Sloppy, frosted, self-aware: mood summer 2016

It’s August, the most melancholy month—the one in which you mourn the coming of September, start comparison-shopping laptops, and draft angst-ridden goodbye emails to your boss (“I’m good for more than data entry!”). If you feel a tinge of panic at not having done anything (besides achieving oneness with your couch), well, that’s justified. You only have a month left! And look at all that’s happened at Columbia while you’ve been asleep, adrift, and utterly useless!

• Without any fanfare, Columbia dropped its annual report on gender-based misconduct policy, which includes aggregate data on the reported violations of such policy. There were 120 reports of misconduct at Columbia, ranging from stalking to sexual assault; 13 cases of sexual assault were adjudicated, with varying outcomes.
• While we’re on the topic, a male student accused of sexually assaulting a classmate has sued the university for a “pro-female, anti-male bias” in its investigation. (Washington Post)
• Athletes abroad: Junior Akua Obeng-Akrofi (CC ’18) is jetting off to Rio very soon—or perhaps running, since she’ll be part of the Ghanian 4x100m relay team. Maodo Lo (CC ’16) is set to begin his professional basketball career with Brose Baskets Bamberg, a German team.
• Meet the new, improved (?) Diana, the recently completed, acutely modern CU Medical building. (Architectural Digest)
• Columbia assured student workers that the minimum wage would reach $15/hour by September 4, 2018, with periodic increases along the way—so don’t break out the bubbly yet.
• And finally, where is the base of the Reclining Figure, the languorous lump of metal and modernity that divided a campus in two, spawned multiple op-eds and petitions, and promptly disappeared from our collective consciousness once the term ended? It’s gone!! Did “activism” work? Was it all a social experiment?

Field Notes: Love, Drinks

• “Stalked someone so hard on Facebook that their mother showed up as a suggested friend.”
• “Fell madly in love with a classmate during my four-week course in Boston. Forgot about him the day after the class ended.”
• “Had awful breakup and when i found out ex had moved on, threw myself a pity party complete with ‘FML’ cake.” (pictured)
• “My parents went away on a week’s vacation, so I did what all teens with an open house do and baked cookies.”
• “Met a Columbia 2020 in line for the bathroom at random bar in Hong Kong. Turns out we have some mutuals.”
• Also: “Considered going to Columbia Alumni event at Hong Kong Country Club, decided to go to beach instead.”
• “Stopped drinking wine every night and lowered my alcohol tolerance. (oops)”
• “Went on a lot of bad dates. When will I learn to quit online dating?”
• “Ran into my boss on the subway and we ended up getting drinks on 25th floor of this building.”
• “After like 3 rounds of rage cage at my roommates friends lake house, started to like beer and hate myself.”
• “Also I can’t stop thinking about marriage.”

Melancholy, Screens

• “Sweated through my shirts the entire month.”
• “Went to Six Flags like a True American Teen and remembered that I don’t like roller coasters as much as I pretend to.”
• “Created a Google Photos album to curate my collection of high school drama screenshots.”
• “Watched a lot of WWE with my brother.”
• “Flew to London to visit family and am still getting over jetlag.”
• “Have consistently used the McDonald’s app to score free food every week.”
• “My parents have sent me 68 pictures of my dog in the 37 days that I have been away from home. To be clear, this is not enough pictures.”
• Related: “Entertaining the idea of actually moving to Canada post-graduation because I think my dog would really enjoy Canada.”
• “Saw Star Trek: Beyond twice in two days.”
• “Still don’t know how to do anything related to my thesis.”
• “Went to see a couple Broadway shows for free. Wicked is by far the whitest space I’ve ever been in and I’m from New England. Waitress really did smell like pie in the theater.”
• “Lost the flash drive with all of the files I needed for a big project in Chinatown the day before said big project was due and had to redo the entire thing in 24 hours.”
• “I got transferred from a TRIPLE ROOM WITH NO DOOR to a single in a suite with 2 upperclassmen and our own balcony.”
• “Bought a book about how to take care of houseplants despite not owning houseplants in the hopes that it will inspire me to one day buy and take care of houseplants.”

Spirit Animal, The Moore Investigation via Bwog Staff