The Bowdoin Orient

Dear Precious Readers,

There comes a time in every young advice columnist’s life when she, herself, is in need of some wise thoughts. When she finds herself at a loss for how to proceed. When she needs advice. What does she do?

Advice to myself on how to graduate:

1. In the fall, don’t think about it. Ever. Have lobster bakes, and go hiking and lay in bed. You have so much time. You have all the time in the world.

2. Go to the mandatory Career Planning meeting. Bring a matcha latte. Laugh when they make you do the handshakes. The handshakes are ridiculous.

3. Fill out your Intent-to-Graduate form in November. Think perhaps you should panic. Go to brunch instead. You have so much time.

4. Find a job in a foreign place. Drink cheap champagne. Picture yourself in Europe. The picture is a little bit lonely. 

5. Drink beers with friends instead of reading. Drink too many beers. Fall asleep in your friend’s bed by accident because you don’t want to leave, because you can’t stand to be alone. Wake up at five in the morning. Walk home.

6. Cry in the car listening to Adele. You feel ridiculous. You are ridiculous. You aren’t sure if you are sad, or if you just want to be.

7. Go on spring break with your friends. Sit on the deck of a beach house in California and drink wine and eat goat cheese. Laugh. Laugh harder.

8. Come back. Fight with a friend about relatively nothing, preferably at a party, preferably while you are drunk. Say, “Why are you so anxious!” Hear, “You’re projecting.” The next day, buy each other boxes of raspberries and never speak of it again. 

10. Order your cap and gown. Panic. You thought you had so much time.

11. Picture yourself next year, eating pastries sitting on a dock by the sea unable to eavesdrop on strangers speaking a language you don’t understand. Look around the Moulton Light Room. Wonder if you are tired of eavesdropping anyway. Wonder if you are tired of a lot of things.

12. Finish your last essays. Suddenly feel that Matthew Arnold and James Joyce and Charles Dickens aren’t really that important anymore. Why did you used to believe they were so important? Hand in the essay. Receive a B-.

13. Cling to your books. Reorganize them ten times in your room, which you will pack up in only a few weeks. Reread passages from Hawthorne and Whitman and Gawain and Virginia Woolf. Pour over the timestamps of the ones from the library. Wonder who checked out The Bostonians in 1986. Wonder if they ever kissed anyone on the museum steps.

14. Sit in your car as you’re about to drive away from a party. Look in at the lights of the house spilling through the windows. See people inside. They laugh, they talk, but you cannot hear them. You love these people. But you can’t go back in now and it’s getting late, and you’re already going, and so you’re gone.  

15. Graduate. 

Out, Katherine

Dear Katherine,I am a first year, and I’m so excited for Ivies! What is Brunswick Quad though…?Sincerely,Excited in Edwards Dear Excited,Ah, Ivies. The perennial celebration of spring, music and the incredible force of the human will to overcome obstacles. (By obstacles, I mean hangovers.)

You have asked the age-old question. You’re in good company. Philosophers for centuries have mused on this inquiry: Plato, Nietzsche, that guy in our political theory class. “What is Brunswick Quad?” they ask, staring up at the heavens and, in their state of distraction, losing a game of slap cup.

I have actually only attended one Ivies so far. This is my biggest failing. So I am bringing in a guest co-writer to help me out: Ivies Goddess Jillian Burk.* Jillian hails from the great state of Canada, where it’s a national pastime to drink until you can’t feel the cold—a key skill if you want to rock an Ivies sundress. For the rest of this column, we will be writing our collective opinion in the first-person plural.

Ah, youth. We’re so excited for you to become Ivies aficionados like ourselves (read: like Jillian). We have a definitive answer to your inquiry. Brunswick Quad is like a family reunion, except everyone is as drunk as your one crazy aunt and you can make out with people without them being your cousin. It’s an outside darty where for a few sweet hours, we all pretend we go to a party school by playing beer pong in the dirt, generating tornadoes of trash and wearing crop tops that we should have thrown away after senior year of high school.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, as an added bonus, we’re going to impart some of our Ivies wisdom onto you. Here are some handy tips to survive the Friday afternoon darty that is Brunswick Quad:

1)    Make sure you either a) befriend someone who lives in a Brunswick apartment or b) get really good at sneaking into slightly ajar doors. At some point you are going to need to pee. (There are also porta-potties, but we’re above that.)

2) Wear something identifiable in case you get separated from your friends. For instance, a grape costume or a scuba suit or nothing.

3) No napping. Not yet. Not until you’ve drank every last drop. Napping is admitting defeat. Napping is like lying down and sleeping 13 miles into a marathon. Napping is like kissing your cousin. It’s just wrong.

