#but why Emerson? it’s not even the best journalism school in Boston

[share-the-damn-bed]

One thing I don’t think we acknowledge enough as a fandom is that when ST4 told us that Nancy’s top college choice was Emerson of all places… and that she apparently wanted to go there so desperately that she applied early admission… we all collectively, instinctually agreed that it was the most bizarre and random choice for her.

And I think that’s beautiful.

[dwellordream]

“The gender segregation of nineteenth-century society reached deep into coeducational high schools. Students may have shared classes and competed for awards, but they were slow to lose their consciousness (if they ever did) that they belonged to two opposing corporate bodies, distinguished by culture and loyalty: the boys and the girls. Such distinctions were often made by teachers and administrators even in grammar schools.

One female letter writer to St. Nicholas noted a divided playground. (‘‘The cherry-trees are on our side, and I like it the best.’’) At Alice Blackwell’s neighborhood grammar school, girls and boys used different staircases (with demerits administered to violators). Jessie Wendover’s grammar school teacher ‘‘sent the girls down in the court to eat their dinner and gave the boys permission to talk and eat for twenty minutes.’’ The same kinds of arrangements in secondary schools allowed for separate girls’ and boys’ floors. 

In the early days of Bridgton Academy in North Bridgton, Maine—and surely in many other schools as well—boys and girls sat on opposite sides of the room. Even where girls and boys intermingled freely in the classroom, though, they tended to be segregated in the free parts of the school day. The British observer Sara Burstall, who came to the United States in the 1890s to investigate the American education of girls, observed ‘‘no difference’’ between boys’ and girls’ conduct and freedom in the classroom.

But she noted, ‘‘out of class there seemed to be very little general intercourse—girls speaking to girls, and boys to boys. At recess the sexes are generally separated, the boys occupying the basement, and the girls the upper part of the buildings.’’ The Somerville, Massachusetts, student newspaper, observed, probably caustically, ‘‘We think that rail between the boys’ and girls’ side of the lunch room is quite an institution.’’ 

Where there were no such administrative separations, girls and boys often segregated themselves and participated in separate activities. Ellen Emerson loved the extraordinary Sanborn School, which she attended following Agassiz School in the late 1850s, in part because ‘‘boys and girls go together which I think is essential to a good school.’’ However, she went on, ‘‘They do not play together. I don’t think that could be done in this generation, but it will in the next, but the girls have at least the recreation of seeing the boys play, and it is a great one.’’ 

This wistful vision of girls watching boys play, sometimes football, sometimes leapfrog, suggests the distances which separated boys and girls even in this progressive midcentury private school run by the radical abolitionist Franklin Sanborn. And as Burstall reported, such separation did not end in the next generation. When a male classmate died in Jessie Wendover’s school in 1885, girls and boys separately sent flowers, the girls ‘‘in the form of a pillow,’’ the boys, ‘‘a broken pillar of flowers.’’ 

The same sense of distance between girls and boys was evident in Margaret Tileston’s discussion of interactions between the girls and boys in Salem High School, which still maintained separate classes for boys and girls. Tileston had several brothers, but within the context of her school experience, boys existed in Margaret Tileston’s diary (and in her view of the universe) as alien creatures. She noted a rare encounter that spring: ‘‘A boy sat in the room finishing his examination while we had our French. The girls stared at him as he came in as if he had been some strange animal.’’ Initially, even in coeducational schools, much divided girls and boys, who approached each other warily. In completely coeducational schools, the tone changed, though some divisions between the boys and girls seemed to hold up. 

A boy’s description of corridor life in the Brookline, Massachusetts, Sagamore in 1896 noted an innovation in their new school building: ‘‘a roomy, pleasant, well-lighted gathering-place, where the whole school may meet on equal terms at recess.’’ The scene was raucous. The writer turned ‘‘his head just in time to escape a flying waste-basket, used as a foot-ball by some would-be members of next year’s team.’’ Boys with buns in their mouths and cups of chocolate in their hands from the lunch counter were playing leap-frog. 

A curtain was lifted at the end of the hall, and a girls’ calisthenics class in ‘‘dainty slippered feet and bloomers’’ ran ‘‘the gauntlet, one after another, not altogether unwillingly,’’ the author concluded, encouraged by boys’ cheers. There was clearly a ‘‘boys’ side’’ and a ‘‘girls’ side.’’ ‘‘Teachers and girls, all eating their lunch and all talking at once, occupy the settees along the wall.’’ There was some fraternizing. ‘‘Several gallant fellows were entertaining groups of girls,’’ the author noted. But it took ‘‘gallantry’’ for boys to cross the line to the girls’ side, so clear, still, was the gender divide.

In fact, gender relations in the Victorian high school often crossed a highly charged field separating two opposing camps. Although a Victorian chivalry might govern official relations between ‘‘the young ladies’’ and other scholars, the open columns of school newspapers, bearing such titles as ‘‘Shavings’’ and ‘‘Scintillations,’’ allowed for ample sparring in an ongoing battle of the sexes. The intensity of that sparring suggests the extent to which coeducational high schools by their nature ended by challenging orthodoxies. Insults appeared in the earliest journals. The handwritten Winchester, Massachusetts, High School Offering of 1861, issued by two female editors, asked, ‘‘Why are the young gentlemen of this school like vessels plying between Boston and New York?’’ The answer: ‘‘Because they are coasters.’’ 

In 1879 the High School News of Great Falls, New Hampshire, published in two sections, with a ‘‘Supplement’’ from ‘‘The Young Ladies’ Department.’’ As befit their divided school and polarized presentation, the two sides found their best copy in each other. In their fifth issue in May 1879, ‘‘Vox Puellarum’’ (the voice of the girls) rallied her readers: ‘‘Girls, here it is again, a fling at us! can’t we retaliate? I propose ‘diamond cut diamond’ with such editors as ours!’’ 

Previously, she implied, the boys had made some cracks about the weaknesses of young ladies’ ‘‘anatomical construction.’’ ‘‘The following month . . . we present to them a Hero; again they retort with ‘Our Model Girl’ as if we (the H.S. girls) thought of nothing but promenades and spring styles.’’ Although the boys signed their pieces, such daring talk from young ladies required a pseudonym, and was signed with one. It was not until the 1890s that girls’ full and correct names accompanied their pieces. 

Behind the reciprocal digs were some truths. Discipline fell most strenuously on male heads. (‘‘Poor young ladies! Too insignificant to be noticed!’’ commented one columnist on the apparent immunity of girls from punishment.) And boys often had to answer for girls’ relative accomplishments. An 1883 letter from a ‘‘former classmate’’ to the male editor of the Concord, New Hampshire, Comet observed, ‘‘Your success seems to be due in a great part to the literary ability of the fairer sex.’’ The letter writer went on: ‘‘It seems to be a peculiar fact . . . that women are born to rule, and, as in this case, to be among the first to start a paper which is open to the general criticism of the people.’’ The result was that some parries had undeniably violent subtexts. 

In 1884, the year after the Comet editor heard of the accomplishments of ‘‘the fairer sex,’’ his successor ran an exchange item. Untitled, it was a first-person poem about the modern schoolgirl. The Comet ran it on the back page as filler. It bragged about schoolgirls’ appearance as ‘‘the handsomest girls of our race/ Superb in form and of exquisite face,’’ who ‘‘dress with perfect, consummate grace.’’ It then referred to their accomplishments, suggesting a critical lack: We know many tongues of living and dead,/In science and fiction we’re very well read:/But we cannot cook meat and cannot make bread,/And we’ve wished many times that we were all dead.

This verse took the common form of the assault on the New Woman, an attack on her lack of domestic accomplishments, managing to avoid fictive murder only by putting the action in the first person and arranging instead for a suicide wish. The compliment was returned in a poem published by the Comet’s successor, the Volunteer, in 1887. Under the title ‘‘Boys! Don’t Read This!’’ came an attack on the cigarette-smoking dandy. 

Appealing to the nonreading boy with its sensational title, the poet asked To you who smoke the cigarette (I wonder if you’ve thought it)/Who made this little cigarette?/You only know you bought it./Perhaps some dark Italian,/Or Jew from foreign land,/Rolled up that little cigarette/With greasy, dirty hand. This nativist jab from the hinterlands on the new immigrant workforce was not the point of the poem, however, but only the vehicle to its ultimate pronouncement. But if boys will smoke cigarettes/Although the smoke may choke them,/One consolation still remains—/They kill the boys that smoke them.

Seeping through Victorian niceties, these death wishes illuminate only the obvious: that the gender challenges occurring in the nineteenth-century high school did not come without unleashing considerable unease as well as possibility. To understand the dynamics of this change, it makes sense to trace the action in a number of arenas. As we have seen, girls dominated the academic rankings in most high schools. 

They made slower inroads in extracurricular activities, especially in the important male-gendered activities, debate, athletics, and military drill. The awarding of direct political power, in the election of class officers, remained surprisingly uncontested, with boys seemingly the only possibility for class president. The more substantial role of girls in student newspapers, however, was particularly important by virtue of the power this bestowed to influence school opinion.”

- Jane H. Hunter, “High School Culture: Gender and Generation.” in How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood

[expectyaytions]

Brothers (Part I)

“I found this the other day, upstairs in a box.” FP handed him a photo.

Sweet Pea looked, his heart swelling and a smile tugging on his lips.

“Thanks FP.” He clapped him on the back before walking down the corridor. Sweet Pea held the photo unable to look away. It was the day they received their jackets freshman year. Smiling side by side, fading bruises, swollen eyes and cut lips.

