10.24.2014
MIRROR
Q and A: Professor Bedi| 2
A Culture of Normed behavior| 3
Calculating Costs | 4-5
Man’s Best friend| 8 ERIN O’NEIL/ THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
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Q and A: Professor Bedi
EDITOR’S NOTE
story story
Courtesy of Erin Landau
This fall has been one of the most confusing and tumultuous terms of my time at Dartmouth. After conducting a brief survey of miscellaneous Decibelles and members of the Dartmouth staff, I can safely say that this seems to be a consensus among both my upperclassman and underclassman friends. I think there’s just something about beginning again that causes us to take stock of our lives and the directions in which we are headed. Many people I’ve talked to have felt that important life decisions are just passing them by — sometimes they have the strength and wherewithal to reach out and change their trajectory, and sometimes they don’t. In the past few weeks, I’ve felt as though I’ve made many important life decisions, yet am unsure if I’m actually qualified to make them. The importance and relevance of these choices range from splurging on a full cheesecake from Salt Hill for my writers to cutting my losses and ending my stint with corporate recruiting while trying to keep my head held high. Am I mature enough to make decisions about my future as a 21-year-old college senior? Frankly, who knows. In the midst of all this tumult, it can be difficult to assess the little decisions we make on a daily basis. As I was doing some background research for this week’s centerfold, I was mesmerized by how little I understood pricing differences within the Upper Valley. I realized that I frequently do not pay enough attention to my spending, especially when I’m more focused on getting in my stats homework on time than minimizing how much I spend on my daily cup of coffee. Making big decisions, such as whether to purchase a sauce pan for $200 when I can get one that functions equally well for $20, don’t usually fall into the category of important life choices. While it can be easy to get lost in the macro, don’t let the micro become less important. As my parents keep reminding me, take it one step at a time and recognize that none of these decisions are permanent (except, according to my father, for pregnancy).
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MIRROR R MIRROR EDITOR ERIN LANDAU
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LINDSAY ELLIS PUBLISHER CARLA LARIN
EXECUTIVE EDITORS MICHAEL RIORDAN STEPHANIE McFEETERS
by Tim Connor
On Oct. 15, the New York Times explored the experience transgender students at women’s colleges in an article titled “When Women Become Men at Wellesley.” At Wellesley, a white male student ran for a student government position that promoted diversity, which sparked an anonymous campaign against his canidacy. We sat down with government professor Sonu Bedi, who has studied the intersection between sex, gender and the law, to discuss women’s colleges in the 21st centur y. TC: What do you think the response of a community like Wellesley, which like many other women’s colleges has sought to empower women in recent decades, should be to students who identify as men running for leadership positions to represent a female population? SB: I have to think about it in terms of the actual, specific case. On one hand you could think, “Well, should that person be permitted to stay a Wellesley student, and if so, ought they be allowed to run for office?” My general thing is that if someone is a student at a school, all offices and positions should be open to them, so that seems odd that somehow there wouldn’t be positions open to them. To say, “we’re going to permit someone to be a student but limit what they can do or what positions they can hold” would run into all kinds of issues. What we talked about in class was “what should we think about gendered spaces and colleges that are single-sex?” I think that ultimately when we’re thinking about equality, and in particular gender equality, we can think of three conceptually distinct notions of equality. The first is a notion of antisubordination. Anti-subordination suggests that our commitment to equality ensures that we do not subordinate particular groups and that we tr y to remedy subordination or historical discrimination, so under that theor y we would think there should be gendered spaces for women. Not necessarily for men, precisely because women have been discriminated
’17 on a Thursday morning: “I need sleep, water and an IV.”
