I had to do it. It had been bothering me for weeks, months maybe. My host sister has hair down to her hips, but I can’t stand it once it starts to pass my shoulders. But I am also lazy, so I let it grow and grow and grow and meanwhile I complain, complain, complain. But, I did it! I cut my hair. Of course, now my neck is really cold all the time, but that’s what scarves are for.

Anyway, as I was getting my hair cut, my hairdresser told me I had small face. Clearly I misheard.

“A small face?”

“Yes, it’s quite small.”

“Oh, is that so. [pause…] Is that a good thing?”

“Yes, it’s a good thing.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you.”

When I first arrived, my host family commented that I had a tall (takai 高い) nose.

“A tall nose?”

“Yes, its super tall!”

“Does that mean big?”

“Yeah, it’s a good thing!”

“Oh. Is that so…? Thank you…”

Now, if one of my friend’s in America told me I had a small face the conversation would probably go something more like this.

“Your face is small.”

“Well, that’s rude.”

“Sorry. Also, did anyone ever tell you that you have a really tall nose?”

“You mean big?”

“Yeah.”

*smack*

Okay, I wouldn’t really hit anyone if they said that (because I am accepting of my nose), but I don’t think I would take it as a compliment either.

So today at a store, I noticed along with the sunglasses  they had huge, regular glasses but with non prescription lenses. I asked my host aunt.

“For fashion?”

“Yeah! Big glasses make your face look small!”

なるほど。Ah, I see.

I guess that sort of makes sense. By comparison, your face does look small. Example.

So then I got to thinking. In America, perhaps having a small face isn’t a big thing yet (then again,  huge sunglasses are still in, right?), but having a small waist is.

Hmm. Well, maybe the concept, like the compliment, doesn’t translate so well.

One last note: Photo booths here are epic. You can decorate your pictures at the end with big glasses, mustaches, dancing cats, stars, glitter, cake, anything, and can choose from countless backgrounds. It automatically smoothes your complexion, lightens your hair, and makes your eyes really big. I mean, really big. What’s wrong with imperfect complexion, dark hair, and regular eyes, you ask? I have no idea. But here is what the purikura (print club = epic photobooth) advertises in can turn you into (and it’s not lying, I’ll upload one of mine another time):

Carlos III, to its credit, tried to provide a special introduction to the school for the international students.  I assume that local students receive no such attention.  That said, however, the orientation was terrible.  It started with a series of dull speeches by faculty members.  Besides reading off of power points most of the time, the speakers used English that was much harder to understand than Spanish.

I learned that they had a good reason for using English, though: A great number of the Erasmus students don’t speak more than a few phrases of Spanish.   On our campus tour, I talked with students from all over the world, most of whom could communicate with me only in English.  Because of this, the tour consisted of walking to each building on campus, where the guide would state in hard-to-understand English the name of the building and the departments housed there before moving on.

Classes started on Monday.  Some of the worst things I had heard about the Spanish university system seemed to be confirmed: during one class the students talked the entire time despite the requests of the professor; almost all the students arrived on time, while the professors came ten minutes late; and the professor for my last class of the day did not show up at all.

I tried to understand that these classes might not be so important at Carlos III because the first week is a shopping period for all students.  On a deeper level, though, the culture of the education system in Spain is just different.  I’ve found some classes that will have interesting content, but late professors and chatty students are things that I’ll have to adapt to.

To see more posts, click here.

In this first weekly installment of Netflix It, I am recommending the wonderful film To Kill a Mockingbird, based on the book of the same name. Set in the town of Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930′s this movie follows the viewpoint of Scout and Jem Finch (played by Mary Badham and Philip Alford respectively) as they observe their father Atticus (played by the great Gregory Peck) defend an African American named Tom Robinson (played by Brock Peters) who has been accused of raping a Caucasian woman named Mayella Ewell (Collin Wilcox). While I won’t give any spoilers, the events that occur both during and after the trial have great effect on all those involved and reveal the problems with race held in the South during that time.

I could write on and on about this movie but I’ll limit my words to two reasons: the acting and the faithfulness to the original material. To start off, Gregory Peck does an excellent job as Atticus, a man who believes in the law no matter how human prejudice may distort it. Even in his smaller scenes where he does small things like eat dinner or read with Scout he commands the screen. Even as Peck delivers an excellent performance, though, it is in many ways the children who steal the show as you see how they encounter and must face the awful parts of life, as well as bringing a sense of innocence during the darkness. This is evident in a scene where Scout causes a mob to disperse by merely talking to their leader and making him feel ashamed.

Apart from the acting, the other thing that really makes this movie appealing is how it tries to stay true to the source material as much as possible to make the story a truly amazing one. In today’s cinema where for the most part movies based on books either have their plots as botched up as the response to the BP oil spill (Eragon, you’re on that list) or with no good plot whatsoever (do I honestly need to clarify what vampire book falls into this category?), it is a pleasure to watch a movie from a time where story mattered and no one worried about making it more action-packed. Overall, To Kill a Mockingbird is a timeless classic, one which will make you wish for the time when you saw the world with more innocence. If you haven’t already, Netflix this movie. Now if you’ll please excuse me, I’m off to develop a time machine for the sole goal of erasing the Twilight series from existence.

Illustration: Binta Loos-Diallo

Like many at Whitman College, the philosophy department is working to diversify and expand its department.

Visiting Johnston Professor of Philosophy Geoff Ashton, is bringing a new lecture series to campus. The series will consist of four lectures on various themes within Asian philosophy over the course of the semester. The first lecture will be held today, Thursday, Feb. 2 at 6:30 p.m. in Olin Hall 130.

The series covers topics from many different disciplines, and Ashton believes that it will appeal to a wide variety of students.

“It has a pretty broad reach of topics, including philosophy, religion, Asian studies, the arts, feminist studies and German studies,” he said.

Ashton said that the lectures will be incorporating aspects of both Western and Eastern philosophy.

“Each talk is taking somewhat of a comparative approach, because the audience is made up of mostly American Anglophone students and faculty who are relatively unfamiliar with non-Western topics and methodologies in philosophy,” he said.  “We’re not just trying to account for or catalog traditions, but trying to to engage in the practice of philosophy.”

He hopes to see that students have learned something new in the lectures.

“I’m hoping students get a taste for how philosophy is practiced in non-Western philosophical traditions. [I'm] hoping the lectures broaden their horizons,” he said.

The lecture on Feb. 2 will focus on interpretations of Indian philosophy by German Idealist philosophers.

The next three lectures will take place on March 6, April 19 and April 26. All will begin at 6:30 p.m. in Olin Hall 130.  Topics include looking at feminism and Buddhist ethics, music in Chinese philosophy, and the question of how to approach comparative thought.

Senior philosophy major Elana Congress is glad to see that the department is offering classes outside of the Western tradition.

“Philosophy is often considered a discipline full of old, white men. But these classes remind us that philosophy exists all over the world . . . It’s exciting to see the department trying to diversify and emphasize a wider perspective,” she said.

This last semester, Congress took Ashton’s course entitled “Aesthetics East and West,” and enjoyed being exposed to a different branch of philosophy.

“Aesthetics was especially interesting, because I had never studied it before. I enjoyed reading Asian and Indian philosophy, which were beautiful in their simplicity,” she said.

She also feels that students, especially those who have taken courses in Asian Philosophy this year, will benefit from the lecture series.

“In my aesthetics class last semester, we read Western texts and Eastern texts and then drew some of our own comparisons. I think it will be really cool to hear experts talk about the comparisons they have made.”

Illustration: Emily Johnson

Josh Goodman contributed reporting.

On Wednesday, Jan. 25, Whitman faculty voted to split the Rhetoric and Media Studies Department into two new departments. The change is effective immediately. The new rhetoric studies department will offer two majors, a general rhetoric studies major and a political and legal rhetoric major. The film and media studies department will offer one major, which will be advised by two faculty members and will include interdisciplinary courses.

According to Professor of Forensics Jim Hanson, the split was made possible because of a new rhetoric tenure-line, and the reinstatement of a film media position that had been cut in recent years for economic reasons.

“Students seem to be a little more specialized in their interests these days, so this was a great opportunity to go from a workable department to something that is truly ideal and meets the needs of the students,” Hanson said.

The Rhetoric and Media Studies department was created when the opportunity arose for Hanson to collaborate with retired Whitman professor Bob Withycombe to offer a combined field of studies. Although both fields had similar elements, Hanson said that combining them has been difficult for students looking to specialize specifically in one area.

“It somewhat has worked to have the two together, but it’s not been ideal,” said Hanson. “Now students can really get the major they want.”

Junior film and media studies major Nate Lessler agrees.

“I’m really looking forward to [the switch] because I’m really more interested in film and media over the rhetoric element,” he said.

Current seniors will not be affected by the switch, but subsequent classes will be asked to choose between the two departments. The departments plan to allow students who have taken previous courses in the old Rhetoric and Media Studies department to count these courses as part of either new major.

“[The departments] are being really accommodating in terms of credits counting for our majors if you’re transitioning from [the old] major to another,” Lessler said.

Hanson notes, however, that students who have declared their major and prefer to keep a rhetoric and media studies major are welcome to do so.

“I think there’s one person who wants to continue keeping both components of the major, but most students are overwhelmingly in favor of the change, as far as I know,” he said.

While Lessler is excited for the split, he noted that having a rhetoric component in his field of study has been helpful in broadening his academic experience at Whitman.

“There’s some cool rhetoric courses that I took, that ended up being really interesting and fun, that I wouldn’t have taken otherwise, if they hadn’t been required,” he said.  “But it’s just really nice to have the simplicity of [the major] on my résumé.”

Lessler also noted that having the simplicity of one field of study rather than two may make it easier for future employment and graduate school programs.

“Last summer, when I was applying for jobs, in interviews I was always asked ‘what is rhetoric and media studies?’ rather than just one,” he said.

Sophomore Alyssa Goard, who is considering one of the majors in the rhetoric department, agrees.

“I have heard students say who’ve gone through the major that they’ve been confused in how rhetoric is paired with some of the more film-specific classes,” she said.

According to Hanson, this has been a major question for years among graduating rhetoric and media studies majors and their employers.

“The thing I’ve heard over and over from students is ‘I’m applying to film graduate school and my diploma says rhetoric; this is not good,’” he said.

