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(10/01/18 3:18am)
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself having to make decisions — meaningful, somewhat large-scale life choices — more and more frequently. I’ve come to the realization that I’m utterly terrible at them, often having to ask myself, “Ellie, what the heck do you want?” — and still find myself without a resolution.
(09/17/18 2:51am)
When the company I worked for over the summer announced the interns would be spending a day gardening at a local elementary school and racking up the firm’s service hours, I had quaint visions of myself planting a flower or two — maybe even using a watering can. I’ve never been known to have anything close to a green thumb — as a point of reference, I may be the only person that has actually managed to kill a succulent, which is incontestably the trendiest and most low-maintenance of all the plants. My first year, I bought one and had it artfully perched on my windowsill, and although I did manage to remember to water it a couple of times during the semester, the poor plant met a gruesome death after being repeatedly smacked by my descending blinds too many times to count.
(08/08/18 2:08am)
Since leaving Charlottesville in May, I’ve done big things. I watched an entire professional basketball game from start to finish, developed an inexplicable allergy to the Bay Area, went skinny dipping during beach week and, perhaps most notably, moved to Los Angeles and began my summer internship at an international insurance brokerage, risk management and consulting firm. I spend the balmy L.A. days waking up at six a.m., analyzing stock charts and 10-Ks, attending client visits and learning the ins-and-outs of insurance and risk management. And I love every moment of it.
(04/24/18 5:24am)
This year, as my course registration appointment loomed, I spent hours on the CourseForum, SIS and Lou’s List, trying to perfect my schedule. After hours of research, I knew that Intermediate Macroeconomics should be taken with Westerfield, and I had nearly memorized the English course requirements for the major — and my schedule was almost perfect. But it was like a game of Tetris, trying to find a “fun” class to perfectly fit in between all of my other, major-related classes and discussions. I found myself unbelievably frustrated, aggressively typing course acronyms into the CourseForum, because there were so many interesting classes that I wanted to take but couldn’t because they wouldn’t accommodate my required courses.
(03/27/18 4:05am)
Retrospectively, it seems inevitable that six girls taking a road trip to Key West for spring break would lead to a series of small disasters.
(02/21/18 6:23am)
The single coolest thing about my fifth grade experience was that my classroom had a massive library in it — with bookshelves upon bookshelves of different types of books that we could check out from the teacher, take home and read. And on the side of one of the bookshelves was one of those inspirational posters that every middle school classroom seemed to have, the ones with nature scenes and some sort of entirely unrelated “power word” written across it — like a river that says “MOTIVATION.” The one in my classroom had a cross-section of an iceberg on it, and while the part of the iceberg poking out of the water seemed massive, it only took up the very top of the poster, since it turns out that like 85 percent of icebergs are underwater. I think it said something like “IMAGINATION” across the bottom.
(02/09/18 5:06am)
As the cold sets in and spring break remains too far away to even consider, it is easy to get caught up in the grind of going to class, going to Alderman and not getting the recommended eight hours of sleep each night. Even the walk to and from Grounds each day — a time I use to listen to music and just enjoy being outside — is becoming less fun and more treacherous.
(01/30/18 5:27am)
Last year, I hated “sorority recruitment.” Truly, I can’t think of a situation more nerve-racking than walking into a house full of strangers, all of whom are there with the intent of judging and scoring you based on a five-minute conversation. But it wasn’t until going through the whole process again, this time on the opposite side, that I realized just how bad I was at it.
(12/29/17 3:53am)
When I came home for winter break, I, like most students, expected to have a nice time relaxing with family and friends. I had visions of taking my dog to the beach, trying new restaurants in San Francisco and sleeping in until 11 a.m. everyday. Little did I know that my winter break plans would be derailed by the quintessential female problem of “I have nothing to wear.”
(12/01/17 5:23am)
I’ve always been a very pragmatic person when it comes to my career, blindly assuming that I would do what any other reasonable girl would do — go to college, graduate on time, get a job at a major firm, do something business-related and probably only do that one thing for my entire life.