Fangs had been gone for two years. He missed graduation. Sweet Pea had stood up there, not alone by any means, but missing the one person he really wanted there. Archie Andrews slapping him high five and Toni throwing herself in his arms screaming “we did it!” Fangs should have been there and Toni would have insisted on a picture - the original three. Who first had just been the dirty duo. An insult that began in kindergarten.

Sweet Pea and Fangs both had drug addicted moms and gang dads. They’d grown up playing along the train tracks. No one ordering them to bathe or change their clothes. They’d entered school with dirt smudges on cheeks and clothes that were too small. Kids called them the dirty duo until Sweet Pea’s mom died from an overdose in 3rd grade. They let up a little after that. That was also when Toni entered the picture, she and her mom had moved to town to live with her grandfather. She cleaned the two up. Ordering them to shower regularly and she spent her allowance at the Salvation Army getting them a few decent pairs of clothes. She became their savior. Sweet Pea still crawled out his window to sneak over to Fangs house when he had nightmares. He’d climb into Fangs bed and snuggle a teddy bear that Fangs had gifted him but his dad made fun of -so he couldn’t keep at home. They’d continued doing that until Sweet Pea was too big to fit through the window, by then Fang’s dad was gone and his mom was too strung out to notice anything.

With one last look, Sweet pea tucked the photo into the book he was holding, one Jughead had loaned him and headed out of the Whyte Worm. He straddled his bike and headed toward Pop’s. Everyone was having one last milkshake before they headed their separate ways for college.

-//-//-//-

He deeply inhaled on his cigarette and checked his phone. It wasn’t unusual for her to be late, but twenty minutes was a little much, even for her.

“Those will kill you, you know.” Veronica Lodge walked closer to him; her high heels clacking on the cracked sidewalk.

“So I’ve heard.” He dropped his cigarette and stepped on it with his black boots. “How have you been Veronica?” He popped a piece of gum in his mouth. She put her hand out and he dropped a piece into her hand.

“Not bad, still adjusting. How about you, enjoying your spring semester?”

“Same as last semester. I’ve never been good at making friends. And it's even harder when you have a gang tattoo on your neck.”

“You mean your smile doesn’t lure people in?” She smirked at him. He laughed with her. “I parked down the street -only place I could get a spot, and I wanted to grab a coffee- you want one?”

“Yes please!”

“The usual?” He nodded and pulled out another cigarette. When she emerged with iced coffees in hand, he moved to take his. “You're sure you don’t mind driving?”

“Not at all. Your car drives so smooth.”

“Do you have any exams or anything coming up?” Veronica asked. They always made a point on their trips to squeeze as much school work as they could in. He was glad she didn’t think he was nerdy for wanting to stay on top of his school work.

Fangs wouldn’t recognize him these days. He was a quality student who did his homework and enjoyed his classes -well most of them. It used to be Fangs who kept him in line -reminding him to do his homework and helping his memorize his multiplication tables in third grade.

“We can listen to whatever book you have to finish by Monday.” He offered, knowing her mandatory English classes were her last priority over her law ones, but were more time consuming. 

“It’s ‘The Handmaid's Tale.’ I’m about halfway through -I’ll catch you up.” She scrolled her phone to find the book and started explaining that it was a dystopian book and it was a society where women basically had no rights and were only used to reproduce. He scowled at the description. She always had the strangest books. The had listened the “The Road” two weeks before and it was super depressing - thought provoking, yes, but so depressing.

Never in a million years did he ever think he’d be friends with Veronica Lodge. But it worked out somehow. She was going to Columbia - pre-law and he was going to NYU for community health and psychology. With the help of financial aid and working the bar every night and fixing a car or bike here and there he’d been able to make college more than a pipe dream. Betty, Jughead and Archie were all in Boston for school; Toni was in Connecticut and Cheryl was in Rhode Island. So every few weekends or so they’d make the drive to see them. All those hours together in the car had created a rapport between the two. Mostly just banter or quizzing each other on school work.

He dropped Veronica off at Archie’s dorm on the Boston University campus and headed to Bughead’s apartment. They were waiting for him, handing him beer and a slice of pizza. They sat on the floor playing phase ten and catching up. They were both attending Emerson: Betty for journalism and Jughead for creative writing. Toni showed up shortly after he did. Whining about how Cheryl was in Paris for the spring semester. Toni was attending the University of Connecticut. Around eleven they all headed out to a bar for a few drinks. He checked his phone, sometimes Veronica would text him if she and Archie were going to come by. He let her know they were heading out to a bar, but never heard from her. Which wasn’t that unusual either.

However, by 2am his phone was flooded with texts. He was laying on the futon- Toni was asleep next to him. Her drunk snores filling the room. He tried to read the texts, but before he could his phone started ringing. Veronica’s name flashing on the screen.

“Hey.” He whispered.

“Can you come get me?” She was hysterical.

“Where are you?”

“Archie’s dorm.”

“I’ll be right there.” He was clueless. He’d never really had to deal with crying girls. Fangs would know exactly what to say and how to deal with this. He was always good with awkward situations that often scared Sweet Pea. He hadn’t seen Fangs in three years. Fangs would probably stop and buy her candy or ice cream or a milkshake, but it was 2am. Nothing was open. Veronica was usually the calm, cool and collected one. He was always fighting his emotions and it usually resulted a few midnight texts freaking out about an upcoming exam.

“Toni,” He shook her awake. She looked at him through bleary eyes.

“What? Are you okay?” she rasped, moving to a sitting position

“Something happened with Ronnie, I’ve got to go pick her up.”

“Okay. Is she okay?”

“I don’t know.”

He didn’t know if he was bringing her back here to casa Bughead or if she wanted to drive all the way back to New York. He grabbed all his stuff anyway.

He raced through the streets of Boston which was predictably easier at 2am than any other time, finally pulling up at one of the Boston University apartments. He didn’t see Veronica so he switched the hazards on and headed toward the entrance. She came out of the shadows, her weekender and her school tote slung over her shoulder. Her eyes were puffy and she was hiccuping through sobs.

“Oh my god Veronica! Are you okay?” He rushed to her looking her over for cuts or bruises or anything causing her pain. She dropped her bags to the ground and he wrapped his arms around her as she leaned into him. “V, what happened?” He felt protective of her, but also confused as to what could have her this upset.

“He broke up with me.” Realization dawned over Sweet Pea - why is that not something that he would have thought of? There are few things that upset Veronica, but betrayal was at the top of her list.

“Well let’s go back to Jughead-“

“No I can’t face them.” She cried. He nodded and put her bag in the car. He walked her to the passenger door and helped her in. “Can’t we go home?” He nodded. He hurried to the drivers side and accelerated. He put on a random radio station and began the drive out of the city. She cried quietly until she fell asleep; his jacket laid over her, her head against the window.

That began something between him and Veronica, something more than just friends. Maybe it was something about seeing her vulnerable, but suddenly they were studying at her apartment or meeting up for drinks.

He begged her to go to six flags and after much begging she agreed to go. Betty and Jughead still had finals so they couldn’t meet them. Toni had gone to see Cheryl in Paris, so it was just them. She was visibly nervous, but he didn’t make her go on anything she didn’t want to. They split a bag of cotton candy and shared a pizza. He told her a little bit about Fangs. She was interested how they met and he told her, feeling happy at being able to talk about his best friend but sad because he wasn’t here. Veronica listened whenever he opened up about Fangs. She always listened and laughed at their stories from when they were young. She cried when he told her his mom died from a heroin overdose. That he raised himself after that, his dad was always gone doing drug runs to Canada, usually with Fangs dad.

He told her that he and Fangs did everything together. They were inseparable -until the night of the riots. After he learned Fangs wasn’t dead but gone he searched everywhere. He contacted Joaquin and begged for info, but he said he hadn’t heard from him in weeks. After months, he sort of accepted that maybe Fangs didn’t want to be found. He confessed to Veronica that after that was the first time he actually felt like he was alone and taking care of himself.

-//-//-//-

He stood in a sea of graduations caps and gowns, he searched for his friends, Jug texted him saying they were near the tree to the left of the stage. He continued to look around until he saw something running toward him and he felt himself break into a smile. She threw herself into his arms and picked her up. Her laughter vibrated against his whole body.

“You did it!” She shouted, muffled against his neck. The rest of his friends joined them, all clapping him on the back and congratulating him. “We’re all going back to our place to celebrate!” Veronica announced. “I had the chef whip up something special and then since Pea was the last to graduate we are all heading up to a mansion in Maine for a week to celebrate being graduates!”

“And Betty getting a job at the globe!” Jughead added.

“And Jughead’s screenplay getting picked up!” Toni yelled.

“Cheryl moving to New York to work at the big designing firm.” Betty high fived Cheryl.

“Toni moving to New York to start teaching English to high school students in the upper east side.” Cheryl swooned.

“Veronica getting accepted and attending Yale Law School.” Sweet Pea kissed her.

“Sweet Pea for coming with me to Connecticut even though loves New York.” Veronica smiled at him. He felt his heart flip with love. He didn’t know how he got so lucky. He got a job in New Haven primarily helping collect data for the CDC.

That night as they all sat on the patio sipping champagne, Veronica stood and cleared her throat. I didn’t really know Fangs, but between you guys I’ve really been painted a fantastic picture. I think, if he were here with us he would not only be doing fantastc things, but he would be so proud of you for following your dreams, graduating and the people you have become. So I’d like to make a toast to Fangs.” she raised her glass and the rest followed. Jughead, Toni and Sweet Pea all sharing a nostalgic glance.

