inkstained arms. so you climb a hill to pick sour grapes & drink silver streams of moonlight.

MIRR OR //7

Variations on a Date COLUMN

By Clara Guo

Reservation for Two, Take One: My head hurts.

It’s been hurting for over an hour now, ever since Kevin and I arrived at Giacomo’s in the South End for our dinner reservation.

We’ve spent the past 40 minutes standing outside, hopping from foot to foot with our jackets fully zipped. The couple at our table has been sipping cappuccinos for nearly an hour.

The hostess comes outside.

“Do you want to wait inside by the bar?” she asks. “Your table just finished their drinks, so we should be setting up for you two soon.”

We nod. My head is pounding.

We’re each given a glass of water. I finish mine in record time. Kevin has barely touched his.

After another 10 minutes, we’re finally seated. Our waiter brings a bread basket, and we rip into its contents with our bare hands.

“Let’s order wine!” I say, excited that I am on a date (and no longer dry for figure skating).

“Are you sure that’s a good idea for your headache?” Kevin asks.

I pause. It probably isn’t.

“Yes,” I respond.

So Kevin orders a red for him and a white for me.

My pasta has shrimp and scallops in Giacomo sauce. The pasta swirls like double-stranded DNA. It has a fancy name.

Something Italian.

Our waiter boxes up our leftovers and places the dessert menu on the table. We’re much too full for another course, so we split the check and walk home.

“How’s your headache?” Kevin asks.

“Better.”

We walk in silence.

“Thanks for taking care of me,” I say.

I love you, I want to say. It feels like the “right moment,” whatever that means.

We’re alone in Boston, walking between brownstones. There’s a small playground on our right and trees decorate the sidewalk. It feels romantic.

But I say nothing. I am terrified to say I love you because love is real, which means it — I — can be broken.

We walk up four flights of stairs to his apartment and lay on his bed. “The Magicians” runs on his projector overhead.

I pop two ibuprofens for my headache and hope it disappears by the morning.

“Good night,” he says.

“Night.”

I love you.

Reservation for Two, Take Two: We walk into Giacomo’s Restaurant. Kevin alerts the hostess of our 8 p.m. reservation, and we follow her to a small table by the window.

We order a bottle of wine.

The calamari arrives and Kevin feeds me

a piece of octopus. The tentacles dangle off the fork and sauce drips onto the table.

We forget how many times our glasses have been refilled. I’m at the perfect level of happy-tipsy, the kind that hasn’t yet crossed over to drop-my-food-in-my-lap-drunk.

We order dessert. A fluffy tiramisu arrives with two miniature spoons.

We split the check, then walk home armin-arm. My jeans are uncomfortably tight against my stomach and my head has started to ache.

“I love you,” I whisper.

Silence.

He pulls me close as I stumble over the cobblestone.

We lay on the couch in his apartment.

His roommates are gone, so we turn on the second season of “The Magicians” and wrap ourselves in blankets.

“Good night,” he says.

“Night.”

Reservation for Two, Take Three: Kevin reaches for the check.

“Damn it, it’s my turn,” I protest, pulling my credit card from my phone wallet.

“No, it’s not,” he quips.

He takes my credit card out of the check folder.

I lose the argument. I haven’t won in weeks.

When we reach Kevin’s apartment, I flop onto his bed, too full to move.

My head pounds, and all I can think about

are cells immersed in hypotonic solutions.

When the osmotic imbalance is too extreme, the cell bursts from the excess water that rushes in.

My head feels like a cell ready to lyse.

I lay on my side and start crying because of the pain. Kevin cocoons me in his blanket and crouches beside me.

“Do you want water?” he asks.

I shake my head no. I don’t want to move.

Kevin brings me water anyway ­— hot water. He lifts my head and holds the mug to my lips, gently tilting it until I finish drinking.

“Ibuprofen?” he offers.

I nod. “Two, please.”

My cough has returned — the same cough that plagued me for most of freshman fall.

I stand over the toilet. It hurts when I cough, so I tie my hair back and hold my chest, waiting for the inevitable.

Kevin knocks on the bathroom door.

I don’t know how long I spend vomiting up tonight’s pasta. When I finish, I stand to brush my teeth, Kevin hugging me from behind.

“Are you feeling better?” he asks.

I smile and nod.

“Do you want more ibuprofen? I think you vomited it all out.”

I laugh. “No, thank you. Let’s go to sleep.”

“Good night,” I say.

“Night.”

A few minutes later, Kevin turns to face me and whispers, “I think I love you.”

