by Nicholas Whitney

by Noah Weinberg (now ‘17)

by Jorge Monroy

“Footwork”

I have secret powers. Weapons I share with only a select few. I run. I walk. I compete with defected feet. I ignore excruciating pain; my calves rival Armstrong’s. I was born with clubbed feet and I am part of the Clubbed Feet Clan. 

            Originally my feet were curved inward and had weak tendons and misshapen arches. After multiple rounds of surgery they are no longer mangled in appearance but are still susceptible to tormenting pain. The pain grapples my calves and numbs the undersides of my feet. It surpasses any humane threshold and concerns those around me.

            This defect also left imprints. Long, scale-like scars on both sides of my feet and skinny scars that slither up my heel the same way rivers snake up on a map were permanently engraved in my skin. Regardless, the lingering soreness that alternates with powerful cramps is just as much a part of me as my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

            The pain that determines my workout schedule, my fluid intake, and which vitamins I take is a part of my life and it is what makes me feel alive. Tennis is sometimes a labor and physical therapy only does so much. I have surpassed my clan’s expectations and my accomplishments in tennis have made them proud.  It is hard to say how long it takes until I just cannot bear the pain but I will not stop until I have to.

            I accept my disability and I accept my inability to walk onto the court and hit without extreme stretching. I expect the disgusted looks when people witness my feet. I expect to walk a little differently than everyone else. What I will not allow is pity or preferential treatment. I will forever walk, limp, and hobble to my achievements.

by Jorge Monroy

“I Am I”

I am I. I am double jointed in both arms, which makes for a killer secret weapon: my forehand down the line in tennis. I ate a worm by accident once. I am a fearless gum-chewer. I can walk on my toes for six minutes long without complaint. When I look through windows, I am looking into the world, rather than out. I am scared of being lonely. One time I got hypothermia because I gave my jacket to a stray dog.

            I am I. I learn from the mistakes others make just as often as I learn from my own. I cut myself on a can of tennis balls; I practiced anyway. I make a mean Pop-Tart. I’m inspired by humanitarians and disgusted by poverty. I was trapped inside a tennis stadium during an earthquake. I break things all the time and when I try to fix them I usually make them worse. People assume I am biracial and I smile out of politeness. I have a passion for respect; I believe in understanding others. I have a hair gel stash. I like to dance in public even though I know people laugh at me.

            I am I. I want to be able to aid the poor ten years from now. I swear I am mathematically illiterate. I am repulsed by the hatred our country has toward Middle-Eastern men and I fear that our next target is China. I do not like mixing foods. I knew someone who hesitated to get to know me because we had conflicting religions; we are now best friends… with conflicting religions. I like to think outside the bun because I prefer food in boxes. I have a knack for tripping over myself but I tend to make fascinating discoveries on the way up.

            I am an elephant, a Tufts elephant.

by Akshita Vaidyanathan 

by Akshita Vaidyanathan 

by Leah Muskin-Pierret

  My friends call me ‘hippie.’ You could say I had it going for me the entire time: my first major endeavor was an organization that planted trees, so ever since sixth grade I’ve had the tree-hugger aspect down pat. A childhood obsession with animals, in particular the scaly, harder to love ones like turtles, lizards, and snakes, was just another indication. Today, my inner-hippie has blossomed into a rabble-rousing agitator for world peace and local justice, but what’s more interesting than my optimistic outside is the brooding humanist who lies within.

                For someone who hopes to save the world, I have an odd fascination with the darker side of humanity. To me, understanding the forces of evil, and their justification, is an obligation. It disgusts me that humans allow so much pain and suffering in the world, and it would disgust me further if I, in my relatively well-off bubble, couldn’t even stoop to understand the distress others endure. This manifests itself in all kind of ways: in photo stories, I can’t not look at the gruesome shots, and at the Holocaust Museum, I can’t not peer over the walls which protect weak eyes from the most horrid elements of human history.

                Curiously, it was William Faulkner who articulated the justification for my actions best. His novels demonstrate a rather cynical view of society, and yet in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Faulkner and I find common ground. He declared, “I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail.” He explains that it is compassion in which the human species finds its own salvation. As the brooding kind of hippie, that’s something I can swear by.