4) Try not to destroy things like college property or relationships or your liver.

5)  Eat beforehand. Your body will thank you later. Just kidding. Your body won’t thank you for any of this.

6)  Choose your drink wisely. Starting out too strong or not adequately planning ahead can ruin your afternoon.** No cream-based liqueurs for the love of God. Avoid alcohols that make you sleepy (see rule 3). Like wine. Or Nyquil.

7)    Be careful where you leave your things. Do not give them to friendly strangers. Do not stash them in sneaky place. You will never find them again; they will be lost to the graveyard of solo cups and dignities.

8)    Remember, people can see into the windows of the apartments. If you choose to hook up in a Brunswick room, please consider putting down the blinds.

9) Do not go on slip-and-slides if you ever want to see your nipples again.Just remember: Ivies is a marathon, not a sprint. And God knows, this is the only kind of marathon we’ll ever run.

Out,Katherine and Jillian*Jillian is on Peer Health and does not endorse binge drinking. Katherine has no comment.**Again, Jillian is on Peer Health.

Dear Katherine,I'm having trouble trying to figure out where/with/who I want to live with next year... so please give me some advice/your thoughts!Sincerely,Dislocated in Druck Dear Dislocated,

Picking the right housing and roommates depends, I think, on a certain level of self-awareness. Are you messy or neat? Do you need access to a kitchen? Can you live alone? Can you live with other people? Do you like to be surrounded by people or a little more removed? Do you want to throw parties?

You could probably make an amazing BuzzFeed type quiz out of these questions to give you a personalized response. Unfortunately, I am trying to write my honors project, and I don’t have time for that. So instead, here are my concrete, unbending, blanket opinions on housing, which are almost certainly not universally applicable:

1.   Do not live in a Chambo single.Once I lived in a Chambo single for a week because of Ebola. (It’s a long story.) I cried every night and usually in the morning if I had time. Thankfully, my friend Ally left her semester abroad in Ghana because of cholera (it’s a long story) and came to live with me in my new Chambo double. Then it was better.

2. If you are a sophomore and you think there is any chance you want to live in a social house, APPLY TO LIVE IN A SOCIAL HOUSE.

Yes, the house will always smell like stale beer. Yes, you will sit through house meetings. And yes, living in Mac was one of the best decisions I made at Bowdoin. I realize that the time for applying for houses this year has past. But like Nietzsche, I am untimely.

3.  Who you live with is more important than where you live.(“True,” say my roommates, who are also some of my best friends.) To quote the fireplace of Ladd House: “The ornament of the house is the friend who frequents it.” But also, even if you don’t live with your friends, try to live with people you think you might be compatible with, people you are excited to get to know. So like, not your enemies.

4. Don’t screw over your friends. Like, don’t get yourself into living situations that will make you unhappy. But also don’t be a jerk or do anything sneaky and underhanded. If you do, your friends will forever remember you as sneaky and underhanded.

Good luck making your housing choices! Out,Katherine  

Hello, precious readers! Sad one today.  “Dear Katherine,

I love my girlfriend, but I am not in love with her, and I don’t see our relationship progressing any further. Should I end the relationship and risk severing ties with the person I consider to be my best friend?

Sincerely, Out-of-love in Osher”

Dear Out-of-love, 

That, my friend, is a toughie. 

Relationships (particularly long ones) go through ups and downs, ins and outs. Sometimes one or the other partner might become a little disillusioned, but often you fall right back in love again quickly. In the case of a simple rough patch or a bout of boredom, I would prescribe patience, a few creative dates and a heart-to-heart.

But, if you’re really sure that you aren’t in love anymore and could not or do not want to be, it’s likely that no amount of couple time will change how you feel. At ages 18-21, I think that means it’s time to end things. And in that case, I’m honestly a little out of my depths.

I’m entirely unqualified to give advice about breaking up.* I have never had a relationship end smoothly (frequent readers, you will perhaps remember a certain incident involving Uggs), and for that I have always been at least partially to blame. I have many times strived for the most coveted iteration of the breaking up, which is the Paltrow-Martin style, we’re-going-to-each-other’s-weddings conscious uncoupling, and I have always, always failed.

Maybe, though, I can share a few thoughts. And I can definitely tell you the best crying spots on campus, just in case you need them. 

A list of things to consider before initiating a break up in your situation: 

1. Remember that you have a right to your own emotional response. Breaking up is hard. Even if you are no longer in love with your girlfriend, and even if you know that you’re making the right choice, you might still be sad. You probably will be! She is, as you said, your best friend, and someone you love. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not allowed to feel pain because you initiated the break up. 