Later that night, as they laid in bed after slightly drunk, celebratory sex, Veronica’s head on his chest, she asked him if he would like her to use some connections and maybe hire a Private Investigator to find Fangs. He appreciated the thought, but he declined her offer

-//-//-//-

He couldn’t believe he where he was standing. His smile was wide and his heart thumping hard against his chest. Jughead and Toni were standing next to him. He didn’t have a best man, there was only one person for that role and Sweet Pea couldn’t imagine anyone else. It had made planning a little hard. He struggled to tell Veronica - worried she’d be mad. He didn’t want to ruin her perfect day. He shouldn’t have been surprised when she wrapped him in a hug and told him she wouldn’t have a maid of honor. They’d just have groomsmen and bridesmaids. She was more understanding than he ever could have imagined.

When they moved in together she framed as many photos of him and Fangs that she could find. There weren’t many, but she made sure to put them where they’d count - on his desk, the fridge and the one on his nightstand that FP gave him his senior year of high school. Once they moved into their condo in New Haven, With his permission Veronica framed his and Fangs serpent jackets - one of the few things Fangs left behind when he vanished. They hung on his side of their shared office. She offered to bring Fangs as a missing persons case to the police, but he declined. If Fangs wanted to come home he would. He sent an invitation to his dad’s trailer -just in case he returned home. She let it go, but she was such a fixer, it killed her not to do something when he was missing Fangs. She was his current best friend. His partner in everything and she made the best homemade macaroni and cheese. He couldn’t wait to be her husband. She never seized to amaze him. He often found himself watching from afar, or while she slept, and wondering how lucky he was to have her. He’d made sure to personally thank Archie a few times for breaking her heart back in college.

“You got this man.” Jughead whispered to him. Toni reached and rubbed a soothing hand over his back.

He watched Cheryl and Betty come down the aisle. Both giving him knowing smiles. The doors closed and he wished he had Fangs presence to calm him down. He rubbed a finger over his tattoo. A little thing Fangs told him to do when they were teenagers. It was a sign for ‘I’m anxious. Save me.” Fangs would know what to say, the perfect thing to ease his nerves.

He didn’t have time to consider it anymore because the harp began to play and the doors opened. And Veronica, dressed in white lead by her dad - she looked radiant. His heart stopped as she walked toward him. Whether it was her staggering beauty or missing his best friend or a combination of the two; he couldn’t help the tears that flooded his vision.

[northeastern-deirdredunham]

Transferring over to a Transfer

Hey friends, family, and favs. I’m super thrilled to be debuting a mini HA guest series the bloggers will be doing. As an admissions blogger and even a tour guide, we often find ourselves answering questions with, “Well, I haven’t had that experience but I know someone who has”. It’s a classic, so we wanted to bring you the perspectives of students who *have* had that experience.

Today, we’ll be hearing from my fellow HA and Presidential Ambassador, Lauren Cataldo, who transferred to Northeastern in 2015, as she shares her transfer advice and experience. I know Lauren and myself would be thrilled to help any of you out, so if you have any questions, shoot me an email at dunham.de@husky,neu.edu or a message here, and I’ll either answer it or forward it along to Lauren. I mean, don’t you want to talk to this smiling face? Alright, here we go!

--------------------------------

So You Think You Want to Transfer

By Lauren Cataldo

A Brief Introduction

My name is Lauren, and I’m a third-year International Affairs and Political Science major with a minor in Spanish. I’m from Endicott, a small town in upstate New York. I completed my first co-op this fall with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund on the Jimmy Fund Golf team, a non-profit that fundraisers for cancer patients through charitable golf tournaments. I’m back in classes this spring but in the fall, I’ll be studying abroad in Spain.

All of this sounds like a typical Northeastern introduction, except for one thing: I transferred here. I didn’t start my college journey at Northeastern. Instead, I spent my freshman year at Emerson College, a small liberal arts school located in downtown Boston (a mere jaunt from the Northeastern campus). I decided very early on that it wasn’t the place for me and came to Northeastern in the fall of 2015.  Now I’m sure you’re wondering—how did I end up here?

  A High School Decision

When I was initially looking at colleges, I visited Northeastern my junior year and I hated it. Yes—I hated it. I immediately ruled it out after my campus visit because I felt like I didn’t learn much about the academic programs, and it didn’t seem like the place for me. The next day, I went on my campus visit to Emerson and loved it. The school was specialized in a select number of majors, and you got heavily involved in your major starting your very first semester. I thought that it was a great fit for me; I applied Early Action and by December of my senior year of high school, I got my acceptance. I put down my deposit that day and committed to college. Since I knew I’d get my admission decision in December and regular applications were due in January, once I was accepted I didn’t apply to a single other school—I was that confident that Emerson was the right decision.

  Second Thoughts

By the end of August, I was ready for college. I had all my stuff packed and my good ol’ Emerson College sweatshirt ready to go. The way my freshman orientation worked was that freshmen moved in a week early, and that whole week was spent doing very cheesy orientation things. I’ll never forget the way I felt as we unloaded the car of my stuff—I wanted to throw up. I was so nervous. I attributed these feelings to being away from home from the first time, being in a new city, and to other freshman-related jitters.

I did my best to try and go to as many events as possible (in the true spirit of a freshman) but I remember saying to my roommate midway through the week, “Why is it the more events I go to, the more I hate everything?”

During my first week of classes, I had a few journalism-specific classes (my major), and immediately I could tell that something just wasn’t right. By Monday the next week, I was in my academic adviser’s office telling him I had to change my major. Due to Emerson’s specialized nature, freshmen couldn’t change their majors until the spring. He told me to wait it out. I called my parents about the situation, and they said the same thing: “It’s too early for you to know, you have to give it time.”

So I gave it time, and the longer I was there the worse it became. I really didn’t like my major—but I had no option to switch. And, even if I could switch, Emerson was so specialized there wasn’t even another major that I wanted to pursue. Aside from that, I found my classes unchallenging and I was struggling socially. Emerson students were definitely a certain “type,” and I found myself not fitting in at all.

By the beginning of October, I sat down with a professor to talk to her about all the things I had been feeling. I told her how I hated my major, how I was bored, how I didn’t fit in, and I asked her if these were normal freshman jitters. She told me that they were—but the extent to which I felt them was not. On that day, in a small coffee shop, she told me something that altered my entire academic path: “You need to get the hell out of here.”

  Not Part of the Plan

When you commit to a college out of high school the way I committed to Emerson, you don’t consider transferring. I’d say generally, most people don’t go into college knowing they want to transfer (though some do). For me, transferring was never part of my plan, and I really struggled with the idea that I had “failed” because I picked the wrong school.

I talked it through over and over again with my parents and my professor—because when you’re only a month into your freshman year, it can be hard to tell if you’re making the right choice. Ultimately, I was miserable, and we all decided that transferring was the only way I’d be able to get what I wanted out of college.

I didn’t have enough time to meet deadlines to transfer in the spring, so I decided to stay at Emerson the full year and transfer in the fall. I knew I wanted to study International Affairs, since I tended to gravitate towards global affairs in my journalism classes. I began the search for a new school, this time with a different set of criteria:

·       Large-ish, urban university

·       Diverse student body

·       Academically rigorous

·       Flexible academic plan

 My main focus of my college search was for a university that was a good fit for me. I wanted to be somewhere that I could be myself, socially and academically. It was actually my top priority—I wanted to be somewhere where I could be happy.

  Finding “The One”

I applied to several institutions that were all pretty similar in terms of size, academics, and overall ranking. Applying was not fun, and it was not easy. You’re really in it alone. It’s an independent process, and every application is different. It can be hard to keep track of all the different requirements each school asks for. Between lots of phone calls, emails, and trips to the registrar, I powered through the application process.

After I got my first acceptance, I called my parents hysterically sobbing, saying, “I got in, I got in!” I knew at that point that no matter what, I could leave next fall. As I received more acceptances, I began thinking of where I would go. I applied to some other schools in Boston, so when I was accepted I was able to go to their campus to visit. I was accepted to Northeastern and was considering it, but I was unsure since I had a not-so-positive visit a few years ago.

For Northeastern, I reached out to who would be my academic adviser there and asked him about transfer credits. He offered to meet with me with me since I was in the Boston area. I came to campus on a perfect, sunny day in May—and when I stepped out of Ruggles Station, it just felt right. After I met with my adviser, my decision was nearly cemented.  I knew I could build my academic career here the way I wanted to, and there was another feeling I just couldn’t explain. I just knew that it was the right fit, and even when I got my last few acceptances, my mind hadn’t changed. I knew I had found “the one.”

  The Transfer Transition

When you first begin the transfer process, you quickly realize just how independent of a process it is. Transfers aren’t given a lot of outside help or advice, because usually, you can’t find people going through the same thing as you. Most people haven’t gone through the process themselves, so it’s hard to ask questions and get the answers you want.

What makes transferring so scary is the feeling that you’re in it alone, and that when you finally transfer to your new institution, you’re going to be alone there too. One of my biggest fears was that I wasn’t going to make any friends and that I was going to stick out—like somehow, everyone would know that I was a transfer and that I didn’t really belong.

Transitioning into Northeastern wasn’t as hard as I expected it to be, but the transition process is truly up to you: it’ll be as hard or as easy as you make it. My advice is to just put yourself out there. I was never the most outgoing person, but I met people in my classes and I joined some clubs and tried to go to campus events. I figured out what I liked and delved deeper into those organizations. It’s not your freshman year, and you’re not going to meet people the same way, but if you get involved you will meet people and your circle will slowly grow.

