I haven’t experienced a South Texas November in four years. It’s nothing spectacular; the palm trees remain green, the sun forgets to turn off its summertime rays, and people still wear shorts and flip-flops on their way to the pool. But this past fall break, I was able to escape the doldrums of post-midterms Princeton and return home.

My alma mater school district flew me in for an alumni panel at its 2nd annual “College for All” conference. I even brought along an orange-and-black Princeton tie, but it proved useless after I couldn’t button my collar due to the weight gain from the Mexican food I had indulged in all week.

Tieless and tireless, I caught a ride with Isaac Bailon, the angel-headed hipster who helps me with college awareness outreach, and we headed toward the McAllen Convention Center discussing literature, biology and nostalgia — Expressway 83 does that to you.

Less than 30 minutes later, we were mic’d up, given the rundown, and subjected to the formalities these suit-and-tie events impose: “Hello, yes, nice to see you, keep in touch, goodbye.”

I saved my sincerity for the stage.

My mic stopped working during introductions. “Isaac Asimov warned me about this,” I said jokingly. It would have been funny if someone knew who Isaac Asimov was, or could actually hear me.

The panel unsurprisingly went nothing according to plan. The questions were relatively safe, focused on defining abstract concepts like “innovation” or “success.” I told a half-complete story of myself as the alumnus who went to college out-of-state and returned to implement college readiness initiatives. My mythos was only missing the first 19 years of my life. As a result, I name-dropped PSJA CSLAP any chance I got.

I also did my best to throw in a joke about Isaac’s beard, but could only echo the “spirit of altruism” catchphrase another angel-headed entity, Edgar Alaniz, coined during our college awareness
endeavors. Nostalgia can be funny. Mine wasn’t. Luckily Isaac’s beard was funny in its own right.

The conference ended. I said my goodbyes to childhood friends. Twenty-three hours later I boarded a flight full of Spanish-speakers whose words reminded me of home. Onward to East Coast November-land where the leaves are red and orange and the air bites, onward to thesis Firestone Library dungeon-days, onward to staring at frozen Carnegie Lake and seeing no reflection.

And I did all my week's reading on the plane!

Hey all, Rachel here. Just some casual rambling on how I'm planning my final Princeton Disability Awareness carnival of my time at Princeton. Tonight, I will attend a training session for my volunteers, but this time, I'm letting one of my other board members lead it so that she can start preparing to take over the group this spring. So many feelings.   

I started as volunteer coordinator of this organization my sophomore spring and became president the following spring. You can check out this post of mine from my time as volunteer coordinator with PDA to get a feel for what this awesome group does.

Since then, I've slept a lot less, but also have gained an incredible amount. Through the past few years, I've overseen over a hundred volunteers and children through our events, and this fall have learned what it's like to plan a conference (hint: it's really hard). I've also had the opportunity to lecture on inclusion and get other students excited about it, too. And yes, I've had the pleasure of saying I am aware that PDA (what we call ourselves for short) does also stand for "public displays of affection." Hey, I didn't create the name — I'm happy to say this group has been around and doing good stuff since 2007.

Anyway, I've got to go count out T-shirts to give to my wonderful volunteers I'll be seeing tonight at the session, but you can definitely look forward to a post on the event once it's over.

Bye!

When I was applying to Princeton, I believed I had a sense of what academic life at Princeton might entail. While I didn’t realize quite how amazing the professors are or how many beautiful libraries there are on campus for studying, I could indeed picture myself studying and attending class on Princeton’s gorgeous campus.

However, what I couldn’t exactly picture was having a balanced life at Princeton. And I was pretty hesitant about that. I sometimes pictured myself running from a lecture to my room where I huddled, in my mind, before my computer to furiously write essays before trekking across campus to a precept, reading a book in route. Well, I exaggerate a bit, but I honestly didn't know if Princeton was a place where I could find that healthy balance as a college student. I mean, did Princeton students take breaks?

Well, to my pleasant surprise, Princeton is well aware of our need for breaks and is excellent at planning them! I thought that this was a fitting time to write about study breaks as many readers may, in fact, be taking a break from writing college applications to peruse the blog! If that is your situation, or if you are just wondering if you will fit into Princeton’s community, read on because Princeton’s study breaks are the best.

There are two general principles behind a study break at Princeton: a) it’s definitely going to involve free food, and b) it’s probably also going to involve free clothes or gifts of some kind, too. I find that study breaks are especially fun when they’re centered around the holiday festivities, so I thought that I’d write about two of my past favorite seasonal study breaks.

