Author Archives: Raisa Bruner

At the bottom of Stair 96, in the steamy, labyrinthine bowels of Payne Whitney Gymnasium, there’s a sign scotch-taped to the wall: “SPINNING CLASS THIS WAY” it instructs cheerily, and a scribbled red arrow points down the hallway. In the opposite direction, the loud thumping bass of techno music reverberates throughout the heavyweight crew team’s »

Every cookie has a story. This is the story of the peanut butter cookie I ate in the early morning hours last Wednesday: In 2003, a University of Pennsylvania student launched a late-night cookie-delivery enterprise to satisfy college students’ sweet teeth while indulging their preferences for minimal exertion and maximum intake of midnight calories. “When »

There was once a little house here, in the middle of Old Campus. It builds itself in my mind. Then a garden and a chimney and a pig in the yard. I blink and narrow my eyes: the sidewalks dissolve into dirt; the solid hulking towers of Bingham and Durfee and Vanderbilt crumble away. I »

I had never heard of “Islam” before. That was the least of my concerns: at that moment, I was more worried about getting to my new school in my new state on time even as I wasted precious morning minutes watching the CNN footage. The smoke billowing from the buildings looked like special effects in »