The Mindful Writer

by Kayla Reid

It’s safe to say that no two cases are precisely the same; however, similarities can usually be found if examined close enough.  Despite the sexual misconduct allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, he was recently confirmed to the Supreme Court with a vote of 50-48. This confirmation has been what CBS NEWS calls “bitterly partisan” and has “largely divided party lines.”  Dr. Christine Blasely Ford, publicly came forward in a Washington Post story and accused Kavanaugh of forcing himself on her while the two were at a party in high school. She says he pinned her down on a bed, attempted to remove her clothing, and covered her mouth when she tried to scream. Kavanaugh has unequivocally denied the allegations. Deborah Ramirez was a classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale. She told the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer that she was attending a dorm room party as a freshman when Kavanaugh “exposed himself … thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.”

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by Amber Medeiros

It was a hot and humid day out in Fairfax, Virginia as Amber Medeiros sat at her desk. Her fingers were flying away at her keyboard, her other hand rested on the mouse, moving it back and forth on the mousepad in sporadic jerks. A headset rested on her head as she screamed into her mic “Winston! Winston! Winston! Winston on me! Help!” Shouts of other voices could be heard coming from her earpiece as well as the sound of gunfire.

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by Emelia Weatherly Ryder

A young girl in platform boots takes a deep breath, tousles her big hair, and smears some dark purple glitter on her eyelids. She nods to the boy on the other side of the stage; his high hair bobs with his head, and the chains around his waist accompany them while they meet at the center stage spotlight. A cymbal crash from behind them given by their drummer signals that their section of battle of the bands has now begun. Famous figures race across those ragtag kids’ minds; what takes the girl’s thoughts are the interactions between one man and the crowd. A day in a recording studio revolves around the crowd; the crowd will be the voters; they control everything; it is never the kids on the stage.

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by Tatum Wallis

In 1937, Samuel Caldwell was the first person to be arrested for possession of marijuana in the United States. Since then, there have been approximately 26 million marijuana-related arrests across the U.S. In 2012, Colorado pioneered the way for legal recreational use of marijuana. Also known as Mary Jane, pot, the Devil’s Lettuce, weed, grass, and ganja, marijuana has earned a reputation for its euphoric properties that leave users overusing words like “bro” and “dude,” as well as the urge to snack voraciously on anything and everything (this is called “the munchies”). In other words, marijuana affects users by putting them in a more relaxed mood and triggering an increased appetite. Since its legalization in 2014, recreational marijuana has spread across the state of Colorado like wildfire.

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by Raissa A. Rwagasore

When I say that I’m from Rwanda, for those who know it, the first thing that comes to their mind is Hotel Rwanda. It’s a movie that tells a story about a man, his family, and how he saved people during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. In 1994 from 7th April to June 13th, a period of 100 days, Rwanda lost more than 800,000 Tutsis and became the last Genocide of the 20th Century. I was lucky to be born after the Genocide. Both my parents are Genocide survivors together with my older sister, who was five months old then. My siblings and I were not lucky enough to have an extended family. All our grandparents, together with their children, except my parents, were killed in the Genocide. They didn’t live long enough for us to know them, and to know the feeling of having grandparents. When I came to the US, I was hurt at how people perceived Rwanda. There’s more to it than the small country that had a Genocide.

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by Emily Wrenn

It was a hot and sunny afternoon in August. First year students at a small, liberal arts college, called Sweet Briar College, were running around campus trying to get to their various orientation week activities.

Emily Wrenn, a first-year student, eager to get her canoe certification from the Outdoor program, arrived at the old and rustic boathouse at the lower lake of Sweet Briar College, located in a little town called Amherst,Virginia. As she was walking toward the boathouse, she noticed that right outside the boathouse entrance, a group of girls from her class were putting sunscreen on and signing paperwork. A junior, named Bailey Goebel, was giving various pages of paperwork to sign to the students who wanted to participate. “This paperwork allows us to have your emergency contacts.” Goebel said.

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by Nisha Tarver

Alison Davis–a senior and assistant coach of field hockey–twirled her freshly blue hair between her fingers as she spoke: “Why did I come to a school that almost closed down literally a semester before I came, you ask?” On March 3, 2015, Sweet Briar College’s board of directors announced that they would close due to financial challenges caused by decreasing enrollment figures.  For the alumnae, closing the school meant losing their second homes, and they prepared to fight! They started the “Save Sweet Briar” campaign and raised $28.5 million in only 110 days. Multiple alumnae filed lawsuits and ultimately won when the case was settled. They ensured that the Sweet Briar legacy to educate young women stayed alive. Sweet Briar College wasn’t always known as the school that almost closed. In 1900, Indiana Fletcher Williams founded Sweet Briar College in her will in memory of her daughter, Daisy Williams, who died at only sixteen years old. The women’s liberal college opened its doors in 1906 and the field hockey team was established in 1909. The field hockey team has been with Sweet Briar ever since the beginning and through their fight.

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by Darian Anderson

Liberty Ridge is a nursing center that reeks of urine, the smell of necrosis on a portly shaped woman’s coccyx, and freshly made feces. There are women and men who range from a mere 90 pounds to a grand total of 280 pounds. In other words — dead weight.  Some are pale as a porcelain doll while others are dark as the night sky. Some are fragile as china ware while others are self-destructive.  The elderly all share a commonality — residency at Liberty Ridge. Some stay until God calls them home while others leave after regaining strength and independence.

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by Lauren Jones

“Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Haunted Mansion. I am your host, your ghost host.” I know the entire Haunted Mansion ride dialogue and the song like the back of my hand. To people who are not immersed in the world of Walt Disney, they would look at me in bewilderment of why I can recite the script. However, to a Disney fanatic I am probably not the only one who can recite the entire ride. I have been going to Disney World since before I was even thought of. I even went on a Disney cruise when I was in my mother’s womb. My mother started the family tradition of going to Disney World during the summer for two full weeks. For Christmas, we go to Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort in South Carolina for over two weeks. At home, you can walk into any room and most likely there is a Disney decor, furniture, painting, or anything you can imagine. We even have a Disney dictionary on our bookshelf.

