When Lily returned to campus after her hospital stay, we never spoke about her suicide attempt. A year-and-a-half later, I spoke with Lily via Skype and she told me her side of the story. She told me not only about that one August day, but also about how she has lived with bipolar disorder. Lily could have chosen to speak anonymously, but she felt that doing so would defeat her whole purpose: to combat the stigma and silence surrounding mental illness.

Hearing Lily’s voice conveys her story in a way that words on a page cannot.

Fellman’s team spent six weeks organizing the teach-in. The idea of a teach-in originated in a conversation Fellman had with Provost Steve Goldstein.

“Since the ’60s and ’70s, I have been taken with that form of education and stimulating awareness and thought, and this seemed like a rich and complex enough topic to warrant dusting off the old teach-in template and seeing where we might be able to go with it now,” Fellman said. “I hope it raised awareness among people who attended of the realities of U.S. society that Occupy addresses, of some of the movement’s actions and ideas, and of the General Assembly method of discussing and moving forward.”

The speakers spoke on topics ranging from media coverage of the Occupy Movement, to environmental issues regarding unequal appropriation of wealth, to the annually celebrated strike, May Day, to women’s and gender issues within the Occupy movement. For organizer Seth Grande ’12, though, one of the most important parts of the teach-in was the Occupy Harvard teach-in.

“I think looking to them for tactics, for demands, for strategies, models can be really helpful,” Grande said. Specifically, sophomore at Harvard, Sandra Korn, discussed the history of student protests at Harvard and how over the past year, they have progressed into developments with the student worker action movement on the Harvard no layoffs campaign.

One of the sessions at the teach-in that students commented on at the General Assembly was President Lawrence’s talk on the recent tuition hikes. Many students felt frustrated by what many felt were avoidances to basic questions about the process, while others sympathized with the financial restraints on Brandeis as an institution.

Students voiced their hopes of what this week’s teach-in could do for the Brandeis community.

“I think it’s particularly relevant at Brandeis because so many people pride Brandeis as this social justice institution. Well, where? We’re talking about this very vague notion of social justice,” Shea Reister ’12 said. Reister urged students to be more mindful of workers’ rights at Brandeis, and how exactly their money is being spent.

Students expressed enthusiasm for the teach-in. “What’s beautiful is just that it’s a radically different kind of event,” Reister said. All of the teach-in sessions culminated in the general assembly, where all attendees could discuss how they felt the day went as well as what issues they would like to address moving forward.

At the assembly, participants were urged to use communication methods used at Occupy sites around the country to promote a progressive, all-inclusive and cooperative dialogue among attendees. Twinkle fingers replaced handclaps, raising an index finger to provide a point of information replaced disruptive interruptions and mic-checks, a device based on call-and-repeat, magnified certain points of dialogue and brought onlookers into the conversation.

One of the demands brought up at the teach-in was to add a requirement for Brandeis students in which a social justice portion is incorporated into every concentration curriculum.

Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12 encouraged students to get involved in the Student Union. “Have a plan set in motion for next year so we can get students more involved in that process.”

SDS political platform also calls for more student communication with administrators. In a flier protesting the recent tuition increase, the group wrote, “The financial actions of universities including Brandeis have significant social ramifications. We all have the right to be involved in how Brandeis uses and invests its funds.”

Sahar Massachi M.A. ’12 also urged students to reflect back on Brandeis’ roots to set goals moving forward.

“Now it’s time for phase 2. The reason that all these great professors came to Brandeis before it was accredited by the American Association of Universities was because we were meant to be a laboratory for social justice,” Massachi said. “Our job was to teach people how to do good and then send them out to do good.”

One student claimed there’s a problem with that fact that students aren’t aware of Brandeis’ history of social justice. “It’s wrong that you can get out of Brandeis and never ask those questions.”

“I’ve learned a lot of what’s wrong with the world, but I haven’t learned very much at all about how to change it. And I think we should make a difference by changing that part of Brandeis. And I think we can,” admitted Massachi.

Many students involved with SDS have ties to the national Occupy Movement. “I’ve been involved in Occupy since the first day on Occupy Wall Street. It’s extremely important to me that it continues. To me it’s primarily raising consciousness that we at any time can stand up and say hey, we have a voice. We’re not going to go silently while all these things around us happen and affect our lives,” Reister said.

“I’m a first generation college student and a first generation American. My involvement with SDS has allowed me to look back at my family’s history and the way my family thinks and reflect on the unknowing restraints on their ideologies,” Jaclyn Gill ’14 said.

Changes to the constitution are imminent in the face of a number of amendments, which Rosen sent to the student body this past week. The seven amendments include eliminating a student-elected alumni association position because, according to the dossier explaining the amendments, “the truth is that the position is largely ineffective if the representative is not a member of Future Alumni of Brandeis (FAB) … We want to ensure efficiency and better, stronger representation of students towards the Alumni.”

Kirkland is largely concerned with the efficiency of the Student Union. As president, he plans to eliminate a number of unfilled positions on the E-board, including social justice coordinator and the community advocates positions, a drastic change to previous president Herbie Rosen’s Executive Board, almost double the size of Kirkland’s.

As president of the Student Union, Kirkland claims he plans to focus on communication between the administration, the Student Union and the Brandeis student body. Like every other of the presidential candidates, Kirkland’s platform centered on transparency and communication with the student body and the administration. He does, however, focus heavily on the use of social media. His campaign was boosted by weekly emails sent to the student body as Union secretary, detailing each week’s events in the Union. In such a short election, Kirkland felt that his name recognition gave him a significant boost.

In an interview with The Hoot, Kirkland explained his support of the amendments drafted by Rosen.

The amendments include more frequent review of the constitution by the Judiciary. “It’s bad we only look at it every four years. Every four years is a whole new student body,” Kirkland said. “It gives the Judiciary more responsibility.”

“We need a position that is always monitoring our Constitution,” reads the amendment proposal, “making sure it remains flexible and appropriate.”

Other amendments propose a non-voting senior representative to the board of trustees, who will hold a town hall meeting two weeks prior to meetings of the board of trustees so that students may raise any concerns they wish to bring to the board. “If feasible,” the amendment proposal reads, “the student representatives in collaboration with the University President, or Chief Student Affairs Officer, will provide insight on issues to be discussed at the next Board of Trustees meeting.”

Current President Rosen explained the timing of the newly drafted amendments. “[I] put them right in time for the next Student Union to implement them. These are some things I spent some time working on as president and … I wanted to see them happen before I left.”

David Fisch, newly-elected senator for the class of 2013, explained why. “There’s a turnover every year, nothing gets finished.” By scheduling the amendments to go through at the end of the spring semester, Rosen hopes they will continue to move forward at the beginning of the fall semester.

Kirkland believes that his experience as Union secretary will allow him to be a more efficient and effective leader of the student body, because he needs less time to adjust to the office or learn the ropes. His position on the undergraduate planning committee to the strategic plans, he said, help his connections to the university administration.

In response to the brief election cycle, Kirkland felt it would benefit Brandeis not only to have a longer campaign season, but for voting to be open multiple days, which he says he has seen at many other schools, where campaigns last for up to six months. His narrow margin could have been due to low voter turnout.

Regarding contentious issues, including the Department of Community housing shortage, Kirkland hopes to act as a liaison between the administration and the student body. “The university knows that housing is an issue. I would gather student input and then talk to administrators.” Bringing up the issue is not, he says, “a shot in the dark” and administrators already aware of the issues.

His plans include streamlining the Union and making it more open to students, but “I don’t think the Union should take itself too seriously,” Kirkland concluded, “the student body isn’t like that.”

Advisers for both students doubted whether Brandeis sufficiently fulfilled its legal obligation to conduct a campus investigation following the complaints, according to emails sent last May to Scot Bemis, the university’s Title IX coordinator.

The facts of the case are fogged in a he-said, she-said story. But a yearlong investigation supported with several documents and emails obtained by The Hoot reveal an administration more fearful of lawsuits than student concerns and officials more willing to defer questions than to answer them directly.

“The school was more interested in protecting its image than removing the hostile environment for me. They were afraid of being sued [by my alleged assailant],” she said. “I think they did not care about my safety at all.”

The Hoot interviewed her multiple times since May but has withheld her name and his to protect privacy. The paper’s attempts to contact him were unsuccessful. University officials declined to comment, citing federal privacy laws.

It was a case of his word against hers. She said her assailant and his friend currently enrolled at the Heller School repeatedly threatened and sexually assaulted her. He filed a criminal complaint that she threatened to kill him, a claim she denies. In response to the rape allegations, he provided a Word document of instant messages to university police showing her aggressive pursuit of him. She said the Word document was heavily edited and falsified.

Although the student conduct board found him responsible for nine of 11 code violations in Rights and Responsibilities, including section 3.1, which prohibits sexual contact without consent and an appeals committee later upheld the board’s ruling, prosecutors at the District Attorney’s office decided not to charge him.

Administrators faced a challenge of credibility—two international students, one a graduate in his mid-30s and a medical doctor and the other an undergraduate in her early 20s.
When a student life official contacted her regarding her assailant’s criminal complaint, she felt intimidated by his response to her claim and pressured to complete a referral and police report in order for the university to respond. The official also warned that the process could end with her suspension.

“He treated the situation like a disagreement between two students,” she said. “He thought the issue should be over by now—that I shouldn’t have any more complaints. I felt that he was trying to silence me.”

Questioning their response in emails and meetings, the student voiced repeated concerns about her safety on and off campus. A student life official advised the student to have her parents contact the university’s lawyers. When the student did meet with university police to report the multiple sexual assaults, a detective categorized the complaint as a “tempestuous relationship,” according to a May 8, 2011, email sent to Bemis.

Before the female student’s interview at the District Attorney’s Office in Woburn, the university police officer met privately for more than 15 minutes with an assistant district attorney. He also presented the Word document containing the instant messages that the student claims were falsified, according to the email to Bemis.

“He never questioned the authenticity of the evidence he presented,” she said. “… [He] was so determined to prove that he did nothing wrong and make it go away that I felt my safety was not his concern.”

Alwina Bennett, associate provost for graduate student affairs and a public contact for the rape crisis hotline, served as the male student’s faculty adviser during the student conduct board process.

Bennett’s role as a contact for the crisis hotline poses a conflict for students. Although encouraged to speak to her peers at the hotline, this student then saw Bennett advising her alleged assailant in a conduct board hearing.

Few faculty members are willing to serve as advisers in student conduct board cases regarding sexual assault. The student said at first she had no advocate and felt intimidated because Bennett had been defending her alleged assailant from the beginning. She later found a faculty adviser for the student conduct board process.

In addition, a case file in the office of student rights and community standards contained no evidence of a university police investigation, a Title IX requirement, according to the email sent to Bemis.

In an email sent to Bemis the next day on May 9, a different university employee agreed that the university had not fully complied with its requirement to investigate the case under Title IX and Rights and Responsibilities. Had the outcome of such an investigation been completed, she wrote, there would be insufficient evidence against the male student.

When the student met with university police to file a no-contact order and expressed safety concerns about listing her address on the form, an officer promised her it would be redacted, she said. Yet a student life official showed her alleged assailant the full report with her new address.

Professor Bernadette Brooten (NEJS) proposed an amendment at a faculty meeting on May 24, 2011, urging her colleagues to reject the list of proposed degree candidates. She did not refer to any details or to the specific conduct code violations in question.

The amendment read: “This vote to award the degrees does not extend to a student whose name appears on this list of degree candidates but has been accused of serious violations of Rights and Responsibilities and whose disciplinary process has not yet been concluded. Should the process be resolved in favor of said student, the vote of this body would extend to the student.”

Then-Provost Marty Krauss spoke out against the amendment and Brooten’s motion failed when it came to a vote.

The case posed a range of decisions requiring the entire senior leadership team, including police, student life, academic officials and President Fred Lawrence to be briefed on the case.

Brandeis reported three sexual assaults between 2007 and 2010, according to campus police.

Last April, the Department of Education sent a new guidance letter, reminding school administrators of their obligations to comply with Title IX.

One of the most important requirements is the obligation for universities to conduct internal investigations when they hear of sexual assault or harassment. University policies shifted to a lesser burden of proof for cases of sexual assault heard before the student conduct board. Like many other universities, prior to the April guidance, Brandeis used a “clear and convincing standard” as opposed to a “preponderance of the evidence standard” required by Title IX and applied in this case.

The student conduct board last May found him responsible for violating section 3.1, which prohibits sexual contact without explicit and clearly communicated consent, according to an email obtained by The Hoot. He was found not responsible for violating sections 3.2, prohibiting consent through incapacitation, and 3.3, prohibiting consent through prior sexual activity or relationship status.

Following the board’s recommendations, the Dean’s office announced a suspension under Section 21 effective immediately until commencement on May 20 this year. Stipulations during the suspension period include that the student’s official transcript and diploma be withheld from him until May 20. The decision also banned him from university property and accessing university services, according to the email.

The dean also prohibited him from enrolling at the university while she was here, and prevented him from ever living on-campus should he reenroll in the future.

On May 20 her alleged assailant’s suspension will end. But she has spent more than a year trying to talk to administrators, growing only more frustrated with the tone of their response.

“They’re very defensive of the university instead of trying to minimize the impact on me,” she said. “I raise an issue, I get a reply from an administrator saying that the university did nothing wrong.”

In this case, administrators acted in a manner inconsistent with federal law, community standards and social justice. They gave this student the run-around, threatened her with suspension, ignored conflicts of interest and disingenuously made promises that they did not keep. They acted with the expectation that she would go away.

This week, The Hoot is publishing the story of a female international student who alleges that she was raped repeatedly by her roommate at their off-campus apartment. We print the story because she brought it to our attention—not because she particularly wanted her story to be public but because no one else was listening.

As journalists, we believe that every community member deserves a voice. But it is absolutely pathetic that a campus newspaper is the only place where a student can feel comfortable sharing her story.

We subscribe to the view that better reporting leads to better policy. Cases such as this one are shrouded in secrecy given federal privacy laws and the potential for lawsuits. But in this case, the Brandeis administration has hid behind these laws to protect itself, not the students involved in the case. Given her openness to The Hoot during the past year, we doubt she would object to the university discussing the case. That is, in the end, what she is asking of them.

Students don’t often have the resources at their disposal to bring costly civil lawsuits or to hire representatives. In this case, the female student is on a study visa, her parents are not in this country and she has limited resources. Advocating for herself was all the more difficult.

Last fall, President Fred Lawrence told The Hoot, “I don’t think that we have as serious a problem as some other institutions do, which is not to say that we don’t have an issue that we have to focus on as well. But I’m glad that we don’t have the issue to the degree that some other schools do, and that they’ve had to deal with it in a very public way.”

All this student wanted was for the university to deal with this issue in a public way. Instead, in describing the response of one student life official, she told The Hoot, “I felt that he was trying to silence me.”

We don’t presume to know all the facts in this case. But we do know that whichever details of this case administrators wish to contest the fact remains that a Brandeis University student approached university officials alleging that she was repeatedly raped. She spoke with fear about her safety on and off campus, the product in many cases of decisions police and student life officials made.

Brandeis has an obligation to clean up its act. Students deserve a clearer policy on sexual assault, an administrator tasked with oversight over such cases and a greater emphasis on providing information to students, not on making cases go away.

It wasn’t easy for the female student to go public. And it won’t be easy for Brandeis to make significant policy changes that address inconsistencies at the multiple levels of this case. But sexual assault is a real problem even in our modern world and especially on college campuses, and it must be addressed at all levels. Ignoring this case any further would only be a disservice.

We understand that rape cases are complicated. But we also understand that social justice requires doing the right thing, even when everyone else wants you to turn away.

I worked the most grave of graveyard shifts, from 4 to 9 a.m. The very first thing I was treated to, upon groggily entering, was the most loud and even more inappropriate song dedicated to my soon-to-be-graduate fellow Chumster. Sexually risque parody is perhaps the most enduring feature at Chez Cholmondeley, but I revised my hopes for this wee-hour entertainment on the basis of this welcome. I was not disappointed.

Improvathon’s only rule is that the stage must be occupied at all times. That and nothing can be pre-choreographed. My favorite part of all improv performances makes use of this challenge, inviting random, often lurid phrases from the audience. The ragtag group, counting the minutes until the sun came up Sunday morning, tackled make-believe romantic exploits with the likes of the Founding Fathers and Michael Jackson (harder than it sounds), and even recounted a rhetorical menage-a-trois with Winston Churchill.

The audience can make all the difference in these exchanges. The 5 a.m. slot of games, for example, made a member of the audience, which was of a dwindling number, feel like an equal cast member in a lively, irreverent production.

The marathon joke-makers could do a solo too, in what was perhaps the most difficult improv skit of the show: the hour-long non-stop exposition. There were no new ideas, no scene cuts—just an hour of the same straight idea that after 25 minutes you may regret suggesting to the somehow-still-smiling stagehands. Few groups can keep it funny after the first half-hour, and although it dragged at times earlier in the night, once the quick games returned, the show rebounded.

One-liners are what we remember most from Improvathon. Many cannot be printed in this newspaper. Perhaps one of the beauties of Improvathon is that this sunrise-shift reviewer may have had low standards on such little sleep. But there were at least several hours in which I was laughing out loud, even if it was only sleepily-hysterically or simply to avoid falling over.

I admit that I could not help from dozing for about 45 minutes on the worse-for-wear sofas in Chum’s, but the fact that when I awoke to a loud shouting of my name involved in the act on stage is a measure of Improvathon’s fun. Clearly now that I was the last audience member, I was to be the subject of some tribute, or more likely, the butt of jokes. But at least I resisted the urge to get on stage with them. It was hard work too, because when I woke up, after so brief an interlude, I had more than an hour and a half left of viewing, and that was only if I stayed for what I had to do.

I didn’t need to be paid to enjoy this show. Not only was this act after my forced power nap even funnier than the midnight, dark-outside acts, but I almost forget about the sun that had now completely risen.

Unlike me, the improvisers got more interesting the more tired they became, and after I could no longer suggest ideas for them, they did an excellent job merging the self-exposition with the quick, one-line games. We supplied them with props from the kitchen in Chum’s (always sterilized before and after, of course …) while they made some on their own.

The group with chief star David Getz ’15 made my maximum tolerable portion of Improvathon great fun. The fact that this group had been on hours before me and would go on all day only increased the pleasure and wonder of a viewer. When I left mid-morning on Sunday, I couldn’t believe that I’d been there more than six hours or that I still had the very unprintable tribute to Ynbal Landesman stuck in my head as I finally got to bed.

The Olympics rarely let politics interfere with the games, although sometimes the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had to make concessions. Most notably, the 1916 games were canceled due to World War I and the 1940 and 1944 games were canceled due to World War II. The IOC, not wanting to disrupt the games, even continued the 1972 Munich games after 11 Israeli competitors were murdered. They held a short memorial service and then refused to mention it again.

While we cannot go back in time and yell at the IOC for continuing the games so quickly, we can hold them responsible for their refusal to hold a minute of silence in memory of those 11 Israeli athletes and coaches who were murdered. Ankie Spitzer, the wife of murdered fencing coach Andrei Spitzer, has been trying for the past 40 years to get the IOC to hold a minute of silence in memory of those who died. The IOC has done nothing, not even deigning to respond to her.

For those of you unfamiliar with the “Munich massacre” (or who have never seen the Eric Bana movie “Munich”), at 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 5, 1972, eight men with the Palestinian terrorist group Black September entered the Olympic Village, went to the Israeli team’s lodgings and took hostages. When it had all ended on Sept. 6, six terrorists were dead and all 11 Israelis taken hostage were dead.

The response from the IOC was dismal. They held a memorial ceremony on Sept. 6 during which IOC President Avery Brundage said little about the murdered athletes and instead chose to discuss the strength of the games and defend the IOC’s decision not to allow Rhodesia to compete. The remaining Israeli team members who had not been taken hostage returned home. The teams from Egypt, the Philippines and Algeria left as well as did some members of the Dutch and Norwegian teams. Nevertheless, the games continued with startling alacrity. Dutch distance runner Jos Hermens said, “You give a party, and someone is killed at the party, you don’t continue the party. I’m going home.”

Continuing their trend of trying to sweep the Munich massacre under the carpet, the IOC has been ignoring Ankie Spitzer for the past 40 years as she has tried to get the IOC to hold a minute of silence. Spitzer, with help from the Rockland JCC in New York, has created a petition on change.org to send to the IOC asking for a minute of silence at the Olympics in London this summer, which marks the attack’s 40-year anniversary.

In the petition, Spitzer reminds people that “these men were sons; fathers; uncles; brothers; friends; teammates; athletes. They came to Munich in 1972 to play as athletes in the Olympics; they came in peace and went home in coffins.”

Spitzer is not asking for the IOC to take the blame for what happened or to force the IOC to make a broad statement denouncing the movement responsible for the deaths. All she wants is one minute of silence to honor those who died, one minute of acknowledgement. “Silence is a fitting tribute for athletes who lost their lives on the Olympic stage. Silence contains no statements, assumptions or beliefs and requires no understanding of language to interpret,” Spitzer wrote in the petition.

As beautiful as this sentiment is, the IOC has yet to respond. As of press time, the petition had reached 16,000 signatures. That is a lot but it is not enough. It is shameful that the Olympic Games have never held a moment of silence for Munich 11.

