Below are your search results. You can also try a Basic Search.
Like most things in my life, the center of my journalism philosophy begins with Taylor Swift: If you start taking the routine interactions of your job for granted, you ought to stop doing it.
The first time I heard “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)” was just after 1 a.m. on the last warm night of November. I cried big, hearty tears in front of a gaggle of frat boys on the 41st block of Spruce Street, unconcerned with how I looked but deeply concerned with how I felt.
My least favorite genre of TikTok is this clunky, overdramatic one where the plot of Eddie Murphy’s A Thousand Words gets condensed into about 30 seconds. “How many words do you get this year?” reads a voice over. “One,” replies some shy–looking influencer, who then acts in an alternate universe where they’re bullied for being a mute. Someone always speaks up for them, and the bully always gets their comeuppance—which is, obviously, losing access to their own bank of words.
I have a secret for you: I’m really scared of growing up.
I’m not sure that I’ll ever grow out of the music I liked when I was 16. If anything, I’m excited to grow more into it, to claim the bands I like for myself and not the ones I pretended to so boys would find me interesting.
Everything I’ve learned about good Italian food comes from guilty pleasure media. There are the tense meals of The Sopranos, where family traumas are framed by oversized plates of gravy, gabagool, and baked zitis, and The Jersey Shore’s famous Sunday dinners, where Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino would hold court over plates of sausage and peppers and chicken parmesan.
Last semester, I felt conversation–starved. This doesn’t mean I wasn’t talking to people. On the contrary I was talking to everyone: my mother (about The Bachelorette), my roommate (about who would do the dishes), and my co–workers (about deliverables, obviously). Every exchange hovered just above transactional, but slightly below actual small talk. We’d chat about the weekend and the weather and what vaccine we’d got, but nothing more. It was always about what we were doing. Never why we were doing it, or if we should be.
I get really hung up on appearances.
The first thing State Sen. Nikil Saval (D–01) learned from watching his recently immigrated Indian parents run a pizza parlor in Santa Monica was that the restaurant industry is hard. The second thing he learned was that solidarity among working–class people of color—not top–down organizing—is what gets shit done.
If there’s anything La Chinesca deals in, it’s slightly unapproachable cool. Owned by 13th Street Kitchens, which operates brunch staple Café Lift and Franklin's Table’s KQ Burger, the restaurant feels like the rest of their arsenal. It’s a place you take an out–of–towner when you’re trying to impress—but not overwhelm—them with your Philly knowledge.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Mitski lately—well, really only the one song. “What do you do with a loving feeling,” it asks. “if the loving feeling makes you all alone?”
Here’s a secret: I have a hard time writing these letters when I’m happy.
The only lesson I remember from any of my communications classes is the one about parasocial relationships. An academic term, it really boils down to one thing: being a stan. Parasocial relationships are one sided, intense affairs, where you love a character or celebrity so much you project onto it. Two parts escapism and one part obsession, parasocial entanglements feel normal, mostly because they are—to an extent. Everyone loves something a little too much.
I learned what moldavite was exactly one week before I took a sledgehammer to my pandemic–proofed life. I ended a circumstantial friendship, went back to therapy, and broke up with the first man I ever felt comfortable enough with to write about. At the time, none of it felt intentional, and, honestly, most of it felt very self–destructive. But that’s the thing about breaking routines, especially unhealthy ones. Until you form better habits, all you feel is the pang of lack.
Rick Krajewski (E ’13) isn’t your typical politician, but perhaps that’s the point. The software–developer–turned–Reclaim–Philly–organizer went grassroots after a STEM curriculum he developed at a West Philly public school was shelved when the school morphed into privately run charter academy. Since then, he's helped elect District Attorney Larry Krasner, convinced thousands of Philadelphians to pay attention to judicial elections, and ousted a 35–year establishment incumbent to become West Philly’s state representative.
Amanpreet Singh (C ’21) can map their Penn experience in sensory details: the polished evergreen of the trolley at the 37th Street transit portal, the gooey decadence of a chocolate and peanut butter Kiwi Yogurt sundae, and the sweetness of the purple morning glories that dot Locust Walk in the spring.
To quote a little Big Time Rush, “We’re halfway there,” and despite most of these letters ending up as diatribes on my anxiety and loneliness, I’m going to do something different. To mark the first finish line of my term as editor–in–chief, I am going to end with optimism.
The first time I really met Tamsyn Brann (re: the first time we weren’t talking about work) was 12 days after our first work conversation. I had just broken up with my ex–boyfriend for the second time in two weeks, and relatively friendless, I called her, desperate for someone to keep me company. She was on my couch within ten minutes, and we drank wine and ate popcorn and talked about distinctly Tamsyn things: David Bowie, where to buy mini skirts, and the notion that change is okay.
As the academic year winds down and we cram our heads with new theorems and theories, the most important lesson I’ve learned is a simple one: It is okay to quit things.
"Acceptance" is a funny word. I’ve been thinking a lot about it as quarantine inevitably forced the introspection I used to reserve for quiet, empty Sunday mornings into an everyday occurrence. What will I accept from myself? What will I accept from others? And why do those two end up feeling drastically different?
Get 34th Street's newsletter, The Toast, delivered to your inbox every Sunday morning.
Newsletters