the weekly, vol. 2

VOL.4, ISSUE 2

03.05.09

weeklyTHE

04.09.09

06 FRATERNITYRECYCLING

02 STAINREMOVERS

08 RIHANNA’SHIT

weekly This is your dad’s cocktail. Turn the page for yours.

Why won’tANYONEhiremep.4

Do frats recycle all those beer cans?p. 6

Nervous about going to CAPS?p. 6

Who asks you how you’re doing? p. 8

Bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum p.8

?PANDAS? at TECH? p.2

Can you stomachanother night ofNatty Light?

What the heck did I get on my shirt at lunch?

Where will you be this summer?p.2

Do music majors party?p. 3

MASTODON!

Are you kidding me? Fifty dollars for Green Chartreuse? p. 3

p. 8

p.2

How are you doing?1.800.737.6045

What happened last night? Wherearemy...?p. 3

Tide or Shout?

What

Is ‘Disturbia’ stuck in your head too? p. 8

p. 2

p. 4

doesthispiechart

mean?

Why do my clothes smell like urine? p.7

2 the weekly 04.09.09

We open newspapers every day in hopes of reading more stories about sexting and Snuggies, but

instead we’re confronted with headlines about layoffs. We take Sunday phone calls from our parents hoping they just want to tell us what precious gems we are, but instead they tell us to find jobs. This week’s survey revealed that while most students know, they don’t quite have it all together yet. “The only plans I have are finding a tent to live in after my parents kick my unemployed ass out,” said one. A table full of kids yelled “Fuck no!” in unison – it was touching, trust us.

SARA PECK

THE WEEKLY MEMO

weeklyTHE EDITOR IN CHIEF

kyle [email protected]

MANAGING EDITORalex [email protected]

ASSISTANT EDITORSemmy blotnickjeremy [email protected]@u.northwestern.edu

ART DIRECTORsara [email protected]

ASSISTANT ART DIRECTORkristyn [email protected]

contact the weekly at:847.491.4901

send confirmed and denied tips to the managing editor

want to join our staff?e-mail our editor in chief

A weekly supplement to The Daily NorThwesTerN.

SURVEY AT STARBUCKS

got a job?

NO YES

66

34

KYLE BERLIN

TASTE TEST

stain removersBecause we all spill stuff on ourselves sometimes

confirmed denied&

I pitted three often-spilled substances (ketchup, chocolate and soy sauce) that might end up on that formal dress against some store-bought and homemade remedies straight from CVS, online and my mom. After letting them sit for 24 hours, I scrubbed the crap out of an old wife beater to see what works when the regular laundry cycle just doesn’t cut it.

Tide-to-Go Pen$2.98

The obvious advantage of the pen is the portability and lazy-ability – no prep work and you can keep it anywhere. It also beat out the at-home concoctions pretty easily. The trick is to push the pen down first to release the cleaning fluid, and then scrub vigorously. The only possible issue is the volume of liquid necessary to clean tougher stains—this pen might not live through more than one huge vomit patch.

Baking Soda, Salt and Lemon JuicePrice Varies

After grinding the ingredients into a paste (as Heloise, domestic goddess for Good Housekeeping recommended), I tried smearing the stuff onto the stain trio, which was a fruitless endeavor. A quick rinse just spread the soy sauce around further. This might work for a carpet stain coupled with a stiff brush and less drying time (think quick stain absorber after a party foul spill). For a lingering stain on clothing, my vote is no.

Ice and Club Soda$0.99

This is kind of tricky to use. Maybe this would work on a carpet, but short of soaking the thing in a bowl, there isn’t an easy way to do it. The ice is also confusing (or maybe only to the domestically-challenged)…do you rub the ice on the stain? Blot? Let it sit? I’m still not sure. As for stain-lifting power, this combo comes in second place. An ice cube functions surprisingly well as a scrubbing tool, but bubbles aren’t really on par with the power of semi-non-toxic chemicals.

Shout Laundry Stain Remover Gel$3.49

You might not want to tote this stain expunger in your clutch on a sloppy night out as you would the Tide pen, but what this gel lacks in convenience it compensates for with its fantastic red rubber brush-tipped design. Verdict? You’ll probably be able to correct your klutzy chopstick usage gone awry, though ink and blood present more of a chal-lenge. Just make sure you’ve got time, dirty laundry and some quarters to spare before whipping your Shout out, since the instructions involve a wash cycle immediately after applying the goop.

1

2

3

ALL’S FAIR IN J-SCHOOL JOB WARSYesterday journalism majors descended upon the Louis Room for the Medill Career Fair, where representatives from places like Bloomberg Media and the Onion were on call. “I talked to The Atlantic for one minute,” says a Medill senior, “before I told them I couldn’t work for free.” The day’s finest moment came when an outsider tried to crash the NU-only event. According to one gussied up sophomore in attendance, “the guy was clad in a full suit with résumés in hand, and was yelling about how misleading Medill had been about the fair being for NU students only.” The intruder proceeded to “rant about how the school had wasted his time, muttering some-thing about it being such a ridiculous situation.” What’s the big idea? Why do you think we’re paying $50,000 if not to have exclusive access to jobs that won’t exist in a few years? Better luck next time, bro.

