In the political landscape, it’s now common to rail against Washington elite; having spent little to no time in the nation’s capital and assuming the label of “outsider” is considered a mark of relative political purity. Disdaining Washington D.C. is, ironically, an essential tactic to be elected into a shiny new office downtown. As a Bethesda, Maryland native with my house five minutes from the district line, I always found it fascinating how people’s conceptions of the city vary so widely.
BY JULIA SIENKIEWICZ ’20
“The average American produces 4.4 pounds of trash per day,” I read on a Buzzfeed listicle. So I’ll start carrying reusable shopping bags, and save today’s dinner for tomorrow’s leftovers. I’ll buy a bamboo tooth brush, and cosmetics from companies that love the environment as much as I do.
BY JULIA SIENKIEWICZ ’20
I’ve been an ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton since I saw her speak at the State Department when I was 12. Hearing that she signed a financial deal with the Democratic National Convention (DNC) broke my teenaged heart, and enraged me. Then more information came out, showing that while questionable, the deal wasn’t illegal or financially compromising, and the same deal was signed by Sen. Sanders’ campaign. Regardless, the revelation that the DNC was millions in debt was surprising to me, as someone who assumed that all these political machines had cash to spare.
BY JULIA SIENKIEWICZ ’20
My pre-Mount Holyoke life story is, I imagine, much like many of my fellow students. I came from an affluent, pressure-cooker high school that offered all the AP exams and churned out future Ivy League graduates. I participated in the rat race of applying to 13 top-tier schools and I agonized over whether the schools that accepted me would like me enough to award a scholarship. This sense of competition is socialized into us at a young age: personally, I planned my high school class schedule in seventh grade, and I was signed up for a wide range of activities in the hopes that I would distinguish myself in at least one of them.
BY JULIA SIENKIEWICZ '20
I’m very restrained in my emotions; I don’t cry often, maybe once or twice a month. The night following the Boy Scouts’ decision to let girls in, I made the mistake of reading too many awful articles, and seeing far too many of the comments. I wept for an hour; seeing how many people fail to understand the mission of Girl Scouts and the positive impact it has on its members made me feel like all I’d learned from my 13 years of scouting was meaningless.
BY JULIA SIENKIEWICZ ’20
Hillary Rodham Clinton. The name provokes varied reactions. Just as it was this time last year it’s difficult to detach opinions on Clinton’s present actions from preformed opinions of her as a person, whether that view be positive, negative or some other combination of feelings. Starting her time in the public eye as a politician’s wife, her projected image has changed so often over the years that it’s easy for many to dismiss her as the embodiment of everything wrong with American politics.
