Month: April 2013

Sarah Morris

Staff Writer

There’s a strange phenomenon that occurs here on campus: kids go out on the weekends, make new friends, have sex with each other and then somehow completely forget that any of the people they have met actually exist. No, I’m not referring to blacked-out forgetting, I’m talking about that “I’m too cool for you” attitude that all of us decide is important the second the weekend is over.

What makes all of us so special? There’s an unspoken rule here that if you decide to go out and hook up with someone, whether you remember it or not, it is your duty to make that person feel like they are a speck of dust on an otherwise clean windshield that is your view of the world. Of course we don’t remember each other, we were probably too busy looking at ourselves in the mirror during the hook up, because obviously, we are more important than anyone else.

I notice that you also go to the Bison for lunch, but don’t you dare look at me lest I tell the entire school that you’re creepy and over attached. Trust me, I care so little about what we did over the weekend that I am pretending I do not know who you are. You would be wise to do the same.

What is wrong with this culture? Why can we not seem to accept that seeing somebody naked over the weekend and pretending he or she doesn’t exist isn’t “cool” or even normal? We both know it, too. There’s nothing worse than having an awkward encounter with someone you’ve hooked up with before and being forced to stand around acting like you’ve never even met.

We shouldn’t be pretending the people we’ve seen naked don’t exist, we should be high-fiving each other and celebrating the experience! But in all seriousness, something has got to change. Nobody wants to walk around campus worrying that he or she is going to run into that special somebody from the weekend because obviously, you will run into that person. On campus, you always run into the people you want to see least. So change it up! Say hello to the person you’ve seen naked, give him or her a wink–he or she will understand.

Colette Brottman

Contributing Writer

Last week I went on Facebook and the first thing I noticed was everyone changing their Facebook profile pictures to red equal signs. I initially ignored it, assuming it was yet another random holiday or something, but later that day, my entire page filled up with profile pictures of equal signs. So I did what most people do and Googled it.

I have been closely following Proposition 8 since we discussed it in my Civil Liberties class during junior year of high school, so to see the surge of activism against it was exciting. It seemed like such a simple act, a quick profile picture change, but perhaps it has more influence than we can imagine.

The Port Huron statement said, “we are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.” Changing something so simple as our Facebook profile picture allows us to acknowledge our discomfort with the state of affairs of our nation. I hope that this trend causes uninformed people to research the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and regardless of their opinion, at least consider the discussion on gay rights.

It is hard to ignore such a trend and hopefully the Justices notice that there is a loud cry from Americans to turn down DOMA.

Gillian Feehan

Contributing Writer

I am affectionately known to my roommates as “the mod grandma.” Why is this, you ask? Well, this 22-year-old grandma loves to knit.

As we all know by now, the University often causes massive amounts of stress in our lives, especially during the dreaded midterms and finals weeks. From Monday to Friday, it seems like there is just not enough time in each day to cross off everything on our never-ending to-do lists. Everyone needs a way to unwind during their down-time, and I am not ashamed to admit that my favorite way to relax is by knitting.

Studies have shown that knitting is a great way to combat stress and can even lower your heart rate. I can justify my sometimes-excessive knitting by pointing out the health benefits, but I also simply enjoy the act of knitting itself. I can spend cold, winter days watching movies and knitting scarves, hats and ear warmers to prepare me for the freezing Lewisburg weather. Call me lame, but I love being able to match my scarves with my outfits. Knitting isn’t just limited to the winter season, either; my friends and I have also made knitted tote bags for the beach in the warmer months. Knitting is relaxing and creates practical items that anyone can use.

Hand-knit items also make excellent gifts for family and friends, largely during Christmastime. As an unemployed college student on a budget, it’s hard to afford the nice Christmas gifts that I would love to give all my family and friends. This Christmas, I learned I could be crafty and make plenty of gifts while staying within a budget. Hand-knit items may not be expensive, fancy gifts, but the time and effort put into them more than makes up for the inexpensiveness—and they’re fun gifts to make!

I may be known as a grandma to my friends (and now many readers of The Bucknellian), but knitting is an amazing way to relax and let out your inner-crafty side. Knitting allows me to unwind while still being productive. I know knitting is often associated with 80-year-old women in rocking chairs, but it is an activity that women and men (yes, men!) of all ages can enjoy. Seriously, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

El McCabe

Senior Writer

Everyone knows that the University’s culture places a high value on Greek life and rush at the beginning of sophomore year. First-years are aware of the importance of sororities and fraternities very early in their college careers and are rapidly exposed to the pros and cons of Greek life essentially every weekend.

