A8
Life
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
MODEL STUDENTS
Gentlemen Prefer Brunettes Sarah Pate
Year: Second School: College What are you wearing? Blouse from JC Penney, skirt from H&M, shoes from Target, Geneva watch Where do you usually shop? Target, H&M and Forever 21 How would you describe your style? Probably “classy”. I try to dress so if I ran into Stacy and Clinton [from What Not to Wear], I wouldn’t be ashamed. Who is your style icon? I have a lot of icons for different reasons. Sarah Jessica Parker because she’s fun, Marilyn Monroe because of her confidence, Jackie Kennedy because she is classy, and Audrey Hepburn because of her simplicity. Also Blake Lively, because I wish I were her! —compiled by Aysha Chaudry
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very once in a while I like to delude myself into thinking that I’m classy. In my imagination, I’m the type that wakes up early, takes a cup of coffee to the porch to read the paper while petting my cat. I retire every evening to my linen-tableclothed dining room, where I drink a crystal glass of crisp white wine and respond to handwritten letters. Occasionally, I’ll pick up a hat and basket and stroll to the market to choose vegetables for the week, treating myself to a cheese Danish, or perhaps a bunch of tulips. It wasn’t until last night that I realized this fantasy has no basis in reality. Maybe it was something someone said, or a stray thought that grabbed my attention, but I took a moment to really evaluate myself. Not only was I wearing a pair of dirty sweatpants pulled above my belly button, but I had a family-size bag of chips half-eaten, spilling greasy crumbs all down my front. I was reaching for a giant bottle of soda to swig down another mouthful, lazily propping my feet up as I debated cartoons with my brother. I was annoyed because my fingers were too dirty to be recognized by my iPhone. I was the archetype of a classless troll. My instant reaction was denial. I don’t normally look like this! It’s a special occasion! It’s ... because ... I ... well, I’ll tell you
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t would be fantastic to be able to start off a column by saying, “Three years ago today, I wrote my first column for the Cavalier Daily.” Coincidences and anniversaries are always good ways to start anew. Unfortunately, my first column for the Cavalier Daily was actually written “More than three years ago but less than four,” and that statement doesn’t have as nice of a ring to it. That column was called My Fractured First Year — a name suggested by Anya, one of my first-year suitemates. I don’t live near Anya anymore, so recent column names have proven to be substantially less ingenious. The title was fitting because the column centered around a defining first-year experience for me. I could recap it in the words of my current, fourthyear self, but I think a quote from my first column would be more appropriate: “At 4:14 p.m. Aug. 25, somewhere on the harried expanse between Carruthers Hall and Central Grounds that is Emmet Street, I ceased to be an ordinary first-year student biking back to my dorm room and became, instead, The Girl Who Got Hit by the Truck. To shorten what otherwise could grow into a tiresome, long-winded account, a truck pulling out of a parking lot plowed into the back of my bike, flinging me from the sidewalk to the middle of the road. After a whirlwind ambulance ride, my RA and I spent a slow nine hours or so in the ER waiting for
Classless in College later! But there’s a reason, I swear! I’m different! I’m classy! Of course, it wasn’t long until I began to question my way of life. How long had it been like this? Was it always this way? When did I start changing? Was it when I started eating food in bed, affirming that my main
Reality Check
EMILY CHURCHILL goal in life was to be as close to sleep as possible? Was it when I stopped buying organic soup mix and started getting the discount doughnuts at the grocery? Or was it even further back than that? In middle school I didn’t brush my hair very much ... should I have known then? Or did it all start when I was convinced that overalls were the correct choice for school pictures — several years in a row — in elementary school?
The gloom carried into the next morning, when I sat down to breakfast. My dad and brother made crêpes with spinach and mushroom filling and a hollandaise glaze. I know — classy, right? My mom asked what other kinds of fillings could go into crêpes. My boyfriend quickly rattled off a list: truffles, Brie cheese, prosciutto, etc. I thanked the stars that I held my tongue, because my list was going to include Nutella and a whipped cream dipping sauce. The class disparity was evident. At that moment I resolved that things would be different. I would actually do something or another to my hair once in a while. I would use a napkin when I ate my bag of chips. I would occasionally read the newspaper so I could have something intelligent to talk about — just as soon as I was done debating the best element to bend in “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” But if I’m honest, I’ve been wearing those same crumbcovered sweatpants for 20 hours at this point, and they weren’t the freshest smelling pants to begin with. And, by the way, five in the afternoon isn’t too late to shower, is it? Let me just finish this box of Oreos, first ... Emily’s column runs biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at e.churchill@cavalierdaily.