Goard hopes that the split will allow the college to dedicate funding to both departments and allow professors to grow their course load.

“If [professors] were allowed to add specificity to their research by allowing them to pursue things that are pertinent to their study, it would allow the departments to grow stronger,” she said. “The department could change in a way that I couldn’t have anticipated by the time I graduate and that’s kind of exciting.”

Bookstore Service and Operations Specialist Zoey Smith acknowledges that theft can be an issue.

“Fortunately, theft is not a problem at Whitman the way that it can be at some large, commuter campuses,” Smith said in an email. “While there have been occasional instances of theft, we at the bookstore are proud to be part of a community made up of honest individuals who are sincerely committed to improving the world in which they live.”

According to senior Wing Lam, a bookstore employee, if theft does happen at the bookstore, the instances are few and far between.

“I’ve worked here since my freshman year, and I’ve never seen any theft,” Lam said.

The bookstore is not able to keep track of how much money is lost in stolen pens, candy or textbooks because it does not use a “Point Of Sale” system. It hopes to acquire one in the future to better track money flowing in and out of the bookstore.

Though employees count the inventory, there is no record of what items are actually sold and which items just go missing.

“The [method of taking] inventory at the bookstore is antiquated. Taking inventory was actually just us hand counting all of our stock,” said sophomore Rose Haag, a previous bookstore employee.

The bookstore has taken some measures in order to better protect itself against the possibility of theft.

Director of Security Terry Thompson advised the bookstore on what could be done and what to look out for in regards to theft. After the bookstore was rearranged, Thompson suggested that the bookstore place some domed security mirrors to aid visibility of some areas. They were installed at the beginning of fall semester.

Many students seem to think that the bag check that goes on during the beginning of each semester is an effort to prevent theft, but Smith said that is not its express intent.

“We began the check not because we doubt the integrity of Whitman students, but because it has proven a helpful way to ensure that periods of increased business run smoothly,” said Smith.

Sophomore Ben Menzies, who has worked as a bag checker, addressed students’ impatience with the bag check system.

“I think the bag check is much less annoying than people seem to think it is,” Menzies said. “It’s a simple show of good faith on the customer’s part at a time when the bookstore does have to deal with a greater threat of theft, and as long as the employee is doing her job, it’s at most a 30-second process.”

The bookstore makes a point to take students’ input and suggestions in regards to what is sold, creating a community environment.

“This is your bookstore, and we welcome your suggestions, feedback and involvement,” said Smith. “In being there for the campus, [we try to] carry things that students are looking for.”

Illustration: Binta Loos-Diallo

Much to my dismay, I am currently single, and it’s not because I’ve been idle, trust me. I have been asking out girls for the past several weeks now, but every time, they have either said “no”, spat in my face, or both. I’m desperate. Hopefully, one of you lovely ladies out there will read this and realize that I’m the man you’ve been waiting for all these years. If you’re reading this right now, this is to you:
1.My anaconda don’t want none unless you’ve got buns, hon.
2. Also, hands wouldn’t hurt.
3. It doesn’t matter what color your eyes are, as long as they remind me of fresh dew on a field of clovers.
4. 32,24,34
5. I just wanna burn a spliff and eat Thai, man.
6. Our relationship will have to last at least a month.
7. In that time we will make sweet, sweet love. We will also have sex. Lots and lots of sex.
8. I won’t say no to a threesome, but I won’t say yes either. ;)
9. I like a woman with a bit of mystery. So make sure you’ve killed someone, or at least have pulled off a crazy jewel heist.
10. If you haven’t killed anyone, I have the perfect idea for our first date.

On Tuesday, Jan. 31, WEB and Whitman welcomed visiting speaker David Coleman, “The Dating Doctor.” Coleman, a sought-after motivational speaker in the midst of a whirlwind national tour, worked the audience masterfully, illuminating unspoken truths about both sexes that had the room rapt and silent one moment, and in hysterical laughter the next.

Credit: Ethan Parrish

To get a proper diagnosis on the condition of campus romance, The Pioneer asked students for their opinions about love at Whitman College. An online survey turned up bleak results: of the 142 students who answered the survey, 19 percent said they rarely go on dates, while 22 percent said they don’t date; 17 percent said they don’t date, but hook up infrequently; five percent said they don’t date and hook up frequently; 28 percent said they have a steady significant other; and nine percent responded with “other.” Many of these “other” respondents expressed a desire but inability to date.

“Find me a boyyyyyyyyyyyy—I’m not even picky!” wrote one lonely Whittie. Not a single survey-taker responded that they frequently go on dates. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the romantic opportunities available to them at Whitman, while 62 percent said they were dissatisfied.

Many of those lovelorn souls turned up in force in Reid Ballroom to hear the Dating Doctor speak. “Dating Doctor” Coleman offered a range of tools for navigating the search for love in his lecture, notably his A-B-C-D rule of initial interest: attraction, believability, chemistry and the desire to get to know the person better. Coleman also emphasized that the ideal relationship must complement, rather than complete a person, and that we must first be whole and secure in ourselves before looking for love.

Meanwhile, The Pioneer‘s own researcher turned to the best experts on Whitman dating life and how to get to know students on campus—Whitties themselves.

How would you describe dating life at Whitman?
“There’s not much to say, because it’s pretty shitty.” — sophomore Sam Halgren
“I’d say it’s non-existent.” — first-year Adrienne Beebe
“I would say dating life at Whitman is . . . interesting. It seems dating life branches off in two ways: hook up, or going on a first date.” — first-year Devyani Gupta
“There really isn’t a blatant dating culture here. If people are in relationships, they are generally subtle about it.” — sophomore Katy Whitmer

Where do you go to meet people?
“Parties, Reid, the library, Salsa Dance Magic.” — junior Nik Hagen
“Dance workshops.” — first-year Anne Szeliski
“I met my boyfriend playing Beirut at TKE, we danced at each other like nerds, and then began texting the next day. My friend though met her boyfriend at the gym.” — Gupta
“We met in the lounge.” — first-year Ana Greeley

What is the funniest “pick-up line” you’ve heard?
“Does this smell like Chloroform?” — first-year Julie Peterson
“Are you from Tennessee? Because you’re the only ‘Ten-I-see.’” — first-year Joan Tran

What do you find attractive?
“Have an accent.” — Greeley
“Tall men. After that, a guy who makes me laugh so hard I may fall over, or has interesting or beautiful eyes.” — Gupta

What are some good places to go on a date around Walla Walla/Whitman College?
“Coffee Perk. Or you could take a walk by the reservoir or Pioneer Park.” — first-year Alison Good
“The Patisserie, but for dessert. Spy on any girl talking to her friends about a guy and you’ll hear, ‘The Patisserie? Eeeee!’ Get her a crème brûlée.” — Gupta
“Taqueria is the shit!” — first-year Helen Brown

Have you ever asked/been asked out by someone at Whitman?
“Yes. Sushi at Aloha Sushi off of Main—very social atmosphere—and then another guy took me to the Patisserie for chai hot chocolates.” — Gupta
“Nope.” — Tran

Girls, would you ask a guy out on a date? Why or why not?
“I think I would venture out as far as asking to get coffee . . . I think it’s good for men to take that extra step and ask a girl out, but girls are hard to read as is, and I understand how sometimes, a girl has to say something. ” — Gupta
“I don’t think so. I don’t think I’d have the courage.” — first-year Sanika Gupte

After his hour-long presentation, Coleman started an informal speed dating and Q&A session in the back. The Pioneer spoke to several students about their reaction to the lecture.

Credit: Ethan Parrish

“I think it just helped me be honest with myself and, you know, realize that decisions that I make may not the best, and that I deserve better than I think I do,” said first-year Laura Neff.

“I feel it went pretty well, but he enforces a lot of heteronormativity and I think that’s bullshit,” said junior Peter Mullins.

Mullins also offered his assessment of the reasons behind the current dating doldrums afflicting Whitman.

“I think people are ashamed of their sexuality, deep down, and that’s why it only goes down drunk on the weekends. And everyone’s too busy.”

“I really liked [the lecture],” said first-year Alisha Agard. “It shed a lot of light on questions that I had, and insecurities and fears; it kind of helped me get over that. I’m the kind of person that’s kind of shy and doesn’t really like to go after my love interests, but I feel like after hearing him speak, I might try to go for that.”

The class of 2015 grew by 17 students at the beginning of second semester with the introduction of Jan-starts into first-year residential and academic life.

Credit: Allie Felt

These new students either chose to defer a semester, or were offered spring admission by the college. All are integrated within first-year residence halls, make up their own Encounters course (led by Professor Mitch Clearfield) and experience their own shortened version of first-year orientation. However, the transition into college life a semester after most have settled in provides its own challenges.

“The first few days were slightly awkward just because all the regular students were coming back and excited to see their old friends, and we were these random people wandering around their dorms,” said first-year Jan-start Brooke McKallor. “[However], once everyone settled in, I experienced so much kindness, and I felt really welcome!”

Jan-starts from years past echo McKallor’s thoughts. Sophomore Jan-start Andrew Martin equated his social experience to a “super-fast first-year orientation,” explaining that you make many friends quickly as a Jan-start, but many “fade away” since he didn’t “have a first semester to dabble around in friend groups” like the first-semester students did.

“I thought that the Jan-start experience was the best thing that could have happened for my social life and for my identity as a social human being,” said senior Jan-start Aaron Rosenbaum. “It almost felt like the Jan-starts were being treated like celebrities, since everyone was excited to meet the new students on campus.”

Rosenbaum also said that the other Jan-starts in his class “provided a great group of friends.” According to Rosenbaum, the relationship amongst the Jan-starts themselves is both unique and unifying. The Jan-start students typically become close throughout orientation week and within their Encounters course, mostly within each individual residence hall. A sense of solidarity and understanding runs within the group, which makes the social transition to Whitman life more understandable and not as intimidating.

“We were super tight at first. Especially the ones who lived in your dorm,” said Martin. “It’s like rolling your Scramble, your section and your core class into one beautiful jumble.”

The transition to college academics proves to be a challenge for some of these second semester first-years. After taking up to eight months off of schooling, getting back into the swing of studying, coupled with the difficulty of collegiate education comparatively to high school leads to some struggles in class.

