34th Street Magazine's "Toast" is a semi-weekly newsletter with the latest on Penn's campus culture and arts scene. Delivered Monday-Wednesday-Friday.
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Like many Penn students, Musk is hyper-competitive and accustomed to winning. When faced with a loss, we tend to impulsively take matters into our own hands in an attempt to recover, just as Musk did with his most recent Twitter escapade.
Fumbling through a summer fling, where I am the first to admit that I had no idea what I was doing, proved to me that relying on someone else to explain my actions led me no closer to self-realization than my (unsuccessful) attempts at Penn.
In some of the places I visited, I felt marginalized as a tourist. People unapologetically walked into my photos, some locals stared when I dined in restaurants, and I was the victim of angry glares when I accidentally bumped into people. And while I considered myself an American tourist, I felt I was lumped into the unspoken “international Asian tourist” group — at one point, I was handed an unsolicited Chinese flyer when neither my family nor I know a word of Mandarin.
We can make the choice to remain politically unaware. At the end of the day, that only serves to emphasize our privilege. People think they can afford to be incognizant of worldly matters if those matters don’t pertain to them directly, but to do that is the ultimate act of selfishness.
They remember the way in which the epidemic coincided with the emergence of gayborhoods in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, leading the media to perpetuate the misconception that HIV/AIDS was a “gay disease.” They remember friends who spent months and years hospitalized, without a single visit from relatives who abandoned them. They remember checking the obituary section of local and national newspapers quite regularly.
I shouldn’t have to come up with creative ways to word “camp counselor” in order to sound more accomplished on my resume — a resume that proudly boasts working with kids at a job that is demanding and satisfying should be enough. This philosophy applies to many situations, and I think we as students need to stop focusing so narrowly on creating resumes hopped up on steroids.
Even though my bout with burnout only lasted around two and a half weeks, it was definitely one of the more unpleasant aspects of my college experience thus far.
Because the professor/student relationship can be so easily taken advantage of, universities have a responsibility to their students to take allegations of misconduct seriously, and when appropriate, respond to such allegations in a way that places the needs of the student body first.
The international popularity and historical significance of soccer might be hints that US should join the soccer craze soon. Although the US was not a part of this World Cup, Americans should still support the international teams of their heritage or choice on television.
Deciding to study what we enjoy can be intellectually freeing, but enjoyment doesn't always help us decide what to study. We may enjoy a lot of subjects, we won’t enjoy every moment of any subject, and often our enjoyment of a subject grows with an investment of time and effort.
The Ivy League was formed as an East Coast football association. Nothing more, nothing less. That would make you think that the pride we take in our sports teams would be off the charts. That’s not the case at all.
I would give anything in the world to have 110 million people follow me on any one of my social media accounts, because it would give me a ridiculously easy way to be heard. To me, it is wrong to have a listening audience, but nothing to say, especially in today’s tumultuous political environment.
Because I grew up yearning for a social sphere synonymous to religious identification, I was awestruck and surprised by the amount of Jewish involvement on Penn’s campus.
Instead of freeing me from anxiety or awkwardness like I thought, Chill became a straightjacket that only served to make me more aware of how much I wanted and how much I cared.