Soundoff: Cyber Monday

29 Nov 2011, Posted by Hong Zhu in News, 1 Comments

Cyber Monday is the recent trend of stores creating unique sales for the Monday directly following Black Friday to encourage shoppers to make purchases online. Students at Duke range from those who looked forward to Cyber Monday to those who have not even heard of it. The Chronicle’s Hong Zhu talked with Dukies about their Cyber Monday experiences. 

Special to The Chronicle

“Spending money is amazing. I bought something on Disney.com.”

-Nandini Srinivasan, sophomore

“I didn’t buy anything. I prefer Black Friday since you can physically go to stores. Buying online isn’t as fun.”
-Kayla Hudson, sophomore

“I’ve heard of it, now that you say it, but I’ve never bought anything or gotten into it.”

-Mollie Breen, freshman

“The interesting about Cyber Monday is that it’s purposely designed to interfere with work—people shop online at work. I actually didn’t end up buying anything because there’s nothing I need right now.”

-Ruiji Jiang, junior

“I looked at stuff online, but I didn’t buy anything.”

-Hernan Perla, junior

“I don’t trust websites with my credit card information, especially on Cyber Monday, because I think there’s a higher chance of being scammed.”

-Jordan DeWalt, sophomore

“Cyber Monday’s a good thing, I guess. People get trampled to death on Black Friday, but nobody’s getting trampled to death on Cyber Monday, so I like it.”

-Nick Chilson, freshman

“I didn’t buy anything. I don’t know what it is.”

-Issac Blakeney, Sophomore

“I think it’s kind of lame because I already bought my stuff on Black Friday.”

-Lucy Yao, senior

“I didn’t do Cyber Monday, but I bought stuff online on Friday, primarily on Amazon for school. For Black Friday, stuff gets marked down on Wednesday, so I figured some prices would already be marked down online on Friday.”

-Cory Lancaster, sophomore

“I’ve heard of it from websites, but I’ve never purchased anything.”

-Jonathan Sanchez, junior

“I think it’s interesting that sales records get broken every year, like how this year was a record-breaking year. Each year it gets worse and worse. I didn’t do anything for Black Friday or Cyber Monday.”

-Andrew Hochradel, junior

“I saw Facebook statuses about it, but that’s about it.”

-Andres Tello, senior

“What’s Cyber Monday? Oh! Yeah, I know what that is. I have a midterm on Monday, so I’m not thinking about much other than that.”

-Yara Alemi, freshman

The Pop Culture Grid: Spain vs. Spence

28 Nov 2011, Posted by Katie Hillyer in News, 0 Comments

Thousands of hungry students, a variety of eateries on campus and numerous Duke employees that bring the two together. How much do you know about the people that serve you daily? The Chronicle’s Katie Hillyer delved into the lives of two Duke employees, Saleem Spain from the Great Hall and Ashley Spence from Marketplace, to bring you the most important information you’d need to know about them. 

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Dress to impress: don’t go for the Avril or Oompa-Loompa look

25 Nov 2011, Posted by Minshu Deng in News, 1 Comments

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

The way we dress ourselves has important consequences. As they say, there’s a time and place for every thing, and frankly when it comes to interviewing, we’re dressing to impress. And hopefully no more than occasionally dressing to undress.

Duke’s Women Law Students Association has given us (sorry guys, ladies only this time) the lowdown on how to go about dressing for an interview in a handout from their recent event, What Not to Wear: Interview Edition.

Here are some to keep in mind:

“Watch out for bows and ties, they usually look messy.”

Well, you know, if your interviewer is really into Avril Lavigne, maybe a tie you stole from your Dad isn’t such a bad idea.

“You probably need pumps. Preferably not patent leather. No peep-toes, no sling backs. Watch out for a too-high heel. Not only is it going to get uncomfortable, it also is often too exciting for an interview.

It’s like I said…dress to impress, not to undress…

Glozell’s push-up bra helped her get her man, but when we’re trying to impress, keep in mind WLSA’s high standards:

“WLSA is not supporting Victoria’s Secret because they market to pre-teens.”

Wait, how may pre-teen girls actually feel compelled to buy bras from Victoria’s Secret? Maybe it’s just me, but I was pretty into not shopping for sexy lingerie when I was twelve.

“Keep your makeup understated and neutral.”

So much mixed messaging! Just a while ago, the New York Times released an article revealing that more makeup may help in an interview. It’s all about strategy. How can we as women fool men and other women into thinking that we’re actually smart and driven?