2. Likewise, respect your girlfriend’s emotional space. Know that, as much as you might want to stay friends with your ex, it might not work out for any number of reasons. 

3. Do not break up with your girlfriend with the intention of getting back together, or with the expectation that that will be an option. Maybe it will happen, but don’t bank on it. If you bank on it, you will end up crying in the Union. 

4. Anticipate changes of habits. Know that a lot of the music you like will be ruined. Did you listen to a cool, hip band with them before? Too bad. It’s ruined now. Do you never sleep alone? Too bad. You better shop for a body pillow. They have these nice ones with arms and oxford shirts now, get one of those. How do I know? Well I have one.

And as promised, my ranked list of the best crying spots on campus: 

1. The Meditation Room in Buck—those purple cushions are covered in my tears. 2. The Gender Neutral Bathroom in Smith Union—so much space for weeping. 3. The Upstairs couches in Smith Union—such that everyone is forced to witness your pain. 4. The Glow in the Dark Rock Room—so you think about how many happy couples have     hooked up there and sob. 5. The Vault in Mass Hall—so you can lock up your feelings afterward and never revisit them. 

Good luck. 

Out,Katherine 

Hello, precious readers! This week, I’m doing rapid fire—lots of questions and short answers.As always, these were all actual questions that have been submitted to my anonymous Google form.

Q. How do I put "being OK at GarageBand once" on my résumé?A. I believe it goes in the Skills section, next to “proficient in Dance Dance Revolution.” But I would ask Career Planning.

Also, you should say “being good at GarageBand once.” It’s ok to embellish.Q. “How will people know that I'm having a bad day if I don't play Daniel Powter on repeat on Spotify publicly?”A. They will know if you walk around looking glum. Wear Doc Martins. Say, “I just can’t even with this week.” Ruin things for other people. Leave in the middle of conversations. Cry loudly in the Union. Spread your negativity far and wide. Alternatively, you could say, “I’m having a bad day” and talk it out.

Q. “Is it possible to delete one's Facebook and not have it be a social statement?”A. No. Or at least people will think it is a social statement. But honestly who cares. Live your truth, you technologically adverse butterfly. Social media can be really tiring and sometimes toxic. If deleting your Facebook is the right choice for you, then it honestly doesn’t matter if people think it’s a “social statement.”

Q. “How many OneCards should I go through before I graduate?”A. This will depend on how much you shotgun, how tight your pants pockets are, whether you are so messy that you can’t see your bedroom floor, whether you have one of those fancy phone cases with the card carriers and how much time you spend in the vicinity of the hockey team. I could probably make a complicated statistical model to conduct individual estimates if I hadn’t almost failed statistics. 

Q. “What can I do to procure your love?”A. 1. Avoid being seen.2. If seen, back away slowly.3. Make no sudden movements.4. Do not throw food at the wolf.(This is actually just the first four bullet points on Wikihow’s “How to Survive a Wolf Attack.” I imagine, however, these still might be helpful).

Q. “Why does this classroom smell like soup when no one is eating any and we are far from any food serving areas?”A. Is it Bannister? Because if so, you are so right. That classroom does always smell like soup. Also, are you sure that no one is eating any? Express lunchers can be sneaky. 

Q. “Why is My Tie spelled like "my tie"? That's pretty stupid, don't you think?”A. Yes, that is pretty stupid; however, I liked how at senior night, they served mini drinks in little test tubes.

Q. To wine or not to wine?A. That is the question.Jk. It’s not even a question. The answer is To wine, obviously. I’m a SWUG, after all—what do you expect? Out,Katherine 

Hello, precious readers! I hope you all enjoyed cozy and understimulating winter breaks. I certainly did, and now I’m refreshed enough to write another semester’s worth of inane filler.

Before break, I received this question, punctuation unchanged:

“Dear Katherine,

How can I explain to my friends that Craft is Art!!! ?

Seriously,

Creative in Cram Alumni Barn”

Dear Creative,

First of all, amazing punctuation combination!!! ? Second of all, unknowingly, you have hit upon one of my current obsessions. Over the break, I learned to knit. Now I am a knitting freak. Picture me, in New Jersey, at 3 a.m., lying in bed surrounded by empty boxes of Milano cookies and slowly becoming so entangled in my yarn that I am eventually swallowed whole by my soon-to-be scarf. Or don’t, if you find that image vaguely disturbing. Point is, like it or not, I am one of you.

