“
I've tried to make sense of how someone who didn't stalk his victims in advance ended up going after the best and the brightest. And I think that's it, the thing they all had in common - a light that outshone his. He targets college campuses and sorority houses because he's looking for the cream of the crop. He wants to extinguish us - we are the ones who remind him that he's not that smart, not that good-looking, and there's nothing particularly special about him.
”
”
Jessica Knoll (Bright Young Women)
“
Sometimes I worry that we’re too happy, but then a visit to Nana’s house brings things into focus. We’re happy because we want to be, because we’re pouring our energy and emotion into each other in the best possible way. My
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Goal (Off-Campus, #4))
“
Anyway, this girl... she's the love of my life. She's smart and funny and unbelievably compassionate. She forgives people even when they don't deserve it. She-"
"Good lay?" Pace interrupts.
"Oh yeah. The best.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
“
My best friend nods solemnly. Then he keels over. Asshole.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
“
Lusting over your best friend’s girlfriend sucks. First off, there’s the awkward factor. As in, it’s really fucking awkward.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
“
Drunk girls give the best compliments.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Graham Effect (Campus Diaries, #1))
“
With my friends, the sad truth is that our best “best friend” days are behind us. In college, we used to be able to meet each other in the common area of our off-campus housing, excited about our evening ahead, which consisted of someone making an enormous tureen of pasta and drinking wine from a box while we took turns regaling each other with details of our terrible love lives.
”
”
Mindy Kaling (Why Not Me?)
“
O: You’re quite a writer. You’ve a gift for language, you’re a deft hand at plotting, and your books seem to have an enormous amount of attention to detail put into them. You’re so good you could write anything. Why write fantasy?
Pratchett: I had a decent lunch, and I’m feeling quite amiable. That’s why you’re still alive. I think you’d have to explain to me why you’ve asked that question.
O: It’s a rather ghettoized genre.
P: This is true. I cannot speak for the US, where I merely sort of sell okay. But in the UK I think every book— I think I’ve done twenty in the series— since the fourth book, every one has been one the top ten national bestsellers, either as hardcover or paperback, and quite often as both. Twelve or thirteen have been number one. I’ve done six juveniles, all of those have nevertheless crossed over to the adult bestseller list. On one occasion I had the adult best seller, the paperback best-seller in a different title, and a third book on the juvenile bestseller list. Now tell me again that this is a ghettoized genre.
O: It’s certainly regarded as less than serious fiction.
P: (Sighs) Without a shadow of a doubt, the first fiction ever recounted was fantasy. Guys sitting around the campfire— Was it you who wrote the review? I thought I recognized it— Guys sitting around the campfire telling each other stories about the gods who made lightning, and stuff like that. They did not tell one another literary stories. They did not complain about difficulties of male menopause while being a junior lecturer on some midwestern college campus. Fantasy is without a shadow of a doubt the ur-literature, the spring from which all other literature has flown. Up to a few hundred years ago no one would have disagreed with this, because most stories were, in some sense, fantasy. Back in the middle ages, people wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing in Death as a character who would have a role to play in the story. Echoes of this can be seen in Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, which hark back to a much earlier type of storytelling. The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest works of literature, and by the standard we would apply now— a big muscular guys with swords and certain godlike connections— That’s fantasy. The national literature of Finland, the Kalevala. Beowulf in England. I cannot pronounce Bahaghvad-Gita but the Indian one, you know what I mean. The national literature, the one that underpins everything else, is by the standards that we apply now, a work of fantasy.
Now I don’t know what you’d consider the national literature of America, but if the words Moby Dick are inching their way towards this conversation, whatever else it was, it was also a work of fantasy. Fantasy is kind of a plasma in which other things can be carried. I don’t think this is a ghetto. This is, fantasy is, almost a sea in which other genres swim. Now it may be that there has developed in the last couple of hundred years a subset of fantasy which merely uses a different icongraphy, and that is, if you like, the serious literature, the Booker Prize contender. Fantasy can be serious literature. Fantasy has often been serious literature. You have to fairly dense to think that Gulliver’s Travels is only a story about a guy having a real fun time among big people and little people and horses and stuff like that. What the book was about was something else. Fantasy can carry quite a serious burden, and so can humor. So what you’re saying is, strip away the trolls and the dwarves and things and put everyone into modern dress, get them to agonize a bit, mention Virginia Woolf a few times, and there! Hey! I’ve got a serious novel. But you don’t actually have to do that.
(Pauses) That was a bloody good answer, though I say it myself.
”
”
Terry Pratchett
“
Christ, I love this woman with all my heart. Being with Diana is like discovering a piece of myself that I never knew was missing. She makes me want to be the best version of myself, not because I feel like I have to impress her but because she inspires me to be better.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Dixon Rule (Campus Diaries, #2))
“
Footsteps approach the kitchen. Garrett wanders in, wiping sweat off his brow. When he notices Sabrina, he brightens. “Oh good. You’re here. Hold on—gotta grab something.”
She turns to me as if to say, Is he talking to me?
He’s already gone, though, his footsteps thumping up the stairs.
At the table, Hannah runs a hand through her hair and gives me a pleading look. “Just remember he’s your best friend, okay?”
That doesn’t sound ominous.
When Garrett returns, he’s holding a notepad and a ballpoint pen, which he sets on the table as he sits across from Sabrina. “Tuck,” he says. “Sit. This is important.”
I’m so baffled right now. Hannah’s resigned expression doesn’t help in lessening the confusion.
Once I’m seated next to Sabrina, Garrett flips open the notepad, all business. “Okay. So let’s go over the names.”
Sabrina raises an eyebrow at me.
I shrug, because I legitimately don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.
“I’ve put together a solid list. I really think you’re going to like these.” But when he glances down at the page, his face falls. “Ah crap. We can’t use any of the boy names.”
“Wait.” Sabrina holds up a hand, her brow furrowed. “You’re picking names for our baby?”
He nods, busy flipping the page.
My baby mama gapes at me.
I shrug again.
“Just out of curiosity, what were the boy names?” Grace hedges, clearly fighting a smile.
He cheers up again. “Well, the top contender was Garrett.”
I snicker loud enough to rattle Sabrina’s water glass. “Uh-huh,” I say, playing along. “And what was the runner-up?”
“Graham.”
Hannah sighs.
“But it’s okay. I have some kickass girl names too.” He taps his pen on the pad, meets our eyes, and utters two syllables. “Gigi.”
My jaw drops. “Are you kidding me? I’m not naming my daughter Gigi.”
Sabrina is mystified. “Why Gigi?” she asks slowly.
Hannah sighs again.
The name suddenly clicks in my head. Oh for fuck’s sake.
“G.G.,” I mutter to Sabrina. “As in Garrett Graham.”
She’s silent for a beat. Then she bursts out laughing, triggering giggles from Grace and eventually Hannah, who keeps shaking her head at her boyfriend.
“What?” Garrett says defensively. “The godfather should have a say in the name. It’s in the rule book.”
“What rule book?” Hannah bursts out. “You make up the rules as you go along!”
“So?
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Goal (Off-Campus, #4))
“
Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they'll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organization that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women's studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn't meet whatever standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women's access to abortion because he doesn't think they're smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We're just doing our best to live in it.
”
”
Jessica Valenti (The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women)
“
Columbine had one of the best academic reputations in the state; 80 percent of graduates headed on to degree programs. College dominated the conversation now: big fat acceptance packets and paper-thin rejection envelopes; last-minute campus visits to narrow down the finalists. It was time to commit to a university, write the deposit check, and start selecting first-semester classes. High school was essentially over.
”
”
Dave Cullen (Columbine)
“
Swallowing hard, I shuffle over to him. “Listen…I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick lately. I was…distracted.”
“Distracted,” he echoes skeptically.
I nod.
He keeps staring at me.
“My head’s on straight now. Honest.”
Garrett peers past me, and although I can’t see Hannah’s face, whatever passes between them causes his broad shoulders to relax. Then he grins and slaps me on the arm. “Well, thank God. Because I was seriously considering promoting Tuck to the number one best friend slot.”
“Are you kidding? Big mistake, G. He’s a terrible wingman. Have you seen his beard?”
“I know, right?”
And just like that, we’re good again. Seriously, chicks need to take a lesson from dudes when it comes to burying the hatchet. We know our shit.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
“
I bring my lips close to her and murmur, "We're kinda friends now"
"I heard that," Garret pipes up, "And there's no 'kinda' about it. We're best friends
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Deal (Off-Campus, #1))
“
When we were finished eating, I showed Leo some of the other campus gardens. At the crescent rose bed, I stopped to smell a floribunda rose. Leo waited, then leaned over to smell the exact same flower, as if, despite all the blooms around us, I had found the best one.
”
”
Jessica Francis Kane (Rules for Visiting)
“
There is a sign on the gate of this [BYU] campus that reads: 'Enter to learn; go forth to serve.' I invite you, every one of you, to make that your motto. Mediocrity will never do. You are capable of something better. Give it your very best. You will never again have such an opportunity. Pray about it. Work at it. Make it happen. Drink in the great knowledge here to be obtained from this dedicated faculty. Qualify yourselves for the work of the world that lies ahead. It will largely compensate you in terms of what it thinks you are worth. Walk the high road of charity, respect, and love for others and particularly those who are less fortunate.
”
”
Gordon B. Hinckley
“
The university is well structured, well tooled, to turn out people with all the sharp edges worn off, the well-rounded person. The university is well equipped to produce that sort of person, and this means that the best among the people who enter must for four years wander aimlessly much of the time questioning why they are on campus at all, doubting whether there is any point in what they are doing, and looking toward a very bleak existence afterward in a game in which all of the rules have been made up, which one cannot really amend.
”
”
Mario Savio
“
A world full of "certainties"
All the plans, all the vanities.
Where black covers the white
Suited in "confidence"- the constant fight.
A million roads I dream to take
One destination, knowing not I turn where.
A green veil covers for two years, some two decades.
But the "plan" awaits, new roads to make.
I pant, I struggle, I do my best
While they say,
"You are, dear, but so inadequate".
