Tag Archive: humor

  1. Jame Is With You All Ways

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    Well, these are it. Yes, it has come to that time we all knew it would be at last. Even in our jibbliest of days everyone could have told you, yes, it does happen that it will end, but the future was so many from then, and how could you count? It has been so good to be your little Jame all of these years, but even the things of the world we love must come to end. My fellow folks, it is time for even me to bid a doo to the little boys and girls of Yale and bid a hello to the big boys and girls of Rest of Life.

    Gradulation is almost here, and it means that I will never be a writer of pages like these in the Yale “Daily” News again. But even though I have filled of my bucket with tears, you, my fellow folks, should only smile at your bucket, for we have here in these very words below one more time together — and this time is to be the time of all! I am to give you now one last words, all of the advises I have learned, so that even as I am to gradulate and say goodbye to these times as I enter Rest of Life, you, my little pudgles, can never have to say goodbye to Jame.

    And these they are:

    • Be kind of creatures. Once I was going upon the field, and I came upon a little anamal. These anamals, though they may be the teeniest or tiniest, make up all our world and, dare I say, are even just like us. Treat them as you would a close pal or fireman to save your life of a fire. You never know if one of them might even save to yours, like hero dog.

    • Fall in love to a woman. As Wise Man said, “You are never to be, if you are not love to me.” That is a word to live by, my friend! If you see of one beautiful flower of them to love, take of her in the arms and do sweet nothing to her ear. Though this has not ever once happen to me, I am recommend it to all of my friends. I am trying.

    • Remember a glass is only half empty when it is run out of what makes it to make it full. Always, dear fellow folks, there may find a faucet near by you, and it could be a faucet of friendships, or one hundred dances, or even of life itself. Take of it, put it in your glass or pocket, and drink it up like the biddle boy you maybe were once before at his proverbial mother’s teeps.

    • Have of no egrets. Do NOT, as it was, look into your passed as if it were a monster that had chased you all of the days. I myself even have looked into my passed, thinking of things I might had did, or if I had did them, if I had did them too much or wrong or in the wrong orders, or if they hadn’t have been done at all, what may have been done instead? I myself have had egret — I once did see of a little dog and it bited of my hand. But later of the day, as I was healing my wombs, I realized that my greatest egret was egretting too much.

    • But most important of every advise I know, it is to be together on the people that you love to you, to hug on to them all of the day and every night. Every single one of us is a person to be seen and heard, just as you would your own mother. Give piece a chance to your enemy and friend and birds of the sky a like. They don’t know what they did to you when they did, and neither even did you! To air is human, and to fly away home with all of friends is the vine. Take them in your body and take of them your own. For, if one isn’t to be laughing and dancing in a field, where are you? Truly, that is of it, the morls of life, to be and be and be again with each other and with the world. If you see a hand in need, then a hand indeed.

    I am to go now. Its time to gradulate. To Rest of Life. But don’t you worry about little Jame, I am to be fine. Just know to this: Wherever you go, even if it is in the smallest bushes of the land, Jame is there. If you climb to the tallest mountain or boat on the sea, Jame is there. Even in the midnight of the darkest night, where there is to seem no hopes or dreams, and no man or woman will love to you, and each creature of the land will crawl away from you and you feel that you are not right at all, Jame, little Jame, is still with you. Because Jame loves you. All ways.

  2. A Desire to Be Heard

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    If you ever want your mind bent, try going through your Facebook history. If you don’t have a Facebook account, good job on getting into heaven.

    Blame the throes of winter, or the mountains of schoolwork, or the behemoth known in some circles as A Job Search, but a few weeks ago I found myself in desperate need of positive reinforcement. Not feeling bold enough to post the Facebook status, “Hey everyone I’m in desperate need of positive reinforcement because life right now feels like a trash compactor,” I searched for a piece of my Facebook past. And I ended up finding a lot more.

    Six years ago, when I was a sophomore in high school, two senior girls posted a video to my Facebook wall. The premise was cheeky — they pretended to have accidentally hit the record button and then talked to each other about me — but they said some wonderful things. When I first saw it, my heart lifted, and that night, I went to sleep smiling. Cut to present day: I knew they posted the video sometime in the spring of 2009, so I used Facebook’s timeline feature to bring up everything: high school friends’ posts, tagged photos and, most horrifyingly, old status updates. I trawled through months of myself at sixteen, unearthing every post (example gem: “didn’t get an extension for his English project??? WTF?!?!?!”). I cringed at every awkward interaction with my friends, every complaint about my French assignments. I couldn’t believe I talked the way I did – without context, my sarcasm revealed an extremely jaded and unlikable kid.