Even though this exposure happens so quickly, there is still a lot that first-years do not know about the rush process and what it’s truly like to “go Greek.” Mandatory information sessions, appropriately dubbed Sorority 101 and Fraternity 101, seek to fill in these gaps for first-years and attempt to provide a holistic view of Greek culture before first-years decide to rush.

On paper, these information sessions certainly sound beneficial and necessary. Yet, after attending the first Sorority 101 session, I found myself as indecisive as ever. All the sororities were given approximately five minutes to speak and tell us their key values and initiatives of their respective chapters, and they all quickly began to blend together. All of the girls speaking clearly loved their sororities and philanthropies, but this universal excitement made it difficult for any one in particular to stand out against the rest. This inability to discern between the Greek organizations and their personalities appears to be a much larger source of stress for women as opposed to men, and I sincerely hope the coming information sessions will help first-year women choose the right sorority for them. After asking multiple upperclassmen who have been through rush, the universal answer is that “the system works itself out.” After going through an intense and thorough week of rush, everyone supposedly winds up where they would be happiest, even if they are initially disappointed with their bids.

My best advice for those who will be attending the upcoming information sessions and participating in rush week in the fall is to keep an open mind and not to stress out too much about the future. The decision about whether or not to rush is a big decision and cannot be made overnight. I firmly believe that it can’t hurt to go to a few information sessions regardless of how helpful or unhelpful they are in discerning the sororities and fraternities. Remember, it is perfectly okay not to rush or to end up somewhere you were not initially hoping for. After all, a lot can happen in the four months from now until fall rush, and your opinions on it will likely swing back and forth. Hopefully future Sorority 101 and Fraternity 101 sessions will help clear up the uncertainty of this process.

Justin Marinelli

Senior Writer

We have been raised from birth not to judge people by their external appearances and to judge them only by the content of their character. I do agree with this point, but I find it to be simplistic and ignorant of certain nuances. To a fair degree, it is not only acceptable to judge a person by his or her appearance, but wise to do so.

Surely it seems wrong to judge a book by its cover, but actually, the quality of the cover is oftentimes influenced by the quality of the text inside. The trick is simply identifying when this happens to be the case.

To understand my point, you have to define attractiveness by two categories: genetic and cultivated. Things like height, facial structure and relative proportions all fall under genetic attractiveness. There is nothing a person can do about factors like these and so it is useless to judge someone’s character based on these characteristics.

Cultivated attractiveness is a different story. This is a much broader category, but essentially any physical trait that you control falls under this category. Someone’s hairstyle, choice of clothing and degree of facial hair are all examples of factors that contribute to cultivated attractiveness. 

This is why it is perfectly acceptable to judge someone based on cultivated attractiveness.  It is completely under that person’s control, and thus the way that person chooses to present himself or herself is an expression of his or her personality. There is no end to the subtleties that present themselves in this dynamic, but for now I shall only examine what it means to have a high degree of cultivated attractiveness.

For most of us, it takes a bit of work to make ourselves look attractive. It’s easy to let yourself go and give up on how you look. Eating healthy, going to the gym and keeping your hair clean and presentable requires a certain amount of discipline and self-control. People with a high degree of cultivated attractiveness thus also have a high degree of discipline and self-control.

So what of someone who is very disciplined but cares not for his or her appearance? For one, I doubt that person exists outside of exceedingly rare circumstances, but I digress. In this case, what that person lacks is pride for how he or she looks, which, by extension, almost always means that said person lacks pride in himself or herself. Cultivated attractiveness is thus an effective barometer for how much pride someone takes in his or her being.

Finally, in order to successfully cultivate attractiveness within yourself, you must have a reasonably good idea of what will make you more attractive and what will not. To be able to accurately choose hairstyles, perfumes or clothing that will suit you, you need to possess a good sense of self-awareness. You can’t have cultivated attractiveness without self-awareness unless you have someone telling you what to do, which is another exceedingly rare circumstance.

Because we so often tend to conflate genetic attractiveness with cultivated attractiveness, we find ourselves trapped in a paradigm in which we cannot discern anything meaningful.  Once we realize the difference between the two, we find ourselves better equipped to understand the intricacies of the world we live in. Deny this reality and all you do is make life harder for yourself.