MIRROR 04.17.2015
Overlapping Lovers|2
Strangers Share their Stories|3
friendships, Despite Borders|4-5
Shh... Tell Us your secrets|8 Shuoqi Chen/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
2// MIRROR
When Lovers Overlap
EDITOR’S NOTE
SPOTLIGHT
Mirror readers, Mirror readers, the end of your agony approaches! It’s over — it’s all over! Extinguish the paper shredders. Put away your scissors. You’ll no longer need to spend your weeks doubled over in pain. There are some memories too difficult to repress — and memories of the poorly-constructed schlock you’ve been saddled with each week certainly don’t fade with age. The pen is undoubtedly mightier than the sword, but a pen brandished by an idiot is slightly less mighty than you may think. But rejoice, for the end is nigh. This permutation of the Editor’s Note is on its way out. No, I’m not going anywhere. But my editors — wise, loyal, brilliant and true — realized that the easiest way to shackle this beast is to force an unwitting soul to do the handcuffing for them. (Ooh, “shackle” and “handcuff” in one sentence — what is this, 50 Shades of Gray?) Maddie Brown ’16 — of “Finding Your Unicorn” fame — will be joining me to edit this magazine together. She’s well-prepared for the task — as well-prepared as one can be — but still, send her your prayers. The upshot? You won’t have to read one of these Notes penned by me alone ever again. It is deeply fitting that my last solo Editor’s Note accompanies a magazine devoted to sharing. Sharing secrets, homes or even hookups can be unwieldy and deeply difficult. But doing so also brings certain rewards. I’ve grown a great deal sharing this column each week. Thank you for bearing with me.
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MIRROR R MIRROR EDITOR CHARLIE RAFKIN
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF KATIE McKAY
PUBLISHER JUSTIN LEVINE
EXECUTIVE EDITORS LUKE McCANN JESSICA AVITABILE
Sharing is caring, right?
B y Maddie Brown and Maggie Shields
Thou shalt not commit tripcest. Thou shalt not commit floorcest. Thou shalt not commit Writing 5-cest. The College, as many of us discover shortly into our time here, is a small school. It can often be nearly impossible to avoid seeing someone for too long, and while there’s no small number of diverse social circles, there’s bound to be some overlap. With everyone seeming to know almost everyone else, this list of prohibitions can go on and on: Thou shalt not commit teamcest. Thou shalt not hook up with your friend’s ex. Thou shalt not canoodle with your TA... But why the taboos? Are they really about protecting ourselves from awkward situations or are they there to protect our community’s delicate group dynamics? Despite the warnings we receive from trip leaders, friends and upperclassmen having a love interest or intimate encounter with someone in the same social circle is nearly inevitable. Scientists agree. Tierra Lynch ’16 — premed, EMT and biology expert — described how biological instincts can lead to sharing hookups within groups. “People are more inclined to date and hookup in their friend groups and social circles because that’s where they spend the majority of time, and they are surrounded by people with similar interests,” she said. “You are attracted to people who are similar to you, who you connect with.” Lynch’s theory seems logical, as the people who we spend the most time with are likely the ones we’re also squeezing into a twin bed with. With such a small pool of people to choose from, though, some students also mentioned the situations in which they’ve shared their bed with the same person as their friends. “Oh god. Everyone of my friends and I are eskimo sisters,” Penelope Williams ’16 said. “It just seems kind of inevitable to me.” Situations in which we’re sharing our romantic lives with our closest friends can easily introduce some hostility, jealousy or simple awkwardness into the relationship. The dynamics, Alex Marsh ’17 said, depend on the situation. “I think it can either be positive or negative,” he said. “It can either build or destroy relationships — it’s a small school and we see a lot of the same people everyday.” Because students often interact with the same people, the sense of anonymity in hookups can be lost. Zachary Schnell ’18 explained how students often know some of the more intimate details of others’ lives, including who they may have been involved with in the past. He said that a friend of his was once considering
So what are these “good things” that I should share?
whether or not to go out with a man whom she didn’t know well, but she was dissuaded by other friends who didn’t approve of him. “It’s just such a small community and you see so many people everywhere and you overlap with everyone in some context,” he said. For LGBTQ students, the College’s dating pool can be particularly limited. With a fewer number of potential partners, it can become much easier for these interwoven connection to arise and be publicly known. Akash Kar ’16 said that he feels this phenomenon has hurt that campus community. “I think one of the difficulties is that it becomes so toxic because it is such a small community,” he said. “I think it starts to create a bit of distrust, and I think when that becomes so commonplace you kind of lose aspects of the community. That’s one of the difficulties of it.” Natalie Mueller ’18 agrees that the College’s limited size makes it more difficult to avoid your past. “At Dartmouth, if you have a one night stand or something like that, you are definitely going to see them at some point, whereas at others schools you are not very likely to,” she said. Sociology professor Kathryn Lively distinguished hooking up that crosses group lines from polyamory. For Lively, polyamory implies that people have multiple “relationships” at once — which implies an emotional bond that she does not see in casual flings here. “I’m not sure if [polyamory] is what’s happening here because its almost like you’re having sex with people but not the relationship that goes along with it,” she said. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Abigail Rohman ’16 says that she feels closer to her friends when they compare notes on a hook-up they shared. “It’s kind of like a story we can share,” she said. Williams agreed that friends are often lighthearted about sharing this aspect of their love lives. While we interviewed her, she and her friend discovered they had hooked up with the same guy and high fived each other. “If it’s not something that’s serious — if it’s not a long-running relationship — then it’s definitely a high-five sort of culture,” she said. She noted that the reaction might seem “shallow,” but that one wouldn’t expect anything different — after all, there isn’t much emotional investment. When social webs become tangled, though, individuals, friends and entire
Is it actually not safe to share in-ear headphones?