It does not matter what your political ideology is: Any reasonable person knows that these attacks were brutal, immoral and unforgivable. King Hussein of Jordan spoke out against the actions of Black September, calling their actions a “savage crime against civilization … perpetrated by sick minds.” Even if you believe that the Israelis have greatly mistreated the Palestinians, that does not excuse the murder of innocent men. These men went to Munich to show their pride in their country and themselves and to join with other athletes in peace. They went to Munich to engage in an international tournament and to put aside differences. They did not go there to make a political statement or to harm anyone. They did not go there to be murdered.

And yet, the IOC has never fully recognized the brutality of this attack and it is time they did. They may be 40 years late but late is better than never.

The men who died at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich deserve their minute of silence and deserve to be remembered—not as the murder victims of Black September—but as decent men who engaged in an international competition to show brotherhood with their fellow man.

The first match came against 19th-ranked Wellesley University. In a hard-fought match on both sides, Wellesley came out ahead, snapping the Judges’ three-game winning streak.

In No. 1 doubles, Carley Cooke ’15 and Faith Broderick ’13 earned the only doubles victory for the Judges, defeating Sojung Lee and Marie Watanabe 9-7. In singles action, Broderick earned the easiest point of the afternoon with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Erica Choo at No. 2 singles. After falling behind in No. 6 singles, Roberta Bergstein ’14 fought back to earn the victory over Kendall Tada 1-6, 6-4, 6-0.

The two deciding matches came at No. 1 and No. 3 singles. In No. 1 singles, Cooke suffered a defeat in a third-set tiebreaker 5-7, 6-2, 7-6 (11-9) while at No. 3 singles Allyson Bernstein ’14 fought hard but eventually bowed out 0-6, 7-5, 7-5.

A few days later, the Judges returned home to face 28th-ranked Trinity in the final home game of the season. Unfortunately, the Judges eventually fell 6-3.

Cooke and Broderick got the Judges off to a good start defeating Hillary Hoyt and Senzosihle Mauve-Maphisa at No. 1 doubles, 8-4; however, the Judges lost at No. 2 doubles 8-2 and No. 3 doubles 9-7.

After winning the final two doubles matches, Trinity carried that momentum into singles action. At No. 1 singles, Hoyt defeated Cooke 6-0, 7-5, and at No. 2 singles Mauve-Maphisa dispatched Broderick 6-2, 6-3. Bernstein earned the first point in singles action for the Judges at No. 3 singles with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Regan Cherna, while Bergstein earned the Judges’ final point at No. 6 singles with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Frances Cameron. Trinity clinched the match victory with a pair of tiebreaker wins at No. 4 and 5 singles. Kelly Semrod defeated Simone Vandroff ’15 6-2, 7-6 (9-7) at No. 4 singles while Alexa Katz ’14 was dispatched by Elizabeth Gerber 6-3 7-6 (7-2) at No. 5 singles.

The Judges will return to action later this week at the UAA championships in Florida. As the fifth seed, they will face 13th-ranked Washington University in the opening round.

The new campus relations coordinator Maddie Crilly ’13 and the social events and culture coordinator Ilana Pomerantz ’13 are also both members of rising senior class. Several rising juniors also gained executive positions including Adena Morgan ’14 who has been elected to the office of education coordinator as well as Joey Rosen ’14 the new Shabbat and festival meals coordinator.

A few underclassmen also succeeded in obtaining offices on the Hillel Executive board. Jillian Hoenig ’15 will now be serving as the tzedek/social justice coordinator and Adam Ossip ’15 will take on the mantle of the religious life coordinator.

Jake Altholz ’15 succeeded in pursuing a write-in campaign and gained the position of Israel programs coordinator. He is currently the only candidate who won office through a write-in campaign. According to Saran there is still a position available as the finance coordinator. Saran explained that the finance position is currently looking for candidates, and can submit a half-page platform. The president-elect will review these platforms and appoint a position. This is in line with the Hillel constitution as is necessary to fill the as-of-yet unfilled position of finance coordinator. Official installations will occur a week from Friday at Hillel Shabbat dinner.

What’s my major now? English.

Any senior can tell you that’s hardly an uncommon occurrence. Plenty of people I know began their Brandeisian careers as pre-med, only to transform into a funky sociology or IGS major after a semester or two of chemistry.

Of course, that doesn’t make it any less unexpected when it happens to you. That first semester, I took calculus and computer science, convinced I was going to end up programming to my heart’s content for four years.

Fast-forward a month into the semester: I wasn’t enjoying myself, or at least I wasn’t enjoying the part of me that stayed up late stressing about exams I knew I would do fine but never great on. At the same time, I was taking an English course—Twentieth Century American Comic Novel—and loving the time I got to spend with Vladimir Nabokov, Philip Roth and Dawn Powell.

Toward the end of the semester I spoke with my English professor at the end of class. When he asked me what I wanted to study, I impulsively told him I was majoring in English.

“My God,” he said. “Now why would you want to do a thing like that?”

He was kidding—I think. At any rate, it’s not a decision I regret. Many of the best instructors I’ve had at Brandeis have been in the English department, and I’m certainly a better writer, reader and—dare I say—person for it.

That’s not to say I regret experimenting with math and computer science. I genuinely thought I would enjoy them, and I did—to an extent. I just happened to find something I enjoyed even more, and isn’t that great?

When you’re making your next schedule, remember to pursue something you enjoy learning about. It’s fine to think practically, but that doesn’t mean you should stay in your safe zone. I’ve heard too many people lament the English, psychology or Yiddish class that got away. Don’t be one of them.

***

When I arrived at Brandeis in the fall of ’08, I had no idea what I was doing. When my plane landed at Boston Logan, it was only my second time in New England … ever.

I’m from Georgia—and no, I’m not from Atlanta or even the suburbs of Atlanta. I’m from Columbus, a city on the border with Alabama. Columbus is the hometown of novelist Carson McCullers and Ma Rainey, the mother of blues. If you ask the right person, they’ll swear that Dr. John Pemberton—a veteran of the 1865 Battle of Columbus—invented Coca-Cola right in our city (you’re welcome).

Few people there have heard of Brandeis. After graduation, my high school published a list of universities that its students were attending. Mine was the only one that necessitated that the city and state be listed next to it.

Before December 2007, I also had no idea what Brandeis was. I only applied after a friend recommended it to me, figuring I’d find the history program interesting. When I did my own research, I was immediately attracted by the number of merit aid programs Brandeis offered. Remember, this was before the Great Recession kicked in. So I applied. When I got in, I accepted. Why not leave Georgia for a while?

It’s a decision I don’t regret. There are a few things I miss about the South. There’s the food—the barbecue, the sweet tea, everything fried. There’s the hospitality factor; there’s something comforting about everyone exchanging “sir” and “ma’am” all day. In the winter I sometimes even miss the weather.

To be honest, though, it’s not as different as some people think. I’ve had people look at me incredulously when I describe Georgia and it doesn’t sound like a third-world country. That reminds me: Don’t judge other places when you come from Vermont.

***

When I arrived at Brandeis in the fall of ’08, I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn’t very involved.

Instead, I spent most of that first year with my roommates in our forced triple. Luckily we all got along, joined by a shared appreciation for “Lost” and marginally funny YouTube videos.

At the beginning of my sophomore year, I joined The Hoot. Remember how I made it sound like becoming an English major was the best decision I ever made? Well, scratch that: Joining The Hoot was the best decision I made.

I began my Hoot life as a news writer, but I also dabbled in the arts section, then known as Diverse City (groan). Before I knew it, I was somehow the arts editor.

To anyone who’s ever considered arts journalism, do it. In the last three years, I’ve gotten to see so many great Brandeis theater productions and art shows. I’ve also discovered just how much I like writing about film. College is all about learning about yourself, and you’re certainly forced to do that when you have to commit 800+ words on a weekly basis.

I wish I could tell you that, behind the scenes, The Hoot is all sex, drugs and hipster music, but it’s really bagels, caffeine and awkward 3 a.m. conversations. In short, it’s Brandeis. It’s a little weird, but you meet a lot of cool people.

For the men, sprinter Vincent Asante ’14 gave Brandeis its first top-three performance of the day, finishing third in the 200-meter dash with a time of 22.79 seconds, only .07 seconds off the pace of first place. With his finish, Asante beat his previous best and moved up to seventh in the UAA in the event.

Distance runner Alex Kramer ’13 had the best performance at the meet for the Judges. He came in first place in the 1,500-meter race with a time of 4:00.96. The closest competitor to Kramer was almost two seconds behind him. Ed Colvin ’14 finished third in the same event with a time of 4:03.1, .07 seconds off the pace of second place, giving the Judges two of the top three finishes in the event.

Kensai Hughes ’14 kept up the Judges’ success, earning a third-place finish in the high jump with a distance of 6.11 meters. Viet Tran ’15 rounded out the individual events for the Judges, coming in fourth in the triple jump with a distance of 12.42 meters. Tran’s performance vaulted him into ninth place in the UAA in the triple jump.

Finally, in the 4×100 relay race, the team came in third place with a time of 44.48 seconds.

On the women’s side, Kristi Pisarik ’15 set the tone for the Judges with a time of 2:29.41 to earn second place in the 800-meter race, the first event of the day. Amelia Lundkvist ’14 dominated the 1,500-meter race with a time of 4:50.88, earning her first place. Her time was almost six seconds faster than all other competitors. In the same event, Victoria Sanford ’14 finished only .08 seconds off the pace of second place with a time of 4:56.29. Erin Bisceglia ’13 was nipping at Sanford’s heels, finishing in fourth place with a time of 4:57.95, while Ali Kirsch ’15 rounded out the Brandeis competitors in the event with a time of 5:04.92, earning a sixth place finish.

In the field events, Lily Parenteau ’12 earned third place in the high jump with a jump of 1.58 meters. Her vertical beat her previous season best and moved her into sixth place in the event in the UAA. Kim Farrington ’13 earned a third-place finish in the triple jump with a distance of 10.86 meters, moving her into fourth place in the UAA. Finally, Brittany Bell ’13 secured some points for the Judges with a 5.11-meter leap in the long jump that moved her into ninth place in the UAA.

Additionally, during the weekend two Judges’ runners also competed in the Princeton Larry Ellis Invitational. Distance runner Chris Brown ’12 competed in the 1,500-meter race, finishing with a time of 3:47.94. His time was good enough to win his heat and netted him a 19th-place finish in a field of mostly Division I opponents. His time was first among all Division III competitors at the event, was the second-fastest time in the UAA this season and was the third-fastest time in Division III this season. Distance runner Kate Warwick ’12 competed in the 5,000-meter race, finishing with a time of 17:29.17, earning her a 40th-place finish. Her time was the sixth-fastest in the UAA this season and was the 27th fastest time in Division III this season.

“You know how people were talking about getting piercings and tribal tattoos? And people were singing about saving the planet and forming bands?” the show’s star, Fred Armisen, remarks with equal measures of delight and derision. “Well, there’s a place where that idea still exists as a reality, and I’ve been there—Portland!”

In Portland, we’re told “flannel shirt[s] still look fly” and “all the hot girls wear glasses.” It’s not just Portland, though: ’90s culture is increasingly making a resurgence well beyond the Pacific Northwest. If you went to the movies earlier this month, you’d have been forgiven for thinking yourself in a time warp. Of the two new wide releases, “American Reunion” corralled the otherwise obscure stars of that decade’s raunchiest teen comedy, while “Titanic 3D” brought three-dimensions to the two-dimensional denizens of the big blockbuster.

At first glance this carries the air of coincidence, but something more is happening here. The ’90s have slowly but surely started creeping back into our pop culture, demanding to be taken seriously again. Or rather, we’ve been demanding—clamoring even—for the return of its culture. First came fashion. Hipsterism, after all, is really just another wave of grunge—sleeker but based on the same basic principle of weirdness. The jeans are tighter, the glasses more retro than lo-fi, but plaid is just as ubiquitous. Fashion always borrows from the past when stitching together the future. Things have gone beyond clothes, though—it’s television, movies, music, even politics. After all, how else do you explain Newt Gingrich?

Nineties nostalgia has arrived.

Nostalgia is nothing new. In fact, its presence is constant: No matter how good things may seem in the present, some will find solace only in the idealized past. When doctors first described nostalgia in the 17th century, it was a physical ailment initially diagnosed in Swiss mercenaries far away from their mountainous Heimat. In some cases, death resulted.

Now that nostalgia is no longer considered deadly, it’s safe to indulge—and oh, do we indulge. The nostalgia market wields enormous influence. Seemingly half the infomercials on TV gear themselves toward selling commemorative plates bearing Elvis’ likeness. Of the nominees for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars, at least three—“Hugo,” “The Artist” and “Midnight in Paris”—directly appealed to our appetite for periods most of us never personally experienced, with only the Woody Allen film questioning the ethics of nostalgia.

What makes ’90s nostalgia so strange is its timing: It’s premature. Nostalgia for a particular era usually arrives 20 years after that period has ended. Once the eldest members of a generation hit middle age, that fuzzy feeling kicks in—hence at the end of the ’80s interest in ’60s sitcoms revived, with couch sores like “The New Leave It to Beaver” and “The Munsters Today” as the result.

That hasn’t been the case with the ’90s. It’s been little more than 10 years since the decade ended, and the strangeness of this becomes even more striking when you realize that the current crop of nostalgia concerns itself more with the latter half of the decade than the first. Think Destiny’s Child, not Salt-N-Pepa. Rather than being led by the elder statesmen of the so-called millennial generation, the people serving as catalysts are in their early and mid-20s—the kinds of people who normally should be all about the present, not thinking about what was cool in elementary school.

In a time of iPads and “Angry Birds,” it’s difficult to imagine anyone wanting to return to the dark ages of AOL and dial-up, but in fact technology has helped expedite nostalgia. At the forefront is YouTube, increasingly a makeshift archive of material previously confined to dusty VHS tapes.­ In the past you were out of luck unless you recorded a TV program yourself or a station aired reruns. Now entire online channels dedicate themselves to resurrecting the relics of the recent past. Have a hankering for “Woops,” the short-lived 1992 sitcom about the six sole survivors of a nuclear holocaust? Well, YouTube’s got you covered. For less obscure fare, legal streaming services like Netflix transform the analog past into a hi-def present.

This has had the effect of creating online nostalgia communities composed of users who gather to relive programs they enjoyed as children. In particular, 10-minute installments of old Nickelodeon shows are among the most popular offerings on YouTube, garnering hundreds of thousands of hits. Sprawling, largely inane conversations result, their substance capable of being boiled down to a comment like “whyd [sic] we ever lose the 90s,” as though the passage of time can be avoided, more akin to the loss of a favorite keychain than a natural process.

Nickelodeon holds a special place in the hearts of many children who grew up in the ’90s, a time period when it was among the first basic cable networks to target kids. Knowledge of the Nickelodeon canon is widespread, with many still able to recite the programs aired by the network circa 1996: “Doug,” “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” and “Clarissa Explains It All,” among others. To recognize “Hey Arnold!” is to be a member of a special club, one that just happens to count virtually an entire generation in its membership. There’s something comforting about the homogeneity of our childhoods, this basic-cable conformity that unites us.

Hushed, reverent conversations about favorite characters and plots aren’t uncommon. I still vividly remember a particular episode of “The Adventures of Pete & Pete,” a show about two redheaded brothers who share a name and a penchant for tartan button-ups. One day, Little Pete takes a shortcut while cycling to school which takes him past an unfamiliar house, where he discovers a garage band playing a song that’s simultaneously potent, crinkly and weird. He falls for it instantly, but no matter how many times he returns to the garage he never hears the song again. “I just want my song back,” he frets, but these perfect moments are ephemeral and often the most difficult to capture for posterity. For a six-year-old viewer, this is profoundly sad.

Nickelodeon takes a markedly different approach to nostalgia than the creators of “Pete & Pete”: We can go back, the conglomerate tells us. Last year, executives at Viacom finally noted the vast online presence of Nickelodeon nostalgists, with more than 15 million people joining Facebook groups supporting these shows. When a group of college-aged interns pitched a retro programming block to TeenNick, one of Nickelodeon’s spin-off channels, executives endorsed their proposal. In July 2011, a two-hour block of old Nickelodeon shows began airing weekdays between midnight and 2 a.m., that twilight time between homework and sleep for college students. Ratings in the time slot increased by 850 percent. That same year, executives at MTV, another Viacom cable network, returned to the air “Beavis and Butthead”—one of the most quintessentially ’90s shows in existence. Van Toffler, the network’s president, reasoned that the world was missing “the point of view only Beavis and Butthead could bring.”

Nineties nostalgia is now leaping from small screen to big. Hollywood, always hungry for more cash, now increasingly re-releases ’90s blockbusters. Though the arrival of VHS and then DVD limited film revivals to art-houses, the advent of 3D has changed all that. “The Lion King,” “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” and the aforementioned “Titanic” have received 3D releases in the last year. For studios, this is merely another chance to make money off of films that achieved profitability long ago. This is especially lucrative in expanding markets overseas; “Titanic” made more in its first 3D weekend in China than it did in its entire original run there. For American moviegoers, it’s another chance to relive a past in which disaster epics still possessed some semblance of plot.

When it comes to actually reuniting with iconic ’90s characters in the present, audiences have been more reluctant. From this month’s “American Reunion” to last year’s “Scream 4” and 2008’s “The X-Files: I Want to Believe,” none have proven to be box office smashes. The “American Pie” teens received a tentative welcome, but the reunion of FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully was greeted with the kind of collective shrug that would have been unthinkable in 1998. Later this summer, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones will reunite in the long-awaited third installment of the “Men in Black” series. Should it bomb, further ’90s reunions seem unlikely.
The reinterpretation of old formulas is proving more lucrative in music. While the ’90s didn’t invent the boyband, the decade certainly perfected the kind of glossy, manufactured group acts that dominated top-40 radio for years, like the Backstreet Boys, ’N Sync and a host of imitators. They virtually all disbanded overnight with the dawning of the new millennium, their bubblegum sweetness too much for a more ironic era. Now nostalgia’s brought them back: Last summer, the Backstreet Boys toured with New Kids on the Block. 98 Degrees—one of those aforementioned imitators—threaten to do the same later this year.

But the boyband phenomenon refuses to be confined to the archives any longer. With sugary songs like “Baby” and “Boyfriend,” Justin Bieber made the world safe for bubblegum again. Others have followed in packs. Bands like One Direction and The Wanted are now climbing the charts with their own personal blends of chaste romance and immaculate hair.

The question remains: What unleashed this wave of premature nostalgia? (Or, as one Nickelodeon exec odiously dubbed it, “newstolgia.”)

Nostalgists crave simpler times, and in this respect ’90s nostalgia is no different. Creaky as they can be, the aforementioned cultural artifacts serve as reminders of a time before 9/11 and the Great Recession. In a world where college grads face increasing economic uncertainty, there’s something safe and concrete about old TV shows and movies. You get comments like these online: “The thing is I would love to get stuck in the 90’s [sic] permanently and forget the 2000 era ever existed …” In a sense, it provides a structure for perpetuating childhood—it’s no accident that old Nickelodeon programs have been the focus of attention.

In an increasingly splintered culture, there’s also something comforting about the hegemonic influence of “Titanic” and boybands. Today we’re confronted by an almost overwhelming array of choices; two people can conceivably consume 40 television shows a week without any overlap. At least back in the ’90s you could distance yourself from the culture, with smartphones still a distant dream. In retrospect, it’s a decade that seems gloriously disconnected.

Of course, all nostalgia carries the risk of delusion. Nineties nostalgia, still in its infancy, has avoided this so far, but surely ugly trends will return. We’re lucky to be almost rid of Newt Gingrich again, but it may be more difficult to ditch the Backstreet Boys the second time around.

On an unrelated note, I have also noticed how unbelievably annoying it is to listen to people complain about being bored all the time.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I too have experienced the malaise that fills my peers and have been similarly convinced that there is no remedy for my paralyzing boredom.

What I have learned from these experiences with boredom is simple: It’s all in your head.
Boredom has nothing to do with what’s going on around you and everything to do with how willing or unwilling you are to get creative.

While I understand that Brandeis isn’t exactly a wonderland of exciting things to do, I also know that part of our tuition goes toward making sure that students have the resources that they need to have fun!

These resources come in many forms. First are the dozens of productions and performances that take place on campus. Included in this category are coffeehouses, plays, musicals, movie screenings, a cappella and dance shows that happen on campus every day. The next time you convince yourself that there is nothing to do at Brandeis, take a look at your event initiations on Facebook and try to make that claim again with a straight face.

While it’s true that going to see a semester show might not be your idea of an awesome Friday night, don’t underestimate how much fun it can be to go and watch your friend or floormate perform. Also, don’t underestimate how much fun it can be to go and watch people make total fools out of themselves in public, not that this would ever happen in a performance on Brandeis’ campus.

If you’re not interested in the arts, then we can turn our attention to the hundreds of other interest-based groups that Brandeis always boasts about on admissions tours. There are 260 of them and as it turns out, those clubs aren’t just for the purpose of statistics. There really are tons of ways to get Brandeis to pay for you to do the things that you actually enjoy. We have opportunities to mountain climb, ski, cook, ice skate, develop photographs, skydive and more, all on the university’s dime—or at least highly subsidized by it.

