It happens that I now find myself about to graduate from Carleton. This piece—my last Viewpoint—is a little different from the others in that it is a retrospective of my time here, my thoughts condensed on how I’ve changed and what I’ve enjoyed and not enjoyed about college. When I…
Marianne Gunnarsson
Viewpoint Editor
Before droves of rain-cloaked tourists attired the landscape in Land’s End reds and blues, before the destination weddings hit the waterfalls and glaciers, before the flood of images of volcanic eruptions graced the likes of Facebook and Instagram, I loved Iceland like she was my own. Walk through the aisles…
The day I met J, the shaggy-haired, lanky boy sitting on the opposite side of the submarine in the lab I worked in, I knew by the way he discussed Tolkien’s invented languages, the way politeness tendriled through his speech, and the way he loved animals that we’d be friends.…
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…
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…