”
”
Sanhita Baruah
“
I’m not in the mood to go to a kegger tonight, but Garrett informs me that if he has to go, then I have to go, because, and I quote, “best friends suffer together or not at all.”
I politely pointed out that we could always pick the “not at all” option, which earned me a dark scowl and a menacing you’re going finger-point.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
“
But you know what my therapist used to tell me? The best way to forget a bad memory is to replace it with a good one.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Deal (Off-Campus, #1))
“
We don’t want our best friends to know how nice you are when your pussy is filled with my cock, do we?
”
”
Stephanie Alves (Spin the Bottle (Campus Games, #2))
“
We must stop apologizing for believing in free speech and embrace it as the best tool we have yet devised for the growth of knowledge and understanding.
”
”
Greg Lukianoff (Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate)
“
My face collapses and I whisper, “It’s Aaron’s best friend. He’s one of the guys who testified against me after the—” Garrett is already stalking away.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Deal (Off-Campus, #1))
“
In the West, the ideological indoctrination is subtler. It is achieved by an ethos of political correctness and best enforced by creating university campuses that lack intellectual diversity. Political correctness is like the sting of the spider wasp. Recall that the afflicted spider is dragged to the wasp’s burrow in a zombie-like state and is subsequently eaten in vivo by the wasp’s offspring.
”
”
Gad Saad (The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense)
“
I bring my lips close to her ear and murmur, “We’re kinda friends now.” “I heard that,” Garrett pipes up. “And there’s no ‘kinda’ about it. We’re best friends, Nelly. Don’t let Wellsy tell you otherwise.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Deal (Off-Campus, #1))
“
The problems on campus life today are not about free speech. They are about how the students have absolutely nothing to do with their lives but sit and listen to lectures, find the best parties to attend, and otherwise discover first-world problems to stew about and protest. That's the root of the problem. This is not a commercial environment where people are incentivized to find value in each other. Campuses have become completely artificial 4-year holding tanks for infantilized kids with zero experience in actual life in which people find ways to get along. These students are not serving each other in a market exchange, and very few have worked at day in their lives, so their default is to find some offense and protest. It's all they've been taught to do and all they know how to do. Idle hands and parents' money = trouble.
”
”
Jeffrey Tucker
“
Well, fuck a duck,” comes Morris’s delighted voice.
I jerk in surprise, then spin around to glare at him for sneaking up on me from behind. Judging by the amusement dancing in his eyes, it’s obvious he peeked over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of the photo I’d been drooling over.
“I was wondering how he’d pull that one off,” Morris remarks, still grinning like a fool. “Shouldn’t have doubted him, though. That dude is an unstoppable force of nature.”
I narrow my eyes. “He told you about the picture?”
“About the whole list, actually. We hung out last night—Lorris is close to taking over Brooklyn, by the way—and he was moaning and groaning about not being able to track down a red velvet couch.” Morris shrugs. “I offered to throw a red blanket on the sofa in my common room and take some pictures, but he said you’d consider that cheating and deprive him of your love.”
Stifling a sigh, I shove the phone in my purse, then walk over to the mini-fridge across the room and grab a bottle of water. I twist off the cap, doing my best to ignore the sheer enjoyment Morris is getting out of this.
“I wish I was gay,” he says ruefully.
A snicker pops out. “Uh-huh. Go on. I’m willing to follow you down this rabbit hole and see where it leads.”
“Seriously, Gretch, I love him. I have a boner for him.” Morris sighs. “If I’d known he existed, I wouldn’t have asked you out in the first place.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Oh, shut up. You’re awesome, and I’d tap that in a second. But I can’t compete with this guy. He’s operating on a whole other level when it comes to you.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
“
What rhymes with insensitive?” I tap my pen on the kitchen table, beyond frustrated with my current task. Who knew rhyming was so fucking difficult?
Garrett, who’s dicing onions at the counter, glances over. “Sensitive,” he says helpfully.
“Yes, G, I’ll be sure to rhyme insensitive with sensitive. Gold star for you.”
On the other side of the kitchen, Tucker finishes loading the dishwasher and turns to frown at me. “What the hell are you doing over there, anyway? You’ve been scribbling on that notepad for the past hour.”
“I’m writing a love poem,” I answer without thinking. Then I slam my lips together, realizing what I’ve done.
Dead silence crashes over the kitchen.
Garrett and Tucker exchange a look. An extremely long look. Then, perfectly synchronized, their heads shift in my direction, and they stare at me as if I’ve just escaped from a mental institution. I may as well have. There’s no other reason for why I’m voluntarily writing poetry right now. And that’s not even the craziest item on Grace’s list.
That’s right. I said it. List. The little brat texted me not one, not two, but six tasks to complete before she agrees to a date. Or maybe gestures is a better way to phrase it...
“I just have one question,” Garrett starts.
“Really?” Tuck says. “Because I have many.”
Sighing, I put my pen down. “Go ahead. Get it out of your systems.”
Garrett crosses his arms. “This is for a chick, right? Because if you’re doing it for funsies, then that’s just plain weird.”
“It’s for Grace,” I reply through clenched teeth.
My best friend nods solemnly.
Then he keels over. Asshole. I scowl as he clutches his side, his broad back shuddering with each bellowing laugh. And even while racked with laughter, he manages to pull his phone from his pocket and start typing.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“Texting Wellsy. She needs to know this.”
“I hate you.”
I’m so busy glaring at Garrett that I don’t notice what Tucker’s up to until it’s too late. He snatches the notepad from the table, studies it, and hoots loudly. “Holy shit. G, he rhymed jackass with Cutlass.”
“Cutlass?” Garrett wheezes. “Like the sword?”
“The car,” I mutter. “I was comparing her lips to this cherry-red Cutlass I fixed up when I was a kid. Drawing on my own experience, that kind of thing.”
Tucker shakes his head in exasperation. “You should have compared them to cherries, dumbass.”
He’s right. I should have. I’m a terrible poet and I do know it.
“Hey,” I say as inspiration strikes. “What if I steal the words to “Amazing Grace”? I can change it to…um…Terrific Grace.”
“Yup,” Garrett cracks. “Pure gold right there. Terrific Grace.”
I ponder the next line. “How sweet…”
“Your ass,” Tucker supplies.
Garrett snorts. “Brilliant minds at work. Terrific Grace, how sweet your ass.” He types on his phone again.
“Jesus Christ, will you quit dictating this conversation to Hannah?” I grumble. “Bros before hos, dude.”
“Call my girlfriend a ho one more time and you won’t have a bro.”
Tucker chuckles. “Seriously, why are you writing poetry for this chick?”
“Because I’m trying to win her back. This is one of her requirements.”
That gets Garrett’s attention. He perks up, phone poised in hand as he asks, “What are the other ones?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“Golly gee, if you do half as good a job on those as you’re doing with this epic poem, then you’ll get her back in no time!”
I give him the finger. “Sarcasm not appreciated.” Then I swipe the notepad from Tuck’s hand and head for the doorway. “PS? Next time either of you need to score points with your ladies? Don’t ask me for help. Jackasses.”
Their wild laughter follows me all the way upstairs. I duck into my room and kick the door shut, then spend the next hour typing up the sorriest excuse for poetry on my laptop. Jesus. I’m putting more effort into this damn poem than for my actual classes.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
“
It’s the first semester of my sophomore year. Which means I’m Sophomore Grace now. Freshman Grace, God rest her soul, let her best friend make decisions for her and guys walk all over her, but Sophomore Grace? She will do no such thing. She will not be Ramona’s doormat or Logan’s distraction. Nope. Sophomore Grace is the carefree nineteen-year-old who spent the summer gallivanting around France.
Does it still count as gallivanting when you do it with your mother?
Sure it does, I assure myself. Gallivanting is gallivanting no matter who you’re with
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
“
What is wrong with you?” I say in lieu of greeting. “You went to Morris’s dorm and declared your intentions?”
He offers a faint smile. “Of course. It was the noble thing to do. I can’t be chasing after another guy’s girl without his knowledge.”
“I’m not his girl,” I snap. “We went on one date! And now I’m never going to be his girl, because he doesn’t want to go out with me again.”
“What the hell?” Logan looks startled. “I’m disappointed in him. I thought he had more of a competitive spirit than that.”
“Seriously? You’re going to pretend to be surprised? He won’t see me again because your jackass self told him he couldn’t.”
Astonishment fills his eyes. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Is that what he told you?” Logan demands.
“Not in so many words.”
“I see. Well, what words did he actually use?”
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches. “He said he’s backing off because he doesn’t want to get in the middle of something so complicated. I pointed out that there’s nothing complicated about it, seeing as you and I are not together.” My aggravation heightens. “And then he insisted that I need to give you a chance, because you’re a—” I angrily air-quote Morris’s words “—‘stand-up guy who deserves another shot.’”
Logan breaks out in a grin.
I stab the air with my finger. “Don’t you dare smile. Obviously you put those words in his mouth. And what the hell was he jabbering about when he told me you and him were ‘family’?” All the disbelief I’d felt during my talk with Morris comes spiraling back, making me pace the bedroom in hurried strides. “What did you say to him, Logan? Did you brainwash him or something? How are you guys family? You don’t even know each other!”
Strangled laughter sounds from Logan’s direction. I spin around and level a dark glower at him.
“He’s talking about the joint family we created in Mob Boss. It’s this role-playing game where you’re the Don of a mob family and you’re fighting a bunch of other mafia bosses for territory and rackets and stuff. We played it when I went over there, and I ended up staying until four in the morning. Seriously, it was intense.” He shrugs. “We’re the Lorris crime syndicate.”
I’m dumbfounded.
Oh my God.
Lorris? As in Logan and Morris? They fucking Brangelina’d themselves?
“What is happening?” I burst out. “You guys are best friends now?”
“He’s a cool guy. Actually, he’s even cooler in my book now for stepping down like that. I didn’t ask him to, but clearly he grasps what you refuse to see.”
“Yeah, and what’s that?” I mutter.
“That you and I are perfect for each other.”
