Where There's Barking, There Are Dogs

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by Alicia Olivo ’20

Last October, I was lying in my bed, pretending I was still asleep while scrolling through my Twitter feed. I heard knocking at the front door, and then my mother answering the door. Although it was ten in the morning and the sun was radiating heat through my window, leaving me sweating, I closed my eyes and pretended to be comfortably asleep. My mother entered the room. Mamá looked annoyed, and then she told me why: “The neighbor came by and told us to bring the dogs inside. They’re barking too much, according to them.”

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No Cultures Left to Appropriate

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by Caitlyn Chung ‘20 and Midori Yang ‘19

Ariana Grande’s Japanese tattoo has recently gained international attention, but not for positive reasons. The hand tattoo, inspired by her music video titled “7 Rings,” was supposed to be a translation of the song’s title in Japanese. The full Japanese translation is “七つの指輪,” as shown repeatedly in the music video and in promo materials for the song. However, when Ariana got the tattoo, she shortened the phrase to ”七輪” due to the pain of getting the tattoo. Unfortunately, the phrase no longer translates to “seven rings,” but instead, an idiom that means “small Japanese charcoal grill.”

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Thank You, Molly Bloom

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by Maggie Roberts ’20

That semester, I was reading Ulysses for an English class. I had been too anxious—for no particular reason, just mentally fried—to commit to the novel. I viewed reading it as a chore instead of as the stimulating, enjoyable challenge it should have been for me. Finally, at the end of April, when I had just about given up on myself intellectually, writing myself off as dumb as well as fat, I was able to fall in love with the novel, its creative language, its self-involved, ever-so-realistic characters. Most of all, I fell in love with Molly Bloom.

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Choosing the Instance of Gender Euphoria

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by Gus Agyemang '22

Content warning: gender dysphoria

What I have now come to understand as “gender dysphoria” became my problem around the time of puberty. Like most teenagers, I noticed the changes my body was going through, but what really bothered me was how different it was from my friends’. My voice didn’t drop, and I didn’t grow tall, and people were now referring to me as she. I felt disgusted by my budding breasts and hips and enraged that I was to feel proud of them.

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