Need 2 Know

A few days ago I finally got all the paperwork sorted to register for the internship I've been doing since the beginning of December or so.  Need 2 Know, is a free daily email with a list of important headlines in every topic; World news, NYC news, entertainment, sports, business, politics, tech.  Along with the headlines are short summations of the article they link to so that, if you really don't have time to read it, you're still in the know.

The Need 2 Know is a service for the educated professional whose friends and colleagues expect them to be the person with all the information.  But as educated professionals with friends and colleagues and full to the bursting point schedules, we don't ALWAYS have time to sit and read the paper or scour the internet to keep up with the 24/7, which is impossible to keep up with.   So with the help of the Need 2 Know's daily email, you'll know what there is that you need to know, and with a link to a reputable source of information, you'll know what you should know about what you should know.  Ya know?

My job as an intern there is write the one to two sentence write ups you see in the email you get at about 9:30 every morning.  It's fun, and the time spent doing these write ups has actually become the time I spend catching up on my news, so I've really enjoyed it, my bosses are phenomenal, and this is a org I really stand behind and love the idea of.  The email comes with jokes and funny tweets and culture updates, because if the news isn't enjoyable, even less people are going to read it.  And I'm pretty sure the audience is scare enough as it is.

So once again, the Web site to sign up for the FREE daily email is http://theneed2know.com/.  Just try it, you'll like it!

Oh No @ Her Campus

Two quick notes on these Her Campus articles -

First and foremost is that if you view any of these on the actual site, HerCampus.com/purchase, you'll find the byline for all of them says Christie Rotondo.  She was the editor and uploaded all of the content and if you click ANYONE'S articles, they have Rotondo's byline as well.  It's an unfortunate consequence and the site is out of commission so there's not much to be done about it.  I just want to assure anyone reading that all of the articles I've posted here are completely my work.

Second point is that some of the links aren't  working for a few my articles.  I don't know if this is my computer, a permanent problem, or if they're just not on the site anymore.  But as I scour my computer for the original Word docs, these are the URLs of all the pieces I did not have the chance to link to.  Just in case!

http://www.hercampus.com/school/purchase/inaccessible-purchase-misses-mark-wheelchair-standards
http://www.hercampus.com/school/purchase/nanowrimo-makes-november-crunch-time-purchase-writers
http://www.hercampus.com/school/purchase/kosher-campus-story-behind-kosher-amazing-meals
http://www.hercampus.com/school/purchase/zumba-live-your-life-four-minutes-time
http://www.hercampus.com/school/purchase/purchase-misconceptions-we-promise-its-not-bad-you-think
http://www.hercampus.com/school/purchase/feuding-roomies

The Weight of the "Girlfriend" Title: How Being the Other Woman Might Be Your Best Bet

Facebook has a couple options for your status as a love interest, and only the bold claim to be in an “open relationship.”  Sometimes though, a woman can find herself in a relationship she can’t flaunt online.
 
Kristen Meinzer of YourTango.com’s Love Buzz column writes that, “Being easy isn’t as easy as you might think.”  In her article on side relationships, she seriously criticizes Kate Major’s relatively recent affair with Jon Gosselin, and throws away the notion that the side woman might actually be a victim - that they are purely the problem.
 
On the other hand, our very own Essence McClanahan, a sophomore journalism and arts management double major, has a very frank position on being “the other woman.”  On her blog, CanWeTalkAboutThis.wordpress.com, her final post in January begins, “I’ll be the first to admit it…It’s super easy to be the other woman.”

 
Essence claims that this was the easier choice for her when she was the other woman, because the man in question wasn’t relationship material.  Thinking about the future wasn’t necessary with him.
 
“I guess that is the freeing aspect of it all, because once the [man] becomes a nuisance or brings on extra stress, you can take solace in the fact that they can be easily replaced.”
 
An article for Women’s Health magazine titled, “The New Adulteress,” says that the bad rep stereotype of a woman on a mission to wreck a marriage has changed.  “A woman may take the plunge into an affair precisely because she knows it will be short-term.”
 
Plus, Essence says, “It does feel good to know that no matter who he has at home he’d leave there in a second to be with you.” 
 
This new image is not of a girl looking to steal a man away from his happy home, because it’s not about him.  It’s about her.  She prefers the emotional detachment. 
 
“At the end of the day all you have is an agreement, not a bond. You two agreed not to fall in love or attempt to build anything. All you signed up for was fun, so once things stop being fun the relationship too can dissolve that easily,” says Essence in her blog.
 
For Essence, this clarity came from an experience most wouldn’t consider to be “freeing,” as she calls it.
 
“I was cheated on, it sucked big-time, [but] being cheated on was quite liberating,” she said.
After trying to revive her relationship, McClanahan figured out what exactly was so liberating about the experience.  She decided that a title like “girlfriend” is just a brand and label that she wants nothing to do with. 
 
