Noel Duan

17 Jan 2012
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amcorm:

Well the highlight of my first day of school, Mom, was obviously when I sat down to drink a Diet Snapple and eat a Luna Bar before class and to my right was Sarah Jessica Parker. Duh.

Why am I not on campus?

Well the highlight of my first day of school, Mom, was obviously when I sat down to drink a Diet Snapple and eat a Luna Bar before class and to my right was Sarah Jessica Parker. Duh.

Why am I not on campus?

Hoot Magazine Fall/Winter 2011

Like a proud mama bird, I am pleased to announce (with much delay) the release of the Fall/Winter 2011 issue of Hoot, Columbia University/Barnard College’s fashion magazine! It’s been out for about a month, but I’ve barely had time to flip through it myself. I am no longer involved with the campus publication, but I was the co-founder and editor in chief for two years, and I am so happy to see that it is thriving and still making great strides as a college publication. Not only is the beautiful Kelsey Chow, a current Columbia student on leave and Disney star, the cover star, but also Cathy Horyn of The New York Times (and Barnard alumna) contributed an exclusive piece on what it takes to make it in fashion journalism nowadays. Click here to read.

I have twinges of sadness when I really miss working on Hoot because this magazine really was my life for the first half of college, but I consider its growth and development to be proof of how extraordinary Columbia students and alumni are, both in and out of the classroom.

25 Dec 2011
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“Can you imagine what Columbia would be like if we never met each other?” J asked me as we strolled around campus one last time before heading home for winter break. We were feeling especially sentimental because I was saying goodbye to campus until September. To this day, I still cannot figure out why I chose to study and do research in Paris for eight months, but I know that at the time of my decision, it made perfect sense to “leave.”

As J and I wandered into the park and J began searching for a dark-haired dog to pet and wipe her chocolate-covered fingers on (I can’t believe ourselves either.), I started to feel a tinge of remorse about studying abroad. I didn’t want to “run away” and decompress anymore. I wanted to return to campus again and be the Noel Duan that I knew I was. I refused to take “no” as an answer as a freshman. I was fearless and considerably less clumsy; I wore heels to class almost all the time. I once claimed during a game of truth-or-dare that I would rather make-out with a stranger than wear sweatpants to class.

After letting these second thoughts marinate in my head for 48 hours, though. I’ve realized that Paris is going to be great for me. As cliché as it sounds, I think I will grow up a lot in the next eight months. A lot of things could potentially happen in this time period, but being burned out will not be one of them. The worst case scenario would be that I desperately miss Columbia and I will return back to campus with more enthusiasm than a freshman seeking friends and booze during orientation week.

Christmas Day just arrived in California about 12 minutes ago. I am also finally 21. I always felt special for having a birthday on Christmas and for having a name like Noel, because I really liked the idea that people around the world were celebrating and spreading the love on my birthday. I never feel older on my birthday, and I’m not feeling very sentimental at the moment (I am still tired from pulling too many all-nighters for final exams and moving out of my suite by myself, and I have the bruises and bags under my eyes to show for it.), but… Maybe it’s better to get some sleep before I keep rambling without a point. I think I have a lot to write about in the next few days. I love writing, but I had to compartmentalize my thoughts and store them away for the past few weeks, since blogging isn’t as appealing as sleep after you’ve written a 30-page paper worth 40% of your grade.

Joyeux Noël! And whoever you are reading this, I’d love to hear how your holiday season has been going.

1 Dec 2011
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After class, I dashed to College Walk to attend the Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony, where I found myself hugging old friends and not listening to the deans of the undergraduate colleges speak. We had so much to laugh and cry about.

When the campus lights up every December, I like to think that Columbia is trying to make me feel less lonely as I walk back from the library to my dorm at 3am. It’s hard to feel fatigued when you know the holidays are finally here.

1 Dec 2011
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How We're Doing

29lives:

This piece in Columbia’s Daily Spectator is hauntingly reminiscent of my own school, a few weeks ago. Everyone struggles. Let no one struggle in silence.

