MIR ROR
NOVEMBER 8, 2013
I MUSTACHE YOU A QUESTION// 2
EXPLORING MULTICULTURALISM // 3 TTLG: A SPOT ON THE CONTINUUM// 6
LOVING THE DISTANCE // 4 THIS IS JUST WHAT I LOOK LIKE // 8
MARGARET ROWLAND // THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
2// MIRROR
EDITOR’S NOTE I am a television addict, so it’s only fitting that I learned the word “penultimate” from watching “Sex and the City.” In the penultimate episode of the series, Carrie is in Paris with the Russian, and ever yone’s cringing because who doesn’t know that she’s supposed to be with Big. Ever y moment of callous rudeness on his part is just another confirmation. The penultimate, or second to last, tends to be a mess. It’s the last bit of dramatic chaos before ever ything gets neatly resolved for the happy ending, the peak of unhappiness before ever yone rides off into the sunset. So here is the penultimate Mirror of 2013, and of our tenure as editors. In fact, as much as it pains me to admit it because I find Carrie Bradshaw to be one of the most irritating characters ever put on television, I feel a bit like an American girl in Paris, in the unromantic sense of being lost and confused. I think we all feel that way when something that’s become habit draws to an end. This week we explore the experiences of students whose lives are at cultural crossroads and the ways that students deal with long-distance relationships, both of which can evoke that same sense of confusion. For now, we’re dealing with it. Check back next week.
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MIR ROR MIRROR EDITORS AMELIA ACOSTA TYLER BRADFORD EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JENNY CHE PUBLISHER GARDINER KREGLOW EXECUTIVE EDITORS DIANA MING FELICIA SCHWARTZ
OVER HEARDS
KATHY RAO //THE DARTMOUTH
I MUSTACHE YOU A QUESTION By LINDSAY KEARE Halloween is over and everybody knows what that means — no, not the start of the holiday season. It’s the start of mustache season. No-Shave November is officially upon us folks, meaning that those partaking in the month of facial hair are now approximately one week into their 30-day quest to grow the best beards and ’staches they possibly can. While No-Shave November has been around for a while, a newer, more specific movement called Movember (short for Mustache November) has taken root across the world and across campus. The campaign encourages men, called Mo Bros, to raise money to combat prostate and testicular cancer and mental health challenges by growing and grooming mustaches. Since its start in Australia in 2003, the movement has raised nearly half a billion dollars worldwide for these causes, and the number of participants and donations continued to increase each year since. And women, otherwise known as Mo Sistas, can get involved as well, by encouraging men they know to participate. Here at Dartmouth, Movember is already well — and visibly — underway. Colin Murphy ’15, who has started a Movember group on campus, said that the purpose of the movement is “to be confident in yourself and your own masculinity while raising awareness to others that men’s health is important and something that should not be overlooked or disregarded.” Movember is about more than just the mustache. “For many, it’s not easy or comfortable to grow out facial hair, so it is a challenge of confidence as well as a challenge to stand for men’s
’16 Guy: I’ve tried Band-Aids, I’ve tried condoms — nothing’s working dude!
Blitz overheards to mirror@thedartmouth.com
health,” Murphy said. While many Dartmouth students are taking part in No-Shave November for the first time this year, others are now repeat participants. Sam Macomber ’16 has completed No-Shave November since his senior year of high school, participating last year with the men’s alpine ski team. As NoShave November ended during their pre-season training, the team was able to celebrate their varying beard and mustache successes together. “Toward the end of the month we started shaving funny things,” Macomber said. “I shaved half my face.” Indeed, part of the fun of Movember and NoShave November is seeing what sort of facial hair you have at the end of the month and then turning it into something crazy, because simply shaving it off is, to many, just not nearly celebration enough. “I’m going to shave whatever I get into the coolest design I can think of,” Murphy said. The shave-free month combines philanthropy with a sense of personal accomplishment. “The first year I did it was patchy, but I made it through November, and last year was better but still a little gross,” Trey Rebman ’16 said. “This year, I’d really like to get all the patches filled in by the end of November and also have it look like a decent beard, kind of like a mountain man.” Rebman plans to finish November by shaving his sideburns for a Wolverine look. He’s on to something with the creativity – wilder mustaches often compel friends into donating more money to the cause. “People that I have talked to about Movember have been more excited to see what [my mustache] looks like, so hopefully later in the month
’15 Guy to ’14 Girl with hammer: Why weren’t you Miley Cirus for Halloween? All you would have had to do is take that around and lick it.
