December 2019 by Counterpoint Magazine

COUNTERPOINT the wellesley college journal of campus life december 2019 volume 53 issue 4

HAVE GOOD FINALS AND WINTERSESSION due february 12 at midnight send to @mfurbush and @fgazzolo

SUBMISSION POLICY The magazine accepts non-fiction submissions that are respectful, are submitted with sufficient time for editing, and have not been published elsewhere. We encourage cooperation between writers and editors but reserve the right to edit all content for length and clarity. Email submissions, ideas, or questions to the Editors-in-Chief (fgazzolo or mfurbush). The views expressed in Counterpoint do not necessarily reflect the views of the magazine staff or the Wellesley community. Counterpoint does not solicit specific pieces from students, rather we publish the pieces that we receive each month and do our best to publish all appropriate submissions that we receive.

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counterpoint / december 2019

Images: Mari Kramer '23 (cover)

Have perspectives you want to share? Looking for a Wintersession project? Already miss writing papers?

E D I TO R I A L S TA F F Editors-in-Chief Managing Editors Features Editor Staff Editors

Francesca Gazzolo ’20 Marina Furbush ’21 Corinne Muller ’21 Vanessa Ntungwanayo ’21 Zaria George ’22 Cheryn Shin '21 Sage Wentzell-Brehme '21 Marney Wood '21 Stella Ho '22 Parker Piscitello-Fay '22 Sanjana Ramchandran '22 Ava Yokanovich '22 Sophie Bunnell '23 Anna Calderon '23 Angelina Li '23 Talia O'Shea '23 Amish Rasheed '23 Katharine Tracy '23

D E S I G N S TA F F Layout Editors

Marina Furbush ’21 Zaria George ’22 Clara Brotzen-Smith ’23 Christie Chong ’23

B U S I N E S S S TA F F Website Manager Sage Wentzell-Brehme '21 Stella Ho ’22 Publicity Chair Social Chair Treasurer

Cheryn Shin ’21 Parker Piscitello-Fay '22 Stella Ho ’22

TRUSTEES

COUNTERPOINT THE WELLESLEY COLLEGE JOURNAL OF CAMPUS LIFE DECEMBER 2019 Volume 53 / Issue 4

A R T S & C U LT U R E CHLOÉ ALMODOVAR

A MODERN TALE OF TRAIN TRAVEL

IDENTITY ZOË OWENS

CONVERSATIONS WITH MY GRANDMOTHER

SOFIA ROSE

ARCHIE

CAMPUS LIFE MABL PEACH

SOUP RAT

ELY WILLARD

THE PROS OF DORM LIVING

M E N TA L H E A LT H ANONYMOUS

GRIM REEFER

F E AT U R E S COUNTERPOINT STAFF

POLL: FLEX POINT BALANCE

COUNTERPOINT STAFF

CROSSWORD: HIT SONGS AND ARTISTS OF THE 2010s

Olivia Funderburg ’18, Allyson Larcom ’17, Hanna Day-Tenerowicz ’16, Cecilia Nowell ’16, Oset Babur ’15, Alison Lanier ’15, Kristina Costa ’09, Kara Hadge ’08

counterpoint / december 2019

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ARTS & CULTURE

A Modern Tale of Train Travel

aking the train in France is like a roll of the dice: your chances of getting on one are never twice the

same. This is the main lesson I took away from three years of boarding school. Every Monday I took the 6 a.m. train to school, and every Friday I took the 6 p.m. train home. Each trip brought a different set of challenges. The most common cause of delays on Monday mornings was alarm clock failure. Not mine––I was always on time––but the train drivers were not. Eventually, I stopped counting how many times I saw them coming into the station after me. On Friday evenings, the main cause of delays was the so-called “evil conspiracy of the train industry against boarding school students.” It was indeed uncanny how my classmates and I kept getting stranded week after week after week, always on Fridays, around 6 p.m. Naturally, this had to be on purpose. The evil genius of the conspiracy always culminated on the last Friday of school before the holidays. On those evenings, the trip home transformed into a quest, riddled with obstacles and battles against time and transportation. I vividly remember one of those evenings from six years ago. My first train had been canceled. Then the second. Then the third. As the hours dragged on, I saw more and more of my friends arrive at the station. Soon enough, the whole boarding school had poured in, with still no train in sight. Almost all of them were canceled that evening. But I was still hoping one would come through. page 4

