The Dartmouth 2/1/17 by The Dartmouth Newspaper

VOL. CLXXIV NO.20

SNOW HIGH 37 LOW 21

MIR ROR 2.1.2017

THE GAMES WE PLAY

WIEN: RUN AND SCREAM | 4

WHY GAME THEORY MATTERS | 5

THE ART OF PONG | 6-7 ISABELLA JACOBY/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

MIRROR

COLLIS TRIVIA BY THE MINUTE!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2017

Adam Wright ’17 Faculty protest travel ban found dead on Tuesday

By THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF Adam Wright ’17 was found dead Tuesday morning, College President Phil Hanlon wrote in a campus-wide email. The cause of death is currently undetermined, though a preliminary investigation revealed no foul play is involved, according to a Hanover Police Department press release. Wright had been missing from campus since shortly after midnight the morning of Monday, Jan. 30. He was 21. Wright’s body was found in the Connecticut River near the shore at approximately 9:57 a.m.

Tuesday morning, according to the press release. At 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Hanover Police Department received a call that a College employee had found a backpack along the river bank, about 500 yards north of the Ledyard Bridge. Hanover Police, the Hanover Fire Department and New Hampshire Fish and Game responded. An autopsy will be conducted later this week in Concord, and the investigation into Wright’s death is ongoing. SEE WRIGHT PAGE 2

PAGE 8

QUIET TIME IN QUIET SPACES THE ART OF PONG PAGES 6-7

GUO: KNIGHTS ON PLANET DART PAGE 5

WHY GAME THEORY MATTERS PAGE 4

WIEN: RUN AND SCREAM PAGE 4

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

MORGAN MOINIAN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Rauner Special Collections Library is displaying an exhibit highlighting experiences at the intersection of East Asia and the West.

KATELYN JONES/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

The Jewish studies program and religion department both protested the travel ban.

By DEBORA HYEMIN HAN The Dartmouth Staff

At the Committee of Chairs meeting this Monday, Dartmouth’s Jewish studies program and religion department both released statements protesting the executive order issued by President Donald Trump restricting immigration into the United States at the Committee of Chairs meeting this Monday. The statements call for the U.S. government to overturn the order, which bans entry of citizens from seven countries — Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen — for the next 90 days. The statements also denounce the burdens the order imposes on the functioning of the College in terms of student welfare as well as faculty agency and the ability to conduct scholarship. According to chair of the religion department Randall Balmer, the statement was released due to the order’s global ramifications as well as its effect on students, many of whom are directly affected by the order. He also noted that a current faculty member of the religion department is personally affected. Chair of the Jewish

studies program Susannah Heschel said that the problem of refugees and denying entry to the U.S. are issues that are central to the Jewish studies discipline and comes up “over and over again,” which is why there is an academic element to the statement. She also said that the executive order affects disciplines at Dartmouth that depend heavily on foreign students, graduate students, post-docs and faculty. Given the implications the order has regarding future employment of international faculty as well as the ability to do research in the field, the order prevents students from obtaining the best education possible. “Every student in the United States should be protesting and saying ‘You’re interfering with my education,’” she said. Heschel, who presented both departments’ statements at the meeting, said the overall reaction was positive and anticipates other departments will present similar statements in the future. She said she believes it is reassuring to both students and colleagues that they are “at the very least sympathetic and speaking up about this.” Heschel also said that department heads had

discussed potentially drafting a faculty-wide statement that is not discipline-specific, as opposed to the two that have been released. In a campus-wide email, College President Phil Hanlon and Provost Carolyn Dever addressed the executive order and its effect on campus, noting that Dartmouth has over 900 international students and more than 200 international faculty, scholars and staff. In the email, they endorsed the Office of Visa and Immigration Services’ recommendation for foreign nationals from the seven indicated countries to avoid all international travel, including to Canada, for the time being. Though expectations for the College were not written in either of the department’s statements, Heschel said she hopes that Hanlon and the administration will make a strong statement against the order. She said that Dartmouth must come together with other universities collectively as administrators, as faculty and as students. Heschel also said she recommends that the College invites New Hampshire SEE FACULTY PAGE 2

