FALL 2021 | Flat Hat Magazine

FLAT HAT MAGAZINE

The “Technicolour” Issue A CONVERSATION WITH SALIMATA SANFO NOW IN TECHNICOLOUR MIDTOWN MELTDOWN ASIAN CENTENNIAL THE DEATH OF FOREIGN CLIMATE CHANGE AT HOME

volume 2

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FLAT HAT MAGAZINE

The “Technicolour” Issue

Letter from the Editors Entering this issue, neither of us really knew what we wanted. We sat down one day in the middle of July for a brainstorming session, also known as an hour or more of unproductive word vomit. On the list of potential theme ideas that we had were: Heatwave, ARTPOP (we were very inspired by Lady Gaga’s severely underappreciated — and arguably her best — album “ARTPOP”), Vibe, Clarity, Bonding, Inside Voices, Belonging II, and Blastoff. Any one of these would have been fully and completely fabulous, but the world was not nearly prepared for any of them. Just like they weren’t prepared for “ARTPOP.” Needless to say, here at Flat Hat Magazine, we are cognisant of the power that we have to create and mould culture. Off the top of our heads, we single-handedly started the proletarian revolution of the masses at William and Mary. Further, we inspired our sister publication, The Flat Hat, to ditch Holy Union — ew — and join modernity by using our font instead. Finally, we manifested the end of Shawn Mendes’ and Camila Cabello’s two-and-a-half year long relationship through crystals and the power of the lunar eclipse after enduring the horror that was Amazon’s “Cinderella.” Two truths and a lie?

Either way, we wanted this issue to celebrate the history of our publication. After two long and stressful years of relaunching Flat Hat Magazine, carefully cultivating a new image and style, and building up our staff to the size it is today, we are so happy of what our staff have been able to accomplish. As bittersweet as it is, we cannot wait to hand it off to the next generation.

Everyone on staff is creative, cute, quirky, talented, and original, and they are capable of so much. We are shaking in our metaphorical booster seats to see what they publish next year, two years from now, and even two centuries from now.

Technicolour, as a theme, was the first idea on which our entire staff came together. From the intense imagery to delving into identity, technicolour encompassed it all. As Lady Gaga once said “My ARTPOP could mean anything.” Well, Ms Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, we do declare that our Technicolour could mean anything.

Okay, besties and worsties — no more scooping your spirals: Flat Hat Magazine is now in Technicolour.

Gavin Aquin Hernández and Alyssa Slovin Flat Hat Magazine Editors-in-Chief

TABLE OF 3

7

A Conversation with Salimata Sanfo

Growing Together

17

23

A Conversation with Cassie Baker

A Conversation with Jeremy Pope

31

39

Now in Technicolour

HEIST

49

55

Tattoo Showcase

Midtown Meltdown

61

67

Pancake Palooza

Asian Centennial: Foreword

69

73

The Heart of Bicol

Hair.

77 Being a #BrandyGirl

CONTENTS 79

89

Honouring the Past

Playlist Prodigy

97

99

The Death of “Foreign”

On Rubicon Shores

103

105

Why Are We So Obsessed with Being the Main Character?

The Great Millennial Novel Paradox

109

113

Drewology

Concerts in Colour

117

124

Turtles All the Way Down the Grim Dell

Williamsburg You Make Me Sick

127

131

Climate Change at Home

Afghanistan: A Complex Climate

137 Tribe on the Hill

Flat Hat Magazine • Features

A CONVERSATION WITH SALIMATA SANFO Story by Linda Li ‘24

In the uber-competitive world of modelling, Salli Sanfo ’22 is fearless in the pursuit of showcasing her truest self. Despite having only a year of modelling experience, Sanfo has graced the pages of GQ, appeared alongside Telfar Clemens for Telfar, and attended New York Fashion Week. A full-time student by day, Sanfo hardly has time to rest in between classes, calls with her agent, and booking negotiations. From staging photos in her room and participating in ROCKET Magazine’s annual Astral fashion shoot to appearing on Telfar TV, Sanfo has come a long way in a remarkably short time — and she has no plans to stop anytime soon. I chatted with Sanfo over Zoom to hear her reflections on the progress she has made and the realities of pursuing a modelling career. The following conversation has been edited for clarity.

Linda Li: How did you start your modelling career?

Salli Sanfo: A very strange way. I tried to do it over quarantine — I got signed in Richmond last year, but they did nothing for me, and I dropped them in a few months. So I was kind of done; I was doing nothing. Then I posted a picture on my birthday of my Telfar bag — my pink one — and one of their CDs [Creative Directors] saw, and he was like, “Hey, we saw your picture on the internet. Do you want to shoot some stuff for Telfar?” And I was like “Yeah,” so they took me up, put me out, and I shot a campaign — the Telfar x UGG campaign — and that dropped.

And from there, it’s kind of been running.

LL: So before that, you had never considered a modelling career?

SS: I’m tall, so I thought about it, but I don’t think at the time I had the confidence or really the drive for it. Also, my parents hated the idea. It was one of those things where you think about it, but you don’t even think to pursue [it] — I thought I’d waste my time doing that. It’s kind of like, “Oh, I’d love to do it one day.” I never thought that I would actually get the chance to suddenly think about it.

LL: Let’s talk more about the partnership with Telfar — it’s a big deal, right? Does it feel surreal to you?

SS: Always. Every day. There are days where I look around my room — I now have a lot of random Telfar stuff because I shoot for them so often — and I’ll just be like, “Wow.” So my bag — I think about it too often — I almost didn’t buy [it] because they’re expensive. I was like, “I don’t need this.” This time last year, I didn’t even have them yet. Telfar and the owners of the brand are really sociable, easygoing, and easy to speak to.

What’s even crazier is working with a company this big that feels like family. Look at their work; [they] usually call back the same models. They usually have a very tight-knit family.

LL: Do you think what Telfar is doing represents breaking a new path in the industry?

SS: Very much yes. Usually, models are the least important part of a shoot. Several weeks ago, we were talking about how working in fashion pre2010 was super abusive, how models cried every single shoot, and [how] they’d be paid almost nothing. [Telfar] really values production — the models and the director too. It’s very much a communal thing — everyone gets a platform to 4

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feel respected and treated the way they deserve to be treated. That’s really rare in fashion.

LL: What was it like holding Telfar Clemens’ hand?

SS: Telfar is actually really easy-going. I spent a lot more time with him than I feel like people can see. It’s amazing, but it wears off after a while.

And when people are down to earth, it’s usually easy to get comfortable. He acts so normal, you wouldn’t know.

LL: What do you think is the biggest barrier holding the industry back?

SS: Elitism. There’s this strong belief that the voices of a tiny, elite demographic are much more important than the voices of millions of people.

LL: Do you think the rise of social media influencers can combat elitism?

SS: Yes and no. I think we forget a lot of influencers are part of a team of elites. A lot of the influencers you follow on Instagram were born wealthy, living lifestyles where they can afford those tasks, to begin with. Adding influencers is not going to change anything; they’re already in the same cast of people.

Influencing is a big sphere, and when it comes to fashion influencers, it’s a very small one. Most influencers are already White and wealthy.

LL: Outside of Telfar, when you’re partnering with a regular brand, you’re likely one of the few women of colour in a room. How do you deal with the inequity?

SS: You know, it’s weird. Telfar is a very Black brand — the models and all the teams are Black.

Even on set Telfar has barbers, which are not very common in the industry. Now that I’m signed with a new agency and working with other brands, it’s very interesting to be the only Black girl or one of the few Black girls in a space — it’s new for me. I feel like I got spoiled with my first brand being Telfar. I got used to [how] everyone looked like me, and then I got to actual castings, actual events, actual parties, and you walk into 5

this room with 300 girls, and there are 40 who are Black, and [among the] 40 Black girls, maybe five are dark-skinned. I feel like I’m learning now as I’m branching out, booking more work, and doing other things. I kind of saw it coming — everyone warned us about it.

LL: Now that you’ve signed on with a new agency, do you plan on turning modelling into a full-time career?

SS: Yeah, the plan is to go full-time. A lot of New York City agencies, especially the big ones, if you sign with them, you’re full time — you don’t have time to do anything else. So, it’s kind of building up to that right now, to prepare for that next step.

LL: How do you get to and from your bookings and events?

SS: Very chaotically. Literally, I get a text from somebody who’s like, “I need you here at this time for this period of time.” And I’m like, “Okay, we’re gonna go.” I think I’ve spent more time in New York this semester than I’ve spent here. It might drop a bit in December since fashion kind of shuts down in the winter, which is good for me personally because I just got re-signed and have to do a lot of new work.

LL: And finally, any advice for aspiring Black models?

SS: My advice would be just to do it. You don’t need everybody’s “yes” — you just need one “yes.” I’ve learned as a model that you don’t need everyone to love you. You need one person who really loves you — that is the key. I got so many “no’s” before I got here — like so many. At the end of the day, that wasn’t the path for me.

This is the path for me. It’s weird because models are usually decided by agencies, but I got asked by a brand. I was dreaming about that happening to me as a kid, being scouted while I was walking or something. But for me, it was a brand, a brand that said “This is what we’re going to do.” That really changed my entire idea of what I needed.

Images courtesy of Salimata Sanfo.

Flat Hat Magazine • Features

Growing together Interviewing twins who go to the College together Story by JR Herman ’24 Photos by Becca Klinger ’22 Photos by Zachary Lutzky ’24

By the second day of my freshman fall semester, I had already encountered the twins of the College of William and Mary phenomenon. I recognised (or thought I recognised) someone in a club meeting from one of my classes a few hours before, and I Zoom messaged him talking about our class — as you probably suspected, I had made my first twin mix-up. Since then, I’ve met twin pairs all over campus, and curious what the experience was like, I decided to talk to some of the College’s twins for Flat Hat Magazine. Interviewing twins came with its own set of quirky challenges — I’d never before interviewed two people at once (it can be a little chaotic), and I’ve certainly never had to ask before an interview, “So, who’s who?”

To further complicate matters, AI transcription software (which normally can differentiate between voices) has trouble detecting speaker changes between twins — it was a good thing I recorded the Zoom meeting because I certainly would not have known which twin was talking either if I just had recorded the audio! Below are the conversations I had with three sets of the College’s many twin pairs. The questions are somewhat consistent across interviews to highlight similarities, but more importantly, differences — there is no single way to “twin.” The following conversations have been edited for clarity.

The Aponte Twins Olivia Aponte ’22 Majors: History & Sociology (with a concentration in Criminology, Law & Society) Organisations: Catholic Campus Ministry, Phi Sigma Pi, Innocence Club, IM Soccer, Phi Alpha Theta, & Alpha Kappa Delta Favourite Spot on Campus: the tree by the Sir Christopher Wren Building 7

Evelyn Aponte ’22 Majors: History & Hispanic Studies Organisations: Hispanic House, Catholic Campus Ministry, Phi Sigma Pi, & Phi Alpha Theta Favourite Spot on Campus: McLeod Tyler Wellness Center adirondack chairs overlooking the woods Hometown: South Riding, VA Zodiac: Leo Least Favourite Twin Question: “Are you the same

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person?” and “Can you feel each other’s pain?”

Favourite Twin Show/Movie: The Lying Game (Evelyn) & Parent Trap (Olivia) Classes taken together: 16 Shared Fun Facts: Have 19-year-old twin brothers and can read Egyptian hieroglyphs JR Herman: First off, how did you both end up at William and Mary together?

Olivia Aponte: Evelyn and I always knew we wanted to go to the same college — we were like, “We’re going to apply to the same places, and then depending on where we get in, we’ll go to the same school.” We both did Early Decision here and thank goodness both of us got in because it’s binding, so if one of us got in and the other didn’t, that probably would have been hard for us. We obviously wanted to go to school together, but our freshman year, we wanted to have random roommates. We did the whole Housing Portal survey, and then over the summer when we opened the emails for our housing assignments, we were both like, “Oh my gosh, Dinwiddie third floor!” And then, “Wait, that’s my number too.” So they put us together.

JH: Did you end up rooming together freshman year?

Evelyn Aponte: Freshman year, sophomore year, and then COVID-19 stopped everything. We’ve since gone our separate ways, but everyone freshman year thought it was just a cop-out — they said, “You guys just have separation anxiety and can’t be without each other.” I thought, “No, we honestly tried to have random roommates.” I told Olivia, “As long as I have you at school, we don’t need to be roommates — just the emotional support of having your sibling on campus is enough to feel comfortable branching out.” But then freshman year, [Residence Life]was like, “Nah, I’m gonna hold you guys back a little bit.”

JH: Especially freshman year when you were rooming together, did you ever worry about not branching out enough?

OA: For sure, because it’s so much more comfortable to stick with what you know, especially in the transition from high school to college. Both of us were very shy in high school. Now we’re not — we’re much more outgoing and extroverted.

But yeah, you feel like you don’t have to put yourself out there as much because you always

have somebody right there who you’re completely comfortable with. I will say it hindered me a little bit in the beginning. But especially during COVID-19, when we lived in separate dorms for the fall semester. Then Evelyn stayed home in the spring semester and I came back to campus, and I had to learn how to be okay by myself. It was a really good experience, just learning we always have each other, but we don’t always have to be physically together to feel connected or in touch.

JH: How often do people mix you up?

EA: Yesterday at Wawa, a guy screams “Olivia!,” and I turn around. It’s just an example — I always respond to Olivia even though I know I am Evelyn, but if I hear an “Olivia,” I will turn around. It turns out his friend who was also at Wawa is named Olivia, but I still looked up because I thought, “Could he be trying to talk to me?” We get mixed up all the time, every day.

JH: Do you have a rule of thumb on how to tell you apart?

EA: Oh, yeah, there’s a whole thing. People tell me, “This is how I’ve told you and Olivia apart” — think of the alphabet ABCDEF — Evelyn, Freckle.

I got one right here near my eyes. Remember the alphabet. Olivia, round face: O. Usually my hair’s longer. I think they say I have a deeper voice than Olivia.

OA: It’s very much one of two ways when people meet us, it’s either, “Oh my gosh, I will never be able to tell you guys apart because you guys look exactly the same” or “I can see how you guys are sisters, but I don’t see how people can’t tell you apart.”

EA: That’s actually a funny story. Freshman year of college, our friend asked, “So how do you two know each other,” talking to me and Olivia. And I thought he was just trying to be funny, so I said, “Oh yeah, we’re roommates.” He said back, “That’s cool. What high school did you guys go to?” And I responded, “We’re sisters. We’re twins. Did you not realise that?” The look on his face — he was like, “I had no idea; I thought you guys were just really close friends.” I’ve never gotten that one before. I’ll get “Oh, I thought you guys were sisters, not twins” but to think we were completely unrelated, that took me back.

JH: Have you ever tried twin pranks on people?

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EA: Only once in third grade. You know how you have the homeroom teacher and then you have the other teacher who was paired up with your homeroom teacher? Olivia and I had that. My teacher was like, “Guys, I’m going to have you switch.” Obviously, he knew Olivia was in his class, but Olivia’s teacher didn’t know I was in her class — she thought I was still Olivia.

JH: Do you intentionally ever try to dress more similarly or differently?

OA: Yeah, we are into ear piercings, and I always tell Evelyn “You cannot copy my ear piercings!”

EA: I have 10 piercings in my right ear because Olivia already started piercing her left ear. We got into a huge — well, not a huge — we really never get into arguments, but we went to a Post Malone concert two years ago. I’ve heard that if you wear black, it slims your figure, so I thought, “Okay, I really want to buy myself a black bodysuit to wear with jeans for the concert.” But Olivia had already called that she was going to wear a black top that day. It literally was World War III. I yelled, “Olivia, you are trying to make me look heavier than you aren’t you? You are maliciously trying to look slimmer than me, how dare you, you knew I wanted to wear black and look good at the concert!” But I ended up buying a white, one-shoulder bodysuit, which was very pretty, and I still had a great time.

Also, junior year when Olivia and I didn’t live together anymore, even freshman and sophomore year when one of us would wake up earlier than the other for class then we’d meet later, sometimes we’d come in wearing the same shirt or the same pants. We didn’t know what the other picked out that day because one of us was still asleep while the other was already out the door. Now we let each other know what we’re wearing so we don’t come to an event dressed the same.

EA: People definitely think, “You guys literally cannot be apart from each other — you even have to dress the same.” No, it’s by coincidence.

JH: When one of you has friend drama, does the other twin get involved?

EA: People will tell me, “You have to keep this between me and you.” I hear that as, “Okay, you can tell Olivia but not anyone else.” If someone tells me something, I will tell Olivia, and I’m sorry, even if I promise you I won’t, I am.

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OA: I feel it’s unreasonable for people to ask that of us. Obviously, I’m going to tell Evelyn.

JH: Are there any annoying aspects of being a twin?

OA: It feels like sometimes Evelyn and I are in a zoo exhibit — we’re the animals and people on the outside are just looking at us in disbelief and confusion like we’re a spectacle.

EA: Sometimes it crosses a line. One time a stranger grabbed Olivia and said, “Wait, let me see” — people forcibly hold us together to compare us side by side. Also, someone might think I’d be offended if you come up to me and ask “Are you Olivia or Evelyn?” I’d much rather have someone do that than just scream “twin” or “Olivia” or “Aponte” to get my attention. Asking enables you to start a conversation: “This is who I am apart from Olivia” or “This is how you can tell the difference.”

JH: Do you have any very different hobbies?

OA: I feel after college we’re each going to go more of our separate ways, especially with our career paths. I think in school, it’s harder because growing up we were always put in the same extracurriculars and on the same teams, which kept us at the same level for most of our lives. College has exposed each of us to different experiences and possibilities, so I’m looking forward to trying new things that are different from what Evelyn has ahead of her.

EA: Yeah, athletically, academically, we’ve always been neck and neck.

JH: Since you’re always neck and neck, is there competition?

OA: The sibling rivalry would be fueled by teachers, like when they would give us back our tests: “Oh, Olivia (or Evelyn), you got two points higher than the other, you better step it up next time.” We’d always be competitive because we were always compared to each other in every aspect of our lives.

It’s taken growth on each of our parts to see and treat ourselves as our own individuals and embrace that our talents, strengths, and weaknesses are different from each other, but are valid.

EA: It’s never gotten so serious where we’ve hated each other, feeling like the other has betrayed the other, like, “Oh my gosh, you ended up studying more than me for this and earned a higher grade.

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How dare you, we’re supposed to stay at the same level.” We’ve definitely gotten a lot better at celebrating each other’s accomplishments. Olivia’s paper got published in The James Blair Historical Review, and mine got rejected, and that was a hard blow for me. Granted, I didn’t like my paper that much, but I still tried. It hit at first; it stung. But then I was able to really celebrate Olivia and her accomplishment. Another example: scholarships — one of us will be awarded one, the other not. Sure, I can be let down that I didn’t earn something but still not let that take away from showing Olivia how proud I am of her.

JH: What’s the best thing about being in college with your twin?

OA: I think it’s just that we get to experience this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of college together.

Would we be able to go to different colleges? Yes, if we had to. We definitely could do it. But it’s nice that we can share these memories. There are some things, obviously, that I’m just going to experience here and then things only Evelyn is going to experience, but it’s nice that sometimes, I don’t have to call or text Evelyn “Guess what happened today?” — we can both see it and be in the moment together.

The Orsak Twins Savannah Orsak ’22 Major: Design & Merchandising (Self-Designed) Organisations: The Miller Entrepreneurship Center Favourite Spot on Campus: Andrews Hall Sierra Orsak ’22 Major: Business Analytics (with a concentration in Innovation & Entrepreneurship) Organizations: Students for University Advancement and Tribe Innovation Favourite Spot on Campus: the new swinging benches right next to James Blair Hall Hometown: Houston, Texas Zodiac: Aries Least Favourite Twin Questions: “Who’s older” & “Do you guys fight?”

Favourite Twin Shows: New York Minute & Parent Trap Classes taken together: three Shared Fun Fact: their default fun fact is always that they are twins JR Herman: Did you both always plan to attend 11

college together, or did it happen organically?

Sierra Orsak: When we were both looking at schools, we didn’t necessarily have in mind that we wanted to go to the same school, but we had a lot of the same things that we wanted in a college. We both wanted a smaller community — we’re from Texas, and a lot of the Texas schools are very big.We knew we wanted something smaller, something that was academically rigorous but also a really great community and very people-centred. We toured schools in the Midwest, didn’t love them, and then we had a family friend just randomly recommend William and Mary. We’d never heard of it — people in Texas don’t know what it is. We toured William and Mary along with the University of Virginia (UVA) and Elon University, and we both just ended up liking it the most. We both applied Early Decision, and we both got in, so it wasn’t like we knew we both wanted to go together.

JH: Any funny stories of taking classes together at William and Mary?

Sie. O: When we were in Drawing and Colour, two months into the class the professor was taking role, and she just goes, “Did you guys know you have the same last name?” We were like, “Yes,” and she goes, “Wait, are you guys related.” And we were like, “We’re twins,” and the girl who sat next to us all year who we had made friends with goes, “Oh my gosh, you guys are sisters — I had no idea.”

JH: What was being in the same class together like?

Savannah Orsak: We definitely sat next to each other, but we also had friends in the class who we sat with. I feel my most vivid memory of being in a class together was Drawing in Colour — we set up our little easels next to each other. It’s just easy when you know someone in the class, like a friend that you go with, and your twin is your default bestie. So yeah, of course, you’re going to gravitate towards each other. We don’t study together, though, weirdly enough.

JH: How often do people mix you two up?

Sie. O: It’s very common for one of us to be walking and for someone to wave, smile, or say hi. A few times, someone will have started a conversation with one of us and it wasn’t until halfway through the conversation that we’re like, “Oh, they think I’m the other one.” And so you just play along, or you

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interrupt them: “I’m actually her sister.” But we’ve had many conversations about waving back to people we don’t know just in case — you don’t want to make your twin seem mean or anything when you just genuinely didn’t know they were trying to wave.

JH: When people can’t tell you apart, how do you explain who’s who? Do you have a rule like “I’m the _____” twin?

Sav. O: Well, now Sierra’s blonde, so “The blonde one is Sierra.” Sierra always dresses in more cool, dark tones, and I’m always in brighter tones. Sierra’s taller too — an inch and a half or so. But if you don’t see us together, you wouldn’t know that one is taller than the other. When we were in middle school, we had a friend that we’d known since elementary school, and he was like, “I can always tell you guys apart because Sierra has the football face and Savannah has a soccer ball face.” And to this day, our mom thinks that’s just the funniest, most accurate thing, so she still tells people that.

JH: Have you ever tried to look more or less alike with hair or dress styles?

Sie. O: When we were really little, I had bangs. I used to twirl my hair a lot, and the bangs were to get my hair out of my face so I wouldn’t twirl my hair as much. But it became our landmark. Sierra has bangs; Savannah doesn’t. And I say probably up until middle school that was a big thing for me.

People knew me to be me because of my bangs, and then when I grew them out, it was something people had to get used to. But it wasn’t devastating or anything — it didn’t bug me that we looked more similar.

Sav. O: I always wore earrings, and there was a certain point where Sierra wanted to start wearing earrings, but she was like, “I’m worried people are going to think I’m you.”

Sie. O: People try to put you in a box so that they can tell the difference. We already view ourselves as individuals, so it’s not a big deal for us, but it’s more of “Is this going to confuse people if we change?”

It’s never an internal thing.

JH: Any fun twin pranks?

Sav. O: We used to play basketball together, and on the court when we’re going really fast and they can’t see our numbers, our coaches would get confused, so we would wear a specific colour

headband. And one day, we switched headbands to see if our coach would catch it. But we’ve never switched classes or anything, although one time, I took a class before Sierra did, and the professor was like, “I know that it was Sierra in class on Tuesday,” and I was like, “What are you talking about?” He goes, “I remember looking over and thinking, “She thinks that she’s tricking me, but I know that that’s not Savannah.” It was me in the class, but he was so convinced that we tried to switch him up and he caught it.

JH: Do you share friend groups? When there’s drama, does the other get involved?

Sav. O: We for the most part have the same friend group. We have acquaintances outside — Sierra has friends from certain places where I just don’t have that connection. If I saw them, I’d be friendly, but I just don’t know them as well as she does. And yeah, in the friend group, whenever there’s drama — I feel it doesn’t happen often — we definitely have an unfair advantage because we always know we’re going to be on the same team.

JH: Do you ever worry about hanging out too much with each other and not branching out enough?

Sav. O: I don’t want to speak for Sierra, but it was never really a concern of mine because we’re on different academic tracks, and in a normal day, we don’t see each other during the day. We’re involved in different things and work at different places.

Sie. O: It wasn’t a concern for me either. I think we both have a personality where we’re willing to make friends — we’ll engage with other people just because, so it was never hard for us to meet new people.

JH: Are your personalities very similar, or do you feel like you’re two very different people? What are your biggest personality differences?

Sie. O: We’re definitely similar in a lot of ways, but personality-wise, the things that make us different are that I’m a little more reserved and a little more stoic.

Sav. O: I’m a little more animated. Sierra means business, and I’m never really that focused.

JH: How do you maintain your own individualism while being a twin, especially since people know 12

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you sometimes as “Savannah’s twin” or “Sierra’s twin?”

