Category: Reflections

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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Telescoping Place

places you have lived, places you know better than anyone else, places in your mind, places you could inhabit, what it means to exist within a place

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Flyover Country

“The people she invented shared none of her problems, none of her responsibilities. She gave them their own small disasters, which were different from her own and therefore interesting, instead of just pathetic. She was deeply, stupidly jealous of them.”

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Lost in the Oligarchy

While for some students, the middle of junior year marks the beginning (or a continuation) of a cushy and well-heeled existence, for others it is the moment when downward mobility becomes a reality.

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Our Visible City

Marco Polo visits Jersey.

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A Look at People-Watching

Driving back to campus from sailing practice a few weeks ago, I partook in one of my habitual pastimes: people-watching. No, it’s not that creepy lustful gaze, or the serial killer glare that people sometimes give. It’s just my face, watching.

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On “On Orange Juice:” In, Around, and About Legacy Poetry Institutions

A reflection on Brittani Telfair’s (‘22) poem, “On Orange Juice.”

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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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My Mother, the Dumping Ground

“I love my mother, but how is anyone supposed to respond to an endless bucket of support?”

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Goldie’s Guilt

I learned my lesson long ago: there is no place for “Zahava” in Starbucks. For many years, in the overpriced land of hissing espresso machines and foamed upper lips and green-clad baristas, Zahava didn’t exist. Instead, for the ten minutes I spent each day ordering coffee, I was Zoe, or Sarah, or Lauren. It was easier that way. But I resolved recently to tell the truth about my name.

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Class in Session

I am in a jet somewhere over the Pacific, and a friend is offering me Grey Goose and cranberry juice. We are both seventeen, but no one is enforcing drinking laws—we are the only two passengers. This is a private plane, because the private island we’re heading towards doesn’t have a commercial airport. We sprawl across leather seats and continue to raid the bar and talk about college plans. We both want to go to Princeton.

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The Room is Spinning

It is 3 a.m and there is Advil by my bed. My phone is on my pillow. I have told four separate friends to text me when they get home, but I may fall asleep before they do. I didn’t know whether I was bringing anyone home tonight, but I made my bed just in case.

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