Columns

Is This Thing On? Music on the brain

With the advent of the internet, we are living a huge portion of our lives online. As a result, our personal information is being tracked and recorded everywhere, all the time. If you subscribe to a music streaming service, this is especially true. Now, you might choose not to publish what you’re playing to your friends (private session for those guilty pleasures), but you are always providing this information to the streaming platform. That’s a crazy amount of data! It’s not only what you listen to, but how you listen to it. Do you find a new song and listen to it on repeat for three hours? Which songs do you skip over on shuffle, and which will you stop and rewind? Are you more likely to leave your playlist untouched, or do you obsessively curate the queue? 

Bored & Confused: Am I an elitist?

At Tufts, students seem to despise the wealthy classes, striking down anything that represents power, aristocracy or elitism. Tufts students think of themselves as above the elitist nature one would find at, say, Harvard. We’re down to earth. We don’t sell out to Wall Street. We’re quirky. However, ...

The Equalizer: What we can learn from Belgium

In September of 2006, Michel Sablon, Belgian soccer’s newly appointed technical director, was putting the finishing touches on his blueprint for Belgium soccer’s revolution. Only eight years later, at the 2014 World Cup, Belgium was positioned as the fifth-best team going into the tournament, according ...

Failing Big: No relevant experience required

Tufts Dance Collective (TDC) applications are terrifying in a way that other, more normal applications are not. Getting rejected from groups with skill-based application processes hurts because it’s them telling me that I don’t have what it takes; getting rejected from TDC says that they just don’t like me as a person.

Thoughts From Places: Distler Hall

Last Wednesday, for the first time since arriving at Tufts, I made my way over to Distler Hall to see an actual performance and not an orientation program. Despite my overall lack of understanding of the Spanish language, I was talked into going to Argentinean multi-instrumentalist and singer Clara ...

The Weekly Chirp: To go or not to go

With the onset of fall arrives an unavoidable question: what am I going to do during winter break? The extended time at home can be daunting for some, especially for those of us living in New England, who are especially restricted in our ability to leave the house due to terrible weather. A trip down ...

Looking Out: The discontents of universal basic income

Over the past few years, as the facts of the automation revolution dawns on many involved in creating it, there has been increased talk of a universal basic income (UBI) coming out of Silicon Valley. This new discourse on UBI has been a favorite topic of many tech billionaires from Elon Musk to Mark ...

Bird's Eye View: Our values have changed, have sports?

Athletics have transformed since their inception. In Greece, the first Olympic Games was held in 760 B.C. and consisted of a simple footrace. Later the traditional field events of discus, javelin and jumping were added along with an early predecessor of wrestling called pankration. Among the Greek city-states, ...

Postgame Press: A cute new tradition and social media

With all of the serious topics I have written about in the past few weeks, I think it is finally time to write about one of the biggest, cutest, nicest smile-bringers in sports: waving to the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital.Every game at the end of the first quarter, the University of Iowa ...

In defense of the butterfly effect: Old world, new eyes

It’s amazing to think of the information that is available to us at a moment’s notice.This sentence is uttered often, usually calling forth some proof resting on the rapid pace of technological expansion during our lives. The new human magic trick of rapid data is fascinating; we can play games ...

Murphy's Law: Make trade, not tweets: Easing North Korean tensions with commerce

If you haven’t noticed, North Korea has been a bit of an issue lately, as Kim Jong Un and the knuckle dragger that is our president exchange words. North Korea’s continued militaristic growth stems in part from fledgling proto-capitalism and entrepreneurship, encouraged by American influences.The ...

Majors and Minors: Punta to Candu from Honduras with Yanelle

This is Yanelle Cruz Bonilla, a junior from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. She’s thinking of studying sociology and political science. She loves singing and musical theater, and she has worked backstage. Through selecting songs as a part of her artistic expression, dance is another way Yanelle engages with ...

On the Spot: Why waking up for Liverpool-Man United wasn't all that bad

Simply looking at the scoreline would probably make you go "huh, what a waste of time." Bore draw, should have slept in.Not particularly. This was a battle between two managers that knew their opponent's strengths and were afraid to give anything away.It is easy to criticize Jose Mourinho ...

P.S. ...: How to win friends and isolate people

As modernity offers more opportunities to be socially integrated, people have never felt more alone. In 2004, the General Social Survey found that the number of Americans with no close friends has roughly tripled since 1985. Over a quarter of those surveyed reported having “zero” confidants, and ...

Eat your heart out: Honey and molasses bread

I often think of breadmaking as an activity reserved for only the most skilled of bakers. Something about the process of working with yeast, making sure the dough is glutinous and the time commitment necessary for the dough to rise seem completely out of the realm of possibility for any busy college ...

Citizen Shame: It's John Green's Fault (in Our Stars)

With the recent release of the latest book from young adult author and icon John Green, it seems fitting to revisit another disturbing chapter of my childhood: my sister’s obsession with "The Fault in Our Stars" (2012).My sister might be the smartest person I know, and in high school she ...

The Equalizer: Gulati out

I know, I know. Last column I promised to focus on Belgium’s early 2000’s domestic soccer revamp. But last Tuesday night’s loss needs addressing. That fateful night in Couva, Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) may well be considered the darkest day for U.S. soccer: after qualifying for seven straight ...

Is This Thing On? Thinkin’ bout boys

Hello world! Today’s column requires some homework before you proceed, and that is watching Charli XCX’s music video “Boys” (2017). Get a cozy bathrobe and all your friends, ‘cause this one’s syrupy. If you need to watch it more than once, that’s totally fine. Same.

Failing Big: Back to the start

With the halfway mark of first semester upon us already, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on where I started this journey and to see how much has happened in such a short amount of time. This column is from my application to the Daily in September.I’m interested in graphic design, marketing and ...

Bored & Confused: How would time travel work?