Hello Readers,
As many of my readers know, I have been critical of my college's Residence Life Office, or RLO, in the past. Specifically, I chose to write a piece in the college newspaper's opinion column about how many members of my graduating year felt like RLO's policies seemed to disadvantage our year, whether intentional or not.
Well, maybe that isn't quite accurate. A better way to put it is to say that after I heard numerous classmates express their anger and frustration that RLO seemed to be systematically screwing over our class, I felt like I should write something, albeit in a diplomatic tone, to try and sum up how many of my friends and colleagues felt.
For those who aren't familiar with the article, the grievances were basically that many of my classmates (we were all sophomores at the time) felt that we had gotten substandard housing, and that an entire dormitory of recently-renovated rooms, usually taken by the sophomore class, had been set aside for freshmen. In exchange, we had received the Little dormitory, which, as the approximately 100 students who had lived there before knew, was cramped, dated, and in a bad location. To add insult to injury, RLO planned on building a shiny new dormitory for next year's sophomores, and it would be the first time in history than an entire dormitory would be restricted to only one class (other than the freshman dormitories). There was no sense that we, as rising juniors, would have access to a similarly nice dormitory.
Understandably, many were upset. RLO continued to justify its decision by pointing out the lack of a sophomore experience and how the sophomore class needed a lot more in the way of unity and programming, but never offered any solutions to our class. In short, it was a lot like we were living in an apartment, being told how crappy and run down it was, and then being told it would be fixed up in time for the next tenant, who would pay the same rent.
Luckily, even as I planned to write a longer expose, since many fellow students came forward and told me their RLO horror stories, the then-head of RLO approached me and set aside time to ensure that I knew that we were not forgotten, and that RLO planned on renovating what we then called the "sophomore apartments" into much nicer, newer buildings for January of our junior year, for members of our class returning from abroad. The overall tone of the conversation suggested to me that RLO might actually be turning over a new leaf and working with the students, rather than seemingly against them. That spring, I discovered that many of RLO's office staff were moving on to accept jobs elsewhere, and the new leadership was helpful with any concerns I had, and I felt that I could breathe easy, knowing that finally, all seemed to be well.
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As the Chilean people learned in 1973, just because the old regime was corrupt, it doesn't mean the new regime will be any better, which is certainly a lesson we seem to be learning with the new RLO leadership today.
My college's newspaper recently reported on a story that I had heard about a month ago - RLO decided to fire three hall counselors for an underage drinking incident that by all accounts seems to be tame, to say the least. The summary is that one hall counselor turned 21 on the weekend before the second semester, and his friends and fellow hall counselors decided to throw him a small party. This party happened to take place in the lounge of a substance-free hall, and there were people under the age of 21 present. However, at the start of the party, the hall counselor who had bought the alcohol (which amounted to eighteen beers and a bottle of wine, hardly a huge supply) stood up and asked that anyone under 21 please refrain from drinking. However, two people, both hall counselors, did, and the area coordinator in charge of the building found out. All nine hall counselors at the party (who are all considered employees of RLO) were brought in for questioning, and at the end of it, the two underage drinkers, as well as the hall counselor buying the alcohol were offered a non-choice: resign, or be fired.
My college does have a policy that ties in to state law, which is that people under 21 are not legally allowed to drink. However, this is a policy that is routinely broken, and involves underage drinkers becoming messily drunk far more often than it involves a few hall counselors having a beer. Those students, if caught, generally pay a fine of $25 on the first offense. The people involved in the incident were acting responsibly, especially relative to the average behavior of many college students on any given weekend. Still, I acknowledge that "everyone does it" is not an especially valid argument. I have known that hall counselors in the past tend to get a second chance before being fired, but that is not much better.
Two of the three hall counselors were forced to move at the start of the second semester, which is a time when freshmen often need their counsel the most, especially at the start of rush season for fraternities. The freshmen on these halls may still have the other hall counselors in the building to turn to, but they spent their entire first semester coming to rely upon and trust their hall counselor on their hall, a relationship not easily built or transferred. RLO seems to have prized its ability to enforce a school policy over its ability to see the greater consequences of its actions. Just as my class was poisoned against RLO as sophomores, many of these freshmen have openly admitted that they believe RLO's decision was wrong, and they would never consider working as RAs or hall counselors now, even if they had strongly considered it before.
