The first time I went swing dancing, I simply followed the music. It was a snowy February night, and I was walking home from a late shift at The Herald when the soft notes of Ella Fitzgerald found me on the sidewalk behind Sayles. I wandered up the steps for a peek in the window, and found myself dancing ...
Last fall, I attended a workshop hosted by legendary public-speaking professor Barbara Tannenbaum. In the warm comfort of her home that evening, a small group of 30 students sat around her cozy living room. Besides the home-cooked pizza that she had prepared for us, each of us came in search of the ...
Over the past four years, my professors taught me about the history of museums, how to read like a writer and to question who has the right to tell what stories. But after I finished my readings, submitted my essays on Canvas and closed my laptop; when I grabbed a meal at the Ratty or went to the basement ...
A couple days before classes started last fall, I learned that my grandmother was dying. She was the oldest member of my family, but we did not expect such a rapid decline in her health. With one phone call, my family suddenly faced the daunting task of transplanting ourselves in under 24 hours from ...
Anticlimactic. That is the descriptor most used when discussing graduation for the class of 2020. Some of us may be fortunate enough to enjoy a double commencement, while others unable to attend will miss two ceremonies instead of one. We’ve lost the final revels of Spring Weekend, the mornings at ...
The coronavirus has radically changed the last three months of my college experience by ending in-person classes, making me leave campus and postponing my graduation. For all of us in the class of 2020, the pandemic has created new obstacles that we could not have foreseen. Many of us will struggle ...
For many adults, the end of the pandemic will be marked by apparent normalcy. Control over the novel coronavirus (whether in the form of a vaccine, herd immunity, or comprehensive contact tracing) promises the cessation of mass death, yes, but also the return of familiar routines. There is comfort in ...
My mind has never thought as an ordered set of instructions. I always have a jumble of thoughts in my head, reminders to do laundry next to overdue problem sets on top of pleas from my mom to CALL MY GRANDPARENTS. I’m lucky if I finish any task before running off to the next best thing. A computer ...
I am technically part of the class of 2019.5. But because I graduated a little early, I decided to spend spring semester on campus, remaining engaged in the communities I have come to love at Brown. I know this led to some surprises initially for those who ran into me in the Underground or at the GCB ...
I remember being wide-eyed and nervous. My stomach was in knots, yet my heart was warm and full of anticipation. My parents and I had decided to take a road trip from my home in North Carolina to Providence, Rhode Island for my college move-in. At the time, I was 17 years old, and I knew that this 785-mile ...
My stomach full of pumpkin pie and turkey, I sat on the floor of my childhood bedroom writing and rewriting an email. Yes, it was Thanksgiving. But as an Opinions Editor for The Herald, I didn’t take days off. We had received a time sensitive op-ed, and I knew I had information the writers would not ...
As COVID-19 challenges the United States with the greatest health crisis in recent history, many American news outlets have devoted a worrying amount of coverage to bickering over what to call the virus. Of course, President Donald Trump has come under fire for using — but later retracting — the ...
The 2020 NFL Draft will take place Thursday night to Saturday afternoon, and it is sure to capture even more attention than usual due to the current absence of live sporting events in the United States. For the first time ever, the draft will be conducted virtually, with general managers sending in ...
With Joe Biden all but confirmed as the Democratic nominee, speculation has turned to who his running mate will be. Since Biden made his promise to choose a woman as his vice president, the usual suspects have been bandied about: Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Stacey Abrams, Kamala Harris. But all ...
To the man who robbed my house during a quarantine: I can only imagine your dire circumstances. Stealing during any normal time is a dangerous move. You risk setting off an alarm; encountering lingering inhabitants; getting caught by the cops. It takes desperate circumstances to resort to such a hazardous ...
In my last column, shortly before classes were canceled and campus closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I pointed out that the U.S. was setting itself up for a public health disaster because of the nearly absurd inadequacy of its response to the coronavirus. Like many others writing then and ...
On Feb. 21, Bernie Sanders tweeted a defiant message to political power brokers: “I’ve got news for the Republican establishment. I’ve got news for the Democratic establishment. They can’t stop us.” Less than 24 hours later, Sanders’ self-confidence seemed justified. His democratic socialist ...
While many liberals have criticized Trump’s response to the coronavirus crisis — for calling it a hoax, comparing it to the flu and peddling hydroxychloroquine as a cure (although it is only in the process of being clinically tested), the list goes on — they seem even more bewildered by his approval ...
About two and a half years ago, I arrived at Brown as a first-year, flush with pride and new hope. Pride because I had heard from multiple people — my older sister who preceded me at Brown, my interviewer before I was admitted, my tour guide on campus and others — that Brown was not only an academically ...
When I first returned to Brown last summer after a several-month break from College Hill, I didn’t first stop at the Main Green, Faunce House or my friend’s off-campus house — I made a beeline for the steak nachos at Baja’s. After the most brutal nights in the CIT, I didn’t go cool off with ...
Solutions by The State News
