Wren & Wolf

Wren & Wolf 1

Wren & Wolf 2

Rose Tatarsky '16

135th Founder's Day Address

ON THE OCCASION OF THE 135TH FOUNDER'S DAY EXERCISES OF

LEHIGH UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA,

THE REMARKS OF THE GHOST OF JUDGE ASA PACKER.

To the scholars, leaders, future leaders, extroverts, introverts, extroverted introverts, honored guests, and parking services representatives here assembled, I extend a warm welcome and my thanks for your attendance today. Especially you, parking services, because it's free parking out there as long as you're in here.

This address comes at an interesting time for Lehigh, particularly for this current student body. It is a time when the behaviors of some and the silence of the many demand reflection and compassionate action. There has never been a more perfect moment to gather as many campus leaders in one space than there is right now.  And so today I wish to convey to everyone a message on the importance of emotional intelligence.

I have read the "Dear Lehigh" letter many times, followed the evolving coverage of this movement by the Brown and White, and also read some thoughtful responses to both posted on Reddit as I am sure all of you have.  The hurt is plain to see both in and between the lines written by all three "constituencies" (a term used for convenience, not purpose of exclusion). The hurt is a fact. Don't miss that by over-parsing the text or quibbling over details, as the scholarly instincts you've been well trained exercise are inclined to do. There is a forest here and we're likely to miss it if we don't commit to truly listening to each other.

Whether you agree with FBR's tactics or not, the simple truth is this: people have been hurt.

Whether you agree with FBR's status as marginalized or not, people have been hurt.

Whether you agree that the campus is an inclusive place or not, people have been hurt.

It may not be in our power to heal that which hurts another, but it is our obligation to put an end to that which causes it. It is not our place to question the substance of what another human being feels, but it is our obligation - our responsibility - to empathize with them in their time of trouble. As peer leaders that empathy is many, many times more powerful than anything the administration could ever convey. As peer leaders, your actions to change the campus climate can have a resounding impact for generations to come. This is your moment to leave a real legacy not counted in dollars donated or symbolized by names etched on buildings, but exemplified in the lives of generations of Lehigh students.

This cause is not the better of any man or woman here assembled, nor is it one that anyone in this room should dare shrink from. In fact, it is what a "servant of nature" is supposed to do. Homo minister et interpres naturae.  The university motto is not a technical call to arms - it is a distinctly human one. We, too, are nature. And today that call to serve each other should be ringing in your ears and stirring your heart to action.

You, the student leaders of Lehigh, have in your hands the power to leave Lehigh better than you found it. You are all here because you've known what it is to lead. You've been recognized for your operational capabilities, your creative skills, and your dedication to the task at hand. And if you didn't realize it before, now I'm making it absolutely clear: you are called to be servant leaders of all of your fellow students, not just your beloved alma mater or your fraternity or your dance team or ASA. This means hearing - not just listening - and responding not with defensiveness and dismissal, but compassion and empathy.

Remember a mentor who left a profound and lasting impression on your life. How did they come to be so well regarded? Likely it was because they cared enough to demand more from you using words and acts that hit you right where it had the greatest impact. They were inclusive, compassionate, and empathetic to everyone they touched. That's the kind of emotional intelligence that can't be taught in a classroom or aroused by a speech. It can only originate in love - not the passionate kind, but the love the Greeks called "Philia". It's affectionate in a way that regards the individual with respect and conveys loyalty. Could you think of any higher honor from your peers as to be thought of that way?

Ask yourself now: are you as emotionally intelligent as you are technically capable? Are you willing to push yourself to be the leaders that Lehigh needs right now to create a better campus climate?  Will your authentic voice be one of inclusion, honesty, respect, and trust? Will you use that voice without exception and without hesitation to shut down and correct any act, no matter how casual or accidental, that draws a line between "us" and "them"? Of course you're saying yes. But is your authentic voice and the voice of the organizations you lead being heard the same way by those who aren't already a part of it?

This week, both FBR and the Brown and White realized that their voices weren't being heard they way they heard themselves. Look at how quickly that descended into needlessly frustrating back-and-forth that had absolutely nothing to do with the real issue: the hurt. We all saw how one party's belief that they weren't being heard triggered uncomfortable feelings of isolation in many others. It was an ironically powerful moment: those who had the privilege of always being heard were isolated, while those who were originally isolated felt even more so when asked about the source of their isolation. What seems self-evident to one is not always so to others.  

FBR has done us all a great service by holding up a mirror to our campus and made the smallness of everyone's  behaviors (including their own) uncomfortably clear. This is no time for ideological purity nor is it the time to cling to the status quo. We here assembled are called to act in the spirit of philia, not just within our organizations but among the student body at large. This means openness, this means empathy, and this means inclusion as a matter of behavior not just thought.