I wasn’t branded with the transfer label the way I thought I would be. In no way did it inhibit my ability to do anything on campus. It’s part of my story and it’s part of my college experience, but I quickly felt like I was part of the Northeastern community and I wholeheartedly feel like I belong here just as much as anyone else. Don’t let being a transfer define you—instead, draw upon your different experiences to your advantage. There is nothing wrong with transferring schools in order to get what you want, so just go out and get it.

  Final Advice, To Freshmen, To Transfers, To All

When I give tours as a Husky Ambassador, my main focus is trying to help prospective students discover if Northeastern is the right fit for them. As much as I love it here, I understand that this might not be the right place for everyone—and that’s just as important to find out when you’re visiting a campus. I don’t want anyone to end up in a situation like I did; I want to help them find the right fit the first time. I always offer my tour groups three pieces of advice at the end, and I’ll share these with you as well:

1. College is 100% what you make of it. You truly only get what you put in, and I can’t stress this enough.

2.  Fit is key. Rankings, prestige, and statistics only mean so much. I promise you, if you go to a school that you can see yourself being happy at, you will do so much more there. I found myself naturally getting more involved at Northeastern because I was somewhere that made me want to be more involved.

3. Never, ever settle for your education. As much as college is a financial investment, it’s also an investment of your time. If at any point you aren’t getting what you want out of college, don’t be afraid to make the necessary changes in order to get what you want. Don’t waste your time somewhere that can’t give you what you need.

The decision to transfer was not an easy one—but it was by far the best decision I have ever made. Transferring was a risk, and I took it, and since then I have not stopped taking risks. I have approached change with a positive attitude, I have taken risks and tried new things, and I know that only I am in control of my future.

If you read this and you relate to it, if you’re looking for the same things that I was looking for, or if there’s just something missing in your academic experience—make the decision. Don’t be afraid to transfer. Take the risk. Make the change. I promise that your future is worth it, and that there is no greater reward than finding the place where you belong.

[maxwellyjordan]

Ask the author: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and “the loneliness of original work”

“[A] man of high ambitions … must face the loneliness of original work.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Brown University Commencement Address (1897)

The following is a series of questions posed by Ronald Collins to Catharine Pierce Wells in connection with her new book, “Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Willing Servant to an Unknown God” (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Catharine Pierce Wells is a professor of law and a Law School Fund research scholar at Boston College Law School, where she teaches and writes in various areas of legal theory, including pragmatic legal theory, feminist jurisprudence and civil rights theory. She received her law degree from Harvard Law School and also earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley.

Wells’ articles on Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes have appeared, among other places, in the Journal of Supreme Court History. Her new book was published in the Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society series, edited by Christopher Tomlins.

Welcome, Catharine, and thank you for taking the time to participate in this question-and-answer exchange for our readers. And congratulations on the publication of your book.

* * *

“Holmes is on the way of becoming one of the great representative figures of his nation, a type of man which has so far been rare in American history.” — Max Rheinstein (1943)

“[A]re we in danger of accepting him too uncritically?” — Max Lerner (1943)

Question: These two quotes reveal something of the spectrum of views on Holmes – Olympian on the one hand, dark and dangerous on the other. Before we turn to your book, what is your general sense of this range of opinions?

Wells: As you say, Holmes is a controversial figure. What is surprising, of course, is not so much the range of opinions but the passion that animates them. While there are some moderate voices, assessments of Holmes and his influence have tended towards the extreme. They run the gamut from “he is the greatest jurist who ever lived” to “he is a fascist and a dangerous influence on American law.” It is hard to imagine John Marshall or William Howard Taft exciting such passionate responses.

One common explanation for the intensity is that Holmes became the symbol of generational conflict among law professors. One generation mythologized Holmes as its spokesman and leader, while a younger generation rebelled by seeking to desecrate his image. But this explanation does not account for the fact that Holmes was controversial even in his own time.

I think the true explanation is somewhat simpler. Holmes was an astute observer. He saw all sides of human life — its heroism and villainy, its successes and failures, and its joy and despair. In addition, he made no excuse for doing what he thought was right, and he did not mince words when saying what he honestly thought. To put it in Thoreau’s words, Holmes was a man who marched to the beat of his own drum. Some people think of this as a sign of courage; others as an unwarranted smugness. The former group tends to see in Holmes a captivating idealist; the latter group may see nothing but a cranky old man. The truth, of course, is somewhere in between.

  Question: In an essay published last year in the book “The Pragmatism and Prejudice of Oliver Wendell Holmes,” you wrote: “No expert on American law has been subject to as many differing interpretations as [Holmes].” In your own book, you concede that “it is hard to have a fresh outlook” on Holmes. Given that, how does your interpretation of the man and his legacy differ from what has already been offered up in the 6,275 biographical pages printed in books about Holmes?

Wells: What compelled me to write about Holmes was the feeling that, despite all that had been written, no one had gotten it quite right. I first read Holmes after completing a dissertation on Charles Peirce, the founder of American pragmatism.

Pragmatism is a complex philosophy. The men who formulated it were intelligent and well educated (even if self-educated) in philosophy. As philosophers, they had a somewhat contradictory vision. On the one hand, they sought to provide an analysis and justification of the scientific method. On the other, they were committed to recognizing the limits of scientific thought. Disagreeing with Kant, they believed that there was no objective foundation for science. Instead, they saw the value of science in its effectiveness as a guide for human action.

The essential insight of the pragmatists – whether Peirce, William James or John Dewey – was their recognition of the value of the subjective aspects of human experience. Thus, they did not view feelings and speculation as degraded junior partners to rational science. Rather, they understood them as an essential ingredient in the construction of meaning. As lawyers looked at Holmes, they did not see this aspect of his philosophy. Even Professor Thomas Grey, who recognized Holmes as a pragmatist, seemed to ignore it. It was this omission that challenged me to write one more book about Holmes. It was written in the belief that one had to take Holmes’ mystical statements seriously, and to treat them as an integral part of his pragmatism.

  Question: The subtitle of your book is something of a riddle – “A Willing Servant to an Unknown God.” Can you unravel that a bit for us?

Wells: Yes, it is a bit of a riddle, but one that is central to Holmes’ life. Remember he was descended from Puritans who thought that the meaning of life was to serve God. But he was also an agnostic who lived in a city where zealous Calvinism had morphed into a more liberal Unitarianism. He did not believe in the biblical God, preferring instead to think broadly in terms of an unknowable power that transcended the physical world. Thus, he found himself inhabiting a paradox. On the one hand, he believed in serving God, and on the other, he had no sure knowledge of God or what it meant to serve God.

Some members of his generation resolved this conflict by embracing a faith that defied skepticism. Others simply shrugged, finding it impossible to serve a God they did not understand. But Holmes followed Ralph Waldo Emerson on a harder, middle road. He dedicated himself to duty, but at the same time recognized that the nature of his duty could only be gleamed by momentary insights. The best he could do was to remain open to his experience and allow himself to be guided by the love he felt for honor and country.

  Question: As you see it, how does Holmes’ life experience (especially his Civil War experience) connect to his philosophy and jurisprudence?

Wells: The standard answer to this question is that three years of blood and gore made him cynical and detached. This is the central narrative for those who think that Holmes lacked the idealism necessary for a legal legend. But I disagree. One can see a similar detachment in others of his generation who did not go to war. Think, for example, of his friend Henry Adams or his cousin, the historian John Torrey Morse.

As I began to reconstruct his experience in the war, what stood out to me was the constant back and forth between the horrors of the front and the comfort of home. He was wounded three times and each time spent a significant period in Boston. We can see in his letters that he came to realize the unbridgeable gap between the war as it was understood on the battlefield and the war as it was understood by the civilians in Boston. He also understood that the soldiers of the South were as idealistic and committed to justice (their vision of justice) as he was. These were formative experiences. Through them, he learned in the most dramatic fashion that perception depends on context.

What we see, sense and understand is always dependent upon perspective – the way in which our past constructs and illuminates present experience. This emphasis on perspective was an important element of Holmes’ skepticism. On the one hand, he authentically held certain beliefs. On the other, he understood the substantial possibility that some or all of these beliefs were wrong.

  Question: You write that “we need to reject the simple image of Holmes as a [legal] realist.” Please explain why you think that common portrayal is inaccurate.

Wells: When we approach Holmes through the lens of contemporary legal theory, it is natural to think that he must be either a formalist (someone who believes that legal decision-making is the result of applying logic to precedent) or a realist (someone who thinks that judges should decide on the basis of sound social policy). But this dichotomy overlooks a substantial middle ground.

Holmes was not a realist; he did not believe that judges should impose their own views of social policy. Nor was he a formalist, as is obvious from his criticism of Christopher Columbus Langdell.

Holmes understood something important about the common law. He saw that it was not the logic of precedent that constrained legal decision-making. Instead, he viewed the common law as a tradition with its own customs, norms and vocabulary. Judges were participants in the tradition and had to abide by its rules – both stated and unstated.

Sometimes, but rarely, there would be a right answer to a legal question because there was a stated rule that dictated the result. Mostly, however, the constraints were less formal. There might be a right answer or a range of right answers because the law dictated the form in which questions could be raised, the strategies that might be deployed in analyzing legal problems, and the vocabulary to be used in their resolution. This way of looking at the common law is neither realist nor formalist as those terms are understood today.

  Question: You note your interest in Holmes’ “role as a judge” and your consequent focus on his method of deciding cases. One of the opinions that you dwell on is Holmes’ 1896 dissent in Vegelahn v. Guntner. Why is that case important, and what does Holmes’ dissent tell us about his judicial method?