’14 Girl: Whatever, I’m going to eat Nutella and Zoloft.
I can use that interest to raise money,” David Lerner ’14 said. Seeing so many family members during the holiday season makes soliciting donations for Movember relatively easy. “I went out to Thanksgiving and had a beard on and my relatives donated,” Macomber said. Last year, his combined beard and mustache raised several hundred dollars for the cause. Although she struggles with growing a mustache herself, Alex St. Romain ’14 said she is eagerly supporting her younger brother Zack’s fundraising efforts. A junior in high school, he is participating in the project for the first time. “He decided to do it to support men’s health, and specifically prostate cancer, which runs in our family,” St. Romain said. “Whether or not he can actually grow a mustache remains to be seen.” Most families will support the cause, but not everyone will fully get behind the hair itself. “Most guys seem to like the effort, and the occasional girl likes it but most people think I should shave it,” Redman said. “My mother definitely wants me to shave it and every year when I go to Thanksgiving my family makes fun of me because of how bad it is.” Whether you pump yourself up for Movember months in advance, or decide to participate after a few days waking up too late to shave, all those who take part — successful or not in their facial-hair growing endeavors — can be deemed worthy of the power of the Mo. And if you realize sporting facial hair is actually your thing, there’s always Dirty December, Manuary, Facial Hair February and Mustache March. By April, though, you should probably shave it off.
’14 D Editor: Does Justin Anderson know who I am?
’15 Guy: No use crying over spilled champagne!
’14 Girl in Jones: You can’t drink here! ’14 Guy: What is this, a prison?
MIRROR //3
TRENDING @ Dartmouth BIG LOVE WARMTH
We love the unexpected sun but it might be time to pick a season, Hanover.
SPACE
MARGARET ROWLAND//THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
EXPLORING MULTICULTURALISM By MIN KYUNG JEON “There are too many Asians around me right now,” complained an Asian-American girl as she abruptly detached herself from me and a couple other Asian girls on my high school track team during practice one day. Having lived in the United States for only about two years by then, I felt not only a jolt of surprise but also an inexplicable sense of shame and mortification at my teammate’s halfjoking, half-serious pronouncement. My high school, located in a cozy, predominantly white Pennsylvania suburb, had scarcely any immigrant students from South Korea, my home country, or any other foreign countries for that matter. As I struggled to adapt to this radically new environment, I found myself in bewildering and sometimes maddening situations that forced me to question my identity. I took refuge in my Korean heritage, distancing myself from a campus and curriculum that remained largely indifferent to the immigrant experience. At other times, I strove to assimilate into mainstream culture, joining sports teams and music groups to make friends with peers who often regarded me as just another “FOB,” or fresh off the boat. A broad spectrum of students who identify themselves with two or more cultures, from international students to minorities with deeper roots in the United States, frequently face the same dilemma of reconciling their conflicting allegiances to their native culture and the dominant American culture. Hayley Son ’15, who identifies herself as Korean and, to a lesser degree, Asian and international, said that before coming to the States for the first time, she had a generalized notion of Americans as WASPs. Most American films she had seen didn’t focus on minority cultures living in the United States, and she was surprised to find many more non-white students at Dartmouth than she had expected.
