Campus Drive Quotes

THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 1. We are here to help you. 2. You will have time to get to your class before the bell rings. 3. The dress code will be enforced. 4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds. 5. Our football team will win the championship this year. 6. We expect more of you here. 7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen. 8. Your schedule was created with you in mind. 9. Your locker combination is private. 10. These will be the years you look back on fondly. TEN MORE LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 1. You will use algebra in your adult lives. 2. Driving to school is a privilege that can be taken away. 3. Students must stay on campus during lunch. 4. The new text books will arrive any day now. 5. Colleges care more about you than your SAT scores. 6. We are enforcing the dress code. 7. We will figure out how to turn off the heat soon. 8. Our bus drivers are highly trained professionals. 9. There is nothing wrong with summer school. 10. We want to hear what you have to say.

To be honest, it’s probably better if I don’t talk. Cute guys make me nervous. Like tongued-tied total-brain-malfunction nervous. All my filters shut off and suddenly I’m telling them about the time I peed my pants in the third grade during a field trip to the maple syrup factory, or how I’m scared of puppets and have mild OCD that could possibly drive me to tidy up your room the moment you turn your head.

God. Why the fuck do we drive cars? In

There’s no one else for me in this world, nobody but you. If I was driving and saw you on the side of the road? You better believe I’d rip out a spark plug or two if it meant getting to spend even five minutes in your presence.

Do you want me to drive you home? Because I was thinking of taking you somewhere else first, if you’re interested.” My curiosity is piqued. “Where?” His blue eyes twinkle mischievously. “It’s a surprise.” “A good surprise?” “Is there any other kind?” “Um, yeah. I can think of a hundred bad surprises off the top of my head.” “Name one,” he challenges. “Okay—you’re set up on a blind date, and you show up at the restaurant and Ted Bundy is sitting at the table.” Logan grins at me. “Bundy is your go-to answer for everything, huh?” “It appears so.” “Fine. Well, point taken. And I promise, it’s a good surprise. Or in the very least, it’s neutral.” “All right. Surprise away then.

As Tuck reverses out of the driveway, my gaze rests on Garrett’s black Jeep, all shiny in its parking space while its owner spends the night with the coolest girl on the planet and— And enough. This obsession with Hannah Wells is really starting to mess with my head. I need to get laid. ASAP. Tucker is noticeably quiet during the drive to Omega Phi. He might also be frowning, but it’s hard to tell considering someone shaved off all of Hugh Jackman’s body hair and pasted it on Tuck’s face.

Friends are the glue that keep us all here. Without them, who would drive you to school or skip class with you when you need to pick up a new pair of sneaks because you stepped in dog crap on the way onto campus? Boy or girl, underclassman or upperclassman, we all need our friends--just like the cheesy songs tell us.

Brody’s problem is that he has zero respect for the opposite sex. “Does he really refuse to take selfies with a girl, or was he making that up to toy with me?” Sabrina asks. “No, that’s a real thing for him. He thinks that any pictures of him with a girl pressed up to his side would drive other potential hookups away. Selfies are a sign of commitment.” He’d expounded on this topic at some length after instructing me to keep my Tinder account active and to not tell anyone I was having a kid. “Ugh. He’s so gross.” “I signed up for a fake Instagram account so I can troll him. When he posts something, I’ll wait a day or so and then pop on to comment about how cool it is that he and my grandpa are rocking the same shirt. I’ve done that twice now and each time, I’ve seen him shoving the shirt down the apartment’s trash compactor.” Sabrina throws back her head and cackles. “You do not.” “Hey, we all have to get our jollies somewhere, right? For me, it’s negging Brody on Instagram and choking my baby mama in breathing classes.

TEN MORE LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 1. You will use algebra in your adult lives. 2. Driving to school is a privilege that can be taken away. 3. Students must stay on campus during lunch. 4. The new text books will arrive any day now. 5. Colleges care more about you than your SAT scores. 6. We are enforcing the dress code. 7. We will figure out how to turn off the heat soon. 8. Our bus drivers are highly trained professionals. 9. There is nothing wrong with summer school. 10. We want to hear what you have to say.

You make me feel everything,” I finally reveal. “You make me smile. You make me hard. You drive me crazy.” My voice breaks slightly. “You make me feel safe.

