The post Cyanotypes appeared first on Yale Daily News.

I switch my duffel bag from arm to arm as the PHC watches helplessly from six feet away. The random assortment of toiletries, pajamas and books weighs into the crook of my elbow, leaving angry welts along my forearm. I set the bag down, and it glares at me like a forsaken pet. We’re in the COVID “Playpen,” the small, fenced-in area with warning signs at every boundary. Passerby stare at me like some rare zoo exhibit, and I wonder if I should play along. Snarl? Claw at the fence? Twirl? 

We wait for my new room key. And wait. And wait. My first-ever class at Yale, 9 to 10:15 a.m., comes and goes.

II

I open an empty minifridge. After calling about 15 different contacts from Yale Health, I hear a knock at my door, and open it to find a freezer bag full of turkey sandwiches and a microwavable box of chicken tikka masala. 

Every day, I complete an emailed survey, picking between various deli sandwiches and wraps as well as a few “hot” meals. I’ve been told on multiple phone calls that as one of the first COVID cases at Yale, I’m one of the university’s “guinea pigs.” I guess I should get used to the frequent glitches in the meal survey.

III

After 48 hours in Bingham Hall, I’ve familiarized myself with every square foot of my new home. Of the five available bedrooms in my suite, my key unlocks only my own. Labels for “Person A” and “Person B” hang over the stalls and sinks in the bathroom. The empty shower constantly reminds me that I am the only person here. In my selfish wish for companionship, I imagine the arrival of a “Person B.” A co-positive, if you will. A co-problem.

Above the couch in my common room, there’s a huge duct-tape rendition of the Hopper crest. I examine it for hours between classes. On Zoom, my classmates notice the glaring green design in the background and comment on Hopper’s merits. Instead of explaining why I’m not in Silliman, I’ve begun to pretend I’m living in Hopper. “Yeah, I love Hopper’s community! Uh-huh, the room layouts are great!”

Across from the duct-tape crest, I add my own decoration — a countdown where I mark each new day spent in quarantine with a tally mark. I press the pen aggressively onto the drywall, hoping the ink encapsulates the monotony of the day and releases it onto the cracking paint.

IV

How to pass the eternity that is the half-centimeter between tally marks? I spend two hours a day on phone calls: Yale Hospitality, the COVID-19 Hotline, Conferences and Events and a various assortment of Yale-affiliated nurses and doctors. In order to organize the stream of “203” calls I receive, I interrupt every caller when they begin speaking and ask them for a name. Post-isolation, I still retain a series of contacts in my phone entitled “_____ the Nurse” or “_____ from Hospitality.” A personal favorite is “_______ who is bringing me my EpiPen.”

V

I call my dad at least twice a day. Both of us had mysteriously contracted the virus on the 15-hour drive from Chicago to New Haven. While I isolate in Bingham Hall, my dad quarantines himself in his apartment.

On day five, I learn that my dad’s symptoms are far worse than I had thought. While I only have a slight cold and a general sense of exhaustion, my father struggles to sit upright for extended periods of time. In an effort to keep me at ease, he has managed to conceal his condition until now — when he falls asleep in the middle of the call.

I sink to the floor of my Bingham common room. My dad, newly single, has no one to take care of him. Does anyone even know he’s there?

VI

In the three days before my move to Old Campus, I became closely acquainted with about five people… all of whom were contact traced shortly after I tested positive. We waste away the summer evenings on Zoom calls. I share my worries about my father and apologize over and over again.

VII

The Silliman-wide GroupMe explodes with warnings about “that girl who tested positive” and pleas to “be more careful.” Within a week of stepping on campus, I’ve become Silliman’s biggest problem. My friends jokingly say I should revel in the fame. But I worry that I will be known exclusively as “COVID Girl” once I return to the Silliman courtyard.

Beyond Silliman, word has spread that a first year has already tested positive for the virus. On one of my first days of class, I find myself in a breakout room with a student who begins to discuss the terror of Old Campus. “Can you imagine?” he asks. “Thank God it’s not me.” I play along.

VIII

 On the eighth day of quarantine, my dad begins to recover. To the surprise of the juniors residing on the “healthy” side of Old Campus, I skip across the Playpen. I participate in virtual Chloe Ting workouts in the common room. In a final act of rebellion, I rip the duct-tape Hopper crest off of the wall, leaving a glorious, sticky residue on my hands. That night, I devour my chicken tikka masala.