If none of these things entice you, then Brandeis makes it almost ridiculously easy to get free money to spend on whatever you want to do. If you doubt this, then consider that a few of my friends recently founded the Brandeis Tie Dye Club and were awarded an almost absurd amount of money to hang out and make tie-dye shirts.

If for some reason, you find the Brandeis campus abhorrent, then consider the fact that Brandeis provides us with free transportation into Waltham and Boston—and the fact that we have decent access to public transportation. Discovering the Boston area is awesome. In addition to the popular tourist spots like Newbury Street and Harvard Square, there are tons of places to shop, eat, walk around and generally explore.

There is a big difference between having nothing to do and being too lazy to take advantage of the resources available. Not taking advantage of the resources that Brandeis provides is a waste of tuition and also a personal problem.

More importantly being bored is a huge waste of college. Time that you spend being bored is also time that you could be spending hanging out with your friends, sleeping or, if you have truly exhausted all other options, working on those four essays that you’ve been complaining about but putting in no effort toward.

So, the next time you’re sitting around complaining about how bored you are, stop complaining and do something about it.

It is a story my family knows well. Teddy Booras, his best friend and army “buddy,” switched tasks with my grandfather and offered to clean their barracks at Sloane Court in Chelsea, London, for an inspection. It was a Monday morning, July 3, almost one month since D-Day.

My grandfather exited to the street and attempted to board the company truck that was waiting to bring the soldiers to their workstations but, by chance, the truck was full. That’s when he heard someone yell, “buzz bomb.” My grandfather’s reaction was immediate: “I ran to my left, and I saw my mother’s face in my mind. I ran, and I hit the ground. I was thrown up against something. That was it. I lived and he died, that’s the story.” The bomb decimated my grandfather’s chemical processing company, killing all the men on the truck, the commander of the company and Teddy Booras in the basement of the billet.

My grandfather was spared.

It has been a year now since I visited Sloane Court and stood at the spot of the blast.

What a visit. Forget quiet reflection—I was startled to hear a fire alarm roar to life. Within minutes, the students of the Garden House School lined the street, talking, giggling and waiting for the all clear. Had these students ever read the memorial plaque so close to their classrooms? “In memory of the 74 American military personnel of the United States Army and three civilians who were killed on the 3rd July 1944 by a ‘V-1’ Flying Bomb in Sloane Court East. We will remember them.”

These students are not the only ones likely unaware of that bombing. Wartime censorship prevented the attack from reaching the press. My grandfather was not even allowed to tell his parents what had happened until he returned home.

As a result, historians have nearly ignored what was the greatest loss of life for American servicemen due to a V-1 bomb. Today, there’s almost no mention of the bombing on the Internet or in the Army’s official history.

Fragments remain, though. Among the mess of government files at the National Archives, one folder is titled, “CWCO-130-0.1, History, 24 Apr 1943 – 25 Jan 1946.” Inside, my grandfather’s story comes to life as part of the official history of his army unit, the 130th Chemical Processing Company.

“This was the greatest single disaster of United States Army and Personnel in the London area,” the history states. It is all there: Sloane Court, the truck, the decimated company and the destroyed billet. But nothing compares to the logbook. There, in bold typewriter font are lists of every day in 1943 that my grandfather took a furlough, as well as the names of his army buddies of whom he always spoke so fondly.

Then there are fragments at the Local Studies Department in Chelsea, London. For instance, aside from the 63 members of my grandfather’s company, I learned that eight neighbors died when their apartments imploded from the blast. Today, those apartment buildings clearly look different, their architecture more modern and out of place.

One other mention of the event at Sloane Court appears in the biography of the famed bandleader Glenn Miller, who was actually stationed at Sloane Court. What luck—the man had requested a transfer out of the city due to his fear of buzz bombs and the transfer took place July 2.

But that’s pretty much it. Almost no one else remembers what happened at Sloane Court.

Except for one man, Bill Figg, a longtime resident of Chelsea who died about a decade ago. I wish I had met Figg. Leaders at the Chelsea Historical Society tell me he was passionate about finding out more about the blast. In fact, he wrote to the White House and U.S. government for years but was unable to find out who had actually died in the blast. He also paid for and installed the plaque now hanging at Sloane Court. My grandfather had all the answers and this man wanted to know more, but the two were never able to connect.

That’s why I’m so fascinated by the story, and why it means so much to me. Because it meant something to Figg who witnessed the attack, and it means something to my grandfather who lost his friend Teddy Booras on that day.

For 18 years prior, my grandfather had lived a quiet life in a small town in Western Massachusetts, in the home of first-generation immigrants of modest means, until the Army of the United States of America changed the course of his life. On Nov. 3, 1943, my grandfather became Samuel E. Hatch, Technician Fourth Grade of the 130th Chemical Processing Company, and was sent south to Alabama for basic training. Within months, my grandfather had toured the world, moving through one of the suburbs of London known as Chelsea, the volatile countryside of Alsace-Lorraine, and the small island of Luzon in the South Pacific. Twenty-seven months and 12 days later, on Jan. 25, 1946, my grandfather returned to Western Massachusetts, where he resides to this day.

Of all the moments and memories my grandfather carries with him, the images of 1944 are the most real and deserve the greatest attention. Instead of going to college, my grandfather and his buddies shipped off to Europe, where, within a month, half the company would be dead. My grandfather was a part of the other half—the lucky half. The half that never really left Sloane Court.

When he discusses the bombing of July 3, my grandfather inevitably talks of chance. “What were the odds?” he asks. “We could have been billeted anywhere else in London, but we were billeted right there, right there where a V-1 flying bomb stopped right there on our street. … It could have stopped anywhere; it could have stopped over Buckingham Palace.”

The odds were unseemly. My grandfather had been in London less than two months when devastation struck, but those two months and the many that had laid ahead pale in comparison to the one morning my grandfather faced true active combat. Indeed, while the year 1944 was, without any doubt, a critical time filled with new experiences and travels for my grandfather, the year truly began and ended for him on July 3.

In the spirit of the army barracks tune, “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away,” my grandfather says, “Old soldiers never die, they just keep telling war stories.” I see nothing wrong with continuing to tell that story. Few moments are as central to my grandfather’s life and to my family’s history. I will not let his story fade away.

Alex Schneider ’12 runs http://londonmemorial.org, a website dedicated to remembering the bombing at Sloane Court on July 3, 1944.

On the team, Brown explained that there are people who possess a “wide range of experience. I, for example, have been riding for 12 years but we also have people who have never ridden before.” This presents unique challenges to a team whose riders compete at different levels. While the team only requires members to attend one riding lesson per week, the time commitment remains daunting.

The riding stable is about 40 minutes away, so in a club sports van, the full trip lasts four to five hours. While each lesson itself is relatively short, the amount of time spent driving or at the stables is not. Brown does admit that “some people come to the club not knowing the commitment.” These people usually drop out but “the people who have ridden before are super enthusiastic.”

The concept of an Equestrian Team challenges the conventional meaning of the term “team.” While members may wear the same sweatshirts and ride in vans to lessons together, it is an individual contest with the horse when competing. Brown emphasizes the value of the relationship a rider has with their horse, a bond that no other sports team possesses. While riders usually get different horses each lesson, Brown acknowledges that she “definitely has favorites.” She believes in the power different horses have to teach various skills, explaining that “if you are having a specific problem, there is usually a horse that can help you fix that.”

Brown admits that it is “a little more difficult to bond with the team because not everybody goes to the same practice.” The team, therefore, holds dinners and fundraisers in order to connect with each other. She also mentioned the team’s sense of solidarity. Horseback riding clothes are expensive, and team members are connected enough to share clothing. Brown said, “If someone is the same size as me and they need a jacket, I would loan it to them for a day.” At times a unified team and at others a single competing horse-and-rider, the Equestrian Team is required to face both fronts.

The team also allows students a chance for leadership. The coach lives far from campus and it is up to students to arrange lessons and enter competitions. Brown is technically “lesson captain” and her role includes to scheduling lessons and communicating with team members. This team is driven entirely by the motivation of students.

While the number of equestrian teams on college campuses are growing, the program at Brandeis still stands out among its peer schools. Brown said that the “club sports department is hugely supportive of us. This year especially they gave us a lot of funding.” This funding helps team members pay for lessons, which are personalized instruction sessions that would strain the budget of the average college student. Brandeis’ team is one of 11 in the Greater Boston Area. Brown described the team’s success, noting that this year the team finished seventh in the region, compared to fifth last year. Five people qualified for regionals and two qualified for zones. She further explained that for upper-level horseback riding, zones is the step immediately before nationals.
After graduating college, horseback riding becomes a recreational activity for most. Brown noted that “you can ride after you graduate because they have alumni divisions at horse shows. A few seniors this year are hoping that if they stay in the area, they can still ride with us in the alumni division.” Despite becoming less competitive after college, the team emphasizes its dedication to each other and to its animals. Performing well at high-level competitions, Brown says the Brandeis equestrian team should not be disregarded as merely a club but rather it should be viewed as a functioning athletic team.

This isn’t my first time in London. I came with my family for a week in 2004 and it was awesome. It was the first time I had traveled outside North America, and I still remember doing all the touristy stuff—a tour of the Tower of London, a visit to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, tea in the Orangerie at Kensington Palace, the Changing of the Guard. I absolutely fell in love with the city after walking down countless narrow streets, eating more pain au chocolat than I should have, and watching the sun set over the Thames.

Fast forward seven years. It’s 2011, and I’m a sophomore at Brandeis. As a NEJS major, I had always planned to study abroad in Israel, but when I dropped the major I knew I wanted to study in London. It was a combination of a lot of factors: the connection I felt with the city the first time I was here, the fact that my mother had studied abroad in London in college and still talked about it, and knowing that Prince Harry was still single.

I got a little delayed in the planning process, and my best friend ended up choosing my program for me: the Boston University Internship Programme, so that I could complete my journalism internship while abroad.

In order to prepare for my semester abroad, I studied everything I could get my hands on. Luckily for me, that included movies like “Notting Hill,” “What a Girl Wants” and “Winning London,” as well as cheat sheets of British slang, travel blogs and blogs of British students. At one point I think I even Googled “what to pack when studying abroad in London.”

When I got here, I was already looking forward to all the things I wanted to do. First on the list was dinner (Indian, of course) with my best friend, who is currently studying at University College London.

That night, though, I lay in bed and thought about everything I had given up to be in London for the semester. Gone were Thursdays at The Hoot. Gone was seeing my little in Usdan and running into her arms. Gone were classes with professors I knew, and whose classes I knew how to get the most from. Gone were Ollie’s waffle fries and using my meal plan to pay for food.

Most importantly, gone were American customs that I was so used to, I overlooked them. Maybe I was too young to experience culture shock in 2004, maybe I just wasn’t here long enough. I didn’t eat bacon then, so I would have had no way of knowing how awkward and thick it was until I ordered a BLT in my first week back. Luckily, the local grocery store has Oscar Mayer. Also, not stopping for sirens? I saw a police car get struck by a car that didn’t realize the cop was about to run a red light.

It’s sometimes hard to understand the thicker accents, and because Brits can all tell I’m American, sometimes when they crack a joke and I ask “What?” they just smile and say never mind. I promise, I have a great sense of humor … I just didn’t understand you! But the weather? I’m from Ohio. I know how to deal with completely unpredictable weather.

This semester certainly wasn’t perfect. I spent too much time in McDonald’s and not enough time in museums. I didn’t travel as much as I’d wanted to, and by being on an all-American program, I didn’t meet too many British people. I also never saw the royal family, which isn’t really my fault, but still disappointing.

Although I missed some cities I wanted to visit, I got to live the Mary-Kate and Ashley European adventures (“Winning London,” “Passport to Paris” and “When in Rome”). I tried something called “Black Death” in Iceland. I hiked through snow in Rome (four times in 40 years, and I was there). I spent a beautiful but hot Parisian weekend with my pseudo-family. I visited Switzerland, and saw a friend I never thought I’d see again. I was able to celebrate Passover in Israel with my best friend’s extended family and visit friends living and studying there. Throughout my travels, I had the opportunity to reconnect with and meet a lot of amazing people from all over the world. I doubt we’ll keep in touch forever, but I’ll always remember them.

Wow, hundreds of words about culture shock and missing The Hoot … It wasn’t all bad, I promise. I love the people here. I love their food, their accents, the fact that one pound is a coin. Once I got used to looking right, left, right as I crossed the street, I learned to love walking around my neighborhood, South Kensington. I love the children, especially when they’re on the Tube in their school uniforms practicing their American accents. I love the ease with which I can get around the city, and I love how helpful everyone is when it’s not quite so easy.

I had an amazing semester, and even during the rough patches I knew I had made the right decision. I have grown so much just in the past few months, from someone who laughed at the thought of living off-campus and not having a meal plan to someone who cooked almost every meal for herself for a semester. Being on my own in a big, beautiful city has also given me a lot of time for self-reflection, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

To quote Amanda Bynes in my favorite London movie, “The truth is sometimes things aren’t exactly what you always imagined … they’re even better!”

The first game of the doubleheader was a classic pitchers’ duel. Starting pitcher Caroline Miller ’12 gave up just one hit while striking out seven and her Clark counterpart Nicole Meuse gave up only two hits while striking out four.

Neither team managed a hit until the fifth inning when outfielder Lauren Porcaro ’12 led off with a double. Meuse settled down, however, and retired the next three batters to get out of the inning unscathed. Clark’s only hit of the game came in the sixth inning when junior Mel Melkonian doubled into left field, but Miller retired the next two batters to get out of trouble.

Miller ran into trouble in the ninth inning. Sophomore Shawna Amatucci drew a leadoff walk and rookie Molly Clark immediately came on as a pinch runner. Senior Stefanie Kettenacker sacrificed Clark over to second base and then Miller lost control. Miller issued another walk to senior Maureen Coakley to put runners on first and second. Facing sophomore pinch hitter Heather Figula, Miller threw a wild pitch, letting the runners advance to second and third and then threw another wild pitch that allowed the winning run to score from third as Brandeis fell 1-0.

The second game of the double-header featured much more offense. In the first inning of play, Porcaro blasted a grand slam to put Brandeis on top 4-0 and the Judges never looked back going on to win the game easily. Clark scored single runs in the second and third innings on a home run from sophomore Tatiana Chunis and an RBI double from Melkonian respectively. The Judges got the two runs back in the fourth inning on a two-run double from Brittany Grimm ’12.

Clark scored another run in the bottom half of the fourth inning and Brandeis scored two more runs in the sixth inning as the Judges won 8-3.

The following day, the Judges returned home to face ninth-ranked Tufts University. Brandeis got 10 hits from nine different players but was ultimately unable to recover from an early six-run deficit.

Sophomore catcher Jo Clair was the offensive star for Tufts, going 3-of-4 with three RBIs and two runs scored. Clair blew the game wide open in the top of the fourth when she blasted a three-run shot to put Tufts on top 6-0.

Brandeis refused to go down without a fight, scoring a run in the bottom of the fourth. Porcaro singled to shortstop with one out and then Anya Kamber ’15 singled to left field. The Tufts outfielder misplayed the ball allowing Porcaro to score from first base.

Unfortunately, Tufts added two unearned runs in the top of the fifth inning, loading the bases on an error, a single and a walk. Then Tufts scored on two consecutive wild pitches by relief pitcher Melissa Nolan ’14 to go ahead 8-1.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Brandeis got its first sustained offensive pressure of the afternoon as they scored three runs. The Judges loaded the bases on two walks and a single from Grimm. Then Marianne Specker ’12 drilled a two-run double to left field. With the two RBIs, Specker now has 105 in her career, moving her into the top-five in program history. A wild pitch from Tufts pitcher Rebecca DiBiase allowed Grimm to score and moved pinch runner Mimi Theodore ’12 into scoring position. A sensational defensive play from Tufts centerfielder Lizzy Iuppa, however, prevented several runs from scoring and kept Tufts ahead 8-4.

After holding off Brandeis’ offensive onslaught, Tufts scored two more runs in the top of the sixth on an error and an RBI single to ice the game. Brandeis scored another run in the seventh inning but it was ultimately meaningless as they fell to Tufts 10-5.

There are a few good ideas contained in the presidents’ email, and members of the undergraduate community should vote for them. One proposal calls for the integration of the representatives to the board of trustees—often overlooked yet probably the most important office after the presidency—into the e-board structure. The representatives will still be elected, which is important, and they shall still have power independent and not subject in any way to orders by the president. But now they will be completely aware of all e-board actions so, theoretically, the Union could someday make an attempt to be a strong, unified voice.

Similarly, the representatives to the board of the Brandeis alumni association will now have to be members of the joint student club-administration venture, Future Alumni of Brandeis. This is welcome, as aware as we are of the great uncertainty surrounding the position in the last year. The position is important and the change makes sure the responsibility is not taken lightly again.

But the core proposals students are being asked to approve will likely only entrench the paralysis of our government. One of them adds to the responsibilities of the Union Senate. But when that most venerated and respected of bodies comes to students’ minds, as it unfortunately must from time to time, none of us ever express a belief that “if only the Senate controlled more things we do,” student life would be improved. The Campus Operations Working Group, which is a group of students that tries to argue for better campus facilities, has so far achieved only modest success.

But it is nonetheless a refreshing idea. Whomever disagrees should receive great credit for killing it: As with all good ideas, the best way to stop it is to refer it to a committee. That is what the amendment giving power to the Senate would do.

The lack of transparency and accountability of the caustic F-board-Treasury tryst is hardly helped by the proposed addition of a student life staff member to try to help, and is made worse in a measure that would require the Union’s chief financial officer to have been a member of it or else merely appointed an assistant to it the year before. The funding of clubs at Brandeis is unique, decisions theoretically made by students for students. But F-board allocations are as mysterious as ever, and the Treasury has in the last year proved particularly inept at explaining why such power is given to so few.

Finally there is Herbie Rosen and Kirkland’s plan to revamp completely the quadrennial Constitutional Review process. I absolutely agree that the constitution should be easier to change (and it needs many changes). But just as devolving power to the Senate would take us in the wrong direction, bringing new vigor into a Judiciary that is best when lifeless is a terrible idea.

A constitutional review should be taken, like most things, whenever students demonstrate a desire for it. Such things are easy to measure at Brandeis and, also like most things, are simply more effective when done by the most visible office, the presidency. The proposed reforms will bring the student body more surveys, more speeches and more posturing, except now from all three branches.

The Union needs to change direction completely. The current steps, however, dig us deeper into gridlock. The Brandeis community deserves an effective, unified government, with the same people as the go-tos for the few changes a year any student government is capable of making. Dueling, competing branches of government only ensure that little gets done. We need system-wide change, but not in the direction of diluting the only members with any clout in favor of increasingly irrelevant offices that serve only as resume-builders.

This is not a matter of fighting over deck chairs on the Titanic; it’s trying to save a plummeting airplane by adding chairs to the cockpit so you can hold a multi-branch debate over who’s to try to grab the steering wheel.

The Kirkland team would do well, instead, to come up with a short list of policies it wants to see enacted. Students don’t care who has the power to lobby or ask or beg for them, we don’t care about the allocation of Union prestige. A very simple list of changes to the Brandeis administration and the student experience is what we all need. And a very simple Union capable of effecting them.

Elisabeth Cohen, Saul’s daughter, introduced Langone to the crowd as a man who has “great respect for people in all walks of life” and as someone who appreciates attention to detail and excellent service at every level.

“Ken is a passionate individual with enormous enthusiasm, compassion and integrity,” she said.

In 1978, Langone co-founded Home Depot and remained on the executive committee of its board for 30 years. Early on in his career, Langone would stock the shelves during the holidays and his dedication to the company eventually created more than 325,000 jobs. He is the founder and current CEO of Invamed Associates, a brokerage and investment banking firm specializing in health care and high tech companies, and serves on various boards for both large and small companies.

He also serves on the board of many educational, service and health care organizations, including Bucknell University, Ronald McDonald House, Robin Hood Foundation, the Harlem Children’s Zone and New York University, where he is a trustee, overseer of the Stern School of Business and chairman of the board at the NYU Langone Medical Center.

Langone’s talk fulfilled its title, “When Doing Well Means Doing Good,” by sharing the meaning of true philanthropy and emphasizing the world’s need for more people dedicated to giving their time and knowledge.

Langone shared a personal anecdote regarding one of his family members asking him about his charity. After he gave his first significant contribution to Bucknell, he was asked what he had to give up in order to make that gift. He responded by saying he didn’t have to give up anything, and in turn, he was told that his contribution was not charity.

“And so I learned right then and there that charity is when you go without for someone else. I will never forget that,” Langone said.

His family had a significant influence on his passion to give back to others. He said that he constantly reminds himself of how successful his parents and grandparents were even with so few resources and strong language barriers.

He continued to talk about the importance of volunteerism, sharing stories about students who have benefited from scholarships funded by him and his wife. He said that those students are the true leaders of our world today because they have learned how to use scarce resources to share their gifts of time and knowledge to make a larger difference.

“I happen to think that we as Americans are generating a disservice to ourselves,” Langone said. “We can’t cure every problem that exists, and even if it’s taking a small amount of water out of the Atlantic Ocean, I can at least say that I made the effort. That is what most people do who give of themselves call charity.”

