I didn’t know we even had a governing body besides President Tiefenthaler for over a year. As it turns out, there is a Board of Trustees, and they make most of the important decisions about the direction of the school.
Demanding History
When I was in high school, I took the AP U.S. History (APUSH) exam. The final few days before the test, I crammed: I read synopses of dates and names over and over, and did hundreds of practice multiple-choice questions. And I did well on the test. But I remember very little of it and I know that if I were to take that same test now, my results would be terrible. It isn’t enough to be able to temporarily rattle off a lot of facts about American history. Students need to discuss history and think about it deeply, but the attitudes surrounding the AP test encouraged rapid cramming and a subsequent mental purge.
Uncensoring Voices
Most American citizens do not feel the effects of the wars we are currently involved in. Living in the United States, we don’t have to worry about daily shellings, food rationings, militia groups or foreign forces occupying our homes. To us, the “enemy” is a man with a beard and turban brandishing an AK-47 and yelling words we do not understand. But, many of us are as removed from understanding our own Armed Forces as we are the “enemy.” Who are the men and women who fight in our Army?
Get Your Grind(r) On
"Grindr, that’s like Tinder for gay guys, right?” This is usually the first question I hear. My usual, unspoken reaction is something along the lines of, “No, dumbass, Grindr came first. Tinder is more like a bastardization of Grindr made mostly for straight people.” My verbal reaction, however, is something along the lines of, “It’s sort of like that, but actually…”
One-And-a-Half Years Later
Life in Jail
The rules keep everything orderly around here,” announced deputy Gomez, who has worked at the El Paso County Corrections Department for nearly 13 years. He is the jail’s primary coordinator for group visitation. Alan Prendergast, a regular visiting professor at Colorado College and my professor for a journalism class I took last spring, decided to coordinate with Gomez to secure a tour of the jail for our class.
The Evolution of Flow
Hip-hop/rap has come a long way from the cheery flow of groups like The Sugarhill Gang, who rapped about “the rhythm of the boogie,” or The Fat Boys, who admitted “we may feel a little chubby / But don’t feel slump.” Nowadays, ambitious young MCs spit lyrics that seem both extremely offensive and lyrically basic to many fans of rap. Rick Ross discussed date rape in his “U.O.E.N.O,” and Soulja Boy claimed that women “wanna lick the molly off [him]” in his collab with Migos titled, “We Ready.”
All Hail Lloyd
A Culture of Censorship
When I returned home from my first semester in college in December 2011, I technically committed a crime. I “imported” into India a copy of Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses,” a book banned in the subcontinent. I did not even like the book, but I wanted to sneak it in so I could silently stick it to the notion of censorship in India, which is an inherently harmful institution that caters more to political agendas than to discourse around what is tolerable within the Indian community.
A Sisterhood of Sorts
The Word That Must Not Be Said
Let me tell you a little about myself. You already know my name, but you might not know I come from Costa Rica, a country with a very different culture than that of the United States. Even though we have people of varying appearances and backgrounds, I have never been asked to identify myself racially or ethnically. We have what you would call whites, blacks, Asians, and of course Latinos, but in Costa Rica, we are all people of the same nation—we do not separate groups based on this category alone.
Journal Pages
Denied Accomodations
Taxi Ride-Along
Man in the Mirror
At the end of this past summer, I remarked to my little brother that I hadn’t seen him doing much else except for physical fitness. He casually responded, “I would never want to have your body.”
That stopped me in my tracks. Okay, he’s 15—15-year-old boys can be shamelessly critical—and his all-boys school mentality and obsession with sports and girls has seeped into his mind. Right? No, it’s not right.
Hannah Arendt and Colorado College
“Dear Miss Arendt!
I must come see you this evening and speak to your heart.
Everything should be simple and clear and pure between us. Only then will we be worthy of having been allowed to meet. You are my pupil and I your teacher, but that is only the occasion for what has happened to us.
I will never be able to call you mine, but from now on you will belong in my life, and it shall grow with you.”
The Purity Ball
Twelve weeks. I was to spend 12 weeks learning about abstinence and living a life of purity that would culminate in a Purity Ball. I spent hours sitting in extra classes offered through my church, meant to revolutionize my life and bring me closer to God. My mom paid the big fee and I, a clueless ninth grader, was to make myself a promise before God that would stick with me until marriage.
Muggles and Fan Fiction
Who Holds the Monkey Wrench?
Editors of magazines aren’t gods, but they have to be goddamn holy people to pick and choose who gets published and who does not; I believe that is the closest to divinity anyone could pray for. Editors spend long hours—receiving weak pay— attempting to understand the intent of the writer. But no text will ever perfectly reflect what the author intended.