Vol. 61 NO. 35
ubspectrum.com
Friday, November 18, 2011
I Killed A Man and I Want to Die ERIN MAYNARD Staff Writer
I dream about blood. Its bitter, coppery taste fills my mouth. I see it, dark and oily, pooling around the broken body on the asphalt. I wake up screaming – hands outstretched, like Lady MacBeth looking for blood on my hands, wrists, sheets. My days are no better. At the sound of squealing tires, my left hand flies to shield my eyes while my right one clenches. I can no longer sit in a car longer than 30 minutes without medication. Exactly three years ago today, I killed a pedestrian on the Long Island Expressway. The accident wasn’t my fault. The detective in charge of the case looked me in the eyes and told me so. Yet, still, I am haunted. He died because my car ran him over. Countless conversations with priests and counselors will never change that. Sometimes, it is hard to go on knowing what I did. And yet I do. I must. Living honorably is my way of paying tribute. And yet, so often I feel as if I am perpetrating a
fraud when I try and do something kind. It’s as if I have become so tainted by the accident that I can never be good again. Sometimes, I think it would have been easier if I had died, too. Each day, I wake up wondering which 113 Americans will die in traffic accidents. Will it be the little girl in pigtails who’s not wearing a bike helmet? Will it be some of my UB classmates, who drink too much and drive too fast and think they are invincible? Or will it be the father of four who talks on his phone as he steps off the curb? One hundred and thirteen people. Those are the statistics, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That’s 42,000 a year. Another 350,000 Americans are injured yearly. I wish those numbers were abstract for me. But ever since a little after noon on that sunny November day three years ago, when I was heading home from my job as an editorial aide at a public relations office, steadily doing 55 mph on the Long Island Expressway in my tan Nissan Sentra, and thinking how happy I was to have my boyfriend down from Buffalo, those numbers are indelibly inked on my psyche. So are my memories of the psychiatric ward, where the ambulance brought me after the accident. It’s a place where chairs are bolted to the ground, men walk around in nothing but diapers, and the smell of antiseptic pervades. I didn’t belong there, but yet, I didn’t belong outside either. My boyfriend, his parents, and a large dose of medication saved me. The sedative blurred the pain. My boyfriend got me out, took me home, wrapped me in my pink, flannel
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Bulls Stay Perfect at Home
Coping with PTSD after her involvement in a fatal auto accident, Erin Maynard navigates a campus full of perceived dangers, like the parking lot full of cars behind her. Alexa Strudler /// The Spectrum
MATTHEW PARRINO Editor in Chief
REBECCA BRATEK News Editor
After two games of the 2011-12 season, the men’s basketball team is just beginning to learn what it’s capable of doing on the court.
The Student Association Senate strayed away from one of its major precedents this past Sunday, when it granted $1,500 to the women’s club field hockey team.
Head coach Reggie Witherspoon thinks that despite two victories, his young players are still figuring out how to play “assertive” basketball. The Bulls (2-0) beat Cornell (1-2), 68-59 on Wednesday night, despite 20 turnovers and an inability to control the game down the stretch, according to Witherspoon.
The precedent – only giving clubs up to $1,000 in additional funds per semester – is an unwritten rule that hasn’t been broken in almost two and a half years, according to Darwinson Valdez, chairman of the SA Senate.
“We have to learn – I think – how to take control of a game and do it with sustained concentration,” Witherspoon said. “You can see our immaturity at times.” Buffalo trailed only once in the opening minutes, but the Big Red was within striking distance throughout the second half. With just under seven minutes remaining, Cornell tied the game at 46 after an offensive putback by forward Eitan Chemerinski. The Cornell big man finished with a team-high 14 points and was the only Cornell player in double digits.
Despite Precedent, SA Senate Awards $1,500 to Women’s Field Hockey
Sophomore forward Javon McCrea’s 19 points helped propel the Bulls to a 68-59 win over Cornell. Alexa Strudler /// The Spectrum
Sophomore forward Javon McCrea – not to be outdone – scored eight of the Bulls’ next nine points to help secure the victory.
McCrea scored 15 of his game-high 19 points in the second half, and grabbed 10 rebounds to record his first double-double of the season.
