Lifestyle

• “Made” Comes to Mason

  Lifestyle February 20, 2012 at 3:09 pm Comments are Disabled

  The Office of Student Involvement is constantly striving to bring George Mason University students the best entertainment possible. Recently, Michelle Davis, assistant director of Student Involvement Programming, was kind enough to sit down and talk about “Made” and a few other events SI has planned. How did “Made” end up at GMU? MD: They wanted to come to the Northern Virginia-D.C. area, so they reached out to the director of our office and sent her an email saying they wanted to come to campus with their proposal. Then she handed that off to me and I contacted them right before Homecoming started and so I’ve been in contact with their people and they are sending out a producer. In the past, “Made” has typically involved high school kids. Do you know if the jump to college students will change anything? MD: They really haven’t said if they’re aiming to do one thing or the other. They’re really trying to keep it broad and open so that they can just see what they get and then they can go from there. How many interview slots are there? MD: They only need 10- to 15-minute slots and I made 20-minute slots. They’re […]

   

• Mason Alum Shares Her Story Through Photography

  Lifestyle February 20, 2012 at 3:07 pm Comments are Disabled

  Deborah Lash, a George Mason University alumna, held a reception for her “When the House Burns Down” exhibit in Gallery 123 in the Johnson Center this past week. The exhibit captured her youngest brother and his best friend at many different scenes that represented emptiness for Lash. When she was 8 years old her family’s house burned down in a chimney fire, and they lost everything. The year after the tragedy, Lash and her siblings didn’t go to school or have any luxuries. They lived in motels and in other people’s homes. “We learned to rely on each other in a really unique way that we wouldn’t have experienced if we hadn’t gone through that time of emptiness,” Lash said. This experience inspired her to express some of her memories through photography, as well as to try to better understand her own feelings about the fire. “I wanted to try to go back and remember that year and how we made it through that time,” Lash said.  “So I took these two children who are very close to me and I followed them around in locations that are very close by and very similar to the locations where we spent […]

   
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  I’d Rather Be Eating: Chutzpah

  Lifestyle February 20, 2012 at 3:05 pm Comments are Disabled

  This past Sunday, I went to Chutzpah Deli for lunch with my two roommates, Lyndsey and Amanda. A friend recommended Chutzpah to me about a year ago, but due to its somewhat inconvenient location, I had yet to make my first visit, until last weekend. I don’t eat subs or sandwiches very often, but when I do, it has to be a really good sandwich. Chutzpah prides itself on being a traditional, authentic New York Jewish deli. In the car on the way to eat, I was thinking to myself, “Will this place actually be worth all the hype?” A wave of excitement snapped me out of my slightly pessimistic thoughts, and I realized that I was about to eat at a place that would surely become one of my favorites in Fairfax. As fate would have it, Chutzpah is now one of my top three places to eat in the area. Chutzpah is what I like to call a hole-in-the-wall, triple-D (“Diners, Drive-ins and Dives”), “Man vs. Food”-kind of joint. It is located in the back of the Fairfax Towne Center shopping plaza. Do you find yourself saying, “What’s that?” Exactly. This shopping center is not very popular amongst […]

   

• Your Face, Your Voice: Mason Cable Network

  Lifestyle February 13, 2012 at 5:56 pm Comments are Disabled

  Recently, the mass media has brought the idea of gender identity to my attention. The matter of gender roles is a very sensitive subject in America. Gender roles are an important mediator of human experiences and of the way individuals interact with each other and their physical environments. Many people question the validity of gender binaries in youth as compared to in adulthood. I find them to be questionable in general. As soon as the umbilical cord is cut and the sex of the baby is determined, social expectations are activated. Suddenly, there is an agenda for a whole array of developmental experiences that will influence that person throughout his or her life. Over the past year, the Ad Council and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families, in conjunction with the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse, has been running ads for the Take Time to Be a Dad Today campaign, which ostensibly aims to provide advice on being a good parent. Many of the ads center on a father catering to his young daughter by playing dress up with her, letting the girl paint his nails or engaging in other feminine activities. Similarly, in April […]

   

• How To Get Straight A’s

  Lifestyle February 6, 2012 at 4:06 pm 1 comment

  Some people think that in order to get good grades in college, one must spend 30 to 40 hours studying each week. In reality, there are many ways to get the same results with a lot less effort. Here are 10 ways to be a fantastic student with a minimal workload: 1. Smile in class. The teacher will think that you are enjoying her lecture. This may require work; just think about other pleasant topics, like what you will be doing this weekend with the time you used to spend studying. 2. Bring your teacher a candy bar (nobody wants an apple) and say something like, “Sweets for the sweet” when you give it to her. 3. If you don’t know the answer, be sloppy when you write but write a lot. You may get partial credit if the teacher thinks you know what you are doing. 4. If you get a bad grade, ask for an opportunity for a retest. Compare your plight to that of the financial and auto industries, noting that they are getting bailouts. It’s the American way. Before she can say no, add, “You are patriotic, aren’t you?” She won’t be able to turn you […]

   