ANIMALS IN TECHHere at our renowned research university, we’ve always wondered what was going on in the mysterious second basement of Tech, so we sent one of our brave reporters to find out. We’d come to imagine a Bond-meets-Gattaca kind of scene after hearing rumors of retina scans upon entrance and labs full of monkeys with appendages, but our thirst for truth was left un-quenched. Perceived to be a prying animal rights investigator, our reporter was sternly turned away and warned that her story could get professors and research assistants alike in “serious trouble.” Why so guarded, guys? Guess the closest we’ll ever get to Important Confidential Ani-mal Research Stuff is watching Mystery Science Theater 3000, making baking soda and vinegar volcanoes and eating neon gummy worms.

MORE ANIMALS IN TECHIt’s the end of the day, you’ve Gchat-ed through hours of classes, and then, what’s that rustling in the bushes outside Tech? Is that...a panda? Why no, it’s an Asian-American fraternity pledge made to dress like one for his brothers’ amusement. We’re sure it was a proud moment for the politically correct and fetishists alike. One Bobb freshman told us, “It was very odd...there was a group of boys watching him and they were really into it.” We’re glad to hear it, because she also mentioned nobody else really laughed or reacted. OK pranksters, why stop there? Why not put him on a bus and rename it the Panda Express? L-O-L!

This week our two big features involve a bit of undercover reporting on topics that make people nuts. In our story on CAPS, Coco Keevan writes a firsthand account of her experience with NU’s counseling services (pg. 7). And Peter Jackson arms himself with someone else’s resume to try to find out why it’s so damn hard to get a job right now (pg. 4). Not everything in this issue is on the down-low, though. Benjamin Haas, a libations expert who works at the über-trendy The Violet Hour, guides you through the art of college-friendly cock-tail mixing (pg. 3). And Amalia Oulahan introduces you to the undergrad founder of The How Are You Doing Project, an inventive Web site that turns user-gener-ated status updates into peripatetic pod-casts (pg. 8). And if you’ve ever found yourself in class tapping out the bum bum be-dum rhythm of Rihanna’s smash single “Disturbia,”Andrew Sheivachman will make you feel a little less weird about it (pg. 8). So don’t be anonymous. This week, take our lead and come clean about the things that drive you crazy.

4

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the weekly 04.09.09 3

social diary [a junior music major]31 tuesday 1 wednesday 2 thursday 3 friday 4 saturday 5 sunday 6 mondayWoke up at 10:30, hun-gover as balls. Practiced for a few hours, then went to the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s CD release party at Sonotheque. Got judged by grad students on the Intercampus bus for suspiciously boozing straight from a whis-key bottle. It was “my” birthday on my fake ID, so people bought me drinks. Passed out in a cab before drunk-dialing a boy to hook up. I kicked him out at 5 a.m.

Drunk for my 8 a.m. class. I was miserable because the professor makes us stand and con-duct. The professor had a smug sense of humor. Later realized I drunk texted my sister’s ex to hook up. Went back to my room, ate lunch, two-hour nap, then went to rehearsal from 2-4 p.m., class from 4:30- 5:50 and rehearsal from 6-9. Tired of whacko professors, I went and practiced from 9:30- midnight.

Woke up, showered, and went to class at 11 – not hungover! Woo! Trekked up to Tech for class, where we watched a movie. Then I ate lunch, did homework, practiced and had rehearsal from 6-9 p.m. Later I practiced from 9:30-midnight. I contem-plated going to Hundo, but ended up waffl ing because I’m too slow and lazy.

Had rehearsals all day and then ran back to get ready for a frat formal. Boozed myself into a haze of dancing and cookies. Afterwards, we went to Underground. My idiot friends left in a cab without me. They apologized, I called them chonga hookers, but it’s fi ne. The guy I hooked up with on Tuesday in-vites me back to the W. I think he said the words boyfriend or girlfriend. Confused, I passed out.

Cabbed back to Ev-anston for a 10 a.m. rehearsal. I could barely read the music. The drunkenness evolved into a hangover. Anoth-er rehearsal. Again I crap all over the music. Had a performance, then went to the Keg. Chugged pitchers and laughed at trashy-looking under-classmen until I blacked out. Texted my two most recent hookups and end up with the guy from last night.

I woke up feeling guilty because I thought I’d missed Easter. I real-ized hours later that it was Palm Sunday. Cab of shame-d it home. I napped for the rest of the day to eliminate my sluggishness. Had a rehearsal, practiced, went to a recital and did homework. Watched “I Love Money” on VH1. Worst show ever… Angelique looks like a mix of a duck, a dude and Pamela Anderson.

Woke up, went to class. Ran into a friend in Tech and sat in on his engineering class taught by this 700-year-old man cracking awkward jokes. Went to rehearsal, then to see my friend’s band play. Drank Long Islands before switching to pitchers at the Keg, where I called the boy from Tuesday. He told me to go to bed! While sober, I had instructed him to do that if I drunk-dialed him.

Classic CocktailsPut down the Keg cup! Sophisticated drinks aren’t out of your league.

If you like to drink alcohol on a regular basis, why not enjoy what you’re drinking? Maybe cocktails aren’t for every occasion, but if you’d splurge for a nice meal, you can do the same with booze. Drinking Natty Light should be a choice, not a default. And besides, think of it as your patriotic duty of sorts – the cocktail is American. For hundreds of years before the Pilgrims set sail, people all over the world were drinking straight spirits, wine or beer, but no one was mixing them to-gether. Almost all these ingredients are available at Binny’s in Skokie. Yes, it’s slightly farther than EV1, but the selection is infi nitely better.