Blitz your overheards to mirror@thedartmouth.com!
against, there are particular stereotypes against women and so the justification for single-sex women’s colleges can be made under that anti-subordination rationale. The second understanding of equality is that we need to treat men and women equally, the same, so that would be a symmetric notion of equality. The law often thinks about this in that way — Title IX says that there have to be as many sports teams or activities for women as there are for men. One way to think about the separate notion of equality is basically “separate but equal.” There’s a third approach, and I think while it’s often articulated in terms of racial equality, it would be quite radical in terms of sex and gender equality. That third approach says we should be in a sex-blind society. Under that approach, it would challenge all kinds of ways in which we differentiate and segregate on the basis of sex, not just women’s colleges. The way we segregate barracks in the military, bathrooms, fraternities and sororities — there would be a whole panoply of things. In one sense, I think that this issue that’s arising at Wellesley is pushing up against which kind of equality we want to be committed to. You could think that a school like Wellesley is committed to the first or second notion of equality, but if you have students at that school that identify as men challenging the very notion that their gendered identity makes any difference, you’re moving into the third notion — “Well, perhaps we shouldn’t even care about someone’s sex.” What’s going on is that various conceptions of equality are pushing up against each other, and so ultimately the question is about which kind of equality, and I think this is a really interesting example of that conflict. TC: How should a women’s college define itself today? What’s the role of such an institution? SB: That’s tough. I don’t have a good enough answer. On one hand, I am drawn to the anti-subordination notion of equality insofar as these spaces for women are important. On the other hand, I do realize that
’15: “I’m just gonna keep hooking up with him so I can have a shirt for frat boy meetings…” ’12: “Okay here’s the Homecoming plan. We play pong, watch the fire, play pong, crash the Chi Gam and Trikap dance parties and then go play pong. Game?”
when we do engage in the antisubordination notion of equality we invariably end up essentializing identity and saying “this is what it means to be a women, someone who’s biologically female.” Once we start challenging that gendersex relationship, we move into this sex-blind approach. In a way I think that’s where women’s colleges have to adjudicate themselves. I make this distinction between gender and sex. Sex is the biological status, and gender is the chosen attribute. Someone could be biologically female but identify as male. Wellesley seems to be using sex as the marker of who can get into the school. Going forward they are going to have to choose whether or not to say “we’re going to permit anyone who identifies as a woman, indifferent to sex” and accept people who are biologically male. I don’t know if that means the demise of women’s colleges, but I do think that what’s good about it is that it’s forcing people to confront this idea that these categories are set in stone. The decoupling of gender from sex is quite radical, and I think that this is a healthy tension these schools are facing. TC: Do you think it’s possible for schools like Wellesley to reconcile those tensions? SB: Maybe. I think they’re tr ying to. Imagine if someone here at Dartmouth wanted to rush a fraternity or sorority and they were transgender. What’s the relevant marker to be used? If someone ends up self-identifying as a man even though they are biologically female, where should they rush? Do they belong in a women’s college or in a men’s college? I don’t know. It’s a good question. I will say that I think we tend to fall into either the first or second concept of equality too quickly. A sex-blind society would look quite different than the one we have. Perhaps we ought to go that far. This interview has been edited and condensed.
’17: “I want to get married, but I have a midterm on Monday!”
’16: “I’ve been carrying Longchamps ever since I was old enough to not drag them on the ground.”
A Culture of Normed Behavior story
By zak meghrouni-Brown
DANNY KIM // THE DARTMOUTH
The warm hues of the falling leaves and the tolling bells of gleaming Baker tower make me feel like I’m in a blessed enclave of academic inquisitiveness. I’ve just arrived at Dartmouth, and already find myself settling in to a cozy chair in Sanborn, content. But all is not well. The academic culture here is not as relaxed as it appears — stress and anxiety roil beneath the surface. Even during my first few weeks of college courses, it seems as if studying is a series of sprints, a mad dash to make a deadline and call it good enough. I’ve found that students often claim to not have studied nearly enough for tests or to have written papers at the ver y last minute. Perhaps you are aware of this phenomenon — or perhaps you even partake in it. Sometimes it can look like a race to the bottom — a bizarre comparison of who studied least or performed the worst on an exam. But can it really be true that so many people get lucky ever y time they submit a paper, typed frantically in cof fee-fueled twitches during the dead of night? Or is it more likely that students are misrepresenting their work habits to their peers? Allie Fudge ’18, a fresh-faced college newbie, believes that this last-minute, “notenough” culture we see on a daily basis may actually be genuine. “People procrastinate, and they’re busy — there’s a lot to do
