Who needs a fridge?

BY OFF CENTER

A local student announced that after last week’s weather, he was selling his Philco C-887 refrigerator and freezer and just keeping any perishable food out on the counter due to the temperature in his apartment.

Wind chills as low as -108° F were recorded last week in Mount Washington, NH, but on the third foor of a Garden St. building, temperatures were low enough to keep the bag of frozen vegetables frozen. After wearing his coat around the apartment, the local student opened his fridge and realized it was the same temperature as the rest of his apartment. After some time looking with intriguing installations showcasing everything from Edward Hopper’s realistic depictions of human existence and life in New York City to exhibits featuring the impacts of a hurricane in Puerto Rico. There’s no better way to spend a Friday evening.

I want to get more into the habit of taking notes while walking around museums. Any type of museum ofers an insane amount of knowledge, which is often difcult to digest all at once. However, I was so completely enamored by the art that I totally forgot about this mission. At the end of the night, I opened my Notes app, seeing the only thing I wrote down was this: “How little it takes to upset the eye.”

This phrase stuck in the back of my head for a while; it’s so beautifully elegant and short, and yet holds so much meaning. “How little it takes to upset the eye.” What a wonderful thing to upset, especially when compared to the other options: (1) upsetting the stomach seems somewhat uncomfortable and painful, (2) upsetting the tongue appears regretful and distasteful (pun intended), and (3) upsetting the heart sounds sorrowful and even vexing. But upsetting the eye almost sounds like an exciting challenge or feat, especially from an artistic standpoint. And “how little it takes” shows the power artists have to change our perceptions to yield an intended emotion, which is just a long-winded way of saying artists are masters of artistic manipulation. Upon further research, Edna Andrade is who I’ve quoted in this editorial, specifcally referring to

Senioritis

her piece Cool Wave, 1974 , which is pictured. While I hardly consider myself an artist of any form, I do believe that there’s an art to creating a newspaper. Specifcally, the design of the newspaper requires precision and an “artistic eye” by the staf members who put together the layout of the paper. So yes, you may consider the folks at The Stute, who create the layout of the paper to be master emotional manipulators. After all, we choose which articles are displayed on the front page, what kinds of artistic elements to add to features, and specifc photos to accompany articles. And while the news we produce is ultimately unbiased, the directional components of the paper are a display combining our personal editorial and artistic decisions.

Self-justifying hard work with breaks

are so many social expectations or standards that try to determine what an “attractive” personality is. That also makes it difcult to open up when you just meet a person. While strong personalities are nice, too much of a strong personality is overbearing. A quiet person is seen as “cool” and “reserved,” but if you are too quiet then you are seen as “mean” or deemed as an “NPC” So when you are in a place and position where people’s opinions can seem to matter the most (like a frst year at college), it isn’t easy to just be yourself. Over time, those layers can seem to shed and you tend to fnd yourself, but what are you supposed to do until then?

A lot of people go on a journey to search for their true selves, and I think college can help with that at times. Soon enough we realize that the opinions of other people don’t matter as much as we think they do. It’s okay to not show everyone who you really are the frst time you meet them, and being alone can be the best way to fnd out who you really are. The more time you spend with yourself, the more you will get to know your lifelong partner (which is you).

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk :).

BY CHARLES BEALL ‘22

This weekend, I ended up doing very little substantive work on class assignments or other tasks I had on my to-do list. Part of this was by circumstance, as my to-do list right now isn’t the longest it’s been for some time – although, don’t get me wrong, there’s still lots to do that I could’ve gotten a head start on. But I think the main part of it was by choice: I wanted to reward myself.

Earlier in the week, I submitted an interim report for my senior research—a major endeavor—fnished applying for some additional summer research programs I was interested in (for those who liked the app sampler articles, don’t worry, another one is hopefully on its way in the next few months). I’m awaiting feedback on my report and will see if I hear back from the research programs, but in any case, I was proud of my work and felt it fair to give myself some small rewards during the weekend.