Son said she had difficulty communicating with American students of all races because of her unfamiliarity with American culture. She especially felt uncomfortable in group settings, not being able to understand her American interlocutors’ use of slang or sense of humor. “I was very stressed my freshman year because I was so FOB-y,” Son said. “And it was such a derogatory, frustrating term because it meant that I could never be at the same starting line as Americans.” While her decision to join a sorority has helped her meet a more diverse group of friends, Son said she has reservations about the experience, sometimes feeling pressured to conform to American culture at the expense of Korean culture. She endeavors to reconcile her conflicting loyalty to the two cultures by maintaining an open, humble and sympathetic attitude toward everyone and reaching out to people from all different backgrounds. Language can present a unique challenge for students straddling cultural boundaries. With language being such a central aspect of culture, different linguistic habits can make for a modern-day Babel. George Boateng ’16, an international student from Ghana, said that while he has found a strong Ghanaian community at Dartmouth, he has felt torn between his home culture and American culture linguistically. Since English is Ghana’s official language, Boateng grew up speaking English alongside two local languages. The Ghanaian variant of English, however, is distinctly different from American English, and he often suppresses his native Ghanaian accent when speaking with American students at Dartmouth. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve had to get used to here,” Boateng said. “Imagine that you’ve been speaking English all your life, but now it’s the first time
you’re not understood.” Boateng also recalled his initial shock at class discussions about religion, as Christianity, practiced by more than 70 percent of Ghanaians, is the implicit, accepted faith back home. In forcing him to become more openminded, this pressure from American culture influenced him positively. Karima Ma ’14, a second-generation Chinese-American student, said she grew up speaking Chinese at home but did not have a chance to acquire fluency during her formative years. As a result, Ma decided to be a Chinese minor at Dartmouth, as she values preserving her heritage and wants to make sure that her kids will have the chance to learn to speak, read and write Chinese. Sometimes the challenge exists in holding multiple different identities together in one’s mind. Ayaan Roble ’14, an American citizen with a multicultural African heritage, said her experiences living in the United States, Ivory Coast and Tunisia and her parents’ ethnicity as Somalis means she identifies herself as American, Somali, Ivorian and Tunisian. When she first came to Dartmouth, she felt a major conflict between her African international identity and her black American counterpart. “The African community on campus is predominantly West African,” Roble said. “Though I lived in Ivory Coast, my parents are actually East African, so I was not really accepted in the group. On the other hand, the African-American community saw me as international.” Over Roble’s time here, she has gradually come to terms with these conflicting identities, finding friends from both groups and beyond and enjoys attending events sponsored by African cultural organizations. Casidhe Bethancourt ’16, who identifies herself as Dominican-American and Latina more broadly, said she
does not consciously act differently around her American friends but feels more at ease discussing culturespecific issues with her Hispanic friends. Attending private schools in which she was usually the only Hispanic student for much of her life, Bethancourt said she no longer feels much pressure to conform to an American ideal. “I’ve felt the pressure to suppress very passionate emotions I have about certain Hispanic issues,” she said. “For example, if you’re not Hispanic, it’s very hard to wrap your head around the issue of blatant racism in Latin American society.” Bennie Niles ’15, who identifies as African-American, said that the word African-American itself speaks to duality. Niles made references to the concept of “double consciousness” coined by W. E. B. Du Bois. “It’s about having to feel American and black at the same time,” Niles said. “It’s a constant battle between the two identities because it’s hard to make them coexist.” Niles said he often feels pressure to conform to the dominant white culture at Dartmouth and constantly encounters questions of identity and authenticity. When asked about one of the salient yet seldom-addressed issues of “self-segregation,” Niles said that it is a degrading term often used to condemn people who are simply searching for spaces that cater to their cultural needs. “Going to classes and not seeing people who look like me every day — for me at least, it’s natural to want to go to spaces where there are people from similar backgrounds,” Niles said. “We don’t call white kids who hang around other white kids as self-segregating, so I don’t use the term at all.” Ma was a member of The Dartmouth staff.
Reporter Maggie Shields contributed reporting.
Apparently the chance of life on other planets is greater than ever, according to data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. As those who’ve been waiting for the mothership since birth, we’re incredibly excited.
SURVEYS It’s that most horrible time of the term when your inbox is full of emails with what someone probably thought was a clever subject line, disguising a plea to “take our two minute SOCY 10 survey please we’ll love you forever!” Barely even worth the procrastination.
FORMAL BLITZES It’s always dicey whether to be witty or cordial with these. If you think it’s weird to blitz someone asking them to formal, you haven’t been at Dartmouth long enough. We’re all part of the community.
#BLESSED When did this become a thing? Are we using it ironically? Are we really that sappy? Questions abound but the hashtag remains.