My favorite study break last fall was the Fall Festival. Set up on the lawn outside Frist Campus Center, it was complete with a pumpkin patch, apple cider donuts from the local apple orchard, and a fall photo booth. My friend and I went first to go “pick” a pumpkin and then headed to the tables piled generously with Halloween candy where we painted our little pumpkins!

Or maybe you would be excited to make your own holiday stuffed animal, ornament or snow globe at the Winter Festival? One Friday last December, Princeton decorated Frist Campus Center with snowflakes and seasonal decor and created a real winter wonderland for us. My friends and I met up in the afternoon to celebrate the season. First on my agenda was making a penguin stuffed animal, and we next enjoyed the delicious Christmas cookies and hot cocoa.

I mention these campus-wide study breaks because they are, in my opinion, some of the biggest and best. But almost every day, you can find some type of study break happening on campus! For instance, when I lived in Butler College my first two years at Princeton, each Tuesday at 10 p.m. there was a study break for all Butler residents to go get free food — Qdoba, Thomas Sweet ice cream, Nomad pizza, Mehek Indian food, etc. — all from delicious restaurants near Nassau Street. Also, the RCAs (the upperclassmen who oversee the residential halls of freshmen) organize weekly study breaks with snacks for their freshman groups, and those sometimes involve a movie or other fun outing as well.

So do know that for every homework assignment at Princeton, there is probably an equally exciting study break waiting to reward you for your hard work!

Ahhh, fall break — it’s the most wonderful time of the year!

Though I do not make an exclusive claim (as I know there are exceptions), one of the outcomes of modernist painting was its liberation of color. While Van Gogh’s colors are largely the right categories (sunflowers are still yellow and the sky still blue), their depth and hue exceed those of experience (no sun flower is that yellow, and no sky so deeply blue that it has not fallen to black).

Other artists went further, giving things colors no one would expect. In 1907 Matisse painted a blue nude. As lived experience runs blue skin suggests asphyxiation, but on Matisse canvas blue breathes with the figure’s body in a compelling sensuality. It was only a few years later that Robert Delauney painted "Premier Disque," a polychromatic wheel of color. There, color is just about all the artist works with, as many subsequent artists further explored, perhaps culminating in Abstract Expression.

So color can be on its own. This does not mean there is such a thing as a pure color, for color always comes on some material that is shaped as some form that carries its own connotations. This does mean though that we need not definitively anchor a color with the use or function of its object.

The arrangement of the colors of food on a plate do not matter to the hungry, but a satiated dinner partner may notice the unintentional gradation of green vegetables that bring out the browns and cooked reds of meat. What is the need to notice, one may ask, as only sustenance is a necessity?

In case of true hunger that probably is the only thing one needs or cares about. But assuming minimal requirements are met in life I think there is the possibility to appreciate things aesthetically like the interaction of colors. And this should not be confined to the museum. The intentional colors we see in a gallery are only a prompt to go out and find others in day-to-day experience. Maybe they will not be as vivid, formally appealing or absolute but they are there.

This prompt of course is easy to follow in autumn. Look down or straight ahead and of course there are browns, greens, oranges and reds among patches of fleeting green leaves. But look up and something changes. We spend most of our time looking out for the dangers at our feet or the opportunities at eye level. Not much we need comes from looking up, but there is much we often appreciate like the rise of a skyscraper or passing of a jet.

Looking up seems to be conducive to an aesthetic mood. Do so under October and November’s foliage for a moment and one might readily imagine October’s and November’s polychromatic abstractions. Serpentine black lines set against blue sprout a variety of shapes that vibrate, gleam, withdraw and parade in boastful yellow, demur orange, loud red and occasional obstinate green. But before long of course, a Suprematist composition will take over in white on white for the winter months.[1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I leave my night photography class on one end of campus and begin to make my way to the other end, to my room. It is incredibly warm out, so I take off my coat and drape it on one shoulder, perhaps inspired by the matador. The ground is wet, a consequence of near continuous rain, though at the moment none falls. The diamond, star, heart, and otherwise eclectically shaped leaves from the trees stick to pavement, an autumnal collage in brown, yellow and red.

I cross Washington Street and under the lamps lighting the cobbled path I see a few leaves take their final swing and dance. For a moment they appear to reach higher, as if flying upward back to their branch, but each fall takes them lower until they join the unintentional art on the ground.

