Sarah Harman

Leisure

Trippin’: Baltimore fo’ less

Thanks to television shows like “The Wire”, many people hear “Baltimore” and think, “murder capital of the world.” Back in reality, that title actually belongs to Caracas, Venezula, and Baltimore... Read more

By January 22, 2009

Voices

1, 2, 3: it’s not as easy as A, B, C…

When I say I am bad at math, I don't mean bad in the modest Georgetown "I didn't get a 5 on the AP subject test" sense. I mean bad as in sometimes I find myself wondering how many quarters are in an hour, before I remember that quarters go into dollars and minutes go into hours. It's difficult to explain that you're late for class because you confused cents with minutes.

By November 20, 2008

Voices

Dude, you’re getting a Dell? Sucks for you, dude

I awoke on the morning after my 22nd birthday to learn that I had been dumped. After fourteen months of love, laughs, and tears, my Dell Inspiron 130B laptop had left me-and he'd taken all the files on my hard drive with him. Apparently all those long nights we spent together in the basement of the library didn't mean anything. And all those ignored error messages, well, they did.

By October 30, 2008

Leisure

Halloween matchmaking

The quest for the perfect Halloween costume is like the search for a soulmate: few people ever find one, and most end up settling for some piece of crap their friend picked out.

By October 23, 2008

Voices

I want you: to be poor in the peace corps

Apparently, there are two reasons to go to rural Siberia. One of them involves the KGB and something called a Gulag. The other one is a prestigious, resume building experience for privileged young Americans.

It’s official: the Peace Corps is no longer limited to bearded, granola-munching outdoor education kids. What began in the 60s as an idealistic movement to aid developing countries has become a favorite post-graduation back-up plan, one that is sure to rise further in popularity now that the banking crisis has knocked everyone down a rung on the employment food chain.

By October 9, 2008

Voices

Give booze unto others as others gave booze unto you

While friends at large state schools reported that frats often charged entry fees to offset costs, all the parties I attended were free. I was sort of proud of this. As one particularly generous host explained, “It’s about taking care of our own. We crashed parties when we were freshman; now it’s our turn to pay it back.” His pay-it forward logic struck me as oddly chivalrous, especially for a guy in a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” t-shirt.

By September 18, 2008

Voices

The last person on Earth without a cell

As time wore on, I got attached to the idea that rejecting technology signified a bohemian, responsibility-free existence. Everyone with their cell phones and iPods and fax machines could just go work at Merrill Lynch and rape the earth. I would be barefoot and bake vegan cupcakes, the American answer to Amelie, sprinkling joy wherever I went, free from the onerous burden of communicating with others.

By August 28, 2008

Voices

Geography porn, or: How not to study abroad

My interest in studying abroad was inspired by my first visit to the Epcot World Showcase at age eight. For those of you who weren’t as lucky as I was, Epcot’s World Showcase is Disney’s take on globalization, a mini-park featuring small-scale replicas of eleven countries, centered around a beautiful lagoon. At Disney’s Epcot Center, not only is China walking distance from Belgium, but every “country” serves French fries, accepts VISA and closes at midnight. The fantasy climaxes every evening in a choreographed display of global friendship performed to inspirational music and accompanied by fireworks and lasers. This experience is the reason I thought the entire world spoke English until I was 12.

By April 17, 2008

Voices

Carrying On

The biggest disadvantage of being raised by my single father was having to eat his cooking. My father and I both viewed cooking as a mysterious, unfathomable process on par with raising a child from the dead or constructing a nuclear submarine using nothing but a hatchet. There was something vaguely suspicious about it, and we avoided it at all costs.

By November 8, 2007

Voices

Carrying On

My own introduction to Siobhan consisted of a half-hour conversation wherein she pointed toward the kitchen and squawked something I couldn’t understand, and made the angry-eyebrow face. I am unsure if she was she trying to warn me that the grease build up on the gas burner was a fire hazard or was just commenting that the dinner I was cooking looked toxic.

By October 18, 2007