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

PAGE 2

Student found dead FROM WRIGHT PAGE 1

Wright, a government major, was the president of the International Business Council, a brother of Beta Alpha Omega fraternity and a member of the Dartmouth Humanitarian Engineering group. In a campus-wide email sent Monday evening, the College announced that Wright was missing from campus and asked those with information to contact the Hanover Police Department. In Hanlon’s Tuesday email,

he wrote that students, faculty and staff can speak to counselors through the Office of Counseling and Human Development, the College chaplain’s office, the dean on call and the Faculty/Employee Assistance Program. Safety and Security can help community members find assistance 24/7 and can be reached at (603) 646-4000. A full obituary will be published in the near future. If you would like to share a memory, please contact editor@ thedartmouth.com.

Faculty challenge ban FROM FACULTY PAGE 1

legislators to a general faculty meeting to ensure Dartmouth’s needs as a critical element of the state of New Hampshire are clear and apparent. “Our representatives in Congress, in Washington, have to act on our behalf … That means not hindering faculty from coming to teach here, students from coming to study here. That’s their obligation. That’s their job,” she said. Balmer also encourages Hanlon to make a strong statement, though he indicated his sympathy for the “quandary” Hanlon is faced with. “If he takes a position that some people regard as partisan, then he risks alienating important constituencies at Dartmouth,” he said. Some of the faculty, such as Balmer, believe that there are more questionable events to come in the future. “There was a sense that, ‘This is not going to be the last time that actions from the White House will merit a response or a protestation,’” he said. Because of this, Balmer mentioned that at the meeting, there was a preliminary, but not decisive, conversation about developing a mechanism that would allow Dartmouth faculty and staff to respond in a timely manner to “some of the outrages coming out of Washington.” Saleha Irfan ’19, an international student from Pakistan, said that she appreciated the administration’s actions in response to the order, noting support from deans and professors for international students was helpful, especially in a time where the rest of the community seemed to “pretty much go on with their lives.” For Irfan and other international students, the order has already affected plans for spring break and future aspirations to study abroad through Dartmouth’s foreign studies programs and other organizations that sponsor

international travel. Irfan recently cancelled a trip to Cuba for this upcoming spring break after being advised not to travel outside the U.S. as a measure to guard against the possibility that Pakistan will be added to the list of sanctioned countries. Irfan said she has had to consider a plan of action that involves either staying in the U.S. for the rest of her academic career at Dartmouth or going home to her family. She also said she can imagine the difficulty for first-year students in particular, who would have to make a decision that could last for four years. As an international student, Irfan was most saddened with the lack of student response to the actions, which she described generally as lukewarm. “There was no meeting called, there was no message from student assembly, there was practically nothing from the International Students Association, and I think that’s pretty ridiculous considering, you know, Dartmouth’s supposed to be this diverse, inclusive community,” she said. She hopes to see more student involvement as well as continued support from the administration. Balmer also would like to see more movement from the community, citing the Women’s March as an example of how individuals can mobilize together. Heschel suggests that students use civic engagement and exercise voting powers to make a statement against the order and against any other possible actions from the incoming administration. “I think we can say very clearly, for example, ‘I will never vote for the Republican party if this is party policy. You’re [going to] lose a generation because ... you’ve interfered with the education of my fellow students, my friends, because at Dartmouth everybody is here together ... as a community,’” she said.

CORRECTIONS We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2017

MIR ROR 2.1.2017

THE GAMES WE PLAY

WIEN: RUN AND SCREAM | 4

WHY GAME THEORY MATTERS | 5

THE ART OF PONG | 6-7 ISABELLA JACOBY/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

4 //MIRR OR

Editors’ Note

Run Byand scream Elise Wien COLUMN

What is the shape of your woe? What is the container that holds it?