• Super Powers and Found Footage Collide

  Lifestyle February 6, 2012 at 4:05 pm Comments are Disabled

  There is no genre that found footage doesn’t work for, is there? What started as a new and creative way to tell a horror story with “The Blair Witch Project” over 10 years ago has gone on to become a bloated version of itself. And now you can add superheroes to the list of film styles you’ve seen through the lens of a hand-held camera. I’m sure with that opening, it sounds like I’m not a fan of this movie at all or that I hold some kind of weird resentment toward the found footage approach to filmmaking. Wrong on both counts. “Chronicle” stands as the first film I’ve seen this year that has me eagerly anticipating its home release. I also consider it to be my best theatrical experience since “Drive.” If you haven’t seen the trailers, the film focuses on three friends who make a discovery that brings them superpowers. What starts out fairly innocently quickly escalates until you find yourself picking your jaw up off the floor during the movie’s visually stunning finale. The film touches on some very heavy thematic elements at times. And without the solid casting of the three young leads, including a breakout […]

   

• Fashion Has an Ugly Side

  Lifestyle February 6, 2012 at 4:05 pm Comments are Disabled

  Perfect skin, perfect hair and the infamous super-svelte physique: Although the beauty ideals portrayed in the fashion world today are unattainable and unhealthy, many young girls still feel the need to make themselves look like the women seen on the runways and in magazines. Fashion show producer Kelly Cutrone said that models are “anomalies of nature. They are freaks of nature. They are not average. They are naturally thin and have incredibly long legs compared to the rest of their bodies.” Most models are between 5 feet 9 inches and 6 feet tall and rarely weigh over 120 pounds. This means that almost every model seen across the world on the runways at Fashion Week is underweight. Though many models are in their teens and may not yet be fully developed, most are still malnourished. American fashion model Crystal Renn admitted to struggling with an eating disorder when she began modeling at only 16 years old. At the start of her career, she dealt with much criticism about her body and weight, causing her to shrink down to a mere 95 pounds. Renn then came back into the spotlight when she chose to ignore the rail-thin norm on the runways […]

   
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  Rise Against Takes Patriot Center

  Lifestyle February 6, 2012 at 4:05 pm Comments are Disabled

  Over two years ago, I made a 17-hour trek from Chesapeake to Chicago, Ill. for a concert. The tickets sold out merely six minutes after they’d gone on sale and my close friend and I were lucky enough to snatch up a few in that brief window. That was the last time I saw Rise Against — until now. Ever since that special show, they’ve released another album, toured with iconic bands like Bad Religion and The Foo Fighters, all the while gaining momentum in the mainstream without sacrificing what makes Rise Against what they are. Politically charged punk rockers, vegans, embracers of straight edge — Rise Against are who they are and make no attempts to mold themselves into some ideal corporate image. For over a decade they’ve tackled dozens of issues through music and activism. In fact, the entire “Siren Song of the Counter Culture” album is nothing but a giant middle finger to the Bush administration. Even more than that, they’re completely transparent, never keeping a curtain between themselves and their fans. They’ve released multiple DVD’s that give access to who the band is beyond just the music — Tim, Joe, Zach and Brandon. It’s who they […]

   

• Volition – What is It?

  Lifestyle February 6, 2012 at 4:05 pm Comments are Disabled

  For anyone who has ever considered the prospect of publishing a piece of writing, be it a poem, a short story or an essay, even entertaining the thought can be daunting and induce feelings of stress and anxiety. But, thanks to Volition magazine, much of that strain can be alleviated. Volition is a literary magazine for George Mason University students who are interested in publishing their written work. Originally established in 1996 as Apathy, the journal has remained relatively small and underground in terms of literary journals on campus. “Pretty much since my freshman year, it’s been like a maximum of five people working at a time,” said Volition Co-Editor Kathy Morgenegg, a junior double majoring in Russian and creative writing. “It’s always been a really small magazine.” Volition Co-Editor Hannah Wing, a junior biology major, can attest to that as well. “A lot of our staff has graduated, especially last year.” However, they are hoping to change that this year given the number of goals they’ve set for themselves, including the redesign of the journal’s logo, the biannual cover contest and the ever-popular open-mic night which will be held at a tentative time in mid to late February. One […]

   

• Want Sauce with That?

  Lifestyle February 6, 2012 at 3:55 pm Comments are Disabled

  Bored of the limited and unimaginative music Pandora offers you? Tired of spending hours on end finding the newest and best music? Well, I’m here to pass the sauce. Founder of saucewiththat.com, Kayvon Nik asks our generation, would you like something really awesome to go with your uninspired life? Saucewiththat.com is the one-stop shop for all things dance, dub-step, house and even moombahton. Nik, a business information technology major at Virginia Tech, got together with his friends and realized that their love for music should be shared with the world. “Before, when I heard an awesome song, I was only able to share it with a limited amount of people,” Nik said. “I listen to music all day, and now I want to share the best of it with the world.” What’s up with the sauce? Aiming to create a positive environment, where modern-day electronic maestros can come together and share their love for music, saucewiththat.com tracks down all types of dance music, sharing album art, informative descriptions of each song and the song file itself. Sound clips range from a fist-pumping three minutes to blood-rushing, electrifying hourlong podcasts. “Where innovation is tradition.” Sound familiar, George Mason University? Nik and […]