No words. There are no words to accurately convey what I’m feeling right now. Horror maybe? Absolute insanity? I mean, it’s not like I’m madly in love with Morris or anything, but if I’d known that kissing Logan at the party would lead to…this, I would have strapped on a frickin’ chastity gag.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
“
They’re the three best players in the country, and I heard they’ve all already committed to playing for Briar in a couple of years.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Dixon Rule (Campus Diaries, #2))
“
He might be crushing on my girlfriend, but he's still the best friend I've ever had.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Deal (Off-Campus, #1))
“
Well, that’s the best revenge right there, Garrett. Living well and being happy is how we get over the shit in our past.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Deal (Off-Campus, #1))
“
Hey, can my best friend fuck you?
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Dixon Rule (Campus Diaries, #2))
“
All roads lead to raising the money to buy a new campus. The best way to achieve it is to pack the incoming kindergarten class with Mercedes Parents.
”
”
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
“
This is where we come," he said.
Albie and I look at each other. “We?”
“Me and, you know.”
Albie’s eyes got wide. “I really don’t think I want to know about this.”
I surprised myself. “I do,” I said. I guess I was tired of having to withhold the truth from Toby. Other than Ben, he and Albie we’re easily my best friends at Natick.
Toby looked a little surprised, like he’d just assumed we wouldn’t want to hear the details.
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
He looked around to make sure we were alone. We definitely were. No one came back here to my knowledge. Also it was cold. Like twenty degrees. Only three idiots would be in the woods in the winter, it seemed to me.
“Robinson” he said.
“Gorilla Butt,” I said, nodding. “I know.”
“You know?”
“Yup.”
Toby crossed his arms an then deflated into a fake pout. “You’re stealing my scene, bitch. Scene stealer.”
“Sorry,” I said. “So you and Gorilla Butt. Wow.”
He flipped me off. “He hates that,” Toby said. “But, yeah. It’s hairy.”
“Oh, look, almost anything else in the universe,” Albie said, heading back to campus and leaving us in the clearing.
“He’s such a prude,” Toby said rolling his eyes.
”
”
Bill Konigsberg (Openly Straight (Openly Straight, #1))
“
Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they'll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organizarion that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women's studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn't meet whatever standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women's access to abortion because he doesn't think they're smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We're just doing our best to live in it.
”
”
Jessica Valenti (The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women)
“
the six of us are supposed to drive to the diner in Hastings for lunch. But the moment we enter the cavernous auditorium where the girls told us to meet them, my jaw drops and our plans change.
“Holy shit—is that a red velvet chaise lounge?”
The guys exchange a WTF look. “Um…sure?” Justin says. “Why—”
I’m already sprinting toward the stage. The girls aren’t here yet, which means I have to act fast. “For fuck’s sake, get over here,” I call over my shoulder.
Their footsteps echo behind me, and by the time they climb on the stage, I’ve already whipped my shirt off and am reaching for my belt buckle. I stop to fish my phone from my back pocket and toss it at Garrett, who catches it without missing a beat.
“What is happening right now?” Justin bursts out.
I drop trou, kick my jeans away, and dive onto the plush chair wearing nothing but my black boxer-briefs. “Quick. Take a picture.”
Justin doesn’t stop shaking his head. Over and over again, and he’s blinking like an owl, as if he can’t fathom what he’s seeing.
Garrett, on the other hand, knows better than to ask questions. Hell, he and Hannah spent two hours constructing origami hearts with me the other day. His lips twitch uncontrollably as he gets the phone in position.
“Wait.” I pause in thought. “What do you think? Double guns, or double thumbs up?”
“What is happening?”
We both ignore Justin’s baffled exclamation.
“Show me the thumbs up,” Garrett says.
I give the camera a wolfish grin and stick up my thumbs.
My best friend’s snort bounces off the auditorium walls. “Veto. Do the guns. Definitely the guns.”
He takes two shots—one with flash, one without—and just like that, another romantic gesture is in the bag.
As I hastily put my clothes back on, Justin rubs his temples with so much vigor it’s as if his brain has imploded. He gapes as I tug my jeans up to my hips. Gapes harder when I walk over to Garrett so I can study the pictures.
I nod in approval. “Damn. I should go into modeling.”
“You photograph really well,” Garrett agrees in a serious voice. “And dude, your package looks huge.”
Fuck, it totally does.
Justin drags both hands through his dark hair. “I swear on all that is holy—if one of you doesn’t tell me what the hell just went down here, I’m going to lose my shit.”
I chuckle. “My girl wanted me to send her a boudoir shot of me on a red velvet chaise lounge, but you have no idea how hard it is to find a goddamn red velvet chaise lounge.”
“You say this as if it’s an explanation. It is not.” Justin sighs like the weight of the world rests on his shoulders. “You hockey players are fucked up.”
“Naah, we’re just not pussies like you and your football crowd,” Garrett says sweetly. “We own our sex appeal, dude.”
“Sex appeal? That was the cheesiest thing I’ve ever—no, you know what? I’m not gonna engage,” Justin grumbles. “Let’s find the girls and grab some lunch
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
“
I’ve tried to make sense of how someone who didn’t stalk his victims in advance ended up going after the best and the brightest. And I think that’s it, the thing they all had in common—a light that outshone his. He targets college campuses and sorority houses because he’s looking for the cream of the crop. He wants to extinguish us—we are the ones who remind him that he’s not that smart, not that good-looking, that there’s nothing particularly special about him.
”
”
Jessica Knoll (Bright Young Women)
“
Here is one way to conceptualize NASA's heroic era: in 1961, Kennedy gave his "moon speech" to Congress, charging them to put an American on the moon "before the decade is out." In the eight years that unspooled between Kennedy's speech and Neil Armstrong's first historic bootprint, NASA, a newborn government agency, established sites and campuses in Texas, Florida, Alabama, California, Ohio, Maryland, Mississippi, Virginia, and the District of Columbia; awarded multi-million-dollar contracts and hired four hundred thousand workers; built a fully functioning moon port in a formerly uninhabited swamp; designed and constructed a moonfaring rocket, spacecraft, lunar lander, and space suits; sent astronauts repeatedly into orbit, where they ventured out of their spacecraft on umbilical tethers and practiced rendezvous techniques; sent astronauts to orbit the moon, where they mapped out the best landing sites; all culminating in the final, triumphant moment when they sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to step out of their lunar module and bounce about on the moon, perfectly safe within their space suits. All of this, start to finish, was accomplished in those eight years.
”
”
Margaret Lazarus Dean (Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight)
“
Millennials are getting a bad rap these days, as many people erroneously attribute recent campus trends to them. This is a book about the very different attitudes toward speech and safety that spread across universities as the Millennials were leaving. We are not blaming iGen. Rather, we are proposing that today’s college students were raised by parents and teachers who had children’s best interests at heart but who often did not give them the freedom to develop their antifragility.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure)
“
We drove through the Old Dominion University campus, where a small permanent lake has formed in the back corner of a huge parking lot. “You can’t pave under water,” he noted dryly, “so this obviously wasn’t under water when this parking lot was paved.
”
”
Deborah Blum (The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014 (The Best American Series))
“
I’d like to say my best friends have the whole angel/devil thing going on, where one is a dick and the other sits on my shoulder spewing kindness and compassion. I’d like to say that. But they’re both just assholes who take great amusement out of my misery.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Graham Effect (Campus Diaries, #1))
“
No matter how many times Dena had tried to tell her, Sookie had never understood what a great gal she was on her own. She had been one of the funniest and best-liked girls on campus, but she had never quite believed it. Everybody seemed to love Sookie but Sookie. A
”
”
Fannie Flagg (The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion)
“
Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they'll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organizarion that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women's studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn't meet whatevel standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women's access to abortion because he doesn't think they're smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We're just doing our best to live in it.
”
”
Jessica Valenti (The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women)
“
Now talking about my best friends, Samara and Zara, I need to write they are perfect in being really my friends and they have been a part of my support in the present days and I am content to have them beside me here in the Campus.
Accidentally Angels 2 - Pet TorreS
”
”
Pet Torres
“
Too bad, Samantha, they said to me afterward. Sometimes you fail. Miserably. Hopelessly. It happens even to the best of us. Well, not to us, it’s never happened to us. But it CAN happen. In theory. And that guy! I’m so surprised he didn’t rape us. Repeatedly. Or kill us. Or do some sick thing in between? And oh my god, that story he told about the wolf? So weird. Obviously twisted. Probably we shouldn’t have told him our names. He won’t remember, will he? I mean, it’s not like we’re traceable or anything? Like he could track us down? Like on Facebook or anything? He’s insane, remember? Murderous. Probably he doesn’t even have Facebook. I was like a breath away from calling the police the whole time. Or campus safety. Or like, just screaming “rape.” You’re supposed to yell “fire,” though. Because no one comes when you yell “rape,” didn’t you know that, Bunny
”
”
Mona Awad (Bunny (Bunny, #1))
“
I talked about the skill set that MSU provides that you don't get at an elite institution, including accountability, being forced to try your best because you aren't constantly patted on the back, and integrating studies with life skills like living and working off campus and generally learning to be an adult.
”
”
William Deresiewicz
“
Logan was there, though, waiting for me outside, and I’ve never been more ashamed in my life as I apologized to my best friend for hitting him. But Hannah had also given me the okay to share the truth with Logan, and after I told him who Rob was and why I went after him, Logan was ready to go after Rob himself, and then he apologized to me for pulling me off the bastard. That’s when I realized how much I fucking love the guy. He might be crushing on my girlfriend, but he’s still the best friend I’ve ever had. And hell, I can’t even fault him for the girlfriend-crushing part because why wouldn’t he want to be with someone as incredible as Hannah?
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Deal (Off-Campus, #1))
“
The First Amendment exists to protect minority points of view in a democracy, and anything that undermines it necessarily gives more power to the authorities. It is ultimately the best protection of the weak, the unpopular, the oddballs, the misfits, and the underdogs. If the only price that we have to pay for this freedom is that we sometimes hear words that we find offensive, it is well worth it.
”
”
Greg Lukianoff (Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate)
“
Instead of playing it cool, my body decided the best thing to do at that moment was to inhale some toothpaste and spend the next three minutes choking on it. Thankfully, they were all three in the shower, so they didn’t realize that their sudden nudity had caused the biggest queen on campus to have a three-minute coughing fit. I still haven’t recovered from that moment. I don’t think I ever will. Sorry, Kyrie.