We’re all out of words today. A bunch of editors with nothing to say is a rare thing, so instead, we’re giving hugs and smiles and encouraging pats on the head. These are small gestures, but they make us all feel a little bit less alone. There’s not much we can say to make those around us feel loved, but that doesn’t mean we’ll stop trying. Campus is a little bit dimmer today, missing the light of our classmate and friend. To distract yourself from the sometimes senseless nature of being alive, turn the page to read about the games we play. Then, maybe go play something yourself — set up a round of pong with friends or check out a board game from Collis. Life is too precious and too short not to treasure. So play on! And if you ever need 3, we’ve got you covered.

follow @thedmirror 2.1.17 VOL. CLXXIV NO. 20 MIRROR EDITORS MICHAELA LEDOUX ALEXANDRA PATTILLO LUCY TANTUM EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RAY LU

PUBLISHER RACHEL DECHIARA

EXECUTIVE EDITOR ERIN LEE

Round 1: Take your woe out of its box. If it has the potential to break into shards, use caution. If it’s sticky use gloves. Sitting in a circle, pass your woe to the person on your left. If eligible, crack the woe on top of your head and let the yolk run over your eyes. Lie down and hold it over your chest. The game is this: Your (brown) friends with visas may not be able to return to school. Your sister works at a federal institution that supports refugees. Like most federal employees, she probably has to follow orders rather than get fired. She reminds you that there are other refugee groups that don’t fall into this ban. There are still tens of thousands of people that the U.S. could accept even with the limitations. The game is one of forgetting, or remembering selectively. The game is that on Holocaust Remembrance Day, a whole religious group is barred entrance to the U.S. Your grandfather escaped Austria and came to the U.S. via England, where he changed his last name from Schaier to Shire to sound less Jewish. He was able to come over, then your mother was born, then you were born and the game is this is happening again. The situation is an alarming thing, and the fact that one can only make so many phone calls is disheartening. There is a tug-of-war, this tension between urgency and helplessness. You talk to your sister and she is hopeful, at least, that the national parks are practicing resistance. After all, they are the ones with the mountain lions. A man dissolved in Yellowstone a few months back. You try to do your reading, but there is a tightness in your chest that makes it difficult to breathe. You feel empathy, for a moment, for those in countries that did not accept Jews in the 1940s. Not because you agree, but because you imagine what you’re feeling is something like what citizens of those countries felt. Emotion is the only marker of chronology. You try calling your representatives, and calling their representatives but the chain of command is so long and distorted you know the message gets lost at some point. The game makes the woe heavier, and it sits in the area behind the ribcage, which feels scooped out by a thousand mini melon ballers.

The game is this: you study history and you’re told to never forget it, and when time comes to remember there’s little you can do about it. You call and march and donate but the tightness in your chest remains. Round 2: This game is called Safe House, and it’s played in a replica of the womb. The lighting is a glow whose source cannot be located, and the pitch is made of soft fabric. Safety is feminized and I want to be proud to embody that. In the absence of security based in reality, let’s go back. Here are things that are threats: the U.S. going underwater, oil spills, a progressively worsening public education system, gun violence, car crashes, cancer. Here are things that are not: people leaving violence in search for a better life. If danger is a mode of control, a vague danger that hangs around us like a fog, with no bearing on reality, is feeling safe the greatest form of resistance? Maybe it’s a false sense of security, but then again what is a “real” sense of security? A sense doesn’t come to us as a fact or fiction; it just comes. This isn’t particularly good advice: feel safe. It’s like when someone tells you not to worry and you have to be like, “Oh, thank you, Sharon, I hadn’t thought of that tactic. I’ll just not worry.” What is the game that can make you feel at peace? Not to say at peace with the overall situation but to take moments of reprieve between the urgent matters that will burn us out faster than we’d like. What are the moments of peace in these periods? Call your mother, float in water, listen to music in a different language, so none of the words have any weight or relation to policy. Games are lovely because they allow us to pour our energy into something low-stakes. Winning or losing isn’t consequential. At my summer camp we’d play a game called Run and Scream. The premise was this: we would line up in the field, and when they were given the “go,” we would run as fast as we can while screaming, and when we ran out of breath we’d stopped running. Whoever made it the farthest was the winner. This place is a hard place to be in, but I want you to be here in some form. Even if it takes doing laps around the green, running and screaming, screaming and running, please give it a try. I’m here to join you.