Pisco SourThis Peruvian grape brandy is ubiquitous in its home country, but a well-kept secret stateside, so great Piscos run cheap around here.

2 oz Pisco (“Italia” variety is best, but any Pisco will do)3⁄4 oz Fresh lime juice

3⁄4 oz simple syrup (a combination of equal parts water and sugar)1 egg white

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake vigor-ously – since this drink contains egg white, you need to shake it quite hard (even if you look ridiculous doing so). The objective is to whisk the egg white with the ice. Strain into a chilled glass and fi nish with one dash Angostura bitters. Replace the lime juice with grape-fruit juice for a fruity fl avor to complement the Pisco’s fl oral notes.

WhiskeysBourbon – Buff alo Trace Bourbon - $21.50Rye – Rittenhouse Rye - $13

GinBombay Dry Gin - $18Beefeater London Dry Gin - $16

PiscoLa Botija Pisco Italia - $18

LiqueursLuxardo Maraschino Liqueur - $23.50Green Chartreuse - $50

The Last WordSome of the fi nest cocktails, like the balanced and bitter Last Word, were developed in speakeasies during Prohibition, the cocktail’s bleakest hour.

3⁄4 oz London Dry Gin3⁄4 oz Fresh lime juice

3⁄4 oz Maraschino liqueur (not like those neon red cherries)3⁄4 oz Green Chartreuse

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until well chilled. Strain into a glass with one large ice cube wrapped in a lime peel. For a simpler method, serve it up in a chilled glass. An update to this cocktail was actually created by a bartender in New York. It replaces the lime juice for lemon, Green Chartreuse for the sweeter Yellow Char-treuse and the gin for rye whiskey. This also makes a very tasty drink.

BENJAMIN HAAS

SHOPPING LIST

The Sazerac CocktailOne of the fi rst cocktails ever invented, the Sazerac is still an ex-tremely popular libation in its founding hometown of New Orleans.

2 oz Rye Whiskey (Rittenhouse Rye is less than $15)1 sugar cube (1⁄2 tsp sugar)

2 dashes Peychaud’s BittersSeveral drops absinthe

Take two glasses. In one, dash several drops of absinthe and turn so it coats the inside of the glass. Absinthe is now legal in the United States, and no, it won’t make you hallucinate or go crazy. In the other, muddle a sugar cube in a little water, add ice and 2 oz. Rye Whiskey. Stir until cold and strain liquid into absinthe-coated glass. Try replacing the sugar cube with 1⁄2 tsp demerara sugar for added complexity, or swapping the ab-sinthe rinse with a green Chartreuse rinse for a more herbaceous cocktail.

Before Spring break, Betsy Bishop sat me down and nodded as I recounted a miserable story. We were talking about my job search so far. Bishop takes drop-in appointments at the University Career Services office in the main library. I couldn’t understand why my bulletproof résumé – we’ll get to it – hadn’t landed me a summer job at a big investment bank. My first-round interviews with Bane & Co., a big consulting firm, and J.P. Morgan, the investment bank, were not followed up with further sessions. I told her about my near-miss with Goldman Sachs – the last-minute tickets to New York for all-day interviews at its Wall St. offices (estimated cost to the firm: $1,000).

Now, to be clear, this wasn’t my résumé. It was a slightly altered version of someone else’s. It was bulletproof, I thought, for a student who wants to work in finance. Like just 4 percent of Weinberg students, its lucky owner, a junior, is in the Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences program. He’s also earning a Kellogg certificate in Financial Economics, like just 5 percent of NU undergrads. He has a 3.66 GPA. He took last Fall Quarter off – to prolong his summer stint as a deputy finance director for a political campaign you may recall, Obama for America. If his résumé has an Achilles heel, it is a lack of prior experience at a bank. In the past, that was typically a problem for a graduating senior, not a junior. No longer. When re-cruiters from investment banks came and went this winter, he was left jobless.

What do University Career Services staffers say to these crestfallen wannabe Masters of the Universe? Well, they don’t sugarcoat it. Not that they should. The “financial services” sector – encompassing headline-grabbing companies like Citigroup and AIG – is expected to lose 20 percent of its pre-economic crisis workforce by this summer, according to Bloomberg. Hiring is slow. This much I knew before I walked into UCS’ library office, ready to impersonate this

MMSS wiz kid’s dogged guise, with his résumé under my arm.As I told her, Betsy did not bat an eye. She wasn’t unkind, but she wasn’t sympathetic either.

Forget national investment banks, she said. They had already swooped through, and the runoff of students who had gotten further with the i-banks (but hadn’t gotten offers) had gone on to the consulting firms. Forget those, too. Then she laid out a new job search plan, one good not just for finance hotshots but for any undergraduate facing a daunting market for jobs and internships. Below, we’ve detailed the state of the job market for students and young graduates, both with numbers and the first-person accounts of struggling NU alumni. You’ll find ideas for alternative career paths and school-by-school advice. But what Bishop told me may be invalu-able advice for anyone who’s trying to secure a position – for the summer or the long run – in a turbulent market scarce of jobs. First, she pointed me to CareerNet, a service of the Alumni Association that connects students with graduates in fields they want to go into. (Students can access the service at https://nwuconnection.com.)

