The Dartmouth Mirror 11/07/14

11.7.2014 Upper Valley Alums| 3

MIRROR A-Not-So Rude Awakening| 2

manner of Speaking | 4-5

Midterm madness| 8 ERIN O’NEIL // THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

2// MIRROR

EDITOR’S NOTE

Alumni in the Upper Valley story

On Tuesday I attended a final-round interview for a small consulting firm outside of Boston. By almost every interviewer — there were 10 total — I was asked to explain why I had chosen Dartmouth, and more specifically, why anthropology and linguistics? The question is always tinged with a hint of disdain and bewilderment about how I could have possibly made it through Dartmouth without becoming a government or economics major. I’ve been asked this question many times throughout my interviewing experience, and the answer has become a sort of routine spiel filled with what I consider to be valid and careful reasoning. But when you spend so much time carefully crafting and re-crafting your reasoning for enjoying something, it can become challenging to remember why you liked it in the first place.

Tossing my tired reasoning aside, linguistics and anthropology drew me in because I’ve always been intrigued by people — how they work, why they do what they do, how their language choices are impacted by those around them. As a linguistics minor, this week’s centerfold on how we speak at Dartmouth is something I’ve pondered for a long time (especially since I’ve taken sociolinguistics with professor James Stanford!). The writers delve into issues of assimilation, dialect stigma and the link between language identity. I am of the firm belief that all students should be required to take some social sciences course, whether it be anthropology or sociology, to promote basic human-to-human understanding in the real world. There are so many times I’ve met Ivy Leagueeducated students who are unable to communicate with people of differing cultural backgrounds, and after four years of studying cultural relativism, this lack of basic understanding is a mystery to me.

To circle back to my original point, as I apply for my degree, I keep thinking to myself what I would have done differently if I could get a do-over at Dartmouth. Many have told me that choosing an “impractical” major could limit my chances of getting a job, being successful, etc. I am happy with the choices I’ve made, because instead of following the sheep down the path of least resistance, I’ve challenged myself to learn the critical thinking skills, through both my major and minor, that will last me a lifetime.

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MIRROR R MIRROR EDITOR ERIN LANDAU

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LINDSAY ELLIS PUBLISHER CARLA LARIN

EXECUTIVE EDITORS MICHAEL RIORDAN STEPHANIE McFEETERS

By Lauren huff

Whether you’re a jaded ’15 hiding out in your of f-campus house or a bright-eyed freshman still perplexed by the labyrinth that is the McLaughlin cluster, you’ve probably become somewhat familiar with the phenomenon we have fondly dubbed “The Dartmouth Bubble.”

But physical evidence actually supports a contrary hypothesis. In addition to its 230-acre campus, Dar tmouth College owns about 36,000 acres of land in the state of New Hampshire.

We have the Skiway, the Organic Farm, the Second College Grant — an escape from campus seems accessible, if not inevitable.

Still, we gripe about the apparent isolation that comes with going to school in the woodsy depths of New Hampshire. By senior year, many of Dartmouth’s sons and daughters are ready to hightail it out of idyllic Hanover for a bigger and brighter place to call home.

But other recent graduates do not succumb to this impulse to outgrow Hanover, electing to remain in the Upper Valley. Between graduate students, College employees and fellows, you’d be surprised by the number of ex-undergrads still lurking around campus.

Pure convenience contributes to some recent graduates’ decisions to stay in Hanover. Archana Ramanujam ’14, who works for the Geisel School of Medicine, still had a year remaining on her student visa when she graduated.

“I was basically just planning for the year, and I didn’t know if I was going to be able to stay beyond that,” she said. “I didn’t want to go set up in a new place all over again just for the year, so I was pretty happy to stay here.”

Similarly, Natalia Vecerek ’14 decided to take a year off between Dartmouth and medical school, finding herself with a free year before diving back into the chaos of student life. She decided to spend this year as a teaching science fellow in the biology department.

“It made more sense to me to stay than move around to a new city for a ver y short period of time,” she said.

Despite the short-term nature of their plans, both Ramanujam and Vecerek aim to take full advantage of their extra year in the Upper Valley.

Ramanujam especially notes low expenses and the ability to do outdoor activities over the weekend.

“I really like rural living — it presents

’18 on the Saturday after Halloween: “I just ate a cracker and threw up.”

