Exploring Stress Across Generations

A Reported Narrative on How Stress has Differed Among Generations.

Written by Emily Shumaker

I was at my aunt’s house, looking through some old family heirlooms on one of her bookshelves over fall break when I found a book of advice that my grandmother had given her. It was filled with little notes, such as quotes and sayings she found useful. But there were also many entries about how my aunt should manage stress.

A page from my great-grandmother’s book.

A page from my great-grandmother’s book.

On one page, it read “Stress accumulates—stores year after year. Then the body breaks down. So unable to cope.” Wow.

“Regular exercise siphons off stress. Stress destroys the walls of the arteries—clogs them with more stress. 2/3 of Dr.’s visits are due to stress. Certain levels of stress create illness” and “Worry is an old man with bended head carrying a load of feathers which he thinks are lead.”

On and on I read her advice until I discovered that she had written over 9 pages about stress. She wrote about her need to slow down and to be still.

In one entry: “We’re a very noisy generation. Radios, TV’s always on. Could we stand silence? We need rest or we’ll break.”

The depth of my grandmother’s words continued to surprise me. She wrote about people who had shaped her childhood, Scriptures that she clung to through hardships, and quotes that revealed her grit and character.

Another page from my great-grandmother’s book.

Another page from my great-grandmother’s book.

But I marveled over the fact that my great-grandmother was born in 1913, a much simpler era in my thinking, but she seemed to know and write a lot about stress. I thought stress was a modern issue and that my generation was the most addled with it.  

Looking at that book, I had to wonder if all the hype surrounding stress being the illness of today’s Internet age was true. Her mention of technology filling the silence and causing stress intrigued me, as that same claim is often made in today’s world about our smart phones.

Maybe people have always been stressed.      

Once back home, I typed the words “stress in the 21st century” into Google and more than 56 million articles came up, the first few confirming what had shaped my beliefs - that stress was exclusively a 21st century epidemic. Articles that had circulated were titled: “Workplace Stress: The Health Epidemic of the 21st Century”, “Stress is the Disorder of the 21st Century” and “21st Century Kids are Stressed and Depressed.”

So I know where my beliefs about stress were coming from. But now I was more skeptical. I decided to examine more closely my relatives and the generations they lived in, specifically my grandmother and my aunt, to ask: what are the facts about how stressed our generation is in comparison to others? If my grandmother wrote so much about it, is my generation right in believing that we are the most stressed?  

 * * *

Born in 1913, my great-grandmother lived in the aftermath of World War I and during World War II and the Civil Rights Movement. In 1933, when she was 20 years old, the Great Depression left the economy at an all-time low.  

My great-grandmother when she was younger.

My great-grandmother when she was younger.

The Great Depression brought about an increase in unemployment, increased workloads, wage reduction, and job cuts, which were linked to an increase in stress displaying itself through mood disorders, anxiety, depression, and suicide.

The fact that we have more choices and freedoms may make us more stressed, but surely my great-grandmother’s generation experienced this in the opposite way: that it was stressful to constantly come up against social norms and restrictions because they had less freedom.

This time period was hard on my great-grandmother. My Aunt told me that she was an exceptional woman ahead of her time, but there were significant challenges. Her son: my great Uncle Davey, contracted polio in the 1950’s and nothing stressed her more than this. He walked (with braces) because of her and struggled physically and financially his whole life.

Most of what my great-grandmother wrote about stress was in relation to her concerns over how stress would lead to high blood pressure, a doctor’s visit, or a shortened life if it was not handled properly.

While my stress comes from an increase in pressure over academics, careers, and managing technology, my great-grandmother’s stress came from concerns over health and economic epidemics that involved the world at large, as well as her and her family’s well-being. It also came from the effects of a disease without a cure, that left her son crippled. It was not until 1953 that Dr. Jonas Salk announced his vaccine for polio.

In a study called “Stress and Generations” by the American Psychological Association, the most cited source of stress for my great-grandmother’s generation, those born before 1945 in the “Matures” generation, was health problems. Today, this cause for stress has mostly disappeared because of the rise of the pharmaceutical industry and cures for health issues have diminished the presence of medical unknowns. It is interesting that my great-grandmother was in her 20’s at the time when the word “stress” was coined by a Hungarian scientist, Hans Selye. This might indicate that even for her generation, stress was a growing concern.

Selye became a much sought after speaker on stress and health in many countries due to his research in this time period.  According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, “Historians have often perpetuated the conviction that Selye’s article constituted a turning point in the history of stress and have occasionally acclaimed Selye as the creator, or father, of stress.”

Around the same time, in the 1940’s, pharmaceutical manufacturing took on its modern, industrialized form. Could it be that we have always been stressed, but the coinage of the term “stress” and the rise of pharmaceuticals to treat stress have shifted how we think of stress?

Now, Americans were talking about stress. It was part of the vocabulary. And they no longer had to accept stress as something to be kept quiet.

 * * *

My Aunt was born in 1968. I asked her in light of my research and after reading my great-grandmother’s book whether she thought I was more stressed than she was.

My Aunt and I over fall break.

My Aunt and I over fall break.

Her response surprised me: “You’re much more stressed than I and my generation. We weren’t pushed as hard as the millennial gen.”

My mother, born in 1972, responded with similar sentiment. She said I am more stressed about school, while she was more stressed about family tensions and her husband being away in the Navy when she was age 20.

My mom was about age 20 when she married my dad in 1991.

My mom was about age 20 when she married my dad in 1991.

The Generation X my Aunt and mother is from cited their biggest stressors to be money, work, and housing costs, according to the American Psychological Association. The World Wars were over, more vaccines had come out, and social freedoms were increasing for them.

I guess there is some truth to the belief that my generation is more stressed.  

* * *

Today, research reveals what our society believes: we are stressed. We talk about it. We tweet about it. We Instagram it. We read books on it.

In 2011, a survey indicated that 44 percent of Americans reported that their stress had increased over the past 5 years. The American Psychological Association, reported that concerns over money, work, economy, and housing costs were the most cited sources of stress.

Perhaps my great-grandmother’s generation was stressed, but studies show that chronic stress: the type of stress that interferes with the ability to function normally over an extended period, is becoming a crisis in today’s generation.

The biggest change in generations seems to be the role that technology has played.

An infographic on the statistics between stress, technology, and generations.

An infographic on the statistics between stress, technology, and generations.

Technology affects our mental health. According to Goal Cast, an online community for entrepreneurs: technology makes us rush, throws off our circadian rhythm, distracts us, and is addictive. The radios and TV’s filled the silence in the 1900’s, but the smartphones and constantly-updating technology fills our mental space in a different way.  

Another factor is our lack of face-to-face connection. Americans hardly know their neighbors anymore and talking on the landline each day is simply not done anymore. This lack of community adds to the type of stress my generation experiences. When technology takes the place of the human connection we all crave, it is easy for distance and loneliness to become a legitimate stressor.

I think my great-grandmother would have something to say about our social media accounts and iPhones. She would advise us to limit our exposure, I am sure of it.  

While my generation is trying to manage the demands of an online presence and constant availability through smartphones and Wi-Fi, previous generations were struggling to find cures and access to doctors for major health concerns. There was considerably less advancement in areas that we now take for granted.

And yet some things have remained the same. After all, economic concerns persist as a leading cause for stress, as they did then. Student loans burden my generation like the Great Depression’s stock market crashes burdened my great-grandmother’s generation.  

* * *

I think back to my great-grandmother’s book. In another entry, she wrote “Stress” at the top of the page and beneath it, “We all respond differently to different things. One person will hardly notice something. Another person’s response will send the blood pressure up.”

Another page from my great-grandmother’s book.

Another page from my great-grandmother’s book.

Though the type of stressors have changed between the generations of my great-grandmother and I, the human spirit has not. We all have limits.  Generations have learned to cope with stress in different ways. 

The good thing about talking more about stress is that we now have a whole new host of ways to deal with it. There didn’t used to be outlets to relieve stress such as there are today. Pastimes like exercise, watching Netflix, playing sports, wellness, meditation, yoga, listening to music, and joining clubs have counteracted the stress. Stress management is a term we know well.

For me, my great-grandmother’s wise words are now a helpful remedy. They still have tremendous truth to them. The human spirit does not change: we still need solid ground beneath our feet.

Although stress seems to have differed among my family’s different generations, the need for stress management of some sort is always needed, and I would argue that it is on the rise in my generation.  

My great-grandmother as I remember her.

My great-grandmother as I remember her.

If I were to write a book for my grandchildren, my remedies for stress would be similar to my grandmother’s, despite a slightly different view in light of technology.  As she encouraged my Aunt to be still and get away from the noise of the world found among the TV’s and radios always on, I would write about the need to maintain face-to-face connections and relationships, the need to turn off the phone at some point each week, and how we must find our identity in the deeper things of life that do not come from technology, an online presence or the likes we get on our social media. It would include the same sentiments: that you need to unplug, stand strong in who you are, do what you love, and keep life balanced with work and play.  

I am a millennial. I am proud to be the great-granddaughter of my beloved great-grandmother, a woman who has left a legacy with her writing and her life in the early 1900’s.

I am a millennial. I am proud to be the great-granddaughter of my beloved great-grandmother, a woman who has left a legacy with her writing and her life in the early 1900’s.

Quiet The Responsible Voices In Your Head!

A Personal Exploration On The Conflict Of The Inner Voices Inside Our Head.

Written by Emily Shumaker

It always told me to do more than everybody else, to push harder in case I failed, and to never allow for mistakes. When I thought of something fun and spontaneous, it told me to sit down and do my homework. When I was tired, it told me to keep working because I didn’t deserve a break yet. When I wanted to take a risk, it presented me with all of the “what-if’s,” and I changed my mind. The “it” I’m talking about here is this responsible voice in my head telling me how to behave. I guess I’ve always felt the expectations of those around me and internalized them for myself. We all have this voice. Some err more on the side of caution; some are bold and brash. Some aren’t very loud, while others are very loud.

At some point, we learn whether or not to listen it. I always have, as a borderline obsessive student and employee. I’ve always played it safe. But lately, I’ve wondered whether it’s the right thing for me after all. Now that I’m in college, I’m presented with opportunities to question this automatic impulse I’ve held so long. I meet many people who seem perfectly content doing what they wish without feeling commanded to be responsible all the time. I always hear other students talk about how they spent a weekend binge-watching all of their favorite Netflix shows. “I just couldn’t make myself do homework,” they say. How in the world did they let themselves do that, I’ve wondered. I’ve realized there is something important about being able to do what you want, without overriding that impulse. Lately, I’ve been wanting to get to know that other voice inside me, that inner voice, the one that has spontaneous ideas and likes to take risks, the one that I never listen to.

The Enneagram, a model of the human psyche that has nine basic personality groups, reports that Type Ones on this scale feel a deep moral obligation to their responsibilities and to the people around them. Not surprisingly, I found that I related most with this type. When I heard of this personality profiling early in college, during the same time I was realizing how extreme I often was in my work and school life when compared to the more-relaxed peers around me, it explained so much of why I had trouble listening to my spontaneous voice. Type Ones are extremely fastidious to the plans they make. Other personality types are better at adapting and going along with plans while remaining flexible. Some people really don’t have trouble listening to their spontaneous voice, but I certainly seemed to. According to the Enneagram study on Type Ones, part of my learning process to do better in heeding my spontaneous voice is to practice mindfulness.