We strained our ears to hear the monotonous voice on the speaker as it announced the dreadful news. Then suddenly, the speaker announced that a bus was ready to replace the train. I was relieved. And so were hundreds of other passengers. The competition was fierce. The battle raged on, bodies pressed against bodies, suitcases transforming into shields to make it through the crowd. I decided to retreat. As we gradually settled onto the cold floor of the station, exhausted and impatient to get on with our holidays, one of my friends took out her guitar and started playing. We sang along to pass the time. Water bottles were distributed to us. We were prepared for a siege. We sang and laughed and yelled for no apparent reason, as teenagers do. To the untrained eye we undoubtedly looked like a cult. We thrived, united, surrounded by an increasingly high pile of shredded paper as irritated passengers ripped up their useless tickets. Eventually, we started to disperse. The most adventurous of us decided to take a hazardous combination of buses and streetcars. Others called their parents to come to the rescue. We had one pact: no one would be left behind. Those whose parents could not come carpooled with others. By and by, a sort of laziness settled in the air. Voices became hushed; people moved quickly and silently like shadows. The train station emptied gently, like lungs breathing out a sigh of relief.

counterpoint / december 2019

It's funny how in the space of a few hours my excitement to get away from all things school-related had been replaced by the desire to stay with my friends––and now the moment had passed. I did not get on a train that evening. My father had to drive all the way from home. We had lost the battle this time, but our spirits were not defeated. We had united, and sung together. Trying to catch a train is a journey into the unknown. You never know how long it will take, what roads you will end up on, or who your companions will be. But because all people share this knowledge and still attempt the adventure, you will find on your path enough solidarity to sustain you throughout your quest. So fellow travelers, I’ll tell you this: roll the dice––it’s worth it. Chloé Almodovar '20 (ca1) dreams of traveling the world.

Images: unsplash.com (left), countrycasualteak.com (swing), flickr.com and wikipedia.org (fireflies)

B Y C H L O É A L M O D O VA R

IDENTITY BY ZOË OWENS Content warnings: implications of eating disorders

y grandma and I were sitting on the front porch swing at sunset in midAugust. As the cicadas screamed and the fireflies came out to play, she took a sip of her wine and said, “I worry about your brother. He reminds me too much of myself when I was suffering.” She didn’t look at me as she said it. It was almost like she wasn’t saying it to me; she was saying it to get it out of her head and off of her heart. I asked her what she meant, and she responded, “Well, with that whole wrestling thing... he is just getting so skinny and he hardly eats. I keep thinking about when I was in my twenties and I also didn’t eat. I remember making myself sick after meals sometimes.” I didn’t know what to say. I have lived with this woman for years and I know her to be ridiculous and lewd and hilarious. Once, I told her what a dental dam was and for a month after, she went around making me explain it to the room every time she got drunk. We had never had a conversation like this before. I said, “I worry about him too.” And we both drank from our glasses and were silent for a while. We haven’t talked about it since, but now I know her better.

III

II We were cooking dinner together. My mom was at work, and I was complaining about how she wouldn’t let me take a Greyhound to go on vacation with my friends. My grandma looked at me over the stovetop and said, “I get why she’s so tough on you kids. After her dad died, I was a teenager again. I didn’t raise her, and I think she made some mistakes because of that. I mean, she married your dad when she was eighteen. She doesn’t want you to make the same mistakes that she did. She loves you too much.” I pushed her. “What do you mean you didn’t raise her?” “Well, her dad died when she was fourteen, and I started dating again. She was alone for a lot of her teen years so she turned to your dad. She wants to make sure you get through college, unlike her.” I stopped talking because I knew she was right.

She's always right.

