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

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?

It was three o’clock in the morning, and after having spent hours conversing in French and sipping French wine with other students, my words in French were leaving my mouth in much the same fashion that boulders leave mountains. That’s when I decided it was time to go to bed.

By the August 29, 2002

Voices

Youth is wasted on me

To an objective onlooker, it would seem that I am turning into an old man. Don’t get me wrong, my wardrobe, in response to nearly eight weeks of indentured servitude in the foreign policy community, resembles that of a misguided eighth grader/rave hooligan (I don’t know which is worse).

By the August 22, 2002

Voices

For your entertainment

“You have to promise me that you won’t get six more earrings, an eyebrow ring or anything like that,” the store manager of the f.y.e. chain music store at my local mall said as she was about to hire me for the summer. “Sure,” I said smiling, picturing Ozzy Osbourne’s gratuitously tattooed forearms.

By the August 22, 2002

Voices

Misleading the American public

Cut to an an 18-year-old girl with a pale complexion. She says, “I helped kill a judge.” Cut to a young dark-skinned girl aged no more than 15. She states: “I help blow up buildings.” Cut to yet another girl who looks about 20 years old. Very proudly and without any sign of remorse, she says, “My life, my body.

By the August 22, 2002

Voices

An American renaissance

In light of the War on Terrorism and growing socio-political cynicism, it’s time for our nation to embark on a cultural and political renaissance to recapture the rich tapestry of human creativity within American society. The noble quest to elevate the public’s understanding and appreciation of its particular heritage is not novel.

By the August 22, 2002

Voices

Lions and tigers and lesbians, oh my!

For our fall vacation, which South Africans refer to as simply “vac,” two friends and I went to Kruger National Park in the northeastern part of the country, right next to Mozambique. I never thought I would go on anything called a “vac,” let alone be able to tell people so nonchalantly that I was “right next to Mozambique,” as if it were the same as saying “right next to Burger King” or “right next to that bald man in sweat pants.

By the April 25, 2002

Voices

Worth a thousand words?

Somewhere in the bowels of my parents’ basement squats a large, plastic Tupperware-esque tub. It isn’t labeled; so if my parents ever make good on their threat to donate all their unclaimed junk to the Purple Heart, some stranger is going to become the proud owner of the collected memories of my life since age 12.

By the April 25, 2002

Voices

Dead rock stars

So, the corpse of Layne Staley, former lead singer of Alice in Chains, was discovered decomposing in his bathroom. I’m pissed off. Not because I harbor some sort of deep nostalgia towards the grunge scene, but because of my tortured love tetrahedron with Alice in Chains and the brothers McMillan.

By the April 25, 2002

Voices

Letter to the Editor

When I saw the pro-Palestine protest on Friday, April 12 around the John Carroll statue, I thought it was great. I was impressed that our campus, often quiet, even passive in comparison to other universities, was making a statement and that it wasn’t the same annoying GLBT charade for the third or fourth weekend in a row.

By the April 25, 2002

Voices

Correction

In “Look for the union label: Georgetown’s wage gap” from April 11, the Voice incorrectly referred to Cesar Buenaventura as Cesar Lopez.

By the April 25, 2002

Voices

Sleep junkie

The alarm begins its discordant wake-up call. Snooze. I realize that I have a paper to finish. Snooze. It needs to be done before I go to class at noon. Snooze. I have already gotten eight hours of sleep. Snooze. 10 a.m. seems like a perfectly reasonable time to get out of bed.

By the April 18, 2002

Voices

What senior life means to me

Seniors typically write their final pieces about what it means to be graduating, what they’re most going to remember about college, how they’ve changed, what it feels like to be entering the real world, how they’ve learned from their friends and what they feel like using their $150,000 brains for after getting their diplomas.

By the April 18, 2002

Voices

In praise of carelessness

About a month ago I was celebrating my birthday in New York with some friends. It was 2 a.m., and I had drank too much. One friend and I left the group in search of another bar we thought was close by. Three laps around the West Village and 45 minutes later, we realized we were lost.

By the April 18, 2002

Voices

More trite senior reflections

I am graduating in a little more than a month. Well, technically I need to pass one class that I am now enrolled in. The issue is not really in doubt though, because the only grade is a 25-page research paper at the end of the class. It is pretty hard to fail a paper?I hope.

By the April 11, 2002

Voices

Baby alien Spanish

Middle-child syndrome comes in handy when you are trying to learn another language. I, like the majority of middle children, am a true pacifist and do my best to avoid discord and maintain peace wherever the possibility of conflict is brewing. This serves me well in Chile, where it is much easier to agree with people than to engage in an idea battle when armed with the verbal equivalent of a sharp toothpick.

By the April 11, 2002

Voices

Take me back to the coke orgy!

Well, seniors, we’re almost there! I can’t believe it’s been four years already! Can you? Why, it seems like only yesterday that I was standing in a stuffy and humid New South dorm room, shaking hands with a complete stranger with whom I was about to spend the next nine months.

By the April 11, 2002

Voices

In defense of John Walker Lindh

After the attacks of Sept. 11, the rhetoric used by American leaders would lead one to believe that those responsible were attacking freedom and democracy, liberty and justice, ideals theoretically intrinsic to an American ideology. The truth is that the terrorists were attacking reckless American hegemony and economic and cultural imperialism.

By the April 11, 2002

Voices

Trials and tribulations in Chilean Patagonia

My friend Helen and I are studying abroad in Santiago, Chile. During Easter, we decided to visit the Torres del Paine national park, which includes the longest vertical drop in the world. The park is extremely remote, requiring a plane trip and four buses to arrive.

By the April 4, 2002

Voices

Alpha males, alpha problems

Spring Break at Georgetown always conjures up demons, and the most recent “week of vice” was certainly no exception. As of January, reports filtered in from Hoyas near and far who were planning strange and inadvisable outings. One small band apparently flocked to the Florida Everglades for the world crocodile wrestling championships, only to head on to the body-wrestling haven of Key West-Georgetown.

By the April 4, 2002

Voices

Asking for a definition

Things couldn’t get much worse for the Catholic Church. In the past few years, a spate of scholarly books have taken the ecclesiastic hierarchy to task for its abominable treatment of European Jewry during the Holocaust; similar tomes have unraveled the manufactured mythology the Church used to quell critics past and present regarding its collaboration with Italian and German fascism.

By the April 4, 2002