Issue 27 - 5/16/25

Table of Contents

1. hot aer: things from the editors by campbell mccormack, ryan stumacher, and maisie quinn

2. personal statement by julia garrido

3. what times mean to me by barry liu

4. a radical adaption of shakespeare's hamlet... by coralie lyford

5. friends of dorothy by campbell mccormack

6. northwestern supplemental by ryan stumacher

7. three supplementals by rana roosevelt

8. brown supplemental by maisie quinn

9. uchicago uncommon essay by william kessler

10. #, vol. eight by julius d. levy et al.

hot aer: things from the editors

campbell mccormack, ryan stumacher, and maisie quinn

the plan

college essays abound! this month, we’re celebrating all of the hard work done by the class of 2025 on their applications. we the seniors broke free from the chains of word limit and self-summary to crank out some stellar writing: see below. dear readers, it looks like things are tilting toward their close. try to live in the endings of things – don’t let them pass you by. go stand in the rain for a bit. 

the good

poleyfest (u should come), “vitality lo mein,” jules’s birthday!!!!!, projecting (vocally), when your favorite band drops a new album, devra liking your outfit, devra (just devra), hitting the a major chord as a team, fidget toys, crack in the back

the bad

poleyfest, streetlights turning on at 12PM, billie eilish branded boxers, math final looming, college housing forms, three different chrome windows, spelling, two balls 

the ugly

poleyfest, “velocity lo mein,”  “carbonated boxes,” campbell’s bitch ass laptop that ruins everything, nap life, “you can calm down,”  mobile game addiction, misogyny, double dipping, ding dong

personal statement

julia garrido

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

At Maine Coast Semester at Chewonki, we worked on a functioning farm. I spent countless hours mucking the horse barn like a madman, rinsing poop off of centuries-old wood panels, sprained my back helping my cabinmate carry a 50-pound sack of turkey feed down to their pen, and at one point got manure sprayed in my right eye. I can still hear the turkeys’ demonic cries as I brought them their precious bucket of water, simulating a rainfall they would never feel. 

I felt a comfort existing in this manufactured ecosystem, making friends with the prey as their primary predator, perpetuating the cycle of life and death manually. Impermanence constantly surrounded my relationships– there was no time to kick and scream over your favorite ewe inevitably going to slaughter. It was necessary for the rest of the farm to continue, for the ewe’s children to live on. Farm life, much like real life, is difficult– and the circle of life I was so immersed in was as brutal as it was beautiful. 

There came a time in the late fall when our hens stopped laying. Our head farmer Jeremy came to the decision– like any good livestock manager– that we would carry out a chicken slaughter. I signed up for the slaughter on a whim. I remember the feeling of disgust I had with myself at my curiosity in the death of these hapless beings, and the moral strife I had in finally exposing myself to intentional death; death for a purpose, a profit. 

It occurred to me while I prodded at my barbecue chicken thigh, though, that killing the laying hens was no different from eating a store-bought chicken (but for the separation of a few steps). As much as I hated to admit it, I ate chicken, probably hundreds throughout my life. If I was too upset with what I saw, what moral implications did it have?  Was it fair for me to continue my consumption if I was unwilling to face the reality of a chicken slaughter?

This is what I set out to find out.

The following Tuesday, I watched with reluctance and then gross fascination, as Farmer Jeremy took some of my close clucking friends, stuck their heads over a Home Depot bucket, cut their jugular, and held them down as the last remaining energy thrashed out of their tiny bodies. It was difficult to watch, and more difficult to hold their warm, dead bodies to a butcher’s table. And yet, I felt at peace. Because of the chicken slaughter, the turkeys were able to move into a larger grazing field. The mangled barn cat had dinner for the next six months, pucks of pale white muscle frozen into ice cube molds. The sun rose the next morning like it always did. 

Going into this next chapter of my life, full of novelty and new possibilities, I’ll have many opportunities to push myself out of my comfort zone and into new experiences. Sometimes this may change my ways of thinking; other times it may reaffirm what I’ve always believed. What matters is that I remain cognizant of and open to the realities of the complex, ever-changing world around me.