    But was my embarrassment a function of my immaturity then or my present-day self-policing? My Facebook presence today is carefully curated, composed of advertisements for my improv shows (come to them!) and my pun-filled Tweets (follow me on Twitter!). I never get very personal. It’s gauche, it’s overbearing, no one wants to hear that.

    This shift from my high school to my college self was gradual. As our generation grew up on social media, we evolved from one set of concerns to another. In the beginning, you had to watch out for creeps with fake accounts. Later, you had to watch out for yourself; the Internet had permanence, we discovered, and we had to avoid posting any unflattering or compromising content. (My mom’s rule: “Never post something you wouldn’t want on the front page of the New York Times.”) Today, the Internet isn’t so scary (everyone’s on it!), but it serves as a talking point in all those hand-wringing thinkpieces about the problem with millennials. There’s this idea that Kids These Days are narcissistic, and social media sites like Facebook and Instagram just indulge their gross desire to post pics of themselves double-fisting daiquiris in Cabo. This prompted someone like me to write, on Oct. 22, 2009, “I keep promising myself that each Thursday night will be better than the last … and they always get worse.” Oh, the hubris! Oh, the look-at-me! Oh, the … deeply human desire to be heard?

    As I grimaced at my Facebook past, I considered blocking off three hours of my day to go through and hide each and every post. I was terrified that anyone could jump back in time and see my warts. But I stopped. First, because of laziness. Second, because I began to question my motives. What was so narcissistic about wanting to let my friends know how I was feeling? Even if my complaints were cheap calls for sympathy, what if I really needed it? I can’t remember how I felt when I posted every status, but given how generally trash-compacted I felt in high school, I wouldn’t put it past myself to be desperately honest to the world. Back then, the few likes I’d get on my statuses would ease my nerves. Looking at those likes today did too.

    I never found the video — the girl who had posted it deactivated her account some time ago — and I eventually got out of my funk. I wondered what would have happened if I had posted something brutally honest about my feelings, something that didn’t hide behind wordplay or YouTube links. I wondered if my Facebook friends would sneer or empathize. Would they reach out to me in my time of need? I believe that they would, and I would do the same for them.

  3. Strawberry ice cream, and why it’s the worst

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    You walk into the dining hall and you know something is wrong. You have a leaden feeling in your stomach. You do not yet know why, but you make a beeline to the ice cream. You open the lid. You look down. Strawberry. Another lid. Strawberry. A third lid. Strawberry. Fourth. Purple; but still, the damage is done. People of Yale, have we not all experienced this horror, this atrocity?

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone hates strawberry ice cream. “Foucault once said ‘Strawberry ice cream is the worst,’” Grace Phillips ’15 said. An extensive survey of YDN readers concluded that 97.7 percent of people despise strawberry ice cream, and the remaining 2.3 percent have neutral feelings about it (data falsified). And strawberry ice cream is particularly pernicious because it prevents us from fully enjoying other flavors. While a cookies and cream tub lasts about two hours, a strawberry one stays in the dining hall for three days, stealing precious real estate from other, more popular flavors (Fig. 1).

    These statistics may seem frightening on their own, but the effect of strawberry ice cream on the collective Yale psyche is even more frightening. Students interviewed all revealed that the dangerous overabundance of strawberry ice cream in dining halls had ruined their days, weeks and even semesters.

    Shikha Garg ’15 recounted her experience during reading week in Dec. 2014. She had hoped to find relief from the stress of finals in the dining hall, but instead found only strawberry ice cream in the ice cream bin. She immediately collapsed to the floor, letting out a wail, as a single tear fell down her cheek. Garg was willing to share this painful experience because she knows she is not alone. Indeed, 69 survey respondents reported experiencing intense pain as a result of the strawberry ice cream epidemic on campus.

    However, not everyone hates strawberry. Jackson McHenry ’15, campus cultural critic, mover and shaker, says, “Strawberry ice cream is not that bad.” He is wrong. Because data (Fig. 1).

    All is not hopeless in the land of frozen dairy desserts. There are avenues for change, though they may be fraught with obstacles. Recently, the Yale Dining survey arrived in your inbox. YCC elections are approaching. In other words, the time has come for us to demand that Yale Dining give us more of the ice cream we want. The time has come for us to ask — no, insist — that YCC President Michael Herbert speak on our behalf.

    But even outside of the typical, shopworn systems of power, individuals can find ways to enact change. If you see strawberry ice cream in the dining hall, bring it to the dish return. If you see strawberry ice cream, carve “I hate this” into its surface. If you see strawberry ice cream, remove it from the dining hall entirely.

    You may think that this is a trivial concern. You may believe that there are more important dishes on the proverbial menu of stressors afflicting our student body. This is not the case. Change begins with the smallest of actions, the quietest of statements.

