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HOYA COURT GETS NEW FOOD OPTIONS PAGE 5

WOMEN’S SOCCER STARTS SEASON STRONG PAGE 7

NEW NOMS OPEN UP ON M STREET PAGE 12

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w August 26, 2013 w Volume 49, Issue 2 w georgetownvoice.com

NSO SPECIAL EDITION

IT'S BEEN SO LONG, Reflections on Freshman Year

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august 26, 2013

Haven’t you heard?

Catch the Hilltop’s latest on

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Voice Crossword “Fresh Start” by Scott Fligor 1

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17. Sycophant 18. Presidential protectors: abbr.

19. Dock 20. Physician known for his oath 23. I 24. 2002 Olympics location

G E O R G E T O W N ’S B L O G O F R E C O R D S I N C E 1969 BLOG.GEORGETOWNVOICE.COM

25. British Commonwealth member 27. Its flag displays a trident 31. Imaging machine 32. Green prefix 33. Racing gas 35. Nirvana chart topper “In ___” 39. Depressed 40. Shingles 41. Blue Jays, on a scorecard 42. Works 44. Old Japanese currency 45. Supped 46. Emissions monitoring org.

48. Mexican destination 52. Patrick Ewing’s birthplace 56. Coup d’___ 57. Christmas preceder 58. Gulf War 63. Unload 65. Location 66. Skater Sonja 67. Genealogy chart 68. “American ___” 69. The way things are going 70. Plant part 71. Broadway award 72. Meter statistic

answers at georgetownvoice.com

Down 1. Star Wars species 2. Yours, in Paris 3. Georgetown admitted students grp.

4. Long time hangout?

5. Japanese car 6. Courtly title 7. “Born Free” lioness 8. Exam notation 9. Pant’s measurement 10. Unruly hair 11. Colloquialism 12. Italian cathedral city 13. Asiatic peoples, to Pliny 21. Scoundrel 22. Indifferent act 26. River islet 27. 1996 Nobel recipient 28. Rent-___ 29. T. ___ Price 30. Bulgarian capital 34. Without wax 36. Bibliographic notation

37. Campus mil. grp.

38. It can be double-stuffed 40. Swift 43. Stephen of “V For Vendetta” 47. Performs perfectly (on a test) 49. Verizon competitor 50. Afghani language 51. Speaks 52. Kids 53. Turn away 54. Brawl 55. “Do as I say, not ___” 59. Princely prep school 60. Draft eligible 61. Graduation jewelry 62. Old Iranian 64. “Solaris” novelist Stanislaw ___

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editorial

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VOICE the georgetown

Volume 49.02 August 26, 2013 Editor-in-Chief: Gavin Bade Managing Editor: Connor Jones Blog Editor: Julia Tanaka News Editor: Lucia He Sports Editor: Chris Almeida Feature Editor: Patricia Cipollitti Cover Editor: Kathleen Soriano-Taylor Leisure Editor: Heather Regen Voices Editor: Ana Smith Photo Editor: Andres Rengifo Design Editors: Lauren Ashley Panawa, Teddy Schaffer Projects Editors: Alec Graham, John Sapunor, Cannon Warren Puzzles Editor: Tyler Pierce Creative Directors: Madhuri Vairapandi, Amanda Dominguez Assistant Blog Editors: Minali Aggarwal, Isabel Echarte, Ryan Greene, Laura Kurek Assistant News Editors: Jeffrey Lin, Claire Zeng Assistant Sports Editors: Chris Castano, Brendan Crowley, Joe Pollicino Assistant Cover Editor: Neha Ghanshamdas Assistant Leisure Editors: Rio Djiwandana, Dayana Morales Gonzalez, Kirill Makarenko Assistant Photo Editors: Kathryn Easop, Joshua Raftis Assistant Design Editor: John Delgado-McCollum

Staff Writers:

Tim Barnicle, Emilia Brahm, Will Collins, Emlyn Crenshaw, Maria Lappas, Claire McDaniel, Liana Mehring, Dzarif Wan, Sam Wolter

Staff Photographers:

Elizabeth Coscia, John Delgado-McCollum, Robin Go, Alan Liu

Staff Designers:

Karen Bu, John Delgado-McCollum, Mike Pacheco, Tom Pacheco, Sebastian Sotelo

Copy Chief: Sonia Okolie Copy Editors:

Grace Funsten, Rina Li, Natalie Muller, Dana Suekoff, Kim Tay, Suzanne Trivette

Editorial Board Chair: Caitriona Pagni Editorial Board:

Gavin Bade, Patricia Cipollitti, Lucia He, Quaila Hugh, Connor Jones, Julia Tanaka

Head of Business: Michael Grasso The Georgetown Voice

The Georgetown Voice is published every Thursday.

the georgetown voice 3

IT’S NOT THAT HARD, GUYS

Sexual assault education shortchanges students In the past year, the University has worked with a number of student organizations to educate incoming students about the prevalence of sexual assault on campus. AlcoholEdu has been replaced with an alternative online workshop that includes sexual assault education. New Student Orientation has included voluntary discussions of the issue, in addition to requiring RAs to address University sexual assault policy and disclose available resources to their residents at the beginning of the academic term.

While these measures are steps in the right direction, sexual assault has gone unaddressed for too long at Georgetown, and NSO as it stands leaves much to be desired.

Of the plethora of scheduled offerings for this year ’s freshmen, not one deals exclusively with sexual assault education. The Georgetown University Student Association set the right

precedent when it implemented mandatory sexual assault peer educator training for all student government officials last spring. This zeal must continue so that next year ’s NSO will include more involved and engaging programming that addresses the issue of sexual assault.

Most students have heard the famous statistic one in four women will be subjected to sexual assault or attempted sexual assault. Incidents are most common on university campuses during the period between the start of the fall semester and Thanksgiving, known as the “Red Zone.”

However, sexual assault exists far beyond the Red Zone, and the end of freshman year does not afford students a higher level of safety or awareness about the risk of encountering sexual assault on campus.

The University should expend effort on the introductory education of not only

freshmen, but also on the continuing education of upperclassmen.

When new resources become available to students or when the University changes its policy in a way that could impact victims of sexual assault, that information should immediately be made clear and accessible to students. Campus resources such as the Student Health Center, the Women’s Center, and the Office of Residential Living can play a valuable role in the dispersal of information to students by continuing and expanding their efforts to reach out to students.

Sexual assault cannot be eradicated from college campuses with a long weekend of voluntary workshops. In order to address the issue effectively, the Georgetown community must actively engage and communicate with students throughout their time here.

LIGHT ‘EM UP

Forward with decriminalization in the District It’s time for the United States to end the war on marijuana. Despite $20 billion in annual government spending to fight the inflow of cannabis and maintain ever-increasing incarceration rates, the usage of marijuana remains virtually unchanged over the past decade.

Fortunately, as scientific investigation continues to prove the efficacy of medical marijuana, public opinion is finally starting to turn against prohibition. 14 states and the District of Columbia have decriminalized recreational amounts of marijuana, and last year voters in Colorado and Washington state legalized marijuana outright.

As the nation looks to those two states as model for how to proceed, Washington, D.C. must grapple with its own marijuana problem.

Despite similar usage rates between D.C. whites and blacks, nine

out of ten arrests made for possession involve blacks, according to an ACLU report issued this summer.

While this phenomena occurs everywhere in the country, it is the second most egregious in the District.

Although this disparity highlights the effects of socio-economic inequalities that the District has grappled with for decades, the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana would allow the time, energy, and resources of law enforcement to address more pressing matters.

This summer, the D.C. Council admirably considered a bill that would replace criminal charges for illegal possession with civil fines.

A majority of council members cosponsored the measure. At the time, Mayor Vince Gray said he wanted the District to finish implementing

its long-awaited medical marijuana program before taking up the cause of decriminalization.

On July 30, D.C.’s first medical marijuana dispensary opened for business and served its first patient. According to a poll released in April, 75 percent of D.C. residents support decriminalization.

Georgetown students should enthusiastically support D.C.’s effort to curtail the needlessly harmful drug war, especially in light of the fact that over 200,000 students have lost eligibility for federal financial aid because of a drug conviction.

Some community activists are considering launching a ballot initiative campaign as early as 2014 in favor of outright legalization, another measure students should wholeheartedly endorse.

GOT LEAKS? DEPENDS.

This newspaper was made possible in part with the support of Campus Progress, a project of the Center for American Progress, online at CampusProgress.org. Campus Progress works to help young people — advocates, activists, journalists, artists — make their voices heard on issues that matter. Learn more at CampusProgress.org.

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On this week’s cover: Freshman Reflections Cover Design: Kathleen Soriano-Taylor (COL ‘14)

NSA surveillance threatens freedom of the press Through the leak of documents by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to The Washington Post and The Guardian, a variety of formerly classified surveillance programs: PRISM, Blarney, Oakstar, Lithium have come to the attention of the public. Although initially President Obama gave assurances that these programs only collect metadata the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that some of these programs retain the content of emails between domestic U.S. citizens and tracks calls made using internet technology.

The NSA has said that they have programs in place to streamline the collection of citizen’s data. However, considering that the NSA offered the Foreign Intelligence Surveil-

lance Court misleading statements about the nature of collection programs, such reassurances offer little solace. Even more concerning, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton revealed to The Washington Post that the FISC is limited in its ability to investigate compliance with court orders. It is unclear if there exists any institutional check on the NSA’s unconstitutional collection of data.

In true Orwellian fashion, last week, British intelligence officials took to harassing the partner of Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian reporter responsible for writing many of the NSA articles.

Granted, confiscating hard drives has little effect on their future reporting, but if journalists cannot operate freely, there will never be a meaning-

ful debate on the value of personal privacy weighed against the importance of national security.

