Get To Know Alice Mathias
Alice Mathias, the Dartmouth senior who's blogging for the NYT, has a very interesting resum , especially for someone so young! Did you know that she won a research grant from Dartmouth for a project called "Neighbors of the Animal House: A Screenplay About the 'Girls Next Door'"? And her dad also went to Dartmouth, which is really sweet. She also wrote a bunch of columns ("Alice Unchained") for the Dartmouth paper before, come November, she didn't anymore. Let's take a gander.
Feb. 24, "I can't believe it's not frat, Friday!":
Being the host might be a big job, but the endeavor is compensated by a little thing called The Home-Court Advantage.
When you're the one behind the bar, you can force that cute dude to hang out right next to you for just about as long as you want (while he waits for you to give him a drink). When he finally looks like he's totally frustrated and ready to leave, you can nonchalantly hand a beer his way, wink, and say: "Hang on a second, let me get a wingman over here." (You've only got about 40 lying around the basement, so you'll find one without a problem.) Once a partner-in-seduction is summoned to schmooze with Cute Dude's buddy, you can (again, nonchalantly) offer him a pong game on the, a-hem, V-I-P table. Throughout the game, you can woo him with heart-wrenching stories about how you painted these basement walls with your own, bare hands. Once the game is over you can warn him of the ferocious blizzard hindering his journey home, and offer him a bed (just upstairs!) as an alternative place-to-crash. When he eventually breaks up with you for prioritizing your sisters over him, you can retaliate by removing his name from your gatekeeper's "Guest List" (permanently, or, at least until you recover from your heartbreak). It will be slightly reassuring to know that his friends will have no choice but to ditch him every weekend, after all, you are a sister at their favorite house on campus."
April 7, "On the Wristbandwagon":
Dartmouth certainly has an Animal House-induced "booze-or-lose" reputation and, up until yesterday, I was one of those losers. Yes, nine out of ten rocket scientists agree that frats are only fun when you're wasted — but don't be deceived! That doesn't mean you need alcohol to have a good time. As underage, law-abiding, problem-solving individuals, many Dartmouth students survive weekends by turning to various (legal) remedies to sobriety, including: (a) sleep deprivation, (b) extreme malnourishment and (c) Red Bull/Nail Polish Remover lattes. Although these solutions have never failed to dizzy-me-up sufficiently, I always looked forward to the day that I could simply accept a drink from that charming frat dude without landing his house on double-secret probation.
Novack, Wednesday, 9:15 a.m.: Ladies and gentlemen, it has already been one of those weeks. I'm sure you understand. Rush has totally hijacked my brain (or whatever's left of it after two years of membership at Delta Delta Destruction). I'm over-committed, under-caffeinated and I have about one hour to write this column — one hour dissected into tiny five-minute fragments and scattered across my so-busy/so-important/so-sorority-rushed schedule.
Well, we suppose "unchained" would be one way to put it, yes.