I have to remember that the fate of the world does not lay on my shoulders. Since I have realized that not everybody feels the same deep obligation to everything and everyone all the time, it has taken some pressure off. I have even learned that I need to spend more time around other personalities so that I can learn from them and be reminded to relax. Realizing that my struggle in listening to my spontaneous voice is partially due to my personality also helped me realize how I could correct it. It was not a personal problem, it was a way of thinking.

***

The voices inside our head can often be very overpowering to the voices in the life we actually live. They may narrate our every move or construct life into a story that could be written down, like mine does. For me, life was this constant conflict and inner conversation between my responsible voice and this spontaneous voice. Besides being a very principled personality, why else did I struggle with listening to my spontaneous voice?

Sigmund Freud, the neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, has three parts to his personality theory. The Id is the impulsive, instinctual force that operates on the pleasure principle. The Ego is the decision-making part of personality that operates on the reality principle, taking into careful consideration the effects of the decision. The Superego controls the id’s impulses and monitors the ego’s goals for perfection. It consists of two systems: the conscience and the ideal self. Conscience may punish the ego with feelings of guilt and the ideal self shows the person how they ought to be. The interesting thing is that the conscience and ideal self is shaped most by upbringing.

This might explain why the superego often gets the upper hand in my thinking, as my parents were strict and had high standards for behavior. Normally, the ego is weak compared to the id, which means that usually the responsible voice loses to the spontaneous voice. However, the id almost always loses to the ego in my case. I always shut down the id.

At the core, this theory reveals that all humans are controlled by personality and perceptions to some extent. Whether or not the id, ego, or the superego gets the upper-hand and how those parts have been shaped through the course of our lives has a role in determining what inner voice we listen to.

***

In psychological jargon, the voices in our head are called “inner speech.” Simple inner speech is comparable to a little person inside that silently repeats everything you are taking in from what is going on around you in order to process it. It is the mind’s voice that exists only in your mind.  According to Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, inner speech is the internalization of external speech. Even more interesting is that Akash Peshin, a writer for Science ABC, says that not everybody has this ability for active inner speech. In fact, someone’s response when you say there is a little voice inside your head may even be “You need to get that checked out!”  

But the voices I am talking about are different from the inner speech that narrates our lives. I am talking about the voices that stem from the deep parts of personality, the voices that make our decisions and determine how we perceive ourselves and others.

The conflicts that arise between my responsible voice and spontaneous voice is more rooted in my personality, my upbringing, and my id, ego, and superego rather than how I process daily details of life.

***

Not all of us have trouble listening to the spontaneous voice, but I certainly struggle to do so, so I am working to improve my ability to do so. In her article Why You Should Listen To Your Inner Voice, Rachel Williams says that learning to listen to one of your inner voices more is like training a new muscle. She suggests using meditation, exercising, and maintaining a healthy diet to cultivate this skill. Mindfulness, through listening to our body’s cues and knowing what is going on inside of our heads, can help us train ourselves to hear this voice, according to Rachel Williams.

Rochel Spangenthal writes that we can train this inner voice by choosing 5 affirmative statements to repeat each day, changing our electronic passwords to affirmations so we repeat them daily, simply telling the negative voice to ‘shut up’, surrounding ourselves with positive stuff, and treating ourselves in the same way we would want to be treated by others.

I began to write inspiring quotes on notecards and tape them to my mirror. When I am getting ready each morning, these are helpful reminders and a welcome break from the inner dialogue that keeps me so focused on responsibility. Since I have been trying to train this spontaneous voice to be louder, I have let myself listen to it even when it didn’t make sense. I have let myself sleep in on days when I should have gotten up early to do my homework. I have let myself get lost when driving so that I could find my own way around. When I am about to succumb to the voice of reason over everything else, I force myself to stop, take deep breaths, and think about everything rationally. Putting things into perspective and taking a “3000 foot view” when I am caught up in the moment really helps me. This mindset of training my spontaneous voice like a muscle is beginning to change my way of thinking altogether. I notice myself being less principled and less “black and white”. I am even seeing an artistic side of myself emerge when I let myself think in this way.

Having an older brother always helped, I think. He is someone who does not have trouble feeling tied down to some responsible voice. He always told me to “loosen up” and have some fun in life. My older sister always convinced me I could have fun and sometimes gave me outright orders to stop being so rigid when it came to schoolwork and responsibilities.

I never saw any other option when I was growing up.

Through travel, studies of psychology, and life experience, I have learned why I should be spontaneous.

***

Now, I’m slowly learning to let go of my need to please and embracing my inner voice more often. As a junior in college, I find myself lost behind the wheel frequently, not only because I have very little sense of direction (because that is true), but also because the luxury of getting lost is actually rather freeing? I want to find my own way around, not listen to the GPS all the time. I spend far too much time whipping up recipes in my little apartment, only to find that they aren’t tasty at all. But I’m okay with it, because I learn from it and try out ingredients that I find interesting. I am telling the little voice to “shut up” so I can live life without rigid boundaries. Slowly but surely, these small changes are helping to train me to be less self-critical and embrace my inner desires more. I hope that eventually, this will help me out in bigger ways, by getting me to speak the truth when I hear the lies, affirming my own decisions, and helping me to choose adventures rather than what is safe and stable, with the knowledge that the world will still go round without me.


I See The People of D.C.

By Emily Shumaker

D.C. is more than just a turbulent wave of politics and anger. There are people there, too!

Last weekend, I ventured up to DC and observed the ebb and flow of the crowds and activity on the streets. I found Cafe du Parc, a coffee shop recommended by my Aunt that was nestled inside the famous Willard Hotel. My Aunt is a bit of a history buff and made sure to point out that every President since Fillmore had stayed in that hotel. I sat with my notebook, pen, and latte at a table in full view of Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House and the Capitol were only a few blocks away. I enjoyed the spread that I found: it was a nice combination of experiencing the historic vibe of the capital of the country, as well as getting a taste of the normal city life.

I sat and wrote at Cafe du Parc.

I sat and wrote at Cafe du Parc.

Men in their suits and women in their fitted dresses dashed past me, all giving off a vibe of importance and formality. The men had suave hairstyles and the women wore chic coats, setting the standard of fashion in D.C.. Falling somewhere in between a hipster and a perfect business casual culture, there is a certain air amongst the people in D.C. that makes them different from the people in New York, London, Los Angeles, or any other place in the world. It is serious, formal, driven, and smart. D.C. is a bunch of people who are very competent and well put-together. Made up of both seasoned professionals and young interns, its working world is dynamic and adds much to the culture. People in D.C. dress smartly, because that is exactly what you do when you live in D.C.

Inside the Willard Hotel.

Inside the Willard Hotel.

The city comes with its own set of requirements of living and the people oblige willingly, from what I can tell. Upon entering the job, you feel included in this elite crowd. Is it the fancy business casual, the bond that comes from shared love for history, or sharing the home of the country’s capital? The unique culture makes sense: as the backdrop for their walk to grab lunch or meet a colleague is iconic features such as the National Mall and the World War II Memorial. They may not even jump anymore when they hear the president’s motorcade suddenly come up a nearby street.

When I see the people of D.C., I imagine their lives. I imagine that they must be working on big projects and proposals in their office by day, only stopping to refill their coffee cups or to grab a soup and sandwich from the nearest Pret A Manger. Then, they must always be toasting to some success story with the finest wine and champagne. I imagine that they attend book-signings and galas on the regular. At the end of each day, they must return to their classy apartment or take the metro back to their homes to unwind and rest.

I hope to join them one day. Each time I visit, I take note of the culture, what makes it, and I stay busy imagining the lives of all the strangers I pass as I walk. Even though we are strangers, I feel a connection to them.

Everybody in this city is trying to fit into the role of being a true D.C.-ite. Though hardly anybody speaks, the people are bound by the same mission and appreciation for the place they are in.

D.C.’s very unique culture is made distinct by the people, the history, the clothing, and the energy that comes from the government being central to everything that goes on.

Even though you probably only pass strangers while you are in D.C., the people are highly aware of what it takes to be like a true ‘D.C.-ite” and are trying to be like each other. Humans naturally work towards fitting in. We all subconsciously obey social standards and cues and begin to assimilate to the people around us.

D.C. is this place where lots of people have assimilated to the culture that seemed predestined for them. Cities all develop their own culture.

But I wondered, did the people in D.C. come to this city with their jet-set pace and professional clothing, or did D.C. make them like that? And if so, who were all of these people before they came to D.C.?

* * *

D.C.: Protests. Significant Supreme Court hearings. Crime. Terrible traffic. Tourism. Secret Service. Media. Events. Politics at its worst. All of the reportage on the capital of our country is hashed out at such a warp speed rate that anyone looking in from the outside must think that D.C. is quite a lousy place to be. I used to be one of these people. With recent allegations made about the Supreme Court nominee, the protests, and the strong feelings most people express towards our President, it seemed normal to think that D.C. must be as chaotic as the talk that surrounded it. It tends to get most of the air time on the news and in the papers, so it feels like I’ve been there more than I have. I grew up in Kentucky. Until my family moved to Virginia, I had only visited D.C. on rare occasions to tour the Capitol, visit my Aunt, attend a book-signing of my photojournalist friend, and shop at the Tyson Center. Most recently, I drove there by myself over a holiday from university to explore it for myself.

The Willard Hotel.

The Willard Hotel.

As I sat in Cafe Du Parc, a man wearing one of those crisp, black aprons moved around me and switched out the place mats on each and every table. He wiped them off and stacked them high. He moved swiftly and made conversation with one of the doormen. There were men and women in fancy black attire busily shuffling large luggage carts with brass poles and sleek black platforms across the lobby for their guests. They look as stereotypical for D.C. as my barista did, with their nice hair and crisp black aprons, but this is what they do for some sort of living. On the streets, I watched as couples, families with backpacks and strollers in tow, all moved. They walked past. They were all headed somewhere. Perhaps some were locals and others were tourists, but the ebb and flow of the crowds never really die in D.C.. There are the locals, the ones who tire easily of all the attention paid to the place they call home. Sure, they talk politics all the time, but even they need a break once in a while. They see what is being said on the news and then look out the window of their balcony in their townhouse, with coffee mug in hand, and they see and feel normalcy. This has become their routine and their home. I am sure they must wish the news would stop saying otherwise. In local, trustworthy places like Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream and the Old Ebbitt Grill are those who have laid roots in this magnificent city: the business owners, who know the ebb and flow of D.C. better than anybody. They have embraced and found a spot in the chaos that is broadcasted all over the news. The people around me-the ones milling past who seem to have clear directions about where they are going- look fancy because they don stylish clothing and put on airs, but they too have actual lives. They shop at SafeWay and Whole Foods and spend their Saturdays visiting the museums. These history buffs love that there are streets with names like “Constitution” or “Independence”. They are businessmen and women who climbed the ladder of success starting with the days they were an intern. There is something just so D.C. about these people. And I wonder how they got that way.

The street-view of D.C.

The street-view of D.C.