“I felt like the only bad part of my Jan-start experience was the academic transition. Part of this is my own background having never taken a discussion-based class before, but much of it had to do with the lack of assistance, planning and support from the college,” said Rosenbaum. “First of all, registration times were last for Jan-starts and I was not able to get into classes that would have been interesting and important to take—especially as a science major—forcing me to take classes that were taught by visiting professors, which was not ideal. Normally freshmen get SA’s. However, I never felt like I had someone to go to for that help, after meeting them once during orientation, I never worked with them again.”

Academic stress, coupled with an added pressure to attempt to graduate in three and a half years, leads some Jan-starts to seek schooling during their first semester off, or forces them into staying at Whitman for more than the seven semesters needed to graduate. From each Jan-start class, some students end up staying at Whitman for an additional two semesters, instead graduating with the class under them. In Rosenbaum’s case, as a chemistry major, he lost a year of science classes due to his position as a Jan-start. However, not all Jan-starts feel the stresses of academia at the beginning of their Whitman career.

“I don’t feel as though being a Jan-start disadvantaged me academically,” said senior Jan-start Shannon Morrissey. “It provided an incentive to graduate early and save a semester’s worth of tuition, and I was still able to spend a semester off-campus.”

Despite the difficulties of beginning their college career later than a majority of students, the interviewed Jan-starts all seem to agree that their experiences, although hard, were fulfilling.

“It is definitely a unique way to start college!” said McKallor.

Beer and music are indeed ways to help one relax, and perhaps more related than one might expect. From what I can gather, there are two reasons for striking similarities between beer and music, and both of these lie in the way they are made. The first is that we live in a Do-It-Yourself era. For example, if one is not happy with the beer one is tasting, or the music that is playing on the radio, one can relatively easily go out and get a brew kit, or pick up some recording equipment and start whipping up new creations.

The second is that we all want our tastes to be as specific as possible—“No, I only like Wavves’ first album because after that they lost the lo-fi aesthetic that really pleases my lobes.” Or, “Yeah, the Ninkasi IPA is all right, but I much prefer the Two-Hearted Ale because it’s a little hoppier and has that hint of honey that I so crave.”

This trend started, like all things great, in the year 1978. The Rolling Stones had one solid record left in them, and, thanks to giants like Anheuser-Busch, Coors and Miller, there were only a total of 48 breweries left in America. There were also scant independent record labels around the country, with giants Universal, Sony, EMI and Warner controlling nearly all of the market share.

These giants had advertised their competitors out of the market, and one could taste the lack of creativity within the beer industry. The three companies were producing basically the same lager, and whoever spent the most on advertising on television, got the biggest market share.

Thankfully, Jimmy Carter, my favorite peanut farmer of all time, legalized the brewing of beer in one’s home in 1978. Some people, in response to this bland market, began to think, “Hey, I can make better beer than this,” so they went out and got a brew kit, and began to stir up some wort, which could potentially evolve into them getting a small brewery started.

With the principles of creativity and a DIY attitude, microbreweries have popped up everywhere. Today, there are about 1,400 microbreweries in the United States, a drastic shift from the 48 total breweries in 1978.

At the same time, Greg Ginn, future bandleader of Black Flag,  was also sick of a stale music industry. He wanted to produce something original and creative, without the corporate strings attached. Ginn, like so many others who would follow in his footsteps, had the DIY aesthetic, and believed that creativity should lead the way, rather than sales.

He then went out to found one of the best independent record labels ever, SST Records. SST then began to circulate records by Ginn’s own Black Flag, Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr., the Minutemen and many others. These artists, and the whole independent label idea, brought creativity to an otherwise generic market. With complete creative control, and no advances in their wallets, they could produce what they wanted, rather than what the large record company thought would sell. In addition to this, smaller labels (as well as breweries) can be more nimble and appeal to specific tastes, rather than large companies trying to force a particular brand down our throats.

Following SST’s example and work ethic, small independent labels began to pop up all over the United States: Dischord records in D.C., Sub Pop in Seattle and Touch and Go in Chicago.

Although these small independent labels have had a massive impact on the music world, independent labels still only account for five percent of all records sold. Guess how much of the market share microbreweries account for? Around five percent.

My best guess for why these two seemingly unrelated industries share a timeline and similarities is the age that we live in. We live an age of hyper-specialization.

Instead of sitting down with a Budweiser (a mediocre beer with some nice moments) and listening to Foghat (a mediocre major label sponsor band with some nice moments), today, one can sit down and enjoy “citrus accents from abundance of dry hopping, while malty undertones shake hands with the hop character,” and listen to “post-punk art rock with Dylanesque tinges and reggae vibes.” See what I mean?

The fact is, small labels and breweries can specialize and not focus as much on profit as their corporate peers. This allows for more creativity and more risks to be taken, and at the end of the day, more enjoyment. Cheers.

Credit: Cade Beck

Style Soundbites:

“My shoes: I was supposed to go to a conference in Olympia, to go meet our senator, or something like that, in high school. I didn’t have any black heels at all, so the day before I was supposed to leave, I looked everywhere to get heels and they were all really expensive, like, $70 for a pair of black heels that I was only needing for that conference. So I ended up waiting to get them in the morning I was leaving, so I looked everywhere again, and I ended up at Payless with my mom. She was like, ‘No, we should have come here in the first place,’ and of course you always try to talk your parents out of, like, ‘Don’t try to choose my stuff,’ so I fought her, and finally we went in, and I found the pair of black heels, that I kind of get a lot of compliments on, now that I look back! They were only, like, $20, tops.”

“My belt actually came with a dress that I have, that I don’t really like as much. I took it off of that piece of clothing, so I could put it onto other things. I like to mix and match.”

“My shirt I got pretty recently. I have hardly worn it and didn’t realize I had it. I got it in Spokane on a weekend trip with some friends. I got it at . . . maybe Forever 21? Forever 21 or Papaya. Or Wet Seal. Those three are really good stores to go to if you’re looking for pieces of accessories, or things to mix and match, ’cause they’re not, like, $50 for a top.”

“I get influenced by other people’s looks, or through magazines. ‘Glamour,’ ‘Seventeen’. . . the thing about ‘Seventeen,’  is I like that they have just a page of articles of clothing, that you can try. In ‘Glamour,’ I just like how they model the clothing, and they have a bunch of really cute clothing all the time.”

Credit: Cade Beck

Credit: Cade Beck

Michaels scored 71 points over the course of two games en route to earning a place on the D3hoops.com national team of the week.

Arguably the biggest games in the season for the Missionary men will come this weekend when PLU and UPS come to Walla Walla for a pair of games. Two wins could vault Whitman into first place; losses would drop them out of the Conference title picture.

Pacific Lutheran University and University of Puget Sound visit George Ball Court Friday and Saturday, respectively. Both games start at 8 p.m.

Estimated average number of children who have a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder in the United States.

24,000

Estimated number of children who will be born with a form of autism out of every four million children born in the United States.

5

Percent higher likelihood that a form of autism will occur in boys than girls across the racial, ethnic and socio-economic spectrum.

200,000

Estimated number of teenagers diagnosed with a form of autism who will reach full adulthood in the next five years, and be forced to grapple with challenges in the workplace and social discrimination.

2/3

Amount by which the cost of lifelong care of autism can be reduced with early diagnosis and intervention.

17

Number of years since the last major revision to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The revision is expected to narrow the criteria for being diagnosed with autism, and limit the availability of health, educational and social services to those falling out of the diagnoses’ range.

Source:  The New York Times, Autism Society, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, EMedTV.

Illustration: Julie Peterson

I advocate the end of the world as we know it.

This is something readers should know about me. Note that I am not in favor of the end of the world. The world is mountains and books and rain and the firm, reassuring crust beneath our feet. I’d hate to lose that.

The world as we know it, means that money rules, that we treat the planet like a toilet and that two of any three randomly selected groups of humans are more likely than not to have some feud with each other. This is what needs to end.

This is also why I am not afraid of climate change. I’m not saying we should be complacent—far from it. But fear does not enter into the equation. What’s happening to Earth is a different matter entirely.

If left unchecked, runaway emissions will eventually cause the ice caps to melt, and the poles will turn into massive heat sinks. However, that would only be the dramatic finale to a full course of global warming. Its first effects are already being felt across the globe: extreme weather effects, desertification, the death of coral reefs and the early onset of spring.

As I write this, Funso, the first Intense Tropical Storm of the 2011-2012 Indian Ocean season, is hovering over Mozambique, where it has already caused death and destruction. In 2005, the season of Katrina and Rita, we ran out of names for Gulf hurricanes for the first time, and were forced to use Greek letters. Now, we encounter that problem almost every season.

For purposes of this article, let’s assume that the science linking warming effects to hurricanes, blizzards, heat waves and droughts is sound. Now, I’ve always viewed the United States as the center of this fight—possibly due to a bit of latent jingoism, but mostly because, frankly, we pollute and consume far more than anybody else. It’s easy to blame China and India, until you think about whose demand they’re filling.

Until recently, we Americans were ducking the consequences of our actions rather deftly: we were driving pollution, but too well-situated to feel its effects. Our productive lands are, for the most part, not coastal plains, and our economy is diverse enough to withstand storms. Though the 2005 season began to change all that, the Third World continues to bear the brunt of the hit.

As cynical as it is to point out, we in this country don’t change policy based on watching others suffer. If we’re ever to go after global warming, it will first have to go after us—where we live.

Which brings me to the point of all this. If there’s one thing in our country that’s consistent, it’s hindsight. Our highest-profile laws are made in response to sensational crimes; our military is always armed to the teeth for the previous war, our airport security primed to foil whatever plot al-Qaeda last tried. In most situations, legislation is too late to do much about what triggered it.

The environment, however, is different. It’s on a bigger scale, far bigger than anything else bandied about on the political stage. This scale grants us time to undo the damage we’ve done. No matter how far we extend the consequences of our actions into the next millennium, it will not be too late. This is why I’m not scared: because sooner or later, some terrible first-world event will shock us out of complacency and lead to swift, direct action that will mitigate the worst of the crisis.

The world as we know it cannot persist after that. Sea change will follow catastrophe like a tsunami after an earthquake. Once we know the stakes, we’ll never again look at our environment the same way.