Then she asked me where home was – for the purpose of this interview, it was Los Altos, Calif., near San Jose – and recommended I try to find alumni in the San Francisco Bay area that work in the finance field. She told me to set up “informational interviews” with them, a process that inverts the rhythm of a typical job interview. I would ask the questions, like “If you were in my position, what would you do to secure an internship?” and they would respond with advice. Often, these interviews snag connections, if not jobs, for students farsighted enough to sched-ule them. “You already have that NU connection with them, so they should be even more will-ing to help you,” Bishop said. She told me to make in-person appointments, as they are thought to be more effective than phone or e-mail interactions.

“You’re probably just ending up in a pile of résumés,” she said. “We have to figure out how to get people to say ‘Let’s take a look at you.’”

Finally, she asked me to consider companies that aren’t in my desired field but have financial positions. “Create a list of your fa-vorite companies and go right to their Web sites and see if they’ve posted finance internship opportunities,” she said. “Google finan-cial intern” might not be as valuable on paper as “Morgan Stanley Junior Analyst,” but it might be more fun – and it might give me pause before delving into finance at an uncertain moment.

“Pause,” by the way, is what you see in statistics about jobs and hear in conversations about careers. Graduates embracing ideas and opportunities they’d written off when they signed up for big salaries at boring firms. Students taking another look at a compel-ling major they’d written off as less financially lucrative than econ. Everyone reevaluating what they want to do with their lives and how to they will get there.

So pause. Especially if you’re going to look at the statistics.

If you think class of ’07 grads got out while the job-getting was good, you’re right--sort of. These three

alums shot out of college into three exclusive clubs: Bear Stearns, Teach for America, and Credit Suisse. Two years later, the luster has rubbed off, and they’re planning their next moves. Meet Jessica, Ron and Jennifer.

Jennifer Sommer ’07Social Policy and Psychology

After sophomore year: Internship with a CongressmanAfter junior year: Internship with NU law professorJob after graduation: Teach for America (30 fifth graders in the Bronx)

I was interested in SESP because it was so hands-on and community-based. I had a breakdown in the middle of freshman year, and decided to become a doctor. My parents are doctors. I took science, and remembered that I hate science. Then the plan was law, simply because my parents were like, “If you’re not gonna be a doctor, you’re gonna become a lawyer.” I took the LSAT and did well, and senior year I decided not to go to law school. I didn’t want to be a lawyer.

I started finding out about Teach for America because my friend did TFA recruiting. I noticed it was really consistent with what I’d been doing in college. Education policy had resonated with me through all my classes. I knew I’d gotten TFA by Febru-ary of my senior year, so I was waiting to see how it went, and then I was going to look at other (career) options.

I’m not actually up with TFA until September. I’m leaning toward exploring the business route after I’m done. I’ve been looking at rotational programs within big corporations – you end up working in four different sectors of the corporation through-out a year. It would give me a better sense of where I want to go. I have no interest in teaching. A lot of TFA teachers started the beginning of the year saying, “There’s no way I’d ever teach again,” and now a lot of them are leaning toward staying another year. And at the end of the day, if I don’t get employed by the end of the summer, I’ll probably pursue that as well.

Hired?Don’t bank on it.


Why it’s time to rethink your first choice job and whip up a Plan B. Pronto.

Other*

Continuing Education

Unemployed

Underemployed** 44.6%

20.7%

16.4%

10.6%

7.7%

35.2%

19.7%

19.7%

16.9%

8.5%

Class of 2008

Class of 2009

NU after graduation

*This category includes community service, military service and travel.**This category indicates less than full-time employment, internships and fellowships.

Data in this chart compiled in a Daily Northwestern survey.

Data in this chart compiled by University Career Services.

this weekend in musicAPR. 10 - 12, 2009

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Canadian Guitar Quartet with DanceWorks Chicago

Friday, April 10, 7:30 p.m.Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, $24/21/11

The celebrated Canadian Guitar Quartet has earned a reputation for impeccable yet exhilarating playing and for engaging collaborations. Joining the group is the wonderful new dance company DanceWorks Chicago for a world pre-miere choreographed by Miguel Perez.

Canadian Guitar Quartet Master Class

Saturday, April 11, 11 a.m.Regenstein Recital Hall, free

The Canadian Guitar Quartet coaches preselected gui-tar students from the Bienen School of Music.

James Giles, pianoIlya Kaler, violin Friday, April 10, 7:30 p.m.Lutkin Hall, $9/7/5Franz Schubert, Sonata in A MajorJohannes Brahms, Sonata No. 3 in D MinorBéla Bartók, Rhapsody No. 1 (Folk Dances)Eugène Ysaÿe, Poème élégiaqueNiccolò Paganini, La Campanella

Chicago Jazz Orchestra with Victor Goines, Anthony Molinaro, and Charley Harrison

Saturday, April 11, 7:30 p.m.Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, $16/12/8

Jeff Lindberg, conductor

Three great jazz musicians — all with close ties to Northwestern University — join the renowned Chicago Jazz Orchestra for an exciting festival finale. Composer-conductor-guitarist Charley Harrison dem-onstrates his multiple talents, clarinetist Victor Goines gives a rare performance of Nelson Riddle’s Cross Country Suite, and Naumburg Award–winning pianist Anthony Molinaro plays his scintillating ver-sion of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

DanceWorks Chicago

Chicago Jazz Orchestra

Ron Zonfat ’07Mechanical Engineering and Economics.