    Let our voices be heard. Let our palates be satisfied. Let our taste buds be freed.

  4. Young (and Millenial) Like Us

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    For decades, kids have picked up home movie cameras, bossed around their younger siblings and dreamed of being famous directors. And for most of those decades, their work went unwatched, confined to cassette tapes forgotten on dusty basement shelves. But with the advent of YouTube and other video-sharing platforms, an amateur filmmaker can hit it big from the comfort of her own home. That’s what the creators and stars of “Young Like Us,” a new web series featuring two Yale alums, are hoping to achieve. The creator-writer-director, Chloe Sarbib ’12, has fashioned an enjoyable mini-sitcom with plenty of comedic promise.

    When three college friends move out of their shared apartment, the newly-ex-roommates decide to start a fake band to stay friends. Charlie (Julie Shain), the trio’s Quirky One, comes up with the fake-band-but-actually-it’s-a-real-band idea. Charlie provides the show with most of its energy, and Shain strikes a nice balance between silliness and likability. Her friends, career-obsessed Ava (Sarah Rosen) and boyfriend-obsessed Mia (Cleo Handler ’12), agree that humoring her is probably the best option. The series also includes a handful of secondary characters, of which Larry (Brad Dourif), the girls’ aggressively weird former super, is the most memorable.

    As a new series, “Young Like Us” got off to a solid, if imperfect, start. The pilot is a bit clunky, weighed down by labored characterization and scene setting (perhaps due to the short-form time crunch). But once the episodes get going they find their comedic groove, a style incorporating zippy comebacks and humorous cutaways (a la “30 Rock”). “Young Like Us” also includes some really clever and funny songwriting that sets it apart from other web projects. The editing and pacing occasionally feel a bit slow, but the episodes remain punchy and entertaining. In the best scenes, all three leads play off of one another — their repartee is witty and infectious.

    Over the past few years, the web series has become a popular launching pad for mainstream careers in the arts. “Broad City,” Comedy Central’s smash hit about two beautifully crass Manhattanites, began as a low-budget YouTube series. Issa Rae, creator and star of “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl,” a critically acclaimed online project, landed a production deal with HBO and is currently working on several pilots. Instead of sending out spec scripts, content creators can make spec shows — bite-sized YouTube morsels that show off acting, writing and/or directing skills.

    Despite the contemporary glut of shows about girlfriends living in New York City, “Young Like Us” distinguishes itself with quirky characters and musical flair. The episodes, at ten minutes or less, are short enough to binge-watch and the accompanying songs are zany and memorable. If you’re looking for a quick and satisfying study break, “Young Like Us” might just be the ticket.

  5. WKND Reads Your Sexy Horoscope

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    Having put our faith in small talk, alcohol and Tinder, and having been consequently disappointed by each, WKND has since put our faith in the stars. And what do you know — they’ve disappointed us too! But that experience has left us with a working knowledge of sexy astrology, a gift that we shall now bequeath upon you, dear reader. Behold: Your Sexy Horoscope!

    Aries — Oh, impatient, foolhardy Aries! Don’t spend another Valentine’s Day alone in your room, watching “Friends” and sacrificing infants to Mars, god of blood and destruction. Enough is enough! This Feb. 14, treat yourself to a night of revelry and merriment. In fact, our astrologers predict that you’ll see an old flame at a party. When the old flame makes an ambiguous gesture of friendship, go ahead and misinterpret that signal. (It may be a handshake, or a high-five or a friendly wave of the hand.) Throw yourself into the person’s arms — if it turns out you got it all wrong, Mars will definitely smite the idiot.

    Taurus — Take the bull by the horns this Valentine’s Day. Love is there for the taking, but you’ve got to strike while the iron is hot. Don’t wait for Cupid to pierce your true love with an arrow — walk right up and hit ’em with your best shot. Literally. Just approach someone at a party, slap the cutie-pie, and wait for a reaction. Also — our astrologers have informed us that you have a secret admirer! If you’re curious, make deliberate, angry eye contact with everyone you see this Valentine’s Day: that person on High St. who blushes and looks away is your belovèd.

    Gemini — Wedding bells are ringing for you and your one true love! (The Harkness tower bells, on the other hand, are not ringing for you and your one true love. The Harkness tower bells ring for no man.) While matrimony may prove a sudden and startling proposition, ignore the counsel of friends and family — follow your heart. Who says you need to wait until thirty to wed? Elope. Las Vegas. Move off campus before junior year.

    Cancer — You are a strong independent person who don’t need no man/woman. Our astrologers foretell high levels of inebriation for you this Valentine’s Day. In fact, others will spot your dilated pupils and ruddy cheeks and mistake this drunken stupor for love. They will feel pangs of jealousy; they will plot to overthrow you; they will spread rumors about you, your family and your heritage. Look out for those who attempt to absorb your innermost self.