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by Reesa Artz

November 6, 2018. A day that will change the face of politics. Why? It’s the 2018 Midterms. This is a historic election as young adults across the nation have shown up to the polls in record numbers. Increased diversity in candidates is finally here, and people of all ethnicities, faiths, and identities have come to take their rightful place in politics. As a Native American from the Chippewa-Cree Tribe, I feel, like never before, so accepted and appreciated for my heritage. This is due to the two powerful and inspiring Native women, Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids, that are both running for the House of Representatives. As the night progresses my mom and I watch the results come in on Twitter. My mom, like me, is very connected to her heritage, especially as she was born and raised during her early years on our reservation. When each new victory is made Twitter erupts. People are so thrilled for the progress of our nation. Every victory makes me smile, but none more so than when Haaland and Davids win their spots in the House. Immediately my mom is calling our family and friends, softly crying tears of joy and disbelief; “We finally did it.”

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by Haley Campbell

As a 78-year-old photojournalism professor shares his previous and current careers in a recent interview, his eyes twinkle remembering his past. Medford Taylor has been taking photographs for almost 40 years. Taylor says, “A lot can happen between now and later.” For him, this means technology for photography has changed over the years and has an impact on the way he views photography today.

“Imagine being in Australia alone sitting on the cool ground beside a roaring fire, looking into the dark starry sky and listening to the night owls come alive. Now that’s what I live for!” says Medford Taylor in his recent interview. Taylor grew up in a small town in North Carolina. Medford Taylor said, “Whenever my parents couldn’t find me, they knew I was in the attic of our neighbor’s house looking at Life Magazines.” He also added, “I would be up there for hours looking at those magazines.” This was just the beginning of Taylor’s life journey.

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by Shaivai Finch

When you first pull onto the Sweet Briar College campus, you’re met with a beautiful scene of trees and open space. As you pull in further, you are met with a few deer here and there. The old buildings with hints of Greek elements give you a homey feeling. And all the friendly faces smile back at you inviting you in, especially on your first visit. Everyone is so eager to greet you and get to know you. This friendliness contributes to the family feel, which attracted Tarnisha to this campus. In the summer of 2018, Tarnisha Tarver, a nineteen-year-old field hockey player, packed her bags and moved from her hometown Baltimore, into her new dorm room, ready for a fresh start. Tarnisha, also known as Nisha, came to Sweet Briar to play field hockey. She was ready for a challenge. Nisha wanted to learn new things and feel more supported in her field hockey career. When she was first being introduced to her current team, they were so welcoming to her. They treated her as if she was already a student here. “I felt like I could already joke around with them,” Nisha says. They made her feel at home, helping her to make the decision of where to spend her next four years. But by choosing Sweet Briar, she didn’t realize how different the fan turnout would be.

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by Britt Larson-Jackson

It is a small city that has large significance. People of all different shapes and sizes, from various ethnic groups, in different colors and from different cultures, swarm its streets, scurrying to complete their tasks before the day runs out. The city caters to many different breeds: the posh upscale Washingtonians who walk around with an ego so engorged that they can hardly flash a halfway decent smile and the slightly more refined middle-class families who are acquainted with city habits but typically refrain, staying steadfast to their gluten-free, Tesla-hybrid, kale-crunching lifestyle. There are the low-lives and people who live under bridges surviving from one welfare check to the next, but there are also those who are trying to escape their poverty in order to elevate their quality of living. Then…there is the largest group of them all, the politicians. It is practically impossible to step outside your door without seeing one.  Tread lightly and keep your opinions to yourself…they’ve been known to bite people’s heads off for holding certain political views. For them, the bottom line is that if it is not red or blue, it is not their concern. This city, Washington D.C., is a place for tourists, families, young business professionals, elderly people, bums, and the leader of this great nation that we are so fortunate to be a part of. Not everyone is aware of this, but this diverse little city is divided into four quadrants and each one has so much to offer its tenants, including various cultural experiences, rich luscious beauty, and valuable knowledge.

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by Lucy Wasserstein

Two players, a man labeled “1” and a woman labeled “2,” stand in a room, separated from a third player, the interrogator, by a wall. A teleprinter allows communication between the two rooms. The interrogator does not know whether the man is labeled 1 or 2; his goal is to find out.
He asks: “Can 1 please tell me the length of their hair?”
1 responds with a vague, undescriptive answer. He doesn’t want to give himself away. It’s 1’s goal to lead the interrogator to mistake 2 as the man. 2 can try and help out the interrogator, but warning the interrogator of 1’s lies won’t be much help if 1 is falsely warning him of 2. Welcome to Alan Turing’s “Imitation Game.”

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by Jennifer Markey

As the month of September starts to come to a close, it seems as if there is more than just the season that’s changing. With the cooler weather whipping in, students begin to bring out their jackets, long pants, and sweaters. It also brings out a more ‘festive’ mood among those who live on the campus of Sweet Briar College. As September becomes October, and the seasons from summer to fall, one holiday starts to cross everyone’s mind: Halloween.

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by Abigail Koppisch

In 2007, contemporary novel writer Jay Asher published his first novel entitled 13 Reasons Why, which is a New York Times and international best-selling young adult novel. The novel had become such a hit that Universal Studios purchased the film rights to the novel on February 8, 2011. And on October 29, 2015, Netflix announced that they’d be making a television adaptation of the book. The news spread like a wild fire, more especially amongst the teens who once raved over the novel. On March 31, 2017, viewers from all over the globe couldn’t hold in their excitement as they saw the banner on Netflix to the tv series and the link to the first episode in the menu section. I remember being at school that day, heart beating, foot tapping, my eyes fixated on the clock ticking until it reached 2:00 p.m when I heard everybody’s plans to turn on the show the moment they walked inside their houses that afternoon as I was exiting the building swiftly. Little did I know through all of the hype built up around this one show that 13 Reasons Why would stir up a large controversy that it was not intending to.
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by Anketse Zewdu