Langone said that, when he meets with these students, he is overwhelmed by their gratefulness. Each time he meets with them, he tells them that the best way to thank him is to give back to others. He said that their time will be the most valuable thing that they can give and they should continue to give that to others for as long as they can.

“There’s a million different ways that people can share and give back. Regrettably, it always seems to dwell on the check-writing side of the exercise,” he said.

Langone talked about philanthropy as a great American phenomenon but commented that Jews have for years acknowledged philanthropy as a part of their culture. He emphasized that this must be rewarded, not in the form of medals or awards, but with appreciation for the fact that “the world is better because they were here.” He said that dedication and passion for making the world a better place demonstrates that they are “good” people.

Langone shared what he has gained during the years by giving back to those in need. Being a philanthropist helped to boost his self-confidence because he finally realized that he could make a difference in someone’s life.

“It gives you a sense of self-respect you might not otherwise get. The thing that is most precious about success is what you do with your self-respect and confidence,” Langone said. “I am the beneficiary of my own charity.”

Lastly, Langone shared his key to success as noticing the people around you.

“Surround yourself with people who are better, smarter and more able than you,” he said.

After his talk, Langone shared his personal advice for Brandeis students with The Hoot.

“Do the best you can, but most of all, believe in yourself. If you can develop a sense of confidence, part of which means being able to know when you have failed, you will be very successful.”

“When we think about the model of Brandeis, that special blend of a small liberal arts college embedded in the heart of a great research university, that was his vision,” President Fred Lawrence said of the professor, faculty dean and lecture-series namesake Saul Cohen.

The lecture series is co-sponsored by the Brandeis Investment Club, the Brandeis Economics Society and the Brandeis Entrepreneur Club. It was established last year in honor of Saul G. Cohen, a former Brandeis science professor who died in 2010, by Cohen’s family and friends, all of whom have worked to generate conversation about pressing issues in the world today with leading experts of academia, arts, business, politics, law and science.

After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard in 1937, Cohen found that being Jewish deterred him from having a career in education in his chosen field of chemistry. Instead, he went to work for Land at Polaroid in 1945 and solved the organic chemistry problems that led to developments in instant photography.

After leaving the Polaroid Corporation, Cohen joined the faculty and began teaching at Brandeis in 1950. At Brandeis, he became the first chairman of the chemistry department and the science school, as well as the first dean of faculty and the first university professor.

In his opening remarks on Monday, Lawrence described the Cohen lecture as one of the “hallmark events in the academic, intellectual life of Brandeis University.” Lawrence stated that he believed Cohen would have greatly appreciated hearing from Ken Langone, who Lawrence described as a “giant of philanthropy.”

He has received numerous awards on behalf of his work, including most recently the Horatio Alger award, given to individuals who have overcome difficult circumstances early on in their lives but have persevered to achieve excellence and to serve as their community’s leaders.

“Although his financial contributions to the NYU Medical Center have been transformative, my husband and I would proudly say that his daily contributions of his time, insights, experience and unswerving commitment to excellence are far more magnificent,” Elisabeth Cohen said.

Being a midyear is not easy. When I imagined my college experience it didn’t include beginning in the second semester. High school taught me that college was four years in which you might manage to learn something in between keggers and commencements. The school I envisioned for myself was a big, based in a college town school, and reliant on football games and school spirit. Instead, I found myself walking the tangled streets of London for a semester and then thrown into a school that had none of these novelties.

My first semester was not similar to most of my midyear friends, even those who attended my London program with me. The midyear program is about throwing yourself out of the safety net and out into the world. Because I was forced into a situation in which I had to determine for myself what I was going to do for my gap-semester, I found that I had the courage to live by myself in a foreign country, as foreign as England can be.

Through this process I learned a lot about myself. I traveled through Europe, something that still leaves my friends back home envious and amazed. This doesn’t mean that you have to go across an ocean to learn something about yourself. Many of my close friends spent their semester in different states, in internships in the capitol, or branching out and taking classes at their local colleges. My personal view is that if you are given four months away from homework, midterms and finals, then you need to take a leap of faith and try something scary and new.

Taking my first semester off cleared my head and for many other midyears did the same. After the mess of high school, it was a refreshing twist to be granted with some time off before I jumped back into the ebb and flow of schoolwork. It was also energizing to have a break after the countless AP tests and final exams of high school.

When I arrived at Brandeis in January, I felt ready for college in a way I do not think I would have been if I had come directly from high school. When I arrived, I found that there were 100 other people in the same position. Placing the midyears within the same housing may have caused some disconnect from the other first-years, but it gave us a place to call home with a group of like-minded people, many of whom also benefitted from having a semester off to decompress and explore their identities outside of school.

The most surprising part of my first few days were how many people I found in the Village that shared my views and experiences. Coming in to Brandeis with a safety net of other students I had met and befriended in London helped to ease the transition into a new environment. Going on a Brandeis-sponsored study abroad program is not possible for everyone, but even meeting up for coffee in a nearby city would have been nice before coming into the mass of students at school.

Overall, I wish every student had the chance that I did. I want every student to have the opportunity to leave his or her comfort zone. I took the biggest leap of my life, and found out who I was. I always thought that that was what college was for, but who says you can’t find yourself on your semester off?

So, I didn’t find a party school in a college town and a champion football team. Instead, I found a group of people who share my views and my passion for travel. Most importantly, I found a group that had the opportunity to discover themselves before they got to college. The fact that they know themselves makes it easier to get close to them, which is what allowed the midyears to bond so quickly. We all appreciate the time we’ve had, understand the challenges to come, and realize that we are capable of taking on anything college can throw at us.

Roughin It: A Midyear Experience by Zoe Kronovet

Being a midyear is not easy. As the admissions office’s decision and the consequences of being admitted halfway through a school year settle, the panic also begins to set in. It has been said before but, despite the various pamphlets, most midyears end up with a complex.

Many conspiracies float around the halls of the Village as we ponder why it is we were forced to endure the midyear experience. Some suspect that it is because our SAT scores were poor, but that was quickly dispelled when one of us had an incredible score overall. Some of us in possession of an unshakeable ego think that midyears are just a way for Brandeis to make more money and that we are all qualified students who were just picked at random to suffer.

The real origin of the midyear program is greed. Looking for a quick way to make a buck and expand their student class, Brandeis decided to make room for another hundred students, which makes this year’s 2015 class size unsustainable and risky.

For many midyears, it is a struggle to figure out what to do for the gap-semester. Due to financial restraints some midyears are forced to stay at home and attend community college so that when they finally arrive on Brandeis’ campus in the dead of winter they aren’t as far behind.
Those with the resources attend one of the Brandeis programs that were outsourced to other universities with international programs so Brandeis doesn’t have to deal with the logistical nightmare that is transferring international credits for new students. A few pack their bags and hit the streets of Tel Aviv, Bangkok or Florence in an attempt to squeeze as much excitement into a semester as possible before they settle down in dreary Waltham.

Friendships established during the midyear semester are built under pressure. While all first-year relationships often don’t withstand the trials of time, midyear friends are especially prone to falling apart. Choosing your housing a month after you arrive forces you to make quick decisions to live with people you have known for a mere six weeks. Subsequently you end up rooming with your midyear buddy who seems to be reasonable and sane at the time but as the next semester progresses ends up being completely different.

Already now as our midyear semester is coming to an end, the cracks in cliques and friendships are beginning to be exposed. Too bad you’ve already pulled them into your hall and will be forced to look at their faces every day of sophomore year.

Brandeis touts the incredible involvement and participation of the midyear class in extracurricular activities; that happens because we feel so lost. Some midyears turn to Greek life to find inclusion and community as they flounder socially outside of the midyear community. We are searching for a way to fit into a student body that may be “excited” for us to arrive, don’t really understand why we are here or what it means. Accidental derogatory slips of the tongue pepper our days for the beginning of our time here as other first-years describe themselves as “normal” first-years.

There are serious flaws in the midyear program. For most people who don’t feel as though five classes per semester is beneficial for their college experience—a summer semester is necessary. If you participated in a Brandeis-sponsored study abroad program or took classes at a community college during your gap-semester, however, you are not allowed to take summer classes to fill university requirements, which adds more stress onto your already packed schedule. Since Brandeis rejects most high school AP credits, most of us come into school with many credits, but it amounts to nothing.

Pre-med students, especially, can have a difficult time managing all the prerequisites and required classes. Furthermore, our options for future study abroad opportunities are limited. The study abroad office informed us that if we choose to take advantage of the study abroad option during our gap-semester then we cannot take a full year of study abroad later on at Brandeis.
I’m not sure I would recommend the midyear program to anyone who isn’t in possession of a backbone and a strong desire to attend Brandeis at any cost.

Certainly, I have benefited from my experience here in a number of ways. I have learned a great deal as a Politics major, about a range of topics from American government to public policy, political philosophy, law and international relations. The faculty is devoted to the well-being of the students and I’ve had very few professors who I would assert are inferior or sub-par in any major respect.

Compared to where I was when I originally matriculated, I have become a much better writer, communicator and researcher. I can analyze and critically examine complicated texts and ideas. I’ve developed a more cohesive worldview and perspective on national and international affairs.

My main concern though, even at this late point shortly before commencement day, is how I will be able to apply the skills I have acquired going forward.

At the heart of this matter is that the job market is not strong at all. For liberal arts majors who seek to work for a few years before entering graduate school, searching for a career is a miserable and even dehumanizing experience. All your life experience is boiled down to one of thousands of resumes sitting in a dusty pile on some desk in a cubicle. There is too little supply of available positions, especially given how weak this economy is, and far too much demand.

Furthermore, the vast majority of jobs out there are not appealing. Sales jobs are always plentiful. Yet selling insurance of some sort, for instance, seems like an awfully frustrating and monotonous endeavor. Lots of IT positions are available—yet one does not learn about the intricacies of Java by taking courses on Middle East politics.

Then there is the social justice career that Brandeis seems to fetishize with some do-gooder not-for-profit. If you feel that you can save the whales and would be willing to do so despite making less than the minimum wage and working 60-hour weeks, be my guest.

There are some well-paying, intellectually stimulating, rewarding jobs out there, yet it’s like finding a needle in a haystack—one need only look at websites like Career Builder or Monster to see what I mean. And although my Brandeis education has been valuable, I cannot say it has definitively distinguished me from tens of thousands of other students in my exact same position who probably found the same things for which I’ve been applying.

Personally, I’m not doomed, I will not become homeless and I have backup plans. Yet my angst is palpable.

The problem though rises beyond Brandeis and the woes of the class of 2012; fundamentally, the American Dream is dying. The notion that this upcoming generation will have higher living standards than the prior ones seems ludicrous to me. I personally doubt that I will ever become as financially successful as my parents.

A malaise has set over this nation. Our expectations are lower and 7 or 8 percent unemployment with stagnant incomes and wages seems like the new norm. As a patriot, I still try to be cautiously optimistic, do not believe decline is destiny, and hope that America will overcome this rough patch. Yet the rejection letters that I have received from the companies I’ve interviewed with—in my view, as good a symbol of larger trends as any—cause me to think otherwise.

My challenge then to the class of 2012: Prove me wrong, if you can. Congratulations, and welcome to your new life.

This past week, I received a call from 503-468-5198. I rarely pick up when I don’t know who’s on the other line, but I was at Hannaford Supermarket grabbing a few items, I was bored and I had a few minutes to talk.

A recording answered, and it said the word “political survey” before I could hang up. Political survey? As a politics major, I was curious what the survey would be about. Then the recording offered a free cruise trip.

Not expecting much, I kept listening, completed the short political survey on Obama and the Keystone Pipeline and then was connected to a polite, albeit scripted woman representing Caribbean Cruise Line. It was a little too easy.

The woman began by asking for my name but I stopped her. What were the hidden costs? What was the catch?

She didn’t exactly answer. Reading from a script, she began to explain that the cruise line wanted to advertise and it offered free trips as a way of spreading the word about it’s vacation packages.

“Have you ever been on a cruise?” she asked me.

No, but I really wanted to. The weather this week in Waltham hasn’t exactly been ideal.

The telemarketer began to describe the cruise in detail, from the casino to the open bar to the all-inclusive meal package.

It’s all free, she said. At that point, although I knew it was obviously a scam, another part of me was pretty much ready to do anything she said.

“There is a $59 government-mandated port fee per person,” she continued. And it would need to be paid in advance. Then, I’d be able to take advantage of the cruise anytime in the next 18 months.

Despite asking numerous times, she told me I had to pay for the cruise port fee then and there, and I would not be able to call back to confirm. If I wanted to see the offer in writing, I would need to have her send an email while I was on the phone and complete the deal soon after.

Disappointed, I explained I couldn’t commit, but she wouldn’t budge. So I gave up.

“Can we call you about future deals?” she asked.

And waste my time again? No, that’s alright, I replied. Thanks anyways.

It turns out I made the right decision. Type “political survey car” into Google and the search engine suggests, “political survey caribbean cruise.” Hundreds of thousands of Google search results pop up.

If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

Caribbean Cruise Lines has a D+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. Based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the company has dealt with 1,160 complaints and has “failed to resolve the underlying cause(s) of a pattern of complaints.”

The bureau describes the $59 per person scam. “The only fees mentioned are the port fees in the amount of $59 per person. Some consumers state they are not told of additional fees or that they must attend a two hour timeshare presentation as a part of the agreement.”

The bureau continues, “Requests for a refund result in rude customer service and a refusal to issue the refund as mentioned in the sales presentation.”

The company promises a free trip, but the details are far less enticing. I can’t confirm whether or not the cruise would have actually happened. Online, a number of consumers report frustration with the process. Most never received their free trips after paying the up-front fee.

The cruise line company likely did not break the rules of the Do Not Call Registry either. According to the registry, telephone surveyors are exempt from do not call limitations. By using the political survey as an initial ploy, the cruise line skirts pro-consumer laws.

Scammers are smart. They want to entice, to make you think you’re better than everyone else, that you deserve a free cruise even though you probably never even entered your name in any sort of contest. They make you decide on the spot to increase the pressure and to force you to either make a costly mistake or hang up. Just remember: The best opportunities in life aren’t going to catch you by surprise in the supermarket.

In the next 18 months, I’d really like to go on a cruise. It’s going to be expensive, but I’m willing to save up and pay. It could be really fun, too. I’m looking forward to it.

But if I find I can’t afford the trip, then I won’t go on a cruise. No one else is going to foot the bill. That’s how things work in this world. It’s as simple as that.

On Thursday morning the Judges faced 17th-ranked Washington University in the first round of the UAA championships in Florida. The Judges were only able to earn one point as Washington easily dispatched Brandeis 8-1.

The Judges’ sole point of the contest came at No. 2 doubles in which Josh Jordan ’13 and Steven Milo ’13 defeated Parker Chang and Kareem Farah 8-6. The Judges came close to winning two other points but could not prevail in either of them. In No. 1 singles Milo lost 6-4, 6-4 and in No. 6 singles Michael Secular ’15 fell 6-4, 6-3.

The loss drops the Judges to 4-13 on the season; however, eight of their 13 losses came at the hands of nationally ranked teams or Division I opponents.

On Monday, Brandeis traveled to Tufts for the final match of the regular season. Unfortunately, they were unable to defeat Tufts, falling 6-3.

In the match, all three of the Judges’ points came from juniors. In No. 2 doubles, Jordan and Milo defeated Ben Barad and Sam Laber 8-4. The Judges had close calls at both No. 1 and No. 3 doubles but could not win either as they fell 8-6 in No. 1 doubles and 9-8 (9-7) in No. 3 doubles.

In singles action, Milo defeated Barad 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 in No. 1 singles and Jordan beat Andrew Lutz 6-2, 6-4 in No. 2 singles to give the Judges a brief 3-2 lead. Unfortunately, the Judges lost at No. 3, 4, 5 and 6 singles as Tufts came away with the victory.

In the first game of the week, the Judges lost 10-5 to Division I opponent Bryant College. With both teams using their entire rosters, Bryant was able to use their superior depth and talent at the bottom of the roster to earn the victory; however, if the match had been scored using traditional Division 3 rules, with the top six singles and top three doubles teams competing, Brandeis would have won 5-4.

A group of first-years earned three of the Judges’ five points. In No. 2 doubles, Alec Siegel ’15 and Secular earned an 8-4 win over Vidith Huot and Joshua Rubinstein. In singles, Secular also earned a victory in No. 4 singles, defeating Juan Gonzalez-Paz 6-3, 6-0 and Ben Fine ’15 defeated Rubinstein 7-6, 6-3 in No. 6 singles.

Jordan was involved in the other two match victories for the Judges. In No. 1 doubles, Jordan and Milo defeated Ernesto Arguello and Gonzalez-Paz 8-4, while in No. 1 singles, Jordan dispatched Zachary Morris 6-2, 6-4.

Evan Berner ’14 and Matthew Zuckerman ’14 came close to winning at No. 4 doubles but ultimately fell 9-7. Additionally, Zuckerman battled hard in No. 8 singles before losing 7-5, 6-3. Jon Ostrowsky ’13 dropped a first set tiebreaker at No. 9 singles and eventually lost 7-6 (7-1) 6-0.

The dance performances were so impressive that two of them received standing ovations from the audience. Brandeis Bhangra and the Women of Color Alliance both had incredible performances, injecting the crowd with energy and fascinating the audience with their talent and enthusiasm. Bhangra performed an Indian dance that involved a lot of jumping and quick footwork. The smiles on the dancers’ faces had the audience laughing along with them. Toward the end, Hyder Kazmi ’12 ran onto the floor below the stage as a surprise.

Culture X was the first performance of the newly formed Women of Color Alliance, and it was a testament to their hard work and personality that it was such a success. Wearing vibrant colors and dancing to Beyoncé, WOCA dancers were the most spirited performers of the night. They looked confident and proud of themselves, as they rightly should have been. They left the stage to a roar of applause.

Other dance performances were excellent too. So Unique Step Team made their own music by clapping their hands and stamping their feet, using an amusing skit as the background story for their steps. The group dynamics made the performance funny and enjoyable to watch, but the speed at which they moved showed their true talent. Adagio and Haiti Initiative were both calmer performances, but they added their own unique beauty to the evening. The gracefulness of the dancers gave their movements fluidity.

KSA and BAASA had strong performances: Students danced to the intricate choreography with precision and energy.

Brandeis Breakdance Club showed the community their incredible talent, which was complete with choreography that included spinning on their heads, tumbling across the stage, flipping over each other and spinning on their hands. Their bodies appeared to defy gravity. Kaos Kids closed the show with an amazing act. The dancers were perfectly in time, and they moved faster and were more flexible than it seemed to be possible.

There were a few strong spoken word performances. Performers put their hearts into their words, bringing the words to life with their vocal inflections. The most impressive performance was by rapper Saz.É (Osaze Akerejah ’14). His lyrics were more mature than I would ever expect from a college student: The entire rap was about how much he is “soon to be a black father, can’t help but want a pretty black daughter.” I can’t imagine that most students are even thinking about how they want to be parents or how to hold their children’s hands yet, but even so, that is what Saz.É rapped about. His lyrics were moving as he exclaimed how he wanted to show his daughter a beautiful and happy world, protecting her innocence and knowing that she will be “smart.”

Although most acts were polished and smooth, there were a few groups that did not quite live up to the rest. Ballroom Formation Team was one such group. The whole performance just seemed awkward, as if none of the dancers were comfortable on stage. The female dancers were significantly better than their male counterparts, if only because they had more confidence and were in time. The stage didn’t seem big enough and it looked like they were running into each other. The choreography was interesting with the dancers spinning and the boys catching the girls but, at times, it seemed as if a few girls were almost dropped. The Brandeis Argentine Tango Society also had an underwhelming performance. Dancing as quickly as they did in high heels is impressive, but the posture of the dancers and their hesitant faces took away from the performance.

This year, several groups were cut from the Culture X program during auditions, and some were groups that were always traditionally presented in the performances. The 25 large groups already made the evening long, but perhaps some of the groups could have been shortened or perhaps people in the groups that were cut could have been added to the groups scheduled to perform. It was unfortunate that such an exciting night left some talented students out, but a four-hour performance would not likely be appreciated.

Culture X was a wonderful performance that highlighted the talent of Brandeis students beyond the classroom. Stephanie Lee ’13, co-president of BAASA, said, “Culture X is a good opportunity for lots of people to come together to share their talent.” Vicky Lee ’13 added, “It allows us to celebrate our culture and what we love to do. The best part was bonding with my group … and messing up together.” The performances on Saturday night proved just how well a diverse community can come together to put on an incredible show.

Lavender Graduation is a ceremony specifically set aside for the graduating members of the LGBTQ community and their allies. It celebrates the contributions and accomplishments this community has achieved for the past four years.

The LGBTQ and ally community at Brandeis appreciates the recognition since it speaks to the numerous difficulties the community continues to face.

“It’s recognizing the efforts of those who are trying to create a space for people who generally don’t have much of a space,” Lavender graduate Dan Flores ’12 said. “The LGBTQ community tends to deal with issues that are outside the normative experience. There are issues such as coming out. There are issues of constantly having to explain your identity. People who are generally considered heterosexual don’t have to explain their erotic interests; they don’t have to say ‘Oh I came out to my mom and dad when I was 17 years old.’”

