News & features about the Vanderbilt Commons from the students who live here
Squirrels are the staple of life on Vandy’s campus, and I’m sure we’ve all heard about our 3:1 squirrel-to-human ratio.
But how much do you *actually* know about the different types of squirrels that call Vanderbilt home? What kind of squirrel would YOU be based on your personality and habits?
Take this quiz to find out!
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Mr. C. scares us very much. He has horrible blinding teeth and bad hair, and we feel like he definitely can kill and indeed has killed students using his chin as a bludgeoning weapon. For this reason, we thought we’d propose some alternative mascots to Mr. C., characters who we feel are much less likely to send us online death threats or mug us with a large blade in a dark alley. Without further adieu, Vandy, here are your candidates!
We still want our mascot to be intimidating, but not just in a vaguely pervy way. If you want a mascot who poses a very real threat, look no further than Geoffrey the Killer Cone Snail. On the surface, sure, he’s a snail. Small, cute, harmless. That is, until he burrows under the sand to lie in ambush, harpoons an unsuspecting fish bigger than him with a razor sharp needle-like tooth on the end of a rapidly extending proboscis, and delivers a mix of more than a hundred neurotoxins so potent that there is no existing antidote, immobilizing the fish before killing it. Geoffrey then reels the fish into his throat on his proboscis and engulfs it. Yes, he swallows fish bigger than him whole. Some of them possibly still alive and paralyzed when he does it. And the venom can indeed kill humans.
UC Santa Cruz had the right idea, but they just missed the mark. Geoffrey, on the other hand, never misses. Ole Miss, better watch your back….
If Stanford can do it, why can’t we? Show your appreciation for the remarkable arboreal ecology of Tennessee by adopting Torgo the Tulip Poplar, the Tennessee State Tree, as our mascot in place of Mr. C! Elegant and formidable but somehow friendly, with his hardy flowers and strong trunk, Torgo is just the kind of kid-friendly mascot we need to inject some state loyalty and environmentalist fervor into the world of Vandy athletics.
He wields a great Ulfberth steel sword with blood grooves, and he has served five times in the shield wall of a great army. He fought under Ubbi Ragnarsson for years and earned two silver armbands for his valor and cleverness in battle. He loves mead, gold, and his wife and children back in Frisia. Last week he brutally murdered six monks. His favorite cheer is “ek þirbijaR ungandiR im, heþro dweno k! lina laukaR f!” and he does expect you to learn it. Please don’t make any comments about horns; we won’t be held responsible for what happens next.
Camilla wants Vandy’s athletic teams to win the game, but she also wants them to be realistic. She’s often late to halftime shows because she was networking with the other team’s coach. She can afford to meet for forty minutes with that tennis game tomorrow, but they really should have scheduled further ahead. But if you want a mascot who wants the best for you, who’ll support you through thick and thin, who’s probably seen you cry, and who may or may not have a secret stash of candy in her office, Camilla is the one for you.
We did something. Something terrible.
We underestimated the anathema that lurks beneath the human consciousness, bleeding out clotted and aching onto the fringes of imagination. And now we will be punished by our own corruption. What we’re trying to say is the mascot-making…it went too far.
Shh! What was that? A whisper on the wind.
It will hear us. It always hears us. Oh god, what have we wrought….
Clyde is very cuddly and good at cheers. Please vote Clyde for Vandy’s new mascot.
Wow, my first-year of college is over. I am sitting here typing this, and I am in a state of disbelief. I feel like time passed like molasses, but also at the speed of a turtle. That’s life I guess. I struggled to come up with a topic to write about for my last MCL article. I don’t think I could have written anything else other than a goodbye letter to freshman year.
Dear Freshman Year,
YOU FRICKING SUCKED! Just kidding, but this fall was definitely the equivalent of eating a dirty sock. I struggled finding friends and finding myself. I felt the pull to be so many things at once that I ended up stuck constantly second-guessing myself. I felt paralyzed by my classes and I felt stagnant in my development as a human. So much had changed globally, but I still felt like a senior in high school, even though I was hundreds of miles away, in a new city, around hundreds of new people, and in new classes.
