In a tight five-setter, the Rice University volleyball team surrendered a 2-1 set lead to Louisiana Tech University and fell short Sunday evening (21-25, 25-12, 25-16, 26-28, 13-15) at the Thomas Assembly Center.
While the remnants of Hurricane Patricia swept its way through the outskirts of Dallas, Texas, the Rice University and University of North Texas soccer teams were engaged in a Conference USA battle. In a game that saw warnings and yellow cards handed out on both sides, the Mean Green narrowly beat out Rice by a final score of 2-1.
During the 232 days HERO was in effect, 58 percent of reported cases of discrimination were based on race or national origin, 17 percent were gender based, 15 percent were based on age, 4 percent were based on disability, 4 percent were based on sexual orientation or gender identity and 2 percent were based on veteran status ... Houston needs a nondiscrimination ordinance because the absence of one affects a broad range of Houstonians.
This year, the release and discussion of the Survey of Unwanted Sexual Experiences results have bled into talks that precede the yearly Night of Decadence party. As a coincidence, in the week leading up to NOD, residential colleges are simultaneously discussing sexual assault and consent in both SUSE and NOD talks.
One of the biggest reasons I love Rice University is its value of diversity. As Halloween approaches, what to do on one of the semester’s biggest nights dominates dinner table chatter. Since many of us come from different backgrounds and have varying ideas of fun, it is important to embrace each other and the decisions we make.
“Rice students are apathetic.” We’ve heard this lamentable statement in a thousand different contexts, from social justice movements to Student Association elections. I disagree. I’ve seen incredibly passionate student-led dialogue and action. However, the examples that come to mind — Baker lunch restrictions, college president resignations or the changing Alcohol Policy — are immediate issues, with immediate consequences to members of the Rice campus. It’s much more difficult to incite a population of busy college students to address systemic racism in the criminal justice system than to limit a servery’s hours. Yet sexual assault is equally an immediate issue directly affecting all of us — the statistics from the Survey on Unwanted Sexual Experiences results represent real humans in our campus community. They are us, our roommates, our classmates and our peers.
So many of us Rice students have an interesting, almost masochistic, relationship with grades. We burden ourselves immensely with them and even claim to enjoy doing so. It’s disturbing how readily our grades shape our self-esteem. Somehow, we’ve convinced ourselves a good grade is a statement on our value, in a moral or metaphysical sense. Good grades lead to good postgraduate schools, which lead to high-paying or world-shaking jobs. This haunting sense of having our lives dictated by a fraction of a digit constantly lingers on the edge of our consciousness. Compounding to this encumbrance is our distorted perspective of what “doing well” means. For many Rice students, “doing well” equals nothing less than an A-, perhaps due to relativism: Last semester, more than 30 percent of all students obtained a GPA greater than 3.88. That’s an absurdly high number. If many of those around you are getting A’s, then getting a B, a very good grade at almost any other school (especially considering that most Rice courses are more rigorous than their counterparts in other colleges), doesn’t seem like much of an achievement.
Undergraduates and faculty of the computer science department are planning a campus-wide town hall and formation of an advisory board to address students’ concerns as increasing numbers of students enroll in the departments’ courses.
Students will hold a demonstration on Friday at noon in the academic quad following an incident of a school sheriff’s deputy throwing and dragging a black female student at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina.
The Rice Women’s Resource Center is celebrating its seventh annual consent awareness week with a new name, “I
Rice University has launched a brand new entrepreneurship initiative, dubbed Entrepreneurship@Rice, led by associate professor of finance and entrepreneurship Yael Hochberg. The initiative’s kickoff event, RECESS, brought nationally renowned businesspeople, including WordPress founder Matt Mullenwag, to campus on Oct. 22.
Students will have a new spot for relaxing in the sun, based on the winning design “The Hangout” from the annual School of Architecture mini-charrette competition. Wiess College sophomores Yoseph Maguire and Andrew Bertics, Baker College junior Eric Hsu and Brown College sophomore Ethan Chan envisioned their project as a field of hammocks at various heights for studying and relaxing in the academic quad.
Following the release of the Survey of Unwanted Sexual Experiences results, Rice Health Advisors are incorporating discussions on consent and sexual assault into the usual residential college talks preceding Wiess College’s Night of Decadence public party this Saturday.