And yet, we cannot in good conscience wait for this. As Al Gore is fond of saying in his “Inconvenient Truth” presentation, the choice facing us is a moral one. We have two options, as a nation: we can act now, under our own will and power, to turn the Earth off its collision course with disaster, or we can offer up the Third World as a sacrificial lamb, while we wait for severe climate change to club us to our senses.

This past autumn, my hometown of Austin, Texas was threatened by drought-fueled wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes and burned for days on end. Lest readers believe me to be an armchair moralist, know that the suffering awaiting us stood on my doorstep. Yet I know what almost happened to my home is nothing compared to what is already being suffered in Mozambique, Bangladesh, the Maldives or hundreds of other places across the globe.

When fear is removed, all that remains is the choice between right and wrong. Will we let Los Angeles burn or New York fall into the sea before we make that choice?

“I have no idea who runs the IM Committee,” said first-year Max Lloyd, who has played IM soccer and football. “They run IM sports?”

The Committee consists of seniors, juniors and a sophomore, all of whom have been involved with IM sports since they began attending Whitman. Through the IM Committee, students are able to play IM flag football, dodgeball, soccer, tennis, basketball, Ultimate Frisbee, bowling and more.

“The IM Committee is student run; there are six people on the Committee every year. They send out forms, organize the sports, get field space, work with administration,” said senior Jeff Gayle, one of the leading figures on the Committee. Gayle has played nearly all of the IM sports available.

Gayle was drawn to the Committee by his love of sports. “I spend a lot of time around sports; I have been doing this since sophomore year, so it is just fun to organize the sports that I end up playing and trying to make them run as smoothly as possible,” said Gayle.

Students at Whitman involved with IMs often play numerous sports offered by the IM Committee.

“Over the course of the year, I would venture to guess at least half of the people, if not more, play a sport at some point. In football there is [sic] about 20 teams in both the guys and girls divisions,” said Gayle. “I like playing football; it’s a lot of fun. I enjoy playing with my team and against my friends.”

In IM Committee work, there are some problems that cannot be avoided.

“There are always little issues,” said junior IM Committee member Gus Friedman. “In the sports arena at Whitman, varsity athletics dominate the top, club sports make up the middle, IM sports makes due with what we get. So scheduling field space and gym space is always a challenge.”

Over the past few years, the IM Committee has been learning how to better use this space to provide a better experience for participating students. “We have been trying to recently move it towards being more stable. In past years [the Committee] was really casual and unorganized, and we are doing a better job of making it more organized so people don’t get upset.”

The Committee attempts to accommodate the needs and time obligations of the students. ”We are doing what we can with what we are given to make it work as smoothly as possible,” said Friedman.

There are many goals the IM Committee strives to meet; nonetheless, their number one goal remains the same. “Our number one goal is that people have fun, and so we do our best when someone has a complaint to figure out what the proper resolution is,” said Gayle.

The Committee is considering adding more sports in the coming years.

“We are going to do mini-golf this year,” said Gayle.

Gayle encourages all Whitman students to participate in IMs.

“Try it; there are a lot of people who have not necessarily played the sport, and just want to hang out with their friends. I think it is just a fun way to do something with your friends,” said Gayle.

Illustration: Kelly Douglas

“The Bhagavad-Gita is really easy to grasp, too bad we don’t spend an entire semester of Encounters on it.”

“I just love the smell of Beta’s basement. Nothing says ‘party’ like the aroma of cum and rotten beer.”

“I think all the pipes in Anderson add a pleasant aesthetic feel to the dorm rooms.”

“There’s a larping party at North tonight for the people who aren’t going to the blackout at TKE? Chyeah I’m going, duh.”

“Mmm, Keystone is the BEST!”

“Ay yo. I’m headed to that party in Prentiss tonight.”

“I’d much rather go to a Wa-High football game than have an actual football team at Whitman.”

“Yeah, of course I did all my reading for Encounters.”

“My prof only gave me five pages of reading to do by Monday. What am I supposed to do with the rest of my weekend?”

“I wish I had more homework on Sunday nights. I hate having too much time with nothing to do.”

“No! I would never have sex with someone on the fourth floor of the library if no one was there and we had locked all the doors!”

“There’s too much to do in Walla Walla for me. Sometimes, I wish Whitman were more isolated from the city life, you know?”

“George Bridges? Never heard of him.”

“Hey, I’m thinking about just writing my essay on Friday night. You down?”

“I wish there were more white people here. I hate all this diversity.”

Photo by Marin Axtell; Graphic by Ted Hendershot

With an election coming up, Walla Walla has been blanketed by campaign signs urging residents to “Vote YES for Kids.” On Feb. 14, 2012, voters will decide whether to replace the current school levy, which expires at the end of 2012, for another four years.

The current levy, approved by voters in 2008, makes up approximately 20 percent of the school district’s operating budget. Levy dollars pay for extracurricular programs, including athletics, arts, Future Farmers of America and drama programs. Many regular school activities are also supported by the levy, including elementary school physical education, Advanced Placement classes at Walla Walla High School and the district’s gifted program.

Aside from the educational benefits for students, Superintendent of Walla Walla Public Schools Mick Miller said the levy will positively affect Walla Walla’s economy.

“It’s going to employ a bunch of people in Walla Walla,” he said.

Many salary needs for the district are not completely funded by the state. Miller said that about a third of staff salaries are paid for out of levy money.

Whitman community members have worked on the campaign for approving the replacement levy. Shauna Bogley, a Whitman alumna with three children in Walla Walla Public Schools, chairs the Citizens for Schools committee, which campaigns for the levy.

“I really believe in making our schools strong,” she said. “I’ve been a classroom volunteer for thirteen years, and I see how much the levy benefits the children of Walla Walla.”

She said that Walla Walla has always approved past levies. For her, the biggest challenge is making sure that people remember to vote, so that election results reflect the strong support for schools in Walla Walla.

“We need every yes vote we can get,” she said. “We don’t want [the levy] to just slide by.”

Whitman students who have worked in schools see the benefits of levy dollars in the classroom. Senior Nina Neff, who works with Gear-Up, a college readiness program, said that many of the resources supporting her students are funded by the levy. Even with current levy money, Walla Walla High School students are sometimes missing textbooks or other resources that would help with after-school tutoring. Neff sees the levy as a crucial way of maintaining equal education for all students.

“Whitman wants to be in a community where there’s equitable opportunity for success. In order to do that, there just have to be the resources that will allow students to prepare for college,” she said.

Leslie, an Americore volunteer helps Jasmin from Green Park Elementary with her homework during the after school Homework Club, funded by the levy dollars. Credit: Marin Axtell

President George Bridges and other Whitman staff wrote a letter in support of the levy to the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin. In it, they highlight the importance of strong schools for creating a good community.

“Strong public schools benefit not only children in the Walla Walla Valley; they also are magnets drawing successful businesses, talented workers and community leaders to our area,” they wrote.

Assistant Director of Off-Campus Studies Barbara Hoffman echoed this sentiment. Hoffman has worked for the levy campaign, and believes that the presence of a good public school system in Walla Walla helps Whitman attract talented staff.

“Walla Walla public schools do a great job of educating our children, and having a good school system brings strong staff and faculty to Whitman College,” she said.

Hoffman pointed out that Walla Walla has many English as a Later Language (ELL) students, as well as relatively high poverty rates.

“Because of that, our job as a school district is a tough one—to make sure all children are educated,” she said.

Credit: Marin Axtell

She pointed out that many affluent parents might be able to make up for a lack of extracurricular activities by hiring private teachers and paying for after school classes. Levy dollars allow for equal opportunity to participate.

“I want to make sure that everybody in our community has access to those resources,” she said.

Associate Professor of Sociology Michelle Janning is also in favor of the levy.

“I come from a long line of public school teachers, so I strongly support public education,” she said.

She also believes that strong schools in Walla Walla can serve as a model for Whitman students who are interested in education, especially because of all the challenges facing the district.

Janning has a son enrolled at Green Park Elementary, and sees the levy-funded programs as an investment in the future.

“It’s a really good use of taxpayer money,” she said. “If you have success in teaching children at early ages, they are better at coping with things later in life. It’s a good economic investment.”

Although she doesn’t like to publicly show her support for election measures, Janning made an exception for the levy.

“I don’t put signs in my yard,” she said. “I put a sign in my yard for this one.”

Contributed Photo

When some students are admitted to Whitman, they are offered admission for the spring semester instead of the fall.

“Each year, there are a number of qualified, compelling applicants who we’re unable to admit outright for fall, but offer a place in the spring class,” said director of admission Kevin Dyerly in an email.

The school can accommodate these additional students in the spring because more juniors study abroad during the second semester and many seniors do not  register for full course-loads. Thus a small spring class can enter Whitman in January.

“Many of our Jan-starts welcome the opportunity to take a semester off after a grueling high school experience to travel, work, or serve their communities before enrolling at Whitman,” said Dyerly.

Last fall, first-year Jan-start Hilary Painter traveled half-way across the globe to go backpacking in the Himalayas. She was able to do this through a course facilitated by the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), and it proved to be an invaluable adventure. Along with her group, Painter journeyed from village to village in the northern Uttarakhand province of the mountain range.

“It was an independence builder,” said Painter of her two-month excursion. “It was quite an adventure.”

Compared to days spent hiking in India, the transition to Whitman has been a bit strange, but Painter believes she and her Jan-Start peers have integrated well.

Contributed Photo

“I think all of us had our fear of academics and making friends, but we all have Encounters together, so it’s a nice transition back into the academic world,” she said.

First-year Dylan Snyder is another student who took a gap semester during the fall, and he spent his time in Fiji, New Zealand and Australia.

“I had the option to either go abroad or get a job, and I figured I wouldn’t have time after [finishing] school to go traveling,” said Snyder.

Through an organization called Carpe Diem Education, Snyder took a two-and-a-half month trip through the South Pacific, where he gained an outdoor education through activities such as working on a dairy farm in New Zealand, and scuba diving in Australia.

“The experience taught me to relax, loosen up and prepare for living in the dorms, in close quarters with a person my own age,” said Snyder.

A third member of the spring class, first-year Helena Victor, spent three months of her gap semester in Mexico, also through a NOLS program. She went backpacking, kayaking and sailing in Baja. And though it was a challenge, Victor found the experience extremely rewarding.