Liberal universities and colleges across the nation have been gradually developing their own versions of Lavender Graduation. When Jesse Beal became Brandeis’ first program coordinator for sexuality and gender diversity this year, she decided to bring Lavender Graduation to Brandeis.

Members of the LGBTQ community, LGBTQ allies, and Brandeis’ faculty and staff were overjoyed to participate in the ceremony.

“The fact that this is happening for the first time here is momentous because it shows we’re moving from being an openly accepting student body to being an openly accepting campus,” Lavender graduate Simon Zahn ’12 said.

Lavender Graduation is named after the queer community’s long history with the word “lavender.” According to Beal, the phrase “Lavender Scare” was used in reference to the persecution of gays and lesbians in the 1950s. Furthermore, a feminist in the late 1960s supposedly coined the term “Lavender Menace” in reference to the lesbians who she believed were infiltrating the feminist movement. The queer community reclaimed the term for its own use as a source of pride.

Consequently, the Intercultural Center lounge was adorned with lavender balloons, lavender streamers and even a few lavender plants as Brandeis faculty and staff thanked the graduating seniors and graduate students for their dedication to the LGBTQ community. Involved in a variety of leadership roles within the community, these students deserved to receive recognition.

“We’re constantly working with people one-on-one, with the administration and with professors to get our voices heard. And having Lavender Graduation is just a way to thank people who work tirelessly but otherwise don’t get recognition,” said Lavender graduate Cynthia Simonoff ’12.

Dean Jamele Adams took the stage with a slam poetry performance. His rhymes spoke of the pride, diversity and accomplishments of Brandeis’ graduating LGBTQ family.

Following Adam’s performance, Vice President of Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel delivered the keynote speech.

“Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, I was in all the cool things; band, debate, the chess team,” he said, to the crowd’s laughter. He then continued on a more serious note, explaining how the contributions of Brandeis’ LGBTQ community have created an atmosphere that enables hopeful applicants to see Brandeis as a safehaven.

Specific students were also selected to give words of encouragement. Each graduating senior and graduate student then received a certificate of recognition and a rainbow tassel. Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” sounded throughout the lounge as the ceremony concluded. The students now hope Lavender Graduation will become an annual event at Brandeis.

“The student reaction to this has been overwhelming. They’re thrilled and honored that we have this. I didn’t have to do much to get them here … My line the whole time has been ‘this is our opportunity to thank you for your four years of service, for all the achievements you’ve had, for making this a safer campus for all of us,’” Beal said.

Some of the graduating students also expressed how privileged they feel to have been able to attend a university that has a well-developed Women’s and Gender Studies department and a growing Sexuality and Queer Studies department. According to Flores, many of the students who take courses within these departments begin to rethink their original understandings of sexuality and gender.

“These departments bridge the gap by giving a voice to those who haven’t had a voice for a long time,” Flores said.

Although Brandeis possesses a growing Sexuality and Queer Studies department and a relatively open student body and administration, the LGBTQ members of Brandeis hope that people will still recognize the everyday discrimination they continue to encounter. While Brandeis as a university has made major steps by opening up gender-neutral bathrooms and introducing a Sexuality and Queer Studies minor, students look forward to future improvement.

“As a whole, Brandeis is a very open and accepting institution; however, that does not mean that we’re perfect. There are still some changes that need to be made,” Zahn said. “As of now, we have a part-time program coordinator for sexuality and gender diversity [Jesse Beal], but making this position full-time would allow more to be accomplished. Also, our campus is in desperate need of some gender-neutral bathrooms in certain buildings. These are just two things that we need to further Brandeis along the path to being the perfect open and accepting institute.”

As Lavender Graduation demonstrated, the LGBTQ community at Brandeis has acquired the set of tools necessary to make these types of changes. Involved in leadership roles throughout the community, the Lavender Graduation participants are prepared to take their endeavors to make Brandeis a safer campus into the outside world.

“I think the queer students on this campus and the ally students have done amazing work without a lot of institutional support,” Beal said. “And now that they’re getting institutional support, I really think the sky is the limit and I’m excited about what’s going to happen in the next couple of years.”

Brandeis and Bowdoin were tied at 3-3 going into the fifth inning. In the top of the frame it appeared that Bowdoin was taking control of the game as they scored three runs to go ahead 6-3; however, in the bottom of the frame Brandeis plated six runs. Then after holding Bowdoin scoreless in the top of the sixth, Brandeis scored five runs in the bottom half of the inning as the Judges scored 11 of their 14 runs in the two frames.

Third baseman Sean O’Hare ’12 went 2-for-3 with two walks, two doubles and three runs scored batting in the leadoff spot. Since returning to the lineup five games ago, O’Hare is batting .400 (8-of-20) with seven runs scored, three doubles and three home runs with a 1.000 slugging percentage. Catcher Kenny Destremps ’12 went 2-for-4, scoring three runs and with an RBI batting out of the two-hole in the lineup while designated hitter Pat Nicholson M.A. ’12 had a game-high four hits going 4-for-5 with a double, two RBIs and two runs scored in the three-hole.

Rounding out the senior class, right fielder Zach Malis ’12 went 1-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored, and left fielder Joe Galli ’12 reached base twice after getting hit by a pitch, scoring once and driving in a run.

Center fielder Chris Ferro ’13 boosted the team going 2-for-3 with three RBIs thanks to a pair of sacrifice flies.

Although Bowdoin outhit the Judges 15-14, the Polar Bears could not come up with timely hitting to plate enough runs to overcome Brandeis’ juggernaut offensive performance.

Furthermore, the Judges’ senior class was extremely effective out of the bullpen. Alex Tynan ’12 allowed five hits and just one run in 3.1 innings of work while striking out three, and then Andrew Weissenberg ’12 retired the only batter he faced on one pitch. Nicholson closed out the game getting the last Bowdoin batter to line out to first base.

Kyle Brenner ’15 earned the win to improve to 3-7 on the season. Brenner gave up 10 hits and six runs, five earned.

Earlier in the week, the Judges faced Endicott College. In a pitcher’s duel, Endicott defeated the visiting Judges 2-1 behind a stellar pitching performance from six different pitchers.

Both teams were only able to muster a single hit through the first four innings. Endicott scored, however, in the bottom of the fourth. After Tad Gold drew a walk and stole second, Colin Sitarz drove Gold in with a RBI single to right field.

The Judges got their lone run of the game in the seventh inning, though the Judges could have blown the game open in the frame. After loading the bases with three hits and one out, Brian Allen ’15 tied the game with an RBI lineout. Unfortunately, Endicott would get out of the inning without any more damage as the next Judges’ batter harmlessly flied out to right for the final out of the inning.

Brian Ing ’14 pitched a stellar game for the Judges, going seven innings and giving up just five hits and a single run. Ing left the tied game in the eighth inning earning a no decision.

Endicott scored the game-winning run in the eighth inning after a Judges error allowed a routine groundout to reach base.

The Judges will close out their season this weekend with a doubleheader against Trinity College starting at noon on Sunday.

Even though “Cymbeline” is very much a standard Shakespearean story, Lenny Somervell ’12 made a subtle but important change to the play for her senior project. In this production, Posthumus is not only played by a woman but is in fact portrayed as a woman, increasing the barriers that others have put up between Posthumus and her lover Imogen. The modification of such a relationship certainly modernizes the play but does not shift the show’s central focus to being a play about gender and sexuality. In the end, the decision to portray Posthumus as a woman adds an interesting new element to “Cymbeline,” making it more relevant (despite being set in the rather distant past) without changing the show’s central focus. And, after all, why would it? “Cymbeline” is ultimately (as discussed in the show’s playbill) a story about love in all its forms, be it romantic or familial.

Performed in Ridgewood Commons, “Cymbeline” worked within a limited space and with limited opportunity for set. What pieces they did have were put to good use, however, and the two main settings of the show (the forest and the king’s court) were simply and cleverly differentiated. Despite the lack of a complete set, enough was done to show the change in setting to prevent undue confusion. A more complex set would have been welcome, but the group clearly did excellently within the constraints of the resources they were given. Additionally, the costuming was very well done, effectively grounding the actors in their parts and within the setting of the play as a whole.

Overall, the acting throughout “Cymbeline” was quite strong. Particularly impressive was the tender relationship portrayed between Posthumus and Imogen played by Karol and Geller respectively. Primarily through body language, the two created a truly heart-wrenching picture of affection and devotion. This was particularly poignant at the end of the play, when the two were finally reunited and thus came to understand the falsehoods that created tension between them in the first place. Similarly memorable was Federlin as Cloten. Though Cloten is not the largest part that “Cymbeline” has to offer, Federlin’s portrayal was subtle and amusing. Also of note is Alex Davis ’15 as Iachimo, the Italian nobleman who seeks to tear apart Posthumus and Imogen for a bet. He played Iachimo with quite the dramatic flair, which was at times very funny but grew slightly tiresome as the play wore on.

Perhaps the best part of “Cymbeline” was the final scene, in which the love that had been so endlessly challenged throughout the story was at last allowed to come to fruition, as Posthumus was accepted into the king’s court as Imogen’s wife and the king himself was at last reunited with his lost sons (a subplot of the play), Guiderius and Arviragus (Samantha LeVangie ’15 and Sari Holt ’15 respectively). The scene was full of poignant emotion, as each actor seemed to bring out his or her full ability. Ultimately, it was a highly touching resolution that the cast gave full justice. Although the play seemed to drag at points, especially toward the middle, the strength of the final scene certainly compensated for that weakness.

The director’s note in the playbill of this production of “Cymbeline” opened by telling the audience that “Cymbeline” is, in many ways, a play about the things we do for love.” This is truly an apt distillation of the play, and one which the cast and crew have clearly put great effort into portraying. I think it can be said that the goal of performing a play about love was certainly achieved. Although certain love-centered sub-plots at times felt slightly lost, the overall message finally came together very neatly, as the family of King Cymbeline was brought together, free of Queen Hareth’s manipulations. Although it had its flaws, the show overall was strong and enjoyable. I look forward to seeing more of them in the future.

Before reading from sections of both his novels, Bezmozgis explained how the past 10 years have been a journey: an attempt to chronicle the experience of a community of Jews. These people, who emigrated from Soviet Russia, are following in a long tradition of exiled Jewish people. Bezmozgis’ heritage is complicated: He is Jewish, born in Riga, Latvia, and, at the age of six, moved to Canada. Since then, he has also spent a large amount of time in the United States. His internalized understanding of the trials of adapting to the culture of a new country is reflected in his novels.

Bezmozgis reads out loud slowly, letting the impact of his words seep into every audience member. He first read from his novel “Natasha,” which is actually a collection of short stories about a particular family. The narrator is the son Mark, who ages as the stories progress. In the story Bezmozgis chose to read out loud, Mark is 13 years old, struggling to understand his identity as a Jewish son in the land in which he was not born. In the story, his family has immigrated to Israel. His mother insists he attend Hebrew School, despite the teasing Mark encounters.

Mark is an aggressive child, frustrated with his surroundings and strikes out by attacking the children who bully him. This almost leads to an expulsion, and Mark’s sinking feeling from the thought that his parents’ hard-earned money will be entirely wasted on his schooling. Mark is also questioning whether or not he possesses a “Jewish soul,” a sort of internal searching that brings even more depth to the short story. At the close of the story, Mark is accused of acting like an animal at a Holocaust memorial, even though he has finally and completely acknowledged his heritage.

Bezmozgis’ prose is masterful. Writing in the mindset of a child is difficult, given that children have experienced less and understand the world through a far different lens than adults do. Yet Bezmozgis’ portrayal of Mark is completely in tune with his age. Mark talks and interacts like a 13-year-old boy. He is lively, springing off the page. Bezmozgis also succeeds in his crafting of plot. Tensions run high as audience members wondered whether or not Mark would be expelled. By causing listeners and readers to care truly about his characters, Bezmozgis has proved himself a true author.

Bezmozgis did read out loud from his other novel, titled “The Free World.” Bezmozgis declared that he desired to write this book because he was still invested in the topic and that there were ideas he could not cover in “Natasha,” given Mark’s young age and the short story format. Bezmozgis was also interested in Jewish people who “dropped out,” an Israeli term for Soviet Jews who chose not to immigrate to Israel upon leaving Russia. These people usually went to Rome, which became a sort of odd in-between location. This is why “The Free World” is set in Rome: Bezmozgis’ curiosity about these people and their exodus was only satisfied by writing about it. “The Free World” also centers on family dynamics. Bezmozgis read sections out loud that explained the relationship between the two brothers. Bezmozgis refers to the characters in this family as a “merry band that is traveling together.” This “merry band” goes on to experience various cultures across different nations, forced to adapt throughout their exodus.

The topics covered in Bezmozgis’ novels are very close to home for some at Brandeis. Sylvia B. Fishman, chair of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, along with Ira Krakhman, moderated the discussion of Bezmozgis’ novels. Krakhman is a Brandeis-Genesis Institute fellow and is pursuing her master’s degree. She gave a very moving opening, describing how this presentation of Bezmozgis’ novels allowed her to embrace her heritage. Krakhman, who is Ukrainian and Jewish, describes how she wanted to confront her identity in a similar method to a train wreck—both publicly and graphically. By embracing Bezmozgis’ themes, Krakhman is able to connect them to herself and her own exodus to the United States. While Krakhman describes herself as obsessively chasing her memories of being in transit, Bezmozgis and his work has given her some peace.

Well, I didn’t cry tonight, but I was one of a few who didn’t tear up at tonight’s performance.
In “Next to Normal,” Diana (Abigail Clarke ’12) and Dan (Justy Kosek ’14) are the parents of Natalie (Sarah Hines ’15) and Gabe (Jared Greenberg ’12), both difficult teenagers. Diana suffers from bipolar disorder. The entire show is about her and the rest of her family continuously fighting for and against her disease. While doing this, each of them try to figure out what they each want separately from Diana. The musical illustrates the very different ways Dan and Natalie deal with her, as well as the different ways Diana tries to get cured.

This synopsis is intentionally vague because much of the show is the flow of the storyline and the songs used to illustrate it, and that is something Free Play pulls off very well. “Next to Normal” is the type of show that transitions from song to song rather than relying on segues in dialogue to begin a song. This type of production is particularly hard to pull off because a lot of action is needed to keep the stage from being dull, and David Benger ’14 does a very good job at keeping his actors busy.

Whether the characters are setting up the kitchen table, mimicking a therapy session or pretending to be a rock star—the body language of the actors alone was phenomenal. Additionally, the flow of the action combined with the flow of the songs kept the audience invested in the show, not even having time to applaud after a majority of the songs. By the time Clarke was singing “I Dreamed a Dance,” tears were falling.

Abigail Clarke, you lovely woman. This role was made for her. It is a very difficult role. Diana is a very complex character suffering from a mental illness. She has to portray the correct balance of unstable and vulnerable to be a sympathetic character or to even be believable, and that is exactly what Clarke did. From the very first song, “Just Another Day,” she draws the audience in with simply how authentic she is in her role. And that’s not to mention her voice. Clarke definitely shone in this performance, hitting every note that was thrown at her, and fleshing out every feeling in every song. When the audience cried and kept crying, it was a testament to how beautifully Diana was played.

Clarke was also in very good company. The family was very well casted, as was Dotan Horowitz ’12 as Diana’s psychologist and Nick Maletta ’13 as Henry, Natalie’s boyfriend. With a cast of six, the chemistry among them was exceptional, which translated into incredibly powerful songs. Their acting was spot-on, and their singing was even better. Projection at times was a little off—Schwartz hall doesn’t have the best acoustics—but overall, the actors did well and Brian Yorkey’s beautiful lyrics were understood. I did have a couple issues with Kosek’s abilities to hit high notes at certain moments, but this was easily shrugged off when Clarke made her way back on stage.

Another notable part of the production is the music supplied by the five-person orchestra. Bryan Belok ’12 did a great job with the music, and it was fantastic to see playing the piano and bouncing around while conducting the songs. A very good addition to the orchestra was junior Gloria Park’s cello playing, which lent itself to a lot of the emotion felt in the show. Again, because the show was essentially one song after another, it was crucial to have a strong orchestra and under Belok’s direction, they delivered.

Free Play did an amazing job with their interpretation of “Next To Normal.” They were able to keep their intimate setting and do-it-yourself feel while keeping the spirit of the show alive. Whether it is the bare set of four chairs and a table, or Greenberg’s very faithful portrayal of Gab—each decision made was the right one. Rarely do I praise a show this highly, but this production deserves it. See “Next To Normal” this weekend: Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 8 p.m. at Schwartz Hall.

Maidan’s grandparents, Jozef and Sonia Maidan, were Polish Jews who both survived concentration camps, Dachau and Auschwitz, respectively. They hid in a forest near Bialystok, Poland, until they turned themselves into a concentration camp called Radom, living in fear of people finding them. Jozef was taken to Bergen-Belsen and later Dachau, and Sonia was sent to Auschwitz. Sonia, who arrived in a railcar packed so tightly that people who died could not fall to the ground, described her survival as a matter of chance. Sonia was liberated on April 1, 1945. She believed that her freedom was an April Fool’s Day joke and slavery was the reality, something Erin still cannot fathom.

The Maidans were reunited after the war, at a displaced persons camp called Felderfink, outside of Munich. Jozef saw Sonia’s name on a list of survivors and traveled for two weeks on foot to find her. They had lost everything, even their two-year-old son Avram, who was taken. Yet at the same time, they began to rebuild their lives. Sonia gave birth to a daughter, Rifka, at the displaced persons camp, and they raised two more children in America, one of whom was Erin Maidan’s father Henry.

The Maidans arrived in America with $18 and a trunk full of their remaining possessions, which has become a symbol of their immigrant heritage. They worked hard to achieve the American dream, learning English and running two tailor shops for three decades. It was initially Jozef’s skills as a tailor that secured his survival, because he was able to receive extra rations from the guards. When Jozef Maidan grew ill and had to close the store, they sold the trunk for money. It was bought by Orrin Miller, a local history buff. Erin Maidan did not rediscover it until she interned at the Grout Museum District and museum historian Bob Neymeyer helped return it to her. “As far as the trunk goes, Bob and Francesca (the museum staff) are the real heroes,” she said. Influenced by her family heritage, Maidan studied European Cultural History, German Language and Literature, and NEJS with a focus on Holocaust studies. She was the only Jewish German major in her time at Brandeis.

Maidan was one of only three Brandeis students to study abroad in Germany. She spent a year at the University of Heidelberg, the oldest university in Germany. Maidan was “prepared to go fully incognito” while doing research on Jewish-German relations after the Holocaust, the subject of her thesis. Yet she says what she found “surprised me intensely, and changed my entire life, especially how I relate to Germany. I had a wonderful time and found the healing I was never really searching for, but it found me.”

Sonia Maidan supported Erin’s journey, and even sent her off with a list of details such as her addresses before the war and places she must visit: the major Jewish centers of Eastern Europe such as Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, Krakow and Berlin. At the end of her trip, she spent a week alone in Poland, visiting Auschwitz. Maidan sees the bittersweet significance of the trunk. She says it symbolizes her grandparents’ suffering, but it also represents healing and the freedom to pass their Judaism onto the next generation.

On Holocaust Remembrance day Thursday, the Miller family presented the trunk back to the Maidan family in a small ceremony.

“It’s no surprise to me that all of this happened very close to Pesach. It is the month of freedom after all, now as much as ever,” Erin Maidan said. “My story continues, the Jewish story continues. We were slaves in Egypt, we were slaves in Europe and now we are free Jews thanks to their sacrifice … Not all is lost. There’s hope things can be returned.”

Garcia was a chemistry major and played clarinet in the school band. He commuted from home and worked as a pharmacy technician at the CVS in Waltham, less than two miles from Brandeis.

Garcia disappeared the night of Feb. 22 from the popular college bar Mary Anne’s, where he had been drinking with friends. He left the bar sometime before closing without his companions, who were unable to locate him when the bar closed and left, assuming he had taken a cab home. His cellphone pinged off a tower located near the reservoir, placing him near Moore’s Hall on the Boston College campus, shortly after 1 a.m. He was seen on an ATM camera around the same time.

Until the discovery of Franco’s body, some believed he was still alive, but at Boston College, according to Daniel Friedman, a BC junior, “most people assumed the worst. It’s really difficult to disappear in this day and age.” No personal belongings were found, and no credit card activity could direct officials to his whereabouts.

After six weeks of searching, police discovered the body of Franco Garcia in the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. “We’re really wondering all the same thing,” BC senior Jamie Zhang said, “Why it took so long to find him.”

While the exact circumstances of Garcia’s death are still unknown, a preliminary examination offered that the body showed no signs of struggle or foul play, instead was consistent with signs of an accidental drowning.

“Some speculate that if someone had been involved and they heard that the reservoir had been dragged and they hadn’t found anything, they’d figure it wouldn’t be dragged again and dumped the body,” says Friedman, who “does not personally ascribe to this theory,” but asserts that there is a portion of the student body that is skeptical of the accidental nature of the case.

Zhang presented another alternative. “Most people just believe he was locked in the weeds, so divers had difficulty to find him,” he said. “It’s a big lake.”