Blitz your overheards to mirror@thedartmouth.com!

a lot of opportunities to me I wouldn’t really get in the city necessarily,” Ramanujam said.

Vecerek, who swam for the Big Green, said she sees this year as an opportunity to explore things she missed out on as a varsity athlete like skiing and going on weekend trips.

For other alumni, like Anani Sawadogo ’14, time in Hanover may not be limited to one year. Sawadogo joined the team of Lebanon-based engineering start-up FreshAir Sensor after working with the company senior fall in an engineering course.

Despite fellow ’14s questioning his decision to stay in the area, Sawadogo said he has so far been ver y happy with his choice.

“Before committing to a job here, I got another offer down on the West Coast,” he said. “I guess at the end I decided to stay based on what I would be doing, and not really what social life is available.”

Still, there may be some drawbacks to forgoing city life for rural Hanover as a recent graduate. Social life, for example, shifts dramatically after graduating.

“We tried to get [the social life] working, but with work it’s hard to actually get together,” Sawadogo said.

Vecerek also noted an absence of evolving social connections as a recent graduate.

“I feel like I haven’t really met a lot of new people that I didn’t know as an undergrad,” she said. “I feel like I still mostly see the ’15s, ’16s and ’17s I became friends with during my time here.”

For graduate students, however, different connections continue to form.

Rajiv Raghavan ’13 Th’14, a first-year medical student at Geisel, said he has obser ved a prevalent social scene among graduate students.

“I hang out with the Tuck students as well as the other graduate students, and the med students will go out together,” he said.

A member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, Raghavan said his involvement in the house has dwindled since graduation. Although he will stop by during the day to visit friends in the house, Raghavan said he no longer socializes in his fraternity at night.

Vecerek, a member of Sigma Delta sorority, expressed a similar removal from Greek life, saying she is not as

’18: “I’m disappointed, my selfies have been lacking because of my need to study. I can’t just take selfies of me studying all the time.”

’15: “You know what I’ve realized?

I’ve only hooked up with Alpha Chis this term. And that includes a random dance floor makeout.

What’s wrong with me?”

active as she was as an undergraduate. With a car on campus, Vecerek said she has experienced a newfound sense of freedom she never had as an undergraduate.

“I do go visit people in cities a lot, and I’ve found that to be really fun,” she said. “The main social outlet here is obviously the Greek system, and even though I was part of it as an undergrad, I kind of feel like I should start getting away from that.”

Such traveling seems to be an integral part of the post-graduate experience in the Upper Valley, given the amount of recent Dartmouth graduates who move to New York City and Boston after graduation.

“It’s not too hard to visit,” Raghavan said. “A lot of grad students travel to the cities to see friends or significant others on the weekends, so travel is pretty easy.”

Consequently, some young alumni living in the area feel slightly less connected to the Dartmouth community.

For some, like Ramanujam, this is intentional.

“I didn’t want to be a student for this year in the sense that I didn’t want to be super involved in campus life,” she said.

Others remain partially involved in activities that were central to their undergraduate lives. Vecerek still shadows doctors at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, an opportunity she first took advantage of as an undergraduate. She said this helps her feel like she is still a part of the Dartmouth community.

Raghavan also said he stays loosely involved, running with the Dartmouth Endurance Running Team, which he used to captain, one or more times a week. As a graduate student, however, he maintains a certain distance from undergraduate life.

“Being a couple years removed from being an undergrad, I have a little bit of perspective and space from some of the issues going on on campus,” he said. “‘The Dartmouth Bubble’ has less of an influence as a graduate student.”

Tr y as they might, recent alumni living in the Hanover area may have more trouble separating themselves from Dartmouth than they think.

“There’s a lot of things that I still can capitalize on being a young alum,” Ramanujam said. “The College sort of continues to support me in one way or another.”

’15: “It’s just polite to streak flacidly.”

’15: “I can’t hook up with him. We can either be good friends or skip over all the middle stuff and go right to sexless marriage.”

MIRROR //3

A Not-So-Rude Awakening story

By victoria Nelsen

As the door screeched open, I barely needed to look up to comprehend the whirlwind entering my room — a wake-up. Half asleep, I gestured toward my roommate’s bed as the voices shouted her name, yelling brief instructions before dashing from the room. My third roommate and I celebrated for our friend before drifting back into sleep — this rude awakening was not so rude after all, as it signified her acceptance into a campus organization.