Lehigh University recruits intelligent people and seeks to mold them into worldly leaders. Diversity and global thinking are an essential part of that transformation, but so too is emotional intelligence. It takes confidence and trust to lead people into through an uncomfortable transition, both of which have roots in genuine concern for everyone around you. This is your call to live up to the motto of this fine university. Rise above your comfortable existence and your entrenched position to build a more inclusive campus one person at a time. This is the challenge that can establish a legacy you will be proud of. Lehigh will be better for it, your peers will respect you for it, and you will be a better person for it.

With love,

Asa

@asapackersghost
10 October 2013

Homo minister et interpres naturae. 

Dear Lehigh University: #FBR

"[Lehigh] does not appreciate progress or change. A university should be forward thinking, and this is precisely why Lehigh will never be a world-class university."

—AdInfinitum22's response to "Why People Transfer Out of Lehigh"^[i]

Dear Lehigh University,

Sometimes I wonder why I came here in the first place. I am an Asian-American, and for my entire life I've been repeatedly denied the first half of my existence by the white middle-class suburbs I grew up in. When I came here for Diversity Life Weekend, I thought that, maybe for once, I would be accepted somewhere. You know, since Lehigh is supposedly one of the world's "leading institutions" that believes a "community deeply committed to harmonious cultural diversity" is an "essential element of the learning environment."^[ii]

But apparently not.

I sit next to you in class. So did Russhon Phillips and the three other black football players who were villainized by The Express-Times and other media outlets. But this isn't about the fight—it’s just the last straw. There have been multiple stories about the specifics, confirmed or unconfirmed usage of the word nigger that sparked the fight, etc. circulating back and forth, so it's pointless arguing about the details.[iii]

The point is, this incident and its reaction are a microcosm of the larger issues on campus. If you are not a white, middle/upper-class, heterosexual, Christian/Jewish, able-bodied male, then you are a minority and most likely made to feel like one: minor. Your minority status, rather than being celebrated like it briefly is during “Diversity” Achievers Program and “Diversity” Life Weekend, is held against you and a stranger's actions will be used to define you:

"Often when I walk on this campus, people in cars drive by and yell, 'Look at this nigga!' then drive away laughing."^[iv]

"I am lesbian and I don't feel safe here."^[v]

"#86 I'm in the same boat as #12 and #63. I was raped for the second time in my life here and I feel like nobody would believe me because he's in a ‘good’ house and I'm nobody."^[vi][vii]

But these incidents are not limited to the past four years. Digging through Lehigh's archives reveals a history of marginalization ever since Lehigh first opened its doors to minorities. In response to students' protests, the administration has held brown bag discussions and town hall meetings and enacted some changes—but nothing has changed. Alumni from the 80’s and 90’s visit, only to hear incidents recurring and the campus culture the same.^[viii]

For an education that we’ve earned as well, we feel our voices are suppressed and we’re made to feel unsafe in a place that is our second home for four years. This is unacceptable, and we demand change.

We are FBR—From Beneath the Rug—a united coalition of all marginalized groups that is calling attention to all the issues that Lehigh pushes “beneath the rug.” You've probably heard of us—Tuesday’s and Thursday's fliers, Friday's chalkings, Friday's silent protest—but are unsure of what we are fighting for, given our decline to a Brown and White interview. Maybe it seems incongruous for marginalized groups to isolate themselves even further by not speaking to the largest voice on campus, but for once, we wanted to use our authentic voice and speak on our own terms, not anybody else’s:

To the leadership of Lehigh University, we have given you a list of our demands. All of this is repeated history, and as stated in your mission statement and the Principles of Our Equitable Community:^[ix] to change the world's future, you need to change your own future. When ignoring our voices this way—what, then, does a Lehigh degree mean?

How can you expect to raise international leaders with "effective communication as their habit," "live by a set of mature cultural and personal values," and "respect human dignity" when you cannot even listen to our voices? How is it possible that "all members of the Lehigh community...develop as effective and enlightened citizens" when you ignore us and deny others the opportunity of learning with us? You do so much to "recruit diversity" yet do so little to "embrace diversity." We are not numbers to fill a quota, and we will no longer be used as tokens—we are members of the Lehigh community, and we are here.

It is time for Lehigh to become the "leading institution" it has always claimed to be.

Sincerely,

Sunny Huang

FBR

For more information about FBR and what we are about, feel free to send questions to fbrlehigh@gmail.com or tweet us at #FBR. We welcome commentary as well; productive dialogue can achieve mutual understanding, which is essential to change the Lehigh culture.