Sav. O: For some people, I feel it would bother them, but if someone knew me as Sierra’s twin, I would take that as a compliment because they know me as Sierra’s twin and not Sierra. I think I just know that if I’m meeting someone who knows me as Sierra’s twin, eventually they’ll know me as myself rather than just as Sierra’s twin.

Sie. O: I would say it is different for some people, but we grew up in an environment where our mom was really intentional about making sure that we felt like individuals — we were never grouped together.

We were never in an environment where someone was just like, “Oh, the twins” — it was always “Sierra and Savannah.” I don’t know if that helps for psychological development or anything, but I don’t think at any point in my life I felt like I wasn’t an individual.

JH: Do you have similar hobbies or tastes in music?

Sav. O: We have a lot of overlap — we’re best friends essentially, and you probably have things that are really similar about you and your best

friend and then things that are really different.

But overall, I feel Sierra’s more into things that are more underground, obscure, like indie. And I like everything.

JH: Have you ever worried about liking the same person?

Sav. O: I don’t think I’ve ever worried about it. We definitely find similar people attractive — there are definitely times where I’ll say, “Oh my god, he’s so cute” or something. But I don’t think actually likingliking someone has ever overlapped. Never.

JH: Has a friend ever not liked your twin?

Sie. O: I don’t know if that’s ever happened, or at least that we knew about, but I think that if I had a friend that very obviously didn’t like Savannah, that would be a deal-breaker for me. If they don’t like Savannah, I wouldn’t really trust them because to me, I think Savannah’s great.

JH: Do you know where you’re going to be living next year?

Sav. O: Sierra actually has several offers lined up, so she’s deciding between [Washington] D.C. and New

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York, and I want to go to New York. If she decides to go to New York, then we’ll probably be living together. If not, we’ll just be a train ride away.

JH: Is the thought of living apart scary?

Sie. O: I wouldn’t say it’s scary as much as it’s just very different. We’d never really lived apart until this summer — Savannah lived in New York, and I lived in D.C. I did visit her twice, and it was wonderful going to see her. It wasn’t hard, but it was very different; I’m just used to always having Savannah around and being able to go talk to her.

Sav. O: If you’re moving away, like when you move away to college, it’s kind of scary because you and your high school friends are probably going to grow apart as you meet different people. With the twin, you know you’re not going to grow apart; it’s just a change. Until this summer, I didn’t realise how many things I rely on Sierra for — I’m very forgetful, and Sierra reminds me of a lot of stuff. Over the summer, I would forget things or forget to do stuff and be like, “Ugh, Sierra wasn’t there to remind me — that’s why I’m forgetting everything.”

JH: What’s the best part about going to the same college together, and are there any downsides?

Sie. O: This isn’t the case for all twins — we have met twins who aren’t friends, but in our case, we’re best friends, and so it’s just kind of like having a default best friend at the end of the day. Now, we live in the same house, but we don’t share a room, and we always had separate roommates, so it was always nice just to have a best friend when all else fails. I don’t know about downsides — I’d say maybe just the pressure of keeping up appearances, like if someone waves at you and you have no idea who it is, but even that isn’t a downside.

The Haggard Twins AC Haggard ’22 Major: Public Administration (Self-Designed) and a Management and Organizational Leadership Minor Organizations: Mason Mentor Program & an offcampus job at Current Midtown Apartments Favourite Spot on Campus: the tree by the Sir Christopher Wren Building Lauren Haggard ’22 Major: Marketing (with a concentration in Accounting) and a Psychology minor Organizations: Student Marketing Association,

Mason Mentor Program, Kappa Kappa Gamma, & off-campus jobs like babysitting Favourite Spot on Campus: the B-School — the Raymond A. Mason School of Business Hometown: Charlottesville, Virginia Zodiac: Gemini Least Favourite Twin Questions: “Can she feel what you’re feeling” & “Who’s the older sister?”

Favourite Twin Show: Anything Zack & Cody Classes taken together: 0 Shared Fun Fact: Have the same birthday as MaryKate and Ashley Olsen, the twins from Full House JR Herman: Did you two always want to go to college together, or did one twin follow the other?

Lauren Haggard: At first, AC really wanted to go to William and Mary. We toured, and we both really liked it, but she was very obsessed with it. I wanted to go to UVA and try to do something with business — I was really stuck on it for a while, and then it kind of hit me randomly one day that it would be weird if we weren’t together, just because at that point, we were very, very close in high school.

We’re still very close, but in high school, we had all the same friends, we were both on cross country together, we shared a car, and obviously, we lived together. We were really inseparable, and I think making a jump from that to being in separate cities at different schools was just going to be a lot. It wasn’t a huge choice, but I thought it was the best choice if I just tried to go to William and Mary. In the end, we ended up applying Early Decision, and we both got in, so it worked out.

JH: Do people ever mix you two up?

AC Haggard: It actually does happen a lot. It used to be worse in high school because we were in the same friend group, and I think we were even more identical. We still are very similar personality-wise, but in college, we kind of branched off into our own people and solidified having identities apart from each other. I feel people don’t mix us up a lot, but when that does happen, it’s usually when my hair is up. I think it depends on the person. Sometimes I joke around with people — that happened to me the other day. Someone was like, “AC! Lauren!,” and I was like, “Well, which is it?” just to scare him a little bit. Other times I just go along with it.

Sometimes I do get stuck. If someone’s talking to me for a really long time, and I have no idea who this person is, I’ll just pretend I’m Lauren, because, 14

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at this point, I’m just in too deep. I can’t go back.

LH: Also, at William and Mary at least, people would rather not say our names than get it wrong. At other places, people don’t really care about getting it wrong, but I guess William and Mary people are just conscious about it.

JH: Do you ever try to look more or less similar to each other, like different hairstyles, just for easier identification?

LH: In high school, we definitely tried to do that. We were very into trying to look different — we always had very different hair colours or one short, one long, something like that. Both of us have dyed our hair like a million times, just to make it really simple for people. In college though, we just don’t really care about that stuff. We’re just going to wear our hair however.

JH: What’s the best thing about going to college with your twin?

AH: There are so many. I feel like when so many people go to college it’s their first real time away from home — that’s how it was for us. We’d never really done huge sleep-away camps or anything before, and then we’re going to college, and it’s so brand new. It was like I had a built-in best friend. We didn’t live together freshman year, but it was fun; it made it a lot easier for us because Lauren could introduce me to people, and I could introduce her to people. It’s always been a level of comfort. And now we’ve lived together for the last two years which has been so nice — we just live together really well. You don’t have any of those stressors.

JH: How have you balanced branching out versus being together?

LH: We didn’t want to room together freshman or sophomore year because we thought that would be too much togetherness. We both went through recruitment our freshman year for sororities, and that was a big thing for us because we joined different sororities and made groups of friends that were really different. And then obviously, what we were interested in career-wise was really different. We just kept branching off — it just kind of happened slowly and naturally.

JH: Do you share most of your friends?

AH: We have a lot of group chats where it’s just us 15

and one other person. It’s just kind of how we’ve grown up. In college now, we have a lot of friends that we share, but we definitely do have those separate relationships.

LH: I feel it’s nice when people get to know both of us — this year we’re living with seven other people, and they were separate friends, but now, we’re all kind of intertwined.

JH: Do you ever worry that someone likes your twin more than you?

LH: There are definitely people who just prefer one of us over the other. But I don’t really find it a big deal.

AH: It’s just natural. Lauren’s boyfriend obviously likes her more than me. And it’s not like I’m hurt about that.

JH: Have you ever liked the same person?

LH: We’ve thought people were cute, but we’ve never been like, “Oh, I seriously like the same person.”

AH: It’s kind of girl code.

LH: I have a long-term boyfriend, and AC would literally never date him. And I know she would, like, rather die over date him — I know that nothing would ever happen. No thoughts. I feel we’re into very different people. It works out. I’m glad we don’t have similar tastes.

JH: Do you ever try twin pranks on your friends?

LH: We do them, just small things. AC answers my phone a lot. Over the phone we sound exactly alike, so she’ll answer the phone or stuff like that. It’s not like we plan it or anything. I think we used to — one or two times, we tried to switch spots in class, and it worked because no one could tell us apart, but we don’t really do stuff like that anymore.

JH: Are your personalities very similar? What’s your biggest personality difference?

LH: I feel on base values, we’re the same, but then we definitely have different personalities. I know AC’s more sarcastic and wittier than I am, and funnier, I’d say. AC’s more serious. I’m a little bit more lighthearted. We’re both pretty studious. And I feel extroverted/introverted-wise we’re pretty

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similar. There definitely are differences though — when I think of AC, I think of her as being very different from me.

JH: How does each of you maintain your own individualism while being a twin?

LH: Just having enough separation from each other. AC and I really like to do stuff together, but sometimes it’s like, “Oh, wait, even though it’s awesome doing stuff with AC all the time, sometimes I do need a separate space from her that doesn’t involve her.” I know it’s always easier and fun, but also it’s good to have a separate space to make your own memories. It’s kind of tough.

JH: Do you share clothes?

LH: Yeah, we’re the same size and everything so we still do that all the time. In high school, it was weird when we were moving to college — we had never not shared a closet because one of our rooms just had a bigger closet. And then we had to physically separate it, and I remember that was really hard, and I go, “I know no one else is having to do this.”

But we had to be like, “I want those jeans.”

JH: Are you two going to be living in the same area after you graduate?

AH: I guess this kind of ties everything we’ve been talking about together, this whole journey we had growing up, between staying so close and also diverging and having our own experiences. This past summer, we both worked for Amazon — the same internship programme but different sectors.

We actually were put into two different cities, and I had never gone more than a week or two without seeing Lauren my whole life. It was a pretty dramatic change for us. Lauren was in Baltimore; I was in Charlotte, and we both had really, really great experiences growth-wise, and we both have gotten job offers out of those jobs. We had a conversation midway through the summer, and we both were like, “Yeah, we want to move to North Carolina and be together.” That was our goal, and we just made it happen for each other.

LH: We’re planning on living together starting off, to save money and for the support — after college, I feel moving to a new state is big. I feel like we’ve shared the same experience, and we’re really able to bounce off each other.

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A Conversation with Cassie Baker Story by Alyssa Slovin ’22

When I heard that Cassie Baker ’25 published a book in high school, I was immediately curious to learn more about her experiences writing and working with a publishing company. So few people end up actually publishing their dream book, whether it’s because they never finish the project or because they can’t find the right publisher. I figured why not ask the published author herself for advice? Cassie’s book, “Writing Right,” is about dysgraphia, a condition that causes some children to have difficulty writing. This conversation has been edited for clarity.

Alyssa Slovin: How has your freshman year been treating you so far?

Cassie Baker: So far it’s been good. I really enjoy it. It’s been really weird to be in college — but a good kind of weird. I’m happy to be here. I just had to adjust for the first couple weeks, and now I’m good.

AS: Do you know what you’re intending on majoring/minoring in at this point?

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CB: I am thinking of double majoring in the CAMS bio track and either data science or computer science. CAMS has two tracks. There’s an econ track and a biology mathematics track.

AS: So tell me, how did you start writing a children’s book? Did you write it for a class or on your own time?

CB: I wrote the children’s book for Girl Scouts, actually — it’s my Girl Scout Gold

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Award project. Both of my brothers have dysgraphia, and the children’s book is tailored to children with dysgraphia, and the end section has resources for parents, so it’s supposed to be an educational resource while simultaneously being a cute read for children with dysgraphia to resonate with.

AS: What are other Gold Award projects like?

CB: They’re really vast. The key is they have to be sustainable — that’s the big goal and rule. They have to be sustainable after you’re done with the project — it can’t be an event. An event can be part of the project, but the event has to be about the primary focus of the project. Back where I live, in Chesapeake, [Virginia], there’s a bin outside my high school collecting oyster shells, and there were a bunch of other locations as well. The shells were recycled and disposed of correctly.

AS: Can you summarise “Writing Right” for Flat Hat Magazine readers?

CB: It’s a children’s book with two primary parts — the first is a story about a kid named Noah and his journey with dysgraphia, especially because a lot of people don’t know what dysgraphia is. I remember when I first pitched the book to the council that you had to talk to in order to approve the project, and they said, “We don’t know what that is,” and I said, “It’s like dyslexia, but for writing.” The whole point of the story section is for the kids to read, and hopefully resonate with someone like them in a book. The end section is a lot of information for parents or guardians trying to help their kids. People know what dyslexia is, but they don’t necessarily know what dysgraphia is.

AS: Would you have ever considered writing a book — whether on this topic or not — before your Gold Award assignment?

CB: I don’t know, honestly. It was a big thing to do, especially while I was in high school. It was the idea of getting the Gold Award that was driving me. I like the impact that I seem to have had from

the book, but I don’t know if I would have ever gotten there if it wasn’t for the Gold Award.

AS: Are you a big reader?

CB: I’m really not, actually. It’s weird. I do like to write, but I’m not usually a writer.

I’m more mathy, sciencey, which is why this was more out of my comfort zone — it was definitely a challenge.

AS: How did you choose your topic and medium? What made you feel like a children’s book was the best format to tell this story?

CB: The people who are really affected by [dysgraphia] are kids. On the topic of dysgraphia itself, when I was a kid, I watched my brothers struggle through the earlier years of education. For example, when they had a project where they had to cut out shapes, they couldn’t do that.

When one of my brothers was in early middle school, he had to write his essays by hand. I remember my mom reaching out to the teacher and asking her if he could type his essay. They weren’t supposed to, because early on, that’s when you write everything by hand. The teacher said “Sure,” and after she received the essay, she came back to my mom and asked if my brother wrote it because it was so much better. I saw it made the biggest difference for them when they were younger, so I knew a children’s book would be a good medium for this project.

AS: How did you know it was ready to pitch to publishers?

CB: It took me quite a while to get to the point where I was ready to actually publish it. I had a lot of mental blocks when I was working on this project. I was hoping that it would take about a year, and it took me three and a half because it became very difficult at times. I relied heavily on feedback, whether from my family or the rest of my Girl Scout troop. My dad has written and published books before, so he was definitely a great resource for me — I would go to him to ask about copyright information and getting an ISBN number, all those little things that 18

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you don’t think about. There were things I never even thought I’d have to include. I’m not a doctor, so in the beginning, in the front cover, there’s a disclaimer saying that this is not medical information — this is a project, and it’s hopefully a guiding hand. I link to a lot of resources, but I still had to put in that disclaimer.

AS: What was the hardest part of sending your story to publishers? Do you know what made you and your work stand out to Watertree Press?

COURTESY IMAGE // CASSIE BAKER AND NOOR MOIZ

CB: My dad owns Watertree Press, which is why this whole project worked. My work could have been rejected, but there’s not a whole board of people — it’s my dad. It definitely would have been a lot harder without him.

The key is that he knew what the book needed in order for him to be able to publish it. A very important factor in choosing his publishing company was the fact that they print on-demand instead of printing in bulk.

Looking at past Gold Award Projects that involved writing books, one girl ended up

with a whole stack of books in her garage that she would just give away. If that works for you, great, but I did not want to do that.

What on-demand printing does is that once a book is ordered, that order is printed. So many companies make you purchase a large order to get the book printed at all — that was the reason I chose this method, and I knew Watertree Press could do that for me.

I’m not the primary distributor; it’s on Amazon and Kindle. If I want to acquire a book, I have to order one myself. Also, I’m not allowed to get any of the profit because that’s how the Girl Scouts work. You also can’t sell anything on Amazon for free — I tried, they didn’t like it. You can either set a price where you get some profit and they’ll get some profit, or you can set it as low as you can make it and they still get their profit. I was just looking at the sales statistics, which is another reason why I’m glad to be working with Watertree, and between hard copies and Kindle copies, we’ve sold around 2,000 books. I also have an online PDF on my website writingright.org that is 100 per cent free. All the options where it can be free, it’s free.

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COURTESY IMAGE // CASSIE BAKER AND NOOR MOIZ

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AS: Since “Writing Right” is a children’s book, did you go into the project already having someone to illustrate it, or did your publisher match you with an illustrator? Can you tell me about the process of working side by side with someone illustrating your ideas?

CB: The biggest limitation I had was with illustrations because I’m not an artist. I was initially going to have a family friend do the pictures — she’s in art school and a wonderful artist, and I loved her work. Unfortunately, she was in college, and it just got to be too much, so she had to pull back, which is totally understandable. But it did leave me wondering, “Oh no, what do I do?” I am not artistically inclined. I ended up finding a woman who would do the illustrations. I would chat back and forth with her online, she would send me proofs, I could give feedback, and she would edit them. I had all the images in my book done by her — her name is on the book, too: Noor Moiz. I went through Fivver — I looked at a bunch of different children’s image artists, and I found that I really liked her art, and it ended up being the art for the book. I was really happy with it. The best

thing is that when I first started, I drew little proofs of what was in my head. I sent them to her to use for reference, and actually, almost every single picture ended up in there — she turned my stuff into her stuff. It was actually really cool; I was like, “Wow, that’s what I had in mind!” I had told her that if she had other ideas to go for it, and I’d probably be fine with it, but it was amazing to see that most of my lower-level creations made it in there.

AS: Do you aspire to write more in the future, or did you write this book with the idea that it would be your only one? Would you work with Watertree Press again, or work on a book with another publisher in the future?

CB: I honestly don’t know. As I said, the driving force of this was my Gold Award Project. I struggled a lot with the process, but I really enjoyed seeing what happened afterwards. I have a number of reviews on Amazon with people saying that their kid really resonated with the book, and that’s been my favourite part. If I wrote something new, I’d want it to also have some sort of impact on people. It’s not really in the field of things I’m used to, or the path I plan to take, 20

COURTESY IMAGE // CASSIE BAKER AND NOOR MOIZ

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but if I found the right thing to write about, I would do it.

AS: What was the response like, whether that’s an in-person response or online reviews on Amazon or Goodreads? Has anyone reached out to you about the impact your story had on them or their loved ones?

CB: If you look in the Amazon reviews, there’s one that’s structured really differently, and it’s really long. She contacted me — she runs a book review blog — and asked if she had permission to talk to me about the project, online, of course, due to COVID-19. She asked me questions about the book and the process and then published the whole thing as a book review, which was so cool.

AS: Did you expect to have a readership beyond those who knew you?

CB: No, not at all. I expected it to be something that I knew existed. I was astonished we sold 10 books, but we’ve sold roughly 2,000. I know that in the realm of book sales, that’s not actually a lot, but that’s really cool to me. 2,000 people have gotten this, and I’m not openly promoting it.

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I even have a “Frequently Bought Together” section on Amazon, which is such a random thing to have — there’s a professional medical book about dysgraphia. I haven’t really tried looking at what happens if you search dysgraphia on Amazon, but there really aren’t many resources tailored to younger audiences. There are all types of children’s books about dyslexia and other common issues that children face so they can feel more heard, but I searched really hard, and I could only find one children’s book about dysgraphia. That’s what solidified my decision to choose this book as my project. I didn’t want to write one if there was already a saturated market and just repeat what everyone else was doing, but I realised that there’s really not. And the fact that it was so hard to find children’s resources is what made me really want to take it on.

AS: Do you have any advice for aspiring authors here at the College? Especially in terms of children’s literature?

CB: For one, I never, ever envisioned myself writing a book. So, if you’re someone who wants to write a book or someone who wants to do something along that

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path but you’re thinking that it’s not your strength, it’s not mine either. I was so out of my comfort zone. But now, it’s one of my biggest accomplishments. The best part is seeing that it’s actually been able to reach people. If you’re looking for writing advice, I’m probably not the person to come to.

I’m here for emotional support. Writing is just not my strength; I had a lot of people proofread. That’s the other thing — I’m not a person who’s all that great at receiving criticism. It stresses me out at times, and one of the things I absolutely had to get okay with was receiving criticism. It’s never malicious. But when you’re writing something that is actually going to go to print, that’s different from printing an essay for school.

You can print that for free or pay the $.10 that William and Mary charges. [Publishing]

is not free, and it’s not simple. Obviously, it’s different if someone is actually trying to knock you down, but most of the time, that’s not it. You can think things are perfect, and honestly, they could be perfect grammatically and stylistically, but maybe a kid wouldn’t understand it — that’s something I had to do.

I read through children’s books to see what types of vocabulary was right for my audience — I’m used to writing papers for class, and I don’t talk like a third-grader in those essays, so that was a big change. You have to think of the perspectives of the people or things you’re writing about and what fits it stylistically. You have to be okay with criticism, because if not, you’ll end up with something half-baked, or it’ll never get done.

Photos provided by Cassie Baker.

A Conversation With Professor Jeremy Pope

STORY BY GEORGIA THOMS ‘23

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Professor Jeremy Pope has captured the attention of hundreds of students with his ancient Egyptian courses — last year, his course Deciphering Ancient Egypt had a waitlist of over 200. I sat down with Professor Pope over Zoom for a discussion about his courses, unique teaching methods, path to Egyptology and the College of William and Mary, as well as the importance of studying both the language and history of ancient Egypt. The following discussion has been edited for conciseness and clarity.

Georgia Thoms: What courses do you teach here at William and Mary?

Jeremy Pope: I teach a four course sequence of Egyptian language courses — they’re a combination of Egyptian language and Egyptian cultural history braided together, and the proportion is about 50/50. The first one is called Deciphering Ancient Egypt, and it has a sequel in the spring semester [Deciphering Ancient Egypt, Part II]. And then I also teach a summer seminar online [Ancient Egyptian Inscriptions], where students who took the previous two courses can continue to read Egyptian texts together over the summer. In the fall semester, I teach a course called Middle Egyptian Texts; students don’t have to take the summer course in order to take the fall course, but they do need to take the two sections of Deciphering Ancient Egypt because that’s where they learn the language. And then you just have fun reading texts together in the next two courses. Those are my favourite courses to teach — I love teaching about ancient Egypt, and I love the language. When I teach the Egyptian [lecture] courses, in order to make sure that everybody stays engaged and doesn’t get bored, I never lecture for longer than 15 minutes at a time. I’ll talk for maybe ten minutes, sometimes as much as 15, and then I’ll give them some kind of hieroglyphic puzzle to solve, some inscription that’s particularly crucial to what we’re studying that day. And then they break into teams assigned at the beginning of the semester.

They build up a community in those teams — they automatically have about four or five other students in the class whom they know really well and are used to working with. The teams have authentic ancient Egyptian team names because it just so happens that we know the names of regiments in the ancient Egyptian army — the “Regiment of Amun” was one. We also know the names of the teams who built the Pyramids at Giza, so some of the teams will have the name of one of those, like “The Friends of Khufu,” or “The Drunkards of Menkaure.” They talk trash to each other across the

classroom about who’s in the lead. And every day before class, I show them a leaderboard like you would in a golf tournament showing which team is currently in the lead. They get competitive and try to be quick, and they’ll sort of prepare before class if they get really competitive with trying to anticipate what the puzzles are going to be.

Not only do I get to know the students more than I would in another course where I only meet them for one semester, but they know each other. We’re currently in the fourth course in this sequence, and they all know each other’s names; they all know each other. The first round of students that I taught beginning in Fall 2018 still keep in touch — they’ve all graduated, but they still keep in touch online in the same sort of community. After they graduated, they actually contacted me to ask if we could just read an Egyptian excerpt over the summer on Zoom. They’re all in different places in the country but were like, “During my lunch break, I want to Zoom in and read Egyptian with everybody else and see everybody again.”

Another course I teach is called The African Diaspora Before 1492, which is basically about all the Africans who left the continent before the beginning of the Transatlantic slave trade — everybody who left in ancient history and in the Middle Ages. And I teach a course called Nubia Americana about American perceptions of and uses of the history of ancient Nubia, the country immediately south of Egypt. It’s a historiography course about how Americans have interpreted this place and the cultural significance it has had. I also 24

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teach a freshman seminar called Bible & History about the question of “How do we use the Bible as historians?” Those are the main courses that I teach, but you can see essentially half of them are the Egyptian course sequence.

formulate a question when he was reading a primary source and how he would strategically decide to approach it. And it wasn’t just seeing how he would do it; we were all doing that with him in the class.

GT: You mentioned that kind of uncharacteristic type of teaching — did you come up with that yourself? Or did someone inspire you to do that?

I really wanted to be able to bring that experience to my students. That’s my endpoint that I wanted to get to. I thought if I really want people in the seminar course at the end to be directly engaged with coming up with their own ideas, why don’t we start the course sequence that way? Even [throughout] lecture courses, it should be possible to have people generating their own ideas. I thought the way to do this was to come up with puzzles for them to solve based on the current state of their knowledge. The idea of doing it as a team competition came to me when I was reading about how the ancient Egyptians constructed the Pyramids.

JP: I guess I must have because I never had a class like that. I started off with the idea to teach the Egyptian course sequence because I took a course that was this fourth course in the sequence, and it was the best course I’d ever taken — I think the reason why was that it turned out to be a better simulation of how research is actually done. We basically were doing research in the class because we all had a rare set of skills that we acquired. The professor didn’t prepare lectures — he would just give us the text to read and then we’d come in and read it together. We’d run into confusing passages in the text and talk about how to interpret it, and then we’d get out all these reference materials.

I could sort of see how, as a professor, he would go about researching something — how he would 25

GT: How do you keep your passion for the subject alive? It seems teaching is a large part of it for you.

