By now, you’ve probably heard about Build Day. Maybe you’ve even been to a Pow-Wow ideation session. You can’t have missed the Big Bang, and maybe you joined a team. But maybe you aren’t quite sure what Build Day is, or how and why you should get involved leading up to May 3rd. In any case, strap yourself in and get ready for a thrilling exposé on the hottest thing since thermodynamics: Build Day!

Build Day, on May 3rd, is the culmination of a number of community-oriented semester-long projects. May 3rd has been reserved by the administration for the entire Olin community to work together on awesome projects: developed and implemented by teams of Olin students, faculty, and staff that will have a meaningful and lasting impact on our College.

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As a theatre maker in Toronto, I always find it fascinating to see the shows that come out of FWOP. This is the second time I have visited my brothers at Olin during Candidate’s Weekend, and I relish the opportunity to enjoy the spring show.

This year, there are two of them – one-acts, independent from one another but linked in many ways. Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, and No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre, respectively directed by Mitchell Cieminski, and the creative team consisting of Kelsey Breseman and Ian Hoover, will be presented again on Friday, March 1st at 8pm, and on Saturday at the same time. Even though I am on my February break from my devised theatre studies in Toronto, I appreciated a thought-provoking evening’s fare at Sorenson last weekend. It was encouraging to find such ambitious plays on the roster.

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tricoteuse: one of a number of women who sat and knitted while attending public executions during the French Revolution

osculation: the act of kissing; a kiss

soucouyant: a witch believed to shed her skin by night and suck victims’ blood

ratiocination: the process of logical reasoning

trichotillomania: a compulsion to pull out one’s hair and often to ingest it

weltanschauung: world view; a framework through which to interpret the world

imbricate: having overlapping edges; to arrange so that the edges overlap

Recent discussions were catalyzed by ‘It Happens Here’, (Frankly Speaking Oct 2012). Spurred by these discussions, three students approached Frankly Speaking about publishing a moderated discussion on what the Olin community can do to prevent rape. This is an excerpt of that discussion.

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Desert Solitaire
Edward Abbey
A candid collection of sketches from Abbey’s days as a park ranger in Utah. It’s angsty, insigtful, and adventurous. My favorite read of the new year.
“There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount… There is no lack of water here unless you try to establish a city where no city should be.”

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It can be difficult to transition to the “real world” of 9-5 jobs and corporate life after graduating from Olin, but one alum, Gui Cavalcanti (‘09) found that the real world could just as easily adapt to Olin.

Artisan’s Asylum, in Somerville, MA, is a 40,000 sq ft space dedicated to providing tools, classes, and resources to craftsmen, engineers, artists, and creators of all sorts in the community. With 3D printers, welding stations, ingeniously-decorated 100 sq ft “studio workspaces,” and vending machines stocked with Loctite and drillbits, Artisan’s Asylum feels like a strange cross between an MIT dorm and an industrial machine shop.
According to Gui, “Our mission is to make creative expression a way of life for our members – whether it’s starting a business, pursuing a hobby, or learning new skills.”

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Disclaimer: I’m writing this piece about my own experiences. This is not all transitions. This is about one transition – mine. My opinions are not intended to represent the opinions of any group of people or persons.

My name is Dante. I was born and raised female, but I will graduate college as the man I have always been. I think this is the simplest way to describe my transition. Practically everyone at Olin transforms in one way or another during their time here. Some emerge from their high-school shells. Some grow ridiculous facial hair. Others discover a passion for robotics. My transformation has been, and will continue to be, logistically and culturally more complicated than these examples. I have been on hormones for over six months now. At this point, I’m presenting (perceived as) male full-time. Still, whenever I hear people say “excuse me, sir” and “he was first” and “ask him” my heart jumps and I try not to grin like an idiot. Transitioning from female to male has been, and will continue to be, a long and arduous journey, but I chose Olin to be the place where I would transition, and I believe I chose correctly.

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