With just over two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, senior quarterback Driphus Jackson and the Rice offense drove down the field and scored a last-minute touchdown to break a 31-31 tie and defeat the United States Military Academy, 38-31.With the win, the Owls have improved their overall record to 4-3 and have now won four consecutive matchups against Army. Rice has also now won 14 of their last 16 games played at Rice Stadium.Playing in the pouring rain, Rice struck first on a 34 yard touchdown run from redshirt junior running back Darik Dillard just one minute and 22 seconds into the game. Rice also scored the second touchdown less than one minute later on a one yard run from redshirt freshman running back Samuel Stewart. The Owls hold onto the 14-0 lead through the first quarter.Army began to claw back in the second quarter, however, scoring 14 points to Rice’s 10 in the quarter. Army then scored the lone touchdown of the third quarter to bring the score to 24-21 Rice entering the final period.Although Jackson scored his first touchdown pass of the game early in the fourth quarter to redshirt sophomore former quarterback Nate German, Army went on to 10 unanswered points, including the game-tying field goal with 2:13 remaining in the game.Jackson, who finished the day 20-30 for 267 yards and two touchdowns, led the Owls on a seven-play, 75-yard game-winning drive in 1:49. With 24 seconds in the game left, Jackson found redshirt junior wide receiver Zach Wright in the back of the endzone for a 12 yard touchdown pass, which would seal Rice’s victory.Rice next plays Louisiana Tech University on Friday, Oct. 30 at Rice Stadium. Kickoff for the game is scheduled for 7 p.m.
All 1600 tickets for Esperanza were claimed in just over 11 hours, according to a Facebook post by the Rice Program Council.
Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research in collaboration with the City of Houston is examining the possibility of installing B-Cycle stations around campus to make the university an extension of Houston’s bike rental network. The initiative is an offshoot of a joint research project between Kinder and the city to study bicycle user trends with pooled data from Houston, Austin, Fort Worth and Denver. The report is due for release in November.
Dessert trends are sweeping across the country, igniting in places like New York City where tourists and natives pour into restaurants serving innovative yet simple sweets. I was curious to understand what keeps these fads alive, and my point of interest was ice cream rolls. Before I went to New York City for midterm recess, I had heard through Buzzfeed and word of mouth about this newfangled dessert. Would it be better than the famed cronut? Or would it fail to live up to its hype?When Dominique Ansel unveiled the cronut (the love child of croissants and donuts), people went wild. This novelty of a pastry combines two of the most popular carbs in the world and it needs to be pre-ordered weeks in advance to avoid winding lines outside Dominique Ansel’s bakery. I have tried the famous cronut before, but it simply tastes like a flaky fritter with a crispy, thick edge encrusted with sugar. Its aesthetic beauty is what captured my attention. Yet while a wait of two hours might not be worth it, the bakery is still clogged with people longing for a taste of His Majesty the cronut. Similarly, tourists and New York natives alike are shuffling for space inside little restaurants to savor ice cream rolls.These frozen treats are actually a staple of Thai street food, and places all over New York are offering inspired versions of the confection. It certainly looks more unique than a typical scoop of Ben & Jerry’s; ice cream rolls resemble a cross between short scrolls and delicate roses, all stuffed into a frozen yogurt cup and adorned with various toppings. And the other fascinating part about this dessert is the fact that customers can watch it being made before their very eyes. It is like people are allowed to witness a secret process and understand the mystery behind the dessert. After all, who really knows how cronuts are made? But ice cream rolls are open to the public — perhaps that is one reason this concoction is surrounded by a flurry of adoration.So I sampled ice cream rolls in NYC to wrangle out possible reasons this dessert has gained an avid fanbase. I scoured Yelp for the best place and decided on I-CE NY, which claims to be the “original Thai ice cream roll destination.” It was a tiny space with a glass case in the wall, lined with plastic examples of ice cream roll flavors and toppings. When I asked the young employee who took my order how these ice cream rolls have gained such renown, he simply shrugged and mumbled that he didn’t know.I stood there, flabbergasted. But then I realized that perhaps he had a point — maybe he was disillusioned after working with foodies clamoring for pictures of the dessert. Or maybe he just thought that ice cream rolls were not really that much different from Haagan-Daaz besides the presentation. It was time to discover the truth. The process of ordering involved four parts: choosing an ice cream base, a filling, a topping and a drizzle. The Thai tea base sounded delicious, and I chose to pair it with lychee morsels, followed by a topping of mochi and a final drizzle of condensed milk.Watching the poor girl who had the pleasant job of making all the rolls evoked a combination of pain and intrigue. Each