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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Ideas shape your life and the world you live in, from how you spend your days and nights, to where you work, and what political or social causes you support. The ideas that you hold affect every part of your being, even if you are unaware of it. Because the ideas that you hold are so fundamental to who you are and how you see and interact with the world, it is critical to wrestle with these ideas. Your ideas have consequences; you need to know if those consequences will be good or bad. Indeed, at some point, you may find that you need to question and revise the very ideas that have shaped your identity. Eventually, you will need to grapple with your answers to three critical questions: How did we get here? What is wrong with the world? How does it get fixed?

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