JP: I get really excited at imagining what the

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experience would be like, as a student, to be presented with something that I find kind of mindblowing. There are some historical details that sort of blew my mind the first time I learned about them, and there are a lot of those for ancient Egypt. It’s exciting to me to craft a puzzle that will allow students to reach that mind-blowing moment, but do it not simply by listening to me, but by solving the puzzle themselves, and then realizing, “Oh, my gosh, this is linked to that.” Without giving anything away, I’ll say there are certain moments in the course where I like to kind of trick students.

I set them up with a particular problem, and it’s not what they expected it to be, and I always really enjoy watching that moment of realization; it never gets old.

When I teach the seminar courses, those are just inherently energizing courses to teach because we read new texts all the time, and I usually try to choose texts that I haven’t read before. All of that is as new to me as it is to them, and that way they can feel my excitement when I’m reading something and realizing what it means. But I think it’s important for us to read things that I haven’t read before so that they can see me thinking

through the process the same way that my professor in Middle Egyptian Texts did, and then [we] solve it together.

Also, when you get a different group of students, they have different ideas. So there’s this constant freshness to it. In many cases, they come up with ideas about a text that no one has come up with before, which is quite remarkable when you consider that some of these pieces of ancient Egyptian literature have been known for 150 years — scholars have been reading them and translating them. Then a group of undergraduate students at William and Mary who read it together realise something new and fundamental about the text that no one has ever realised before because that’s just what happens when you put a bunch of smart people together in a room. Magic happens.

Students have a way of finding a new angle on it because they don’t come in with the same preconceptions that an earlier generation would.

GT: So you mentioned the Middle Egyptian Texts course you took — what got you interested initially in that course?

JP: People ask me how I got into Egyptology, 26

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and I think my answer is very different than most Egyptologists because a lot of other Egyptologist with whom I’ve spoken say, “Well, I was always interested in ancient Egypt, and I went there when I was a kid,” that sort of thing. I didn’t do that at all. They did not teach anything about ancient Egypt when I was in high school, and when I was an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, courses on ancient Egypt were relatively rare. I kind of stumbled into Egyptology. I went to graduate school at Johns Hopkins, and my intention was to study African history; I had studied that as an undergraduate. The chronological scope of what I was intending to study was honestly pretty narrow — it was the past few centuries, and I really didn’t realise how much interesting history there was before that. I certainly knew ancient Egypt existed, but I think as an undergraduate student (since I was never able to take a course on ancient Egypt), my image of ancient Egypt was kind of cartoonish — it was sort of pyramids, mummies, tombs. It just so happens that in my first year in graduate school in the History department, several of the faculty with whom I wanted to take courses were on sabbatical all in the same year, and so I was looking for something I could take that would still be history on the African continent but almost all the African courses were gone. Then one of them suggested to me, “Well, we do have Egyptology courses, so you could do that.” I’d never really thought about Egypt as being in Africa before — it wasn’t included in my African history courses that I took as an undergraduate. So I said, “Okay, well, I’ve got to take something this year when everyone’s on sabbatical,” and so I took an Egyptian history course in the Department of Near Eastern Studies.

I found that there was much greater global significance to ancient Egypt than I had ever realised before — it was so linked to everything else that I learned about, and it was so influential in ways that I never thought about. I realised in taking that course that learning the language was actually really crucial to being able to access the evidence and interpret it on your own. I didn’t have a concept of that coming in as an undergraduate because in the History department, it’s a little different than in Classics, where it’s just understood that most students should learn Greek and Latin. In the history department, it wasn’t as much in the forefront because there were many different histories of the modern world that you could study using English, or French, or something you could have taken in high school.

I started to realise, “Wow, they keep referencing these ancient Egyptian words and passages and 27

apparently, there’s debate about the meaning of these passages — the words they chose really matter, and you really can’t understand what the argument is unless you know some of the language yourself.” At that point, I realised I probably should take some ancient Egyptian language courses.

What I ended up doing was, even though I was in a doctoral program in the History Department, I got all the way to the stage where I finished taking classes, and then instead of going on to my dissertation on modern African history, I was like, “No, I want to do ancient African history — I want to do ancient Egypt and ancient Nubia.” I actually stopped and restarted in the Egyptology doctoral program, which was kind of a crazy thing to do, but I really didn’t have much hesitation doing it because by the time I made it that far, I realised this was absolutely fascinating material. It wasn’t even so much a choice since once I had been exposed to the material, it was like, “I can’t do something else.” So I changed lanes.

GT: What brought you to William and Mary after graduate school?

JP: I almost feel like I was rushed to William and Mary during graduate school, and the reason why I say that is that when I was working on my dissertation, I was planning on taking a while on it.

I was only about 30 pages into my dissertation in September of 2009 when I saw a job ad for William and Mary — I saw they were hiring in African history, and unlike most universities, William and Mary did not narrow the job ad, like saying we want somebody who does Central Africa during the late 19th century — a lot of universities will do that.

It was open-ended — any part of the continent, any period. The minute that I saw there was a job available at William and Mary, I started to get really nervous because I knew that I wanted that job.

William and Mary was a local school to me when I was growing up, so I knew the kinds of students who chose William and Mary. I knew that they were students who were really into their studies and got excited about it in a fun way. You know, sort of the acronym students always use, like a “twamp” personality. So, the minute I saw that job ad, I said to myself, “Oh, my gosh, I have to get this job because I never imagined that a job would be available at William and Mary; I have to find some way to finish my dissertation this year so I’ll be eligible for the job.” I really reorganised my life that year to make sure I would be eligible. I started off with 30 pages, and then I churned out another 60 within the next year.

GT: I’m sure you know this, but there is a very

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long waiting list to get into your class. Why do you think the chance to learn about Egypt is so enticing to students today?

JP: Egypt is really just so well preserved for such an ancient culture that it’s like time travel. I think that it’s the time distance combined with how well-preserved it is — it’s often shocking to people to realise that we can go back and read a piece of literature from 4,500 years ago — it’s just so much earlier than the preserved evidence that we get from most corners of the globe. And I don’t know if the students know that’s why they’re drawn to the course, but I think there’s some sort of vague awareness that there’s something special about this place. And the preservation is not a sign of the superiority of ancient Egyptian culture; it’s a random coincidence of nature that this particular culture happened to have been located in a very arid environment where a lot of things are really well preserved and local building materials were stone.

I really wasn’t surprised when the course filled up quickly and developed a long waiting list because I’ve seen how people react to ancient Egypt — it’s pretty much universal. It’s not every single individual — for some, they’re just like, “I have no idea why you’d want to study that.” When I first proposed to teach it, a colleague said to me, “Oh, I wonder how many students you’ll get — I think you’ll get, like, five.” That first year I opened it up to 50 people, it filled up, and then it was a long waiting list after them. I maintain what I call an advance waiting list because I figure if there are students who are interested in this course not simply because it will fill a slot in their schedule one semester, but they’ve always wanted to take a course on ancient Egypt, I want those students to be able to get sort of first dibs on the course, and the best way to do that is to hold aside a certain proportion of the seats.

GT: How did we learn to read hieroglyphs?

JP: The way that we actually figured out how to read ancient Egyptian is part of the story of the first semester — there’s a reason I decided to title the course Deciphering Ancient Egypt, not only because I have students constantly deciphering puzzles in class but also because early in the course when we ourselves are learning how to read the Egyptian alphabet and learning how the language works, we do that by looking at how Jean-François Champollion figured it out. And this is one of those moments that I really enjoy, watching students

realise what he realised because I basically set it up so that students get to have that same discovery themselves in their groups. People were really confused about how it worked for a long time because they imagined that these were literally pictures of what the text was talking about. And for most hieroglyphs, that’s not the case; most of them have phonetic value. In a distant way, many of those hieroglyphs are actually the origin for our letters — it’s a long story how you get there. It’s really exciting because students realise, “Oh wow, I’ve kind of been writing in hieroglyphs all along, in a weird sort of way.”

GT: That’s really cool. Are there dialects in Egyptian?

JP: I actually have a student right now who’s doing an Honors Thesis on dialects in ancient Egyptian.

There’s a scholarly discussion about whether we should use the word ‘dialect,’ but at the very least, there is significant regional variation in how they pronounced and spelled words. The nice thing about learning Middle Egyptian, the classical form that you learn in Deciphering Ancient Egypt, is that it was always regarded as the canonical form of the language. So even 2,000 years after Middle Egyptian was the spoken language, if they were writing something really important, they still liked to write it in Middle Egyptian, even if nobody spoke like that anymore.

This is a good example of how students arrive at original conclusions in my seminar class — in the Middle Egyptian Texts course two years ago, we were reading a text talking about Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt, and [in the text] they kept going back and forth like they were referencing two audiences.

At some point in the text, they say something and repeat it using a different letter. Every scholar who ever studied the text before just assumed it was an error, like, “Well, they were writing and then they forgot that they’d written that and wrote it again.”

And we were sitting there talking about it in class, and one of the students in the class said, “Well, couldn’t this just be a different dialect? They’re addressing two audiences, so they said it in one dialect, and then they said it in another dialect.” We started to look at the text and realised that was the theme of the text. That text has been translated for a little over 100 years now; nobody noticed it before until a group of William and Mary students started studying it together. It’s kind of amazing how when you get students who haven’t already been told what the text is supposed to be, they see something different, something that, in this case, 28

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is probably much closer to the truth than what everybody who studied the text before thought.

I should mention that this four course sequence now counts for the foreign language proficiency requirement. The only thing that needs to happen for that foreign language proficiency to become permanent in future years is for it to be approved by the Dean’s office, and I’m pretty confident there will be no problem there because if you think about it, ancient Egyptian has been and probably will be for the foreseeable future the only African language taught at William and Mary. I’m pretty confident that the Dean’s office will recognise the significance of that — they’ve been pretty proactive in trying to serve underrepresented histories. It’s a rare opportunity that we have to be able to offer that as a foreign language because there aren’t many institutions that even have an Egyptologist on their faculty. If they do, it’s usually the Ivy schools.

GT: Do you think the tendency to mystify the language of Egypt could affect how people interpret it?

JP: Oh, for sure. The funny thing is that the Egyptian mirage is very much an Egyptian creation, and the reason why I say this is that in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, the Egyptians were starting to lose some of their social status in their own country because they were being ruled by foreigners. And the one thing that they could

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really hold onto was that many of those foreigners, the Greeks and Romans, venerated their religion.

Egyptian priests kind of played into the stereotype that they had secret knowledge, and they started to make the hieroglyphic system way more mysterious than it had previously been, like, “Oh, you think I have secret knowledge? Let me show you how secret it is.”

There’s a really infamous example of a text from the Late Period where some priests wrote an entire hieroglyphic text consisting only of crocodiles, and they actually encoded some hymn in there. So, if you knew all the hieroglyphs and all the possible different puns that they could be using, you would be able to read the hymn, but nobody could figure that out except for the priests who were in the temple. You can imagine a Greek or Roman who looks at that, and it’s just like, “Okay, so you’re telling me that is a hymn?” It created the impression that the language was actually like that when in reality, even the average literate ancient Egyptian wouldn’t have been able to read the Crocodile Text.

It’s really unfortunate, especially in the modern West, that there’s this kind of reflex to treat ancient Egypt as if it’s just inherently unapproachable.

It’s like any other ancient culture; if you learn the language and get really into it, you can know it to the same degree, if not more so, given that they wrote so much and it’s so well preserved.

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GT: Yeah, definitely. I have another question to ask you — do you run any research here? And what is it about?

JP: Most of my research has to do with the 25th Dynasty, the dynasty of ancient Egyptian history where Egypt was ruled by Nubians, otherwise known as Kushites, people to the South. I published the only English language book about Taharqo, a famous Nubian king who ruled Egypt. My own research right now is actually a bunch of different articles, almost all of them related to the 25th Dynasty since that’s my specialty, but my larger book project is actually connected to Nubia Americana — I’m writing a history of how Americans have invoked Nubia over the past 400 years, and not just people in the United States, but people in the Americas, broadly speaking.

It seems like every year I add a little bit to the scope of that project, and now I’m basically back to Columbus.

I have several students engaged in different research projects — all of them stem from the Egyptian course sequence. I have one student who is doing a research project on a text known as The Book of the Heavenly Cow, and she actually has a brand new reading of that text even though it’s been known for more than a century. She has a new — and I think more accurate — rendering of what that text is actually saying. I have another student who’s currently doing an Honors Thesis about dialectical variation in ancient Egyptian.

And then I have a third student — he has actually taken all the Egyptian courses, but he’s working on what’s called the Meroitic language of ancient Nubia.

It’s never been fully deciphered, so it’s kind of like what ancient Egyptian was for us 200 years ago. The research project that he’s doing is really interesting because it combines his ability to read ancient languages that he’s picked up in the Egyptian courses with his knowledge of computer science. He’s figured out ways to use computer science to analyze the texts and figure out the meanings of words based on the frequency of their appearance and what other words they appear in correlation with.

In the spring, we’re going to have an inaugural Virginia Egyptology student conference where students who are working on their own independent projects will present little 20 minute PowerPoints.

It’s really exciting to me because it’s an opportunity for students to not only do their own research but actually discuss it with other students who are doing their own research. That’s a little bit more of a friendlier environment in which to do your first presentations of your research because you’re just presenting it to people who are at the same stage

of their careers. And then we’ll have these openended discussions of bigger issues, issues of race, representation, and colonial baggage, those sorts of things that students tend to really want to talk about.

GT: That sounds really interesting. I’ll definitely want to see if I can attend. For my final question, it’s probably going to be a little bit of a doozy, but what do you think is the most important thing that we, as modern historians, can take away from the ancient Egyptians?

JP: Most fundamentally I would say that studying ancient Egypt forces one to realise that the way we do things is not the only way to do things or think about things or conceptualise things. You start to realise when studying ancient Egypt that the ways in which we’ve been taught to approach issues like gender, time, and faith are by no means the only ways to think about the world. They are by no means the only ways that human beings have thought about the world.

And it’s not like Egypt is some small aberration. This was a tremendously influential civilization that lasted for over 3,000 years. If you’re thinking in terms of linear time — the way we’re taught to think about time — you realise that the pharaohs who built the Pyramids of Giza were further away in time to Cleopatra than she is to us. It kind of changes your perspective on time in general, even thinking of time linearly, when you look at ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians didn’t see it that way at all. They had one conception of time where anything that happens is subsequently eternal in what they call Dt time. And so when they think about death, the idea that someone is lost because they’ve passed away is in some ways foreign to that way of thinking because the things they did and the moments that you shared with them don’t cease to exist; they’re always there. I just found it really personally comforting to realise that there was a less nihilistic way of thinking about human life.

I think that’s a tremendous benefit that you can get from studying another culture, and especially another language, because you have to understand something about their language to understand these concepts — otherwise, you’re forced to translate them into English terms, and there’s not always an English term.

What’s the English term for the Dt concept of time?

We don’t have that concept. That’s a long way of saying that when you study ancient Egypt, you get a sense that the way we do it is not the only way to do it, whatever it is.

Images provided by Professor Pope.

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Now in

Technicolour

Photos by Zachary Lutzky ‘24 Produced by Linda Li ‘24 Produced by Ellie Kurlander ‘24 Produced by Drew Shao ’25

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Modelled by Collin Absher ‘24 Modelled by Marion Biondi ‘24 Modelled by Zoe Powers ‘24

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HEIST PHOTOS BY ZACH LUTZKY ‘24 PRODUCED BY DREW SHAO ‘25 MODELLED BY LEKHA REDDY ‘25 MODELLED BY DREW WEST ‘25

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Tattoo Showcase

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Of these two tattoos I’ve chosen to share, one is for me, and one is for my father.

I decided to get Charles Bukowski over my healed self-harm scars as a way to reaffirm my strength and perseverance; as my favourite poet, Bukowski has been incredibly influential in my journey. For my father, who passed away when I was just a baby, I gave him flowers that would never die. I’ve never been one for cemeteries or such, so carrying him with me in tattoo form speaks louder volumes, and warms my heart.

- Elaine Godwin ’22

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I got this tattoo right before I came to college and wanted something fun and cool! I played Pokémon a lot as a kid, so I picked one of my favourites! The Pokémon is called Zorua! I chose it because it had a really cute but fierce design! It was featured a lot in the anime as well.

- Collin Absher ’24

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salaam ( ‫ ) سالم‬meaning “peace” – this was my first tattoo, and I wanted it to represent multiple things. My dad is an immigrant from the Middle East and with him, he brought his culture and traditions. While I don’t speak Arabic or practise Islam like him, I wanted to be able to have something that showcases this part of who I am because I am proud of it. This tattoo, to me, is symbolic of my hope for the world to be at peace with itself, for me to be at peace with the world, and for me to be at peace with myself.

- Sabrina El Shanti ’22

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On the back of my right arm, I have an ouroboros tattoo! It is an ancient alchemist symbol that represents unity, or continuity. I think what it stands for is pretty cool, but to be frank, I just wanted a snake tattoo, and the ouroboros is one of the few symbols of snakes that isn’t meant to represent evil or temptation. My sister is an art director in the graphic design/advertising field, so I asked her to draw up an ouroboros for me to get tattooed so it felt a bit more personal.

On the back of the left arm, I have a roman numeral five. I don’t exactly know why, but I’ve always really liked the number five. Maybe it’s because I have five people in my immediate family, or maybe it’s just because it’s generally a cool number (sum of two consecutive prime numbers, first good prime number, etc.). Regardless, I wanted it tattooed, and I asked my dad to draw this one for me, which he did in the programme he uses for his architectural modeling work.

I have another tattoo on the inside of my right arm that is a smiley face. My grandmother, who my family called NeeNee, was a teacher and would put these smiley faces on the papers she graded to hand back to her students; she would also write them on any cards she would give to my siblings and me on holidays. After my 18th birthday, my siblings decided to get matching tattoos of our NeeNee’s smiley face.

Erin Rollins ’23 Images courtesy of corresponding authors.

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Midtown Meltdown Exploring the excitement and shortcomings surrounding Williamsburg’s newest apartment complex Story by Mary Trimble ’23 Photos by Zachary Lutzky ’24

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Are you looking for an apartment complex to live in next school year?

Midtown Apartments, also known as Current Midtown, is centrally located in Williamsburg and within a walkable distance from the College of William and Mary campus. However, just because something is a new-build does not mean there won’t be any problems.

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here’s a new landmark on the Williamsburg skyline. Where usually one finds the orange brick of the campus of the College of William and Mary or the muted wooden siding of the storefronts of Colonial Williamsburg on Duke of Gloucester Street, with typical colonial architecture, this new site sports bright pops of colour on vinyl siding, modular design, and a formidable five-story height. There’s no missing the bright green bike lane that runs alongside it or the seemingly evergreen construction in the area.

While undoubtedly a break in the typical aesthetics of the city, the new Midtown Row development is not an accident or an oversight. It represents a concerted effort by the City of Williamsburg and its partners to move the city forward — perhaps in a different direction — and to meet, sometimes imperfectly, new and developing needs that accompany its status as a college town.

“Because I’m a fan of Midtown myself, I would challenge people to think about how [Williamsburg] can’t just be a one-trick pony,” said Caleb Rogers ’20, a Williamsburg City Councilman who was elected in 2020 while still a student at the College.

While maintaining Williamsburg’s historical character, he said it was important to continue to look at diversifying the City’s offerings.

“‘We’re making sure to maintain those traditions, but we also need to recognise that growing cities, or any city, including small cities like Williamsburg, need to think about how they can be inviting for different groups of people as well,’ Rogers said.”

“We’re making sure to maintain those traditions, but we also need to recognise that growing cities, or any city, including small cities like Williamsburg, need to think about how they can be inviting for different groups of people as well,” Rogers said.

“And that’s things like restaurants, and retail, and mixed-use, and housing that is more affordable for someone who might appreciate an apartment-

style rather than a $1.2 million home along Indian Springs [Road]. That’s where we have to diversify, and that’s what Midtown Row does well.”

The Midtown area of Williamsburg was targeted by the City’s 2017-2018 Goals, Initiatives, and Outcomes policy plan. The existing development, formerly known as the Williamsburg Shopping Centre, was more than half-a-century old, and it was not always able to maintain tenants due to a lack of foot traffic so far removed from residences, tourist attractions, and the College’s campus.

However, it also housed Williamsburg standards like Sal’s by Victor, a well-known Italian restaurant.

Broad Street Realty, a developer based in Maryland, bought the property in January 2017, and began the process of approval and negotiation with city officials for the realisation of Midtown Row. Among more than a dozen properties in the Broad Street portfolio, it is the only one that is “mixed-use,” meaning zoned for both residences and commercial space. Recently finished, the area is home to four new buildings with four floors of residential apartments for an occupancy of over 600, as well as commercial space on the ground floor. The complex also boasts a common green space, a club house, a pool, and fitness facilities.

The hope is that placing residents among commercial space will act as an anchor for new businesses located in the development.

Matt Sileno is the founder and owner of Matchsticks BBQ, and the future occupant of his first brick-and-mortar location in the newlyrenovated, original Williamsburg Shopping Centre, now also owned and managed by Broad Street.

While his opening was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic — he signed his lease on the space three weeks before the original shutdown in March 2020 — Sileno plans to finally open his doors by the end of the year.

“They only had the virtual plans for the buildings behind me, they weren’t even breaking ground for those yet,” Sileno said, describing his meeting with Broad Street that sold him on his Midtown Row location.

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“I watched the virtual tour and I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve got an even better location. I’ve got one of the most popular restaurants in the City [Sal’s by Victor] two doors down, I’ve got the Food Lion, the Marshalls, there’ll be so much foot traffic.’ And then when they showed me all that development behind me, I said, ‘Wow, that’s an even bigger plus,’” he recalled.

Aras Holden, the Vice President of Acquisitions and Development at Broad Street, described the process of working with the City on this mixed-use commercial and residential space as “a pleasure,” noting that their visions almost entirely aligned throughout the process.

“I know that [the] architecture [of Midtown Row] is a frequent conversation,” he said in a phone interview on the subject of the unique aesthetics of the development relative to the rest of the City. “The original conceptual design had nods to colonial architecture.”

However, the Williamsburg Architectural Review

Board, which approves most of the visual design of properties in Williamsburg, Holden recounts, “wanted the modern architecture in this part of Williamsburg.”

As a mixed-use development, the City and developers hope Midtown Row will fill several needs in the City, including providing affordable housing, especially for students at the College.

This became more apparent as the Williamsburg City Council once again debated the issue of whether to continue issuing exceptions to a rule that limits the number of people able to rent single-family homes in the City, which particularly affects student renters.

In a March 11th 2021 council meeting, Councilman Edward “Ted” Maslin described the “relief that [the Midtown Row] apartments and the revised dorm policy may provide to our neighbours,” referencing the College’s requirement that both Freshman and Sophomore students live on-campus (as opposed to the previous rule, in place prior to the matriculation of the Class of 2023, which

required only Freshmen to live in dorms).

Both of these new developments are, in part, designed to take pressure off of the Williamsburg rental and housing markets, especially as it relates to student tenants living in residential neighbourhoods around the College.

Councilwoman Barbara Ramsey also pointed to Midtown Row apartments, or Current Midtown, as an option for student renters in theAugust 12th 2021 council meeting. She responded to concerns brought to the council by students supportive of the four-person exemption that the apartments, in a new building with lots of amenities, were not truly affordable in the way that rooms in residential homes had proven to be.

“For a person in a four-bedroom, four-bath [at Current Midtown], the cost of that room is $860,” she said. “I think people have to remember that that includes all of the utilities, including internet, it’s furnished, each person has a bath, each person has a washer and dryer, and they are new, and so supposedly everything will be working in those units compared to so many of the old houses in the other neighbourhoods.”

Some student residents of Current Midtown, however, complain that their units are not as functional as the Councilwoman hoped in her statement at the council meeting.

Natalie Goldstein ’23 was originally attracted to the high-end amenities of Midtown Row and its proximity to campus when she and her roommate began their search for off-campus accommodations in 2019.

“I look around my apartment and there’s missing lights in the ceiling, there’s missing furniture, missing trim, construction’s not done.”

While she enjoys living there, she says it does come with its fair share of faults. She recalls that when she moved into her apartment in the fall of 2021, the lobby of her building was visibly unfinished.

Emron Ahmadzai ’23 said his move-in was delayed two weeks because construction on his apartment wasn’t finished. He was compensated with a free month of rent.

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“The first day I was allowed to move in, I get here and there’s dust everywhere,” he said. “I look around my apartment and there’s missing lights in the ceiling, there’s missing furniture, missing trim, construction’s not done.”

As of our interview on October 27th 2021, none of those problems had been fully resolved, despite maintenance requests to the building administration.

“It definitely shows that it was quickly put in and renovated just by the way that it looks,” Goldstein said. “You can tell by the crack that is already in my ceiling that it’s terrible construction.”

Ahmadzai detailed flooding in his apartment caused by the improper construction of his balcony.

“Our balcony is angled towards the door,” he said. “So any time it rains a lot, we get a big leak into our apartment. I contacted maintenance, and they were like ‘Yeah, just put a towel on it. There’s nothing we can do.’”