Zoë Owens ’22 (zowens) wants to know her family better but doesn't know how to ask them to open up. counterpoint / december 2019

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BY SOFIA ROSE Content warnings: descriptions of misogyny and harassment

started attending a mainstream high school when I was fifteen. I was so excited to go to my first school dance. I knew it wasn’t going to be like dances in movies and TV shows—I wasn’t that naive—but I was sure I would have fun. I invited my very best friend, who was still homeschooled at the time, to come with me. We got ready together and my dad dropped us off. It was a fairly normal affair: the teachers stood at the edges of our dimly-lit cafeteria, and we ate grocery store cupcakes and watched people dancing in a circle—you know, the way high schoolers do. My friend started dancing with a kid I knew tangentially; we’ll call him Archie. He used to be in my World History class, before the teacher kicked him out. He was cute, but I found him annoying. He and my friend talked for maybe ten minutes, exchanged numbers. Nothing else happened. My friend and I left the dance early and went back to my house for a sleepover. Archie and my friend texted a bit. One day, when she didn’t reply to him for a couple hours, he called her home phone and asked her mother if she was okay. She had never given him her home phone number. page 6

It sounds ridiculous writing this, even now. What a weird thing for him to do! But it was truly terrifying. Sure, my friend lived forty-five minutes away from Archie. She was probably too far away for him to actually come to her house. I had to go to school with him every day, though. Every time I saw him, I wondered not only how on earth he’d found her home phone number, but what he was thinking when he was searching for it. Did he think she would be flattered? Or was it some sort of power trip, his way of demonstrating that he was entitled to her attention, to her personal information, that by consenting to talk to him, she was consenting to not having any privacy from him? I thought about the incident today when one of my friends told me there was a huge scandal at her old high school. A group of boys had created a group chat where they exchanged girls’ nudes. They made the pictures into trading cards, Pokémon-style, with different rankings for hotter girls. This had been going on

counterpoint / december 2019

for several years—and the school administration knew about it. I thought about it yesterday when another one of my friends asked me to help her brainstorm issues that affect women for a presentation, and every single person in the room had a different suggestion for her. I’ve also been thinking about it in the context of my own attraction to men. Trying to figure out my sexual orientation is already a messy process, and the messiness of it all is only compounded by the power structures that allow men and boys to get away with such terrifying behavior. Do I only feel attraction to women and non-binary people because they feel safer to me? Do I only feel attraction to men because of compulsory hetereosexuality? Am I worried about fulfilling stereotypes about people who go to an inclusive women’s college hating men? What is that gross feeling of both fear and flattery when a man compliments me in public? How fucked up is it that I feel like being perceived as attractive by a man carries more weight than being perceived as attractive by a woman? My friend stopped talking to Archie after he called her house. But he came up to me in the cafeteria and asked me about her sometimes. I still don’t know how I should have responded.

Sofia Rose '22 (srose5) is just trying to study for her linguistics final but writing about misogyny seemed like a productive way to procrastinate

Images: unsplash.com (left), Rachel Wu '23 (right)

Archie

IDENTITY

CAMPUS LIFE

soup rat I

n the age of Disney+, one must reflect on the Pixar legacy left by films like A Bug’s Life, The Incredibles, and Toy Story. Often unappreciated and overlooked, though, is the cinematic classic Soup Rat, a charming tale of one gifted rat and his experiences in the third-floor kitchen of Wellesley College’s Tower Court East dorm. Through its portrayal of the French rat diaspora in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the film’s nuanced commentary strikes at the core of contemporary dialogues on rat rights and the democratization of culinary practices. Soup Rat’s complex reflections on social, cultural, and economic trends can be compared to a thick cream stew; they are both robust and rich, yet their full-bodied, complex flavor profiles require one to two days to fully form. This period of contemplation, funnily the same amount of time it took the directors to film the movie, involves hours of deep introspection and critical consideration. Much like an ascetic praying whilst in a state of extreme hunger, a viewer enters a rapturous spell of Soup Rat-induced reflection when mulling over the film’s unparalleled brilliance. Soup Rat brings a person into the heart of Wellesley, pushes them down six flights of Tower Court stairs, and cooks up both a heartwarming tail and a metaphorical bowl of Annie’s Mac & Cheese. The artful weaving in of visually rich Tik-Toks and literal nonstop musical accompaniment transforms the world behind the camera into a bubonic plague-induced fever dream. Uma Thurman’s bold presence and predilection for leaving her dishes in the Tower East sink provides Soup Rat with a character that is equally, if not more, complex as the flavor profile of

