Author: Sara Olds

Where are the best places to study on campus?

This is a message both for students and members of the community alike about where to study and or hang out on campus.  Students can avoid the boisterous lunges of babies, while community members can escape the sea of 20 something’s filling up every table with papers, computers and coffee.  After two and a half years of going to school on this campus, I label myself a connoisseur of ‘fine studying locations.’

Brainstorming ideas for this weeks writing, the novel idea of writing about an environment where I spend most of my out of class hours would be a great topic for discussion.  Every student on this campus has their special spot where they go to get the juices flowing.  Whether it’s a little nook in the Ugli or smoking a hookah while studying (still not sure how that works) at Rendez-vous, every square foot of this campus is crawling with one student or another just trying to get work done.

Let’s split up the areas on campus conducive for studying into four regions: South U., State St., Main St., and Kerrytown.

The South University area comprises of Starbucks, Rendez-vous, Espresso Royal, Amer’s, the Shapiro Undergraduate Library, the Hatcher Graduate Library, Clements Library, and the Fine Arts library (which is a lovely kept secret).  Here you have two distinct categories, library vs. coffee shop.  The Ugli is indeed ugly, with limited seating, barren walls, and few windows.  Not a conducive learning environment.  The Graduate Library is intense, filled with ornate walls and ceilings, not to mention the numerous grad students working on dissertations and other lofty assignments that turn our 5 page papers to shame.  Personally, I have never been in the Clements library, but I hear it is petite and wonderful.  You should check it out; it probably will be empty, thus quiet.  That is if you like to study in silence.  Another hidden treasure is the Fine Arts Library.  The one level library seems to date back to the 70’s, providing a retro new world.

There are those who like to study in libraries and equally those who are partial to coffee shops.  Some dabble in both I am sure.  If you don’t mind listening to groovy music and others conversations, then Espresso Royal and Starbucks are perfect for you.  Those of you who smoke out there, and hate leaving your work for five minutes (don’t we all) for a cig break, then Rendez-vous is your safe haven.  Lastly for those others who enjoy excellent food and a quieter environment, you may want to try Amer’s.  In the wintertime they have a fire burning, which is quite lovely and also mesmerizing.

Moving SE onto the next quadrant, we come across the State St. wonders.  This area is comprised of solely coffee shops for studying purposes.  I will begin rattling off the list.  There is another Espresso Royal, and yet another Starbucks and Amer’s, and a Boarders.  With the exclusion of Starbucks, all of these places have great vibes (sorry Starbucks lovers).  The Espresso Royal is much quieter than the one on South U. and you can place yourself far into the back of the building where you won’t be bothered by the traffic of the customers.  Similarly, Amer’s is larger than the one on South U., but with this the noise level is higher.  Boarder’s has an amazing environment.  You are able to sit in whatever genre of literature you please and do your work in peace.

Continuing in the SE direction, we come across Main St.  Again there is a Starbucks and Espresso Royal, but these are often filled with community members, thus having more potential for screaming babies. Beware!  A place that my roommates and I really enjoy is Sweetwaters Coffee and Tea.  You feel a bit more removed from campus, which alleviates some of the stress.  It is a quiet environment with yummy treats.

I have not explored Kerrytown as much as the other regions, but they too have a Sweetwaters Coffee and Tea.  If you are close to one of these locations I strongly encourage you to move your studies into this environment.

Let me know where your study hot spots are!

Sara majors in Art History and enjoys long walks.

If you are a person interested in any aspect of your present day life, then Current TV is perfect for you.  Current is a station through Comcast..yes, I know Comcast is the bane of your existence, but at least is offers Current, which highlights important and prevalent stories that are not discussed in the popular media.  Those of you out there who have escaped the devilish workings of Comcast, kudos to you, but don’t fret, like everything else you can find Current on the Internet.  Here you can watch episodes from Current TV, read articles, listen to music, and respond like a blogger would to any one or more of these mediums.

If you are one of those people, like myself, who feel guilty about relaxing and watching TV, Current alleviates that guilt because this information is essential to your growth and knowledge of the world and its events.  So please, relax.

It provides a gateway to the most abundant and versatile newsroom I have ever seen.

