You are more than welcome to use these photos as wallpaper images.
To Purchase this and other full-size Photos from the Daily Princetonian, please see:
http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?userid=dailyprincetonian&gallery_id=1578315
for fireworks photos, and
http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?userid=dailyprincetonian&gallery_id=1577925
for P-Rade photos
Ra-Ra-Ra,
Jon
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Reunion Fireworks
Friday, May 29, 2009
Recent Grads Remain Optimistic After Layoffs
As a recent Princeton graduate in June 2007, Ben Massey planned to work as a paralegal before going to law school. His plans changed when he was laid off in August of 2008. Thatcher, Proffitt and Wood, where he worked, was a boutique firm that specialized in mortgaged-backed securities. After several rounds of lay-offs, it was dissolved in January 2009.
Massey's experience is not unique among recent Princeton graduates. In the midst of the recession, many companies are laying off recent grads. Lucy Xu '08, says she was "cheap labor" for the convertible bond trading desk at Bank of America. But after surviving two rounds of layoffs she was also let go in February 2009. Merrill Lynch laid off "Nick," another 2008 grad, a few months later.
Some new hirees have yet to make it to work after receiving offers. Oliver Wyman, a consulting firm, has pushed back the start dates of many of its 2008 class. Oliver Wyman asked Irene Hu to start in January 2009. But in January, the firm deferred start dates again--until January 2010. Oliver Wyman still guarantees her spot, but has helped her find an internship in the meantime.
Job turbulence was a shock to many grads at first. Xu says, "I was naive. I really thought it wouldn't happen to me." In the first few weeks after leaving Bank of America, Xu felt "embarrassed." Massey obtained another paralegal position on a temporary-to-permanent basis. But when this second firm didn't offer him a full time job, Massey's became a bit cynical. "They're concerned with their bottom line," he says. "And that's fine, they have to make money, they have to survive. But it's not something I thought about before I was laid off from two different law firms." Hu found out about her job delay while she was tutoring in Taiwan last summer. She then returned home and took courses at a local community college while waiting for her job to start. "There was a feeling of hopelessness," she says of that time, "I was feeling not productive. So that was kind of tough."
Some grads find that inexperience is punished in this economy. Since Xu had already obtained four financial licenses, she initially searched for other finance jobs. She noticed that many posted positions looked for people with two or three years of experience. Though she got many interviews based on the her resume, she didn't have the client relationships that firms were looking for.
At the same time, the youth of recent grads also make them more flexible in the job market. Without the responsibility of families and college debts, some recent grads were able to take some time off before looking for new jobs. In the first month after being laid off from Thatcher, Massey biked, worked out and relaxed. Nick has learned to cook, taken up yoga, and went out in New York City more often than he did while at Merrill.
Young job-seekers have also taken time to re-evaluate their career plans. After her big-bank experience, Xu realized she wanted to work at a smaller firm where she could "try many hats" instead of being tied down to one specific job. Massey is now a fellow at the Institute for Justice, a D.C. think tank and plans to go to University of Virginia Law School in the fall. Nick is exploring some non-profit options such as Princeton in Africa as well as opportunities in marketing. At Princeton, Nick used to think that there was a trade off between short term and long term job prospects," but now sees making a career as a "long-term journey."
Older alums have also been helpful in the job search process. After using Bloomberg and Monster to no avail, Xu sent some emails to the regional alumni network email list and found that many people were open to giving her advice. Nick recommends that current job-searching seniors "get out there and start talking to people."
Recent alums remain optimistic about their prospects. Hu is now interning at the parent company of a start-up that Oliver Wyman introduced her to. She still looks forward to working there in 2010. Though not looking forward to the idea of taking out many loans for law school, Massey says "It seems to be that the system is still in place. Unless it undergoes some significant major changes...law firms are still going to need recent grads to change to train, to grow, to nature."
Xu's advice for graduating seniors is simple: "Don't lose confidence. The job process is not a reflection of you. You will always get where you want with confidence."
University Names Go Wild
Universities trademark their names to prevent other institutions from benefiting from a perceived relationship, such as was the case with the Princeton College of Medicine proposed by David Wade GS '82. National American University (NAU) has a different kind of problem. Instead of an academic institution trying to benefit from their name, in 2003 a pornography and adult entertainment site with the name Naughty American University (NAU) launched. National American University has sued noting that the names are "nearly identical in sight, sound and commercial impression," according to an AP story.
This may be a case where the University's acronym works in its favor. Who wants to name something PU?
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Sotomayor '76 yearbook quote socialist?
The Nassau Herald yearbook entry for Sonia Sotomayor '76 is causing a bit of a stir in the blogosphere. Outlets from POLITICO on down to several other sites are taking note of Sotomayor's senior quote-- 14 words from Norman Thomas, a member of the Class of 1905:
"I am not a champion of lost causes, but of causes not yet won."
