Ten years ago

The mutant snail

BY BRIANA WONG

Ten years ago, I lived in an awkwardly shaped, neon-yellow house in Berkeley, Calif. The back portion, standing two stories high, was topped with a pitched roof, while the front portion was only one story high and had a flat roof, making the house evocative of some kind of giant, mutant snail. As a nine-year-old tomboy, I saw the old house, at different times, as my playground (or rather, my battleground), my laboratory, and my place of business.

When my friends from my home-school group came over, all the kids raided the laundry closet and played a version of freeze-tag that involved hurling balled-up socks at one another. When there were no more socks to be thrown, we played kung fu instead, mimicking the moves we had learned from various kung fu movies. I prided myself on my mastery of the no-shadow kick from Yuen Woo-ping’s classic “Iron Monkey.”

During the lonely hours when there was no one to play with, I often turned to scientific experiments to keep my mind occupied. I once tried to bake Play-Doh in the microwave and then flooded the kitchen to see if my shoes would float. I don’t exactly remember what happened after that, but it may or may not have involved a wooden spoon.

My favorite memories from 1999 involve Tiger’s Books, the bookstore my little sister and I started together. I typed out stories on the little nine-inch, black-and-white Mac my grandparents had sent me as an alternative to throwing it out, and my sister illustrated the pages once we had bound them together using colorful yarn. We used to sell the books to family and friends for one or two dollars. Family members were eligible for the discount, which was sometimes less than the standard price, sometimes more. The stories always contained some type of moral and were sometimes based on the lives of people we knew. We eventually ended up distributing our own newsletter, “News Around the House,” featuring juicy stories about which they were all just dying to hear. At least that one was complimentary.

Although the concept of home is a difficult one for me these days, considering the fact that my high school years alone spanned three schools, two languages, two countries, and both coasts, the adventures I had in the Mutant Snail perhaps make it the closest approximation.

The author is a Columbia College sophomore. She is an associate editorial page editor.

Ten years of turd sandwiches

BY CORNELIUS FITZPATRICK

Ten years ago last Saturday, the Supreme Court handed the 2000 Presidential Election to George W. Bush. I was in fourth grade at the time, and my memory of the event is a bit hazy. I do recall a feeling of deep, deep, disappointment and a sense that my parents were more upset than I was. In fact, they are reluctant to talk about it to this day.

I realize that a fourth grader being heartbroken over the results of a presidential race sounds ridiculous (to be fair, I think I was equally disappointed that we were having meatloaf for dinner that night). But in the same way I was born a Yankee fan and a Catholic, I was born a Democrat.

At 20, I have since reconsidered my options—and while I don’t find myself going to mass all that often, I am still as big a Yankee fan as ever. As for being a Democrat, I have come to terms with the fact that I was largely born into it—but not blindly or uncontrollably. Rather, my parents’ values of compassion and fairness—values which they took care to instill in their sons—are what make me vote blue.

And in 2009, for some reason, it is something that my dad said later in the decade, following a second disappointment for Democrats—the 2004 election—which sticks with me most vividly. He said the reason the liberal party lost two elections it should have won was that our candidates were not the cream of the generational crop. The best of his generation—who during the counter-culture movement became so disillusioned with their government, with the Vietnam War—had been turned off from politics.

I think South Park was trying to convey (albeit less eloquently) a similar message when they aired an episode before that 2004 election which presented the race as a choice between a “giant douche” and a “turd sandwich.”

My fear, after eight years of Bush, a brief flash of hope from a younger candidate, and now a fall-back to quarreling after the politicians of my father’s generation have reclaimed the national discourse, is that we, too, will be turned off from service. We came of age in an ugly, divisive time for American politics, and now that our country has more problems than I care to list, it would be all too easy to let someone else clean up the mess. It is a tendency that I, as a newly decided creative writing major, have to watch out for.

I suppose my message is simple. We are no longer those fourth graders slinging our parents’ mud, but will soon be those parents trying to pass on our values. So as we go forth and choose careers in this new decade, let us pause and consider for a moment whether it will be us, or future turd sandwiches, who our fourth graders will be voting for.

The author is a Columbia College sophomore. He is an associate editorial page editor.

Fourth grade: ain’t nothin’ but a heartache

BY DARYL SEITCHIK

Most people have “formative years.”  I had 1999.  If you asked me how I was doing back then, I would have said, between swigs of Juicy Juice, that the only redeeming quality of fourth grade was that I was the same age as the kids in “Hey Arnold!” Unfortunately, I have not changed since that year, because I had so many important failures. These failures shaped who I am today, for better or worse.

Failure #1: I was, without irony, president of the Backstreet Boys Fan Club for Halloween. I wore a fake backstage pass, a T-shirt with Brian Littrell’s face, and carried a huge sign with hot pink bubble letters that read “BSB 4 LYFE!!”  To my dismay, “Coolest Costume” went to the mermaid who hopped through the whole parade. After Jack the Ripper and a zombie sea monster, I was runner-up for “Scariest,” and I have been ironic ever since.