”
”
Jacob Tobia (Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story)
“
While we were forming mobs to drive an Autherine Lucy [the black woman who integrated the University of Alabama in 1956] from an Alabama campus, the Russians were compelling ALL children to attend the best possible schools,” opined the Chicago Defender. Until the United States cured its “Mississippiitis”—that disease of segregation, violence, and oppression that plagued America like a chronic bout of consumption—the paper declared, it would never merit the position of world leadership.
”
”
Margot Lee Shetterly (Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race)
“
No white people in my office on that spring day in 1968. On the other hand, visualizing the presence of some sweaty, ham-fisted, Caucasian version of John Henry, the steel-driving man, hammering iron wedges between the students and me, incarcerating us behind bars as invisible as he was, clarifies the encounter. Why weren’t novels and poems by Americans of African descent being taught at the university? Why were so few of us attending and almost none of us teaching there? What rationales and agendas were served by dispensing knowledge through arbitrary, territorial “fields”? Why had the training I’d received in the so-called “best” schools alienated me from my particular cultural roots and brainwashed me into believing in some objective, universal, standard brand of culture and art—essentialist, hierarchical classifications of knowledge—that doomed people like me to marginality on the campus and worse, consigned the vast majority of us who never reach college to a stigmatized, surplus underclass.
”
”
Zora Neale Hurston (Every Tongue Got to Confess)
“
The Arab world has done nothing to help the Palestinian refugees they created when they attacked Israel in 1948. It’s called the ‘Palestinian refugee problem.’ This is one of the best tricks that the Arabs have played on the world, and they have used it to their great advantage when fighting Israel in the forum of public opinion. This lie was pulled off masterfully, and everyone has been falling for it ever since. First you tell people to leave their homes and villages because you are going to come in and kick out the Jews the day after the UN grants Israel its nationhood. You fail in your military objective, the Jews are still alive and have more land now than before, and you have thousands of upset, displaced refugees living in your country because they believed in you. So you and the UN build refugee camps that are designed to last only five years and crowd the people in, instead of integrating them into your society and giving them citizenship.
After a few years of overcrowding and deteriorating living conditions, you get the media to visit and publish a lot of pictures of these poor people living in the hopeless, wretched squalor you have left them in. In 1967 you get all your cronies together with their guns and tanks and planes and start beating the war drums. Again the same old story: you really are going to kill all the Jews this time or drive them into the sea, and everyone will be able to go back home, take over what the Jews have developed, and live in a Jew-free Middle East. Again you fail and now there are even more refugees living in your countries, and Israel is even larger, with Jerusalem as its capital. Time for more pictures of more camps and suffering children. What is to be done about these poor refugees (that not even the Arabs want)? Then start Middle Eastern student organizations on U.S. college campuses and find some young, idealistic American college kids who have no idea of what has been described here so far, and have them take up the cause. Now enter some power-hungry type like Yasser Arafat who begins to blackmail you and your Arab friends, who created the mess, for guns and bombs and money to fight the Israelis. Then Arafat creates hell for the world starting in the 1970s with his terrorism, and the “Palestinian refugee problem” becomes a worldwide issue and galvanizes all your citizens and the world against Israel. Along come the suicide bombers, so to keep the pot boiling you finance the show by paying every bomber’s family twenty-five thousand dollars. This encourages more crazies to go blow themselves up, killing civilians and children riding buses to school. Saudi Arabia held telethons to raise thousands of dollars to the families of suicide bombers. What a perfect way to turn years of military failure into a public-opinion-campaign success. The perpetuation of lies and uncritical thinking, combined with repetitious anti-Jewish and anti-American diatribes, has produced a generation of Arab youth incapable of thinking in a civilized manner. This government-nurtured rage toward the West and the infidels continues today, perpetuating their economic failure and deflecting frustration away from the dictators and regimes that oppress them. This refusal by the Arab regimes to take an honest look at themselves has created a culture of scapegoating that blames western civilization for misery and failure in every aspect of Arab life. So far it seems that Arab leaders don’t mind their people lagging behind, save for King Abdullah’s recent evidence of concern. (The depth of his sincerity remains to be seen.)
”
”
Brigitte Gabriel (Because They Hate)
“
It was when Maya showed me the benches at Gallaudet University that I started to glimpse sound—the physical structure of it, the elastic bounce of its travel. My friends who are deaf have always told me that sound also belongs to them—that hearing people are forever getting it wrong to imagine deafness as a “silent world”—but the benches were the thing that made this idea vividly real. They were a feature in the design at the scale of rooms at Gallaudet, alongside a dozen other architectural choices that a hearing person could easily miss. Maya had paused for a moment in our campus tour to point them out, standing in the middle of a big, airy common space lined with windows on three sides, the lobby of a dorm where many students study and socialize, alone or in groups. The benches serve as seating for nearby wood tables, sets that are interspersed with soft fabric chairs arranged 360 degrees around for discussion. “Wood is the best material for this kind of group seating,” she told me, and mimed lightly slapping the wood with her palm. The resonance of wood makes it reverberate when struck. Students sometimes tap or slap nearby surfaces to get one another’s attention or to call a group to order, she said, and materials like concrete or thick plastics tend to absorb the sound rather than scatter it productively.
”
”
Sara Hendren (What Can a Body Do?)
“
I'm going to throw some suggestions at you now in rapid succession, assuming you are a father of one or more boys. Here we go: If you speak disparagingly of the opposite sex, or if you refer to females as sex objects, those attitudes will translate directly into dating and marital relationships later on. Remember that your goal is to prepare a boy to lead a family when he's grown and to show him how to earn the respect of those he serves. Tell him it is great to laugh and have fun with his friends, but advise him not to
be "goofy." Guys who are goofy are not respected, and people, especially girls and women, do not follow boys and men whom they disrespect. Also, tell your son that he is never to hit a girl under any circumstances. Remind him that she is not as strong as he is and that she is deserving of his respect. Not only should he not hurt her, but he should protect her if she is threatened. When he is strolling along with a girl on the street, he should walk on the outside, nearer the cars. That is symbolic of his responsibility to take care of her. When he is on a date, he should pay for her food and entertainment. Also (and this is simply my opinion), girls should not call boys on the telephone-at least not until a committed relationship has developed. Guys must be the initiators, planning the dates and asking for the girl's company. Teach your son to open doors for girls and to help them with their coats or their chairs in a restaurant. When a guy goes to her house to pick up his date, tell him to get out of the car and knock on the door. Never honk. Teach him to stand, in formal situations, when a woman leaves the room or a table or when she returns. This is a way of showing respect for her. If he treats her like a lady, she will treat him like a man. It's a great plan.
Make a concerted effort to teach sexual abstinence to your teenagers, just as you teach them to abstain from drug and alcohol usage and other harmful behavior. Of course you can do it! Young people are fully capable of understanding that irresponsible sex is not in their best interest and that it leads to disease, unwanted pregnancy, rejection, etc. In many cases today, no one is sharing this truth with teenagers. Parents are embarrassed to talk about sex, and, it disturbs me to say, churches are often unwilling to address the issue. That creates a vacuum into which liberal sex counselors have intruded to say, "We know you're going to have sex anyway, so why not do it right?" What a damning message that is. It is why herpes and other sexually transmitted diseases are spreading exponentially through the population and why unwanted pregnancies stalk school campuses. Despite these terrible social consequences, very little support is provided even for young people who are desperately looking for a valid reason to say no. They're told that "safe sex" is fine if they just use the right equipment. You as a father must counterbalance those messages at home. Tell your sons that there is no safety-no place to hide-when one lives in contradiction to the laws of God! Remind them repeatedly and emphatically of the biblical teaching about sexual immorality-and why someone who violates those laws not only hurts himself, but also wounds the girl and cheats the man she will eventually marry. Tell them not to take anything that doesn't belong to them-especially the moral purity of a woman.
”
”
James C. Dobson (Bringing Up Boys: Practical Advice and Encouragement for Those Shaping the Next Generation of Men)
“
Black newspapers and their readers wasted no time in making the link between America’s inadequacy in space and the dreadful conditions facing many black students in the South. “While we were forming mobs to drive an Autherine Lucy [the black woman who integrated the University of Alabama in 1956] from an Alabama campus, the Russians were compelling ALL children to attend the best possible schools,” opined the Chicago Defender. Until the United States cured its “Mississippiitis”—that disease of segregation, violence, and oppression that plagued America like a chronic bout of consumption—the paper declared, it would never merit the position of world leadership. An editorial in the Cleveland Call and Post
”
”
Margot Lee Shetterly (Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race)
“
be apart. Despite getting rejected by my top-choice school, I was starting to really believe in myself again based on all the positive feedback we continued to get on our videos. And besides, I knew I could always reapply to Emerson the following year and transfer. • • • College started out great, with the best part being my newly found freedom. I was finally on my own and able to make my own schedule. And not only was Amanda with me, I’d already made a new friend before the first day of classes from a Facebook page that was set up for incoming freshmen. I started chatting with a pretty girl named Chloe who mentioned that she was also going to do the film and video concentration. Fitchburg isn’t located in the greatest neighborhood, but the campus has lots of green lawns and old brick buildings that look like mansions. My dorm room was a forced triple—basically a double that the school added bunk beds to in order to squeeze one extra person in. I arrived first and got to call dibs on the bunk bed that had an empty space beneath it. I moved my desk under it and created a little home office for myself. I plastered the walls with Futurama posters and made up the bed with a new bright green comforter and matching pillows. My roommates were classic male college stereotypes—the football player and the stoner. Their idea of decorating was slapping a Bob Marley poster and a giant ad for Jack Daniels on the wall.
”
”
Joey Graceffa (In Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World)
“
These are things you’re not supposed to say on campuses now. But let’s be frank. To begin with, if colleges and universities around the country were in any way serious about policies to prevent sexual assaults, the path is obvious: don’t ban teacher-student romance, ban fraternities. And if we want to limit the potential for sexual favoritism—another rationale often proffered for the new policies—then let’s include the institutionalized sexual favoritism of spousal hiring, with trailing spouses getting ranks and perks based on whom they’re sleeping with rather than CVs alone, and brought in at salaries often dwarfing those of senior and more accomplished colleagues who didn’t have the foresight to couple more advantageously.