    Leo — A passionate encounter will fuel your creativity for the next month. You will find yourself feverishly typing up a new novel, finishing a painting, perfecting a recipe for Eggplant Parmigiano. Riding this high, you will eventually write an entire midterm paper in one night, only to discover that you’ve typed your lover’s name 3,000 times in a row. Schlomo, Schlomo, Schlomo … Prepare for an abrupt comedown both in your art and your life as a result of these amorous vicissitudes.

    Virgo — You have a fraught relationship to your virginity. You have spent the last three months picking at your cuticles and longing for that grad student named Chuck. Nevertheless, you’ll have bigger fish to fry this weekend, when disaster strikes from an unexpected place. Our astrologers tell us that you will wake up as a literal bug someday soon — while this sounds frightening, it could be a blessing in disguise. Has a cockroach ever had a fraught relationship with its virginity?

    Libra — you will be whisked away on a romantic getaway this weekend, but feel torn because the romantic getaway coincides with your friend’s birthday/wedding/improv show. Don’t beat yourself up over this tiny betrayal, however — you just tend to experience guilt more vividly than you experience any other emotion. Accept massages, candygrams, smooches and pizza slices, wherever they may come from.

    Scorpio — Pucker up, little scorpion — this weekend you’ll experience your first kiss! (If you’ve already been kissed, this will be your first true kiss.) The setting might not be very romantic, but the circumstances will be memorable. (Look out for a young man with tattoos and a pet monkey. Our astrologers tell us that the monkey goes by Carl.) However, while you are in a woozy, starry-eyed daze, you might forget the ones you love. Under no circumstances should you succomb to such a lapse in memory. Never forget where you come from, Scorpio.

    Sagittarius — In the coming days, one of your physical charms will leave you. For men, this may be the premature onset of baldness. For women, this could be the sudden appearance of fish scales and fins. Despite this disheartening turn of events, our astrologers recommend that you make hay while the sun shines. Live life to the fullest! Touch your hair while it’s still attached to your head, use your body while it’s still vaguely mammalian. Your anticipation of the impending disaster will actually prove productive, generating some exciting surprises!

    Capricorn — This Valentine’s Day, you will find yourself temporarily thrust into the nightmarish realm of a young adult novel. A dystopian totalitarian regime will drive you to do things you never dreamed of doing. You will work the arid land alongside your beautiful siblings; you will repair robots; you will harvest human organs. When you return from your journey, you will have aged a thousand years, and your hair will be streaked grey. Shaky and devastated, you will spend the rest of your life alienated from the authentic human contact you once craved.

    Pisces/Aquarius — you will fall in love in a watery wonderland. You will swim in a pool of loving feeling, which will wash you clean from your former sins and mistakes. Fear death by water.

  6. Dance Like I Do: On Seniors and What is Fun

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    As a writer of the issues in all the days of our times, I have touched my pen on the issues of the day at least a hundred or a thousand times in these pages. Of society, of Game, of Lizards as Pets, and of Life — each time, in a humble word, I have said what I believe my opinion to be and when and why. But I have left it up to you to decide? But THIS one, on THIS one I cannot say silent! So, here I am, again, to write of it, and you all to read of it once more.

    What I am to speak of is one I’m sure you all see in the air as Yale is soon to end. It’s celebration. It’s of the way we show to be happy. It’s of what exactly the little boys and girls of Yale do to have the good times. This leads me to ask us: what is this fun? And where is it to be found? And why? Is it at the dance parby with the musics turned all the way up? Is it moving and shaking your parts at the dance clud, all packed in tight like jibbies? NO. It is in us, it is inside of we. Let me explain to it.

    At the other day, deep in the night time, I was standing in the corner of the biggest ball room I had ever known to see, the Senior Masterade, when it struck into my head. Though I, Jame, go it out into the hustling streets every day to know every little girl and boy of Yale, I felt as if, here, I could truly know no one. Though you dance around and jiggle whatever it is on your body that is to be jiggled, how can you have fun if you don’t know your self or the selves of everyone around you? After all, as they always have said, “He who truly knows not one, knows no one.” And he who knows no one will lie sad in his bed all night long.

    And then, in this moment, I was struck by another, that all of the times we had before were just the same in this regard as this one now. I’m thinking right now, of course, of Tobe’s Place, of Freshling Screw, of the parby that we have on Spring Fling Day. It is all of just to jump and noise and touch back and forth on each other … outside where everyone’s eyes can see it happen! Need I remind you of Safely Dance, which, I may remind you, did not go quite so “safely” as everyone thought? In the Masterade, we all wore our masts. But maybe in the pastimes, we wore still another mast: the mast of parby, the mast of our face.