CROSS COUNTRY
loving the distance
MICHELLE LI and lauren huff
It’s getting to that point in the year when ’17s are starting to think of Dartmouth as home. The longer we stay here, the less we think of our hometowns, and surely, for many ’17s, some ties to home have already started to slip away. Going back in three weeks almost seems a bit bittersweet. For freshmen in long-distance relationships, though, the prospect of returning home takes on a whole new significance. For many, it will be the first time they have seen their significant other since coming to college. While we all know of the infamous “Turkey Drop,” when freshmen who came to college with boyfriends or girlfriends back home routinely end things over Thanksgiving break, it seems as though long-distance relationships are stronger than ever at Dartmouth. Students acknowledged the challenges that come with going longdistance, but many also said it made their relationship stronger. Still, ’17s said unanimously that their friends warned them never to come to college in a relationship. “A lot of my friends said not to do it,” Shane Berthoud ’17 said. “They said you need to be single in your first year of college. I didn’t really care what they said. It was going to be mine and her decision, not my friends’ decision.” Students also mentioned having a conversation with their significant other about whether to break up. “We both felt like it wouldn’t be fair to either of us since we were both happy,” Catherine Kannam ’17 said. “We felt like we owed it to each other to at least try it and see what happens.” Deciding to go long-distance, however, is a lot easier than actually making it work. Many freshmen remarked that the transition to long-distance was tough, especially since most saw their boyfriends or girlfriends in person consistently throughout the summer. On the other hand, some thought having someone to rely on during orientation and starting college made the transition easier. “I definitely think it would’ve been harder without her,” Max Saccone ’17 said. “Because it’s one less thing to worry about here, and it’s nice feeling some connection to home.” It takes effort to maintain that connection. By far the most popular way in which couples choose to communicate is by text. Almost all students interviewed mentioned texting throughout the day as an important form of communication, while many also emphasized the importance of FaceTime and Skype. “The biggest challenge has been finding time to talk,” Julia McKown ’17 said. “Because we’re both really busy, it becomes easy to just exchange text messages all day, but it’s so important to find time to Skype and talk on the phone.” Despite the challenges that come with attempting long-distance, though, students agreed that their relationship has either stayed the same or improved since coming to college. “I think it’s definitely made us stronger and more committed, just because it’s not as easy or convenient as it was so you have to put in more effort,” Kannam said. “I think it just made us realize how much we care, because we’re both willing to go through it and really try.” Upperclassmen have proven that even more can change in a few years. Maintaining a long-distance relationship from high school does get easier after the first year as people become more used to college life, Nick Hodgson ’16 said. “It has definitely changed,” Hodgson said. “As freshmen neither of us knew what college was going to be like. We were confused and finding new
friends, but now that we’ve already done it once, it’s a little easier.” Kannam’s older sister, Julia Kannam ’15, said that, two years down the road, she and her boyfriend have slowly learned what it takes to make a long-distance relationship work. The learning curve was steepest in the first six-week separation, when the pair had to learn to say what they were feeling instead of depending on body language or facial expressions. Julia Kannam also said that they became more secure in their relationship as it became more serious, which allowed them more comfort in communication and trust. “When we first said goodbye freshman year, we weren’t sure if it was going to work,” Julia Kannam said. “We thought we were going to fall apart if we didn’t fall asleep Skyping everyday. Maybe we needed it at the time, but we both have perspective now, and we know we don’t have to do that to stay together.” The inconvenience of the quarter system is still something that never changes. Breaks barely line up, and upperclassmen said the lack of overlap certainly makes it harder. The secret, it seems, to a successful long-distance relationship is based simply in the type of people that are making it work. Saccone said that both he and his girlfriend are “pretty stable” people, and Julia Kannam said that her and her boyfriend’s personalities match up with the demands of the relationship. “I think what makes us work is that it’s the two of us,” she said. “We’re both not super into the going out scene, and we’re both pretty quiet. He’s so steady, and I can always count on him to be a rock, so we can depend on each other from far away.” Catherine Kannam also said that beginning the relationship right before college might have even helped make it easier. “Because I haven’t been dating him for years, we don’t have as much of an expectation of how it should be or how it was,” Catherine Kannam said. “It’s almost like we don’t know anything else, since we met right at the end of senior year.” Many agreed that there are many more long-distance relationships among freshmen this term than people expected. Julia Kannam said that a lot of the surprise can be attributed to the stigma that plagues the long-distance relationship. “It’s just one of those things that everyone assumes but no one really asks,” Julia Kannam said. “There’s a perception that it can’t work, and about college being a time to reinvent yourself and not be tied down.” Catherine Kannam said the same stigma leads people to become stressed about the decision to come to college with a longdistance relationship, to the point where they might feel like they are the only one. “People get paranoid about the whole process in general, paranoid about staying in touch and about what people around them will think about it.” Catherine Kannam said. “I was worried too, but when I got here, I realized it’s not a big deal.” For anyone out there in a long-distance relationship who still isn’t sure, our veterans have some advice for you. “The biggest thing is willingness to work together, because it’s not just one person doing one thing — it’s both together,” Hodgson said.