on campus,” she said. And she’s not wrong — people here really do spread themselves thin. Ever y reveler on a Saturday, ever y pursed-face laptop poker in Berr y at 2 a.m., is so much more than just a partier or a nerd. Indeed, one can only put so much time into what he or she chooses to do. Dan Calano ’15 is faced with this conundrum regularly — he is a member of a fraternity, a student band and an a cappella group in addition to taking some of the most intensive classes of his Dartmouth career. Even though he has been deliberately putting in extra effort this term, he still curses the finite property of hours and minutes. “You can only ever prepare so much, and you only have so much time,” he said. Despite the consensus that there is never enough time in the day to do it all, Calano admits that people tend to be more prepared than they let on, saying “it’s pretty common for people to downplay how much they’ve studied.” Even so, students are already less than ideally prepared for most assessments. Having stayed up late studying, they still feel unprepared when it comes time to take an exam. Nicky Golini ’17 described the ner vous chatter before his last assessment: “Lots of people were saying ‘I’m definitely not prepared,’ even when many had probably studied 10 hours.” What is that invisible social force that makes students want to
portray an image of someone with poor time management, shoddy forethought or, at the ver y least, an inadequate sleep schedule? At this shining hub of academic toil it seems that we should be willing to share with our peers the extent of our labors, because, after all, ever yone is in reality working hard. Likely, students aren’t willing to let on just how much work they do because, not despite of, the hardworking, rigorous nature of this institution. Classics professor Roger Ulrich ’77 posited a ver y simple reason one might not admit to hard work and preparedness. “It’s boastful,” he said. “[If you boast] and end up falling flat on your face you look like an idiot. No one wants that.” He believes this culture of concealment to be “a reflection of a highly academic student body,” and perhaps he is correct. This seemingly illogical culture that suggests the stigmatization of studiousness actually shows the opposite. Students put up a façade of indifference to hide the fact that they are indeed quite academically motivated, concealing the insecurities that lie below the smile of ever y Dartmouth student. Calano placed this fear of academic underperformance in the context of a greater list of insecurities he knows wrack his peers. “Insecurity is so prevalent among college-aged students — no one thinks they’re smart enough,
have enough friends or are attractive enough,” he says. By parading their lack of preparedness in front of their classmates, students create a new norm in which it is more acceptable to drop the ball every once in a while. On the other hand, this culture creates a poisonous and backwards ideal for which to strive. If one takes the conversation around studying and preparedness seriously, he or she will only be daunted by an impossible norm. “We admire this mythic creature who seems not to have to study ver y hard and yet does ver y well,” Ulrich said. This creature must be one of sheer natural talent. No student is blessed with enough luck or talent to always succeed without tr ying. The tragedy of the myth’s ubiquity in the minds of Dartmouth students is that people can’t admit when they are stressed out. There is ver y little conversation about emotional well-being on an everyday basis. Indeed, the levels of stress and the struggle and drive to succeed among college students is at an all-time high, according to a 2010 sur vey published by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. “You fool yourself or others into thinking that you’re happy or less stressed,” Fudge said, acknowledging the lies about stress students feed themselves on a daily basis. “It’s not encouraging people to [open up and] own their academic side.” Likewise, Golini said he exaggerates his unpreparedness for little reason at all — just to ease social tension that a heavy workload can create. “Maybe you don’t want to show off how much time you’re putting in,” he said. “When you’re talking about a test it’s easier in conversation to say, ‘I’m not going to do ver y well.’” Undergraduate dean Deborah Tyson identified the social aspect of this cultural quiddity as the primar y reason for students’ disingenuous behavior, saying that she would consider normed behavior without honest discussion to be detrimental. “Students want to stay ‘within the pack’ regarding ef for t versus results,” she said. “No culture or relationship that is built on dishonesty is benign.” At the end of the day, changing a stressful culture of isolation is as simple as refusing to be isolated. As picturesque as the campus may be, as impossibly perfect as its people may seem, ever yone here is daunted by the same challenges and insecurities. Perhaps it’s better to face them together, with sympathy and honest conversation. Fudge is a copy editor for The Dartmouth.
MIRROR //3
Trending D @ RTMOUTH
Scott vs. shaheen Thanks YouTube.
October Gloom As Seal so rightly put it, we just can’t stand the rain.
The Greek System To abolish or not to abolish, that is the question.