---

^[i]http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/thebrownandwhiteopinion/index.ssf/2013/09/edit_desk_why_people_transfer.html#comments

^[ii] http://catalog.lehigh.edu/missionstatement/

[iii] We would, however, like to clarify that in no way are we condoning the violence. Violence is never an acceptable answer to any situation, and what happened that night is unfortunate.

^[iv] Quote from several black students and alumni

^[v] Free Speech Wall

^[vi] Lehigh Confessions at https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=429133830508614&id=423093227779341

^[vii] Just because you haven’t observed or had any negative experiences individually does not mean it hasn’t happened to many more. These are systemic issues, not “one or two person” issues. If you do not know this, you are either lucky enough to not be part of a marginalized group, or you are unaware of it. For more personal stories, contact us at the email address listed.

^[viii] There are too many incidents of insensitivity in Lehigh's history to list here. For examples, contact us at the email address listed.

^[ix] http://www.lehigh.edu/~inlife/principles.shtml

Playing It Safe

When I was young my parents always told me that I could be whatever I wanted to when I grew up. Now a twenty-year old, I can’t help but wonder if I truly took their words to heart. As a child, I don’t think becoming a bioengineer was very high up on my “what I want to be when I grow up list.” At the top of the list were things like being an actor or baseball player. If I truly believed my parents’ words, why did I never try out for school plays and why did I quit my little league baseball team in the seventh grade? Was it due to lack of motivation from my parents or from laziness on my own part to become truly good at something? The answer is no to both of those questions. While my parents did not push me extremely hard to become an all-star baseball player, it would be selfish to blame them for why I am not on my way to the major leagues right now. They wanted me to carve my own path and follow my own dreams, not their dreams for me. I wasn’t lazy either; I applied myself in many other areas of my life like my school work.

The truth is I was scared. The wild dreams of a child to become a major league baseball player or movie star became silly ideas as I grew older. The thought of pursuing either of those careers, which both have very low rates of success for people trying to make a name for themselves, was a terrifying one because, like most people, I feared failure. The easier road was to pursue what I was best at, school.

So now here I am, a junior bioengineer at a prestigious university. I am not unhappy, and I truly feel blessed to be afforded the opportunity to attend Lehigh and to have a family that supports me and loves me. Yet I can’t help but wonder,  have I truly made the most out of my life or am I going through the motions? Have I taken chances or have I played it safe? Mostly I try not to think about it because what’s past is past, and I always try to make the best out of any situation.

 I can still try to live up to the words my parents said to me, but by now is it too late? In telling my friend some of these thoughts, she told me “Colin, you could change your major right now, but you won’t.”  She is right. I’ve come too far to start fresh, the dreams of my youth are gone anyway, and again, I’m still scared of failing. While there’s no guarantee the path I’m on right now will lead me somewhere meaningful, I do enjoy bioengineering and look forward to what the future holds. Maybe it is just the rigors of a junior year engineering course load instilling doubt and worry into my mind, but for now I will have to struggle with these fears of almost indescribable nature.

Still, I can’t help but smile every time I see someone else’s childhood dream become reality. It was such a great moment watching C.J. McCollum get drafted into the NBA because it was such a real example to me and everyone else at Lehigh of what it is like to achieve your dream. Moments like that give weight to the idea of being able to be anything when you grow up. Moments like that make me hope that when I have kids one day, they believe it and live it more than I did as a child. Moments like that make me think maybe I still have a lot of growing up to do, and it’s not too late to live the words my parents told me when I was younger.

- Colin Orr '15

Ripples

-Meghan Barwick '15

Prometheus

-Rose Tatarsky '16

A Casual Ride

Photo by Lizzy Silverstein

"Mischief, mischief about" called the graffiti shrouded woman as the biker passed.

And there was, as always.

Mischief, corruption, and the like chosen to be disregarded by lofty-minded fools sitting in proper bars.

The rider continued eluded by new sights, heat, and traffic.

Meanwhile tattoo parlors punctured victims in shroud-less windows and smokers idly embodied life’s burdens with single exhales.  

The swanky coffee bar called, Toddy’s poured, arrogant assholes believing they were something gossiped about politics they knew nothing about.

Appeased by the counterfeit romanticism the rider thought, “I must return.”

"Water?" cried the homeless man from the sizzling road. The traveler lent him but a gulp.

"Poor fool" the itinerant heard the graffiti say, though miles behind, still left attending the desolate wall.

Disillusioned, sweat accumulated beneath the biker’s breast and stink and salt met the nose.

But she felt nothing.

