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

Living in the border region

I have read that the term “culture shock,” is used more for its well-known connotations rather than its literal dictionary definition. In other words, we throw the expression around a lot, but its precise meaning is limited to a specific situation. It’s not just confusion or awe due to the sheer difference of a new place or society.

By the October 16, 2003

Voices

Everybody don’t do the Bartman

VOICES BY DAVE STROUP I write this as the Cubs are down by three to the Marlins in game seven of the National League Championship Series. As you read this, you will know how the game came out. However, I am not watching the game. Instead, I am here writing about the tragedy of game six.

By the October 16, 2003

Voices

Gettin’ my betrothal on

VOICES BY DREW LIN Most students who desire to spend time in a foreign country fritter away countless hours in time-consuming language classes ruminating on subjunctive usage, memorizing declensions, and chicken-scratching kanji character sets (the academic equivalent of gulag slave labor) .

By the October 9, 2003

Voices

Pizza, sex and Santa Claus

Being a student guard isn’t all about fast women and loose cars like so many people think it is. It takes a lot more to be one of Georgetown’s elite, as the following excerpts from the diary of a retired guard proves: 8:15 p.m.-Arrive for my 8 p.m. shift right on time, try not to acknowledge the angry glares from the previous guard as he packs up his science fiction novels and coloring books.

By the October 9, 2003

Voices

A toast to integration

Recently there has been much discussion regarding the need to revise the current alcohol policy on campus. The FRIENDS group brought the debate to the forefront once again by submitting a proposal five weeks ago to revise the current alcohol policy.

By the October 9, 2003

Voices

Letter to the Editor

Overlooked arts community

I read your article detailing the groundbreaking ceremony for the Performing Arts Center and its implications for the new Program in Performing Arts and the University community overall with a great sense of anticipation (“Arts center construction begins,” News, Oct.

By the October 9, 2003

Voices

Correction

The photo caption for “At VMI, turnovers cost football first win” (Sports, Oct. 2) attributed Andrew Crawford as a sophomore. Crawford is a junior.

By the October 9, 2003

Voices

The blunt end of the hurricane

When the lights went out, I was sitting on my couch, watching a Harrison Ford movie. In retrospect, I wish I had been up on the Village A rooftops catching Isabel full in the face. Instead, after a muddy round of tackle football, I retreated indoors, possibly due to my roommates’ infectious paranoia in the face of Mother Nature.

By the October 2, 2003

Voices

Life as a washed up celebrity look-alike

VOICES BY SCOTT CONROY I notice her gaze out of the corner of my eye. She’s hovering above me, as I sit at a table in Darnall, where I’m enjoying a meal with a friend. I make eye contact, and she flashes me a coy smile. Shooting a quick glance behind her shoulder, she receives a wave from her friend, indicating that she should go through with it.

By the October 2, 2003

Voices

Memo: How to ‘act’ sober

Last Saturday, inundated with so much work, I decided to stay in and read. Unfortunately, I happened to witness the remnants of someone else’s night on the town when I went downstairs. As I stepped into the elevator, however, I realized that someone had broken about three-fourths of the elevator lights in the brand new elevator.

By the October 2, 2003

Voices

Letters to the Editor

“Creative expression is ageless”

I enjoyed spending time with reporters Chris Norton and Mary Katherine Stump during last weekend’s Georgetown Independent Film Festival-an annual venue celebrating creativity, originality and uninhibited personal expression.

By the October 2, 2003

Voices

Oh, Isabel

VOICES BY VANESSA MACHIR Let me explain something. I do not strip. I do not get naked. Unless nudity is an intrinsic requirement of a situation, the clothes stay on at all times. Not during the most aggressive heat strokes or my most embarrassingly drunken moments have I ever felt the urge to disrobe.

By the September 25, 2003

Voices

Letters to the Editor

I was disappointed to see Dave Stroup’s column on vouchers (“Vouching for D.C.,”News, Sept. 18) that amounted not only to a thinly veiled attack on school choice.

By September 25, 2003

Voices

Last days of summer

The anthropologist Arjun Appadurai suggests in his analysis of the age of globalization that we can trace the international flow of identities and culture by following a particular good or idea. We can note each permutation and appropriation of that idea as a unique glimpse into the lives of global consumers.

By the September 25, 2003

Voices

A culinary renaissance

My personal and highly arbitrary definition of art is that it is something that brings the viewer or participant a little closer to the sacred that resides within the artist. When art was the subject of countless philosophers’ attentions, it was relegated to four basic spheres: visual, auditory, performative, and rhetorical.

By the September 25, 2003

Voices

My man wears a gorilla suit

VOICES BY ANNE GLIDDEN Each week, one of my favorite activities is to read the “I Saw You” section of the Washington City Paper. Admittedly, it’s a rather dorky way to celebrate the passing of yet another week, but I do enjoy ordering my overpriced Evil Empire from Uncommon Grounds and cozying up with the City Paper.

By the September 18, 2003

Voices

Fear mongering is my anti-drug

Like most first-years coming to Georgetown, I had a difficult time adjusting to college life. I was nervous about making new friends and being in a different environment. I was beset by problems and self-doubt; my parents had just been brutally murdered and, worst of all, I was fat.

By the September 18, 2003

Voices

The great Bengali monsoon wedding

There is a scene in Mira Nair’s film, Monsoon Wedding, where the bridegroom asks his fianc?, handpicked by his parents, about the odd similarity between an arranged marriage and a “love match?” “Well, how much more risky can this arranged marriage thing be from meeting one night in a noisy and smoky bar and hooking up?” he asks.

By the September 18, 2003

Voices

Letter to the Editor

I want to congratulate Rob Anderson and Mike DeBonis on their centerfold article on the Southwest Quadrangle (“Our campus, our space,” Cover, Sept. 11). It is well written and shows considerable knowledge of architecture. And I laughed out loud when I read, “If God is in the architectural details, Georgetown lost its faith long ago.

By the September 18, 2003

Voices

The war on sharing

VOICES BY DAVE STROUP This Tuesday signified a landmark victory for copyright integrity and intellectual property security worldwide. The Recording Industry Association of America settled with Brianna LaHara, a resident of a Manhattan housing project. Like many who fall between the cracks of society and turn to crime, LaHara led a double life. By day, she attended middle school and was on the honor roll. By night, she was one of the nation’s most wanted music pirates.

By the September 11, 2003