To this day, I continue to eat chicken.

what times are for me

barry liu

Little pigs, French hens, a family of bears. Blind mice, musketeers, the Fates. Parts of an atom, laws of thought, a guideline for composition. Omne trium perfectum? Create your own group of threes, and describe why and how they fit together.

If you want to feel magic, wake up before the world has started its engine, before the birds have begun chirping, and before the ground has stopped snoring. Go out at a time typically reserved for grave shifts and commuters, long-haul truckers and nocturnal predators, horror games and students cram-studying. Go explore at four forty-four.

The number four in many East Asian cultures is treated as unlucky. Pronounced as “sì (四)” in Mandarin Chinese, it sounds remarkably similar to the character for death, “sĭ (死)”. Cities will go to the point of avoiding the number when planning street addresses and construction companies when numbering floors. 4:44 AM is a special time because of this; a time when the rest of the world has yet to wake and when the dead are closest to the living.

At this time, if you choose to explore the empty paths—where the loudest sounds are your footsteps hitting the concrete sidewalk; where the only lights are from the flickering lamp posts and dancing fireflies—then you will feel it. Despite walking on your own, you will not feel alone. And despite being free, you will eventually feel trapped by the obligations of the day ahead.

As dawn turns to morning, the next time shows its magic twice during the day. Everyone has heard the phrase “11:11, make a wish”, or some variation of it. Friends wish it to  friends, family to family, and coworkers to coworkers. We all know it, yet it has no clear origin. Its first occurrence, 11:11 AM, follows its fame as it falls during one of the busiest times of day, with people bustling and working all around it; a period fitting for the time’s widely known nature.

However, although it seems like a lucky number, granting our wishes and obtaining its title as one of the “angel numbers”, it’s also a lonely number. Four “1”s make up it, four individuals briefly connecting in the moment only to separate sixty seconds later. As day turns to night, 11:11 PM takes on a different tone in its second appearance, trading daytime wishes for a quieter kind of magic. At that point, the world has begun to let out its last breaths for the day, the streets sigh as their asphalt tops feel relief in the absence of cars, and parents begin to put their kids to bed. Those unfortunate enough to be on their own feel their loneliness amplify as tired delusions and emotions fill their mind. They glance at the clock and see the four “1”s lined up, thinking to wish one last wish before sleeping.

The final time, 7:06 PM, is a time for unwinding and for community. Falling after the work day and just after the nation’s average dinner time of 6:19 PM, it’s different from the bustling nature of 11:11 AM and from either of the contrasting feelings of isolation at 4:44 AM or 11:11 PM. Against the western world’s view, I always think of it as 6:66 PM, matching a Chinese proverb, “liù liù dà shùn (六六大顺)”. That saying means with sixes—one of the luckiest numbers—everything will go well. No time can better reflect the idiom as none match the goodness of the joy and community often found during 7:06 PM. There’s the connections with your family found through watching sports teams and playing board games; in hanging out with friends and watching movies; and in candlelit dinners with the people you love.

These three times are all special to me. Though they have their own unique explanations and connections in their backgrounds through culture and society, the thing that makes them truly special is their personal meanings to me.

4:44 AM. I first found it by coincidence. Setting the wrong alarm and rushing out the door without checking the time, I ran to catch the bus. It was only after waiting for several minutes that I looked at my watch. Realizing I had awoken far too early, I figured, “Since I’m awake, I might as well go for a walk”. That was what became the first of many similar adventures. 4:44 is the time when I’m most alone, though in a good way.

11:11 AM. It has been the time for my lunch period since starting middle school. After

transferring schools, it fulfilled my wish for friends. Laughing over splayed out cards, I

remember sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, playing Magic: The Gathering and yelling about a new video game. As I’ve grown though, it’s become a time for community and wishes in a different way: through club meetings, band rehearsals focused on upcoming performances, and cram study sessions for upcoming tests with similarly procrastinating friends.