Posthomecoming blues Is it possible to be hungover for a full week? If you need us we’ll be in bed.
Freshmen are free We haven’t stepped foot into fraternities since they were let loose.
Midterms Academic or political — which are people more apathetic about?
Drones Because now we all know what Homecoming really looks like.
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Calculating Costs: Up Centerfold C&A Pizza, Hanover: Large cheese pizza for $9.95. Everything But Anchovies, Hanover: Large cheese pizza for $10.49. Village Pizza, Lebanon: Large cheese pizza for $10.99. Pizza Hut, West Lebanon: Large cheese pizza for $10.00.
These ranges may vary. Days Inn, Lebanon: $67 to $80 per night. Residence Inn, Lebanon: $159 to $269 per night. Six South Street, Hanover: $109 to $400 per night. Hanover Inn: $240 to $450 per night.
We’re Makin’ Waves, Hanover: Women’s haircuts range from $40-$60. Men’s haircuts range from $25-$40. Colonial Barbershop, West Lebanon: Women’s haircuts for $21. Men’s haircuts for $15. Lebanon Barbershop, Lebanon: Men’s haircuts for $11.
Main Street Kitchens, Hanover: Knife for $129.95. Three-quart sauce pan for $180.00. Coffee maker for $599.95 Walmart, West Lebanon: Knife for $9.57. Three-quart sauce pan for $17.97. Coffee maker for $129.00.
B y Lind
MIRROR //5
pper Valley Economics
dsay Keare and ERIN LANDAU How much would you pay for a one-night stay in the Upper Valley? $67 or $400? What about for a saucepan? $20 or $180? Beyond the confines of campus, the realities of economic differences between Hanover and the Upper Valley become abundantly clear. The price of a trash can from Walmart versus one from Main Street Furniture differs drastically, illustrateing just how isolated we truly are. The population of the main village of Hanover is 8,636, with a median household income of $84,969. Lebanon, meanwhile, has a population of 13,483 and a median household income of $53,650. We went to several town stores and compared the prices of everyday items to those of stores such as Walmart and the Dollar Store. Whenever possible we compared the exact same items and brands across these different locations. While we have not covered every single option, we aimed to provide a wide cross-section of prices for students to draw economic comparisons within Hanover and across the Upper Valley.
The Dollar Tree, West Lebanon: Set of towels for $1.00. Main Street Furniture, Hanover: One towel for $30. One trash can for $180. Walmart, West Lebanon: One towel for $1.97 One trash can for $14.47
Lou’s coffee, Hanover: $1.73 for small and $2.06 for large. Dunkin’ Donuts, West Lebanon: $1.55 for small and $2.09 for large. Dirt Cowboy Cafe, Hanover: $1.55 for small and $2.10 for large. Starbucks, Hanover: $1.75 for a small and $2.35 for large.
Odwalla
Movie Tickets
$3.29 The Co-op
$9.50 The Nugget
$4.75
$8.75 Entertainment
Novack
Cinemas
Keystone
Parking $42.00 per term A-Lot
$16.99 CVS
Margaritas $3.00 Molly’s
$8.00
$8.75 Circle-K
$300.00 per month
Pine
Chi Gam
All comparisons to Walmart., Dollar Store and Pizza Hut are made using online sources SHUOQI CHEN // THE DARTMOUTH
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Through The Looking Glass Unpacking Four Years COLUMN
B y Connie Gong
This fall marks the 10th time I’ve moved during my Dartmouth career. It’s the 10th time I’ve loaded my life into neat, portable containers and the 10th time I’ve carted those containers up stair wells, through unfamiliar hallways, into new rooms. This time, I managed to fit ever ything in a single suitcase and a backpack. Full disclosure, I used to own a lot more things. Freshman year, I arrived at college armed with six large boxes of shoes, wall decorations and clothing for all occasions. I even brought my own desk lamp and trash can — just in case. Freshman year was a year of mementos, which slowly accumulated in my desk drawers, in corners of my closet and underneath my bed. There were the posters bought during pre-orientation, borrowed hats, pinnies loudly emblazoned with Greek letters, Mardi Gras beads and, of course, thrifted flair. I felt a compulsion to