It’s with great sadness that I’m writing my last column for The Daily Gamecock. Before I departed for South Carolina last August, I was asked to write an article describing my feelings about the year ahead.
Students need to break down arbitrary social categories I enrolled to study a double Honors degree in 2010 in the hope that it would make me a more rounded intellectual.
This semester, I’ve taken a senior seminar about suffrage and women’s rights, and I have been fortunate enough to meet and interview incredibly influential feminists from the women’s movement in South Carolina. These women are from different creeds and different backgrounds, and they fought for various rights within the feminist movement.
As an exchange student from England, I’m often reminded just how far I am from home when I log into Facebook.
During spring break, I took the opportunity to visit one of the most historic and political destinations in the U.S.
I’m an atheist. I’d never considered this to be a bold statement, until I moved to South Carolina. Growing up in a scientifically minded family, God was never a topic of conversation at the dinner table. My parents didn’t discourage religion — I went to Sunday school for a couple of months — but besides seeing my friend once a week and getting to be in the nativity, as a child I never really liked church.
By the end of the semester I will be able to defend myself against abduction, sexual assault, rape, violence, stalking and harassment. I will be trained to defend against choking, grabbing, ground fighting, multiple assailants and weapons.
It’s the million-dollar question: Can you want what you already have? I watched a TED talk this week that discussed the relationship between love and desire.
No matter how acclimatized I may have become to the delights of the South, some cultural differences between student life in Leeds, England, and in South Carolina continue to absorb me. When I found out I’d be studying abroad in the states, one of the most common questions friends asked was, “What are you going to do about drinking?” Despite having enjoyed the good, clean benefits of a comparatively dry six months here, the prospect of turning 21 this week has never seemed more enticing.
Standards unattainable, should be rejected