Making it work at Dartmouth STORY

By Eliza Jane Schaeffer

For over 6,000 students, Dartmouth College is the institution to which they pay tuition and from which they receive an education. But for many of those students, the relationship is a little more complicated.

These students pay Dartmouth, but Dartmouth also pays them — to work.

Yumi Naruke ’20 spends a combined total of about 40 hours each week working as a dishwasher in the Class of ’53 Commons dish room, as a ticket seller for the Hopkins Center and as a tour guide for the Office of Admissions. “I’m SO busy” is an oft-repeated complaint at Dartmouth, but Naruke, who works the equivalent of a full time job while taking a full class load and involving herself in extracurricular activities (and sleeping, on occasion), truly understands the meaning of the word.

“There aren’t enough hours in a day or week to make up for the hours I spend behind the computer in the box office or cleaning plates in the dish room,” Naruke said.

She doesn’t feel like her grades have suffered due to her busy schedule, but she does feel like she can’t fully participate in the campus social scene; time that she could spend with friends she instead spends rushing from work to class to the library to work, leaving her exhausted and stressed.

“Many of my friends have observed that my schedule is always too full and that I

often seem stressed,” she explained.

Naruke’s case is unusual; on average, student employees work about 10 hours a week. This more manageable time commitment can provide structure to students’ days: Dartmouth students, with only three classes, have unprecedented freedom in designing their schedules. Heidi Ahn ’18, who works three two-hour shifts at the Allen House snack bar each week, finds that having a job has helped her organize her time.

“I work better when I have a lot of things going on because it’s easier for me to manage my time, so I feel like having a job on campus has given me a little more structure,” she said.

Ahn loves her job, which involves scanning students’ purchases and restocking shelves.

She particularly enjoys the opportunity she has to meet students she would not have otherwise gotten to know. Because House Center B is so centrally located — close to the library, the Green and Webster Avenue — she gets to interact with a fairly representative cross-section of Dartmouth’s student body.

Elisabeth Sanson ’20 has also enjoyed meeting new people through her job at Collis Market. She says her favorite part of her job has been hanging out with an older employee named Nancy who lives in the Upper Valley. The two have become very

close; Sanson said Nancy is sure to keep her updated on personal life and family drama.

“I never would have gotten to meet Nancy without my job, and now I would definitely count her as one of my best friends,” Sanson said.

Working at Collis Market has also taught Sanson to appreciate the value of money.

“I don’t go out to eat as much because I just spent an hour stocking raspberries; I don’t want to spend it all on five pieces of sushi,” she said.

Naruke also understands the value of money; she chose to work for Dartmouth Dining Services specifically because of the relatively higher pay, something that was attractive to her given Dartmouth’s oppressively high tuition rates.

“Helping my parents pay for my education is a responsibility I feel that I have coming from a low-income background,” she said.

That being said, she wishes that she didn’t have to feel embarrassed to work for DDS. She feels that a certain stigma is associated with working for the College’s dining services.

“The best way to describe this stigma is the shame I feel for some inexplicable reason when I tell someone I work in the [Class of ’53 Commons] dish room,” Naruke said.

“Oftentimes, the response will be a grimace or a sympathetic look with maybe an ‘Oh ... I’m sorry.’ People tend to think that DDS

workers are so desperate that they will subject themselves to ‘lowly’ work for pay, but DDS pays well and allows students to make money efficiently: less time, more money.”

Sanson said that she also deals with stigmas, albeit of a slightly different nature.

“People think you don’t do anything [working at Collis Market], but it is a lot of work,” she said. “It’s an actual job.”

It frustrates Sanson that fellow students view campus jobs as lesser than jobs in the “real” world, assuming that student workers spend their time getting paid to do homework. She is responsible for answering customers’ questions, scanning items and stocking shelves, much like an employee in a “real” grocery store.

According to Ahn, her job is much more than sitting at a counter and scanning food items.

“What I think is especially interesting about the snack bar is that it’s all student-run: pretty much all of the students order the food and there’s just one overhead supervisor,” she said. “I think it’s pretty awesome that we’re running our own DDS operation for other students, and we are students.”

People like Naruke, Sanson and Ahn are not only students, but also entrepreneurs, peers and employees whose responsibilities extend far beyond note-taking and problem sets.