“One of the things they really emphasize in their curriculum is ‘tolerance for adversity and uncertainty.’ That was definitely something I needed to work on,” said Victor.

Although her transition back into society was a bit overwhelming, Victor feels the transition into Whitman has been smooth, thanks to the lessons she learned from her time abroad, as well as Whitman’s efforts to make her feel comfortable.

“I feel like my mental stamina has increased tremendously and made me ready for the transition back into an academic environment,” Victor said. “[Plus,] it’s nice to be surrounded by such inviting people.”

RIM managed to stay profitable by continuing to churn out Blackberries, because in a market that was most interested in the smartphone as a business tool, the Blackberry was incredibly useful. However, with the introduction of the iPhone, that market began to shift dramatically. Smartphones are no longer just for the residents of the corner office anymore–they’re consumer products that are becoming increasingly popular for use at home and with people of college age and younger. And let’s face it: Blackberries aren’t hip. RIM must figure out how to revitalize its product line, or die.

On the face of things, that’s only big news for IT folks in enterprise environments, like companies or schools that rely on Blackberries as their organization’s smartphone of choice. But RIM is providing important competition in a market that’s currently dominated by Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7. Back in the days before iPhones, the major competition among smartphone manufacturers was in developing a better phone for enterprise use. That’s how we ended up with iterations on the Treo from Palm and a truly ugly Windows Phone OS. Apple entering the market signaled a major shift in the way things were done, and that competition has led to a lot of positive innovation in the smartphone space. That’s why I want RIM to remain relevant: Solid competition will drive innovation.

But in order to do that, RIM must realize that the Blackberry formula that carried them this far has to go out the window. People who have cut their teeth on iOS, Android and WP7 (in other words, young folks like us) are going to be entering the enterprise in droves in the coming years. A new study has noted that iOS has been gaining a lot of traction among executives, and the new blood entering the workforce will only accentuate that. While IT directors may like the really well-developed tools that RIM has provided for working with Blackberries, they’re ultimately going to be beholden to their end users.

Right now, one of the biggest hurdles Blackberry is facing is design. With the other major smartphone platforms, I can easily conjure a clear mental image that represents the way that its hardware and software looks, whether it’s Apple’s iconic iPhone design, Motorola’s Droid or the clean boxes of Windows Phone 7′s interface. Blackberry can’t provide that right now, but a design home run (coupled with marketing) will do wonders. One of the greatest strengths of the Blackberry platform right now is the Blackberry Messaging service. For those folks who aren’t familiar with BBM, it’s basically a more feature-rich form of text messaging that runs on a Blackberry’s data connection. (Apple is working on something similar with iMessage, but it’s not nearly as full-featured as of iOS 5.) If RIM can couple BBM with a compelling hardware and software platform, there’s some real potential for success.

As it stands right now, I’m tenuously hopeful. In an interview posted on Youtube, RIM’s new CEO seems to have some understanding that they need to make a change. I just hope that change isn’t focused around a strategy of doing the same thing and expecting new results.

Illustration: Julie Peterson

1. Close Friend—Distance does not matter when you are walking toward someone you know very well. You may scream “HEY” or “OI” and even hold personal conversations while still fifty yards apart.
2. Slight Acquaintance—When approaching someone you have spoken to no more than three times, it is vital that you pretend not to see them until they are about fifteen feet away. Make sure your feet still exist. Only when the fifteen-foot mark is reached can you look up, smile and say something noncommittal (like, “Oh, hey,”) in a surprised-sounding voice.
3. Mortal Enemy—Ignore at all costs. Possibly whisper veiled threats upon passing.
4. Complete Stranger—At the fifteen foot mark, use your periphs to gauge if they are looking at you. If so, smile. If not, “receive an urgent text.”
5. Other—When unsure how to react, look at a point past them and enthusiastically wave to an imaginary friend. Nobody, I repeat, nobody will suspect a thing.

After a long day of classes, Friedman sits down at a table in the basement of Reid wearing a forest green fleece and a huge smile.

Why do you like being on the Intramural (IM) committee?

Credit: Nicholas Peck

I think it’s important to give back, especially to something that you really like. I have participated in IM stuff pretty extensively, and it seemed like a cool thing to get involved with to help organize and improve the process. It’s something that directly impacts me as a participant, and it’s good to know I can make the experience better for other people as well.

How did you get involved with Intramural Sports?
I played a bunch of different sports my freshman year, and a couple of the people on the committee approached me and asked if I’d be interested in joining the committee. I said yes, filled out the application and got it.

What sports experience have you had previously and now?
I played soccer at my high school, and basketball growing up. I’m playing on the club volleyball team here. IM-wise, I’ve done flag football, soccer, dodgeball, basketball, volleyball and softball. I think that’s it.

Wow. So you really like playing IM sports?
Yeah, I love being athletic, and getting to form a team with friends, just playing alongside people that you know. It’s pretty competitive, and a lot of fun.

What specific things have you done while on the Committee?
It depends on the sport. Historically, there have been six people on the Committee. Usually only one or two are involved with running a given sport in the administrative way. The seniors usually oversee everything, and then delegate responsibilities. Using basketball as an example: I get the forms out to everyone as successfully as I can, collect them, create the schedule for each division, contact the Varsity Basketball players to get volunteers to referee the games. Assigning referees to the games turns out to be much trickier than it should be. Then, when the season’s over, I have the standings, put together the playoffs and order the blue shirts for the champions.

That sounds pretty involved.
Some sports are more [involved] than others. Anything with referees is much more complicated; not only are you dealing with players having conflicts, but the referees do as well, and the communication gets crazy. But usually, once the schedule is made, there is less involvement on our part.

What is your favorite team to play on?
Probably football. That’s something that I never played growing up, so it’s still new and exciting to me, not that other sports aren’t. Those [football] games get pretty competitive, which I love. Really getting to play hard against a lot of other people you know, teams you’ve developed rivalries with, it’s just a much more competitive season than some of the other sports tend to be. Which not everyone likes; some people want a more laid back experience, and there are plenty of other sports that are good for that.

What other activities are you involved with on campus?
Let’s see . . . I’m in the jazz band, club volleyball, I was an RA last year. I inherited the role of organizing the sustainability chair for fraternities and sororities, which is kind of a newer thing; it just got started this year. I’m a member of Phi Delta Theta. Those are the main ones.

What instrument do you play in jazz band?                                        
Trombone. I started in the fourth grade, so I’ve been playing for the greater part of my life.

Illustration: Binta Loos-Diallo

Friday night I wanted to see a movie that would make me laugh and forget about the looming work of the new semester. “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” was not that movie—it was horribly sad . . . but still worth seeing.

“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” begins with the funeral of Thomas Schell (Tom Hanks). Mr. Schell and his wife (Sandra Bullock) are the parents of Oskar (Thomas Horn), a shy nine-year-old boy who possibly has Asperger’s syndrome and does not get along well with others, but loves mysteries and puzzles. Oskar’s dad created puzzles and mysteries for Oskar to solve that required the boy to explore New York, talk to people and interact with the world around him. Tragically, Oskar’s dad dies in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2011. The movie relies heavily on the 9/11 factor, and Oskar and his mom are devastated by the loss.

One day, Oskar finds a key and a note while rummaging in his dad’s closet that says, “never stop looking.” In an attempt to prolong the memory of his dad, Oskar decides that the key is the last puzzle his dad gave him to solve, and scours the streets of New York to find what the key opens.

The film chronicles Oskar’s quest to unlock the mystery of the key, and his encounters with New Yorkers including a compulsive hugger, a transvestite and—the person who I felt stole the show—actor, Max Von Sydow, only known as The Renter. The Renter is a mute man, who has the words “yes” and “no” written on either hand, and only communicates through writing. Max Von Sydow’s acting was powerful and heart-warming.

Though offering a very faint storyline of a slightly odd kid’s adventure in New York, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” relies heavily on triggering the viewer’s emotions. Nearly EVERY single person in the movie theater cried at some point—no, I did not shed a tear; I was possibly dehydrated. But I do recommend this sad, emotional rollercoaster to moviegoers.

Infographic by Molly Olmsted

1. What percentage (approximate) of Whitman students participate in IM sports?
   1. 40%
   2. 85%
   3. 70%
   4. 50%
2. Which of the following is an IM sport at Whitman?
   1. Chess
   2. Debate
   3. Swimming
   4. Cliff-jumping
3. Are you a varsity athlete?
   1. Yes
   2. No
4. If you answered YES to #3, do you also play an IM sport and if so how many?
   1. SO MANY! I’m all about IM sports!
   2. One or two, depending on if I can find a team
   3. If someone asked me, I definitely would
   4. No way
5. If you answered NO to #3, do you still play an IM sport and if so how many?
   1. SO MANY! I’m all about IM sports!
   2. One or two, depending on if I can find a team
   3. If someone asked me, I definitely would
   4. No way
6. What is the prize for being the champion of an IM sport?
   1. Pink headband
   2. Silver crown
   3. Candy
   4. Blue shirt

Although he is more famous for his lengthier novels, “Norwegian Wood” and “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,” Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami’s short novel “After Dark” is a mysterious, mesmerizing read that embodies Murakami’s typical theme of alienation in modern Japanese society. It’s a riddle of a novel, and by no means easily understood, but bibliophiles looking for a break in the monotony should definitely give this book a try.

Set at night in modern Tokyo, the events of the novel take place over seven hours, and include a chance meeting in a Denny’s restaurant with a distressed Chinese prostitute and a glimpse into the troubled relationship of 19-year-old Mari Asai with her beautiful older sister Eri, who has been in a coma-like slumber for two months. The novel’s plot is nebulous, indeed, some readers may wonder if there even is a plot, but Murakami’s skillful merging of dream with reality is engaging.

As Mari wanders through one of Tokyo’s shady entertainment districts, pausing in hotels and restaurants to kill time until the night is over, her conversations with the people she meets are the only indicators of her troubled thoughts. Chapters featuring Mari are interspersed with episodes following the other characters of the novel: a jazz trombonist, a former pro-wrestler who now manages a “love hotel” and Eri. Eri’s chapters are by far the most abstract parts of the book, as they follow her descent into a dream world, in which an inscrutable person referred to as The Man With No Face watches her sleep. These sections of the novel are both puzzling and lovely, as Murakami perfectly captures the world of the dream, in which the dreamer is both conscious and unconscious of reality.