Wake-ups are an accepted and beloved tradition on Dartmouth’s campus, and many groups have embraced them as a way to welcome new members into a variety of clubs, including Tucker groups, sports teams, Ski Patrol and a cappella groups.

Due to new policies on hazing, however, these groups are proceeding with caution in their wake-up routines. Despite the murky policies surrounding wake-ups, many students do not see the tradition as hazing — the events are perceived as fun, wholesome ways to welcome new members into an organization.

The policy states that this definition applies even if participants see the behavior as being voluntary.

Tucker Foundation program officer for local service Tracy DustinEichler has witnessed two Tucker programs — Outdoor Leadership Experience and DREAM — plan wake-ups for new members during her 11 years at the College. DustinEichler said that while DREAM has only engaged in wake-ups for a few years, OLE has conducted them since she arrived at Dartmouth.

She said a potential historical root of this initiation strategy is that early morning has likely been the easiest time to find Dartmouth students on campus.

Dustin-Eichler said she does not consider wake-ups to be hazing because they are optional and focus solely on fostering group dynamics and building a congratulatory experience. Because wake-ups are optional and therefore are not a condition of membership, Dustin-Eichler said they are not hazing by the College’s definition.

Dartmouth College’s hazing policy follows New Hampshire law and states that hazing is “any act directed toward a student, or any coercion or intimidation of a student to act or to participate in an act, when such act is likely or would be perceived by a reasonable person as likely to cause physical or psychological injury to any person, and when such act is a condition of initiation into, admission to, continued membership in or association with any organization.”

(Greek Letter Organizations and Societies director Wes Schaub declined to comment.)

“People want to find ways to celebrate acceptance into competitive programs,” she said. “They want people to be excited about being

mentors because they want that excitement to rub off on the kids that they’re working with.”

She said that Tucker student directors are thoughtful about ensuring safety measures in the wake-ups, which she reviews before the groups run the activity.

OLE student director Tara Roudi ’15 said that to conduct a wake-up, returning members of the organization enter a student’s room, a location that they know from that new member’s application, loudly cheering a rousing chorus of “Ole” and dressed in a hodgepodge of flair. The new members, blindfolded, leave with returning members on a bus and taken to do some sort of activity outside. Finally, the new and returning members share a breakfast together.

To prepare for the event, Roudi said that, after selecting the new members, her group lays out a road map to plan their strategy for the next morning. The group rents one Vox bus, so they can approach dorms in the same area simultaneously before moving to a different cluster.

It is important to get as many current members involved as possible to show new members how excited they are to have them, Roudi said. During wake-ups, the group of students tries to remain fairly quiet to respect those sleeping in the building.

Different organizations set different tones in their initiation ceremonies, Roudi said, but generally, wake-ups have become safer and more welcoming, especially with the increase of anti-hazing policies.

“It was really, really fun to see that these upperclassmen in an organization were excited enough about me getting into that organization that they wanted to wake up early and do a fun activity with me,” Roudi said.

“It meant a lot to me as a freshman, who really struggled freshman fall with feeling like I had a place at this school.”

Rosie Oppenheim ’18 was awoken by both OLE and Ski Patrol this year.

For OLE, the wake-up notified her that she was accepted into the group, while for Ski Patrol, it was more of a bonding activity after new members had been accepted.

For Ski Patrol, Oppenheim said that patrollers came into her room, yelled at her to wake up and gave her curt instructions to dress in flair, bring $5 and meet them outside. She and the other “apprenti” were driven to the club sports fields, where they had a raucous dance party with older Ski Patrol members, she said.

Finally, the group shared a hearty and exhausted breakfast together at The Fort.

As part of the breakfast, the sophomores in Ski Patrol introduced the new apprenti one by one, sharing with the whole group fun facts about each new member.

Oppenheim said that she does not consider wake-ups to be hazing

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KELSEY KITTLESEN // THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

or malicious.

“It’s definitely a very fun first welcoming experience to an organization,” she said. “I think it gives a very positive first impression to all the students in the organization.

It definitely gives a great group dynamic right from the get-go.”

Though Oppenheim said she did not form new relationships during the wake-ups themselves, they helped set the foundation for friendships that she made later.