Both residents expressed particular concern about the appliances in their apartments; their in-unit washing machines and dryers have been broken for several months, and Ahmadzai’s refrigerator beeped erratically for weeks.

“‘Our balcony is angled towards the door,’ he said. ‘So any time it rains a lot, we get a big leak into our apartment. I contacted maintenance, and they were like “Yeah, just put a towel on it. There’s nothing we can do.”’”

They were given vouchers for the laundromat across the street on Monticello Avenue to do their laundry.

According to them, staff at the apartments repeatedly passed the buck, leaving problems unresolved.

“It hasn’t been what my expectations would have led me to believe,” he said of his time at Current Midtown.

Holden responded to these claims by pointing to the frustrations of supply chain issues and lingering 59

COVID-19 delays.

Yet, Ahmadzai said the amenities, like the pool and gym, are very nice, and the ability to negotiate over rent when conditions aren’t as promised will keep him living at Midtown over a move back to campus, despite the challenges.

A key aspect of the promise of Midtown Row are the events and sense of place and community that the City and Broad Street want to develop.

For Sileno of Matchsticks BBQ, Midtown Row’s dedication to the community was clear when they let him park his food truck in the parking lot during the early months of the pandemic to distribute free lunches to kids with the non-profit he and his exwife founded, The Lunchbox Program.

“We asked [Midtown Row], and they said, ‘absolutely,’” Sileno recalled. Every Thursday, Matchsticks BBQ offered around 85 free lunches to local schoolchildren, who, while waiting in the parking lot, became friends.

“It became like we were all just hanging out, like a family reunion every Thursday,” he said.

He also plans to keep his food truck busy with events like a concert series planned for the green space in the complex.

Events, like a taco night and Matchsticks’ Grand Opening in October, have already gotten underway, perhaps with limited support from the student residents.

“For me, personally, I don’t really care much about [the community events],” Emron said. “I just want a decent place to live that’s relatively cheap.”

“Me and my roommate don’t really go to the events because we know it’s not a fully college apartment complex,” Goldstein said. “It’s families too, so you can go, but it’s not really something people hang around.”

Holden underlined engagement with students as a place for potential growth at Midtown. “We want to create a gathering place, places that are inviting,” he said.

Midtown Row has reached out to the College, engaging in discussions with the newly-opened Institute for Integrative Conservation (IIC) about

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potentially designing a mural, in collaboration with the Williamsburg Public Art Council, that would be environmentally-focused.

“Midtown Row shares our vision of adding value to the Williamsburg community and of cultivating community,” said Erica Garroutte, a programme manager at the IIC. “It was very clear that together, we can do more than we could do alone.”

“In general, the IIC is very excited about exploring opportunities to work with Midtown Row on other community engagement opportunities,” she said.

“We’re just scratching the surface.”

While the residential spaces at Midtown Row are fully leased for the 2021-2022 academic year, most of the newly-built commercial spaces on the first floor remain empty, but Holden expects that to change.

“COVID-19 provided a speed bump, but things will

continue to improve,” he said.

For Rogers, Midtown Row represents what he calls “smart growth” in Williamsburg.

“‘Midtown Row shares our vision of adding value to the Williamsburg community and of cultivating community,’ said Eria Garroutte, a programme manager at the IIC. ‘It was very clear that together, we can do more than we could do alone.’”

“We’re not putting skyscrapers up,” he said. “We want a managed increase of people in a certain area— [Midtown] being literally the geographic centre of the City— so that we can bring in more businesses and more people, which certainly leads to more revenue for the City, but it also means that Williamsburg is a more vivacious town.”

PANCAKE PALOOZA

STORY BY LINDA LI ‘24 STORY & PHOTOS BY JUSTIN SHERLOCK ‘23

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magine you’re a freshman, recently inaugurated into Billsburg, waking up in your sweaty GGV 10x12 dungeon on a Saturday morning. Needless to say, you’re hungover. Breakfast is the sole focus of your thoughts, besides the two midterms you have on Monday. You throw off your sheets, take a shower, and it hits you: You. Need. Carbohydrates. During your initial campus tour as a high school senior, you were delighted to hear that Williamsburg, VA, boasts the highest ratio of pancake houses per capita in the world (let’s be honest, that’s the only reason you applied). How do you decide which establishment to patronise for the fluffiest, most mouth-wateringly porous pancake of them all?

I

Smart pho ne n ote s app i n han d, tw o Fl a t Ha t Ma g a zi n e st a ffe r s v i si t e d a h a n d f u l of pancake h ous e s w i thi n a re as o n a b l e d i st a n ce o f ca mp u s a n d d i l i g e n t l y r a te d them on t he basi s of fi ve catego r i e s, e a ch o n a sca l e fro m o n e t o fi v e : fl u ff i n e s s , thickness (thi ccnes s, as w e cal l it ) , so a k a b i l i t y o f sy r u p , v a r i e t y o f o p t i o n s, a n d no st algia.

Aroma’s Coffeehouse Bakery & Cafe 431 Prince George St. Upon ordering at the campusbeloved Aromas-proper, we were disheartened at the length of the queue and lack of pancakes.

However, we are ecstatic to find the sister to the pancake: the geometrically-pleasing Belgian waffle. Linda, however, was displeased with her coffee service, as her iced latte got lost behind the coffee bar (come on Linda—this is supposed to be about pancakes!) and had to leave without it. Fortunately, we snagged an outdoor table with a beautiful view of at least three floofers and indulged in our first meal.

Let’s start with the highlights: Their Belgian waffles were insanely soakable with the warm strawberry sauce and whipped topping that saturated the waffle-pores. Size and thiccness were mediocre,

but reasonable for a coffeehouse without breakfast specialty. This also led to a low rating for variety, as only one option for cakeybreakfast is offered. Generally, the waffle structure was quite durable, which made it quite difficult to cut with the plastic utensils provided; for this reason, fluffiness is low.

Lastly, and (debatably) of utmost importance: nostalgia—did it remind you of grandma’s cooking?

Unfortunately, this modern take on a classic Belgian dish fell flat with our sense of nostalgia. The strawberry sauce was delightful, but not comparable to an earlymorning childhood breakfast.

Fluffiness: 3 Thiccness: 4 Soakability: 4.5 Variety: 1 Nostalgia: 1 Overall: 2.7 62

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CAPITOL PANCAKE HOUSE 802 Capitol Landing Rd. As one of the closest pancake houses to campus, Capitol boasts a plethora of breakfast options for all likings. We decided to spice up our sugary journey and order a stack of phat peanut buttertopped pancakes to-go. This was our first time in the nutty world of pancakes; both of us usually keep to our traditions. However, Capitol Pancakes allows for much exploration, with options ranging from buckwheat to added bacon strips.

don’t get us wrong, these cakes aren’t in a thin stack; they passed the thiccness test with flying colours. While these cakes were initially hard to eat due to the sticky peanut butter, the fluffiness counteracted this by allowing sufficient syrup submersion. Similarly to Aromas, these cakes fell a bit flat on the nostalgia factor, as perfectly-round peanut butter pancakes are not a typical childhood experience for us.

Upon pick-up, we were presented with three large cakes in a classic styrofoam take-out box.

We helped ourselves to an outdoor table and quickly dug into our first true cakes of the day.

Immediately, we doused the dish in syrup and it effectively soaked into the penultimate layer. But

Fluffiness: 4 Thiccness: 5 Soakability: 3.5 Variety: 5 Nostalgia: 2 Overall: 3.9

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SOuthern PANCAKE AND WAFFLE HOUSE 1605 Richmond Rd. We hadn’t originally planned on going to Southern, but Google Maps deceived us into thinking the Denny’s on Richmond Rd. was open — turns out, it’s permanently closed. But as cheugy millennials like to say, “difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations.” Southern’s blueberry pancakes blew us away with their warm, fluffy richness and complete absorption of the generous maple syrup jugs served alongside our food. And to our pleasant surprise, there were blueberries embedded inside! Don’t dismiss the pancakes’ thinness so easily: they had just enough “bounce” in the texture without tasting too crumbly. The powdered sugar was the cherry on top and no complaints about the fast and friendly service.

Justin remarked that his grandma would make blueberry pancakes, and we noticed that the establishment’s cosy interior and pale blue walls had that nostalgic hospitality factor indeed. If we had to dock points off, it would be for the slight mismatch between the “Pancake & Waffle House” name and their actual selection of pancakes (fewer than we had expected).

Fluffiness: 5 Thiccness: 3 Soakability: 5 Variety: 2.5 Nostalgia: 4.5 Overall: 4 64

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E S U O H AFFLE

W D N A CAKE

N A P L A C I M O

N O R T S A

5437 Richmond Rd. By the time we pulled up to the parking lot in front of Astronomical, we were beginning to feel a little sick of pancakes. Nevertheless, she (and he) persisted. The first thing we noticed after sitting down is the eccentric Italian decor. Upon further investigation (i.e., we looked at the paper placemats), we discovered this place used to be a family-run Italian restaurant that was converted into a pancake house. We were also mystified by the staff’s tie-dye T-shirts juxtaposed against the stately walls and furniture, and further clashing with the patently unsophisticated breakfast menu.

Alas, we digress. Perhaps the kind waitress sensed our fullness-induced fatigue because she told us we could order one (1) pancake instead of the standard two. Overly confident in our appetites, Justin ordered pecan pancakes and Linda got peach pancakes.

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True to the establishment’s name, they were astronomically big and thicc. But that was about the only note-worthy thing. The pancakes felt ever-so-slightly stale, and the syrup--though fresh-tended to run off the surface. Whereas both Capitol and Southern’s pancakes had the flavour/ toppings baked in, the peach pancakes were just canned peaches sloppily added on top. The pecans were decent, though. In sum, you’d be going for the reputation, or you would be astronomically disappointed.

Fluffiness: 3 Thiccness: 4 Soakability: 2 Variety: 4 Nostalgia: 1 Overall: 2.8

EDGAR DEGAS T h e P r i va t e I m p r e s s ion i s t

Works on Paper by the Artist and His Circle On view February 11 – May 29, 2022

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FOREWORD

ASIAN CENTENNIAL

This issue, Flat Hat Magazine recognises and celebrates the College of William and Mary’s Asian Centennial, which marks 100 years since the admission of the first Asian student on campus, Chen Pu-Kao ’23. Much like the theme of this issue, Technicolour, the Asian, Pacific Islander, and Middle Eastern student communities at the College are a beautiful, diverse, complex collection of languages, cultures, and experiences.

We have carefully considered the stories of these communities in crafting the content for this issue. Of course, the Asian Centennial comes at a time when many members of our community are still in mourning and still live in fear of hate, violence, and bigotry exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the progress we have made as an institution, we read and watch the news every day to find heartbreaking accounts of anti-Asian violence and hatred. As students of an institution known as the “Alma Mater of the Nation,” we recognise the ways that anti-Asian sentiment was written into the laws of this country. From small towns to sprawling suburbs and grand metropolises, the College’s Asian and Asian American students come from all over the country and all over the world to be a part of this community. As a student publication, we recognise the crucial role we can play in ensuring their legacy does not go unnoticed. As members and allies of this community ourselves, we mourn, celebrate, and share our experiences alongside our peers and colleagues. As students and faculty document and share the experiences of trailblazing Asian American students like Art Matsu ’27 and Hatsuye Yamaski ’37, this is our promise to document the stories of our community today, here, and now.

Nina Raneses ‘22, With the full support of the Flat Hat Magazine Editorial Board.

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Flat Hat Magazine • Narratives

The Heart of Bicol Story and Illustration by Nina Raneses ‘22 For the children of first-generation immigrants to a different country, the rediscovery of one’s own indigenous culture does not come without complications. Join Nina Raneses as she recounts how she and a cohort of her fellow students “rediscovered” and reclaimed a pre-colonial script from Luzon called Baybayin. Displaced by the Latin alphabet through Spanish colonisation of the Phillippines, the script is instrumental in helping younger Filipino students rediscover the culture that was left behind generations ago.

L

ast semester, I helped resurrect a dead script.

It might not be the one you usually hear about — there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of it before. In fact, it is the writing system of my ancestors and I had never heard of it before I took Filipino Diaspora Studies, an Asian and Pacific Islander American studies course, last semester. As a visual learner, I was fortunate that my professor, Roberto Jamora, is an artist by trade. Through his expertise and talents, I was able to learn the history of my family’s country through the intricate patterns of textiles, traditional dance and music, and the curves and bends of a pre-colonial ancient script, called Baybayin.

Baybayin was an ancient writing system used for centuries that was eventually replaced by the Latin alphabet as a result of the spread of the Spanish language during colonisation.

Though far from the only writing system used in the pre-colonial era, as the Philippines is home to a multitude of languages and dialects across its many islands, Baybayin was mainly used in Luzon, the island of my ancestors.

Younger Filipinos are reclaiming and reviving the use of Baybayin, as the desire — or rather the need — to reconnect to indigenous and

pre-colonial roots has become more important than ever to many, both at home and among the diaspora.

“Younger Filipinos are reclaiming and reviving the use of Baybayin, as the desire — or rather the need — to reconnect to indigenous and pre-colonial roots has become more important ever to many, both at home and among the diaspora.“ Despite class being held over Zoom, there was still something so remarkable about sitting down in front of my laptop, brush in hand, getting ready to paint these characters alongside my professor and my peers, especially after reading and learning about the script’s history. It meant so much to be a part of this revival. Along with my peers, I painted characters and phrases I’d never heard of until weeks prior — a system embedded in my own heritage for generations upon generations, kept under wraps until now.

Language had not always been a complicated topic for me to think about or discuss. Coming from an immigrant household, people ask if English is my first language, or if there are other languages spoken in the home. Filipinos always ask me if I know Tagalog, which is one of the most wildly spoken Philippine languages. I always pause and think about my 70

Flat Hat Magazine • Narratives

response. No, I don’t — and there’s inherently some shame or embarrassment on my end telling other Filipinos that I can’t speak my family’s mother tongue, especially when they ask the follow-up: do your parents speak the language?

“There’s inherently some shame or embarassment on my end telling other Filipinos that I can’t speak my family’s mother tongue, especially when they ask the follow-up: do your parents speak the language?“ The American culture of assimilation made this an easy decision for my family and many like mine. It’s a double-edged sword: raising a first or second-generation immigrant to embrace one language would ideally advance the culture of assimilation for future generations.

For the longest time, I didn’t understand and therefore didn’t care about the implications of not knowing the language of my heritage.

Living in the United States, not knowing Tagalog has only affected my life every so often, in conversation here and there, and there is an inherent privilege in this fact.

Regardless, in one way or another, language connects me with my family. The silver lining of my not being fluent in my mother tongue means that the language takes on a whole new meaning. It is a meaningful, under-thesurface way of connecting with my family and the diaspora. I take pride in the little I do understand, and living in the Philippines in the past few years has helped me understand even better. Though I am too shy to initiate conversation, I can hear the progression in my understanding when I hear my family speak or when I’m back in the Philippines, and I pick up every few words. For me, the baby steps have been worth it. I have stopped beating myself up for what I do and do not know, as it wasn’t my fault to begin with.

Despite being past the prime age to pick up a language, I celebrate what I’ve put together despite being late in learning more about my own culture. In this way, it has been more meaningful for Tagalog to be this 71

halfway bridge to my own culture. I think my relationship with the language represents my cultural identity well — though my American side is most prominent, there is a special place in my heart for my Filipino heritage, and every day it grows. I proudly display my Baybayin artwork in my room; it’s my little piece of home I created myself. It is the perfect mix of my two cultures — and it shows my dedication to learn and re-learn my perception of the history of the Philippines going forward. I have always been drawn to art and learning by visualising — and the beauty of language is its ability to awaken two of our senses.

I have the APIA programme and courses like Filipino Diaspora Studies to thank for helping me connect parts of my heritage to my education in ways I hadn’t seen possible. I can only imagine the impact this sort of education can have for people with even smaller connections to their roots than someone like me, and how life-changing that education can be. I look forward to spending the rest of my life on this journey and one day passing down what I know to future generations. I’ll never forget making that first brushstroke on a fresh sketchpad in the corner of my dorm room. I’ll always treasure the beauty in the journey a script took from being such a distant part of my lineage to appearing before my very eyes after all that its country of origin had endured — occupations, wars, violence, revolution, independence, transition, and reclamation.

“I’ll never forget making that first brushstroke on a fresh sketchpad in the corner of my dorm room. I’ll always treasure the beauty in the journey a script took from being such a distant part of my lineage to appearing before my very eyes after all that its country of origin endured...“ We have the dedication and passion of our educators, like Prof. Jamora and many more in the College’s APIA programme, to bring an ancient script across both an ocean of time and the literal thousands of miles that separate our home from our ancestral one. Through this education, no one will ever be able to take away our heritage from us ever again.

Flat Hat Magazine • Narratives

Flat Hat Magazine • Narratives

Hair.

Understanding my Bangladeshi identity and gender expression Anonymous Submission

I I Flat Hat Magazine • Narratives I I I I “Should I just … start?”

When I first met my grandma (my Nanu), my I “Yeah, let’s do this.” sister and I had a hard time reconciling the I I am nervous but ready. cookie-baking sweet old ladies we had always I I squeeze my eyes shut as I used to when I would heard our friends talk about with this cranky, I get shots at the doctor’s, steeling myself. hardened woman who had red hair dyed by I henna and chewed on betel leaf. Yet, she I The flashes of the purple lighting in the room would hold me close whenever there was a I fade and so does the music in the background. thunderstorm or a tornado warning, praying Lucy takes the scissors and holds a few locks gently and telling me stories. That was better I between her fingers. than any cookie. She would go on long walks I with us around our neighbourhood, leaving the I Snip. house bundled in her burqa, and I used to joke I she looked like a black crab scuttling around. She I The earliest memory I have of anyone cutting my would cackle at that when my mom translated I hair is my Ma. It was one of those long Midwest my broken Bangla. We would help her up the hill I summer afternoons, where it seemed like all of behind our school and we could see corn fields I time was still. She had spread out a garbage bag for miles and miles in every direction. That was I on the carpet, picked me up, and sat me down on our whole world at one point. Nanu would tell us I a stool. I was pouty about the haircut; I thought the jute fields of her village were better.

I it was strange because all the girls in school were I growing out their hair. She would always cut my My awkward mistakes in English and Bangla I hair really short back then, calling them Princess were hardly the full extent of our troubles. I Diana cuts, and parted my hair to the right, remember how Ma would pick me up from school I humming old Bangla songs and telling me not to during her 30-minute lunch break and ask–beg– I fidget. I faced our backyard seeing heat waves neighbours to babysit me for just a few hours I dancing on the grass and resigned to ask her until her or my Baba’s shift was over. She usually I about the summers in Bangladesh. got turned down. I think it was in those early I years thatI learned what guilt was. I felt guilty I She would always respond,”Oikhane khubi that she had to go to such lengths for my sake.

I bepsha, nishash naowa jai na.”

I remember how my sister came home crying I “Ar ekhane, Amirika te... agun.” [It’s so humid because they had learned about 9/11 in class and I over there that it’s hard to breathe. And here in her classmates stared at her as if they had no I America... it’s like fire.] idea who she was anymore. I once felt proud to I show off the patterns of henna that my aunt had I In the avenues of my childhood, I teetered put on my arms, like many constellations of red I between these two worlds. Bangladesh and the lace. At school, my classmates laughed and said it United States. looked like blood. As I grew older and learned to I eat with my right hand, I became more and more I At school, my sister and I would eat burgers aware that I was different in my small town.

I and fries, and when we came back home it was I Ma’s rice and curry. I ate with a spoon while Snip, snip.

I everyone else in my family ate with their right I hand. As a toddler, I babbed in a half mixture I still parted my hair to the right when Ma told I of Bangla and English when speaking to my us we would be moving to Bangladesh for a few I family. My relatives firmly believed for a while years. Up until that point in my life, Bangladesh I that I was totla, that I had a lisp, because of how had felt microscopic, confined to my house and I indiscernible they found my words. Ma always stories that felt as far off as dragons did in the I understood me regardless (and always mixed my fantasy books I buried myself in. I left behind I rice so that I could properly scoop it up with my everything I had ever known but I thought that I spoon). I didn’t believe in the Boogeyman, but I maybe I would finally feel like I fully belonged got terrified by tales of Shakchunni, the demon somewhere.

I woman with gold bangles. I believed in Santa I Claus, but I was worried that he wouldn’t come The first year there was almost unbearable. I was I to our house because we didn’t have a chimney unused to certain honorifics and customs, and I nor a Christmas tree.

I felt embarrassed of myself. I remember the I I 74 I

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Bangla teacher whose class I was exempt from asking me, “Tomar Ma, Baba kokhono tomake Bangla shikhaini?”[Your parents never taught you how to read Bangla?] My parents had to work multiple jobs for hours upon hours just to keep food on the table when I was younger; they just didn’t have time during the day to sit with me and my sister and teach us to read and write in an entirely different language. But I didn’t tell her that. Classmates used to tease me about my accent, saying I talked like a “foreigner.” I remember going to a salon and asking if my hair could be cut short and the hairdresser saying, “Meye ra chul boro rakha uchid.”[Girls should grow out their hair.] I didn’t know then why that comment bothered me so much. It was small moments like these that made me feel suffocated.

people who care about my well-being have helped. Also, a lot of rice. I still trip over my words in Bangla, but I’ve learned how to read and write in it, and I definitely flaunt the henna on my hands. I still sometimes feel like an outsider, even on campus, but I know that I have a right just as much as everyone else to be here. Being queer and Bangladeshi-American feels so heavy to bear some days because of fear. But I also realize how beautiful all of me is–sometimes my identities may feel like they clash with each other, yet they all make up the constellation of my life. They are all authentically (I know Kelly Crace owns that word) me. I’m no longer burning or suffocating, either with being Bangladeshi or American, or queer, but it’s like being half in and half out of water. The best of both worlds, if I want to quote Hannah Montana.

Yet, so many moments in Bangladesh were beautiful, even with this lingering sense of unease. I made lifelong friends and caught fish in the pond behind my grandparents’ house. I went to see the jute fields Nanu always talked about. I grew to learn more about the side of myself that I was never fully in touch with when I was in the United States. Bangladesh became my second home. I remember asking my friends to help me write a letter to my Ma for Mother’s Day in Bangla. My handwriting ended up being worse than a five-year-old’s (and I assume my spelling too). Yet, Ma had tears in her eyes when she read my letter. She was so proud of me. “Amar mei amar jonno chiti lekhse!” [My daughter wrote a letter for me!]

Snip, snip, snip.

I I I I Her daughter.

I I It was around that time that I started to feel I uncomfortable in my own body, it was as if the word “girl” was caging me. The more I learned I about gender, the more confused I became. And I I felt as though I was betraying myself by thinking I like that. When I moved back to the States, it I was deeply rooted in my mind that I was not I allowed to be both a girl and more than that — I I had to choose between them like the two other I facets of my identity, either being Bangladeshi or I American. I felt the same guilt from my childhood, I as if by being so fractured I was burdening my I family.

I I I’m still navigating some of that guilt today, that sense of not belonging to either part of myself.

I Years of healing and surrounding myself with I I I 75 I

That is why I asked my friend Lucy to impulsively cut my hair on a Tuesday night.

I look into the mirror and run my hand through my new cut. I look more androgynous, with my hair being shorter than it’s been since I was five. I can hear Lucy screeching at how good I look, and I smile. I feel more like myself than I have felt in a long while. I also have a call to make, the first step I’m taking to come out to my parents. This time, I part my hair in the middle.

I video call my sister and she runs to my Ma, excited. They’re both flabbergasted, Ma thinking it’s one of those new filters on Messenger. When she realizes that it’s real, she grins (a bit like my Nanu) and says,“Bah, tomake toh onek shundor lagche!”[You look so beautiful!]

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Flat Hat Magazine • Arts + Culture

Being a #BrandyGirl

The Damaging Grip that Brandy Melville has on the Chinese Market Story by Linda Li ’24

Linda Li ’24 has a passion for fashion. Anyone can tell just by seeing her walk around campus in style, but if that’s not enough, she also has a fashion Instagram page. But no one would find Brandy Melville in her closet because of their exclusionary and unrealistic standards with their one-size-fits-all-and-that-sizeis-a-small model. Linda has lived in multiple countries, from China, to Canada, to the United States. Many Chinese girls take Brandy Melville’s marketing to heart, causing them to go to extremes just to fit into what’s trending.

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randy Melville, the Italian-owned, California “cool girl” fashion company, opened its first Chinese storefront in September 2019. Soon afterwards, Brandy Melville (BM)’s signature plaid mini skirts, spaghetti-strap dresses, crop tops, and otherwise unremarkable basics became ubiquitous on the bodies of my high school peers. If TikTok were popular then, I’d have made a video with the “She looks like every other bitch!” audio.

Initially founded in the 1980s, Brandy Melville operated beneath the radar until the 2010s, when it seized Instagram’s global appeal to build a cult following for its cheaply-priced one-size-fits-all garments. On Weibo and RED, China’s versions of Twitter and Pinterest, respectively, I watched in dismay as #BM, #brandygirl, and #brandystyle seemingly skyrocketed to popularity overnight.