It is almost impossible not to have a digital fingerprint today.

With such formidable security apparatuses being constructed, there is a real danger that sources will never again be fully confidential and the press will no longer function as a check on government.

It is highly unlikely our society will ever become “unplugged,” so it is crucial to establish the limits of digital security. Without free press, that dialogue can not happen. Rather than crack down on reporters, the government should focus on fixing its systems so they operate within both the letter and spirit of the law.

news

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august 26, 2013

New sustainability office to open on campus

by Jeffrey Lin After over two years of waiting, Georgetown University has created the Office of Sustainability, a department in charge of increasing the University’s sustainable practices, collaborating with the community and peer institutions, and ensuring the integration of sustainability in the Master Planning for the University.

The idea of an office dedicated to sustainability first started in the summer of 2011 when Georgetown students began the Visions for a Sustainable Georgetown Initiative to create a forum where students and University employees could discuss ways to create a strategy to improve sustainability at Georgetown.

Robin Morey, the Vice President for Planning and Facilities Management, believes that establishing an office for sustainability initiatives will raise more awareness for sustainability issues.

“By establishing this office, we are elevating the stature of sustainability on campus—a move which is in line with our peer schools, is what the students want, and is the right thing to do,” Morey wrote. “[W]ith the new office we will be approaching sustainability more in line with the broadly accepted concept of a ‘triple bottom line,’ which means taking a long-term view for a healthy

environment, social justice, and sustainable economic outcomes.”

Even after the establishment of the Office of Sustainability, students, GUSA, and the Center for the Environment have continued to play an integral role in the activities of the office.

“The Office has also been very receptive to student ideas,” Gabriel Pincus (SFS ’14), the GUSA Secretary of Sustainability, wrote in an email to the Voice. “Students have been working with the new office a number of issues, including green spaces on campus, bicycling as a sustainable mode of transportation, and planning for new construction.”

Despite its recent establishment on July 1, 2013, the Office of Sustainability—directed by Audrey Stewart, the former Coordinator of Sustainability—has already worked with GUSA on three initiatives: providing reusable water bottles to incoming students, creating more water refilling stations around campus, and improving recycling in residence halls.

“We collaborated with the NSO coordinators, GUSA, the Corp, the Office of Utilities and Energy Programs, BeWell and others to provide all 1,800 incoming students with a reusable, high-quality Nalgene water bottle during orientation,” Stewart wrote. “[This should] help

decrease waste from disposable plastic water bottles.”

During the fall semester, the University will be doubling the number of water filling stations on campus to reduce the amount of disposable water bottle waste. “Ten new water bottle filling stations, like those in Regents Hall, have been ordered and will be installed in GU buildings this fall in areas with high foot-traffic thanks to an initiative co-sponsored by the Office of Utilities and Energy Programs,” Stewart wrote.

The Office of Sustainability has also been working with GUSA and the Office of Facilities Management to increase the ease of recycling.

“Apartment-style residences have all received stackable recycling bins, and individual rooms will receive recycling crates later this fall to help students easily separate out recyclables in their living spaces,” Stewart wrote.

With the advent of the fall semester, the Office of Sustainability will begin creating sustainability plans for a broader approach to its initiatives. “Creating a sustainability plan will help prioritize sustainability efforts across campus, increase campus wide engagement in sustainability, and meet GU’s College and University Sustainability Pledge (CUSP) to the District of Columbia,” Stewart wrote.

Those working at the Office of Sustainability look forward to advancing the sustainability initiatives at Georgetown.“It is especially exciting to be doing this work at Georgetown, helping equip a future generation of leaders to create sustainable solutions during their time on the Hilltop and beyond,” Stewart wrote.

However, critics argue that the bleak re-enrollment numbers show that students have been adversely affected instead. Transportation and logistics become a larger concern for parents as students transition to commuting the longer distance to their new schools.

“Because a lot more funding is concentrated in charter schools, the D.C. public school system is being left at the wayside,” said former D.C. Reads volunteer Jimmy Ramirez (COL’15). “For example, one of the schools [D.C. Reads] worked in, Kenilworth, was shut down last year.

These elementary school-aged kids were forced to walk under a Metro station through a very dangerous part of town to a new public school since their families couldn’t afford to send them to a charter school.”

Additionally, because these different schools are unfamiliar, many families are uncomfortable with sending their children to unknown turf and are apprehensive about how well their children may readjust.

“By closing schools, which often serve as community centers,

Chancellor Henderson is blatantly choosing to abandon historically underserved neighborhoods. In a city already distinctly divided along socioeconomic and racial lines, shutting down public schools is representative of a larger issue of de facto segregation,” said D.C. Reads coordinator Allison Liotta (COL‘15).

Theoretically, the free alternative to public schools is charter schools, which has become an increasing focus of government resources and rising choice of D.C. families.

However, charter schools accept students on a lottery system, which means only lucky students can actually gain admission.

“Getting children into a school is becoming harder and harder for parents,” said Daniel del Pielago, Education Organizer of Empower D.C., a grassroots organization that has been running a campaign against public school closures. “Charter schools are a lot tougher to enroll in because they are not ‘schools of right.’ The lottery system they work upon is a big concern for the D.C. community because education is

losing the fundamental element of freedom it has always had.”

Critics of privately owned charter schools claim that such schools do not offer equal opportunities to enter for all. As a result, affected families and other community members have argued that students living in largely neglected communities are being left behind.

D.C. Reads coordinators and volunteers are working to defend the rights of the children they tutor, but some students taught

by D.C. Reads Volunteers have expressed discontent, and even outrage, at the new changes.

“Many of the kids I work with in D.C. Reads feel completely undervalued. One of the little girls I work with, Imani, once slammed a book shut and threw it to the floor screaming, ‘It doesn’t even matter if I learn how to read!’ showing how discouraged she feels in an academic setting,” said D.C. Reads volunteer Maya Davenport (SFS’16).

“The school closures only make the problem worse by taking away the little hope that the kids do have.”

Concern about the closures of D.C. Public Schools has increased after more than half of District students who attended 10 out of 13 public schools that were shut down in June did not re-enroll in any DCPS schools for the 2013-2014 school year.

According to statistics provided

by D.C. school officials, only 44 percent of these students have reenrolled in public schools. This figure is barely half of D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s goal for 80 percent retention, which she set earlier this year in conjunction with the closure of 15 public schools in the next two years.

The release of this new data has inflated community discontent towards Henderson’s policies regarding public education in the District, especially because the closed schools were all located in low-income neighborhoods.

Henderson has argued that these policies are intended to consolidate public schools and reduce expenses from operating multiple under-enrolled schools.

JJ finds new family Jack Jr. has found a new home with a family that lives three miles from campus.

“He went there on Sunday as an experiment, and it worked so well I decided it was best for him to stay there,” Fr. Chistopher Steck, J.J.’s main caretaker, wrote in an email to the Voice.

The family meets many of Steck’s criteria such as experience for raising bulldogs, living close to campus, a fenced in backyard, multiple adults living at home, stability, and preferably no children.

After the decision was made to move the bulldog to a home setting, Steck had been searching for a new home for almost three weeks, sometimes driving as far as New Jersey to visit families.

The University did not consult Steck, but he said he will be okay as long as J.J. is happy in his new home.

—Isabel Echarte

Epicurean case settled

Joshua raftis

New recycling bins in apartments.

DCPS enrollment rates decrease as schools close

by Minali Aggarwal

News Hits

In a final order issued by Judge Robert L. Wilkins on July 15, the D.C. Court closed the long-running case between Chong Wook Chon and Marvin Hercules. The Epicurean owner settled Hercules’ claims for $11,000 in unpaid overtime wages, while the Court also ordered Chon to pay Hercules’s attorneys $40,000 for the fees he incurred in the litigation.

Hercules started the civil case against Chon’s alleged violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and DC Minimum Wage Act with a group of over 20 other workers in May 2011.

Even though all other workers had received their due money, Hercules’s was interrupted by a criminal case in which Chon pleaded guilty in March.

“This case sends a strong message that employees have a right to be paid for their work—and that employers who use intimidation and coercion to interfere with these rights will be punished. Mr. Chon thought he could silence Mr. Hercules by threatening him. Mr. Chon was wrong, and the lesson will cost him $51,000,” wrote Justin Zelikovitz, Litigation Counsel at the D.C. Employment Justice Center, in an email to the Voice..

Chon could not be immediately reached for comment.

—Lucia He

courtesy conor williams

news

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the georgetown voice 5

Improved food options coming to Hoya Court in mid-October

by Ryan Greene Over the course of the past summer, University Services, working with a student committee, planned and oversaw a significant reorganization of Hoya Court in the Leavey Center. Despite the project’s two-month delay to midOctober, University Services and members of the student committee believe the new Hoya Court will be a space where students enjoy eating and gathering.

Construction began earlier this summer, after Yasmin Parveen, the previous owner of the Hoya Court eateries, had his business license revoked for his failure to pay $500,000 in sales taxes. Associate Vice President and Chief Business Officer of University Services Deborah Morey has known for many months that Hoya Court needed a reworking.

“Over the last two years there was a significant reduction in the usage of the venues [in Hoya Court], except for Subway,” Morey said. “It was just past February of last year and we said ‘we just can’t keep going like this.’”

The new Hoya Court will house an Elevation Burger, a Salad Creations, and a “new and improved” Subway. Associate Vice President of Auxiliary Business Services Joelle Wiese explained that the new restaurants were chosen not only because

they will provide students with quality food, but because they are committed to working closely with the University and meeting goals such as sustainability and health.

“Elevation Burger serves all grass-fed beef and is a very sustainable company,” Morey said. “They actually grind their meat right on the premises every day and use olive oil for their fries.”