ALISON GUH and CHRIS YIH // THE DARTMOUTH
6// MIRROR
Through the Looking Glass
A SPOT ON THE CONTINUUM B y KYLE MCGOEY As I sat in a meeting at my fraternity the other night, slowly sinking into the leather couch, the house’s president posed a question that, simple and obvious though it might seem, really made me think. “Why did you join a fraternity?” At the risk of sounding closeminded, I’ll make a confession: I never really considered the thought of a college experience, at Dartmouth or elsewhere, that didn’t involve Greek life. That’s not to say I didn’t think about the rush process critically, but I always focused more on what I wanted to gain from my house than whether, at the end of the day, I would receive a net gain in happiness from joining the Greek system at all. Like many people, I hoped that joining a Greek house would help me to find a group of like-minded people with whom I identified and shared common ground. After only a few weeks in a house, my experience has been more positive than I could have imagined. I don’t mean this in a cheesy, rose-colored glasses kind of way; joining a Greek house is a big transition, and as with any major life change, the process of adapting can at times be difficult, stressful and confusing. But it has introduced me to dozens of fantastic people, many of whom I likely would never have met other wise. These are people who are on their worst days what I strive to be on my best: smart, funny, interesting, friendly and passionate. However, I’ve been surprised to find that what I’ve treasured the most about
these new friendships has not been the common ground, but the vast dif ferences in our perspectives and experiences. I look around the house and I see ski bums and soccer junkies, engineers and English buffs, budding musicians and future business school valedictorians. As anyone who knows me can probably attest, I am none of those things. My skiing form is exactly what you’d expect from a burly manchild with no grace and minimal experience, and my Econ 1 grade alone would probably keep me out of most reputable business schools. But far from making me feel isolated, that wealth of diverse interests has absolutely enriched the sense of community I feel in the house. By constantly stepping outside of my comfort zone, I’ve actually felt my comfort zone grow. That’s not to say I’ve vastly increased my base of knowledge or expertise. Far from it, in fact. But, to paraphrase the old sports coach cliche, I’ve become far more comfortable with being uncomfortable. Debates about the true meaning of life or the efficacy of Paul Volcker’s economic policies once left me feeling ignorant and intimidated, but now I find myself invigorated to learn new things and hear new views. Occasionally I even feel comfortable enough to plumb my (admittedly small) pool of knowledge and experience for contributions to the conversation. And when the talk turns to one of my passions, I often find my opinions challenged and my understanding deepened in ways
I never would have expected. These experiences have taught me a lesson of incredible value, that the “dumbest” person in the room can sometimes of fer the most valuable insights. In a school where we’re surrounded by thousands of the brightest, most interesting and most accomplished students in the world, the importance of that lesson cannot be overstated. It’s easy to feel your sense of self worth start to slip when there’s such a dizzying wealth of talent and experience among our student body. Often I feel like the vast majority of Dartmouth’s population is a little smarter, a little cooler and a little more on top of it than me. But when the sea of artists and scholars and athletic wunderkinds starts to get over whelming, I tr y to take a step back and remember that there’s a spot for me in the Dartmouth continuum. The friends I respect and admire so much must see something in me too. If they didn’t, there are far too many amazing people here for them to waste their time in my company. Ever y one of us is here for a reason, but more impor tantly, those reasons are all different. The enriching diversity I’ve found in my Greek experience is even more pronounced in the greater Dartmouth community. For proof of the vast array of interests represented on campus, one need look no further than the campus listser v — from artistic ensembles to service organizations to cultural interest clubs, the one trait that
our student body seems to share is passion. Sure, we “work hard and play hard.” But we also care deeply about an array of things far too broad to be captured by that tired cliché. And those diverse individual passions, coagulated in the clubs and teams and Greek houses that help us to channel and explore them, come together to form a community far greater than
the sum of its already spectacular parts. I’m not sure exactly why I decided to come to Dartmouth. Given how much my answer to the Greek question has changed in just five weeks, I’m not sure it really matters. But I think I’m finally star ting to understand exactly what Dartmouth means to me.