The problem I have with this episode is how opaque, arbitrary, and autocratic RLO was in its decision. The hall counselors called in for questioning say that the director of RLO explained that he did not trust many of the people involved. This seems to fly in the face of my college's honor code, which the majority of students would say is designed to create an atmosphere of trust among students, faculty, and staff. Without any evidence to suggest that the hall counselors were lying, this kind of mistrust leaves me feeling concerned, to say the least.
Furthermore, the director of RLO has "declined to comment" on exactly why these three hall counselors were fired, claiming that RLO will not discuss "personnel issues" with a wider audience. If these three were fired because they broke the law, that seems like a perfectly justifiable reason, and he ought to say so. The fact that he refuses to discuss any part of his decision does not sit well with me at all, and it certainly does not make me trust the office.
In sum, I believe that my college's Residence Life Office has completely eroded its legitimacy, having created not one but two major causes in the past two years for students to believe that, although it claims to want to help and support students, it is doing the opposite. Drinking one beer while underage should not be the grounds for being fired or for robbing a community of its major supporting figure, and to make matters worse, we do not even know if that was the primary factor behind the ruling. Regrettably, this is not a kind of democracy where we have a way of overturning the decisions or making the decision-makers accountable, but I think could be the start of a move where the student body begins to show its suspicions towards RLO.
Personally, I am living off-campus next year. It means a year away from RLO and its policies, and I couldn't be happier.
Cheers!
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Dream Theater
Hey readers,
I want to take a break from my usual series of posts about Denmark to talk about my favorite band of all time: Dream Theater.
Now, you might be asking yourself: why should I take the time out of my day to listen to this guy talk about some band he really likes? What, in all honesty, makes James any different than a girl who's really into Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga (or whoever, I'll admit that my knowledge of pop music isn't outstanding)?
Well, I'll get to that, but first, I wanted to share a few fun facts about Dream Theater, as well as my experience with their music:
- Dream Theater was originally going to be titled "Majesty", but another band already had the name; the band paid homage to their old name on their first album with the instrumental titled "The Ytse Jam".
- Only 13 of Dream Theater's 100+ songs are under 5 minutes (including one at 4:59), and most are upwards of 10 minutes.
- Dream Theater's longest song is technically Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, which is about 42 minutes long, but the album version of the song is broken up into eight tracks (and takes up a whole CD in Dream Theater's only 2 CD album). Their longest continuous song is Octavarium, which is broken into five parts, but takes up only one track on the album of the same name.
- I have listened to Dream Theater an estimated 3,356 times according to Last.fm, but it's definitely missed all the times I've listened to their CDs, so it's probably more like 3,500 times.
- Nine of my "Top 25 Most Played" songs on iTunes are by Dream Theater, including my #3, "The Dance of Eternity", which I've listened to approximately 120 times.
You'll notice that both of the above videos are live, and both are instrumentals. Dream Theater is pretty good on CD, but they are outstanding live - a lot of their instrumental sections will include bits of improvisation, and they have even more energy in concert. Also, a lot of Dream Theater fans complain about the singer, James LaBrie, not because he is bad, but because he is really good while the rest of the band is phenomenal. Considering that fact, LaBrie could hit high notes in 1992, but injured his vocal cords during an illness shortly after; he has just gotten his range back, and showcased that range in Breaking All Illusions, their big hit off of A Dramatic Turn of Events in 2011:
But enough about the band itself. Here's why I like Dream Theater: There has not been a week since I began listening to them when I have not listened to them at least once, and for the first couple of years, I listened to them basically daily.
I started listening to Dream Theater in my junior year of high school, at a time when it felt like a lot of things weren't going right for me. School was okay, but not as good as it used to be, I had entered a number of speaking and essay contests - my two strong suits at the time - and not even made it to the finals in any of them, and a girl I really liked had just completely and totally rejected me. I distinctly remember one night, where I was just sitting on the floor of my room, convinced things were going to be pretty crappy for a while and there wasn't much I could do about it. For Christmas that year, I had gotten my first two Dream Theater CDs - Images and Words; and Train of Thought. I ended up putting Images and Words into my CD player that night, telling myself that if I was going to be miserable I might as well have something to listen to. "Pull Me Under," an early Dream Theater song that is basically the musical version of Hamlet - down to the final lyric "Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt" - began playing, and somehow, I felt a little better.