Think for a moment and ask yourself one thing: Have you ever lied to your parents and kept it a secret for many years? Well, my friends and I have been doing just that. We’ve been hiding our life experiences outside our houses from our families. Some of my friends have a boyfriend, and so do I. We try everything we can imagine to hide this big secret. It might be easy for you to tell your family if you have a  boyfriend, but we have plenty of reasons why we are hiding this fact. First, in almost all areas of Ethiopia, parents will not allow their daughter to have a boyfriend while she is a student, and also they would not expect her to have one at such a young age. Second, even if she is not willing to have a boyfriend, if a guy asks her for a date, she can’t tell her parents because no matter what she answers they will blame her, saying that in the first place if you hadn’t shown him some willingness he would not have gotten close enough to ask you for a date. Because she doesn’t want to be blamed, the girl’s only choice is to ask her friends what she should do, and they may give her good or bad advice. Third, if a girl’s neighbors and relatives think she is in a relationship, their perspective toward her will be negative, and they will blame her parents for not raising her with proper manners. At this time, if a woman gets pregnant, a few young women will end up having an abortion because of their secret relationship. Although all of this is what happens to a girl, 99 percent of the people will say nothing if a boy does similar things; no one cares about what he does. You can do whatever you want if you are a male. But no one cares about a woman’s feelings.

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by Sara Story

Thanksgiving, now a national holiday in the United States, was celebrated independently by individual colonies and states for over two centuries, after the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Natives shared a harvest feast in 1621. It wasn’t until 1863 that Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, proclaimed a National Thanksgiving Day to be held each November. The Pilgrims left Plymouth, England in 1620 on The Mayflower, seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith. After a hazardous and strenuous trip lasting sixty-six days, they landed north of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination. One month later, the Pilgrims crossed the Massachusetts Bay and began to establish a village at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts.

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by Charlotte Hadley

Wellington is horse. To  most people, Wellington, Florida, means nothing. It is just another town in Florida; most people have no idea where to find it on a map. But if you ask any competitive equestrian they would know right away. Wellington is located in southern Florida about thirty minutes from West Palm Beach. In the very center of the town of Wellington is Palm Beach International Equestrian Center. Where every year the Winter Equestrian Festival, (WEF) is held. This Festival, that is more like a horse show, makes Wellington such a popular place to be if you are an equestrian. A single fancy barn with many fancy horses is something you could find easily, but imagine an entire town with huge multi million-dollar beautiful stables, one after another all packed full with horses? It seems unreal. But that is what it is like in the horse capital of the United States.

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by Ingrid Stacia

PPG Paint Arena, home of the the Pittsburgh Penguins. It is the first of the seven games in the 2017 Stanley Cup Final against the Nashville Predators.

The Stacia family sits in the last row of the highest section of the arena, while their cousin and aunt have seats in one of the lower sections. It is their first time seeing a game that is the first in the final round of playoffs. This game was a last minute surprise for the Stacia’s as they were making a short overnight stop in Pittsburgh before driving back to Richmond, Virginia, after a weekend in the mountains with some other extended family members. Kirstin Stacia and Leslie Ritter are sisters who grew up in the Pittsburgh area and that is why the family are fans of the Penguins. The sisters instilled in their children at a young age of what it means to be fans of Pittsburgh, from the Terrible Towels to the Stanley Cup and the Super Bowl. These sports are a big part of the culture growing up in Pittsburgh.

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by Annika Kuleba

A simple, white two-tiered box sits under a plot of trees on a cool spring day. Someone in a white, long suit stands near it with tools. You become curious, so you go to investigate. At first you hear, an insect whizzing past, but as you step closer you begin to hear a relaxed humming. The person in the white suit begins to take the boxes apart like some sort of puzzle, so you sit and watch closely. They carefully pull out a frame that is covered with moving insects and then holds it up to observe in the light. To you, it seems to be a mass of insects crawling around a piece of wood. But, to the person observing the frame it is fascinating, important, and means life or death not only for the buzzing insects but also for us humans.

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by Lauren Brooks

Sweet Briar College is a beautiful, small campus in Amherst, Virginia. It is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains on 3,250 acres of pastoral fields and woods. When the students arrived in August, everyone was amazed at how stunning the campus was. Everything is green with the sun shining through the trees and the mountains are visible in the background. “It’s like looking at a postcard picture everywhere you go,” said a few passing students as they were walking on the tree-ridden pathways to the various buildings. Beyond the campus’s beauty, what surprised new students the most was the College’s many traditions.

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by Hannah Epstein

Imagine: you close your eyes, take a deep breath, pause for a moment, and then continue to walk. You’re walking on memories, memories from people you know and people you don’t. You see the buildings where hundreds of women learned about empowerment and creativity, through one academic form or another. Every place you go has a history, a story to tell, a feeling of connection, especially when it is a place you love. Do you feel the connection of sisterhood? Do you hear the reminiscing laughter? There is a place, a place overflowing with encouragement and potentially, a school in particular. Sweet Briar College was established in 1901 in honor of Daisy Williams, a bright and intellectual child who passed away at sixteen in 1884. This school is a place where young girls walk the path of success and empowerment, experience a feeling of sisterhood, and connect to the history of people who came before them.

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by Lily Henson

One spring afternoon when I was in sixth grade, I was sitting in my mother’s Honda Civic in the parking lot of Green Planet Grocery. She was loading brown paper bags filled with kale and organic rice crackers into the back seat. She was talking about the pizza she was going to make for dinner, and that we had to remember to fill out the information for my school fundraiser. The sun was shining, and it was one of the first warm days of the season. My mom answered her phone while I sat in the front seat. I was half listening to her conversation, more focused on trying to fish out the candy bar I had convinced her to buy from one of the many bags.

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by Catharine Williams

In the fall of 2015, I started my freshman year of high school. My World Cultures I class was the honors variant of the typical world history course that every freshman was designated to take. The school only had one history teacher that had stayed for the upcoming 2015-2016 school year: Mr. John Brown. Because of this shortage, Portsmouth Public Schools shifted the positions of multiple employees to teach history. One janitor at another high school in the district, Mr. Calvin Jarrett, had minored in history when he was in undergraduate school. He was my history teacher that fall.