Many a cappella groups also welcome new members into the group with a wake-up, which typically follows the night-long auditions and deliberations process. Ben Rutan ’17 was awoken freshman fall to the singing of the Aires.

“It was one of the highlights of my freshman year, immediately being waken up and being surrounded by this new group that had accepted me and are now some of my best friends on campus,” Rutan said.

Zoe Brennan ’16 is on the hockey team, which has an annual fall wakeup tradition. Unlike other organizations, the team’s wake-up does not follow the selection of new team members, as most of the team is selected before the school year even begins. Instead, the seniors on the team coordinate a secret date for the wake-ups with the coach.

On the day of the wake-ups, the seniors gather together, pooling their flair and preparing for the excitement of the early morning.

One by one, the women wake up every other member of their team, from juniors to freshmen, and the group slowly gets larger. Though most members of the team expect a wake-up at some point, none know the exact date and the freshmen have no idea that one is coming at

all. Once every team member has been collected, the seniors take the entire team to The Fort and buy them breakfast.

“I think the reason we do it now and continue to do it is just because it’s a fun and creative way to bond as a team and go and find out where our teammates live,” Brennan said. “Later in the year, if someone needs help with something, we know where they live and how we can help them.”

Though negative impressions of wake-ups are hard to come by, I know bad experiences exist — in fact, the worst wake-up story that I’ve heard is actually my own. Last fall, my roommate and I applied to the same organization. This organization aligned with my exact values and interests, and I was crushed when I was not accepted.

However, I was not notified of this rejection in the traditional sense. Instead, I found out when my roommate was excitedly woken up and escorted from the room, leaving me alone in my bed, hopeful that the wakers had potentially forgotten me. I watched with sadness out my window as the accepted ones entered a microbus and drove away. A few hours later, I received the official rejection email.

Despite my own negative experience, I cannot help but love the tradition. When applying to a new group, I am always a little hopeful that their decision will come via a startling wake-up. Though negative experiences, of course, exist, I hope that traditions such as these will not ever be overshadowed by fear of hazing new members of organizations.

Get ready for an influx of people from around the Ivies to grace our little campus this weekend.

Let’s paint the town rainbow.

republican sweep Despite the best efforts of Lena Dunam, Republicans took the Senate.

Changeover Who will the next editor-in-chief of the paper be? You’ll just have to wait and see.

Snow?

We lied to you, and we’re sorry. We did hear that it snowed in Boston recently.

Maybe we’re next.

FoCo Mac and Cheese

4// MIRROR

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FACE prospie @now

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ERIN O’NEIL // THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

6// MIRROR

Through The Looking Glass Maintaining Sanity COLUMN

B y Abigail hartley

Self-care at Dartmouth is hard, especially as someone who transferred here from an institution that let me count classes like “Math 120: Appreciation of Math” toward a degree my freshman year. I used to have time for two naps, a fourmile run and a Zumba class ever y day on top of my schoolwork, and I assumed that was just what college was like. It was with this mindset that I arrived in Hanover last fall.

By the end of my first term at Dartmouth, I had gone from a fit, well-adjusted person to an anxietyridden hobbit. I was in a panic to make new friends and have “The College Experience.” The vastly increased volume of homework I was assigned meant that I had to pare down on either my social life or my sleep if I wanted to maintain the exemplar y grade point average to which I had become accustomed.

My way of working around the problem was to switch from beer to drinks made with caf feinated soda when I went out, and to do my playwriting I homework when I was drunk and “more creative anyway.”

This Hemingway method, I was confident, would allow me to produce my most visionar y works yet. In reality, I wrote a one-act about a televised chocolate-making competition in Las Vegas with antagonists who, inexplicably, were ex-KGB agents r unning an ar tisanal chocolate shop in the Bellagio, and who had such sinister stage directions as, “LISETTE goes over and smiles seductively, then produces a yo-yo and performs a series of totally rad tricks that ends with her breaking JARED’s nose.” If I was Hemingway, then I’d skipped Paris and gone straight to Cuba.

I staggered through the term miserable, frazzled and sick from the cesspit my personal care habits had become — one finals week breakfast consisted of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and mint M&Ms, eaten on the way to my German exam — and then spent my winter break at home recovering. Even with a fresh start in the new year, it took me until halfway through winter term to figure out how to keep myself stable in a highpressure academic environment.