IX

I spend my last 24 hours in quarantine packing my duffel bag and lugging it jubilantly back to Silliman. Over the next four days, I return intermittently to visit the window of my contact-traced friends, yelling words of encouragement and bits of gossip to the second floor.

X

Three days after the move from Old Campus, I receive an email from a junior who identifies herself as “B-A11A friend.” She had found my name on an ID card that I’d left in my old bedroom in Bingham Hall. As the newest occupant of Bingham A11A, she informs me that she will be adding to my tally wall.

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Dear Seraph,

Not long ago, in the southerly regions of Limbo, one of our patrols apprehended a demonic courier who carried certain letters pertaining to the case of Pamela. These letters, it seems, are a small part of a long correspondence between a junior demon named Impwit — tasked with tempting Pamela — and the demonic general Ashskin, of whom you have no doubt heard. They provide an intimate, surprising and hitherto unexamined perspective on Pamela’s fall from grace; considering this, and also considering the special place Pamela has long held in angelic scholarly inquiry, I ordered that copies be made immediately; these have been sent to all the major celestial universities and the originals to the Court of Records for safekeeping.

It is my hope that these letters, repugnant though they are, will prove useful to us in our eternal war against the fallen. That Pamela — a maid once so virtuous, unblemished and admirable — should now burn far below, that all her virtues should have been outweighed in the final judgement by a single vice — her pride — why, this is a source of regret for all spirits and a wellspring of everlasting shame for those cherubs entrusted with safeguarding her virtue! The means by which Ashskin outmaneuvered our own forces were devious; I am personally convinced that these letters will reward the most meticulous inspection. It goes without saying that both demons lie repeatedly.

Yours in Faith,

Ariel, Sub-lieutenant of the Seventh Flight

My Dear Impwit,

I am hardly surprised by the failures you recount in your most recent letter. Your subject’s recent change in circumstance — the death of her mistress — is certainly auspicious; her new master is, from our perspective, a great improvement over her old. But why have you jumped at the chance to tempt her by lust? Have you forgotten her upbringing? Have you forgotten her parents, who even now (so my colleagues inform me) write her a letter in which they implore her to protect her chastity? It would have been a delicate matter, even for an experienced tempter, to make this Pamela unchaste; it might have taken months, perhaps years, to cultivate an unruly affection within her; and in any event, your ham-handed attempt to inspire immediate passion has almost certainly precluded that path. In the future, she will be doubly wary of any overtures from her master.

Remember this, my dear Impwit, and be more patient next time.

Do not imagine all is lost. There is still hope, for thinking that she knows where the true danger lies, your Pamela will be less wary of other temptations. This gives you an opportunity. Yes, encourage her to become fixated on her master, let her chastity occupy all her thoughts. I have colleagues in France who have devised a marvelous euphemism: they encourage the young women in their care to refer to chastity simply as “virtue,” and (with that one word!) they convince their subjects that humility, kindness, charity, and all the others are mere lesser virtues, subordinate to the primary. Let your Pamela become one of these women. Encourage her to call chastity her virtue, her innocence, her honesty, her jewel, her soul. Make her think that she is worthless without it. Let her believe that if her master took it from her, even if it were against her will, she would immediately lose all goodness and be damned irrevocably.

Oh, and Impwit — take care that she does not scrutinize these ideas with any particular care. You should not find this hard; after all, you are merely trying to convince her to believe what most of her contemporaries do. But if she were to ever consider the implications — if she were, for example, to consider that any soul which can be damned against its will must be a soul without free will — then she would immediately begin to see that her new beliefs contradict the basic tenets of Christianity. Our goal, as always, is to keep our subjects from inspecting their beliefs too closely.

Yours in Conspiracy,

Ashskin

Dear Ashskin,

Where would I be without you? I’ve taken your advice and dialed back on the lust. You’re right: Pamela’s absolutely terrified of losing her virginity. Just read this — I peeked over her shoulder in the morning and saw it in one of her letters: “… for I think, when one of our Sex finds she is attempted, it is an Encouragement to a Person to proceed, if one puts one’s self in the Way of it, when one can help it, and it shews one can forgive what in short ought not to be forgiven.”

