When the weather outside is frightful, staying inside can be delightful. It’s February, but as all New England winter veterans know, that does not mean that spring has arrived.
Posts published in “Opinions”
Olivia Handoko ’21 | News Staff Writer
On Feb. 11, Donald Trump Jr. made a speech that sent chills down my back. He had trivialized a profession I still hold dear to my heart in mere minutes. Thousands of people at the Texas border wall rally applauded his comment that motivated young conservatives to stay firm in their beliefs and stay away from “...these loser teachers that are trying to sell you on socialism from birth.” Though socialism has become a more popular political standpoint for young people today, you can’t say that this is because of what’s being taught at schools. But you could say that it’s disturbing how many of his supporters agree with his belief that teachers are “losers.” These very individuals who were raised by, nurtured, protected and supported by teachers had the audacity to agree that these people meant nothing.
Happy Valentine’s Day. This is a happy day, isn’t it? It’s a day about love, after all. However, this day, like most other holidays, has become commercialized and all about what society thinks love should be. Every relationship is different, but under the banner of Valentine’s Day, the measure of a good relationship is how much money you spend on extravagant gifts.
When you walk around campus and see lovebirds holding hands all around you, you realize it’s that time of the year: Valentine’s Day. Everyone has their own favorite ways of celebrating this special occasion. Here are a few options for enjoying this year’s V-Day with (or without) your loved ones.
Chantelle Leswell ‘20J | Staff Writer
We’re getting to that point in the semester where the first round of big assignments are hitting, the melting snow is leaving slush piles and black ice is everywhere. And is it just me, or is the big hole in the middle of campus getting bigger? For some of us, resolve may already be slipping. That doesn’t mean we can’t push through, but wouldn’t it be sweet if the semester wasn’t just about surviving? Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of “The How of Happiness,” puts it bluntly: “It’s equally important to investigate wellness as it is to study misery.” That’s worth pausing over. Holding both of these parts of the human condition with equal importance forces us to confront our self-concepts and how we act in our daily lives. My theory is that, generally, we wallow a little too much in the “misery” camp when we ought to be erring on the side of wellness, and leaning into moments of joy can really start to optimize our wellbeing.
Welcome back from winter break! Now that it’s the spring semester — er, rather, the semester that will see the end of winter — what are you going to do? There are surely some holiday sugary treats left over, burning a hole in your pocket (or a shelf in your room), but before you indulge, consider… not?
An ugly fact of community: it bonds over shared targets. This fact guides the course of history as much as it thrums through the preteen sleepover, and afterward, many of us look back on our scapegoating with horror. We should not have started a war with that country; we should not have called Violet “Violet Vagina” and dared her to call her Evan and tell him that she wanted to have 10 of his babies simply because we knew that, desperate to fit in, she would.
Sometimes, in the freezing cold for this now-adjusted Californian, I get all giddy inside and almost cry at how beautiful the passing moment just was. They smiled back! Oh man, this is a great day.
I’ve been reflecting a lot over break, mostly through journaling snippets of thoughts, ideas and feelings, but also through poring over the past five years of my life with loved ones. These years have been unquestionably formative and, predictably, incredibly difficult in ways I could never have anticipated. What I was able to decipher, while in a place I struggle to call home anymore, was that failure and the state of being unable to anticipate what’s coming from much of what has shaped me over these past few years.
I didn’t plan on going to St. Petersburg during J-Term; I just happened to see a poster for it in Hatfield and realized it was a chance of a lifetime. I read “Petersburg” by Andrei Bely awhile ago, and it made me want to see St. Petersburg in person. I thought about making the trip myself, but I didn’t know how to plan it, and the visa is expensive.