Claire McDaniel

Voices

Confessions of a library junkie: I just can’t get enough

On a whim this summer, I bought the newest Game of Thrones book. 35 dollars later, I was sitting in my apartment staring at the cover and debating how to... Read more

By August 30, 2012

Voices

Pre-med devotee adjusts to life after organic chemistry

This summer was the worst of my life. No one I know died, I didn’t contract the Black Death, and America kicked ass at the Olympics, but something far worse... Read more

By August 24, 2012

Leisure

Critical Voices: Eleanor Krause, Hold on Daylight

Not since they started making maple syrup has Vermont produced something as remarkably rich as the haunting tracks of Eleanor Krause’s Hold on Daylight. The Burlington-based crooner’s debut album lays out a simple combination of beautiful vocals and quiet guitars, which results in a moving sense of nostalgic serenity. The soft melodies of Daylight lend the album a folksy atmosphere reminiscent of Joan Baez, if Baez had honed her skills in the light of an Indiana campfire.

By February 23, 2012

Voices

Teenage years in Switzerland spent drinking, not driving

I am 19 years old, and I don’t know how to drive. Gears are mystifying. Internal combustion engines? I know they exist, but don’t even get me started on the indecipherable rules of the road. The point is I just don’t know how. So why, in the years since I could legally drive, did I never get a license to do it? How did I miss out on the quintessentially American rite of passage of learning to drive?

By January 26, 2012

Voices

Back from summer camp, into the wild of Georgetown

If you think walking on cobblestones is difficult, try running barefoot through the woods. For every time you’ve sworn at the uneven sidewalks outside the front gates, I’ve cursed at protruding tree roots and thorny green briar bushes that seem to be purposefully mauling my legs. Believe me, I have more than a decade’s worth of scars, and one nerve-damaged pinky toe, to prove it. Why on earth would anyone want to keep going back to the middle of some God-forsaken forest for 11 years? It’s called summer camp, and I go back because I love it.

By October 6, 2011

Voices

Advent of an age of reason: Moderates rally for cause

My life is insane. Being a Pre-Med Biology major and living in Harbin have forced me to accept that madness is par for the course at Georgetown. Yet this Saturday, as I stood on the National Mall, I realized that this was not the way the rest of the country ought to be.

By November 4, 2010