MARGARET ROWLAND//THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
It’s important to remember that sometimes, even the “dumbest” person in the room can offer the most valuable, unexpected insights.
MIRROR //7
COLUMN
WHAT HAVE WE DONE? IN CASE By SEANIE CIVALE and AMANDA SMITH YOU WERE WONDERING
COLUMN
By
KATIE SINCLAIR
Though the origins of the What Have We Done blog date back to freshman year, the truth is, the What Have We Dones began the second we started forming personalities. We recently uncovered one home video of Seanie dramatically performing a song she composed called “I like myself” and another of Amanda’s failed attempt to walk on water. This week we had a few flashbacks to the days of old, which made us realize that those days don’t feel ver y old at all. Childhood photos show us wearing tutus, boas, overalls, pigtails and more, but then again, so do some photos we’ve taken this term. We’ll chalk it up to a case of the child at heart, where we’ll never stop mourning the death of recess, and naptime will forever be sacred. Seanie: Several days ago, in the throes of lying in bed doing nothing, I decided to check my old AOL account for whatever reason. A few things about this to note: first, in a surprising turn of events, the AOL website has in fact been redesigned since 2007. Second, if you played Neopets as child and didn’t turn off email notifications, there will be hundreds from Neopets in your inbox, mostly notifying you in euphemisms that your pets are nearing death because you have left them to star ve alone for eight years. A really bizarre and nostalgic sense of motherly urgency overcame me upon the sight of these emails, and I spent the next several minutes going through the process of recovering my Neopets username and password. When I eventually logged on, I saw that I had four pets. Their names were MysticalWaterFriend, PrincesDiamndSparklz, PrinceBulbousHead and SwiftRiverPhoenix. I am fascinated for several reasons. Somehow, I was old enough to know the meaning of the word “bulbous” but too young to know that it’s not an affectionate adjective to describe the head of a pet. Also, what? I know I was a strange child — I had an “I like myself” song, and then there were my three imaginar y friends named Tete, Weegee and Goba, which would be fairly standard, except I hated Tete and used to get mad when she came to the tea parties that my own imagination invited her to. But mostly I’m fascinated because I feel such a kinship with the girl who unabashedly did these types of things, and I kind of wish I still did now. When I told a group
about Tete and the Neopets, she seemed to find it neither particularly familiar nor particularly amusing. I write this in the hopes that you will get me. Amanda: This past week, I was lucky enough to have had the chance to spend some quality time with my little cousins. My family has always been one to divide things up according to age group. We have the “kid table” and the “adult table,” the “fruit punch bowl” and the “Absolut punch bowl.” The list goes on. It was during this most recent family reunion that I realized I am at that awkward age between six and sixty, which makes me a bit of an outcast from both groups. The harsh reality of my loner status hit when my kid cousin initially denied my access to the playroom with the simple question, “How old are you, 50?” I quickly saved face by announcing that I was 21, pointing to the adults asking, “Do I really look like them?” After I tricked little Noah and the rest of his crew into believing I was yet a child, I was granted full access to the downstairs TV room, where my cousins and I proceeded to eat Chex Mix and Cheetos for dinner, watch a movie I’d never heard of on Disney Channel and play a Bernstein Bears board game for the remainder of the evening. The adults call this babysitting, but little did they know. We’ve said before that the end is coming, but we still don’t have a complete conception of what that really means. Maybe this year will be our last hurrah for playing dress-up, although there’s no denying that people around here look more normal decked out in flair than they do dressed up in business casual. Perhaps sitting at the adult table will someday seem appealing, kind of like how Seanie used to hate tomatoes but now loves them and can’t seem to remember why she was ever repulsed by them in the first place (this does not apply to Amanda — she still hates tomatoes). Many things remain indefinite and unknown, but on another slightly related note, we firmly believe Dartmouth students would benefit from the addition of a tetherball court and a set of monkey bars on the Green and the institution of recess between 10As and 2As. Yours not girls, not yet women, Lucy & Ethel