As I make the ten-minute drive into town, I curse O’Shea for forcing this volunteer gig on me and ponder the authenticity of voodoo dolls. Eventually I decide it doesn’t matter if they’re real or not. It’d still be fun to poke needles into a teeny doll version of Frank O’Shea. Once it starts falling apart from all the holes, I can use the head as a stress ball. At a red light, I shoot a quick text to my teammate Fitzy—Hey, do u know how 2 make a voodoo doll? His response doesn’t come until I reach the small arena across the street from the school. Him: I’d think u were fcking with me, but the question is stupid enuff to feel legit. No idea how to make v-doll. Can prolly use any old doll? Challenge will be finding a voodoo witch to link it to your target. Me: That makes sense. Him: Does it?? Me: Voodoo implies magic, hexes, etc. I don’t think any doll would work. Otherwise every doll is a v-doll, right? Him: Right. Me: Anyway. Thx. Thought u might know. Him: Why the fuck would *I* know? Me: Ur into all those fantasy role-play games. U know magic. Him: I’m not Harry Potter, ffs. Me: HP is a nerd. Ur a nerd. Ergo, ur a boy wizard. He sends a middle-finger emoji, then says, Bday beers at Malone’s 2nite. U still down? Me: Yup. Him: C U ltr

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

Every single emergency room in every single hospital adjoining or near a college campus stocks extra supplies on Thursday nights — rape kits for the sexual assault victims, IV fluids for those who are dehydrated from alcohol-induced vomiting, and blood for drunk driving accidents.”11

I have a distinct air of myself standing amidst such a crowd of people. My eyes set above, looking at the tall building if it bespeaks a promising note. I don’t know how fair is life, All I know is I have a plan to alter the face of it, the way I choose. A purpose, a driving motive, and an obsession.

To my amazement, he turns the camera toward his face and snaps a picture. “What are you doing?” “There,” he says, handing the phone back. “Feel free to text that sexy face to your entire contact list and inform them I’m driving you home. That way if you show up dead tomorrow, everyone will know who did it.

Then she tries to get up to clear the table, at which point Tucker all but bodychecks her out of the kitchen. “My mama taught me manners, Wellsy.” He gives her a stern look. “Someone cooks for you, you clean. Period.” His head swivels to the doorway just as Logan and Dean try to sneak out. “Where’re you ladies going? Dishes, assholes. G, you get a free pass since you have to drive our lovely chef home.

Police departments—including on college and university campuses—have acquired military surplus from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the Department of Defense Excess Property Program. Thus, in response to the recent police killing of Michael Brown, demonstrators challenging racist police violence were confronted by police officers dressed in camouflage uniforms, armed with military weapons, and driving armored vehicles.

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.

TEN MORE LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 1. You will use algebra in your adult lives. 2. Driving to school is a privilege that can be taken away. 3. Students must stay on campus for lunch. 4. The new textbooks will arrive any day now. 5. Colleges care about more than your SAT scores. 6. We are enforcing the dress code. 7. We will figure out how to turn off the heat soon. 8. Our bus drivers are highly trained professionals. 9. There is nothing wrong with summer school. 10. We want to hear what you have to say.

Will there be tragic events on school campuses? Yes, and having more armed police on campus has not proven effective in reducing them. Instead, they have been incredibly effective at driving young people out of school and into the criminal justice system by the hundreds of thousands. Even if armed police on campus were an effective tool for reducing a few violent incidents, the social costs of that approach are not acceptable. We must find better ways to keep kids safe than turning their schools into armed fortresses and prisons. It’s time to take police out of the schools and reject the harsh punitive focus of school management. Our young people need compassion and care, not coercion and control.

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

Even a woman in labor will not be admitted into a hospital without her guardian or at least a mahram. Police cannot enter a home during a robbery, and firefighters are forbidden from entering a home during a fire or medical emergency if a woman is inside but does not have a mahram present. In 2014, Amna Bawazeer died on the campus of King Saud University when school officials refused to allow male paramedics to enter the female-only school after Amna collapsed from a heart ailment. The same story repeated itself in 2016 at Qaseem University when male paramedics were not allowed on campus to treat a female student, Dhuha Almane, who subsequently died. It is not a stretch to say that death is preferable to violating the strict code of guardianship and mahrams.

Everything we do and say will either underline or undermine our discipleship process. As long as there is one unsaved person on my campus or in my city, then my church is not big enough. One of the underlying principles of our discipleship strategy is that every believer can and should make disciples. When a discipleship process fails, many times the fatal flaw is that the definition of discipleship is either unclear, unbiblical, or not commonly shared by the leadership team. Write down what you love to do most, and then go do it with unbelievers. Whatever you love to do, turn it into an outreach. You have to formulate a system that is appropriate for your cultural setting. Writing your own program for making disciples takes time, prayer, and some trial and error—just as it did with us. Learn and incorporate ideas from other churches around the world, but only after modification to make sure the strategies make sense in our culture and community. Culture is changing so quickly that staying relevant requires our constant attention. If we allow ourselves to be distracted by focusing on the mechanics of our own efforts rather than our culture, we will become irrelevant almost overnight. The easiest and most common way to fail at discipleship is to import a model or copy a method that worked somewhere else without first understanding the values that create a healthy discipleship culture. Principles and process are much more important than material, models, and methods. The church is an organization that exists for its nonmembers. Christianity does not promise a storm-free life. However, if we build our lives on biblical foundations, the storms of life will not destroy us. We cannot have lives that are storm-free, but we can become storm-proof. Just as we have to figure out the most effective way to engage our community for Christ, we also have to figure out the most effective way to establish spiritual foundations in each unique context. There is really only one biblical foundation we can build our lives on, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Pastors, teachers, and church staff believe their primary role is to serve as mentors. Their task is to equip every believer for the work of the ministry. It is not to do all the ministry, but to equip all the people to do it. Their top priority is to equip disciples to do ministry and to make disciples. Do you spend more time ministering to people or preparing people to minister? No matter what your church responsibilities are, you can prepare others for the same ministry. Insecurity in leadership is a deadly thing that will destroy any organization. It drives pastors and presidents to defensive positions, protecting their authority or exercising it simply to show who is the boss. Disciple-making is a process that systematically moves people toward Christ and spiritual maturity; it is not a bunch of randomly disconnected church activities. In the context of church leadership, one of the greatest and most important applications of faith is to trust the Holy Spirit to work in and through those you are leading. Without confidence that the Holy Spirit is in control, there is no empowering, no shared leadership, and, as a consequence, no multiplication.