After freshman year: Engineering fi rmAfter junior year: CitigroupAfter senior year: Credit Suisse

I got my fi rst paid internship when I was a freshman. I was always aggressive on that front. I got it through the Engineering Career Services. The CEO of the company went to North-western. They put me in their Florida offi ce. It made me realize I didn’t want to be an engineer. I would count how many cars passed a traffi c light in the summer heat in Florida in an orange jumpsuit, wondering should the green light be 13 seconds or 15 seconds? I was miserable. Junior year I went into it aggressively. I knew HR professionals at every bank. I wasn’t counting on just my résumé. I got an off er from Citigroup in the capital markets group.

Banking’s tough. I was immature when I graduated college. NU gets out pretty late, so I didn’t have that lapse between school and work. I didn’t take banking seriously because when I started, Bear Stearns collapsed (in 2007) and it was a bad market. I started training and said, “I’m going to live it up because once I start work it’s going to be hell.” And then when I started work I said, “Eh, I have until the end of ’07 because it’s going to be slow because the credit markets are tight.”

It wasn’t that I was this horrible banker. It would have been a very weak indication of the company if they didn’t lay me off . I’m lucky in the sense that if you get laid off in banking, every-one says, “Of course. It’s a tough market.” My group, however, no one got laid off . (Mergers and acquisitions) was a top group, doing well. I was the only analyst laid off .

It wasn’t tough for me really because I networked my face off . I got interviews left and right. But it takes time. I had to be patient. Luckily my severance was very good, and I had a year-and-a-half worth of experience. That’s why people go into banking: you get a worker who knows how to get things done and has stamina. You do rise by your skills. You can easily tell if you’re good or not. Bankers don’t care if you’re nice or not.

I had maintained very good relationships with everyone. I had strong references. The job that I just accepted is at a fund of hedge funds – they invest in hedge funds. With the layoff , I had four months. I’m lucky. People aren’t getting jobs; they’re getting fi red. I attribute it to the NU degree, the double-major, being in the best group at Credit Suisse. I had a week where I wasn’t sure if this job was going to materialize. When that happened it was like a battlefi eld. I woke up at 9, contacted everyone I know, went on every career site, contact-ed every headhunter, looked at the bios of people who worked where I wanted to work and saw where they had worked. It was a full-time job looking for a full-time job.

Jessica Schein ’07Engineering Sciences and Applied Math

After freshman year: NU tour guide, McCormick marketing departmentAfter sophomore year: Rolls-Royce helicopter division in IndianapolisAfter junior year: British Petroleum petrophysics in HoustonJob after graduation: Bear Stearns fi xed-income department

When I was graduating, it was about you gotta have a job when you graduate, otherwise you’re worthless. I took the fi rst job that came along, and it was really short-sighted. Something that’s positive that’s come out of this crisis is that a lot of graduates are exploring diff erent career paths, whereas fall of your senior year you’re hit pretty hard with investment banks and consulting.

I had friends who’d done summers in fi nance. It seemed like an interesting outlet to use math, and I started doing recruiting. I took a job with Bear Stearns in its fi xed-income research department, specifi cally with commercial mortgage-backed securities. Which happened to be the worst product at the worst bank at the fi rst time.

The fi rst day of training for me at Bear was the week after those two hedge funds collapsed. They had all these top guys come and talk to us about how it was all under control, the hedge funds were an isolated incident and it was not nearly as bad as the press was trying to make it. I didn’t know Bear wouldn’t exist a year later, but I knew it wasn’t good. I didn’t like my manager, and I knew it was a sinking ship. I wanted out. I quit about two months before it was sold to J.P. Morgan.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I was looking into construction management, into enter-tainment, sort of just looking all over. I had no defi nite plans. I did some tutoring and substitute teaching on the side, while I was doing my job search. It was the fi rst time I was looking for a job without a career fair, without the help of NU.

I’m not really so happy with my job now. I’m looking for other things. I took a job I knew I wasn’t going to be thrilled with, but at that point it was like, three months of being unemployed, time to get a job again. But it aff ords me the ability to pay my rent and live in New York.

Ideally I’m looking for something that’s fulfi lling, that’s intellectually challenging. I’ve come to the realization that the jobs that may make me happy won’t pay as much money. I’m looking for something with math, maybe involving energy, maybe graduate school.


“I took a job with Bear Stearns in its fi xed-income research department, specifi cally with commercial mortgage-backed securities, which hap-pened to be the worst product at the worst bank at the worst time.” – Jessica Schein

TEXT AND INTERVIEWS BY PETER K. JACKSON


Matt Singer adopted recycling as part of his daily routine long before coming to Northwestern. When he pledged Sigma Alpha Epsilon three months ago, the freshman was taken aback by the fraternity’s environmental unfriendliness – there weren’t any recycling bins in the house and lights weren’t turned off in vacated rooms.

“There are all these recycling bins everywhere else around campus, like at Tech, and I was pretty surprised that there were none in the house,” he says. “(The brothers) always threw everything away.”

Similarly, one sophomore in Phi Delta Theta says his broth-ers always trash the nearly 200-300 empty beer cans left over after parties. The fear of getting into trouble with the univer-sity is more than enough incentive for them to put the cans in black bags and dump them into the garbage bin.

Like PhiDelt, other fraternities are facing major barriers when it comes to recycling. Currently, many of the brothers just don’t care what happens to paper and plastic after it leaves the house. They’re turning to trash cans to take care of what they can’t legally have in their rooms. And the university isn’t proactively seeking to help them get the bins they need to push fraternities into going greener.