Wrong. While there are definitely Share pizza — no one likes a pizza hog. Also, some things that are good to share, share your photos! I find it very annoying Sharing headphones is disgusting. there are many things you should when people take super cute pictures and Have you ever closely inspected your keep to yourself. For star ters, then never share them with anyone. I ear buds and discovered small globs of you should never share needles. always think it’s better late then never, earwax wedged into the tiny holes? Well I Other things you probably shouldn’t so you should definitely upload all have and it’s absolutely repulsive to imagine share include razor blades, clickers, of those photobooth pictures from someone else’s earwax in my ear. Not only is bequests, mascara, drinks, passwords, freshman fall #tbt. Share stories, it gross, but it can also cause increased bacteria toothbrushes and headphones. recipes, friends, ideas and music. in your ear canal (ew). You can even get ear maggots. EAR MAGGOTS!
groups can face the repercussions. Williams explained how a love triangle within one of her social circles made her feel awkward — even though she was neither the base nor the hypotenuse of the triangle. “It’s weird for me because I don’t feel like I have a greater loyalty to one or the other because I’m friends with them both,” she said. “Because emotions are involved in this case, it’s definitely a little bit awkward for me because I feel like I can’t be talking to one or the other if the other friend is present.” On sports teams, where success rides on strong team dynamics, shared hookups can create awkward situations. This shared awkwardness, however, can also strengthen the team dynamics. Clare Detrick-Yee ’16, who plays women’s field hockey, explained how this can become a fun thing for the team to joke about. “It doesn’t make practice awkward, but there are awkward locker room conversations after,” she said. “But in the end it becomes a team joke.” Lively explained that sharing a hookup may help friends bond, but overlap in lovers does not necessarily strengthen the entire community. “At the same time, you’re creating an us-against-them scenario,” she said. By contrast, polyamory — and its emphasis on communication — “actually really bring[s] communities together,” she said. Polyamory, she noted, requires a certain honesty and thoughtfulness. In fact she thinks the College’s version of shared dating can be harmful. Women, she said, can be met with different “social consequences” for hooking up than men, which can damage community ties. Of course, there’s a little more to student life than sports teams and clubs — namely, there’s the classroom. When students share amorous connections, the classroom dynamic can shift — people might feel more comfortable sharing, but sultry scandals can also render students more self-conscious or likely to sit in the last seat of the last row for quick escape. Rohman ’16 agreed that hooking up with a student in her class created an awkward situation. “It certainly wasn’t beneficial,” she said. We know that it is not uncommon for students within the same social circles to be entangled in love triangles, squares, hexagons and webs. A sweltering tryst might bring group bonding or awkwardness alike — and while we should expect shared hookups to remain fixtures of the campus landscape, we can also hope that conscientious hookups might reduce the cumbersome interactions that follow.
Strangers Share Their Stories SPOTLIGHT
B y mary liza hartong
As children we are asked to share all the time. We’re asked to share toys with our friends, clothes with our younger siblings and tents with our fellow campfire scouts. As college students, however, we are rarely asked to share anything but a one-room double. We’ve got our own computers and our own sneakers — everything we need to be completely self-sufficient so that we don’t have to share with anyone unless we want to. This week I’m asking people to do just that, to share a little bit of themselves. Going into this assignment of asking students to share personal and intimate details with me, I thought the worst-case scenario would be getting short answers and general information. I care about dogs, my mother’s name is Sandra, yada, yada, yada. I feared I might have to poke and prod these folks until they stomped off in protest. Yet, I found that even with questions that seemed trivial, my guinea pigs were always willing to give me true answers. They bared their souls to me in KAF, and now they bare their souls to you. Tread softly because you tread on their souls. David Garcia ’16 What is your happiest memory at Dartmouth? DG: When I was moving out freshman spring, my dad and I were finishing putting everything in the car and he went downstairs to put the last box in the car. He said, “I’ll give you a minute.” I looked around. It was my room in Russell Sage. I was the last one to move out of our triple. I was like, “Wow, it went by really fast.” There was a lot to take in. I had made some friends that I thought I would be with forever. I had taken some really cool classes that challenged what I wanted to do with my life. There were a lot of questions in my head as to what I wanted to do with my life, how I wanted to spend it, what I wanted to major in. I was nervous for a time, obviously with all these new questions. But I thought to myself, it’s aright. I don’t think it’s expected of me to have all these answers to the questions. What’s something you’re proud of that others might not know about? DG: I’m really proud of my trumpet skills — I did really well in my high school. I played first chair sophomore year after I challenged an upperclassman who wasn’t trying very hard. I loved playing jazz. I also played orchestra and classical music. That’s something I haven’t unfortunately kept up with at Dartmouth. What I did in high school was a lot of energy and a lot of enthusiasm. I remember my teacher used to tell me, “Stop playing so loud.” I just loved filling the room with sound. I guess I was a little cocky. Not playing freshman year and trying to pick it up again sophomore year was really difficult but it’s something that I really enjoy doing. I stopped because I wanted
to come to Dartmouth with a clean slate. I wanted to try things I hadn’t been exposed to in my hometown. I also felt like I had been doing it as a routine because I had been doing it since fourth grade. I wanted to reevaluate if I enjoyed doing it or if I was just doing it because I had been doing it for so long. Katie Botta ’17 When was the last time you cried? KB: The last time I cried was last Saturday morning because I had had a rough night. I felt kind of dumb and upset about what had happened. Also, I had gotten locked out of my room, and my phone died when I was climbing the stairs so I couldn’t call my roommate. So I was just sitting outside in the hallway crying. Luckily my roommate had good timing and had to go to the bathroom. She saw that I was upset and really helped me out. Basically it got better once I showered. What do you think your life will look like in 10 years? KB: Well I know I want to have a cat by then. I’ve always wanted to have a cat but everyone in my family is allergic. I want to still be with my boyfriend. I’ll wake up. I’ll make breakfast. I’ll go to work, as a doctor. It’s unclear at the moment what kind of doctor, but what I’m thinking right now is [an obstetrician-gynecologist]. I want to be surrounded by excited, happy parents and smiles and vaginas. We’re probably married. I don’t know about kids. The whole doctor-plus-babies thing is complicated. We’re living in apartment in New York City. I’m terrified of cities, but my boyfriend has never lived anywhere else, so hopefully by then I won’t be terrified of cities. It will be cool having so many fun things within walking distance. I want to feel like I’m good at my job and I think I will be. I just hope I actually am. I also want to make sure that I’m still seeing my family frequently because I love them. What part of your personality sabotages you the most? KB: I’m not very good at moving on when something has hurt me or I’m afraid I’ve hurt someone else. I get very caught up in reliving it. I’m also terrible at asking for help. When I get super anxious or upset I’m bad at telling anyone about what is upsetting me or even just that I’m upset. It ends up being a self-perpetuating cycle of loneliness. I’m too sad to get out of my bed and find someone to help me and too anxious to ask. I think because everyone here is so smart and capable and so good at what they do, whenever we get “not good” at what we have to do we just don’t know what to do with that. I just don’t think we know how to handle needing help. It’s really easy for me to be like, “This isn’t a real problem — I’m just making it up,” but when it causes emotional pain it is a real a problem.