BY MABLE PEACH

Grand Central Station ice cream. Rat paws pitter-patter against one’s heart as Romy the rat and Fettuccine Boy form a partnership that tests the bounds of animal ownership laws and PETA standards. Romy’s bulging eyes bore into viewers’ souls, bringing them to question the implicit biases they hold about crosscultural exchange between humans and rats. Without a doubt, Soup Rat surpasses the cinematic triumphs of Wes Anderson, Alfred Hitchcock, and Martin Scorcese. Never has such an incisive view of a rat colony and 3-Michelin Star restaurant living under one dorm roof been produced. The film transcends time and taxonomy, deftly blurring the lines between man and rat while simultaneously cooking up a collection of artfully shot clips. Viewers are quite literally drop-kicked in the heart while watching the film—the imprints of low-top Doc Martens will stay with them throughout their lives.

Killer and Goop Stew will become household names, and generations of children will flock to Wellesley Books to purchase stuffed Romy and Rat Dad figurines. Young children deserve a role model like Romy to inspire them to respect rat populations and appreciate rats’ roles in the culinary history of Wellesley, Massachusetts. On a global scale, Soup Rat asks viewers to ask not what rats can do for you, but what you can do for rats. If you don’t stand for rats, what do you stand for? Mable Peach '23 (mp3) enjoys writing satirical reviews of the arts.

Soup Rat touches upon commentary that no one, literally not a singular person, knew they needed until watching the film. The poignance and relevance of the film must be recognized in the age of socially conscious TikTokers and politically minded young adults. Characters like Thumb counterpoint / december 2019

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The Pros of Dorm Living B Y E LY W I L L A R D

n the last day of my summer writing workshop, the teacher invited us to write about our favorite aspect of home so that we would be excited to return the next morning. One woman was from New York City, and she wrote about her apartment building. She loves walking up the stairs, smelling her neighbors' food, and hearing snippets of conversation in various languages as she passes apartment doors. For her, being so close to other people and feeling a sense of community with them is the best thing about home. At first, I thought I couldn’t relate to her story at all, having grown up in a house in rural Massachusetts with my closest neighbors several hundred feet away. But when I returned to Wellesley, I realized I could connect to it after all. As I make my way through my senior year, I keep getting prematurely nostalgic for this place, even though I’m still here. And one of the things I

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know I’ll miss, strange as it may sound, is living in a dorm. Somewhere between sophomore and junior year, when I realized that all my friends at other schools were moving into apartments off campus, I regretted going to a college where that’s almost never an option. A part of me still regrets it, but this year, I’ve come to genuinely love my dorm and think of it as home. I haven’t lived in the same building all four years, but I quickly gravitated toward the one I live in now and spent a lot of

counterpoint / december 2019

time in even before I was an official resident. As a first year and sophomore, I studied in the living room with friends and got advice from older students about course registration, dating, and anything else that came up. Now, I’ve become the one giving advice, and while I’m not sure if any of it is actually useful, I’m glad I can help make the community as warm and welcoming for others as it was for me. I’m lucky that the majority of my friends happen to live in the same building and that we all found ways to stay in it year after year; that certainly colors my perception of how great it is. But part

Images: wellesley.edu (left), stylerelish.blogspot.com (right)

CAMPUS LIFE

of the reason I have so many friends here, both old and new, is because the community is so strong. It’s hard not to develop friendships with people after seeing them at House Council every week or regularly studying at the same table in the living room. The RAs and HPs I’ve had over the years also deserve a ton of praise for actively engaging with their dorm community and making common spaces fun. At the beginning of my junior year there was a big push to make the living room a place for socializing rather than just studying, and that has really paid off. But even at the beginning of my time at Wellesley, before I knew any of my neighbors, I loved experiencing signs of people around me sharing my building. One of my favorite memories from orientation is hearing people in my hallway playing violin and ukulele while I played guitar in my room. Knowing that my neighbors were engaging in a similar hobby, even if I couldn’t see their faces, made me feel less lonely as I adjusted to college life. Now, I still like being aware of the other people in my dorm. I love coming back at the end of the day, confident that I’ll see at least one person I know in the living room. More often than not, if I stop to say hi, I’ll get pulled into a conversation. When I’m the one hanging out in the living room, I get to see my friends come and go and chat with them as they wait for the elevator. I love walking down my hallway and hearing bits of other people’s music filtering out through their doors. At the beginning of the year, the first years across the hall always apologized for their