First, I realized my priority had to be getting my academics under control.

When I struggle to keep my grades up, I cut back on self-care in favor of studying, and the more I cut back on self-care, the worse my grades became. If I make myself sit down and do the damn homework ever y single day, the cycle doesn’t have a chance to start. Next, I did some research and came up with a list of ways to keep myself healthy.

After I finally balanced things out and became myself again, my

KATE HERRINGTON // THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

After transferring to Dartmouth sophomore year, Abigail Hartley ’16 learned to grapple with all that the College could throw at her. constant thought was, “Oh my God, if I couldn’t keep it together as a sophomore, how do the freshmen deal with this straight out of high school?”

I can’t imagine adjusting to Dartmouth with no previous college experience, which is why I’m writing this. These five tips helped transform me from an anxiety-ridden hobbit to where I am today.

1) Drink more water than you think is reasonable. I was exhausted all the time until my therapist told me to tr y drinking two 48-ounce bottles of water ever y day, and let me tell you, it was like angels descended from the heavens and transported me to a higher plane of existence. Speaking of which...

2) See a therapist. I’ve heard the counselors at Dick’s House are a mixed bag. I got lucky and found one I really got along with, but there are also multiple places in town where

you can go to dump your problems on someone else for 45 minutes ever y week. Even if you just don’t feel “right,” talking to a trained professional — not your roommate/best friend/Tuesday night hookup — can totally help.

3) Exercise. I’m not saying you should train for an Iron Man, but sweating a couple times a week clears out the stress hormones from your body and kind of resets you mentally.

It’s like putting fresh sheets on your brain.

4) Get a hobby. I embroider swear words in really pretty lettering when I’m feeling anxious. The concentration it requires keeps my mind clear, watching the stitches accumulate provides a sense of accomplishment and something about embroidering a tea towel with “Absolutely ******* not, you *******” makes me feel like I’m paying the universe back for whatever my perceived wrong of the day is. Find

your version of this — or better yet, steal my hobby. We can start a club.

5) Self-affirm. Every morning, right before I leave to go to class, I look at myself in the mirror and say, “You are a delight and ever ybody loves you.”

Before I leave to go out, I say, “You are flawless tonight” or “Your beauty instills fear and admiration in people of all genders.” Listen — it is so easy to be insecure at Dartmouth because ever yone is so smart and talented and athletic and whatever else.

My insecurities paralyzed me for a long time because I was so sure that I wasn’t “good enough” to be successful here. Now I’m the vainest person I know, and you know what? I’m getting stuff done. I am 100 percent good enough to be successful, and I look fine as hell doing it. Achieve your goals by bluffing your way into good self-esteem and you’ll crush any obstacle in your path.

FRIDAYS WITH MARIAN COLUMN By Marian Lurio

Boots and RallIES

MIRROR //7

COLUMN

By Aaron Pellowski

Can I just replace this week’s column with former Rep. Todd Akin’s speech following his 2012 loss for some position I don’t remember? So much weirder and more entertaining than I’ll ever be.

No? Okay. Well, this week has certainly been a whirlwind. The midterm elections, me discovering Nick Jonas’s hit single “Jealous” and really just ever ything about those darn midterm elections.

For the sake of journalistic integrity, I will attempt to be “fair and balanced,” the Fox News motto. And just to be totally clear — that was not a joke. That is the organization’s official motto. Just in case you don’t watch Fox News on the reg, like I do. I hear Phil Hanlon is similarly obsessed with Shepard Smith (who NEVER responds to my tweets, just like all the others...).

In 2012, I did the whole absentee ballot deal, voting as a proud Pennsylvanian. This time, I failed to send in my absentee ballot forms by the required date, but thank gosh, New Hampshire allows same-day registration.

Surrounded by a few other politically engaged Dartmouth students, I entered the shining gates of the Hanover High School gymnasium. And when I say surrounded by, let me be clear that I do not know these other students. I just got lost in the mix. Avoiding bumping into senior citizens left and right (because who else really votes?) proved to be a test of both agility and tact. The level of excitement surrounding midterm elections was evident in that gym. The silence was deafening.

After his defeat for a New Hampshire Senate seat, I wonder if Scott Brown — who won Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat in a special election — will head back to where he came from, whether that means Massachusetts or the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine. If this doesn’t ring any bells for you, then it’s time you re-evaluate your priorities.