Simone Wien ’16 What’s on your bucket list? SW: I wish I could stick with music more. That was a huge part of my life in high school. I wish I could sing. I got kicked out of chorus in middle school, which is why I stuck with instruments. Singing, especially group singing, feels really great. That’s the only instrument you need. With percussion you have to move it around, put it in a van, get it out. I was a really chronic shower-singer. I feel like because I’m in college I’m not kicking myself like, “Man, I should have done this.” I’m sure if you asked me in a couple of years I’d have a definitive answer. There’s a lot of stuff that I stopped doing that I wish I could pick up again. I’d love to be a more than decent singer, mostly because I’m currently on a kick where I listen to a cappella covers of my favorite songs in my room, and I’m, like, “Man, I wish I could sing.” How do you think you will die? SW: Ideally it would be old age. It’s not a particularly glamorous one. All the women in my family are in great shape. My grandma’s 91, and she’s so sharp. She’s the first person ever to call me “c--t” to my face, jokingly. I made fun of her while she was putting away the groceries and I said, “Excuse me, do you need me to help you with those.” And she told me not to be such a “c--t.” My grandmother on my dad’s side still works full-time and drives. She’s around 88 — late 80s. The funny thing is that my mom’s mom has been through breast and ovarian cancer. If they’re still kicking at this point, I think that’s good news for me. In terms of not the old age route, every time a plane lands and I’m on it, I think I’m about to die. It didn’t happen until maybe last year. Maybe I’m more anxious in college than I was before. Taking off is not an issue [nor is] mild turbulence, they’re fine. It’s something about your stomach turning and accommodating gravity. Having personal autonomy taken away is not in the list of top 10 sensations I enjoy. How do you think people perceive you? SW: I interact with many groups so there’s not one group I’m consistently with. I have many different faces for certain things, so I think people think I’m a hard ass. A lot of times that’s when I have to do panels or committees, or “Can you please speak on ____.” Sometimes I really don’t feel like giving a polite “No.” Just because they’ve asked politely, I don’t think that merits a polite response back. So I can see why people would think that I’m a hard ass — or maybe unsympathetic would be the word. I think sometimes people assume that whatever conventional rules of engagement we’re supposed to go by are fair. If it’s me and an idea that I don’t necessarily believe in, just because that concept is wrapped up
in a nice package, doesn’t mean I need to be thankful for receiving it. I shouldn’t be thankful that I’m given a spot that’s either a token spot, or that I’m representing someone else. Then it’s like, “Why are you mad — you’re given a chance to speak?” I’m like, “Who are you not giving a chance to speak?” Yesuto Shaw ’15 What scares you most about the future/the real world? YS: I think what scares me most about my future is the possibility that I might start down the wrong path and find in 15 to 20 years that I’m not where I want to be and that I don’t like my job or my career and that I wish I had done it differently when I got out of college. I’m going into management consulting next year. I don’t feel like I won’t be able to change the path I’m on if I do go down the wrong path, but I would hate to waste years of my life on a career path that I won’t ultimately find to be fulfilling. I would say I’m comfortable with change, but I like having a backup plan and a backup plan for that backup plan, and if none of those plans work then I can start to get stressed out. What do you want out of a friend? YS: I would want someone who I find very easy to talk to, whose life I find interesting and who also finds me to be an interesting person. I would want someone who would check in if they hadn’t heard from me in a while and make an effort to hang out with me and catch up so I don’t feel like I’m forcing the friendship on my side. I like friends with very wide senses of humor who find a lot of things to be funny. I like optimistic people who always see the silver linings in situations. I like extroverted people who are willing to go into new situations. I don’t like people who complain a lot, and I don’t like hanging out with people who are judgmental of others and their ways of living. I would want my friends to be open minded and cheerful. How do think people perceive you? YS: I think people recognize that I’m a very extroverted person. I float around in a lot of communities, and I worry that sometimes people think I’m not interested in getting to know them deeply but that I’m just interested in getting to know them on a surface level before floating along to another community. I’ve changed a lot in college and I wonder if my friends from my first couple of years here think I’ve become too much of a different person. I hope that people perceive me as a genuine person who really is interested in getting to know them and hearing their opinions and engaging in conversation about all sorts of things. These interviews have been edited and condensed.
MIRROR //3
THE D RUNS THE
NUMBERS 10
The number of schools who share books with Dartmouth via Borrow Direct.
14,000 The number of tweets from the official Dartmouth twitter account.
14
The number of people who share the name James Smith in the Dartmouth Directory.
125
The number of Harvard University students investigated for sharing answers in the 2012 cheating scandal.
575 | 844 The number of students who applied to live in living learning communities this year and last year, respectively.