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.)

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.

Not everyone on campus was fond of my hobbies. After football practice one day, one of my coaches informed me that the dean of men wanted to see me. I wasn’t sure what I had done wrong, but I knew they had me on something. I walked into the office, and he asked me to close the door. “We have a problem,” he said. “Do you know what street you live on? Do you know the name of it?” “Vetville?” I asked him. “Let me refresh your memory,” he said. “You live on Scholar Drive.” Apparently, the president of Louisiana Tech had given members of the board of trustees a tour of campus the day before. “When we went to where you live, it wasn’t very scholarly,” the dean told me. “There were old boats, motors, duck decoys, and fishnets littering your front yard. He was embarrassed. This is an institution of higher learning.” “That’s my equipment,” I told him. “But everybody’s yard is mowed-except yours,” he replied. “At least the frost will get it,” I said. “It will lay down flat as a pancake when the frost gets it.” “It’s July,” the dean said. “Cut your grass.

One could understand feminism generally as an attack on woman as she was under “patriarchy” (that concept is a social construction of feminism). The feminine mystique was her ideal; in regard to sex, it consisted of women’s modesty and in the double standard of sexual conduct that comes with it, which treated women’s misbehavior as more serious than men’s. Instead of trying to establish a single standard by bringing men up to the higher standard of women, as with earlier feminism, today’s feminism decided to demand that women be entitled to sink to the level of men. It bought into the sexual revolution of the late sixties and required that women be rewarded with the privileges of male conquest rather than, say, continue serving as camp followers of rock bands. The result has been the turn for the worse. ... What was there in feminine modesty that the feminists left behind? In return for women’s holding to a higher standard of sexual behavior, feminine modesty gave them protection while they considered whether they wanted to consent. It gave them time: Not so fast! Not the first date! I’m not ready for that! It gave them the pleasure of being courted along with the advantage of looking before you leap. To win over a woman, men had to strive to express their finer feelings, if they had any. Women could judge their character and choose accordingly. In sum, women had the right of choice, if I may borrow that slogan. All this and more was social construction, to be sure, but on the basis of the bent toward modesty that was held to be in the nature of women. That inclination, it was thought, cooperated with the aggressive drive in the nature of men that could be beneficially constructed into the male duty to take the initiative. There was no guarantee of perfection in this arrangement, but at least each sex would have a legitimate expectation of possible success in seeking marital happiness. They could live together, have children, and take care of them. Without feminine modesty, however, women must imitate men, and in matters of sex, the most predatory men, as we have seen. The consequence is the hook-up culture now prevalent on college campuses, and off-campus too (even more, it is said). The purpose of hooking up is to replace the human complexity of courtship with “good sex,” a kind of animal simplicity, eliminating all the preliminaries to sex as well as the aftermath. “Good sex,” by the way, is in good part a social construction of the alliance between feminists and male predators that we see today. It narrows and distorts the human potentiality for something nobler and more satisfying than the bare minimum. The hook-up culture denounced by conservatives is the very same rape culture denounced by feminists. Who wants it? Most college women do not; they ignore hookups and lament the loss of dating. Many men will not turn down the offer of an available woman, but what they really want is a girlfriend. The predatory males are a small minority among men who are the main beneficiaries of the feminist norm. It’s not the fault of men that women want to join them in excess rather than calm them down, for men too are victims of the rape culture. Nor is it the fault of women. Women are so far from wanting hook-ups that they must drink themselves into drunken consent — in order to overcome their natural modesty, one might suggest. Not having a sociable drink but getting blind drunk is today’s preliminary to sex. Beautifully romantic, isn’t it?

Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.” —Luke 6:35 (NLT) The late-night call to the hospital twisted my stomach into a hard knot. Danny, a strong, passionate college student studying for ministry, had been in an accident. He lay in a medically induced coma, survival uncertain. I was one of his teachers. I rushed to the hospital and joined his friends. Danny’s parents had not yet arrived; they faced an agonizing four-hour drive. As we waited, we pieced together the tragic story. Danny had seen a homeless man begging on the side of the road. He sensed God’s whisper to feed him; the fast-food gift certificates he had in his pocket would be perfect. While turning his car around, he was T-boned by a pickup truck. His girlfriend suffered minor injuries; the other driver wasn’t hurt, but Danny now fought for his life. We waited and prayed and tried to comfort his parents when they arrived. The waiting stretched into days. Danny’s father, however, was not content with waiting. He had a mission. The day after the accident, he drove to the fast-food joint, loaded up with food, drove to that fateful place, and finished the task his son had begun. While his son lay in a coma, Danny’s father fed that same homeless man who would never fathom the cost of his meal; God’s boundless compassion, disguised as fast food. Danny’s recovery was slow but strong. I saw him recently, working on campus. He waved. He'd just gotten married. Danny, by his life and through his family, has become my teacher. Heavenly Father, grant me grace to press through my heartaches to a place of total forgiveness, supernatural love, and abundant life. —Bill Giovannetti Digging Deeper: Jn 15:4; Eph 4:32; Jas 2:8

Microsoft is famous for hiring extremely bright, highly aggressive, young people right out of school. Moody says, "I felt like I was watching a gang of adolescents who had sneaked into some corporate headquarters after hours, taken over its boardrooms, and were playing at being businesspeople." Microsoft is also famous for pushing these youngsters very hard to get the most and best out of them. Moody says, "The atmosphere on the campus is one of unrelenting anxiety and constant improvisation." The book is a remarkable chronicle of how arbitrary, demoralizing, and unprofessional Microsoft's development methods often are.

On Why It’s A Threat by Lynne Schmidt The first time she is catcalled, she is nineteen years old and we are walking down the street, dog leashes in hand, on a college campus that is not ours but is close enough to be home. Close enough that I should feel safe to walk my pets, go for a run, exist. He rolls up, and I bristle when I hear the stop because it’s too soon, and she mistakes the slowing for the sign at the end of the road. My ears wait for what may or may not come next and sure enough his voice rises just loud enough so we can hear it, “I don’t know which is more beautiful, the dogs, or the girls walking them.” Beside me, she stills, a deer in the sights of a gun, eyes wild like prey ready for fight or flight, because she is. Another youngest child seeking protection when there may not be any safety to be had. She does not realize she walks beside a bomb who marched in DC against a rapist in seat, who has been fighting off men like this since her knuckles could bleed. I ignite for all the times she will be yelled at and all the times my oldest sister has thrown me behind her when the vehicles stop and the car doors open. I position my body between her and this man, the way my sister did for me, a shell of a shield if need be, grip the leash tighter with my hand and demand he to keep driving. My hands shake. My voice doesn’t. This is all I need her to hear. His saccharine words turn to acid, smile sliding off his face like an avalanche, Bitch-cunt you have STIs I wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole before his tires peel away pavement and leave us reeling in dust. When we return home, she is still shaking, and I am still furious. She tells me she was scared she would be hurt, or I would be hurt, and I tell her, the same thing my sister told me, I wouldn’t let that happen. Later, when she tells her partner what happened, he says, “It’s not a big deal. Why are you acting like it is?

Every day I text and e-mail while driving. Every day I speed. I’ve driven double the speed limit. I used to steal plates of cake out of the revolving glass tower in a deli. I knew where my parents kept their cash, and I stole money from them all through my childhood. I used to steal bulk candy every time I went into the grocery store. I drank underage. I drove a car before I had a license. We had scavenger hunts in college where we had to steal everything to win. I used a fake ID. I smoked pot. I used shrooms. I did cocaine. I took Ecstasy. I used speed. I took LSD. I’ve driven drunk. I snuck an animal through customs. I backed into a car in a parking lot and drove away. I’ve cheated on my income taxes. I forged a signature on a car title. I evaded police when they tried to pull me over. I forged a college degree to get a trade license. I bribed a police officer after I was caught drunk driving. I broke my car out of an impound lot and used a friend’s license plates to drive it home. I carried a revolver licensed to someone else in my backpack across my college campus. I took a credit card that had been left in the copy machine at Staples and charged two thousand dollars’ worth of stuff on it before I threw it away.

