Lyric Bowditch

David Helfand does not drink coffee for three reasons.

Dear undergraduate students:

For our orientation issue, we’d like to present you with some Blinks: small anecdotes from our staff members. This time around, we’re looking back to our most memorable NSOP experiences in honor of the end of everyone’s favorite week of the year.

Did you know that in 2011, High Times Magazine ranked Columbia University fifth in the United States for marijuana activism?

Going into my first year of high school in Cairo, the only sport that I—chubby, gentle, and overenthusiastically academic—had ever officially joined was elementary school Irish dance. “Athletic” had never even remotely applied to me.

For this week’s Blinks, we asked our staffers to dig out the tiny traditions that have taken shape in their own day to day lives. The little pieces of repetition or habit that hold greater meaning. From paper submissions to salads, and late emails to libraries, here are the results:

The Amsterdam Avenue Issue

"Where are you from?" says the girl standing next to me with her suitcases in hand during move-in. As does the guy who sits down next to me halfway through the NSOP open mic. And also the girl I sit behind in the Introduction to Narrative class that I am shopping (and ultimately dropping).

Lamb gyro. Chicken over rice. Falafel sandwich. White sauce. These terms are familiar to any Columbia student who has ever ventured past our dining hall bubble. Halal carts can be found all around Morningside Heights producing cheap and flavorful food, even after JJ's Place closes; these vendors are familiar faces for much of the student body. We're a big fan of their work, but know little about who these individuals are, or how they feel about their place in Columbia's periphery.