These consisted of traveling to my aunt and uncle’s for a fun Saturday night dinner, playing dungeons and dragons with some of my friends from high school, trying my hand at the full New York Times Sunday crossword (I got about 10% of the clues – it’s a hard puzzle!), trying some mufns another friend home-made, and taking a walk around Hoboken with my girlfriend before SGA meetings Sunday evening. I give many thanks to those people referenced above (especially Will Shortz) for providing me with a great weekend of breaks and rewards.

I always get a little concerned when taking breaks. I love to be active, and sometimes feel guilty when I take a weekend of – I tell myself, “you could be getting so much more done right now!” This has been reinforced in some ways by the intense pace of work I witness in my own life and the lives of many around me balancing the many responsibilities they have at college and/or work with time to get at least some rest and sustenance. up how much energy a refrigerator uses and learning that it’s one of the most energy-intensive devices in a typical apartment, it didn’t take long to empty the fridge (mainly because there wasn’t much in it) and unplug it. Of the Press frst got this tip when we were on eBay looking for a new fridge for our ofce and came across his posting. We weren’t about to tell him how it’s going to be too warm again in like two weeks.

But at the end of my break/reward periods, I feel as restored and invigorated as ever to tackle the things I let stay on my to-do list the past few days. Spending some time away from the work I do so often always reminds me of my deep love and enthusiasm for that work. Moreover, that time to rest gives me a new reserve of energy and a fresh perspective on the tasks at hand, which results in a huge boost of productivity and creativity.

So, if you are in need of a break, or a reward for the hard work you’re putting in, don’t hesitate! This month has some great opportunities to take some more time of on the weekend: it seems like everyone watches the Super Bowl, so there’s an excuse to chill this Sunday night whether you’re a football fan or not, and we have of on Presidents’ Day two Mondays from now. It’s even fair to take a small break from work on a day when you may not have as many commitments—rewarding yourself every once in a while is a justifable and sustainable practice. So enjoy the time of, and take advantage of the new energy and motivation you gain from it.

The frst step was to go to his apartment. We were immediately impressed with the fridge which was a nice old magnetic model and looked super retro. Our editor took some time to get his body inside the fridge. Due to it being unplugged already and the temperature being the same inside as out, it wasn’t as exciting when it got dark because the light wasn’t on in the frst place. We also learned that it is really hard to open a fridge from the inside, because why would you ever be opening a fridge from the inside?

We gave him $10 on the spot with a plan to work out a fancy fnancing agreement that involved APR and credit scores and CVV numbers to pay him the rest of the value later. The real trouble was getting it down the stairs. One of our writers wanted to try riding it down the stairs like a sled, but there were some corners that would have blocked it. The same idea was rejected 10 minutes later when he ofered to get in it and go down the stairs like a stuntman going over a waterfall in a barrel. Except of course in this case the barrel is an old fridge from the 60s.

We then decided to go with the barrel idea because there ended up being no other options. At each turn in the stairs, we went up to the fridge and twisted and rolled and cajoled it into turning a bit to get around the corners so it would keep sliding down. Our writer who volunteered to go in told us that he did maintain the Superman fying punching fst pose the whole time, but there wasn’t much space so they looked more like a baby about to punch a spoonful of mashed sweet potatoes.

Of course, it was dark inside the fridge so no one could see for sure.

After we got the rectangular prism of thermoregulation out of the apartment, a long walk to our ofces began. It was unfortunately very windy on the day, and the 12 square feet of one face of the fridge acted like a massive sail that kept pushing us around. We fnally got it into our offce building and had to do a much more challenging barrel waterfall exercise because this time we were going up the waterfall. Six hours and 170 unnecessary extra pounds to carry later, we got it into the corner of our ofce where we found there was no outlet to plug it into, so now it’s a fling cabinet.