Pretty weighty stuff, don’t you think? I’ll admit, it took some sly words … some undercover tempting … but, as you can see from her letter, I’ve gotten this girl to think that if Mr. B — rapes her, it’ll be her own fault! Just because she’s “in his way.” What was it you said before — something about being damned against your will?

Anyway, things are coming along just fine over here. I just wish that stupid Mrs. Jervis would stop interfering with everything!

Thanks,

Impwit

My Dear Impwit,

I must confess to some bafflement over your letter. So you have succeeded in fixing Pamela’s attention on her chastity. What else? How have you exploited her closed-mindedness — what other temptations have you brought before her? How have you brought her closer to the fires? I worry, Impwit, if Pamela were to die today, you may be sure her soul would be saved.

There are several ways we might remedy this … unfortunate situation. I am particularly intrigued by Pamela’s letter-writing habit. I have obtained copies of some of her letters to her parents from my colleagues, and what I have seen so far is very promising. She justifies herself repeatedly. She calls attention to her virtues, her beauty. She dwells at length on the slights others have given her. She writes so regularly, and at such inconceivable length! Such a wellspring of egotism and pride in those letters! It warms my heart; with luck, it will burn her soul.

Impulsive letter writing, like impulsive journaling, is a dangerous habit — but, more often than not, it works to our advantage. A letter or a journal can permit sincere introspection; this, as I have already mentioned, is a thing we must discourage. But it can also be (and more often is) a means of constructing a fictitious self — of writing about the person one wants to be rather than the person one is. This encourages a delightfully warped self-image. One of my current subjects, a plumber named Matthew, beats his wife at least once a day and has not spoken with either of his young children in the past week. But if you were to read his journal, then you would see a portrait of an entirely different Matthew: a Matthew who sacrifices everything for his family, who loves his wife with all his heart and gets nothing in return. He does not lie, exactly, when he writes — but I encourage him never to challenge himself, to focus on only his own perspective: to use his journal for “healthy catharsis,” as the psychiatrists put it. I have managed affairs so carefully in this man’s case that he no longer believes in the real Matthew. When he thinks of himself, he thinks instinctively of the Matthew described in his journal.

Your Pamela, I think, writes letters because she has no other way to assert her individuality. She is a 15-year-old girl separated from her parents, pursued by her master, confined by her class. She has a wellspring of intelligence and fire within her — more than anyone is willing to permit in a serving wench — more, even, than she is willing to permit in herself. She is silenced, afraid, isolated; the only voice she has in the world is the one conveyed in correspondence. If she stopped writing, the greater part of her would die.

And so you see what a remarkable opportunity you have in this case — what power you will have over this girl, if you can only control what she puts into the letters. Make her written voice entirely disconnected from her actual voice; see to it that the fictitious Pamela — the girl she writes about — has as little in common with the real Pamela as possible. You do not need to make her lie … only encourage her to omit liberally, to choose details selectively — emphasizing virtues, glossing over vices, and so on — as I have done with my subject. Encourage her to write more frequently: several times a day, if possible. Make her wholly dependent on the letters.

Yours in Conspiracy,

Ashskin

P. S.  Before composing future letters of your own, I advise you to peruse the latest edition of the Infernal Manual of Style — particularly the sections dealing with appropriate use of contractions and colloquialisms. I believe you will find that neither is appropriate in formal correspondence with a senior officer of the demonic legion.

Dear Ashskin,

Thanks for the tips. I’m kind of busy right now; will go over the Infernal Manual of Style later. In the meantime, progress report. Pamela’s making herself sound awfully perfect in her letters, just the way you said she should be doing. Only a few days ago, there was this big party at Mr. B—’s house, one of the guests said she was pretty — and just listen to what she puts into the letter to her parents! “… Well Mr. B—,” she writes, quoting the guest, “we understand that you have a Servant-maid, who is the Greatest Beauty in the Country.”

There is one thing, though, that’s got me uneasy. A few days ago, she decided that she didn’t want to keep on wearing those fancy silk clothes Mr. B— gave her, so she went out and bought some cloth and started making shifts and gowns and petticoats, all homespun. In her letters, she keeps on saying that she feels down-to-earth, more humble in that stuff. And, well … we want her to be proud, right? That’s how I’m supposed to get her — using pride? So is all this homespun clothing a problem for us?

