Social value-added
Sometimes, a miracle occurs. Phospholipids spontaneously arrange themselves into lipid bilayers; U of C first-years, complete strangers brought together by an application which barely scratches the...
View ArticleTalking like first-years
“Do you want to see the requirements for my major?” Looking up, I saw a guy talking to two of his friends, both girls. They’d just finished despairing over the unjust difficulty of their math class....
View ArticleLosing our will to learn
Piers Steel, a Canadian industrial psychologist, once said, “The U.S. gross national product would probably rise by $50 billion if the icon and sound that notifies people of new e-mail suddenly...
View ArticleEast Asian Studies, Part I
This column is Part I of a two-part series about the experience of East Asian students at UChicago. I’ve sometimes felt that my identity awkwardly straddles the hyphen in “Asian-American.” My Asian...
View ArticleEast Asian Studies, Part II
This column is Part II of a two-part series about the experience of East Asian students at UChicago. Part I was published on January 15. It can be found here. The alienation of international East Asian...
View ArticleThe games we play
On January 11, in the wake of the Newtown shooting, Joe Biden brought together a conference of the leaders of the video game industry. Laying his hand on the shoulder of the CEO of Electronic Arts,...
View ArticleParticipation downgrade
I spend most of my Friday nights quietly typing on my laptop. My housemates, upon finding me in my room, used to exhort me to get out more. I would decline, and eventually their efforts stopped, much...
View ArticleStudy group dynamics
Recently, my daily excursions to the Reg have morphed from solo to partner, and sometimes small group, treks. Initially, I was grateful for the change, which added some sparks of joy to the usual...
View ArticleI can’t tell that we are gonna be friends
When we watched the sunrise on the day after we graduated high school, my best friend and I wondered aloud why people were hugging and crying. To us, it was unquestionable that we’d remain close when...
View ArticleOh, the humanities
Perhaps as a result of joining Science Olympiad in high school and taking pre-med courses in college, I find that my friend group skews scientific. It’s no surprise, then, that I often feel pressure to...
View ArticleGlass half empty
On April 16, Google shipped the first units of its Google Glass beta, the Glass Explorer Edition, to both developers and consumers. Glass is a small display, suspended at the upper right corner of the...
View ArticleBaseless instinct
After the Boston bombing, a collective cry of grief for victims and their families arose from the American people. Beneath this, though, was a quieter cry for those more subtly affected by the bombing:...
View ArticleHow to prevent identity theft
In 1979, radical feminist author Janice Raymond published an anti-transgender book titled The Transsexual Empire. One of her main arguments against transgender people is that a “transsexually...
View ArticleSummer Musings: Mid-Year Crisis
In the final weeks of spring quarter, friends began asking about my goals for the summer. There was, of course, a list. My summer job and R&R were the obvious elements, but then there were the...
View ArticleSummer Musings: Don’t hold the door for me
Oh. OK, I’ll take the ramp instead of the stairs. To create some distance. Same destination, different route. Wait, never mind, that didn’t really work. At least I’m coming from the side so maybe you...
View ArticleThe silent minority
Outside, the black awning read “Han 202: Chinese and Seafood” in neat white letters. Inside, we were led to our seats by a tall and thin Asian woman dressed sharply in black, who moved among white...
View ArticleTwenty going on twelve
Following the celebration of any birthday is the inevitable question, “So, do you feel any different?” My habitual answer, “No, not really,” usually handily dismisses it. This year, though, the...
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Home is where the rice is
The Lunar New Year–themed fourth meal last week was the peak of my four and a half quarters of UChicago dining hall experience for one reason and one reason only—those sesame balls from Chinatown. I...
View ArticleWe’re just going in circles
As of yesterday, I’m on a productivity kick. My laptop broke, but that didn’t stop me from sitting in front of a computer for hours on end. The unfamiliarity of the towering keys of the Reg computers...
View ArticleCelebrity Shot: Fat Mew
When I was enrolled in kindergarten, my parents also enrolled me in “Korean school,” with the expectation that I would learn to read, write, and speak the language. I proved to be stubbornly...
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Dinner with Three Maroons: Baba’s Famous Steak and Lemonade, digested
Photo: Courtesy of Baba's Famous Steak and Lemonade In the interest of ingesting copious amounts of meat, as well as seeing whether Yelp reviews for restaurants in Washington Park are legit, three...
View ArticleKnow that you know nothing
Over dinner today one of my friends explained that, among her friends, she perceived two types of people—those who cannot stop asking questions, and those who are content with what they know. For...
View ArticleKeep walking
55th and Ellis at ten on a Friday night. A large black man in a tan hoodie is walking toward my friend and me, muttering something under his breath. I assume he’s going to walk past us because I can’t...
View ArticleSummer Musings: Stories of our lives
Her speech tires me. My friend is overflowing with feeling, but her effusing to me is effluent, contaminating the sympathy which her stories should—used to—invoke in me. Here I am, being asked for...
View ArticleO-Issue 2014: While you were out
It’s one thing to know the University of Chicago by the broad strokes of its reputation and brochures, quite another to know it as a community member experiencing the penciled-in fluctuations of each...
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Evading P-sets and finger atrophy, USO’s Hyun set to play Khachaturian
Photo: Kevin Qian Chicago Maroon: My first question is: what piece will you be playing this Saturday? George Hyun: I’m playing the first movement of Khatchaturian Violin Concerto. CM: How would you...
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Camaraderie and crowd interaction electrifies SASA show’s Journey
Photo: Frank Yan/The Chicago Maroon I attended SASA Journey on Saturday for the same reasons that most people do—a good friend of mine was performing, and I was aware of the show’s reputation for a...
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If Vijay Chokal-Ingam faked being white to get into med school
Recently, the story of Vijay Chokal-Ingam—the man who got into medical school by pretending to be black—has spread across the Internet. Several aspects of Chokal-Ingam’s story are suspect: As reported...
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Down in the dumps
Sadness has been on my mind lately. I’ve been in the slumps, and it seems that many of my classmates are right there with me. I’ve come to appreciate my friends that are in the slumps. Not because...
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