7:06 (6:66) PM. Before my grandma left, it was the time that my family used to eat dinner

together (my parents now get home too late to eat until much later). It represents an innocent time when my sister and I would race to get my parents drinks and to set the table, where I was most connected to my family, and when everything in my life was going the most smoothly, just like the idiom. Now that my family only spends brief periods together, it’s a time that I wish I cherished more

11:11 PM. For me, this time goes against any meaning it has elsewhere, yet it continues the essence of friendship its twin held earlier in the day. At this time, I’m most often found calling my oldest friends and playing games, holding no other wishes for the world than to win my match. During our matches and through our long-held inside jokes on call, I feel a stronger connection with others than any other time.

They’re a set of three times which, despite not immediately fitting together, connect because of their meanings to me, my culture, and my experiences. These times, rooted in my personal history, remind me of the values of solitude and community. They serve as daily reminders of what’s important to me and to cherish all that I have, each matching a different core part of me: 1, myself; 2, my friends (both old and new); and 3, my family.

a radical adaptation of shakespeare’s hamlet…

coralie lyford

TITLE: A radical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, re-centered around Ophelia’s timeline, in which Ophelia and Hamlet swap actions and text.

As a director, I love breaking down the gender of the characters and swirling it around until a new story emerges. I often imagine what plays could look like if characters swapped gender expressions, and how that could influence the audience’s understanding of the piece and the societal connotations.

I want Hamlet to begin by the river next to a willow, the location of Ophelia’s final death in the original piece. Ophelia sits, for quite a while, legs in the water, thinking. Hamlet enters with his “too, too sullied flesh” monologue, pitiful, almost comedic, as Ophelia surveys him. Perhaps he grabs onto the trunk of the willow tree and slides down: “frailty thy name is womannnn.” For Hamlet, it’s very, very real; for Ophelia it’s like she’s watching a mildly entertaining television show. Immediately, the audience is drawn to Ophelia’s ability to take in her surroundings; she is their ally, she is their “everyman.” 

When I first read Hamlet, I was struck by the similarities between Hamlet and Ophelia. Their parallel experience of grief for their fathers is intrinsically human and therefore quite similar, and they’re both surrounded by people calling them mad. Yet, Ophelia’s lack of material encourages performances of her to be psychologically flat, while Hamlet is written to experience a multitude of emotions. Amongst them, his anger stands out to me especially, as I feel it’s one of the most common experiences of grief. Above all, the play makes me hunger for female rage. 

I think that Hamlet is one of the best plays ever written, the humanity in it is so raw, the language is captivating, and the story unforgettable. That being said, to keep outdated plays relevant to today’s audience, they have to be revamped. Re-centering the story around Ophelia, and giving her more material will reinvent the show while maintaining Shakespeare’s language and imagery. I want to encourage a modern audience to relish this play, along with female anger and plurality in feeling. 

Reattributing some of Hamlet’s material to Ophelia will allow her to express more diverse emotions, while Hamlet’s feelings can be simple. It’s hard for me to find value in Ophelia’s overwhelming sadness as written because it’s seen in so many female characters that it has lost its meaning and truth. Reassigning this experience to Hamlet will shine a new and interesting light on it. 

While he represents a history of emotionally simplistic female characters, my Hamlet will be honest. I think highlighting the part of Hamlet that’s just a depressed drama queen, wreaking havoc and overthinking everything, will be extremely satisfying for some audience members. For others, it will instigate conversations about reductive stereotypes. I want them to leave thinking Why was he getting made fun of? Why is she the hero? It will encapsulate what it feels to see someone like you simplified and objectified, while someone else gets to be a badass. 

The physicality of my production is dramatic, at times dance-like, tela-novela-esque, or incredibly still. Ophelia’s story unfolds in six main actions, everything else is as written.

1. The play begins with Ophelia by the Willow. After experiencing Hamlet’s meltdown she tells him she’s seen his father’s ghost. She is there when Hamlet is commanded to get revenge on his uncle. 

2. The players arrive. Hamlet is a useless emotional mess. Ophelia decides to take it into her own hands and tells the players to perform the king and queen’s sinful behavior.

3. Polonius and the King still try and use Ophelia to investigate Hamlet (Ophelia’s orchestration of everything has gone unnoticed). Ophelia performs “to be or not to be,” and a swapped version of the “get thee to a nunnery” scene; Hamlet rejects her and she goes ballistic. 