It sounds, though, like your friends do not understand. Your question implies that your friends’ distinction between Craft and Art vis à vis your work is purposefully denigrating and/or unconsciously dismissive. For that, I am sorry! It sucks when the people you love don’t appreciate or value your passions. That’s like the lamest thing you can do as friend, short of eating one of your housemate’s leftover Indian food. 

Here’s a list of ways to deal with your friends’ negativity.

1. Bully those who try to devalue your work.

Make the people who doubt you feel bad about themselves. This is the strategy I’ve adopted when someone questions the importance of, say, my English major. Whenever another person tells me that the study of reading or writing is frivolous, I start by saying “You would think that,” and then I ask them what their favorite book is, and then I tell them that it’s bad.*

2. Convince your friends that they are wrong/biased using smart facts/revisionist art history.

Say “Do you even know about the Arts and Crafts movement in the British Isles in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, which advocated for a return to and appreciation of craftsmanship and folk art!!! ?” Never expound on this. You’re not totally sure what the Arts and Crafts movement is. You just found it on Wikipedia and read two lines before going to get your leftover Indian food, only to find that it has been eaten.

Yell about how the distinction between Craft and Art is sexist and Eurocentric and undervalues traditionally female crafts like fiber works and non-Western mediums and form.** Use the word “hegemony” at least twice, which, even if you do not win the debate, is a victory in and of itself.

3. Tell your friends that their dismissal hurts you, and tell them why.

This is like, very graceful and mature and probably how you should handle most grievances. Friends can be silly sometimes and might need to be reminded that their opinions could be hurtful. You could also offer to show your friends how to do your craft. Often, people’s dismissal comes out of ignorance and can be remedied with more exposure.

If all else fails, and there is no way of bullying/convincing your friends into sharing your love of craft, go to the Craft Center and make some new craft friends so that you have people in your life who can celebrate craft without judgment. You deserve for your art to be taken seriously!

Out,

Katherine

*Just kidding.

** Real talk, though, I think this is true and important.

Hello, precious readers! Despite my explicitly expressed aversion to answering questions about love, I have received many. Thanks, jerks. Three of these inquired about how to find a sweetheart. See them combined below:  Dear Katherine,“Where should I go to meet a lover? Teach me your ways, oh wise one.”“My inability to get a sig other is hurting my school work. Help!”“I've never dated someone at Bowdoin and I really want to. What's the best way to meet someone?”Sincerely,Singles in Studz Now, look. I’ve already stated in an earlier column that love is a maverick and giving love advice is useless. But once again, at your request, here I go.

Our culture is full of metanarratives about what makes a person lovable, and those metanarratives are often false, misogynistic, heteronormative and like, super ineffective. Take, for instance, the movie “Grease.” When Sandy wears hot pants and smokes cigarettes to procure Danny’s love, we learn that by changing ourselves completely, we convince people to love us and also drive off in a flying car.

 I’ve tried this, actually. Not the smoking and hot pants. The changing myself completely. It worked OK at first. I manipulated my high school lover into courting me through a flurry of crop tops and a feigned interest in “Entourage.” He then dumped me for another girl who had much higher self-esteem. Calmly accepting my heartbreak, I secretly threw that girl’s Uggs away during gym class*. There were no flying cars. I would call it a net loss.

Another love metanarrative we internalize is the myth that we will be happier in a relationship than we would be single no matter what. Instead of waiting to find a person we want to be with, we look for anyone to fill that self-made void, even if that person doesn’t fit it quite right.I’ve done that too. In that relationship, we didn’t really like each other very much, which is kind of a prereq for a relationship. Besides, we were doomed from the beginning. The night after we started officially dating, my new boyfriend drunkenly peed on my slippers. 

I remember laying in bed that night thinking “Is this how the rest of the relationship is going to go?” And it was. Picture three long months of him metaphorically pissing on my shoes.

You might be thinking by now that I wreak footwear-related havoc wherever I go. This is not untrue. But what I’m trying to identify is that you should fall in love with people that you love just the way they are, and who love you just the way you are right back.

So Singles in Studz, try to remember that having a significant other is like, super not the most important thing.** In fact, love for love’s sake almost always ends with a broken heart and too few good memories to redeem it. Don’t steep in your own loneliness.

Instead, I would revel in your singledom. I know this isn’t satisfying. But alas, there is no build-a-bear workshop for boyfriends or girlfriends or partners. Go out and be social and do the stuff you like, the way happy single people do. Chances are if you spend your time with Bowdoin students with similar interests/values/levels of athleticism, someone will catch your eye.That’s what happened to me two years ago. We’re still very happy. No shoes have been destroyed. At least not yet. Out,Katherine P.S.I also received this question about love, which I feel morally obligated to answer:

“After exchanging numbers, in a hetero pairing, isn't it in the guy's court to ask to hang out first?”

