Crimson staff writer

Niv M. Sultan

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Smashing, Baby

Smash has always been around: In elementary and middle school, I played, but in high school I stopped. In hindsight I notice the unsettling correlation between the exit of Smash from my life, and the entrance of the thesis statement into it. Life became a bit realer, a bit less fantastical. I couldn’t cite Wikipedia anymore.


Hate It: Clover

I’m standing in Clover. I look at the menu, a confusing flurry of new age mumbo jumbo. It tells me the wait time for various dishes, proving to me that Clover has never learned the lesson that my dad’s frown taught me in fifth grade: keep expectations low.


Hate it: Ugly Christmas Sweater Parties

I don’t understand why we all hang out all year, but do our own things for the month of December. Why can’t we just light the Chanukkah with the Kinara? Or fill stockings with latkes? Or do whatever we want to do, regardless of what God we’re fans of (or totally not fans of)?


Declaration of Concentration

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a sophomore to commit to a concentration, mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the concentration.


Bad Trend Alert: Senior Bar

I study history and literature, that most refined, elegant, and humble combination of subjects. But it seems that is not enough for the despotic tyrants of Harvard’s Program in General Education. “You must be well-rounded,” they say. “You must study math to remind yourself of how shitty your math has become, and you must study science to remind yourself of how shitty your science has become, and you must stop reading books—everyone thinks you’re a huge nerd.”


Porter Square Personalities: Wardmaps

I’m standing somewhere between the Green Line and Paris when the stranger on the ladder greets me. He descends, hammer in hand, and introduces himself. Steven J. Beaucher is wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and a smile that bridges the gap between the hanging Green Line sign and the antique map of Paris.


The Bathroom Companion to Widener Library

The stacks of Widener Library are an especially exciting place, capable of sparking a wide range of bodily functions. When nature calls, answer it with book in hand. These books specifically.


Two Generations of Tutor Babies

Jack puts his frosted mini-wheats one by one into his bowl, an American flag bib protecting him from small splashes of milk. Across the table, his sister Kate, in an understated red rose headband, lets her eyes wander over the Kirkland House dining hall.