According to a New York Times article. “It is well-known that clothing affects how other people perceive us as well as how we think about ourselves.” People living in D.C. reflect this extremely well. They look nice in their suits and ties. Is it because the city changed them and subtly requires that they do this? According to a study published in the Independent, only 1 in 10 people in the professional world wear a suit to work anymore. Though the rest of the world has departed from wearing suits and ties, the general dress in D.C. is just that: business casual, suits and ties. This commitment to nice clothing plays a role in setting them apart from other places of living.  D.C. has got a sense of history and pride that keeps it a lot more formal than other places.

Clothing makes a statement and living in a city changes you. The way we dress affects the way we think about ourselves and the place we live affects the way we behave. The people who come to D.C. do this.

* * *

Mixed in with these important, albeit stereotypical, D.C. business men and women were also tourists, families, local employees, taxi drivers, and other various visitors to the country’s capital. The Willard Hotel, where I sat, seemed to the be the perfect venue for such a crowd. It reflected the people who occupied it: grand and wealthy, yet normal and rhythmic. I could sense that living in privilege had become normal and comfortable to the people who often frequent D.C. The dad with an informational brochure in hand leads his family from one monument to another and carefully across Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenue, making sure the importance of such names and monuments is not lost on them. He took his family to this important part of the country so that he might bestow the knowledge of the forefathers on them. I walked behind one of the National Museums and saw a single security guard standing in the corner. As I walked down the street, I saw a family around the corner just tucked away against a building, trying to step out of the flow of pedestrians so they might gather themselves and determine which direction they should take. They pass around a bag of pretzels and shift their bags and backpacks. There is the unavoidable swarm of excited middle schoolers who have anticipated the annual field trip to D.C. so they can chatter casually in front of the White House with all of their friends and sport the bright, same-colored t-shirt that the rest of their group wears. I assume there is a big Greyhound bus somewhere in the city, waiting to take them home at the end of their field trip. They are busy making memories with their friends while their mother back home frets over them being away from home. And then there is the intern, seeking to get an entry-level job through networking so that he or she might climb the ladder of success. They are the ones eating sushi and grabbing the metro in some dapper suit.

It might surprise the people who have found a place in D.C. that I aspire to be like them and that I search to find the answers for what intrigues me about them. Perhaps it is because I grew up in a different part of the country that I have a fascination with them. Nevertheless, I want to join them. I have a story about growing up, chasing my dream, and traveling the world that I think will resonate with them. And prior to joining the culture, I’ll gladly lay down some cash to match them in dress and attire.

So, yes, the picture of D.C. that I gather from the news headlines may be true: there are court hearings and protests and it is the backdrop to a lot of important decisions. But D.C. is also this aspirational place where people live out their dreams and lead normal lives. It is where professionals who match one another in dream and motivation all live and work together with mutual appreciation for the culture that they are surrounded with.

After a conversation with a man who noticed my Oxford sweatshirt on the metro, I began to think that this was a place I could join one day. Maybe I could get my own business casual and start to keep pace with them. This visit made me look forward to the time that I will graduate from college. I have a feeling that everybody there started like me: wearing a sweatshirt before they moved there and then began to change their dress to better reflect the atmosphere after living there. I feel like I have something in common with the people of D.C.. Nobody was born wearing business casual. It’s the story and the vision we all share.

The hum of the metro occupied my thoughts as I took it back to my Aunt’s house.

My Aunt and I seeing some of the tourist sights - just for fun!

My Aunt and I seeing some of the tourist sights - just for fun!

The link to our podcast, in which I discuss my trip to D.C. : https://soundcloud.com/user-605085192/place-based-story-edited-podcast




So You Want To Be a Journalist?

By: Hannah P. Galeone

If you had told me that I was going to major in English and pursue journalism as a career, I would have laughed at you. Yet here I sit, in my seventh semester of college, trying to power through my Bachelor’s in English and Literary Studies. The first time I saw an article I’d written displayed proudly across the front page of the student newspaper, the Blue and Gray Press, I felt a pride in myself that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Seeing the copies of newsprint stacked in academic buildings made me smile. I am a writer, I realized. After years of feeling lost I finally had a place, a meaning, and a goal. 

But just as soon as I’d found my purpose, just when I thought I had it all figured out, all of a sudden, everyone had an opinion about what I wanted to do with my life. “Are you crazy?” “Don’t do it.” “[Journalism] is a really hard career path, you should look into backup plans.” These are a sample of the reactions I’ve gotten when I’ve told people I want to be a journalist. What is worse, is that some of the people discouraging me from pursuing journalism are journalists themselves. My parents are supportive of me and my desires and sure, they see that I can be lazy at times, but at the end of the day they want me to be happy. “That’s so rude of them, why would they say that to a young person trying to figure their life out,” my mom said after one of these conversations.

I’m a generally stubborn person, and having other people tell me what to do is high on my list of pet peeves. But as I continued to get less than satisfactory feedback on my choice of career, I started to wonder if maybe I was the problem. This all made me think about how to take advice well. While I want to be receptive to what other people say, I also want to know when to stand my own ground. I decided to look into what it means to be a good advice-taker

Advice Givers

First, I looked into what drives people to give unsolicited advice, which is defined as “feedback that is unwanted or unrequested by the receiver.” I wanted to know more. According to Leon F. Seltzer Ph. D, author of the psychology blog, Evolution of the Self, often the advice people give says more about them than the receiver. 

“Th[e] strong impulse to giv[ing] unsought advice is behavior [that] hints at a person whose ego demands perpetual reassurance,” he writes. According to Seltzer, these chronic advice givers need to be consistently reminded of their elevated intellectual “rank” or “level” compared to that of the advice taker. The people who give advice in this manner desire to be in constant competition with those around them, creating an environment in which they can give unwarranted advice. 

It was nice to know that the people discouraging me from pursuing my passions weren’t doing so because they thought I wasn’t capable. But it was frustrating that they were doing it because they wanted to be morally superior.

Although some people were sharing advice out of their self-motivated minds, I also know that some advice sharers truly care. This type of advice giver recognizes that they are doing so for the other person’s benefit and not their own. According to an article from The Muse by Sarah Kauss, “providing truly useful advice starts by coming from a selfless place.” A strong advice giver will also be able to realize when their advisee doesn’t want assistance. Kauss says that being brief when giving advice is detrimental, because the person will reach out for more if it’s wanted. 

It’s All About Balance 

While people have various approaches to giving advice, there are also different ways we learn to accept it. According to their article, “The Art of Giving and Taking Advice,” David A. Garvin and Joshua D. Margolis say that advice takers must deal with hurdles in their path of advice acceptance including “a deeply ingrained tendency to prefer their own opinions, irrespective of their merit, and the fact that careful listening is hard, time-consuming work.” They say giving and taking advice is a “subtle and intricate art” and on both sides requires effort. Givers and takers of advice must have self-awareness, emotional intelligence, restraint, and patience. And it is easy for the advice process to go wrong which can lead to consequences such as frustration, weak solutions, and damaged relationships. Garvin and Margolis also offer their criticism that, because advice skills are supposed to “emerge organically,” the skills are rarely taught formally. I prefer my own opinions over those of others, but that does not mean my opinions are the only ones in existence. 

My challenge is becoming more open to taking advice and I wanted to know how this is achievable. As stated in Garvin and Margolis’s article, “it’s a mistake to think of advice as a one-and-done transaction.” Thinking introspectively about the interactions with people who discouraged me made me re-think the situations. Hearing peoples’ negative reaction to my career choice was automatically hurtful. But it’s possible that I was jumping to conclusions too quickly. Maybe I should have talked with them more to find out what drove them to say what they did. Maybe I was taking what others had said too seriously. It’s possible that in thinking about their own journalism career apprehension, they came off as rude or discouraging to me. 

When I started to understand the psychology behind advice, I actually had even more confidence in myself. I feel better about pursuing journalism because I know know that my concerns are malleable and a good source of self-drive. Now I know that when I encounter someone who gives me bad advice, that there is a way to accept it. Rather than immediately shutting down, I feel comfortable asking someone to explain the motive behind their thoughts. Listening to their opinions can help me see what their fears are and how I can use that in my own life. I have to stop generalizing. 

Acceptance

Advice is a touchy subject and it can create tension between the people who are exchanging it. But advice doesn’t always have to be a conflicting concept; it can be, and is, extremely helpful in a lot of situations. There’s a delicate way to approach giving or taking advice, too. When you give suggestions, you have to think about who you’re talking to and how you’re choosing to bolster your claims. You have to be sensitive. 

Taking advice is also an intricate process. Learning that there are different types of advice givers has shown me that not everyone is bad at it — only some people are. I just have to learn to determine who’s poor at advising. I now know that asking people to elaborate on their advice can be beneficial in certain situations and I plan to get to know more about why people say the things they do. 

Disconnected

Cherishing the Little Things When the Big Picture Doesn't Do It

By: Hannah P. Galeone

As I pulled up the driveway, I was instantly calmed by the familiar comfort of being home. Clean country air and the sound of gravel crunching under my tires flowed through the open windows of my car. But as I continued up the drive, I felt a ping of sadness because no one would be inside waiting for me. My parents were off visiting their respective sets of parents. The house was dark and as I approached the gravel circle near the front door, the grass filled with tiny glittering circles reflecting in my high beams. They’re just the eyes of my cats. I parked my car and got my bags. “Hi baby kitties,” I said in my best baby voice as I walked by the three of them.

I opened the front door and the familiar smell of wood floors and my mom’s recently burned lavender candle filled my nostrils. But it was quiet. Hey, I guess you can finally play music really loud without bothering anyone, I thought out loud. But I felt myself wishing there was someone home to bother. I put my stuff down, which immediately attracted the attention of curious feline noses, and I collapsed on the couch. I wanted to listen to the silence. My dad’s bush hog wasn’t humming off in the distance; my mom’s typing didn’t resonate from downstairs -- it was different. All I could hear was the buzzing refrigerator and the occasional pit-pat-pit-pat of cat paws tapping the floor.

As of late, I have been under a lot of stress from a range of things going on in life. And it wasn’t the “drink some tea and text a friend” kind either, it was the “I really want to talk to my mom” kind. But she wasn’t there. I felt saddened by this, but I was also becoming used to feeling more alone. “Alone” wasn’t quite the right way to describe how I felt but it was close. I guess I was truly starting to feel the distance between me and the people I loved most. And it felt odd. I craved the comfort of home.

But why did I want to be there? What did home really mean to me? I started to think about the sentimentality of a home and why we become attached to them. I was curious about the comfort we feel when we’re at home and if it was tied to physical locations, emotions, or both.  

Home, Comfort, and Connections 

The concept of the home is something that has long been associated with the feeling of comfort. In his article “The Definition of Home,” Verlyn Klinkenborg says that “[a] home is a place so profoundly familiar you don’t even have to notice it.” When this comfortable space is far away from us or we can’t visit as often as desired, we become homesick. 

Homesickness is when a person experiences emotional distress because they are in an unfamiliar environment or separated from supportive friends and family. For me, it was the latter. In her article, “The Science of Homesickness,” Elizabeth Van Brocklin says that the feeling is “mostly loneliness, combined with a sense of feeling out of place and wanting to return to familiar, supportive environments.” That was exactly what I was feeling. The long periods of time that I spend at school make me miss being around my family because with them I always know I have support. 