batch took about four minutes, which would probably make any hungry customer start tapping their feet in impatience. The process was quite an undertaking. First, the girl poured out the measurement of creme anglaise, a sort of cream tinted light orange due to the Thai tea. It spilled out into a rectangular sheet. She dumped in the lychee and proceeded to chop it all into the cream over and over, until it resembled a gloopy mound that she flattened on the sheet. No doubt she had serious biceps after all that mincing. The sheet must have been extremely cold as well because once she started scraping the ice cream’s edge and rolling strips off of it like cutting fondant, they all came out into nice, frosty curls. Then she placed them all carefully into a cup and added the toppings.Honestly, my dessert didn’t look the most aesthetically pleasing. Mochi was falling off the rolls and the entire cup wasn’t as full as I would hope. Digging my spoon into a roll also proved to be a bit difficult. I figured the ice cream would need to be pliable yet stiff enough to be rolled, so chipping off a piece was as hard as attempting to scoop ice cream from a tub that has been in the freezer for a while. The cream tasted light with the right amount of sweetness; I could pinpoint all the delicate flavors and had no trouble scarfing it down.I paid $6 for this dessert, and I think it was that expensive due to all the effort in crafting it. I would recommend it for a unique dessert or to curb a craving for ice cream but, in the end, ice cream rolls are just made of basic, humble flavors. No doubt the quality is stellar, but is it worth it to fly to New York for a taste? Probably not. If you handed me an ice cream cone instead of these, I would be just as delighted. Yet I think that these rolls have become so noteworthy because people can watch their desserts being made, and the idea is simple — change the generic ice cream scoop into a work of art. Ice cream rolls and cronuts both make people stop in their tracks and marvel at the brilliance of the idea. And everyone wants to be able to say that they’ve tried it. No wonder Instagram is littered with photos of these desserts. What other proof do people need?
Coming off two straight losses to Middle Tennessee State University and the University of Texas, San Antonio, the Rice University women’s volleyball team rallied to defeat the University of Texas, El Paso in three sets (25-21, 25-18, 25-19). The win takes the Owls’ record to 14-7 overall and places them at sixth in the Conference USA standings.
I recently came across a book called “When God Writes Your Love Story,” which I found funny mostly because it conjured the image of God as a hopeless romantic typing up people’s love stories at Brochstein Pavilion. To be fair, “How do I find my soulmate?” is an interesting question — one that I never get asked. I’m the scrawny computer science major who likes to play ping pong, Sudoku and nonograms, so I’m not surprised. But it is a shame because I have the perfect solution, one that I’ve tested personally.As my COMP 140 professor would say, there are several subproblems you have to address first. Regardless of your religiosity, prayer is a must. Write down all the things you want in a soulmate: smart, funny, attractive, not gullible, etc. Meditate on these attributes and chant, “Leeeeeebs,” under your breath 83 times with increasing tempo and with your eyes closed, obviously. If you start to see visions of a middle-aged Jewish man, you’ve gone too far. Never, ever go full Leebron. The last person to go full Leebron founded monotheism.After becoming spiritually prepared for your soulmate, you must become physically ready. To demonstrate your commitment to your future soulmate, plan on working out at the Rec every free second of your week, as unrealistic as that may sound. As you know, we Rice students blow off most of our workouts anyway, so you have to overcompensate. Also, don’t think that because you walk to all of your classes, you can skip leg day. Don’t skip leg day, ever.You will also need mental preparedness. Taylor Swift’s classic “You Belong With Me” is the perfect soulmate primer because if you really believe you are that guy or girl next door, you will be. To mold your mind even more, watch a few hours of Dean Hutch’s Gen Chem video lectures. Hutch’s godly voice will warm your heart, and his chemistry knowledge will help you and your soulmate bond over some terrible chemistry puns. Finally, read the Communist Manifesto because that’s apparently what marriage is like.If you’ve solved these subproblems correctly, there is one final step before you meet your soulmate. Before the big day, you must collect the tail of a Rice University squirrel or Donald Trump’s toupee (They’re really the same thing right?), a dozen homemade cinnamon rolls from West servery and the tears of all the freshmen who failed their first midterm. Mix these in a boiling cauldron until you have a neon green slime. It will smell like cinnamon, salt and The Donald’s bank vault. Paint your forehead with this concoction.Have a few drinks, if you haven’t already, and make your way to the nearest public party. Dance with everyone you meet because as far as you know, these will be the last moments of your single life. At half past 12, you will meet your soulmate. A slow song will come on. Take a deep breath. Turn around. Your soulmate will be the one with a neon green forehead.Kenneth Li is a Duncan College freshman.