collect these items, to keep a tangible catalogue of ephemeral experiences, lest they slip away. My rapidly multiplying possessions made my first packing experience an ordeal. I was headed to China for a foreign study program, and I only had room for the necessities. I carefully packed my mementos — the flair, the posters, the tacky jewelr y — away, placing them in storage. When I reopened that musty box the next fall, my possessions had lost some of their glitz. Perhaps it was the time away, perhaps it was the perspective gained living in a foreign city or perhaps it was the container of face-paint that had leaked all over my frat memorabilia. Whatever the reason, the magic was lost. I salvaged a couple pieces of flair from the box and ended up throwing the rest out. Sophomore fall began with a whirlwind of movement. Perhaps I should note that my time at Dartmouth has been quite fragmented — I spent a summer in China and a winter in Panama. I did two non-consecutive internships in Connecticut. Between freshman spring and senior fall, I only spent two consecutive terms in any single place. Each time I packed, I found myself playing that game of tradeoffs — did I really need three towels? Or a body pillow? If I only brought three pairs of shoes, I could fit two extra sweatshir ts in my suitcase. I found myself throwing away memorabilia and useless decorations and clothes I rarely wore. Minimalism became
NATALIE CANTAVE// THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
After moving all her possessions for the 10th time at Dartmouth, Connie Gong ’15 reflects on her minimalist attitude and the things that really matter. a creeping, unobtrusive necessity. I learned to judge things for their necessity, for their durability. What did I need? How much space did it take up? How heavy was it? Most importantly, was it worth it, carr ying this thing with me hundreds or thousands of miles to wherever I was going? When I reopened my suitcase, would I find it crushed by distance or neglect? My minimalism soon extended beyond objects and possessions. I realized I was slowly pruning away people, relationships and even communities. I made these decisions almost unconsciously — while I was phoneless, living out of a backpack in a Central American nature preser ve, who would I choose to email when I got a rare, precious hour of Internet access? While I was working 12-hour days at a hedge fund, whom did I want to Skype when I got home at night?
We chose this school because of the D-Plan, right? There are students who have travelled further and been away longer than I. We’re all familiar with fragmentation — we all know (or soon will know) what it feels like to be plunged, ruthlessly, in and out of the Dartmouth bubble. I know I’ve struggled, having 10 short weeks to foster burgeoning relationships, leaving a campus of full of friends and community and returning to feel surrounded by strangers. There are lucky people out there with a seemingly infinite capacity for storage, who seem to carr y all of their relationships and brimming lives wherever they go. I envy those people. I, on the other hand, have seen my life here blossom and shrink — I’ve had wonderful terms and I’ve had terrible lonely terms, and I’ve simply come to accept that that’s how life
here ebbs and flows. When I look back on my time at the College, I see so few continuous threads that I wonder how my life remains connected at all. But therein lies the strength of minimalism, I think. The things I have carried with me through my time here — the objects I deemed durable, worthwhile and necessar y — have endured. I suppose it’s traditional to end with piece of advice, so here is mine — find your core. Know what matters to you, and be conscious of when you’re making a choice, whether it be between passions, possessions or people. Perhaps you think you can have it all. Perhaps you can. But if you find yourself floundering, struggling to juggle ever ything in your life, be careful, lest you inadvertently drop what you truly value. It is better to consciously make choices than to have those choices made for you.