Forget common sense or crediting the political savvy of incumbent Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

Cosmopolitan itself threw Brown, its 1982 “Sexiest Man in America,” under

the bus.

“While we wish we could support the man who once posed nude in our pages, his policy positions just aren’t as solid as his abs were in the ’80s,” Cosmo said, endorsing Shaheen.

Perhaps what’s been most upsetting to many of us in the wake of the midterm elections is the devastating loss Clay Aiken suffered on Tuesday. That little redhead (Scott Brown’s got nothing on him!) from American Idol lost in his bid for a House seat in North Carolina’s second congressional district. Clay just can’t catch a break! Maybe he should take a page out of Scott Brown’s book and relocate.

Of course, that wasn’t the only grave mistake that occurred on Election Day. According to U.S. News the governor of the “Show Me State” showed a little too much Tuesday when staffers put up a photo of Gov. Jay Nixon, D-Mo, at the polls. Beside Nixon: a woman whose pants hung low. Buttcrack or no buttcrack, I’m just glad to see someone under the age of 65 showed up to vote (there’s no way that crack belongs to anyone over 50).

It’s been a rough fallout post-Election Day. And I’m not talking about the results. After casting my ballot — and nearly asking one of the voting-day volunteers where to write my name on the ballot — I stopped by Lou’s to get some chicken noodle soup. I left with glazed cider donuts and crullers with maple glaze and bacon (amazing) on top.

My intentions were pure. I’d eat one myself and offer one to all my friends who were rocking the same “I voted” sticker. But alas, except for Phil and Gail, who were spotted couple’s voting, none of my friends had voted. ­(Or they just had a disdain for tacky stickers. It’s unclear) If the statistics I read in the “liberal media” are to be trusted, it seems young voters once again failed to exercise their rights. And I blame the youth of America for forcing me to consume all of those sweets alone in a scarily short period of time.

In my second year at the Delaware Advanced Institute for Unreality Studies, the Blockor Memorial Art and Artifice Speculum, where I worked as a workstudy student attendant, hosted a special exhibition entitled “Space Astonishes!” — an exploration by several musicians and visual artists of the aesthetic category of the sublime.

Included among the collection were “Pump!” by Reinhart Altdorjer, a plastic cube in which a human heart (that of his own father, who had been put to death by the state) was artificially stimulated to continue pumping blood (that of his own mother, similar fate); “Timur” by Dan Darwick, a pyramid of 10,000 dogs’ skulls, collected from a cash-poor pet cemetery in Yugoslavia, installed in the Blockor parking lot and screened off from children; and “Union” by Ono Barrets, which was a single, perfectly round pebble of unknown provenance.

The piece that impressed me the most, however, stood in its own room in the east wing of Blockor. It was a one-by-twofoot photograph of an empty beach near Naples. Though a color photograph, the dreary weather depicted the scene in near grayscale — a dove-white sky, nickelplated ocean and sandy and graphite coast layered upon one another, like Neopolitan ice cream in film noir. Below where the photograph was hung lay a plaque reading the title of the piece — So Much of Just One Thing — and a table on which rested a voicemail machine.

This played on loop a recorded voice message from the artist, Rene Champilleau, to his ex-fiancée, Viola Aix (now deceased). Rene recounted, in French, a memory from his boyhood of a winter vacation to the bay of Naples, and how he, strolling along the beach alone in shorts and sandals, out of the sight of his parents, had become suddenly overwhelmed by the nature of his surroundings.

For he had observed, looking out at the sea, that the water was one vast, undifferentiated unity, larger than anything that he had ever encountered with such immediacy, that there was “so much of just one thing.” But he had noticed, too, that the sand below his feet had itself another kind of infinity, in that even within a fistful of sand were uncountably many grains, and uncountably many fistfuls were there on the beach. So he had halted, frozen, with one foot immersed in the quality of immensity and the other in the quantity.

And then, with a click, the voice message ended and began again.

I wasn’t really sure I got the “point” of “So Much of Just One Thing” at the time, but I did not forget it quickly. Certain aspects of my time at Dartmouth have caused it to float back up amid the rest

of the waterlogged detritus in my memory.