“It got kind of close [in the second half] and at that moment I felt we didn’t want to lose this game, not at home and not against Cornell – not against anybody, but especially not against Cornell,” McCrea said. “I just didn’t want to lose so I guess we just took initiative and got the win.”
The Cornell zone defense seemed to stifle McCrea in the first half, but the sensational sophomore thought it was more about what he was doing wrong than what the Big Red was doing right. “I wasn’t really frustrated. I just think the things I was doing weren’t really working,” McCrea said.
“We’ve never granted any club more than $1,000 per semester from any combination of the [budgetary] lines,” Valdez said. “I personally feel that it’s gotten to a point that, yes it was a precedent, but this is an exception.” Valdez went on to explain that even though the unwritten rule is considered in the decision-making process, each Senate has the power to set its own guidelines. The women’s field hockey team came to the Senate meeting this past Sunday to ask
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The SA awarded $1,500 to women’s club field hockey this past Sunday, despite past precedents. Courtesy of Nicole Bachelet
for help funding a trip to the 2011 NFHCA Intercollegiate National Invitational Club Championship. The team was invited to the championship after finishing its season 6-0 and becoming the 2011 New York State Club Field Hockey League champions. “We went into the meeting expecting to get a maximum of $1,000 since that, as they said, was the most that they give out,” said Nicole Bachelet, president of the field hockey team, in an email. “We thought that if we explained how much
we needed altogether, rather than asking for just the $1,000 straight up, [then] they might give us more, and we were correct.” In addition to the Senate meeting held on Sunday, Valdez made the decision to call an Emergency Powers Council (EPC) meeting for Wednesday night. EPC meetings can be called “whenever any member of the council deems such a meeting necessary,” according to the SA constitution. The EPC consists of five of the SA’s highest-ranking officials, and
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Stampede Stomps on Student’s Moods RACHEL KRAMER Staff Writer As clouds grew dark in the sky and the wind stirred up an uncomfortable chill, students shivered and clutched their books tightly hoping it wouldn’t start to rain. All they wanted at that moment was for the bus to show up and drive them home. The UB Stampede, which has been transporting students since 2005, has recently not been running according to its schedule. “One day it’s good to go, but then it’s inconsistent because you’ve got eight busses in a row going to Ellicott but then you have to wait 30 or 40 minutes for a bus to take you to South Campus,” said Bill Bixby, a junior linguistics major. “This is something that has to be on time. I’ve tried to talk to bus drivers, but they are always just like, ‘I don’t know I just work here.’ It’s frustrating.” Bixby once stood at Lee Loop for 20 minutes waiting to catch a bus to South Campus. From there, he needed to take the subway and catch a tightly scheduled bus to East Amherst where he works in order to pay for his college tuition. He ended up being late.
sors] take into consideration people taking off or busses breaking down. I understand there might be traffic or special circumstances, but this is so inconsistent it’s ridiculous.” Bixby was not alone in his complaints. Standing with him were 13 other students waiting just as anxiously for a bus. “I’ve been waiting here for a while,” said Tara Jamali, a junior communication major. “I’m going to be late for class. Luckily this teacher is OK with it, but in other classes I could get in a lot of trouble [for being late].” It’s not just class that students are missing out on because of the unreliable bus schedule. On the weekends, the bus seems to appear less frequently, according to Kyle Jiron, a freshman biomedical sciences major. Students rely on the bus to get them to events around campus. Jiron once waited 45 minutes at the Governors bus stop for a ride to Ellicott for an intramural soccer game. He and his teammates had to forfeit because they arrived so late.
Punctuality is especially important to Bixby because he’s a shuttle bus driver himself.
“Everybody was upset...nobody wanted to admit defeat,” Jiron said. “We couldn’t understand why the bus drivers just couldn’t come to pick us up.”
“I see [that the UB Stampede] is all poor organization and not planning,” Bixby said. “I don’t think [the supervi-
UB Stampede drivers are the first to feel the wrath of students upset at the bussing system. But most drivers
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Weather for the Weekend: Friday: Partly Cloudy- H: 4, L: 38 Saturday: Partly Cloudy- H: 51, L: 47 Sunday: Showers/Wind- H: 41, L: 32
The inconsistency of the UB Stampede leads to angry UB students who are late to classes and other on-campus events.
Meg Kinsley /// The Spectrum
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