I knew some of the members of Dream Theater had used their music to overcome their own hardships and tragedy - anything from the near death of the singer's young child to the drummer's recovery from alcoholism through the AA program. I couldn't say I was going through anything similar, though at the time I was pretty depressed, and being able to lose myself in the lengthy songs, with their poetic lyrics and complex instrumental sections, gave me something to appreciate when everything else would even at times feel pointless.
Admittedly, it wasn't like listening to Dream Theater that one night suddenly made everything better. I had to work to enjoy the rigors of AP US History and to remind myself that there would always be more speaking contests and attractive girls out there. Still, I had my new favorite band and their music to rely on. There were some times where listening to "Learning to Live" was pretty much the only thing that would get me out of bed in the morning.
And, as usually tends to happen in life, I managed to keep my head up, and things did indeed get better. I qualified for both the state and national tournament in Speech and Debate, which was a huge accomplishment for me, and I learned to find the fun in my classes even when we were going through the merciless and tedious prep for AP tests.
I entered a speaking contest for my local chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, and unlike in the past two years, where I had done well but hadn't really wowed the judges, I came in first, and got to go to the State Competition, where I won third overall. Unfortunately, the day of regionals was also the day that my grandfather, John Howard, as well as my favorite cat, Tybalt, both of whom had been battling cancer, passed away. I was old enough to move past questions like "Why?", but the death of two loved ones, especially my grandfather, who had been a major part of my childhood, was still pretty jarring. Despite this tragedy, I managed to get through it all with a degree of serenity, thanks in large part to the Dream Theater song "The Spirit Carries On":
My experiences with Dream Theater since then have been pretty routine, but things got better to say the least: I was elected to lead several clubs and teams at the end of my junior year, including both the writing fellowship I was a part of and my school's speech and debate team and I got into my first choice for college the following December. Still, to this day, if a family member of mine becomes seriously ill, something isn't going right in my life, or I just feel out of sorts, I know I can always turn to Dream Theater to make me feel better and put me back where I need to be.
I was going to add more about Dream Theater's complex stories that they've put in their music,
especially in Metropolis Part II: Scenes from a Memory (an entire album that serves as a sequel to an earlier song), but I kind of like leaving it here. I know there's a lot of music and videos in this post, but I wanted to add one more song, the one that originally introduced me to Dream Theater, "The Glass Prison":
Cheers!
I started listening to Dream Theater in my junior year of high school, at a time when it felt like a lot of things weren't going right for me. School was okay, but not as good as it used to be, I had entered a number of speaking and essay contests - my two strong suits at the time - and not even made it to the finals in any of them, and a girl I really liked had just completely and totally rejected me. I distinctly remember one night, where I was just sitting on the floor of my room, convinced things were going to be pretty crappy for a while and there wasn't much I could do about it. For Christmas that year, I had gotten my first two Dream Theater CDs - Images and Words; and Train of Thought. I ended up putting Images and Words into my CD player that night, telling myself that if I was going to be miserable I might as well have something to listen to. "Pull Me Under," an early Dream Theater song that is basically the musical version of Hamlet - down to the final lyric "Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt" - began playing, and somehow, I felt a little better.
I knew some of the members of Dream Theater had used their music to overcome their own hardships and tragedy - anything from the near death of the singer's young child to the drummer's recovery from alcoholism through the AA program. I couldn't say I was going through anything similar, though at the time I was pretty depressed, and being able to lose myself in the lengthy songs, with their poetic lyrics and complex instrumental sections, gave me something to appreciate when everything else would even at times feel pointless.
Admittedly, it wasn't like listening to Dream Theater that one night suddenly made everything better. I had to work to enjoy the rigors of AP US History and to remind myself that there would always be more speaking contests and attractive girls out there. Still, I had my new favorite band and their music to rely on. There were some times where listening to "Learning to Live" was pretty much the only thing that would get me out of bed in the morning.