Namely, the emotions I have accumulated toward a few other people here have come to be structured by complementary notions of affectionate infinity. What’s partially responsible for this is the isolation. Hanover is like this underground kingdom — the Coach ride from Boston feels like some dark, downhill katabasis into a region out of the grasp of civilization. In this Narnia-like realm, the littlest parts balloon into one’s entire world. Some of those parts are people.

While my enrollment at Dartmouth has been a fraudulent art piece, my friendships here have not been. The love I feel for my best friends resurrects both senses of “So Much of Just One Thing” — since love, when it is true, feels like the largest thing in the universe. But at the same time, true love imagines in quantities of infinite degree.

As I cross the Green, I gather in one pass of mind all the millions of memories that have accumulated there — the quiet walks, the hand-holding, the knee-buckling laughter, the half-awake sunning of two partied-out bodies in the grass. Love turns itself toward the future as well, dreaming up endless years of moments with the people it treasures most.

Xenophon tells some story about a young man for whose prize-winning horse the Persian King Cyrus offered an entire kingdom. The young man refused, stating that he would instead gladly give it — this horse valued at the rate of a kingdom, all its wealth and walls and people and laws — in trade for a single true friend.

On some mornings, I wake up congested, dehydrated and with a pounding headache.

I throw on four sweaters and hobble over to Collis for tea and a bagel. Passing over one or two humdrum thoughts, my mind lights upon the memory of my friends and how lucky I am to have them. I get a big feeling outside the ordinary that is systemic and quaking and levitates me a little out of my seat. It’s something tear-jerking and awesome to me, almost a reverse vertigo, of one looking upon the trunk of a great redwood to where it disappears into the canopy, projecting oneself along with one’s sight-line, plummeting upward to heaven, to the kingdom of god, to a region vaster than even the oceans, with more stars than there are even grains of sand upon the good earth.

If such experience, as I’ve so described it, is alien to you, that may well say something about me — that I am melodramatic and given over easily to exaggerated, violet prose. Yet I would rather suggest, that if your most abstract feelings toward your friends evoke no such visions of stupefying infinity, only spurious ones of opportunity, utility, competition and friction, then I’m afraid you just have no true friends. In which case, according with the words of Aristippus the Cyrenaic: “It sucks to be you.”

8// MIRROR

Midterm Madness: Dartmouth in Politics

Courtesy of Governor Wolf

Tom Wolf ’71 Pennsylvania Governor 54.90 percent of the vote Democrat During his Dartmouth career, Wolf took two years off to join the Peace Corps, fighting poverty in rural India. Wolf’s decision to run for governor stems from his experiences as a student at the College, he said in a January interview with The Dartmouth.

“At Dartmouth, you weren’t allowed to wait around and let things happen,” he said. “If you wanted something to be done, you got involved and you did it. That’s a key thing I took away from my three years at the College, and I think it’s something that gets to the heart of citizenship in our era.”

Bruce Rauner ’78 Illinois Governor 50.77 percent of the vote Republican During his time at the College, Rauner played varsity football and was a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity. Rauner is well-known for his philanthropy at the College, funding in part Rauner Special Collections Library and Rauner Hall in the McLaughlin cluster. Rauner also endowed the Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Economics position, currently held by David Blanchflower.

Courtesy of NBC Chicago

John Kitzhaber ’69 Oregon Governor 49.83 percent of the vote Democrat After a year at the University of Oregon, Kitzhaber transferred to and graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in biology. He then went on to attend the University of Oregon Medical School, after which he worked as an emergency room doctor for fifteen years.

Courtesy of the government of Oregon

Alex Mooney ’93 West Virginia House of Representatives 47.09 percent of the vote Republican At Dartmouth, Mooney was a philosophy major, active with Aquinas House, a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and a member of the Dartmouth Coalition for Life.

“One of the things I learned at Dartmouth was how to write well,” Mooney said in a May interview with The Dartmouth Review. “I was not an English major, but you can’t graduate from Dartmouth without learning how to write well.

This skills has served me well.”

Q and A: Professor Kyle Dropp story

By Tim Connor

We sat down with government professor Kyle Dropp, who studies elections and voter turnout, to chat about midterm elections.

Why do you think Republicans gained control of the Senate in this election?