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by Maggie Ellis

The soft hum of Sweet Briar’s first-year honey bees fills the quiet space left when the short rain showers move past campus. Most bees have stayed close to the hives, able to return quickly if the weather turns sour once again, but a few brave souls have risked the weather, choosing to wander to a few nearby Wingstem bushes, a bright yellow-orange late flowering plant, to forage for pollen and nectar.  These early autumn flowering plants produce a swath of bright orange pollen that colors the local bee population’s honey, wax, and nectar its distinctive yellow-orange.

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by Kambray Williams

On April 8th, 2012 my twelve-year-old self never thought it would be the last time I saw my father. I was vaguely asleep in the room next to my parents as I overheard my father, Dick, speaking to my grandpa Leon about the break in at their restaurant. I rolled out of bed and stood at my doorway then with a sleepy voice asked, “Daddy, where are you going?”

He kissed me on the forehead and replied, “I have to go help your grandpa at Kenny’s. I’ll be back to cook breakfast, I love you.”

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by Helen McCall

This past week kicked off the new Ballroom and Swing Dance class at Sweet Briar College. For dance partners, Sweet Briar, a small women’s liberal arts college in rural central Virginia, is partnering with Hampden-Sydney College, an all-men’s school in nearby Farmville. It is taught by Sweet Briar alum Courtney Lewandowski, who in 2012 graduated with a B.A. in Dance. Lewandowski is short lady with short blonde hair and always has navy blue eyeliner on. On Wednesdays class is at Hampden-Sydney and on Saturdays at Sweet Briar, the student dancers will learn to salsa, waltz, and even some swing. Dean Marcia said she “Hopes this class will be a new great way for Sweet Briar students to partner with local colleges.”

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by Hannah Denson

As a high school student involved in the Academy of Hospitality and Tourism (AOHT) class, students learned about the process of event planning, principles of finance, and how the ecosystem is involved in running a business. As our senior project was to create a new company for the community; instead of creating a new company, four seniors banded together and planned an event to help bring awareness about Autism to the community. One day there was a guest speaker that came in and spoke to us about her nephew that has Autism and asked us if we knew people who has Autism. Each senior knew at least one person that had Autism. As a class, we decided to contact the board to get our idea approved as our senior project.

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by Rachel Davis

On October 4th, 2016, I went out to the garden. During the spring and summer, the garden in the back of our Ohio home was my happy place; surrounded on two sides by corn fields, the abundant foliage created a forest clearing for me to explore, and the soft, warm dirt underfoot provided a plush carpet for me to walk in. I could lose myself for hours pacing around, my shoes forgotten, my family by my side, happy to be present in such a beautiful scene. That night, though, it was too cold to walk barefoot through the muck, and there were no more plants to shield me from the problems of everyday life. I had never felt so alone as I did in that moment. On October 4th, 2016, I went out to the garden and I screamed.

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by Shollette Rawls

Remember Twilight? Yeah, well, here are two shows that are much worse than that as far as vampires go. These blood-sucking creatures who show no remorse except only to the ones they love. Such hypocrites these characters are. One minute they’re complaining how they want to be good and the next they’re killing people again with no sign of remorse. So revengeful and careless. Vampire Diaries was directed by lots of people. One of them being Marcos Siega. Born on June 8, 1969, he produced and directed Vampire Diaries. After producing and directing two seasons, he left. Siega went on to produce three other popular shows – Dexter, True Blood and Cold Case. All mysterious and suspenseful. Another director was picked up, Chris Grismer, a Canadian director and producer, born in Regina, Canada, on September 25. He produced Vampire Diaries and The Originals. Grismer also produces/directs film and music videos. The Originals also was produced by Matthew Hastings, who was born on October 21, 1967, in New York. He too produced many other television shows, such as Shadowhunters: the mortal instruments and Eureka, along with music videos and films as well. He produced/directed Pretty Little Liars, Queer as Folk, and Playmakers, some of the most popular tv shows.

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by Sarah Straczek

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give” – Winston Churchill.

With each day that passes, I am reminded by life itself of how blessed we all are in this vast and infinite world of possibilities. To add to that as well, one of the most important things I have come to learn so far is how crucial it is to give back to humanity as a whole. More recently, and through a year of AmeriCorps volunteer work, my admiration toward the idea of service and sacrifice has grown larger than ever. I strongly believe that not only does community service work support and encourage the surrounding community alone, but also has a lasting and positive influence on the volunteers themselves. I have come to be a testament to this ideal.

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by Sarah Schindler

October 20th, 2018. Sarah Schindler watches her acquaintance, Ashley Landen, tattoo another person. She was using a professional tattoo gun this time, after practicing for years with sewing needles, cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, and ink. The tattoo was being done in a dimly lit dorm room by Landen, whose tattoos were barely completed. The ink was perfectly dark for Nelson’s skin type and her face showed no signs of pain. Schindler did not quite understand the requested tattoo, but Landen did and the recipient, Riley Nelson, said it came out perfectly. Nelson was ecstatic to finally have work done on her by Landen because she had been waiting for a tattoo from her for such a long time. Although Landen was not a “professional” artist yet, she did pieces that others thought were great and others were inspired by.

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by Shay Young-Mitchell

On a Cold Night on September 22, while tap clubs were going door to door tapping members, there was a new excitement in the first years’ residence hall. Dogs were running down the hall chasing each other, and their owners were sitting in the hall talking about the classes they take. Something completely different was going down in Room 311. Sara, a first-year soccer player, was deciding on what she should do for her first official date with Shai, a first-year field hockey player. Sara and Shai met at the beginning of the year, and they would hang out all the time, with Emily, a first year field hockey player, and Nisha, another first-year field hockey player. They would hang out more and more, and then they started to like each other, and they began to hang out constantly. Sara finally realized that she wanted to be more, so she decided to plan a date to officially ask Shai to be her girlfriend officially. Sara, Emily, and Nisha sat in Emily’s room sat debating on where she wanted to take her. She kept debating on where she should take her: the butterfly garden, the boat house to see the stars, or even a picnic at the gazebo. She kept going back and forth inside her thoughts, until Emily pointed out . . .