My friend told me a while back that he encountered an “astounding ass.” He was returning a textbook at a UPS station, and the man assisting him asked him his major, to which my friend responded that he wasn’t sure yet.“Well, let me give you some advice,” UPS Man said. “Whatever you do, don’t become an English major. I mean, why would you major in a language you already speak and know?”My friend relayed this experience to me with righteous rage and frustration — probably half of which was for my benefit.I wasn’t even upset by the story. I mean, recently a Rice administrator literally said on the record, with extraordinary nonchalance, that our incoming humanities majors this year had lower test scores than STEM majors.I’ve come to expect this attitude, at this point. It’s so easy to feel the projected stereotypes — English majors aren’t good at math, English majors have it so easy in school, English majors want to publish a novel and become the next J.K. Rowling. It’s always a surprise if someone says, in response to my “confessing” that I’m an English major, “That’s really cool, I don’t think I could ever do that!”How many times have people I barely know asked me what I was going to do with an English major? How many times have people asked me why I wanted to be an English major? How many times have people asked me if I’m also pre-med or pre-law, as if that’ll somehow justify “what” I am? Why can’t I just be an English major?Every first club meeting, every casual introduction during which we detail name, college, major, I flinch when I have to follow “CHBE” or “kinesiology pre-med” with plain old “English.” It’s a knee-jerk reaction of feeling, like I have to explain myself, because apparently being an English major is intrinsically confounding. It’s not just others’ perceptions; I’ve begun to believe the prejudice myself. I won’t lie — I’ve had more than my fair share of moments of inferiority. When I hear that someone, especially a girl, is majoring in computer science or bioengineering, I feel awe and a strong pinch of jealousy. I always ask myself, “Why couldn’t I do that?”And I think this feeling of inferiority is especially prevalent at Rice, a school so obviously focused on STEM students, that every English major I meet is a treasure to behold, a rare sympathizer and genuine peer.Some people think we sit on our butts all day and ponder fictional characters uselessly, that we don’t actually do anything while other students are at lab or research or the OEDK. Yes, the STEM students are incredibly busy — I respect that. They’re brilliant and they do so much in school and the real world. But the fact that English (and really any humanities) majors have shockingly fewer class requirements does not invalidate what we do. We make sure we’re busy, and we choose what makes us busy. Trust me, we’re loaded on the extracurriculars, and our classes take time too, in a different way. Such critics should be ashamed for shaming us and what we love. What right do they have to criticize the choice we’ve made? Maybe we know something they don’t — something hidden in the (literal) hundreds of books we have to read in school, our analyses, the millions of words we’ve written.Language built this world. Who cares if we all already know it? In the Old Testament, when the people grew too arrogant and tried to build the Tower of Babel with an intent to reach the heavens, God only had to take away their ability to communicate, and they fell apart, just like that.English teaches us about people and how to understand them. It teaches us about experiences we have yet to encounter. It teaches us about the many facets of the world about which we would otherwise have no idea.So before you assume English majors had no other choice and that they are literally incapable of everything else, ask yourself if you’re able to analyze the hell out of a seven-word sentence the way we can, or turn a three-second encounter into a 16-page short story, or even begin to comprehend the world in all its layers and people and confusions. And before you take to criticism, ask yourself if you love your major as much as English majors love theirs. Very few people these days can boast they truly know their passions. In the millennial world, where instant gratification (not to mention instant moneymaking) is all the rage and ladder-climbing is considered an absolute necessity, many have lost sight of what they genuinely love. If there’s one thing I know about English majors, it’s that we all love what we’re studying.English majors aren’t the lackadaisical, last-resort people some might assume them to be. We didn’t swivel around looking for anything but this and find that we had no choice but to sigh, settle for English. And so what if being purely an English major without a pre-____ track sometimes means having to “wait and see”? There’s nothing wrong with that. People jump from job to job in their 20s anyway, sometimes later than that.I’m tired of defending my life choice to people. I’m tired of having to cite people like Mario Cuomo, Sting (ha), Diane Sawyer or Steven Spielberg. Do I really have to justify my major based on celebrities’ successes?I’m not going to make it my mission to critique your or anyone’s major because it’s not like mine. Major in whatever the heck you want. The point is, don’t shit on *insert major here* because you probably have no idea what you’re talking about. Trust that it’s nearly the same across the board for any major: If we work hard, we’ll get somewhere. Simple as that. Even if our “somewhere” is not as concrete as “I’m going to be a pediatric oncologist” or “I’m going to be a software engineer,” doesn’t mean it’s not valid. We’ll figure it out. There’s nothing wrong with giving it a little time.Julianne Wey is a Jones College sophomore and a Thresher Copy Editor.A version of this article appeared in The Odyssey.
