Category: Reflections

Confessions V

A new hole in my neural web.

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The New Jersey Dream

In Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1998 novel _American Pastoral_, his protagonist, a Jew named Seymour Levov who goes by the nickname “the Swede,” sees his life turned upside down when his daughter turns terrorist and blows up a post office. … Read More

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I’m Judging You: Gogol’s Defense of Art Critique

“Gogol advocated that we do not need to reject value-judgements, but rather understand all art as part of a grander movement; great art is the product of labor and reflection, vision and passion, building off the works that precede it.”

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The Trials of Princeton

It was the first night without my parents in some hotel on US Route 1. I was alone and somewhere near East Pyne, brimming with the feeling of being lost and alone in a new city, juggling the oversized, color-coded freshman orientation specialty map that a volunteer organizer had gravely slipped into my purse.

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Religion with Friends

We are a little hung-over, a little loud, a little late. As my friend Giri drives the car up a dusty, unpaved road, my friend Louise and I comment on how rustic the rough wooden fence separating from the field from Princeton Friends Meeting is.

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The Loaves and the Pitches

The Church of Scientology New York stands right in the center of New York’s Theatre District on West 46th Street. The building blends into the glitzy fare, as loud in its own right as its neighbors—such mainstays of the famously … Read More

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July

“By the eighth day words had begun to fail me. I thought in silent images. It was hot. We ate greedily, excessively, grilled meat on the bone, whole fish smiling up from the table, savory noodles prepared in cold sesame sauce with fresh cucumber. I sat around for hours after lunch feeling uncomfortably full.”

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California

An elegy.

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Urinalysis

I peed before I ever spoke.

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Matters

2 AM, Tuesday, halfway done with my senior year of college. I was anxiously contemplating what I would do tomorrow, and then this summer, and then next year, and then for the rest of my life. Then came panic, and, shortly following that, a flashback.

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A View of Reunions from Behind the Scenes

Behind the scenes of Princeton’s annual alumni event, a small number of dedicated student trucking teams work tirelessly to keep Reunions running smoothly. Responsible for driving a fleet of large box trucks, crews of student truckers single-handedly transport all of … Read More

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A Mother’s Love, Lost in Translation

When the mother tongue is tucked away to make room for other languages, what becomes of it?

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