loud music when they saw me, but I truly didn’t mind. If I don’t like what they’re playing, I can just put my earbuds in and turn the volume up. I love running into friends and acquaintances in the bathroom when we’re brushing our teeth and chatting about what we’ve got planned or how our day went. I love people knocking on my door to ask if they can borrow something. I love being able to walk up a couple floors to return something I borrowed from someone else and end up hanging out in their room for an hour. Even the things I dreaded as an incoming first year don’t bother me anymore. I’ve adjusted to communal bathrooms, and although my friends don’t believe me, I really don’t mind at all that my room has been right next to the bathroom for three out of four years. The convenience of having it nearby outweighs any negative side effects. And sure, there have been days when the stale smell of ramen in the kitchen has made me nauseous, or nights when I was sick and the people down the hall were throwing a party and I wanted nothing more than for them to be quiet. But

nothing's perfect 100 percent of the time. I’ve been the person being too loud in the hallway, too, so I try to let the annoyance pass, and keep my earplugs handy. There are some things I’ll never be happy with. (Not having an adequate kitchen, for example, has pissed me off more and more every year.) But most of the time, I’m just endlessly grateful that I get to live in a place that makes me so happy. I came into college riddled with anxiety about sharing a living space with dozens of other people, and it turned out so much better than I could have ever expected. Never again will I be able to say that the majority of my friends live under one roof. I won’t be able to just leave my room and walk downstairs when I want to socialize. I’m looking forward to having an apartment with (hopefully) more space and a working kitchen, but I’ll always remember dorm life here fondly, and I’ll make the most of it until they kick me out on May 31st.

Ely Willard ‘20 (ewillard) is a Shafer lifer in spirit if not in actuality.

counterpoint / december 2019

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MENTAL HEALTH

Grim Reefer BY ANONYMOUS

Content warning: descriptions of drug use

For information about articles published anonymously, please contact the Editors-in-Chief (fgazzolo or mfurbush).

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counterpoint / december 2019

Image: commercialdomesticinvestigations.co.uk Images: vectorstock.com (left), media.wired.com (right)

“T

hey’re weed gummies,” my friend said. “You can eat them all.” That’ll be just fine. Sounds dandy. What could possibly go wrong? Everything. I lost my mind, friends. I tried to flush myself down a toilet. I thought it was my escape. And then God showed up and said, “You ate so many.” God was really sad. I’m so sorry, God. “Dude, you ate like thirty.” (Still God). “How many should I have eaten?” I asked. “Two,” said God. “Just two.” “Oh no, God. I’m fucked.” “Yup. You’re really fucked.” And then I blacked out. I woke up in bed, surrounded by friends. I blacked out again. They took me to the hospital. The doctor was really hot, so I said, “Hey, are you married?” He left. The nurse told me to be quiet. My friend Em was there, and we’re both some kind of gay. I really needed to pee but the nurse wouldn’t let me. It’s because we’re gay, I thought. I should sue. Then I blacked out again. I had insurance, but I didn’t know if it would cover the visit. Did I let the insurers down? Were they okay? Did they still love me? Then all of a sudden it’s 7 a.m., the sun is up, and Em says it’s time to go home. I’m still pretty fucked up so I eat some bagels and take a nap. My friends had washed my sheets for me. I love my friends. But don’t do drugs, kids. Even if you know people who will wash your sheets for you. Just don’t do ’em.

