You’re so jaded

29 Jan 2009, Posted by Jordan Rice in Backpages, 1 Comments

Hundreds of Duke students in the class of 2010, including myself, are finally settling into Duke after a semester abroad. Boxes are unpacked, books are purchased, classes are chosen, and Few Quad is now home. The daily Duke grind—class then Wilson then dorm then Perkins then the Loop followed by pre-game closing with Shooters—may feel a bit stale after four months of new places, new people and new languages.

After Notre Dame, Westminster Abbey, St. Peter’s and the Sagrada Familia, the Duke Chapel does not inspire as it did before. After seven story nightclubs, an endless array of bars and staying out until the Metro reopens at 6:00 a.m., a night on the town in Durham does not excite as it did once upon a time freshman year.

Abroad, we were interesting, unique. Thanks to Barack Obama, we were not even the stupid, fat American trash we might have been just a year ago. No longer ignorant, we were enlightened; no longer fat, but cuddly and sensual in a Barry White kind of way. We had it made.

Rain in Durham is not rain in Paris. The Nasher is not the Prado. The Eno is not the Arno. We became jaded overseas, and consequently, life at Duke has become quite bleak.

How then can we return to the days when life at Duke excited us? How can we recapture the times when even the self-checkout machine in the library captivated us, when a night in the dorm was enough?

The first step is realizing that life abroad was not sustainable. For one, livers simply are not that strong, and living without responsibilities for too long can wear on your soul more than the stress of school. Perhaps actually doing real work will restore a sense of purpose in our lives. Maybe Duke cannot offer the non-stop action of the abroad experience; but last semester was not real life, and unfortunately real life is not that exciting.

Step two is to attempt to see through the romanticized vision we have of our abroad experiences—to find our way through the cloud of nostalgia. Not everything was so wonderful. What about that pickpocket in Barcelona, or that rude waiter in Paris? Remember that weird European deodorant, or the revolting amorality of the Swiss? At least here we have southern hospitality, CVS and old-fashioned American boldness.

Let’s try to accept Duke on its own terms. By the time the NCAA Tournament rolls around, we will forget about Real Madrid or Arsenal, and remember why we came to Duke in the first place.

Kay Yow, difference-maker

28 Jan 2009, Posted by Justina Wong in Backpages, Cartoon, 0 Comments

Jan. 29, 2009

We’re #1, we’re #1!!!

28 Jan 2009, Posted by Jacob Wolff in Backpages, Jacob Wolff, 1 Comments

Well my fellow Duke University students, congratulations! We did it, we’re finally ranked #1. For all of us juniors, this is especially momentous, as it’s the first time we hit #1 since we enrolled. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was starting to give up on Duke, wondering if I had brought with me a never ending string of bad luck when I first stepped onto East.

Some had chalked up our poor performance in the rankings to “Duke hating,” some claimed it was because we had missed out on a few big name recruits, some even argued Duke wasn’t the powerhouse it once was. But it doesn’t matter anymore, because finally, we’re back on top! Dissenters, go back to hiding somewhere in the depths of Perkins, because Duke is back and we’re not going anywhere.

Yes, that’s right; Duke is now ranked #1 by the U.S. News and World Report Best Graduate Schools for our Literary Criticism and Theory program. It’s a good day to be a Dukie, but an even better day to be a literary critic!

After my first couple of years, I found myself no longer following the rankings. It was tough to see our Literary Criticism and Theory program not get the love it rightfully deserved. But for some reason, this past Monday, Duke being ranked #1 was all over the news!?! I was surprised as I hadn’t been following the program closely, so when I was reading the news and saw the headlines: “Duke Moves to #1,” I stopped right after ‘#1′ and scrambled over to the List of Duke University Rankings Wikipedia page, hoping beyond hope that the day had finally come…. I scrolled down the page and my heart nearly exploded upon seeing our #1 rank. It was a feeling comparable to time I got a Malibu Barbie on Christmas Day (elation), I’ll tell stories about this day to my grandchildren for years to come.

I must say though it was a little odd for the media to be making such a big hoopla about it now… why didn’t they cover it when it first surfaced last year? Well, I’m not going to complain, Duke is finally getting the credit it deserves.

For some reason, all of the articles about it quoted Duke Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski a lot. I didn’t know he was involved in the Literary Criticism and Theory program, but he is a celebrity, so I see why they included him. I think he put it pretty well when he said: “Any level of high success, even though it’s not permanent with a No. 1 ranking, it’s a good benchmark.” So true, Coach K, so true. But with any luck, the Literary Criticism and Theory program is here to stay!

I think junior basketball player John Scheyer put it pretty well when he said, speaking after Duke’s last game: “Watching Duke when I was in high school, it did seem like they were No. 1 a lot,” the junior said. “I feel like this is where we belong.” I’m surprised he took the time to comment on the Literary Criticism and Theory program right after their big win over Maryland, but I think it just goes to show how proud we all are about the Lit program.

Still, I was somewhat confused. A lot of the articles talk about our lack of post presence (the program definitely has a lot of poster boards up in the halls), our occasional lack of hustle (have you seen that grad student Steve speed walk on campus?!? That’s hustle!) and made a lot of allusions to Duke basketball. Oh well, probably just needed to hit a certain word count I guess. As for Duke basketball, I stopped following those rankings a long time ago, what’s our team up to these days?

(Note: My apologies to the Literary Criticism and Theory program, you were singled out because you are in fact the only Duke program ranked #1, and that’s a good thing! A hearty congratulations to the both that program as well as the Men’s Basketball team, of course).

It needs more cowbell

27 Jan 2009, Posted by Johann Choi in Backpages, 0 Comments

Jan. 27, 2008

No! Not Iceland!

27 Jan 2009, Posted by Braden Hendricks in Backpages, Braden Hendricks, 0 Comments

“Iceland’s government topples amid financial mess.” Wow. Now there’s a headline for you. Countless other articles about Iceland have similar titles, all with the same dramatic effect. After reading that, one has to wonder if the world really is coming to an end, whether there is going to be domino-effect of governments keeling over across the globe. The headlines about Iceland seem to suggest it anyway.

The main problem with those headlines is one of the problems journalism has had since the days of Joseph Pulitzer and the Spanish-American War: yellow journalism. Some of you may be unfamilar with the term, but every time you see those tabloids by the check-out aisles in Kroger, you’re seeing yellow journalism at work. In other words, it’s sensationalism.

The headlines about Iceland are claiming that the government has toppled, leading the unweary reader to believe that hell has broken loose (or frozen over, as the case may be) in that country, and that a mob of angry freezing anarchists are running rampant (presumably they look like this).

Listen folks, that just isn’t true. Iceland hasn’t all but ceased to exist—instead the current prime minister announced that new elections would have to be held, since the coalition that formed the ruling party in the Althing (the Icelandic parliament) had broken apart. All that means is that a political alliance broke up and now there needs to be a change in who makes the decisions. Big deal. That’s hardly the toppling or coup I expected to read about when I first saw those headlines.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to be insensitive—I know Iceland’s banks have truly collapsed and that the economy there makes America’s seem rock solid by comparison. All the same, this governmental shift is the sort of thing that happens every so often in England, Canada, Australia—basically every democratic nation not named the United States. In these countries, there are no set terms for the chief of goverment (usually a prime minister), and so when things start to go awry and the people become dissatisfied, national elections are held to form a new government. It’s a foreign concept to most Americans, raised as we are on the idea of our national government changing in four year intervals, but this how a large part of the world operates. I’m not an Icelander, but I would imagine that for them this isn’t quite the doomsday scenario our news organizations makes it out to be.