Thx,

Impwit

My Dear Impwit,

It would seem that I have, once again, overestimated your intelligence. I admit, I am more than a little disappointed: when I suggested that Pamela should be led to believe in the fictional self she creates in her letters, I did not anticipate that you would share her delusion. I have also learned about her “homespun reformation.” I am as far from frightened as possible. On the contrary: nothing else has given me as much hope that we will succeed in damning her.

You think her humble? You think her actually humble because she claims to feel humble? Did you not read my last letter? If she told her parents that she feared she was becoming arrogant, feared she was aloof, feared she spoke disdainfully to the other servants, then you might have cause to fear she was learning humility. Impwit, I ask you to consider how meticulously she describes her raiment in her letters; how long she dwells on her appearance; how careful she is to recount each compliment the guests pay her; how bitterly she takes each of her master’s insults. A country lass can be as vain in a homespun dress as a duchess in her jewels — and Pamela, methinks, is prouder than many queens. Watch and wait; if you handle this right, soon you will catch her in pride; she will dwell at length on her own virtue, will be proud of her modesty, her chastity, even her poverty; and all the while she will think herself humble, will suppose that she can put on humility the way she puts on a gown. How many have we snared this way — through the muddling of outward and inward humility! The former counts for nothing in the final judgement, the latter for everything; and though the old saying is true — that a rich man may pass into heaven as easily as a camel passes through the eye of a needle — yet also many beggars are turned away from the heavenly gates, and some on account of pride.

No … I am convinced that we are beginning to take Pamela firmly in hand. The true difficulty now will be dealing with her master. I have recently received a telegram from high command; Screwtape, the master’s tempter, has encountered some difficulties. It would seem that Mr. B—, desiring to obtain Pamela, has been trying to reform himself, has even begun to repent of his legendary lechery. To think of it! That irredeemable soul — that sure bet — slipping through our fingers and going to Heaven!

We must guard against any possibility of redemption, however slight. We will need to contrive a way of letting Pamela’s master give in to his lust for her — while, at the same time, keeping her enthralled by pride. I will take the issue to counsel and tell you what is decided. Until then, I am of course

Yours in Conspiracy,

Ashskin

P. S.  I have recently learned that a certain novelist (Richards, I think his name is … or perhaps Richardson … I cannot be bothered with keeping track of these mere mortals) has taken an inordinate interest in your subject. It would seem that he, like many of her acquaintances, considers Pamela to be a paragon of virtue — a shining beacon for serving wenches everywhere — and he has become so enraptured that he intends to write a book loosely based upon her experiences. I tell you, Impwit, there is nothing so gullible in the world as one of these human novelists — especially one who considers himself a moral authority. I have recommended to high command that we begin to conscript such writers in our campaign of propaganda against the great Enemy. Screwtape has already taken Richardson into his care. Within a few years, we may hope to see a delightfully blasphemous book celebrating the virtues of your thrice-damned Pamela.

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“This is Fauve as fuck.” The speaker is a kid about my age, in a dark sweater and fashionable slim-fit jeans. His companion, a taller guy with unkempt hair and round glasses, leans in close and nods his agreement.

“This is Fauve as fuck,” he says.

After a series of incoherent Google searches — “Fove,” “Foav,” “Fava Beans” — I finally come across “Fauve”: a reference to the 20th century French art style, Fauvism, which focused on painting technique and color rather than realism. Also, according to Google, the title of a Canadian short film about two boys coming of age in a surface mine. Two minutes later, I’m watching a YouTube animation of strip mining techniques.

Wait. Focus. I’m here to be cultured.

When I first look at Wassily Kandinsky’s “Improvisation No. 7,” I see an orange parrot with a mottled yellow throat. Then, a waterfall, a volcano, a starship from “Galaga” melting like hot wax into a bottle-green sea. A little figure with a fishbowl head raises a hand in greeting. It’s one of those paintings that you can’t seem to see all at once. Every moment, there’s a new color or shape materializing out of the background, something new to puzzle over. I have no idea what I’m looking at.

It definitely looks like art. It has a frame, a signature and a plaque. And it’s hanging in an art museum. Then again, so is Marcel Duchamp’s “In Advance of the Broken Arm,” which consists entirely of a snow shovel strung from the gallery ceiling. Technically, it’s a replica. At what point does an object become just an object? When can we stop looking for shapes?

12:02 p.m.

“Oh look,” someone nearby says. “Jackson Pollock.”

12:35 p.m.

