Nobody wants to see their city at the end of a “pray for” hashtag. Nobody wants to see their home in a hurricane’s projected path. (Almost) nobody wants to see their university become a meeting point for a white supremacist and his supporters — but Thursday, UF will see exactly that.
We don’t want to be sad. I mean, you can’t really blame us. Why would we want to be sad? Being sad, anxious or upset means being uncomfortable. We fight to avoid discomfort and to find that place where we feel comfortable. We want everything to be just so: nothing out of place, nothing left unaccounted for. We make lists and check them off. We fulfill obligations and settle into a routine that is safe. We pursue happiness. After all, is that not the ultimate goal?
This week, I’m taking a brief breather from the flurry of politics to discuss a different topic near and dear to my heart: my all-time favorite books and movies that I have fondly deemed my “desert island necessities.” In other words, if you stuck me on a deserted island and said, “Hey, Mia, here’s enough food and water to last you a week on your own, but you can only take three books and three movies along,” this is what I would bring. Yeah, I know it’s not realistic, but this is my column, OK?
No part of America has been untouched by President Donald Trump’s already disastrous presidency. In less than 10 months, Trump and his supporters have resurrected and instrumentalized racism and xenophobia, undermining the dignity of America and Americans.
For almost 20 years, SparkNotes has been providing students with easily understood summaries and analyses of works commonly found in high school and college classrooms. Before that, CliffsNotes was offering student study guides since 1958, serving as a lifesaver for students struggling to wade through and extract some sort of meaning out of their assigned Shakespeare readings. When you’re in 11th grade and you’re having an exam on “The Catcher in the Rye” in your next class, these guides can be invaluable tools in garnering enough knowledge to throw together a slipshod analysis of Holden’s hunting cap, but are they anything more than this?
In a few months Facebook groups will be jam-packed with seniors saying they need to rehome their pets. It’s about time we have a discussion about how this is one of the worst things you can do to an animal.
I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” But I think this mantra needs to be updated to reflect the feelings of our generation. Maybe something like, “If you have anything nice to say, please don’t say it because I won’t know how to react.”
The Florida Gators have accepted mediocrity. Saturday’s 17-to-16 loss against LSU was a wake-up call to some fans, but in reality this has been a long time coming.
I don’t like to start a column this way, but sometimes we do things we don’t like in order to think critically about the world. Imagine a large building in Gainesville burned down. Imagine the fire started by accident — a gas leak or a candle — but the flames raged out of control, and the entire structure came down. In the 24 hours following the fire, we learn that it rapidly escalated as a result of poor building codes, and we probably could have contained the fire if it had not spread so quickly.
We are living in a time of anger. We’re angry at the way the world looks right now. We are angry at each other for making it this way. We all have different opinions about why the world is the way it is, and we have even more opinions about how to fix it.
Gov. Rick Scott has made every effort to wash his hands of the Sept. 13 South Florida nursing home tragedy, which left 12 residents dead. In my opinion, he shouldn’t absolve himself so quickly.
The Renaissance is known as the “cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history,” according to Wikipedia, with the genesis being in Florence, Italy, in the 14th century. It was a vibrant period of exploding artistic expression and impressive intellectual and philosophical exploration.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a UF student, it’s that college students are not as tolerant as they claim to be. Are you surprised? I’m not. The hypocrisy of those who claim to be tolerant is stunning, and it was on full display last week after Victoria Fortier wrote a column for the Alligator titled “It’s time to stop kneeling during the national anthem.”
You know, it’s OK if you don’t actually want to go out,” my friend told me via FaceTime while I begrudgingly highlighted my cheekbones. That night, I didn’t have to study, and I didn’t really have to catch up on sleep. I didn’t have any excuse not to go out, so I felt like I had to. I felt like I should want to. My friend is a recent graduate so I assume she must have forgotten about that inner conflict we all get when we consider going out or staying in. The former always wins. I reminded her why: College is only four years! I don’t have much longer to buy $5 triples! We’re all going to graduate and have to be adults soon!
I would like to (metaphorically, of course) pull the hair of whoever came up with the concept that waiting until your last two years of college to take on internships is a good idea. Maybe this person was hoping more people would relax during their first two years or was concerned that most college freshmen don’t have the knowledge they need to intern, but I’m here to tell you that simply isn’t true.
“You realize you’ll make, like, no money doing that, right?”
Does taking a knee make you uncomfortable? Good. You know what’s beyond uncomfortable? Not knowing whether the police are there to help or hurt you.
Last week, writers, readers and rhyme enthusiasts alike celebrated National Poetry Day. They shared short verses on social media and encouraged others to pick up their favorite collections. Twitter especially lit up with screenshots and quotations from poets as varied as Maya Angelou and Rupi Kaur. It made me think: Isn’t it incredible that there really is a poem out there for everyone?
I’m going to sound like a very stereotypical college-age young woman (college-age English major specifically) and talk about the scene in Sylvia Plath's “The Bell Jar” where Esther is lying beneath a fig tree. Here, she imagines that each fig represents an imagined future — she sees a famous editor, a poet, a housewife — and she cannot make up her mind as to which fig to pluck, since choosing one means losing the rest, and then they all begin to shrivel up, and it is simply too late.
Baseball may be the American pastime, but it is no secret our football players are the ones who are treated like the real heroes. Seriously, more than 30 million viewers tune in every week to worship by screen and watch their favorite teams play on Sundays.
Solutions by The State News