”
”
Jonathan Franzen (The Best American Essays 2016 (The Best American Series))
“
Have you ever been in a place where history becomes tangible? Where you stand motionless, feeling time and importance press around you, press into you? That was how I felt the first time I stood in the astronaut garden at OCA PNW. Is it still there? Do you know it? Every OCA campus had – has, please let it be has – one: a circular enclave, walled by smooth white stone that towered up and up until it abruptly cut off, definitive as the end of an atmosphere, making room for the sky above. Stretching up from the ground, standing in neat rows and with an equally neat carpet of microclover in between, were trees, one for every person who’d taken a trip off Earth on an OCA rocket. It didn’t matter where you from, where you trained, where your spacecraft launched. When someone went up, every OCA campus planted a sapling. The trees are an awesome sight, but bear in mind: the forest above is not the garden’s entry point. You enter from underground. I remember walking through a short tunnel and into a low-lit domed chamber that possessed nothing but a spiral staircase leading upward. The walls were made of thick glass, and behind it was the dense network you find below every forest. Roots interlocking like fingers, with gossamer fungus sprawled symbiotically between, allowing for the peaceful exchange of carbon and nutrients. Worms traversed roads of their own making. Pockets of water and pebbles decorated the scene. This is what a forest is, after all. Don’t believe the lie of individual trees, each a monument to its own self-made success. A forest is an interdependent community. Resources are shared, and life in isolation is a death sentence. As I stood contemplating the roots, a hidden timer triggered, and the lights faded out. My breath went with it. The glass was etched with some kind of luminescent colourant, invisible when the lights were on, but glowing boldly in the dark. I moved closer, and I saw names – thousands upon thousands of names, printed as small as possible. I understood what I was seeing without being told. The idea behind Open Cluster Astronautics was simple: citizen-funded spaceflight. Exploration for exploration’s sake. Apolitical, international, non-profit. Donations accepted from anyone, with no kickbacks or concessions or promises of anything beyond a fervent attempt to bring astronauts back from extinction. It began in a post thread kicked off in 2052, a literal moonshot by a collective of frustrated friends from all corners – former thinkers for big names gone bankrupt, starry-eyed academics who wanted to do more than teach the past, government bureau members whose governments no longer existed. If you want to do good science with clean money and clean hands, they argued, if you want to keep the fire burning even as flags and logos came down, if you understand that space exploration is best when it’s done in the name of the people, then the people are the ones who have to make it happen.
”
”
Becky Chambers (To Be Taught, If Fortunate)
“
For the next nine months, Sylvia would report on campus trends, politics, tastes, style. It was an honor, but it was grueling. Sylvia was overworked. She had boyfriend problems. She longed for Europe. She broke her leg in a skiing accident. Her best friend, Marcia Brown, had gotten engaged and moved off campus - other girls were away on their junior year abroad. The whole campus seemed mired in some bleak haze- there were suicide attempts, abortions, disappearances, and hasty marriages. Sylvia coped with shopping binges in downtown Northhampton- sheer blouses, French pumps, red cashmere sweaters, white skirts, and tight black pullovers - clothes more suited to voguish amusements than studying. Everyone wanted to be one of Mademoiselle's guest editors, but Sylvia needed it - some shot of glamour to pull her out of the mud.
”
”
Elizabeth Winder (Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953)
“
Firms justified their approach to recruitment by asserting that the best students go to the best universities and by arguing that it was more efficient to hire from listed schools because the screening that had already been done by these institutions’ admissions offices saved firms time and money. But as the next chapter’s examination of recruitment at core campuses shows, limiting competition to students at elite schools was much more than a matter of efficiency or effectiveness. Firms spent vast sums of money each year engaging in an elaborate courting ritual with students at core campuses. This showy, expensive undertaking not only bolstered the status of the participating companies in the eyes of students but it also generated emotional investment in the outcome of the hiring contest and began to seduce students into an upper-class style of life.
”
”
Lauren A. Rivera (Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs)
“
A second case concerns Charles Whitman, the 1966 “Texas Tower” sniper who, after killing his wife and mother, opened fire atop a tower at the University of Texas in Austin, killing sixteen and wounding thirty-two, one of the first school massacres. Whitman was literally an Eagle Scout and childhood choirboy, a happily married engineering major with an IQ in the 99th percentile. In the prior year he had seen doctors, complaining of severe headaches and violent impulses (e.g., to shoot people from the campus tower). He left notes by the bodies of his wife and his mother, proclaiming love and puzzlement at his actions: “I cannot rationaly [sic] pinpoint any specific reason for [killing her],” and “let there be no doubt in your mind that I loved this woman with all my heart.” His suicide note requested an autopsy of his brain, and that any money he had be given to a mental health foundation. The autopsy proved his intuition correct—Whitman had a glioblastoma tumor pressing on his amygdala.
”
”
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
“
I remember meeting a man who gave sex seminars to students at various college campuses. To get people to come he passed out flyers that were entitled “How to Have the Best Sex on Earth.” Of course, his lecture attracted a huge turnout. He spoke about sex between two virgins on their wedding night being disease-free, guilt-free, comparison-free, and shame-free, as well as being pleasing to God. It is the best sex you can have on earth. He explained that many people fall short and that is why Jesus died on a cross. In Christ anyone can start over. As 1 Corinthians 6:9--11 says: “The sexually immoral…will [not] inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed…sanctified…[and] justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” The forgiveness found in Christ doesn’t take away from the fact that God’s way is always the best way for a marriage and our world. Hebrews 13:4 says: “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure.” That is exactly what Missy and I did.
”
”
Jase Robertson (Good Call: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Fowl)
“
General Kennedy raised his hand. “Once we’ve destroyed these pigs, are we going to get our payback for their crucifixions?” he asked. The Marine commanders, who were beyond enraged, jumped in. “We found over 153 Marines crucified when we re-secured the Ben-Gurion University campus near Negev the other day,” blurted General Peeler, eyes burning with rage. “I know everyone wants payback for the crucifixions, and I assure you we will have it. Once the battlefields have been secured and the grave registration units move in, they are going to bury the IR forces in mass graves. They will do their best to identify the IR soldiers so that they can be properly marked. Prior to the graves being filled in, they have been instructed to cover all the bodies in pig’s blood, which the Germans and Brits have supplied. We have documented over 5,000 crucifixions of US Forces, so we will bury their dead in pig’s blood in retaliation. They believe that this will prevent them from entering Paradise, so we will test that theory.” A few laughs, snickers and whoops could be heard, mostly from the NCO’s. This was a tactic used by General “Black Jack” Pershing in the Philippines prior to World War One. The US had taken possession of the Philippines during the Spanish American War of 1898. In 1911, a Muslim uprising took place in Mindanao, and General Pershing had the insurgents shot with bullets dipped in pig’s blood and then their bodies were buried with the guts of the pig. This discouraged future Muslim attacks by future Jihadis because they believed they would be prevented from entering Paradise if they were buried with the blood from a pig and its guts. General Gardner’s staff wanted to take a page from history and see if it would make a difference in this war--any small advantage that could be gained was something worth pursuing, no matter how strange or unconventional it may be.
”
”
James Rosone (Prelude to World War III: The Rise of the Islamic Republic and the Rebirth of America (World War III, #1))
“
Keep These Things in Mind While Enrolling For A Professional Online Course
While online courses are gaining in popularity due to the conveniences they offer, you must consider a few things before enrolling in one. Not all programs are suitable for everyone. Not everyone is good at learning online. There are a lot of conditions that must be satisfied to make such learning successful. It is better that you consider everything carefully before starting your e-learning course.
1. How Will The Course Help You?
There are many online professional programs available from various universities and educational platforms. You must see which one will be most useful for you. If you are working and you need to acquire a skill to get a promotion, then you must choose such a course. It is not just money that you are spending on these courses. You are also investing a lot of your time and effort to successfully complete your learning.
2. Do You Have The Motivation To Learn By Yourself?
Getting motivated to study when you are in a classroom full of students is easy. A professor is teaching and also watching you. But in online certification courses, you have the freedom of studying whenever and wherever you want. Many of the e-learning platforms allow you to complete the program at your pace. This can make you lethargic and distracted. You must ask yourself whether you can remain motivated to complete the course.
3. How Familiar Are You With The Technology?
You don’t need to be a computer genius to attend online professional programs. But you must be familiar with basic computer operations, playing videos on both desktops and mobile phones, and using a web browser. The other skill you will require in e-learning is the speed of typing on different devices. When there are live exchanges with the professors, you will need to type the queries very fast if you want to get your answers.
4. How Well Will You Participate In Online Classes?
It is very easy to remain silent in virtual classes. There is no one staring at you and pushing you to ask questions or give answers. But if you don’t interact, you will not be making full use of online certification courses. Participation is very important in such classrooms. You must also take part in the group discussions that will bring out new ideas and opinions. E-learning is not for those who need physical presence.
5. Who Are The Others On The Programme?
Knowing the other participants in online professional programs is very important, especially if you are already working and looking to acquire more skills. There must be people in the virtual classroom whose contributions will be useful for you. If the course has only freshers from college, then it may not give you any value addition. As a working person, you must look at networking opportunities that will help you with career opportunities.
To Sum Up…..
For working people, virtual classes are the best way to acquire more skills without taking a break from employment. These courses offer you the flexibility that you can never get in campus education. But you must make yourself suitable for e-learning to benefit from it.
”
”
Talentedge
“
Hundreds of people in this stadium wore my jersey tonight. Maybe thousands." Although he does have a point, even if he doesn't realize it. Bex is wearing my jersey because I gave it to her. I went to the bookstore on campus and picked out the one I liked best, and then I wrapped it up like a present and left it at her door. It's the one I wanted Darryl to see her in. The one I wanted to see her in.