Before anyone could say “fatphobia,” young Chinese women rushed to label themselves a “BM Girl.” What’s fueling the fervent obsession with fitting into clothes that are incompatible with a grown adult’s body structure?

At the heart of Brandy Melville’s explosive popularity is society’s long-standing association of thinness with reputation, success, diligence, and intellect. Although body-shaming and fatphobia are pervasive in America and Europe, women’s bodies are subject to greater public scrutiny in China. Many so-called “beauty challenges” on Weibo have perpetuated unrealistic body standards and promoted incessant self-comparison in the past few years. The #A4waist trend, for 77

example, challenged women to see if their stomachs were as narrow as a piece of vertical A4 paper. The #iPhone6knee challenge had women placing an iPhone on their knees, legs parallel, to show that their legs were the width of a smartphone. Whereas body positivity movements have gained traction in the West, Chinese women have doubled down on pursuing thinness to the extent that they increasingly associate beauty with being underweight.

A woman who fits into Brandy Melville’s clothes is signalling to society that she embodies the ideal female form. Most of Brandy Melville’s tops are labelled XS or S, and their bottoms measure 24 inches around the waist — barely a size 0 in the US — when the average waist circumference of a Chinese woman is closer to 28 inches. As Brandy Melville gained traction on social media, women began circulating a “BM girl size chart” that listed the corresponding heights and weights for women to fit into the clothes. The brand’s absurd sizing has fostered a toxic culture of exclusivity where wearing Brandy Melville has become a badge of honour. Thinness is so ingrained as a cultural virtue that Chinese women further cement the brand’s status as a beauty benchmark rather than reject the discriminatory sizing. Popular memes depicting people who can’t fit into Brandy Melville’s clothes remark that the clothes only look flattering on thin women, reinforcing the notion of an ideal body figure instead of questioning why a clothing brand refuses to make more sizes.

Flat Hat Magazine • Arts + Culture

Not only do Chinese women fully embrace the brand’s one-size ideology, but they see no problem defending such practices. Many women falsely equate Brandy Melville’s exclusionary sizing to brands that cater to plus-size women, arguing that there is nothing wrong with manufacturing clothes specifically for thin women. The glaring problem with this argument is that thin women have never struggled to find clothes that fit, whereas retailers across the board have historically neglected plussize women. In this way, Brandy Melville is even worse than brands that don’t carry above a size XL. They deliberately fuel the “bikini industrial complex” by making clothes only accessible to those with body types deemed desirable by society. Brandy Melville’s supporters also claim that women who critique the brand’s sizing are upset that they can’t be a “BM girl,” thereby implying that women have nothing more worthwhile to do than complain about not being able to wear crop tops and mini skirts. More damningly, this line of defense once more assumes that women are so shallow as to make their physical appearance their sole preoccupation. Give me a break! What’s more, some women simply don’t consider the limited sizing an issue, which shows a lack of awareness of how gender norms discipline women’s bodies and make them constantly feel inadequate.

Unfortunately, the camp of Brandy Melville supporters may have succeeded in propagating the “BM girl” identity into a full-blown status marker. Major Asian celebrities such as singer and actress Ouyang Nana and Blackpink’s Jennie — both of whom exhibit traditional markers of beauty — have been sighted in Brandy Melville clothing, strengthening young Chinese women’s view that fitting into the clothes will align themselves closer with the epitome of Asian beauty standards. In addition to tapping into a well of body insecurities, the company’s marketing strategies coincidentally dovetail with the country’s socioeconomic development such that Chinese women become tethered to a vapid and fuzzy California-inspired lifestyle aesthetic.

Brandy Melville’s Instagram account consists entirely of skinny white teenagers in casual backgrounds such as Los Angeles beaches, Manhattan sidewalks, and their brick-and-mortar stores. The pictures convey an easy-breezy, carefree, endless summer mood that appeals to both teenagers and overworked and overstressed 20 and even 30 year-olds. Based on these photos, one could easily presume that “BM girls” are

popular, attractive, and well-off — characteristics that we are conditioned to want as soon as we begin schooling. Brandy Melville has constructed a consumer identity that is theoretically simple to attain but remains out of reach for a large swath of women, creating an elite aura around its ordinary models that translates to an aspirational lifestyle. I posit that this lifestyle is made more appealing by the fact that rarely are the models’ faces photographed. Even though their bodies are clearly white, a Chinese consumer could still plausibly imagine herself as one of those girls on her way to Santa Monica Pier with a group of friends on a warm September afternoon.

Being a Western brand, Brandy Melville already has a leg up over local brands that carry similar items. Since China is the global fashion industry’s manufacturing hub, Western consumers frequently associate the “made in China” label with sweatshop labour and poor quality; by the same token, Chinese consumers are enamoured with higher-end Western brands for their heritage and craftsmanship. Brandy Melville is no luxury brand, but its founders are Italian, and the heavy California influence automatically adds points for distinction in Chinese consumers’ eyes. It doesn’t matter if the California inspiration only draws upon stereotypical aspects like beaches and palm trees, nor does it matter if the media’s depiction of California culture is vapid and annoyingly elusive: whiteness sells, and many Chinese people still eat it up. The Brandy Melville aesthetic is just that: a series of staged images that fail to carry over to the real world because we all have real obligations and cannot always hang out with our friends at the beach.

I am not blaming Chinese women for taking the marketing bait. But there needs to be serious reckoning with Brandy Melville’s toxic influence over girls’ and women’s relationships with their bodies. The clothes we wear reflect not just our personal tastes but the unspoken rules about how women should properly perform their gender under society’s constant judgement. Showing off your midriff is one thing, but feeling pressured to lose weight to fit into bland cotton T-shirts is what happens when rigid gender norms face too little resistance. As it stands, the “BM girl” is the gold standard for young Chinese women. It doesn’t have to be.

To view citations, visit flathatmagazine.com.

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HONOURING THE PAST

ASIAN CENTENNIAL Photos by Zachary Lutzky ‘24 Produced by Linda Li ‘24 Produced by Drew Shao ‘25

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Models: Rithika Ashon ‘22, Mallika Charagundla ‘25, Mohith Dhillon ‘23, Mia Dzion ‘25, Jacklyn Gollayan ‘23, Emma Grenfell ‘23, Kritika Jothishankar ‘25, Meeran Khan ‘25, Aubrey Lay ‘23, Vanessa Ma ‘24, Ved Murthy ‘25, Kushali Patel ‘21, Matthew Rosenthal ‘25, Divya Sharma ‘24, Avneeti Singh ‘24, Priya Singh ‘24, Kenneth Tieu ‘23, Nivedha Vaidy ‘25, Saira Yusuf ‘25.

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FOREVER MARKED

BY THE DAY

THE TRIUMPHANT ARCHITECTURE OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

OPEN THROUGH JANUARY 23, 2022

C O N T E M P O R A RY N AT I V E A M E R I C A N A RT

OPEN THROUGH FEBRUARY 13, 2022

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Technicolour.mp3

For our playlist this semester, we wanted to channel that feeling when you’re driving down the Colonial Parkway with your friends, windows down, in your feelings, screaming the lyrics to this playlist.

Think about that scene from “Perks of Being a Wallflower” when Logan Lerman is standing up on the truck bed going through the tunnel while listening to “Heros” by David Bowie. Like Logan Lerman, we are infinite.

“The Myth of Youth” by Geographer A meditation on the present moment while contemplating the past and future of a relationship. Throw Mike Deni’s atmospheric synths, introspective vocals, pounding drums, a buzzing bass line, and distorted electric guitar into the mix and you have an energetic, contemplative jam perfect for your next existential crisis.

- Mary Beth Bauermann ’24 “Cherry” by Rina Sawayama Three minutes and twenty-five seconds of that

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fuzzy electric feeling that you get when you start seeing someone new. Maybe you didn’t quite meet on the Tube like Rina did in the song, but it was still meet-cute.

- Gavin Aquin ’22 “Eyes Without a Face” by Angel Olsen Gut wrenching, cathartic, and whimsical, this modern take on Billy Idol’s 1984 hit beckons listeners into a daydream-like trance. The angelic backing vocals pair perfectly with Olsen’s gritty sound to make for a perfect synth-pop melody.

- Ellie Kurlander ’24

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“Until We Get There” by Lucius

“Mirrorball” by Taylor Swift

“Everybody’s gotta get there somehow / I won’t wait another day.” This quiet carpe diem anthem melds the hypnotizing vocals of Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig with a driving guitar line that sounds how falling autumn leaves look. One listen and you’re ready to do or say whatever it is you’ve been putting off, whether it’s an assignment or finally telling that someone how you feel.

- Mary Trimble ’23

How could you create a fall-based playlist without including at least one track from 2020’s Folklore? Coming from a relatively hardcore swiftie, that would be a sin.

This three and a half minute masterpiece encompasses all autumn vibes- whispering vocals, melancholy piano, and hard-hitting lyrics that compare the singer’s position in society to a multifaceted, emotionally-sensitive disco ball.

- Justin Sherlock ’23

“Weightless” by Washed Out If speeding down the Colonial Parkway makes me feel one thing, it’s weightless.

This song perfectly embodies the sensation behind the inspiration of the playlist, from the lyrics to the many different sounds that come together to tickle my brain when I hit play on this song.

- Becca Klinger ’22 “27 Hours” by BANKS This song’s jarring and sobering all at once, much like the first day in autumn when the day seems to end before we can even wrap our heads around it. The sun disappears from the horizon at a rate as alarming as the sound of the synth that blares in between BANKS’ haunting vocals.

- Nina Raneses ’22

“Paper Man” by Glen Wee Melancholic but tentatively rhythmic, Glen Wee’s tune about the ups and downs of our emotions will resonate with college students grappling with adulthood. Times are rough, but don’t give up too easily.

- Linda Li ’24 “Happier than ever (edit)” by Billie Eilish Nothing will ever beat screaming about those who have hurt you with the friends who have always stuck by your side. This song is like finally being seen after dealing with emotional turmoil. And it’s so satisfying.

- Alyssa Slovin ’22

“Combat” - Hazel English A four-minute reflection on the metaphorical Maginot lines we build to protect ourselves from rejection. Nothing says coming-of-age more than complicated, exhausting attempts to dance around the truth because we’re too scared and insecure to find out if it’s just friend vibes or something more… Is this A) a song analysis or B) a description of my love life? C) All of the Above.

- JR Herman ’24 92

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Find in Playlist

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playlist prodigy Story by Rebecca Klinger ‘22

Hebecca

Rebecca Klinger

I <3 Smash Mouth Rebecca Klinger

Croc Girl in a Banana Suit Rebecca Klinger

Camera Button Presser (Becca’s Version) Rebecca Klinger

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I

f you look at my bio on the staff pages of Flat Hat Magazine, The Flat Hat, The Armed Services Arts Partnership, or the DC Summer Institute Online Citizenship Fellows page, you can see my outward love of Spotify is not restricted by audience. The only bio I don’t mention the music streaming service in is that of the Botetourt Squat, where instead I write a monthly music column called “Press Replay with Becca K.” Needless to say, I am an avid music-listener and am loyal to the app that has been with me through (almost) it all. In the debate of the top two streaming services Spotify vs Apple Music, putting aside the exclusivity of the latter being only available to people with a specific brand of phone, the former comes out on top because of its social aspect.

Creating and sharing playlists with friends, seeing what my peers are listening to, and finding others on the app with similar musical interests makes Spotify a unique platform that inadvertently builds communities.

Each member of my family has their role in party planning: my mom does the delegation, makes the invite list, and plays hostess during the event itself; my sister makes the charcuterie board and plays bartender; my dad grills. As the youngest, I help everyone with their respective tasks, but I play one critical part every time we host anything: I’m in charge of the music. Even while I’m at school, I will get the occasional phone call asking for a playlist for some party my parents are hosting.

Playlist-making is one of my favourite pastimes, it’s a stress-reliever and creative outlet. My Spotify account has 188 playlists associated with it right now, which I keep organised in folders. I have playlists for holidays, different types of parties, and road trips. I have some dedicated to a specific sound or theme or mood, playlists for songs about cats and dogs or songs that mention a month, and so many more overly specific collections of songs.

Part of this is for my own amusement, but I find the public aspect of Spotify quite entertaining. My friends can see my public playlists and see what I’m listening to on the web app, and I love being able to say, “I have a playlist for that” in the middle of random conversations.

On one fateful night during early quarantine, I found myself itching to hear a very specific type of music that I didn’t have a playlist for. Surprising,

I know. I searched the keyword “kickdrum” and after a few clicks, found a playlist that met all my needs. The collection of songs was so perfect, I thought to myself, was this person in my head?

Curiosity made me click his profile, where I found more playlists filled with my favourite artists, and some I hadn’t heard of yet. This guy’s taste in music was immaculate because it was similar to mine, and his sense of humour was apparent just by looking at his profile. Spotify lets you customise playlist images and his included pictures of him, sometimes with friends, sometimes in random costumes, and once eating a banana. His music was so great I couldn’t help but try to find him on a platform where I could speak directly to him.

After explaining that I’m not a total creep in his Instagram DMs, we quickly became friends and would send music recommendations back and forth. At some point, we even invited each other to Among Us Zoom sessions and played a few games with each other’s college friends. My friends have affectionately dubbed him “Spotiguy.” The music-streaming app brought this great guy into my life (and equipped me with this fun story), but it wouldn’t have ever happened if Spotiguy didn’t have a social media presence on other platforms.

Spotify could be an even more phenomenal platform with just one additional feature, one they got rid of in 2017: a messaging function. If we could directly message friends on the app, the music-sharing world would be made better for it. Gone would be the days of hitting “share,” “copy link,” then pasting in a different app just for another person to click the link to boot up Spotify.

We could streamline this process by being able to share music within the app. Even without, my favorite green media streaming app (sorry, Hulu), is the best in the business. I may just be a wannabe quirky girl with her quirky playlists, but I don’t believe judgement should be passed for harmless activities that spark joy. I’m able to deepen my relationships with the people around me simply by seeing their music and complimenting certain playlists or artists. I’ve made playlists for friends of songs I think they’d like and have heavily influenced many music tastes because of my enthusiasm. All I’m saying is follow me on Spotify, make fun playlists for yourself, and most importantly, send me song recommendations at raklinger@email.wm.edu.

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Flat Hat Magazine • Arts & Culture

TWAMPY

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flathatmagazine.com/digital

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Of “Foreign”

Welcome to the new age of media in America

Story by Lilly Tanenbaum ‘25 Image Courtesy of Netflix

Flat Hat Magazine • Arts + Culture

This year, four of the top 10 most searched Halloween costumes in the United StatesU.S. were for Squid Game, a Korean show on Netflix that skyrocketed to massive global success in late September 2021. The rest of the top 10 were predictable mainstays of Western culture, including Spider Man and Harry Potter. It is impressive that a new show, one in another language no less, managed to secure so many spots among a list of decades-old cultural icons. American entertainment has long been popular overseas, but the growing popularity of foreign media in the United States implies a shift in how Americans are consuming media and culture.

For decades, America has dominated the production of culture on a global scale. In 1998, an article ran in the Washington Post titled “American Pop Penetrates Worldwide.” America was exporting “mass-produced products of its popular culture,” the article said. A New York Times article from 1994 titled “Pop Culture; The New Colossus: American Culture as a Power Export” cited a report by Variety that of the world’s 100 most attended films, 88 were American. The top 10 TV shows of the 1990s and the 2000s were entirely American. In the 2010s, the list remained dominated by American shows with one slight variation: the wildly popular sitcom, The Office, which was a remake of a British show.

Like Squid Game, BTS has had success that rivals American cultural sensations.

Another indicator of the shift in America’s eagerness to consume foreign media is the long list of foreign shows popular in America. The French show Call My Agent, the Canadian show Schitt’s Creek, the British show The Crown, the Israeli show Shtisel, Japanese anime shows, the Swedish show Young Royals, and the Spanish shows Money Heist and Elite have all seen success in America. Telenovelas, Latin American serial dramas similar to but not the same as soap operas, are also more successful than American soap operas in US markets.

America has gone from exporting culture to having its most popular show of the year be an imported show. The success of Squid Game has been extraordinary - it reached number one on Netflix in 90 countries, making it the first Korean series to hold the number one spot in America.

Yet, Squid Game is not the only Korean media to take Western viewers by storm in recent years.

The Korean movie Parasite made history for being the first non-English movie to win Best Picture at the Oscars. Despite the massive success of Squid Game and Parasite, the spread of Korean culture might be best exemplified by the success of K-pop, Korean pop music.

K-pop has been massively successful in America.

BTS is a boy band known for catchy pop songs and impressively aesthetic performances. BTS has achieved levels of success that were previously unheard of for Korean groups. They broke the record for the most-viewed music video in 24 hours and, in 2020, were the first K-pop group nominated for Best Pop Group Performance at the Grammy Awards. BTS has had six number one hits on the Billboard Charts --- to provide comparison, NSYNCync achieved one number one hit, and the Backstreet Boys and One Direction never got any.

In the past, Americans have appeared hesitant to consume foreign culture, but that hesitancy is clearly receding. The increase of successful foreign media shows a shift away from the decades-old global hierarchy of America producing media for other countries to consume without returning the favour. Shows, music, and TV no longer need to be American exports to be successful - they can be American imports.

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Flat Hat Magazine • Arts + Culture

On Rubicon Shores Story by Ryan Posthumus ‘22 Graphic by Ella Goldschmidt ‘24

The shouts echoed through the hallways of the temple. The guards were quickly overwhelmed, and the sanctity of the inner chambers was vanquished. The emperor chose to say nothing, seeing the capitulation as a profitable sacrifice in his quest to consolidate power across the provinces. From his castle on the hill, far away from the death and destruction and fear, he smiled to himself with perverted joy.

“We love you. You’re special.”

This scenario could have occurred in any number of ancient empires or dystopian thriller films, from the gilded corridors of Rome to the filthy underbelly of Gotham. But the description above is none of those things. Rather, it recounts the insurrection in the United States Capitol building, which occurred on January 6th 2021. There are loathsome elements in every society who seek nothing more than to watch the world burn, reverse the inevitable march forward of civilisation, and return human existence to a more archaic time.

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For the past few months, these terrorists have stood alone. They sit in cold metal cells, abandoned by their ousted stewards, left to rot in the same pools of hate, jealousy, and greed of their original conception. But lest we forget, these forces are not defeated. After all, their leaders, complicit in these same vile acts, still walk those hallowed Congressional hallways, free to roam as they please, their tailored suits their conduit to anything with ease.

So it will continue into the foreseeable future.

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In another world, a masked vigilante raged against this same dying of the light. He fought the devil, the plague, and the paranoia of society. He didn’t fight because he wanted to, but because he needed to, for he understood that even in our darkest moments, a sliver of good remains, and that good needed a voice. This warrior, bearer of many names, provided that oxygen just when the flame was about to go out, and it is to his example that we must now turn for inspiration on how to move forward and put our past behind us, permanently. It is time we look to the Batman.

Hindsight is 2020 The story of this past year can’t be summarised in a single word or phrase. Countless books will be written, detailing every colossal horror and flicker of hope, resplendent with problems too multidimensional to comprehend and despair too great to quantify.

However, guess what? We’re still here. We made it through. But do not for one moment think that because the calendar has flipped to 2021 that the battle is now over. As we move forwards into these next few years, we face a question as old as life itself: will we rise together in the face of adversity or will we fold alone as individuals?

Though the immediate threat of hate and destruction has seemingly disappeared from our national news bulletins, it remains rooted deep in every state, city, and community. Look no further than the shocking violence towards the Asian-American communities from Oakland to New York City over the past year. When will we change? Intuition says that maybe the answer to this question can be gleaned through constant surveillance of the volatile forces and dynamics at play in our societies.

But I posit something different, something… cinematic.

There are many who are willing to lash out in reckless violence, spurred on by the lies and hate of the departed, in defence of their own fraudulent identities. From White supremacists who seek the absolute degradation and subjugation of other races, Antebellum torches aloft in ghoulish processions, to populist demagogues who unite at the clink of metal coin and the silent flick of plastic card, sounds which drown out the screams and sighs rising from the graves on which their palaces stand; their sole reasons for existence are the ruin and exploitation of others.

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However, in these dark times, we have also seen the other side rise, those who champion unity and the pursuance of the truth. From the fearless Black Lives Matter activists in city streets nationwide to the silent advocates working far from the limelight, there are people everywhere working hard to make a positive difference. And still, everywhere you look, more still must be done. We are not unique in this situation. On the contrary, parallels are apparent throughout all of human history and even in the fictional worlds dreamt up by our most imaginative writers. One of these many worlds just so happens to be the home of our Caped Crusader and goes by the name “Gotham.”

The Jewel Thief “No one can save Gotham. When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural. Tomorrow the world will watch in horror as its greatest city tears itself apart, through fear. The movement back to harmony will be unstoppable this time.” Batman Begins (2005) When society is crashing down, when we are forced to our knees with the end in sight, what will we do? Will we sit back and let the world burn? Will we try to find a remedy, a vaccine, an antidote to soothe the pain? Or will we tear it all up and start over?

We face these questions today just as Bruce Wayne did when the wicked League of Shadows brought Gotham City to its knees in the Christopher Nolan movie Batman Begins (2005). The League’s goal was simple: push the city of Gotham into an irreversible downward spiral of self-destruction, leaving nothing more than a pile of rubble from which a new society could blossom.

“Crime. Despair. This is not how man was supposed to live. The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. We sacked Rome; loaded trade ships with plague rats; burned London to the ground. Every time a civilisation reaches the pinnacle of its decadence, we return to restore the balance.”

We do not want to acknowledge it, but there is a very serious point here. Each day, we are 101

reminded that there is an immense disparity of wealth present in every nation, where the rich get richer and the poor you don’t ever have to see. This disparity has only widened over time, accelerating even during the chaos and carnage of this past year.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the world had never been more prosperous.

The global economy was strong, financial markets were stable, and international trade was booming. Rapidly advancing telecommunications technology was making it easier than ever to communicate with friends, families, and coworkers across the globe.

Scientific research and development were yielding groundbreaking medical findings and inventions for the improvement of individual welfare beyond our wildest dreams.

But with all of this glitz and glamour, for every person basking in the sunshine of their wealth, there still remain millions who sit at the opposite end of the spectrum: those who oftentimes lack clean water, a reliable income, a roof over their head, and food to eat.

From the favelas of Rio to the wooded lanes of Knightsbridge, the back-alleys of Mumbai to the gold-plated boulevards of Abu Dhabi, the manyheaded monster of despair rears its ugly head.

And try as we might, in the same fashion as the Herculean Hydra, when one head is successfully severed, two more grow back in its place.

We must remember that while forces of good are resilient, forces of evil, of greed, of lust for power are perpetual and unceasing. The two cannot exist on equal terms. One must triumph over the other. Thus the choice we are faced with today is a critical one. Will we resort to a strategy of demolition and rebirth? Or shall we commit to the revolutionising and improving of our modern world, one day at a time?

Stewards of Tomorrow It is clear that starting from square one would be an exercise in futility. To submit to the forces of evil is to succumb to the wishes and whims of a vicious, perpetual cycle of death and rebirth that will never be satisfied.

Yes, from the ashes, a new phoenix can fly, a new city can rise, but what will be lost in the

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fire? Indeed, there is no guarantee that the progress of past generations will be recoverable.

Following this path, then, is to place full faith in fate. But should we choose to fight back against the machine, should we remove the shackles of greed, lust, power, and hate, perhaps then can we embrace a higher state of consciousness and self-awareness together.

To do this, we need leaders who resolve to give everything, who will put themselves on the line for what is right, and who are ready to bite the bullet when it inevitably comes their way. This requires immense sacrifice and the determination to deny the indulgence of the same self-serving tendencies which have pushed humanity to its highest peaks and its lowest valleys. So, you may be wondering: what does this leader look like? My position is clear: the Batman.

At first glance, Bruce Wayne fits the build of your typical comic book hero, but there is more to him than meets the eye. His combat abilities are second to none, he lives by the strictest of moral codes, and he is prepared for whatever comes his way. This is all not to mention his extreme wealth and pension for the finer things — fast cars, fine dining, and high street galas. It seems that he has and is everything we could ever want and more.

But in truth, beneath the suit, behind the mask, lies a shattered creature, living amongst the tatters of a life beset with tragedy, imbued with the cool reds and blacks of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. From the murder of his parents when he was only a child to the ghastly fate of his lover, torture and trauma have laid siege to the spirit and soul of the heir to Wayne Enterprises, leaving nothing but a seemingly broken man. It is in this dire misfortune, perhaps, that the true reason for why we must turn to the Batman is revealed.

Bruce Wayne wasn’t born with superpowers of extraterrestrial origin. He wasn’t sheltered from the terrors and demons of the night. He has his faults, his weaknesses, and he knows it. This makes him human. Human, like you and me. No better, no worse.

The fact still remains that most of us aren’t young billionaire playboys who have each day and night available to fight crime. Yet this notion of dramatic wealth and good fortune,

contrary to popular belief, forms the exact opposite of what the Batman represents.

Because in the end, it doesn’t matter who the Batman is, where he comes from, or how much money he has sitting in Wall Street hedge funds. The Dark Knight is far more than just a man. He is a transcendent symbol of hope. He is “whatever Gotham needs [him]to be.” It is this which separates him from the rest.