Things turned around in the Spring semester. I got closer with my friends, and I explored so much more. I learned so many new things about myself, and I learned how to be alone. I learned about my likes and dislikes, I learned how to take care of myself when I am sick, and I became an expert at juggling my time. Life is so friggin’ hard guys. That’s my biggest conclusion from freshman year. It is never going to stop being hard. If it’s not a pandemic, then it’s going to be an illness, or a dead family member, or a rejection from a job. We constantly face battles, but the perspective we have when facing them matters most. I changed my perspective and learned to find the best angle to make myself happy. I reminded myself of what I could be grateful for, like my dad, cats, good books, chai lattes, and good friends. MCL has changed my life, and made me rethink my first-year experience for the better.
I am radically different from who I was a year ago. It’s crazy to think that April 2020 Zoe would not recognize April 2021 Zoe. This was a weird way to start college, but it’s made me a better person in how I view obstacles and what I want to achieve in life. I want to spread happiness, rather than obliterate it. I want to keep exploring, keep growing, and keep finding happiness in the difficult times. I don’t know how to sum up my first-year experience, because I am still grappling and exploring how this time has impacted me. We have all gone through so much in such a short time that I think we will all keep thinking about how we have changed after 2020. I am just so grateful to have been able to leave home and continue on my journey to finding myself. I don’t know where sophomore year will take me, but I am so excited for the ride.
I want to shout out a couple of people that have kept me alive and happy this year. Special thanks to: Emilio, Mia, Mira, Sasha, Norman, Karen, cats in general, Suzie’s chai and cinnamon raisin bagel, my German class, Buttrick spinny chairs, Jim Hayes, Paige Clancy, and everyone who has ever smiled at me. You all have done more for me than you know.
I wish everyone the best of luck this summer and in sophomore year.
Lots of love,
Zoe Y
P.S. Here are some of my fav pics:)
Central Library is a jungle. Not in the stereotypical way of trees and tigers hiding around the corner. The animals are actually the students, and the greenery is the occasional potted plant in a corner. I had my first acquaintance in Central my fall semester, but I only ever gained the courage and proper training to face the challenge again in the Spring. The building looms above you as you make your way to the entrance, almost taunting you to see if you’re up to the challenge. You enter and are immediately suspended into the smells of a library. Old book pages aging, the whoosh of printers hot off the press, and the click of laptop keys create a false sense of comfort. There are varying levels of predators in the library, from the maze-like structure to the super-sonic elevators. On a side note, what is the real speed of those freaking elevators? You’re on floor four and get to floor seven in negative three seconds. But, not even the claustrophobic, super-speed elevators were what deterred me in the fall. It’s the STEM kids that will murder you with their gaze as you pass their library room.
They appear harmless with their stickered water bottles, scattered notebooks, and messy buns, but their weapon is their gaze. There’s no way to reserve library rooms, so you are the mercy of whatever rooms are available when you get to the library. These rooms are prized, because they are quiet, you can spread out, and they have spinny chairs, which is my favorite part. The STEM kids dominate all of these rooms, because they probably get out of bed at 4:00 a.m., tailgate outside before the doors unlock, and rush the jungle seeking their daily shelter. I respect the grind and the fairness of “first come, first serve”, but the looks I receive as I pass by are uncalled for. They stare you down almost daring you to stare back, questioning their authority. They think the glass is one-sided or something, because they will watch your movements as you pass their territory. In the beginning I was scared, looked down, and shuffled quickly away, yet something changed in me.
I don’t know if the preservatives in the constant onslaught of Fresh Mex made me into a fiercer predator, but now I stare the STEM kids right back down. I look into their eyes, past the dry-erase board full of general chemistry or physics equations, and see into their binary souls of numbers. I hold the gaze and almost dare them to fight me with their TI-84 calculator. I pass by, and even though I am able to contend with the predator, I still fail at finding a room. I eventually settle for a chair or a comical office cubicle. Yet, when the tables turn, and I have the study room while people pass by looking in, I relish in my victory yet empathize with their journey.