Just another golden makeup tip to keep in mind:

“The men and women who work at the makeup counters in department stores can be your friend and let you in on all sorts of cool products, but some of us have found that they tend to always leave our faces looking orange.”

Yeah, I guess the last time the Oompa-Loompa look was in was never.

WLSA’s lengthy letter does seem to provide some helpful advice in pointing out what people might notice in an interview. But frankly, I don’t want to work for someone who cares about whether my shoes are too pointy or whether I have razor burn.

Crazie study habits

25 Nov 2011, Posted by Caroline Meade in News, 0 Comments

Thanh-Ha Nguyen/The Chronicle

The stress of midterms combined with the excitement of a fun social scene—college life in general—can produce some pretty weird study habits. We all have to study, but some people don’t stick to classic studying patterns of going to the library, sitting and studying all day before a test.

Cramming can produce a slough of compulsive rituals and weird ways people use to try to shove as much information into their heads as quickly as possible. Regardless of whether or not some of these strange ways of dealing with an insane workload actually work, we stick with them.

Creating motivation to actually start the mounds of work sometimes sparks quirky study habits.

“If one of my roommates needs motivation to finish an assignment, she’ll ‘race’ someone else who is working to see who can finish it first” said sophomore Becky Davis.

Becky also has special study spots, as do a lot of Dukies, because the comfort of being in a place associated with only studying is helpful.

“I always do busy work in my bed, but I tend to mix up my study spots a lot,” she said. “I have special places in the Duke Hospital where I like to study.”

By now, most college kids have hopefully realized that sleeping with a notebook under their pillow will not make them smarter in the morning—we can’t just absorb information through osmosis. Despite knowing this is true, people do still depend on other random habits while studying.

Freshman Margaret Rote has to be poised to write at all times while studying.

“I can’t study unless I’m holding a pencil,” she said.

Other people use music as a way to help them get through studying.

“My roommate likes to sing bad country remakes of songs that are otherwise good while she studies,”said sophomore Genny Olson. “With or without headphones on.”

Music seemed to be a theme among many Duke students.

“I listen to classical music because it doesn’t have lyrics, and its supposed to make you smarter,” said freshman Natalie Fahey.

Many of the weird things we do while we study result from an overload of facts that can make us feel overwhelmed. Study habits are a coping mechanism to make us more comfortable in tackling the massive piles of work we are assigned.

Ox & Rabbit

25 Nov 2011, Posted by Andrew Karim in News, 0 Comments

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Tucked in between the row of restaurants and specialty stores on Ninth Street lies Ox & Rabbit Soda and Sundries, a soda fountain shop that has been open since May 2008.

The space, once known as McDonald’s Drug Store, used to be a pharmacy-milkshake mecca that served the Durham community for 80 years. Bryan and Erin Nickellstage, the current owners of Ox & Rabbit, came across the abandoned space while on Ninth Street some and thought it would be interesting to take on a new project. Some three years later, Ox & Rabbit has proven itself to be a worthy fixture on Ninth.

“We wanted to have products that appealed to a different market than the street already had,” Brian said. “It turns out that the soda fountain brings a lot of people in.”

A Durham Native, Bryan would regularly stop by McDonald’s drug store for milkshakes after school.

“I remembered it so fondly as a child, and its fun to see kids walk up from E.K. Powe,” Brian said. “They look like my friends and me 20 years ago, that’s been a lot of fun.”

Ox & Rabbit serves a varied array of milkshakes (using milk shake base as opposed to ice cream, which makes for a thicker shake), hand-mixed sodas and egg creams. Egg creams (which incidentally contain no eggs) are beverages consisting of milk, soda water and some sort of flavor shot. Despite their out of the ordinary ingredients, egg creams are a must-try when visiting Ox & Rabbit. Do it. Flavors run from the traditional vanilla, chocolate, and cherry, dark chocolate, Mexican vanilla, lavender vanilla, white truffle, and ginger.

In addition to serving great shakes and other beverages, Ox & Rabbit also stocks plenty of specialty items such as Christmas ornaments, notebooks, candles, wrapping paper and much more. It could be a lot of fun to by a shake (or egg cream!) and explore their shelves of obscure products.

If you’re ever looking for an alternative to the Loops shakes, try Ox & Rabbit for a change. It tastes great and has very reasonable prices (think Coffeehouse). It’s also local, which is supposed to be in now, or something.