Why game theory matters STORY

By Andrew Sosanya

As humans, we do not always make the best decisions or act in the best interest of others. Our actions lead to friendship, conflict or even betrayal. What if our decisionmaking could be predicted? What if it could be written down in a matrix? Game theory can do just that. Game theory is a framework to study the economic and social interactions among individuals, where individuals typically act in their own self-interest to maximize their pay-offs. Individuals’ decisions depend on the decisions of others, and game theory studies that interdependence. Games can be designed using a mathematical model. One common model is a matrix, which can be as simple as representing a two-by-two game featuring two players interacting with each other or as complex as a 1000by-1000 multiplayer game. Game theory can be used to predict all sorts of situations, even the outcomes of finally saying “I love you” to a significant other. Government professor and quantitative social science program chair Michael Herron teaches Government 18, “Introduction to Game Theory.” Herron says that game theory is present in everyday life. “The idea of cooperation and conflict exist everywhere,” Herron said. “People who never take a

game theory class never formally use game theory, but they use the intuition.” Sometimes our instincts stemming from game theory lead to catastrophic decision-making. However, more often, this intuition serves us well and keeps the world moving. Mathematics professor Feng Fu teaches Math 76.01, “Evolutionary Game Dynamics”. His research combines evolutionary game theory models with empirical data to improve our understanding of real-world cooperation problems, such as climate change, vaccine compliance and antibiotics overuse. Fu works as part of research team led by the consulting company Gallup Inc and sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. Alongside a team of researchers, Fu works on a Next Generation Social Sciences project related to the emergence of collective identities. With this team, Fu uses game theoretical models to study how terrorist groups act as collective identities on various social media platforms such as SEE GAME THEORY PAGE 5

Faculty talk game theory Knights on Planet Dart

MIRROR //5

FROM GAME THEORY PAGE 4

COLUMN

#TRENDING

Twitter. This research includes exploration of “in-group bias” and “out-group hatred,” in which individuals in a group act favorably toward their conglomerates and discriminate against outsiders. That’s not all — Fu’s research also uses evolutionary game theory dynamics to study super-bugs and multi-drug resistant bacteria that are the result of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. The abuse of antibiotics is a classic example of “tragedy of the commons,” the theory that individuals acting in their own self-interest will deplete the shared resources of the collective. Fu explained how patients want to take the best possible drugs, but in doing so, make those drugs less effective. Within this context, game theory would recommend more stringent regulation of prescribing antibiotics within the health system Game theory is important because the decisions we collectively make impact society for better or for worse. It allows us to sort out the convoluted network of real-world cooperation and conflict and predict social dilemmas. These predictive models can be validated with

empirical evidence. Fu says that game theory models are simple, yet have profound impacts on elucidating some of the most challenging problems, such as understanding human collaboration. Climate change is one of the real-world issues that greatly benefits from applying game theory. The choices of turning off our lights, unplugging our devices and recycling all seem minuscule on an individual level, but on a collective scale, these sacrifices of personal convenience result in a bigger payoff in mitigating climate change. “Climate change is a game we cannot afford to lose,” Fu said. While theoretical models can predict rational decision-making, people aren’t always rational. We can learn a lot from knowing more about how our decisions affect others. Fu explained that the goal of evolutionary game theory is to promote cooperation between all parties—not only humans, but plants, animals and microbes as well. “You never lose by being kind and generous,” Fu said. “We don’t want hate among us. We want love.”

PUPPIES IN RUSH SEMI DATES SWEATERS CRUSHES Invite someone Enough said.

You went to Peru? who you “semi” like. I WENT TO PERU!