This apathy wasn’t the situation for Singer.When no one else stepped up, he decided to propose the

creation of an environmental sustainability chair to help en-courage recycling around the house. The chair’s responsibili-ties include making sure the house is environmentally-friendly, bringing eco-related speakers to campus and educating frater-nity members about sustainability.

Now, SAE is awaiting the arrival of three recycling bins they ordered the fi rst week of Spring Quarter through the Fa-cilities Management Web site. They’re also expected to elect a brother to their newly established sustainability position by the end of the month. Some fraternities are following suit, but others aren’t as conscious about the environmental situation.

Allister Wenzel, the Interfraternity Council Director for Education and Service, says environmentalism has come up during Executive Board meetings, and it’s something they plan to change.

“Sustainability has recently become an issue here (at NU),”

Wenzel says. “There are very developed and very involved programs at schools like Bowling Green and UCLA…and at Northwestern, for whatever reason, it just has never really come up before. (We’re) behind as a college.”

Chris, a pledge who asked that his name be changed so as not to anger his brothers, says that as far as he knows his fraternity does not recycle. If they do, “it’s not that much. Cans and bottles always get thrown out in the trash” – especially because there aren’t any recycling bins inside his fraternity house.

He says he felt so bad about recycling that he asked his older fraternity brothers about the situation and, “was told just to throw shit out.”

Mike Zhang, a sophomore in Sigma Phi Epsilon, says his fraternity “believes in recycling,” except for one thing – there are no bins inside his house. There are two on the front porch, but Zhang admits they’re not used often.

By contrast, Zeta Beta Tau has about four large recycling bins throughout the house, and each brother has a bin in his room. Alex Freeman, a ZBT pledge, says his brothers make an eff ort to recycle every day. He added that ZBT has environmental chairs and tries to conserve energy, but “that being said, we’re not the perfect green house.”

Despite the eff ort, Zhang says he thinks the fear of getting in trouble with the university is counter-productive to NU’s recycling initiatives. “Beer cans in general are usually not recycled at every frat,” he says. “Because they are illegal and these houses are dry, they usually get thrown away immediately in dumpsters to save people from getting caught.”

Sigma Chi junior George Gianakakos says the university is partly to blame for the poor recycling habits. “Fraternities are (one of) the biggest producers of recyclable waste, and it’s silly that they aren’t taken more seriously (by the administration),”

Julie Cahillane, the manager of Recycling and Refuse, says fraternities were provided with recycling bins in the early 1990s. Since then, many of them have disappeared. Because of

funding limits, university policy dictates that “any replacement (of the bins) is the responsibility of the housing unit.”

“It seems more of a challenge on the fraternities’ end to make it happen internally, but recycling is there for them…they just have to opt to participate,” she says.

Despite campus inactivity, some fraternities like SigEp are taking initiatives to “follow the school’s direction of go-ing green.” Zhang says they recently stopped ordering Ice Mountain water jugs in favor of installing a water fi lter in their kitchen sink tap.

It’s a small step, but it’s something.LEEZIA DHALIA

BEHIND THE SCENES

Frat recycling: Fact or fNU’s biggest exporters of empty beer cans (sometimes) make the effort to go green

University Park, Illinois

www.govst.edu/vacationeducation

ZBT brother Josh Brower drags a recycling bin in the frat’s basement.Jeremy Gordon/The Daily Northwestern

iction?

On Edgar Allan Poe

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In the waiting room, I sit hunched over a magazine I am quite conspicuously using to obscure my face from the others waiting to be attended to. I jump as the student two seats over clears her throat, interrupting the pure silence. I contemplate the tinting of the windows and consider if I’ve ever seen eyes through the glass, frightened and anxious, while previously walking past House Four of Foster-Walker.

This is step three of three, the breath of fresh air before the real trouble begins. I’ve talked it out via phone conversation, detailed my motivations for calling CAPS in the first place (“A preventative measure?” the doctor on the other end suggests, and I nod word-

lessly before realizing he can’t see me) and in a survey, selected bubbles on a variance scale indicating my self-awareness, reaction to stress, home life, etc. There’s bile rising in my throat as I consider the number of people who can potentially see my anxiety-ridden face peeking through the hanging blinds in the waiting room.

Are these windows tinted?It is my first visit to NU’s Counseling and

Psychological Services, and I am approach-ing some level of mortification as I consider the prospect of someone I know seeing me. I practice excuses, laughingly explaining that Medill had finally pushed me over the edge. No, I’d exclaim, I’m really just here for an ar-

ticle. It’s not like there’s, you know, something wrong with me! I’m not one of the 6.8 million American women diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder, one of the 6 million af-flicted with Panic Disorder or a disordered person in general. So what if almost one-fifth of people age 18 and over suffer from anxiety?

I’ve resisted visiting CAPS for the last two quarters, maintaining that, despite my averse reactions to stress and over-involvement and an inability to say ‘No’ to extracurricular opportunities, I am too well-adjusted for counseling, I think to myself. The stigma of a visit to a psychological professional terrorizes my ego more than any of the problems I have encountered since I have begun college. Truly, what will my friends think?