Wells: I focused on the Vegelahn opinion because it illustrates the type of constraint I just described. It is a clear example of Holmes’ use of a common law method in deciding cases of first impression. In this case, there is no stated rule that determines the outcome. Nevertheless, Holmes’ approach in this case is a good example of how adherence to the common law – broadly understood – commits him to a specific outcome.

The method is dialectical in the sense that it cycles between form and substance. His first move is to frame the issue in traditional tort terms. Then he suggests that privileges in tort cases are always a matter of substantive policy. The next step is to compare the case to other cases that seem to raise the same issue of substantive policy. He then applies the vocabulary and doctrines embodied in this latter group of cases to the case at hand. He reformulates the issue through this lens. Once this is done, he is able to decide the case based upon the fundamental principle of the common law – like cases must be decided alike.

  Question: All the chapter headings in the first part of your book come from lines in Holmes’ 1884 Memorial Day speech. In that speech, Holmes spoke words that would reappear in President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address. Said Holmes: “[I]t is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for the country in return.”

Why is that 1884 speech so significant to your interpretive project?

Wells: I used the speech in the Prologue because it so clearly expresses Holmes’ basic attitude toward life. In it, we see the heart of his creed:

[Memorial Day] embodies … our belief that to act with enthusiasm and faith is the condition of acting greatly. To fight a war, you must believe something and want something with all your might. (This you must) do to carry anything else to an end worth reaching. More than that, you must be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out. All that is required of you is that you should go somewhither as hard as ever you can. The rest belongs to fate. One may fall – at the beginning of the charge or at the top of the earthworks; but in no other way can we reach the rewards of victory.

This summarizes not only his attitude toward fighting a war, but also his approach to studying law. I used phrases from the speech as chapter headings as part of an overall intention to tell Holmes’ story through his own words.

  Question: You write about Holmes: “How was it … that the young man who had gone to war to fight for abolition had come to the Court forty years later seemingly uninterested in the project of restoring basic freedoms for those who had been emancipated?” Might you say a few words about this apparent conflict?

Wells: Such a hard question. Perhaps the simplest answer is that the conflict is based upon his differing roles as soldier and judge, but this could use some elaboration.

Holmes favored abolition, but that was not the main reason he enlisted in the Union Army. He explained his reason in the Memorial Day speech:

I think the feeling that a man ought to take part in the war unless some conscientious scruple or strong practical reason made it impossible was right – in the South as in the North. I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.

Note that his reason for enlisting was not necessarily a hope that his action would help end slavery. To some extent, it reflected his desire to participate in something larger than himself. This was a touchstone throughout his life — full participation was a continuous goal. Thus, he threw himself into learning the law with total and intense commitment.

The key to understanding Holmes is to understand how he thought about his place in the world. He often said that we should not set ourselves up as little gods outside the universe. By this he meant that individuals should not imagine that they are masters of the universe, that they can “improve” the world by imposing their own ideals. As a result, he did not believe in mandates for reform. He was a judge. That was his job, and doing one’s particular job was Holmes’ highest ideal. By the time Holmes got to the Supreme Court, he knew what this meant. His role required him to participate in the grand sweep of the common law, and this meant conformity to a very specific set of ideals. Common law judges, he believed, should resolve disputes by upsetting surrounding customs and usages at little as possible. He may have disapproved of slavery. He may have thought that Southern efforts to restrict voting rights were unfair. But it was not his personal beliefs that were at issue. As a judge he believed, rightly or wrongly, that he had no power or authority to overturn well-established social arrangements.

In our time, young people are idealistic; they often become lawyers because they want to change the world. But their desire would have puzzled Holmes. It was just not the way he thought about things. Possibly our attitude is better, but thinking about Holmes has convinced me of at least one thing – that arrogance and hubris are attached to a commitment to social change.

  Question: In his 1960 Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise lecture, Francis Biddle (who once served as a secretary, the former term for a law clerk, to Holmes) took aim at the growing ranks of critics of his former boss. That criticism began in in earnest in 1941. By 1945 it was so strong that the American Bar Journal published an article by Ben Palmer (a prolific Minneapolis corporate lawyer) titled “Hobbes, Holmes and Hitler.” A more judicious, but nonetheless highly critical, portrait of Holmes was painted by Professor Albert Alschuler in his book “Law Without Values: The Life, Work, and Legacy of Justice Holmes” (2002). And that criticism continues today on various fronts. In your opinion, is any of the harsh criticism warranted?

Wells: In 2002, I wrote a review of Professor Alschuler’s book; it was titled “Reinventing Holmes: The Hidden, Inner, Life of a Cynical, Ambitious, Detached Old Judge without Values.” As the title suggests, I do not think that Alschuler’s negative assessment of Holmes is fair. His book is one of a number of works that distort Holmes’ record by cherry-picking quotes and discussing his worst opinions. Nevertheless, I do concede that there is a dark side to Holmes, especially in his later years.

The question is whether this dark side constitutes a real defect in character. What exactly were his “crimes?” In 50 years on the bench he wrote a few bad opinions – opinions that are “bad” in the sense that, 100 years later, we strongly disapprove of them. I wonder if Alschuler or any of the others could do better. I am pretty sure I could not.

  Question: Ralph Waldo Emerson (philosopher, poet, essayist, lecturer and leader of a transcendentalist movement) receives a good dollop of attention in your treatment of Holmes. Tell us how you think he influenced the justice.

Wells: Holmes first read Emerson in his early teens. In his later years, he would say that it was Emerson who had stood the test of time. Emerson’s influence was important because it shaped the way in which Holmes thought about the world. We can see this clearly if we contrast Emerson’s views with those of the British empiricists. The empiricists thought of human beings as observers. They equated experience with the passive reception of sense data. Emerson, on the other hand, thought of the natural world as a teacher. It interacted with human spirits, teaching them not just about the characteristics of a physical world but also about the meaning of a greater, transcendent world. Experience, he thought, was a relationship between himself and a larger world of which he was a part. This difference affected Holmes’ understanding of law in many ways. The British empiricists, for example, thought that experience taught only the “facts.” For Emerson and Holmes, it taught not only facts but also values. We should learn from our experience not just how to do things but also what is worth doing. This is an especially important insight for one who is studying law. Note, for example, how this larger conception of experience enlightens Holmes’ famous phrase – “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.”

  Question: You devote time and attention to a two-volume book Holmes read in 1897, written by Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and titled “Farthest North: Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship FRAM, 1893-96 and of Fifteenth Months’ Sleigh Journey.”

Can you give us a nutshell account of why this wild-eyed explorer caught Holmes’ – and your — attention? 

Wells: It is obvious why Holmes liked it. At the turn of the century, a trip to the North Pole was the greatest possible adventure, and Holmes admired action and passion. Nansen’s trip was filled with insurmountable obstacles and seemingly certain death. I think Holmes saw this narrative as the ultimate expression of a life well lived. He also clearly identified with Nansen’s experience, thinking not only of his trials during the Civil War, but also of the rather grueling trip he took through the Alps with Leslie Stephen.

In his 1897 Brown University commencement speech, Holmes used Nansen’s book as a metaphor for his own life. In the speech, he compared the perils of Nansen’s journey with his own lonely struggle to understand the common law and the universe that it illuminated. Like Nansen, he saw his journey as a series of difficult challenges that required heroic efforts.

  Question: The second half of your book makes ample use of the Brown commencement speech. All the chapter headings in Part Two come from lines in that speech. Apart from Max Lerner’s inclusion of it in his 1943 book on Holmes, that speech has received relatively little attention from Holmes scholars. What made you decide to focus on it?

Wells: When I first read the speech, I was struck by the fact that it so accurately described Holmes’ intellectual life. It is easy to overlook the fact that, from 1865 to 1880, Holmes spent virtually all his spare time studying law. Essentially, he was glued to a seat in the Social Law Library in Boston reading dusty legal texts and wondering what they said about the human condition. This was lonely work, and like Nansen’s trip to the pole, it was not accompanied by assurance of success. I wanted to emphasize this aspect of Holmes’ life, because it was so formative for him. If you ignore this period of his life, it is easy to suppose that Holmes was just one more well-bred, well-connected young man who was in the right place at the right time to make his mark on the world.

  Question: On a chilly Friday in March of 1935, there was a service for Holmes at All Souls Unitarian Church, located at 16th and Harvard Streets NW in Washington, D.C. You fold Unitarianism into your biographical/jurisprudential account of Holmes. Please tell us more.

Wells: Someone in Washington once asked Fanny Holmes about their religious affiliation. She said that they were Unitarians, and added: “In Boston, one has to be something and Unitarian is the least you can be.” The Holmes were not joiners. They did not actively involve themselves in religious or social organizations. Nevertheless, as Fanny’s statement indicated, they were comfortable with the agnosticism of the more liberal wing of the Unitarian Church.

  Question: For a variety of political reasons, it is hard to imagine that any modern president would nominate a jurist in the jurisprudential mold of Holmes to the Supreme Court. The “public,” you observe, “has come to understand ‘good’ judging in terms of political ideology. This is a tragedy. … [But] Holmes reminds us there are alternatives” – namely, “acting impartially.” Absent that, we would confront a troubling prospect: “With ten more years of ideological struggle, how much legitimacy will the Court retain?”

If a Holmesian jurist were to be nominated and confirmed, would such a justice have any real allies on the Roberts court? Or would they be no more than an anomaly, without even a Justice Louis Brandeis to join in thoughtful dissent? Put another way: Are the days of a Holmesian jurist long past, both as nominee and justice?

