I don’t want to believe that my life is ever going to “peak,” and I especially don’t want to believe that it “peaked” one year ago today. I should state upfront, as a disclaimer, that this is a very self-involved post. Talking about an award I received a year ago is a bit pathetic, but… Continue reading Frauds and Peaks
Graduate students are all really smart. Everything graduate students write is of publishable quality. Graduate students don’t bathe frequently, but only because they are busy writing brilliant dissertations. Graduate students can read volumes in a day and quickly grasp complicated theories. When they speak in class, what they say is profound. Graduate students don’t have… Continue reading Grad Student
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
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 haven’t been this scared in a long time And I’m so unprepared so here’s your valentine Bouquet of clumsy words, a simple melody This world’s an ugly place, but you’re so beautiful to me.” – Blink 182, “Going Away to College” Four years ago, “Going Away to College” seemed like poetry. I was preparing… Continue reading What’s My Age Again?
I’ve spent my week in Princeton oscillating between having a smile plastered on my face and fighting an irrepressible melancholy. On balance, I must concede it’s pretty fabulous to be here: each day has consisted of bouncing from lunch dates with good friends to band rehearsals attended with good friends and late-night study parties composed… Continue reading Legacy
Alex V. Barnard - Sociology 