(11/10/17 3:36am)
After my first round of midterms, a professor of mine was kind enough to shoot the class an email letting us know our midterm grades had been posted online. Before even finishing the email, I trepidatiously logged into my Collab account to check my grades. “Huh, not bad,” I thought to myself, before returning to my inbox to finish reading. However, after scrolling down I realized that my professor had been generous enough to include the class averages at the bottom of the email. Suddenly my grade seemed not-so-good anymore. I was tragically (one point) below average.
(10/27/17 3:31am)
It’s Saturday. Gameday. Darty day. It’s the unique opportunity to go out and get trashed before noon without anyone frowning upon you or whispering the word “alcoholic” behind your back. And for the first time in ages you have decently high hopes that we might actually win the game.
(10/13/17 2:59am)
Fact — nothing makes a girl feel more single than when her mom calls and asks how her “boy situation” is going.
(09/29/17 3:13am)
It doesn’t seem that long ago that I, bolstered by excessive optimism, assured my parents that I would absolutely not be needing a meal plan for my second year because “I can totally cook for myself.” And while not having to eat the dining hall food has fundamentally improved my standard of living, cooking my own meals and avoiding starvation is not without its hardships.
(09/15/17 3:30am)
My first impression of the Corner was that it was just about the most intimidating place in the entire world, exclusively populated by cool college kids who were infinitely out of my social league. After being admitted to the University, I was on a cross-country trip with my mom to check out the different schools I had gotten into. After several delays, our flight got in at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday, but my mom and I hadn’t eaten dinner so we left our room at the Cavalier Inn in hopes of finding a quick meal. Unfortunately, rather than finding wholesome restaurants that an 18-year-old girl would want to sit at with her mother, I found a bar scene that was pretty much the opposite of what I had been expecting. Essentially, it was like walking into a party where you don’t know a single person. But, like, you also have your mom with you.
(08/16/17 5:46am)
Like lots of other students at the University, I returned home from school desperate for cash and deeply indebted to my parents. So, upon arrival back in the Bay, I quickly set out in search of summer work, determined to go out in the world and make the big bucks — or, you know, minimum wage.
(06/15/17 9:42pm)
Over the past year it seems everyone has been asking me why I chose to attend this University. And while I’ve always found it a bit difficult to respond, it’s a fair question, and I’m going to try and articulate my answer now. My apologies to all those people who I gave watery answers to, like, “I toured the University and liked it,” or, “It had everything I was looking for.” Because while those things are true, the question still stands —why would a California girl leave sunshine and beaches for a small town with less-than-stellar football?
(05/05/17 3:29am)
When it comes to the prospect of going home for three months, it seems many of us are caught between excitement and dread. Finals have us dreaming about summer days of sleeping in and not having to walk to class in thousand degree weather. At the same time, the prospect of first year ending has me clinging to my life in Charlottesville in a metaphorical death grip. Because as much as I love the sunny California Bay Area, my life at home and my life here in Charlottesville are pretty different.
(04/21/17 4:55am)
Colloquially known as “Croads,” Crossroads seems to be the great equalizer for first-years. Despite its aggressively mediocre food options and never-ending lines, we collectively flock to O-Hill in the dead of night, motivated by blind optimism and dreams of Burrito Theory. Whoever came up with the name “Crossroads” must have been some sort of genius, fortune teller or at least a University graduate, because it’s where you inevitably cross paths with seemingly everyone you’ve ever met at the University. Hey, Sorority Sister Whose Name I Can’t Remember! What’s up, That Dude I Made Out With Once at Trin? Hello, Jack From Statistics!
(04/07/17 3:27am)
It is an universally acknowledged truth that a single girl in a sorority will want a date to her formal. It is also noted that this can be one of the most difficult tasks a girl can face. It seems like all of the University’s sororities have unionized to decide to have their formals on the same weekend, and this only piles on additional competition to the already stressful process of finding the elusive “perfect date.”