(link via @misscouturable)

“I used to think there was something seriously wrong with me, because my life looked nothing like the Columbia admissions brochure. Judging by The Blue Album, Columbia students are “embraced” by the “warmth of a close-knit community.” They are flawless, radiant, and successful. They do research while juggling classes and community service, throwing Frisbees on the lawn, and hitting SoHo every weekend.

So when I looked at myself, a lonely, unhappy, and overwhelmed freshman—I blamed myself. I was scared to tell people I was unwell, because everyone else seemed so put-together. I couldn’t admit that I had become terribly lost when all I wanted was to seem normal and to fit in. I would’ve rather died than let people think I didn’t understand how to be a perfect Columbia student.” — Wilfred Chan

“What do you do when a friend seeks help and then pulls back and seems happier? It was as if there was a fire going on in the house, and Tina had opened the windows but kept the door locked. We were left watching from the outside.

[…]

I recalled his words as I sat on the chairs, staring at the stiff, wooden funeral casket, wondering at the fact that it contained Tina while disbelieving it at the same time. It technically held her body, surely, just as her depression had held her in a vise of unreality, but neither of them captured her.” — Sarah Ngu

I read this at 5am in the morning, after pulling an all-nighter to study French. I immediately burst into tears, crybaby that I am (Let’s get rid of the stigma around crying, all right? Crying does NOT mean weakness — just as smiling does not mean strength.). Two of my most wonderful friends at Columbia wrote these two articles, and they were able to articulate everything that the student body has been feeling — and more. My friend, Amanda, brilliant journalist that she is, edited the article.

Even if you don’t go to Columbia, you should read these two articles.

They are less about being Columbia students and more about being human.

28 Nov 2011
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This is my favorite professor at Columbia. She surfs. And runs three times a week. And reads Vogue with a critical eye. And loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And listens to Sugarland. Oh, and she’s a brilliant teacher, mentor, role model, and researcher. I am an anthropology major because of her.

Yeah, I bet you wish you had her bod too. (via Bwog)

27 Oct 2011
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“Many students dress in a way that immediately identifies them as American. It’s important to realize that this can bring you unwanted attention. College or fraternity sweatshirts, baseball hats, carrying water bottles and wearing sneakers will highlight the fact that you are American – and some people may resent you for that fact.”

— My Paris study abroad program handbook

20 Oct 2011
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Kem Walker is now a signed professional model, but earlier this year, he was just another stylish, good-looking, talented, and smart Columbia student that we shot for Hoot, Columbia University’s fashion magazine.

See that? Since I co-founded the publication and served as editor in chief for two years, several of the students we featured in the magazine have become signed professional models. And I’m super, super, super proud of my entire staff for discovering Columbia’s beautiful faces before the rest of the world did. Who says we’re just students? I am so lucky to be surrounded by extraordinary people.

8 Oct 2011
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200 Columbia Faculty Members Support Occupy Wall Street

We, Columbia and Barnard faculty, write in solidarity with and in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement now underway in our city and elsewhere. Many observers claim that the movement has no specific goals; this is not our understanding. The movement aims to bring attention to the various forms of inequality – economic, political, and social – that characterize our times, that block opportunities for the young and strangle the hopes for better futures for the majority while generating vast profits for a very few. The demonstrators are demanding substantive change that redresses the many inequitable features of our society, which have been exacerbated by the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent recession. Among these are: the lack of accountability on the part of the bankers and Wall Street firms that drove the economy to disaster; rising economic inequality in the United States; the intimate relationship between corporate power and government at all levels, which has made genuine change impossible; the need for dramatic action to provide employment for the jobless, and to protect programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, in part by requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes; the disastrous effects of the costly wars that the United States has been conducting overseas since 2001. Only by identifying the complex interconnections between repressive economic, social and political regimes can social and economic justice prevail in this country and around the globe. It is this identification that we applaud, and we call on all members of the Columbia community to lend their support to this peaceful and potentially transformative movement.

(via Bwog)

21 Aug 2011
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jabn:

Reminds me of JAB’s 14 juillet.