Why is Thomas noteworthy? Because he was a six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. And that's probably why Wikipedia calls him the "the leading American Socialist politician of the 20th century."
Tzvee's Talmudic Blog floats the idea that Sotomayor's inspiration for the quote may have come from a plaque in Forbes, but also asks a few questions. Let's clear up a few things:
The library at the then-Princeton Inn (and now Forbes College) was dedicated to Thomas in a ceremony on May 11, 1975. We're still checking to see if Sotomayor live in the Inn in 1975 or 1976...or may have just been a Thomas fan.
Besides the Forbes library, the "champion of lost causes" quote can also be found on a wall in the Frist Student Center.
Princeton at the Cannes Film Festival: The Award Winners
Well, the 62nd
Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon) dir. Michael Haneke - In Competition (Palme d'Or Winner)
With The White Ribbon, Austrian director Michael Haneke crafts a visually beautiful black and white tale about a quaint though very tense German village on the cusp of World War I. While sometimes narratively obtuse, the film is surprisingly straightforward never relying on the innovative visual conceits that have defined much of Haneke’s recent work (particularly the surveillance-driven Caché). Its selection for the top prize is a decidedly safe choice in a year where the best films shocked.
Seen largely from the perspective of a young schoolteacher, the film examines the dissolution of a seemingly immutable community. The façade of harmony is first shattered after the town's doctor becomes seriously injured in a horse riding accident that smacks of foul play. This is only the first of many events where some of the town's most innocent denizens, such as a mentally retarded boy, are exposed to a mysterious onslaught of violence. Many of the adults in the community stringently attempt to maintain order. One desperate preacher decides to tie white ribbons around his adolescent daughter and son's arms to remind them of their innocence and purity. Although the cast is expansive, the slow-moving film amply develops the most peripheral characters allowing the differing tensions of the village to resonate on a grand scale.
The youngest child actors in the cast beautifully evoke a lingering sense of disquiet. In a futile effort to understand his increasingly wayward son, the morally superior preacher lectures him on the dangers of masturbation. As the rehearsed lecture wears on, the son soon begins to lose his composure adopting a pained expression. The finesse of the young actor to so effortlessly toe the line between taciturn and anguished brings to light the stifling emotional disconnect that exists between him and the elders who attempt to console the mind of a troubled soul with meaningless platitudes. Such sudden flurries of emotionally raw performance come unexpectedly over the course of the film. When a toddler, who typically serves as the main influx of cute in the usually heavy story, asks his sister about the nature of death, his innocent temperament momentarily evaporates. Hearing the news that he will someday die, his infantile features contort into a piercing glare. This short though powerful scene saliently depicts the loss of blissful innocence and is emblematic of a thoroughly excellent young cast capable of expressing the overwhelming fear created when the purest elements of life become tainted.
Haneke's high contrast black and white imagery amplifies the underlying darkness at the heart of the community. Inside the parlor of a manor, a tormented young boy stares at his strict mother playing the piano. As he makes his trek around the room, he fades momentarily out of the light provided by the gas lamps into shadow, a visual that hits upon the growing emotional malaise of the younger generation. Later on, a fire breaks out on the estate of the town's hated baron creating an image where white flames dance against the night sky. For all his successful attempts at visually depicting a village teetering on the edge of chaos, Haneke sometimes presents overly idyllic imagery. When the narrator reflects upon the reigning peace before the outbreak of World War I, the film presents shot after shot of pristine winter landscapes drenched in sunlight. The sometimes clichéd ideals imagery of peace, the final moments of the extended 19th century, speaks to a film whose overarching historical thesis is troublingly simplistic.
An Undeserved Win
Haneke poses with his award
Whenever The White Ribbon references the Great War, the usually unsentimental film finds itself in overly saccharine territory. In its attempts to use the central story of generational divide as a means to encompass an entire historical period, the film begins to falter. At the heart of Haneke's reconstruction lies the argument that social repression will lead to a wider oppression. Essentially, angry and repressed children of World War I are bound to become Nazis (the white ribbons of the past will inevitably transform the black armbands of the fascists). There is something profoundly disconcerting in the way the film tries to condense history in such pat terms. The White Ribbon's sweeping simplicity is not the hallmark of great art, but rather of a work that propagates the easiest of answers creating a recipe for ignorance rather than insight.
Un Prophete (A Prophet) dir. Jacques Audiard – In Competition (Grand Prix Winner)
While the prison drama The Prophet is undoubtedly one of the most dynamic films in the festival, it had to settle for second place (which may not be all that bad considering Monty Python's dark comic masterpiece The Meaning of Life had previously won the Grand Prix). With its pulsating energy and broad ambitions, The Prophet represented the best the festival had to offer.