I pondered my relationship with my own house on Castle Mountain and why it was sentimental to me. The house itself is beautiful -- a clean, open concept take on a traditional farmhouse with an L-shaped porch. The house is white, and the porch is grey. Adirondack chairs are scattered in the grass around the fire pit and the moon was shining down on the picnic table. The furniture, the farm equipment, the house itself, the outbuildings -- everything is less than five years old. When we moved to Virginia in 2011, my mom adopted a newfound love for the concept of purging. She loves a good clutter free environment. Everything had to go. Oh? You really liked that thing? Well, I chucked it. I’d heard that all too many times. We were on the warpath for a fresh start.

But because everything in the home is so new, I have to admit that the house itself means very little to me. I really haven’t spent very long in any one place, to be honest. At almost 23 years old, I have already lived in 4 states and 8 different houses. My parents love a change of scenery and their jobs gave them the ability to move around a decent amount. My lack of attachment to one specific place made me think that was the reason I wasn’t attached to my current home. Maybe I haven’t given it enough time yet. 

But as I delved deeper into my quandary, I thought about the structure of the house itself, the concept of home, and the things within my house. I was connected to the “stuff” but not the thing holding the stuff. According to a study by Kerry Anne McBain (2010), “we find both visual and narrative traces of our existence [in our possessions].” Our possessions “connect us symbolically to others, to a shared past, and a shared future and in some cases differentiate us from others.” They give a stable and familiar feeling when we look at them because of their ability to make us remember. Looking at items that are important to us allow us to recalls moments or times that were important to us. Their association with the feelings of warmth, familiarity, routine, and comfort allow us to feel those things when we look at or touch them.

Little Details

I was tied to the little things around my home --the pictures on the dresser that chronicle the growth of my brother and me, the sleeping cats on the couch and the affectionately named “cat cot,” each have a special story. Even the wooden bowl holding my dad’s truck keys, a crumpled tube of Blistex, and a broken Bluetooth earpiece was special to me. My mom’s tortoiseshell readers and phone charger sat on the marble countertop next to a container of cat treats -- specifically “Temptations.” These little details are why I love home.  

My bedroom is where I’m most comfortable. The room is a small square, with four huge windows, and an off-white rustic chandelier hangs in the center of the ceiling. The first thing you see when you open my door is a copy of Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night that hangs in between the windows. My grandparents gave it to me after I visited the site of the painting’s inspiration. On the opposite wall is a “BMW Parking Only Sign” that my brother gave me. You have to have something a little outlandish, right? My bed is nothing special, but I love it -- comfier than anything and the perfect size.

The adjacent corner is truly where I come to life. My white, wooden desk is pushed into the corner and is piled high with years worth of trinkets, picture frames, papers, diplomas, and figurines. My desk isn’t a chaotic mess, it’s a real mess. But something about all of the tiny and generally trivial things scattered across the desk’s surface felt so… right. The big mason jar on the shelf is from a batch of strawberry moonshine given to me summer 2016. My best friend gave me the silver and gold fox as a token of his appreciation for helping him move. The anecdotes are endless. 

While I would have liked spending the weekend with my family, I realized that my home was actually perfect. Even when I’m there alone with the incessant refrigerator humming and smell of wood floors, there are hints of my family’s presence there too. I found my sense of home in the little things. Even when the house is a lonely space and I myself am feeling isolated, I can still experience a relief from life’s stresses and anxieties when I’m there.

Learning to love my home meant learning why the concept of home is special and why we as humans cherish it. I’m not attached to my house because it’s my home, but because of the associations that I have with the space. It’s where I’m comfortable, supported, and feel the most at ease and the little things are what mean the most to me. 

We'll Always Have a Life in Ol' Virginia

I didn’t think an all-girls boarding school would be right for me. But it turned out to be just the perfect place.

By: Hannah P. Galeone

“Nan, what do you think of this school?” my mom asked me as she passed a glossy brochure across the bed. We were moving to Virginia from New Jersey and I was looking at high schools where I would start as a sophomore. She had known about the school since she was young but revisited it when we chose Virginia as our next state. 

“It’s an all-girls boarding school, Mom, absolutely not. I want to have a boyfriend during high school,” I said. I was so opposed to the idea that I didn’t even think I needed to look at the pictures. 

“Just take a look. It’s a really beautiful school and they have an equestrian program -- you might be able to ride there if you go.”

With reluctance I took the dark green pamphlet, scanning over photos of girls in khakis and pastel-colored Polo shirts, aerial shots of rolling hills, brick buildings, and the biggest barn I’d ever seen. 

Looking at the photos of girls on horseback riding through green fields sparked something in me that made me rethink shutting the idea down as quickly as I had. I could have horses in my life, but no boys. That was an idea I could work with -- surprisingly. 

About eight months later, I was on that campus from the glossy brochure. I still remember that day in 2011 when my parents dropped me off. I stood on the stoop of the side door to Court House, the first dormitory I ever lived in, with tears welling in my eyes as I hugged my mom. I was nervous. I was surrounded by girls who all dressed the same, had known each other for years, and I would literally be living at school. What in the world had I gotten myself into? 

What I didn’t know, was how much I was going to grow to love living on a campus amongst friends who would turn into my family. Transitioning from the regular high school experience to the boarding school life was filled with emotional highs and lows, but it was so worth it. 

As I sit here, almost seven years later, I can truthfully say that attending boarding school was one of the best decisions I have ever made. The friends that I have from high school are going to be my bridesmaids, my teachers have become my friends, and the lessons I learned there shaped me for the better. 

But at the same time, people always act surprised when I say I went to boarding school. “Oh my gosh, what did you do?” “Did your parents send you there?” “You wanted to go to that place?” I’d heard it all. It’s difficult for people to understand that there is a certain type of person who chooses to go to boarding school. 

This is a story about why I loved boarding school so much and how it helped to shape me as a person. 

Transitions

I began my boarding student experience as a kind of defiant teen who wasn’t fond of being told what to do or how to do it. The first few weeks, or months, -- it’s hard to gauge -- I spent feeling out of place. I felt strange in my new khakis and array of solid-color collared shirts. I missed my parents. I wanted my old life back, or so I thought.

Later that year, I joined the riding team which helped me feel like I had a purpose for being there. I started to figure out where I belonged on campus. I started to garner campus leadership positions, took part in more activities with my new friends, had favorite spots on campus. 

My friends and I started The Jam Sessions during my junior year. We took over an unused study room in Schoolhouse, our main academic building, and filled it with instruments. We spent hours in that Christmas light covered cube forming our girl band, the Moderately Alright.  

By senior year I held two leadership positions, was playing soccer -- badly -- but still playing, and had an amazing group of friends who I still love dearly. I knew the campus inside and out from being an admissions campus guide for two years and had created an incredible bond with my teachers, my housemothers, and many other people who worked there. The school had actually turned into my second home.

Our tired, giggle-filled nights were spent on sleeping porches. Underclassmen didn’t have their beds in their rooms. These long, bunk filled spaces were the most bizarre configurations I’d ever seen, but they were fascinating. The porches didn’t have climate control and taught us the value of a good down blanket. 

We did community service, we helped out around campus, and we were taught to be appreciative. Several of the weekends we spent on campus were dedicated to making sure that it was kept beautiful. We helped the groundskeepers with gardening and prepared meals for the whole school in the Brick House kitchen. Groups of us would go to the barn and help clean the aisles or organize materials. We were taught to be grateful for those who worked around us by experiencing time in their shoes. 

We got grounded. We had mandatory study hall when we fell behind in our school work. Leaving campus on the weekends required the pre-arranged permission of the dean of student life. And don’t forget to flip your card up when you leave the dorm; you could get grounded if you’re off campus with your card down, she’d say to us as we left her office. As an underclassman I had a bedtime of 10:30 p.m on weeknights, and a dorm prefect would make sure we were all in bed. Cell phones were not allowed on the sleeping porches. Weekday breakfast sign-in, which was required for everyone except seniors, was from 7:00 to 8:00 and then the day began. Structure was important.

I have never been fond of following rules but I’m good at it. My stubbornness manifested itself in testy behavior or internal frustration but I never crossed the line. It took me a while to accept that the rules were there to help me and once I did I started to understand why. By making a lot of our decisions for us, the school was actually liberating us in other ways. I didn’t have to think about what I was going to wear each day, when I was going to have breakfast, or when I was going to study. It was all laid out for me. Our regimented lifestyle allowed us to focus on what was truly important like school, sports, and friendships.  

Our teachers were our allies and they were our support system. I will never forget the night one of our most beloved teachers, Mr. McCarty, came through the door of Dillon Dorm, where I lived my junior and senior year, in the most outrageous dark green snowsuit I had ever seen. Safety protocol had us trapped in the dorm during a snowstorm and we were panicking about an AP Econ exam. We needed to study but couldn’t get to the library. After calling his home on campus, Mr. McCarty came to tutor us during dorm study hall hours. 

Foxcroft School, Middleburg, VA - Molding the tough young woman

Foxcroft was founded with the exact intention that it would not be a finishing school. Instead, it would be a place to enrich and strengthen the whole student, placing focus on tough mentality, integrity, and leadership.

The woman who started the institution was named Charlotte Haxall Noland. As a young girl, she had not enjoyed school and later in life dreamt of creating a place where girls would love to be and hate to leave. In October of 1914, when she was 32, she bought Brick House, which at the time sat on about 23 acres of land. She had 24 girls join her on those few acres, and together they started an institution that would flourish into a place unlike any other. At this point, she came to be known as Miss Charlotte, an icon of strength. 

In her effort to create an environment for independent, well-rounded young women to thrive, she developed a number of rules. Girls might arrive at Foxcroft with servants or handmaidens in tow and shipping trunk after shipping trunk of garments and hats. But Miss Charlotte would send the handmaidens and several trunks of clothing home with the family. 

Miss Charlotte’s girls would be self-sufficient and learn the importance of hard work and humility. Around 1918, Miss Charlotte and Foxcroft developed a relationship with the now-closed Unison-Bloomfield School in Middleburg, VA. Miss Charlotte provided its students with emotional and academic support. Together, the Unison-Bloomfield and Foxcroft students learned skills like carpentry, sewing, cooking and other necessities of home economics. 

One of Foxcroft’s most defining features of the on-campus lifestyle are the sleeping porches. Miss Charlotte felt that if her girls slept amongst the elements, they would gain a newfound toughness. So she put their beds on porches. Girls would sometimes wake up with snow on their blankets, in extreme humidity, or with bugs in their hair. Canvas curtains were the only thing separating them from the outside air.

Since that day in 1914, Foxcroft’s campus has grown to 500 acres and is home to around 160 students annually. The school still bases its curriculum around the on-campus lifestyle and the boarding aspect of Foxcroft continues to set it apart from any other place. The sleeping porches are still in use and have been adapted in the school’s newest dormitory, Stuart Hall. 

 

History of Boarding Schools

Boarding schools and their values are based on institutions that began in the United Kingdom. Boarding establishments across the country have looked to the original British schools for influence and inspiration. 

One of the oldest boarding schools in Britain is the King’s School in Canterbury, England. The King’s School was founded in 597 and for a while after its founding, was a heavily religious institution. King’s School students were taught by clergy and attended many chapel services each day. Students boarded on campus and were expected to dedicate much of their time to the faith. Academics were not a major focus. 

Another British institution that contributed to the development of the boarding school is Eton College in Eton, Berkshire. The school is near Windsor. Eton College was founded in 1440 by King Henry the VI. The mission of this school was to provide education, free of cost, to approximately 70 underprivileged boys. 