    Now, my mind swings itself into the present. It is the month of Feduary, which is time for only just one thing for seniors — the Fed Clubs. In the Fed Clubs, if you are to become a member of them, go to it, by all and every means, but when you get to it, don’t just bang and jang around like those sweaty scratchy parbies of the past. Take off your mast! Dance like I do — flowing around in the meadow of the winds, each little arm and leg twirling and whirling away. See the world as I do — of a friend, of you and me and all of us together holding of their fingers and hands running everywhere together!

    And I was struck again with another and my mind swings again further on to the beautiful month of May — Murble Beach, the Senior Weeks, where we have the proverbial chance to do things right. Leave home your smelly bottles, and turn your face into the sun. There you will see me, splashing in the sand, and know that we did it. Because after all, when these weeks are over, Yale is gone.

    And which will you remember?

  7. Choose your own snow day adventure

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    Is this just a flowchart? No, because a flowchart is a flowchart, and this is an adventure. QED.

    You wake up with your head pounding and roll over to look at the clock. 10:35 AM. Damn, maybe that last round of Fireball shots was a bad idea, especially because you have class in…

    WAIT! It’s a snow day!

    You roll onto your back and stare at the ceiling with a prayer of thanks on your lips. E pluribus Linda.  Or whoever it was this year.

    If you want to fall back asleep, turn to page 4. If you want to drag your ass out of bed, turn to page 2.

    Page 2.

    Still marveling at your good fortune, you stumble, bleary-eyed, to the shower. After letting the water run for a few minutes, you are about to step in when a thought strikes you: shower beer?

    If it’s five o’clock somewhere and you want a shower beer, turn to page 5. If you aren’t yet an alcoholic, turn to page 7.

    Page 4.

    You wake with your head throbbing at a slightly lower frequency and roll over to look at the clock. 1:09 PM. It’s probably time to get up. But your bed is definitely comfortable. Really comfortable, in fact. Maybe you should just stay here.

    If you want to stay in bed like the slug you are, turn to page 10. If you want to drag your lazy ass out of bed and maybe make something of your life, turn to page 2.

    Page 5.

    You pad down the stairs to the kitchen and open the fridge. Jesus, it smells terrible… but you’re not choosing that adventure right now. Ah, there’s what you’re looking for: a half-collapsed rack of ‘Stones, just waiting to help you greet the new day. You pluck a ripe one and return to the bathroom, holding your beer like a chalice as you stem under the nozzle. Practicing delayed gratification, you wash your hair first, and then crack open your beer.

    If your beer just tastes like beer, turn to page 6. But if it tastes like freedom, turn to page 8.

    Page 6.

    Well wasn’t that wild. Satisfied with your small rebellion, you step out the shower and dry off. Following a breakfast of egg whites and toast, you settle into your favorite chair and crack open not a beer, but Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” You’re actually on pace with the assigned readings, but what is a snow day for if not getting ahead? 249 pages later, the sun is setting in the west, and you are aglow with half-submerged self-satisfaction. Tolstoy is just so relevant, isn’t he? Everyone in your seminar hates you but may also secretly envy your intellect. Your adventure is over. WKND hopes it was a good one.

    Page 7.

    You take a normal, beer-free shower. You eat a nice home-cooked breakfast of bacon and eggs, although you break one of the yolks. Nevermind, though, it’s still delicious. You look forward to surfing the web and watching “Archer.” Maybe you’ll even catch up on reading. But realistically, that’s not gonna happen. You are the stereotypic Yale student. In your future low-level job at Goldman, you will help crash the U.S. economy. But for now, your adventure is over. WKND hopes it was a good one.

    Page 8.

    Three shower beers later, you’ve left a trail of wet footprints from the second-floor bathroom to the fridge in the kitchen, but you regret nothing. The notion of a fourth beer dances at the now-blurred edge of your consciousness… but then the hot water begins to run out, and you decide it’s time to start the day. Later in the day, you wander over to one of the frats, which is having a snow-themed darty of some sort. Everyone brilliantly interprets this to mean “neon/spandex/neon spandex, but with snowboots,” and soon the slush from outside has mixed with that distinctive beer-dirt mixture on the floor to create a truly novel concoction.

    Turn to page 9.

    Page 9.

    Some people in the living room are trying to dance but sliding around in the sludge; others in the basement are playing beer pong.

    If you want to play beer pong, turn to page 11. If you want to attempt to dance, turn to page 12.

    Page 10.