The owner of Elevation Burger is making plans with the University to recycle his restaurants’ leftover oil into fuel for Georgetown’s buses. “Believe it or not, [the owner’s] name is Michael Burger and he loves working with Georgetown,” Morey said. “He said that they are looking at ways to recycle their oil for diesel fuel and our buses are run on diesel fuel.”

University Services announced earlier in August that the new Hoya Court, previously scheduled to open by the start of the fall semester, would not be completed until mid-October.

According to Morey, however, the possibility of a delay was taken into account from the start and does not come as a surprise. Morey described the original completion date of late August as an “aggressive” way to encourage speedy work and focus on Hoya Court.

“We said ‘let’s get this done now,’” Morey said. “We’re not going to wait another two years. It’s just really too dated.”

The dog days of summer

It’s well known that organizations announce bad news on Friday afternoons. However, instead of these Friday news dumps, the University has been engaging in “summer news dumps.”

In place of waiting for students to come back to campus to announce unpopular decisions, administrators often decide to resolve these issues over the summer when students are much less tuned in to campus news.

In early July, the University announced that plans are underway to construct a new seven-story residence hall on one of the last remaining green spaces on campus, near the Reiss Science Building. Almost immediately, students went online to voice their opposition to the location and design of the structure. Of course, students don’t want more dormitories on campus. If anything, students want more apartment-style housing. Unfortunately,

though, students lost that fight after last summer’s resolution of the years-long campus plan saga.

To their credit, administrators and architects hosted a forum over the summer that drew a healthy crowd of students, especially considering most students weren’t on campus.

The Old Georgetown Board’s refusal to approve the measure as expediently as the Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E bought students some more time to give input. Again to their credit, top administrators including Todd Olson will be present at a town hall Wednesday for students to ask questions and give feedback on the proposed structure.

This summer’s worst example of the University’s tendency to duck from student pushback came when the communications office quietly announced on the school’s

The project was further delayed by the unpredictability of D.C.’s permitting process and the previous owner’s delay in vacating Hoya Court.

Temporary food options have been arranged for Hoya Court, including a temporary subway, an Einstein Bagels kiosk, and a “hot food station,” which Morey described as “like a Boston Market.” Additionally, food trucks will park in lot G, near the medical center, during lunch hours. The food trucks will be removed when Hoya Court’s construction is finished.

Morey explained that working with students and making decisions based on student feedback was a focus from the start. The Food Service Committee and, later, a “summer working group,” both composed of students, met with University Services and architects throughout the construction process.

GUSA Vice President Adam Ramadan (SFS ’14) was heavily involved with the student feedback process and helped the architects arrive at the right design for the inside of Hoya Court.

“From the day that we started back in the spring, auxiliary services has been incredible in terms of hearing our voices,” he said.

Morey and Wiese presented mock images of how the completed Hoya Court will likely look. The design features a blue and grey color website that our beloved new mascot Jack Jr. would be retired before he even started his mascot duties. What’s worse, student leaders of Jack’s Crew were not informed before the school made its announcement. They had to read the press release to find out they will have one fewer puppy to take care of this year. Surely, if students were on campus when that decision dropped, the outcry would have been enormous.

saxa Politica

by Connor Jones

A bi-weekly column on campus news and politics While the University’s decision to drop J.J. was a case of legal liability, perhaps a different resolution compromise could have been reached if students had a stronger say in the matter.

Certainly not all summer news dumps are a result of a malicious intent to stifle student input by the

Hoya Court will remain under construction until mid October. scheme, graphics of Georgetown and famous D.C. landmarks, and lines from the Georgetown fight song.

“The architects came back with an initial design and we told them that this isn’t what the students were saying,” Morey said. “The next time they came back, they were right on.”

“This is a model for student engagement,” GUSA President Nate Tisa (SFS ’14) said. “We had a group of students who looked at the reality of a project and figured out how to University. A lot of these cases simply reveal the fact that, on many cases, students just have to acquiesce to administrators’ decisions.

Students only have limited power, and the University has legitimate and wide-ranging concerns.

Still, when students are given the opportunity to speak their mind immediately after a decision comes out, sometimes we can speak with one voice.

After the University announced the details of a “scaledback” Georgetown Day in 2012 that would include barriers and increased entry checkpoints, students blew up online comment threads and sent hundreds of annoying letters to administrators.

After hundreds of students joined a Facebook group that heavily implied students would just take the party to Leavey Esplanade, within hours, the administrators in charge of the regulations relented and allowed Georgetown Day to proceed as it had in years past.

Joshua raftis

make the space most effective for the people who are going to be using it.”

After working so much on the new Hoya Court, Ramadan hopes that the space will be liked and utilized by students.

“There’s something to be said about meeting continuously, talking with the architects, and coming into Hoya Court after we’ve seen the designs and seeing the paint go up,” Ramadan said. “I cannot wait for this to be finished.”

Of course, nothing has ever stopped students from voicing their concerns in a productive way over the summer. Especially considering the relevance of online media in shaping debate on campus, students always have an opportunity to do all the obnoxious and constructive things necessary to get administrators to reconsider unpopular decisions.

GUSA should be credited for its initiatives over the summer to engage students online and on social media. Live-tweeting the first forum on the new dormitory and hyping it on Facebook was an especially welcome development this summer. If students always know what’s going on, they always have an avenue through which to register their discontent.

Want to take a news dump on Connor? Email him at cjones@ georgetownvoice.com

sports

6 the georgetown voice

august 26, 2013

Men’s soccer ready to meet high expectations

by Chris Castano After the Hoyas’ dramatic victory over the San Diego Toreros men’s soccer team to reach the Final Four of the 2012 NCAA tournament, the morale of the soccer community on the Hilltop reacched an extreme high. A palpable feeling of belief hummed through a record crowd as the final whistle blew on North Kehoe. The community honestly believed the Hoyas had the ability and the drive to make it to the final and even take The College Cup. Taking their cue, Georgetown defeated no. 2 seeded Maryland on penalties and squared off against Indiana University at the pinnacle of collegiate soccer. Despite losing to the Hoosiers, the Georgetown men’s soccer team made the Hilltop (and the nation) sit up and take notice of what was an underappreciated sports program. In 2013, they have the opportunity to build upon their good work.

Georgetown graduated many strong contributors from last year ’s team, such as star defender Tommy Muller, midfielder Ian Christianson, defensive back Jimmy Nealis, and offensive work horse Andy Riemer.

Sophomore defender Cole Seiler said, “The five seniors we had last year provided great leadership. Ian [Christianson] actually just had surgery a couple of weeks ago. I heard he’s doing well. Tommy [Muller] is still out in San Jose and Jimmy is recovering as well.”

Nealis, Muller, and Christianson were all drafted to play professional soccer in the MLS Superdraft. Riemer was later drafted to the Los Angeles Galaxy during the MLS Supplemental Draft. On the surface, the Hoyas appear to have a number of holes to fill in their lineup. Thankfully, due to the versatility and depth of the

squad the Hoyas are in much better shape than one may have expected.

Starting forward and 2012 semi-final hat trick hero Steve Neumann returns to the Georgetown line-up with a number of pre-season honors.

Not only was Neumann named to TopDrawerSoccer.com’s preseason Best XI, he also was placed on the Missouri Athletic Club’s Hermann trophy watch list, an honor for which he was a semi-finalist last year.

Awarded to the best male and female soccer players in the nation, Neumann has as good a shot as anyone at adding the cup to his trophy case.

Also making the Best XI for TopDrawerSoccer is star sophomore Brandon Allen.

After enjoying a breakout year with the Hoyas in 2012 and the inevitable graduation of Steve Neumann, all eyes will be trained on Allen in 2013 to see if he has what it takes to lead the Hoyas to glory in the future.

While returning players comprise the backbone of the Georgetown squad, Head Coach Brian Wiese has certainly never shied away from including new recruits in the lineup. The Blue and Gray have made some excellent acquisitions in years past, and 2013 is no exception.

Coach Brian Wiese said, “We’ve got some guys who still need to figure some things out … this team just needs to be reminded that this isn’t last years’ team. It’s a new squad.

The freshmen are very exciting pieces of this new squad and now we have to put them all together. It will come.”

While all additions to the Georgetown squad are excellent, perhaps the most exciting is the arrival of freshman forward Alex Muyl. Muyl has made quite the name for himself despite his lack of competitive experience with the Hoyas. He enjoyed incredible success with the Red Bull academy team, a

MILES GAVIN MENG

Steve Neumann will be essential to the Hoyas’ success this season.

New York development team, and the U-18 United States men’s national squad.

“I’m enjoying it a lot. It’s nice to be on campus and finally get to know the place and the players,” Muyl said. “We have great facilities and it’s a beautiful place to live. It’s been really fun being here so far.”

Muyl and the rest of the Red Bull Academy won the MLS

Academy championship and, due to his individual success, he was touted as the top Major League Soccer prospect. Most recently, Muyl suited up for the United States in the Milk Cup in Northern Ireland where he helped the squad to a third place finish, losing to eventual champions Mexico.

Despite losing their final preseason game to Syracuse

University, Wiese and his troops are staying positive and have every reason to do so.

“You want the last preseason game to look a little more like a regular season game. We still got guys that we’re trying to see and trying to get some fitness for, but we’re taking the positives in that it’s teaching our guys how to approach our games.”

the Sports Sermon

“Imagine you make a painting. It isn’t perfect by others’ standards, but it’s your painting.You are proud. Then someone takes a shit on it.”- Tom Crabtree of the Packers on the “fail mary” cycling world and cheered for him the whole time, but at the back of my mind, I still wonder if he might be fooling all of us.

The trust of a sports fan can no longer be gained by the word of an athlete, nor a clean drug test.

We have been betrayed too many times to believe in the spectacular any longer. When Adrian Peterson returned from a torn ACL in nine months, it was considered to be an amazing achievement. When he followed up his return by rushing for the second most yards of any running back in the history of the game, he entered the realm of the unbelievable, and thus began arousing suspicion.