In case you were wondering, daylight savings time, which ended last Sunday, was first proposed by Georges Vernon Hudson in 1896, not, according to popular belief, by our buddy Ben Franklin. Back in Ben’s day, precise time-keeping was not really an issue, since train schedules hadn’t been invented yet. Daylight savings time was first implemented in Austria in 1916 and has been used on and off throughout Western Europe and the Americas. It remains vague to me, because having extra light at night seems cool, but then it’s dark in the morning, and there are few things more depressing than waking up in the pitch black. Research shows daylight saving time saves little to no energy, but apparently people go out and buy more stuff when it’s lighter in the evening, because sunlight inspires in people the primordial desire to go out and buy stuff. But I’m always in favor of daylight savings time when it ends. As I pleasantly discovered last Sunday, you get an extra hour of sleep. Going to Dartmouth can profoundly mess with your sense of time. My concentration is limited to precisely one hour and 50 minutes, the exact duration of 10As. Waking up before 9 a.m. seems ridiculously early. I have no idea how people with 7:45 drill do it — no language seems worth the suffering. Eating dinner after 7 p.m. seems ridiculously late, and drinking before 9 p.m. is generally accepted to be a sign of alcoholism. I find it hard to plan for things that are more than 10 weeks in the future because with the D-Plan, you can never really be sure where you’re going to be. This term has gone by incredibly fast. At the beginning of this term, I was like, “Oh yeah, I’m going to get a job, ace all my classes, get a start on my thesis and finish the fifth season of ‘The West Wing.’” Lies. I think when this term is over, I will have succeeded in passing all my classes, maybe hopefully getting my thesis approved, and probably finished the fifth season of “The West Wing.” Because I’m a girl who’s got her priorities in order. If there were a Dartmouth version of daylight savings time, I think I would definitely fall back at the end of sophomore summer, because it really was pretty awesome. We could also spring for ward over junior fall, because seriously, during
junior fall, no one’s friends are here. But I wouldn’t be opposed to winding the clock all the way back to sophomore fall — not freshman year, because freshman year is singularly weird and eye-opening for ever yone, and no one who did freshman year right wants to do that again. This does not mean, however, that I don’t want to graduate. I have come to the realization that the only thing worse than graduating is not graduating, because I really don’t want to be that one ’14 who’s still there when the ’15s are seniors and have ever yone wonder, “She’s not an engineer, what is she still doing here?” (Sorr y, ’13s). I know we’re not even done with fall yet, and it’s weird to think about graduating, but fall has always been one of my favorite terms, and the fact that we’re almost one-third done with the school year needs to be recognized. Winter’s okay, I guess, if you’re some nocturnal cave creature who hates the warmth and light. Frankly, spring is overrated, especially if there’s still snow on the ground, and you will probably be overrun with nostalgia and existential crises, so I feel it’s best to get any reflecting out of the way now. It seems like just yesterday I was moving out of the little yellow house that some friends and I lived in over sophomore summer that was actually as far away from campus you could get without being in West Lebanon. I swear, it was only two weeks ago that I stepped off the plane in France for the LSA, jetlagged and confused by the plumbing. I don’t want to sound like some old fogey reminiscing about the past, but guys, I recently turned 22. I am old. I am five whole years older than some of the freshmen. Older people (and I mean like really old people, like parents) keep saying these are “the best years of your life.” I know, I think it’s weird too when people speak in clichés. So, these being the best years of my life, I intend to make this next week and a half plus finals be super awesome. And by super awesome I mean I’m going to finish my Chaucer paper and finally identify that bacterial colony I isolated from a frat basement, because that is one of the things you are expected to do in microbiology. The suspense is killing me.
