As senior year continues to roll through, I encounter more challenges, each more difficult than the other. You’d think that senior year would be a breeze, that the “senioritis” could kick in without a worry in the world. That’s what my mindset was up until the second week of September, when I started crashing. I’ve…
The roar of The Ruckus, the pep band playing and singing the fight song, Rhody the Ram running around, watching our basketball team beat the living [expletive] out of Providence College (knock on wood); these are all things that makeup the University of Rhode Island’s identity. Like other schools in America, athletics and school-wide organizations…
This past summer, I met a mom in southern Rhode Island. She was dressed for work, and her kids were about the same age as my son, Tommy. We started talking. She told me about how she dropped out of high school when she got pregnant, then later earned her GED. She worked a few…
There is a trending notion on college campuses that certain words and ideas are dangerous to intellectual and moral progress and should be squelched without question. This has led students to disrupt, disinvite and physically attack intellectuals, comedians and other speakers whose perspectives and insights could otherwise have been used for critical inquiry and the…
My friend, Evan, overdosed in 2016. He died a couple of months shy of his 21st birthday. I know because his birthday was only two days before mine. Evan was a great person. His warm heart made everyone smile, and his relentless love for Nicki Minaj was always the topic of conversation. A drug that…
Oct. 7, 2017 was the day I lost faith in McDonalds. This day is a day that will live in infamy. It was the day McDonald’s made a promise, that fell short and ruined the lives of many. What happened you ask? McDonald’s didn’t give us the Mulan Szechuan Chicken McNugget Sauce we were promised….
I’m 21 and I don’t drink. You read that right. The unpopular opinion. I don’t go to Ticket Tuesdays at the Ocean Mist,Chuck Mondays at Charlie O’s Tavern, or Bonvue Thursdays at the Bonvue Inn. I’ve been 21 for a solid four months and have yet to hop on the bandwagon of drinking on a school…
I’m a senior, and I’ve spent a lot of time in Swan Hall over the course of what has nearly been four years of school—but I’ve never had a class in the auditorium. This Tuesday, October 10, I completed my regularly scheduled English class—on the second floor—and descended down the staircase towards the entrance. I…
Three weeks ago, when we ran Kelsey Santmyer’s column about her rape, I never expected the positive reactions we received from the University of Rhode Island community. I was in awe at the overwhelming support Kelsey received in the column’s aftermath. URI community members held a rally that packed the Memorial Union Atrium to stand…
SYDNEY – Last week my entire article was about how beautiful New Zealand was, and how I wasted a golden opportunity in the country. However, New Zealand as a whole was not a wasted vacation. It was anything but. This is the story of how fantastic–albeit terrifying–New Zealand, “The Adventure Capital of the World,” was….