-Lizzy Silverstein '14

The Rules

I received this short piece from an anonymous writer a few days ago, and I thought I'd publish it with a few of my own thoughts. Laura and I want the Goblet to be a place where people can share what they know, and how they feel. We wanted this to be a slice of real Lehigh life. The following piece made me think about how difficult it really is to find your place in a sea of people. It's interesting what expectations get confirmed or dismissed when you come to college. The things you think will happen don't and the things you never thought would happen, do. Coming to college is usually the first powerful experience that changes what we think about life. The first time we have to live on own own and figure out what we want to do with our lives, who we want to spend all our time will. In my case, I almost transferred because I could not sift through what I wanted from a school. I am glad I didn't, because my second year provided me much more time to understand that if I wasn't doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, I wouldn't be happy. If I was spending time with people that made me pull my hair out, what was the point? A friend told me a saying that her mother used to tell her, "nothing's worth raising your blood pressure over." And in my personal life I've found myself much happier when I don't follow "the rules". Now, I'm not tell you all to break the law, but we don't always have to do what everyone else is doing, especially if you're not into it. So be free and be who you are! 

-Meghan Barwick '15

I came to college hopeful.

High school had been less than stellar. I never managed to figure out how to be one of those popular kids you see on TV, or which lunch table to sit at. I missed the boat as far as getting invited to parties or drinking. At times it seemed I never even learned how to hold a conversation without being awkward or an asshole. It seemed like everyone but me was following a set of rules, some subtle playbook I hadn't gotten a glance at. But every time I sat alone for a meal or spent another night home and alone, I always had college to look forward to. The promised land! Paradise! College would be where I could be myself, where the scales would be reset and I could find my people. The people I knew had to exist whose behavior I could understand. So I endured. I took the hardest classes I could, studied hard, took my SATs and did my tours. One thing led to another, and I landed at Lehigh. The first day of Freshman year I was so excited. First day of the rest of my life.  I stayed hopeful for a month or so. Then the rules began to appear again. We party every night here. We poison ourselves with everything we can drink smoke or snort. And everyone else seemed to know how to do this, effortlessly. I rechecked my schedule to see if I had missed some sort of class or seminar, and if so when the make up date would be. No such luck. I tried to fake it for a while, I went to the parties, drank whatever beverage happened to be on hand, played one game of ruit after another.  And in the middle of every crowded party I still felt alone.I couldn't understand how to spend entire night throwing balls at cups and have fun, or what the appropriate protocol for hooking up with someone you met within the last hour was. Or what hooking up even meant… Sex? Making out? Going fishing together? No one ever explained, despite the phrase's constant use. When did it become ok to wear pink shorts but not cargo shorts? What is the appropriate type of hat to wear, and how flat should the brim be? When did forcing yourself to vomit every Friday, Saturday and the occasional Thursday become fun? I think its my own fault. I made a mistake somewhere along the line maybe, or I’m just not flexible enough, too stubborn to change my ways. I think I just don’t want to play by these rules. I let myself be ostracized rather than change. I am not a wise man. I wish I had. I wish I could have, I just didn’t know how.Eventually I gave up. Surely there are people here whom I can understand, maybe just one person just as confounded by all of this as I am. I’ve heard legends of such folk, but wherever they are, they’ve hidden well. For now I have plenty of work to do alone, classes to take alone, and meals to eat alone. Welcome to paradise.

-Anonymous 

Holiday Troubles

Lehigh is a nondenominational school, as anyone who attends could tell you.  To someone unfamiliar with Lehigh, though, being unaffiliated with any religion might mean that Lehigh avoids any involvement with religion.  This, however, is very far from the truth.  Lehigh permits clubs for various denominations, allows any type of worship in Packer Memorial Church and takes the stance of allowing any religious belief rather than restricting the student body from all beliefs.  The positives of this view point are numerous.  From a rights perspective, every person has the ability to practice whatever set of beliefs they see fit.  From an academic perspective, there is no requirement to take classes pertaining to a certain religion.  Coming from a Catholic elementary school and high school where theology was easily the most boring of my classes each year, I especially appreciated this aspect.

Despite the positive aspects of Lehigh’s acceptance of all beliefs, there is one major drawback.  By accommodating all religions, Lehigh puts itself in a tough position to be accommodating for particular religions on especially important holidays.  Take Judaism, for example.  Judaism’s most serious holy day, Yom Kippur, fell on Wednesday, September 26th last semester.  The very next day was the first day of four o’clock exams.  While this timing was unusual and unfortunate, the fact remains that someone Jewish would have a very difficult time observing this “Day of Atonement.”  Yom Kippur involves fasting as well as taking the day off from work or school.  Although most professors are very understanding, Lehigh cannot accommodate Jewish students on this holy day by giving them the day off.  If Lehigh did, there would no doubt be uproar anytime a different religion needed a day off for a holiday.  This fact left Jewish students in the position last semester where, on a day meant for reflection and penance, they had to worry about missing class and about an exam the next day.