8 // MIRROR
PROFILE
THIS IS JUST WHAT I LOOK LIKE
MARGARET ROWLAND // THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
It’s a rare phenomenon, but when it strikes you know. They say first impressions last a lifetime, but for those with RBF an unfriendly first impression isn’t a choice. By CAREN DUANE You know that person. You pass them on the street, you sit next to them in class, you see them in FoCo. You are scared of them. You have never actually talked to them, and you might not even know their name, but you sense they are an angry creature, possibly without a soul, who hates everyone. But you have made a grave mistake in judging these types of people. They laugh, they enjoy the smell of fresh baked cookies, they shower regularly, they cried during “The Shawshank Redemption” and they took the SATs. They are just like you, except, they have a resting bitch face, an RBF. An RBF can manifest in a variety of ways. Some possessors of resting bitch faces look akin to disgruntled pitbull, others like they are continually being given a flu shot, some as though they are smelling a putrid odor and a few appear as if they might punch anyone in their eyesight. “When I first met you I was scared of you.” This phrase is commonplace for people with an RBF. They come to accept the natural state of their face as one that exudes feelings of anger, disgust or misery. There are three sub-categories of the resting bitch face: the mean face, the mad face and the melancholy face. Each face is prone to misconceptions regarding the personality of the person with RBF. The mean RBF is one in which the person looks as though they abhor any type of affection and have never cracked a smile, except when they saw someone slip on an icy sidewalk. Essentially, his or her countenance exudes every characteristic akin to the Grinch. Individuals with mean RBFs are the least approachable type because they appear disinterested and cruel. Their facial expressions make it look like they spend their free time in Tolkien’s Mordor hanging with the Orcs. As a self-identified mean RBF, Tara Roudi ’15
expressed how her facial expression interfered with her ability to make friends freshman year. “My current friends told me they were all terrified of me when they first met me because they thought my personality corresponded with my resting bitch face,” she said. Onlookers might assume that people with mean RBFs throw eggs out of their car at people for fun. People identified as having mad RBFs have facial expression similar to Hilary Swank during her most intense fight scenes in “Million Dollar Baby.” They look like they might punched someone at any given moment, whether they are in line at Hinman, walking across the Green or arriving late to their 9L. Most of the time, they look pissed off and are assumed to have volatile personalities. It is not uncommon for individuals with mad RBFs to receive coupons for anger management from anonymous sources. “I met this girl early freshman fall and thought there is no way I’m going to be friends with her, because she seems mad and looks at me like she wants to put a bullet through my head all the time,” Rebecca Jacobson ’15 said. “I ended up taking a class with her and when we were required to speak, she was friendly, and I slowly realized her face isn’t a portrayal of how she feels about me.” The third category of the RBF is the melancholy face. If this type of RBF were a nail polish color, it would be the shade of dark purple that gets mistaken for black. People with a melancholy RBF always appear as though they might break into tears. Onlookers most likely assume their childhood pet just died, or that they just completed a CS 1 midterm. Rose Dicovitsky ’14, a possessor of the sad RBF, recounts her experience from freshman year. “One of my friends told me his friend referred to me as the ‘sad volleyball player,’
which is not how you want to be known on campus,” Dicovitsky said. Anyone who sees someone with a melancholy RBF might assume they listen to a lot of Bon Iver. There is no cure for the RBF. A natural resting face is not like hair color. One cannot simply change it. While some people were blessed with cheery resting faces, there are a multitude of people whose faces radiate negative energy when their muscles are in a relaxed state. But the appearance of someone’s resting face might translate to their personality. “After hearing that I am unapproachable, sometimes, I consciously think about it when I am somewhere public and try too look less sad,” Dicovitsky said. You can’t ascertain someone’s personality simply by how they look. “Anyone new I meet, I have to make a con-
scious effort to look as interested as I actually am,” Roudi said. The RBF has its advantages. “Getting a smile from someone with a resting bitch face is like getting an A from a teacher who only gives B’s, it’s very fulfilling,” Catherine Donahoe ’15 said. The individual with RBF is like a secret code waiting to be cracked. It’s easy for observers of RBF to prescribe “treatments.” Just try and smile when you walk around FoCo, don’t frown when you walk to class, stop looking so intense. While these might be genuine efforts to help out friends, it is vital that people understand the involuntary nature of the RBF. Some of my closest friends have resting bitch faces — they are kind and happy people. They just don’t look like it at first glance, or second glance or third glance.
JULIAN MACMILLAN // THE DARTMOUTH STAFF