The Independent Student Publication of the University at Buffalo WEDNESDAY EDITION v March 2, 2011 Vol. 60 No. 59 v ubspectrum.com
International Proportions
An Interview with Jhumpa Lahiri
ROB SCHULZ
The Spectrum had an opportunity to interview Jhumpa Lahiri, winner of the Pulitizer Prize in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies. She will be speaking as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series in the Center for the Arts on Wednesday at 8 p.m.
International Fiesta “Global Kaleidoscope,” featuring dances by a number of the international clubs, will take place this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the Center for the Arts.
MICHAEL TYSONAsst. Life Editor It’s not every day that students can learn about several foreign cultures and get entertained with many different styles of dance – all from the comfort and convenience of the Center for the Arts.
Lahiri has received many additional honors for her writing, including the PEN/Hemingway Award, an O. Henry Prize, and the Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was also recently appointed to President Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. The Spectrum: The University at Buffalo has a very diverse mix of students from all over the world. What can you tell them from your own experiences as an immigrant to the United States? Jhumpa Lahiri: I’m technically an immigrant; I came here when I was two. I was born in London, so I’m technically an immigrant on paper. I think, in practical terms, I’m more identified as a child of immigrants. My understanding of the immigrant experience is more-or-less based on the life with my parents – watching them and seeing how they negotiated life in a new land and, I suppose, inheriting some of their distance from the United States as a result. I’ve been surrounded by immigrants all my life because of my parents and the friends they had, and now in my adult life as well, for other reasons. TS: You’ve received a plethora of awards throughout your lifetime; which are you the most proud of? JL: I don’t really think of them in that way. I’m grateful for them. I’ve been surprised by most of them. They’re not something I look for or expect, in terms of my writing. The recognition has brought me many things and taken me many places and allowed me to have a lot of opportunities that I might not have, and, in that sense, I am particularly grateful for the doors that have opened up. I think positively in those terms, but there’s no way I could rank them in order of preference. I suppose the most significant was the first time I was awarded. It was some recognition of my work as an adult, and it was just a very small award called the Henfield Prize, and I was a finalist for that. I remember that it was significant because I was still really searching for my identity as a writer, so that came at a time when it was particularly meaningful, something that told me to keep going.
Source: Princeton.edu
JHUMPA LAHIRI emerging writer. I think at a certain point, you want to be accepted – i.e. published – and at the same time, at least for me, that wasn’t what was driving the writing. It’s nice when they converge, but one does not necessarily drive the other, and I think that some rejection is good because it strengthens your resolve – or, at least, it strengthened my resolve – to just keep at it and keep trying and trying to write better. Which remains the goal, after all.
JL: I just had some ideas for stories and I wrote them. I just write what comes; sometimes it’s a novel, and sometimes it’s a story. I don’t really decide consciously to write one or the other. I just start writing and I use what’s in my mind to work with. I don’t go searching for a form, and I think some ideas are meant to be stories and some ideas are meant to be novels. I try to think about that before I start something. I don’t believe in writing a novel just for the sake of writing a novel, and I don’t think a story should be forced to be a novel. I think that I tend to write it as a story if I can, and if I can’t, then I turn it into a novel, or try to. TS: There has been a lot of criticism, in terms of financial gain and avenues to pursue, for students graduating with English degrees today. What would you say to these critics, and what would you say to the students?