Chris Davis of the Orioles has put on one of the more impressive

of Novak Djokovic? Seeing the impossible is what makes people Sports provide us with gravitate toward sports, and opportunities to band together, with the window of plausibility to celebrate, to converse with getting smaller, when we see complete strangers, to marvel at something amazing, rather than things we never believed possible. thinking “wow,” we start to But the most important role of think “steroids.” sports is to provide us with role In professional sports, each models. Athletes are admired player is under great pressure to by the young and the old alike. put out their best performances.

They have a place in human lore With such an objective, what are alongside the most important the odds that the only cheaters figures of history. I think we are the handful of NBA and would all agree that Babe Ruth MLB players that are caught each and George Washington are season? Performance enhancers names that any random person on are surely lurking behind the the street would know. However, performances of far more athletes we find that an increasing number than we know, or even suspect. of athletes are tainted because Organizations like NBA or the they are caught skirting the rules NFL are not motivated to catch of their leagues. the cheaters because Pete Rose Central The most of the damage that p r o m i n e n t would be sustained Da bettin’ line cases involving by the outing of their Dookies Margin Hoyas performance high-profile players, (underdogs) (duh!) enhancers have (favorites) resulting in weak gotten ample testing policies. The Harper attention from the NBA only has four Bruises Pitchers media. Everybody tests per year. Once Cabrera The juice Davis has heard more the fourth random Federer Age Murray than enough about test has been A-Rod, Roger Clemens, and slugging displays in recent administered, players can easily company, but the problem with memory, hitting 46 home runs to use substances, knowing they will this cheating is not simply the this point, and 37 before the All- not be tested again. Knowing this, overplayed stories, but rather that Star break, second only to Barry who can doubt that LeBron or it has destroyed the innocent awe Bonds’ 39 in 2001. any of the other top athletes aren’t with which we watch sports.

Especially in baseball, doing everything they can to win?

Look at Chris Froome. The performances like this cannot Robert Griffin III’s British cyclist won this year’s happen without screams of emergence last year was one Tour de France in one of the “Drugs!” being on every blog of the most exciting things that most dominant performances and throughout every opposing has happened to Washington in recent history. Froome is stadium in the country. While I am sports in my lifetime. When everything you would want among those who don’t completely he tore his ACL in the final your children to look up to: believe in the authenticity of Redskins game of the season, it he puts his arms around his Davis’ accomplishments, I think was improbable that he would rivals, thanks his interviewers, it is a shame that I can no longer be ready to play in Week 1 of and smiles and credits his unquestioningly believe in the the season. However, now, he teammates after every great extraordinary. is jumping at the chance to get performance.

What are sports if you have on the field in the preseason.

But, with cheaters festering to doubt the amazing? What has I want to believe that RGIII’s throughout the peloton as well racing been if you can’t believe work ethic alone has propelled as The Tour’s record books, in the transcendent speed of him back into playing shape. I whih fan can honestly say they Usain Bolt or Mark Cavendish? want to believe that my city’s suspect nothing? I watched What has men’s tennis been if savior is just that, somebody Froome rise from humble you can’t believe in the strength who can do the impossible, but beginnings to his spot atop the of Rafael Nadal or the stamina damn if I don’t wonder.

by Chris Almeida

sports

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Women’s soccer looks sharp early Hopes high for football

by Joe Pollicino The No. 18 Georgetown women’s soccer team (1-0, 0-0 Big East) enters this season with high expectations, as the experience-laden team looks to improve upon last year’s NCAA Tournament appearance and a school-record 16 wins.

Picked to finish second in the Big East preseason coaches’ poll, the Hoyas swept the conference’s trio of preseason individual awards. Junior forward Daphne Corboz was awarded Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, senior defender Emily Menges was selected as the Preseason Defensive Player of the Year, and sophomore goalkeeper Emma Newins was named Preseason Goalkeeper of the Year. Senior forward Kaitlin Brenn and senior midfielder Colleen Dinn were also selected to the Preseason All-Big East Team, along with Corboz, Menges, and Newins.

Georgetown faces an altered conference landscape in the Big

East, in which new members Butler, Creighton, and Marquette have replaced powerhouse teams such as Rutgers and Notre Dame.

As a result, Georgetown will have a much easier league schedule, which should bode well for their record but could leave them untested later in the year when the NCAA Tournament arrives.

In their season opener on Friday, the Hoyas defeated William & Mary (0-1, 0-0 CAA) 2-1 in an overtime thriller. Forward Kaitlin Brenn proved to be the difference-maker for the Hoyas, accounting for both Georgetown goals, including the game-winner with 4:35 left in the first overtime.

“It’s always important to get the season off to a good start,” Coach Nolan said after the overtime thriller. “Momentum and confidence builds and the only way you can get it is by getting results. It was important to get a win to start the season.”

Despite controlling play for most of the game, the Hoyas faced a 1-0 deficit until late in the second

ANDRES RENGIFO

The women’s soccer team got off to a strong start against William & Mary.

Dodgers take LA by storm Life as a sports fan in Los Angeles was looking quite drab at the start of the summer. First round exits for both the wounded Lakers and overhyped Clipppers in the NBA playoffs gave Angelinos nothing to cheer about as Lebron trounced his way to another ring. We have no football team so offseason trade deals in the NFL mean little. The Kings proved to be just a tease when they lost in the Western Conference Finals in early June. Meanwhile, both the Angels and the Dodgers appeared to be battling for who could embarrass the city more in their respective MLB divisions.

June 22 started off like any other day in Los Angeles. The Dodgers, facing a possible third straight loss to the NL West division rival Diamondbacks, arrived at Dodger stadium without much hope as the weight of last place hung

heavily on their shoulders. The inconsistent Zack Greinke took the mound for LA and tossed 8 innings with only 1 run allowed, supported by 6 runs from the offense that would lift the team to a desperately needed win.

A win like this could spark a small bit of excitement, but Los Angeles knows better.

Why get our hopes up? At this point, every time we clawed our way to a decent win, it would be followed by a pair of disappointing losses.

The next five days promised five more challenging matchups with the Padres, Giants, and Phillies, leaving Dodger fans with their fingers crossed but no real expectation of the spectacular. To the horror of Angel fans, whose team was flailing pathetically despite the efforts of phenom Mike Trout, the Dodgers pulled off the impossible and won all five, giving them an almost unfathomable six-

half, when Brenn dribbled around two defenders in the box and put it away to tie the game in the 73rd minute. The sides failed to score for the remainder of regulation and went into overtime, where Brenn blasted home the game-winner from 12 yards out.

“We talked about having players who are brave enough and courageous enough to make plays instead of hoping for it,” Nolan said about Brenn’s stellar play during the game. “[Kaitlin] is a great player and she’s very confident.

She never lacks confidence in her own ability and she came up big for us twice today.”

On Sunday, the Hoyas blew out Quinnipiac with a 5-0 shutout at home. Sophomore midfielder Sarah Adams led the Hoyas with two goals. Junior midfielder Vanessa Skrumbis, junior forward Jessica Clinton, and freshman forward Hannah Howell also jumped on the scoresheet for the Hoyas.

Despite a dominating performance on paper, Coach Nolan expressed frustration with his team’s play after the game.

“I wasn’t happy with the performance,” Coach Nolan said following the win. “We did enough to win the game today against a team that had some energy and was well organized.

We struggled a little bit to break them down and establish ourselves.”

The Hoyas will be in action again this Friday, when they travel to face D.C. rival George Washington at 4:00pm. game win streak. They didn’t stop there, though, pulling themselves from 9 ½ games out of first place to first in the division by July 22.

Now sitting atop the NL West, 10 ½ games ahead of their closest threat, the Dodgers will soar into the playoffs on a high. Although the playoffs prove to be a new

All The Way

by Steven Criss A bi-weekly column about sports

animal each year, the Dodgers may be ready to tame that beast after all. Their most impressive lead since 1977 is no fluke, as a 29-5 hot streak since the All Star break reveals a team with timely hitting, solid starting pitching, and a bullpen that can be trusted.

It is hard to pin down one aspect of a team that makes them a successful playoff contender, but I will make it as

by Brendan Crowley For Georgetown football’s eighth-year Head Coach Kevin Kelly, expectations for success and a return to relevance in 2013 are high after a middling 2012 campaign. Marred by three separate injuries at the quarterback position as well as a host of defensive inconsistencies last season, the Hoyas are poised to rebound at full strength.

“The motto of this preseason is ‘Win the Day,” Kelly said, “This season is a journey, not a destination. … If we take care of business each and every day then we’ll attain our goals which is to win every game. If you win every game, you win the Patriot League … you get a chance to go to the playoffs and in the playoffs you get the chance to win a national championship.”

A roster overflowing with experience will work in the Hoyas’ favor. With 24 seniors on board, Coach Kelly has noticed the development of an encouraging atmosphere in the locker room and on the field.

“I think every team has a different chemistry,” Kelly explained. “This team is a very hard-working, blue-collar, teamoriented group of young men that will work hard every day and love the game of football. I think that will carry over into the season and help us win football games.”

At the forefront of this year’s senior class is captain and starting

clear cut as possible—bullpen pitching.

I would choose a dominating bullpen over power hitters and flame-throwing starters any day simply because they decide the outcome of the game. No matter how well the starter holds the opponent down or how many runs the offense puts up, a game can unravel if a shaky relief pitcher is forced to the mound and then to his knees by the pressures of the playoffs.

As an Angels fan myself, I know all too well what inconsistency in the bullpen could cost a team. Having to watch Ernesto Frieri give up home run after home run in the ninth takes a real toll on a fan.