“After Dark” is perhaps not as well-wrought as Murakami’s more famous works—it seems to end far too quickly, leaving the reader wondering what the point of it all was—but it is a good introduction to his themes and writing style for the uninitiated, and it sure is fun to read. Even with the dilution that occurs when a novel is translated from the original Japanese, the dialogue, descriptions and quirky style remain. Readers who enjoy this book should certainly pick up Murakami’s other works, including his new novel “1Q84,” which debuted in October.

After a decade of hustling productions of new songs, The Black Keys finally won popular and critical acclaim in 2010. Their album Brothers, which included the popular single “Tighten Up,” won three Grammy Awards, as well as being sampled on many commercials including for Subaru, Victoria’s Secret, American Express and Zales.

On Friday, Dec. 2nd, 2011, The Black Keys released their catchy, beat-driven, gritty roadtrip-ready album titled El Camino. The album represents not only The Black Keys’ ability as a musical group (following up the commercial cash-cow of Brothers was no easy feat), but also their achievement in keeping bluesy garage-rock alive and kicking to a nice, non-fussy beat.

The album is perfect for a good head-bobbing session near your laptop speakers, or even a party-mix buffer song between the rap and dubstep.

Recommended songs include, but are not limited to, “Lonely Boy,” “Gold On the Ceiling” and “Money Maker” (Ludacris’ version is good too).

“Sparkle Motion”

DJs Roxy and Becca bring you the bee’s knees of the radio waves with “Sparkle Motion.” Delivering a mix of delightful ear candy—the only candy you should ever take from strangers -tune in for a blend of electronic, hip-hop, indie, country, soul, world music and more.
Wednesdays, 11 p.m. – 1 a.m. On the dial at 90.5 FM Walla Walla and streaming live at www.kwcw.net. For requests, call (509) 527-5283.

Credit: Faith Bernstein

“People have been swimming their best in practice, and we’ve just started our taper. We’ll definitely be setting the stage for Conference,” said women’s team Captain Katie Tackman before heading up to Spokane for a double-dual meet against Whitworth University and The University of Puget Sound.

And set the stage they did, with both teams finishing in second out of the three teams. For the women’s team, it marked the first time they’ve beaten the UPS squad.

“We had an amazing meet, where everyone gave it their all. There were lots of season best times and even a lifetime best for Melanie Notari,” said Tackman. Junior Helen Jenne, one of several key juniors on the women’s team, won two races to help boost the team. “The big junior class has definitely been a turning point [for the program],” said Tackman.

On the men’s side, the three top teams in the conference squared off in a quest for aquatic supremacy. The men finished in second, beating a powerful UPS team but losing to a dominant Whitworth squad.

Chris Bendix, a senior captain and distance swimmer, was extremely impressed with the men’s squad. “It could not have gone better. Everyone was able to get up and race, which isn’t easy to do this time of year. Everyone is pretty beat up right now. To have people going lifetime bests and breaking school records right now is crazy.”

This meet was raced mid-taper, meaning the swimmers are still allowing their bodies to heal and the times posted will only get faster.

“Conference will be extraordinarily fast. Next year, there may not be a single record on the men’s record board that isn’t from 2012,” said Bendix. Assistant Coach Kevin Howard put it simply. ”We’re going to step up to the challenge and make our presence known.”

Although there were many great individual performances, much of the team was quick to aim the praise at their coach Jenn Blomme. “I have always believed in Jenn,” said junior backstroker Joey Gottlieb. “Our success is a testament to her.” Blomme has rebuilt the swim program over the last ten years, from a small non-competitive bunch into a Northwest Conference powerhouse with its sights aimed at the top spot.

The swimmers are now focused on preparing for the most important races of the season at the Conference Championships from February 10-12, which will be held at the King Co. Aquatic Center in Federal Way, Wash.

Illustration: Emily Johnson

The Board of Trustees approved a two percent salary increase for college faculty and staff this year. The increase was recommended to the Board by President Bridges at a board meeting in November, and went into effect Sunday, Jan. 1.

Pay raises for college employees have been rare to nonexistent over the past few years, due mainly to the floundering economy. Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer Pete Harvey cited increased enrollment and the recovery of the college’s endowment fund as major factors in the college’s ability to increase salaries this year.

“We try to do salary increases once a year. The last few years there have been very little or no salary increases because of the economy, but prior to that it was typically once a year,” said Harvey.

Although salary increases are typically recommended to the college’s budget officers and the Board of Trustees after being discussed by a committee of student, staff and faculty representatives, this year’s pay increase was a little different. Budget officers took the initiative in recommending the increase after discovering that the college’s budget was capable of covering it. The college’s operating budget this year is about $63 million, 60 percent of which goes toward staff and faculty salaries and benefits.

“This current raise came mid-year because the college finds itself in better financial shape than we had projected a year or so ago,” explained Associate Professor of Astronomy and General Studies and Chair of Faculty Andrea Dobson. “[It came about] because the budget officers both wanted to do something to ameliorate the erosion of compensation and found themselves able to do so.”

Dobson said that the pay increase is welcome after the recent drought, although there is still more room for growth.

“My sense is that the raise helps address the erosion in compensation that many college employees have been feeling in recent years, but it’s not that much in actual dollars for most people,” she said.

Adjunct Assistant Professor of General Studies Claire Valente said that many faculty members are appreciative of the raise regardless.

“I think most of us understand that the college has been in a difficult spot [financially],” she said.

Harvey said that he hoped the coming year would prove more fortunate for the college’s budget allotment toward salary increases.

“It’s a relatively small increase at two percent, and we’re hoping to do more in the next academic year as well,” he said.

Due to the success of the first iteration of the program, the core of this summer will remain the same. That being said, however, there are two major differences that will turn this year’s program into a slightly different experience.

The first difference is a change in the central question that students will be exploring.

“In the context of climate change, how can ecosystems be restored and strengthened to meet both human and natural needs?” Brick said.

In the face of climate change, students this year on Whitman in the Wallowas will investigate the theme of “Resilience” and how it applies to a county like Wallowa County. How can Wallowa County and the surrounding ecosystem remain resilient to climate change? What role must ecosystem services play? According to Brick, these are the questions that Whitman in the Wallowas will be exploring.

The second significant difference in this year’s program is the change in professors who will be leading the excursion. Senior Lecturer of Environmental Humanities and General Studies Don Snow and Associate Professor of Biology Delbert Hutchison, who led the first outing, will be replaced by Professors Phil Brick and Ellen Bishop this summer.

Snow commented on how this will change the program.

“One of the obvious [changes] is: Delbert is a biologist, Ellen Bishop is a geologist. I’m a humanist, literary person, and Phil is a politics person. The differing backgrounds of the professors probably will have some bearing on the way the program works pedagogically,” he said.

Despite the differences in professors, the program will still be working incredibly closely with Wallowa Resources, the local, nonprofit, environmentally focused organization that they worked with last summer.

“We have a very good working relationship with [Wallowa Resources], and we have satisfied their needs as they have ours. So regardless of what the theme is, we are definitely working with them again,” Hutchison said.

Senior Alegria Olmedo, one of the participating students from last summer’s program, expanded on how easy the connection with Wallowa Resources was last summer.

“Working with Wallowa Resources, they know the community so well—the ranchers, the loggers and everyone—so it is a really easy network. People there are waiting to have someone to talk to and tell their story,” she said.

Moving beyond just this coming summer, Whitman is planning on turning Whitman in the Wallowas into a consistent program.

“The plan is to offer it in the summer before Semester in the West goes out. Semester in the West typically goes every other year, so this will be offered every other summer,” Hutchison said.

Hutchison also commented on how Whitman in the Wallowas will change and adapt with the changing environment of Wallowa County.

“As things change, [Wallowa Resources and other non-profits] are able to give us input and let us know ideas on topics, people to meet, and new things to talk about, so absolutely things will change,” he said. “The really good thing about cooperating with them is that we can ride that wave as well, to try to help them with ideas that they could do, but also bring those really cool current issues to our students as well.”

Snow noted that the success of the program’s future hinges on the success of this summer.

“Whether it will become a permanent fixture remains to be seen. We had a great turnout last year; we had twelve really fine students . . . we got it off to a good start,” he said.  “This could really be the pivotal year.”

Infographic by Cara Patten

Photo by Ethan Parrish

Back row, from left to right: Senior Reporter Rachel Alexander ’13, Humor Editor Cari Cortez ’13, Web Editor Sara Rasmussen ’12, Feature Editor Kelsey Kennedy ’12, A&E Editor Caitlin Hardee ’12, Illustration Editor Binta Loos-Diallo ’12, Managing Editor Cara Lowry ’12, Web Content Editor Josh Goodman ’12, Editor-in-Chief Patricia Vanderbilt ’12, Sports Editor Libby Arnosti ’12. Front row, from left to right: Feature Editor Alyssa Fairbanks ’12, News Editor Shelly Le ’14, Chief Copy Editor Jean Marie Dreyer ’12, News Editor Karah Kemmerly ’14, Photography Editor Ethan Parrish ’14. Not Pictured: Opinion Editor Alex Brott ’13, Production Manager Ted Hendershot ’12.

Hi!  Welcome to the first in a series of blog entries about the making of the print edition of the Whitman Pioneer.  My name is Ted Hendershot, and I’m responsible for the design of the print edition and its weekly layout.  I’m proud to announce the new production staff.  Beginning with the coming issue, no. 2, these will be the talented designers bringing you the eight weekly pages that make up the Pioneer, as well as our magazine companion, the Circuit:

Front Page & Feature: Ted Hendershot
News: Sean McNulty
A&E: Madison Munn
Sports: Molly Olmsted
Opinion: Allison Work
Backpage: Cara Patten
Infographics & Feature Graphics: Katherine Berfield

In this first blog, I’d like to talk vision, as well as discuss the design process for the first issue’s front page and the redesign of the previous semester.  In subsequent weeks, I’ll be talking about front pages, infographics, production night hijinks, and the little details that make the Pio look like…well, the Pio. 