The film follows Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) who has been sentenced to six years in prison for a minor offense. Slowly, the French Arab makes his way up the echelons of penitentiary power, playing all sides of an ever changing war between a dominant Corsican gang and upstart Muslim groups. As the almost divinely lucky Malik gains respect, he earns the nickname "The Prophet." Director Jacques Audiard injects the well-trodden prison genre with a dose of magical realism infusing the work with an evocative, uncanny life. Malik is continually haunted by the first man he killed on the inside, Reyheb, who coolly dispenses advice with a giant gash in his throat. The most bizarre scene takes place when the ghost whirls around and around praising Allah. As he spins, the camera follows the ghost's outstretched hand moving around the cell. This disorienting perspective lends the sequence a perverse fever dream ambience and captures the twisted high that comes through the sudden attainment of authority.
Tahar Rahim deftly plays Malik combining a deep fear of failure with a growing sense of confidence. The actor's unique vigor allows Malik to be charming even as he very clearly manipulates those around him. After being accused of abusing his connections with some Muslim prisoners for personal gain, he asks what's the harm in a little exploitation if everyone benefits? With his easy smiles and motor-mouth intonation, the actor puts a uniquely charismatic imprint on the Machiavellian gangster archetype. Underneath the disarming charm, lies a deeply angry performance as his character grows to despise the Europeans who see him only as a servile Arab. His rage becomes clear when, after telling his Corsican boss how to assert his power, he adds "But I'm just an Arab who only thinks with his dick" repeating one of the chief's many racial epithets. The pain of Malik's ascent is made clear through Rahim's tortured eyes.
Under Audiard's careful direction, the film becomes a mélange of visual styles continually shifting its aesthetic to mirror the protagonist's grand transformation. This film is appropriately unflinching during the character's first murder capturing the gruesome act in a long take. During a transcendent moment when Malik escapes from underneath the barrel of a gun, the film becomes far more ornate employing both slow-motion and a throbbing Arabian score that fills the soundtrack. The sudden moment of extreme calm within a previously fast-paced, tense scene perfectly illustrates the character's divine inspiration. With his complete grasp of how the visuals can accentuate the emotional core of the story, Audiard takes a familiar premise and makes it profoundly engaging.
As powerful as the film is on a visceral level, it remains most intriguing in its meditation on the divisions of contemporary French society. That the individual capable of crossing racial lines is labeled a prophet shows the impossibility to achieve such cross-cultural dialogue on an everyday basis. Malik's constant isolation from both the
The Prophet proved so riveting, that nothing could distract me from the screen including the exceedingly sharp pain I experienced in both my knees while sitting in the cramped theater (my stream of consciousness inner-monologue went something like this, "Wow, this movie is great! Oh, my knees!! How will I ever realize my dream of becoming a professional tennis player? This movie is really spectacular!" This continued for the entire running time).
Thirst dir. Park Chan-Wook - In Competition (Jury Prize Winner)
Of the top winners at
Chan Wook-Park has established himself as one of the more intense voices in contemporary Korean cinema. His latest is a departure from thoroughly dark films like Old Boy and Lady Vengeance where humor was the exception and not the rule in the director’s theater of the macabre. At times, the struggles of the monstrous though fundamentally kindhearted priest are delightfully twisted. To suggest how the vampire is haunted by his lover's husband whom he murders, the film turns into a strange version of Edgar Allan Poe's "Tell Tale Heart." The smiling corpse lies blissfully between the two lovers as they attempt awkwardly to copulate in bed. As the vampire attempts to navigate over the dead man's body, the vampire reminds himself that it's all "psychological." Many of the sharpest moments of humor occur during the sex scenes of the film. After the creature initially throws himself onto his soon-to-be lover, he bites her neck and breasts. In between her moans of ecstasy, the woman asks "Am I a pervert? Are all women like this?" The scene gleefully plays with the eroticism traditionally central to the vampire myth and, in the process, spits in the face of films like Twilight where the romantic and the vampiric are made one.
A Good Approximation of the Best Aspects of Thirst
When Thirst attempts to be a more traditional vampire movie, it becomes completely run-of-the-mill. At one point, a blind priest begs the Catholic priest-turned-vampire to transform him into a monster so that he can finally see. The uber-serious scene feels more overdone than affecting. Unfortunately, the film resorts to this serious tone far too often (notice how the trailer has no indication of the film's more engaging comedic side). It is a shame that the filmmaker feels the need to go through the motions of the genre as Park occasionally crafts very gripping moments. The film expertly ramps up the suspense in one polished sequence where the murdered husband's paralyzed mother tries desperately to show family friends that the killers are stand in the room. Such moments of genuine suspense are disappointingly few.