MIRROR //5
4// MIRROR
Friendships, Despite Borders Local families open their homes to international students SPOTLIGHT
B y caroline berens
One evening in September 2010, Collis Common Ground was packed with people. Students and adults alike ambled about, scrutinizing the individual flags of various countries that served as centerpieces on the round tables scattered throughout the room. Hanover locals Frank Lesher and Barbara Lesher glanced around, trying to find a Chinese flag. Spotting the a scarlet rectangle dotted with gold stars, they seated themselves and waited. It wasn’t long until a young man approached them and asked if they were the Leshers.He introduced himself as Jincheng Li Th’11, the international student with whom they had been matched. The Leshers spent the rest of the night strolling through campus with Li and a few other Chinese students, identifying important buildings and delighting in Li’s enthusiasm about spending time in the United States. Nothing about these initial casual interactions could have forecasted the strong — even lifelong — friendship that the Leshers would forge with Li. The event served as a kick-off for the international friendship family program, which pairs international students with local families. The program aims is to help international students adjust to life in the U.S. by sharing dinners, embarking on outings and celebrating special occasions with their match family. The Leshers became involved in the program when their son Ted graduated from the College in 2010. Although they had opened their home to numerous dinners and overnight stays for the track and field team, of which Ted was co-captain, they had never hosted an international student before. Frank Lesher explained that his and Barbara’s willingness to share their home and time with international students arose from their parental tendencies and desire for inter-generational relationships. “We were empty-nesters,” Lesher explained. “And we have always liked the experience of multi-generational living. That’s why we moved to a college town. We like doing things connected to the college that let us meet [students].” Li met up with the Leshers frequently during his time in Hanover. “We met up every few weeks and did all kinds of things — dinner, hiking, soccer games, Gospel Choir shows at the [Hopkins Center] and so on,” Li explained. In fact, the Leshers invited Li to their vacation home in Vermont for his first Christmas in the U.S., after he briefly returned home to China. After the Lesher’s two sons picked him up from Logan Airport, Li arrived at the Lesher home, welcomed like a member of the family and given his own Christmas stocking. “I learned a lot about American traditions [and] lost some ping-pong games to Ted,” Li said. Li noted that instances like these
helped him adjust to life in the U.S. “Being abroad as an international student can be lonely and even frustrating sometimes, especially the first few terms/quarters,” Li said. “But Frank and his family really made my time at Dartmouth feel like home.” Frank Lesher said that the relationship between his family and Li felt reciprocal — he and his family have benefitted from Li as well. The friendship family program served as a mutual cultural exchange, he said, noting that he had never encountered a person who hailed from the Chinese mainland. Tamutenda Chidawanyika, a thirdyear Ph.D. student at the Geisel School of Medicine originally from Zimbabwe, was paired with the Leshers in 2012 and expressed a similar sentiment to Li. Having attended the College of Wooster in Ohio as an undergraduate, Chidawanyika had begun to assimilate to life in the U.S, but said she still appreciates the sense of welcome and unity that the Leshers have provided her through regular meet-ups for meals. “Host families are always very helpful in giving a perspective of what the culture in the region is,” Chidawanyika said. “I also just enjoy having the opportunity to be a part of a family away from my own family back home, and I like having the opportunity to talk about Zimbabwe to non-Zimbabweans.” Janel Gaube ’18, originally from British Columbia, Canada, said that she did not feel as if it took as much time for her to begin understanding U.S. culture as it may have for other international students, owing to her Canadian roots. The connection she forged with her host family, however, has still had a positive impact on her experience at the College. The couple with whom she was matched, Biff and Michelle Simpson, have participated in the program for several years — they match with two to four students each year. Gaube says they have served as an ongoing resource for her at school. “They say, ‘If there’s anything you want to do in the area, let us know and we’ll do it one weekend,’” Gaube said. This past fall, the Simpsons brought Gaube to a town-wide garage sale near their home in Canaan, New Hampshire, where she was able to buy a used bike without having to navigate the sustainability sale on campus. With the Simpsons, Gaube has eaten dinner, played crib and visited local covered bridges, of which she said the couple is particularly fond. It’s simple pleasures like these that have also served as positive experiences for Iraday Yao ’17, a student originally from China who was matched with a family through the FFP. “We’ve visited lots of local attractions — farms, small restaurants, a haunted house over Halloween,” Yao said. “It’s helped me to see different
parts of the culture here and to assimilate.” Yao said the part he most enjoys about the program, though, is the lively discussions he has with his host family over dinners, which range in topic from gun control laws to bridging gaps between the U.S. and less developed countries. “The FPP brings people who normally have no intersection into this crossing area to mingle ideas, which creates a hodgepodge of idea melting,” Yao said. Yao said that the Torres’ openminded nature has helped to shape his own world perception and view. This sort of hospitality extends beyond affiliates of the program. Students have long enjoyed meals with professors at their homes — at the end of some seminars, for example, professors invite students to their home for a meal. With the change to the College’s schedule in 2012 that meant students no longer had to return to campus after Thanksgiving, some Upper Valley residents began inviting students to eat to break up the new six-week-long winter interim period. Last fall Caroline Canning ’18 mentioned to writing professor Ellen Rockmore, who taught her Writing 5 class, that she would be in Hanover for some winter interim training with the squash team. Shortly after, Rockmore invited Canning to her house for dinner, along with Josh Davis ’18, another student in the class who spent part of his break working in town. Rockmore picked Canning and Davis up at their dorm and brought them to her Hanover home, which she shares with husband Dan Rockmore, a math and computer science professor at the College, as well as their three children. Canning described the house as warm and inviting. “The kids’ artwork was on the walls and fridge, there was a cute dog running around, food was being prepared.” Canning said. Canning, Davis and the Rockmores discussed everything from education reform to the Rockmore kids’ extracurricular activities, over chips and salsa, pasta, salad and Ben and Jerry’s. Canning noted that Rockmore had prepared both meatless baked ziti and regular lasagna, in case she or Davis were vegetarian. Canning said that the home-cooked meal was a welcome reprieve from endless FoCo food and the bitter cold and desolation of campus during winterim. “With a professor your connection is your class, but it’s good to get to know them on a personal level too. It’s nice to have an adult [in Hanover] that you know outside of a class setting,” Canning said. The Rockmores first began hosting students in December 2010, when Ellen Rockmore invited Kyle Schussler ’12 — one of her students who was staying in Hanover for the winter interim period to train with the hockey team