    You wake with your head clear but your soul tarnished by sloth. You roll over and look at the clock. 4:45 PM. It is too late to choose your own adventure. Your parents are ashamed and will have a hard time looking you in the eye next Thanksgiving.

    Page 11.

    You play beer pong.

    If you want to keep playing beer pong, turn to page 14. If you want to try to find something else to do, turn to page 9.

    Page 12.

    You attempt to dance, as you have so many times before. But the snow-reflected three o’clock sunlight pouring through the windows makes your gyrations embarrassingly public, and you struggle to truly let go.

    If you want to keep dancing anyways, turn to page 12.  If you are too self-conscious, turn to page 16.

    Page 14.

    You play more beer pong. After losing three games in a row, it’s about three o’clock and you’re pretty drunk, especially given the three shower beers you had earlier and the fact that all you’ve eaten is half a plate of leftover nachos. You stagger home through the snow and collapse into your bed. Your adventure is over. WKND hopes it was a good one.

    Page 16.

    You detach yourself from the pulsing throng in the living room and wander over to the keg in the kitchen. As you pour yourself another beer, you look around the room trying not to make eye contact with anyone, but also trying not to look like you’re trying not to make contact with anyone. Soon you are becoming really introspective and wondering why you can’t just let yourself have a good time. As you begin to think that maybe this is all your parents’ fault, you notice that your beer is overflowing, and a girl wearing neon spandex is staring at you. Feeling naked and exposed, you leave the frat and walk back to your house, still trying not to look like you are trying not to make eye contact with anyone. You lie in your bed and look out your window at the snow sparkling in the sun and wonder how man can be so base in a world of such great beauty. Then you begin to cry. Your adventure is over. WKND hopes it was a good one.

  8. WKND Resolutions

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    Over winter break, my friend told me to try Sims Freeplay on my phone. Being the sheeperson that I am, I downloaded it from the App Store and created my first character, Bilbo Baggins, who lives in a log cabin. (I had just watched the Hobbit trilogy.) On the afternoon of December 30, as I watched Bilbo plant bell peppers in his garden patch, a pop-up appeared: “NEW QUEST AVAILABLE,” it said. “THE RESOLUTION SOLUTION: Complete this quest to get a Party Pack.” Bilbo was definitely the kind of hobbit who would dig a Party Pack, so I proceeded. My first step of the quest, titled “Discuss Resolutions with a Sim,” explained that one of Bilbo’s resolutions was “to have more parties.” Good thing I’m gonna get him a party pack, I thought to myself.

    But I couldn’t figure out how to complete said task, how to “Discuss Resolutions with a Sim.” I tapped Bilbo multiple times with my index finger, but the only options that came up were “Ultimate Make Over” and “Have Birthday,” and Bilbo wasn’t yet ready to grow up — he still wanted to enjoy youth and have more parties, as stated. So I gave up and, after watching him stretch for a few seconds, I made him plant more bell peppers. Oh, well. Bilbo will have to wait until 2016 to wear his party hat.

    Contact Emily Xiao at emily.xiao@yale.edu .

    Liz: Steph, I’m hungry.

    Steph: This is not new. You were hungry yesterday. You were hungry before lunch. You were hungry after lunch.

    Liz: So were you. Chinese was your idea last time.

    Steph: It was necessary.

    Liz: “Necessary.”

    Steph: I didn’t even get into Structure of Networks… #needaQR #englishmajor #whatislyfe

    Liz: #whataredumplings

    Steph: This really needs to stop… I spent more money on food this week than I did on textbooks… and I went to the Bookstore! #toolazyforAmazon #englishmajor

    Liz: We could bench press your books.

    Steph: I mean, I can walk to the car… to pick up the food. That’s exercise – you have to go outside.

    Liz: Exercise gives you endorphins.

    Steph: So does chocolate #truefact. We haven’t had pizza in a while…

    Liz: “A while.” If Marie Antoinette lived with us, it would have been “Let Them Eat Everything.”

    Steph: I wonder how she would’ve felt about Claire’s.

    Liz: I like to comfort myself that it’s a vegetarian cafe.

    Steph: That’s healthy, right? Like, it has the word vegetable in…

    Liz: Spring rolls have vegetables.

    Steph: Rolls. Lol… and she “rolls” into class….

    Liz: Structure of Networks? 😉

    Steph: I can’t believe they capped that…

    Liz: There’s a “History of Food” class. You could take that.

    Steph: Stop.

    Liz: Wait. I didn’t make any New Year’s Resolutions this year. What if we tried not to order food past 10 P.M. this semester? The refrigerator would look like a gleaming gate to Heaven.

    Steph: *insert gif of Benedict Cumberbatch crying his beautiful eyes out*

    Steph: …

    Steph: …

    Steph: …

    Steph: I don’t like the sound of this

    Liz: The New Haven restaurant economy doesn’t like the sound of this.