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by Terra Grygotis

This is an account of all of the horses who have touched my life, and little stories behind all of them. Some horses are mentioned multiple times, as their impacts on my life were just so large. To read this in a way that most makes sense, you can either read it in a linear fashion, or read all of one horse’s stories, and then continue on to the next. Whichever suits you best.

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by Grace Carter

On the beautiful campus of Sweet Briar College in Amherst, dogs run through the 3300 acres that stretch across central Virginia. There are an abnormal number of dogs living on the campus, more than one might expect to find on other college campuses. In the freshman dorm alone, there are approximately 10 emotional support animals to the 120 freshman living in Meta Glass, Six of these animals being dogs. Collegerank.net lists Sweet Briar as the second most dog friendly school, only after Stephen’s College.

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by Zoe Steenwyk

When Vic Lindsay and his wife caught wind of a university being built from scratch in Abu Dhabi (a primary city in the United Arab Emirates), they were more than intrigued.  Within a few months they packed up and moved all of their stuff – including Vic’s extensive collection of Marvel figurines – overseas and began to help with the project.

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by Sarah Kilby

When I was almost nine months old, I was adopted from China by my mother, and when I was five, my family and I went back to China to get my sister, Emma. The process of adopting a child from China is very extensive. The first step is to choose an adoption agency, which often depends on where a family lives and where they are adopting from. For example, my family used Adoptions Together because my mother liked that the agency was near where she lived at the time, and they had experience with adoptions in China. The agency provides guidance through the process, which includes:

1. Completion of a home study which includes interviews with a social worker and completing a number of forms. For example, a fire safety check by the fire department, medical forms from doctors to show the parents are healthy, tax forms, employment verification, and FBI background check. This process takes about six months and is valid for one year. If the adoption takes longer than one year, another shorter home study is done.
2. There’s an application to complete for the Chinese government and then the application and home study are sent to the central agency for adoption in China. They review everything and choose a child to match to the parents.
3. Parents are notified of the match, and an application to the US Immigration Services (USCIS) is made for the baby to get a green card.
4. Travel to China and complete the adoption in China. Go to US embassy/ consulate and get a visa for baby in their Chinese passport.

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by Grace Sizemore

“Payback is a bitch” was written on his truck windows in pink lipstick. The lettering stood out compared to the dark tint. He walked out to see us finishing the rage enforced words. I walked down the hallway I had walked down the past two and a half years for the last time. I was taken to my guidance counsellor’s office and started a journey I had never imagined would happen to me.

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by Olivia Kolenda

On a humid Friday night late in June, I came home to find my mother sitting outside on the deck, which was surrounded by colorful flowers she had planted, keeping my father company, as he grilled dinner. I joined them to talk to my mom about how well my riding lesson had gone that day, something we always did. This was the woman who’d introduced me to riding, after all. This night seemed like no other, and yet it would change our lives forever.

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by Maggie Fraley

Coming from a middle to lower classed family, in a small town in North Eastern Pa, wealth and diversity are not things I was exposed to daily. By the time I had reached my Junior year in high school, I was offered a full scholarship to an elite boarding school, where I would go to continue my education and equestrian endeavors. Tucked away amongst the heart of the Appalachian Mountains in small town of Birmingham Pennsylvania, lies the Grier School. Grier is an all girls liberal arts boarding school. Founded in 1853, its school symbol is a green and white shield with a pine tree. They go by the motto, Sana Mens In Corpore Sana, translation to “Sound Mind in a Sound Body.” The school currently enrolls students from seventh to twelfth grade. With a close knit 315 students from 30 states and 16 foreign countries, diversity fills the campus.(source) The annual tuition is about $51,700. Grier has an extremely competitive college preparatory academic program, teaching 21 AP classes in all of the core disciplines.(Grier.org/history) Academics are impressive at Grier, but the athletics and arts are a main attraction. The school offers competitive equestrian, pre-professional dancing, video editing and engineering classes, high level art and design, and an impeccable music program. When I got to Grier, I wasn’t prepared for the ways in which culture, class, and wealth would be demonstrated. In fact, such demonstrations of wealth are an unspoken, integral part of the Grier experience, and despite students’ many differences, they come together as Grier women.

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by Emily Raine

A black screen covers the screen of a video game console. Then, a gleam of light and a soft, gentle, female voice urging someone to wake up fills the space of the once black, empty screen. The light then transitions to blue lights glowing on a ceiling. In a pool of bright, glowing water, a young boy with blond hair blinks his eyes sleepily as the voice in his head tells him to wake up, calling him Link. The water drains away and Link, clad in nothing but dark blue underwear, sits up in the now empty pool. The screen cuts to what looks like a holding chamber, bathed in blue light. Link then crawls out of the pool and stands up, water dripping from his body, staring at the strange designs covering the chamber. He has no memory of who he was or how he got there.

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by Kelsey Mullikin

On September 24, 2000, Kevin Hines survived the 746 ft jump into the Pacific ocean off the 1.7 mile suspension Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. After living with diagnosed bipolar disorder for two years, the divorce of then nineteen-year-old Hines’ parents escalated the feeling of “living under a cloud.”

At thirty-seven, Hines, with a shaved head and face full of light brown freckles sits on a couch wearing a red t-shirt. His voice shakes as he recalls the depth of his pain and isolation. He reveals, “I walked across the walkway of the Golden Gate Bridge for forty minutes. Up and down, back and forth, crying like a baby. Bikers, joggers, tourists, runners; they all went by me. Police officers searching for suicidal people went by me twice. I’m leaning over the rail crying like a baby and they went by me twice. And the voice in my head said jump now and I did. At the millisecond that my hands left that rail – instant regret for my actions – and absolute recognition that I just made the greatest mistake of my life.”

