525,600
(04/14/10 8:00am)
This weekend I saw a spectacular performance of “Rent,” one of my favorite Broadway musicals put on by Hoof ‘n’ Horn. It got me started thinking about numbers.
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This weekend I saw a spectacular performance of “Rent,” one of my favorite Broadway musicals put on by Hoof ‘n’ Horn. It got me started thinking about numbers.
In a group activity I participated in this semester, a group of Duke men were asked what came to mind when they thought of the opposite sex. Among the various crude locker room phrases that were blurted out, perhaps none were more disturbing than the words “secretary,” “women’s studies” and “humanities.” As much as women have advanced in academics in the past few decades, this progress is often much too disheartening upon the realization that despite the increase in female enrollment in colleges, many still believe that women are more suited for liberal arts degrees such as English and art than men, who are better suited for careers in math and the “hard” sciences.
Duke v. Harvard is not a basketball match-up that you are likely to see. Subconsciously comparing the experiences at each school, however, is how I spent my spring break.
From “duke, Horizontal” to sex toy workshops to lectures by Dr. Ruth, you would think that everyone’s just having sex all the time at Duke. It’s even overrepresented in our infamous unwritten tradition: the unofficial graduation requirements. As many of you may know by now, these include scaling Baldwin Auditorium, tunneling, driving backwards in the traffic circle and having sex in the stacks and in the Duke Gardens.
The tables are empty. The service is so fast that I don’t even need a buzzer. Apparently, this is the golden hour in which I don’t have to wait for food at the Loop. The cashier and I joke about why I’m here alone at 11:30 p.m. on a Friday.
Oh, drop/add. The perfect solution to the first class assignment, which you were planning to do, until you realized you didn’t actually have any time to do it. Today, unfortunately, is the last day you’ll have to escape that nasty first Blackboard quiz and to replace it with Freetime 450C.
In James Cameron’s “Avatar,” a force called Eywa runs through every living thing on Pangaea, the futuristic planet home to the Na’vi, an advanced humanoid race that has learned how to tap into wisdom of their planet and lives in harmony with their surroundings.
By the time I graduate, I will be 22. To an 8-year-old version of me dreaming of the future or even me as a 17-year-old eagerly waiting to escape home, it was impossible for me to imagine what it would be like to be 22.
As a liberal arts school, Duke, until very recently, has missed out on the “arts” part of this equation.
The Student Organization Finance Committee, responsible for $740,000 of student funds annually, has recently suffered much criticism for its lack of organization and oversight.
At Mellow Mushroom in the American Tobacco Campus, half a deck of cards flies from the palm of a man’s hand to the inside of a card box across the table within a second. The cards inside are all the same color. At the Local 506 in Chapel Hill, a coin wrapped in a bundle of tissue paper is lit on fire, burning a hole through the deck of cards it is sitting on. The coin lands on the first in-tact card on the deck. It happens to be mine. At Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, I unwrap a new CD case to find a card stuck on the inside cover. My name is signed on it. Who knew that the Triangle was, literally, a magical place?
I can only imagine what Tyrone Wells was thinking last Friday when all of a sudden, almost every student milling about in the Great Hall darted to the center of the room and began to form a massive line behind boxes filled with prized Duke commodities. It was probably the first time that afternoon that all eyes and ears were actually turned towards the stage to the singer-songwriter whose music has recently been featured in “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Cold Case” and the trailer for the movie “My Sister’s Keeper.”
After five semesters of overloading (with up to six classes) while juggling a job and still being involved in campus groups, I decided that senior year, I would finally give myself a break. Lucky enough to have no major assignments until midterms or finals, I have found myself with more free time than I have ever had in all my years at Duke.
A week ago, I flew out of Medellin, Colombia and arrived at Duke, where I found myself adjusting to the sight of white people in khaki shorts and summer dresses speaking in heavily-accented Southern English. After having spent two months in Medellin for DukeEngage with a stipend greater than the average Medellin citizen’s yearly income, I wondered if I had really accomplished anything or even made a difference. DukeEngage’s model, as listed on their Web site, is to “challenge yourself” and to “change your world.” But can a group of six Duke students really change the world in eight weeks? Living in upper middle-class apartments with host moms that doted on and overfed us, were we really challenged? Maybe. Although I was not adjusting to the lack of electricity or running water like those in other programs, the value of DukeEngage as a cultivator of personal growth and cultural understanding should not be overlooked. It is easy to build a house; it is not so easy to change someone’s way of thinking about the world. Sometimes, change in the world means first, change from within, often times equally important but overshadowed by more tangible, measurable progress. The citizens of Medellin showed me that there are people who will take you into your homes with no questions asked. Despite not having as many resources as us here, they never complained about what they lacked. One of the most remarkable people that I met was a musician named Jake who had been falsely accused of being a commander in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia during a military operation to expel paramilitary and guerilla groups in one of the most isolated neighborhoods of Medellin. He was jailed for four months. When the officials released him, Jake, undeterred, returned to his hometown and started his own TV show. He invited us to appear on his show in a studio about the size and the dinginess of a small apartment on Central Campus. In one room was a sound mixer with a boxy computer reminiscent of the ’80s and the only camera used was delivered daily by a man on motorcycle. Despite lack of high-tech equipment, Jake was never anything but optimistic, gracious and kind. He loved the Disney Channel, called me Brenda Song and Wendy Wu “Kung Fu” (seeing as there are no Asians in Colombia, I became somewhat of a spectacle) and what he longed for most in life was to go to the U.S., namely, to be where I am today. It never occurred to me that someone’s dream was to live the life that I have. I was lucky enough to realize this summer just how many opportunities we have in a) this time period and b) in this country. Although I am not religious in any way, I cannot help but feel blessed to be a Duke student in the year 2009. When I told a good friend about what great fortune I felt I had, he said to me, “Use it to the benefit of other people.” Although some feel that they must give back by bestowing wealth, talent or knowledge, I believe that having gratitude itself is a way of doing good in the world, or at the very least, is the first step. From the generosity of the Medellin people, you would never know that half the city makes under or near $500 a month. On one of the last days in Medellin, we shared a feast with members of a low-income community. Upon leaving, one of the men handed out assorted earrings and necklaces from a round, tin box as a parting gift. From the way that they were packaged in the small, plastic bags, I could tell that he was giving away part of his earnings, as he probably normally sold the jewelry. I lamented that I had not brought a gift to give him in return, to which he replied that the greatest gift was me simply visiting him today. Why is it that in Medellin, a city that suffers from a high degree of poverty, social inequality and a violent past, the people exude such warmth and benevolence? Although the weather in the City of Eternal Spring, the beautiful women and the gorgeous 360-degree view of the mountains figure into this sense of pride and well-being, these external factors cannot measure up to factors within. More than anything, I believe that gratitude, especially, gratitude for strangers and loved ones alike, contributes to this happiness. As part of our service, we created documentaries for the community, but in the end, I knew it was I who was indebted to them. These are the lessons that DukeEngage has taught me and Medellin has made me remember. They are small truths that all of us know but every once in a while need a little reminding: Be grateful for what you have and be good to others.
A week ago, I flew out of Medellin, Colombia and arrived at Duke, where I found myself adjusting to the sight of white people in khaki shorts and summer dresses speaking in heavily-accented Southern English.
Homemade Gingerbread Cookies: Secret Recipe