The way that Berardi describes labor will sound as familiar to anyone concerned with their personal brand as it will to any Uber driver, content moderator, hard-up freelancer, aspiring YouTube star, or adjunct professor who drives to three campuses in one week: In the global digital network, labor is transformed into small parcels of nervous energy picked up by the recombining machine…The workers are deprived of every individual consistency. Strictly speaking, the workers no longer exist. Their time exists, their time is there, permanently available to connect, to produce in exchange for a temporary salary.15 (emphasis mine)

I pulled my knees in to my chest. As I did, I felt something small and jagged against my leg. A small shard of glass, I figured, or maybe a rough pebble. I looked down at the ground, and with mounting dread, I saw that it was neither. It was a tooth. My breath caught in my throat. I looked across and saw a hint of a smile on Otto’s model face. He opened the box, revealing a set of rusted tools. I saw a set of pliers, a hacksaw, a box cutter—and then I stopped looking. Bob: “Where is she?” “I already told you. I don’t know.” “That answer,” Bob said. I could see the back of his head shaking. “It’s very disappointing.” Otto remained impassive. He kept the gun aimed at me, but his gaze kept sneaking a loving look at his tools. The dead eyes would light up when they landed on the pliers, the hacksaw, the box cutter. Bob again: “Jake?” “What?” “Otto is going to cuff you now. You won’t do anything stupid. He has a gun, and hey, we can always drive back to campus and use your students for target practice. You understand me?” I swallowed again, my mind whirling. “I don’t know anything.” Bob gave an overdramatic sigh. “I didn’t ask you if you knew anything, Jake. Well, I mean, yes, I asked you that before, but right now, I’m asking if you understand what I said—about the handcuffs and the student target practice. Did you understand all that, Jake?” “Yes.” “Okay, so stay still.” Bob used his blinker and slid into the left lane. We were still on the highway. “Go ahead, Otto.” I didn’t have much time. I knew that. Seconds maybe. Once the handcuff was in place—once I was fastened to the van wall—I was finished. I looked down at the tooth. A good reminder of what was about to come. Otto came at me from near the back door. He still held the gun. I could rush him, I guess, but he’d be expecting that. I considered trying to open the side door and roll out, take my chances with this van moving more than sixty miles per hour on a highway. But the door locks were down. I’d never get one open in time. Otto

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.

I stood in the doorway and studied him while he, in turn, watched me.  We were finally alone, and I was determined to set some rules. “First, I’d like to clarify that this does not qualify as getting to know each other.  Second, you smell like wet dog.  If you want to continue to sleep in my room, on my bed, you’ll let Rachel give you a bath when she gets home.”  He snorted at that but didn’t get off the bed.  “Third, once I’m awake, you get out.  I know what you are, and I am not changing in front of you.” He outright harrumphed at that one, and I swore I saw a canine smile.  But, he did hop down from the bed.  He left the room with quiet dignity. I closed the door behind him, remade the bed—thankfully, he didn’t appear to shed—and grabbed some clothes.  I had two goals for the day.  First, I needed to figure out how long it would take me to walk to the campus from here.  Then, I needed to learn the bus schedule for the days I ran late or the weather prevented walking.  If worst came to worst, I’d buy a beater car to drive. Opening the door, I was startled to see Clay sitting there patiently waiting for me. “What are you doing?” I asked when he didn’t move.  Of course, he didn’t answer. I eyed him warily and walked past him.  In the kitchen, I grabbed the house key from the counter then moved to the back door.  Clay’s nails clicked on the floor as he followed me. “I’m going for a walk, and you’re staying here,” I said when he made to follow me outside. Clay growled slightly in response. His deep growl gave me pause.  He sounded scary. “Please don’t do that.  Unless you really are trying to scare me.”  His fur continued to bristle, but his growl stopped.  Our relationship wouldn’t go anywhere if he thought he could bully and maneuver me to his way of thinking. “And don’t crab at me.  I’m not the unlicensed dog without a leash.  Do you want me to talk Rachel into buying a pink collar for you?” He coughed out a strangled bark then turned and walked back to the living room. “See you later,” I said, feeling a little smug. The

All modern manufacturing disciplines have roots in preindustry except software, whose unique medium appeared well after industrialization was a fait accompli. Only programming comes directly from academia, where there are no time limits on research, student power is dirt cheap, profit is against the rules, and a failing program can be considered a very successful experiment. It's not a coincidence that Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and other leading software companies reside in "campuses." Universities never have to make money, hit deadlines, or build desirable, useful products.

Piff and his colleagues also have found that wealthier people are more prone to entitlement and narcissistic behavior than poorer ones are. Literally narcissistic! In the classic myth, Narcissus falls in love with his own reflection. In a study of 244 undergraduates, Piff observed that “upper-class” individuals were more likely than their “lower-class” counterparts to regard themselves in a mirror before posing for a photo they were assured nobody would ever see. This was the case even after researchers adjusted the results to account for differences in ethnicity, gender, and the participants’ previously reported levels of self-consciousness. In another memorable experiment, Piff’s team placed a pedestrian at the edge of a busy crosswalk near the Berkeley campus and watched to see which drivers would stop and let the person cross. They recorded vehicle makes and models and estimated ages and genders of the drivers. It was impossible, of course, to know anyone’s true economic circumstances and motivations, but suffice it to say that Fords and Subarus were far more likely to stop than Mercedes and BMWs were. In a related experiment, people driving higher-end cars were more likely to cut off other drivers at a busy intersection.