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by Siena Annable

Warm, yellow lights shine upon the deep-red and glittering gold costumed dancers as they tiptoe their way onto the center of the stage. A symphony orchestra begins to play Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, and fluttering ballerinas, dance gracefully across the stage. The two-act ballet is a moving production, but invisible to the audience are the broken and bleeding feet of the dedicated ballet dancers, their hip displacements and the torn tendons all endured for the sake of beauty. Today, ballet is one of the most disciplined art forms. Through literal blood and tears, magnificent dancers emerge, pushing their bodies to limits that seem almost inhumane. Russian Ballet companies for centuries now have been recognized for their brutal expectations. Their dancers are expected to practice and push their bodies to gruesome limits, training for long, excruciating hours. But it is their appearance that is particularly judged, their physique scrutinized; they are emotionally and mentally torn apart, which at times leads to mental disorders, a sacrifice for their art.

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by Natalie Czarra

The mental image that comes to mind when the words “tarot cards” are said is universal: a woman in Bohemian clothing with rings on every finger and jangling jewelry hanging from her wrists, neck, and ears, a dimly lit and heavily aromatic room, and an odd feeling that this might be a scam. Tarot cards are a deck of seventy-eight cards divided into the major arcana and the minor arcana. There were twenty-one cards added to the standard deck of fifty-two, all beautifully illustrated instead of wearing suits. Tarots were adopted into fortune telling in the eighteenth century, but they were around long before then because their original purpose was much different.

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by Isabella Frost

Beth Knappenberger an older woman that stands around 5 feet 6 inches with brown hair shoulder length hair and an abled body that still works out every single day, arrived at her job late May of 2017 at Lejeune High School located in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, eager to begin her day as usual teaching eleventh grade English. For Knappenberger, it was just another day where she would begin teaching her small Advanced Placement (AP) English Language and Composition class of ten students. Knappenberger and her AP class had grown close over the school year. Their relationship had grown from the first day where no one said anything all the way until the last day of school where students cried tears of sadness realizing they would no longer be taught by their favorite teacher in the whole school. It was just after the dreaded AP exam and the school year was coming to an end. Tiyah Snell, a student in the class looked down at Knappenberger’s feet and said, “Mrs. Knapps, are you wearing two different shoes?” Knappenberger looked down through her round glasses and stared in stunned disbelief at her feet. “Well, this goes to show just how ready I am for summer” Knappenberger said as she shook her head in astonishment due to her lack of carelessness.

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by Genna Dalrymple

1930, the year the South African film introduces the main character “Peter Philip Kenneth-Keith,” “Peekay,” or “PK” alongside his English mother, African nanny and her son, PK’s best-friend, Tonderai. All is well until their cattle farm meets misfortune and Peekay is sent to a boarding school. His fellow students are Afrikaners (those of Dutch origin settled in South Africa) while he is the only English student. A recipe for trouble even though him and his peers are both white.

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by Nichole Frazier

Seven million a year dead. Nine in ten people affected. The future is dim. It sounds like the news’s anchor line to an oncoming plague. The catch? It is already here. It is in the air you breathe. The second catch? It isn’t a disease – it is a poison. Every day the poison’s pool grows bigger and its reach further. What is it, this poison that tinges our fate to such a doomed shade? Centuries of chemicals built up in the very air you breathe. Air pollution – Ozone. Carbon monoxide. Sulfur oxides. Nitrogen oxides. Lead. Particulate matter. All toxic to humans. All harmful to the animals, plants, and millions of other things that live alongside us.

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by Jacquelyn Vari

This past summer, as Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, VA began the weeks of preparation for new and returning students, another species was on its way to be welcomed by the campus community. Italian honey bees were in the process of being imported and set up in groups of three hives in a pasture a couple hundred yards away from the Guion science building on campus. Introducing the bees was intended to create a new system of pollinators and healthy wildlife, in which the bees are the main provider. Not only would these honey bees eventually provide the students and staff with the College’s own brand of Sweet Briar honey; they would also contribute to the wellbeing of the other organisms living on campus, simply by landing upon a flower petal.

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by Danielle Dawson

On a warm afternoon in late April 2018, a high school senior and her mom drove to Sweet Briar College, a small women’s college in rural Virginia, for a tour. Danielle had lived in Virginia her entire life, but she discovered the college after searching online for schools close to her home. She loved everything the college website advertised and quickly sent in an application.
When Danielle and her mom arrived, they were warmly welcomed by many faculty members and students and then taken on a tour. Since she is a dancer, Danielle asked to see the dance facilities. She and her mom watched the start of a contemporary class that was in session, while they waited for another professor to arrive. Ella Magruder was teaching the class and her husband, Mark Magruder, was available to take Danielle and her mother through the building. When Mark arrived, he was very excited to give her a full tour of the dance studio. The tour was fascinating to Danielle, because the studio was bigger than her studio back home, and everyone seemed so professional. One detail, in particular, stood out to Danielle: the dance studios stayed open all day and all night. Danielle was amazed, imagining using the studios during her free time to keep up her technique and to just have fun.

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by Beth Kidd

The teenage generation of this time is constantly undergoing many traumatic experiences at this point of their lives. Some of them listen to music to help cope with the pain that today’s society brings. One musician that only a few hundred-thousand people listen to, is an artist named Braden Barrie, who undergoes some of his music as the name of SayWeCanFly. His catch phrase for SayWeCanFly to say at the end of live videos on social media is: “Stay Cozy”. The recent phrase he’s been saying is: “Stay Limitless”. Braden Barrie is a twenty-three-year-old that was born on November 18, 1994. He has black, messy hair and dazzling blue eyes, is obsessed with coffee (he almost always has a mug around him), and loves staying cozy with his hoodies. Braden creates indie pop, acoustic, and “emo”  music that resonates with thousands of millennials today. Some of his messages in some lyrics are about break-ups, heartbreak, depression, pain, anxiety, falling in love, love in some kind of form, relationships, and making someone to be a better person. He is known to help with the problems of suicide, suicidal thoughts, and depression. Lyrics of a few of his songs highlight those problems. He often talks about the problems in live videos or posts on social media about it.