The oldest records of Eton College’s school life date back to the 16th Century and chronicle the “regimented and Spartan” lifestyle of the students. Students woke up early in the morning and were taught to perform chants while they dressed for the day. Their classes began at 6 a.m and were all taught in Latin. 

As Eton’s student body grew, the school began to accept students who did not live on the campus. This increase in student population required more formal arrangements and in 1722, one of the first “Dame’s Houses” was built. By 1766, Eton had thirteen houses and they were run by both masters and dames. 

Reputations

For years, boarding schools have been labeled by their critics as “classist places” that teach snobbery and elitist ideals. Historically, these institutions were created to provide a regimented, college preparatory environment that would keep students isolated from the society around them. These schools aimed to educate the elite, stress the importance of religion, and keep the students under strict rules.

By the 1850s, there were over six-thousand academies and boarding schools in America. But none of these academies were for women. All-girls schools took a while to develop, mirroring the role of women in society. These schools were referred to as “seminaries” and were the first places to give women higher education. 

These seminaries were very different from the boarding schools that boys attended as they stressed the “finishing” style curriculum and students were taught home skills. The all-girls institution was developed in America and did not reflect the ideals from original British boarding schools. Shortly after the Civil War, feminism was on the rise and the all-girls boarding school began providing women with college preparatory education. All-female establishments were starting to match-up with those that were all-male.

These typicalities of boarding school appear in popular movies. For example, Dead Poets Society portrays Welton Academy, a conservative all-male prep school in Vermont. The film highlights the school’s very strict rules for the students, including curfew and bedtimes, silent proctored study hall, and visitor restrictions. During the film, characters are even “paddled” by teachers as a form of punishment. The main character’s parents are also extremely strict and conservative. 

The Mona Lisa Smile, although not about a secondary school, chronicles the life of female students at Wellesley College in the 1950s. In this film, the conservative aspects of the private, liberal-arts college are highlighted. The girls attend etiquette and dining classes, are discouraged from embracing their sexuality, and have rules like lights out and study hall.

In both of these films, two unconventional teachers try to break out of the restraints of a regimented curriculum. We see these characters experiment with non-traditional, more liberal teaching methods. But their efforts are quashed when the stuffy administration forces them to comply.  

My boarding experience reflects very few of these criticisms and stereotypes. Yes, I did live on a campus with curfews, lots of rules, and fairly strict surveillance, but they were used in the right way. I never felt threatened by my teachers or thought that the way we were asked to live was unfair. We were encouraged to express ourselves and be open-minded individuals, not a subservient to the institute.        

Closure

There is something very special about the environment that Foxcroft allowed me and my friends to live in. All the time people say to me, “Wow, you actually enjoyed high school? I definitely can’t relate.” One of the biggest reasons I feel so connected to my high school is due to the level of comfort I felt when I lived there. Schoolhouse doubled as a space to relax on the weekends. On Saturdays, we would plod across the brick paths to breakfast wearing our Foxcroft sweatshirts and sweatpants, affectionately nicknamed “the jumpsuit.” We were encouraged to make the school both our place of learning and our home.

I think the effectiveness of single-sex education is important to take note of as well. My original aversion to going to an all-girls school seems foolish in hindsight because the single-sex factor is what helped us flourish. We didn’t feel like we had to wear makeup or dress a certain way to impress the boys at school -- because there weren’t any. We didn’t have boy fueled drama or the stress of being under male-scrutiny on a daily basis. It was relaxing.

The day I graduated was liberating, to say the least. After three years as a boarder, I was very ready to have freedom and start a new part of my life. But that night when I got home and curled up in bed, I couldn’t do anything but cry. I felt like I had just gone through a breakup and the sadness hit me in a delayed wave of emotion. Foxcroft was my second home and I wouldn’t be going back after the summer. But the sadness was temporary. And now I can look back at my experience at boarding school and find a way to cherish every second, good or bad, that I had there.   

Going to Foxcroft also made my transition to college painless and even gave me a leg up in the independent world of higher education. My parents and I exchanged warm hugs on move-in day while other kids cried watching their parents walk away. The amount of people I taught to do laundry during my freshman year at college is too embarrassing to say. 


The Science of Heartbreak and Social Rejection

Whether it’s your first love or your thirty first love, one thing is certain, and it’s the overwhelming feeling of pain you experience when it’s broken off. Believe me, I’ve had my fair share. The relationship didn’t last long, about a month or so of building and growing. And then the plateau hit, and the relationship became stagnant,stale in a way that I didn’t want to accept. The attraction was lost, and the little “sparks” that people seem to think are there when a person really likes another, fizzled out. There was a loss of connection, like we couldn’t talk anymore, weren’t being true to ourselves. I felt like I was pushing, trying to stay in a relationship that wasn’t really a relationship anymore. We broke up. It was...a good breakup all things considered. But the feeling of being stabbed in the heart multiple times was tangible, and the pain seemed to even extend to my hands, to the point where my hands ached if I tried to move them. I had expectations, none of which were truly met, though I kept trying. I wanted the relationship to work so badly that I just convinced myself it was ok. But I’d gone down this road before, with expectations and hopes of a good long term relationship, when truthfully it only ever ended with us going our separate ways. I wanted to scream at the universe, stick up my middle finger at how unfair everything was, still is. The loss of contact made me do crazy things, like avoid certain places where we used to hang out even though it was the memories that stung the most. We explored downtown Fredericksburg like most couples. But there were certain places, the coffee shop on the corner, the antique mall that always had new antiquities, I avoided for quite some time. It made me consume copious amounts of  Herrs original flavor potato chips, not ice cream, but chips. And I definitely cried, a lot. Into pillows, my friends’ shoulders, in public if it was a particularly awful day.

It wasn’t until later when I began to wonder why it seemed like my heart was being pulled through a spaghetti strainer, even though I had always reasoned physical and emotional pain were different. As it turns out, heartbreak is no joke, and when it comes to the emotional and physical pain of it, it turns out that that’s no joke either. I wanted to figure out and understand why there seemed to be a link between emotional and physical pain in the body. I’m a scientific person, and to me, there are biological reasons and processes behind that all too unbearable feeling of “heartbreak”. The first study I came across called “Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion” revealed that indeed, breakups do hurt. In fact, through a social experiment where participants were excluded from a virtual game of catch, in all of the fMRI of the brain, or functional magnetic resonance imaging, the neural pathways in the brain that experience physical pain lit up when the participants felt the emotional pain of being excluded.

Now, that has to say something. According to Dr. C. Nathan DeWall, humans have innate need to be accepted socially. When that acceptance is suddenly ripped away it can cause the brain and the body to undergo copious amounts of stress. So, not only do we feel emotionally exhausted, our bodies are are also physically exhausted. The parts of the brain that light up under this kind of stress are the dACC, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and the AI, or Anterior Insula. The dACC is the biggie though, because it controls the heart rate, blood pressure, impulse control, and most importantly, your emotions. So, while I was busy crying into my friend’s shoulder for an hour, my dACC was pumping signals from my brain through the neural pathways to my body, putting my body through elevated levels of stress, increasing my blood pressure as well as making me want to eat all the food that was around me.

Another study, and this one seems even worse, was conducted by scientists Cross, Berman, Mischel, Smith, and Wager, where 40 participants were placed in socially exclusive situations. The participants were shown pictures of their exes, in which each breakup was regarded as unmutual. This experiment focused less on the activity within the brain, and more on the somatosensory response of the body. According to Medscape, the general principle of somatosensory response “are the electrical signals generated by the nervous system in response to sensory stimuli”. Sensory stimuli in this case can mean visual and noise stimulation, and not just sensory stimulation by touch. The aim of the study was to see if the somatosensory responses within the body also “lit up” when experiencing social rejection. The study concluded that while the dACC and the AI respond automatically to any sort of social rejection or social stress, the somatosensory response only activates under extreme amounts of social stress. So going through a small breakup would only be mildly uncomfortable. But a long term relationship is much, much worse. No wonder my hands hurt so badly, all the electrical signals in my body were going haywire under the emotional and social stress!

An article from the American Psychological Association titled “The Pain of Social Rejection” summarized that the reason emotional and physical pain are so interwoven is because evolution programmed us that way! Dr. DeWall explained, “Instead of creating an entirely new system to respond to socially painful events, evolution simply co-opted the system for physical pain”. Another Article from “Greater Good magazine: Science-Based Insights for a Meaningful Life” highlighted the positive effects that a relationship has on the body and brain. When we are happy and in a committed mutual relationship, the drain releases dopamine, or the happy feel good chemical that in turn, makes us happy. The release of dopamine can be triggered by drugs as well, cocaine, for example. People are addicted to cocaine, just like they are addicted to love. So, when your body is experiencing the pain and absence from a broken off relationship, you’re just like a cocaine addict who has had their drugs ripped away. So woohoo, heartbreak is so bad, it is literally like going through drug withdrawal.

But, not everything is doom and gloom. The old saying “time heals all wounds” isn’t exactly wrong per say. But, it’s not entirely right either when it comes to the process of a broken heart. Criminologist Brian Boutwell of Saint Louis University noted that if people never recovered from social rejection, there wouldn’t be a human race. The parts of the brain that cause us to feel pain are a small fraction of the brain. And though they can impact us greatly, evolution has also given us the ability to adapt. According to the study, the brain is wired to adapt and to move on. Even though our bodies are going through a chronic pain induced state, our brains are already re-wiring themselves to move on and look towards the future. So, while I couldn’t help the stabbing sensation in my chest, at least I understood why it was there, and why it was so potent a feeling. And, in the end, it really lifted me up knowing my brain may have been spazzing out at the time, but within a week or so, maybe more, the old noggin would be back to its normal self.


How big is god's microscope?

Growing up as a Methodist Pastor's daughter, Sarah Gerde elaborates on what life is like under the eye of a parish, as well as what perks and throwbacks come with your dad being the man behind the pulpit. 
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They say a pastor’s daughter will either turn out to be a quirky goody-two shoes or a rebellious punk. Oh the horror! Sarah Gerde doesn’t think she’s either, but she has often felt like she’s living under a microscope.

When she visits her dad’s church, she’s greeted with a flood of old women coming up to her excitedly saying hello. They ask how she’s doing, and want to know about that boy she was talking to last week was. People she barely knows strike up conversation with her left and right.

Being a Pastor’s daughter is both a blessing and a curse. People look up to her and her family, and depending on the college she can receive reduced college tuition at varying Methodist affiliated schools as long as her father is still actively serving as a pastor.  

However for many people raised as the children of pastors, it’s tough being in the spotlight of their parishes. The expectations are often high and can cause many of them to stress, and question their faith. It’s no different for Gerde.

With a thinking expression on her face, she recalled some of the other benefits of being the daughter of a pastor. “My dad was able to get my sister’s computer for college and I think mine at like a discounted rate,” Gerde said. “He would get discounts on stuff. Not to mention I got to go to a lot of weddings with free food.”

But of course, there are also disadvantages to being a pastor’s daughter. Gerde said, “Everyone is always looking at you and watching you. It is hard to have any privacy, and you feel this pressure to be a role model for everyone at the church."

Sarah added, "Also, people have stereotyped me and some people made fun of me for being a pastor’s daughterHaving to endure stereotypes and people constantly judging her was always a challenge that Sarah had to face, however she was lucky that her family was so understanding and let her make her own choices.