”
”
Grace Reilly (First Down (Beyond the Play, #1))
“
In the 1930s and 1940s, non-Jewish Jews were among the leading pro-Soviet and anti-American agitators. During these two decades Jews constituted half of the membership of the American Communist Party.III Two alienated Jews, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were convicted in the early 1950s of helping to smuggle America’s atom bomb technology to Stalin. A study by Professor Joseph Adelson in the early 1960s of the relationship between political orientation and personal background among undergraduates at the University of Michigan revealed that 90 percent of radical students came from Jewish backgrounds.20 A national survey sponsored by the American Council of Education in 1966-67 revealed that the “best single predictor of campus protest was the presence of a substantial number of students from Jewish families.” In 1970, a Harris study showed that 23 percent of Jewish college students termed themselves “far Left” versus 4 percent of Protestants and 2 percent of Catholics.
”
”
Dennis Prager (Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism (An Examination of Antisemitism))
“
Once you’ve answered this question for yourself, replace a quick response with one that takes the time to describe the process you identified, points out the current step, and emphasizes the step that comes next. I call this the process-centric approach to e-mail, and it’s designed to minimize both the number of e-mails you receive and the amount of mental clutter they generate. To better explain this process and why it works consider the following process-centric responses to the sample e-mails from earlier: Process-Centric Response to E-mail #1: “I’d love to grab coffee. Let’s meet at the Starbucks on campus. Below I listed two days next week when I’m free. For each day, I listed three times. If any of those day and time combinations work for you, let me know. I’ll consider your reply confirmation for the meeting. If none of those date and time combinations work, give me a call at the number below and we’ll hash out a time that works. Looking forward to it.” Process-Centric Response to E-mail #2: “I agree that we should return to this problem. Here’s what I suggest… “Sometime in the next week e-mail me everything you remember about our discussion on the problem. Once I receive that message, I’ll start a shared directory for the project and add to it a document that summarizes what you sent me, combined with my own memory of our past discussion. In the document, I’ll highlight the two or three most promising next steps. “We can then take a crack at those next steps for a few weeks and check back in. I suggest we schedule a phone call for a month from now for this purpose. Below I listed some dates and times when I’m available for a call. When you respond with your notes, indicate the date and time combination that works best for you and we’ll consider that reply confirmation for the call. I look forward to digging into this problem.” Process-Centric
”
”
Cal Newport (Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
“
Shhh,” I whisper in her ear. “We don’t want our best friends to know how nice you are when your pussy is filled with my cock, do we?
”
”
Stephanie Alves (Spin the Bottle (Campus Games, #2))
“
Five Best Campus Crime Novels Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin Last Seen Wearing . . . by Hillary Waugh The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn by Colin Dexter The Secret History by Donna Tartt
”
”
Peter Swanson (All the Beautiful Lies)
“
Given that they are so wrong, how do the ideologues defend their idea pathogens? Under totalitarian regimes, the solution is direct. You criminalize if not violently suppress (or kill) any dissenting voices. In the West, the ideological indoctrination is subtler. It is achieved by an ethos of political correctness and best enforces by creating university campuses that lack intellectual diversity.
”
”
Gad Saad (Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense)
“
It is a reason why so many who seek holiness or spiritual improvement impose on themselves a strict austerity. And it is why schools and colleges used to emulate the ways of monasteries. The first Christian hermits and monastics who practiced extreme austerity in the desert saw themselves as emulating Jesus during his sojourn in the wilderness. Once monastic life became institutionalized, removing oneself from carnal temptation was a major reason why religiously minded individuals would choose to take vows. The Rule of St. Benedict, set down around the year 530, included commitments to poverty, humility, chastity, and obedience, and this became the paradigm for most Christian monastic orders. The vow of poverty generally involved renouncing all individual property, although the monastic community was allowed to hold property, and of course some monasteries eventually became quite wealthy. But the lifestyle of most monks in the Middle Ages was kept deliberately austere. Here is how Aelred of Rievaulx, writing in the twelfth century, describes it: Our food is scanty, our garments rough, our drink is from the streams and our sleep upon our book. Under our tired limbs there is a hard mat; when sleep is sweetest we must rise at a bell’s bidding. . . . self-will has no scope; there is no moment for idleness or dissipation.4 Strict precautions to eliminate the possibility of sexual encounters, regular searches of dormitories to ensure that no one was hoarding personal property, a rigid and arduous daily routine to occupy to the full one’s physical and mental energy: by means of this sort monasteries and convents did their best to provide a temptation-free environment. More than a trace of the same thinking lay behind the preference for isolated rural locations among those who sought to establish colleges in nineteenth-century America. Sometimes the argument might be conveyed subtly by a brochure picturing the college surrounded by nothing but fields, woods, and hills, an image that also appealed to the deeply rooted idea that the land was a source of virtue.5 But it was also put forward explicitly. The town of North Yarmouth sought to persuade the founders of Bowdoin College of its advantageous location by pointing out that it was “not so much exposed to many Temptations to Dissipation, Extravagance, Vanity and Various Vices as great seaport towns frequently are.”6 And the 1847 catalog of Tusculum College, Tennessee, noted that its rural situation “guards it from all the ensnaring and demoralizing influences of a town.”7 Needless to say, reassurances of this sort were directed more at the fee-paying parents than at the prospective students. One should also add that not everyone took such a positive view of the rural campus. Some complained that life far away from urban civilization fostered vulgarity, depravity, licentiousness, and hy
”
”
Emrys Westacott (The Wisdom of Frugality: Why Less Is More - More or Less)
“
She’s Wellsy’s best friend, for starters. And it doesn’t feel right to wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am her.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Score (Off-Campus, #3))
“
set in motion a decade of wandering that rewrote how I experienced the world. Travel became not so much about the destination as an end but a means of understanding myself in that place. The world became my university campus.
”
”
Andrew McCarthy (The Best American Travel Writing 2015 (The Best American Series))
“
A second and more radical response opens up when you reject the “speech is violence” view: you can use your opponents’ ideas and arguments to make yourself stronger. The progressive activist Van Jones (who was President Barack Obama’s green jobs advisor) endorsed this view in February of 2017 in a conversation at the University of Chicago’s Institute for Politics. When Democratic strategist David Axelrod asked Jones about how progressive students should react when people they find ideologically offensive (such as someone associated with the Trump administration) are invited to speak on campus, Jones began by noting the distinction we described in chapter 1 between physical and emotional “safety”: There are two ideas about safe spaces: One is a very good idea and one is a terrible idea. The idea of being physically safe on a campus—not being subjected to sexual harassment and physical abuse, or being targeted specifically, personally, for some kind of hate speech—“you are an n-word,” or whatever—I am perfectly fine with that. But there’s another view that is now I think ascendant, which I think is just a horrible view, which is that “I need to be safe ideologically. I need to be safe emotionally. I just need to feel good all the time, and if someone says something that I don’t like, that’s a problem for everybody else, including the [university] administration.”90 Jones then delivered some of the best advice for college students we have ever heard. He rejected the Untruth of Fragility and turned safetyism on its head: I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I’m not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots, and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take all the weights out of the gym; that’s the whole point of the gym. This is the gym.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure)
“
Had LinkedIn started with an undesirable set of users, it likely would not have become a magnet for the true believers that continued to onboard their friends over time. Had Tinder begun somewhere besides USC—let’s say in a small rural town—it wouldn’t have been able to build campus to campus, and then large cities and then on from there. It would have changed the whole strategy. For networked products, the curation of the network—who’s on it, why they’re there, and how they interact with each other—is as important as its product design. Starting with a deliberate point of view on who’s best for your network will define its magnetism, culture, and ultimate trajectory.
”
”
Andrew Chen (The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects)
“
If a networked product can begin to win over a series of networks faster than its competition, then it develops an accumulating advantage. These advantages, naturally, manifest as increasing network effects across customer acquisition, engagement, and monetization. Smaller networks might unravel and lose their users, who might switch over. Naturally, it becomes important for every player to figure out how to compete in this type of high-stakes environment. But how does the competitive playbook work in a world with network effects? First, I’ll tell you what it’s not: it’s certainly not a contest to see who can ship more features. In fact, sometimes the products seem roughly the same—just think about food-delivery or messaging apps—and if not, they often become undifferentiated since the features are relatively easy to copy. Instead, it’s often the dynamics of the underlying network that make all the difference. Although the apps for DoorDash and Uber Eats look similar, the former’s focus on high-value, low-competition areas like suburbs and college towns made all the difference—today, DoorDash’s market share is 2x that of Uber Eats. Facebook built highly dense and engaged networks starting with college campuses versus Google+’s scattered launch that built weak, disconnected networks. Rarely in network-effects-driven categories does a product win based on features—instead, it’s a combination of harnessing network effects and building a product experience that reinforces those advantages. It’s also not about whose network is bigger, a counterpoint to jargon like “first mover advantage.” In reality, you see examples of startups disrupting the big guys all the time. There’s been a slew of players who have “unbundled” parts of Craigslist, cherry-picking the best subcategories and making them apps unto themselves. Airbnb, Zillow, Thumbtack, Indeed, and many others fall into this category. Facebook won in a world where MySpace was already huge. And more recently, collaboration tools like Notion and Zoom are succeeding in a world where Google Suite, WebEx, and Skype already have significant traction. Instead, the quality of the networks matters a lot—which makes it important for new entrants to figure out which networks to cherry-pick to get started, which I’ll discuss in its own chapter.
”
”
Andrew Chen (The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects)
“
What are you looking for when you read students’ essays? • What are some of the things you hate to see in an application? • Is demonstrated interest a factor in your admission decision? • Are admission decisions need-blind? • What kind of student does well here? What kind of student doesn’t do well here? • Did you attend this college? What has changed since you’ve been here? • What changes do you see taking place on campus in the next five years? • What are recent alumni doing? • What do you think your school is best known for? • How would you describe the typical student here? • How does the school help freshmen adjust to college? • How is academic advising handled? • Are there on-campus jobs available for students? • How are roommates assigned? • What is the Internet situation? Is the entire campus wireless? Do you support Macs or PCs? • How do meal plans work? • How much of a role does the surrounding community play in students’ daily life?