Failure # 2: When my mom said I would switch schools in two years, I wrote the Guinness Book of Records for my fourth grade class, as an early farewell. Titles ranged from “Most Hair” to “Asks the Stupidest Questions.” Turns out, two years is a long, lonely time when you’re “Most Likely to Get into Hogwarts” in a classroom full of jealous muggles. I was only trying to foreshadow my departure. Unfortunately, I never did get into Hogwarts—I only got into a private middle school for girls. This, in turn, foreshadows my byline. 

Failure #3: On Field Day, I got an asthma attack in the relay race. After that, I was the “mascot,” recruiting expert fifth graders and spunky kindergarteners for dangerous rounds of dodge ball. For these, the gym teacher let me be the judge. I now recruit and edit articles for the Opinion page of the Spectator.

What I’ve learned from fourth grade is how to make fun of myself as I get older, and my failures and successes seem more serious and important. I’m proud of my lack of pride: It makes growing up less dark, even when I’m writing an article about it at 3 a.m. on a Saturday, between swigs of cold coffee. 

The author is a Barnard College sophomore. She is an associate editorial page editor.

To a columnist: a letter ten years in the making

BY SHIRA BORZAK

Dear CML,

Ten years ago I was in fifth grade. Ten years ago, high schoolers seemed ancient, and I couldn’t fathom that one day I would be 16 and get to drive a car. But even my ten-year-old self knew that all I wanted to do was go to college.

I have spent the last semester recruiting letters to the editor for the Spectator. So it feels natural that I respond to your last column (“Sixty-nine theses, not in order”) in letter form. Another of my tasks for the past two semesters was editing your column every other Wednesday night. You, CML, are a good writer. Very good. And smart. More than a few times your vocabulary stumped me, and I, a lifelong editor, had to go to Websters, intellectual tail between my legs.

But CML, your last column was different. First of all, sixty-nine theses? 69? Really, CML? Or was that sexually suggestive number a coincidence? Doubtful. You knew exactly what you were doing—your entire column, featuring the giggle-inducing number of theses that stated all that you hated about Columbia and New York, was written not with your usual elegance and intelligence, but with pure blunt force.

CML, I’m sorry you had such a bad college experience. I really am. Mine hasn’t been perfect either. I’ve dealt with challenges to my identity, social frustration, and grades that could have been better (or worse, the best I could have gotten). And some of your criticisms were spot on. But have you ever considered that other people are enjoying college? That New York isn’t the stuff of your anti-establishment dreams, and yes, Times Square sucks, but it can actually offer legitimate life-shaping opportunities, some of which might actually be fun? That the rest of us who are gaining from this pretty solid institution aren’t narrow and flawed but that, perhaps, it’s you?

Let us enjoy college. I’ve been looking forward to it since I was ten. I know Columbia isn’t what you thought it was, but it isn’t a Disneyland bubble filled with rich white kids gallivanting around College Walk with their racist clubs. Don’t lay blame on your peers who manage to make this city and this school work for them.

Good luck with everything, CML. I hope you get less angry soon. Next time you publish something, make it purposeful, and I would love to read it. And for god’s sake, using “69” insults your, and our, intelligence.

Best, 

Shira Borzak
(Former) associate editorial page editor.

P.S. Yes,  “Only at Columbia could people who sit in an office 40 hours a week listening to themselves call themselves ‘journalists,’” but only at Columbia could people who bitch endlessly about the same thing for over 1,600 words a month call themselves columnists.

The author is a Barnard College sophomore. She is an associate editorial page editor.

The blind bard’s blinding tale

BY ELAINE WANG

It’s hard to believe that the decade of the aughts is drawing to a close. Ten years ago to this day, I had never stepped foot on the island of Manhattan, and my deepest impressions of the entire country came from watching episodes of “America’s Most Wanted” while eating poutine 120 or so kilometers north of the northern border.

Last week, as I was taking the northbound A train from Brooklyn, a man wearing a conductor’s navy blue jacket and cap walked onto the subway and sat in the seat across from me. He then pulled out, of all books, Homer’s “The Odyssey” and proceeded to read it with a 3-D “Happy Feet” bookmark. For ineffable reasons, I could not stop smiling like a creep nor take my eyes off his eyes moving across the text.

I watched him get off two stops later and hop onto the train across the platform. I was certain he was an off-duty conductor, and at that moment, it made so much sense that he should be reading one of the greatest travel stories conceived. Although it cannot possibly be compared to Odysseus’s ten-year voyage, a subway ride from Far Rockaway to the northern reaches of Manhattan is still a hell of a distance, peppered with many a wacky New Yorker along the way. And he probably made this journey without thinking about it every day of his life.

