Sweet T. and Biscuits

I hate inspirational quotes. Yeah, I said it. It’s not the quotes themselves, or even the speaker (most of the time) that draws my vitriol. It’s the feeling that we live in a world of constant, even aggressive inspiration. Upworthy videos inspire us to be more caring and to have more faith in our fellow man. Class speakers inspire us to be great people with lofty goals. Instagram inspires us to… go out and spend more money on pretty food or something. (I don’t really get Instagram.) Snapchat inspires us to be careful about all those nudes we’ve been sending out. You get the idea. But there’s a downside to all of this inspiration, these constant reminders of the whimsicality and endless possibilities created by the world around us: there’s a lot of freaking pressure for things to be great. And it’s exhausting.                 I think part of all of this relentless inspiration is driven by the feeling that the world is constantly disappointing and upsetting us. We now have appro

          Politicians love to toss around stories of “hardworking Americans” and “small business owners” who, presumably either because of something the politician has done, or because of something their opponent wants to stop from happening, are able to achieve the “American dream”.                 My parents are small business owners. They’re hardworking Americans. They do what they love for a living, in a business that they built from the ground up. It just doesn’t get more American Dream-y than that. They, like many of the 4,000 or so residents of my hometown in Tennessee, make their living solely through the tourism that comes through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Today, American politicians’ inability to perform their basic functions led to the indefinite closing of that park, and just like that: my parents have to close their business today. Probably tomorrow. Maybe all week. At first glance this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Free day off! As someo

                Lately, I find myself spending an awful lot of my free time on BuzzFeed. Sure, they love stealing articles, pictures, and ideas from smaller corners of the Internet and putting them in lists that maximize instant gratification, but sometimes simplicity is what you need after a long day of work. More importantly, sometimes the simplest, silliest things can change the way you view your life. Take, for example, the series of articles comparing actions and feelings at various ages (titled something like “____ In Your Early 20’s Versus ___ In Your Late 20’s”). Essentially the point of all of these articles is that your first few years of post-college life are supposed to be full of fun, insecurity, terrible choices, crackling energy, and no solid consequences. As you grow throughout the decade (and throughout the rest of your life), maturity sets in, usually coupled with a slower, less manic vivacious. I think in general, this is a pretty standard view of one's 20

To Stephanie Spangler, M.D., Deputy Provost for Health Affairs and Academic Integrity,                My name is Tara Tyrrell. I was a member of Saybrook College, class of 2012. A first-generation Yalie, I grew up in a small mountain town in Tennessee, the only child of a small-business family. When I matriculated, the promise that Yale made to me that I would be given a lifetime of opportunities, a wealth of knowledge, and the equal honor and respect afforded to every student (regardless of my background, gender, race, or religion), felt like one I could count on. However, the report that the University released this week qualifying rape as “nonconsensual sex” and making it clear that the usual punishment for such an offense is a verbal slap on the wrist has made it quite clear to me that my faith in that promise was very foolish, indeed.                 One clear night, during the winter of my sophomore year, I was sexually assaulted just steps away from my dorm room. Anothe

                Yesterday morning, I was in a really bad mood. I had just spent the whole day Sunday driving up from Pittsburgh for our spur-of-the-moment road trip to the NCAA hockey championship, where my beloved alma mater made history Saturday night. One of our clinic’s offices was closed because it was a state holiday, and because the Boston Marathon runs right past their office every year, which makes it impossible to get patients in and out. As a result, I was exhausted and grumpy that our office was open, and all I wanted to do was skip work, take a nap, and watch the Boston Marathon. Unfortunately (or so I thought), Tom had a mandatory class that day and my office was severely understaffed, so I didn’t have a choice. I’d have to hear about the Marathon from someone else.                 It started out as a hushed conversation: “Did you hear? Was there an explosion?”, then a mad scramble to get onto a news website and figure out what the hell was going on. All Boston news