The Dodgers have two relief pitchers with ERAs at or below 1.95 in closer Kenley Jansen and middle relief Paco Rodriguez and several others in the range of 3.00. Adding former Giants closer Brian Wilson to the mix will give LA extra late inning power, if not

quarterback Isaiah Kempf, who will be tasked with leading an offense brimming with dynamic athletes. After suffering a concussion on just his fifth play of the season last year, Kempf was forced to sit out for the remainder of the schedule, a major blow to a team searching for an offensive identity. This year, Kempf is prepared to take the offense to new heights.

“Isaiah worked extremely hard in the offseason, especially this summer,“ Kelly said.

“Physically he’s in terrific shape and I’ve never seen him throw the ball better …Our offense is quarterback-driven and he’s the engine and he’s doing a great job with that thus far.”

For Kempf, being on the same page with his teammates from the get-go will play a huge role in the offense’s effectiveness.

“I think the biggest thing is just having that trust,” Kempf said. “They trust methat I’m going to put them in a good position. Whether it’s the [offensive] line finding the protections to creating me a block or throwing to a receiver, putting the ball where it needs to be. I just think having that trust is the biggest thing.”

The Hoyas will open the season on August 31 in Staten Island, as they take on the Wagner Seahawks.

Georgetown’s home opener will be on September 7 against the Davidson Wildcats.

just intimidation via fearsome beard. The Yasiel Puig Show with special guests Adrian Gonzalez and Hanley Ramirez may be filling Chavez Ravine to its maximum capacity, but it will be the bullpen that brings the Dodgers their ring.

I worry that the hype and current success of the Dodgers could lead to a dangerous arrogance down the stretch, but this is a team that knows what it means to lose. They have finally snared a winning formula and I don’t think Mattingly will let his players fumble it away too easily.

You don’t come from the very bottom without remembering exactly what it took to get to the top. The Dodgers will make some noise in October for sure, and dependimg on the continued stability of their bullpen, they will by vying for the spot of World Champion come time for the Fall Classic.

Talk Dodgers with Steven at scriss@georgetownvoice.com

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BRIDGING THE GAP stories from Hoyas who've been there

health sleepless on the hilltop

friendships accept your inner nerd

KATHLEEN SORIANO-TAYLOR // COL 2014

KAT KELLEY // NHS 2014

It’s people that will make your Georgetown experience, not securing an internship on the Hill or getting into Madeleine Albright’s class. You’ll find your best friend in the writer with the loud laugh in your group project or the runner with the Jack’s Mannequin tee across from you in Arabic. As an incoming student, your first priority should be finding your people, your community. Find the community in which you can be the unadulterated, raw you. The secret? Be unapologetically you, and you’ll attract people who like you. Be anyone else, and you’ll develop superficial connections with people who like whomever you are pretending to be.

lifestyle calling it quits EMLYN CRENSHAW // COL 2015

Dearest Frosh Emlyn, Wow, you’re still carrying around that Paul Frank toddler backpack from Target? Huh. Wow. I mean, that’s fine. I guess. You’ll get beer spilled on it at the very first college party you go to, but you’ll find that out yourself in due time.

Anyway, let’s talk advice. I know from experience that you’re a real hardworking, determined sumbitch. Good for you and all that. But listen, there’s such a thing as being dedicated in a bad way.

Your high school job at a news station that had you working 6 a.m. to midnight on Saturdays? You shoulda quit that one, bucko, and I know you know it because I am you, and also that’s a terrible job, objectively speaking. There are groups and clubs in college that you’re going to get involved with that don’t end up being a perfect fit (or a fit at all), and that’s fine. Quit things unabashedly. That’s the only way you’re going to have the experience that you want, and you’ll be so much happier afterwards that there will be no point in feeling too bad about it. Join ten things just because and quit six of them. Quit until your heart overfloweth. In a way, that’s what college is all about!

- Dearest Junior Emlyn P.S. I was trying to sound cool earlier when I was talking about your toddler backpack, but you know how I really feel about it. That’s between us.

You don’t need to wear Vineyard Vines or join the Corp to “fit in” at Georgetown. Sure, there are reputations and mutual friends on Facebook, but your community is malleable and strictly your own. So aggressively pursue meaningful friendships, and don’t be afraid to fangirl out over your favorite young-adult fiction series at 3 a.m. or take a controversial stand over casual coffee. Don’t pretend to be indifferent or too-cool-for-school. We go to Georgetown, and we are all a wee bit nerdy, overachieving, and passionate about our own causes.

It’s important to fill your life with a rainbow of individuals, including people who challenge you. However, that doesn’t mean being friends with everyone. You are going to be busy—bouncing from classes to internship to practice to a pregame to late night pizza doused in ranch. Haters are inevitably gon’ hate, and don’t deserve your time. So don’t ever compromise yourself to be liked.

Be you, and you’ll be able to look back on your time at Georgetown without a hint of regret.

In high school, I discovered I had an amazing super power—I didn’t need sleep. It normally started the same way every time. I had a little too much on my plate, a little too much on my mind.

I could easily spend a restless night studying or with friends and be my typical energetic self the next day. But, back then, my average was only three or four days straight without shut-eye.

And then I’d exhaust myself and the pillows would start calling me again.

my busy schedule had me beating my sleepless record—it was three weeks before I could admit it was a problem. By this point, I had stopped functioning.

I couldn’t think past vague, watery intuitions, making my once-easy coursework nearly impossible. Now, instead of thoughtful decisions, everything I acted upon was instead spurred by a Neanderthalic need. Hunger. Thirst.

Sex. Impulse. Otherwise, it wasn’t in my capacity to care.

College was different, and my sleepless nature was an asset to my packed schedule. I was a rowing recruit taking far too many classes, had a long-distance boyfriend, and tried to commit to the myriad of clubs. Through my commitments, I was an environmental blogger, Filipino chef, graphic artist.

And insomniac.

My assignments were behind, to say the least.

Freshman spring was when I started unravelling. Though I had quit crew on the recommendation of my doctor,

breaking the bubble run baby run

I had to request extensions. But in order to do this properly, I needed to be honest with everyone involved in my academics, including myself. First, I had to legitimize my insomniatic crutch. A doctor needed to confirm my obvious state. The Student Health Center wasn’t the place to go. Instead, I made the terrifying two-minute trip from my dorm room in Darnall, down

the stairs, and around to the back of the building. To Georgetown’s Counseling and Psychiatric Services.

It’s always been a firm belief of mine that mental health is something all people should keep in mind. If you take care of your body, you should take care of your mind.

My first experience with counseling was positive, though I quickly got turned over to psychiatric care. Wary of sleep medication but aware that at this point, I’d run out of milder options, I began treatment.

At some point, we all learn our limits. And I’d never hit that wall. I was still awake. But it was an imaginary line I had to draw. Otherwise, I don’t

know what would’ve happened to that zombified person I was. To this day, I struggle with staying healthy. It’s never been something that was clear to me.

Other areas make sense, such as having healthy relationships, staying fit, eating right. Respecting sleep in order to maintain my sanity? That has always seemed optional.

I was a superhero, after all. But I was using my powers to focus on external issues: deadlines, friends, classes. In the end, no one cared that my strength was also my kryptonite. I had to decide that I was more important than the things that kept me awake. While others may have dealt with more obvious addictions—alcohol, smoking, food, exercise, etc.—and needed to learn to self-parent themselves on fun-time and work-time, I had to overcome my addiction to redeye and start believing in bed-time.

LAURA KUREK // SFS 2016

Two things freshmen notice within 48 hours of arrival on the Hilltop: Lau resembles a building that survived Chernobyl and loads of people run. The running fever that grips the District perhaps stems from the dangerously high concentration of Type-As within 68 square miles. Or maybe it’s the ridiculously breathtaking public parks and trails. Whatever the reason, my message for all you doe-eyed first-years? Slap on some gym shoes and go run.

So why now? Your college career has begun, and there are 903 other things you have do. After four years of high school cross-country, I hardly ran the summer after senior year. But once on the Hilltop, I dove back into running. Besides building rippling pecs under the mesh tank for those wild Friday nights, running dramatically improves the Georgetown experience.

To the running virgins out there, don’t be afraid. It hurts a little at first, but then it feels good. I promise. And stamina

improves quickly—my first time I lasted only eight blocks, but with each run I could go longer and harder. In all seriousness, the learning curve is steep, and the human body is capable of amazing things. The “freshman fifteen” remains a myth for runners, as does the miserable flu season. Running radically changed the appreciation I have for my body, and made me strive to treat it well.

Running is the cheapest and most effective stress reliever out there. You won’t understand until you lace up after an Econ exam and head for the streets. Muscles invariably tense when under pressure, and typically you’re oblivious. That tension effortlessly translates into physical power on the pavement. Running also offers mental space for you to unwind, a space which won’t be found in your Harbin common room.

Running bursts the infamous Georgetown bubble. D.C. is full of treasures, but most baby Hoyas rarely leave the front gates. A pair of kicks and rocking playlist is your

ticket to the District. The Mall and Dupont Circle are a mere two miles away, while Rock Creek Park trails will take you to the National Zoo. Running creates control in a new environment. College will bring foreign situations, new people, and many challenges. Like me and all fellow Hoyas, your highs will be complemented by lows. When you feel life as you know it slipping, running can offer refuge.

Running is truly addictive. After a fantastic first semester , I ran my first half and full marathon in my second semester. Both races made the top ten moments of my year—the rush really is unmatchable.

Moreover, within 24 hours of both races occurred two pretty fantastic developments in my love life. I can’t say if I believe in karma, but I know running makes for good vibes. By no means am I telling you all to go run a marathon in six months. I’m just saying go for a run. See what happens.

boundaries intimacy issues CANNON WARREN // SFS 2014

The third weekend of my freshman year, when everybody in the dorms was still rather unacquainted, I discovered I was a sleepwalker.