Along the chapel wall a tree is projected twice its size by orange and blue flood lights. The barren branch shadow across the cathedral stones is the image of romantic Gothic horror, always more attractive than truly fearful (when both are not overwhelmed by sentiment). I think for a moment, “If I only had my camera,” but then realize that would not mean much. The situation, not the image, is what I want to capture and convey — the ambivalent leaves, swaying shadows, my body against the scale of the chapel wall and the music.

From outside, I hear the organ ring, rumble and rise. I go in, but the music stops. From across rows of empty pews I only hear a page or two being turned. A false start. More silence. If the organ does not play when one is in the chapel, does it play at all? 

On the chapel steps I see dark puddles vibrating inside, moved from their stillness by a renewed downpour. I put my coat on and as I begin walking I pull my hood over my head. However, as soon as I do so, the wind pulls it off with a decisive, but not rough hand. “Why not feel my warm caress and wet blow?” it seems to ask, rounding my head and leaving beads to run from my hair to my brow, over my glasses and down to my mouth, where I taste an unexpected sweetness.

I pass a few others as I continue to my room; some are merely animating their rain jackets, while others are more open to the rain. I feel like tying my sweater around my waist and taking my shoes in my hand so that I can run, not for coverage, but for a reason more felt than known. But my glasses, covered in beads of water that diffract light, make things in front of me shift from the intelligible forms of the Impressionist to the murky near non-representational image of an Expressionist (Soutine style).

I almost walk into a young man cursorily moving under his petite umbrella. But then my door appears. I wonder, if only for a second, the young woman I pass thinks I am a mythical creature — dark, saturated front, light, dry back — dripping water from both arms and humming. Or maybe she does not look up from her computer, perhaps preparing for the mythical challenge we call midterms. Who knows?

In my room, I hang my damp layers, perform nightly rituals, and listen to brave crickets playing in what must seem rather diluvian to them. Some very fast flip-flop steps go by but anything else that happens is for the more nocturnal souls to tell. 

While the amazing food may bring many through the doors of the CJL, our engaging activities and the incredible relationships made within our walls are what keep hundreds of students connected to Jewish life here on campus.

When I’m not busy with schoolwork, classes, extracurricular activities, eating, sleeping or catching up with friends, I love exploring the campus and all of its surroundings. Despite Princeton’s relatively small size, it’s quite easy to get creative, embark on a random adventure and do something new if the need for spontaneity ever strikes. As I’ve discovered over the past two years, there are infinite possibilities for spontaneous adventures here at Princeton!

Here are just a few ideas…

1. Roll down Whitman Hill

Despite what you might be thinking, rolling down Whitman Hill is not totally absurd (although my friend Chris did roll down the hill while filming his French project on Absurdum). Just last week, I saw the Princeton Running Club rolling down the Whitman Hill and sprinting back up to warm up for their daily after-class run. They were wearing running gear, but I’d highly recommend wearing long sleeves and pants for this one.

2. Host a pool party in Dillon Gym

Little known fact: the basement of Dillon Gym houses a pool! There are even pool accessories, like kickboards, diving rings and swimming noodles — perfect for a pool party! I found out last winter and then hosted a pool party there. I'm hoping to return sometime this year to swim some laps. 

3. Canoe on Lake Carnegie

OK, this one isn’t totally spontaneous; Outdoor Action (OA), the University’s outdoor program, hosts free canoeing on Lake Carnegie a couple times each year, and you can always rent kayaks and canoes at Princeton Canoe Rental. Floating on the water of the lake, surrounded by trees on either side, is too beautiful and peaceful of an experience not to share, especially when the trees are turning a billion different colors in the fall.

4. Yoga in Forbes Garden

Last spring, after returning from canoeing on the lake, we ran into our friend Emily, who invited us to the Earth Day celebration at Forbes Garden, where she was teaching a sunset yoga class. There’s nothing like practicing your tree pose, watching the sun set and smelling the greenness of spinach, kale and pepper plants to get you in tune with nature.

5. Swing at Marquand Park

I love swinging! Who doesn’t? My favorite place to swing is Marquand Park, an easy 10-minute walk from campus and 5-minute walk from the Graduate College. I rediscovered my love of swinging here last year, so the park holds a special place in my heart. It’s an excellent place to swing by (pun intended) before getting Thursday night dinner at the Grad College, the one night each week they allow undergraduates to eat in their beautiful Hogwarts-esque dining hall.

6. Climb up the Grad College Tower

Speaking of the Grad College, here's another little known fact: You can go up the Grad College Tower (aka Cleveland Tower). Climbing up the dark, narrow, steep, winding stairs of the Grad Tower is certainly an adventure within itself, and at the top, you can see all of Princeton’s campus from within the Gothic spires that top the tower. 