KD: I’d caution against making a blanket conclusion about the direction or sentiment of the country from the results. The exit polls that were conducted suggest that voters in general were angry and worried. Eight in 10 said they were very or somewhat worried about the state of the economy, seven in 10 said they were very or somewhat worried about an imminent terrorist attack and only two in 10 said they trusted the government most of the time. Two in 10 voters said that their vote was to express support for Obama, but a larger number, one in three, said their vote was to express opposition to Obama. One quarter of voters who voted for the Republicans, according to the exit polls, had an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party, so both parties are not held in high esteem.

It’s worth noting that this tends to be a trend — voters tend to be really dissatisfied with their incumbents and want to shake up government.

Voters were dissatisfied with them in 2006, when Democrats gained control of the Senate from the Republicans, and in 2008, when Democrats picked up the presidency with Barack Obama winning over John McCain. In 2010 Republicans took control of the House. Now in 2014 Republicans took control of the Senate, so we do see lots of changes in opinion.

There are also some structural reasons why we observed the Senate gains by Republicans.

Each cycle, approximately one in three Senators are up, and sometimes the environment is more or less favorable for the Republicans or the Democrats. More than twice as many Democrats were up for re-election this time than were Republicans, and many of those Democrats were either in states that Mitt Romney had won in 2012 or they had been swept in during the 2008 election when Obama won, which was an election that was very favorable to Democrats.

Moving forward, in 2016 it appears that Democrats have a very favorable map. More than twice as many Republicans are up for reelection than are Democrats, and many of these Republicans are in competitive, battlegroundtype states and entered the Senate in 2010, which was a very good year for Republicans, so they’ll be up for re-election under quite different circumstances. On presidential cycles, when you tend to have higher turnout among groups that disproportionately lean left or lean Democrat, younger voters and nonwhite voters

tend to show up in general.

What are the implications of this election for the remainder of the Obama presidency?

For the 2016 presidential race?

KD: In terms of thinking about how productive or unproductive the sessions might be going forward, we have a baseline that’s quite low, and so the Republicans will transition in the Senate from a party in the minority to a party in the majority, and when they have power they’ll be expected to put forward an agenda. As far as I can tell, their agenda will include priorities that Americans seem to care about, priorities like job creation, deficit reduction and perhaps energy policy. You’re likely going to see the Senate push some of these policies forward.

There’s also been talk between President Obama and Republicans about issues on which they can find agreement. With that in mind, President Obama and Congress have differences of opinion on the proper role of government, and it remains to be seen if they can come together on policies like that and move forward.

What does this election mean for congressional productivity?

KD: I think having this setup where the Democrats control the executive branch with Obama as leader will heighten the contrast between the legislative branch and the executive branch. The legislative branch may pass more bills because the House and Senate are controlled by the same party, and so they may be more productive in terms of that, but President Obama may veto more bills. In terms of the number of bills that become law, there’s not a clear prediction of whether you’ll have heightened productivity or you’ll have the low productivity levels that you have now. You’ll probably see a clear difference in the ability of the president to get his appointees into office. The president appoints individuals for the federal judiciary and they must be approved by the Senate. With a Democratic-controlled Senate that changed rules such that a simple majority could be used to approve judges, the president was able to reshape the federal courts in the last year. With Republicans in control of the Senate, President Obama may have more difficulty getting his appointees through. This is a critical issue because there are always openings in agencies — think of the Attorney General, think of what occurs when there’s a change in the Supreme Court. All that stuff goes through the Senate.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Ann McLane Kuster ’78 New Hampshire House of Representatives 55.02 percent of the vote Democrat Kuster was a member of the third coeducational Dartmouth class, earning a B.A. in environmental policy.

Courtesy of Mooney For Congress Courtesy of WCVB

Mike Capuano ’73 Massachusetts House of Representatives Uncontested Democrat In a 2011 interview with Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Capuano said, “Dartmouth made me a progressive. I came from my own working-class, urban area: Nobody was supposed to go to college, everybody was supposed to work. No one ever thought about an Ivy League education.

Dartmouth made me realize the possibilities of life, made me realize that there are ways to make the world a better place to live in and helped me learn how to do it.”

John Carney ’78 Delaware House of Representatives 59.26 percent of the vote Democrat At Dartmouth, Carney played on Dartmouth’s football and lacrosse teams, and he was involved with Aquinas House.

Courtesy of John Carney for Congress

Courtesy of the House of Representatives