After saying goodnight to my roommate, locking the door, and stripping down to my boxers, I tucked myself into bed at 2 a.m. The next morning I was awoken by obtrusive shoves and equally unwelcome complaints, “Get up! This isn’t your bed!”

I responded from under the covers, “Of course it is, fuck off!”

The shoves continued. I popped my head out, and scanned the room. Strangers and girly decoration.

“Get outta here!” the chorus repeated. A red haired male started to pull the sheets off. I realized my dick was far from flaccid so I held the sheets to me tight.

“One second,

please?” I implored.

“No, get out!”

I made up my mind. I had to go for it. I threw off the covers, jumped out of the bed, and power-walked out of the room hunched over in shame. Then I flew down two flights of stairs and back into my room.

So apparently, I had sleepwalked into another bedroom in the middle of the night and hopped right into the bed with the girl and all. Her response was to climb over me and start doing homework.

In fact, she didn’t tell anyone until 11 a.m. when she walked into the common room and announced that a strange, half-naked man was in her bed. That’s when the mob came and got me. And yes, they did see the morning wood. After that night, it’s taken me a while to get over the infamous nickname, “The Boner Bandit”.

If there is a moral or some sort of lesson to be found here, it would have to be that it probably couldn’t hurt to sleep with a shirt on.

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RYAN GREENE // COL 2014

In the spring of my freshman year, Georgetown’s radio station WGTB enlisted jazzy hip-hop band Kids These Days to campus to headline their annual spring concert. I had barely listened to Kids These Days before the show and wasn’t really expecting much from the performance but decided to tag along with some friends anyway to see what was up. And I’m glad I did, because Kids These Days killed it that night. From their trippy instrumental opening jam to their stirring closing song “Bud Biliken,” the band delivered an electrifying, personal performance. Even though there weren’t more than 50 students there, Kids These Days played for nearly an hour and had everyone losing it—and at one point, even moshing—during the show.

”

I had never done anything like it before—the only concerts I’d been to before coming to Georgetown were in huge stadiums with assigned seating. But after the Kids These Days show, I had a new appreciation for live music performed in a small, intimate venue. I spent the following summer going to countless punk shows back home in New York, making sure I didn’t miss any of my favorite bands when they toured nearby. Looking back over my freshman year, I’m disappointed it took me so long to participate in my favorite kind of music.

LUCIA HE // SFS 2015

To my dear overachieving first-year self,

social take your best shot MADHURI VAIRAPANDI // COL 2014

It was probably a month into freshman year. I heard all the cool kids were covertly having a pregame in their New South dorm room, and thought, “Hell yeah, college!” I remember dressing up and thinking that I looked sexy as shit, ‘cause “Yay! college boys.” In all the excitement, I guess I didn’t really stop to think that these “college boys” just got out of high school, too. Whatever.

So I go to this pregame and everyone is packed in. I’m totally in the zone, schmoozing like a professional. Nobody else there could possibly know that I’m barely talking to anyone of the opposite gender, or anyone I don’t already know. That’s when I decide that going shot for shot with a six foot tall dude would be the best way to show what a badass I am—let’s not talk too much about the fact that I was a five foot three girl with an eating disorder. As if I could handle the five shots of Burnett’s I consumed in under thirty minutes. Or well, I only remember it being five shots. Rumor has it that I definitely had more, and that I’d also grabbed the guy’s crotch. I’m a little saddened that I don’t remember the first time I touched a guy’s junk, but it is what it is. My only memory from that night after those initial five shots is having an incredibly spiritual experience puking on the bathroom floor. I could have sworn I saw the light at the end of the tunnel—but that might have just been me coming-to in Georgetown Hospital.

So yeah. Freshman year. I learned that maybe I should eat more if I want to drink more. I learned to always say no to Burnett’s, ‘cause GROSS. I also learned that if I want a manfriend, maybe I should take him to dinner before I just go ahead and grab his penis.

Take a big breath. Exhale. Now, chill. In a few days, you’ll be going to the Student Activities Fair, and will be overwhelmed by the number of tables with overly enthusiastic students trying to convince you to sign up for their club’s listserv.

Georgetown is a rollercoaster of extracurriculars on which you will most probably be dragged, either by your eagerness to try new things or by the ubiquitous Type-A student culture. You’ll think that you want to sign up for all of those clubs, but trust me, you don’t.

Two years ago, I came to Georgetown fresh off the boat from Argentina, eager to dive into the college experience. Excited with the prospect of meeting new people and landing leadership positions that I could show off, I signed up for far more clubs that I could handle.

At first I loved it. Receiving all those emails, going to meetings, and having trouble scheduling lunch with friends because I was so busy made me feel fulfilled, even important. When my on-campus organizations started to seem too small for me (and my résumé), I decided to search for bigger opportunities

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music being a treblemaker

BE UNAPOLOGETICALLY YOU, AND YOU' WILL ATTRACT PEOPLE WHO LIKE YOU balance captain everything

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out in the city. By second semester, I was taking on two on-campus leadership positions, a 20 hour-a-week internship in Columbia Heights, in addition to five classes, which I packed into just two days of the week.

Getting involved in a small music scene takes a lot of courage. It means going out at odd times, sometimes alone, to seedy venues or weird bars. It also means being surrounded by strangers, some of whom probably have some crazy tattoos, multiple piercings, or alternative hair. But, what I’ve realized is that once the band starts playing, none of that matters. The music brings everyone together. And after going to enough shows, you start to notice the same people and even start to feel like part of the community.

Before I knew it, I had stopped exercising, eating healthy, seeing my friends, and sometimes even sleeping. I had also stopped participating in class, and finding myself spacing out during lectures that, were I not tired, I would find completely engaging. There were weeks when my roommate and I, inseparable all of first semester, wouldn’t see each other for days. I was isolating myself in a bubble of work.

Eventually, I was able to figure everything out and ended up having an unforgettable first year.

As a junior, I’ve finally found a way to balance schoolwork, extracurriculars, and friends. But most importantly, I’ve learned that college is not about how much you can cram into your résumé, but about honestly enjoying each moment and each undertaking.

The next four years have the potential to be the best of your life. Don’t let an overcrowded schedule be your only memory of them. Sometimes you just need to sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

I wish I had taken advantage of D.C.’s abundant local music scene during my first year in the city. There are lots of great bands in the District, and there is something for every kind of music fan. Local music is one of the few, and probably the most artsy, ways to get involved with a D.C. community completely outside the infamous Georgetown bubble. So get out there and get stoked on it.

family GU phone home JEFFREY LIN // SFS 2016

When I began college, I thought I was ready to be an adult, someone who was in control and could do anything he wanted to. My entire college career was already planned: I was going to major in International Politics, join the Model UN team, get involved with the College Democrats, and go on to attend law school. I thought I had control over my life.

Then I found out my mom had cancer.

The doctors diagnosed her with stage four gastrointestinal cancer.

They told me that completely curing her was not realistic.

Suddenly, the only thing that matters to me is my mom.

I don’t care about much else anymore. I would gladly fail every single one of my classes for the next three years if that would cure my mom. But I don’t have that kind of control over my life.

“

TO HELL WITH PARTIES,, DRINKING, AND HOOKING UP..

GIVE YOUR MOM A CALL.

Right after I found out about my mom, hanging out with friends was the worst experience for me. I felt like I was just wasting my time with them. Even if I felt happy for a moment, I would think of my mom and only feel pain.

I want to go home, but my mom obviously won’t let me. I’m all that my parents have left, so they want me to be happy and build my future. But I wouldn’t have a future if it weren’t for them.

My life felt meaningless. After living for nineteen years, what did I have to show for it? So what if I go to a good school? My mom is dying from cancer and I can’t do anything to stop it. I thought of all the opportunities I might miss, all of the meaningless fights I had with my mom, and all the things I’ve wanted to tell her.

The day I found out my mom had cancer, I learned the most important lesson a kid can learn before becoming

”

an adult. Life, like cancer, sucks. Life just kicks you off the building when you think you’re on top of the world and then runs you over once you hit bottom, but you have to live with it.

You have to find what is important to you, what is truly important to you; and cherish it.

I would like to tell my freshman self this: to hell with parties, drinking, and hooking up. Give your mom a call. Skype with her for a few minutes. She’s spent almost all of her life making sure that you have a future.

You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, or even next year.

Make sure that the people closest to you know that you love them. Give them a call, hug them a bit tighter, and be nice to them. Yes, tomorrow everyone you love might be dead. But at the very least, your last words to them can be “I love you.”

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The World’s End: Not with a whimper, but with a bang

by John Connor Buckley The summer movie list this year has certainly been a mixed bag. For every fun blockbuster (Star Trek Into Darkness) and compelling drama (Fruitvale Station), we’ve had our predictable romps (Man of Steel) and outright flops (The Lone Ranger). But fear not, for legendary comedic director Edgar Wright has come back with his newest genre-blending dark comedy.

Wright stays true to the formula of his previous two forays into the genre. He casts Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in the main roles, throws them into a town with just a couple people on their side, and some horrible, fantastic, surreal disaster slowly builds up as they venture on.

Pegg plays against type compared with his sane-man performances in Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, this time as alcoholic manchild Gary King. King of the cool kids and leader of his pack of friends back in his high school years, Gary longs to finish a quest the group once attempted as kids—to go on one long crawl through all twelve pubs in their hometown. It’s been twenty years since, and everyone has moved on but him, so Gary manipulates, lies, and guilt-trips his working pals, played convincingly by actors such as Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, and Paddy Cosidine into coming along.

Finally back in Newton Haven, they begin their crawl, but slowly get the feeling that something’s not right. People are staring at them, the town’s been developed more, and though so many people from their childhood are there, no one seems

to know who these pack of five are.