”
”
Robin Mamlet (College Admission: From Application to Acceptance, Step by Step)
“
I hit a button on the screen. “Siri, send text to Best Buds Forever chat.” “Best Buds Forever?” Grace howls. “That’s the name of your group chat?” “Yeah, got a problem with that?” To Siri, I dictate, “Hey dipshit, at least I wasn’t sneaking around taking baths with pink dildos.” With a smug nod, I press send. “There. That’ll shut him up for a while.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Legacy (Off-Campus, #5))
“
Remember what you told me on Thanksgiving? How your father isn’t worth your anger and revenge? Well, that’s the best revenge right there, Garrett. Living well and being happy is how we get over the shit in our past. I was raped, and it was awful, but I’m not going to waste my time or energy either, not on some pathetic, screwed-up guy who couldn’t take no for an answer, or his pathetic friends who thought he deserved to be rewarded for his actions.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Deal (Off-Campus, #1))
“
The movie was great, too. They sometimes play old movies at the campus theater on Saturdays, and tonight was “The Thin Man.” It’s the one from the thirties with the husband and wife detectives. To tell the truth though, I liked the dog best.
”
”
J.J. DiBenedetto (Dream Student (Dream #1))
“
The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. The narrator of this story is Steve Jobs, the legendary CEO of Apple. The story was part of his famous Stanford commencement speech in 2005.[23] It’s a perfect illustration of how passion and purpose drive success, not the crossing of an imaginary finish line in the future. Forget the finish line. It doesn’t exist. Instead, look for passion and purpose directly in front of you. The dots will connect later, I promise—and so does Steve.
”
”
Jesse Tevelow (The Connection Algorithm: Take Risks, Defy the Status Quo, and Live Your Passions)
“
Two more of the gamers Claire had gifted with the invitation stumbled by; one grabbed Claire's arm and planted a sloppy wet kiss on her cheek. "We passed out copies," he said, and giggled. "Hope that was okay. Great party!"
Shane sighed and moved him off with one hand on his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Naked Vulcan chick in the next room. Better hurry."
The gamers sobered up fast, and moved on. Monica's glossy, perfect lips were open, her eyes wide.
"You?" she said. "You did this? These idiots made flyers! They put them all over campus! This was supposed to be the best people!"
"Don't worry," Eve said sweetly. "We're here." She smiled, which in that lipstick was Wicked-Witch-of-the-West evil. "Air kiss!" She mwahed the air somewhere near Monica's cheek. "Lovely party. Shame about the furniture. Ta!" She sashayed on, Michael on her arm, as if she was the Queen of Everything, never mind Morganville. Claire got out her camera and got a picture of the murderous fury on Monica's face as she watched her go.
"You treacherous little bitch!" Monica snarled.
Claire lowered the phone and met her eyes for a long second. She wasn't scared, not anymore. "You got your friends to roofie me and told them I wanted it rough. All I did was recycle your invitation. Let's call it even."
"Let's call it not!"
Shane leaned forward, dropped his voice so that Monica had to work to hear it, and said, "Calm down. You get blotchy when you're angry. And if you call my girlfriend a bitch one more time, I won't be so nice about it.
”
”
Rachel Caine (Midnight Alley (The Morganville Vampires, #3))
“
Magically modified food is a serious issue," Rosabella said. "We don't know the long-term effects on our bodies." She grabbed her ever-present picket sign. "I'm going to protest. Who's with me?"
All the girls suddenly checked their MirrorPhones as if an important hext had arrived.
"Suit yourselves," she said. "I'm going to talk to Ginger Breadhouse. She's the best cook on campus. Surely she cares about this issue." She hurried over to the next table.
"Good luck," Darling called. Rosabella's protests were important, but there were so many things she wanted to change. It was exhausting after a while.
”
”
Suzanne Selfors (A Semi-Charming Kind of Life (Ever After High: A School Story, #3))
“
Sort pills. Write note to family. Fold blanket. I am alone. Alone in a dark, unfamiliar room filled with piles and piles of stuff, reminiscent of a neglected storage locker. I know researchers are observing me from behind one-way glass—that this is an experiment in empathy, that we are, in fact, on the sprawling campus of a pharmaceutical company in New Jersey, that I can rip off the headphones at any moment and return to my present life, my real life—but this offers me no comfort. I can barely see through the goggles. My feet hurt. Every step is agony, the sharp plastic spikes digging into my soles. Sort pills. Write note to family. Fold blanket. I try to make out the shapes around me. I see an ironing board, a stack of sweaters. A ball of twine. My determination to cross items off any to-do list—always a strong suit of mine—feels slippery. Suddenly, I am a child playing hide-and-seek in the dark. Counting. Eyes squeezed shut. Terrified. Wondering if anyone will ever find me. Blanket. Pills. Note. I keep repeating the words like a prayer so I can remember them through the terrible din. The inside of my head is a needle against a scratched record, skipping, skipping. I feel my way around a cluttered table. A pill case! I try to pick it up. I barely feel it in the palm of my hand. After several tries, I get it open. Then I begin to sort the pills as best I can. Most of them spill to the floor, and I am suddenly, irrationally furious. I move around the table, supporting myself on my hands to take the pressure off my feet. I push an iron out of the way, a magazine, a wooden hanger. The notebook. I find the notebook. My gloved fingers won’t close around a pencil, so I hold it the way a child would, in my fist. By now it all feels nearly futile. I’m on the verge of tears. What is the last task? Through the static, I remember: the blanket. I have to fold it. By now I’m dizzy, depleted. What difference can it possibly make? Who cares? I do a shitty job of folding the blanket and then—then I just sit down in a chair and wait for M. to rescue me. —
”
”
Dani Shapiro (Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage)
“
Those who majored in the humanities, social sciences, hard sciences, and math did the best. And the majors that did the worst? Education, social work, and the most popular major on US college campuses: business.
”
”
Jeffrey J. Selingo (College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students)
“
You’re teaching nursing?” he asked, surprised. She nodded. “I’ve been doing that for the past year or so. Turns out I like it.” “My new sister-in-law, Shelby—she’s a student there, in nursing. Cutest thing you’ll ever see. Best thing that ever happened to Luke. Any chance you know her?” “What year is she in?” Franci asked. “First year. She got married in her first semester because Paddy and Colin were done with their deployments—she waited for all the Riordans to be available. She’s way younger than Luke and is just starting college.” Franci tilted her head and smiled, thinking how sweet it was that cranky, womanizing old Luke ended up with a sweet young girl who was determined to get an education. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t met Luke’s wife. Most of the freshmen are stuck in liberal-arts courses the first year. I teach one medical-surgical course and one that boils down to charting ER patients. I’m just one of many instructors. Mostly, I teach juniors and seniors. I share an office on campus with another nursing instructor and I only teach a couple of days a week. Except for meetings, of which there are too many.” “You never did go for the meetings,” he said with a smile. “I’ll have to tell Shelby to introduce herself. You’ll love her. You’ll—” “One thing at a time, all right?” Franci asked patiently.
”
”
Robyn Carr (Angel's Peak (Virgin River #10))
“
The lawsuit was also a major distraction to Evan, Bobby, and Snapchat, during a time when they needed to focus more than ever. Finally, they reached a settlement. Reggie would receive $ 157.5 million and sign a gag order to never speak about Snapchat, the founding, or the lawsuit. Snapchat would acknowledge Reggie’s contributions to the company. Like Facebook’s multiple lawsuits with the Winklevoss twins and Eduardo Saverin, it’s difficult to neatly arrange the characters into winner and loser columns. Reggie Brown likely could not have built Snapchat into the multibillion-dollar company it is today. But he did not simply toss an idea out there for anyone to take—he recruited Evan, the best person he knew for the task, to join him and start the company. So what is fair for each side to receive? Snapchat’s valuation soared so high and so quickly during the lawsuit that it was hard for each side to wrap their heads around it, let alone arbitrate what each side deserved. This question isn’t going away. The Social Network, featuring courtroom scene after courtroom scene of friends hurling accusations at each other through expensive lawyers, spurred scores of young college students to pursue startups. Evan’s massive success with Snapchat has only increased the startup fervor on Stanford’s campus. And Reggie’s lawyers’ firm, Lee Tran & Liang, has become the hot law firm for ousted startup cofounders to sue young tech companies.
”
”
Billy Gallagher (How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story)
“
The endowment would make a second serendipitous investment when Robert Noyce, a Grinnell trustee and alumnus, offered Grinnell stock in his then-private start-up, NM Electronics.22 Noyce had almost been expelled from Grinnell for stealing a pig and roasting it at a campus luau.23 He would have been expelled but for the intervention of his physics professor who felt that Noyce was the best student he’d ever taught. 24 The professor managed to persuade the school to reduce the expulsion to a one-semester suspension.25 Noyce never forgot the favor, and made the stock available to the school if it wanted it.26 Rosenfield told Noyce that the endowment would take all the stock he’d let it have.27 Grinnell’s endowment took 10 percent of the $3 million private placement (Grinnell put up $100,000, and Rosenfield and another trustee put up $100,000 each).28 Shortly thereafter the company, then renamed Intel, went public in 1971. Grinnell started selling the stake in 1974, at which time it was worth $14 million, more than half the value of the $27 million endowment. Noyce was concerned that Grinnell should have so much exposure to a single name associated with him, and cajoled Rosenfield to sell. He recalls, “Bob [Noyce] was trembling about it. He’d say, ‘I don’t want the college to lose any money on account of me.’ But I’d say, “We’ll worry about that, Bob. We’ll take the risk.”29 Noyce eventually wore Rosenfield down, however, and Grinnell fully exited the stake by 1980. On its sale, the Intel investment had generated a profit of 4,583 percent. Rosenfield told Zweig, “I wish we’d kept it. That was the biggest mistake we ever made. Selling must have cost us $50 million, maybe more.”30 Zweig didn’t have the heart to tell the then 96-year-old Rosenfield that the shares he sold would have been worth several billion dollars in 2000. Perhaps this is why Rosenfield “considers selling to be indistinguishable from error.
