Author Archives: Jessica Feinstein

The mysterious e-mails started arriving in the inbox of Linnea Duvall ’05 about a month ago. Soon after, she began interviewing for an unsolicited position with an unnamed organization. And if all goes as planned, on April 15 Duvall will be summoned into the night by a group of cloaked and masked figures. In such »

After a fast-paced and successful freshman year, Joan Akalaonu ’04 returned to Yale the next fall blissfully unaware of the affliction that lay around the corner. Her residential college dean had warned her class about it, but Akalaonu, like most of her friends, paid little attention. It was not that she thought she was immune; »

Sitting in Au Bon Pain Sunday morning, Jihan Mercier ’05 shifted excitedly in her chair as an irrepressible grin spread across her face. Gun shots still echo in her home city of Port-au-Prince, and chaos still reigns in the Haitian countryside. Her father and brother cannot leave their house for fear of death, and the »

University faculty, staff and students celebrated the beginning of a new chapter in Yale’s academic leadership Tuesday evening after the appointments of two seasoned Yale professors to the posts of Yale College Dean and Yale Graduate School Dean. At a ceremony in Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale President Richard Levin announced that Yale »

Yale infielder Zachery Bradley ’06 likes free-flying balls. And he does not mean baseballs. It started after one particularly forgetful morning on a game day in his sophomore year of high school. Sox, pants, shirt — all found their rightful place on his body. But for some reason, the boxers did not make it. That »

Jennifer Thompson ’04 never thought she would have a breakdown over a piece of cheese. But standing in a market in Moscow, cheese became symbolic of a seemingly insurmountable language barrier. Thompson spoke very little survival Russian. The cheese spoke no English and neither did the man selling it. Terrified and frustrated, Thompson started crying. »

Take your average seminar. Then, take away the classroom and replace it with a frat house. Remove the circular table in favor of a large screen television playing pornography. And as the final touch, kick out the professor and invite a porn star to lead the class. The wandering eyes and X-rated daydreams can, however, »

The bed is stripped, the bookshelves empty, the walls a naked white. Your friend is gone, you’re not sure when he left. People whisper, but no one really knows exactly what happened. And when he returns, if he returns, no one will discuss his absence in detail, and life will plod on without pause. There »

When Will Braff ’05 wanted time off from his hectic Yale life, a walk in the woods seemed like the right chance of pace. So he took a leave of absence, strapped on his backpack, and hiked 2,172 miles from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail. By the time he emerged on Mount Katahdin, »

Welcome to “The Alamo,” New Haven, where the accents are nearly as long as the Longhorns on the wall. Step out of the frigid Northeastern night, over the defiant Texas doormat, and suddenly you find yourself in Lone Star Country. There, in the Howe Street apartment of Ryan King ’05, Ben Breunig ’05 and Rob »

Saturday, Jan. 17, 2004, was a clear and sunny day. Davenport seniors talked and laughed while squeezing fresh orange juice for brunch. Elm Street was unusually quiet as students recovered in their beds from the semester’s first night of partying, and the snow in the streets belied the warmer weather. But for those who knew »

Frederick Sowah ’06 returned home for winter break this year to find a world very different than the one he had left. The young people on the streets were wearing American sports jerseys. The currency had experienced so much inflation that a new higher value note had been issued. Even his family had changed — »