    Steph: What if we put people out of business? IT’S THEIR LIVELIHOOD, LIZ. People are able to eat because we eat.

    Liz: Crunchbutton, then?

    Steph: Please, it’s been loaded this entire time.

    Contact Stephanie Addenbrooke and Elizabeth Miles at

    stephanie.addenbrooke@yale.edu and elizabeth.a.miles@yale.edu .

    For all the presents we’d regift if Facebook didn’t show photos of our friends with their “new” gifts. (But we promised ourselves that we’d be economical in 2015!) For all our thinner-than-us friends who resolve to get even thinner than us this year. For when ‘getting the girl’ becomes just stalking her CourseTable and magically appearing in all her classes during shopping week. For all the Grandmas with Fitbits®. For putting off our resolutions and giving the first week of January a get-out-of-jail-free card. For finally getting in touch with old friends…over Facebook.

    Because two cups of coffee is less of an addiction than three cups of coffee. Because those awkward daring haircuts grow out and the Christmas lights might be down by Valentine’s Day this year. Because maybe your Valentine’s Day gift won’t be from your parents. Because you’ll outdo your 2014 self by watching two seasons of Game of Thrones in a row instead of just one. Because maybe you’ll get enough sleep until shopping-week-Woad’s. Because maybe you’ll remember your resolutions longer than you’ll remember this article.

    Here’s to 2015, even if it only means being slightly less mediocre by accomplishing slightly less mediocre resolutions.

    Contact Kelsi Caywood at

    kelsi.caywood@yale.edu .

    Last year, I decided to make more resolutions. I thought I was being rather clever: In bypassing the whole stick-to-one-resolution-per-year deal, I could consistently make smaller resolutions on a daily, or weekly basis. After a variety of failed resolutions, I made one for the fall semester, hoping I could stick with it. I resolved to overcome my clumsiness. (Now that I think about it, of course, the resolution was doomed to fail: I cannot control the physical world or my body).

    The school year started out fine. No trips or falls. But two months in, trouble came knocking.

    First, I fell down the Bass Library steps. Yes, I was wearing heels and, yes, that was a stupid decision, but I still fell down 10 hard, stone steps! The following week, while running in the Pierson gym, no high heels in sight, I fell off the treadmill. After a sad attempt to get back on, I fell again. I still have scars from the encounter with that evil contraption.

    Finally, I experienced the most terrifying mishap right before screw. A few of my friends and I had snagged a nice table at a tapas restaurant. Small candles on each table illuminated the room. The dinner went wonderfully until a friend suggested that we take a selfie. As we leaned over, my hair trailed into one of the candles and burst into flames. Although I managed to extinguish the flames with my fingers and some water, the experience was incredibly scarring (emotionally, not physically).

    I think I learned my lesson this year. I’m choosing one resolution and sticking to it, and this resolution has nothing to do with my clumsiness. I’ve already come to terms with my own permanent, inevitable clumsiness. My resolution is to exercise three times a week. Super original, I know.

    Contact Sofia Braunstein at

    sofia.braunstein@yale.edu

    WKND slept real late last semester. It started innocently enough: One Saturday morning, sated with suds from the night before and feeling decadent, we awoke at 10:30 and decided we deserved a break, so we went back to sleep. At 2:43, WKND rolled out of bed, took a shower, and began our day. But when we tried to get to sleep that night, our Saturday sloth came back to haunt us. We fell asleep at 4:30 AM and awoke at 1:45. And so the cycle began. With no morning seminars to rouse us, WKND became practically nocturnal, navigating the streets of New Haven by echolocation, feasting only on Wenzels or instant noodles (and once a Wenzel garnished with instant noodles.)  This continued through the end of the semester. And so, on December 28, catching a glimpse of our pale and flabby figure in the mirror, WKND resolved to Wake Up Earlier This Semester.

    Fast forward three weeks.

    Our alarm clock rings. It’s 9:45 a.m. on the first Thursday of shopping period and WKND’s schedule is just about almost kinda set. But one thing we do know is that we have no Thursday classes before our 3:30 seminar, “Traffic Enforcement in the American City, 1910-2000.” And so we hit the snooze button once.  And then again. And then a 17th time. And then our alarm clock gives up and suddenly it’s 2:30 and it’s time to shower and eat a rushed breakfast.

    There’s always next year.

    — WKND

  9. And We're Off!

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    Welcome to our little WKND chunk of cyberspace.

    Don’t worry; we’re a little nervous to be here, too. We know as much about the tubes that make up the interweb as a CS major knows about Aristotle. Not that we know much about Aristotle either. But in any case, the World Wide Web is a big and freaky vacuum filled with ones and zeros, secret codes, porn, and Mark Zuckerberg. But now, it also contains the new and improved WKND blog.