“I’m free of worrying about [cheating] occurring again,” she said.  “Now I can not only see it coming, but prevent it from happening.”
 
“Whenever you leave a space open in your relationship, trust me, someone is capable of fitting in,” she warned.
                                                                                                                             
Essence’s advice?  “If you’ve cheated, get tested and zip your lips. Take it to the grave.  If you’re the other woman, get tested, make him get tested.  Safety's important.  My best advice to you: don’t ever text him first, don’t wear perfume, trim your nails and avoid intimacy at all costs. If you fall for him remember he can’t catch you, his hands are already full.”

As "Hair" Hits the Stage

Since last semester, Egypt has overthrown its government, Japan has been rocked by a crazy earthquake, and construction has moved from one inconvenient spot on the mall to another.  Now, Purchase is faced with a new question.  “What’s going on with ‘Hair?’”
           
Sophomore drama studies major Laurie King is our answer to this burning question, having taken up the roll as director and producer.  The show “Hair,” which has the rights, the music, and a cast overflowing with talent, is ambitiously set to go on April 22 and 23 in the Dance Theater Lab.
           
The production of the full-length Broadway musical was originally the idea of freshman Misha Schmidt, who proved to be in over his head.  Over this past winter break, after hearing that Schmidt dropped the show and was cancelling “Hair”, cast members approached King and asked her to take on the job- no small task, considering musicals outside of the conservatory are few and far between.  She agreed.
           
King has since foot the bill for the whole of the play, including the $510 rights.  She eventually fired Schmidt from the production entirely, where he had been working as the musical director, and hired Mark Oleszko, a music student at Pace University, whom she pays. 
           
Oleszko is well worth his paycheck, running through half the score in a single two hour rehearsal – an impressive feat considering there are over 30 songs in “Hair,” tripling that of most Broadway productions of its time. 
           
“I really think that this is a show that speaks to the Purchase campus, because it’s so different,” King said.  “The more I read it and the more I listen to the music, the more interested I am and the more I realize, this is a powerful show.”
           
In the drama studies department, a senior project typically entails directing a one hour play put on in the Humanities theater, and having the performance graded.  But when you tackle “Hair” in your sophomore year, the idea of topping it can be a challenge. 
            
“Next year, I plan to put on two shows.  I don’t think my senior project will be able to top ‘Hair’ as far as grandiosity, but I have some ideas up my sleeve.”  Though trying not too look to far ahead as she concentrates on the task at hand, King says she might like to attempt “Into the Woods,” a Stephen Sondheim musical. 
           
“I’ll be honest, if I could be in a musical, I would be there so fast, I can’t even describe it,” King admitted.  “I love music, can’t read it, can’t sing it, not a musically inclined person. But I love it.”
           
Through the months that have preempted opening night, King has hit her fair share of bumps.  Cast members are dropped, added, rehearsals are rescheduled, leads lose their voices, not everyone gets along, and not everyone is on time. 
           
She brushes off the thought that something, anything, might stop her. 
           
“Fingers crossed.  Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”  She smiles, pauses, and takes it back.  “I never do that though, in reality.  I plan for the best.”

The Purchase Kittens: Our New Mascots

Purchase is a get-out-and-do-something type of community, an idea embodied simply and poignantly by senior liberal studies major Stacey Nassauer.

You may have seen them, the adorable feline duo that has taken up residence in the woods just outside the New.  You may have aw-ed at the one eyed kitten that wants to rub against your leg, or imagined how terrible winter must have been for the poor animals.  Nassauer, along with her roommate, senior psych major Rachel Chakansky, went out of their way to make life a little easier for their feline friends.

“When you’re walking along the path and see the cats there and hear cries coming from the woods,” Nassauer said, “You cant help but stop and try and do something about the situation.”

After initially feeding the cats a can of tuna, the girls thought they needed to take a more drastic step.  Armed with freshly purchased cat food and litter boxes lined with old clothing, the they made a little home for the kittens, set back into the woods behind the Dance Building. 

“There was already a wooden house-like structure there that someone else must have built.  But these had covered lids so we figured they would be protected from the rain and wind and more snow if it came.”

The cats have survived the brunt of the winter, and seem to be regularly fed by both Nassauer and Chakansky as well as the residents of the new.  As spring approached, the girls have high hopes for the welfare of the felines.

“With the warmer weather more students come out of hibernation,” Nassauer pointed out, “Which means more people will notice them and hopefully put some food down too.”

Who know what would have happened to the adorable creatures who have set up shop on campus, but Nassauer, who doesn’t even consider herself a cat person, will rest easy.

“It gives my roommate and I a little piece of mind knowing that we tried to help them out as best we could since we cant take them into our own apartments.”

