Category: Reflections

On Going Away

Just as I started to really enjoy Princeton, I’m going away—for a long time. When I arrived in September, I was a freshman, but not particularly fresh. I’d returned from a gap year that had me doing almost nothing, and certainly nothing that benefited other people particularly (unless you count the two hundred forty Chinese children whom I taught English for a semester—for a decent amount of cash).

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Triplet Trepidations

Coming from New Jersey, where my home and parents are only an easy hour and a half drive away, my transition to college was easier than most—at least in theory.

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A Lesson on Grieving

“The brush strokes the bottom of the eyelid first, then the center, then the edge. The tip of the eyeliner presses against skin that, with time, will begin to hold creases that resemble hers.”

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A Mysterious De-Personing

“More than a few miles from home, I conclude this first sliver of college convinced of the notion that I’m more fiction than fact. Now more than ever, I feel like a character, and not a good one.”

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Monopoly

“I slipped two hotels into my pockets; I slept with some under my pillow that night, and the little silver piece I put in my sock for the day.”

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Family Stickers

“I have never been able to understand why Americans need to make sure trailing traffic knows that they voted for Clinton, alternatively want to put Clinton in jail, or just really want to highlight the difference between heritage and racism.”

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I Am Not What I Be

“I’m NOT!” I bellow. Not going to school, that is. My homework isn’t done, it’s already 9 am (school started at 8), and I’ve yet to shower. But my mother is up and worried, and my father is done yelling, and I’m about to break. Soon, I’ll remove myself from self-isolation and go down to breakfast. I’ll wash my face, talk to my father, and head to fourth period photography.

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What I Like

I like full lips. Not so that the mouth looks large, just lips that look a little heavier than mine, so that they fall almost into a pout, curling, hanging. I like lips that say, “I’m here, I’m here to do something,” and spread to reveal a smile of wide, white teeth.

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Turning Twenty

“What was so different about turning twenty? It means I have passed something. That is to say, I have disappointed already. Former promise has resigned itself.”

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Escaping the Werewolf: Alex G, Deep Ecology, and Our Increasingly Hostile World

“There are a million wolves hiding in the environmental substrate I’ve called speargrass. The reality is that they’re not even wolves. When they get home in the evening, they take off the wolfskin and look just like us.”

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Escape to the Beach

A day at the beach, deconstructed, reconstructed

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MONOLOGUES

“Zach Feig ’18 is organizing a staged reading of monologues, submitted anonymously by students at Princeton, about their struggles with eating, eating disorders, nutrition, weight loss, weight gain, and dieting. The project’s goal is to generate conversation and community around maintaining a healthy relationship with food. The Nassau Weekly has worked with Zach to showcase a small collection of these monologues, printed here, with a similar aspiration.”

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