7. Star trip on Poe Field

Last year, my co-leaders and I really wanted to star trip on our OA Frosh Trip, but we never got the chance. We did the next best thing: We took our frosh to Poe Field the night we returned to campus, stared up at the stars and spun around like fools. 

This might all sound a bit ridiculous, but, hey, spontaneity is good for the soul!

So, as many of you know, I am an active member of Princeton’s Jewish community. I happen to be Orthodox, meaning that I observe a very traditional version of Jewish practice. This often comes with a whole host of interesting challenges in bringing my Jewish and college lifestyles together.  

People are always especially surprised when I tell them about Jewish law as it pertains to the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest. Most notably, I am one of those crazy people who shut down all technology from Friday night until Saturday after sundown. That means no cell phone, no homework, no movies, etcetera. I can talk about how I actually really love that lifestyle (forced break from work!) in a different post, but now I want to talk about one of the more obscure laws.

Among the many laws pertaining to resting on Sabbath, there is a practice of not carrying objects from a private place into the public domain. For example, carrying something from inside your dorm room out into campus would not be allowed.

Of interest, there is a Talmudic loophole that allows for the transformation of a larger public area into a private domain via the construction of a symbolic wall around the region, thereby eliminating the worry of transfer from public to private by making everything “private.” This wall is called an "eruv," and in Princeton's case consists mainly of wires attached to existing telephone poles. Within the eruv, carrying is permissible because everything is considered a single, private space.

The eruv in Princeton was officially completed last week.

Just to give you a picture of how weird life has been without the eruv and how happy I am to have it:

The main issue in a world without an eruv comes in how you carry your keys. If you’re particularly strict, as I am, instead of carrying an object in your pocket, you typically find some way to integrate it into what you are wearing. That way, you're not technically carrying anything. Yet another one of our loopholes. Cute, right? This can include wearing it on a bracelet or necklace, tying it in with your shoelaces, or, if you’re me, attaching it to your hair-tie and wearing it in your hair. Fashionable? Maybe. But definitely ridiculous.

And so, as I write to you, PEL (that’s post-eruv-life), I happily put my keys in my pocket like a normal person and go into the weekend ready to have a restful and much less logistically complicated Sabbath.

 

 

 

What do Mike Birbiglia, Aidy Bryant, the cast of "Silicon Valley," the cast of "Broad City," and Amy Poehler all have in common? If you said "They're all people that Lauren has obsessive comedy crushes on and boy, she really needs to let go," you'd be right! If you said "Lauren saw them all perform at the 2015 Del Close Marathon," you'd be even more right!

The Del Close Marathon, or DCM, is an annual three-day improv festival in New York that features 72 straight hours of improv at nine different venues. Quipfire! visits DCM every year, because it's a great chance for us to learn from some of our favorite improvisers, and for us to see new forms that we can try out onstage. (Remember our Gravid Water shows this year? We saw that form at DCM!) I've gone every year since my freshman year, and it's always one of my favorite parts of the summer.

DCM offers an incredibly diverse array of shows. A lot of famous comedians who got their start in improv come to DCM to show off their old skills. For example, we went to see UCB house team The Stepfathers, and a huge group of Stepfathers alums joined them, including Bobby Moynihan ("Saturday Night Live") and Zach Woods ("The Office" and "Silicon Valley").

But 72 hours of improv means there's some pretty weird stuff going on to fill the time. For example, we saw a show called "The Camping Trip" in which comedians like Ben Schwartz ("Parks and Recreation") and Horatio Sanz ("Saturday Night Live") pack each other bags of weird items, switch bags with each other, and then pretend that they are camping and these bags are all that they brought for survival. Ben Schwartz ended up with an envelope labeled "My Big Secret" that he saved until the end of the show, and when he finally opened it, it  contained a raisin and a single piece of spaghetti attached to a cotton ball. And I've heard even stranger stories. One performer told me he exited the stage after his show and the show that went on after him was just a group of unsupervised dogs.

If you were at UCB East on Sunday morning, you even caught a glimpse of Quipfire! performing! DCM does a great job of giving performance slots to college groups, even if those slots are at not-quite-primetime. We performed improv based on improvised monologues from friend of the group/funny lady Catherine Cohen '13. We also caught a performance by our sister group, Stranded in Pittsburgh from Fordham University.

Even though DCM is over, Quipfire! is still gonna catch a few more improv shows before the summer is over, including a performance by improv gods TJ and Dave. Stay tuned!