For the love of god, sweetheart. NO.

*Chloe, if you’re reading this, I’m so sorry.

** The most important thing is, of course, Spicy Lentil Tacos at Thorne.

Hello, precious readers! Take a look at this week’s column. “Dear Katherine, Do you have any advice on how to keep your spirits up during a long winter in Maine? Sincerely,   Chilly in Chambo” Chilly, it’s coming for all of us. The first warning sign was on November 1 when daylight savings time ended and all of our lives got a little bit sadder. The next sign came last week, when I walked home in the dark at 4 p.m., entered my living room and found my housemate Jamie purposefully searching Amazon.

“What if we buy a house sun lamp?” he said. “Or, I don’t know, a tanning booth.”The tanning booth idea sounded to me—well—a little bit insane. What, I wondered as Jamie perused a user review of an in-home tanning booth, do other people do to keep their spirits up in the winter? Do they deal with it like reasonable humans? I decided, Chilly, to ask around for you while I was in Smith Union yesterday.

First, I ran into Hannah. “How do you cope with the winter?” I asked her as she sat opening a package.  

“I wake up and I cry,” Hannah said. “Once it started snowing and I cried in the middle of class.” As she spoke, she waved around a half a mounted taxidermy squirrel she’d received in the mail.

When I asked how Skye would get through the winter, she got a frenetic look in her eye. “I’ve planned it all out. I’m never leaving the tower. I can eat there, I can shower there, I can exercise there—stairs!” she said.

Chilly—these anecdotes evidence that winter is coming and that, one way or another, it’s going to be ugly. And while the coping mechanisms described by the people I talked to are perfectly legitimate, I, your dear advice columnist, am going to recommend what I hope will be some slightly less desperate tactics:

1. Do not cry. If you do, your tears will freeze to your cheeks or perhaps even in your eyeballs.

2.  Have a friendly snowball fight.

3. Learn some variety of winter sport. The outing club has Nordic skis, telemark skis and snowshoes. Go forth and get endorphin-high on exercise.

4. Remember that if we didn’t have winter, we wouldn’t have babies in snowsuits, and babies in snowsuits are the cutest thing on the entire planet.

5. Put on your vodka jacket. And your mulled wine jacket. Also put on your regular jacket, the one that is made of actual fabric and not just your impaired sensory capacities.

6. Eat foods with astronomical levels of carbs and fats in order to develop winter blubber. When in doubt, do as the artic mammals.

7. Look to the dead polar bear in that weird little hallway behind the gym for inspiration.8. Then visit the artic museum. Stare at the portraits of Donald B. MacMillan, another artic mammal. Think, “how can I become more like this famed polar bear murder?”

10.  Layer. Wear every sweater you have when you leave the house. Steal your roommates’ sweaters and wear them as well. Collect sweaters from the gym and put them on too. Try to acquire all the sweaters. Soon, you will be the most powerful—soon you will rule them all.

11.  Take stock of yourself. Wonder if you have perhaps started to go a little bit insane.

12.  Count down the days until Ivies.

Happy winter!

Out,Katherine

Hello, precious readers! Today I will be answering a question about abroad (which has been slightly edited).

“I am currently studying abroad and I can't help feeling that pressure to make the most of it (whatever the hell that means). I see posts on social media of my friends traveling and making friends. Do you have any advice for a Polar Bear away from home? How do I shake this sensation that I'm not doing enough? Sincerely,Anxious Abroad”

Dear Anxious,

There are few things that ruin abroad more thoroughly than the feeling that the entire world is taking you by the shoulders, getting really close to your face, and shaking you while it screams, “MAKE THE MOST OF THIS.” I’m not sure where this pressure comes from, or why it exists at all.

And yet you are not, due to this unspoken social pressure, supposed to say that abroad is hard. You are supposed to be a traveling, binge-drinking, foreigner-kissing machine. God forbid you should feel lonely or wonder why everyone you love is thousands of miles away, you ungrateful, inadaptable cretin!

I’m going to tell you a secret: abroad is really hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. There is nothing natural or authentic about leaving your entire life and friends and family behind to gallivant around the planet willy-nilly for five months. But that’s also why it’s worth doing. If going abroad is ever easy, the world has become homogenous and boring and probably covered in K-Marts.

You might not make Czech or Australian or Cameroonian friends. You might not like the haggis. You might not travel, you might travel every weekend. You might, like me, never adjust from coffee to espresso (honestly though, why would you).