Central Library is no longer scary with its numerous floors, potentially NASCAR-eligible elevator speeds, and STEM kids. At the end of the day, I empathize with the STEM kids that produce blood, sweat, and tears for their work. Y’all work hard without any breaks. If any of y’all are reading this, take a deep breath and don’t stress because it’ll be better for you in the long run. Or, let me say this in a way you might like. Raised cortisol levels suppress your immune system by activating your sympathetic nervous system, which puts you at a higher risk of sickness, damaging neurons in your hippocampus, and generally makes you unhappy. Enjoy the battles of the jungle, but remember to enjoy the fruits that hang among the trees.
With just five questions, we’ll determine and let you know exactly how miserable you’re going to be for the next few weeks! Have fun 🙂
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Can y’all believe we only have a month left as freshman? What the heck? Where did the time go?
This week I had a few spare moments during the ~wellness days~ to reminisce and remember my first-year experiences. The weather in Nashville has been spectacular this past week, so most of my thinking has been done in the sun to try to develop some sort of a tan before the summer creeps up on my pale body. As I sat on my complimentary Commons blanket, I looked around and saw all the masked faces at Rand. I saw students smiling. I heard the acapella groups in the tent belting their hearts out. I heard the rumbling of a skateboard flying past. I saw the community that for so many months has been hidden.
This spring semester has been above and beyond my fall semester. The fall was rough for me, y’all. It kicked my butt. Rest in peace to anyone in General Chemistry. Yet, this spring has given me a new kind of hope. I feel like I have connected with so many of my peers, which I didn’t think was possible. My renewed attitude for going to college in a pandemic was thanks to my class, “Buddhist Traditions” with Adeana McNicholl. I took this class fall 2021, but its meaning and context didn’t fully hit me until I returned from break.
I was raised around Christian holidays, but I was never fully religious. I didn’t expect much from taking this class; maybe a deeper knowledge on the history of Buddhism. Somehow this class made me have a Britney Spears-style breakdown, epiphanies, and lots of “Why am I here?” moments. Christianity never prepared me how to deal with pain and suffering. It taught me to trust God and follow His word, whatever that may be. Yet, Buddhism offered the perspective that suffering and pain were a part of life. It offered principles and rituals to conceptualize and contend with that pain. In the middle of an isolating, confusing, and scary pandemic, this is what I needed most. I do not claim to be a Buddhist, but the principles of this “religion” have given me an invaluable perspective as I face these adult challenges that leave me feeling lost.
Every one of us is just a tiny speck on a tiny planet in a big universe. This scared me at first. And that’s ok. It’s freeing when you think about it. You have no pressure to be anything other than what you want to be. Life carries on and will dependably keep going with or without you. Life is so temporary when you think about it that you can’t waste your time sweating the small stuff. Live your life for you. Eat the donut. Ask someone on the date. Go out with friends instead of studying (I know, don’t freak out, the world will not end if you don’t study). I know that we aren’t in the best of circumstances to really live out this life philosophy, since we are literally banned from doing things, like parties or traveling. But, I promise we will do this again. This spring has given me a taste of what it’s like to be a Vandy student, and my time here has given me such much to be grateful for. I can’t wait for my next years here as a student, and I am so grateful for the experiences, people, and perspectives this place has given me.
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Y’all, either Branscomb’s laundry room is directly above a sewer or some of the STEM kids are breeding a new type of mold ‘cus the noxious fumes in that room are extraterrestrial. I am literally gagging and fighting for my life as I drag my $2 plastic laundry basket from Target across the detergent ocean of that room. My nostrils are assaulted even through my mask, and I have to catapult my clothes into the washer before I run out of oxygen. I am not naïve enough to think that a college laundry room would be as sanitary as a hospital, but I also didn’t expect the potential dangers of inhaling Vandy’s own mustard gas. For those who don’t know, mustard gas is what you get when you mix bleach and ammonia, and it was used in World War I. But, Vandy’s version mixes the hopes and dreams of inexperienced college students with the Juul pods left behind in the dryers and the vomit stains from last night’s wild night. We aren’t in the trenches of a world war, but we are in the depths of a pandemic, so I guess it counts.