I’ve discovered that there’s a subtitle. The painting’s full title is: “Improvisation No. 7 (The Storm).” Suddenly the image is a system in motion, violent and full of energy. Colors don’t intermingle, they clash like thunderheads, split through by dark, jagged lines. Blues and greens swirl in a deluge while Zeus hurls fluorescent orange bolts. Wind roars.

1:27 p.m.

She clicks across the gallery on low suede heels. Her husband, close behind, resembles the dad from “Get Out.” She spots “Improvisation No. 7.” “Ooh these are the landscapes.”

Is that it then? It’s a landscape?

Her husband shakes his head “I couldn’t explain this one. I literally couldn’t.” He jerks a thumb at “Multicolored Circle,” another Kandinsky. “I’ll give him credit for that one. That’s got something.”

1:57 p.m.

A little boy in a crimson turtleneck claps his hands and chants tunelessly. “Jack, son Pollock — Jack, Jack, son Pollock. Jack, son Pollock — Jack, Jack, son Pollock.”

2:24 p.m.

March, 1910

Wassily steps back and looks from the canvas, to the parrot a few yards ahead of him, then back to the canvas. “Fuck,” he says. “That’s not right at all.” He rubs at the streak of white with a rag. “No, no, no.” He looks down. How did he even get purple on there? The startled parrot ruffles itself and shrieks. Wassily fumbles with his brushes. Maybe if the white thing is a branch, he can add some green like …

The next day, the garbage collector encounters a defeated Kandinsky waiting at the curb with his canvas. “New masterpiece, Wassily?”

“It was,” Wassily sighs.

“Huh,” the garbage collector takes the painting. “I kinda like it. It’s a farm, right?”

“No.”

“Oh. I just thought, with that green bit there, and I thought those were hedges …”

Wassily massages his temple.

The garbage collector shrugs. “Either way, it’s nice. There’s definitely a mood to it.” He turns to carry on up the road.

“Wait.” Wassily holds out a hand. He takes the painting and stares. “Do you see anything else?”

2:55 p.m.

The guard touches her earpiece. “I’d like to report a touch. I’m before post nine, so no numbers but it’s “Head of a Jester” by Pablo Picasso. Roger, no damage.” As the perimeter is secured, “Improvisation No. 7” is bustled into a waiting limo. “Improvisation No. 7” watches paramedics rushing towards the fallen “Head of a Jester” and thinks, “That was meant for me.”

3:45 p.m.

The most noticeable images fall away. Forget the parrot, the swan, our friend with the fishbowl head. See mountains capped in white racing towards you from the blue. See a campfire, the particular way that green merges into blue, a palm tree, a cell tower, a pair of twisted Jordans, a heart yellow as a sand pear. Find and lose, make and unmake.  

4:12 p.m.

My favorite mark: Follow the swan’s graceful neck, to a perfect thumbnail swatch of white and teal in the crook of a jagged olive-green leaf. I can’t imagine what it is. I don’t need to imagine what it is. Sometimes paint is just paint.

4:36 p.m.

The brown-haired woman tucks her coat under one arm, steps closer to the Kandinsky until her shadow falls on the jagged signature, and says to nobody, “I love this.” She adjusts the coat, and meanders away, past the fidgeting guard and the oscillating snow shovel.

Probably to look at the Pollocks.

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My parents are deep-sea conservatives, so I was raised in a traditional household. My mother likes to point out that she met my father when she was only 1 year old. “Don’t you think it’s time you settled down?” she likes to ask. “If only you’d meet a nice hen and find a crevasse somewhere,” my father might add on. But I want to be a writer; I went to Kenyon, for Christ’s sake. There’s nothing waiting in a crevasse for a writer. For now I’m working day shifts at Pavement. I have submitted to the New York Times “Modern Love” column several times, but I have yet to hear back.

On Grindr, my bio says I’m a top from the Pacific, but I’m actually a bottom from the Atlantic. A friend told me about Grindr a couple months ago, and I’ve been “grinding” ever since. You sign up for an account, take a photo of yourself and then match with other gays nearby. I’ve received a respectable amount of messages. Today, for instance:

“i literally love davy jones,” from singlenearby.

“do you do tentacle stuff?” from otterboy172.

“are you into inking?” from slimedaddy6. I don’t know what “inking” is in this context, and I certainly don’t have the gall to Google it. Recently, I’ve been talking to a guy named Brian; he messaged me first. He thought it’d be fun to get dinner instead of hooking up, so we’re going to Legal Seafoods later tonight.