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by Gabrielle Wade

Until the age of seven, the only knowledge I had of my great  grandmother was a lone, seemingly disregarded portrait hanging on a dark section of wall at the end of my Nanny’s hallway. I remember staring up at it, cocking my head to the side as I took in her dark eyes and flat lined mouth, the black frame surrounding an even blacker image. The frame itself screamed that it was hung purely out of familial obligation, and I could tell the woman in the portrait agreed. She seemed to whisper of power, weeks of watching my Nanny, Lillie May, shiver the slightest bit when she passed the frame only confirmed this. I was about to turn eight when I finally learned her name. “Flossie,” my grandmother said. She was sitting in her rocking chair, staring blankly at the clock while she thought about what to say. My grandmother did not hate her mother. She seemed to be rather disinterested in her, like she had slowly lost the attachment as the years dragged on. Or maybe it was never there in the first place, I’m not one to say. She didn’t end up saying much, just that she was the only female child, surrounded by many brothers. After this, she got up and started making biscuits.

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by Macy K. Spence

If Instagram was a library, her feed would without a doubt be a page-turner within it. She will quite literally charm your socks off with her wonderful way with words, and the manner in which she marries them unassumingly with each and every photo, detailing quiet musings and significant moments from her day-to-day or adventures gone by.^[1]How does one journalist use Instagram captions to tell a story?

For Jo Rodgers, contributing Vogue columnist, Instagram is an expressionistic hobby. Formerly a literary agent at William Morris Endeavor and a book editor for Random House, Rodgers knows what attracts a reader. In her first few postings on Instagram, she shared a cozy tabletop kitchen scene, with a book recommendation in hand. Her suggested readings are often a recipe or gardening book that correlates with what she’s making for dinner. Her writing is continuously influenced by her degree in English Literature — focusing on Victorian Literature and Classics — from the women’s college, Wellesley. The beautiful snapshots of her daily sightings around London are garnished with witty prose as captions. The loquacious words accent her photographs in a way that make her followers feel as though they are looking at illustrious illustrations within their favorite novel.

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by Sydney Campbell

I was swimming out to just beyond the crashing waves with my boogie board strapped to my wrist. Like a surfer, I combatted the waves by pushing the nose of my board under the water so I could glide below it as I continued to swim further out into the ocean. To my right, I saw my uncle Boonie doing the same thing; after all, he was the one who taught me. When we finally made it out there, we sat. We waited for what felt like forever, looking for the perfect wave to bring us back to shore. Boonie hollered at me, “Syd, this is the one!” so I flipped over on my board and began to kick and paddle as hard as I could. Fear and excitement rushed through my body; I knew that I would either fall off the wave and be caught in its swirling back end, or I would glide on top of the water to the shore. Luckily, I did not fall off the wave; I instead made it safely to shore where my mother sat, snoozing in her chair. As I was walking towards her, I looked around to see that our group was squished between two cars with fishing poles. In my opinion, they were too close; I could have easily been caught on one of their hooks had I fallen off the wave. I remembered what it was like when I was younger. I never worried about being too close to another car with a fishing line; there were never cars close enough to make that an issue.

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by Iris Williams

In early 2010, I decided to pick up Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thiefafter seeing the movie with my sister. I had actually started it before seeing the movie and then put it down again. The second time around I finished the book quickly and continued on through the series. (I decided then and there that the movie could be ignored.) After finishing the Percy Jackson series, I felt confident enough to begin reading larger books. Whole worlds were opened up to me because I started reading more.

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by Pauli Born

Sitting in class, I pondered what my next topic would be, knowing that this had to be a banger because my previous works had bombed. As I observed my classmates, I noticed their excitement. Some girls immediately scribbled their next topic on the outline that was given to us, while other girls sat, like me, with frustration etched on their faces. Some had fistfuls of hair tightly grasped in their hands as the wheels in their heads slowly turned, needing that extra boost. “What is your favorite word?” was a question that was asked at the beginning of the year. I was a completely different student then, thinking that impressing the professor was my ultimate priority. “Positivity” was what I wrote, thinking that if I shared with my professor a word that I live by on a daily basis, that would sure show the professor how positive I was as a student. Oh, how wrong I was; it just showed how much of a suck-up I was to my professor. I made sure not to relive that moment when choosing my next word, making sure I sounded sophisticated and educated. So, I changed my word from “Positivity” to “Bubbles,” an elaborate and mature answer for my audience.
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by Isabel Viner

On an evening in early September, at Sweet Briar College, a women’s college in rural Virginia, an outdoor event known as Quad Rocks was well underway. Quad Rocks is a fun way for all students, especially first years, to learn about the fun, and unique clubs that are offered on the Sweet Briar campus.

The large border of the quad was lined with tables covered in posters and brightly colored set-ups, and behind each table were club representatives. There were so many clubs to choose from, such as chemistry club, French club, the outdoors program, sustainability club, ballroom dancing, as well as many others. One table that stood out to me in particular was the Sweet Tones. I walked over to the table. Sitting behind it was Phoenix Brown, a junior with curly pink hair, and she said, “Hi, my name is Phoenix, I’m here to represent the Sweet Tones; we’re the college’s a capella group, our enemy club is the Ear Phones; their deal is that they basically just scream. Are you interested in auditioning?”

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by Emma Hines

In a quiet hall on the fourth floor of Meta Glass, a residence hall for first years at Sweet Briar College, an alarm went off at four a.m. The alarm wasn’t the result of a careless swipe on a darkened phone screen by an overtired college student: it was time for Meenakshi Verma to make the long trek to Babcock, Sweet Briar’s theater and performing arts studio, for some zumba. Careful to not disturb her sleeping roommate, she tied up her waist-length, dark hair with a clip as red as her hair tips, and dressed in simple workout clothes. She accessorized with a pink lanyard that held her keys, which were what allowed her into Babcock despite the early hour, and a pair of white headphones. As soon as she closed the door behind her, the headphones went over her ears and the music started blasting.