His Life In A Fish Bowl: James O'Keefe's Experiment with Generosity

For the rest of the week, his life is in your hands.

Purchase student James O’Keefe has set up a temporary home in the installation space on the first floor of Fort Awesome.  You may have seen the room, just next to the More Store, which has been used for a few installation pieces by VA students, but none have been quite as radical as this one.

O’Keefe has brought nothing but the clothes on his back and a large blue tarp with him into the room.  He will, for one week, live solely on the kindness of strangers and the things they bring him.



Scattered over the dirty tarp are the meager bits and pieces of supplies visitors have brought him.

“I thought I was going to be in here not eating for a few days,” says O’Keefe, a junior sculpture major, gesturing to the hot tea, cereal, and water bottle he received when the Her Campus staff dropped in.  He also has the remains of a Starbucks meal someone was kind enough to buy him.

In reality, he has been surprised with the kindness the Purchase community has offered him.

“This project is an exploration of generosity,” he says.  He has previously done two other demonstrative installment pieces here at Purchase, and talks about famous installment art throughout history.

Joseph Beuys, in a 1974 performance piece called "I Like America and America Likes Me," spent eight hours over three days in a room with a wild coyote. In 1996, Tracey Emin lived in a locked room in a gallery for 14 days, with nothing but a lot of empty canvases and art materials.

In light of these performances being a "reconciliation with nature" and a "reconciliation with painting," O'Keefe considers this project his "reconciliation with people."

 O’Keefe describes himself as a cynic and says that this project has made him incapable of “being selfish at all.”  As he risks his well being, O’Keefe says he will find out if he can trust people, and that this will be a serious learning experience for him.

“Nothing interesting happens unless someone goes and does something,” says O’Keefe.

He began his project this Tuesday, and will be out by Monday.  He still has to be a student, go to classes and do his homework.  But most of the time, he is in the freezing cold, unfinished room, which is where University Police Department officers found him after reading the sign he has posted on the glass of the exposed wall.

O’Keefe says he carefully worded his sign, having it say that he is “practically living” there.  UPD wanted to know if he was sleeping there, which he said, of course, that he wasn’t because UPD would have a problem with that due to zoning rules.

The truth?

O’Keefe sleeps behind the hanging portion of his tarp that serves as a backdrop for his small living space.

“If nobody sees it, it doesn’t happen,” he says with a smirk.

The rain has brought his steady line of visitors to halt, he says.  O’Keefe has also discovered that it is not hunger, but boredom, is his main enemy. He has his fingers crossed that when the rain lets up, the donations and company will return.  

Adios, Barbie: How To Be A Body Outlaw

“Has anyone ever had a day, just one day, where you looked in the mirror and didn’t completelylove what you saw?” 
           
This question drew a serious of nervous giggles, knowing nods, and hesitant hand raises from the audience at Southside this past Wednesday, at the “How to be a Body Outlaw” lecture.  Body image expert and author Ophira Edut shared ideas and excerpts from the latest edition of her book, “Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty & Body Image.”
           
According to Edut, the average woman will see 400-600 advertisements a day, all of which are telling someone they’re “not enough” or “too much” but never just okay. 
           
“What would the world be like,” Edut asks, “If there was another perfect ideal?  Where women say who they are, rather than being told who to be.”
           
The concept of being a body outlaw, Edut explains, is the practice of loving yourself and your body.
           
“But if it was that easy, we’d all do it, right?” asks the email inviting all student-athletes and the dance conservatory, with an open invitation to any and all students. 
           
Edut discusses the need for a body image to come from a place of “self-love.”  Questions from the audience included how to deal with the eating habits you develop on a college campus, the idea of obesity as an eating disorder, and whether the speaker dismisses the idea of diets.
           
She does not, however, saying that making healthy choices and trying to look your best is something you have to “re-contextualize.”  You have to honor your body and thank it for what it can do, rather than hate it for what it doesn’t. 
           
“I’m not against Weight Watchers,” Edut assures.  “Sometimes a structure like that can help to make yourself a priority.”
           
Bianca Fernandez, a sophomore new media major in the crowd that evening, raised her hand to talk about her experience involving her phobia of being “too thin and vulnerable,” and her ambition to make a documentary about the different types of beauty in the world across many cultures.
           
Fernandez was one of many who seemed pleased to have the opportunity to share their stories and get the opinions and feedback of an expert like Edut.
           
Danielle Gray, the junior dance conservatory student who organized the event with the help of the Office of Student Life, the Athletics department, and the PSGA, said it was successful turnout for only having started advertising the previous Sunday night.  Gray said she was happy with the broad topics that were touched on and thought it was a really beneficial lecture.
           
Gray found Edut’s website through Stumble Upon, but you can find out about her book, “Body Outlaws,” here or check out her inspirational body-image site, Adios, Barbie.