New Feature: Lift-Outs and Pull Quotes

This semester continues the phased redesign of the Pio that began at the beginning of last semester.  This first issue unveils a new style for pull quotes and lift-outs, those boxes which tease a quote lifted from the article.  These pull quotes break a fundamental rule of design: promote contrast.  Specifically, the leading quotation mark slightly sets off the left edge of the element.  It’s arguably not optimal, but I think it’s our best pull quote style to date.  I love the lift-out style–it’s astonishingly clean, and almost automatic for our designers, as it makes use of InDesign’s “paragraph rule” feature.

Flag Logo

Canada wordmark in Baskerville (courtesy Wikimedia)

The redesign I started work on last year was intended to create something fairly permanent–a Pioneer brand which was simple and elegant enough to remain around for a while, even as different Production Managers apply their different tastes to individual elements.  The cornerstone of the redesign is Maggie Appleton’s elegant, classic typographical “The Pioneer” logo.  ”The” is set in CAC Champagne, a modern script font apparently designed by the American Greetings Corporation.  I’d love to redraw this face to make the trailing stroke of the aitch into the initial stroke of the e–perhaps later in the semester.  The font appears to have been abandoned–I might seek out a similar font to replace it with.  ”Pioneer” is set in hand-kerned Baskerville Old Face, a classic digital face based on the legendary John Baskerville’s original glyphs, completed in 1757.  Despite the name, Baskerville is a Transitional, rather than Old Style typeface, being closer to the familiar Bodoni and Walbaum moderns than, say, Caslon, the greatest of the old serifs.  (You’ve seen William Caslon’s eponymous typeface everywhere.  The Declaration of Independence was set in it, and many of the greatest English-language authors swore by it.  George Bernard Shaw was proud to call himself “a Caslon man,” and the typesetter’s motto in the period was “When in doubt, set it in Caslon.”)  Benjamin Franklin preferred Baskerville for its clarity and the perfection of its glyphs, a quality often ignored today, as modern uses of faithful Baskerville reproductions often fake-age the letter forms to create an eighteenth-century “look.”  The Canadian government is largely typeset in Baskerville, and the famous “Canada” wordmark with the maple leaf flag over the final “a” is in that font.  If it’s good enough for Canada and Ben Franklin, it’s good enough for us.

Issue 3 logo of last semester vs Issue 1 logo of this semester

I made two sneaky changes to the logo–the first, shifting the positioning of the “The,” and the second, removing the strokes (or “lines”) connecting the upper and lower serifs (or “sticky-out bits”) on the glyphs (or “letters”) of “PIONEER.”  This makes the logo a bit simpler–just two text boxes in InDesign, rather than a complex Photoshop file with strokes, shading, and color information.  The other big change was stealing that shading away and representing the logo as black-on-white–more on the different flag in another blog.

Font Guide

While I hope our logo survives me and several generations of PMs, fonts will inevitably change.  Our current faces are a modern Times New Roman-derivative called “Tinos,” used for body copy, and a Russian family called PT, which we use in its Serif and Sans-Serif styles for headlines, infographics, and most other design elements.  For the first issue, we introduced two new one-off fonts: the much-loved Gotham (page 2 News and Feature), well known as the official Obama campaign font, and Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ font Knockout (front page infographic), widely used by the New York Times Magazine for infographics.  I selected the latter for the eating disorder infographic based on its similarity in heft to Helvetica, the standard font for Nutrition Facts boxes in the U.S.

Deciding on the fonts for the first issue last semester was the work of several days.  They’ve remained for fifteen issues, and I feel confident that they’ll stay around for a while.  You may see more fonts pop up later in the semester as we branch out and flex our design muscles.

Infographic

Finally, I designed a photo-infographic for this issue–a comparison of a normal and anorectic meal for the front page article on eating disorders.  The food was prepared in consultation with article author Rachel Alexander, resulting in calorie counts which are as accurate as we can surmise.  The objective for the photos was to create shots which were appropriately glossy, yet not overly dressed or styled–to give the impression of real meals, but not ugly meals.  I painted the garlic bread, strawberries, salads, and tomatoes with egg white, to give a natural gloss, while the pasta required extra oil to create highlights on camera.  Without a professional lighting rig, eliminating shadows and balancing color was incredibly challenging.  (Without even a reliable speedlite, we had to use incandescent lights and a ring flash.)  The result was pleasant once printed, although the imperfect color registration gave the photos a blurry appearance on the page.

Thanks for reading!  Next week, we’ll have new graphics to go over, along with photos of the always-surreal production night experience.

Cheers,
Ted

- Pio blogs. These include an environmental blog, a sports blog, and the return of Netflix It!, a weekly review of an older but easily accessible movie. And this editors’ blog, of course!

- More study abroad blogs. This semester, you’ll hear stories from Whitties in Argentina, France, India, Japan, Jordan and Spain.

- More up to the minute coverage of events and breaking news at Whitman. Why wait until Thursday when we can have the latest on the web the day something happens?

- Comments via your Facebook account. No need to sign in or provide an e-mail, as long as you (like most Whitties) are already logged into Facebook.

- Hopefully, we’ll also get some timeless web content this semester. Restaurant guides, a  guide to bike trails in Walla Walla, et cetera. However, we still need people to write such content, so inquire if you’re interested.

I hope that you enjoy the additional content and new features. If you have any ideas for what you’d like to see on the Pio‘s website, let us know in the comments!

It’s production night as usual.

There are nearly 80 students who work for The Pio. Some of these people rarely step foot in the office—some of them aren’t even on the same continent—but a dedicated few of us spend a great deal of our lives in the newsroom. We’re the editors. You might not know us, but we probably know your name, class year, and major/club/sport (if applicable).

When eight Pio staffers attended the Associate Collegiate Press convention in Orlando, Fla. last semester, we realized the importance of editorial voice to a newspaper. Cara Lowry and I had the idea to start an Editors’ Blog as a way to communicate the editorial personality of The Pioneer to our readers. The editors and managers will write about the projects that we’re working on, the snacks that fuel our production nights and the moments of frustration and pride that we encounter on a weekly basis as we put together the newspaper.

The Pioneer has a lot of uses (I personally am quite excited to see our pages covering up windows as fraternity initiation season starts up), but in one sense, we are a record and a reflection of Whitman College. The Editors’ Blog is a record of The Pioneer itself in its efforts to capture Whitman.

I was met at the Marseille airport Saturday evening by two administrators from the institute. My host father, Monsieur Fuentes, and brother, Hugo (18), then came to pick me up with Kerrin, my roommate, along for the ride. On the way back to the Fuentes’ house, Monsieur Fuentes asked us a little bit about ourselves and we worked on figuring out the limits of our French and his English. Kerrin and I are both relatively advanced in French, Hugo is fluent in English, and Monsieur Fuentes speaks relatively well. So far, there haven’t been any major communication problems. I know I will make blunders while in France, but my family knows I want to learn as much as possible, and they do not hesitate to correct me. The first night I asked how to say “I am full,” after obligingly sampling everything at the cocktail party to which my host parents took me. They warned me that the French do not speak of being full—the literal translation describes a pregnant animal. One says “J’ai bien mangé” instead (literally: I have eaten well).

This soirée, as they called it, was a gathering of parents from a certain elementary school, whose children have all separated for the equivalent of middle school. We were thrown right in to socialize with all of the French adults. They were all very nice, but I noticed a tendency for them to respond in English after I spoke French. This happened with officials in the French airports, too. It can be irritating, but I’ve persevered with French, and usually they switch back to their native language. For the first few hours, it was so hard to speak French. After six weeks without class, the language seemed even more foreign than usual. But even now, after a few days, I am much more comfortable with everyday conversation and stringing sentences together.

To my host family’s credit, they acknowledged that I must be exhausted after my almost 20-hour trip from San Francisco to Aix-en-Provence, but there wasn’t even a question about whether we would accompany them to the soirée that evening. Kerrin and I thought they were joking at first when they told us we would be going to a party that night, but they were serious. I have no idea how we stayed up, mingling, dancing, and eating until 1am, but we did.

The food was wonderfully French: there was a provençale tarte of carmelized onions everyone forced me to try multiple times, and these little tiny clam-like shells called tellines in a garlicky sauce. I’d never seen such tiny seafood, and they were beautiful. There was chocolate mousse for dessert, and lots of champagne. The music the parents danced to was an odd mix of 70s disco, swing, contemporary hip hop, and middle eastern music. It was cute to watch them all with their one or two standard dance moves—something in me thought all French people would be dance gods, but not really.

Yesterday there was a gathering at Madame Fuentes’ cousin’s house with other family members to eat galette de roi (sort of similar to king cake on Mardi Gras) and, of course, more champagne. There were large discussions at the dinner table that were hard to follow—six emphatic French family members with southern accents talking over each other are more difficult to understand than, say, a Parisian like my host mother talking clearly to someone they know is American. Still, I could get lots of words and phrases and definitely understood the topics of conversation, and occasionally Monsieur or Madame Fuentes would turn to Kerrin and me to explain a little slower what they were talking about. It was wonderful to be included in a family event—they are experienced and giving hosts, and it shows.

Classes at the institute start tomorrow. Today was orientation, and we were overloaded with information from the faculty and staff and also got to explore Aix a little bit. I feel like I’m gaining a sense of direction, and the centre ville is much smaller than it looks on a map. The streets are narrow and twisted, pavement overlapping with cobblestones. The old buildings loom overhead with variously painted shutters and quaint lamps jutting out overhead. There’s an interesting clash between buildings constructed in between 300 and 1300 (like the cathedral) and more modern shops. The institute itself is housed in three different buildings, one of which was a chapel, and another a hospital that cared for people who survived torture during the inquisition. The history surrounding Aix is incredible, and reinforces just how young the United States are.

Over the course of the semester, I hope to keep you all updated about my blunderings in French, the various foods I eat, the behavior and style of the people I meet, and other facets of life in France I find interesting. Thanks for reading!

Adam Kirtley, Stuart coordinator of religious and spiritual life, presided over the ceremony.

“Knowing we couldn’t capture the entirety of his teachings and legacy here, we wanted to provide a sampling of his relationships,” Kirtley said.

To do that, the ceremony included speeches from alumni, professors and Ball’s children. Stories ranged from Ball helping a student find a path in life, to his insistence of leaving firewood for the next family at campsites, to his gifts of zucchini and other crops from his garden.