”
”
Allen C. Benello (Concentrated Investing: Strategies of the World's Greatest Concentrated Value Investors)
“
Castine is a quiet town with a population of about 1,500 people in Western Hancock County, Maine, named after John Hancock, when Maine was a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was the famous statesman, merchant and smuggler who signed the “Declaration of Independence” with a signature large enough so that the English monarch, King George, could read it without glasses. Every child in New England knows that John Hancock was a prominent activist and patriot during the colonial history of the United States and not just the name of a well-known Insurance Company.
Just below the earthen remains of Fort George, on both sides of Pleasant Street, lays the campus of Maine Maritime Academy. Prior to World War II, this location was the home of the Eastern State Normal School, whose purpose was to train grade school teachers.
Maine Maritime Academy has significantly grown over the years and is now a four-year college that graduates officers and engineers for the United States Merchant Marine, as well as educating students in marine-related industries such as yacht and small craft management. Bachelor Degrees are offered in Engineering, International Business and Logistics, Marine Transportation, and Ocean Studies. Graduate studies are offered in Global Logistics and Maritime Management, as well as in International Logistics Management. Presently there are approximately 1,030 students enrolled at the Academy. Maine Maritime Academy's ranking was 7th in the 2016 edition of Best Northern Regional Colleges by U.S. News and World Report. The school was named the Number One public college in the United States by Money Magazine.
Photo Caption: Castine, Maine
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
that her best friend, Gabe Poirier, is a bad idea. He’s a walking, talking cliché. The Adonis quarterback with the bulging biceps and harem of fangirls trailing behind him on campus like a stench you can’t get rid of. Sadly, that’s also the reason she can’t stay away from him. Well, that and the fact that they’re roommates. Jolie is already straddling the line between friendship and more when Sage comes to her with an offer she cannot refuse: be his fake girlfriend and live for free for the rest of the semester. She tells herself that she can handle it. He’s just the boy she saved ten years
”
”
L.J. Shen (The End Zone)
“
Wildly Popular House Buying Strategy In A Competitive Environment
It is important for the success of any real estate consulting company to have customers who are happy with their services. Customers who are unhappy with your real estate services business will stop buying your goods and will supply your business with a bad name. To guarantee that your business receives positive reviews, be certain to give your customers the best quality service. We've great ideas about how to create potential customers and keeping current ones satisfied.
Each new employee you bring into your real estate services business could have long-lasting repercussions, so choose them carefully. Prior to inviting someone to join you, be certain that he or she's going to be capable of performing the duties the job will require, and that he or she's certified in any way needed. Whenever a new employee joins your business, you should see that they receive thorough training and could complete the tasks assigned to them. Successful companies have happy staff members that need to help you succeed; they tend to be the product of ongoing training.
A real estate services business that hopes to be competitive in today's business world should have a professionally designed website. As a responsible business owner, you have to hire a professional website designer to build your site if you don't have the necessary skills to do it yourself. The appearance of your website is vital to its success, so be sure to use visually appealing templates and images that support your content. Never discount the importance of virtual retailing to your real estate consulting company's success; today's business climate requires that all companies establish and maintain a strong and authoritative web presence.
Don't give in to complacency, even though your real estate consulting company is doing well. House buying experts universally believe that the very best time to expand your company is when you are gaining momentum. When you have dedication to the project, you could build a successful company. If your company could learn to embrace changes in the marketplace and always strive for something better, you will get through a lot of tough times.
”
”
Uptown Realty Austin
“
Tree was lonesome, and the adjustment to campus life was not proving to be an easy one for her. She missed the intimacy of her neighborhood back in Columbia, where she knew everyone she passed on the street. She had the typical freshman sensation of being overwhelmed. The lectures were hard to follow, a lot of the terms and subjects were new to her, and she struggled to take notes at the collegiate pace. She tried to keep up as best she could, but it seemed like she was always behind. She studied for two weeks for her first biology test. She was afraid of failing. Semeka Randall, in the next bed, heard Tree weeping. Semeka slid out of bed and padded back to Tamika and Ace’s room—she was about to cry herself. She said, “Tree’s crying and it’s her birthday. We have to do something.” The three of them spent all afternoon planning a surprise. They bought a vanilla cake with white icing; they blew up eighteen balloons and decorated the back bedroom with them; they strung crepe paper, and ordered pizzas. Word got back to me that Tree was having a hard day. In the afternoon, I called the freshmen suite. I sang “Happy Birthday” to Tree, in my voice that was hoarse from yelling at her. That cheered her up some. That evening, Ace, Semeka, and Tamika acted like it was just another night in their dorm room. They talked about going out, and decided against it. Semeka said, “Let’s just eat pizzas.” Tree thought, “There goes my birthday.” When the pizza arrived, Tamika told Tree to stay in the front room. After a minute, they called Tree into the back. She walked into a room darkened except for a flaming birthday cake. It was the final icebreaker. Tree beamed. The three freshmen circled Tree, and began to sing. Semeka started first. But she didn’t sing “Happy Birthday.” She sang their favorite song from the film Waiting to Exhale. As Semeka sang a verse, the others joined in. “Count on Me,” they sang. Tree, touched, started crying again.
”
”
Pat Summitt (Raise the Roof: The Inspiring Inside Story of the Tennessee Lady Vols' Groundbreaking Season in Women's College Basketball)
“
He came to the University of California, Berkeley, with many aspirations, but as often happens, life got in the way, and his best laid plans turned into dreams for another day. As he gazed over the building immediately in the foreground, he could see Sather Tower on Berkeley’s campus, known for resembling Campanile di San Marco in Venice.
”
”
Rob Thomas (Big Data Revolution: What farmers, doctors and insurance agents teach us about discovering big data patterns)
“
Just imagine for a moment you are a Yazidi sex slave, spending an eternity of days being beaten and mounted by some filthy jihadi old man with cigarette-stained teeth and the blood of Christian children still splattered on his shirt. Then, U.S. Army Rangers storm the room, sending the rapist to the Hell he was long overdue for. They wrap you in a blanket and take care of you. Feed you. Mend your wounds, and do their best to salve your emotional and spiritual scars. They send you to America as a refugee. Blessed to live in a free and prosperous nation, you decide to take advantage of all America has to offer. You go to a good college on a scholarship and while there some woman authority figure with open-toed shoes and a closed mind tells you that you have it no better here than you did in that tent back in the desert.
This talk isn’t just dumb. It’s not just dangerous. It is, quite simply, evil. [Responding to article by Amy Lauricella, staff attorney at Global Rights for Women, asserting that "While ISIS endorses rape, American college administrations similarly facilitate the rape of women on campuses"]
”
”
Jonah Goldberg
“
From a nutrition standpoint, the reason I don’t like the terms vegetarian and vegan is that they are only defined by what you don’t eat. When I used to speak on college campuses, I would meet vegans who appeared to be living off french fries and beer. Vegan, technically, but not exactly health promoting. That’s why I prefer the term whole-food, plant-based nutrition. As far as I can discern, the best available balance of evidence suggests that the healthiest diet is one centered on unprocessed plant foods. On a day-to-day basis, the more whole plant foods and the fewer processed and animal products, the better.
”
”
Michael Greger (How Not To Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease)
“
Rooms For Rent Atlanta That Cater To Your Personal Growth
Are you looking for just the right room to rent? Maybe you have the resources you need to find it yourself. After all, this is the age of the search engine, and plenty of information is available to anyone who seriously looks for it. There is a wide variety of choice, so you can concentrate only on those homes that might potentially be for you.
There are plenty of advantages to occupying rooms for rent atlanta. You save a lot of money paying only part of the expenses you would normally pay for when you have a house of your own. This is because you only have to pay your share of the rent, water, electricity and heat bills. But there are disadvantages to house share too. Conflicts can arise when you live in house that is not yours, especially if you rent a room in a house where the other residents are from a different background than yours.
Having a nice place to stay can even help your physical health, and it surely affects your mental health. You may find a place also that comes with furniture already in it. This would allow you to get by with spending less on not only the furniture but the transportation too.
Sometimes you can actually save money finding rooms for rent atlanta in the country. This depends on how often you plan to visit the city. If you have a job you can do from home, or if you are retired and collecting benefits, then there is no real reason for you to pay the extra money to live in the city. Of course there are many choices you need to make while you are searching for a room.
Some people just do not enjoy living alone. Renting an entire apartment to oneself can, indeed, be a lonely experience. For those who want an easy opportunity to socialize, then, renting a room is a great option. It is little wonder that so many houses on campuses around the country are full of young students renting rooms - its partly for convenience, and definitely partly for the chance to be among others their own age. Renting a room provides the chance to be among one’s peers.
There are many more benefits, but perhaps the biggest and best is the advantage of not being locked into something for life. Room rentals can be very appealing, and they can complement the kind of lifestyle you want and deserve.
If you want to find the spirit or soul of a city, move right in with its inhabitants. You may benefit socially by taking a couple of classes at the local college. You might try looking for rooms for rent atlanta where there are games, indoor or outdoor. This is a great way to meet people and get started in your new life. Depending on the weather, you might want a pool or access to a gym or tennis courts. Maybe you are attracted to the kind of community that has stunning architecture and green trees and plants. There may be a certain type of street design that appeals to you.
”
”
Ration
“
It paid off in two immediate ways. First, Think Different started a process of bringing pride back to Apple’s employees. Billboards and posters went up across the Cupertino campus. Steve’s narrated version was featured in a video promoting the whole campaign inside the company, and later, after Apple won the Emmy Award for the best television ad campaign for 1998, the company gave a fifty-page commemorative book to all its employees. “Our audience was the employees as much as anyone else,” says Clow. Inspiring them was challenging, especially when Steve was shuttering divisions of the company and laying off thousands of workers. But Think Different gave the surviving employees a sense that they might see better days ahead, for the first time in years.
”
”
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
“
Later that day, after he’d returned to the Apple campus, Johnson went to see Steve. “You know,” Steve told him, “you reminded me of something I learned at Pixar. On almost every film they make, something turns out to be not quite right. And they have an amazing willingness to turn around and do it again, till they do get it right. They have always had a willingness to not be governed by the release date. It’s not about how fast you do something, it’s about doing your level best.
”
”
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)