A few of my favorite Current shows are Vanguard, Embedded, and Max and Jason: Still Up.  Other shows include The Rotten Tomatoes Show, Current Vitals, Current Tonight, Supernews, and infoMania.  Vanguard is on Wednesday nights at 10 pm and follows a journalist as he or she uncovers worldwide issues.  A couple of the episodes I have seen explore both national and international drug wars, making you aware of some heavy issues going on around the world.

So for those of you reading this statement that have known about Current for years, and thus are snickering at my slow uptake skills, I apologize for the cultural redundancy.  On the other hand, those of you who are reading about Current as a foreign notion, I strongly urge you to go turn on your TV or sit at your laptop and allow Current to open your eyes to the untold stories of your world.

You can find Current at current.com

Enjoy!

Sara majors in Art History and enjoys long walks

The Art of Balance…

The other night my roommates and I were talking about the role of food in our lives.  To say the leas,  we titled it as the leading actor.  Now, to give you some context, none of my roommates or myself is fat, but we do enjoy eating.  We noticed trends of binge eating, which tend to occur around stressful periods such as midterms and finals.  What is it about the comfort of food that seems to fill that ‘void’ in our tummies?  The urges that make us want more even when our jeans won’t allow it?  Ah, yes it’s a little thing I like to call the inability of self-control.

Food is a comfort.  It acts as a best friend, a stuffed animal, a lover…but like any of these, overuse leads to destruction.  Life is all about balance.  In college you do not want to find yourself labeled strictly as a partier, nerd, or slacker; but hopefully a mixture of all three..thus a balancing act.  Eating is no different.  You need to make sure you intake fruits, vegetables, carbs, meats, and sweets all in moderation in order to succeed in a well balanced diet.  My Dad always says, “Everything in moderation is a good thing.”  I agree because it gives you the right to indulge!  (In moderation of course)

Just remember back to the 90’s when the food pyramid was the iconographic symbol of the decade.  The thing was popping up everywhere, in grocery stores, on purses and on cooking accoutrement such as aprons.  Ah yes, the food pyramid was the pioneer for labeling possessions, the precursor and grand poo-bah for modern Andy Warholits who think they are oh so original.

The food pyramid has taken a back seat and has allowed dietary nuances to sprout in its place.  Through American discourse about food, they feel like they can alter its dominant presence.  In actuality it is the obsession with the discussion that leads to more overeating. Our society is obsessed with eating, and it shows through obesity.

As you go through this next week count the number of times the topic of food is brought up.  I assure you, you will loose count due to its frequent occurrence.  Try balancing the amount of time you talk about food with other comforts, like love lives, wicked professors, or lazy landlords, and just maybe, you will see those pounds fade away.

Good Luck!

Sara Olds majors in Art History and enjoys long walks.

Yogi Berra, coined the phrase, “This is like déjà vu all over again!” making a humorous statement planted from misused repetition. Déjà vu all over again is apparent in our current lives seen in the topic of museum looting, yet does not connote the same kind of humor as Yogi Berra.

During World War II, Nazi Germany raided and destroyed both large and small cultural museums as well as homes filled with private collections. This war tactic stripped a culture of its historical legitimacy and heritage, showing the German’s act of genocide went so far as to extinct Jewish and Polish entire existences by demolishing their ancestral objects as well. More than half a century later, looted artwork from this time period is popping up today, while others are still missing.

We see the process of deja vu all over again, when in 2003, the Iraqi Museum in Baghdad was raided after the United States invasion of Iraq. Mostly native Iraqi looters stole ancient Middle Eastern heritage of great importance to both Iraqis and the world. In both cases we can see an attack on individual cultural pasts.

A culture’s credence rests upon the evidence provided by accumulated ancestral objects. Therefore, the importance of these objects must not be overlooked. The issue of museum looting is greatly important in the United States due to the acquisition of these objects in our major museums nationwide. On a local level, back in the 80’s, there was a case of looted objects found in the Kelsey Museum on Archeology collection here on campus. Acquisition policies in museums have recently reformed, becoming more aware of the object’s origins and deaccessioning looted objects back to their country of origin.

Museums can learn from their past acquisition mistakes in order to prevent déjà vu all over again in the future.

It’s history and it’s present!