The tragedy was less significant to Boston College than initially assumed. While the media reported widely on the case and social media sites were overwhelmed with support for Garcia’s family, the BC student population was less than whole-heartedly involved. “Of the people I knew,” said Zhang, “I don’t know anyone who actively looked for him. They might have put up posters, but no one went and looked with them.”

Friedman said that after the “initial shock” the fervor “got a little subdued. There was a period, a kind of calm” before the body was found.

Students are not permanently affected by the tragedy. “For a while, kids were more aware, but college kids are also idiots and it’s hard to penetrate the feeling of invincibility. It’s chilling that it’s the local bar, that on any given night you’ll find 20, 30 kids there, but it hasn’t changed the campus that much,” Friedman said.

Zhang agreed: “After kids came back from break, it felt like everything was the same again, maybe kids are slightly more careful, especially about leaving by themselves, but in terms of BC culture, I think it’s largely the same.”

In late February, police extensively searched the reservoir and the surrounding areas, including pump houses and nearby wooded areas, finding nothing. They used both divers and sonar, but were unable to locate Garcia. At the time, Massachusetts state police had no reason to believe he was in the reservoir, spokesman David Procopio told The Hoot earlier this month. It was only a logical place to look because his cellphone pinged nearby.

After failing to contact him multiple times the following day, his family became alarmed and returned from a vacation in New York. They found that he had not been home and his car was where he had parked it on Tuesday, before going out with his friends. His clarinet was still inside.

The disappearance inspired a massive manhunt, which included missing posters that covered Boston College campus, social networking announcements and celebrity involvement. Singer Bruce Springsteen, whose son is a senior at Boston College, tweeted the information and requested that if anyone had any information that they call Boston police.

Students feel their safety isn’t compromised by Garcia’s disappearance, which Friedman compared to the year’s earlier suicide at the college, nor the police’s slow discovery of his body.

“I think they did their best, whether they did a good job, I don’t know,” Zhang said.

All three of the original films had their own story that flowed from one to the next. In “American Pie” it was about four friends wanting to lose their virginity before graduating from high school. With the second movie the plot centered on their summer after freshman year, trying to have fun in addition to maintaining their friendship. In the final movie, “American Wedding” the gang gets back together because one of them is getting married.

“American Reunion” takes place 13 years after the first movie. It includes everyone that the audience might remember returning to East Great Falls Michigan for their first High School Reunion; apparently someone dropped the ball on the 10-year reunion. Unlike “American Wedding,” the last film in the main series, everyone memorable from the first movie returns for the reunion—even the characters that skipped out on the wedding.

At this point, Jim (Jason Biggs) is a corporate drone, and has a two-year-old son with his wife Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). Jim’s mother passed away three years earlier, and Jim and Michelle are struggling in their relationship.

Another “American Pie” favorite, Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas), mostly works out of his house and is married to a woman he loves, but eagerly looks forward to reuniting with his friends and spending some time away from watching shows like “Real Housewives.” Oz (Chris Klein) is a football broadcaster for a second-rate copy of ESPN, lives in L.A. and even went on a season of the movie’s version of “Dancing with the Stars.” In the intervening years he and his girlfriend Heather (Mena Suvari) broke up because he was moving to L.A. and she was staying in Michigan for medical school. Stifler (Sean William Scott) is an office temp working for someone that treats Stifler like Stifler treats other people. Last but not least, like always, Finch appears to have been spending his time doing his best to live the life of “the most interesting man in the world.”

The plot centers on the three days leading to the reunion and the reunion itself. For Jim, most of the time involves things getting in the way of talking with Michelle and fixing the problems in their relationship. For example, on day one, the four friends run into Stifler and they hang out. Stifler gets the group drunk and the rest of the night is a blur. On day two, Jim and friends find themselves having to deal with the annoying high school students that hang out where they used to hang out.

I was able to anticipate many of the plot points but, in this case, it really was not a problem. While predictability can be a downside, the anticipated parts were done well and featured the occasional twist. For example, two characters unexpectedly began dating. Additionally, the traditional end of the movie hook-up between a member of the group and an older woman was both predictable and, at the same time, very entertaining, paired with the reunion of the “MILF Guys.”

Quite simply everyone worth remembering from the original movie is back and no one appears just for the sake of appearance. Even Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth), while only having a one-scene cameo, appears at the one moment where doing so would be funniest. Additionally, all of the characters that were only in the first two—like Nadia, Vicky (Tara Reid), etc.—are integrated back into the story in a fitting way.

In addition to the nostalgic characters, the movie also balances nostalgic music with current songs. Aside from simple jokes, like referring to music from the mid-’90s as “classic rock,” the music only served to enhance the memories of what made the original films great and why this movie was so good compared to the direct-to-DVD films that have been released over the last seven years.

If you’re looking for an award-winning film, you’re in the wrong place. But if you are looking for a funny movie that will leave you laughing, balance the expected with unexpected and have a nostalgic element to it, then “American Reunion” hits the spot. The plot is plausible, the jokes are well done and it exceeds expectations for a sequel so long after the last theatrical film.

Sponsored by the Creative Writing department, this event was very well-attended as Brandeis students and faculty alike came to see this seasoned author read. Professor Steven McCauley highly praised Tóibín in his introduction, describing his effect on audiences when he read out loud, claiming it caused people to inch forward in their seats, hold their breaths and remain poised in this way, mesmerized by his reading.

As Tóibín began to read, he did not disappoint. His voice is low and moving, at once soothing and yet impossible not to pay attention to. While Henry James has long been dead, Tóibín’s prose and his voice bring him entirely back to life. Tóibín read two sections of “The Master,” one describing James’ experience during opening night of one of his plays, and another sentimental piece about a woman’s clothing. Tóibín described how James did not witness his show’s opening night, instead choosing to go watch an Oscar Wilde play and return after the show’s conclusion. His play was a complete failure and public humiliation, something Tóibín shows that James at once highly feared and hoped against. Tóibín’s prose is utterly descriptive—it is easy to imagine James nervously walking back and forth between the two plays, wondering what his fate would be as a playwright.

Tóibín described how it was necessary to immerse completely himself in James’ life, to surround himself with all accounts of the man. Tóibín is indeed such a master that he artfully twisted a short radio segment aired in 1956 into an entire section of his novel. In the radio segment, an old woman spoke about how she knew James briefly. Tóibín understands James’ motives and psyche so well, that the short segment is enough for him to create entire scenes and dialogue.

Professor Kathy Lawrence led a discussion with Tóibín following his reading. She quizzed him on James’ life, uncovering that Tóibín certainly knows even more about the man than what is in his book. She also uncovered facts about Tóibín himself, such as his political history in which both his grandfather and his uncle were involved in the Irish IRA. Prompted by Lawrence, Tóibín talked about his homeland explaining how Ireland does not seem that small if one lives there. In a way, Tóibín’s writings often have a political undertone. He does mention the treatment of the Irish people by the hands of the English, and he describes how in Ireland, America was considered “glamour” while England was simply “necessity.” Lawrence also questioned Tóibín on why he decided to take on Henry James, saying it was an audacious topic since many think they “own” Henry James. She asked him whether he was concerned about taking a very private man and making his life public, or how Tóibín was ever able to get inside this great writer’s mind so fully.

Tóibín was not fazed by this question, instead pointing out the similarities between himself and the man who was called “The Master” by his fans. Tóibín points to the fact that James, like himself, was balding, the second son in a family of five, and had a very similar relationship to family, community and religion. Tóibín also seems to have had similar experiences. He describes how one of his novels was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, which basically means he did not win the Booker Prize. He described that night where they announced the winners as one where he hoped he would win, but realized once he had not that he was facing a night of misery and embarrassment and wondered why he bothered going at all. Tóibín compared this to James himself, on the night of James’ play release, at which the public booed him and James wondered why he turned to writing plays at all. It seems as though Tóibín, who has researched James immensely, has managed to bring him to life not through hard facts but because he understands James as a person.

With an easy to listen to voice, Tóibín is as much a writer as he is a public speaker, and both are entirely captivating.

In UAA competition, the Judges’ best performance this season was turned in by Kim Farrington ’13. Farrington is currently ranked fifth among all UAA athletes with a distance of 10.74 meters in the triple jump set at the Dartmouth event. Also in the Top 10 are Lily Parenteau ’12, currently ranked eighth in the high jump with a 5’ 1” mark; Alyssa Fenenbock ’15, ranked ninth in the javelin with a throwing distance of 30.66 meters; and Brittany Bell ’13, ranked 10th in the long jump with a distance of 5.08 meters.

MIT took a 2-1 lead into singles action as the Engineers’ pair Anastasia Vishnevetsky and Michelle Dutt upset Faith Broderick ’13 and Carly Cooke ’15 in No. 1 doubles 9-7. The Judges’ lone victory in doubles action came at No. 3 doubles in which Dylan Schlesinger ’15 and Simone Vandroff ’15 earned an 8-3 victory.

In singles action, Roberta Bergstein ’14 evened the game at 2-2 with a victory at No. 6 singles. After winning the first set 6-1, her opponent retired giving, the Judges the point by default. At No. 2 doubles, Broderick avenged her doubles loss to Dutt with an easy victory in straight sets 6-0, 6-2. Alexa Katz ’14 pulled the Judges within one point of the match victory with a 6-1, 6-2 victory at No. 5 singles and Cooke finished off the comeback with a 6-1, 6-4 win at No. 1 singles against Vishnevetsky. Finally, Allyson Bernstein ’14 picked up another point with a 6-3, 6-2 win at No. 3 singles. Vandroff suffered the only singles loss for the Judges with a 3-6, 6-3, 10-6 loss at No. 4 singles.

The Judges will end their season with a pair of ranked matches. They will travel to face 19th-ranked Wellesley on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. and return home to face 28th-ranked Trinity in the final home game of the season on Tuesday at 3 p.m.

The Wabash survey was given to the incoming class of 2012 when we were first-years and then again last month with commencement on the horizon. Admittedly, my sole motivation for taking the Wabash was the chance of winning one of a number of valuable prizes, including a $400 gift card (full disclosure: I didn’t win). Seniors who took the questionnaire also received a $7.50 gift card to a local ice cream shop.

I’m certainly grateful for the ice cream. But, at the same time, I’m not convinced Brandeis will learn much from the responses I provided. The thinking behind the questions was to develop a profile of the accomplishments and perspectives of seniors who received a Brandeis education. But the questions were vague, broad and highly irrelevant, boiling important questions about alcohol and drug usage, personality traits, engagement with professors, and participation in student clubs to the one-to-five scale.

At Brandeis, students receive requests to respond to surveys almost on a weekly basis from academic services, the Hiatt Career Center and the Student Union. Surveys typically ask anywhere from 10 to 25 questions, ranging from name, class year and major to rating programs or services on the one-to-five scale to the usual, “feel free to add anything else.”

That’s a whole lot of data. But is the data useful?

From a statistical standpoint, probably not. The students who actually answer the survey aren’t necessarily representative of all students. Questions are often written by administrators who lack training in survey writing, which results in questions that are sometimes worded in a biased manner.

At the same time, students aren’t necessarily motivated to think carefully about questions, but merely to provide responses in order to be entered in a drawing to win a prize.

But the problems extend beyond the statistical. After the Student Union’s recent Pulse survey—a weeklong online questionnaire—we were promised that input would be used to improve student services. I reviewed responses to the survey, and what stood out was interesting information, but not necessarily actionable trends. The Union asked when students wanted the dining halls to be open. That one’s easy—24/7/365.

These surveys provide far too many data points, many of which yield meaningless numbers that don’t always tell the whole story.

Union leaders in particular are elected with a mandate, and that should be enough to bring about change. Endless surveys slow down the process and provide unnecessary information overload.

Administrators have more of a reason to use surveys, but they rely on them far too much because it is easy to do so. How can anyone hope to learn anything from bubbles darkened on a page? The real way to profile the graduating class isn’t to ask simplistic questions as part of the Wabash but to pay attention to students throughout their time at Brandeis, to engage them and meet them, to speak to professors and mentors who know students best, and to listen when students have concerns.

SurveyMonkey doesn’t bring about change. People do. These surveys could ask hundreds of questions in every possible way, but unless someone reads and acts on the answers, the surveys are useless.

At Brandeis, too many administrators and student leaders are relying on surveys to appear to be responsive to students rather than actually to be responsive. There are other ways. More students should be included in university committees and administrators should hold more regular forums to gather student input and open channels of communication with club leaders to be more connected to student activities on campus. They can also reach out to students, be present at events and really try to gather meaningful input before making decisions.

Sometimes it’s just easier to pay $7.50 for a survey than to expend time and energy in getting to know students. But that time and energy would be well spent.

If used for these purposes, Facebook can enhance friendships and have a purposeful role in your life. All too often, however, we are content to let our “friends” number add up as we stare at the growing number with poorly disguised pride and admiration.

There is an increasing amount of pressure that accompanies shallow friendships that Facebook perpetuates. These meaningless relationships that we keep around simply to stalk college activities and latest dating drama only proves that Facebook gives the facade of intimacy while actually creating distance between friends. Facebook enables self-aggrandizement in the sense that we constantly feel pressured to demonstrate to all of our friends how happy we are and how wonderful our lives are.

Facebook puts us in the horrible position of needing to proclaim our own successes. We are entering the era of a new kind of peer pressure, where we are constantly doubting our own happiness and feel compelled to exaggerate our own satisfaction with our lives for the sake of keeping up with the virtual Jones. When we scroll through our news feeds and see all the happy smiley faces of our “friends” at a party, red solo cups in hand, we start to worry that maybe we need to look as happy too.

Furthermore, Facebook can impede us, prevent us from letting go of friendships that were only temporary and prohibit us from fully immersing ourselves in our college experience. Because of Facebook and other forms of social media the college experience has transformed. Cellphone in hand, we are more worried with checking in with our old friend’s experiences, that we miss the possibilities right in front of us. We are trapped in an endless circle of faking our own happiness so that we feel equal with our friends who are engaging in the same kind of opaque behavior.

Facebook also sets up judgments that ultimately fail. Everyone Facebook stalks their future roommate only upon meeting them to say, “you are nothing like I thought you would be based on your Facebook.” Profiles pictures and quirky About Me sections give false first impressions that we end up having to rectify after meeting the person whom we stalked in person. We become consumed with tweaking our profiles until it projects the perfect image of ourselves. These inaccurate projections further the problem because we become entangled in our own convoluted web of lies and are unable to escape from our impulse to overstate our satisfaction.

I’m not advocating for turning off your Facebook accounts and stepping away from social media entirely. I am, however, suggesting that we all take a closer look at what role Facebook plays in our lives. Is it merely a tool through which we stalk our former high school friends or is it how we get in touch easily with our best friend who lives 1,000 miles away? If Facebook’s purpose is to advertise how fabulous your life is then maybe it’s time for some self-reflection to question the impulses that drives you to publicize your happiness.

Li discussed what he views as the four largest shifts that the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is currently facing: the two Coalitions within the party, the new identities of newer generations of Chinese citizens, the weakness of the faction’s leaders and the political deadlock that pluralism has helped to cause.

According to Li, the Populist and Elitist coalitions each occupy roughly half of the seats of power in the CCP’s upper government. He described the Populist Coalition as being comprised of rural and provincial leaders who follow a Marxist ideology and are known as the “New Left.” The Elitist Coalition is led largely by the sons of previous prominent leaders, who are often called “Princelings.” These officials are mainly businessmen who naturally focus on business and economic matters.

With regard to the identities of new generations of Chinese citizens, Li discussed the decline of “technocrats,” or leaders who have college degrees in engineering. Rather, he believes that “entrepreneurs are on the rise” and that businessmen are becoming the new majority among younger citizens.

He asserted that the weak leadership in the government may not be the fault of incompetent politicians but rather a public distrust for certain offices. He believes that this weakness may be countered by the usage of the “Team of Rivals” strategy, which requires leaders to appoint their chief opponents to positions in their administration, “just like how Hillary Clinton became Chief of State” under Barack Obama.

“The strategy can also lead to political deadlock,” cautioned Li. He mentioned how the nature of political pluralism, an influence of democracy, can lead to further instances of deadlock by resulting in a diverse range of leaders who don’t always agree on important issues. While this can lead to inefficiency, it is becoming more and more common in modern societies.

The presentation concluded with more light-hearted banter as well as the future of Chinese Leadership. He believes that the CCP, in order to survive, will begin an incremental transition to democracy with its largest issues as “a move to Constitutionalism, more elections and a completely open media.”

Following Li’s presentation, Brandeis Professor Gary Jefferson (ECON) responded to the presentation and added his own interpretation of the current situation. Jefferson agreed with Li’s analysis of the CCP’s eventual fate and said that he believes “political reform is as deep and meaningful as economic reform” in China.

He mentioned that the CCP needs to go about “the reallocation of property rights from the state to individuals and companies.” It also needs to address an individual’s rights to ideas and the fair distribution of human capital, as well as the overall workforce in China.

Professor Chandler Rosenberger (IGS) helped to orchestrate a Q&A session for Li and Jefferson. The two fielded a variety of questions on topics ranging from the recent Bo Xilai scandal to the role of women in the government and the treatment of minority groups in China.

The Brandeis International Journal, a student-organized international affairs publication, hosted the event. Chief editor and Europe head Sungtae Park ’12 said the journal is “a way for students interested in international relations to form networking groups as well as get their opinions published.”

Students at the seminar were receptive to what Li had to say. Abigail Steinberg, a UDR for the International and Global Studies department, said that the entire event was “beautifully planned and well-executed.” She also praised how Li “included things I haven’t heard in past responses” in his answers to questions.

Rosenberger had high praise for the BIJ, saying how impressed he was that “the journal had the foresight to make [China] the topic of their spring issue.”

Brandeis brags about its international student body. On my floor alone there are students from Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland. Unless those students’ families are able to afford international flights multiple times a semester, I can’t imagine they’re going to be returning home every break. Coming from Minnesota alone is a 2.5-hour plane ride and costs around $500, including the use of my mother’s frequent-flyer miles. I know for a fact that there are hundreds of students in the same situation, unable or unwilling to pay thousands of dollars to go home for Brandeis’ strange break schedule throughout the year. This results in a large amount of students present on campus during semester breaks. Why doesn’t our dining system reflect our campus population?

I’m not only upset about the Village P.O.D. hours during semester breaks. The hours for the main dining halls are just as strange. Sherman opens later and closes earlier. Einsteins is either closed permanently or open for a four-hour period on the weekend. The C-Store is the only reliable place for food on breaks, but it is not convenient for those residing in lower campus and how many times can I eat Chobani yogurt, frozen dinners and fruit cups in one week? It is not too much to ask for an alternative, reliable food source during our breaks.

Outside of the break schedule, the regular weekday hours of the V-Store are noon until midnight. There are a large number of midyears, sophomores and juniors living in the Village as well as the upperclassmen in Ziv that would love to grab breakfast or coffee near their dorms. For people exercising at the Village gym in the morning, many of which enjoy taking a break from their studying to fit in a run, the V-Store is not an option for a post-workout snack.

The selection at the V-Store is also unimpressive. They tend not to restock frequently and the amount of food offered in relation to the number of people that live near the store is pitifully inaccurate. It would also make sense for the selection to be larger if the V-Store were open for more hours each day. All in all, it would create more revenue for the school and more avenues for the students to use up points and meals.

It was not like the outcome was really much of a surprise since former Governor Mitt Romney’s primary competition included your wacky conspiratorial Uncle Ron, Newt the two-time divorcee and Rick Santorum, who lost his last election in his home state by 18 points. But now, Willard finally has his shot at the presidency, having been designated next-in-line because of his runner-up status in the 2008 Republican primary behind John McCain.

This election will not be inspirational. Barack Obama is no longer the messiah embodying hope, change and promise, as opposed to the eight long dark years of George W. Bush. Instead, voters are going to be faced with a simple question: Who is the lesser of two evils? As a result, instead of running on positive, uplifting themes, the candidates will do everything in their power to tear each other down personally and politically.

On one hand you have a president who, quite frankly, cannot run on his record. Eight percent unemployment; $16 trillion debt; enormous deficits; record foreclosures; credit downgrading; lack of sustained economic growth—these are not positive signs.

Furthermore, Obama’s signature policies have been a bust. Depending on your outlook, the stimulus package was too small, filled with pork or generally ineffective. The health care plan is arguably unconstitutional, will add trillions to the debt, encourage employers to drop their employees’ coverage in favor of the health exchanges, and slash Medicare and raise taxes while creating a new, unaffordable entitlement program. Dodd-Frank does not address the too-big-to-fail problem or Fannie and Freddie. Obama’s only major foreign policy success has been the assassination of Osama Bin Laden.

In contrast, we all know Romney’s flaws: He is out of touch, awkward, pandering, lacking convictions and someone who drove his car with his dog attached to the roof. To the left, he is a combination of a late 19th-century robber baron, such as John D. Rockefeller, and a right-wing extremist in the image of Barry Goldwater. To the right, he is the next in line in a string of candidates, such as Bob Dole and John McCain, who, because of their moderation, cannot distinguish themselves in a meaningful way from their opponents. To everyone else, he is an enigma.