While her father, Tim Gerde, was raised Methodist, her mother was brought up in what is known as the United Church of Christ, or UCC for short.

Sarah’s dad began working towards his position in the 1970s. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee with a B.A. degree in psychology he headed off to Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. and received his master’s degree in divinity in the 1980s. He followed that with his doctorate in Ministry in 1996, right before Sarah was born.

Gerde was baptized in the church her parents got married (a United Church of Christ parish), and eventually she and her older sister Elizabeth were raised in Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg, VA. Her parents are still active members there today even though Mr. Gerde is no longer the one giving sermons. He recently retired in 2017, in part due to health issues as well as a desire to move on after 30 years of ministry.

According to an article written by Carole Brousson Anderson many preacher’s kids, also known as PKs, can experience a sense of resentment towards the faith in a religious context where the pastor is seen as a representative of God. “For the PK, who becomes frustrated with his parents, their profession, and his experiences with church, family, and school, this dissatisfaction may be transferred easily from an earthly father to a Heavenly Father. It may be more difficult for the child of a minister to work through resentment towards their father’s profession than for children of other professions,” states Anderson.

Growing up as her father’s daughter Sarah was always proud of what he did. One example she recalled was how, due to the large number of doctors in the Lynchburg parish community, her father led a medical mission trip to Jamaica and Guatemala, helping people get glasses. She was also appreciative of the interfaith work he did with other religious communities, including when he went to Israel and Turkey, interacting with Jewish and Muslim communities.

People often jump to conclusions and think that a Pastor’s daughter is going to be discriminatory against certain social groups. Gerde said, “People would assume that I’m super judgmental and hate gay people. People expect that I know everything about the Bible. I do not. My dad said you don’t need to run around showing scripture, showing your friends love and forgiveness should speak for itself.”

On top of the stereotypes she has had to face growing up, she also had to deal with her fair share of rude middle school boys that would make fun of her. Gerde said, “This guy in middle school made fun of me when he found out I was a pastor’s daughter, I can’t remember exactly what he said because I blocked it out of my head.”

While Sarah’s sister Elizabeth still believes in God she has become more detached from the Methodist church and Christian faith as a whole, Sarah still attends church with her family when she’s home out of respect to her parents.

Unlike some pastors’ kids, Gerde has maintained a strong relationship with her dad throughout  the years, even when that might mean taking a path away from the Methodist faith. For example, Gerde mentioned how she wanted to become a Catholic last year due to the overwhelming experience she had during her visit to the Vatican in July, 2014, saying she was particularly drawn to the beauty of the liturgy. Her father did not mind that Gerde wanted to convert, even though he disagreed with the social teachings of the Catholic Church.

Though she did not end up converting, she still considers herself a Methodist out of support for her father, as she continues the hunt for a faith. While staying open to the idea of remaining in à Christian faith such as the Episcopal Church, Maronite Catholic Church, or à non-denominational church, Gerde is also interested in Eastern religions. Among Buddhism, and Islam, she also expressed how she appreciates Judaism’s lack of stress on the notion of needing to be perfect. While Gerde is keeping her options wide open, her top priority right now is focusing on her GPA and academics, putting her faith on hold.

 

 

Works Cited:

Anderson, C.B. Pastoral Psychology (1998) 46: 393. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023076019527

 

 

 

The Ghosts Walk at Night

Why attracts people to "ghost tours?"

By: Arlene Santiago

http://www.umw.edu/news/2017/10/13/ghostwalk-floats-fredericksburg/

http://www.umw.edu/news/2017/10/13/ghostwalk-floats-fredericksburg/

The first time I’ve ever heard about the University of Mary Washington Ghost Walk was my first semester. It was a couple of weeks until Halloween, and I was interested in what was going on around campus for the holiday. When I was clicking through the university’s calendar of events I saw it mentioned. Halloween events have always had a special place in my heart.

The idea of a Ghost Walk was intriguing. The name itself made it sound quite interesting. A “Ghost Walk?” Was it going to be a walk around Downtown Fredericksburg telling us about the ghosts that have been seen in past years? Or was it going to be a bunch of people dressed as ghosts walking us around places that have been known as being “haunted.” Those answers could only be answered if I went on this walk. But what are the exact reasons people have been drawn to “ghost adventures?” Were they, too, curious about what they consist of? Or is it more of the idea behind wanting to be scared?

 I didn’t get around to it then, but I always intended on hitting it p in the future, which is why this semester when I saw a sheet of paper taped to the door of the Historic Preservation Department with “The 33rd annual Ghostwalk” on it, I perked up. The precious words “email UMWGhostWalk@umw.edu to reserve tickets” caught my eye.

* * *

 The walk began at the James Monroe Museum, behind most of the busiest roads in downtown Fredericksburg. It was dark on the sidewalk. A medium sized, neon green (missing word?) stood up at the sign of the museum with the words, “University Mary Washington Ghost Walk” on it with two small pumpkins under it. Seconds after I bought my ticket, a tall young man in a North Face jacket shouted “6:50 P.M. tour this way,” as he looked to his clipboard. There were many confused faces.

One of the young women working at the cashier table picked up her phone and said, “you mean 8:50?”

“Oh, yes, yes!” he said. A group of people were huddled in the entrance of the Ghost Walk tour waiting for it to start. He began: “My name is Sam Taylor and I’ll be your guide for the night,” he said reading word for word off of his clipboard. “Now take a deep breath, grab your friends, significant others, or anybody and let’s begin this tour!” Giggles filled the exhilarated air as we? headed to the first site. There was nothing but silence in the first five minutes as the tour guide flashed his light towards the uneven sidewalk. “Watch your step here. There is a very big bump.”

Two tour-goers were talking about a pizza place in town when anachronistically, two “ghosts” stopped in front of the tour guide, which forced him to look at what was once a girl’s orphanage to the left of him. The two dark-circled eyed women swayed left and right, telling a story about a headless woman. Her talking distracted the audience enough for them not to notice the blue dressed woman running towards them. Chuckles came from the mouths of the audience as they watched the woman float around them.

“Now, let’s get away from here before she follows us,” Taylor said in a monotone voice. We began following behind him as the “headless woman” followed us a few feet away from the site. The group followed him in another wave of silence for about two minutes. I was curious about what was going to happen next. Downtown looked much darker when walking around in the night. Street lights look dimmer than when driving.

Our next stop was at the old Freelance Star building. The two “ghosts” were dressed to be Lady and Governor. They compared the tour group, and their garb, to what was worn in their time. The Lady Ghost said to the Governor, “look at these women here with pants on. Not like when we were alive.” The two began bickering about how there have been ghosts haunting people within the building since November 1985.The crazy part was, Lady and Governor were not the “ghosts” that were haunting the Freelance Star building. They were more like reporters telling the audience about what hauntings have happened within the building.

At the stop at Betty Washington’s plantation, there was a skit with two girls who were trying to bring back spirits from the past. They wanted the audience to join in. Another stop was at the St. George’s Church, where a “ghost” called the “weeping bride” was reenacted in the graveyard. The last stop was at the Masonic Cemetery, which I must say was the scariest of them all. The three “ghosts” were waiting for our group to show, to explain how their graves were dug up and placed in that cemetery. The three of them began closing in on us saying “how would you like it if your graves were dug up?” The audience backed away and walked straight out of the graveyard, but it didn’t stop there. A loud “AHH” came from the left side of us as one of the “ghosts” popped there head up from the wall.

Overall, I didn’t get it. I wasn’t sure I understood the point of this event. It was a great time to be able to laugh and enjoy the company of others, but it did seem as though a lot of the actors were exhausted by the time I got there. A lot of them forgot their lines, and others seemed to want the night over with. One of the actors on this walk, Gabrielle Walkey said, “On Friday it started at 6 P.M…. and by 10 P.M. on Saturday I had very little energy.” For the most part, there were still some great laughs, but I expected it to be more focused on the History of Fredericksburg rather than the bits that were put on.  

During the walk, I wondered why people come to these types of events…Is it because Halloween was right around the corner and they wanted to get in the Holiday spirit? Is it a tradition that they started within their family? Or is it because they are interested in learning more about the History of certain towns, especially a very Historic town like Fredericksburg, VA.

* * *

 The Ghost Walk Chair, Ilana Bleich, gave me some insight. “I think that what people get most out of Ghost walk is the Halloween spirit. While the tours are educational, I think that people enjoy them for the fun and spooky atmosphere,” she said. I can’t disagree with her thinking. One of the main reasons I have always found any type of Ghost Tour fascinating is the “spooky” feeling. After asking a younger man, Alexander Romero, the same question he said, “I came here out of curiosity. I heard about it from a friend and wanted to see if it was scary at all.”  Throughout the entire walk he didn’t jump at all. He mostly joined along with the acts and tried to make the rest of the group laugh along.

It appears this all has to do with a simple thing called “dark tourism.” Many visitors want to partake in eerie events that can give them the chills. It has become a huge phenomenon where people visit places that have had a “dark” past. This includes places like, Auschwitz, the World Trade Center, abandoned jails, and even battlefields. The reason why people have an interest in these events and places may never really be understood. It is said that it may be because they want to raise awareness, or possibly to make sure things like that never happen again. But then again, visitors may just like to put themselves in a position of slight panic.

The Ghost Walk may have not been as spooky as some would have wanted, but it did not get in the way of the experience many of us will keep with us. We were able to be introduced to historic places within Fredericksburg that we may have not known about, and we were also able to learn about them as well. Whether we choose to go to a Ghost Walk/Tour for the spook factor or just for the history, it is best to always keep an open mind about these events.

The Truth from a Blushing Friend

Overcoming my blushing, one step at a time!

By: Arlene Santiago

“Attention class! Don’t forget you have a presentation coming up next week!”

Presentation, presen-tation, pre-sen-ta-tion…The word starts not making sense in my head, but it still lingers in my mind. The red-ness monster, the chronic blushing, will soon take over my body and I have no choice but to let it.

The day approaches, my mind begins to not focus on the project itself, but what my classmates will think of me as I turned red. I walk towards the front of the classroom, hoping my professor will allow me to turn the lights off.

“Professor? Should I turn off the lights?”

“Sure, go ahead!”

I walk over to turn the lights off, giving me a bit more time to prepare myself for what is about to happen. I get to the light switch, take a deep breath, in and out, flicking the switch down. All eyes are now on me, my heart starts pounding out of my chest. I can’t help but to start moving my hair to cover my chest and part of my face, gripping onto the sleeves of my green shirt. (I read somewhere that green helps hide the blushing, though it probably actually highlights it more.) I can feel the sweat between the creases of my hands. Heat starts rising from my arms to my face.

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I’ve always wonder why I blush so much when I’m nervous. After every presentation, I look at my classmates faces to see if they get red like me, but none as much as mine does. The thought of something must be wrong with me begins to pop into my head, and next thing you know I am on Google trying to get some good advice. But the information there tends to be useless to. There are generic suggestions such as “Try thinking about people in their underwear. It will get your mind off your blushing,” “try wearing a green shirt or green make up,”and even a simple “breath in and out before presenting.”

