Both in our world and at our university, we have been thrown a lot of political and social challenges in the last eight months. As a result, many of us leave this school year with a unique sense of political angst. We’ve had to question and criticize our communities, mobilize opinions and ask important ...
This spring break, I was incredibly fortunate to visit Twin Oaks Intentional Community as well as other local intentional communities, for the week. Twin Oaks is an income and resource-sharing community in Virginia of 100 people that has existed since 1967. Residents each work 42 hours per week. Unlike ...
I recently wrote a column on being mixed race, which received one comment: "If you look white, you ARE white. White can also be multiracial. Stop the whining." The commenter then linked to an article that argues that people of color perpetuate the one drop rule. I was glad to see this ...
It's been a while since I familiarized myself with the different faces of depression: Some people go on showing few symptoms and functioning so highly that they are hard to identify as depressed, while others' illnesses snowball until they leave the afflicted unable to fulfill their roles in ...
When I got back onto campus after a year off for medical leave to treat my depression and anxiety, I had so much energy. The first week I was back, I tackled huge tasks: cleaning out a fridge and pantry overridden with ghosts of tenants past, arranging my room and then re-arranging and re-arranging. ...
On the first day of sixth grade, a popular girl had a crush on me. (I know because she later confessed this to me at a birthday party.) She had thought I was a boy, with my awkward bowl-cut/bob hybrid and lime green cargo capris. Perhaps this was because I was in the habit of wearing an oversized Gumby ...
Do you ever see someone looking at you and worry if you're being thought of as a girl or a boy? I do every day. Being gendered is, to cis people, so normal that it is invisible. Most people assume others are male or female without a second thought. When you identify with the gender you were assigned ...
Most strangers who pass me on the street think I'm white. I don't blame them for this, as I'm pale as hell. I got some sort of mid-point of my parents' genes: my obviously brown father and my paper-white mom, his black hair and her light brown, her 5-foot-7-inches and his 6-foot-4-inches. ...
I just want to say that I am writing this to procrastinate studying for two exams. Focusing has been a continued challenge this week. Focusing is a challenge over and over. I went to a professor's office hours last Tuesday to check in after a personal event had shaken my heart. We talked about the ...