“If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can’t stop you, you become something else entirely – a legend, Mr. Wayne.”

He understood that while a man can be manipulated, torn down, and cast aside, a legend is incorruptible.

The Hero Within Here we stand, on the sidewalks and streets, in the living rooms and kitchens, of our own Gotham. This country is engulfed in a time of reckoning. This world is caught in a raging sea of distress. Each day, forces of evil continue to fester quietly in broad daylight and darkness alike. The Trump presidency is over, but his legacy will continue to haunt us for many years to come. Once again, lest we forget what has happened in the past, we must remember that the struggle is not over, the fight still not won.

The sooner we look to the Batman’s example as guidance, the sooner we can master the same values and skills for which we admire.

Dedication. Resiliency. Patience. To rise to the occasion and meet each obstacle in our path with vigour and gusto. To finally exclaim “enough is enough,” and to move from “I have a dream” to “our dream is now reality.” After all, though the Batman may be a figment of our collective imagination, our own lives are not works of fiction.

So, reader, what will it be? Will you finish this article and walk back into the monotony of daily life? Or will you choose to pursue the noble ideals on which our great nation is built and be incorruptible in this quest? The power lies in each of us, and it is up to us to find it within ourselves, awaken it, and embrace it.

The die is cast.

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Why are we so obsessed with being the main character?

Story by Ellie Kurlander ‘24

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nyone who watches TikTok or *god forbid* Instagram Reels has most likely heard the whimsical, pillowy voiceover of a woman encouraging you to “start romanticizing your life.” She continues, “You have to start thinking of yourself as the main character.” Or maybe you get war flashbacks whenever Lana del Rey’s “Mariners Apartment Complex” starts to play. Both trends sparked an onslaught of videos by young people showcasing carefully curated and aesthetically pleasing snapshots of their lives, all while claiming to be the “main character.” This trend, along with the six billion views found under #maincharacter on TikTok should not be surprising. We all want to live our lives in such a way that others would want to buy a ticket if it were playing in theatres. However, our lives don’t follow a formulaic hero’s journey plot.

So why do we expect it to play out like one?

Main character syndrome can be defined as an inflated individuality complex which culminates in someone believing that they are the protagonist in a sensationalised movie version of their lives. Let’s be honest, we’ve all probably pretended to be the main character when that one specific song comes on while we’re looking pensively out the window in the passenger’s seat of a car. That just goes to show that some moments in life can come off as cinematic, and that’s okay. Main character syndrome becomes an issue when a person starts to view their entire life as one exclusive, continual cinematic experience. Young people today have fallen into the habit of classifying certain people as “giving off main character vibes” while others around them may be viewed as supporting characters. As a “main character,” your secret crush is now the unattainable love interest who falls madly in

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love with you at the end of the movie, and your best friend is the quirky supportive character who always seems to be around just when you need them. If you are not fortunate enough to be given a title by the “main character,” you default to the role of an NPC, a non-playable character.

Adopting the mindset of a main character results in an unconscious objectification of those around you. Individuals are reduced to convenient plot devices who cease to exist outside of your sphere of being. This can result in a main character’s failure to be cognisant of the realities happening outside of their own reality. To approach this phenomenon from a scientific perspective, we can look at Jean Piaget’s theory of object permanence. Understanding object permanence is one of the fundamental concepts taught to infants. For example, playing “peekaboo” tests an infant’s ability to comprehend that objects continue to exist even after they can no longer see or hear them. While this approach may be simplistic, it is key to understanding the psychology of someone with main character syndrome.

In short, this isn’t the “Truman Show,” the characters in your narrative don’t go on lunch break after your scene together. Maintaining this self-centred mindset may be viewed as romantic in the mind of a main character, but, in reality, it produces superficial relationships which ultimately do more harm than good. No one wants to be treated like a prop.

Main character syndrome is not unique to social media users or members of Gen Z, but the renaissance of this mindset has established a unique relationship with these groups. Current college-aged students are

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arguably the first generation to grow up in an era that encourages the perpetual consumption of media. We had our pick of the litter when it came to what movies or TV shows we wanted to watch. Shows like “One Tree Hill,” “Pretty Little Liars,” or literally anything from the CW network warped our expectations of what high school would be like. This laid the foundation for this generation’s budding fascination with being the main character. Now, as older members of Gen Z become adults and attend college, we are bringing what we’ve learned from these forms of media, and applying them to the collegiate sphere.

This can impact our interpretations and expectations of academic life. In the media, college is depicted through various genres that we, as the audience, then latch onto and assign meaning to. For some, expectations of college may be formed by the latest darling-indiecoming-of-age flick. Or maybe you’re expecting to be perpetually fueled by beer, throwing up in some dingy off-campus basement, like in “Animal House.” Maybe it’s been your dream to experience the rush of collegiate a cappella like the Bellas in “Pitch Perfect.” Hopefully, no one’s college expectations are based on horror classics like “Black Christmas,” “Sorority Row,” or “Scream 2.” While certainly entertaining, these narratives can skew our expectations of college life. This is because we have inadvertently been conditioned to romanticise and idealise these narratives and apply them to our own lives.

Main character syndrome within a collegiate environment is also fascinating because of its relationship to imposter syndrome. For most, college is the first step towards becoming a fully actualised, independent person. We are placed into an environment with hoards of other young people who we want to impress.

While exciting, this newfound independence introduces another lovely friend: imposter syndrome. Surrounding yourself with other like-

minded thinkers can introduce a lot of anxiety and self-doubt. Many people begin to feel like frauds, or like they don’t belong. This can result in an attempt to cultivate an entirely new persona. This is when imposter syndrome and main character syndrome become best friends.

As we begin to cultivate a new character for ourselves, what better inspiration is there to look towards than the main characters we idolise in film and media?

This process feels scary, and puts a lot of pressure on people to live a sensationalised version of their lives. What is important to keep in mind is that everyone has a story. Sometimes life’s moments can be cinematic, other times they’re painfully boring, and some parts you just want to fast forward through. Ideally, romanticising your life as if you were thea main character should have a beneficial outcome.

It can allow us to get out of our heads, live in the moment, and cherish the mundane aspects of life we’ll one day look back fondly on.

Conversely, over-romanticising your life as the main character may also draw you out of reality.

In this case, a person might unintentionally take a backseat view, and become a passive observer in their own movie.

The whole idea of being the main character is ironic because technically, we all are the main characters of our lives. However, believing you are the main character in everyone else’s narrative is a slippery slope towards narcissism.

For Gen Zers, this is a hard mindset to unlearn.

The constant influx of media throughout our entire lives, whether it be on television, film, or social media, means that the cards are stacked against us in that regard. By all means, romanticise your life—it can actually be a good thing. But please, for the love of God, stop invalidating other people’s experiences or stories just because they don’t support your personal narrative.

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The Great Millenial Novel Paradox.

Story By Anhthu Cung ‘23 Photos by Matthew Kortan ‘22

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What makes a novel a millennial novel? Is it the generation of the author, the ages of the protagonists, or the age of the targeted demographics? There are many novels that readers and critics strongly agree are millennial, yet they do not classify the novels based on the questions above. Rather than considering the generational demographics of writers, protagonists, and readers, they consider thematic elements that represent overarching millennial sentiments.

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he protagonists in millennial novels are often characterised by a disillusionment with social and political structures but also a desperate desire to still achieve social acceptance and financial stability. In searching for these things, the protagonists find themselves in complex romantic and platonic relationships with nuanced power dynamics. Sometimes, their stories are told in part through digital communications such as texts and emails, but their stories are always told with dark, ironic humour.

The feelings of cynicism, instability, and economic anxiety that permeate these novels are understandable, considering that one of the generation’s earliest memories is 9/11 and that millennials came of age during the Great Recession. A common work classified as a millennial novel, “My Year of Rest and Relaxation”

by Ottessa Moshfegh, takes place in the months leading up to 9/11 and captures the feelings of existential dread of the coming generation as the main character attempts to induce a yearlong coma with her prescription medications.

While there seems to be cohesion among millennial novels, the nature of the genre resists being defined. Millennials are a culturally fragmented generation, and the goal of many millennial novels and their protagonists is to reject labels and the societal structures that govern our lives. Additionally, many novels tend to target a very specific audience rather than a universal one, making overarching labels invalid.

Numerous other “household” titles have been classified as millennial novels, but perhaps the most popular are Sally Rooney’s works. Just after her first two novels, the New York Times declared her “the first great millennial novelist,” making her the gold standard for the genre. Rooney is skeptical of the label, however, likely seeing it contributing to the commodification of her writing in order to sell it to other millennials. In an Irish Times interview, she states, “My books may well fail as artistic endeavors but I don’t want them to fail for failing to speak for a generation for which I never intended to speak in the first place.” Considering Rooney the gold standard, especially when many of her protagonists are white, middle-class characters, misrepresents and limits the diversity in millennial writing that the genre hopes to accomplish in dismantling class, gender, and race structures. However, given the popularity of her work and her multiple novels that have been explicitly considered millennial, she is an accessible writer with a comprehensive framework, providing an apt starting point for exploring millennial themes.

The lack of a template for the millennial novel may be the reason why it’s conducive to highlighting more diverse voices and stories that have previously been neglected. While past generational novels have featured white men becoming disillusioned with the world, millennial novels are more likely to have women — especially queer and BIPOC women — as their writers and protagonists confronting disillusionment. As British author Olivia Sudjic argues, we could be viewing it this way since “male literary writers tend to be credited with writing universal books rather than category specific ones,”; or, women and queer and BIPOC individuals are better able to write about suffering under capitalism. Sudjic points out that many female protagonists in these novels are welleducated but underpaid, anxious, and full of rage.

It’s difficult to explore systemic intersections in characters who have largely only experienced privilege.

Sally Rooney’s first two novels, “Conversations with Friends” and “Normal People,” both explore the previously-described elements of millennial novels. “Conversations with Friends” follows Frances, an aspiring writer in college who identifies as a communist, in an uncertain financial 106

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state with an uncertain career path ahead of her.

She and her best friend become entangled in a relationship with a rich married couple where interesting power dynamics come into play.

“Normal People” follows Marianne, Connell, and their complex romantic relationship from the end of high school into their university years. As Judy Berman from the Times describes it, it’s about two characters who ‘fit together perfectly’ but then add “power dynamics in their relationship on a seesaw for several years and see whether they can make it work.” These power dynamics operate via the social and class structures the two of them find themselves navigating. In these ways, Rooney effectively explores larger political and economic structures in individuals and their relationships.

Why does Rooney choose to explore these themes through college students in both instances, rather than exploring them in characters that are more similar in age to millennial readers? And why are her novels so popular among college students today, who are classified as Gen Z? Examining these questions can shed light on what we consider to be the millennial novel and can help us understand why generational demographics may not be as important as we believe.

For many, college is one of the most formative periods of instability for young adults. Individuals are leaving the physical and financial shelter of their parents and have to support themselves for 107

the first time, and they are placed in a new social environment with undiscovered, unspoken rules.

This vulnerability in early adulthood makes it easy to explore the alienation and financial stability issues that millennials grapple with.

Frances’s uncertain financial state in “Conversations” directly relates to the university and living expenses she is responsible for, as her parents are unable to afford to support her education. Her initial attraction to the married couple stems from her envy of their financial and personal stability which manifests in their large house and their marriage—a future that seems out of reach for her as a lonely, poor, aspiring writer.

While we first see Connell and Marianne in “Normal People” when they are in high school, something interesting occurs when we meet them again in college: their social positions are reversed. Marianne, previously alienated from her peers, transforms into a popular figure with a large group of friends in college; Connell, previously the star football player at his high school, becomes a shy student struggling to fit in. These reversals are intimately tied to class, with Marianne coming from a wealthy family and Connell from a working-class background.

In college, money has a much larger presence in their lives than it did in high school. Marianne’s ability to not concern herself with finances directly contrasts with Connell’s inability to do so, and this stark contrast affects their social standings

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and complicates their romantic relationship. Thus, the college setting and time period provides the perfect stage for millennial themes to play out.

Finally, what makes these millennial novels so popular among Gen Z, and not just millennial readers? It is true that many Gen Zers are college students right now, and perhaps they just resonate with other college students being represented in literature. But is it possible they resonate with the millennial issues as well?

According to the Pew Research Center, Gen Zers are actually more similar to millennials than millennials are to Gen X. Compared to prior generations, millennials are more educated, starting families later, and have increasingly liberal views. Yet, they are overall accumulating less wealth than older generations at the same ages—likely due to the fact that they came of age during the Great Recession, entered a challenging job market, and faced more unemployment than previous generations.

Following millennials, Gen Z was set to come of age with a strong economy and low unemployment, but the COVID-19 pandemic has made the future uncertain for this group, putting them in similar shoes as millennials. Additionally, while the generational gap in political views was significant between millennials and prior generations, Gen Z and millennials have similar views when it comes to social and policy issues.

Like millennials, Gen Z is progressive, progovernment and views growing racial and ethnic diversity as positive. Given these common views, it is no surprise that Gen Zers would resonate with the themes explored in millennial novels.

The fact that millennial novels are able to reach out to another generation and escape being confined to a single range of ages may be more revealing of its nature than attempting to define the genre. Literature allows us to connect with people across diverse times, ages, backgrounds, and cultures through shared human experiences and realities. Millennial literature presents the harsh realities of rigid structures and constructs, but in being critical of their rigidity, the novels must be flexible in their portrayal of characters and readership. In fragmenting the genre, millennial literature connects more people.

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Flat Hat Magazine • Narratives

Drewology

The study of Drew Kittredge Story by Alyssa Slovin ’22 Photos by Zachary Lutzky ’24

Introduction I have a friend, Drew Kittredge. He’s our Product Designer. But before that, in the Fall 2020 Spiralling issue, we needed someone to wear a gorilla suit for a photo. The only problem was that we didn’t know anyone tall enough who was ready, willing, and able to be in the photo. Then, someone referred us to Drew. So, the first time I saw him, he was in a gorilla suit. I call him Gorilla Drew sometimes if I need to clarify who I’m talking about. Ever since then, whenever I see him across campus, there’s always something slightly different about his appearance, almost as if his facial structure has shifted overnight. I thought I was seeing things, so I asked some of our mutual friends. I have yet to meet a person who does not feel the exact same way as me: 109

Drew simply looks different every day.

It’s become a little bit of an inside joke, but we can no longer hide this information from the public. The world must know the fantastical discovery we have made on this brick-laden campus in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The only logical way to put everyone’s vision and memory to the test is to compile photos of Drew and settle this issue once and for all.

I will be reviewing weekly photos as a point of scientific comparison to determine if he truly ever looks different, as hypothesised, or if I am simply a bad friend, as well as everyone else who knows him.

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Materials -

Drew Kittredge (1) Photographer (1) Camera Consistent location to take photos Curious but potentially bad friend (1+)

Proce dure 1. Set up a time, place, and interval to take the photos. We decided weekly was realistic and would result in a manageable amount of data that would not be too overwhelming to analyse while providing enough results to make a valid comparison.

2. Take photos in as similar of a pose and location as possible each week for consistency. Take one photo smiling and one with a straight face, as well as any other important differentiation that you’d like to make, to see if there is any difference in multiple contexts.

3. After the project timeline, compare all photos side by side based on the pose, as well as across poses.

4. Share results with Drew and the entire school.

Results See pictures.

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Analysis

Conclusion

Looking at these photos, you might be confused. Clearly, they’re all of the same person. However, doesn’t it seem like the bones in his face shift each day, just enough to drive us all crazy, but not enough for him to notice this scientific phenomenon?

Sometimes his face appears longer than it does other days. This is especially clear in the photos with a straight face, as opposed to the ones of him smiling. Part of this may be due to the way he styles his hair each day, causing the rest of his face to look different.

Considering the changes to Drew’s facial structures present when he is expressionless, the confusion about Drew’s appearances is valid. This is especially relevant considering that when randomly passing him on campus, he might be wearing a mask, and he also would likely not have a huge grin on his face all of the time — these factors would only emphasise the differences. Drew is a campus icon, and now we have another reason to be amazed by him.

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This study begs the question: do we really know what we look like? Further from that, do we really understand how others perceive us? In a way, it is true that our perception

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of ourselves is unclear. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, everything is flipped.

And when we take pictures of ourselves that don’t flip our image like we’re used to, it can be strange and off-putting. On top of that, when we see ourselves, we are almost always posing in some way, ready for the picture, so we also do not have a great sense of our unguarded, relaxed selves. The same is true for our voice. The way we hear it is different from how we sound to others, so when we hear a recording of ourselves, it makes us uncomfortable. This is because, at this point in our lives, we feel that we have an understanding of our identity and anything that questions that part of ourselves feels like it is challenging us directly.

How does this relate to Drew? After speaking with Drew about this experiment of sorts, he was not aware that he seems to always look slightly different, and yet, so many of his friends and acquaintances are. Either way, though, Drew himself is always genuinely himself. Maybe this means that no matter how other people see us, we’re always ourselves, and we shouldn’t base our identity on others’ opinions.

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CONCERTS IN COLOUR THE SOUND, THE ENERGY, THE JOY

Story by Sabrina El Shanti ’22 Photos by Alyssa Slovin ’22 Photos by Linda Li ’24

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In the middle of Harry Style’s “Love on Tour,” Sabrina El Shanti was going through it. She was, quite literally, screaming, crying, and on the verge of throwing up. Then, she agreed to write this article. Clear your schedules and go to a concert with her.

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t’s July 6 2013, and the evening air is sweatinducing while you are being eaten alive by various species of bugs. You don’t seem to care as the energy around you is electrifying – adrenaline is already coursing through your veins. You sit on the edge of your seat with your mom, wearing the shirt you made for the occasion and are donned in temporary tattoos and stickers. The lights cut out and are quickly replaced by the shrilling screams of over 60,000 people. The opening notes of “Up All Night” play, and you see the members of One Direction take the stage. The rest of the night is a blur made up of screaming, crying, and singing, and you wake up the next morning with no voice.

You can’t wait to do it again.

“You stand in disbelief as your body hums and ears ring, trying to compensate for the deafening bass throughout the show.”

Supporting your favourite artist can manifest itself in many different ways. It can look like losing sleep to stay up until the new album is released or spending more money than you’d care to admit on merchandise. However, going to a concert is one of the most reaffirming experiences a fan can experience. One of my first concerts was One Direction at Hershey Park, and since then, I have been hooked on the euphoric concert moment. The energy is unmatched; you’re surrounded by other people who also adore and respect this artist in one way or another, and you all get to share that moment. Not to mention, you get to see your favourite artist in the flesh. Yes, they are, in fact, real.

All concerts tend to have a similar trajectory that can be represented by a plot diagram. The setup of the concert experience is almost addicting.

The opening act is the exposition; you’re getting a feel for the vibe and getting hype for the show. The rising action occurs when the lights cut out followed by the adrenaline rush from the realisation of what you are about to experience.

The first few songs catch you in a euphoric

state of excitement and bliss. Life is good. The climax of the show is the few songs following the slower songs. Emotions are high; you have to keep up with the change of pace and are reminded of just living in the moment, sans phone. The falling action is when the artist says their goodbyes, and you simply refuse to accept that the concert is almost over. But the show never ends the first time they leave the stage.

The cheering and chanting of countless others who also are not ready to accept the show is over fills the now empty and dark space. The artist takes the stage one more time and sings a few more songs, usually their biggest hits.

They leave the stage, for real this time, and the lights are back on. “Humble” by Kendrick Lamar plays as everyone leaves. You stand in disbelief as your body hums and ears ring, trying to compensate for the deafening bass throughout the show. The resolution of the concert is you processing the experience for the next few days and finding tickets to the next available show. All is right in the world. The phrase “no thoughts, just vibes” is the best way to accurately describe such an experience. You are just living in the moment, singing your head off, and enjoying the company altogether.

“Right before he takes the stage, the lights cut out, and the screams are piercing. The bright flash of colours and instant adrenaline rush are breathtaking.”

While I am a fan of many artists, my most recent concert in this post-quarantine world was Harry Styles. He was in Washington, DC in September for his Love On Tour, where he sang tracks from his sophomore album, Fine Line.

He’s had to push back the tour dates due to the pandemic, so while this tour was initially planned for summer 2020, it was almost surreal being able to attend in 2021. What stood out to me before the show even started was the audience and how they expressed themselves: feather boas, cowboy hats, fruit suits, and heart-shaped sunglasses. The bright and colourful crowd was 114

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mesmerising both in and out of the arena. To me, Harry Styles is often associated with bright colours, comfort, and no judgement. His fans are able to enter the arena in their outfits, planned months prior, that make them feel excited and accepted. Think of a drunk girl hyping you up in the bathroom of bars, except no bars or bathrooms but on a street corner in Washington, DC. The ability for Harry to foster such an inclusive environment is artistic in itself, and the show hadn’t even started yet.

“To emphasise the seriousness of the songs, the colourful lights dancing around the arena were turned off and replaced by cell phone flashlights from the audience.”

Right before he takes the stage, the lights cut out, and the screams are piercing. The bright flash of colours and instant adrenaline rush are breathtaking. The concert plot diagram has begun. “Golden” was the opening song, luring you into a false sense of comfort combined with

the sensation of euphoria and bliss to propel you through the next few songs. “Falling” and “Cherry” were especially exceptional to hear in-person, as the note changes and emotion flowing through Harry were something you can’t get from listening to them on loop as you drive around the Colonial Parkway. To emphasise the seriousness of the songs, the colourful lights dancing around the arena were turned off and replaced by cell phone flashlights from the audience. The slower songs were quickly replaced by the climax of the show. The more upbeat tunes of “Canyon Moon,” “Treat People With Kindness,” and the cult classic “What Makes You Beautiful” echoed throughout the arena. Blues, reds, yellows, and pinks framed the jumbo screen and lit up the arena, while people in the pit started a conga line, and everyone else jumped to the beat.

The energy remained heightened and ethereal throughout the rest of the show, even when he sang “Watermelon Sugar” during the encore to close out the performance. I think I might still be processing.

“The serotonin from attending a concert gives me the strength to push through a tough week and leaves me equipped with many pictures and videos to look back on when I’m feeling down.”

Harry Styles is simply one of the best performers and knows how to work a crowd. The experience was nothing short of a roller coaster, in the best way. The highs and lows of the different songs with different energies, the excitement from the beginning of the show to the reluctant acceptance that it has ended, all these emotions make the concert experience simply unique and unforgettable. While I was fortunate to get to have this experience, it only made me realise how wonderful concerts are in general. Each artist I have seen has expressed themselves in a

different way, leaving me with the same feeling each time. The Jonas Brothers, Ariana Grande, even Journey all have left their mark on me in one way or another, often taking my voice for a few days. Attending a concert is another way to support and see your favourite artist, have an out-of-body experience, and keep those good vibes in the following days. The serotonin from attending a concert gives me the strength to push through a tough week and leaves me equipped with many pictures and videos to look back on when I’m feeling down. This is your sign to buy that concert ticket or piece of merchandise you’ve been eyeing. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

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TURTLES all the way

DOWN (the Grim Dell)

The legend of the mighty Grim Dell snapping turtle

Story by Matt Kortan ‘22 Photos by Zachary Lutzky ‘24 117

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It was late on a groggy spring afternoon. The rain relentlessly shelled me from all directions.

My aeon-long chemistry lecture had nearly killed me, and now I rushed to circumnavigate the Grim Dell on my way to warmth and safety. But the universe had other plans. In the distance, an ominous figure emerged from the fog, obstructing the pathway home. I struggled to comprehend exactly what I was witnessing; a blinding cascade roared over my face. My opponent combined the swift belligerent mobility of a hippopotamus with a stealthy low profile that would make German Panzers cry for mercy. From such a distance I could scarcely discern a razor edged-tail and iron-clad armoured plates. Terror seized me. I prayed the Almighty Zeus might strike me down at that moment. In severe agitation, I tiptoed forward to confront this beast, my waterlogged boots weighing down each agonising step.

