Voices

Voices is the Op-Ed and personal essay section of The Georgetown Voice. It features the real narratives of diverse students from nearly every corner on campus, seeking to tell some of the incredibly important and yet oft-unheard stories that affect life in and out of Georgetown.

Voices

The workout literally from hell

Most people visit the famed Exorcist steps next to Car Barn for a photograph, or maybe a joke about how much it would suck to trip and fall. But scrawled writing on the lowest step reveals another reason for visiting these haunted stones: a fast-paced but vicious workout routine also titled “the Exorcist.” Not the most original name, but appropriate, because about halfway through the workout you feel like the life is being sucked out of you.

By September 6, 2007

Voices

Georgetown, it’s not you, it’s me

My thoughts as I gazed out the airplane window were those of hopelessness, nervousness and regret. I was convinced that my decision to withdraw for a semester was probably the worst mistake of my life.

By September 6, 2007

Voices

Remembering Fatema

I’ll always remember the way Fatema looked hip and coordinated even though she was wearing two patterns, six colors, shoes with glitter, crazy earrings and of course a matching head scarf.

By August 30, 2007

Voices

Talk It Out

If you’re not unhappy with the new party regulations, you should be—even if you don’t drink. They represent a betrayal of Georgetown’s tradition of consulting with students before making policy changes.

By August 30, 2007

Voices

Tea Time with the Turkish Police

Sitting in a Turkish police station next to an accused criminal is not how I expected to spend my Thursday night. Even less did I expect the night to end with a pratical joke played on me by the Turkish police.

By August 30, 2007

Voices

The Deepest Aftershock

Information spread early after an disaster is usually wrong. When my Mom received the first phone call about the quake, she was told that the epicenter had been in Ancash, Peru—my parents’ home region, and the center of a 1970 quake. That information wasn’t right; the quake hit hundreds of miles south. But with that one wrong word, a lifetime of mental scars were reopened.

By August 30, 2007

Voices

Judge Judy day camp

Halfway through my summer job as a camp counselor for kids between ages 7 and 10, I threw fairness out the window and began acting like Judge Judy: assume both parties are lying and rule against both.

By August 24, 2007

Voices

Lost (and injured) in Translation

My plane landed in Tokyo and I was filled with excitement to be in a foreign country for the first time. My previous summer vacations had been limited to Florida and the continental U.S. Almost completely out of the blue, I purchased a ticket to Japan to visit a friend living there, simply for the experience of seeing Japan. Regardless of the fact that I spoke absolutely no Japanese, and knew little about Japanese culture, I felt prepared for my trip—I wasn’t.

By August 24, 2007

Voices

Not exactly a disco with books

In High School, everyone wants to know where everyone else is going for college and nobody feels uncomfortable asking. However, in my high school, one group of students seemed uncomfortable about answering, for they know that they will be instantly judged, pitied or disregarded—they were going to community college.

By August 24, 2007

Voices

This Georgetown Life: Fabulous freshman mishaps

This Georgetown Life is a collection of stories written by Georgetown students all based on the same theme. [Cue trendy jazz music.]

By the August 24, 2007

Voices

A life seen through the lens

Photographs are the standard against which we can measure our eroding memories.

By May 3, 2007

Voices

Marking the miles along the road

If I have noticed anything in people, it is that they tend to use relationships and love interests as milestones and reference points when they speak about their pasts.

By May 3, 2007

Voices

Struggling to truly forgive Cho

I hated everything about Seung-Hui Cho, and I finally realized that hatred is what got us here in the first place.

By May 3, 2007

Voices

A lack of Sports Information

What makes a good story? Access.

By April 26, 2007

Voices

This Georgetown Life: Later, Lassie

This Georgetown Life is a collection of stories by Georgetown students all based on the same theme. We’ll be right back with a cute lil’ David Sedaris story.

By the April 26, 2007

Voices

Carrying on: NAA: News Addicts Anonymous

Hi. My name is Michael and I’m a news addict.

By April 26, 2007

Voices

Her Adam’s apple gave it away

If I have to suffer through a 14-hour bus ride, I’m willing to talk to whomever fate places in the neighboring seat. When my partner on the ride south from Bangkok happened to be a Thai girl, I was prepared to combat any language barrier that might stand between us. At least I could fill the stale air with my own voice.

By April 26, 2007

Voices

Nothing but a pack of foma

Kurt Vonnegut was a writer engaged in the business of time. He was fascinated with humans’ harnessing of the natural world and their resulting alienation. He wrote stories entrenched in waves of political consciousness, telling tales of world destruction by an incidental afterthought as simple, at times, as the pushing of a button that could unleash the atom bomb.

By April 19, 2007

Voices

Attention men: will date for food

It started last summer, when I was living in LXR sans meal-plan. My plan to take the GUTS bus to Safeway and cook my own food evaporated the moment I walked into Statistics with Exploratory Data Analysis. From that cursed day on, every spare moment was devoted to plotting regressions while murmuring, “O please dear God, Jesus, Allah, help me not to fail this class,” leaving me no time for my grand culinary plan. For about a week, my diet consisted primarily of microwave popcorn and the occasional Hershey’s bar from the first-floor vending machine.

By April 19, 2007

Voices

Ballin’ on a budget at G’town

April is the cruelest month. Just ask anyone rushing to finish those tax forms. While university undergrads are spared the brunt of this burden (possibly the best perk of not having any real career to speak of), April brings its own annoyance to many of us in the collegiate crowd: it’s when Georgetown wants those financial aid forms.

By April 19, 2007