When I get home from work, Romero, my roommate, has left our apartment littered with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos bags and Four Loko cans. His friends are over, and I feel awkward calling him out in front of them. I lift a Cheetos bag with one suction cup, place it in the garbage and attempt to make eye contact with Romero. He stares at the coffee table. Romero is a little slow, I think.

“Isn’t Four Loko banned?” I ask. “How do you survive on this?”

“Dude. You haven’t even tried the gold flavor.”

This is true; I haven’t. “I think a guy might come over later tonight,” I blurt out. I have butterflies in my ink-sac. “Could you clean this up before then?”

Romero looks up from the coffee table. “My man is getting some. Huge!” Romero springs to his feet, pulls up his pants and offers a hand for the “bro-hug.”

More butterflies — I can never get this right. I wrap a clumsy tentacle around his hand and bump my head into his on accident. He is unfazed.

Later, as I experiment in the mirror with a French tuck of my floral button-down, Abba’s “Waterloo” starts playing from my phone. It’s my father calling. I let the phone go for a few seconds.

“Are you busy? Your mom said I should call you.” I can hear my mother scolding him in the background.

“Oh. Thanks. So, what’s new down there?” I go back to looking in the mirror.

“Well, we saw a shark earlier today. Looked like he was headed east. Oh, and the Goldmans are moving grottos; they said they wanted more natural light. Honestly, I’m fine living at 400 feet. Your mom thinks the shallows have better schools, but it’s so much quieter down here.”

“Oh right, yeah, wonderful family. The Goldmans, I mean.”  I speak with my phone between my shoulder and my cheek. “Hey Dad, could I actually call you later? I have a dinner thing.”

I arrive at Legal Seafoods 15 minutes before the reservation. The waiter leads me to my table anyway. “We don’t get octopuses in here that often,” he says, laughing awkwardly.

“Oh.” I’m too nervous to be offended.

I stick and unstick a suction cup to the glass table, imagining what I might say to Brian. Yeah, I’ve submitted some work to Modern Love. He’d know what Modern Love is, right? I scan the menu, and after finding nothing of interest, I look up. God, there are a lot of old people here. One white-haired woman across the room is staring at me. I can’t break eye contact — Why me? Does she know I’m gay? Does she not like octopuses? Is it the French tuck? She turns her head back to her conversation. I sigh and click the home button on my phone: 7:32 p.m. Forty-two minutes have passed since I sat down. One notification from Grindr.

“show me what them tentacles do,” from slimedaddy6.

I sag in my chair, eat three rolls of bread and decide to walk home along the Charles. I try to distract myself with the view of the skyline, but I keep thinking of Brian — lying in bed with him, meeting his parents. I think of him thinking of me. I think of him reading my writing and being outraged that Modern Love wouldn’t take it. I think of jumping into the sea. I call my mother.

“So wonderful to hear your voice, sweetie.”

“Hey mom, I just went on a date.” I can hear her reiterating this to my father. They’re probably still eating dinner. He went on a date!

“Well, how was it? She wasn’t from the Pacific, was she?”

There’s a lump in my throat. I turn a shade of dark, dark purple.

“Honey, did I lose you?”

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Source: Yale College Council President Saloni Rao’s ’20 Instagram post publicizing her cabinet’s work on Yale-New Haven relations at a “Lunch & Learn” event the YCC co-hosted with the United Way of Greater New Haven to discuss strides in combating homelessness in New Haven (9/28/18).

Status: MISLEADING

Since 2011, Connecticut’s governor and General Assembly have invested major funds in affordable housing, dedicating over $1 billion to building over 9,000 affordable housing units with an additional 3,000 under construction and funding in place for another 5,200 as of last year.

These efforts have culminated in the lowest levels of homelessness to date in Connecticut according to the 2017 Point-in-Time Count, a 24 percent drop in total number of homeless individuals since the counts began a decade earlier. On Jan. 12, 2017, Gov. Dannel Malloy declared that “as of the end of 2016, the end of the month of December; every verified, chronically homeless individual in the state of Connecticut had been matched with housing.

But that doesn’t mean that you won’t see people experiencing homelessness on New Haven streets.