— over to her house for dinner with some of his friends. Through the years, Schussler’s girlfriend became one of the Rockmores’ favorite babysitters, and the family recently hosted one of his old teammates for dinner. Ellen Rockmore said her motivation for hosting dinners stems in part from a desire to make students feel more welcome and comfortable at the College. “I think its hard to live in an institution in a dorm, and to eat all your meals in a cafeteria,” Rockmore said. “It’s nice to have a change of scenery, to be in someone’s home, to eat home-cooked food.” Like Frank Lesher, Ellen Rockmore also emphasized that having students over for dinner is a mutually beneficial activity — she also enjoys the interactions and relationships it creates. “[Hosting dinners] helps students to understand that we’re all part of one community,” she said. “And it gives me a chance to meet different students who are not at all the types I hung out with in college.” And, she added, “It’s really cute to see the way my kids interact with the students.” Hanover locals Pete Henderson ’55 and his wife Ann Henderson also host meals for the College’s hockey team. The Hendersons frequently attend hockey games, and they donated money to sponsor a member of the women’s hockey team for a few years. They subsequently sponsored other women’s hockey players including Reagan Fischer ’12. Through Fischer, the couple became much more involved in the team, often hosting them for dinners during the long break before winter term. When Fischer’s family stayed with the Hendersons when they visited Hanover, and when Fischer’s sister was passing through the area travelling north, she also stayed with the couple. The Hendersons now enjoy a continuous relationship with the hockey team, and they frequently cohost dinners for the women, along with another local couple. “We’ve always been very social with younger people, having two daughters ourselves and college-aged grandchildren,” Anne Henderson said. “And the girls [from the team] are always so excited to come, and we like to have people in.” Henderson said the couple enjoys contributing to the sense of community for which the College is known. Chidawanyika agreed, saying that the Leshers’s willingness to open up their home and lives has been integral to her development at the College. “[It’s benefitted me] just [to have] the opportunity and option to have a sense of family in the area — people who check in on you regularly to let you know they are there if you need them, who remember you on holidays and with whom you can build relationships with that hopefully last well into the future,” she said. Anthony Chicaiza/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
6// MIRROR
A Social Media Rookie Tries Oversharing SPOTLIGHT
B y Zak Meghrouni-Brown
In the fall 2008, under the strong urging of my middle school pals, I made a Facebook page. For seven years, it remained my only form of social media — my only window into the superfluities and quirks of good friends and mere acquaintances. Last week I stepped up my game. In a fit of uncharacteristic fury I signed away my soul to Twitter and Instagram to experience what it might be like to experience my self-worth dribble away to be replaced by likes, comments, shares and retweets. So I shared my life in pictures and pithy 140-character spasms. In one way, it was just what I needed. In another, it was “just what I needed” (cue eye roll). On the plus side, I could practically feel the surge of dopamine slither through my brain’s pathways each time I opened my browser to new notifications, but I subsequently have become all too attached to those little red boxes that proclaim the grandeur of one’s success and the depths of one’s failure. Even now, I possess your technophobic uncle’s level of proficiency on social media. As a proper scholar, I undertook research on the kind of posts and interactions in which your average young whippersnapper participates. Do people still use Vine? I know Myspace is antiquated, but is there a new buzz of life over there? What I found might not surprise you. Kids these days are into Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram. So I created Twitter and Instagram accounts and got to work. I posted a moody shot of a landscape on Instagram complaining about the persistence of winter yet showcasing its beauty — aced that one — and I must say that even FoCo’s cementesque scrambled eggs glistened scrumptiously (especially after a nice helping of the app’s liberal filters). With my Instagram account still fresh, I’d hardly built a grassroots following. Despite the lack of a robust sample size, there was still a pretty big gulf in the number of likes I received depending on the type of post. My post with fewest likes — to which I alluded a few sentences ago — was that tastefully filtered shot of the fire tower brooding under a few inches of soggy snow. My most liked post thus far, on the other hand — with a crushing 26 total likes — was a trashy meme of a forlorn chocolate Santa Claus that my mother jettisoned off with me on my way back from spring break, captioned, “when u get to the party but u four months late.” When it came to Twitter, I also found varying success depending on what I posted. My most liked tweet was an absolutely delectable overheard I’d had the luck of catching from a passionate conversation across the street: “Overheard some girls talking about Mennonite overalls. Why am I always so behind on these trends??” Another post received less, but more diverse attention: I shared a New York Times article announcing the Pope’s acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide and called on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to do the same on the 100th anniversary of the event later this month. In trying to decipher the reasons for the variation of reactions to my posts, I fished out of the murky depths of my subconscious two distinct motivations for posting photos and statuses. First and foremost, I sought likes: the numbers themselves, not even some abstract notion of acceptance — though one could say the two are pretty strongly correlated. But in fact the most edifying impetus behind posts was making something I myself enjoyed and felt proud of. My angsty fire tower photo
did not receive much of a warm, fuzzy cyberembrace. Nonetheless, it was something I am proud to have created myself. Likewise, the Armenian Genocide post, though it was a miniscule gesture, helped me to reaffirm my own conviction and commitment to human rights and my ethnic identity. On the other hand, I felt like I was cheating a bit, playing on sensationalism and actively like-seeking when I posted my overheard and the Santa meme (both objectively hilarious). So I had played the artsy/quirky role on Instagram and the incisive/humorous one on Twitter (to varying degrees of success), but there was still something remarkably asocial about my experience so far. I hastily dispatched my art into the ethereal realm of the World Wide Web, duly appreciated the likes I had cashed in and then let it recede down the fast-flowing stream. There was rarely a real interaction focused around a post. It was more of a nailbaiting battle of sink or swim. For Morgan McGonagle ’18, who has close to 1,300 followers and averages around 200 likes per photo, her popularity is relatively incidental. She doesn’t change what she posts to garner more likes, and she merely thinks that Instagram is a nice way to share pictures more spontaneously. “I try to put up pictures on Instagram pretty often, but I wouldn’t say I do it in order to get followers or to please followers,” she said. “It’s more of a natural thing to be able to post pictures in the moment.” She attributes the popularity of her account to her diverse social groups. At this point, she knows just about all of the people who like her photos. Likewise, she has certainly cultivated a distinct style in her posts that others might enjoy or identify with. “It’s what I’m drawn to or attracted to,” she said. “I don’t think I would change it randomly, but I don’t think it’s something I need to uphold for the sake of people enjoying it.” In all, she doesn’t see fame or popularity as the goal, even if she has to cope with her online identity bleeding into her personal one. “A lot of people have started calling me by my Instagram name,” she said. By comparison, I am lashing out in all directions because I still lack any kind of holistic online identity. It was not in complete vain, however, and despite the relatively tepid experience these two new platforms afforded me, my entry into this world did not go unnoticed. I took on this experiment because I am usually someone who interacts rarely and passively on social media, and so my friends were therefore incredulous that I had entered the big leagues in one swoop. I received confused texts from high school friends, and the first topic of conversation with College friends was “What? You? Why?” Of course it’s classic Zak to do this as a personal experiment and write a floridly phrased newspaper article about it, but I chose to conceal my true purpose and attempted to convince my friends that I had finally chosen to share my brilliant life and mind through modern platforms. My seamless efforts to insinuate myself into social media unraveled when I decided to exploit a Facebook trope a bit too viciously. Over the past few months I had seen the practice of commenting on and liking old pictures and Facebook posts become excruciatingly popular, and I decided to go scrolling for juicy tidbits of Facebook past. Though evidently by commenting on a friend’s old post, I accidentally struck a rather embarrassing recollection, and she came back