Garry Winogrand, Frosh-Soph Rush, Columbia University, 1950

ABN

(Source: jabn)

3 Apr 2011
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“He is known for his intelligence, wit and charm, and being possibly the most attractive professor on campus. Students fight to make a decent seat to his CC class, showing up to class up to 30 minutes in advance to snag the seat closest to him.”

— This is my school’s Wikipedia entry on my professor. Sadly, It’s kind of true.

30 Mar 2011
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Dearest Columbia,

You admit the weirdest and most random people. And that is why I love you. I don’t even know what you see in us half the time. But I knew it was true love when you wrote, “Can’t wait to discuss fashion week with you on campus” on my acceptance letter.

Congratulations, class of 2015! You just beat a 6.9% acceptance rate. Now, go forget about college and enjoy the rest of high school.

Love,

Proud Lion ‘13

8 Feb 2011
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“Because really if Columbia students need an education in anything it’s love, not Constitutional law.”

— Neil FitzPatrick, Spectrum (Columbia Spectator)

15 Jan 2011
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5 notes

The funny thing about everything that I’ve learned at Columbia so far

is that it both affirms everything I stand for and questions everything I had ever taken for granted as part of my identity.

I want to elaborate on this, but I have quite a bit of work to do before the semester begins. Lazy blogger, aren’t I? Point is, college changes things. That’s something my high college counselors forgot to tell me.

7 Dec 2010
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25 notes

5 Columbia students arrested for drug bust

This happened this morning and it’s been all over the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Twitter, etc.

Everyone seems to have something to say about it, whether or not they go to Columbia.

It got me thinking about privilege. And ethics. And the law.

I don’t like how the entire undercover operation was called “Operation Ivy League.” What does being in the Ivy League have to do with this?

But the more I think about it, it does.

Here is what a commenter, signed “becca” on Bwog, said:

You know, these 5 guys are pretty lucky. They have parents to back them up, they have friends who are praying for and are sad for them, they have access to non-court appointed attorneys, and any judge they get put in front of is going to see some nice young men who made some bad mistakes and who deserve a second chance at life. They’re having a bad day (which is entirely of their own making, by the way), but their lives are hardly ruined.

They’ll get kicked out of Columbia? Lose scholarships? Spend a couple years in jail? And because of this, we assume their lives are over?

Columbia community, your privilege is showing.

Look–anyone who’s done research on the drug war for more than five minutes knows the racist and classist policies it upholds. Most drug users are white, most of those in prison on drug charges are black; sentencing disparities between crack and cocaine, etc etc. So the real question here isn’t “Oh boohoo why is the NYPD wasting its resources taking down our best and brightest,” it’s WHY DON’T THEY DO IT MORE OFTEN. Clearly, there is a culture of immunity here. Clearly, drug use is an open secret. So why does the NYPD expend the vast majority of its resources in poor minority areas, locking up black and Hispanic* kids, and not on the Upper West Side?

And no, there’s no good way to try to say “But our drug dealers are GOOD KIDS and BRILLIANT LEADERS while their drug dealers are EVIL VIOLENT CRIMINALS” without coming off as a racist. Because the policy is racist, the whole war is deeply racist, and to try to argue that the cops should get the hell off our nice privileged hillside only mirrors the same.

Maybe it wouldn’t bother me enough to make me want to post if I thought more than one in ten of you here (and on the NY Times website, and the Spec website) who are all angry about this useless stupid drug war didn’t just get caught up to this issue THIS MORNING, because it was your incredibly privileged friend who got caught–and not yesterday, or last year, or the thirty years before that, when it was invisible because it was mostly poor black kids. Drugs ravage poor communities, but so do drug policies–just head down to Prospect Heights and ask around to see who has drug records, and ask them if it’s gotten in the way of them finding any kind of employment. Somehow, I don’t think these kids will have that problem. Anyone whining about how they should legalize drugs just so we can use them with impunity is an asshole.

*I know not all the kids arrested were white, please excuse my simplistic, linguistic shorthand. Privilege is a complicated thing.