My umbrella wrung in my hands like the neck of a Louisville Slugger – I approached. Just when my dilapidated stance could carry me no further, I finally understood the true nature of what I was up against. Looking back, I am frankly ashamed that I was ever afraid. For when I

all of the campus had feared the turtle for its grimacing long teeth and piercing snout. At the time of the turtle’s birth in the Grim Dell, the water became so agitated a crossing ferryboat nearly sank, and lovely maidens walking along the bank scattered in fear. The long-toothed turtle began to grow not by the day but by the hour! Before long, approached, I could see the he routinely crept out of the creature did in fact possess water and feasted upon the local a razor-sharp tail and heavily squirrels – for he could sniff them reinforced armour, but so is the from afar. He would snatch them nature of a mere snapping turtle! with his mighty teeth and they I decided then to let down my were as good as gone. Students guard, loosening my death grip recounted hearing the violent on the umbrella. My friend stood wail of a squirrel as its bones aloof, basking in the torrent of crackled between the turtle’s glorious moisture descending long teeth. What were the poor from the Heavens until I stood squirrels to do? If the turtle were mere meters away. Without my allowed to continue on, they beckoning, the turtle craned would all be gone before the his neck as if to bid me his spring semester. The squirrels salutations. His beak appeared confided in the William and Mary to cast a faint smile. I did not Student Assembly to devise want to disrupt my new friend’s a solution to rid their lands of beauty hour, so I reciprocated his the ravenous snapping turtle. greetings and continued on my Amid the haggling, no remedy way. But ever since that fateful seemed imminent. Suddenly, afternoon, all too many of the one brave squirrel silenced the thoughts passing through my crowd and prepared to speak. It racing mind have become entirely was none other than Jefferson consumed by the mysterious yet Redbush, the son of a duke – docile figure that is the Grim Dell among the highest nobility in the snapping turtle. college woods. He presented his testimony in a booming holler, After slogging my way home and “Dear gentlemen of the College drying off, the thought occurred to me that I might have not been the first nor only student to encounter the strange and magnificent animal. I immediately got on the horn and buzzed a few friends. A few had heard rumours of the infamous snapping turtle, but none of them knew anybody that had lived to recount the experience. According to legend, 118

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One local huntsman, Norge Croaker, was desperate to feed his ailing child. He wandered into the desolate wilderness of Williamsburg one night hoping to stumble upon squirrel scraps left behind at the deserted old campus, however, the turtle had grown hungry himself since the and the wood, I have listened to squirrels had moved away. On this you ponder and rack your wits to same night, the turtle emerged no avail. All of us in the peninsula from the Grim Dell in search of a sparrow carcass that had once have grown weary under the tyranny of this malevolent beast. been served at The Caf. As fate would have it, the turtle could He continues to gobble up squirrels and not Peggy Agouris not see very well in the dark – his hunger guided him right under — in Minecraft of course! There is no life for us any longer in this the muzzle of the desperate huntsman’s rifle. The huntsman swamp! Let us move to a more returned to the village with a secluded part of the wood and turtle stew that was universally build our enterprise anew. The acclaimed, for the flesh of the turtle will cease to terrorise us and we will live happily and beget turtle was very succulent. With the danger passed, the students many children.” The delegation of William and Mary returned to was silent for a moment, then their historic campus never to be rapturous applause broke out. threatened again.

Arrangements were made hastily to relocate the campus Of course, this story is bullshit. of William and Mary to a safe While alligator snapping turtles and hospitable location, like are notoriously opportunistic Newport News, however, while carnivores, it is often easier the new campus was being for them to catch prey under constructed, local huntsmen the water such as fish or the would creep out of their cabins toxic waste-infested muskrats at night and pick off the newly of the Grim Dell. That’s not to ripened squirrel population one by one. They enjoyed a gourmet say this turtle would not eat a squirrel should it get its claws squirrel stew nightly with their sons and mistresses. As many of the squirrels had feared back in Williamsburg, none of their kind survived to see the spring semester. In due time, the huntsmen began to starve. So goes the tale of the ravenous snapping turtle of the Grim Dell, though according to this fable he came to a bad end himself.

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on one, but the squirrels could have just have easily climbed up one of the many available trees on campus rather than picking up everything and leaving town. Furthermore, snapping turtles almost exclusively hunt at night and therefore don’t characteristically have problems seeing in the dark. He wouldn’t have just clumsily stupefied under the huntsman’s gun. What’s more, the huntsman’s soup would not have been beloved by all the townspeople. While turtle soup was once a popular dish among humans, it was ultimately ruled too dangerous to consume due to concern over environmental pollutants embedded in the turtle’s flesh. Besides, the people of Newport News have persisted on a steady diet of Bojangles and Wawa iced mocha for centuries now. Lastly, the alligator snapping turtle is an indigenous species to the eastern United States’ coastal plain. It has cohabitated these lands with the squirrels peacefully for millennia. If this story had taken place in Czechia, Bavaria, or Hungary, where alligator snapping turtles were released illegally and have become an invasive species, I might have been inclined to believe it.

But if the turtle is not a menace to our society, how should we view

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it? It still possesses such dubious powers incongruent with the William and Mary Honour Code, such as the ability to amputate a finger or toe with a simple clench of the jaw. I must point out, however, that this is a twoway street. As much as the turtle can hurt us, we can hurt it. For starters, rumblings have persisted across the administration for years about a potential removal of the famed Grim Dell floating mattress. While alligator snapping turtles are not currently listed as an endangered species, such egregious destruction of habitat would certainly not bode well for the continued sustenance of similar animals looking to relocate to Hampton Roads. Moreover, we must understand that the turtle always remains two steps ahead of us and any attempts made against it, inadvertent or otherwise, should be in vain.

College students are insecure, angsty weirdos by nature.

Conversely, snapping turtles are adapted to be top-of-the-foodchain predators, causing them to physically be less likely to feel fear in confrontational situations. Not to mention that on my walk home in the rain, the turtle probably had eyes on me long before I spotted it – an ambush would have been a piece of cake. With that said, I

don’t believe this friend of ours has any cruel intentions. It had no good reason to let me walk away with my life that fateful afternoon, yet it did. Why? Perhaps instead of an agitator, this mysterious animal serves us as a protector.

A sort of Batman to our Gotham.

You might take the reclusively of the turtle as a sign of hostility at first, as I did, but know that its menacing appearance is only for show. In reality, this animal is quite docile, unless you fuck with it. Thus, we should do all that we can to enter into its good graces and pray that one day we might be deemed worthy. Sometimes I lie awake at night and think of the time I encountered the turtle on the path. I know now that it was not fate that brought us together, but the will of the turtle himself.

Why I do not know. What I can say is that should we ever meet again, I will have abandoned my fear. I shall have accepted him as one of my own. Those of you readers that will be lucky enough to be one of the select few to make his acquaintance, as I was, do not fret. For in that moment, you will be right where you are supposed to be – at home with the beast of the Grim Dell.

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Flat Hat Magazine • Food + Drink

Call Me Old Fashioned 22 n ‘ 25 rta m ‘ Ko aha ew Abr th at net y M Em y b by or St phic a Gr When we ‘sconnies aren’t washing down our beer-battered cheese curds with corn dog flavored milk, we’re probably doing it with this. A soothing sipper to pacify diehard fans of all shapes after a gut-wrenching loss (not that Packer backers deal with much of that) perfect for the football season. With that said, drink too many of these, and your shape and size will be decidedly round and large. Maybe try mixing it up now and again by making the equally delicious sour variety. So, dim the lights, baby, and bust out the charcuterie board for a romantic evening in! Kick on the Bon Iver, and be sure your socks don’t start smouldering in the toasty fireplace because there is no cozier cocktail than the famous Wisconsin Brandy Old Fashioned.

Ingredients: 1 orange slice 1 maraschino cherry 1.5 oz. maraschino cherry juice 1 tsp. Bitter Campari (my preferred bitter) 0.25 cup ice cubes 1.5 oz. Kopke Old Brandy Reserve (my preferred brandy) 2 tsp. water 1 tsp. orange juice 3 oz. lemon-lime soda 1.

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Directions: Mix orange slice, maraschino cherry, maraschino cherry juice, and bitters into a cozy cup.

Use a muddler to lightly mash fruit at the bottom of the cup.

Add ice.

Pour brandy, water, orange juice, and lemon-lime soda.

Tips: • Add a speared cherry and orange slice for the traditional garnish. Cinnamon sticks look nice too.

• If you hate Wisconsin, try it with bourbon or rye.

• 1 serving: 277 calories, 0 fat, 0 cholesterol, 18mg. sodium, 36g. carbohydrate, 17g. sugar, 0 fiber, 0 protein.

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Flat Hat Magazine • Food + Drink

The Key To My Lime Pie In the spring of 2019, I visited Key West with my family for spring break. During my time there, I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to go snorkelling and see lots of local fauna. When we weren’t going out on the ocean, my favourite activity was trying Key West’s famous local delicacy: key lime pie. I probably tried five or six different pies during my time there, and this recipe attempts to emulate the best one that I had. It has an ice creamlike consistency and texture balanced with a good contrast of sweet and sour flavours.

It can be made without the use of an oven, so it would be super easy to make in a dorm.). Great for entertaining, it takes no time to prepare and serves several people. This has been a family favourite since the first time we made it and has become a staple among our neighbours. If you are looking for something sweet but want to do better than a pre-packaged dessert without the hassle of baking, this recipe gets the highest recommendation I can give. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do!

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Flat Hat Magazine • Food + Drink

Savoury Southern Clucks n Cakes

Story by Kennedy Hess ‘22 Graphic by Yelena Fleming ‘25 Eggs Ingredients: • 2 cage-free chicken eggs • Salt and pepper Directions: 1. Add the eggs to a non-stick frying pan 2. Cook on medium heat until the egg whites are cooked, but the egg yolk is still slightly runny 3. Salt and pepper to taste

Tater Cakes Ingredients: • 2 cups mashed potatoes (buttered and salted) • 1 cup all-purpose flour • 1 red onion, diced • 1 egg • ½ tsp. salt • ½ tsp. pepper • ½ cup vegetable oil Directions: 1. Add the vegetable oil to a frying pan 2. Thoroughly mix the rest of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl 3. Pour the batter into the frying pan in a circle (like a pancake) 4. Cook each side on high for three minutes

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Gather ‘round, ladies and gents, and hold onto your horses for the rootinest tootinest breakfast recipe of the South — yee haw!

This is one of my favourite meals to have back at home, especially on a crisp, fall Sunday mornin’. This classic southern breakfast spread includes bangin’ biscuits and gravy, outstandin’ over-medium fried eggs, perfect sausage patties, and terrific tater cakes: the staples of the South. If you have never heard of or eaten these scrumptious dishes, boy, are you in for a treat! After movin’ to Williamsburg, I was disappointed that I could not easily get traditional Southern biscuits and gravy (Cracker Barrel does not count; it is too floury). Then, I found out my Northern friends had never even heard of biscuits and gravy (I’m looking at you New Jersey)! I made it my personal mission to introduce them to the wonders of a Southern breakfast, and I have decided to share these much-cherished recipes with y’all as well. So, if your mouth is waterin’ from just this description, don’t waste time fixin’ the attached recipes.

Sausage Patties Ingredients: • 1 Jimmy Dean sausage roll (pork or turkey) Directions: 1. Cut the sausage roll into patties 2. Fry each side on medium heat until browned and reaches 165°F

Biscuits and Gravy Ingredients: • 1 package of Grand’s buttermilk biscuits • ¼ cup all-purpose flour • 3 tbsp. butter • A 12 oz. can of evaporated milk • 1 lb. breakfast sausage (pork or turkey) • 12 oz. water Directions: 1. Cook the biscuits according to directions on the packaging 2. Cook the sausage in a large skillet over medium-high heat until browned and crumbly 3. Drain any excess grease, leaving 1 tbsp. in the pan 4. If using turkey sausage, add an extra tbsp. of butter (if there is not enough grease), and stir until melted 5. Stir in the flour and cook until the flour is golden brown (very important!)

6. Stir in the milk and water 7. Continue cooking over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the gravy thickens (5-10 minutes)

Flat Hat Magazine • Food + Drink

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Living with a food allergy on campus

Flat Hat Magazine • Food + Drink

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n my nearly 20 years of life with a severe food allergy, I have had my fair share of anxiety surrounding the idea of eating outside of my own kitchen. When I was two years old, I ate half of a cashew and stopped breathing, which sent me to the emergency room. I was diagnosed with an anaphylactic tree nut allergy and was given a bright yellow cylinder of life-saving medicine to carry with me for the rest of my life. Leaving home last year as a freshman and re-centring my life in Williamsburg, Virginia, therefore, was made even more nerve-wracking by the prospect of trusting others to prepare the food I eat. I wish I could tell you that I don’t cross my fingers and arm my friends with Epi-pens before I take the first bite when eating off-campus or in Marketplace (which is not tree nut-free), but, more often than not, I still do.

I started thinking about creating my own guide to allergy eating in Williamsburg earlier this semester when a food allergy advocacy company, Spokin Inc., reached out to me through my Instagram allergy blog (you can follow me @treenutfree_mb, if you feel so inclined) for help with their latest endeavour: a “College Guide” series for allergy-friendly eating on American college campuses, to be featured on their mobile app and website.

The individual campus guides are designed to help high school seniors and incoming college students get a better idea of a day in the life of a student living with food allergies on each college campus so that they can evaluate the safety of any given institution before arriving or even applying. As someone who has been in the shoes of their target audience and is now a sophomore who has now been around the block a few times, I agreed to their proposal and created a brief campus guide to the College of William and Mary. It got me thinking: eating safely in Williamsburg, both on and off-campus, is no easy feat, which is why

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I’d like to share with you my guide to eating with a food allergy as a student at the College.

ON CAMPUS If you’re a student with a food allergy or food intolerance living on campus, abiding by one of the many meal plan options, chances are your diet lacks variety. Two-thirds of the dining halls on campus are completely tree nut and peanut free. These two dining halls, Sadler Centre and The Caf, have Simple Servings stations that are free from cross-contamination with any of the top eight allergens. With this in mind, I stepped onto campus as a freshman thinking that I would simply eat at Simple Servings every day. Problem solved, right? Not quite.

The food at Simple Servings isn’t necessarily simple. Rather, what’s served is usually caked in spices and herbs or marinated with garlic and onions, which, for those of us with additional food intolerances and sensitivities on top of our allergies, narrows options even further. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have had to abandon the security of the Simple Servings station and wait in 10-minutelong lines for plain rice or give up completely, leaving the dining hall with just an apple, a cup of Oatly Oatgurt, and some vegetables from the salad bar.

The snacks that I buy outside of my meal plan and store in my dorm substitute for full meals at least three times every week, without fail. Since removing red meat from my diet, finding protein is a daily struggle. I’ll even admit that I have, on a few occasions, resorted to eating peanut butter (I should clarify that I am not allergic to peanuts) as my protein for more than one meal in a single day and I’m here to tell you that as magnificent as peanut butter may be, it’s not as fantastic the third time around. You can try your luck with Marketplace, but I stick to the salad bar

Flat Hat Magazine • Food + Drink

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Flat Hat Magazine • Insight

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Story by Lucas Harsche ’23

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Flat Hat Magazine • Insight

Lucas Harsche ’23 interviewed Williamsburg City Councilman Caleb Rogers ’20 and Hub Coordinator of the Williamsburg Sunrise Movement Gracie Patten ’22 in an exploration of the effects of climate change at home and ways students can get involved in climate change activism.

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his past August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the Working Group I’s contribution to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, which addresses the current scientific understanding of the climate system and climate change through a combination of paleoclimate studies, climate simulations, and various other observations. The results of the Sixth Assessment Report are quite damning — “Climate change is already affecting nearly every part of the planet, and human activities are unequivocally the cause.” Yes, you read that correctly. Anthropogenic climate change is no longer a future threat that we must work in the present to prevent; rather, it is like a blazing fire which is already scorching up critical areas of our planet, especially those which are most vulnerable. It is clear that to continually deny the human hand in this unprecedented catastrophe is tantamount to claiming that the earth is flat.

Has this all hit close to home yet? Look no further than Williamsburg, Virginia: home to thousands of students attending the College of William and Mary, students from across the United States whose home states have already felt the impacts of climate change. Williamsburg City Councilman Caleb Rogers ’20 hails most recently from Charlottesville, Va but has made Williamsburg his hometown. Charlottesville, according to Rogers, is “moderately temperatured. It’s certainly not as swampy as Williamsburg on a day like this in late October” (at the time of interviewing). Due to Charlottesville’s proximity to the Blue Ridge Mountains, Rogers explained that the mornings are relatively cool but that the summers can be hot.

Other students, like Gracie Patten ’22, come from as far away from Williamsburg as one can get while still being in the US. Patten, who hails from Seattle, Washington states she “only came east when I moved to university.” Despite the popular stereotype, Patten explained it does not constantly rain in Seattle throughout the year. On the contrary, “It’s really nice in the summer,” Patten said. “When it rains, it doesn’t rain like it does here; it rains as if it’s misting, and so the air is wet, but it’s not unpleasant necessarily. Sometimes it’s not great, but most of the time [when] it’s rainy it

doesn’t actually bother people who live there — it only bothers tourists.”

As the effects of anthropogenic climate change have begun to proliferate more generally across the country, both Rogers and Patten have personally witnessed the emerging frequency of change-related environmental issues where they live. “[Climate change] was a thing that was perforating in what people were talking about for as long as I remember,” Patten recalled, “but I think the first time I became aware of it as a problem that would affect me was in 2017 . . . I was visiting family in New York, and I read this article by David WallaceWells. His article eventually expanded into his book, The Uninhabitable Earth, and it was basically about all of the horrible things that are going to happen if we don’t stop climate change.”

Patten remembered the ill-effects of climate change playing a noticeable role in her life in 2019.

“I went to the Renaissance Fair with a friend, and it was so smoky that even in the car with the windows closed, you could smell the smoke,” Patten explained.

Forest fires are not an unprecedented occurrence in Washington State. As Patten notes, “It’s part of the ecosystem. Indigenous people performed controlled burns throughout the West for millennia.

Recently, however, according to the Washington State Department of Ecology, climate change has created more arid conditions, increased droughts, and caused the trees and plants, which fuel wildfires, to be drier, thus more flammable.

As a result, the number of large wildfires in the West doubled from 1984 to 2015. Forest fires themselves are not the issue, given their traditional role in the ecosystem. However, the exponentially increasing rate of forest fires, the result of the changes brought about by anthropogenic climate change, has now become unsustainable.

While Washingtonians worry about fires, Virginians worry about water. Rogers noted that in his home state of Virginia, the issue of rising sea levels is 128

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a major concern and one that is on the minds of some state lawmakers. According to a report from the Georgetown Climate Center, Virginia lawmakers have good reason to be concerned about rising sea levels, especially when it comes to Hampton Roads, home to 1.7 million people and the “second-most vulnerable area in the country to rising seas behind New Orleans”. Additionally, the report concluded that based on current trends, scientists predict that Virginia will experience at least 1.5 feet of sea-level rise during the next 20 to 50 years, a phenomenon which will put coastal communities increasingly at risk. With the presence of a major United States Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia, the threat of sea level rise in Hampton Roads becomes an issue of national security.

Despite the very real threats posed by climate change not only to Virginia and Washington, but to the United States as a whole, climate change denial is still a major problem.

To politicians who continue to propagate denialist claims, especially those who benefit from donations made by fossil fuel companies, Patten has this to say: “Stand with us or step aside. They have nowhere to go, they are on the wrong side of this issue, and they will be on the wrong side of history, so I guess we have to vote them out.”

While Rogers holds a similar sentiment regarding the urgency of the climate crisis — his response to denialist politicians is simply “Why?” — he is also careful to address those Americans who are not necessarily opposed to tackling climate change.

These Americans are wary of the unprecedented changes that mitigating the effects of climate change could bring to their livelihoods, particularly in the case of coal miners.

“I think there are... a lot [of folks] out there that are more just personally and economically worried about what [a shift to clean energy] would mean for them and their livelihoods,” Rogers explained.

Rogers’s advice to activists is “Be aware of the fact that this is an unbelievable amount of change that we have been told needs to happen by 2050 ... Try to find ways to bring anyone into the fold.”

Patten and Rogers also have advice for those who recognise the urgent threat of climate change and who are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices that may accompany actions toward mitigating it.

First, and perhaps most importantly vote and hold accountable those leaders whose actions have the potential to shape the future of our climate. Both Patten and Rogers said that a candidate’s position 129

on climate change is an important consideration for them when voting.

“Climate justice is where my focus lies, and under that umbrella lies things like racial justice, and reproductive justice, and gender justice, and that sort of thing,” Patten explained “So, I try to vote in a way that furthers all of those ends . . . The climate crisis is so intertwined with other crises that we’re facing that it would be hard to be a single-issue climate voter.”

Climate change is also a key issue for Rogers when he votes as a citizen, and as a City Councilman in Williamsburg, he also has an opportunity to sponsor change at a local governmental level. “[When] I started campaigning . . . a major thing on my platform [was] the development of a climate action plan for Williamsburg,” Rogers said. “We have a lot to be proud of there. We’re considered by this group called SolSmart [to be] a very bikeable city, which is something to be excited about . . . We do still have robust recycling collection plans, but I also think that there is an opportunity to go farther than that.”

The next step for Williamsburg to take, according to Rogers, would be an “ audit of our greenhouse gas emissions, from facilities that the city has to some of our major institutions like CW [Colonial Williamsburg], William and Mary, transportation that goes on within the city, WATA [Williamsburg Area Transport Authority]. . . to figure out where are we from an emissions standpoint at the moment? And then how do we try to hit 50 per cent reductions by 2030 and 100 per cent reductions by 2050, which would be in line with the Paris Climate Accords?”

Besides voting, there are also plenty of opportunities for students to get more involved in fighting the climate crisis in their daily lives.

Patten serves as the Hub Coordinator for the Williamsburg Sunrise Movement, a “movement of young people to stop the climate crisis by making the GND [Green New Deal] a priority among elected officials,” according to their Instagram bio. Patten invites students who are interested in climate change activism to attend a Williamsburg Sunrise meeting on Tuesdays in Tucker Hall 221 at 7pm.

Additionally, Rogers is part of an organisation called the Global Youth Climate Network (GYCN),

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Courtesy of Gracie Patten

an organisation for people, who, according to Rogers “want to get involved in climate change and who want to represent the [United States] — or whatever their home country is if they are an international student . . . Part of the programme was listening to policy practitioners talk about the work that they do — people from the International Monetary Fund, or the IPCC . . . and then the other half was three projects challenging you — you being the ambassador — to do for your home country.”

come about collectively, and it has to come now.

“My belief that we will be able to stop this is not an excuse for complacency,” says Patten.

“That belief is intrinsically tied to my continued involvement in the fight. I only believe that we will stop this if we are all actually doing something.”

Courtesy of Caleb Rogers

As one of his challenges as an ambassador for the United States, Rogers decided to bike across the state of Virginia in a one-week, 447mile trip to fundraise and raise awareness about climate change. To do so, he partnered with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a non-profit which aims to protect the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.

Rogers explained that his endeavour was a success, raising $5,755, 115 per cent of his goal.

“It was really a great project,” Rogers reflected.

“I feel lucky to have been able to play the part of being a steward, in some ways, of people getting involved in the Chesapeake Bay . . . It was a really nice way to kind of cap off the summer.”

Both the Sunrise Movement and the GYCN serve as great opportunities for students to get involved in the climate crisis. While the effects of anthropogenic climate change have indeed arrived, it is still within our power to mitigate the worst of its effects and preserve the natural beauty of our planet for generations to come. That power has to 130

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Afghanistan: a complex climate Story by Will Kobos ’24

Will Kobos ’24 interviewed Sara, an Afghan-American student at the College of William and Mary, Rick Olson, a retired diplomat and former US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Rani Mullen, a government professor at the College whose research has focused on South Asian democracy and state-building in an exploration of the events which transpired in Afghanistan this past summer and their effects from personal, political, and academic angles.

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Note from the Editor: Sara’s name has been changed in the interest of her safety and that of her family. efore the upheaval of the past summer, Sara used to talk on the phone with her extended family in Kabul almost every weekend.

“It’s a two-hour-long phone call where the phone gets passed around, and we talk to everyone,” she said as she sat across from me at a picnic table.

But she has not called home as often in the last few months.

“It’s just way more personal now,” she said. “And it’s just really, really, really bad there right now. The economy is failing, people don’t have enough food to eat, and everyone’s unemployed. Anyone who was associated with the government is now in hiding.”

Sara, a student at the College of William and Mary, grew up in Alexandria, VA and is the daughter of two Afghan immigrants. “I would say I’m still very close to my culture and my roots,” she said. “I can still speak the languages, and I’d say I’m still very aware of the culture and traditions.”

Sara last visited her family in Kabul when she was eight years old.

“I was there about a month,” she recalled. “I got to see the city and experience life there, and I got to meet a lot of my extended family members. I remember it’s always been dangerous, but it wasn’t that dangerous. And I remember women did have more freedom than they do now.”

Most Americans were blissfully unaware of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan until the Taliban overran the country in the course of just a few weeks, entering Kabul on August 15th 2021 without firing a shot.

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For a few weeks, the world focused in on the dramatic collapse of the Western-backed government and the rapid evacuation of the United States’ and coalition personnel from the Kabul airport. For Sara and her family, the situation was much more personal.

“I would say that my family didn’t really leave the house for two weeks,” Sara said. “I think a lot of us were just watching the news constantly, trying to get our family out during those two weeks. Everyone was trying to get in touch with anyone they knew here so that they could get out, especially since almost everyone there is affiliated with the United States in one way or another, which puts them in danger automatically. I know people who would go to the airports every single day and wait in the lines and risk their lives every single day just to leave.”

The United States’ evacuation of Afghanistan ended August 30th, with the last plane lifting off just before midnight with the last of the over 120,000 evacuees, a number which includes around 65,000 Afghans. However, a State Department official later told NBC that a majority of the population of evacuation-eligible Afghans are likely still in the country.

Rick Olson, a retired diplomat and former US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said that although the airlift has long since ended, the United States has still taken steps to keep the door open for Afghans who had close ties with the United States and want to leave the country.