By Clara Guo

The day Dhruv and I created “Geo fun with Dhruv” was the day we sat next to each other in geosystems class during senior year of high school, terribly bored, having just finished a lab assignment that was supposed to teach us about wind patterns or rock formations. Four years later, I can’t even tell you which way the water is supposed to swirl when you flush in the Northern Hemisphere. The first line of the Google document reads, “Once upon a time, there was a princess called Diego.” I wrote in purple and Dhruv in black; we alternated colors with each sentence or paragraph until our absurdity culminated in the following: “And they all lived happily ever after until the puppies died, the blessing of the Gods slowly dying in strength with the passing of eons.” I tried to recreate a similar alternating storyline this past weekend with my friend Kevin, who was visiting from Boston. The game? “After you read the previous sentence, write the first thought that pops into your head.” “The Musings” (also known as “Passing my laptop back-and-forth hoping that a story will naturally erupt from our rusty preliminary alternations”): CG: Give me a sentence — any sentence at all. KW: Does it have to be non-sexual? Pause. I hope not. CG: Well. My parents read this. And my younger sister. And it’d be quite a shock for them if all of a sudden my writing became better suited for Incognito mode. So we should limit this storyline to PG (absolute maximum PG-13). Maybe we should stick to puppies or rainbows or babies. Those are all quite appropriate and fun. KW: I miss my puppy. He’s actually not a puppy since he’s 5 years old, but he acts like a baby. He and my 18-monthold niece don’t get along since they’re about the same size and my puppy gets jealous when my niece gets all the attention. CG: I would love to be a preschool or kindergarten teacher. I’d basically be like Lily in “How I Met Your Mother,” except I’d never introduce my Marshallequivalent to my kids. KW: Which do you like more, “Friends” or “How I Met Your Mother?” CG: “Friends.” Question: Were they on a break? KW: Yes they were on a break, but that doesn’t justify Ross sleeping with someone else. But Rachel can’t only be into Ross when he is with someone else… CG: You know what I’ve been thinking about recently? “The Little Prince.” “I showed my masterpiece [Drawing Number One] to the grownups and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. But they answered: ‘Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?’ My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa

constrictor digesting an elephant.” KW: That is your favorite book. I don’t remember it much, but it’s fun how the same thing can be interpreted in so many different ways. CG: The neuroscience major in me wants to mention that plasticity decreases with age. What’s the strangest function you can think of for a paper clip? KW: Hm. Connecting them together and making a piece of clothing. CW: Reminds me of chainmail. I’ve always wanted to learn how to use a lance. But if one has to be a knight to wield a lance, then I clearly wouldn’t qualify because I am much too physically uncoordinated and weak. I also can’t ride a horse. KW: But nowadays you don’t have to be physically strong to be a knight. The Queen knights scientists from the Royal Society all the time. So if you learn to use a lance, you would probably be the only scientist who actually knows how to use one. And we should go horseback riding — I think you’d like it. “The Story” (also known as “The [successful?] culmination of our imaginations into a cliché first sentence followed by ambiguous phrases thereafter”): CG: Once upon a time, there was a knight. He dressed in chainmail made of condensed paper clips and rode a midnight black horse with silver manes. KW: And he was in love with a princess with long blonde hair who wore a long pink dress. The only obstacle that stood in his way was her parents. CG: Her parents were aliens. They were from the planet “Dart” that held Hunger Games-like events at the beginning of every lunar New Year. The first event? Pong. KW: “Real” pong or Beirut? CG: “Real” pong, obviously. Beirut was played by their rival planet, Red. KW: Why do they hate the planet Red? CG: It’s a long and complicated history, rooted in the all-too-typical power struggle that sought to retain the best and brightest. But — alas — we digress. The winners of the pong tournament, each game played with 11 cups, progressed to the next stage. KW: I thought there are 10 cups in a pyramid… CG: Ah, yes. But the pyramid must have a center, a cup that rests between the middle two cups of the four-cup base to create a tree. KW: Is stage two a dance-off on tables? CG: Stage two is a dance born of endurance and not of skill. Reminiscent of the Homecoming, Winter Carnival and Green Key days — only practiced seniors will be successful. KW: With the exception of Sir Mix-A-Lot — I heard he won the dance off as a freshman and was quickly knighted for his prowess on the pong dance tables. And is there a final stage? CG: Of course. All famous events must be completed in threes. But the public is not privy to the details of the Final. Only those who have struggled through the 10 days of stages one and two are granted access to a game born of knowledge. Many will fail, unable to reach the “Median” barrier. Those who surpass it, who race toward it and jump across the “Pond,” will be crowned. KW: And that’s the story of how the knight in paper clip chainmail won the approval of the princess’ parents. They moved to the alien planet “Knicks,” where the cozy living environment was only suitable to accommodate the couple and their pet plant Joyce. The three of them lived happily ever after.