FRIDAYS WITH MARIAN COLUMN By Marian Lurio
Boots and RallIES
MIRROR //7
COLUMN By Aaron Pellowski
Ebola is permeating American society in every way, except in the way that is literal. Here’s hoping I didn’t just jinx myself and the American public. I’m pretty unknowledgeable about Ebola in part due to the historical truth that hard, non-quasi/pseudo-science has never been my strong suit. Despite the uncontrollable media circus surrounding Ebola, I still don’t really understand anything about the disease’s epidemiology. Don’t get me wrong — Ebola is a huge issue in some other countries and for all I know (since I don’t know how this disease spreads and I’m not sure anyone does) it could become an epidemic. Scratch that, apparently it actually is technically an epidemic. Whatever you say, CDC. You are probably asking yourself, “What does Marian think the federal government should do to prevent Ebola from spreading through the U.S. population?” I’m glad you asked, Phil. Let’s look at what some other countries have done. I was so pleased to hear — but sadly not from the horse(faced) mouth of Dennis Rodman — that Kim Jong Un was back in action, cane and all, as the supreme leader of North Korea and an even bigger basketball fan than Obama. According to the Associated Press, “Koryo Tours posted an announcement on its Twitter and Facebook accounts saying it has been told that no foreign tourists would be allowed into North Korea beginning Friday.” That’s today. Hopefully, this ban will be lifted by the holiday season for all the honeymooners and families in the U.S. and around the globe who’ve already made arrangements to see the sites that North Korea claims — I mean, has — to offer. What about Dennis Rodman? But I have a burning feeling that he’s got some venereal diseases that are just as, if not more, easily spread than Ebola. Dennis, you dog! Luckily, Bentley — the dog whose owner had Ebola — has a) not been euthanized and b) his Ebola tests came back negative. If you’re thinking, “screw the dog!” then Google Image search “Bentley Ebola” or some variation on that. You don’t have to be a dog-lover to want to kidnap that thing and raise it as your own. According to CNN, “More specimens will be collected [of Bentley] before the end of the 21-day quarantine.” Hang in there, buddy — I’m coming to jailbreak you! I’ve already gotten us matching yellow hazmat jumpsuits. Weirdly enough, thinking about Ebola really reminds me of Donald Trump. If Trump makes a successful bid for the Republican ticket in the 2016 presidential elections, you know he won’t let us back in the country
(assuming neither Ebola nor the human race is eradicated before the next president takes office). And let’s be clear — he has by no means given up on his dream of being the leader of the free world, which I already find to be a pretty screwed up place. Nonetheless, Donald has been retweeting tweets supporting his next try for U.S. president. And people thought Obama was unqualified. Let’s take a moment to reminisce on some of Trump’s tweets regarding the American missionaries infected in Liberia who were both successfully treated in the ATL. On Aug. 1, @realDonaldTrump wrote, “The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back. People that go to far away places to help out are great — but must suffer the consequences!” Showing us he’s got the intuition of a world leader, Trump’s been an early pioneer of banning flights from Ebola’d countries from entering the U.S. On Aug. 2, he told his 2,730,000 followers the following message — “The U.S. must immediately stop all flights from EBOLA infected countries or the plague will start and spread inside our ‘borders.’ Act fast!” Trump now refers to the disease as “Ebola” rather than “EBOLA.” I’m relieved to see that he no longer thinks EBOLA is an acronym for the disease. However, I must commend Trump on his Twitter presence — his tweets about Obama, among other topics, are his own personal brand of #realtalk, and it’s clear he doesn’t give two you-know-whats about censoring himself. His incessant tweets about Obama are more outrageous than Amanda Bynes’s tweet on July 8, 2013 that read, “Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are ugly!” But according to Trump (via Twitter), Obama also belongs in a psychiatric care facility with the troubled starlet. Maybe we should focus a little of our attention away from ourselves and try to help treat and prevent Ebola victims in Liberia, other places and Mali, as of a few hours ago. Of course this is tricky because actually going to the afflicted regions and helping may very well result in getting Ebola. But a little fundraising never killed nobody — in fact, it’s been known to do quite the opposite! Idea for the Greek community and what one guest columnist called the “silent majority” (quite a loaded term to use in the context of Ivy League Greek houses): raise money for Ebola, and then you will sway the administration away from the insane and journalistically irresponsible (you tell ’em, angry students on Facebook!) opinions of The D’s editorial board. They’ve gone wild. The girls — and boy — of the editorial board have gone wild!