Quarterlife Crisis my painkillers and X-ray results. My suitemates and I underwent some unexpected bonding that night as they worked to
COURTNEY HARTNETT clean the dark, oily smears of tar and dirt from my legs and raw road rash. The diagnosis revealed that I had a hematoma on my right thigh and two pelvic fractures. The next day, armed with my shiny, new aluminum crutch, I looked at the stairs and hills throughout Grounds with a newfound sense of dread.” My first-year columns were dedicated to quintessential firstyear experiences while discovering U.Va. and figuring out my place here — all while healing multiple pelvic fractures and other injuries from my accident. Fourth year has, at least so far, become a time of reflection. Do you know how people tend to talk frequently about remembering things on their deathbeds? Fourth year is a metaphorical deathbed. Am I proud of my time here? Could I have done things differently? Do
I like where I’m headed? If I hadn’t written a column during first year, I probably would have forgotten everything — how I felt, what my hopes were, how I wanted to grow as a student. And thanks to The Cavalier Daily’s searchable online archives, all those transcribed memories are only a few keystrokes away. I can read all of my columns, and that’s what I’m going to do. This column set is going to be a semester-long compare and contrast essay. Don’t worry, I think it will be more interesting than that makes it sound. Maybe that’s vain, but here’s the catch — it isn’t going to be strictly about me. It is in one sense, but I also want this column to be able to help you. If you’re a fourth-year, or a thirdyear, maybe it will help you reflect, too. If you’re a first-year, maybe it will remind you of how quickly the time goes. Here’s the tl;dr: I wrote a column first year. I’m writing a column as a fourth-year in some strange effort to connect the beginning and the end of my college experience. I want to see how The Girl Who Got Hit By the Truck became The Girl About To Graduate. I hope you’ll read with me. I hope you’ll reflect with me. It’s been a long ride, and there have been ups and downs, but it’s been real.
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A survey of canines
his weekend my neigh- about his lack of ID. Wally bor uploaded a picture to would sleep at the foot of my or Facebook of the one-year- my sister’s bed every night for old golden retriever staying at as long as we had him — from her house. Within five minutes elementary school to our senior my sister and I were knocking year of high school. He always at her door, falling inside the managed to lay right on top house and onto the kitchen of my legs so that they would floor, burying our faces in the fall asleep, and in the middle wriggling puppy’s of the night I would golden fur. inevitably wake up Trial and Error and have to angrily I t ’s n o s e c r e t that my sister and nudge him off of me. I are full-blown He would slip down dog fanatics. to the floor, gruntMy friends have ing, until I fell asleep grown accustomed again. When I woke to my squeals of up in the morning, delight as we stroll he was invariably the Downtown back in his original Mall, scouting position, wagging his out cute puppies. tail. Nobody is surWhen Wally got sick prised when I run my senior year, he across the street, would go lay in our MARY SCOTT kneeling down to yard or our neighHARDAWAY meet whatever bors’ yard, unable to furry creature has move once he was caught my eye. Usually the down. My father would take owners are understanding, a wheelbarrow out and scoop and smile at me like one would up Wally, and then carry him smile at a small, simple child. up our steep front steps so he Other times, they pull their could sleep inside for the night. dogs along, wanting to save He could no longer jump on my them from the crazy girl who bed, so I lay on the floor with is racing toward them, arms him. Wally was simple and open wide. wonderful and caring, and I I ’ v e a l way s l o v e d do g s , didn’t know how much I loved known dogs, and been covered him until the foot of my bed in dog hair. Growing up we had an empty space where a always had at least one big big goofy lab used to lay. muddy-pawed pup jumping This weekend I went to the on beds and bringing dead gym, a coffee shop, a themed animals to the front door. My party and a few bars. I cried favorite books from my child- from laughing too hard at my hood were from the “Good roommates, and I got in a fight Dog, Carl” series, where a Rot- with my sister. I waited too tweiler named Carl takes care long to do my environmental of a baby girl when her parents science homework and I offiare away. Unfortunately, my cially ran out of groceries. But mother never left me in my crib all I really remember is the with our dog Sophie to babysit, dog I met, the one-year-old but I would like to think that golden retriever who wagged if she had, Sophie would have his whole body — curving his done a fine job. back around my shoulders so I think I love dogs so much we were essentially hugging. because dogs are not people. The dog who heard a mop fall People, myself very much to the floor and started barking, included, are always lagging circling the mop as if it were an a little behind in some way or armed gunman. The dog who another. I’m okay with it — in reminded me of my dogs, of all lacking something, we make the dogs I’ve ever had. And I room for all the chaotic good forgot about the minor disapstuff to happen in our lives. But pointments, about the people sometimes I need an ideal — a who are lagging just a little certainty. And dogs have never behind. Because there are good disappointed me. dogs in the world, and that’s all I used to have a lab-mix the certainty I need. named Wally whose head was smaller than his neck; his collar Mary Scott’s column runs would always slip off because biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at m.hardaway@ of it, but he never left home cavalierdaily.com. long enough for us to worry
Courtney’s column runs biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at c.hartnett@cavalierdaily.com.
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