by Leah Muskin-Pierret

I never played dress-up like other girls. For me, just putting on the clothes of my aspirations seemed inadequate. I wanted to be Ted Kennedy and Indiana Jones rolled into one, and thanks to a family ever-tolerant of both my spur of the moment adventures and adamant self-assertion, I’ve gotten my chance to play at the real thing. It started young. My favorite memories involve the mechanics of backyard forts, experimenting with various teepee building strategies while my parents stood aside and let decrepit structure after decrepit structure take shape. Next were the adventures. I ventured far and wide with my neighborhood posse of young explorers. We left no storm drain unexplored, no local creek unswum, and no abandoned building unsearched. I lugged home mounds of trash turned to treasure. Again and again my parents tolerated these unannounced excursions. As I grew older, my world grew to encompass a whole other realm for adventure: politics. My family taught me that my opinions could and would let me define myself. Family dinner is family debate; there is zero tolerance for whining, but a well-articulated argument will always be heard and respected. From my family I learned the power of petition, with my diligent research and words of passion convincing my parents to invest in a hybrid car, wind power, and dozens of worthy charitable causes. My family, with their tolerance for curiosity in all of its forms, has let me become myself.

by Molly Schulman

They say Bostonians are the worst drivers. If this is true, then I will fit right in at Tufts. Until recently, I was on my way into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most number of times failing my driving test. My bad luck started when I didn’t take my test right after my birthday in April and instead took the test in June. Having not practiced for a couple of months, I was both rusty and nervous. I wanted to pass the test before I headed off to Israel for the summer. Let’s just say the driving gods were not on my side that fateful summer day. My nerves took the wheel and, after barely parallel parking, I turned into the exit of the DMV instead of the entrance, which as my driving teacher later told me, was an “epic fail.” I was pretty upset because I had honestly believed I could do it. After the car ride of shame back home, I decided I’d wait a while and take the test again at the end of the summer.

A week after I returned from Israel, I went back to the DMV. That was a big mistake. I hadn’t driven in Israel where my inability to read road signs only added insult to injury. As I sat in line, I prepared for the worst.  I told my dad that I wasn’t going to pass, but in my head I was thinking, “You got this, Mollz.” Oh, how naïve I was. By the end of the test, I had redefined parallel parking to perpendicular parking. I also rolled through a stop sign, floored the gas and zoomed onto the road. The DMV officer told me that she thought she was going to die. Do I need to say it? I failed. My reaction this time was significantly different, however. It had become a DMV tradition to go the nearest Dairy Queen to eat my failure dipped in chocolate. My dad and I laughed hysterically.

I began to plot my next attempt. I took more lessons. I would not take no for an answer. The fateful day came again. Despite perpendicular parking, I passed. It was a miracle. “I’ll drive us home,” I told my mom. I had achieved the impossible. Now I’m up for anything.

by Eric Halliday

Tom Paine wakes up every morning with a massive headache. It’s not from a hangover; he’s practically immune to whiskey by now. No, Paine’s head throbs because he’s angry. He’s angry that the founding principles of America have been corrupted, distorted by superficial politicians desperate to grab the next headline. He’s angry that America has been labeled “a Christian nation” and freedom of religion applies unless someone attends a mosque. He’s angry that America props up dictators around the world, supporting tyranny in the name of national security. So what does he do with this rage? He blogs about it.
  

Common Freedom, Paine’s blog, attracts millions of hits a day. Arianna Huffington devotedly follows his every post and Matt Drudge does his best not to seem impressed. Paine is universally viewed as the only non-partisan voice in the political arena. He doesn’t attempt to score points; he focuses on what he sees as “the decay of American society” and he doesn’t mince words.

As far as Paine is concerned, the internet is manna from heaven. He can communicate with an international audience for free, whenever he wants and without censorship. He has no editor and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He has received numerous offers from respected newspapers but he likes his role as the solitary voice of sanity in “our addle-minded, easily confused society.” He enjoys the ability to focus on “the true cracks in our societal bedrock,” and not be distracted by “such tripe as the color of some heiress’s undergarments or the flavor of Oprah’s yoghurt.” Paine is happy only when drawing attention to a violation of freedom and his blog is the perfect medium to do so.

However, Paine’s love of technology is not unreserved. He is enthralled with Twitter’s potential for political change but he deplores its use to “publicize inanities that are the final proof of the impending creative apocalypse.” He is similarly skeptical of Facebook; as he told one intrepid fan, “If I wanted to waste my time in frivolity I would take up golf.”

But when Paine does enter the public forum, his opinion is held in the highest esteem, making him the most influential writer in the nation. Instead of trying to explain the rationale behind his rhetoric, it is better to let Paine speak for himself. This is best done by reading his entry “Humanity’s Imperative”:

I do not enter the battlefield of public debate out of desire for power or riches. I am not efficient enough to be a tyrant nor avaricious enough to be wealthy. I offer my opinions because I hope to appeal to the best that humanity has to offer. Mankind has the most potential for good of any creature, and yet we shamelessly waste it in the mire of superficial interests. My role as a public voice is to be the proponent of liberty and freedom, and to remind us that they are the most vital ideals that we can possibly pursue.