Wells: Holmes placed law above politics without exception. As you know, he dissented in Northern Securities v. United States (1904) soon after he was appointed by Theodore Roosevelt. This was no small matter, as can be seen in a March 24, 1904 press account in The Citizen Republican:

The president is angry at Justice Holmes … (for his) dissenting opinion in the Northern Securities case, and Mr. Roosevelt is not going to any great trouble to conceal his displeasure. The trouble with Justice Holmes was that he reached his conclusion with his own interpretation of the law, instead of deciding the question as Mr. Roosevelt wanted him to.

And Northern Securities was just the tip of the iceberg. Over and over again, he made decisions that he knew would be unpopular among those in power.

Of course, the situation is different now. The country is polarized and there is no one opinion that pleases the powers that be. But the basic lesson is the same – putting law over politics would strengthen the Supreme Court’s ability to fulfill its constitutional function. This notion has support among several of the justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts.

Unfortunately, there are countervailing factors. Bickering over abortion and gun rights has created a sense that law is irrelevant to constitutional decision-making. In addition, the court continues to make openly partisan decisions, inserting itself into the very heart of the electoral process by explicitly benefitting one party over the other. Bush v. Gore (2000) is an example, but there are others dealing with voting rights, campaign finance, etc. In each of these cases, the Supreme Court could have emphasized its neutrality by deferring to state courts or to the Congress. To make matters worse, the president unequivocally promised that he would make appointments that had been individually approved by one of his constituent groups. Obviously, these factors are very harmful to the credibility of the court.

  Question: Thomas Jefferson wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Holmes countered: “No concrete proposition is self-evident, no matter how ready we may be to accept it.” Do you think those two statements can be reconciled? If not, what does that tell us about Holmes’ grand view of things?

Wells: Holmes and the other pragmatists adopted Alexander Bain’s definition of belief as something upon which one was prepared to act. Looked at in this way, we understand that even Jefferson did not believe his “self-evident” proposition. Had Jefferson acted on it, he would have freed his slaves, but infamously he did not.

It is easy to assemble a number of positive qualities and say that we should all aspire to them. Perhaps, for example, it is self-evident that we should all eat healthy meals. But this statement does not tell us what a healthy meal is, nor does it do much to change unhealthy eating habits. It is not, in Holmes’ terms, a “concrete” proposition. Aspirations of this type have an obvious power to command acceptance, but acceptance does not always result in a commitment to act. When the Supreme Court decided Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856), for example, it simply overruled one of Jefferson’s self-evident propositions.

Then again, there are times when what is aspirational becomes real. One example of this was a suit by Quock Walker, an enslaved African American who sued for his freedom. The suit was based on the Massachusetts state constitution, which had been adopted a year earlier. He relied on a 1780 provision, similar to the one in the Declaration of Independence, which provided: “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.”

Based on that provision and good lawyering, a jury found in Walker’s favor, ending the custom of slavery in Massachusetts. In Commonwealth v. Jennison  (1783), the state’s highest court agreed. For the Massachusetts court, the idea that all men are created equal was a concrete proposition that had consequences for legal decision-making. At the same time, we must recognize that as the proposition became more concrete, it also became more controversial and less self-evident.

Ron, I thank you for this opportunity to discuss my book on Holmes. 

The post Ask the author: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and “the loneliness of original work” appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

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[caddyxjellyby]

Alcott Readathon 2018: Jo’s Boys (1886)

"Miss Alcott's books are all delightful, and Jo's Boys is one of the best of them." - Boston Evening Transcript

"Thousands of readers will approach this later book with keen curiosity. They will find it lacking in some of the spontaneity of its predecessors, yet still an interesting volume[.]" - Unknown

"Its romance has a singular strain of youthfulness about it, which hardly enables one to feel in it the dignity of real love, courtship, and marriage." - The Critic

"The fault of the story is that there is too much of it. One is bewildered by the numerous boys and girls, and finds it hard to keep the run of 'who is who.' " - The Providence Sunday Journal

"A trifle labored and tedious." - The Graphic

In 1882 LMA helped start Concord's temperance society, destroyed most of her mother's diaries, raised her niece Lulu, and mourned her hero Emerson. In October she started Jo's Boys, originally intended a St. Nicholas serial. That same month Bronson had a stroke. In February 1884 she described the book's future as uncertain.  In December 1884 she started again, writing two hours for three days, which made her ill with vertigo for a week. In April 1886 she mentions working on it for one hour a day, a limit ordered by her doctor. In June she moved from Boston to Concord and was able to finish 15 chapters. July she turned in the manuscript and it was published in England in September and America in October.

1: Ten Years Later

Mr. Laurence is dead and left his fortune to found Laurence College. Marmee is also gone. Hannah is not mentioned. Mr. March is the school chaplain.

Franz is in Germany with his merchant uncle. Emil was sent on a long voyage in the hopes that he would give up on sailing, but the opposite happened. Dolly, George, and Ned study law. Nan and Tom study medicine. It's not mentioned where Nan went, but LMA's friend Dr. Rhoda Lawrence went to Boston University School of Medicine.

Jack is in business in Chicago. Nat attends the Conservatory. Dick and Billy are dead, the narrator claiming "life would never be happy" for them which is both disgusting and an odd contradiction of statements made in Jack and Jill. Rob is gentle and quiet but manly inside. Ted is loud and mischievous. Demi disappointed Meg by becoming a reporter, as LMA's elder nephew Frederick Pratt did. Daisy is "her mother's comfort and companion." Josie, 14, amuses them with her love of theater. Bess, 15, is tall and beautiful. Dan went to South American for a geological expedition, then Australia for sheep farming and is now in California.

Nan and Tom walk to Plumfield. He's in love with her and she brushes him off. He got a blue anchor on his arm to match hers. Josie runs after Ted, who stole her copy of The Lady of Lyons by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

The four meet Jo, Meg, and Daisy for tea. Demi arrives with the news that Emil will return soon and Franz is engaged to Ludmilla.

2: Parnassus

Amy and Laurie's house. Laurie critiques Bess's clay baby. "You can't see beauty in anything but music," she answers. Amy made marble busts of Beth and John.

Nat's about to leave for Leipzig. He loves Daisy, but Meg disapproves because they don't know his family and music is a hard living.

Josie and Ted ask their grandfather to weigh in on their debate.

'Why, we were pegging away at the Iliad and came to where Zeus tells Juno not to inquire into his plans or he'll whip her, and Jo was disgusted because Juno meekly hushed up. I said it was all right, and agreed with the old fellow that women didn't know much and ought to obey men,' explained Ted, to the great amusement of his hearers. 'Goddesses may do as they like, but those Greek and Trojan women were poor-spirited things if they minded men who couldn't fight their own battles and had to be hustled off by Pallas, and Venus, and Juno, when they were going to get beaten. The idea of two armies stopping and sitting down while a pair of heroes flung stones at one another! I don't think much of your old Homer. Give me Napoleon or Grant for my hero.' Josie's scorn was as funny as if a humming-bird scolded at an ostrich, and everyone laughed as she sniffed at the immortal poet and criticized the gods. 'Napoleon's Juno had a nice time; didn't she? That's just the way girls argue—first one way and then the other,' jeered Ted. 'Like Johnson's young lady, who was “not categorical, but all wiggle-waggle”,' added Uncle Laurie, enjoying the battle immensely. 'I was only speaking of them as soldiers. But if you come to the woman side of it, wasn't Grant a kind husband and Mrs Grant a happy woman? He didn't threaten to whip her if she asked a natural question; and if Napoleon did do wrong about Josephine, he could fight, and didn't want any Minerva to come fussing over him. They were a stupid set, from dandified Paris to Achilles sulking in his ships, and I won't change my opinion for all the Hectors and Agamemnons in Greece,' said Josie, still unconquered. 'You can fight like a Trojan, that's evident; and we will be the two obedient armies looking on while you and Ted have it out,' began Uncle Laurie, assuming the attitude of a warrior leaning on his spear.

They're interrupted by Emil, Josie's favorite cousin, who has presents for everyone. Nan's earrings are skulls, but Josie says she won't wear them.

3: Jo's Last Scrape

Several years before, when Plumfield was in bad shape, Jo "hastily scribbled a little story" about herself and her sisters. To her astonishment it became a bestseller. Rumors exaggerate her fortune, which makes me wonder about the rumors because in 1887 LMA gave John and Frederick Pratt $25,000 each. In then dollars.

Rob reads her fanmail over breakfast - people seeking autographs, advice, donations; a love poem; and a little boy who thinks her books are first-rate.

Ted tells a reporter who visits that, "She is about sixty, born in Nova Zembla, married just forty years ago today, and has eleven daughters." (Forgive me the mixed quotation marks.) A woman and her three daughters come, Fritz with a bunch of his students, and a woman collecting a grasshopper and a shawl to put in a rug.

Jo retreats to her room, determined to finish 30 pages, but there's a man who won't leave. It's Dan. "I've been longing to see you for a year," she says.

4: Dan

He tells her about California and the money he got from investing in mines. He doesn't recognize Bess - "I thought it was a spirit." "Two years have changed you entirely," she replies.

Everyone starts making plans to head West. Dan thinks he might settle on a farm or return to the Montana Indians. They're dying of starvation, "a damned shame."

I don't think I understood before that "she never grudged her Jack a glass" referred to alcohol.

Jo calls the girls and the seven boys "the flower of our flock" and mentions for the first time Alice Heath, a Laurence College student.

Dan brought Ted a mustang, Josie a dress to play Namioka in Metamora, and a buffalo head for Bess.

