The independent news organization of Duke University
For the duration of the command, you are the personification of a wood two by four.
What I’m seeing online is edgy reality television where I can sign Bill Clinton's birthday card and watch people bully each other on the internet in the name of a moral high ground.
Although Radical ‘Randys’ dominate discussions with talk of “big structural change” or wholesale “swamp draining,” their rhetoric and actions are typically impractical, counterproductive and alienate others. In contrast, centrism and compromise, by design, work well within our political system and typically result in tangible progress.
I remember the individual moments and days that seemed to stretch on forever. This leads me to wonder, how did those seemingly unending moments fade away from my immediate recollection so fast?
Duke claims that it has considered the health effects of tobacco consumption and the various groups that will be affected by this ban, yet such consideration must necessarily entail a more moderate approach.
There is a limit to how much we can work, how much we can carry on our own, how much we can do without needing rest, love, and help. All our limits are different, and all are valid.
Yes, climate change is driven by human activity—but not just any human activity.
The bigger mistakes I make stem from the smallest of things: not cleaning my room, not checking my email, or not putting my keys and wallet in the same place every day.
Learning Indian history revealed where I belong in the world. And my own search has given me something special: a fragment of my traditional culture.
There was a time that I too sported the Adidas slide in any and all informal settings.
The middle ground between a truth and a lie is still false; just because particular compromises may bring about beneficial outcomes does not suggest in the slightest that moderation is necessarily correct.
I want more ludicrous successes, more feeling like I’m doing it right, more blissful days away from it all, more nights with my friends laughing over ridiculous wins.
I'm sure the past couple weeks have felt exciting, exhausting, and overwhelming. As you'll discover, those feelings won't be going away any time soon.
It takes time to grow into a life at Duke.
Because it is so easy to alienate others by being overly self-righteous, confrontation can come off as obnoxious and detract from the cause. The goal should be to persuade and enlighten, not assert moral superiority.
If you had asked me one week ago if I was excited about coming back to Duke, I would have told you I still didn’t plan on coming back—I was clinging to fantasies of job acceptances like they were winning lottery tickets.
The memory of my concentration feat now makes me curious about attention spans—how potent mine was as a child, how it’s since frayed, and how I can work on building it back up.
Duke, you need to do more.
As you’re going through it, each moment feels all-consumingly important, unbearably significant. Some of those moments actually are. But in hindsight, at least to me, they all add up to a beautiful blur of lessons.