This election will also simply be typical. Romney will accuse Obama of being a tax-raising, European-style socialist who does not believe in American exceptionalism. Obama will attack Romney as a vulture capitalist plutocrat who also is a weird Mormon, by the way. War on women, the Buffett rule, tax-and-spend liberal—all of these catch phrases, slogans, and symbolic gestures and policies will be heard constantly.

In other words, this election will not rise in any way above the usual left-right-divide. We won’t learn anything original or gain any insight into fresh ideas. Big government, small government; high taxes, low taxes; free trade, fair trade; pro-life, pro-choice—nothing new to see here.

Although I am jaded, I will still keep track of what happens for its sheer entertainment value. And heck, I do look forward to seeing who Romney picks for his vice presidential nominee. It’s hard to do worse than Sarah Palin. Marco Rubio, Rob Portman, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie—who will be the lucky man or woman for the job?

I do wish that elections were more substantive and issue-oriented, and less divisive. But ultimately, this is our democracy, warts and all. So let’s go watch as our favorite former constitutional law professor and private-equity leader duel with rhetoric until we head to the polls come this November.

“Mass Effect 3” follows the story of Commander Shepard of the Systems Alliance, the government of all human worlds in the galaxy. During the past three years, Shepard has been warning the galaxy about a race of hyper-advanced starships, the Reapers, who would return as they did every 50,000 years to harvest all organic life in the galaxy. The game begins with the bulk of Reaper forces descending on Earth, and Commander Shepard is forced to flee the planet. Shepard gathers a squad of loyal friends to go with him/her (the player can choose Shepard’s gender) to resolve a variety of conflicts between different races in the galaxy, in order to build up enough military forces for a counter-attack to retake Earth and defeat the Reapers.

Arguably the most important aspect of “Mass Effect 3,” as well as the previous games in the series, is player choice and the ability of the player to influence how the events of the game play out. Not only does “Mass Effect 3” match the level of choice presented in previous games, it far eclipses them. As the player attempts to build a coalition of allies, many methods for gaining help present themselves. The questionable morality of some of the options, however, force the player to consider whether addressing the immediate problem of the Reapers is worth the long-term consequences of his or her actions. The player’s choices have a drastic impact on not only squadmates, but allies from past games and other popular characters—some of whom can be directly harmed or die based on the player’s choices.

One of the biggest gameplay improvements lies not in the weapon variety or powers, but in the overall mobility of the player. Commander Shepard can now climb up and down ladders, as well as sprint for an unlimited duration—an ability that has significant impact for many of the available player classes. Even more importantly, however, is the updated and re-vamped cover system which allows the player to run and roll between different forms of cover. This results in a highly increased sense of mobility, and makes it much easier to navigate the battlefield. The system of melee attacks, or close quarters combat, has also been significantly re-worked. While “Mass Effect 2” did fix many of the issues with the melee attacks in “Mass Effect 1,” “Mass Effect 3” has streamlined them to become a useful and viable part of the player’s combat tactics, instead of a clunky option that is only useful in extreme circumstances. Players can now use a class-specific heavy melee attack, which does increased damage to enemies and can be used to execute certain foes. The system of powers (abilities) in “Mass Effect 3” has also been streamlined from previous games, and allows players to have an even more customized role for their character. At the beginning of the game, players are allowed to choose one “class” for Commander Shepard, which determines what type of powers their character will have, ranging from technology-based abilities to biotics, which resemble telekinesis and other psychic abilities.

“Mass Effect 3” is also the first game of the series to feature a multiplayer component—an ambitious undertaking that has paid off for Bioware. Players use characters unrelated to their iteration of Commander Shepard to defeat waves of enemies, giving them a chance to experiment with other classes and abilities. While the multiplayer does provide direct benefits to the single-player campaign as a reward for progress, players who don’t wish to use it aren’t required to, and can still have a rich and complete “Mass Effect 3” experience.

Graphically, the game soars past all expectations. The incredible variety of backgrounds and combat zones also help to involve the player in the galactic struggle. The player will find his or herself fighting through space stations, frozen, “ice ball” worlds, vast spaceships and finally a massively devastated London. Foot battles with Reapers have also been masterfully executed, as the sheer scope of these mechanical behemoths will give any player pause. Additionally, each of the alien races the player interacts with show a different way life could have evolved, and reflect this in their overall design. Whether it’s the Turians, an avian species; the Asari, a race of pseudo-asexual blue women; or the Krogan, massive armored warriors who resemble some kind of reptile, all of the different races in the game add a sense of diversity to the game and contribute to the idea that everyone in the galaxy is in the conflict together.

The audio effects of “Mass Effect 3” are very well executed, drawing the player fully into the experience. The voice acting is also in line Bioware’s high audio standards, an aspect of the studio’s games that has vastly helped increase their popularity. Each character, whether a squadmate or a seemingly-random civilian, has a distinct voice, which make them all the more realistic to the player.

Just as well-composed as the audio is the soundtrack of the game, which is nothing short of a masterpiece. Many notable composers, including Clint Mansell, who recently gained acclaim for his work on the film “Black Swan,” worked together to create the soundtrack. The tracks themselves really compliment the action and plot of the game, whether it’s an adrenaline-pumping line during a massive battle or a hauntingly mournful ballad during Commander Shepard’s reflections on the current situation on Earth. Even when listening to the soundtrack apart from the game, the composers have been able to bring the struggle of a galaxy grappling with total war and its accompanying sacrifice to their listeners.

The ending of “Mass Effect 3,” however, has received far more anger than praise from the game’s fans. From the game’s release on March 6, there has been a storm of criticism about the ending, citing how those last 30 minutes of a more than 40-hour game go against the very nature of the “Mass Effect” series because they do not respond to player choices throughout the series or provide a good sense of closure. In response to this outcry, Bioware has announced that they are releasing downloadable content (DLC) called “Mass Effect: Extended Cut,” which will contain new cinematics and epilogue scenes. Casey Hudson, project lead and executive producer for the “Mass Effect” series, said that his team was releasing the DLC to give “more context and clarity to the ending of the game, in a way that will feel more personalized for each player.”

This scenario is unprecedented in the video game industry. The fact that Bioware (and the studio’s owner Electronic Arts Inc.) is willing to re-write their vision for the game to accommodate fan requests is nothing short of incredible, if not a dangerous precedent. While it may be deserved in this case, this will allow gamers to ask for the same treatment from other developers in the future. Due to Bioware and EA’s status as industry giants, this could result in players complaining to smaller developers that “Bioware changed their game for us, so why don’t you?” Whether as a new level of cooperation between designers and players, or as a bargaining tool for a studio’s customers, this could represent a turning point for the entire industry.

I believe this DLC is not only warranted, but necessary to maintain the reputation for player choice that the series has earned. Removing choice from the conclusion of a saga of games, books and comics that fans have been enjoying for five years smacks of either a terrible mistake on the part of the writers or a last-minute change by EA—a possibility I hope is true. As a longtime fan of Bioware, I find it difficult to believe they would create an ending that they had to have known would disappoint their fans to such an extent.

Despite the controversy surrounding the ending, “Mass Effect 3” is arguably one of the best games released to date and is a strong contender for Game of the Year for 2012. If you’re looking for a game that you can play through again and again, while building tangible emotional connections with the characters and places depicted in it, “Mass Effect 3” is an absolute must-buy.

He does admit that he feels as though Ghana has changed from when he used to live there. Having been away from the country for so long and having not seen his family and old friends, he knows the situation in his homeland will not be exactly the same. Asante was brought to Brandeis through a Posse scholarship, given each year to 10 students out of a pool of 1,600 applicants. The 10 students are selected for their academic ability, leadership and communication skills.

Asante is an explosive sprinter who competes in the 160- and 200-meter events, as well as the four-by-one relay when the chance arises. He developed an interest in track in high school, after finding that he disliked his soccer coach. Asante then tried out for the track team and realized that he was good at sprinting. Aware that he had never liked long-distance running, he “decided to compete in the sprints in his first heat.”

Depending on the competition, Asante preps himself for his events in different ways. If he hasn’t worked out for a few days, or if it is the start of the new season, he is generally nonchalant.

“I just go through it, see where I’m at and judge myself,” he said. After his event, he makes plans on how to improve and works on them during his training sessions. When he is going to a meet where the competition is known to be tougher and the stakes are higher, however, Asante admits he becomes nervous the night before. In order to combat this, he gives full reign to his goofy side, confessing himself to be a natural joker. He chooses to deal with his anxiety by “just relaxing, playing around and saying ridiculous things that no one understands just to chill out.”

This side of Asante is evident in his character right from the onset. He has a wide smile and an easy-going personality, an attitude that has gained him many friends, although he is still a conscientious student. His girlfriend spearheaded a movement with his friends to get him tickets to go back to Ghana this summer, where he will stay for three weeks before he returns in order to pursue a summer job.

As of now, he is an HSSP—Health, Science, Society, and Policy—major, planning to go into physical therapy. He believes that going into this field will help him learn how his own body works and how better to improve his own performance, in addition to helping other people recover from their own injuries. Asante is motivated. Each time he steps on the track, he looks to better his best times, to hold on to a consistent high standard.

He is also involved on campus, working and holding a Community Advisor position in addition to keeping his scholarship and competing on the track team. Although it is difficult for him to manage his time with so many responsibilities and priorities, he does so well. He says with a smile, “time management is what I eat daily.”

After his time at Brandeis, Asante hopes to go to graduate school for physical therapy, but would like to stay involved in track. He hopes to come back and coach at some point. In the meantime, he wants to enjoy his stay at Brandeis with his friends on and off the track team. He says that the team has a special bond given that he loves his teammates. While Asante has recently been finishing third in most of his events, he hopes to improve and return to winning ways.

I did not attend the pilot one last year, featuring just the top post wannabes and only three well-known candidates at that. But this year no fewer than six esteemed fellow students are running for president. And the veep slot, between just the incumbent and another member of the Senate, was presented for the first time.

The candidates had a lot in common. (For one thing seven of them were male, but that’s for another column.) Six of them were in suits, radically overdressed for Olin-Sang on a weeknight with an audience of 30 and no faculty or staff. Four of them were on the e-board, the most inside of insiders.

Steven Milo ’13 was present for comic relief. He’s a nice, successful classmate, but the students body’s biggest advocate before the administration needs more experience.

Todd Kirkland ’13 has that experience. He’s the Union secretary, a time-tested steppingstone to the top job, and was expected to be the initial frontrunner. But he didn’t act like it Wednesday evening, and made “communication” the focus of his campaign. A seasoned and experienced leader with so much public exposure in his current job should be able to move beyond it. The established frontrunner left the impression that what we’ve already had is all we need, and it isn’t.

One candidate who could not have been pegged with the usual, establishment label was David Fisch, a rising senior. Fisch left Brandeis for the fall semester, transferring to Syracuse. Upon enrollment there, he says, he immediately wanted to return. When the moderators asked if this should present a challenge to his candidacy, he parried nicely enough, saying that he changed schools only because of their great communications program and citing his return. But he could have used the lifeline to a fuller extent, and not just to explain what made Brandeis unique in his mind.

He could have explained further what he learned there, on the outside.

For the biggest similarity the candidates shared was the range of debate itself, the issues and solutions they raised. Brandeis should be a home for social justice, but even idealism has its limits.

We know dining on campus has many problems. But points will never be able to be used on non-Aramark food; they just don’t work that way, they’re a creature of Aramark. This means Chum’s is off-limits, and off-campus restaurants a sheer impossibility.

And guys, WhoCash is not a way to solve dining on campus. WhoCash is money. Just plain money.

It is the rhetoric about the board itself, and the most critical issue represented by the university budget and long-term plan, is the biggest example of student politics run completely off a cliff. Many candidates were embarrassing themselves on this issue, and they’re not alone. If Fisch had made the best parry to the difficulty transferring questions, he would have offered an answer gained outside the hallowed, sheltered grounds of Brandeis, gained from anywhere else, that seem to be holding other candidates and interested parties hostage.

The board of trustees will never let students in on every decision it makes. And students cannot have a meaningful vote because they are outnumbered 40-2.

But this is more than just cynicism, though a slight dose, un-Brandeisian as it may be, could do for many of us. The board of trustees is basically the body that “owns” Brandeis. We are a private university with private, exclusive membership.

Candidates lamented that budget decisions are made without student approval. Some even called for alternate ways to manage tuition increases. But the way the board of trustees works is, for the most part, as it should be. Yes, they could be more transparent. But even this is a Brandeis-land buzzword, because knowing two months ago that tuition will increase six months from now would not change a thing.

Students can’t be left to decide when tuition needs to rise, and what faculty, amenities or resources need be cut.

The process involving a board of trustees that makes decisions exclusively or a budget that at times calls for surprise tuition hikes is not the problem. Good results happen at other universities with the exact same structure.

Students for a Democratic Society, a student group who passed out a platform (of sorts) should instead focus on why the board is wrong. Not why having a board the way it is set up is wrong. But why they came to the wrong conclusion.

Our candidates should realize the limitations of their would-be offices. But then they can use them to accomplish real things. Asking simple questions about how much it costs to fix East, create more parking or expand academic resources would accomplish more than rhetoric about social justice.

Though Fisch did not rise to the trick question and talk about life outside the Brandeis bubble, some student leader should offer a vision of social justice that included some real-world experience with practical, even skeptical exactness. They would have my vote.

This past Friday, against 10th-ranked Bowdoin, the Judges failed to earn a single point as they were swept in both doubles and singles in a 9-0 loss. This was not a case of the matches being competitive either as the Judges’ only chances at registering points came at No. 2 doubles in which Ezra Bernstein ’12 and Dave Yovanoff ’13 lost 8-6 and at No. 1 singles in which Josh Jordan ’13 lost in three sets 3-6, 6-3, 10-8.

Two days later, the Judges hoped to rebound when they faced Boston College. Unfortunately, the Judges were again soundly beaten in a 7-2 loss. In No. 2 doubles, Bernstein and Yovanoff were able to defeat Billy Grokenberger and Michael McGinnis 9-8 (7-3) while Michael Secular ’15 dispatched Matt Wagner 7-5, 7-6 (7-4) in No. 5 singles.

A few days later, the Judges returned home to face 24th-ranked Trinity College. Brandeis got off to a quick start sweeping doubles action with an 8-5 victory in No. 1 doubles, an 8-5 win in No. 2 doubles and a 9-8 (7-2) win in No. 3 doubles to take a 3-0 lead into singles.

Unfortunately, the Judges were unable to sustain any momentum in singles action as they fell to Trinity 5-4. Trinity won all five of their points in straight sets with victories coming in No. 1 singles, No. 2 singles, No. 3 singles, No. 5 singles and No. 6 singles. The Judges’ lone win in singles action came at No. 4 singles in which Bernstein defeated Charles McConnell 7-5, 4-6, 10-5.

The Judges will return to action on Friday at 3:30 p.m. against Division I Bryant College in their final home game of the season.

“The Cabin in the Woods” presents itself as the classic horror story, a tale of five college kids escaping for a weekend to an old cabin. It is a premise that has been done to death and would offer little to a new movie. Whedon and Goddard, however, have done something very new with it.

The scenes of the cabin, which play out mostly like a stereotypical horror movie, are interspersed with shots of a sort of corporate office, which is at first an absolutely ridiculous thing to do. We quickly learn that the Cabin, and indeed other such settings around the world, are being manipulated and controlled from this office for initially unknown purposes. The superimposition of these two drastically different settings, indeed different films entirely, makes the beginning of the film rather confusing. Yet the film manages to pan out into a series of brilliant twists, utilizing the classic tropes of horror to elicit legitimate fear in the watcher. At other times, the film is equally hilarious. The line between fear and comedy is masterfully walked. Unfortunately, talking about the best parts of this movie would spoil much of what makes it great. Suffice to say, the way this film turns horror on its head is unabashedly wonderful.

Though “The Cabin in the Woods” models itself on a twisted form of the classic horror story, often one of the hallmarks of such stories is the terrible acting. Luckily, since “The Cabin in the Woods” is not actually that movie, the acting is quite impressive. It most notably features a pre-“Thor” Chris Hemsworth, playing a character who would usually be the alpha-male jock, but is in fact a highly intelligent and devoted student. Most of the remaining cast is relatively unknown (though fans of Joss Whedon will recognize Fran Kranz and Amy Acker from the show “Dollhouse”). While there was no performance that was truly amazing, the overall standard for the movie was very good. There was also a wonderful surprise appearance at the end by a beloved and huge-name actor, but I will leave that moment for viewers to enjoy on their own.

One of the greatest things about this film is how truly imaginative it is. Tons of creatures, some obviously out of horror movies and some not so much (there is a particularly hilarious encounter with a killer unicorn) make appearances. There are obvious homages to specific horror films, including “It” and “Saw,” along with a general splash of all sorts of creatures out of myth, legend and nightmare. The CGI here is very well done, monsters blending seamlessly in with their surroundings.
Another wonderful part of the overall experience of seeing this movie is how often the audience reacts. Though reactions swing between horror-prompted fright and audible laughter, the fact that both extremes are elected by the same film, often one right after the other, reveals how successfully the movie wields both of the genres in which it can be placed. It is highly rare for the parody of a horror movie to be legitimately frightening, but “The Cabin in the Woods” certainly is.

My one critique of “The Cabin in the Woods” lies with its resolution. After an enormous amount of build up, what actually appears is less than what it could be. Furthermore, at times “The Cabin in the Woods” feels like the prequel to some other movie, perhaps the set up for a post-apocalyptic film. The end of the movie leaves the viewer desperately wanting to know what follows, as if set up for a sequel that, by the sheer nature of the movie, will almost definitely never exist. While it makes sense that the movie leaves the watcher longing for the film that could follow, the two would be ultimately only loosely connected, which is why “Cabin in the Woods” would in fact have made sense as a prequel. Unfortunately, another film would be too separate a story to be even really connected with “Cabin in the Woods.”

Overall, I adored “The Cabin in the Woods.” It is both funny and frightening, flawlessly parodying the classic mindless horror story in a way that is intelligent and entertaining. Though it has been fairly un-advertised, “The Cabin in the Woods” is a great movie for long-time fans of horror as well as newcomers.

In Sunday’s opener, the Judges exploded with four runs in the fourth inning, breaking the tie to take a 5-1 lead. Rightfielder Amanda Genovese ’15 hit a clutch, two-out double with the bases loaded to drive in a pair of runs. In the sixth inning, Bowdoin scored two runs to cut the lead in half at 5-3, but the Judges responded with two crucial insurance runs when first baseman Marianne Specker ’12 and center fielder Lauren Porcaro ’12 hit back-to-back RBI doubles.

Winning pitcher Caroline Miller ’12 pitched very well, allowing just one earned run on three hits while fanning nine batters. The victory was the 31st of Miller’s career and she improves to 9-4 on the season. Porcaro led the Judges in their victory, going 3-for-4 with a run scored while driving in two. The Judges out-hit Bowdoin 12-4 on the day.

In the second game, the Judges got off to a good start in the second inning when pitcher Melissa Nolan ’14 hit a solo home run, the fourth of her career and her first of the 2012 season. Later in the inning, Genovese hit an RBI infield single to give the Judges a 2-0 edge.

In the bottom of the fourth, Bowdoin rallied to take a 3-2 lead but did not hold on to it as the Judges responded when Porcaro led the next inning off with a solo shot to tie the game up at three. The Judges would take the lead for good later in the inning when DH Casey Ducinski ’13 came home on a groundout.

Miller was then called from the bullpen and threw two perfect innings in relief, fanning five of the six batters she faced to earn the save. Nolan, the winning pitcher, allowed three runs on three hits while striking out eight in five innings.

Looking to continue their winning ways, the Judges went to Wellesley on Tuesday to face Babson College for another doubleheader. Porcaro had a big day, hitting a home run in both contests.

In the opener, Babson took the lead early on, scoring two runs in the bottom of the third. The Judges struck back in the top half of the next inning with Miller hitting a two-run homer to tie up the game.

Babson regained the lead in the sixth, going up 3-2. In the top of the seventh, the Judges found themselves down to their last out, but after a pair of two-out singles, Porcaro hit a three-run homer to give the Judges their first lead of the day. Brandeis added two more insurance runs on another two-run blast by Miller and held off a late Babson rally in the bottom of the seventh to seal the victory.

Miller, who improved to 10-5 with the win, went 6.2 innings, giving up two earned runs on three hits while striking out six. Her performance at the plate was even more impressive, however, as she went 3-for-4 with two home runs and four runs driven in.

In the nightcap, the Judges did not score a run during the first six innings, while Babson scored two in the fourth to take the 4-0 lead. When the Judges finally made some noise at the plate, it was too little too late. In the seventh inning, Porcaro hit a three-run homer, her second of the day, thereby bringing the Judges to within one run. The Judges did not score again, striking out and then popping-up to end the game.

Nolan gave up three earned runs on six hits, while striking out three in the losing effort. She is now 5-2 on the season.

The Judges face Clark University in a doubleheader on Saturday.

Thankfully, there is good news for all the daydreamers out there, because there is actually a place that offers just what you imagine. The Dreams Huatulco Resort and Spa is a perfect combination of relaxation, rest and fun. As its name cleverly points out, the all-inclusive hotel is in charge of making you feel as if you’re in a dream. From the moment you are welcomed at the gate with tropical drinks and moist towels, to the very sad moment when you leave, the staff is in charge of taking care of your every wish.