As for myself, I only recently began thinking about this issue when I encountered a religious conflict of my own.  Holy Week is the most important week in the Christian calendar.  In particular, Good Friday and Easter Sunday of Holy Week are very important.  In my experience at Lehigh, it is an inconvenience that we are not given off for either Good Friday nor the Monday following Easter.  For people with classes on Friday and early on Monday, like myself, going home to celebrate the most holy and joyous day in Christianity with family becomes a terse and stressful experience.  Easter Sunday becomes a rushed event, worrying about getting back to school for classes the next day.  To make matters especially bad this semester, Good Friday fell on March 29^th, with Easter Sunday landing on March 31^st. This year has had such magnificent timing that, like Yom Kippur, both holy days fell during four o’clock exam time. I was faced with the difficult decision of whether or not to go home to be with my family. I would barely be home two days, spending all of Saturday home but only getting to enjoy some of Friday and Sunday with my family. Then there was the fact that I had an exam on Monday that would be difficult to study for while celebrating with relatives. Ultimately, I decided to go home because I value spending time with my family during the holidays. Whether or not I will regret the decision remains to be seen (at the time of my writing this I have yet to take my Monday exam), but it is upsetting to me that it is so difficult to go home for such an important time without feeling guilty that my time could be better spent preparing for exams the next week.  Part of me understands why Lehigh can’t do anything, but another part of me wishes Lehigh would make it easier for any religion to observe their most important holidays.

There is no clear solution to these issues that arise as a result of organized religion.  Lehigh offers so many great opportunities for everyone to practice their belief system of choice, and I do not mean to sound ungrateful for those opportunities in writing this article.  I am very happy with my decision to be at Lehigh and aim not to complain, but rather raise the question: by accommodating every religion, can Lehigh really accommodate any religion when it really matters?  I like to believe there is some way, but it’s times like these when I’m rushing back to Lehigh after a hurried Easter dinner that make me frustrated it hasn’t been found yet.

-Colin Orr '15

French Fries and a Whole Lot of Fight

It’s amazing how little it takes to make us happy when we’re young children. A new toy, a game of peek-a-boo or a kiss from Mom - it didn’t take much.

For Rebecca Youssef, now a sophomore at Lehigh University, all it took was Barney and Burger King french fries.

Her love for the fries went so deep that she cherished not only the taste, but also the smell. So much so, that when she was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a rare form of leukemia in children, at the age of 3, her grandfather would bring her them every day, even though she was too sick to eat them. She would sit in her hospital crib with the warm, salty, golden fries in her hands, so close to her face, and just smell them for hours...and that made her happy.

Even though now, 16 years later, Rebecca enjoys actually eating the fries, that memory remains. Having cancer is something she has obviously never forgotten. She isn’t frequently reminded of that time in her life, only when she absolutely can’t avoid it. Only when things like the smell of Burger King french fries are present.

One of those moments occurred when she was accepted into Lehigh University. You would think that the two have nothing in common, no relating factor. But the reminder came randomly, when filling out rooming information, and the questionnaire asked if she had any special needs or handicaps.

Even though cancer was never something Rebecca allowed to hold her back, it left her with an ailment she must address from time to time. Rebecca is 50 percent deaf in one ear and 60 percent deaf in the other, and therefore needed strobe lights in her room. “I can’t hear high pitched sounds,” she said. “In high school during fire drills I couldn’t initially hear the fire alarms when the doors were shut, I just got up because everyone else was.”

Another reason that college and her experience with cancer are so interrelated is because she went in wanting to be an oncologist, the kinds of people that she dealt with during her nine months in the hospital.

During those nine months, Rebecca was put on an aggressive form of chemotherapy, which caused her to lose her hair and half her body weight. “I think being sick actually made her a stronger person, even though she may not remember all of the things she went through,” said Julia Youssef, Rebecca’s mother.

Julia sat by Rebecca’s side for the entire time she was sick, and watched her daughter fight tooth and nail every time she had to take medicine, watched the doctors hold her down as they forced vile tasting medicine down her throat and watched her refuse to eat anything for nine weeks in protest of what was happening to her.

“The doctor always used to say that as difficult as it was [to give her her medicine], she was glad because it meant that she was a fighter,” she said. “It was her way of fighting.”

Julia recalled perfectly the first time Rebecca ate again after those long grueling nine weeks. “Finally one day around 3 a.m. she said to me that she wanted chicken,” she said. So despite the fact that the hospital Rebecca was at was in a bad and dangerous area and that all the nurses advised her against it, Julia ventured out into a strange town in search of chicken for her daughter.

She found an open diner where the man would only sell her half of an entire chicken, but she didn’t care. She bought the chicken without a second thought and brought it back to Rebecca. “She ate a little bite and that was it,” she said. “That was the first thing she ate in nine weeks.”