Senior Adriel Borshansky, who knew Ball from Ball’s involvement as a fan of Whitman’s varisty tennis team, was one of two students who read recollections from former students as part of a photo presentation.

“Knowing that there were passages of people who had graduated in the ’60s and ’80s and today was powerful, because it reminded me and the audience of how long-lasting his impact on the community has been,” he said.

In addition to his professional and family roles, Ball was known for bicycling around campus to find aluminum cans in trash cans and then recycling them. After the ceremony, his most recent bike was displayed in the Cordiner foyer, with a basket full of aluminum cans, as well as flowers.

Madeleine Laville took a picture of her two daughters, Anna and Claire, in front of the bike.

“Little Anna and I got to say goodbye to him before he passed away,” she said. “He smiled and said, ‘I’m not going to be here much longer.’” Anna, who had been playing with him, didn’t want to leave.

Next to Laville was her mother, Beth Call, who used to work in the registrar’s office and recalled waiting lists of 25 or more for Ball’s classes. Call found the ceremony to be inspiring.

“It made me want to fulfill all of our moral obligations and ‘do what love requires,’” she said, quoting Ball. “He’s been instilling that message in us all these years and it’s up to us to carry that on.”

“It’s like, ‘Kate Moss caused this’ and you’re like, ‘Well, it’s more complicated,’” she said.

The line between healthy behavior and disordered eating can be razor thin. Physical fitness and healthy eating habits are presented as an ideal to aspire towards, and women in particular are bombarded with advertisements telling them that they can be perfect if they just count calories diligently and work hard to shed those last few pounds.

Whitman students are taught in class and the dining halls that our food choices have broad political and environmental implications that we should be conscious of. Add to this the challenges of trying to be healthy in a culture where most food sold in grocery stores is processed, packaged and full of chemicals, and it’s not so hard to see how people end up developing pathological relationships with food and their bodies.

Yet eating disorders resist the simple explanations so often used to explain their prevalence. While some people in recovery from eating disorders say that they wanted to lose weight or resemble the “ideal” Western body, just as many point to fears of food, general stress and anxiety, depression, or a desire to control some aspect of their lives.

Infographic by Ted Hendershot

Food as control

Appleton said that her anorexia was triggered by stress and other psychological factors, but that a fear of processed foods also played a significant role.

“They just do this thing where they take all these foods and put fat and salt and sugar in everything and put a cute cartoon character on it, and that’s all that the Safeway shelves are stocked with,” she said.

“[I felt like] there was nothing I could put in my body that was produced in this country that wouldn’t give me diabetes and a heart attack and destroy my immune system and have high fructose corn syrup in it. It got down to where I didn’t think I could eat anything anymore if it wasn’t just an apple, because everything was going to be dangerous and processed and awful.”

During her worst period, when she was eating less than 300 calories a day, anorexia dominated her thoughts.

“When your rational mind isn’t getting enough calories to function properly, it just defaults to the irrational, unconscious eating disorder mind,” she said. “It was a very physical thing that happened in my brain. You’re not really there. You just stop existing.”

Eating disorders can serve as a distraction from other problems in a patient’s life because of their all-consuming nature.

“When you’re dealing with it, you can only see it,” sophomore Katie Tertocha said. “It covers up everything else that’s unmanageable.”

Tertocha struggled with anorexia in high school. For her, the eating disorder started as an effort to exercise more and be healthier. Then it became an obsession. She eventually wound up in the hospital for treatment, and was able to start gaining weight again. But she said during the worst phases of the disease, it was hard to think rationally about her body.

“There’s never an endpoint for it,” she said. “You can always be thinner. You can always be better.”

Normalizing disorder

Cultural standards of beauty do play a significant part in many disordered eating behaviors.

“Though eating disorders are complex psychological and physiological phenomena, body image is the piece that is especially influenced by social norms,” Associate Professor of religion and Director of the gender studies program Melissa Wilcox said  in an email. “There has been research, for instance, that tested women’s body image before and after reading a popular fashion magazine like Cosmo, and found a significant drop in their satisfaction with their own bodies.”

Junior Avery Potter has struggled with bulimia since high school, though she has mostly recovered. She said that she started purging largely because she was afraid of becoming fat.

“I felt horrible when I ate so much,” she said. “I couldn’t not eat, but I could control what stayed down.”

Senior Sarah Johnston* said she also felt pressure to be thinner throughout high school, and would sometimes go to pro-anorexia websites to get inspiration for losing weight.

“There were definitely times when I would look at these [sites] and say, ‘That’s a good idea. That’s how I’m going to lose weight,’” she said. Although she didn’t develop an eating disorder, Johnston went through a period of depression and self-harm, which she said was largely influenced by dissatisfaction with her body.

Appleton stressed that eating disordered behavior can’t be understood only as a desire to be thin.

“Never in my life have I sat around and said, ‘If only I was a size zero . . . ’ Never did I want that,” she said. “Everyone paints [anorectics] as obsessed with their bodies and not able to see beyond the value of how they look, but [in some cases] it’s an issue of food and not an issue of how you appear.”

Peers can often influence the way eating disordered people perceive their disease. Senior Ellie Newell was bulimic for several months in high school, and said that she felt eating disordered behavior was normalized by her classmates, who were thinner than her and frequently discussed their own body image insecurities.

Appleton said that she’s had periods of eating disordered behavior since she was 14, and agrees that her peers normalized obsessions with diet and weight.

“It was seen as the norm, almost,” she said. “You would go through a rough period and you would abuse food and you would gain a few pounds and then you would sort yourself out.”

Wilcox believes that our culture sends mixed messages about disordered eating.

“In many ways, I think there is a subtle affirmation—even while we claim to disapprove—of anorexia in our culture,” she said. “Bulimia is less favorably looked upon, I think, while compulsive overeating is often popularly associated with gluttony, and is blamed on a lack of control on the part of the overeater—again, connecting back, I think, to the subtle cultural valorization of anorexia. This also sends the message that there is appropriate control of one’s food and one’s body, and then there is inappropriate control.”

Although body image and weight concerns are often perceived to only affect women, men also feel pressure. In a Pioneer survey of 192 students, 75 percent of male respondents said they felt pressure to be thin from American popular culture, and 42 percent felt pressure from their peer group.

Sophomore Brad Larkin* said that he has been influenced by the images of men presented in American culture.

“Even if you’re not outright saying, ‘That guy has a great body and I don’t,’ it’s in the back of your mind,” he said.

Larkin became anorexic in high school and struggled with the disease for a year and a half, eventually dropping to a weight of 85 pounds. Although he has since recovered, he doesn’t like to talk about it, and says that having an eating disorder is often perceived as a sign of weakness.

“A lot of times, it’s hard to talk about with people because it goes against the expectations of what an eating disorder is,” he said. “The amount that it affects guys is ignored.”

Nationally, approximately 10 percent of individuals seeking treatment for eating disorders are men, according to the National Eating Disorder Association.

The Whitman effect

Assistant Director of Counseling Tracee Anderson said that the gender breakdown of Whitman students who seek treatment for disordered eating roughly corresponds to the national average. According to her, eating disorders are the fourth most commonly discussed problem during counseling sessions (after depression, general developmental issues and anxiety). Anderson believes that eating disorders are often a symptom of people defining their self-worth in terms of outside forces, such as grades or athletic ability.

“A lot of people talk about the word ‘control’. When somebody has very high expectations of themselves and their sense of value is defined externally, their sense of themselves is fragile, and they can often be very insecure. The need for control is born out of that. People believe, ‘If I control all these things outside of me, then I’m gonna be intact. I’m gonna be ok.’ It’s an effort to try to keep themselves together,” she said.

Newell believes that Whitman culture can play into these expectations by creating an environment where high achievement is expected.

“Whitties are pretty tightly wound as a bunch. We’re expected to be everything—amazing athletes, amazing scholars, both the responsible scholar student who will be in the library at 10am on a Saturday morning and also the person who was out until 3am the night before drinking. There’s a lot of balls that we’re expected to keep juggling.”

The survey results agree with Newell’s assessment, with 83 percent of respondents saying they feel pressure from the Whitman community to be involved in many activities, and 71 percent that they feel pressure to be accomplished.

With so many potential causes for stress, most Whitman students need coping mechanisms. Appleton said that her anorexia came out of a need to manage her stress.

“It’s a really dark place inside you trying to find any way to be destructive,” she said. “This dark thing inside you that latches onto to any way it can to express itself. It might happen to be food, but other people do it with alcohol or other ways that are more socially acceptable and just kind of seen as normal. All the people that binge drink every weekend to deal with their problems; they’re just seen as college students.”

Because of the misconceptions surrounding eating disorders, most Whitman students who have struggled with them are reluctant to share their experiences. Potter said she felt that she would be alone if she opened up about her bulimia.

“I feel like a lot of people here would have sympathy, but they wouldn’t have empathy,” she said.

All of the students interviewed for this article said they felt that Whitman students were generally concerned about eating disordered behavior, and likely to notice problems with their friends. However, they also said that information and discussion about eating disorders is almost completely absent from the campus environment. Johnston attributed this absence in part to the fact that eating disorders don’t generally come up in classes, in the way that many other social problems do.

“There’s not really much academic literature or scholarship about it,” she said.

Anderson encouraged students who are struggling with food and body issues to come into the counseling center and seek help.

“I wish more people would come in when they’re starting to struggle, because the earlier you intervene, the greater the prognosis,” she said. “It just kills me to think they’re carrying that burden alone.”

Tertocha hopes to start a body image discussion group to help raise awareness and provide a safe space for students struggling with these issues to talk. Although it wasn’t the only factor that contributed to her eating disorder, she believes that positive body image can help people who are working through eating disorders.

“If I’d been able to accept my body for what it was, the eating disorder voice would have gotten less powerful,” she said.

Appleton also wants to raise awareness by speaking honestly about her experiences. For her, the first step is not being ashamed.

“This isn’t a moral failing on my part,” she said. “This is a complicated thing that wasn’t a choice. No one would choose this. I want to challenge people’s assumptions about what kinds of people have this disease.”

She said that reactions from her friends and peers have been positive, and that she’s optimistic about her recovery.

“I feel pretty confident that it’s not going to go south again,” she said. “I have a lot of support.”

*Name has been changed

As part of the research for this article, 192 students participated in a survey about their relationships with food and body image. View the results here.