8// MIRROR

Misconceptions on financial aid STORY

B y Mara Stewart

Dartmouth’s tuition costs over $250,000 including room and board, making it the 14th most expensive college in the United States. The cost of Dartmouth can deter people from attending or even applying in the first place. Although the tuition of Dartmouth can be a deterrent for families that have a child applying, students at Dartmouth don’t typically speak of financial aid openly. Many students don’t reveal their financial aid status, as some perceive the majority of students here to be incredibly wealthy. There is a widespread belief that most Dartmouth students went to elite private schools, have parents who own large, successful companies and do not receive financial aid. However, in reality, roughly 50 percent of Dartmouth students are on financial aid and the majority of students attended public high school.

I spoke to a random sample of students about the perceptions of financial aid at the College. Most who were interviewed falsely believed that over 70 percent of Dartmouth

students don’t receive financial aid, while in reality that statistic is around fifty percent.

Perhaps this is because many students who receive financial aid don’t readily discuss it.

Additionally, multiple students on financial aid believed they were at a disadvantage entering Dartmouth as the majority of students attended private high schools and had connections through their families. However, in reality, for the Class of 2021, 60 percent of the accepted students attended a public high school.

Not only do many students underestimate the percentage of the Dartmouth population receiving financial aid, but they also underestimate the amount of financial aid received by students. The majority of the interviewed students believed that students on financial aid received less than $20,000 per year. However, the average need-based grant for the Class of 2020 was $46,237 per person. In fact, $95 million in Dartmouth scholarships were distributed to students in the 2016-2017 academic year.

Tadeas Uhlir ’19 said that financial services were actually quite generous in giving aid, citing the reapplication process for financial aid as very simple and one of the key factors in making Dartmouth’s financial aid very malleable and generous.

After Dartmouth eliminated need blind admissions for international students, Uhlir, an international student from the Czech Republic, believes that he would not have been admitted to Dartmouth if he applied a year late. He believes that the elimination of need blind admission for international studies makes the international community less diverse. He said most of international students are very wealthy and that the elimination of need blind admission will make this community even more exclusive.

Emily Crocetti ’19 said she believes that there is a disproportionate number of wealthy students at Dartmouth. She added that many students come from structured, two-parent homes, and thus many students don’t experience the struggles of divorced

parents.

“They live in a bubble and they will never will know how the other 90 percent of the country lives,” she said.

Although many students underestimate the extent of financial aid, one must acknowledge the disproportionate number of wealthy students at Dartmouth. Many facts about the income disparity at Dartmouth astonish students: 20 percent of students have a joint household income of over $630,000 a year and the median family income of a student from Dartmouth is $200,400. Maybe after hearing statistics like this, students perpetuate their own biases by focusing on the wealthy aspects of the Dartmouth community.

One must acknowledge the multi-faceted nature of financial aid and wealth disparity at Dartmouth. Although many Dartmouth students are wealthy and the College is an expensive school, the majority of students are on financial aid, and those on financial aid typically receive over $40,000 of aid.

and faces wrinkled beyond their years. Sylvia’s blonde hair is muddy and brittle, Milo’s is gone altogether.

“Another!”

“Yes, another!”

They beg me for a new story. 5 o’clock has come to Nevada, standing on the threshold with feet shoulder-width apart and the saloon doors swinging behind him.

My parents are the two most in-love people but it is confused, whether they are in love with each other or both in love with the same thing, two bodies immersed in a medium. 5 o’clock used to be the hardest hour for alcoholics. Then 3. Then 12. Soon it becomes difficult enough to welcome the waking world.

They have so much in common that for a brief period of time they feared they were siblings, separated at birth. They are both orphans, both raised in the Midwest, both deathly allergic to tree nuts. When Sylvia discovered that they both had the same birthmark on their calves, they decided to get a DNA test, and only after the results came back negative did they marry.

They joke that upon their death their bodies will be preserved in alcohol. But here they are, ripe in their sixties and a year into another dry phase. They both worry that any slip at this point will be their last.

The two of them met at the Alcoholics Anonymous Dry Disco in the summer of ’79, in sizzling Topeka, Kansas. These were notoriously ungroovy events, held in the VFW Hall, decorated with flaccid crepe paper and plastic flowers. The fluorescent lights were all on, and the speaker system was so third-hand that if a dancer cha-cha’d or hustled with too much enthusiasm the song would skip and then stop and then Floyd, the A/V man at the VFW, would have to meddle with some wires until the music started up again. Floyd, who had served in the First World War, was missing five of his teeth and six of his fingers. But try to help him

and he’d ask you how many landmines you’d extracted, how many bombs you’d diffused, how many trenches you’d dug. If the answer was none, four-fingered Floyd would chase you out of the A/V booth for good. So the dancing was limited.