This unconditional love that caused Rebecca’s mother to go out in search of chicken in the middle of the night, and her grandfather to bring her Burger King fries every day, is something that Rebecca remembers vividly and credits for her health today.

[Rebecca & her mother, Julia]

“My mom was so positive and everyone was always around me, and they made the room bright,” Rebecca said. “No one ever, at least not in my presense, acknowledged the fact that I was sick to bring me down. It was a good atmosphere. I think that’s half the battle.”

At the time, Rebecca didn’t know the seriousness of the situation and the important role that her family held. The oncologist dealing with Rebecca’s case told her mother that she only had a 15 percent chance of living. But Julia never gave up hope; she never stopped believing that her daughter would be in that 15 percent. “I told my family that if they were going to cry or be all mopey [when they saw Rebecca] that they shouldn’t come at all,” said Julia.

Even Rebecca’s older sister Katrina, who was 7 at the time, did her part in providing Rebecca with a positive atmosphere. Rebecca’s parents put Katrina in a summer camp while they cared for Rebecca, but all Katrina wanted to do was be with her sister.

[Rebecca & Katrina doing the survivor's lap at Relay for Life 2009]

“She would come home crying and asking, ‘Is it true my sister’s going to die,” said Julia. “She didn’t want to go to camp, she just wanted to be in the hospital with me and Rebecca.”

But the only way they would allow Katrina to see Rebecca was if she came to the hospital every day and had no contact with other children all summer long in order to prevent the spreading of germs to Rebecca. Katrina chose to go to the hospital every day.

“Every day she would come and she would bring her toys and Barbie’s, and would spend basically all day there…and Katrina was happy,” said Julia.

After nine months of being in the hospital, surrounded by her family, Rebecca went into remission for the rest of her life, contrary to what doctors expected. Her life from then was normal, with random moments along the way that connected her back to cancer.

In fact, nobody even knew that Rebecca was deaf until she was in first grade, even though medicine from the chemo she had when she was 3 had caused the damage. Teachers just thought she was slow, and placed her in basic skills class and speech therapy. She had speaking problems, messing up words like breakfast and bathing suit, in which she would say “becfast” and “baby suit.” But once she scored an almost perfect score on a state test, it was realized that she was deaf.

She wasn’t known as the deaf girl or the girl with cancer. In fact most of her classmates didn’t even know until her senior year of high school, when she made a speech at a Relay for Life assembly telling her story.

Some always knew, though, mostly those who knew Rebecca from a young age and went to elementary school with her. During that time in her life she wore hearing aids, which she always hated. In fact she would pull them out of her ears every day in order to get out of class.

“I didn’t like them,” she said. “It was like artificial hearing. It was like hearing things through a microphone all of the time…it drove me insane.”

Rebecca went the rest of her school career without hearing aids, relying on reading lips. Julia recalled the incident she believed made Rebecca ultimately give up on the hearing aids. Someone in school asked her if they were radios, and she went home saying she would never wear them again.

The hearing aids only gave way to the fact that she couldn’t hear and that she had had cancer, and that’s not what Rebecca wanted. In middle school, Rebecca’s science teacher informed her mother that she was failing his class. Julia was confused as to why this was happening because she constantly helped Rebecca study, and she always knew her material. Finally, she was informed that the tests were orally given. “When he told me they were oral I was like ‘no wonder!’ She couldn’t hear, and she probably didn’t want to ask him to repeat the question…she’d rather die than tell someone that she can’t hear,” Julia said.

When Rebecca was allowed to retake the tests she did much better. 

“I don't think anyone really treated Becca differently with hearing aids, if anything they were just curious about what they were because it was something other people didn’t have,” said Jocelyn Nelson, a classmate of Rebecca’s from elementary school. “I don't really even remember her having them except for when she lost them on the blacktop and one of the aides asked us all to help find them.”

“I loved Rebecca,” said Will Lovejoy, another childhood classmate. “I always thought she was so funny, and I don’t think anybody thought she was different because that’s just how she was, you know? We all loved her.”

In fact, both Nelson and Lovejoy did have specific memories about Rebecca, none of which had anything to do with her hearing aids.

Nelson reflected back on the first time she saw Rebecca, which was in elementary school after Rebecca had broken her leg from jumping down all the stairs in her house. “I just remember her being amazingly good at sports, and the boys always wanted her on their team for gym,” she said. “She was always really funny and wore monkey shirts all the time.”

Lovejoy shared an anecdote of an encounter with Rebecca when he accidentally kicked her brand new soccer ball onto the roof of a nearby building. “She didn’t even say a word, she just ran over and started kicking me,” he said. “Like she kicked me 12 times, and then I bought her a soccer ball for her birthday party.”