The federal definition for “chronic homelessness” sets the standards for qualifying persons as: “either (1) an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has been continuously homeless for a year or more, OR (2) an unaccompanied individual with a disabling condition who has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years.”

That means New Haven’s claim of victory against homelessness applies only for a small subset of the overall population — those who have been sleeping in a place not meant for human habitation such as on the streets, under bridges or in abandoned buildings, or living in a homeless emergency shelter for 12 or more months in addition to having been diagnosed by a clinician to have a disabling condition of some kind. According to Margaret LeFever, coordinated access network housing coordinator at United Way of Greater New Haven, in order to be classified as “chronically homeless,” the individual must have a verifiably serious mental illness, diagnosable substance abuse disorder or chronic physical illness or disability.

In reality, the so-called “chronically homeless” represent a small percentage of the total number of people experiencing homelessness. In 2017, when there were zero chronically homeless people in need of housing, data from the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness reveal there were over 3,600 others still homeless in the state. These unmatched individuals either had not been verified by community outreach workers or did not have a qualifying disabling condition that limited their ability to work.

What’s more, data approximating the condition of homelessness regularly fluctuate.  Throughout the month of October, the percentage of chronically homeless individuals successfully matched to housing programs ranged from 95 percent as of Oct. 2 to 67 percent by the end of the month. Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness’ “Countdown to End Homelessness” weekly progress report shows that the number of verified chronically homeless individuals bounced around 42, 44, 45 and 48 individuals, but the number of matched persons depends on the number of openings in housing programs. United Way of Greater New Haven, in particular, holds biweekly meetings to match people to openings received from housing providers.

Although the number Rao cited may have been correct in late September, it does not represent the number of chronically homeless today, last week or next month. Moreover, measures of chronic homelessness are extremely limited — they do not describe the experience of homelessness in New Haven holistically or satisfactorily.

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Senior week is here! We made it, and now it’s time to celebrate!

Have you been to the Peabody? We are going to see a brontosaurus!!!

Have you been to East Rock? Get on some sneakers; we’re going to watch a sunset!!

Have you made fulfilling, lifelong friendships? We’ll try our best!

The goal is not just to have a good time. It is to have such a good time that you forget about every all-nighter you spent in the Grace Hopper College computer cluster.

We are going to make friends. We are going to have fun. We are not going to stop. We are going to make it pop. We are going to blow our speakers up.

On Sunday, May 13, we’re going to get started with drink specials at Box from 4 p.m. to closing. Happy hour? More like happy EIGHT HOURS. This is the perfect time to rekindle your romance with that girl from your physics class you really liked, but decided to ghost. Don’t worry; she would have ghosted you too!

On May 14, we’re going to Anaya Sushi & Ramen. We hope you like Japanese food because we are going to order so much so quickly that the chefs get demoralized and quit, leaving the restaurant no choice but to close down forever. This place is gone. Done-zo. Finished. It will be the first institution to witness the almighty power of the class of 2018. Next, Wall Street! Go Bulldogs!

Didn’t have a chance to do a society? We’ve got you covered! On May 15, we’ll be doing accelerated senior societies. It’ll still be 15 people you haven’t met, and you’ll still do bios, but you’ll be locked in a closet instead of a tomb. Closets foster closeness, and we have no time to waste.

Speaking of fostering closeness, it’s time to meet your life partner! Write down the name of every senior you’ve ever considered hooking up with, and then send the list to the Senior Class Council. We’ll find you someone who is equally afraid of dating in the non-Yale universe and who was equally commitment-averse for the first 3.99 years of undergrad. You two would have met sophomore year at your suitemate’s birthday party, but you were too busy crying anxious tears in the Stacks. You’ll meet for real on May 16.

On May 17, it’s Dwight Hall’s Day of Service! We’ll give you a tree; all you have you to do is shove it into the ground. This is an OPEN BAR EVENT. Each participating senior gets six drink tickets.

After that we’ll be going straight to SHiFT for cycle classes! Get yourself in shape for all those graduation pictures! You want your future kids thinking that you were once hot. This is an OPEN BAR EVENT.

Have you forgotten about all the late nights you spent in Starr? Not yet? You will! At 5 p.m., it’s the Yale Farm dinner! Pizza! Vegetables! Friendship! Did I mention OPEN BAR??? You will leave wondering why you didn’t check out the Yale Farm earlier. But don’t think about that, please! This is not the time for regrets. It is the time to forget you ever had any.