I would consider myself an experienced laundry washer (or whatever you call it) as I have been doing my own laundry since I was 13. I know some of the students here are brand new at washing their laundry, and may be making some mistakes with mixing detergent and bleach. But, I think the problem exists in buildup in the washers and improper cleaning. What I smell when I walk in that godforsaken room of washers and dryers is mildew mixed with black mold. There is no way that this is healthy to breathe in, or be in the presence of. I highly doubt these rooms are being cleaned, and if they are, I am concerned no alarms have been raised as to rectify this scent. I mean for all we know, it could be a bunch of dead rats decomposing under the Mount Everest of socks in the corner. I think the other issue is people close the washer doors after they transfer their load of sopping wet clothes. This creates a breeding ground for mold to throw their own frat party. So, if you’re reading this and you keep closing the door after your load, you are partially responsible for the smell and I am silently judging you through the screen. Yeah, I broke the fourth wall or whatever, fight me.
I am thankful that we don’t have to pay to wash our laundry with our already exuberant tuition costs, and I don’t expect perfection. But, I do expect just a general health inspection to make sure I am not breathing in noxious fumes that might make me grow a tail or something. Anyone who does laundry in that laundry room is truly a soldier worthy of high honors. I will be expecting a medal, Daniel Diermeier and maybe some high-tech weapons to annihilate whatever, or whoever, is growing in that basement.
In just four questions, this quiz will figure out your favorite childhood TV shows. It’s like we’re psychic! Except that no, this is science, and we are 150% accurate at all times. If your results aren’t accurate, then we guess you lied on the quiz. For shame.
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Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) premiered last week in theaters and on HBO Max. And as one of those big Hollywood blockbuster action films, it has been circulating quite a bit around the internet. If you somehow haven’t watched it yet, here’s a spoiler free review of Godzilla vs. Kong.
One thing I’ve noticed across this giant monster series, which includes the likes of Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), is that they’ve gradually adapted to what the audience is looking for. People just want to see the big, CGI monster fights, and could really care less about the human characters involved in the story. I Godzilla vs. Kong, the movie is clearly self-aware of this fact, and does its best to minimize the people we see on screen. It’s to the point where it seems to me like the plot of the movie is completely in service of the action scenes. It seems like this should’ve been a half-hour long clip of Kong and Godzilla going at it, but in order to release it as a feature-length film, the creators just had to add an extra hour and a half of nonsense. So we got a bare-bones plot and bare-bones characters just to get an excuse to put Kong and Godzilla in the same room.
So, yeah, given how many human moments are quickly glossed over, it doesn’t take an expert to know that the CGI budget had to be massive for this film. Every other aspect–the dialogue and the actors–didn’t even try to pretend you really cared. They ran every actor’s line through a Marvel dialogue machine, and the resultant script is quite cringeworthy. This movie has quite an expensive cast, but their lines made them look like student film actors. But, like I said, nobody really cares about them, so it wasn’t a problem.
Now onto what matters: the action. This movie certainly delivers on that end. Part of the reason I know the plot is an excuse for the action is because these action scenes seem almost impossibly good. At many points there’s probably not a single real life element in the frame, and the movie is basically an animation. Even so, the CGI is so crisp that you’ll barely notice. Even more impressive is how long these takes were. The camera didn’t cut very often, and there were some very cool moving shots with our beloved monsters on screen the whole time. Any VFX artist could tell you that that takes an impossible amount of computing power and time. I liked one particular sequence that explored Kong’s home world that I thought was very cool and creative. My only stipulation with these sequences is that I wish they could use some of the cinematography used in Godzilla (2014), which often showed the monsters from a person’s perspective on the ground or juxtaposed the monsters with normal-size objects so we can truly appreciate just how massive these monsters are supposed to be. The monsters were also a lot slower in their movements, making their punches feel that much more impactful. In Godzilla vs. Kong, we get a few moments like these, but for the most part, it’s like the spectators have been scaled to the size of these titans as well.
So, what’s the verdict? If you truly want to critique this as a film, it will fail miserably. If you’re looking for mindless action to entertain yourself for two hours, this movie delivers spectacularly. And this is what most people will say on the internet. It doesn’t seem to have offended anyone, because it’s not trying to be anything more than what we expected.