The Virginity Club launched a newly-revamped Hopkins Twelve contest on March 30. It is a pandemic-friendly sequel to the original Hopkins Seven, which challenges students to have sex in several designated locations across campus.
On Tuesday, junior Alex Smith assumed that his Zoom lecture would be like any other.
Freshman and self-proclaimed furry Azure Fowler was kicked out of Charles Commons on Wednesday after being found in a lounge area making love to a Jay the Blue Jay sex doll. Witnesses report that Fowler was completely naked except for his mask and that he wouldn’t stop shouting, “Wear a mask please!”
The Homewood Academic Council persecuted a group of students running an essay-writing business last Friday. This group, formally known as “LET OUR MONKEYS WRITE LLC,” was found to have captured a bevy of monkeys to perform the manual labor of their operation and, as stated in its business plan, “bolster capital accumulation and facilitate rapid returns on investment.”
To start off, I want to make it clear that I do not want to be writing this little piece. Furthermore, I do not care for or endorse any of the second-rate, vomit-inducing garbage published by senior Alex Hecksher Gomes. However, I felt my response was merited considering Hecksher Gomes’ extremely flawed and overly indulgent writing on me.
When I first met senior Alex Hecksher Gomes — well, I don’t quite remember. As far as I can tell he’s been present since my earliest memory, which says a lot about how insidiously infectious he has become in my mind. He taints the brain until there is nothing left without him in it.
Daniel Grumpf, a sixth-year student, presented a business proposal to the Student Government Association (SGA) at its weekly meeting on March 30. Grumpf’s plan is to normalize, even mandate, wearing fish bowls instead of face masks around campus.
In November of 2019, I started dating a fellow News-Letter writer. Things were terrific until that fateful day when he decided to run for an editor position. At first I was ecstatic that my boyfriend had so much power, but it didn’t take long before I realized that I was bearing witness to the creation of a monster.
I had no idea the situation would get this bad. This is a chronicling of my experience with the athlete apocalypse. I’m writing these journal entries to warn people about the dangers that the Hopkins athletes may pose to our campus, and I will also offer ways to help students adequately prepare for isolation.
For as long as I can remember, I have always loved to sing — when nobody’s around, that is. I frequently host late-night karaoke parties for one, wail in the shower like nobody hears me and hum in the kitchen when I’m alone. Music has always been my coping mechanism for dealing with stressful events.
The pandemic forced communities across the globe to shelter in place and it closed many of the businesses and venues we’re used to hanging out in. Even in spaces where we are allowed to be around our fellow quaranteens, we were (and still are) required to maintain a distance of six feet.
The first ode to joy was a poem; then it was the chorus of a symphony. My own little ode to joy comes as a video that captures brief moments of joy and its various forms — contentment, wonder, glee, amusement, bliss — all of which I experienced on an ordinary autumn day.
Music is powerful. It is the language of the soul, a collection of stories — stories of love, joy, heartbreak, failure, success — that anyone can tap into and relate to. Sometimes, if we let it, music has the greater ability of allowing us to feel things we never imagined, to feel emotions beyond our own scope of understanding.
Soon after quarantine began, I realized that I tended to run away from my negative emotions. I’d channel my anxiety into The News-Letter’s all-consuming, weekly production cycle. I’d hide my sadness by flitting about M-Level. Bury my emptiness at Power Plant Live!. Manifest my stress through low-grade hypochondria.
In big things and small. In our day-to-day routines and more special moments. In old memories and new experiences. In songs and books. In the things we do for ourselves, the things we do for others and the things others do for us. These are just a few of the ways in which we can find joy in our lives.
A student achieves a major academic success, a young couple buys their dream home, a retiree escapes to a tropical haven. Each person feels elated, incandescently happy. Then a phenomenon called hedonic adaptation takes hold, and the wonderful feeling subsides over time.
I watched as the USPS truck sped out of our sleepy cul-de-sac. I scurried up to the mailbox, flung open the lid and ripped open the letter. It was finally here, and I was in. I had been accepted to Duke University’s Talent Identification Program (TIP).
I’m going to be honest, when I heard the fall magazine was going to center on the theme of joy, I didn’t think I’d have an article to write. Being a Hopkins student is stressful enough at the best of times, let alone during the chaos that has been 2020.
Three Jane Austen novels deep into quarantine, I found the pattern. I glanced out of my bedroom window, situated at the front of my house facing the street, then back to my copy of (the extremely underrated) Mansfield Park and back again. In quarantine, one of the first things I noticed upon returning home to my locked down state were the walkers.
I’ve always loved nonsense. Nonsense words. Nonsense phrases and rhymes. Nonsensical conversations. So fittingly, my favorite poem as a child was Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. I always loved how the words meant nothing but I still knew what they were saying. In Jabberwocky, sound plays the starring role.