The National Institutes of Health in Maryland keeps samples of the 1918 flu virus in a freezer at an undisclosed location. It’s not easy to get anywhere near that locked freezer, let alone inside it. First, you have to get onto the campus of the NIH, which requires identification, a reason to be admitted, and a PhD, preferably in one of the life sciences. Once you get through and find the building, a guard has to buzz you in via an airlocked entrance with double doors. Inside, you will pass through a metal detector and then be firmly guided toward a locker, where your cell phone, thumb drive, computer, pager, and camera must be deposited. Then, and only then, will you be escorted farther into the building.

Because it’ll drive him crazy. Make you seem even more unattainable.

Compared to all this, Ronstadt and Browne were still trying to graduate from the kids' table. Ronstadt had released her first album for Geffen, Don't Cry Now, in September 1973. Browne followed a few weeks later, in October, with his second album, For Everyman. Both albums sold respectably, but neither cracked the Top 40 on the Billboard album chart. And while Geffen had great expectations for both artists, in early 1974 each was still building an audience. Their tour itinerary reflected their transitional position. It brought them to big venues in Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, but also took them far from the bright lights to small community theaters and college campuses in Oxnard, San Luis Obispo, New Haven, and Cortland, New York. At either end, there wasn't much glamour in the experience. They had moved up from the lowest rung on the touring ladder, when they had lugged their gear in and out of station wagons, but had progressed only to a Continental Trailways bus without beds that both bands crammed into for the late-night drives between shows. "The first thing that happened is we were driving all night, and the next morning we were exhausted," Browne remembered. "Like, no one slept a wink. We were sitting up all night on a bus."' "Touring was misery," Ronstadt said, looking back. "Touring is just hard. You don't get to meet anybody. You are always in a bubble . . . You saw the world outside the bus window, and you did the sound check every day."9 The performances were uneven, too. "While Browne is much more assured and confident on stage than he was a year or two ago, he's still very much like a smart kid with a grown-up gift for songwriting," sniffed Judith Sims of Rolling Stone. She treated Ronstadt even more dismissively, describing her as peddling "country schmaltz."' The young rock journalist Cameron Crowe, catching the tour a few days later in Berkeley, described Browne's set as "painfully mediocre."" But Ronstadt and Browne found their footing as they progressed, each alternating lead billing depending on who had sold more records in each market. By the time the cavalcade rolled into Carnegie Hall, the reception for Browne and Ronstadt was strong enough that the promoters added a second show. In February 1974, Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt were still at the edge of the stardom they would soon achieve.

An eighteen-year-old must be able to find his way around a campus, the town in which her summer internship is located, or the city where he is working or studying abroad. The crutch: We drive or accompany our children everywhere, even when a bus, their bicycle, or their own feet could get them there; thus, kids don’t know the route for getting from here to there, how to cope with transportation options and snafus, when and how to fill the car with gas, or how to make and execute transportation plans.

I’m pretty sure he plans on killing me anyway,” I said with a shrug. “At least if he kills me for this, it was for something that matters.” “I-” “Tell him I came here and spoke with you about Darius. Tell him I made some excuse to get you to leave the room and by the time you came back I’d done this. Put all the blame on me. I mean that.” “Okay…” she said hesitantly and I met her eye. “Do I need to make you swear it on the stars?” I growled. “No. I’ll tell him. Thank you, Roxanya.” “It’s Tory. Only Darius calls me Roxy and I can’t make him stop, but I don’t want anyone else making a habit of it,” I said. Although at this point if Darius started calling me Tory it would probably just be weird. Not that I’d ever admit that I was okay with the Roxy thing. “Okay. Thank you, Tory.” I smirked at her and hit post. Catalina gasped as Xavier’s secret went viral and I glanced down at my Atlas as reactions and comments began to pour in before I locked the screen. Shit, what if Daddy Acrux really does kill me for this? “Run, Tory,” Catalina breathed, real fear dancing in her eyes. “Run for the gate and get back to the academy before he comes back. If he finds you here-” “Consider me gone.” I barked a laugh as nerves made my heart flutter. Catalina smiled at me before ripping her dress off, knocking her hair free of its perfectly styled bun, flashing me those gloriously fake tits and leaping out of thewindow after her son. She transformed as she plummeted and my lips fell open as a stunning silver Dragon burst from her flesh. She beat a path up towards the clouds just as Xavier dipped beneath them with an excited whinny. I quickly raised my Atlas and snapped a picture of the two of them dancing through the sky before I took a running jump out of the window too. My wings burst to life at my back and I flew hard and fast along the drive until I soared over the gates, beyond the anti-stardust wards where I landed quickly, my boots skidding in the gravel. I grabbed the stardust from my pocket and winked at the startled guards half a second before I tossed it over my head and the stars whisked me back to the academy. I stumbled as they deposited me and suddenly strong arms locked around my chest from behind, making me scream in surprise. A hand slapped over my mouth and I stilled for a moment as the scent of smoke and cedar overwhelmed me. Darius dragged me back through the hole in the wards, pulled me through the fence and shoved me up against a huge tree at the edge of campus before he took his hand from my mouth. His hands landed either side of my head as he penned me in, glaring down at me with an angry as fuck Dragon peering out of his eyes, his pupils transformed into reptilian slits and a hint of smoke slipped between his lips. He was only wearing sweatpants and I got the impression he’d flown here to ambush me the moment I returned. I guess he didn’t like my FaeBook post. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he demanded. “Whoa, chill out dude,” I said, pressing my hands to his chest to push him back. He didn’t move a single inch and I just ended up with my hands pressed to his rock hard muscles, his heart pounding frantically beneath my right palm. “Do you know what you’ve done?” Darius snarled. “Father could kill Xavier for this! He could-” “He won’t,” I snapped angrily. “He can’t. Don’t you see that? The only power he held over Xavier was in keeping his real Order form a secret. Now everyone knows, he’s free. Killing him wouldn’t change the truth. And he can’t very well alienate every Pegasus in Solaria by making his Orderist bullshit public knowledge. He’ll have to let Xavier leave the house, join a herd, fly.” Darius was staring at me like he didn’t know whether to kill me or kiss me and as my gaze fell on his mouth, I found myself aching for the latter. Fuck the stars. (Tory POV)