A little background: I received my Master’s at the Delaware Advanced Institute for Unreality Studies, located in Rasenna, Delaware, a semi-sylvan little town with a budding urban district. Rasenna was founded in 1809 as a pit-stop on the Great Maple Line from Montreal to Washington D.C., before the National Highway Act shifted commercial routes west 10 miles, effectively asphyxiating the town’s thru-traffic economy, leaving it a fertile wound in which academic gangrene was guaranteed to sprout. The tranquil environment and gasping labor market made it the perfect site to found a small college. So in 1945, Dr. Martin Graf successfully established DAIUS, moving himself and his peers in the “Black Forest” circle from the Freie Universitat of Berlin to a sleepy little pocket of Delaware. DAIUS has no undergraduates, except for a few exceptional cases on exchange from University of Delaware, University of Iowa and sometimes Princeton. I graduated in 2010 with very little knowledge of what a typical “undergraduate scene” could be like, though I had my hopes and prejudices. In 2011, I arrived incognito and naive upon the steps of Russell Sage with the three cardboard boxes containing all my essentials and memorabilia, not knowing quite what to expect but still harboring a few presumptions. For example, I anticipated that my fellow classmates would look a lot more like me — tortoise-shell glasses, tight-fitting jeans, cableknit cardigans, button-down plaid fleece — all the outward symptoms of a searching mind and a true intellectual. I cannot articulate my disappointment at the storm of yoga pants and “lax pinnies” that greeted me. But my contract with the NEA (the institution, you’ll remember, that funded my project) was hard, and there was a strict “no backing out except in case of emergency” stipulation. When I recovered from this trauma, sometime around my 27th birthday in midSeptember, I summoned the chutzpah to go knocking on my floormates’ doors, hoping to initiate some vigorous late-night dialectic. “Sarah!” I’d cry, “Bradford! How would you like to join me out on the fire escape? We can smoke clove cigarettes and read Camus to one another!” But Sarah and Bradford were too preoccupied with lemon vodka shots, complaining about Econ 1 and a engaging in a thunderous sing-a-long of “Wagon Wheel.” The final blow came about of my own earnest proactivity. I reasoned that all these more external trappings were but Sirenical distractions against the possibility of finding common, brain-based ground with someone. It would be enough to “meet people where they’re at” by asking about favorite books and taking it from there. Russian literature, German literature, American, English, GrecoRoman, any branch of philosophy — I could talk about all of these excitedly and with ease. Asian literature — not so much, but I was
willing to listen! “So what’s your favorite book, Kyle? ‘Harry Potter’? No really. Really? Uh, what’s your take on David Foster Wallace? Love to hate him, hate to love him, right? No? Katie? Also ‘Harry Potter’? Rachel? ‘The Kite Runner’? Don’t they sell that book at grocery stores? No, no, no, ‘pretentious’ is when you don’t know what you’re talking about. I just have Good Taste.” The ensuing alienation was crushing. It was doubly harmful because whenever I did discover someone who fit the DAIUS-form, I latched onto that person without any regard to that person’s morality, capacity for empathy and kindness, sense of humor, emotional stability or loyalty. Those relationships are more poisonous than pleasant, but the decades-old mentality that nurtures them is unspeakably painful to uproot. After a very large amount of time alone in Germany during my sophomore spring, many hours of which were spent wordlessly sitting in bars and graveyards, engulfed in a kind of helpless loneliness, I think I managed to make myself aware of and partially erode this problematic attitude. Speeding up to the moral of the story here, I have to say that I’ve learned something rather greater about myself than about Dartmouth, though without these three-and-a-half years at Dartmouth I might never have learned it. Reading a book like “Infinite Jest” cover to cover is no easy feat, and I deserve to be a little proud of myself for doing it. But what is extremely easy (and extremely dangerous) is spending the rest of my life being a self-obsessed git about the accomplishment and judging and testing others in ways that ensure mutual destruction, estrangement and sadness. Any criterion-based approach to selfesteem, no matter how cerebral, is just as awful and shameful and superficial as any other — e.g., one based on money, social status, academic performance, et cetera — and it promotes a toxic way of viewing oneself and others. I know that this is something really wrong with me, though it’s gotten a lot better since 2011. Instead of browsing my thousands of books for hours, and feeling ashamed at how little Shakespeare I’ve read and understood, I should re-dedicate that time to asking, “Have I been a good friend this week? Have I appreciated my blessings and health and family? Did I lie to anyone I love?” What progress I’ve made has resulted in explosive improvements to my self-esteem and friendships. There’s some pithy and ironical statement to made here about not judging a person by the covers of their books, but I can’t figure out how to make it work. It’s unlikely that it’d be very clever anyway. P.S. For those of you paying attention — I stole my bicycle back and I’ve felt like a champ all week.
