Years ago, I, having read Oliver Sacks’ “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” as well as Paul Kalanithi’s “When Becomes Air,” and having thought to myself, “Hey, that seems legit,” decided that I was going to be a doctor. What I did not initially realize was that…
Marianne Gunnarsson
Viewpoint Editor.
A hand shot up in the air, grubby and painted with blue nail polish, the way kids’ hands sometimes are. “Yes, you there,” called the old woman sent to our 5th grade class to divine our fates as beings blossoming into human females. Rebecca leaned forward, poised and ready. “Well,…
A few years ago, I went to go see a therapist because I had become depressed to the point of dysfunction. One of the critiques she gave me was that I “had perfectionism,” and this was something I desperately needed to overcome in order to live a fulfilling life and…
As was the case for many of you, the terrorist attack at the Capitol last Wednesday did not surprise me. Indeed for the past couple of months, I had been ambulating about the house, murmuring, “I hope they’ll be safe,”—“they” meaning Biden, Harris, the Democratic lawmakers and those running for…
A week ago, I darted up the stairs to my room, in a rush to enclose myself in my space and my mind, away from the world that was my dad shouting incoherently at Chris Wallace through the barrier of the television. I had gone to the library curbside pickup…
Not so long ago, I wrote a piece about transferring colleges twice. Two terms have passed, and I, ever the collegiate nomad, find myself in yet another situation of changing place and, consequently, changing identity. Whether we want them to or not, places shape who we are, define us; they…
I am often asked why I decided to learn Chinese, why I’m just so into it, and why I like foreign languages so much. The answer is simply that I fell into these studies arbitrarily, the result of a desire to expand my boundaries beyond the required four years of…
Mrs. Johnson Married Has no first name “I was born in 18th-century Antarctica and believe me, the year, circumstances, and opinions circulating at the time of my birth are still EXTREMELY relevant to today’s world, specifically Overheard at Carleton. Alums are VALID.” Edward Wellington III Single “Yes, it is I,…
By the time I was 18, the stars had simply never aligned in such a way as to inform me what I should major in during college, as they had, I presumed, for everyone else. No god emerged from a wine dark sea in the depths of my dreams to…
This school year brings an exciting new change to Carleton’s environmental and community initiatives: the revamping of what was once known as Clothing Connection into this term’s Clothing Recovery Network. Why the changes? According to Erica Zweifel, Temporary Associate Director of the CCCE, clothing collection at Carleton used to be…