Kate Herrington/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Zak Meghrouni-Brown ’18, who is usually reticent on social media, tried sharing a great deal. with a vengeance. As far as I could tell, she inaugurated her Facebook page in 2011 — three years after I had — and as a Facebook veteran, I had quite the gold mine of statuses for her to choose from. She pulled the trigger and shot their sickening contents — did everyone need to see “Zak is.” on their page? — to the top of newsfeeds around the country. I had proverbially booted in my own boot. That whole experience, while certainly but a blip on the radar of my friends and followers, reminded me why I had never felt comfortable with social media in the first place. It requires a leap of faith that I am not willing to take. To me it requires staking a piece of myself on the possibility that it will serve to either improve my image or utterly backfire. Maybe it is because I am deeply image-conscious that I stray away from social media in the first place. I sat down with sociology professor Janice McCabe to discuss what role social media might play in the development of youth social networks and behavior. We tend to view social media without much nuance, she said, and she suggested that social media might not be producing anything entirely new. “Although the platforms have changed, the roles that [social media] plays in youths’ lives hasn’t changed that much,” she said. Indeed, while social media may be changing the site of our interactions, the same social development occurs in youth whether or not social media is involved — even without Facebook, we have no problem sifting out alpha from beta or extravert from introvert. She did, however, acknowledge that social media provides today’s youth an excuse to be capricious — Instagram makes for an instantaneous venue for discovery and definition of one’s identity. “Social media can play important roles in helping [people] think through who they are,” she said. “Online you have opportunities to try
out different selves in ways you can’t in person.” While who we portray ourselves as online can be indicative of our personal identities, what I say and do online often feels too removed from my person to effect evolution in my identity. Everything I do online can be worded and reworded, and the reaction isn’t personal. I don’t get blank stares when I throw out a dud on social media. Crickets in cyberspace don’t chirp as loud and clear as they might in real life. Psychology professor Kyle Smith explained why, despite my exasperation with social media, I can’t stay off of it. Seeing likes, seeing little notifications and hearing the ‘ba-doop’ of a new Facebook message is satisfying. “The brain is just very good at latching on to those sorts of positive feedbacks, whether social, food, whatever, and stamping these things into routines,” he said. Social media seems to provide all the rewards of socializing — with acceptance and gratification coming in the form of all the little bells and whistles — while minimizing the painful parts. It’s alluring for our mammallian brain. Smith noted that we feel safer experimenting with our personalities and identities online than we might in person. “What strikes me too [about social media] is, compared to other social situations, is it’s — I think — maybe implicitly a little safer in the sense that you can post something and not have to deal with the response right away,” he said. “It dilutes some of the negative feedback you might get.” After this short sprint for the limelight I will be happy to let my Twitter handle gather dust, and I won’t be too crushed when that notification globe on Facebook isn’t blinking with a little red square. My mind is one track — two at best — and I lack the energy to build my own little internet empire. But to all of those who are up to this arduous task, carry on entertaining the rest of us lurkers.
FRIDAYS WITH MARIAN
MIRROR //7
Boots and RallIES COLUMN
By Aaron Pellowski
COLUMN By Marian Lurio
You can run, you can hide, but you just can’t avoid the 2016 presidential election hype. Joining fellow senators Rand Paul (love that he works those curls just like yours truly) and Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio has entered the ring. In fact, Rubio is in New Hampshire today! Let’s go find him! And of course, Hillar y Clinton has announced that she is running. Really throwing us a cur veball there, Hillar y. Truthfully, I can’t decide if having Bill Clinton in the White House would be too overpowering or the best thing ever. Endless attentionseeking, saxophone-playing and a raging sex drive. Simmer down, Bill. Who am I kidding — HAGS, never change. Honestly, though, after waiting for this announcement for two years, I truly expected more from Hillar y’s “coming out” video. I’m not talking about the production quality. I’m not talking about her edgy outfit choice. The video made me uncomfortable, and yet I was bored by it. No amount of cutesy couples could make me want to wait until 1:34 into the video for you to announce the inevitable, Hillar y. I’m gonna need a little more energy from you on the campaign trail. Remember that time Hillar y was Secretar y of State? #Benghazi, am I right? Well, it seems like a new kind of foreign diplomacy is in order, and it comes in the form of a booty that just won’t quit (actually, two if you’ve seen Khloe’s lately). So what have Kimmy K. and the krew been up to? They must be at Coachella, right? Wrong. You’re so wrong. Kim, Khloe, Kanye, and the precious KimKanye spawn Nori spent what was supposed to be eight days — but turned into five days — in Armenia for the 100th anniversar y of the Armenian genocide. Apparently having ditched Khloe and her derriere, Kim, Kanye and Nori have been sightseeing in Israel. Nori was baptized at the Western Wall, which really surprised me given Kanye’s self-declared “Yeezus” status. Who needs to be baptized at the locus of Judaism when you have a God sitting in your TV room? Hopefully the West-Kardashian klique will take a crack at solving the IsraeliPalestinian conflict while in the region. If a sex tape with singer Brandy’s brother can turn into your big break and ultimately get you into the field of foreign relations, sign me up. Why aren’t more of us considering that professional route? Forget paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition to this stuffy liberal arts institution. (Sorr y
Phil, but you know I speak the truth.) This is both the American dream and foreign diplomacy at its best. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, rapper Nelly was arrested after his tour bus was pulled over and police discovered marijuana, guns and CRYSTAL METH. Say it ain’t so! Luckily, there were many people with access to the tour bus and there’s a good chance the meth was not Nelly’s. Nelly, if you’re out there, I have a message to relay. I’d still take a ride with you. ;) But Nelly isn’t the only notable figure facing legal drama lately. He’s in good company — also fighting an uphill battle against the judicial system are Jodi Arias, Seaworld and Justin Bieber (in Argentina). Speaking of legal troubles, why is Bobby Flay blowing up all my news outlets? The only reason I have any personal stake in his divorce is because his now-estranged wife Stephanie March moonlights — aka was/is a recurring character — on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. And yet Bobby is the one whose name is all over the papers? I’ve been to your N.Y. restaurant, Bobby, and my three-course meal did not even come close to satisfying me like your wife does… on SVU. If I ever have children, I’m going to sing them a nurser y rhyme called “Three Blonde MILFs.” See how they run… Actually, I don’t consider any of them to be MILFs, but I’d like a second opinion. Screw, marr y, kill: Madonna, Tori Spelling, Gwyneth Paltrow. As we all know, Madonna couldn’t keep her hands (lips…) off of Drake. First of all, girl, back off my man. Second of all, I thought you only kissed girls, and I thought that was in the past — but clearly I was wrong. I’ve seen the pics though — Drake was just as disgusted as I was. Tori Spelling got severe burns at Benihana and needs skin grafts… so that happened. I’ve been in some sticky situations at more than one hibachi joint (wouldn’t you like to know!), but Tori puts me and my ways to shame. Then there’s Gwyneth. Oh, Gwyneth. Gwyneth (third time’s the charm) recently attempted to do a good deed — she did a food stamp challenge and purchased what was, allegedly, $29 of food to feed her family (her and little Moses and Apple) for an entire week. Her selections were almost entirely green and the amount of food she bought really looked like maybe two to three meals for an average-sized human.
