Jacoby Ellsbury, a key member of the Boston Red Sox' 2013 World Series championship team, is a free agent. And an attractive one at that, drawing interest from multiple teams so far this offseason. He's about to become very rich very soon. But Boston has shown little interest in re-signing its star leadoff hitter, making Ellsbury's departure a near-certainty.
I always envisioned that the mall on Black Friday would be similar to a theme park on a Saturday afternoon. I imagined there would be parents screaming after their kids and long lines, with people casually bumping into each other as they run from one store to the next. I supposed Black Friday might be hectic, as shoppers race to buy items to check off their lists. I assumed that by the end of the day, people would leave with near-empty wallets, laden with bags full of various things you would only consider purchasing under special circumstances.
This point in the semester is always a bit weird. We get back from a lovely five-day Thanksgiving break, and all of a sudden we're thrust into a whirlwind of very rapidly having to do all the work neglected over the course of the semester.
With nearly 20 games gone by, the NBA has put almost a quarter of its season in the books. Over the first month, we've learned that the Western Conference is as deep as ever but that the top two teams in the entire league may be in the East. We've learned that tanking isn't quite as easy as expected. And we've learned that the Nets are an abomination of a basketball team.
Some Mother's Son" (1996), co-written by Terry George and Jim Sheridan, tells the story of the IRA prison hunger strikes of 1981. The film is unique in that it shifts the primary focus from the hunger strikers themselves to two of their mothers, played by Helen Mirren and Fionnula Flanagan. This is an unusual tack in Irish political docudramas, and it is incredibly refreshing to see a movie that focuses on family members and those on the outside of the IRA. "Some Mother's Son" is about choices and who has the power to make certain choices based on individual circumstances and familial histories.
Tufts' first kosher deli, originally slated for completion last spring, opened yesterday at 11 a.m. in the Jumbo Express storage space near the Mayer Campus Center.
On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I visited the Library of Congress. The interior lobby of the building is painted with various muses and inscriptions representing the categories of knowledge aggregated and maintained by the institution. One quote caught my eye: "Science is organized knowledge." In the context of a library, cataloging and organizing research may be the goal of science. This is the case in most science classes at Tufts, where the products of a few 100 years of research are delivered in one semester. I've certainly subscribed to the protocol while writing a column for the Daily over the past couple of months - I organized the facts and distilled them to deliver the main point of esoteric concepts.
Most upperclassmen, and maybe even some freshmen, have woken up to the reality that is off-campus living. Early on during sophomore year, it comes time to make a careful decision about who to live with and where. Things to consider include the number of bedrooms available for various apartments, rent prices, how much you trust your friends and who of your peers are most likely to clean the bathroom using anything more disinfectant than warm water.
As I watched Chris Davis of Auburn streak down the sideline to defeat Alabama on Saturday, I had a glorious moment of affirmation. In one breathtaking moment, I was reminded of the unrivaled awesomeness of sports.
The women's squash team played a doubleheader matchup on Nov. 23 - first as the home team against Bowdoin and later as the away team against Brown.
As part of the 10th Margaret Henderson Floyd Memorial Lecture, the Department of Art and Art History and the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning last night hosted internationally renowned architect Moshe Safdie. Safdie's lecture, entitled "Humanizing Megascale," touched on the issues of maintaining the human and artistic aspects of architecture in a world of heavily urbanized metropolises.
By now, just about everyone who follows new music has heard of Chance the Rapper. This is remarkable considering his lack of a radio single, let alone a label backed album. Full of unique flows, awkward squawks and drug-laced introspection, Chance's "Acid Rap," released this year, has taken the Internet by storm and found its way into everyone and their mothers' headphones. So, how did this happen? How did a relatively unknown artist explode onto the rap scene, while totally bypassing the normal means of promotion?
I first heard of Snapchat about a year ago. At the time, I still rocked the Blackberry (PIN: 31B5D8F4), but the app's function was common knowledge. Send a picture to your friend, and the friend can view for anywhere between one and 10 seconds. After that, the picture is gone forever, with no history of the "Snap" ever taking place.
Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate on Nov. 17 unanimously passed a resolution calling for late-night dining options in the Dewick-MacPhie or Carmichael Dining Hall between the hours of 9 p.m. and 2 a.m. As a result of the resolution, the Commons Deli and Grill will accept the meal plan on Friday and Saturday evenings as of next semester.
College sports, as exciting as they can be at their best, are run by an organization that is almost laughably inept in many circumstances. There was a Marine that, after five years of service, was told he could not play for Middle Tennessee State without redshirting a year because he played in a recreational football league. A former Iowa State basketball player named KerwinOkoro, who later transferred to Rutgers because of the death of his father and brother in a short time period, was denied a hardship waiver even though the move was intended to have him be closer geographically to his family.
First, I'd just like to extend a warm welcome back to all of the Jumbos lucky enough to get off campus for Thanksgiving break. Even though break fell unusually late this year (hello, December!), a change of scenery is always welcome, and a change from dining hall food is always needed. Those four days off were, at least for me, a much-needed respite from college, homework and just intelligent life in general (although I do love my family dearly).
Sophomore Elizabeth Palma last month traveled to the nation's capital with the Massachusetts Student Immigrant Movement (SIM) to make a case for immigrant policy reform before members of Congress.
"Father Ted" was a popular British-Irish sitcom that ran from 1995 to 1998 and featured three deadbeat priests living on the fictional Craggy Island. The show follows Father Ted (Dermot Morgan), a disgraced priest sent to the exaggeratedly bleak Craggy Island as punishment, as well as Father Dougal (ArdalO'Hanlon) and Father Jack (Frank Kelly), two other incompetent priests who live with him. Much of the show's humor comes from Father Ted's interactions with the sweet but slow-witted Dougal and the incoherent, alcoholic Jack. While Father Ted mainly acts as the show's straight man, his egotism and lack of reverence for the priesthood often lead him into embarrassing, comedic situations himself.
The other day I had my first job interview. The real adult world wanted to know if I was qualified for a job that I thought I wanted. As it turned out, I appeared rather unqualified for a job that I am fairly confident I would hate.