Is it just the effect of time and growing older, or is there a deeper plot and some well-executed science fiction and social commentary beneath the façade?

The film moves at an incredibly fast pace, with quick editing, rapid camera movement, and constant suspense. One early fight scene makes use of some clever editing to create a mirage of one constant longtake, as the camera rapidly, but fluidly, shifts from one protagonist to the next. You see every single second of the fight, which comes as a welcome break from the monotonous shakycam festivities modern audiences have gotten used to.

Violence is lower than Wright’s other collaborative efforts, but your cathartic dark comedy desires will be satisfied. Given that it’s five grown men undergoing a highschool challenge, the laughs flow as quickly as the beer from the taps.

They visit each and every pub, with no montages to hurry the plot along.

Instead, the twisting and turning narrative engrosses on its own.

Actors give it their all, with Pegg stealing the show as usual.

Tricking his friends into coming along by playing with their emotions, “borrowing” from them all these years, and yet having more free will than all of them combined, you love Gary and sympathize with him just as much as you envy and despise him. Freeman’s in prime form, as is Frost, both playing business men who are so guilt-tripped by Gary that despite their friendship, you get the feeling they really hate him.

Surprisingly, the film contains a good deal of well-developed

Suzanne wasn’t the first person to be nicknamed “Crazy Eyes.”

iMdB

characters and maturely addresses Gary’s problems in a moving way that feels much less jarring than Wright’s previous efforts at incorporating drama into Shaun. The side characters are more forgettable than you’d expect, even with Pierce

Brosnan present. Bill Nighy proves an exception—keep your eyes (or rather ears) open for him.

Despite some slip-ups with the writing, The World’s End is a brilliant way to close out the summer.

Wright aficionados will spot some

Americanah: A dream deferred

If you didn’t read Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie this summer, you have no excuses—classes don’t start until Wednesday.

Now is the perfect time to read Adichie’s novel, a story of cross-continental love, hair-braiding, and race in America. Aug. 28 in particular is an especially apt time to pick the book up because this Wednesday is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

The reverberating echo of Dr. King’s determined “I have a dream” has the same effect.

But Americanah asks an important question: Has Dr. King’s dream really been fulfilled?

We did get rid of Jim Crow, so our legal system is supposedly desegregated. Yet the Supreme Court’s recent choice to strike section 4 (b) of the Voting Rights Act was a step backwards towards de jure racism, and incarceration rates by race suggest stark inequalities under law. On top of that, Trayvon Martin’s death and its repercussions—much like the issues painted in Americanah–make me ashamed of how ubiquitous racism still is in the United States.

Americanah tells the tale of Ifemelu as a Nigerian immigrant. Fascinating are both her experiences as a black woman in America and her stories from Lagos, where she left her family, friends, and the love of her life.

Ifemelu is bright, gutsy, kind, and just flawed enough to be lovable. Her narration is casual. It’s enthralling.

Her small Lagos apartment— filled with her mother ’s religion and father ’s depression—is just as compelling as 13 years’ worth of American addresses, shared with insensitive roommates, adored cousins, and finally “Professor Hunk,” her “Black American” boyfriend.

Her Nigerian ex-boyfriend, Obinze, is almost as good as Ifemelu herself. His accounts of working illegally in London and the discomfort of “hustling” back home only to become the stereotyped Nigerian man expected to bring bags of cash on every trip abroad—at least according to the U.S. Customs officer—are riveting.

Ifemelu and Obinze’s stories—so real but so rarely told to an American literary audience—come to life through Adichie’s lush descriptions.

What stays with me now are the posts Ifemelu shares from her blog Raceteenth or Various Observations About

under the covers

by Emilia Brahm A bi-weekly literary column American Blacks (Those Formerly Known As Negros) by a Non-American Black.

As a black woman, Ifemelu finds herself treated like any other “American Black” even though she was not raised here. And yet she possesses the keen, critical eye of a newcomer. Her blog—and Adichie’s book, in part—are about sharing the experience of race with “American Blacks” and with people like me.

I am a white woman.

In fact, I’m unusually pale, blonde haired, blue eyed, and thus don’t face many of the problems Ifemelu encountered. I have white privilege, and Ifemelu addresses this very privilege head on in her blog: “The Appalachian hick guy is fucked up, which is not cool, but if he were black, he’d be fucked up plus. She asked Professor Hunk: Why must we always talk about race anyway? Can’t we just be human beings?” And Professor Hunk replied, “that is

in-jokes, but the film remains accessible to everyone. It’s a dark comedy with heart. Remarkably original, quick, well-acted, and if you only ever see one movie this fall, it’d make the perfect beginning and end.

exactly what white privilege is, that you can say that.”

Maybe this is why I have never felt comfortable talking about race. In all honesty, it’s simple, convenient, and shockingly easy for me to go through my day without ever thinking about race—mine or other people’s. Instead, I’m free to think of everyone as “just human beings.”

When reminded of race, as Ifemelu points out, many of us with privilege are quick to skirt the topic: “If you are having a conversation with an American and you want to discuss something racial that you find interesting, and the American says, ‘Oh, its so simplistic to say it’s race, racism is so complex,’ it means they just want you to shut up already. Because of course racism is complex … What is simplistic is saying ‘It’s so complex.’”

But I don’t want that. I don’t want to simplify, box up, and put aside race, which I can so easily do as a white person.

Americanah forced me to see ongoing racial tensions in a way I never have. I still don’t know how to talk about race. I still don’t know exactly what it’s like for Ifemelu, or my “American Black” friends, or the 40 percent of young black men without high school diplomas who are in prison today. But I know this inequality is there. I want to learn more, listen more, read more, and I refuse to oversimplify. On Wednesday, I will commemorate the March on Washington by listening, learning, and adding to that united sea of humanity in our August heat. As Ifemelu says, “Sometimes people just want to feel heard. Here’s to possibilities of friendship and connection and understanding.”

Be politically correct with Emilia at ebrahm@georgetownvoice.com

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“You’re tacky and I hate you.” — The School of Rock

New noms to beat the Leo’s blues Reviews, Haiku’d

by Dayana Morales Gomez

With summer over, Hoyas will descend on campus ready to figure out how best to avoid Leo’s while also avoiding starvation. Lucky, Georgetown restaurateurs provided a solution. M Street boasts an ample selection of Zagat-rated restaurants that you can explore, but, for those looking for a quick meal (and maybe some munchies), many new selections made their way in over the summer.

Hillterns are already familiar with the Good Stuff Eatery, which has a location on Capitol Hill. Newly opened this summer, the M Street location of Good Stuff is looking like a force to be reckoned with. They have a sizable selection of burgers, including a gloriously unhealthy vegetarian choice that comes with a deep-fried, cheese-stuffed mushroom patty. They’ve also got some delicious fries, seasoned to perfection, with dip options from ketchup to Sriracha mayonnaise. Then, of

course, there are the shakes. Handspun and topped with a scoop of homemade whipped cream, the shake may just be worth the $6 you drop for it. Among their quirky flavors are the Toasted Marshmallow, Soursop Hop Strawberry, and Salty Caramel Kiss.

On Wisconsin, Noodles & Company has set up shop. The pasta chain’s signature dish is the truffle mac plate, but the penne rosa is definitely worth trying. The service isn’t the best, even when they’re not busy, but the restaurant itself is reasonably priced. Unlike most other fast food pasta chains, you’ll have the option of getting a smaller plate. Because the noodle house is far enough from campus that you won’t be distracted by friends but close enough that you can walk on a nice day, it also makes a nice study space.

Fans of Southeast Asian cuisine might also enjoy ShopHouse at the end of M. The new quick-meal joint will give patrons the option of dif-

Good Stuff Eatery

Behold! The Father, the Son, and the Holy Roast. Take this, and eat it.

ferent kinds of rice and toppings mixed in a bowl, á la Chipotle burrito bowl. It’s hit or miss depending on how much you care about the authenticity of your Asian food, but it’s worth checking out before ruling it out. Don’t count on getting a lot of work done here, however: the restaurant doesn’t have a free Wi-Fi connection for its customers.

Further into the city, pizzeria Quick Fuel opened on Pennsylvania Ave this summer. Costumers can make their own pizza or select one of the pre-chosen menu options.

The pie is then made in two minutes behind the counter.

Closer to students on 14th street, Ted’s Bulletin, a comfort food and breakfast joint opened up a second location. Adams Morgan, one of the neighborhoods now accessible via weekend nighttime GUTS buses, also had the openings of Persian restaurant Meat in a Box and lounge Libertine. The latter has a bistro, but will be better known for their extensive collection of absinthe drinks.

Even with all these new offerings that came over summer, it’s important to remember the ones we’ve lost. Those of us who stayed in D.C. mourned the loss of Tuscany’s. This September, hoards of freshmen will flock to Prospect searching for parties yet again, but you won’t see the Class of 2017 stumbling back to Georgetown with those huge slices of pizza.

One Direction: This Is Us They might be horrid, But you won’t find an iPod Without their music.

Closed Circuit NSA movies: Now with less accuracy Than “classified” facts.

Getaway Selena Gomez Tries to go into movies.

Stick to music, hun.

Despicable Me 2 Carell, Wiig, minions!

Yet jokes forced, action tepid.

Bit of a letdown.

The Mortal Instruments Tired teen romance, But passes the Bechdel test!

That’s the real magic.

We’re the Millers Yep, first date U-Haul...

But not for yuppie townhouse.

Whole thing’s filled with weed.

—Heather Regen, Claire Zeng, & Kirill Makarenko

National Archives explores lost moments of the 1970s

by Dayana Morales Gomez One of the people marching with 300,000 others on that Wednesday in 1963 was Edith Lee-Payne, whose iconic photograph would forever be remembered. Only 12 years old at the time, it’s fair to say she could not have known the power her sad eyes and weary yet determined stare would have. The enduring image is on display at the National Archives until Sept. 9 as part of the celebration of the March on Washington punctuated by a reunion at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28.