6// MIRROR

The art of pong Masterpiece or glorified piece of wood? STORY

By Cristian Cano

Step into the basement of a fraternity or sorority, and more often than not, you’ll find pong tables. Dartmouth beer pong is a game which uses handle-less paddles and plant-inspired cup formations, distinguishing it from the “Beirut” of other college campuses. If you take a close look at the tables themselves, you’ll see that each one is outfitted with a custom paint job reflecting the culture of its house. The Dartmouth spoke to members of different Greek houses to learn more about this artistic tradition. Ted Poatsy ’17, president of Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity, elaborated on how members begin the process of designing a table. “A lot of our designs are just things that people see or are inspired by and think would make a good piece of art,” Poatsy said. For example, one of the pong tables at Tri-Kap is inspired by Nike’s “Jumpman” logo, which the company uses for its Air Jordan shoes. Modifying the logo to match its environment, the fraternity replaced the basketball in Michael Jordan’s hand with a pong paddle, and the table’s design includes a pillar and a shield, two symbols important to Tri-Kap’s history. Poatsy also discussed how often new tables are made. While TriKap’s members usually paint at least one new table a year, in this year alone they have already made six. Tables break with a degree of regularity, especially if they were not secured properly during the construction process. In fact, one Tri-Kap table was recently broken on its very first night of use. Whenever Tri-Kap paints a new table, they use new wood instead of painting over an old design. “Usually when we get rid of a table, it’s because it has become warped and the wood is no longer good,” Poatsy said. “Keeping [the surface of a table] flat is so important. It’s really important that you get a nice, clean coat [of paint] on each one.” At Tri-Kap, while some tables are simply painted by its collective body of members, others are painted by certain class years. This is true for many of the other Greek houses as well. Lizzy Jones ’17, a member of Sigma Delta sorority, discussed how one table in particular, inspired by Frida Kahlo, was painted by members of all class years. Most others, however, are painted by a certain year. “The sophomores [paint a new table] every year,” Jones said. Sophomore summer is an ideal time to paint a table because it

is the first time since rush that, barring special exceptions, every student from a certain year is required to be on campus. During that time, members of Greek houses can bond with others in their class and in their house, and fond memories are often associated with the sophomore summer pong tables. Sara Winfrey ’17, a member of Chi Delta sorority, highlighted how during her sophomore summer, she and other members of Chi-Delt decided to paint a Monopoly-themed pong table. She said that it was a way to commemorate the memorable events of sophomore summer. Pointing to each square of the Monopoly board, she explained its significance. One of the more unique squares was a tribute to her sorority’s experience at a blueberry farm. “One [Chi-Delt member in the Class of 2017] lives on a blueberry farm in New Hampshire, so one day we all drove there,” Winfrey said. “We picked blueberries, and her family made us dinner, and it was so lovely.” That table was actually Chi-Delt’s first, as it was painted during the first summer since the sorority ended its national affiliation with Delta Delta Delta sorority. For several fraternities and sororities, pong tables capture the history of the house in an artistic way. Eamon Murphy ’17, president of Bones Gate fraternity, indicated how various tables, both those currently in use and those preserved on the basement walls, were linked through small bits of BG’s culture. “The ladle is a recurring motif throughout all of [the tables at BG],” Murphy said. Another example of thematic continuity in BG’s pong tables is the emulation of certain artists’ works. Works by Salvador Dalí, Albrecht Dürer and M.C. Escher have all been inspirations for tables at BG. Murphy’s older brother, who was BG’s president several years ago, even used a projector to accurately trace a scene from Maurice Sendak’s book “Where the Wild Things Are.” Each Greek house at Dartmouth has a certain atmosphere associated with it, and as demonstrated by the interviewees, members work very hard to capture that atmosphere in the artwork of their pong tables. Whether painted by a single member, a specific class or by the entire house, the art of pong tables both reflects and becomes part of each house’s culture.

MIRROR //7

LAURA LEWIN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Pong tables, clockwise from top right: Sigma Delta, Phi Delta Alpha, Bones Gate (three), Kappa Kappa Kappa LUCY TANTUM/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