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by Rose Murphy

Spring break of my senior year of high school, my parents and I took a trip to Ireland, which had been a dream of mine since I found out about my distant Irish heritage as a young child. My young mind seized upon the idea of a far-off place to visit — one that I had some connection to, no matter how faint — and Ireland became the first place that I ever really wanted to go to, taking on a kind of mystical quality to me. It took us years to actually take the trip because we could never find the time. But in 2018, my spring break aligned with my mom’s spring break for the first time since I was in middle school and we were off. We were joined by my mom’s cousin and her husband. The trip lasted five days. We spent most of our time exploring the city of Dublin, seeing the Viking museum, the Guinness Storehouse, the Jameson Distillery on Bow Street, and some of the other tourist attractions scattered about the city. On the third day, the five of us took a day trip up to Northern Ireland. Early in the morning, we boarded a train in Dublin, got off a few hours later in Belfast, then got in a van for the brief ride from the train station to the tour bus that would take us the rest of the way to the coast. We made a brief stop to cross the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which was constructed by fishermen in 1755 and is just wide enough for a single-file line of people to cross. The bridge is suspended between the mainland and Carrickarede Island, sixty-six feet away, nearly a hundred feet above sea level. After crossing the rope bridge, we got lunch before continuing on to the main point of the day trip: Giant’s Causeway.

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by Katelyn Lewis

“What new show could I possibly watch that is worth my time?” I thought to myself a few weeks ago. It was a brisk and chilly October evening, which made me want to watch something spooky. I propped up some fuzzy throw pillows behind me, seized my patterned pink blanket and turned on my Smart TV to Netflix. I went through my usual categories: Most Popular and Comedies. I couldn’t find anything that I was in the mood for; until I scrolled through the Recently Added category, where I found a brand new Netflix original series called The Haunting of Hill House.

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by Maggie Groetsch

On November 20, Rachel Stigall sat in front of her open binder working on her latest math packet at her college’s nearby cafe named The Library. “Of course I’m working on math when I have an American Government quiz in 2 hours,” she confessed to me. Stigall was contemplating whether she was going to go take her quiz or begin her Thanksgiving break early and take a zero for the quiz, she said, before grabbing her wallet out of her backpack. Dressed in a black puffer vest paired with a sweater and jeans, Stigall stood tall and confident as she tucked her shoulder-length blond hair behind her ear and ordered her afternoon coffee. The barista, dressed in yoga pants with her hair in a dark low bun, was already making Stigall’s drink before she started her order. The barista slid the black coffee to Stigall and told her the total, a process that appeared well rehearsed between the two. “I come here every Tuesday and Thursday after my 8 am class and have breakfast with my mom, or really I come here anytime I can in between classes” said Stigall.

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by Caroline Czarra

A current first-year at Sweet Briar College observed one morning that the upperclasswomen did not seem to like the first years very much. She was sitting at a table in Prothro Dining Room with two upperclasswomen when they were approached by two other first-years. The first-years had questions for the upperclasswomen, which they seemed happy to answer, but one question upset them so much that they did not bother to even answer it: “Where do you get the hats? I haven’t seen them on sale at the bookshop.”

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by Caroline Waters

It was a dreary humid Thursday in July at the Kentucky Horse Park when Kelley Farmer and her horse “Unexpected” were cantering around a 3’3” hunter course. The rain fell down as the claps arose following her flawless round that secured her the win in her class. To the judge and the spectators, everything seemed perfect. But, to the steward (the individual that makes sure the rules are followed) something was off. They sent the drug testers off to take a blood sample from the horse, and Farmer’s career was put to the test.

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by Elizabeth Martin

The early weeks for most first-year college students are tough. Students are away from home, some for the first time, and surrounded by strange new people. College tries their best during orientation to get the students to bond through various activities and events. Some students find it hard to bond during these events and just stick to the people they already know, instead of branching out and meeting new people.

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by Abby Cahill

As the air cools and becomes crisp enough to sting as it swirls through one’s open lungs, and the deciduous trees begin to release their paint-swatch fragment leaves into the chilly breeze, autumn makes her arrival known. Amidst layers of ochre-colored sweaters and flannels, gaggles of children trick-or-treating in costume, and across misty blue apple orchards, lovers of the season wring their scarves and anxiously await the arrival of one of the signature symbols of autumn; pumpkin spice.

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by Bryanna Ortega

“Oh shit,” thought Melanie Ramos as she stared down at the two little pink lines.  In July of 1998, Ortega got the news that no 18-year-old ever wants to get: that she was pregnant. She had just finished her freshman year of college and was excited to start her sophomore year when she found out. She first told the father, Jorge Ortega, immediately.

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by Haley Miller

According to the Huffington post, Walt Disney, the creator of our beloved childhood, was once a newspaper editor. That was his beginning career. he was told he lacked imagination and had no good ideas. Julia child is a chef at thirty -six that cooks French delicacies. She used to be a CIA Intelligence officer (basically known as a spy). A chef and a spy are vastly different, but they both need their hand-eye coordination to thrive. The difference in their starting careers and present careers have no comparison, yet they still found their dream job.

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by Abigail Koppisch

In 2007, contemporary novel writer, Jay Asher, published his first novel entitled, 13 Reasons Why, which is a New York Times and International best selling young-adult fiction novel. The novel had become such a hit that Universal Studios had purchased the film rights to the novel on February 8, 2011. And on October 29, 2015, Netflix announced that they’d be making a television adaptation of the book. The news spread like a wild fire, more especially amongst the teens that once raved over the novel. On March 31, 2017, viewers from all over the globe couldn’t hold their excitement in as they saw the banner on Netflix to the tv series and the link to the first episode in the menu section. I remember being at school that day, heart beating, foot tapping, my eyes fixated on the clock ticking until it reached 2:00 p.m when I heard everybody’s plans to turn on the show the moment they walked inside their houses that afternoon as I was exiting the building swiftly. Little did I know through all of the hype built up around this one show that 13 Reasons Why would stir up a large controversy that it was not intending to.

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