June 3, 2013
Day 2
I am positively giddy with excitement. I’ve met so many nice people today! And also the weather is gorgeous: sunny and cloudless and in the mid-60s.
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June 2, 2013
Argentina Day One
On my first night in Argentina, I ate Indian food. My wonderful friend Paula (another UNC student in Buenos Aires this summer) invited me to join her for dinner with friends from her program. When she sent me the facebook message, I was sitting alone in my room feeling vaguely pathetic for not being outside. I was also especially appreciative of the opportunity because I’m being deliberate about making friends here, since I’m not living with my program participants the way Paula is. So I met some of her friends, who are all Georgetown students because it’s a Georgetown medical research program. They invited me to hike Patagonia with them later this month, which is awesome. Hopefully I can become friends with them, even though they’ll only be here another five weeks while I have 10 ahead of me.
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June 2, 2013
Duke vs. UNC: a Reflection
Below is a column I wrote for Rival magazine this April. I adapted it from an earlier blog post titled “The Better Shade of Blue?” Most of my retelling of the game is exactly the same (apologies for the redundancy), but I included more of my thoughts looking back.
For me, this semester has been sort of an identity crisis: temporarily renouncing my affiliation to my alma mater in order to devote myself to its biggest rival. I’ve done my best to walk the line, but it’s almost impossible to accomplish, and no matter what I always seem to disappoint someone. You will never hear me saying, “Go to hell, Carolina,” but I have no problem saying, “Go Blue Devils!” Depending on who you are, one of those is guaranteed to be problematic.
The ultimate tricky situation was the Duke-Carolina basketball game this spring.
Numerous sports commentators have declared UNC-Duke the biggest and best sports rivalry in America. From what I can tell, it’s mostly because of the two schools’ a) proximity and b) comparable success. Last year I wrote a Daily Tar Heel article about the history of the rivalry. But—in its most elemental and intense form—I experienced the rivalry for myself for the first time on February 13 in the student section of Cameron Indoor Stadium.
After weeks of camping out, I proudly wore the plastic wristband that guaranteed me entry to the game— along with a neutral white t-shirt. I lined up with my (now dear to me) tent group in our well-earned spot #46, three hours before tip-off. Everyone was using the time to paint up: Many people painted their arms, legs and chests, as well as their faces. I did my best to avoid the dark blue paint all around me, but in the end got attacked by my friend Ryan, who successfully painted my right eye, the corner of my mouth and an obscure spot along my hairline. I tolerated it because I felt it would be clear to my UNC friends that the paint was involuntarily applied, while the presence of dark blue color on my face would be enough for my Duke friends to stop pressuring me to paint up.
Finally, it was our turn to rush into the stadium and be forcibly packed together by the line monitors on Cameron’s rickety student risers. The energy was contagious, and I enthusiastically joined in with any cheers and song that weren’t directly anti-UNC. Util the game started. When the teams actually started playing, I realized how deeply my allegiance to UNC runs. With UNC in the lead the entire first half, I could barely contain myself, quivering at the thought of jumping in my car immediately after the game to drive straight to Franklin Street and join in the mad festivities when we won. There it was: that small but hugely telling word,“we.” Even when trying to fit in at Duke, when trying to assimilate entirely, I still couldn’t let go of my original position in the “us vs. them” dichotomy.
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June 2, 2013
A Heart Divided
As my dear friend Susan Hughes reminded me, I never gave any summary of my semester at Duke. So here it is.
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April 20, 2013
Laundry Day
This is what doing laundry looks like for me:
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