8// MIRROR
Man’s Best Friend: Dartmouth Pets STORY
B y Caroline Berens
Mos Def and Black Thought Fondly named after famous rappers, poison dart frogs Mos Def and Black Thought reside with their owner Dave Klinges ’17 in his pretty messy and very boyish house with a few roommates. Let’s just say this was the last place I expected to find so many reptiles. Dave also has a few pets back at home in Princeton, New Jersey, so scaly friends have been a continuous presence in his life. Their species of poision dart frog are dendrobates auratus and dendrobates leucomelas, which means that while they are not the most toxic poison dart frogs, their small amount of poison could still make a human very sick — so make sure you don’t get on Klinges’s bad side. Klinges has had Mos Def and Black Thought for three-and-a-half years, including last year in his freshman dorm. Poison dart frogs like these usually live up to 10 years. Jalapeño Jalapeño, an orange-eyed crocodile skink, is another one of Klinges’s many reptilian pets. He has had Jalapeño for three years and also housed him in his freshman dorm. This type of lizard can live up to 20 years — one of the longest lifespans of most household pets. Keep in mind that even these sorts of pets aren’t sanctioned by the College and are thus not allowed in dorms. For those of you who are curious, the only pet you can keep in a dorm is a fish.
Courtesy of Allison Frantz
Smidge This cute little golden bundle Smidge is the seeing-eye dog of Staci Mannella ’18. They reside together in Russell Sage. Mannella got Smidge, a 2-year-old Labrador-golden retriever mix, this summer before coming to Dartmouth. She said that Smidge’s name comes from a black smidge on her hip. Although most people think seeing-eye dogs don’t have a lot of downtime, as they always have to be alert and focused directing their owner, Mannella said that Smidge spends considerable time hanging out, just being a dog. The other day, Mannella was doing laundry in the Russell Sage basement with Smidge. When she had picked up her clothes from the dryer and was walking back upstairs, Smidge did not come with her. Only when she called her name did she come running. When Mannella got back to her room she realized Smidge had stayed back to pick up a sock that had fallen from her basket and brought it to her room.
Garfunkle Garfunkle is a four-and-a-half month short-hair Dachshund puppy who currently resides with Ellie Peterson ’15. Described as the “Tabard dog,” Garfunkle is often cared for by a few of its members — and other random interlopers — throughout the day, and is loved for his friendly and affectionate nature. So if you’re looking for a little puppy lovin’, hit up the Tabards to take Garfunkle for a walk.
Fish Leif Harder ’15 has a 10-gallon fish tank containing several breeds of fish in his Ripley Hall dorm. His fish include cherry shrimp, tetras, danios and cory catfish — it’s an impressive round-up. Harder has maintained most of the fish for only two months, but has taken care of the cherry shrimp for three years, as they keep reproducing. Harder said that he likes having the fish — which are all unnamed due to their sheer number — because watching them helps him relax. When he sees their slow, simple pace of life, he can take a step back and realize what really matters.
Eve and Lyude Eve (pictured) and Lyude are ball pythons that live in Tabard with Connie Gong ’15. They were bequested to Gong by a member of the Class of 2012, and were previously cared for by Tabard’s president last year, a member of the Class of 2014. Their original owner purchased the pythons his freshman year, so they are approximately 6 years old — just a fraction of their decades-long life expectancy. As many of you ’15s might recall, Lyude is the snake that made national news in 13X when he escaped and was loose on campus. Thankfully, he was found by another pet on campus, and now lives back in his warm, quiet little box under Gong’s bed.
Unnamed A (thus far) unnamed purple reef lobster was recently adopted by Adam Schneider ’15 a few days ago and currently resides in a saltwater reef aquarium in Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity. Although at first the the lobster wouldn’t come out out for the picture, he lives in the pictured aquarium and is only about one inch big so far — he will eventually grow to four (adorable!). As these types of lobsters are territorial and aggressive, this purple lobster will likely remain the aquarium’s only resident. Maybe he’ll do a little lobster dance at Alpha Chi’s beach party.
PHOTOS BY CAROLINE BERENS // THE DARTMOUTH