The answer, I suppose, is not much. According to the American Psychiatric

Association, one out of four young adults will experience a depressive episode by age 24, and nearly half of all college students report feel-ing so depressed at some point in time that they have trouble functioning. With the rigors of curriculum and extracurricular involvement, NU students are surely not exempt from these statistics.

I certainly am not. My name is being cautiously murmured by

the young woman in the doorway, one of 15 CAPS staff members on call. I mechanically stand up, force a smile, say hello to the girl to my right whom I rec-ognize from a film class earlier this year. I pray she doesn’t remember my name or my face before realizing she too is here for a reason. She appears sheepish but confident, her assured countenance contrast-ing the complete apathy I’m forcing myself to display.

I follow the young lady stumbling over my name down the hall into a brightly lit office. She shuts the door and motions for me to take a seat. While she fiddles with my paperwork (“FREAK,” I imagine the top reads, “HELP-LESS.”), I take in the tidy room I now occupy. The light is natural, I notice, not the harsh fluorescents I expect from doctor’s offices. Her expression is warm and welcoming, but I am suspicious. She begins by discussing the survey I’ve completed just moments before, and my brain fumbles to recall the questions. The phrasing, my logic argues, was misleading, so any problems in my survey were a direct result of poorly-worded prompts. I am well-adjusted, I repeatedly try to emphasize, but I can see the pitiful skepticism edging her eyes. Her forced smile does little to mask the lack of sincerity.

Conversation comes easily, though the constant buzz of repetitive “Mhms” the trained facilitator utters are simultaneously aggravating and comforting. I find myself content to tell the mysterious details I keep even from my closest friends. I feel like I

am the narrator in a made-for-TV Lifetime melodrama, but the room is warm and bright and comfortable. I let myself fall into my tale of truth, word vomit expelling from my mouth as every anxious thought bouncing around in my head spills out. Suddenly, every minute detail of my otherwise mundane existence seems imperative to dissecting my personal-ity, my problems and my alleged hostility, all divulged by that stupid survey. I was supposed to record my actions over the course of the last two weeks. TWO WEEKS! I was home two weeks ago. Of course I was aggressive – my parents instituted a bedtime.

I have an adverse reaction to stress, I hear myself saying, excusing myself for sharp tongues and intoxicated hide and seek. I just can’t control my responses. The floodgates are open, and the levy’s going to break. I can feel it. The facilitator’s face is contorted in concern and empathy, and her hand is moving a mile a minute as she scribbles down the memories I’m recalling from somewhere deep within.

My nerves are winding up again as I watch her flip through page after page of notes on me, and I feel my thoughts lagging as all of the memories halt as suddenly as a poorly paused game of musical chairs. Again, it hits me that I’m revealing my deepest, darkest secrets to an utter stranger, and the level of complacency

I have relished for the last hour is replaced by a stifling feeling of panic as I await her diagnosis.

She confirms my worst suspicions by voicing her concerns with some of my living habits: lack of sleep, poor eating habits, failure to organize and prioritize

properly. Well, of course. I’m suffering, she alleges, and it’s her recommendation I talk to someone. I nod robotically, convinced I cannot again stomach the rising discontent associated with the fear of reaching out for assistance. She hands me a card, offers words of solace and consultation and shuffles me out the door.

Her voice lingers as I consider the psycho-analysis she has just employed to explain my idiosyncrasies. Textbook words hang in the air, tossed out effortlessly like she’s said the same words a million times to a million other students. My stomach is in knots as I peer out the door, casually shove my hands in my pockets and walk from the building. I hang my head low, but I am awash with a feeling of undeniable relief. For all of the writing I do, expressing these thoughts of real impor-tance is more alleviating than any flowery pop culture rhyme I could tap out. The feeling of dread is gone, and the tinting of the windows is no longer of no importance. I take the steps to class, one foot after another, feeling gently lighter, a real smile plastered upon my quiet mouth.

I definitely regret peeing on my girlfriend’s floor, including all over the clothes she hadn’t unpacked yet. I completely denied it a second later, lying in bed with my fly down, as I watched her clean it up. But I do like the fact that it taught my girlfriend a lesson: She should do her laundry more often.

-Weinberg Junior


REGRET OF THE WEEK[ ]

HEAD FIRST

A long-needed trip to CAPS

Exploring the self-imposed stigmas and accidental revelations of needing a helping hand

COCO KEEVAN

Dan Fletcher/The Daily Northwestern

I just can’t control my responses. The flood gates are open, and the levee is going to break. I can feel it.

Laura Mayer wants to know how you’re doing. The Medill senior is the creator of The How Are You Doing Project (http://howareyoudoingproject.com/), a Web site and hotline (1-800-737-6045) that lets callers share their answers to the simple question: How are you doing? Their voice messages are e-mailed to Mayer as mp3 files and she edits them into weekly podcasts available on iTunes.

How did The How Are You Doing Project start?I was getting ready to go to work at Chicago Public Radio. I was

just grumpy, and brushing my teeth, and I was thinking: Now is the kind of day where if someone were to ask me how I was doing, I would be really gruff. And it somehow came to me: I should set up a hotline and a Web site. It would be easy to do.

What range of callers do you get now?I get mainly people that I don’t know. I can’t see the full phone

numbers, but I can see area codes. I get people from all over the place

nationally. There was this one day, the 18th of February, a friend of mine who is really active on StumbleUpon Stumbled it. It ended up getting something close to 20,000 page views in 24 hours. I remember the first day it got Stumbled, I went to eat some wings or something, and I came back and had 70 voicemails!