Up next: Erotica. You’ve been to Toad’s, but haven’t you always wanted to go while wearing only pasties? No? Well, we are doing it anyway! Doors open at 10:30 p.m. and don’t close until everyone has found someone to spend the rest of their life with. Did someone say OPEN BAR? Yes, I, your Senior Class Council representative, am saying it. If you still remember how lonely you felt in the opening few weeks of your first year, keep drinking.

The last event of Senior Week is the Goodbye Gala. Family and friends are encouraged! This will be a good time to introduce your brand-new fiance to your parents. This is also a good time to introduce your family to the OPEN BAR from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. You’re allowed to cry at this event, but please, only tears of joy. Anyone who expresses any regrets will be escorted out of the building.

We’re very excited for Senior Week and can’t wait to celebrate together one last time! And remember, it is never too late to donate to the Senior Class Gift.

The post A Message From Your Senior Week Coordinators appeared first on Yale Daily News.

There’s good reason that your parents want you to become a doctor — it is the holy grail of professions — and everything you’ve accomplished in life has shown that you are among the best. You spoke your first word at the age of 10 months, sooner than anyone else’s kids. As a toddler, you performed complex cosmetic surgery on an American Girl doll, wielding your Fisher-Price doctor’s kit with remarkable dexterity as your family watched, mouths agape. Even in your elite preschool, you were the only one in your class capable of counting to one 100; when your teacher asked you what your favorite number was, you said, “100,852.” She fell to her knees, astounded. In middle school, Ms. Smith, your sixth-grade science teacher, informed your parents that your Styrofoam representation of the solar system was the best she’d ever seen. No one else had ever accounted for Pluto’s abnormal orbit.

High school didn’t knock you down a peg; it reaffirmed your greatness. You studied the most, received the best grades and won your teachers’ affection. Your junior year, you worked in a cancer laboratory with a doctor well-respected in her field — a close friend of your parents. You microscoped, Bunsen-burned and Erlenmeyer-flasked your way to negligible scientific advances and a great recommendation letter. After checking your SAT scores on the College Board website, you cried tears of joy for the first time. Then, you were accepted to Yale. You said goodbye to your best friend, who happened to be your chemistry teacher, and headed off to school. And suddenly, you realized you didn’t want to be a doctor anymore.

It’s too late to explain this to your parents; when you tried in October, they called the head researcher of your lab and staged an intervention in your living room. You even suggested that you were considering a field just as honorable — law. You tried explaining that most people respect lawyers as much as they respect doctors and, crucially, that saying your child goes to law school sounds about as impressive as saying your child studies medicine. You thought you had convinced them that this was an acceptable switch until you received a call from your Mayo Clinic cousin, urging you to reconsider.

You’ve covered all the angles: the “I don’t think I’ll be happy in this field” angle, the “Med school is expensive, and what if I don’t get a job?” angle and, most absurdly, the “I am passionate about something else and want to pursue it so that I don’t look back and wonder what could have been” angle. Weak.

You’ve been forced to get creative with your potential solutions, one of which is the “Thoreau Method.” The first step: run away. After a week of police searches, helicopter flyovers and the complete and utter devastation of your parents’ lives, they will forget that that they ever wanted you to become a doctor! In the meantime, you will be hidden away in a musty log cabin on a serene lake, pondering the human condition. When you reemerge, your parents will be so relieved that they will neglect to confirm your enrollment in a Medical College Admission Test prep class. You’ll become a media sensation — missing persons are a big hit — and your autobiography will end up on Oprah’s Book Club reading list.

You’ve also considered the “inventing Facebook” option. In “The Social Network,” Jesse Eisenberg decides he wants to join an exclusive Harvard final club, steals an idea from two Olympic rowing hunks and makes a billion dollars — all in two hours. If some guy in Alpha Epsilon Pi can meet Justin Timberlake, you can too. Plus, it’s tough to see the looks of disappointment on your parents’ faces behind a thick stack of money. You could even buy new parents.

The last possibility is to tell your parents that you’re an adult and want to make your own decisions. Tell them that, if you decide your future based on what they want, everyone will end up miserable. Say that you know they want what’s best for you but that you also know you won’t be happy doing exactly what they have in mind.

Or maybe you should just hide in a transcendental pondside cabin.

The post The Art of the Reluctant Pre-Med appeared first on Yale Daily News.