Hopkins is a diverse university where an incredible mix of cultures, academic interests and personalities coexist and thrive. Here is the section where you can publish your unique thoughts, ideas and perspectives on life at Hopkins and beyond.
Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” is a bop — it topped charts in 25 countries and became one of the best-selling singles of all time. It’s also a monumental LGBTQ anthem in which Gaga embraces her bisexuality and affirms other LGBTQ identities, singing “I’m beautiful in my way / ‘Cause God makes no mistakes / I’m on the right track, baby I was born this way.”
People have lots of different words for it, all with slightly different implications. “Situationship,” “seeing each other” and “hanging out” are just a few. Ultimately though, they refer to the same vague thing: two people who like each other enough to act like a couple, but who, for some reason or other, won’t commit. Though there is some overlap in terminology, I’ve found these pseudo-relationships aren’t quite a part of “hookup culture,” really. Instead, they exist in a strange gray area somewhere between “friends with benefits” and an official relationship.
Something unsettling has spread about the culinary mediaverse in recent weeks. If you spend as much time as I do browsing the websites, Instagram accounts and — on particularly hungry evenings — LinkedIn pages of restaurants, you’ve probably noticed it. Also, get yourself some help — your homework, pets and sleep cycle need you.
For years now, I have proudly identified myself as an intersectional feminist. I’m minoring in Women, Gender and Sexuality (WGS) Studies and am currently working on an Honors Thesis project related to the history of fairy-tales and the implicit, gendered messages that they often contain.
In introducing my column for this upcoming semester, I want to transition between the positive relationships I wrote about last semester to focusing on more politically-charged experiences. I would like to provide a content warning to anyone who cannot read about sexuality and sexual violence.
It was a brisk December night in the Big Apple when I stood under the Washington Square Arch, as the greens and yellows and purples of the skyline glowed in the background. I was already exhausted from walking across Manhattan, having visited the National Museum of Mathematics and walked the High Line, but I also felt excited as I stood in the park waiting for our group of Subtle Asian Daters to form.
For a lot of people, Valentine’s Day is less a holiday and more a 24-hour block of dodging obnoxiously googly-eyed social media posts and couples feeling each other up in the middle of the quad. And, as always, it’s coming around again. In a week, every store will be plastered with red heart-shaped decorations and every decent restaurant will be booking up fast.
Growing up, I always hated my body. I was fat, and I was not happy about it. I hated eating in public because I felt embarrassed. Shopping for clothes was a nightmare, and whatever I ended up with would still be too tight in some places and too baggy in others. I worried that I’d never be able to get girls.
Sometimes I feel as though I might be a naturally self-destructive person; in hindsight, some of the decisions I’ve made in the past appear completely discombobulated. In these moments, I end up simply wondering how a person could be so stupid. We all have our moments of failure big and small.
Why did you choose Hopkins? The decision likely wasn’t about the University’s recognition as a great place for party-goers or a plethora of fun school traditions. While we may have come to love Baltimore, as prospective students, I doubt the lack of warm beaches or beautiful mountains encouraged us to commit.
My first experience with long-distance running came in the seventh grade. At my first practice, our coach nonchalantly told us that we would be running six miles without stopping to walk or drink water. I was astonished; sure, I’d run a 5K before but never anywhere close to that length.
I was sleeping in my car as we traveled through the town of Mount Laurel, N.J., going from the I-295 onto the New Jersey Turnpike. We made this transfer every time I traveled between home and Hopkins, and on the surface, nothing has changed. The same hotels and stores by the same roads basked in the glow of the same sun.
Whether or not I get the same rush that the rest of my family does out of watching sports (don’t even get me started on how long the NHL season is), I was born into the inescapable clutches of football fandom. Come Sunday, I’ll be ardently cheering on the Patriots, swearing and cheering alongside the best of them, and, while it’s taken me years to admit it, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’m 22 years old, and I still think that one of the most heartbreaking sounds is hearing your parents cry. Last week, I was on the phone with my dad, and he started to choke up. He was calling to tell me that Jamie, our family friend, has about two weeks left until her organs fail. She has been struggling with terminal cancer for a few months now.
Have you had the distinct pleasure of making small talk with me recently? If so, you may recall (or you may not — what else is there to do during Intersession besides black out every night?) my joking, probably in poor taste, that going on Birthright Israel this winter converted me into an ultra-Orthodox rabbi. (Birthright is a free 10-day trip to the Holy Land for young Jewish adults around the world meant to strengthen their Jewish identities and relationship with the State and people of Israel.)
For as long as I can remember, I have loved reading. But, just like everyone else in my classes, I never really enjoyed the books we were required to read. I never understood why the only books we could supposedly learn something from were dusty pieces of literature that I found boring or irrelevant. That is, until I took AP Lit in my senior year of high school, when my teacher gave us all a summer reading assignment that I could not put down.
I was sleeping in my car as we traveled through the town of Mount Laurel, N.J., going from the I-295 onto the New Jersey Turnpike. We made this transfer every time I traveled between home and Hopkins, and on the surface, nothing has changed. The same hotels and stores by the same roads basked in the glow of the same sun.
It is incredibly easy to feel trapped when you're a senior in college. With graduation looming, family members curiously prodding and the huge anxious cloud of the future hanging over everything, the sense of being boxed in is almost impossible to avoid. This is especially true when you’ve already chosen your post-graduation life plan.
About a year and a half ago, I had a column in this newspaper called Irrelevant History where I wrote about weird individuals or events from the past. I graduate this semester, so I thought I might revisit this column as my final article for The News-Letter. Out of a delusional sense of self-grandeur or an in ill-advised attempt at closure, this week’s Irrelevant History topic is me.
