Speaking of things I was into when I was sixteen… The first time I saw Strike Anywhere was also the first punk show of my life. I remember it pretty distinctly; I had ordered a Rage Against the Machine t-shirt online, and had bought black pants (replacing my usual khakis and polo shirt) in the… Continue reading “When I’ve got the music, I’ve got a place to go.”
I hadn’t looked at my passport photo for a long time prior to embarking on my now moderately infamous quest to get a U.K. visa. It’s actually pretty amusing. I have no piercings—not in my ears, not in my eyebrow—and my hair is closely cropped and normal colored. The thing that really humors me, though,… Continue reading “Shoeing the Tabs”, whatever that means
England, it seems to me, is a land of rules. Before I arrived here, one of the first things I told people about my impending trip to Oxford was that students aren’t allowed to walk on the grass. Coming from Princeton, where as soon as the temperature gets above sixty-two it seems like the entire… Continue reading Rule Britannia
My Great Grandmother Anna is a something of a legendary figure within my family. And quite rightly so: she emigrated—alone—to the United States at age 15, raised a family of seven by herself, and lived to 105, drinking whiskey until the day she died and only moving to a nursing home when her children were… Continue reading Aimless rambling, followed by pictures of Stonehenge
While the anthropologist in me knows I shouldn’t say this, there are some things in foreign countries that just suck. In Uganda, it was cardboard boxes: they were just objectively horrible, fallilng apart as soon as you put something in them (begging the question: what is the purpose of a cardboard box in which you… Continue reading Cultural Exchange
Before I arrived in Uganda, I expected that people in Africa would ask me for money or sponsorship all the time. I had heard my father’s stories from the Peace Corps in Peru, where people would simultaneously tell him “America kills babies!” and ask him to bring them back to the U.S. While I expected… Continue reading A Moral Quandary – Audience Participation (?)
Remember remember the fifth of November Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason Should ever be forgot And remember they do. Guy Fawkes’ attempt to blow up the King and Parliament in 1605 is, for the English, recent history; I got the impression Nicola, my English flat-mate, is still a bit… Continue reading Remember, Remember
The initial glow of Oxford has started to wear off. While I’m still enjoying it here, I am coming to a point where I have to confront the reality of being a semi-grown up. The existential and absurd questions that occupied me when I arrived—ranging from “How am I going to save the world?” to… Continue reading Ties That Bind
I’m sure many felt this way in ’68 when riots were tearing the country apart, or in ’29 when the stock market crashed, or in (18)’61 when the country was ripped in half. But sometimes, when I come back from class and pull up the “morning” news from the U.S., I can’t help but think… Continue reading Front Page
Yesterday’s election wasn’t a particularly big deal for me. I’ll admit that my heart sunk when I saw that Maine voters rejected equality for gay couples, but beyond that, I wasn’t too invested in any of the races. It doesn’t particularly bother me that the multi-millionaire investment banker claiming to be a man of the… Continue reading The Great Disappointment, Plus Five-Hundred Fifty-One Wednesdays of Drinking
Alex V. Barnard - Sociology 