I’m going to tell you another secret: none of this means you are doing abroad wrong. The only way that you can do abroad wrong is if you let the expectations your or others set for your experience make you unhappy. The happier and more fulfilled you are by your own experience, the less you will worry about what your friends are doing.

Here are two tangible things I’d suggest doing to increase your daily happiness:

1. Find a place that you love, make it a part of your routine, and cultivate it as a familiar space.There is a café on Drury Street in Dublin called Kaph where I squatted almost every day in between classes. Many of you may know it from my incessant, Wifi-grubbing check-ins. Aside from the fact that Kaph makes you sell your social media soul in order to access the Internet, it is a great place, and it’s a place I love. The baristas knew me because I would never leave them alone. Once, while I fastidiously perused Buzzfeed, one of the baristas brought me a free latte, “for my writing.” Find your Kaph and mark it with your personhood. Being non-anonymous for a few hours a day can do wonders for your psyche.

2. Do what you need to do to be comfortable, even though it’s just five months.The worst thing about Ireland was my mattress, which was actually just a pile of metal springs. I should have just sucked it up and bought a mattress pad or put soft clothes between the mattress and the sheet or something. Instead, I bitterly envied the girl had bought one. I hated her for it. Do not hate people over mattress pads. Take the time and energy to make yourself comfortable.

If you look back at your abroad experience and say “it was worth it,” if you take from it some fond memories and good stories and a stronger sense of self, then it doesn’t matter how many new stamps you have on your passport or how many of your Instas got over 100 likes. For the record, I’ve never had an Insta that got over 100 likes, and I’m doing just fine.

Out,Katherine

Hello precious readers! Last week, I received this question (one of 112, in fact) in my google form: 

“Dear Katherine

I am very ‘over’ college. Tips for drinking the Kool-Aid once again?

Sincerely,

SWUW (Senior Washed Up Woman) in Searles”

Dear SWUW in Searles, Collegiate disillusionment is a burden that affects all of us at one point or another. Well actually, I have no idea whether it affects all of us. Who knows what you guys do. But it has certainly affected me.

My own disenchantment struck junior fall. “Woe is me!” I thought, “I am so disillusioned.” I spent four months holed up in Chambo, writing about myself on the Internet and getting Snapea Crisp dust on my sheets. I began to identify with vitriolic Huffington Post commenters and trolls who hide under bridges and attack goats. 

When Chambo felt claustrophobic (which is to say, almost always), I would escape to Portland to sit in coffee shops. There, I would eavesdrop on presumably equally disillusioned middle-aged people as they talked to friends or random passers-by about their STDs. I had become a little feral. I was having A Hard Time.

Disillusionment can be paralyzing. And while I may belittle my own angst, it was a symptom of real anxiety produced by a series of personal heartbreaks. All this goes to say that I understand long-term disengagement to be a poor attempt at self-care—that by not investing yourself in anything, you are somehow being self-protective.Turns out, this is stupid. 

Often when I think about self-care, I think of it as an excuse to watch five consecutive episodes of “Sex in the City” with my housemates while eating several pounds of Sour Patch Kids from the deli down the street. Shockingly, that is actually not what self-care is. Self-care is identifying better ways to live in order to be healthier and happier—and sometimes, unfortunately, means discipline instead of indulgence.

If you are disillusioned, self-care is probably not marathons of ’90s TV in your bed. Here are my two suggestions to you:

1.  Stop referring to enjoying college as “drinking the Kool-Aid.” That’s like, maybe an exaggeration. Also, we don’t even have Kool-Aid in the dining hall. Also, I wish we did, because Kool-Aid is fucking delicious.2.  Get dressed. “But I am dressed!” you may say, as you look down at the sweatpants that you don’t even like, which you have been wearing for three days. To which I respond: that is not dressed.

Get dressed with intention. Don’t just wear the sweater you slept in last night. Stop bending down to grab those stained cords off the floor. When you make meaningful choices about the clothes you make at the beginning of the day, you’re setting yourself up for a day rooted in other meaningful choices (which is to say, un-disillusionment).

Wear clothes that allow you to engage with other people. For example, for me this year, that meant overcoming my oppressive laziness to wear a toga to Epicuria so that I could partake in the ritual toga-making process.

Wear clothes that make you feel fucking fabulous. Choose to be visible because you deserve to be visible.* If you don’t own clothes like that, go get some from Freeport or the Internet or Salvo or your best friend’s closet or sew/knit/crochet them with your own hands.

Wear a Big bird suit around campus, sport Google Glass at graduation, dye your hair chartreuse. Getting dressed means different things for everyone—a favorite pair of running shorts, the sunglasses that you found abroad, a suit for your Deloitte interview**, your hoverboard, because who cares what the haters say on Yik Yak. Live your weird little truth. But do it with intention, without laziness, with care.