TS: It’s been stated that many of your early works were rejected. What gave you the strength to continue to write? JL: It’s a strange situation as an
E-mail: features@ubspectrum.com
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On Saturday at 7:30 p.m., the International Club Council will put on the annual International Fiesta. This year’s theme is Global Kaleidoscope and it promises to have many elements blended into one evening. “What the audience is going to see during the show is the hard work and the devotion that students put into this event,” said Janice Tong, the international club council coordinator and a
senior social sciences interdisciplinary major with a concentration in international studies. “They actually started preparing last year, so all this hard work and all this effort is condensed into the eight minutes that they have on stage. I hope people enjoy it.” What the event boils down to is an international dance competition that weaves together traditional and modern themes that have to do with the dancing club’s origin. There are elements of both education and entertainment. Clubs are not limited in their membership, according to Tong. For instance, the Indian Student Association, though mostly made
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up of Indian students, has many students who were raised locally. The fiesta welcomes the curious. “International students have a lot of passion,” Tong said. “It’s really a cultural exchange and I hope that the audience can get a little exposure through this experience. Also, I hope they realize that there are clubs that they can approach if they have questions or are curious.” In addition to the free tickets the Student Association has been giving out over the past couple weeks, 200 tickets are on sale at the CFA box office for $10.
E-mail: features@ubspectrum.com
Several differences emerged when researchers were measuring cardiovascular response to measured amounts of caffeine. As the percentage of caffeine intake increased, boys experienced a cardiovascular response in which blood pressure increased and heart rate decreased.
TS: You’ve had a lot of success as a novelist, but for Unaccustomed Earth, you switched to the short story format. Why the switch?
JL: Well, it’s never going to be otherwise. It is a crapshoot; it’s never been guaranteed. Everyone knows that – it’s irrelevant. If someone wants to write stories, or paint, or any art – if they have that need and that drive, they will do what they love and figure out a way to live. That’s been the history of artists throughout time, and I doubt that it will ever change. I don’t think it should change. I believe there should always be that hard, cold reality in the mind of an aspiring artist. There’s really no way around it.
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A Fiesta of
Girls did not have the same response. The significance of the split in the physical response was compounded by the study’s findings regarding motivation for caffeine use, according to Temple. “Boys tended to report that they used caffeine to get a rush or to get high or to enhance athletic performance,” Temple said. “Girls didn’t report using caffeine for those reasons.” Researchers were intrigued by these differences. Courtesy of Michaela Kovyakov
Study: Girls Not as Sensitive to Caffeine as Boys MADELEINE BURNSStaff Writer Sorry, ladies; it appears that gulping down all that caffeine during high school might not have been as effective as once thought. Boys are more sensitive than girls to the effects of caffeine, according to results of a study conducted by Jennifer L. Temple, Ph.D., assistant professor of nutrition and exercise science at the University at Buffalo. Temple’s study, which focused on adolescents aged 12 to 17, explored the effects of acute caffeine on adolescents and is the first to show a gender gap in physiological response to the commonly used drug. “Our primary evidence suggests that boys may be experiencing something different from the caffeine than girls,” Temple said. “[Girls] don’t get the same rush from the caffeine.”
“Originally, we didn’t predict any gender differences because gender differences in caffeine response haven’t really been reported much,” Temple said. In a follow-up study, researchers explored the physical mechanism that is responsible for the differences in response. Research suggests that steroid-hormones such as estrodiol, a sex hormone present in females and males, could affect the metabolism of caffeine. Females tend to be most responsive to caffeine when estrodiol levels are low. Therefore, female sensitivity to caffeine fluctuates depending on the phase of the menstrual cycle, Temple said. Patterns of consumption may also contribute to how teens react to caffeine. While girls are likely to consume tea or coffee with low levels of caffeine, boys tend to purchase energy drinks and ingest maximum levels of caffeine in very short time periods, according to Temple. According to Ryan Vargas, a shift manager at Spot Coffee on Elmwood Avenue, teens are consuming caffeinated beverages more often than in past years. Drinks that have “tons of sugar and tons of caffeine” are often served to the younger demographic, as teens take advantage of increasing freedoms. Additionally, peers often influence teens’ decisions to try caffeinated beverages, Vargas said. “When you get older, you enjoy [caffeinated beverages] as much as you can,” Vargas said. “You want all you can get your hands on.”
Temple’s data suggests that girls are buffered from the effects of caffeine. Researchers believe that the gender-dependence is caused by physical differences Continued on Page 10 as well as variations in patterns of consumption.
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