Aries (March 21 – April 19): You have a future in the news. With the news.
Taurus (April 20 – May 20): The soul is a squeegee. Yours is dry and crisp.
Gemini (May 21 – June 20): Follow the road with fewer tracks when you’re looking for peace. Follow the crowds when looking for a party.
Cancer (June 21 – July 22): Life is like an adventure novel, just longer.
Leo (July 23 – Aug. 22): The next few weeks will require much racing. Trust not the flower, for the thorn is sharp and deadly.
Aries (March 21 – April 19): I see chocolate in your future. Preface those crunch bars with some crunches! Hit up the gym in preparation.
Taurus (April 20 – May 20): A big due date approaches. Step up the pace in the home stretch to beat your high score. Beef up your defense to score a three pointer in the final inning!
Gemini (May 21 – June 20): Get cracking on those resolutions. Quit your bad habits and start some good ones. Subtle nail polish discourages nail biting. Sticking to a routine cuts down on procrastination.
Cancer (June 21 – July 22): Your SO is thinking about dumping you. Break up with them first so you don’t feel like a loser. (See D&D column)
Welcome back, from Frankly Speaking—Olin’s unofficial, unaffiliated, student-run newspaper!
Olin is a school of rebirth. Clubs, events, and traditions all live and die with each new year. Clubs you’ve never heard of were big a few years ago and events you’d never think of will be held next year. The impermanence is freeing, but also requires that each year play an active part in Olin culture.
I chose to study bioengineering. I love biology, but I did not love Modern Biology. It had nothing to do with the teacher (she was awesome) or the subject. It was simply that I was bored. I’d just taken the AP bio exam and the SAT II in biology. Everything we learned in Modern Biology, besides specific interests of the professor, was a review for me.
So you want to study away. You’re stoked, but where should you go? The world is full of choices, and it’s overwhelming. I’ll narrow the field for you: you should study away in a developing country.
First, be fearless. Think of all of the places you’ve been to or would want to go on vacation. Now, cross them all out.
Chances are, most of the “first world” is now off your list. When I chose my study away location, I circled the parts of the world that were so foreign that I would almost certainly never visit them on my own, and I chose from those countries.
This time last year, I was filling out the last of the application materials for my study away program, located in Rabat, Morocco. I knew it would be no walk in the park. The Arab Spring uprisings, threatening violence and upheaval even in typically stable Morocco, had me crossing my fingers that the program wouldn’t be cancelled before my flight took off. My advisor was against it, though she signed the papers amid talks of a “plan b” and “looking at options”. She may have known a little of what I would face, but for me there was no “plan b”. I didn’t want a walk in the park; I wanted a challenge-and I got one.
Walking through West Hall late at night, you’re likely to encounter a crew of satisfied patrons of FBE’s newest venture. You don’t even have to leave the privacy of your room to order up something sexy out of Smooth Moves’ diverse— and colorful— catalog. Whatever your tastes—light, sweet, rich, or saucy—Smooth Moves delivers. Literally.
Over winter break I read a book by a journalism student at Brown, Kevin Roose, called The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University.The book is the author’s account of a semester attending Liberty University.
Liberty is a school literally billed as the largest and fastest growing Christian Evangelical college in the world. For Kevin Roose, who grew up in a “crunchy liberal enclave” in the middle of the Lake Erie Rust Belt, the semester he spends away at Liberty is far more foreign than any abroad.