Also, please submit a comment card about the Kool-Aid.  Out,Katherine *this line may or may not have been plagiarized from a fortune cookie.**which you will inevitably wear for much longer than necessary. 

Hello, precious readers! Today, I will answer two questions about love. A week ago, these questions trickled into my Google form a day or so apart: “Dear Katherine,What should I do if I really like somebody but I don’t want to tell him because I’m afraid of jeopardizing the friendship?Sincerely,Smitten in Smith Union” “Dear Katherine,What is the best way to let someone down kindly and still remain on somewhat friendly terms?Sincerely,Reluctant in Reed House” Well, shit, I thought. I hope these people aren’t talking about each other.

When I became an advice columnist (that is, two weeks ago), I dreaded administering love advice.* Love a terrible thing to advise. This is because people in love never take good advice. Love makes people self-deluding and deeply, deeply stupid.

Love is also hard to give advice on because love itself is rogue.

People talk about love as chemistry. Let me tell you, they are similar only in that I understand neither. But chemistry, at least, follows rules. In chemistry, opposites always attract.** In love, opposites attract sometimes, but also what about those couples who look like siblings?

Love hates rules so much that it joined an anarcho-communist commune. Love doesn’t let children catch up when playing duck-duck-goose. Like Sarah Palin, love is a maverick. Love also really enjoyed the Celebrity Wife Swap episode featuring Bristol Palin and the daughter of the late Joan Rivers. (I am also, in that last sentence, not not talking about myself.)

What I’m trying to say is this: since the beginning of time, people have been giving advice and making rules about love. All of it is useless and much of it is harmful. Look at what love did to Romeo and Juliet! They took love advice and it literally killed them. So pile up all of your love axioms: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” “once a cheater always a cheater,” “love is blind,” etc. Set them on fire. Good.

Having thus undermined my entire column: Smitten, you like someone, but you don’t want to tell them for fear of ruining the friendship. Well, lucky you! Friendships are not mavericks. Friendships are Joe Biden.

In the future, I would try to stop falling in love with your friends. But for now, I would recommend asking yourself these questions before deciding:

1.     Do you really love him? Or do you love the idea of him?2.     Do you, without doing that crazy hoping against hope thing people in love do, think he really loves you?3.     Would you still want to tell him even if you knew he didn’t and wouldn’t love you back?Reluctant, you want to let someone down easy. I think the answer to this conundrum depends on the situation: is it a rando? A friend? A person you’ve been hooking up with?

If it’s a friend or hook-up, you should address it directly. If it’s a rando, probably better just to drop hints and decline invites. Regardless, your biggest job is to be kind without being self-effacing—if you do that, you have succeeded.

Think about those things. Or don’t. You probably won’t take any of this advice anyway, because you are stupid self-deluding people negotiating love. 

Regardless of your choices, though, remember that friendships are resilient, like denim or zombies. So chances are, in both your cases, your friendships will rise again. If I’m wrong, however, and your friendships deteriorate, blame the Orient. Out,Katherine *Defining love broadly here, but as romantic, and not so broadly as to include those people who fall in love with their cars and dolphins.**I am making this up. I know nothing about chemistry. Professor Ray, if you’re reading this, please do not fail me. 

Dear Class of 2019,

 Welcome to Bowdoin! We would like to tell you something we wish someone had told us. Three years ago, as freshly matriculated Polar Bears, we cried when our parents left, salivated over our first Thorne dinner, crushed on our Pre-O leaders, crushed our first beers. Juniors and seniors asked us to dance at our first campus wide. This was cool, we thought. So we dated them.

 If you date an upperclassman, he might sneak you into the WBOR basement and let you play Beyoncé at midnight or she could take you on a beautiful run in the Commons when the first leaves are turning red. These things will make you feel like Bowdoin has room for you. But Bowdoin has room for you no matter what. 

Rest assured, you don’t need a guide. Everyone finds his or her own Bowdoin. You might find you study best at the big table in Mass Hall or that Mac is better than Quinby or that you have passion for gender and women’s studies when you thought you wanted to do chemistry. You will find friends.

 When the Beyoncé song cycled out of the top 40 and the leaves crinkled and fell, we realized that we hadn’t had brunch with our friends since the toga party in September. That there was another great run in Topsham that we’d never tried. That we’d never been in Appleton or West because we spent so much time in Brunswick Apartments. We realized that we always missed the Indian food station in Moulton because they said Thorne was better. That we’d missed all kinds of things. 

