Letter from the Editor 11.17.2016
Three and a half years ago, I walked—alone—up the stairs of some sketchy building on the corner of 40th and Walnut streets and into a room of people that would change my life.
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Three and a half years ago, I walked—alone—up the stairs of some sketchy building on the corner of 40th and Walnut streets and into a room of people that would change my life.
On Tuesday, I woke up excited. Anxious to be sure, but excited about the possibility of electing our first female president, a candidate whom I have supported for years, and a human being that I believed could rescue our America from the coursing wave of populism, nationalism, and hate that has been shaped and nourished by Donald Trump for the past 18 months.
When I was little, my dad and my sister used to tease me for how much I cried at anything sad in a movie. I found this embarrassing, so I made myself stop crying at sad movies. While dating an ex-boyfriend I decided that his shitty actions didn’t deserve my tears, so I stopped crying. For the whole year of our relationship, I cried twice. I have spent the larger half of my life becoming too pragmatic a person to cry over silly things like dead dogs in movies or cheating ex-boyfriends...I can probably count the number of external events that have made me cry in the past year on one hand.
What if all our actions had no consequences?
So the Cubs are in the World Series.
I’m going to tell you a story.
I don’t know about you, but I have never appreciated Fall Break more than I do right now.
Three weeks ago, Oz sent an email to a select group of freshmen girls. Two weeks ago, a group of girls put up flyers all over campus that condemned the email as perpetuating rape culture. One week ago, I decided to pull an article titled “Fraternities Across Penn's Campus Begin to Recognize Women as Humans” from Lowbrow.
Returning to the things that once made you happy never quite seems to work the way that it should. Be it a person, a place, an ex or a job, taking time apart inevitably changes how you interact with that environment. And if you don’t learn to love that person or place or job in a new way, for what it is now and for who you are now, you're going to have to stop loving it all together.
I have a confession: I’ve never taken a creative writing class at Penn. I’ve never taken any type of writing class at Penn. I’ve never even taken an English class at Penn. In fact, the last time someone in an academic setting gave me feedback on my writing other than “this is good” was probably in 8th grade, when my English teacher took off points because I said “era in time” and that is redundant. And yet, somehow I am the Editor-in-Chief of this publication.
So, guess what? This is the last issue of Street for the semester. And, while that may good news for some (looking at you, victims of the RoundUp and presidents of Greek organizations), it’s a little more complicated for me.
I was going to write my letter about Fling. I was going to write about how every event is off campus, about how much money everyone is spending on the Pool Party. I was going to talk about how Fling has become the worst representation of Penn’s fucked up social hierarchy.
So I have a question: where the fuck did my junior year go?
I have theme songs for everything. Songs that remind me of how I felt at a certain time in a particular place with a specific person. Songs that I am obsessed with in that moment that make me feel alive.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I make post–Spring Break resolutions.
“If someone asked you if you were happy, what would you say?”
Did you ever have to do those stupid self–evaluation exercises in middle school where your teacher made you pick out a piece of work the demonstrated a strength, and another that demonstrated a weakness? I always had the most obnoxious problem of not being able to find something that I was bad at because I was getting A’s in everything. It wasn’t until college that I figured out what I was bad at, but as soon as I did, it seemed like it stopped being okay to be bad at anything.
This is the Love Issue and Valentine’s Day is this weekend so I’m probably supposed to write to you about love. Or sex. But probably mostly love.
Spread the love, kids.
I don’t remember what I did last weekend. Not because I blacked out, but because I do the same thing every night of every weekend and I can’t differentiate them in my mind anymore.
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