“You would feel like people would be more questioning in elementary school because that’s not common, but I honestly don’t remember anyone making it obvious that I was different,” Rebecca said.

     
In her high school yearbook, Rebecca was chosen as one of 320 students to be written about on the front page of the “student portraits section.” But the write-up wasn’t about her hearing or cancer…it was about her procrastination. The blurb read: “Or Rebecca Youssef’s procrastination. It earned her many sleepless nights, but the rest of us felt at ease knowing that we would always finish the assignment before her.”

It was during this time in high school that Rebecca decided she wanted to be a doctor. “I remember growing up being like, ‘I never want to be a doctor, that’s the worst, most depressing career,” Rebecca said. But once she got to high school and she learned more about the people who helped her all those years ago, her opinion changed. She realized that she would truly enjoy helping people. So that was her dream for all of high school, to be a pediatric oncologist.

But sometimes as we all know, things don’t go as planned. The dream didn’t work out, and Rebecca has since changed her dream to a business major.  “I guess I didn’t realize how much of a commitment it was, and how difficult it would be to just go to med school,” she said. “ I think coming into college I wasn’t mentally, emotionally or physically prepared to put this much work into it. I didn’t like anything I was learning, and I realized that I didn’t want to put myself through that.”

Rebecca struggled in her science classes necessary for a premed route. Her struggles have resulted in bad grades and therefore a falling behind in GPA and credits.

Rebecca doesn’t feel she’s failing some sort of obligation to be a doctor because she had cancer, it’s more that she feels as if she didn’t try her best, and now her struggles have held her back. “It has created a problem for me in a lot of areas in my life because I didn’t do well,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of not having the option of doing what I want, of exploring things.”

It was in these moments that Rebecca’s days of having cancer rose back in her life, experiences and memories linked to her plan to be a doctor. The smell of the Burger King fries was ever present during this time in her life.

“I always said that I wanted to help people,” she said. “But now I’m realizing that there are other ways to help people, and maybe I’m not best suited to be a doctor.”

[Rebecca & Laura present day]

-Laura Casale '15

Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, C Minor

Okay. I’m just going to put it this out there, and if you don’t like it… you can send it right back. I LOVE CLASSICAL MUSIC. It’s my favorite genre of music and something I could never get sick of. All modern music that you kids listen to stemmed from the genius minds of men like Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, et cetera. My little bit on classical music every month will be an expression of nerd and excitement from me to you. I urge you to listen to each piece; they’re all valuable to the development of music.

I’ll start my first piece with an epic composition that is known to all, yet not many seem to know what it’s called or who it’s by. The first movement of this symphony begins with the well-known DUN DUN DUN DUUNNNNNNNNNNN. You all know it, of course you do. It’s Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, in C minor!! My favourite version is done by the Berlin Philharmonic (one of the best groups in the world) under the direction of Herbert Karajan. The entire symphony is a complex, beautiful arrangement of notes into one of the most epic and exciting pieces ever written. E.T.A. Hoffman says about the piece (after attending the premiere of the symphony in December of 1808) “How this wonderful composition, in a climax that climbs on and on, leads the listener imperiously forward into the spirit world of the infinite!...No doubt the whole rushes like an ingenious rhapsody past many a man, but the soul of each thoughtful listener is assuredly stirred, deeply and intimately, by a feeling that is none other than that unutterable portentous longing, and until the final chord-indeed, even in the moments that follow it-he will be powerless to step out of that wondrous spirit realm where grief and joy embrace him in the form of sound…”

I think that is a very powerful and accurate description of how that piece affects people, and certainly describes the reaction that I personally have to it. This symphony is so much more than its famous beginning. The complexities of the melody and the journey that you embark upon while listening to Beethoven’s 5th are a beautiful and spiritual one. To me, classical music is something that is so pure that it can allow you to reflect upon it and truly gain something beneficial from it. This might sound like spiritual mumbo jumbo, but I know this music fosters deep thought and appreciation of the beautiful.

Photography Collection: Hilary Hla

-Photographs by Hilary Hla '13

Who Takes Care of Me?

I was walking with my boyfriend yesterday when he commented on, “the cute folds around my eye.”

“Yeah, those are premature crows feet,” I explained, “I’m getting wrinkly and old.” Then I proceeded to make crow noises on the front lawn for thirty seconds.

In some ways, I feel like I’m becoming a wrinkly old grown-up. I take vitamins every morning, (occasionally) read the newspaper, and can say things like, “The markets closed on a real high today,” and marginally understand what I’m talking about. In other ways, I feel just as young and clueless as the girl who came on campus three years ago—who wore her Hawk’s Nest shirt to the first football game with no understanding of Moco attire.