In my case, and many like me, blushing becomes tormenting and almost unbearable to live with. This type of blushing is known as pathological blushing. Many people around me might not think that my simple blushing could have major effects on me, but I can already see how it has changed me socially. When I was younger, I was a “mama’s girl” because I was always too shy to speak to anyone because of my blushing. As I have gotten older, I hide, maybe not behind my mother, but whomever is by my side, whether it’d be my sisters, friends or fiancé. My family members blush too, but they don’t let it phase them the way I do. So I decided, after years of suffering, to see if there’s a way to put an end to it.

* * *

Many people affected by pathological blushing have Social Anxiety Disorder. Studies have shown that it is not SAD which causes blushing, but that blushing has caused people to have social anxiety. This is because people who have this problem have become too worried about what others think of them. As Enrique Jadresic, some description of who he is, discussed in his book, When Blushing Hurts…, it becomes a “fight or flight” reaction. When we become nervous or uncomfortable our minds begin taking control, making us more nervous, which will cause our bodies to blush in overdrive.

It has become clear that pathological blushing does indeed have a psychological effect on a person. Part of the size of that effect depends on the person’s level of blushing. Naturally, it’s more extreme cases of blushing, like mine, that cause social anxiety. But even for those who have serious blushing, the ones who are able to overcome any social anxiety they may experience from it tend to be better at forgetting about the redness monster rushing through their body.

Jadresic states in his book that some cases are so extreme that they turn to drugs for their anxiety. Drugs such as paroxetine, sertraline, fluoxetine, citalopram, escitalopram, and fluvoxamine can help relax the body and keep SAD at bay. The only problem is that people become too reliant on drugs and become addicted. This is also, sadly, not a solution for blushing, but will only calm the nerves once the redness starts to hit. In my cases, once the nerves are calm, and blushing is not longer a concern, people no longer blush. A more extreme option is surgery that cuts the nerves that cause the blood vessels within the face to dilate. This procedure is not guaranteed to work, and there are some complications that could happen after. It was surprising to learn that some people go to such extreme lengths.

I didn’t want to turn to pharmaceuticals though. I wanted to deal with my issue naturally. So I looked elsewhere for answers about how to solve it. I came across Susan M. Bögels’ and Marisol Voncken’s article, “Social Skills Training Versus Cognitive Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder Characterized by Fear of Blushing.” In it, they mentioned that people with a fear of blushing tend to fear rejection when others notice their bodily symptom. I thought about that for a second. I don’t remember in recent memory being rejected for my blushing. So I’m not sure why I’m fearful of that.

So, what is wrong with me and the others who also have chronic blushing? The truth is that nothing is wrong with us. People like us think with our minds a little too much, which affect our bodies. Some of us start off with or end up getting Social Anxiety Disorder, but there are multiple ways to get help for it. Ultimately, the solution is to learn to feel less ashamed by the blushing.

I need to change the script I play in my head. I believe that blushing is normal and that I am not the only one whom it affects. I may mention to everyone around me how much I hate it and how much it ruins my life, but I know it makes me stronger than those who don’t have to deal with it. Daily, I must push myself out from behind my friends and family and speak for myself. On those days, it feels good to be able to get out of my comfort zone with no help from those who I’ve always asked for help from. There’s no doubt in my mind that I will still try to wear my green shirt, or to picture everyone in their underwear to dim my blushing. Because why not get a slight laugh out of a stressful situation?

* * *

Here we go again, I think to myself as I go up to set up my Power Point before my class starts.

I am once again stuck at the crossroads of whether I should be embarrassed about my blushing, or if I should play it out.

“Arlene, we’ll start with your presentation first,” my Professor announces.

I walk up to the computer, completely not bothered that the lights would be kept on. All eyes are on me as my mouth opens, “Hello, so today my presentation will be on Buzzfeed.” I feel the heat rush throughout my body, reaching my face as I begin to stutter. A hand rises as a slight conversation starts between my classmates and I during my presentation.

* * *

I never realized that including my classmates could really help ease my mind. In that moment, I learned that blushing is one of my quirks and that no matter what I try to do it will always be a quirk of mine. Now I know that it’s time for me to embrace that.

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Downtown Drunchie

How three students started a business that changed the way intoxicated UMW students snack.

By: Arlene Santiago and Kelsey Welsh

It was October 19, 2017, a Thursday. The dim streetlamps provided just enough light to illuminate the façade of the white brick building adorned with unsightly moss-colored awnings. A sign beside the main entrance bared the words “Brock’s Riverside Grill” in loopy script the same color as the awnings. A muffled tune came from the back deck of the bar where a live musician, hired to entertain the hoard of college students that regularly take advantage of Brock’s weekly “dollar beer night”, strummed the chords of some 80’s rock anthem. The three students who had been staring, impatiently, at the building for quite some time, tapped their feet to the beat in an attempt to distract themselves from the chilly air that they had not anticipated. The sweet smell of cinnamon emanated from the open trunk of the parked car they leaned against that doubled as their storefront. They were hopeful, yet nervous, as it had been the “grand opening” of their brand-new bun business, Blackout Buns. As the night went on, drunk students filed out of the bar in waves. Upon hearing any mention of food, the more ravenous students were eager to stumble their way to the open trunk to get a handful of what would soon become UMW’s newest craze.

There is a reason why so many fast food joints and 24-hour eateries are popping up all over the world; and it’s not just that McDonald’s fries are so addicting. A recent study published in the Nature Communications online journal suggests that alcohol activates hunger-promoting brain-cells known as Agrp neurons. The food industry capitalized on the rising popularity and normalization of the drinking culture and adjusted menus and hours of operation to cater to a booze-infused crowd looking for a late-night fix. Drunk food has become such a trend throughout the years. These range from the Philly cheesesteak to the New York Slice to chain businesses like McDonald’s and Taco Bell. Blackout Buns is quickly becoming UMW students’ answer to the question,  “I’m drunk, and I’m hungry, so what can I find to eat?” It is interesting to acknowledge that drunk foods tend to be weird and greasy; cinnamon buns don’t seem like a natural addition to the drunk food scene. Plus, the Blackout Buns team was competing with local well-known big guys. Yet, students’ are eager to get their hands on those buns and sales are skyrocketing. We wanted to know why, and how, Blackout Buns has become the campus drunk food of choice.

The Blackout Buns founders met us at the University Center around 7:00 p.m. on a Wednesday night in mid-November to tell us about how the business came to be. (The three students responsible for Blackout Buns requested to remain anonymous so we will be referring to them as Sabrina, Elizabeth, and Douglas in order to honor their request.) It all began on Elizabeth’s birthday. “We were just talking about waiting on corners for drunk people [so that we could] give them food,” Sabrina recalled. “It was a total imaginative thing. We were like, ‘Oh my gosh let’s just, like, sell what? Buns, because ‘Warm Your Buns’.” Laughter erupted from our corner of the lobby. “It was getting cold out there,” Douglas added. The trio was inspired to transform their theoretical conversation into a real-life business. It took them about a month to prepare for the launch of Blackout Buns. The team met at a coffee shop for a brainstorm session to discuss their business model and come up with a name for the project. “We knew we were going to cater to the drunk crowd,” Douglas said. “We [had decided on]selling buns and people get blackout when they drink sometimes. So, it’s Blackout Buns.” Sabrina and Elizabeth scoured the internet in search of recipes and utilized their love of baking to develop prototypes until they finally settled on the perfect bun. They wanted to lure as many customers as possible so they prepared two types of buns for their first night: an original cinnamon bun to satisfy sugar cravings and a pizza bun for those who prefer savory over sweet. In the days leading up to the first sale, they created an Instagram account called blackoutbunz and followed a bunch of UMW students. They posted a couple of photos with humorous captions to accumulate some attention. Finally, launch day had arrived. The batch of buns were baked and loaded. It was go time.

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Blackout Buns is just the latest in drunk snacking trends. After-midnight snacks are becoming more and more accessible to those who wish to indulge in a late-night bingefest. An article published in TIME magazine addressed a recent marketing strategy imposed by Jack-in-the-Box that is directed to draw in a crowd of “drinkers, stoners, and insomniacs”. The fast-food chain has introduced the Munchie Meal, a $6 combo meal offered to patrons after 9:00 p.m. The author of the TIME article, Brad Tuttle, wrote that the meal consists of “a regular (20 oz.) soda, ‘halfsie’ fries (mix of curly and regular fries), and a choice of mad-scientist, over-the-top entrees including the Exploding Cheesy Chicken Sandwich (made with mozzarella cheese sticks and ‘gooey white cheese sauce’), the Brunch Burger (a fried egg and hash brown patty on top of the meat, described as perfect ‘when it’s so late you don’t know whether it’s dinner or breakfast’), and another burger capped with a grilled cheese sandwich.” Munchie Meals were developed to appeal to a specific sect of millenials, particularly those of an “altered state of mind”. Jack-in-the-Box is not the only chain in the industry targeting inebriated young adults. Denny’s has been offering an “All Nighter” menu for years that features a wide selection of inexpensive fatty indulgences. Both White Castle and McDonalds have added an after-midnight breakfast options and Taco Bell is continuing to advertise their controversial “fourth meal” campaign, which has been linked to promoting obesity in American society. Fast-food chains have begun offering discounted menu items after designated times to encourage potential patrons to choose their food over that of their competitors.

Businesses that are opened past midnight do not typically cater to a person with a sweet tooth. Places like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, or even Domino’s do have desserts, but they do not focus mainly on sweet vs. savory food. These businesses are known to have the greasiest food possible, which is able to sober up a person. But what if someone wants sweet and savory? As Timal Brooks, a Walmart employee said, “Ihop is the place to go!” Without Blackout Buns, many would go to Ihop for the combination of the two. Not only do they have savory meals, but they also have the sweetest that you can find that is open 24/7. After interviewing a few students around campus, we were able to gather information of the types of food they would get when they are drunk. A huge amount stated they would go to Benny’s or any fast food place. Michelle Goff, a UMW student said, “I like eating Taco Bell even though I have a gluten allergy; drunk me doesn’t care.” The Blackout Buns team explained to us that they are currently experimenting with allergy friendly dough, giving those with dietary limitations the opportunity to engage in a snaking experience their bodies won’t punish them for once they sober up. We conducted a school-wide survey to find out the average UMW student’s drunk food of choice. The survey told us that most students choose to find a way to Cookout in Central park or opt for the shorter journey to the McDonald’s in College Heights. The greasy and fatty food would sober a person up in a matter of seconds. It’s a classic place for the drunk to go to when they’re in need of food, but is that the best alternative? Does everyone enjoy a Big Mac and fries when they want to make sure they don’t get a hangover in the morning? That’s a simple question to answer. There will always be those types of people who want the greasiest food they can get a hold of. That could be fast food, or simply a big slice of pizza. Others would rather make their own snack and make it as fattening or as healthy as they would want it to be. And some would choose to try new things and to support up and coming businesses like Blackout Buns.

Like any other business, Blackout Buns’ success wasn’t immediate. Most of the customers that first night were friends of the founders. Sabrina, Elizabeth, and Douglas tried to appeal to the masses, but unfortunately, either the Ubers were already en route or people weren’t quite drunk enough to rationalize buying food out of the trunk of a stranger’s car. The Blackout Buns team realized that standing and waiting was an ineffective business model. They were brand-new and unknown and trying to compete with popular drunk food powerhouses like Benny’s Pizza and Cookout. One of the founders decided to go into Brock’s and start talking about the delicious buns that were being sold outside. Momentum picked up but only by a bit, not enough for their first night to be deemed an outright success. They knew they needed a different approach; one that wouldn’t result in them “[freezing] [their] buns off”, as Sabrina had put it, only to leave with minimal sales and a trunk full of buns. They asked themselves, “How do we get our buns into as many drunk hands as possible?” The answer was clear: delivery. Offering a delivery service would set them apart from all of the other late-night drunk food options in the Fredericksburg area.