A little over a month later, on December 18,1972, I was listening to the radio while driving to campus to take one of my final exams. The announcer broke into programming to say that Joe Biden's wife Neilia, and their thirteen month old daughter, Naomi, had been killed in a car accident earlier that day, on their way home from buying the family's Christmas tree. Their young sons, Beau and Hunter, had been in the car but survived.

ENTERED 2021 FEELING a general sense of disenchantment. I was in my second year at Birzeit University, studying law, but the Covid-19 pandemic meant all my classes were online. Even though I was already living at home with my family in Nabi Saleh, a ten-minute drive from Birzeit, I missed the daily buzz and excitement of campus life. I yearned to be learning in an actual classroom, instead of my bedroom. But there was no telling when things would return to normal. At the same time, Israel was receiving global praise for leading the world in vaccinating its population, including settlers like the ones living across the road from our village. But not us. Despite its international obligations as an occupying power, Israel did not initially provide vaccines to the millions of Palestinians living under its occupation, a grotesque display of medical apartheid, and something that only added to my mounting frustration.

There are a hundred thousand species of love, separately invented, each more ingenious than the last, and every one of them keeps making things. OLIVIA VANDERGRIFF SNOW IS THIGH-HIGH and the going slow. She plunges through drifts like a pack animal, Olivia Vandergriff, back to the boardinghouse on the edge of campus. Her last session ever of Linear Regression and Time Series Models has finally ended. The carillon on the quad peals five, but this close to the solstice, blackness closes around Olivia like midnight. Breath crusts her upper lip. She sucks it back in, and ice crystals coat her pharynx. The cold drives a metal filament up her nose. She could die out here, for real, five blocks from home. The novelty thrills her. December of senior year. The semester so close to over. She might stumble now, fall face-first, and still roll across the finish line. What’s left? A short-answer exam on survival analysis. Final paper in Intermediate Macroeconomics. Hundred and ten slide IDs in Masterpieces of World Art, her blow-off elective. Ten

You’re the one, Sabrina. There’s no one else for me in this world, nobody but you. If I was driving and saw you on the side of the road? You better believe I’d rip out a spark plug or two if it meant getting to spend even five seconds in your presence. You’re the fucking one.

Bellevue and its satellites were not suburbs so much as—in the rising term—an Edge City, with its own economy, sociology, and architecture. Things made on the Eastside were odorless, labor-intensive, and credit-card thin, like computer software and aerospace-related electronics gear. They were assembled in low, tree-shaded factories, whose large grounds were known as “campuses”—for in Bellevue all work was graduate work, and the jargon of school and university leaked naturally into the workplace. Seen from an elevated-freeway distance, Bellevue looked like one of its own products: a giant circuit board of color-coded diodes and resistors, connected by a mazy grid of filaments.