There are some lessons endemic to Lehigh culture: don’t change seats in class after the first week of the semester, you can’t take phone calls in the library, or you can always pretend someone doesn’t exist if you look down at your phone as they walk by. Then there are lessons beyond the realm of South Bethlehem: filing a W-4 tax form, remembering your social security number, or separating your darks and lights. One of the biggest lessons I learned right off the bat at Lehigh was; who takes care of me?

Freshman year, I could hear the coughing through the wall. It was winter, and the peak of flu season. Not a day went by where you didn’t hear the echoing of a puffy faced freshman in the bathroom blowing the shit out of their nose. We were getting hit left and right with disease, and none of us knew what to do. I’d see crusty-eyed first years stumble into Lower, and think to myself Why aren’t these people in the health center? Or quarantine? We were like the island of misfit toys, waiting for someone to swoop in and take care of us.

I overheard a girl whining to her roommate in the common room—“My fever is up around 100, and I literally can’t get a decent night’s sleep. My throat is so swollen I look like a frog.” Her roommate flashed a look of sympathy across her face, and went back to browsing the CollegeACB page, largely ignoring the plight of her (not-so) beloved roommate.

At the time, I thought to myself, what an epic bitch! of the girl. Now, not so much. That’s one of the first things you learn at college, who takes care of me? Being sick is one of those terrible experiences in college when you finally realize you really are on your own. No one is getting you soup, and no one is telling you not to go to school that day. You are your own gatekeeper, and I admit, that’s pretty scary. The same girl with the fever stood in the hallway the next morning, reasoning with whoever walked by on why she wasn’t going to class. I get it. You feel like someone else has to approve, but no one really cares if you are going to class or not—they’re more worried about an upcoming 4 o’clock or trying to remember what they did last night. It’s bizarre when you finally realize it’s all up to you, and that no one else cares when you skip your 8:10 Statistics class. In college, your health is very much up to you.

Full Disclosure: I’m a pretty serious asthmatic, and a habitually sick person. I’m like one of those ladies in a Victorian novel that spends about an hour in the rain, and then dies of pneumonia the very next day. I have pretty much been sick my entire duration at Lehigh, but I’ll never forget the first time I realized I actually have to take care of myself. The spring of freshman year I was in rough shape. I joined a sorority, which was awesome, but my self-imposed social schedule was leaving no time for health. I was young, with a youthful liver. I was on top of the world (or at least on top of a table stomping in a frat house), until my health took a turn for the worse.

I went home spring break with an inability to breathe properly. A quick visit to my doctor revealed my lung capacity was at around 50%, as if I had lost a lung somewhere in a pile of frackets. It took a bad case of pneumonia compounded with my asthma, and I seriously lost my breath. I took all the antibiotics my doctor asked me, and then promptly stopped when I was back and Lehigh and around the gin bucket.

Surprise, I got sick again. But this time, my mom wasn’t there to take me to the doctor. I bemoaned and sat in my bed, willing people to come take care of me. I needed tea, soup, and more importantly, someone to tell me that I needed to see a doctor. I honestly don’t understand how my roommate slept through the nights, when my coughing was reminiscent of a foghorn. When I couldn’t make my daily pilgrimage from UC to M&M, I realized I had a problem. I hauled ass to the Health Center, where my condition was so poor, the nurse practitioner looked at me like I was nuts for letting it go this far. “What were you thinking?” she asked with concern. I mumbled something about being really busy, but in reality I understood it was entirely my fault I was in such poor shape.

But, just as the girl who lived down the hall from me, I was paralyzed when it came to illness. All I had to do before college was cough a few times and my mom pulled out the thermometer and told me to take it easy. When I hacked up a lung during class discussion, no one was asking me if I wanted a cough drop. When I limped my way up from lunch to pass out in my bed, no one was there to coddle me.

Who takes care of me? (Hint: Look in the mirror).

I became very acquainted with antibiotics, and surprise, felt well. It sounds like an easy lesson after you learn it, but at the time I was truly at a loss. It’s startling when you finally realize that there is no one in your approximate vicinity that wants to wipe your nose or dote on you. Getting sick in college is like a gateway drug for independence.

Since taking myself to the doctor for the first time, I’ve made many other firsts. I booked an airline ticket, and figured out a bus schedule. I wrote my first check, and hid my first speeding ticket from my parents. I came home, and for the first time felt isolated by the salmon pink bedroom walls I had chosen in 8th grade. While the moments of independence define us, they also separate us from what we once were and bring us one step closer to who we will become.

I was on the phone with my mom last week when I suppressed a whopper of a cough. “That sounds bad,” she said, “have you gone to the health center?”

Instead of validation, I felt annoyance. “I can take care of it myself.”

I take care of me.

-Emma Diehl '13

Check out her blog HERE