And, as usually tends to happen in life, I managed to keep my head up, and things did indeed get better. I qualified for both the state and national tournament in Speech and Debate, which was a huge accomplishment for me, and I learned to find the fun in my classes even when we were going through the merciless and tedious prep for AP tests.
I entered a speaking contest for my local chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, and unlike in the past two years, where I had done well but hadn't really wowed the judges, I came in first, and got to go to the State Competition, where I won third overall. Unfortunately, the day of regionals was also the day that my grandfather, John Howard, as well as my favorite cat, Tybalt, both of whom had been battling cancer, passed away. I was old enough to move past questions like "Why?", but the death of two loved ones, especially my grandfather, who had been a major part of my childhood, was still pretty jarring. Despite this tragedy, I managed to get through it all with a degree of serenity, thanks in large part to the Dream Theater song "The Spirit Carries On":
My experiences with Dream Theater since then have been pretty routine, but things got better to say the least: I was elected to lead several clubs and teams at the end of my junior year, including both the writing fellowship I was a part of and my school's speech and debate team and I got into my first choice for college the following December. Still, to this day, if a family member of mine becomes seriously ill, something isn't going right in my life, or I just feel out of sorts, I know I can always turn to Dream Theater to make me feel better and put me back where I need to be.
I was going to add more about Dream Theater's complex stories that they've put in their music,
especially in Metropolis Part II: Scenes from a Memory (an entire album that serves as a sequel to an earlier song), but I kind of like leaving it here. I know there's a lot of music and videos in this post, but I wanted to add one more song, the one that originally introduced me to Dream Theater, "The Glass Prison":
Cheers!
Friday, February 15, 2013
Tasty Treats
Hey Readers,
Last summer, I had a dream. Both a figurative dream, as in MLK's "I have a dream" and a literal dream, as in I actually dreamt it one night. I dreamt about a European bakery, filled with all kinds of fancy bread, and a myriad of baked goods. Little cakes, tarts, muffins, brownies...some I wasn't even sure what to call them, but they looked delicious. For me, though, it wasn't about the amount of food, or the variety, but the overall atmosphere of the place. This dream happened about a week before I went to Saint Petersburg, and I knew I wanted to find some charming little bakery where I could get a cup of coffee and a fresh baked cinnamon roll and relax.
I didn't find anywhere like this in Saint Petersburg - all the cafes either lacked quality baked goods or had too much of a "Starbucks" feel to them.
I realize now that I was probably dreaming about Copenhagen.
It's hard for me to pinpoint even one bakery, because wherever I go, I'm never more than a 5 minute walk from some small cafe or bakery with wienerbrød ("Vienna Bread", AKA the famous "Danish") and coffee. My personal favorite, coincidentally related to Saint Petersburg, is a tiny bakery two blocks away from DIS called Saint Peter's Bakery (Sankt Peders Bageri, in Danish). All of the baked goods seem to be no more than $3 at most, and they range from cinnamon rolls that even Cinnabon would say are a little large to lethal-looking chocolate cakes to some frosted strawberry...thing I got today that was positively delicious, even though I ended up ordering it by pointing at it and saying "I'd like one of...those, please."This place has sandwiches too, and I'm amazed I haven't tried them, since the bread is obviously fresh and the toppings look pretty exceptional too.
Another place I've visited and must return to is Agnes' Cupcakes, inside the "glass market" near Nørreport Station. I grew up with the West Side Market in Cleveland - an old world market that mainly houses fruit and vegetable sellers and a meat market - and the glass market is like a 21st-century update of that. I saw at least three shops dedicated to cheese (excellent!), but this cupcake stand topped my list of favorites. I bought a "Valentines Day" cupcake yesterday, and it was thoroughly enjoyable; I initially thought it was red velvet, but when I bit into it and discovered a pocket of raspberry jam in the middle, I think it might have been raspberry with vanilla bean frosting. I guess it makes sense, but I never expected to find a cupcake bakery in Copenhagen in the first place.