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The paths from bars to student housing are often lit by the fluorescent glow of the neon “open” signs displayed in the windows of every other storefront. In a small city such as Fredericksburg, students’ food options are limited by how far they are willing to walk or Uber for an after-midnight snack. In 2003, while studying investment banking at the University of Pennsylvania, Seth Berkowitz faced a similar dilemma. Berkowitz had a thing for late-night sweets but didn’t want to brace the wind chill of Philadelphia in order to satisfy his sweet tooth. He came up with the idea of baking cookies and delivering them to students like himself. The cookies became a huge hit and Berkowitz has since opened over 100 locations of the business he started in his dorm room that is now known as Insomnia Cookies. What set Insomnia Cookies apart from its competitors was its accessibility to college students. Students, whether they are drunk or sober, do not want to have to walk or pay for transportation in order to buy food.

Blackout Buns has become a local Insomnia Cookies. They offer the students of UMW an option to make the snacking experience more enjoyable and accessible. The business’  popularity grew exponentially over the course of just a few weeks. Their instagram amassed over 200 followers in under a month, which is impressive considering this target market consists of a fraction of the 5,000 undergraduates at UMW. They have begun to accumulate a multitude of regular customers. Grace Leytham, a junior at UMW, is a huge fan of the buns. “I’ve ordered Blackout Buns 3 times this semester and they are the tastiest treats around town,” Leytham gushed. “[There are] so many different varieties to choose from, they have sweet buns and savory buns, there’s something for everyone. My personal favorite is the s’mores bun but honestly they’re all amazing. The best part is that they deliver them right to your door!” Blackout Buns not only caters to the drunk crowd; they are also a huge hit among late night studies and underclassmen who do not want to walk or have a car to take themselves to purchase food. The revenue they have been collecting has allowed the three entrepreneurs to continue to share their delicious buns while also giving them some money to spend on their own blackout experiences.

 

We asked Sabrina, Elizabeth, and Douglas about what they have planned for Blackout Buns’ future. The friends looked at one another, a bit caught off guard by the question, before answering. “Honestly, we never thought it would become this big,” Sabrina remarked. They never expected a spur of the moment decision to create a small business that caters to the drunken crowd could be spread around campus in just a month. Sabrina toyed with the idea of going to look into recruiting people who would be interested in keeping the business going. Elizabeth and Douglas are already seniors and the time is getting closer and closer as the semester ends to figure out where the business is heading. Sabrina wants to continue the business and even joked that “they [Elizabeth and Douglas] just won’t get jobs” so they all can continue growing the hobby into a bigger business.

Do "Do-Gooders" Really Do Good?

Volunteer to Change The World Yourself

Photo credited to Kevin Dugan, founder of Fields of Growth

Photo credited to Kevin Dugan, founder of Fields of Growth

I posted a photo to my Instagram page; a “hashtag throwback Thursday” captioned I think it’s clear who had the best summer internship, location tagged as Trenchtown, Jamaica. It’s a candid photograph of me at the weekly USA vs Jamaica soccer match. The match is being played in the background of the shot, it’s out of focus but clear enough to provide context. I’m facing away from the camera, looking instead at the small boy to my right sporting a stained white t-shirt and a toothy grin. On my left is a little girl in an oversized green and yellow jersey with zigzag braids in her hair. I’m holding both of them. My lips are parted slightly as though I was on the verge of laughing. We look so happy and it’s pretty freaking adorable.

The picture is a lie. I remember the exact moment that photo was taken, and it was not a happy moment. The little girl was called La La and, had her face been angled toward the camera the picture would have told a more accurate story because she upset. The other kids had been picking on her, and I was holding her because someone had taken her shoes. I was holding the boy because he kept trying to pull La La out of my arms so that he could be held. I was not laughing at him; I was yelling because as soon as I had picked him up, he slapped La La across the face. Then someone shouted “Smile!” and click, it’s a pretty picture of an ugly moment. The photo earned 137 likes, which may not seem like a lot to most people but my pictures usually peak around 110 likes so it’s above my average. There are five comments on the post, all of which express admiration for my service or claim that I am an inspiration.

In 2016, I was scrolling through my instagram after lacrosse practice when I saw a photo that caught my eye. I normally don’t pay attention to the sponsored advertisements that pop up on my instagram feed, yet this photo that featured a large group of smiling people holding lacrosse sticks sandwiched between a Jamaican flag and an American flag caused me to stop absently scrolling through photos. I clicked the link and was lead to a website for a program called Lacrosse Volunteer Corps which is offered through the Fields of Growth organization. I had never been on a volunteer trip before and this seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to do something good and also have a great time in another country. I chose to go to Jamaica because I wanted to positively impact the state of the country and returned to the states feeling as though the country had made a positive impact on me. That’s great and all, but it all felt too self-congratulatory and disingenuous. My intentions had been good and my heart was in the right place. However, whenever I look at that picture, or similar pictures posted by my fellow volunteers, I feel overwhelmed with an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Photo credited to Kevin Dugan, founder of Fields of Growth

Photo credited to Kevin Dugan, founder of Fields of Growth

* * *

I reached out to Shawn Humphrey, an economics professor at the University of Mary Washington who runs a blog on which he writes about his own experiences with volunteer work. We spoke on the phone and Humphrey explained to me why it made me uncomfortable; I had been a victim to a concept he referred to as the “Do-Gooder Industrial Complex.” He provided me with a link to his blog post where he wrote about this concept in greater detail. The term is similar to writer Teju Cole’s “White Savior Industrial Complex”, but Humphrey’s narrative excludes race as a factor and instead chooses to focus primarily on the privilege of Western world. Voluntourism is the act of traveling to a remote location under the pretense of providing a service for a community or a cause. The trips almost always involve a group of young, privileged travelers who share the same idealistic belief that their donated time is enough to save the world. Voluntourism is, in a way, a vacation in disguise. According to my research, Voluntourism is a 200-billion-dollar industry. The average price tag for week-long service trip is around $1,000 per person, some can cost upwards of $3,000, and hardly any of that money benefits the destination’s community. “It is not a selfless act,” Humphrey said. “It’s an experience that [people] are paying to have.” The impact volunteering has on the volunteers can be invaluable, however, if you really want to make a difference, well, your dollar is a lot more valuable than your time. Many of my fellow interns had expressed similar feelings of discomfort while we were away. I reached out to one of them to see if they still share the same discomfort. “It was conflicting,” Chris Gilbert had said. “On one hand, I felt like we were doing a good thing for those kids. We donated our time and our stuff, but it didn’t feel like enough to make a difference. Yeah, we gave them some clothes and some memories, but is anything really going to change?” It takes a lot more than a few old t-shirts and a couple soccer games to make a real impact on people’s lives. So why do it?

Photo credited to Courtney Abbot, featured bottom center

Photo credited to Courtney Abbot, featured bottom center

Monique Morrison, a close friend of mine, became involved with Fields of Growth when she was 16-years-old and the program had just been founded. Morrison had been one of the most promising Jamaican campers and continued to work with the organization as a coach following her graduation from high school. I had many conversations with Morrison about her opinions about the volunteers and texted her to elaborate. “There’s some good ones. Some of the girls need good people. It’s the volunteers that take the time to talk and to teach the game that I like. Those are the ones that really get [the purpose of volunteering].” Morrison has met hundreds of volunteers over the years and has only spoken to a handful of them after they returned to the states. “They’re all nice to me when [they’re] here, but now I can tell when it’s fake. It [doesn’t] bother me as much as it does the younger girls. [A lot of the] kids [don’t] have good people to look up to at home and so they start looking up to the volunteers.” Morrison explained that this is problematic because the Jamaican youths form strong bonds with temporary people. Humphrey’s statements during our conversation supported Morrison’s thoughts. “I am not against people going abroad to meet other human beings living in communities that are different than [their own]. I think there is a tremendous value in it,” Humphrey said. “However, the rewards are skewed towards the volunteers. Community members probably do get something [out of it], but the volunteers just get so much more.”

* * *

People often ask me if I was paid for my three-week internship and are appalled when I inform them that I wasn’t, in fact, I actually had to pay for work that I did in Jamaica. Why would anyone pay to do work? Simple: because it looks good. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t include my volunteer work in my resume, in fact, I have been told by a potential employer that I was selected over another applicant because my extensive list of volunteer experiences proved that not only was I qualified, but I was also a “good person”. Someone (my mom) commented on one of my Instagram posts from my first trip to Jamaica saying that I am a hero. Scrolling through the photos posted by other volunteers, I noticed the word “hero” is used quite often. I can’t understand why, though. I don’t feel like a hero because heroes save the world and I essentially just went on a really exhausting vacation. The typical voluntourist has a camera roll full of photographs of him/herself smiling beside various miserable looking poor children whose names they can’t remember. We don’t know these children at all, yet we feel the need to capture memories to feed into our own egotistical perception of ourselves and our heroism. Developing countries are not a backdrop, and poor people are not props. – moved this stuff up. Think it should just be shortened and perhaps be part of this scene. Sort of … you’re having this discussion with the professor and you come to this realization about your trip.))) (Would be good if you had convos here with other people you did this trip with, if possible.) It is not to say that I am anti-volunteer groups. I had a very rewarding and positive experience in Jamaica overall. But I had an understanding now of the fact I was part of the “Do-Gooder Industrial Complex.” Volunteering is not evil, but it can be problematic if volunteers do not recognize that the benefits are unequal. Society paints volunteering as this selfless and heroic act which perpetuates the role of Westerners as the benevolent giver and poor people as the grateful receivers. Voluntourism is a beautiful way to experience the world, but it is important for voluntourists to understand that they are not heroic saviors just because they hopped on a plane, painted a house or two, then hugged a few orphans before returning to their cushy, privileged lives. In order to make a real impact, the focus needs to shift from the volunteer to the people living in the community they are volunteering in. My friend, Jada Williams, a highschool student in Kingston, Jamaica, has been involved with Fields of Growth and the lacrosse camp since it began 5 years ago. Jada has interacted with hundreds of volunteers over the years, many with whom she formed close relationships with. I spoke with her via an instant messaging app that allows people to engage in international communication for free. “They [the volunteers] take photos with me [and] they post it [and] brag [about being friends with me],” Jada wrote, “I build a good bond with them [and] it just ends in that moment [and] never [hear from them] again.” She had been wary of our friendship and began to distance herself during the last week of my internship. She and I had formed a close bond and, as the date of my departure neared, it became real to her that yet another person she had let into her life would be leaving. My last day, she made me promise her that I wouldn’t be like everyone else and that I would come back. I intend to keep that promise. Only this time, I will be hesitant to post photos that portray me as a heroic savior. I will be more aware that my role is a visitor in the country. I am not a hero, I am simply a person who is experiencing the world and building friendships with people from other countries. Once I stop allowing myself to become brainwashed by the “Do-Gooder Industrial Complex” is when I can actually start doing good.

 

Photo credited to week one volunteer Kendall Parker

Photo credited to week one volunteer Kendall Parker