8// MIRROR

In the interest of finding out a bit more about one of the games offered on campus, I decided to gather up a group of friends to participate in Collis’ Tuesday Night Trivia. This pub-style trivia is offered every Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. The game consists of five rounds, each focused on a certain topic, with eight questions per round. The organizers try to make topics timely, drawing inspiration for categories from upcoming holidays and recent events like award shows. First, second and third place teams win gift cards to local businesses for each member, and pizza is available for all players. Mychaela Anderson ’20 helps organize the trivia nights. She will take over planning the event next term under her chosen title of “Trivia Czar Star Overlord.” “The goal is to not make questions so specific that people just give up,” Anderson said. “It should be so that if you actually think about it and go with your best guess, you should be able to get close.” For Anderson, trivia night isn’t about the prizes. “Come, try your best and learn something new,” she said. “It’s supposed to be a very chill event so just come to have fun.” Coming into this challenge I was perhaps a bit overconfident. I am, after all, the sort of person who watched “Jeopardy” every weeknight for years. However, I woefully overestimated my knowledge of goats and Vladimir Putin. Below is a minute-by-minute record of my experience.

200

7:35 p.m. We are a few minutes late. The game is about to start, and every seat is taken. My friend, Jesus Franco ’20, and I hastily form a team with the only other two people we recognize in the room. The first round is all about the names

0 0 4 $

0 0 6 $ 0

for animal groupings. 7:44 p.m. What do you call a group of wombats? A womble? 7:48 p.m. A wisdom. A group of wombats is called a wisdom. We all nod and pretend that makes sense. 7:49 p.m. Our team name is #No DAPL. I did not choose this. The best team name of the night is “I thought this was speed dating.” Round 2 is all about goats. 7:53 p.m. Question eight: How old was the oldest goat?

0 0 $2

7:55 p.m. We are failures, and we know it. The next question is “Who brought goats to America?” Our answer? “The white man.” 8:01 p.m. The group has fallen into silence as we wait for the scores to be tallied. 8:02 p.m. We are not in last place! A team called “The Winners” is in last place.

0 0 $4

8:04 p.m. Half of our team abandons us. It’s just Jesus and me now. Do we even count as a team? This round is all about Vladimir Putin.

8:24 p.m. Kara was right. It was Avril Lavigne, not Reese Witherspoon. Round 5 is all about board games, entitled “You played yourself.”

8:08 p.m. Question five asks which apostle of a sect of the Russian Orthodox Church, called the Chapel of Russia’s Resurrection, believes that Putin is a reincarnation of. Jesus asks what apostles are. “They’re the guys who followed Jesus, I think,” I say. “I have like 500 Twitter followers,” he says.

0 0 2 $

8:29 p.m. We are really struggling this round. None of us knew what the word “jenga” meant. I confused Raul and Fidel Castro.

0 0 2 $

8:30 p.m. We overhear an answer from another team. We glance at each other and decide wordlessly not to steal it.

8:10 p.m. We suspect the guy standing next to us is a spy from another group. Jesus loudly says the wrong answer in an attempt to mislead him.

8:33 p.m. I start to wonder if my friends resent me for insisting they come play trivia with me.

8:12 p.m. What is Putin’s favorite literary genre? 8:14 p.m. I am paranoid that the other groups are googling answers. I briefly consider doing the same.

8:17 p.m. My roommate, Kara Powell ’20, arrives to join our team. The timing is perfect; she is really good at this round.

8:06 p.m. There is a group of people who look

8:20 p.m. We argue over whether one picture is

0 0 $8

0 4 $

8:34 p.m. Jesus: “We should have cheated.”

0 0 4 $

8:15 p.m. The round’s answers are read aloud. Jesus and I high-five for each correct answer. Round four is titled “Faces only a mother could love.” We are shown high school yearbook photos and have to guess which celebrity is the subject of each.

8:05 p.m. We find seating at an empty table with a single chair. I sit on the table.

0 0 $6

of Reese Witherspoon. I am convinced. Kara is not.

like they are trying to study. I cannot understand why they would try to get any work done here. The trivia players’ excited chatter is pretty loud.

8:38 p.m. Final scores are in! We came in fifth, not high enough to win a prize. The two teams tied for first play a tiebreaker as everyone else shuffles out leisurely. 8:39 p.m. The table I am sitting on tips over as I try to leave. My friends laugh.

8:41 p.m. We resolve to give trivia another try in the future, convinced that with a carefully chosen team of our friends we can actually win a prize. Fifth place wasn’t bad for a first try, however. I am pleased with our performance. If I do this again, I’ll definitely come early to get a seat on the couches and first dibs on the pizza.

0 0 6 $

0 0 8 $