It hit us that we would have liked to join the hip-hop dance group but they thought that group was weird. We’d been so worried about what the junior girls thought of us that we hardly knew anyone in our first year seminar. We couldn’t do the econ problem set without their help. We realized that maybe we should have found our own Bowdoin before we found theirs.

Both of our first year relationships ended with the school year and we began sophomore year feeling a few steps behind. We caught up, but it wasn’t always pretty. Our romances as seasoned Bowdoin students have been more fulfilling and equal. There’s a time for dating in college, and we feel that the first year isn’t it.

 Welcome to the place that has become our home. The Indian food station in Moulton is delicious, the hip-hop show in the fall is amazing, and the quantitative tutors can help you with your econ problem set. But don’t take our word for it, or anyone else’s. Go find your own Bowdoin.

Much love,Katherine and Julia

Foreignness is strange. Americanness is stranger. It’s subtler, like the feeling of self-consciousness when I order an Americano and feel my place in a heritage of the (however briefly) expatriated longing for a cup of brewed coffee. Perplexed and under caffeinated, I am learning what it is to be foreign and what it is to be American. The Americanness is what surprises me.

I recently boarded a plane and an Irish man engaged me in conversation. He was a Civil War buff who had been to the U.S. several times and had some strong and, truth be told, bizarre opinions. “The United States,” he said, “is not a nation. It is a confederation of states. Ireland is a nation.” I bristled.

While my travel aquaintance’s view of the U.S. seems out of left field even for a non-American, it did give me pause. In Ireland, I am sometimes reminded of my Americanness in tangible ways. My passport is blue and I have to get it stamped in the Non-EU line at the airport. My accent is wider and more nasally. When I’m picking out salad greens, I look for “arugula” instead of “rocket.” When I can’t find it, I get frustrated because the grocery stores here are inefficient and I think I could make them better.

What really catches me off-guard, however, is feeling my Americanness in the abstract and missing my imagined community very strongly. I belong more to Oregon (where I have never visited and may never go) than to Belgium, where I went last week. I feel a connection to Iowans and Hawaiians and Texans that far exceeds only a humanist bond. Alaska is farther away from my state, New Jersey, than New Jersey is from Europe. So why, when I think Alaska, do I still think home?

When I first arrived in Ireland and people asked where I was from, I said, “the U.S.,” or, if I wanted to spend the breath, “the United States.” “Oh, the States!” my interlocutor would say. “The States! I’ve been to Miami and Las Vegas and New York City and LA.” Always (for some reason) these cities. But more notably, always “the States.” As if the plurality was the only essential bit and the “United” superfluous. I now say the “the States,” in conversation, but it always feels awkward in my mouth. Why do I feel that the “United” is essential? Isn’t it?How do I explain that Americanness doesn’t sound like English? That it doesn’t look like a Walmart or J.Crew aisle or smell like an apple pie?

We talk a lot about nationalism—if it is good, if it is bad, if it is real, if it is necessary. Whatever it is, it is on my mind all the time. I feel it nagging at my heels when I cross streets where the cars drive on the opposite side of the road.  

Waiting for a walk signal, my Americano in hand, I make my list.

Americanness is uncanny, the foreign always familiar. It isn’t having or not having guns, it’s worrying about them.

Americanness is race with a big question mark and religion with a big ellipsis and work ethic all in quotations.

Americanness is knowing that there are 300 million people and a few islands and an enormous land mass in the Western hemisphere that you are supposed to be allowed to belong to and that are supposed to belong to each other. It is as big as homesickness and as soft as my favorite blanket and as loud as a call with one as the country code.

How is it so big and so little at the same time? When does it fit and when does it feel too large or small? What is it about “we” that is so irresolvable but so strong that it spans oceans and thousands of miles, the magnetic field of us-ness reaching me all the way in Ireland, huddled around my coffee cup, with my me-ness compass’s arrow pointed home?

Katherine Churchill is a member of the Class of 2016.

Imagine: It is a dark and snowy night. A heterosexual pair is drunk; they make eyes at each other and make haste for the male’s bed because, “I have a single in Pine Street, babe.” There is a consensual (and therefore sexy) hookup. There is snuggling and no question that she will stay the night because Pine Street is in Canada. There is only a duvet.

Scene of the crime: The girl wakes up, freezing. She gets fully under the duvet and promptly sweats to death, only to get out of the duvet and freeze. She puts duvet half-on, half-off and her upper body is cold. The girl passes a long uncomfortable night and grouchily whines to her friends at brunch. She sees the boy in the hot food line when she goes up for more pancakes, and an awkward hello ensues.

Prime suspect: Comforters.