Work Hard, Play Hard

You’ll probably see these students at the library in 3 hours

It’s the Michigan motto, or so we say. In actuality, it’s the mentality virtually every college claims to have, whether it is Colgate University or MIT. The “work hard, play hard” lifestyle is clearly very prevalent in college and students should expect to do both in order to get the most out of their time here. From what I’ve seen, the experience of a typical U of M student is built on this understanding and falls in perfectly with Suits’ Death of the Grasshopper, as well as Giamatti’s  Take Time for Paradise.

Reflections on the state of modern sports

Edmund Burke’s reaction to the recent rule changes in sports today.

My news feed was covered in shared articles. It was like Kony 2012, but worse. What could have caused this massive influx of outraged teenagers? It could be none other than the recent NCAA changes to division I collegiate tennis; the fact that half of my facebook friends were tennis players had finally come back to haunt me. There had already been harsh reactions from many about the possibility of abolishing service lets about a year and a half ago, but additional new rules formed to speed up the play of matches have both high school, collegiate, and even professional players wondering what ridiculous rule changes are next. Now, I do not, nor will I ever, consider myself a conservative, but perhaps Burke was right in his reasoning in Reflections on the Revolution in France: change can be dangerous, leaving the institution it was trying to improve mutilated and almost unrecognizable.

Mean Girls or Machiavellian Girls?

“Mean Girls” or “Becoming a Prince 101”? The world may never know…

The Prince, a famous work by Machiavelli, has been read and applied to many political scenarios – whether it is dictatorships, democracies, or republics. This text can seemingly give sound advice to any system of power, including, believe it or not, the hierarchy of high school life. While it may be true that every high school is different, many students, regardless of location, have seen and incorporated a specific piece of pop culture into their lives that helps them navigate their social world. What is this phenomenon that has worked its way into the hearts and quotes of the teenage population? It can be no other than one of the most referenced movies of the century, Mean Girls. This classic movie has not only had a huge impact on our culture for the past decade, but also has strong Machiavellian ideas interwoven throughout the film.

Following the rules can be fun too

What happens in the magic circle stays in the magic circle, or so it should. In Homo Ludens, or “Man the player” Huizinga describes the magic circle as a space that is marked off specifically for the use of play. He further defines play with the following characteristics:

1. Play is free and voluntary
2. Play is not “real” life
3. Play must take place away from “ordinary life” in terms of locality and duration
4. Play creates order
5. Play is connected with no material interests and no profit can come from it

Play as Huizinga sees it, however, is not the kind that we know today. This can be seen most notably in modern day sports. The common notion is that we participate in sports because we like it. Yet, there are many instances in which this is not true.

College: Live, Learn, and actually…kind of like it?

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I remember what my older sister told me before I had started school at the University of Michigan. She said, “College is going to be the best years of your life. Enjoy it while you can.” Now I’ll admit, I was perplexed. After all, you go to college to learn and get a job, right? “School + learning = fun” was not on the list of equations that high school had taught me. But, now that I’m here, I’ve found that maybe, just maybe, my sister was right, college is pretty awesome: I can choose the classes I want, see my friends every time I step out my door, and most importantly, eat chipotle all day. I no longer think that the only reason I’m here is to get a job, having realized that there are multiple benefits of the college experience, shifting my view from Menand’s third theory to a combination of all three.