Blake didn’t say a word to me as I slid into the passenger seat of his car, and he continued to stay silent as we drove to one of the Starbucks near campus. The only acknowledgment he made of my presence was to put his hand high up on my thigh again and hold tight. Too tight. And not much changed once we were finally in the shop. Conversation didn’t happen, his hand was back on my thigh, and we had four different stare-downs. I only won one of those. At least he let me order my own coffee. That was honestly the only good part of this morning. I was barely able to hold in my sigh of relief when my phone chimed. “Who is that?” Blake’s eyebrows were pulled down, and he seemed more than a little annoyed. Only checking the text preview on the lock screen, I shrugged. “Oh, it’s just a friend, he wants to get a study group together tonight.” I started to put my phone back in my purse when his hand shot out and grabbed on to my arm, effectively keeping it suspended above my purse. “Well, it’s rude to keep him waiting. Aren’t you going to answer him?” He looked like he was struggling to keep himself in check. I tried to pull my arm back and he finally released it. Sheesh, what was his problem? It was just a text. “Sure, I guess.” “Just let him know you can’t go.” “Excuse me?” He leaned forward and his eyes narrowed. “I’d prefer that you study with Candice.” Now I was getting mad. He didn’t own me, he definitely wasn’t my boyfriend, and this was Aaron. The same gay guy that Blake didn’t like “looking at me.” “And since when do you get to decide who I hang out with? Look, maybe I’ve been giving you the wrong impression over the last few days, but we aren’t together. You have no say in what I do.” Like a switch had been flipped, his face went back to its usual smooth, sexy expression. “You’re right. Actually I think it’s a good idea for you to study with some other people besides Candice; I’m sure you wouldn’t get anywhere with her.” Wait. What? The sudden change in his mood made me almost feel dizzy. It was like I had my own personal Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sitting next to me. When I could finally get my mouth to stop opening and shutting like a fish, I shook my head and exhaled roughly. “Speaking of, I really need to get back to campus.” I stood to leave without giving him the chance to say no. Without another word, Blake followed me out to the car. We didn’t say anything on the drive back but he put his hand on my thigh again. Was I imagining how tight he was holding it? When we arrived at the dorm, he parked in one of the spaces rather than letting me out in front. I grabbed the handle to open the door and he pushed down on my thigh, gripping it tighter. I turned to look at him and was surprised to see he still looked light and easygoing. “I’ll get the door for you. Wait here for just a second.” Crap, I hope he isn’t going to walk me to my room. I bet Candice still has Eric in there with the door locked. As soon as he released me, my thigh throbbed from the relief of the pressure he’d put on it and I almost wished I was wearing shorts so I could look at the damage I was making myself believe he’d done. The passenger door opened and I stepped out without looking up at him. We walked without saying anything and I made sure to put some distance between us. I was relieved when he began to slow down as we reached the main entrance of the dorm. “Well, thanks for the coff—” He caught me around the waist, pushed me up against the wall, and kissed me roughly, interrupting my good-bye. Before I had time to realize what was happening and push him away, his body left mine and he started backing up toward his car. “I’ll see you later.” He winked, then turned away from me. I have no idea what my face looked like; I couldn’t even pin down an emotion. I was disgusted, annoyed, confused, and pissed.

Andy remained seated. I chirped, “Sir, please tell me the reason for your visit. My guardian is fully aware of your proposal.” Struck by my candidness, Ozwalt stammered, “Very well, I will tell you the reason I’m here,” he raised his voice in displeasure. “Your counterproposal is deplorable!” My lover remarked aggressively, “What’s deplorable about Young wishing to be kept in the style he is accustomed to?” The Englishman exclaimed, “He’s not even of age to drive, and he wants a Lamborghini or a Ferrari? What is he thinking?!” “You offered him a city car,” my Valet countered. “He has every right to ask for what he desires.” The man repudiated defensively, “I offered him a city car upon his coming of age to drive, not before!” He was seething with anger. “Atop this, he demands a luxury penthouse in Mayfair or Park Lane, not to mention the live-in personal tutor! Is he insane? Most adults wouldn’t be able to afford a luxury flat and experienced educator, let alone an adolescent who is barely out of his teens.” “Sir, if you do not have the financial capabilities to accommodate the boy’s expectations, there are others who are perfectly capable of doing so,” my chaperone asserted. “Andy! Are you telling me that the lad has other well-endowed suitors willing to pay for such frivolousness?” My lover and I sniggered at the Englishman’s comment, but we managed to suppress our mirth. My guardian answered solemnly, “That, Sir, is none of your concern. I presume you’re here to discuss Young’s counterproposal, not the proposals of his other suitors.” He was taken aback by my mentor’s forthrightness. He raised his voice in retaliation. “I’m here to talk to Young. I would like Young to speak for himself.” I spoke unrelentingly, “I have asked Andy to negotiate on my behalf. I have heard everything he has said and challenge none of it. If my terms are not met, I’m afraid our arrangement is over. There is no further need for discussion.” By now, Ozwalt was on fire. He waved his fist at me and shouted, “You rapacious whore! You’re nothing but a self-indulgent sybaritic slut from a third-world country!” Before he could continue lambasting me with further insults, Wilhem entered. “What’s going on here?” my big-brother questioned. Mossey resumed berating my integrity, calling me a barrage of repugnant names while my chaperones carted him off the campus grounds to his waiting chauffeur and Bentley. Groups of students stood gaping at the wild man, speculating about the nature of the ruckus they were witnessing.

You. Me. Us. This.” I spit out words as they pop into my head. “You’re the one, Sabrina. There’s no one else for me in this world, nobody but you. If I was driving and saw you on the side of the road? You better believe I’d rip out a spark plug or two if it meant getting to spend even five seconds in your presence. You’re the fucking one.” Her breath hitches.