I went to a really good high school. I know this because when I look up my high school on any of the websites that rank high schools and say which ones are the best, these websites all agree my high school is one of the best. Statistics and algorithms don’t lie. I know this because I don’t understand how statistics or algorithms work, and — as life has repeatedly impressed upon me — anything I don’t understand is probably smarter than me and also probably true. One of the reasons my high school is so good is that all students are enrolled in a series of mandatory elective courses during their freshman and sophomore years. You’d think that an “elective” course would mean you’d have a choice in the matter of taking it, but then again, you probably didn’t go to one of the best high schools in the United States of America. I did, so these things make a little more sense to me. In “Sci-Tech,” you learned how to build a machine that could fit in a two-foot cubic box and complete a simple task using a few dollars’ worth of materials, just like real engineers do. I have many former classmates, now seniors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, who have done pioneering undergraduate research in building small machines out of mousetraps and rubber bands that pick up wiffle balls and put them in plastic cups. In “E-Zine,” you learned the hard-hitting basics of electronic journalism. I spent most of this class doing crosswords. In “Planet Earth,” you learned a lot about climate change, ecology and botany. I’ve kicked off many a Tinder date by grabbing my partner by the hand and, pulling her through the woods, aggressively pointing out flora while screaming, “Now that’s a cedar elm! You can tell because it’s trifoliate!” Sad world we live in these days, where botanical prowess buys a boy less romantic leverage than a lacrosse stick or a $15,000 watch. My favorite of these “Signature Courses,” as they were known, was “Great Ideas.” Not only was it a course about great ideas, the course itself was a great idea. In six weeks, we covered all six of the major topics of the Western Humanities: Socrates, Existentialism, Orientalism, Freud, Shakespeare and Some Paintings. A few spiteful nerds who spent their summers at Winedale Shakespeare Camp voiced a rather flimsy objection that seven days studying for Othello reading quizzes wasn’t the best way to approach The Bard. I didn’t listen very closely to them since I was busy doing crosswords. The final project for Great Ideas was to create a photo reproduction of an important painting or photograph from art history. The reproduction had to contain at least one human
being, and you had to be in it. The pedagogical aim of this exercise escapes my memory, but I do recall it turned out some really fascinating products — including all five girls who realized they owned both a towel and at least one pearl earring and posed as Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring” with astonishing verisimilitude. To the surprise of absolutely no one at all, the painting I chose to reproduce was Caravaggio’s “Narcissus.” Rendered in gratuitous chiaroscuro, the painting depicts a young male in a billowy white shirt, hopelessly immersed in the image of his own reflection. I think, at the time, I believed there was something meta about reproducing a painting that was itself about reflection — but I can’t remember. Now, unless you’re a classics major (like I am) or you went to a really, really good public high school (like I did) you’ve probably never read Ovid’s Metamorphoses. If you had read it, you’d know that in the original story, Narcissus was the most beautiful young man in the world. It’s not that he was like, sorta kinda attractive and just really obsessed with his appearance. His desire to look at himself all the livelong day was actually justified. He died drowning in the puddle that bore his reflection, but there isn’t a shred of tragedy to that side of the story. Narcissus died happy. To the surprise of absolutely no one at all, I get called a narcissist an awful lot. Detailing all the elements of my character that give rise to this accusation could fill an entire issue of The Mirror — though just the existence of “Boots and Rallies,” if you have even a newcomer’s sense of what kind of column this is, should supply ample evidence. Nevertheless, I think that, just as with Narcissus, my own breed of narcissism is misunderstood. The kind of narcissism worth hating shows up in people who place themselves at the top of their ethical and aesthetic systems. Axiomatically, they are the best and most beautiful. A symptom of such narcissism is a tendency to think and talk about oneself. I think and talk about myself a lot, and as such, share a crucial symptom with the Narcissist Worth Hating. But unlike the NWH, I don’t think I’m the best or the most beautiful — not by a long shot. I think and talk about myself a lot to find out all the things that are wrong with me — so I can get better — or so I can find out what’s good about me — so I can share it. How could I ever find someone with whom to commiserate if I didn’t understand my own sadness and wear it on my sleeve? How could I ever love anyone unless I knew that there were things about me worth loving in return? Maybe these are questions that only seem relevant to me. But then again, I went to a very good high school, so you can’t expect everything I write to be relatable.
8// MIRROR
Shh... Tell Us a Secret We asked students across campus to tell us secrets, hopes and fears. Here’s what you said. SPOTLIGHT
B y You
Tell The Mirror a secret: Sometimes I miss people who have been jerks to me, even though I know I should forget about them. I have the hugest crush on a friend. He has no idea... or maybe he does. My high school boyfriend threatened to commit suicide while we were dating. Sometimes I still have nightmares about it. My girlfriend and I had sex in the stacks, and we were so loud that a janitor called S&S on us. We escaped before they got us, though. I sometimes feel like I don’t belong at Dartmouth. I’m falling for my boyfriend’s little. I’ve never had any form of sex — oral, penetrative, nothing. But I really like talking about sex. I’m comfortable with it conversationally, but in action... that’s another story. Many people assume I’m not a virgin because I’m “shapely.” My trip leader taught me how to deep throat. I’ve never been in a relationship and don’t know how to even start. I cried everyday when I was off last winter. I want to get married more than anything. I can’t stand to be around my best friend anymore. I’m working on my debut solo tape, expected release date will be early summer. I’m pretty sure I’ve discovered I’m gender unbiased since coming to college. When I was 13, I drowned my sister’s cat in a bucket. I didn’t hate the cat or anything — I was just wanted see what would happen. No one ever found out. I’m really excited to graduate, not because I dislike Dartmouth, but because I’m ready for some new people and my own dish set. One of my friends does nothing but complain about her life, not realizing how fortunate she is. All the ranting is getting to be very annoying, and I try to avoid most of her calls and messages. I killed the class hamster by feeding it too many sunflower seeds. I really like having a few days a week when I don’t have dinner plans. It’s not very social, but I love not having to talk to people sometimes! I’m secretly angry at my sister for being bulimic, not for what she has done to herself, but because I want to purge every day but can’t talk to my family because of the pain she has caused them. I had a threesome with my best friend and my ex. I’m a senior, and I’m still a virgin and I’ve never been kissed. Sometimes I change where I’m studying with the hopes of seeing my crush. I’m crushing hard on a teammate right now. I can’t stand to be around my best friend anymore.