'Thought it would do her good to model something strong and natural. She'll never amount to anything if she keeps on making namby-pamby gods and pet kittens,' answered irreverent Dan, remembering that when he was last here Bess was vibrating distractedly between a head of Apollo and her Persian cat as models. 'Thank you; I'll try it, and if I fail we can put the buffalo up in the hall to remind us of you,' said Bess, indignant at the insult offered the gods of her idolatry, but too well bred to show it except in her voice, which was as sweet and as cold as ice-cream. 'I suppose you won't come out to see our new settlement when the rest do? Too rough for you?' asked Dan, trying to assume the deferential air all the boys used when addressing their Princess. 'I am going to Rome to study for years. All the beauty and art of the world is there, and a lifetime isn't long enough to enjoy it,' answered Bess. 'Rome is a mouldy old tomb compared to the “Garden of the gods” and my magnificent Rockies. I don't care a hang for art; nature is as much as I can stand, and I guess I could show you things that would knock your old masters higher than kites. Better come, and while Josie rides the horses you can model 'em. If a drove of a hundred or so of wild ones can't show you beauty, I'll give up,' cried Dan, waxing enthusiastic over the wild grace and vigour which he could enjoy but had no power to describe. 'I'll come some day with papa, and see if they are better than the horses of St Mark and those on Capitol Hill. Please don't abuse my gods, and I will try to like yours,' said Bess, beginning to think the West might be worth seeing, though no Raphael or Angelo had yet appeared there. 'That's a bargain! I do think people ought to see their own country before they go scooting off to foreign parts, as if the new world wasn't worth discovering,' began Dan, ready to bury the hatchet. 'It has some advantages, but not all. The women of England can vote, and we can't. I'm ashamed of America that she isn't ahead in all good things,' cried Nan, who held advanced views on all reforms, and was anxious about her rights, having had to fight for some of them. 'Oh, please don't begin on that. People always quarrel over that question, and call names, and never agree. Do let us be quiet and happy tonight,' pleaded Daisy, who hated discussion as much as Nan loved it.

Jo, Meg, and Amy all vote for the school board; Demi says he'll escort Nan and Daisy next year.

5: Vacation

Funny how in books like this and The Secret Garden, exercise makes you grow less thin because working up an appetite makes you eat more.

Demi takes photos, particularly of Bess. Nat and Daisy hang out all they can.

At the good-bye dance Laurie takes Jo on a tour. Emil sits on the roof serenading girls with Mary's Dream and tossing them roses.

The second window framed a very picturesque group of three. Mr March in an arm-chair, with Bess on a cushion at his feet, was listening to Dan, who, leaning against a pillar, was talking with unusual animation. The old man was in shadow, but little Desdemona was looking up with the moonlight full upon her into young Othello's face, quite absorbed in the story he was telling so well. The gay drapery over Dan's shoulder, his dark colouring, and the gesture of his arm made the picture very striking, and both spectators enjoyed it with silent pleasure, till Mrs Jo said in a quick whisper: 'I'm glad he's going away. He's too picturesque to have here among so many romantic girls. Afraid his “grand, gloomy, and peculiar” style will be too much for our simple maids.' 'No danger; Dan is in the rough as yet, and always will be, I fancy; though he is improving in many ways. How well Queenie looks in that soft light!' 'Dear little Goldilocks looks well everywhere.' And with a backward glance full of pride and fondness, Mrs Jo went on. But that scene returned to her long afterward and her own prophetic words also.

Nan takes a splinter out of Tom's hand; he says it's the only time she was kind to him and too bad he didn't lose his arm. "I wish you'd lost your head," she says because his hair pomade stinks.

Ted poses on a stool as Josie and others give commentary. Jo explains they're planning for the upcoming play.

George and eat while complaining about the unladylike amount the girls eat. It proves that studying is bad for them.

A girl says to another that the dress she thought was elegant at home looks countrified here. Second girl tells her to ask Mrs. Brooke for advice.

Nan and Alice interrogate the young men over whether they believe in Women's Suffrage (yes, yes, and yes). You know what I really like? When people recognize that voting isn't the be-all end-all of women's legal right. When people recognize that legal rights aren't social rights and the former existing doesn't magic the latter into existence.

6: Last Words

Meg, weren't you married at 20? Isn't Daisy 20? I'm just saying.

"Girls, have you got nice pocket handkerchiefs?" jokes Jo as her sisters leave for church.

Jo talks to Nat about himself and about Daisy, claiming it's better to have no promises made until his return. "No one will be quicker to see and admire the brave work than my sister Meg. She does not despise your poverty or your past; but mothers are very tender over their daughters, and we Marches, though we have been poor, are, I confess, a little proud of our good family. We don't care for money; but a long line of virtuous ancestors is something to desire and to be proud of."

On the roof she lectures Emil on his new duties as second mate. "Jack ashore is a very different craft from what he is with blue water under his keel," he says. The narrator hints he'll remember this later.

Dan confesses that in San Francisco he gambled a little. Jo cautions him against it and he reassures her. He knows his biggest fault is not gambling but his temper, and he's afraid he'll kill someone one day. She gives him Undine and Sintram to borrow.

7: The Lion and the Lamb

With their parents at the mountains and the Laurences at the shore, Rob and Teddy have the run of the house.  Dan's dog Don won't eat or play. Ted suggests he's sicks; Rob says he's just pining for Dan and goes back to writing Latin verses. Ted switches Don, Don gets angry, Rob jumps in front of Ted and Don bites his leg. Nan decides it must be burnt with a poker. Rob takes it like a trooper but Ted faints.

Jo and Fritz note that Rob's even more serious and Ted's a little less wild. Ted claims it's his brother's influence but Jo coaxes the truth out of them.

8: Josie Play Mermaid

Josie's idol Miss Cameron is also at the shore, but she has a private beach and it's hard to see her. One day she loses her bracelet and Josie dives down to fetch it. Miss Cameron invites her over and Josie gives Ophelia's mad scene and a bit from a farce and Portia's speech.

"You've a good voice and natural grace," says the actress and advises her to finish her education and start training when she's older. They blah blah about purifying the stage. Josie starts hitting the books and piano to the delight of her family.

9: The Worm Turns

Tom appears at Jo's with an awful scrape: he's engaged. Oh no Nan didn't! says Jo, but it's not Nan, it's Dora West. Nan mentioned her in Chapter 1.

Down at Quitno he was rowing and the boat capsized but she wasn't mad about it. Later she was riding on the back of his bicycle and a donkey kicked it and they fell. She cracked up and said "Let us go on again" and he replied about going on forever. Jo thinks it's hilarious and a good match. Dora's ability to take things in stride will serve her well if their hypothetical future child is anything like young Tom.

Tom hints that Demi flirted with Alice. "A great dead of courting goes on in those [tennis] courts."

Nan is pleased and resolves to buy Dora a medicine chest for a wedding present. He gives up medicine and goes into business with Bangs Sr.

10: Demi Settles

Demi tells Meg he quit reporting and she's very glad. He got a place at Jo's publisher as Frederick and the real John did.

They talk about Josie and the upcoming plays and Demi promises he'll protect her if she treads the boards.

Josie teases him, via a reference to The Old Curiosity Shop, about spooning with Alice and he tells her not to be silly.

11: Emil's Thanksgiving

My favorite chapter! The Brenda, Englishman Captain Hardy commanding and his wife and daughter Mary aboard, is en route to China when there is a FIRE IN THE HOLD. ABANDON SHIP. Captain Hardy is pushed overboard by a falling mast and knocked out.

They float for three days and then start to worry. During the fourth night two sailors steal the brandy bottle and fall overboard.

A sail appears, but it's too far away to notice the little boat. Emil despairs during the night until Mary singing a hymn he knows from Plumfield brings to mind Jo's talk.

Then it starts to rain and a ship comes to rescue them. What day is it? Emil asks. Thanksgiving!

12: Dan's Christmas

Dan, traveling west, befriends a younger boy, Blair, who reminds him of Ted. Some guys cheat at cards with Blair, Dan calls them out, one draws a pistol, and Dan punches him. The guy hits his head on a stove and dies. Dan gets sentence to a year in prison.

A real life incident appears. LMA and Bronson visited a prison in 1879 and she told the occupants a hospital story. The Sunday before Thanksgiving, the same thing happens to Dan, and it inspires him to not participate in the revolt the other men are planning.

He sends Jo a note at Christmas.

13: Nat's New Year

In Leipzig, Nat brags a little too much about his connections, so people assume he's upper-class and invite him to balls and plays and beer-gardens. He spends a little too much money and plays the gallant with Minna, whose mother confronts him about his intentions. When the bills and a letter from Plumfield arrive at New Year's he resolves to stop being a socialite.  His landlady gets him a job teaching English. It must be nice to have connections.

14: Plays at Plumfield

"As it is as impossible for the humble historian of the March family to write a story without theatricals in it as for our dear Miss Yonge to get on with less than twelve or fourteen children in her interesting tales, we will accept the fact, and at once cheer ourselves after the last afflicting events, by proceeding to the Christmas plays at Plumfield; for they influence the fate of several of our characters, and cannot well be skipped."

Everyone is excited by Miss Cameron's attendance. First a farce with Alice as Marquise, Demi as the Baron, and Josie as a soubrette. An accident with the scenery leads to Nan plastering up Demi's injury, but the look on Alice's face makes it worth it to him.

Meg stars as a country widow with Demi and Josie as her kids.

Up until now I thought Owlsdark Marbles was a real play, but turns out it isn't. Laurie is a professor who introduces the audience to his statues: Ted as Mercury, Josie as Hebe, Nan as Minerva, Demi as Apollo, Jo and Fritz as Juno and Jove, someone (Tom?) as Bacchus, and Bess as Diana.

Dan's letter arrives but he gave Jo no address.