As did I on a different journey, ten years ago, in fourth grade, in a town north of the northern border. The weekly stops on my journey consisted of school, babysitter’s house, home, friend’s house, and local Asian supermarket. Stunned by the news that we would migrate south, I awoke to this routine and could not recall even one noteworthy event over the entirety of fourth grade, a year of oblivion.

Perhaps in 2020, a new iconic animated character will be marking the timeless pages of Homer. But like today, Homer will still be read as we each make our own crisscrossing journeys. The brilliant bard who wrote such engrossing tales was purportedly blind, but that doesn’t give us an excuse to feign blindness to our tales in real time, does it? As the New Year approaches, I promise to myself that another decade from now, I will not be spinning a story of poutine and kilometers to fill the void in my recollection of this year. I will have something better to tell, and it will be a wholly original epic.

The author is a Columbia College sophomore. She is an associate editorial page editor.

Beginning to end

BY EMILY TAMKIN

My fourth grade teacher was very clear. 2000 was actually not the beginning of a new millennium. That, she said, was only to be ushered in with Y2K+1. Her protestations didn’t matter, though—at nine years old, I witnessed the end of an era. And I don’t just mean the 1900s (or the ’90s, for that matter—not that the rise of Britney and Justin aren’t as notable as any other event to take place over the 20th century).

That year was the end of my faith in education for its own sake. The advent of the infamous ELA—that’s New York state-speak for the English language test we took in fourth (and again in eighth) grade—ensured that we were taught to the test for over half the year. I’m not sure I’ve ever stopped learning in order to test well.

It was the end of my belief in human reason. In late December 1999, I went with my mother to the grocery store. We were not able to purchase anything, though—everyone had stocked up for what we were told was the inevitable and insurmountable crash of all technology. The good news is that our computers still worked on New Year’s Day. The bad news is that we may or may not have had milk.

It was the end of the mystique of celebrity and personal ignorance of hip-hop. A rapper moved into our town that year, and his eldest son was put in my class. He may have had daddy issues, or he may have been just another aloof nine-year-old boy. I was originally infuriated to be stuck with him on every project (this was also the end of my belief that being the class goody two-shoes is rewarded). But he wasn’t so bad in the end.

There may have been more personal eras that drew to a close, but I don’t remember them. I can, however, vividly recall the beginnings—the beginning of seeing myself as capable of advocacy (I argued that we should have an annual public speaking contest—the principal disagreed); the beginning of thinking that group punishment was wrong; the beginning of a rivalry that continued through much of high school; the beginning of existing in the double digits; the beginning of realizing that years and decades and centuries come to an end, and that new ones start.

I’m sure that there’s plenty of fourth grade that I’m forgetting entirely, just as I’m sure that I will not remember much of sophomore year 10 years from now, as 2019 becomes 2020. But, at Green Day’s urging (they were around back in fourth grade, but whatever they were up to didn’t make it on to my cultural radar—some things never change), I will remember that every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

The end. 

The author is a Columbia College sophomore. She is the deputy editorial page editor.

Dead guinea pigs and silent reading

BY AMIN GHADIMI

Ten years ago, I was in fourth grade. I don’t remember fourth grade too well. There are just a few weird memories:

Our class had a pet guinea pig. It died. We made a little tissue-box coffin for it and buried it outside, next to the first grade classrooms. Even to my eight-year-old self, it all seemed a little juvenile.

In retrospect, ten years later, I can’t help but sneer at the poor hygiene with which the whole affair was conducted. And in my imagination, I inevitably add to the scene Dwight Schrute playing a bright green recorder and Michael Scott delivering an awkwardly heart-wrenching funeral oration. And then, when I think of funeral orations, I think about Pericles and how everything in life goes back to Lit Hum. Even fourth grade guinea pig funerals. My fourth grade class, Michael Scott, Pericles: We’re all playing the same game.

I also hated silent reading and silent writing time in fourth grade. I decided one day that it would be a good idea to offer to help my teacher put up the bulletin board display during silent reading. I was delightedly surprised when she fell for such puerile machinations: she thought I was just being nice, and I got to get out of reading another soporific child novel. Win-win.

Little did I know then that college, that candyland of smart people bliss, is also all about silent reading and silent writing. Now, ten years later, sometimes I’d like to think that I’ve gotten a little better at silent reading and silent writing. But I haven’t. And who would’ve known? There still are bulletin boards in college to get you out of silent reading time, but those bulletin boards are called college newspapers, and silent reading time isn’t at fixed times.

Looking back, we all know that the past ten years have been tumultuous ones for our planet. When the world rang in the new millennium—as I slept! my excitement couldn’t keep my eight-year-old self awake!—no one could have predicted the winding path that brought us to the end of 2009. But as we enter 2010, and as we turn the page on the final edition of Spectator this year, it’s good to know that some things just don’t ever change. Secretly I’m still a fourth grader, and I suspect that a lot of the rest of us are, too.

The author is a Columbia College sophomore. He is the editorial page editor.