“We’ve put more resources into the Special Immigrant Visa programme, which is a programme for Afghans who actually worked for the US government in one capacity or another,” Olson explained. “Another step has been the creation of a new visa category, called P-2, which is broader in its categorisation. And a number of people

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have come in through other programmes, including humanitarian parole.”

going to be enough food to keep people going through the winter.”

Still, Olson explained that leaving the country becomes much harder if Afghans are in hiding or otherwise cannot obtain the proper paperwork.

The country’s issues are compounded by the new Taliban government’s status as a pariah regime. While the Taliban have established political control over Afghanistan, they have largely been frozen out of the global financial system and are unable to access the billions of dollars the previous government had stored overseas, which has led to a widespread cash shortage.

“For people who don’t have any kind of documentation, that’s a real challenge,” Olson noted. “Many people have been traveling overland. There is a refugee crisis of sorts developing, since people are going overland either to Pakistan or to Iran.”

Sara has luckily been able to stay in contact with most of her family members who have stayed in Afghanistan.

“It might be spotty at times, but it’s really simple to contact them,” she said. “But I would say I do have some family in the rural areas where I don’t even know how you would reach them.”

Afghans in the country face an uncertain future.

“Afghanistan is going into winter, and much of Afghanistan is above 5,000 feet,” Olson said. “And so the winters are long, hard, and cold, and there simply is not

“Afghanistan is right now in what economists call a liquidity trap, which means they simply don’t have enough cash,” Olson said. “The currency is called the Afghani, and there are not enough Afghanis around to actually conduct business and import the necessary food.”

The country’s isolation also jeopardises the flow of foreign aid that Afghanistan has depended on since the United States’ invasion.

“The basic situation for Afghanistan is that since the middle of the 19th century, it has been very dependent on foreign assistance of one kind or another,” Olson explained. “This was true during the period of the British Empire, then it continued to be true during the Cold

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War. And the only time that it wasn’t totally dependent on foreign assistance was perhaps during the previous Taliban period of governance.”

With the Taliban takeover, that foreign assistance is likely to dry up, to the detriment of basic services and institutions.

“I think very few external donors, that is to say, Western countries, are going to be actively funding a Taliban government or even the civil servants, the teachers and nurses, and people like that,” Olson said.

Since the Taliban currently seem unlikely to make any serious concessions in terms of moderating their positions or forming an inclusive government, the country’s isolation from international institutions is not likely to end soon, and neither will the hardships for ordinary Afghans that such isolation creates.

“If the Taliban moderates and attempts to create a genuinely new political compact in Afghanistan, I suppose that would be the best possible outcome,” Olson said.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s terribly likely.”

For many Afghans, the position and role of the Taliban is more ambiguous and complicated than most Westerners perceive it to be. While highly unpopular themselves, the democratic government they have displaced was resented in many quarters for its corruption. While exceptional in their brutality, the Taliban have imposed a kind of calm in a country scarred by conflict.

“Even at the point when we had the surge and we had up to 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, these troops largely protected urban areas,” explained Rani Mullen, a Government professor at the College whose research has focused on Afghanistan. “It was the interests of the urban, educated, more Western elite that were represented in the government, in a sense that the government’s writ extended to protecting people. And who were they protecting? They were largely protecting urban Afghans who lived in cities. Rural Afghans, who tended to be more conservative, had less access to the state and all that that meant, from schools to health centers to physical infrastructure.”

“It depends on where people are in the country,” said Sara. “Some areas are really, really calm — they’re safer than they’ve ever been, which is really funny. It just depends on what someone’s background is because if they were never associated with the government, then they’re fine, I would say. I mean, you go on with life like normal.”

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“I think that the Taliban succeeded when they came to power on August 15[th] in establishing a greater degree of stability and security, if you want to characterise it that way, than has been the case in Afghanistan since 2005,” Olson said. “That is to say, they established a monopoly of violence pretty quickly.”

Sara thinks the situation on the ground level differs from how it is commonly perceived in popular discourse in the United States.

“I would say there’s no right answer to the question of whether the Taliban is good or bad,” Sara said. “It’s something that’s really hard to understand if you’re not from there. And when you say that, ‘Oh, you’re supporting terrorists,’ that’s not what it is at all. It’s just that their ideologies and their goals differ in different areas of the country. So in Kabul, I’d say they’re very strict, but in rural areas where I have some family, all they’re doing is keeping people safe, honestly.”

The relationship between the Afghan people and the new regime does not appear to be a simple question of support or opposition. Professor Mullen warned particularly against making too much of the notion of “two Afghanistans” clashing over the country’s identity.

“The Asia foundation has done polls for the last 15 years or so, and they showed that the Taliban, whether in rural areas or urban areas, were not popular,” she said.

Olson agreed that the Taliban are broadly disliked by the Afghan public, saying that the acquiescence of many Afghans to the new regime comes from desperation for order and stability amidst chaos.

“If you look at the annual survey of public opinion — I think it more or less uses standard polling techniques, and the methodology is broadly okay — it’s suggested that the Taliban were very unpopular politically, and that the idea of a democracy and elections in Afghanistan was broadly very popular,” Olson said. “But I think that this is ultimately kind of a Hobbesian question. The Taliban did succeed in bringing an end to a civil war that had been raging in Afghanistan, off and on, and mostly on, since 1978. And so I think that for many people, anything is probably preferable to the ongoing civil war. There’s probably a broad acceptance of them for providing security and a measure of justice, even if they’re not politically popular.”

Sara explained that Americans, and more generally, the West, have trouble understanding this attitude towards the new government due in part to the fundamental differences between Afghan and American culture.

COURTESY IMAGE // GETTY IMAGES “Society there is just not as individualistic as it is here,” Sara said. “It’s a more collectivistic society, so all many people really want is just to have the ability to live their lives, be with their families, and maintain the culture and the religion that they’ve grown up in.”

Mullen says that the push to market the Taliban as “reformed” and to project that image to the West is largely a top-down effort on the part of the wealthy leaders of the group who crave international recognition and who stand to gain the most from it.

Despite this, Sara voiced her strong disapproval of the Taliban and its methods.

“Many of the elite within the Taliban are the ones who were negotiating in Doha, who have their mansions in Dubai, who want their kids to go to Ivy League schools in the US, who have their opium money in bank accounts in the Caucasus,” Mullen explained.

“They’re still a terrorist group, and they harm people in the name of Islam,” she said. “They think they’re acting in a religious way when they’re not, and they’re misrepresenting the religion itself.”

Olson said that while much has been made of the shortcomings of the United States-backed government, many of the positive changes that happened on its watch are now under threat of being wiped away. “By and large, even in the countryside, there has been greater access to health and education, especially for women and girls, across the board,” Olson noted. “I’d say much of that is at risk in the current situation. There’s a real risk of backsliding on all of the progress that has been made over the last 20 years.”

One common talking point over the past few months is whether the modern Taliban will reinstate the kind of draconian rule that they had imposed when they were last in power in the 1990s or if they will moderate and rule in a way more palatable to foreign powers.

However, she says that the central leadership will likely struggle to corral its more ideologically radical fighters and may even end up at odds with them.

“Very rich Taliban elites . . . live a very different life from the common soldier, and those differences are going to be more visual now that they are going to be in government. So the Taliban might have said that women will be safe in the country, but then you have these incidents of women being beaten up and even shot by the footsoldiers.”

Sara agreed that the Taliban’s changes are cosmetic rather than genuine.

“I don’t think that they’re actually any different — I think they’re the same people but they’ve become smarter at how to go about things in a way in which they might be

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given international recognition as a form of government, because that’s all they want at the end of the day, to have money and power. If you talk to people who lived through the Taliban, they would say that what they’re doing right now is the same exact thing that they did 20 years ago,” she said. “They gave everyone hope that they would still be able to exercise their rights and be able to go to school. But in the end, they just fooled everyone.”

Mullen agreed with the historical parallels to the Taliban’s last takeover.

“This is kind of like a film of the 1990s on extreme fast forward,” she said, “because it happened in a matter of months rather than years.”

Mullen has been involved with NGOs trying to help vulnerable Afghans get out of the country and has been exposed to firsthand accounts of the brutality of the new regime.

“I still get emails and heartbreaking stories where women are being persecuted by the Taliban just for having been elected to office or having worked on divorce cases.”

Mullen shared her experience of scrambling with her colleagues at different NGOs to find a way to help a young Afghan woman in Kandahar whose house had been surrounded by Taliban threatening to come after her two brothers who had worked with government

security forces. The woman was streaming on Facebook Live asking for help.

“By that evening, the Taliban went into their house, beat up both the brothers, took out the older brother, and shot him. He was 21, I think.”

She said that such acts of violence are widespread in the new Afghanistan.

“These kinds of stories are happening in the thousands across Afghanistan, and so you can see why many of the women I’m in touch with are in hiding, because they were already threatened by the Taliban before for the kind of work they did. And they worry for their lives.”

Sara said that since August’s storm of headlines, the fate of the country has dropped off of most people’s radars.

“I think people here are just generally very unaware of things that are happening abroad,” she said.

Mullen also commented on this. “What leads it to come back up to the front is if there’s a suicide bombing or if there is a larger protest or something going on, but the sort of everyday hardship under a Taliban regime is no longer front page news,” she explained. Sara said the jarring disconnect between the realities faced by her family in Afghanistan and the calm and isolation of Williamsburg made returning to campus in September frustrating.

COURTESY IMAGE // GETTY IMAGES

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“I’d say it was really hard the first couple of weeks here, because I didn’t even know if I was ready to come back,” she said. “It’s really hard to see everyone just moving on.

It was such a main story in the news, and now no one talks about it. It’s just so hard because there are people who have been impacted so directly by this, and I think we’re just so desensitised to everything going on in the news. These are actual people — it was my family that was involved. It was really hard to come back and see everyone just going about their day like usual. And it really hit me all of a sudden the amount of privilege I have, and the amount of privilege I’ve been given in my life just to be able to grow up here and go to a school like William and Mary, which attracts people from generations and generations of privilege.”

Mullen said that many Americans’ forgetfulness of the crisis that has unfolded in Afghanistan stems in part from a guilty conscience over the ultimate failure of the nationbuilding project.

“I think a lot of us feel quite bad about the way things ended up, and we don’t want to be confronted with the disaster we left behind over there, where we essentially left Afghanistan to the Taliban.”

For her part, Sara says that she’s allowed herself to be swept up in the avalanche of trivialities that is the life of a busy college student.

“I haven’t talked to my family in a while,” she explained.

“I feel like being at William and Mary really detaches me from the reality of everything. I feel like we live in such a bubble here — no one is really interested or aware of anything going on outside of William and Mary just because we’re all so busy with schoolwork and everything. You just get caught up in the motion; there’s so much to do here. You kind of forget about everything else going on. At least that’s what happens for me.”

Sara says she does not know what the future holds for Afghanistan.

“The whole thing’s so complicated, I’d say, that no one really understands it. I’d say even Afghans don’t understand it.”

Still, she thinks the country will calm down enough to make it safe to visit her family soon.

“I don’t know when that might be, but hopefully even in a year or so, I think it’s possible. Under Taliban control it’s really dangerous, but if you go about it the right way, you can get out of there.

“It’s really easy to be American there right now,” Sara said with a laugh. “I mean, if you’re a white person there right now, it’s really funny — the Taliban just lets you go past checkpoints. Just say that you’re a journalist.”

Still, she says that ordinary Afghans face a bleak future.

“History is just repeating itself over and over and over again, and it’s just a matter of time until there’s serious terrorist activity there and the US decides to intervene one way or another or send more drone strikes. There are grandparents right now who didn’t get to send their daughters to school who are watching their granddaughters go through the same exact thing right now. It’s just generational pain; it’s a never-ending cycle.

It’s so sad — people have just gotten so used to pain and sadness there.”

At the end of my conversation with Sara, I asked her what she wished other students could understand about what Afghans have experienced. She paused for a while.

“Probably just the fact that the Afghans have gone through generations of pain, and all that they really want right now is a chance to live,” she said. “Aside from freedoms, the right to live is more important than anything else right now.”

As I was putting away my things, Sara said she was curious why I was writing a story about Afghanistan now, simply because it had faded so completely from everyday conversation.

“Right now, it’s almost like everyone’s forgotten,” she said.

It was not the response I gave her at the time, but since then I have realised that perhaps the most important statement a piece like this can make is that everyone has a story. Sara is a student at the College, and like everyone else we pass on the sidewalk without a second thought, she carries around her own hopes and anxieties that are invisible to passersby. Sara generously shared part of her unique story with us, but most of the time, we will never know the things, good and bad, that people carry with them. When Sara and I finished talking and went our separate ways, it was just before 3pm on a cool, sunny October Williamsburg afternoon, and campus was covered in newly fallen leaves. Afghan time is eight and a half hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time, so at that exact moment, it was approaching midnight in Kabul.

To view sources, visit flathatmagazine.com.

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Tribe on the Hill

Exploring the College Network in Congress

Story by Daniel Posthumus ’24

When I arrived on the Hill this past summer for an internship, I was nervous. After living in Japan for the past eight years, I was not exactly teeming with professional connections. Most of all, I dreaded the boogeyman of every young, burgeoning professional: networking. With this on my mind, I thought it would be interesting to explore the College of William and Mary’s professional network on the Hill — how students and alumni got to the Hill and their advice to those interested in politics.

I interviewed three current students who served as Congressional interns this past summer (Astrid Garcia ’23, Julia Grabo ’22, and Grace Rust ’22), as well as four alumni serving as Congressional staffers (Carlyn LeGrant ’18, Jacob Nelson ’18, Isaac Sarver ’12, and Zachary Woodward ’14). Some interviews were conducted over Zoom, while others took place in person — all were fruitful, fascinating, and full of advice for students. The opinions expressed by the interviewees are expressed in their personal capacity and in no way reflect the opinions or attitudes of the offices they work in.

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he College boasts a tremendously wide network of alumni in government-related fields. For a liberal arts college with only 6,200 undergraduate students, the College has a stunning number of alumni working in the State Department, K Street lobbying and consultancy 137

firms, Dupont Circle think tanks, public affairs organizations, and the federal government — and the number of alumni in Congress is no exception.

When it comes to networking, there is no manual or formula for success. So much of it is haphazard,

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on-the-fly, and utterly without precedent for college students. The network provided by the College does help alleviate some of the pressure to constantly network during an internship — the communal spirit of the Tribe transcends Williamsburg, reverberating in the nation’s capital.

It is easy to be cynical about American politics, but it’s a safe assumption that there has to be a bright fire fueling the passion of those willing to throw themselves into that mess of absurd hours, low pay, constant stress, and the burden of protecting American democracy. All seven interviewees had different reasons for entering politics and working for Congress. After living in North Africa and Europe, Grace Rust ’22 (Intern in Senator Mark Warner’s office) decided to explore Congress; her time in Congress, despite the challenges posed by having to work virtually, has helped open her eyes to a possible post-graduation plan of continuing her work on the Hill. Astrid Garcia ’23 (Intern in Representative Don Beyer’s office) grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, as she explained, “in the shadows of the monuments.” Born in a tent in an El Salvador parking lot, Garcia was inspired in part by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to pursue an internship. In addition to being motivated by her passion for climate activism, immigration, and foreign affairs, she hopes that she is helping, alongside Ocasio-Cortez and others, to pave the way for more Latina women to work in Congress. Julia Grabo ’22 was inspired by her work on Colin Allred’s 2020 battleground campaign in Dallas, Texas to be a “part of something bigger,” and that serving in his office was an extension of that work — specifically, she hoped to reconnect with and work again for Representative Allred’s Chief of Staff, a role model whom she met on the campaign trail.

Those relationships, not just résumés and cover letters, are vital.

As for the alumni who have chosen to make careers in Congress, Carlyn LeGrant ’18 (Director of Legislative Operations, Committee on Natural Resources at United States House of Representatives), sees her work on the Hill as an extension of the environmental activism that was central to her college experience, not only as a Government and Environmental Studies double major but also in terms of her internship with the non-profit Environment America and her involvement in Take Back the

Tap, an organisation aimed at ending plastic use on campus. Isaac Sarver ‘12 (Roanoke District Office Director), while not working directly on the Hill, serves in one of Senator Warner’s district offices. His course towards public service was rooted in his parents’ experiences, both of whom worked in the public sector and helped show him the impact of politics and public service — he described that he knew from an early age that “if [he] wanted to make a positive impact, the way to do that is through political service.”

The interviewees seem to love their jobs. One of Garcia’s main takeaways from her internship was that she could make a difference, and she greatly appreciated the opportunities to write and make connections which her internship afforded her. For Rust, someone who would rather be “behind the scenes” working on policy, loved the flexibility of the internship, and how she was able to explore different areas of policy and meet with the office’s different legislative teams in “brown bag” lunch sessions. Despite Grabo’s frustration at the inertia of Congress (it “just doesn’t move fast”), she has enjoyed working with the people in her Congressional office and looks forward to hopefully using her Masters in Public Policy to work on a committee on healthcare policy. LeGrant described her time in Congress as a “fun trial by fire,” and as someone who loves watching C-SPAN, has relished the opportunities “to sit in on important meetings” and witness top-level legislative strategy.

Sarver’s favourite part of his job is “being a part of the story of the community” he works in — reaching small communities which may often be overlooked and doing what he can to help. He noted that the chance to attend the occasional Bruce Springsteen political rally is an additional perk. Zachary Woodward ’14 (Research Director and Writer in Senator Tim Kaine’s office) sees his job as crucial in ensuring that the Senator’s office is precise with their facts, and he loves the adrenaline rush of, for example, writing a quick statement on a big issue (which he likens to “running a crash cart”). Jacob Nelson ’18 (Professional Staff Member, United States House of Representatives) enjoys the “energy and pace of politics,” especially when the rare opportunity to accomplish something both big and meaningful presents itself.

Getting onto the Hill without an inside connection can be notoriously difficult — the right type of preparation and experience is necessary to get 138

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that foot in the door. For Garcia, her roots in her hometown, Alexandria (the centre of Representative Beyer’s district), in addition to an internship with the League of United Latin American Citizens, helped prepare her for working in Representative Beyer’s Congressional office. Rust had a very unique pathway — after attending part of high school in Morocco and initially attending a French university before transferring to the College, she spur-ofthe-moment applied for (and got) an internship in Senator Warner’s office. Grabo, on the other hand, followed the more conventional path of moving from the campaign to the office.

As for the alumni, for Woodward, working in Congress was the culmination of a years-long buildup of political experience. After serving as Virginia21’s Vice President, interning with a Massachusetts state senator both in the office and on her team during her Congressional bid, and interning on Elizabeth Warren’s Senate campaign, he was more than ready to make the jump to Congress. For Nelson, internships in state politics (one with the Democratic Party of Virginia and one with the Virginia General Assembly), as well as the network provided by the College’s Washington Center (a “mythical listserv the centre ran with alums,” which is now discontinued…), helped land him an internship at the consulting firm Alpine Group, which he parlayed into a position with House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries’ office. After years of working on statewide campaigns and as Governor Ralph Northam’s Outreach Advisor, Sarver’s work in Senator Warner’s Roanoke office can be seen as a culmination of over a decade of experience in Virginia state politics.

To get onto the Hill is one thing — staying there is something else entirely. 18.5 per cent of Congressional employees within a given year leave their jobs, and while this is not higher than most private sectors, one might assume turnover rates would be lower in Congress given the prestige and importance of their work. As for alumni who have moved on from the Hill, Woodward now is in law school after seven and a half years working in Senator Kaine’s office — he described the progression from undergrad to working on the Hill to now being in law school as a “natural” course. Nelson similarly is planning to transition to law school after two and a half years on the Hill, although his attachment to the work keeps getting in the way of those plans.

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It does not seem to be a coincidence that the College is so disproportionately represented among Congressional staffers — so the question to be asked is what role has the College itself played in facilitating these careers? The College boasts a robust scene of political and advocacy organisations that have played a key role in propelling many students and alumni. Sarver, for one, got his start in his high school chapter of Young Democrats, and his participation in the organisation extended throughout his years at the College. So close was he to his fellow Young Democrats during his college years that he remarked, “These people are my world” — all three groomsmen at his wedding were former Young Democrats. Woodward was similarly involved in Young Democrats as well as the Student Assembly, both of which built important, durable connections, and he advised to not “sleep on the friends you make in college.”

For LeGrant, on-campus organisations like The Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) and Take Back the Tap served as a springboard for her entry into Congress. Some alumni discovered their passion for politics through academics. For example, Nelson’s work in The Social Networks and Political Psychology Lab (SNaPP) with Professor Settle inspired him to work in government. LeGrant was fascinated by her intersectional government classes dealing with inequality. Sarver was pushed and inspired by the College’s government department, particularly Professor Evans.

A recurring theme was that the College was most helpful in the alumni network it offered rather than anything the school itself did. Garcia explained that the College did not help her much with the internship process, and it was mostly the network, which was operating “behind the scenes,” that helped her. Neither Grabo nor Rust found out about their internships through the College’s career services.

Similarly, Woodward heard about and applied for his initial position on a whim at the suggestion of a friend he bumped into at Sadler after defending his Honor’s Thesis. Some alumni, on the other hand, did benefit from the College’s career services — the Sherman and Gloria H. Cohen Career Center helped LeGrant with general interviewing strategies, and the Washington Center helped Nelson secure an internship with The Alpine Group, although the program that helped Jacob (the aforementioned “mythical listserv”) is now no longer up and running.

The general feeling among students and alumni alike is that the College could do more to leverage the

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tremendous number of alumni working in Congress.

There is a great opportunity for the Washington Center to serve as a conduit between students and alumni working in Congress to hopefully open up opportunities to more students, especially as internship opportunities in Congress become more accessible with both higher pay and better benefits. The College’s alumni network in Congress is staggering — LeGrant said that the first two committee staffers she met were both from [the College] — and this is a committee with only 50 staff.

Garcia, despite mostly working online which makes networking more difficult, had already met three alumni of the College in her office. Similarly, Rust, despite working entirely online, had a list of alumni she had come across. But this network does not help students if there is no connection — hopefully, successive generations of bright and enthusiastic students, eager to get involved in politics and policy, will have greater access to those connections fostered by the College.

What do alumni say to students excited to get into politics and hoping to work in Congress? LeGrant described the most important skills for prospective Congressional interns as the ability to do good, exhaustive research, think on one’s feet, and communicate information clearly and efficiently.

As for networking, she advised that “everybody you meet isn’t going to be super helpful — you just need a few,” emphasizing the importance of fostering valuable connections. Sarver’s piece

of advice was to “not burn bridges” — it’s an “immensely small world we live in,” and the people you interact with will remember you. Woodward had no press experience before working in Senator Kaine’s press shop, but it did not matter because he “could write well and was responsible,” and broad skills like those are often more important than specific skills or extensive experience. Nelson understands the difficulties in networking but noted that on the Hill, everyone depends on one another to move up or move on, so there is no reason to be afraid to cold email or cold contact people. He also emphasised how important it is to “network responsibly.”

The Hill is a wondrous place — one of high stakes and equally high stress. The jobs are demanding, exhausting, and often thankless. But for many, it is worth it, knowing that the work they are doing matters. The Hill is also a daunting place, filled with powerful people: the elected and unelected.

It is a life filled with pressure to always meet new people who could one day open up doors later on — a day without a connection is a day lost. Life on the Hill is a life that many students and alumni of the College have experienced firsthand, and if the College fully takes advantage of the network in place, it is possible that even more students can find their way from the halls of the College to those of Congress.

Images provided by Daniel Posthumus and Astrid Garcia.

f l a t h a t m a g a z i n e . c o m

CONTRIBUTORS EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Gavin Aquin Hernández ‘22 Alyssa Slovin ‘22 CREATIVE DIRECTION Matthew Kortan ‘22 Ellie Kurlander ‘24 DIGITAL DIRECTION Rebecca Klinger ‘22 MANAGING EDITOR Judith Renée Herman ‘24 DEPUTY EDITOR Linda Li ‘24 EDITOR-AT-LARGE Mary Trimble ‘23 BUSINESS MANAGER Bushra Bablu ‘24 COPY DIRECTION Sabrina El Shanti ‘22 Kennedy Hess ‘22 Nina Raneses ‘22 SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Mary Beth Bauermann ‘24 MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Zachary Lutzky ‘24 Justin Sherlock ‘23 SPANISH EDITOR Andrés Bencomo-Magaña ‘22 STYLE EDITOR Drew Shao ‘25 PRODUCT MANAGER Drew Kittredge ‘24

WRITERS Collin Absher ‘24 Anhthu Cung ‘23 Elaine Godwin ‘23 Lucas Harsche ‘23 Will Kobos ‘24 Daniel Posthumus ‘24 Ryan Posthumus ‘22 Erin Rollins ‘23 Lilly Tanenbaum ‘25 Georgia Thoms ‘23 PAGE DESIGN Marion Biondi ‘24

COPY EDITORS Rebecca Altman ‘25 Andrew Johnston ‘25 AUDIO/VIDEO Allyson Lowe ‘24 Leena Walsh ‘25 GRAPHIC DESIGN Emnet Abraham ‘25 Yelena Fleming ‘25 Ella Goldschmidt ‘24 Chris Schneider ‘23 Sydney Kehoe ‘22 COVER PHOTOS Zachary Lutzky ‘24

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