15: Waiting

Word reaches Plumfield of the shipwreck and they all mourn Emil. Jack writes and Ned actually visits. Josie takes it very hard until Miss Cameron tells her to take her tragedy like her fictional heroines do. They learns he's not dead and Ted expresses it: "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious by these sons of Bhaer!"

Nat studies hard, gets a visit from Franz and Emil (a good potential fanfic scene), and is chosen to play in a London concert.

Dan counts the days til he's released in August. He can't bear Ted and Jo knowing his shame so he decides to head back to Montana.

16: In the Tennis Courts

Josie and Dolly play tennis and drag each other's schools. Bess chimes in that the cousins are accustomed to sensible conversation, not gossip. Dolly asks why she wears Harvard's color if it sucks so much and she tells him her hat is scarlet, not crimson.

The cousins leave and Jo brings finds Dolly and George. "I knew the boys would be killing themselves with ice-water; so I strolled down with some of my good, wholesome [root] beer. They drank like fishes. But Silas was with me; so my cruse still holds out. Have some?"

She lectures them about overeating, alcohol, and having sex with girls from the Opera Bouffe.

17: Among the Maids

Jo, Meg, and Amy host a sewing circle for the young women.

Here Mrs Meg was in her glory, and stood wielding her big shears like a queen as she cut out white work, fitted dresses, and directed Daisy, her special aide, about the trimming of hats, and completing the lace and ribbon trifles which add grace to the simplest costume and save poor or busy girls so much money and time. Mrs Amy contributed taste, and decided the great question of colours and complexions; for few women, even the most learned, are without that desire to look well which makes many a plain face comely, as well as many a pretty one ugly for want of skill and knowledge of the fitness of things. She also took her turn to provide books for the readings, and as art was her forte she gave them selections from Ruskin, Hamerton, and Mrs Jameson, who is never old. Bess read these aloud as her contribution, and Josie took her turn at the romances, poetry, and plays her uncles recommended. Mrs Jo gave little lectures on health, religion, politics, and the various questions in which all should be interested, with copious extracts from Miss Cobbe's Duties of Women, Miss Brackett's Education of American Girls, Mrs Duffy's No Sex in Education, Mrs Woolson's Dress Reform, and many of the other excellent books wise women write for their sisters, now that they are waking up and asking: 'What shall we do?'

One girl would like to be George Eliot and Jo likes her but not as much as Charlotte Bronte. I haven't read Eliot and I love Jane Eyre the character but not so much the book.

Amy's friend Lady Ambercrombie visits them.

18: Class Day

I used to think Class Day was a Victorian thing, but I found that Harvard and Yale still use it. Harvard's website has

a piece on its history from the year JB was published.

Ted dandies up, leading Jo to call him "the ghost of a waiter" and Josie a "long, black clothespin." For part of the day he wears a false mustache which leaves some visitors thinking there are three Bhaer sons.

Alice gives the best speech of the day.

While everyone's chilling and singing a carriage rolls up. Out step Franz, Ludmilla, and Emil with Mary. "Uncle, Aunt Jo, here's another daughter! Have you room for my wife too?" Wouldn't you love to see this scene on film? I so would. Why not tell us? asks Jo. Because you thought it was hilarious when Uncle Laurie did it, says Emil.

19: White Roses

Demi wants to tell Alice; Josie suggests he copy a Maria Edgeworth story and send her three roses - bud, half-blown, and full-blown. Josie delivers them and Alice ponders the questions. Her parents are ill and need her at home. Is it fair to ask him to wait? She overhears Meg and Daisy praising her and John.

They meet at the party and good old Tom interrupts them. "Music? just the thing." Alice starts to play Bide a Wee, which describes her situation so well she can't even sing the middle verse. It was one of the first things I ever researched on the internet.

20: Life for Life

Dan chances upon a mining friend who hires him as overseer. The mine caves in and Dan leads the rescue of the miners. He gets injured but they all survive. The family learns about it from a newspaper. Ted runs away to see Dan and Laurie chases after him.

When he's better they bring him to Plumfield. He confesses to Jo about prison.

21: Aslauga's Knight

Everyone fusses over Dan; Josie reads to him; Bess molds her buffalo head in his room. He asks Bess to read him Aslauga's Knight. She and Jo are surprised he likes that story. Jo realizes he's in love with Bess. Dan confirms it and tells how he used to dream of Bess in prison.

22: Positively Last Appearance

Laurie's connections get Dan a post as a Native American agent. He startles Bess by kissing her good-bye.

After Dan leaves, Nat returns. It's a bit strange that barely interact in this book. Daisy cries and hugs him. He plays the same song he did at the beginning of LM.

Epilogue time. All the marriages turn out well. Nan, Josie, and Bess have successful careers and the younger two find "worthy mates." I love how mates doesn't mean husbands. "Dan never married, but lived, bravely and usefully, among his chosen people till he was shot defending them, and at last lay quietly asleep in the green wilderness he loved so well, with a lock of golden hair upon his breast, and a smile on his face which seemed to say that Aslauga's Knight had fought his last fight and was at peace." George is an alderman and dies of apoplexy. I don't think LMA likes him. Dolly finds himself in a tailor's employ. Rob is a professor and Ted follows in his grandfather's footsteps as a minister "to the great delight of his astonished mother. And now, having endeavoured to suit everyone by many weddings, few deaths, and as much prosperity as the eternal fitness of things will permit, let the music stop, the lights die out, and the curtain fall for ever on the March family."

The final line gets brought up a lot. IMO it reflects LMA's state of mind and her struggles with her health. She died less than two years later.

[kimberlyyperryy-blog]

goodbye junior year and hello summer ‘18

goodbye junior year and hellooooooo summer ’18!!! it’s so nice to have you here.

i’m super indecisive if i should capitalize words on here or if i should keep it ~trendy~ and lowkey with the nothing-is-ever-capitlized-because-thats-whats-in-vibe. like, say e! news or ryan seacrest or ellen or JAYLEN BROWN (my future husband ???) or james corden or marshmello looks at this and is like “she doesn’t capitalize her words?? gtg”. i PROMISE i know what i’m doing. the no capitalize vibe is just in right now. ya know?

lmk why i just explained that all. too late to delete it all though so :)))))

ANYWAYS what is UP right now i’m chillen on my rooftop in beacon hill tanning and writing and eating strawberries anddddd honestly… living my best life ??? also gucci gang just started playing so

gucci gang

gucci gang

gucci gang

gucci gang

!!!!!!!

it’s may 5th  and summer is in FULL SWING ladies and gents. my last class was last tuesday and i really can’t get over how i’m going to be a SENIOR in the fall. but i’m going to a dream school in a dream city and i wouldn’t change it for the world. let me tell you all about it?? it’s like we’re on a first date right now. i wonder where we are? a rooftop bar? a rooftop restaurant? can you tell i like rooftops? amazing. you already know me so well.

so my name is kimberly perry but kim perry works a LOT better when i’m singing to pretty girl rock by keri hilson, obviously. my name’s kim perry, i’m so very tall oh my it’s a little bit scary (5’10.5’’ to be exact 4 all my fans) (i’m kidding lmao??) i go to emerson college in boston for broadcast journalism and it’s honestly the perfect school for me, i would deadass get emotional this past semester walking through the boston common to my 8am’s thinking about it. like?? being thankful at 8am??? that’s when you KNOW.

i actually transferred to emerson for my sophomore year and have been here ever since. i didn’t do too hot in high school so i went to a college near my hometown for my freshman year, worked my ass off and got in to the best journalism school in the country. not to be cheesy and deep already, but that experience of working so hard to get into emerson really showed me that if you work hard enough for something and have the passion for it, it’s going to come to you.

sorry, so emotional on our first date ?????

so the past two years life has been on that higher frequency. being able to not only go to emerson but live in boston for college is something i really can’t express. this city is super special to me, and i’ve met so many people from all over the city that i really can’t imagine my life without. i can talk about those people on our next date, though. don’t worry. it’s not that deep yet.

over the past two years though, i’ve been able to have amazing experiences and moments that i literally makes me stop and go "wow, i’m so happy"??? whether that’s with my friends on campus or running on the esplanade during the sunsets or meeting celebs through incredible internships or climbing four flights of fire escapes to get to a rooftop at mit even though there was a door we could of gone through (lmao sorry mom and dad), it’s all been oh so good.

and it’s crazy because this past semester was the last time i’ll be going to school in boston until jan 2019!!! that’s RIGHT, la i’m coming for you!!!

i’m going to be living in los angeles this fall with a program my school offers and honestly??? i’m H Y P E D x 1,000,000,000. maybe a billion? a trillion?

like, i’m trying to be a mix of ellen and ryan seacrest. maybe throw a little bit of cardi b and there u have it. kimberly ann perry !!!!! (but don’t forget if we are singing pretty girl rock at a karaoke bar it’s KIM).

this summer is going to be cute as hell, going to beaches, swimming in my pool, making that $$$$, having a lot of fires and ALWAYS smores, driving with the windows down and just L I V I N G how a 21 year old should. this is the last summer before i graduate (????) so it’s deff going to be a special one.

oh, what is this website? a place for me to write (i <3 writing), a place for me to post photos, a place for me to post that bomb resume so all of you fancy people can hire me and love me forever, and honestly just a creative outlet for me to have fun. i chose tumblr over the hundreds of over websites because 

a) creative

b) bringing it back. can i do that? it’s happening either way

c) it’s fun

d) honestly i just want to have fun so 

e) tumblr it was

i know you prob wanna get the check now, but i hope you liked our first date??

so, what are we?