In America, we window-shop for clothes, but in Denmark, I find myself window-shopping at bakeries and cafes. All of them - even the chains - have freshly baked bread that clearly isn't factory-made, and the baked goods never fail to look and taste fantastic. My only critique might be that the Danes need to get more in touch with their inner chocoholic, since most pastries seem to omit chocolate entirely, and if I want chocolate, I have to find a dedicated chocolatier. That aside, I know I've found the "bakery city" of my dreams.
Cheers!
Last summer, I had a dream. Both a figurative dream, as in MLK's "I have a dream" and a literal dream, as in I actually dreamt it one night. I dreamt about a European bakery, filled with all kinds of fancy bread, and a myriad of baked goods. Little cakes, tarts, muffins, brownies...some I wasn't even sure what to call them, but they looked delicious. For me, though, it wasn't about the amount of food, or the variety, but the overall atmosphere of the place. This dream happened about a week before I went to Saint Petersburg, and I knew I wanted to find some charming little bakery where I could get a cup of coffee and a fresh baked cinnamon roll and relax.
I didn't find anywhere like this in Saint Petersburg - all the cafes either lacked quality baked goods or had too much of a "Starbucks" feel to them.
I realize now that I was probably dreaming about Copenhagen.
It's hard for me to pinpoint even one bakery, because wherever I go, I'm never more than a 5 minute walk from some small cafe or bakery with wienerbrød ("Vienna Bread", AKA the famous "Danish") and coffee. My personal favorite, coincidentally related to Saint Petersburg, is a tiny bakery two blocks away from DIS called Saint Peter's Bakery (Sankt Peders Bageri, in Danish). All of the baked goods seem to be no more than $3 at most, and they range from cinnamon rolls that even Cinnabon would say are a little large to lethal-looking chocolate cakes to some frosted strawberry...thing I got today that was positively delicious, even though I ended up ordering it by pointing at it and saying "I'd like one of...those, please."This place has sandwiches too, and I'm amazed I haven't tried them, since the bread is obviously fresh and the toppings look pretty exceptional too.
Another place I've visited and must return to is Agnes' Cupcakes, inside the "glass market" near Nørreport Station. I grew up with the West Side Market in Cleveland - an old world market that mainly houses fruit and vegetable sellers and a meat market - and the glass market is like a 21st-century update of that. I saw at least three shops dedicated to cheese (excellent!), but this cupcake stand topped my list of favorites. I bought a "Valentines Day" cupcake yesterday, and it was thoroughly enjoyable; I initially thought it was red velvet, but when I bit into it and discovered a pocket of raspberry jam in the middle, I think it might have been raspberry with vanilla bean frosting. I guess it makes sense, but I never expected to find a cupcake bakery in Copenhagen in the first place.
In America, we window-shop for clothes, but in Denmark, I find myself window-shopping at bakeries and cafes. All of them - even the chains - have freshly baked bread that clearly isn't factory-made, and the baked goods never fail to look and taste fantastic. My only critique might be that the Danes need to get more in touch with their inner chocoholic, since most pastries seem to omit chocolate entirely, and if I want chocolate, I have to find a dedicated chocolatier. That aside, I know I've found the "bakery city" of my dreams.
Cheers!
Monday, February 11, 2013
Best. Bus. Ever.
Hey readers,
Last week was our "Core Course Week" in Denmark, which means I spent the week focusing on humanitarian aid, human rights, and armed conflict.
Super early Thursday morning, I arrived in Copenhagen for a three-day study tour across Denmark. Copenhagen is a vastly different city than any city in America, but it is especially different when you're walking down a main street street in the city center, camera bag in one hand, suitcase in the other, and there is nobody else awake. Before 8 AM, the city is practically a ghost town.
We arrived in the city center to see the nicest bus I've ever been on. Rather than the typical coach bus, with rows of seats and maybe little tray tables, the bus was organized more like a nice train, with seats in groups of four on either side of a table with cupholders, an anti-slip mat...fantastic for writing or playing several rounds of Hearts. But I'll get to that later. The bus also had overhead bins and reading lights, and a small kitchenette area in the back that appeared to have a tap for Heineken or the beer of your choice, although we didn't get the chance to use this feature. All the bus needed was a wi-fi hotspot to be absolutely perfect, but even without it, I have no complaints whatsoever.