Even with its odd charm, Thirst is an imperfect film that ranks far below the best in competition and is undeserving of any prize.
Now that the main festival winners have been detailed, in the next blog post I will examine the competition's ignored gem, look at some of the best performances, and distinguish the worst film presented at
Sotomayor '76 the RA and "den mother"
In Wednesday's Detroit Free Press, an article on Sonia Sotomayor '76 the "den mother" from Freep columnist Brian Dickerson '79, a Zee of Sotomayor's during his first and her last years at the University.
Though Dickerson says Sotomayor could be "occassionally impatient" or exhibit "exasperation" when kids in her RA group interrupted her studies, the column is fairly positive. Choice excerpts:
Sonia Sotomayor lived across the hall from me during what was, up to that point, the most momentous year of my young life. As a residential adviser at Princeton University, she was assigned to shepherd me and a dozen or so other 17- and 18-year-olds through our freshman year.
Whatever intimidation I experienced as a public school kid from a blue-collar family must have been trebled for Sotomayor, who had the distinction of being both Hispanic and female on a campus that boasted precious few of either. Hers was just the seventh Princeton graduating class to include women.
Confident, somewhat zaftig and relentlessly cheerful, Sotomayor was living proof that one could shatter the male, patrician archetype with which Princeton was still associated in the Vietnam era and excel in the university's high-pressure academic environment. Her designation as a residential adviser represented the university's confidence in her as a responsible role model for freshmen of both genders.
In NYT piece, Malkiel remembers Sotomayor '76 the student
Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel made an appearance in Wednesday's New York Times in an article about Sonia Sotomayor '76, the "Trailblazer and a Dreamer" and her time as a student the University.
Says the article:
"She also readily accepted help. When Ms. Sotomayor arrived in Nancy Weiss Malkiel's history class in the spring of her freshman year, for example, she seemed unprepared, Ms. Malkiel recalled in an e-mail message. But Ms. Malkiel tutored her in how to read sources and write analytically, and by late in the semester, Ms. Sotomayor was flourishing."
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Famous Photos: Obama '85, Sotomayor '76 and Alito '72
The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor '76 raises an important point for Princeton students to consider as they progress through the University. Namely, you should make sure that your senior photo for the Nassau Herald Yearbook is good, because if you become famous it will end up on show for the world or at least the diners at the Yankee Doodle Tap Room.
Some recent examples of yearbook photos which saw interest beyond members of their class and proud parents include Samuel Alito '72, Sonia Sotomayor '76 and Michelle Obama '85.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
OBAMA CHOOSES SOTOMAYOR '76 FOR SUPREME COURT
President Obama has nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor '76 to replace Justice David Souter. If confirmed, she will be one of two Princetonians, along with Justice Samuel Alito '72 on the Supreme Court.
From The New York Times:
President Obama will nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his first appointment to the court, officials said Tuesday, and has scheduled an announcement for 10:15 a.m. at the White House.
If confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, Judge Sotomayor, 54, would replace Justice David H. Souter to become the second woman on the court and only the third female justice in the history of the Supreme Court. She also would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court....
Monday, May 25, 2009
Recession Creates Uncertainty for 2009 Grads
The headlines are bleak. "Graduating US college seniors entering grim market." "Graduates brace for worst job market in years." "Even Stanford grads Are Hurting in the Downturn."
Indeed, less than twenty percent of graduating seniors nationally who are looking for jobs have found one. Only 60 percent of seniors are even looking.
The recession has affected Princeton students too. It's unlikely that many Princeton seniors will be jobless and destitute next year, but many have changed their expectations and methods used to find jobs. In April, Princeton Alumni Weekly article reported that even though students have landed finance and consulting jobs, many are still uneasy about the future. A senior who got a job with McKinsey worried that her co-workers from a summer internship at Goldman Sachs did not receive offers. Andy Chen, Pyne Prize winner, stated that there's "a culture of anxiety."
Chen is pursuing graphic design. Though this field is only indirectly affected by the recession, Chen has changed his methods of looking for jobs. "This year, I was a lot bolder in the steps I took in terms of reaching out to personal contacts I had formed in my field," he wrote in an email. "While I don't like to think of this as "networking," it does involve some degree of tapping personal relationships for instrumental purposes."
It's unknown how the Class of 2009 has fared in the job hunt. When asked for statistics or comments on the results of the senior check-survey, Anthony Chiappetta, Associate Director of Career Services, wrote "At this time we are still in the process of gathering data concerning the Class of 2009 therefore, we are unable to provide statistics or comment on the future plans of the senior class."
In the mean time, watch this space over the next few weeks for stories on how the recession is affecting the way seniors and recent alums are looking for jobs, thinking about future plans, and exploring options.
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