This particular AADD, s’79, T, KS, was held during a thunder storm. Someone had placed a bucket center-left of the dance floor, and four revelers were crowded around it, watching the drip of water from a crack in the ceiling. The music slowed and descended to a baritone, I had a one-step plan to –to –to -proooooooove. Diana Ross melted. The overheads dimmed and then shut off, leaving only the soft yellows and reds of the emergency lights. Rick was trying to continue the song a cappella from atop a wooden chair.

Rhonda stepped outside to the covered porch and sacrificed cigarette after cigarette to the winds. And Sylvia, in a low-backed, floor-length silver polyester number, entirely overdressed for the occasion, was nursing Sunny D in a plastic cup by the eastern window. She watched trees whipping sideways, hitting the ground with their branches, then straightening up again to bend in the other direction. Milo, in cargo pants and a polo shirt was at the western window, doing the same. The first punchy notes of a new song came over the speakers, and Milo, quite frankly done with the whole ordeal and sure that this would be his last AADD, took to the dancefloor and began sliding like a madman.

Sylvia lifted her dinner-plate eyes to apprehend the man who had apparently come drunk to the dry disco. He was all knees and elbows, shake and flail — she was sure he had more than two joints in his legs. And with some urge, out of pity or envy, Sylvia went up and joined him.

When their hands met, the following occurred, in this order: 1. Diana hit a high note, 2. The overhead lights came on, and 3. The roof of the VFW was torn clean off.

It wasn’t the first tornado to take the hall, and

it wouldn’t be the last. But still, they returned to Sylvia’s home and fell in love over the nectars of various tropical and subtropical fruits.

Pineapple juice: their childhoods (suburban, quiet). Guava juice: their adolescences (wet).

They fell asleep on Sylvia’s brand new futon, breathing in plastic wrapping, industrial foam and each other. The carrot-ginger sun glared into the single window on the eastern wall and reddened the insides of their eyelids. Milo promised to call and he did.

Back before I knew how to refuse, and before they learned to be secretive around me, I would mix their drinks. These three-person cocktail parties felt like the only authentic communication we had. They left rings on the mahogany sideboard, likening it to the starboard of a ship, so warped it became of liquid and salt.

Then one day I learned to say no, and they learned to move their evening drinking later, putting me to bed just as the sun went down.

From up the stairs I could hear the air escaping beer bottles, their laughs like hyenas and yawns like toads. I became less concerned with the fact that they were drinking and more with the fact that they had the most fun in my absence, in my oblivion, they believed. I feared they knew that I knew, and even more, I feared they did not care.

One of the saddest sights I’ve seen was the two of them dancing the tango to Donna Summer. I must’ve been 10 or 11, and I remember peeking between the balusters at the top of the staircase, holding my breath to keep silent. They went at a third of the pace they were supposed to, and the music was completely wrong, but my mother closed her eyes and leaned her head against my father’s chest and they swayed. He stood on tiptoes, with shoulders hunched forward and teeth bared in a smile; she stood with feet shoulder-width apart and a bend in the knees. Hyena and toad cavorting once more.

A Story Column

By Elise Wien

In my last column, I talked a bit about how I am comfortable moving forward in my life as a writer of fiction; the fact that our attachment to feeling is stronger than our attachment to fact comforts me. Fictions have repercussions in the “real world”: we do not traffic in lies but in the space between thought and action.

In the academy, there is a lot of prestige put on analysis, and a little on creation. The work of interpretation is creative to be sure, but only within certain bounds. At some point, I stop caring about the role fiction plays in our everyday, about hermeneutics versus erotics versus authorial intent. At some point, I just want to write it.

So, a story: A Thousand Nights in Desert Hope (An excerpt) When my parents plan their funeral it is always a joint affair, with two urns sitting neatly next to each other and ’80s dream-pop playing in the background. Neither of them considers what would happen if one died before the other.

They think about the occasion daily here at Desert Hope, which is kind of like rehab but not quite. It’s more the drying-off place. Like laundry, my parents have grown accustomed to cycles of dryness and saturation. They look like hand towels that have been wrung out over and over again. They are cradling Capri Suns, dripping mauve circles onto the downy white bedspread.

The room looks like a four-star hotel with thick oatmeal carpeting, brass fixtures and crisp white linens. The prints on the wall are of calm desert landscapes, with buttes and red rocks and empty, empty space.

My mother, Sylvia, and my father, Milo, have the duvet pulled up to their chins. Under the covers they rub feet. At first glance, the two of them look like just another layer of fabric on the bed, sack-like and horizontal, with glassy eyes