Our main focus was Somalian piracy, and we talked to both the Danish Military Police and one of the legal advisors to the Danish Navy. I had never really thought about it before, but I guess the navy can't just shoot the pirates and sink their skiffs. Instead, the pirares are treated like criminals, which means they have a right to a fair trial, a decent prison cell, etc. The biggest difference was the culture clash - many of these pirates, who are in their mid-20s, have never used a toothbrush or a modern toilet before, so their detention on a Danish warship is as much a learning experience as it is a jail sentence. It is kind of sad to consider that for many of them, their cell is a nicer place to live than they've had for years, if not their entire life.
There were some fun moments to the Somalian piracy talks too. We got to tour a Danish warship (Danish NCOs apparently watch Game of Thrones during their downtime) and hold some confiscated weapons from the pirates. All those first-person shooters finally paid off - I was one of the few who knew the correct direction to point an RPG.
One of the real highlights of the weekend for me was a trip to ARoS, the museum of modern art in Århus. There were some really strange galleries, but my favorite feature was a work called "Your Rainbow Panorama" which is an enclosed balcony on the top of ARoS with floor to ceiling glass across the entire visible spectrum. Even though I am afraid of heights, I couldn't stop taking pictures.
There were lots of fun moments in the trip. We went bowling on Friday evening, and even though I haven't bowled in years I bowled at least three strikes and several spares. These were not all in one game - we had the lanes for two hours and just kept going. By the third game, my arm was tired and most people in my group weren't very competitive any more, so it just became bowling for fun. One of our professors, at one point, walked up to bowl, spun around, threw the ball backwards down the lane, and bowled a strike, which quickly became the trick to pull off. I couldn't do it nearly as well, but I bowled a "backwards seven" twice, so I was pretty proud of myself.
I taught a couple of girls in our group how to play Hearts, which we ended up playing for hours on end while riding the bus home on Saturday. I became infamous for trading away all of my clubs (which one player called "puppies' feet") or diamonds so I could drop the queen of spades in the first few hands, but I wound up getting stuck with her a few times and sank into third place. Both of our new players managed to shoot the moon (or "run it" as we say in my family), which was a further humiliation, but everyone had a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, this week we all seem to have at least three papers and a presentation due, or a test somewhere, so I do not know when we will get to play Hearts again, but this was a trip I will never forget.
Cheers!
 |
| Back of the very fancy bus |
Our main focus was Somalian piracy, and we talked to both the Danish Military Police and one of the legal advisors to the Danish Navy. I had never really thought about it before, but I guess the navy can't just shoot the pirates and sink their skiffs. Instead, the pirares are treated like criminals, which means they have a right to a fair trial, a decent prison cell, etc. The biggest difference was the culture clash - many of these pirates, who are in their mid-20s, have never used a toothbrush or a modern toilet before, so their detention on a Danish warship is as much a learning experience as it is a jail sentence. It is kind of sad to consider that for many of them, their cell is a nicer place to live than they've had for years, if not their entire life.
There were some fun moments to the Somalian piracy talks too. We got to tour a Danish warship (Danish NCOs apparently watch Game of Thrones during their downtime) and hold some confiscated weapons from the pirates. All those first-person shooters finally paid off - I was one of the few who knew the correct direction to point an RPG.
 |
| This is going to get me on an FBI watchlist or something |
One of the real highlights of the weekend for me was a trip to ARoS, the museum of modern art in Århus. There were some really strange galleries, but my favorite feature was a work called "Your Rainbow Panorama" which is an enclosed balcony on the top of ARoS with floor to ceiling glass across the entire visible spectrum. Even though I am afraid of heights, I couldn't stop taking pictures.
 |
| The view from the stairs |
I taught a couple of girls in our group how to play Hearts, which we ended up playing for hours on end while riding the bus home on Saturday. I became infamous for trading away all of my clubs (which one player called "puppies' feet") or diamonds so I could drop the queen of spades in the first few hands, but I wound up getting stuck with her a few times and sank into third place. Both of our new players managed to shoot the moon (or "run it" as we say in my family), which was a further humiliation, but everyone had a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, this week we all seem to have at least three papers and a presentation due, or a test somewhere, so I do not know when we will get to play Hearts again, but this was a trip I will never forget.
Cheers!
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