How many flex points do you have left? 0 36.3%

41-50 7.8% 31-40 5.4%

1-10 20.1% 11-20 17.6%

21-30 12.7%

When did you spend them all? September 15.7% December 9.0% November 29.2%

October 46.1%

POLL

What item did you waste most of them on? hot tea • coffee • gum • kombucha • ramen • peanut butter m&m’s baby!! • mac n cheese • soda that I could have gotten from the dining hall; I am a thirsty bonch • muffins at the leaky beaker • chocolate • popcorn, chips, chocolate • $6 lattes! • aluminum foil and plastic wrap, decaf tea, sparkling apple cider • california roll sushi yumyum • cough drops • Haribo twin snakes aka worms • yerba mates FOR SURE • yakisoba • vegetarian marshmallows • divvies cookies • peanut butter cups • frozen dinners to supplement Wellesley Fresh’s lack of reliable gluten-free options • flower sunday... jk my littles are worth all of the flex points • snacks like trail mix • the dry seaweed from the emporium. It. Hits! • ice chai latte • oreos • gelato • chips • hot chocolate • $7 bag of cookies • Leaky Beaker sushi and frappuccinos • cheesy popcorn • pocky • those chocolate coconut bars in the gluten free section • I paid like, $8 for a bag of almonds • chocolate covered pretzels • Honest Ade tea • snyder’s buffalo wing pretzels • bobo’s chocolate chip oat bar • ben and jerry’s • airheads • yogurt • twix • croissants • drinks ): I love arizona tea too much • cream cheese pastry at Leaky Beaker • holiday special Starbucks • I didn’t waste any! (But I did get a lot of hot chocolate) • emergency food such as cup of noodles or snacks • pumpkini spice chai lattes • food to survive in between the 10 minute period between classes • naked mango madness TT.TT • eggs • dirt dessert cups and coffee at the leaky beaker • idk I used it sparingly • peanut butter and pop chips • hi-chews • oatmeal from the emporium • well I wouldn’t call it a waste but granola bars for when it’s 8:20 am and you haven’t left for your 8:30 yet • rx bars from the emporium • vegan ice cream because lemon sorbet is not a sufficient non dairy ice cream to have 24/7 for a school that has an ice cream endowment • “smoothies” more like slushies from emporium starbucks • cauliflower puffs! • kind bars

counterpoint / december 2019

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Image:s: amazon.com

CROSSWORD CROSSWORD

hit songs/ artists of the 2010s Across

2. “Ride to Harlem, Hollywood, Jackson, Mississippi. If we show up, we gon’ show out smoother than a fresh _____” 6. This seven-member boy band is popular with millions of thirsty women, in and out of their native Korea 8. She dropped the dollar sign in 2014 10. This music style started at ’90s raves, but became popular enough to get abbreviated in the 2010s 13. “And we’ll never be ____, it don’t run in our blood…” 14. Our 1D favorite is all grown up, with Mick Jagger swagger and a sexuality no one can pin down 16. Damn. Truly one of the greatest

rappers of all time 17. RIP to this Swedish master DJ, gone for his time 18. “One taught me love, one taught me patience, one taught me pain” 19. Though we hate to admit it to ourselves, we loved the a capella drama 20. Our favorite Canadian softboi rapper (who has uncomfy relationships with teenagers) 21. We danced to Starships at our middle school graduations and Anaconda at our high school proms, while the chaperones looked on with disdain 22. The online haven of wannabe rappers 23. He’s crazy, but he might also be Jesus (or Yeezus)

24. Queen B. Leader of the Beyhive. Bow down, baby 25. Just two white dudes singing about Boulder 28. This Katy Perry fave was released in August 2010, reminding us of a simpler adolescent time

Down

1. Remember when everyone and their dad was doing this dance in 2012? 3. Where Lil Nas X’s horse is headed 4. The border between two Southern states 5. This pop star has stirred up a lot of controversy, but maybe people just need to calm down 7. “It’s going down, I’m yelling____, you better move, you better dance”

9. “I’m on the right track, baby, I was _____” 11. As of Halloween 2019, Gerard and the boys are back together 12. This Childish Gambino music video highlights structural racism, gun violence, and police brutality in the U.S. 15. She looks and feels good as hell 26. Maybe you think this redheaded British singer is “perfect,” or maybe you just “don’t care” 27. The band of a generation for emo and scene kids everywhere 29. Queen of the breakup song–– when will she release her 30-something album? 30. The music video of this Luis Fonsi track is the most-watched YouTube video of all time