The Dreams Huatulco Resort and Spa lies on Tangolunda Bay, one of the largest and most beautiful bays along the pacific coast of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. Even though the resort’s location is flawless, there are so many things to do inside its elegant metallic gates that it’s not even necessary to venture outside. In order to keep guests busy, the resort offers several activities, ranging from the aerobics in the pool, pottery painting lessons and loud kids club, to some less successful late-night comedy shows. Overall, the Dreams Huatulco Resort and Spa is a fantastic experience.

For the rooms, the resort offers all kinds of accommodations, from suites to doubles. All the rooms have beautiful views, either of the glistening ocean or the sparkling pools, and most importantly, every room has a TV, which comes fully equipped with American and Mexican networks, highlighted with famous “telenovelas.” The rooms are very spacious and the beds comfortable. Whether you go there by yourself or with family the rooms won’t be a problem.

One of the only weaknesses at the resort is the food. While guests can eat whatever and whenever they please, the excitement wears off eventually when they realize that the resort serves the same things every day (and that gaining a couple of pounds is more than likely). The resort has a few fancier restaurants that offer Mexican, Italian and French food, however, and the dishes in most of those restaurants are tolerable. The only thing I would go back for would be the churros in the Mexican restaurant though. Additionally, the service leaves a lot to be desired. The problem with the food is not so much the quality—the banana bread in the mornings is to die for and so is the pizza in the afternoons—but how little the dishes change. It would certainly help if they created more variety in the menu.

Regarding the facilities, there is nothing to complain about. If you want to lay out in the sun, which is what most people go there to do, the resort offers many options. There are sunbeds alongside the pools and even in the water. Plus, there are also huts with sunbeds. Once you leave the security of the perfectly manicured resort, however, the scenery tends not to be so pretty.

On the plus side, Mexico is one of the most beautiful destinations. Not only are the people friendly and polite, but it is also a country that offers a never ending succession of parties and relaxation. No matter what you do no one will judge you and, if you ever need help, natives are always around to provide it. Also, being so close to the United States is an advantage, since there are plenty of people who speak English in case Spanish is not one of your strong suits.
The Dreams Huatulco Resort and Spa might not be the ideal getaway if what you want is to explore and be adventurous. But if you want to eat, sleep, rest and repeat, you’ll find no better place. In fact, the resort does a great job of describing itself: It really is an oasis of dreams.

We define community broadly at The Hoot and cover it beyond this campus because what happens here is not isolated from what happens in Newton or Weston or Waltham.

When nine Brandeis students were hospitalized for alcohol intoxication on the night of Pachanga in October 2010, for example, local towns suffered a shortage of ambulances. City officials were upset. They had to deploy limited resources to transport drunk Brandeis students to the hospital.

When three men were murdered on Harding Avenue last fall, one of them was a Brandeis alumnus. On a campus where we often write about academic, athletic and extracurricular achievements, it would be easy to pretend that a drug-related homicide is not our business—too off topic to be covered in a student newspaper.

So when Franco Garcia, a 21-year-old Boston College student who worked at a CVS pharmacy in Waltham, went missing in February after a night of drinking with friends at a local bar, like the multitude of Massachusetts media outlets, college students and Garcia’s family members, we were shocked by the case.

Local news is best covered by community newspapers. Just as national newspapers have unique access to interview politicians, students newspapers have unique access to interview students. We can relate to their situations. We understand what college students experience on a daily basis. Life at BC is not far removed from life at Brandeis or any other school in the Boston area. The campus might look different, the classes might vary, the Conte Forum might seat thousands more than Red Auerbach Arena in Gosman, but the issues students face relating to drugs, alcohol, mental health and crime are the same.

Nearly two months after Garcia first went missing at a bar in Cleveland Circle, police divers recovered his body after a passerby noticed it on April 11 in a nearby reservoir—the same reservoir they searched for four days weeks earlier.

The circumstances surrounding Garcia’s death are still unclear. Pending a full toxicology report, initial findings from the autopsy led officials to believe Garcia’s death was an accidental drowning.

But as his mother, Luzmila Garcia told The Boston Herald on Wednesday before going to Newton Cemetery for his burial, “We want to know the truth. I want to know what happened. What really happened to him?”

I do not intend to speculate on the cause of Garcia’s death nor the circumstances surrounding it. Our role as journalists is to report on facts, not speculation.

But simply because the facts are unclear does not mean we should stop asking the difficult but crucial questions. Something or someone, even if it was accident, caused Garcia to die.

In college, we are often unaware, too young and inexperienced to recognize when we put ourselves in danger, or see our friends in trouble. This is not unique to BC. It is true of every college community, including Brandeis.

And now students at BC must cope with a tragedy that those closest to Garcia cannot stop thinking about. Few can make sense of the case. What are students to do when the police and private investigators have no answers? How can they find peace and understanding without knowing how he died.

For Garcia’s friends and classmates, their typical college experience was turned upside down this spring. Now, their worries stem from uncontrollable grief rather than uncertain grade-point averages.

This is the environment of shock and confusion that now fills the campus just seven miles from Brandeis University.

We may never know all the answers. But I do believe that by continually reporting on this case, by continually talking to BC students and by continually asking the questions everybody is wondering but too afraid to say aloud, we will come closer to understanding the truth.

What shocks the college community about Garcia’s death is that he was no different than the peers in his classes—a hardworking student known for his kindness and friendship. And now a community is searching for answers.

As student journalists, we have an obligation to contribute to that search. And we will not shrink from that responsibility simple because it takes us beyond South Street.

Without Gorky is directed by Cosima Spender, Gorky’s granddaughter. Her third film, it is simultaneously an investigation into the life of the illustrious painter and a showcase of the impact of his death. The film opens with Cosima’s mother and aunt visiting their parents’ old house in Sherman, Conn., where Gorky spent the final parts of his life. The pair explore old childhood memories as they walk through the rooms of the house. The film’s tone is set with the final lines of the scene, said by Cosima’s aunt Natasha as she looks tearfully out the kitchen window: “I wish I could remember.”

The film unfolds as Cosima uncovers the truth about her grandfather while interviewing family members and ascertaining their feelings about him. Most of the exposition about Gorky is told by Cosima’s grandmother and Gorky’s wife, Magoush. These scenes are intercut with those of the family as it is today, the aging Magoush quibbling with her daughters on an understandably touchy subject. Natasha cannot seem to remember anything, as she was only three when Gorky took his own life, and Mara, Cosima’s mother, acts with polite dismissal toward the topic, saying that the time for anger is over. The interactions between these three are as important as Gorky’s paintings, and they offer a distinctly personal look into his world.

Through her interviews, Magoush reveals all sorts of details about Gorky, ranging from the humorously trivial to the deeply profound, and sometimes surprisingly unsavory. The progression of Gorky from brilliant free spirit to aggravated and abusive husband is very sobering and masterfully revealed. One can almost trace the progression of Gorky’s psyche into dark and frightening places, drawing the viewer closer into the bizarre mystery of the man.

This of course culminates in his suicide, which gives the film a sense of finality. It is not the end though; the family continues searching for clues about Gorky’s life. At the end of the film, when the family visits Gorky’s home country for the first time, the depth of Gorky’s character is revealed with several revelations that rounds out the family’s (and the viewer’s) understanding of him as a man.

The film is highly reminiscent of “The Great Gatsby”: It tells the story of an immigrant painter who wants nothing more than to be free, fully realizing his potential for art in the same way that Gatsby becomes a wildly successful businessman. Both men pursue the American Dream, that endless horizon where anything is possible. Even the way Magoush meets Gorky is wildly similar to when Nick meets Gatsby; Magoush is told that she simply must meet Gorky, and spends most of a party sitting next to him, only realizing his identity just before she leaves. It also helps that Gorky is a charismatic individual; even though he was talented and proud, he was something of a mystery to the family, and of course to the viewer. As such, any insight into his mind is a wonder, and the viewer is left wanting more.

The structure of the film draws in the audience, allowing their sympathies to deepen as they are drawn deeper into the story of Gorky. As Magoush reveals nastier and nastier things about her husband, Mara becomes more hostile toward her, clearly disagreeing with some of Magoush’s life choices. But all animosity vanishes in the final scenes, and with the complete knowledge of Gorky, the family is at peace. I came away from the film in a state of Zen-like contentment, satisfied that I knew Gorky as he was meant to be known, with no irritating loose ends or further questions. The documentary has been optioned by the BBC and Canadian TV to be broadcast. If the opportunity presents itself, watch this film—if the narrative does not hook you, the mystery of Gorky will.

On Tuesday, the Judges hosted Amherst College. In the first inning, both Amherst and Brandeis each scored two runs. In the top of the frame, Amherst registered the runs on back-to-back home runs from shortstop Taiki Kasuga and designated hitter Kevin Heller. Brandeis came right back and tied the game in the bottom of the frame when second-baseman Sean O’Hare ’12 cranked a two-run shot to left-centerfield.

After the Judges held Amherst scoreless in the top of the second and third innings, O’Hare launched another home run to give the Judges a 3-2 lead. This was his first collegiate two-home run game giving O’Hare a career-high three home runs this season and eight in his collegiate career.

In the same inning, the Judges added another run when designated hitter Pat Nicholson M.A. ’12 singled with one out. Pinch runner Joe Galli ’12 ran for Nicholson and scored two batters later after a double from Pat Seaward ’13 and a suicide squeeze bunt from Zach Malis ’13.

Brandeis further extended the lead to 5-2 in the fourth inning on a two-out RBI double from catcher Kenny Destremps ’12.

Unfortunately, Amherst pitcher senior Hayden Metz went on next to retire five of the six batters he faced, giving his team the opportunity they needed to mount a rally as the Judges could not maintain the lead.

In the top of the sixth inning, it appeared starting pitcher Kyle Brenner ’15 would keep cruising along after he retired the first two batters he faced. He was unable to retire another batter, however, as the next seven Amherst players were able to reach base. The biggest blow was a bases-clearing double from senior John Wagner that turned a 5-3 Judges lead into a 6-5 deficit. Wagner then scored on a single from Kasuga and the visitors ended the inning with a 7-5 lead.

With the lead in hand, Amherst quickly put the game away, scoring three runs in the seventh inning, two runs in in the eighth inning and a run in the ninth inning while Brandeis was only able to muster one run after the fourth inning.

For the game, there were nine different players with multiple hits between the two teams. Kasuga had the best day at the plate for either team, going 4-of-6 with four RBIs and a home run. The top three hitters in the Brandeis lineup all went 3-of-5 with O’Hare leading the way with two home runs and three RBIs. Right fielder Zach Bardwell ’15 also scored three runs.

Brenner took the loss for the Judges allowing nine hits and seven runs during 5.2 innings of work. He struck out four while walking four.

Immediately the following day, the Judges returned to the road to face Keene State.

Unfortunately, the Owls bum rushed starting pitcher Alex Tynan ’12, tagging him for seven runs in the first inning. Peter Burgio started the damage with a two-run triple to left-center field, and then Larry Longo launched an RBI double. Chuck Vogt doubled down the left-field line to drive in another run and Tanner Chase added a two-run single. Greg Bates completed the onslaught with an RBI single through the right side of the infield. Tynan did not make it out of the first inning.

While the Judges’ offense was able to get going in the third inning, the team was unable to climb out of the early hole. The Judges scored three runs in the third inning on RBIs from O’Hare, Brenner and Seaward, but Keene State got a run back on an RBI single from Kyle Morrill in the bottom frame of the inning.

O’Hare led off the top of the fifth inning with a solo shot to trim the deficit to 8-4, but once again the Owls were able to get the run back in the bottom half of the inning.

After holding the Judges scoreless in the top half of the sixth inning, the Owls broke the game open. Longo launched a two-run home run in the sixth inning and then he drove in two more runs with a single in the five-run seventh inning.

Brandeis scored three runs in the eighth inning and a run in the ninth inning but the Judges still ultimately fell to Keene State 16-8.

Seaward, Brenner, O’Hare and Bardwell each finished the game with two hits in a 13-hit performance for the Judges.

After a promising start to the season, this season has become a lost cause for the Judges. The Judges will look to close out the season with a modest winning streak when they travel to Endicott on Saturday for a 1 p.m. matchup.

Rosen felt that for technical reasons, he should keep polls open an entire day, though it is likely that the extra 12 hours on Friday are unnecessary. “Maybe voter turnout might be a little different, but the people who I think are going to vote have already voted,” Rosen said Thursday evening.

Rosen said he only notified the LTS contact who manages security of e-mail lists earlier this week, short of the typical two-three week notice she receives to prepare e-mail blasts for the election. Because of the shorter than average notification time, the starting time was delayed.

This year’s election has seen more competition than years past, with six presidential candidates and a run-off between incumbent Vice President Gloria Park ’13 and Senator Ricky Rosen ’14 for second-in-command.

In a debate Wednesday, presidential candidates faced off, attempting to differentiate their platforms. The largest point of contention was tuition increases, which candidates were reticent to condemn, but generally called for more transparency and communication between the student body and the board of trustees.

Dillon Harvey ’13, current Union director of community advocacy, said he felt “blindsided by the decision” to raise tuition by 4.85 percent for newly admitted students and 4.11 percent for continuing students.

“We’re not the only ones with a tuition increase,” pointed out presidential candidate and current Union secretary Todd Kirkland ’13, but he wants better communication with the board of trustees and an online method for students to examine university finances in a simple way, so they know where their tuition is going.

Louis Connelly ’13 suggested that instead of reacting to “always increasing costs” with tuition raises, the university should look for “ways to cut costs.”

Continuing the pecuniary concerns, club funding, which garners 1 percent of tuition currently, was hotly debated. Kirkland conceded that this is much higher than the funding that goes to clubs in many institutions. Many students feel that too many clubs are chartered each semester, which stretches the F-Board’s resources too thin.

Club funding inspired a more various response. Candidate Josh Hoffman-Senn ’13 believes that club funding could be raised through private sponsorship of local businesses and corporations.

Harvey questioned the constitutionality of this move, and felt that it could compromise the position of the student union as an unbiased governing body. Hoffman-Senn rebutted that “constitutionality is not a problem.”

“We need to be an unbiased organization,” Harvey said, to which Hoffman-Senn noted that the Senate innately avoids bias because of democratic vote.

“A lot of clubs get chartered at this point at Brandeis, and that’s a good thing,” Hoffman-Senn said, but explained that when students charter clubs, they “don’t know how to rally support” for their new institutions run clubs and “need more support from the student union.”

A major failing of this year’s Student Union, candidates felt, was the lack of delegation to the E-Board and integration, not between the trustees and the student government, but committees inside the Student Union.

David Fisch ’13 believes that he can better integrate WBRS, of which he is now programming director, into the Student Union agenda.

Harvey and Kirkland both emphasized the opportunities in social media. Harvey cited the “age of communication technology” and said that Twitter, Facebook and e-mails were the best way to let students know what was going on.

Connelly pointed out that perhaps technology and communication were not the aims of good student government. “What’s more important is what we can do for students,” he said.

“Students should not be left in the dark,” Kirkland said, even when committees were not allowed to release a report, they should still let students know that there is some forward progress.

Extensive major requirements could turn away students interested in only minoring in the topic. Such students could benefit from the additional course requirements as well as the introduction of new subject material.

Major-only departments are not necessarily based on the number of students who have already declared the major. Academic departments that do not offer a major have limited resources because of their size.

Currently more than 300 undergraduates have declared psychology as a major. As one of the most popular majors at Brandeis, the psychology department has never offered a minor program and according to department chair Professor Paul DiZio (PSYCH), there has been no discussion of this possibility.

“If students brought a petition to the dean and the dean approached us, we would definitely think about it,” DiZio said. “We would probably create a proposal and include students in the evaluation committee.”

DiZio says that it would be most important to include students in this discussion as it directly affects their future. “There would be costs to making a minor and so we have to ask ourselves: What would the students be getting from it?”

He believes that employers and admissions committees do not value students any more for having a psychology minor. Technically, he does not believe that having a minor is a valued cost of students’ education. From a liberal arts perspective, students would have an advantage if they had the opportunity to acquire a basic understanding of human thought and to apply that knowledge to a variety of fields, including business, education and law.

DiZio says that a minor would actually fit quite well into Brandeis’ psychology department but, as a department that is heavily research- and quantitative-oriented, a minor would have to include Statistics and Research Methods as well as a few other elective classes in order to sustain the psychology department’s mission.

“The point would be to uphold the rigor but stay in tune with what the students want,” DiZio said. “I just don’t think students would go for that. From the faculty perspective, students have to be able to evaluate research in order to understand the content.”

The Italian Studies program recently shifted from a major to a minor because of its limited resources. Students can still obtain a major in Italian Studies, but it is now an independent interdisciplinary major, according to Romance Studies department chair Professor Michael Randall.

Students who entered in the fall of 2011 no longer have the opportunity to declare an Italian major without the independent interdisciplinary major option.

“It has always been an independent major, basically, because in order to complete an Italian studies major, students have to take a number of courses in language, literature and culture. Students have also always had the opportunity to participate in an independent study,” Randall said.

But even with the limited resources, there is still a relatively large interest in the program, given its size, according to Professor Paola Servino, co-chair of the Italian studies program.

“The group of students involved is very motivated, lively and engaged,” Servino said. “It’s a very well-balanced program and we do a lot with little resources.”

The program maintains a strong interdisciplinary approach by incorporating films, literature and other media. Servino believes that this encourages many students to participate in independent studies and to engage further their knowledge through extracurriculars and study abroad.

The program currently has 10 students who are Italian Literature majors and approximately 15 students in the minor program. There are only two professors because the program’s tenured professor retired last year and is not being replaced, according to Randall.

While the program cannot financially afford to offer more classes, Professor Randall said that the administration is very supportive of their department.

“Giving the possibility to students who want to do either [major or minor] is the best solution,” Randall says. “With that being said, I think we’re doing a pretty good job of maintaining a strong program for students who show interest.”

The increase in tuition, according to Lawrence, will go partly to foreign language and partly to LTS, because, he says, as a research institution, a well-funded and current technology service is imperative.

The Princeton Review included Brandeis in their “Guide to Green Colleges.” While there are no rankings in the guide, Steve Goldstein says Brandeis is on the “cusp of silver, but still bronze.”

Professor Irina Dubinina (RUS) has been awarded the Louis Brandeis Award for Excellence in Teaching. Her students laud her with making the complex Russian language understandable “and even easy,” according to one of the nominations.

Professor Timothy Hickey (COMP) won the Lerman Neubauer award. He chairs numerous committees, as well as the computer science department for a number of years and the faculty senate.

Numerous changes were made to the faculty handbook. The position of “instructor,” which does not require a PhD or pending PhD, was created, and appointment terms for non-tenure track professors were shortened.

Currently, Brown is ranked in the top 20 among all Division III athletes in two events: the 800-meter run and the 1,500-meter run. On April 7, at UMass Lowell’s George Davis Invitational, Brown won the 800-meter run with a time of 1:53.13. His time was better than those of 10 other competitors from Division I and Division II schools. At the moment, this time is ranked the 17th fastest in the event in Division III and is the fastest time in the UAA.

Additionally, on April 14, in a quad meet at Dartmouth College, Brown won the 1,500-meter race with a lifetime best time of 3:50, more than four seconds faster than the closest competitor. At the same event, Alex Kramer ’13 earned a fourth place finish with a time of 3:57.35, which is ranked 39th in Division III and third in the UAA.

At the UAA championships, the Judges are hopeful that Vincent Asante ’14 will have another strong showing. Asante, the 2011 UAA rookie of the year, placed fourth in the 100-meter dash at Dartmouth with a time of 11.15 seconds and finished in third in the 200-meter dash with a time of 22.83 seconds. Currently, Asante is ranked fourth in the UAA in the 100-meter dash and seventh in the 200-meter dash.

Furthermore, Brandeis has two more runners ranked in the Top 10 of the UAA this season. Mik Kern ’13 will join Brown in the 800-meter run at the UAA Championships. Kern is currently ranked sixth after posting a time of 1:57.31 at Dartmouth where he earned third place. Ed Colvin ’14 is also ranked sixth in the UAA in the 5,000-meter run dating back to his first place finish at the Tufts Snowflake Classic on March 31 where he posted a time of 15:08.49.

In the field events, Brandeis has enjoyed strong showings from its first-years, having already earned four Top 10 finishes and another two Top 10 performances from the sophomore class. Jeffrey Maser ’15 is currently ranked fourth in the high jump with a mark of 5’ 11.75” that was set at the Tufts Snowflake Classic. Kensai Hughes ’14 is ranked fourth in the long jump with a career-best performance of 6.43 meters set at Dartmouth while Alex Schmidt ’14 is currently ranked eighth in the long jump with a mark of 6.24 meters set at Tufts. In the javelin, Jonathan Gilman ’15 and Jacob Wilhoite ’15 are ranked fifth and ninth respectively in the UAA. At the Stonehill Skyhawk Invitational on March 14, Gilman threw the javelin 48.79 meters while at the UMass Lowell meet, Wilhoite threw the Javelin for 45.90 meters. Viet Tran ’15 is currently ranked eighth in the triple jump with a mark of 12.37 meters set at the UMass Lowell event.