    Prepare yourselves: the WKND blog is about to spread its golden wings and soar into the great Internet unknown, a world of GIFs, listicles, snarky blurbs and snapshots of what interests you. We’ll review albums for you, and post pictures of Peter Salovey when we spot him at Stop and Shop. We’ll tell you where to eat and where not to eat, where to study and where to procrastinate.

    But this isn’t Buzzfeed or the Yale Bubble, this isn’t you scrolling and trolling through comments on the YDN website (yes, we’ve been there too)—the WKND blog is so much more. The WKND blog is a lifestyle. We are “crafting content” and “interfacing” with you, dear reader. If you don’t understand what those words mean, that’s OK: neither does WKND.

    So consider this an invitation. Have you seen something weird? Is there a freaky facet of college life that you really need to get off your chest / onto the interwebs? Are you angry about the existence of Gant: the Shirt that Dressed Yale and Jack Willis: Fabulously British? Do you bristle at the use and abuse of colons? Did you listen to an album you loved? Did you eat a thing you hated? Did you do some other activity that made you have feelings? Tell us. WKND cares. We want to dignify and elevate your fragmented thoughts and idle observations about Yale, New Haven, and just like, life, in general. We don’t just want to know, we need to know. Really. We think you’re so cool.

    So readers and writers alike: let us tweet at you and speak to you, in the hustle and bustle and in the lulls, for in spite of what everyone says, every day is still —

    // WKND //

  11. Let’s Try Believing in People: Reading Privilege at Yale

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    Look around you at Yale any day of the week. Who do you see? People? Humans? Souls? The oppressive environment of Yale makes our personalities see each other like assignments, pages to be read and talked about in a classroom “seminar” setting. But what does this mean? How can we truly feel this way about peers whom we are supposed to love and touch their souls?

    Yale is a microcosm of the human world of societies. According to the National Studies, some of us can’t even look people in the eyes without seeing them as an objectification. What place is this? What does this say about us as people? We need to work on our skills of really connecting without thinking about social constructs like stereotypes and society. If you really think about your role in the community, you might grow to learn how common values like truth and sharing contribute to a meaningful discourse about campus life — just like when we were children.

    If you think about it, children are the only ones who can really appreciate one-to-one behavior between humans, as one. When a child looks at a book, he can’t read it, but he knows what it means. We as Yale students in the community of Yale really need to remember to know what things mean. We as Yale students, all in all, reach a point in each of our lives where we bear responsibility for ourselves and others in the noble endeavor of our lives. Can we trust ourselves as creators of the new generation of society to pave the way of true knowledge?

    Take the instance of iPhones, for example. When we look at a screen, it automatically means we cannot look at a face. When we read a “text” we automatically cannot “read” our friends. As we have become more and more a society that values material culture and the values that it discharges over a culture that values people and animals as they are and should be, are we not becoming what the famous Hemingway once called the Lost Generation? And after all, are we not just, like Hemingway, animals too?

    What the administration doesn’t understand is that students need room not only to learn and create but also to grow as people and believe. Yale is not a factory; it is a farm. Our professors should be concerned not with molding our plastic minds but nurturing the eggs of our souls. The administration should not be concerned with what method is most “efficient” or “productive” but rather with feeding us the freshest grains and oats.

    Another aspect that plays into the role of campus in society and vice versa is this overwhelming obsession with the culture of the hookup culture on campus. If we cannot make meaningful connections with each other, but like the proverbial preying mantis only eat our mates after making love, so to speak, we will fall into a deep pit of moral decay and failing as a society. Hook-up culture is only beneficial to those for whom hooking up benefits, and the rest of students who may not be comfortable with those social norms are put on the sidelines like the proverbial basketball players.

    This is not to say that we cannot know one another merely by the processes of looking and seeing; but, rather, to delve into one another in a new way that eliminates stereotypes completely. Preconceived notions can only be understood as a reflection of our deep-seated discomfort with hierarchies and the pressures they emit on each of us as Yale students. And that is why no one person can be held accountable for the actions and beliefs of our collective inner demons, but rather all of us, as a society, must take action to counteract the tide of isolation and make everyone feel at home. Think about that Peter Salovey!

    So the next time you’re walking on Cross Campus, or sitting in your class in a “seminar,” look around you. The world might be more complex than you ever give it credit for. All these people are more than interesting books; if you only took the time to read them, they might be interesting people. Maybe the really important reading isn’t on the syllabus at all. Maybe, for once, the Yale community can come together to realize that truth is more than just how much you “know,” it’s how much you are.