I get a range of calls from happy to sad. My favorite is the in between, “I’m doing o.k.” Little details I think are what make the question interesting. There are some calls where people start, and then launch into this mini-narrative that can end up being really powerful. There’s one called the Navy story. This woman tells, in under three minutes, her decision to join the Navy the previous day.

There was another one, this lady called in and said she was just looking for a purpose in her life. That’s something we can all relate to, which I guess is — in a tiny microcosm — the way that I think of The How Are You Doing Project. The little questions and the little interac-tions are what make up so much of the conversation we have with people our entire lives. It’s the idea of everyday empathy.

What about the site’s logistics?I probably spend like seven hours a week on it. It’s been cool to

hear the positive feedback about it. And this idea that this can be a more personal take on the way we communicate with each other that is in an online setting but has this offline element to it.

Someone, one day a few weeks ago, called like 50 times and was just swearing. I was checking my e-mail thinking, “Oh yes! More How Are You Doings!” and then it was just what sounded like a little kid, just abusing it. And I was like, “Come on, kid. Come on.” Do you have any advice for people who want to ask more meaningful questions about their lives, or record things?

It’s pretty easy to do. I’d tell your roommates that you’re planning to record yourself in your room before you go into your room every night and record yourself, which is what I was doing in New York with these girls I didn’t know. I think they thought I was talking to myself in my room the whole time. I think radio is something that seems antiquated, but if you look at the numbers, NPR had its highest peak ratings in like a long time this week. So people are still listening, and it’s an interesting way to tell stories and hear stories. If you really sit down and listen to what people are saying, I think it’s the most engag-ing way to experience a story.

THE BROW critical reviews on the week's new releasesMID BROW MastodonCrack the Skye

JEREMY GORDON SAMANTHA LEAL

Even before Rihanna got the shit kicked out of her by Chris Brown, “Disturbia” was a terrific pop song. I didn’t know who she was until last year when, driving down some highway in Florida, “Disturbia” came on and I found myself singing along in falsetto despite the fact that I didn’t know the words and was having a totally depressing vacation. The next day, while sitting with my ailing grandmother, I excused myself to look out the window and willfully submitted to the bum bum be-dum bum bum be-dum bum clawing out my brain.

Put simply, “Disturbia” is catchy as hell. Rihanna’s voice is iconic, singing with sugary auto-tune permanently on, and managing to make even the most ridiculous lyrics sound passionate. Who else could sing “It’s a thief in the night, to come and grab you, it can creep up inside you, and consume you” without elic-iting laughs? Despite the lyrical melodrama, by the time the synth-stomp of the chorus rolls around it’s impossible to even care what she’s saying. It rocks but you can dance to it and that’s all you need to know. It’s like the dark-ness in the light or, more precisely, the irresist-ibility of our self-destructive urges. Watch Rihanna making out with a white-colored mannequin in the Thriller-lite music video for further metaphoric evidence of this.

“Disturbia” dropped during Rihanna’s “Good Girl Gone Bad” period, and the song seems blatantly about the side of love that gets you battered after you throw your boy-friend’s car keys out the window before the Grammys. “Disturbia” was actually written by Chris Brown and his crew, but it sounded stupid without a girl singing it. Maybe that’s what makes it one of the greatest pop songs of the decade.

WHY WE LIKE...

“disturbia”

ANDREW SHEIVACHMAN


MAN ON THE BEATLaura Mayer, Creator of The How Are You Doing Project

HIGH BROW PJ Harvey & John ParishA Woman A Man Walked By

LOW BROWAdventureland

COCO KEEVAN

By RIHanna

AMALIA OuLAHAN

At moments touching, Adventureland is a series of unfortu-nate humiliations, sexual mishaps and corndog-induced

vomit. The protagonist, James, is maneuvering the muddled world following college graduation, and his degree in Renais-sance Studies hasn’t prepared him for real world skills. James takes a job at Adventureland, an amusement park where he reluctantly spends his summer vacation. James’s naïveté places him in awkward situations with the ladies of the park, leading to all sorts of booty shakin’. Adventureland is not without its missteps, but more often than not, the characters of Adven-tureland are appealing and idiosyncratic.

This is a sludgy concept album about a quadriplegic who travels through space and time to inhabit Rasputin’s body,

except it’s really about the death of drummer Brann Dailor’s teenage sister from an overdose. Opening with banjo finger-picking (!?!?!) followed by screams of “NECROMANCING!” the gallop of “Divinations” is the album’s best. Beneath the walloping guitars lie a reservoir of personal loss; witness singer Brent Hinds screaming “Momma don’t let them take her / Don’t let them take her down” on the title track. Of course, the album is also about necromancing. This mix of gravitas and black magic will quench your thirst for hip, modern metal.

Nearly 15 years after their original collaboration, these two British artists are back with tender and sardonic

songs filled with the melancholic lyrics only Harvey could pen. This collaboration takes the form of a lovely rock relation-ship: Parish created the music, while Harvey constructed the lyrics. Two highlights include “Black Hearted Love,” a song that shows off Harvey’s haunting voice, and “Pig Will Not,” a quick mess that shows of Parish’s dynamic composing. This album might not jive with newcomers to PJ Harvey’s music, but those who can appreciate her voice and Parish’s beautiful melodies will be in for a treat.

Read the full interview online at www.dailynorthwestern.com.

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