Following the March and all that came with the Civil Rights Movement remained the question: How do we institutionalize civil rights? At the National Archives, the photo exhibit Searching for the Seven-

ties: The Documerica Photography Project attempts to answer this question and many more. As the gallery documentation explains, a vibrant political scene marked the 1960s while a booming economy characterized the 1980s. Stuck in the middle, the 70s for some represented only unflattering fashions, silly fads, and Disco music. Despite the greater issues of Watergate and the Vietnam War, it seems the time was lost between two more memorable—or even more likeable—decades.

There is something raw about the images presented in Documeria. The most effective element of the exhibit is its ability to give a face to the people of this lost decade. After all, statistics describing years of mining, unemployment, and high gas prices mean so little in compari-

son to the powerful emotions of those photographed.

An estimated 16 percent of black males were unemployed, double the rate of whites at the time. In one photograph, a man is seen outside of his home, with eyes brimming stories.

Another photograph captures the effects on youth, who were known to cool down with fire hydrants instead of going to the beach, a favorite destination of privileged white families.

Additionally, the United States had begun to see the adverse effects of mining on American laborers. Many mineworkers contracted black lung, and on a different energy frontier the price of gasoline began to skyrocket. Unsurprisingly, more and more people were embracing causes of environmentalism and social justice.

One image of people on bicycles outside and another of senior citizens asking for taxation of the rich are different and separate, but together they remind us of who politicians are supposed to represent—constituents, everyday people.

Documerica provides the perfect excuse for new students to head downtown and explore the District. If 300,000 can make it out to the Mall, you can find it in yourself to travel the short metro ride to the National Archives.

National Archives

A Black Muslim woman listening to Elijah Muhammad in Chicago

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C ri t i c a l V o i c es

Black Sabbath, 13, Vertigo Records All hail Black Sabbath, the progenitors and titans of heavy metal!

With original frontman Ozzy Osbourne leading the band, the legends of rock just put out their most potent and malevolent work in decades.

Through the guidance and input of guru-producer Rick Rubin, Sabbath returned to its roots, attempting to record an album like its self-titled 1970 debut. This conscious reaching for the past certainly shows up across the LP. Several songs’ structure, notably “End of the Beginning” and “God Is Dead,” showcase the multi-idea nature of early Sabbath songs like “War Pigs” and “Behind the Wall of Sleep.”

While lyrically unified, these songs seem to be made up of the music

of two or three smaller songs. The return of harmonica highlights Sabbath’s blues roots, which Osbourne pairs with a belting, demonic solo in “Damaged Soul.”

Geezer Butler returns as primary lyricist for the album, and, while he admitted to running out of things to write near the end of the original run, time away seems to have recharged him—well, almost. There are only a couple lyrical blunders on the disc, like the cringe-worthy line “You don’t want to be a robot ghost,” in “End of the Beginning,” and the entirety of “Loner.” But beside these, 13 is lyrically great, with a superb return to the sci-fi, fantasy, and philosophy mix of the first Sabbath albums.

Tony Iommi remains, as always, one of rock’s great riff masters, spinning a multitude of head-banging worthy riffs on the LP. From light and dancing to chugging and thundering, Iommi’s riffs are still the envy of guitar players across the globe.

Combined with Geezer’s ripping bass lines and Brad Wilk’s syncopated, funky-yet-hammering drumming, the music on 13 is the tightest Sabbath has sounded in years.

13 even ends in, essentially, the most perfect way possible. The last

Women go to prison, too

There are a few things about Orange is the New Black that I’ve seen on TV before. The lead is a “nice blond lady,” gossipy cliques of women are the center of the drama, flashback sequences are dispensed more liberally than whiskey on Mad Men, and everyone’s stuck together in a Sartre-esque situation that just begs for chaos.

But instead of being marooned on an island in another dimension or even just a local high school, the ladies of Orange are in prison, which is both what you might expect and what you entirely don’t. There will be power plays, there will be racial tension, and there will most certainly be lesbians, but what’s striking about the show is not so much the inclusion of those elements as the way they are presented.

While based on a memoir by Piper Kerman, Orange is really the brainchild of Weeds creator Jenji Kohan, who is no stranger to telling stories about upper-middle-class white women and their shocking illegal activities. Though her

principal source material remains Kerman’s personal tale, she deftly avoids becoming trapped within that narrow perspective, dedicating most episodes to exploring the backstory of a new character alongside the everyday drama of incarceration, Lost-style.

The show clearly originates with Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) as its wide-eyed, WASPy protagonist, but it gradually expands outward to embrace the stories of the other inmates.

Combine that approach with punchy dialogue and a willingness to touch on hot-button topics like race, sexuality, and the legal system in a way that doesn’t scream “After School Special” and you have yourself a series of remarkable freshness. Hardly free of flaws, however, Orange has a fondness for melodrama as the writers attempt to drive the plot forward, as well as a tendency to lean on clichés in some of its character portrayals.

Many critics emphatically celebrate the sheer amount of—brace

40 seconds of closing track “Dear Father” is the same rain and church bell audio that begins “Black Sabbath” on their first album. I cannot think of a more poetic way to end an album.

Voice’s Choices: “God is Dead,” “Zeitgeist” —Jackson Sinneberg

Avenged Sevenfold, Hail to the King, Warner Bros. Records Despite lead guitarist Synyster Gates’ insistence that Avenged Sevenfold’s sixth studio album “blasts your fucking head off,” it just doesn’t. The listener may contemplate the varied heavy riff selections or nod along politely to the more intense solos, but your dome remains largely intact beyourselves, admissions officers— diversity in the cast, whose notable members include a black transsexual (Laverne Cox) and a Russian queen bee chef (Kate Mulgrew).

There are women of every race, sexual orientation, and body type that are so rare to see on cable they’re practically black pearls. (Orange is a Netflix original series).

On the other hand, whenever any much-needed diversity shows up in entertainment, it can

idiot Box

by Julia Lloyd-George A bi-weekly column about TV also be easy to swoop down and harp upon any failure to include every voice with equal concentration and accuracy. Orange has been criticized for not featuring black women with varying sexual orientations and for indulging in cartoonish stereotypes.

(There’s an evangelical hick of the clinging-to-guns-and-religion variety and quite a few sassy, fingersnapping black ladies.)

tween your headphones. Hail to the King stops short of decapitation as an unfortunate result of its derivative nature. The LP is simply too familiar and comforting to live up to any epic expectations.

“This Means War” epitomizes this reality. A moderately stimulating opening melody leads into what can best be described as a pitch-modulated and questionably legal remastery of Metallica’s signature “Sad but True” riffs.

This manner of excessive sampling, however, must not be mistaken for a lack of quality. “This Means War” is a particular gem with its soaring chorus, instrumentally heavy verses, and a masterful, memorable guitar solo.

To some extent, the apparent excellence of “This Means War” results from the album’s inauspicious start. The opener “Shepherd of Fire” begins with a rather aggressive nod to Black Sabbath comprised of fire and funeral bells building to subdued crunchy riffs.

The title track, too, is tame, though glimpses of potential power shine through in the stampeding melodic guitar solo and final chorus, where the rhythm at last reaches a pleasant consistency.

While there is some obvious legitimacy to these critiques, however, it’s impossible not to recognize what a brave new world Orange represents in its willingness to tell these women’s stories at all.

Though it may occasionally use two-dimensional conventions as crutches, it atones for those weaknesses through the engaging backstories of those characters that might otherwise simply provide comic fodder for prison life.

It’s not the duty of a show to represent everyone, but Orange takes a great leap forward in those stories it does manage to introduce in the 13 episodes of its first season.

Above all else, it is a show about women, particularly those that are so easily misunderstood and written off by society. In fact, it reminds me of another show focused on women and which received a similar amount of both celebration and backlash when it first emerged.

Much like Lena Dunham’s Girls, Orange begins with a privileged white woman in an unfamiliar situation; while Dunham’s Hannah is drifting through her

Hail to the King offers no opportunities for complaints on a particularly vital front. However, borrowed riffs and replicated styles fail to obscure the instantly recognizable A7X sound refined over the past 14 years.

“Doing Time” and “Heretic,” for instance, feature Gates on classic mid-tempo, upper-octave guitar interludes as frontman M. Shadows howls the lyrics in his unmistakable coarse baritone. Even “Crimson Day,” which in parts resembles Metallica’s “One,” closely matches the more melodic hits of Avenged Sevenfold’s earlier albums.

Despite the occasional successful track, harnessing the legends of rock and metal to create a revitalized sound proved to be an unjustified risk. The resulting Hail to the King falls just short of vindicating the band’s good intentions. Still, though Avenged Sevenfold serves up an album filled with meh-tal, the creation is just interesting enough to warrant a listen.

Voice’s Choices: “This Means War,” “Doing Time” —Kirill Makarenko postgrad New York life, Schilling’s Piper is leaving her idyllic yuppie existence of juice-cleansing and making artisanal soaps to surrender herself at the local prison.

Both characters are comically shameless narcissists and neither has any idea what’s in for them, yet the shows that revolve around them become so much richer as they evolve to be less about their central characters’ individual struggles and more about the relationships that sustain them. Both characters are practically human memes of Stuff White People Like, but they prove to be much more complex than the stereotypes of the social stratum that previously harbored them.

When Lena Dunham accepted the Emmy for Best Actress in a TV series, she said that the award was for any woman who had ever felt like there wasn’t a space for her. I think it’s fair to say that Orange is the New Black is honoring that tradition by continuing to make room.

Eat out with Julia at jlloydgeorge@georgetownvoice.com

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- Alec Graham

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