I don’t know how to love myself, which makes it hard for me to express respect and love for others. It’s ruining my friendships. I don’t feel comfortable in my fraternity. People think I’m honest to a fault, but I’m actually a pathological liar. I never lie about serious things, but I’ll lie about the origin of a story to make it more exciting. Never been caught. I had sex in the stacks today. Every day I wish I could step out of my skin and be anyone but myself. I’m crazy into my roommate who doesn’t even know I’m gay — I sometimes sneak glimpses when she’s changing and always feel guilty afterwards. All my friends hate their majors. I’m hooking up with my UGA. I got an abortion last summer. I use my emotional issues to guilt people into caring about me. I’m insecure that I’ve never been in a legit relationship. I count myself as extremely successful in nearly every other facet of my life, but my romantic personal life has always been the one place where I just fail. I don’t think I have any secrets, and sometimes I worry this means I’m repressing some really terrible, traumatic memories. I hate my body. I tried to kill myself freshman year, but all my friends just thought I was just blacked out as usual. I’ve had a crush on my best friend since the day we met six years ago. I’ve made out with a professor (economics!). I’ve never kissed someone sober. I haven’t worn deodorant the past four days because I’m too lazy to go to CVS. Tell The Mirror a fear: That I won’t amount to anything in college. I fear I will never find a real job. I’m afraid that I’m not going to live up to people’s expectations and “fail” myself and my Dartmouth degree. Sometimes I’m afraid no one is listening to me. I’m a senior and I’m afraid I’m never going to get a job. Papercuts. That people in my sorority don’t care about the lack of diversity present in the house currently. That people will ignore this issue. I’m scared that I will never have my “great love,” or that I do and it all falls apart. I’m afraid of having kids and having them be hotter than me. I’m afraid of the people and friends I care about not feeling the same about me. I fear that I can’t do well at Dartmouth. I’m afraid of being alone for the rest of my life. That I’m not smart enough to be at Dartmouth, and I’ll always be playing catch up.
I fear nothing but God. I’m afraid I’ll never know what I want to do with my life. I am afraid that I will never really get rid of the darkness in my heart. More than that, I am afraid that one day my grip on it will loosen, and I’ll hurt someone in a way I can’t fix. I’m terrified of toxic shock syndrome. Like, I’ll set alarms to change my tampon every 4 hours. I fear I will not form close friends or relationships during college because I don’t know how to meet new people. I fear missing out on new friendships by being shy. I’m afraid that I’ll step on a used needle and die of blood poisoning. It’s bizarre and completely unfounded, but I think about it pretty much every day. I’m afraid I will never find someone to love me. I fear puke. I’m afraid I’ll always feel like I’m comprising in relationships. I’m afraid of losing touch with my friends. That I will get kicked out of Dartmouth. That I’m not smart enough to be at Dartmouth, and I’ll always be playing catch up. Premed. I won’t make enough money after graduation... but I’ll still be over $60,000 in debt from student loans. I’m afraid that I’m dating the wrong person. BEES. My family will fall apart because my dad is abusive and my brother is therefore cutting off ties with us. The Greek system. That all of my friends secretly find me annoying. :/ I’m afraid no one really loves me except my mother. I’ve never faced real failure. I don’t know how I’ll react when I really crash and burn, and I’m scared I won’t be able to bounce back. I’m afraid of the afterlife and eternity in general. I tell my hookup that I like him and he rejects me. I’m afraid that the four years I spent in Hanover will have been a waste. Spiders. Or someone finding out I’m gay. I’ll fail Math 3. No one will want me. That childhood was the best part of life and things will get progressively more bland and melancholy. Tell The Mirror a hope: That I will one day be rich and famous. I hope that I’ll meet someone who can appreciate my weird personality. I hope that I have positively impacted this campus by being a part of it for four years. I hope I can show freshmen women that going
out to frats isn’t the only way to have fun on weekends or to be accepted by upperclassmen. I hope that the Greek System is abolished. Soon. That a guy who’s told me that he loves me will commit without fear of distance and being apart. That he’ll try to make it work without giving up. I hope women’s recruitment changes one day to be less superficial and dehumanizing. I hope I’ll soon find a beautiful mystery. Life feels too obvious and structured right now. I want to wonder at something. I hope we’ll discover another planet with human life forms soon. I’m optimistic that the stress I feel about school and socializing will at some point pass. That finding a friend to eat a meal with won’t be the most stressful part of my day. I hope to spend my life with my boyfriend. I hope to be a presidential speechwriter. That I can find something that I am good at and passionate about. I hope that there will be social change thanks to revolutions through media, music, and demonstrations. I hope I fall in love here. I hope that, when I die, I have created more than I have destroyed. I hope my best friend falls for me like I did for her — I’ll be there to catch her! I hope to be a young adult fiction author, inspiring preteens and teens the same way many other writers did for me. I hope that I will always be strong on the inside. I hope that my SO and I stay in love forever and have a bunch of kids. I hope that I can be proud of myself. I hope that true love exists and that I will be lucky enough to find it. I hope that the guy I have had a crush on all year will realize that I want to be more than friends with him. That I can find something that I am good at and passionate about. I hope I find a job where my boss is a woman. I hope I’m wrong. I hope I mean something to him. I hope I make him as happy as he makes me. To keep being surrounded by wonderful friends here at Dartmouth that support me no matter what. I hope someday to identify what my true passion is and to apply my skills and talents unrestrictedly toward that passion. One day, I will learn what it feels like to be happy. That one day I can love myself and be loved. I hope that the problem is Hanover, not me. I’ll be famous. Happiness. That I find a really stimulating job. Kathleen Rao/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF