Graduate student Dennis Schaefer shares what it’s like to live on campus in a summer unlike any other.
Though I can’t change the fact that senior year won’t play out how I wanted it to, for every memory I looked forward to creating, I have many more which I am fortunate to have already experienced.
White Americans have participated in protests more than previous uprisings in response to police violence. In big cities and small towns across the nation, this movement has grown into perhaps the largest in U.S. history. Wellesley exemplifies this change.
Maybe the reason watching the filmed version of “Hamilton” brought to mind so many memories of James Luke was because he, too, is now part of history. And I guess I’m just here, listening to the songs that remind me of my brother and writing down old memories of us as if telling them again could change how they ended.
It would be so satisfying to offer some kind of grand insight into the American people and all the places they inhabit, but my only conclusion is that America defies facile generalization.
Grief does not end in a day. Sometimes it doesn’t ever go away. I know it will surface again sometime in late August, and October during Halloween, and November in the weeks leading up to and during Thanksgiving. What will I be thankful for then?
But in the face of peaceful Black protesters, officers took their Blackness as a signal of violence, disrespect, and “thuggishness.”
Conceptualizing race and racism inherently creates a set of paradoxes. It asks us to recognize that racism impacts everyone, but that it impacts everyone differently; it asks us to disassociate from our own racial identity/ies to see the human in each other, but to also celebrate the individuality in our human experiences; it both unites and divides us, because the problem is divisive but the solution is unity.
On May 7, two students went into our high school, STEM School Highlands Ranch, and opened fire at our peers, killing one student, Kendrick Castillo. On May 7, our entire world shattered in mere moments.
In light of being prematurely sent home due to the coronavirus, never have I seen such complex, crafty, and community-minded memes be published at this quick of a pace. In memes and advocacy, I see conduits for empathy, for community building, and ways to make people feel better, in variant but parallel methods.
Attending classes from the comfort of my bed is turning into my academic Achilles heel. When I’m not in class, I’ve found this time has given me plenty of opportunities to explore hobbies, both old and new. What have I spent all my free time doing? Baking.
The world we live in is undoubtedly changing in various facets day by day, and how we socialize and connect with our communities is no exception. For at least some Princeton students, TikTok is taking on an increasingly prominent part of their social lives as our campus community is spread out across the world.
When a pandemic means losing control over one’s life, the qualities which make us human become compromised. The choice to associate COVID-19 with China stems from historical and systemic choices in America to associate disease with foreigners and particularly Chinese immigration.
Recently, my mother asked me what I miss most from my incomplete first year as a Princeton student. When remembering began to hurt just a little bit too much, I gave an answer that was true, just not entirely: I missed the California burger from late meal.
These memories are ones we were promised, ones we were banking on, and ones our peers, just a year or two older, do bank on — for support, solace, and strength. Now, they’re like polaroids that got jammed and never came out: we came tantalizingly close to having them, but there’s nothing to be done about the simple fact that we won’t.
I had forgotten the joy of checking out books from the library, but I was reminded of it once again after arriving in Princeton. I was first reminded of it when I checked out three books for my writing seminar and felt weirdly excited about the fact that the oldest due date in any of the books was from approximately four decades ago.
As I write that, all I’m hoping for is that the saying “third time’s the charm” really holds come next fall.
As I try to summarize my thoughts on the museum and my overall impressions of the city, I realize that I took on five different personas in response to the bright new sights. Allow me to expand.
I was laying in the courtyard — the galleons of the sky were dancing impressionists imitating varying animals and beings — when President Eisgruber walked over to me and began to say in a monotone voice: “The library is now closed. The library is now closed.”
“I am exhausted,” I said to every person who asked how I was doing during the first week and a half of the semester. Naturally, the question-askers wanted to know why I was exhausted, and my answer was simple: the Princeton Triangle Club’s 2020 tour of “Once Uponzi Time.”