4. Hamlet kills Ophelia’s father. She feels both grief and happiness. She sings, she cries, she dances, she screams. Hamlet is there, and in a dream-like way mirrors her movements. 

5. Ophelia digs by the river and finds the skull of Yorick; she performs “alas poor Yorick.” Hamlet enters and watches her. She tears at the bark of the Willow tree and slides down it mirroring Hamlet in the beginning. 

6. She follows Hamlet as he walks towards the river and he silently encourages her to jump in. She refuses, and he tries to force her physically. She pushes him into the river and watches him float away à la the Millais painting. The play ends.

friends of dorothy

campbell mccormack

"Daddy-o", "Far Out", "Gnarly": the list of slang terms goes on and on. Sadly, most of these aren’t so "fly" anymore – “as if!” Name an outdated slang from any decade or language that you'd bring back and explain why you totally “dig it.” (500-700)

“I am a friend of Dorothy,” I say. 

“Dorothy who?” you might ask; or, you might smile and say, “Me too.”

 To be a friend of Dorothy means something profound. In the mid-twentieth century, it was a flagging term used by members of the LGBTQIA+ community to identify one another without drawing unwanted attention. Today, this league of friendship has been decoded by the mainstream — for example, a character in the 1995 blockbuster Clueless is identified as a “disco-dancing, Oscar Wilde-reading, Streisand ticket-holding, friend of Dorothy” — but I believe now is the time for the queer community to reclaim it. Let’s embroider friend of Dorothy on the backs of our jackets, attach it to our email signatures, reintroduce it into our poetry, and remind everyone about the kind of people we have by our sides: one another. 

It is commonly believed that the Dorothy in question is Dorothy Gale, the iconic leading lady of the Frank L. Baum books and the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Queer people of the time saw Dorothy’s story as a metaphor for their own struggles: like Dorothy, they escaped the black-and-white drabness of their everyday lives for the Technicolor world of clubs, bars, parlors, drag balls, and other places where they could let loose amongst their community. Being a friend of Dorothy crystallized an aching dream for a world that was “over the rainbow,” where prejudice and queerphobia were quashed before they could ever flourish. This was slang born neither of humor nor of a blasé pop culture reference — it was slang born of necessity.

In my first year of high school, I took an elective course on queer history and culture. “We have always been here,” my instructor told us during our first class, “and we always will be.” That sentiment ensnared me. Through my growing interest in queer history, I became invested in my own queer present and future. Later that year, my instructor helped me explain to the Dean of the English department why a book in the ninth-grade curriculum should no longer be taught: its sole gay character was riddled with guilt and shame over his sexuality, and resorted to assaulting a woman in order to falsely establish that he was straight. My education about the endless battles fought by queer people throughout history gave me the courage to stand up as a queer student of ninth grade English who felt diminished and disgusted by a literary representation of queerness. When the Dean agreed that the book would no longer be taught, my heart soared. The rush of victory and gratification was addictive, and led me to continue ever onwards in my activist pursuits. 

In sophomore year, I took up leadership of SAGA, my school’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance, which works with grades K-12 to create an environment of acceptance and understanding. I have taught classes to middle school students about queer history and literature, led workshops on queer theory and zine-making for lower school students, presented at assemblies for Queer History Month in October, and organized Night of Noise, a music festival that celebrates queer joy and community. I have introduced elementary school classrooms to the idea of “queerness” for the first time; I have seen the way the students' eyes light up and recognized myself reflected in them, a temporal mirror. 

Without an understanding of history, we cannot craft a better future. My passion for queer pasts emerges from a desire to armor myself with the strength of my ancestors, who fought and loved and died in secret so that I could do the same out loud. I take great pride in knowing that queer people took the slurs thrown at them and turned them into shimmering banners of community — the word queer itself was once used to mark someone as “strange” or “other,” simply because they skewed from the norm. Today, I couch my life in queer, use it to describe my art, my taste in literature, and the very essence of who I am.

Luckily for me, time will never stop moving forward, and so there will always be new queer history in the making. As I continue my studies of the past, I look even harder at the present and the future and ask what I can do to make change. Leading SAGA has given me a taste of activism within my school community, and as I look toward college, I aim to broaden my activist horizons by working with similar groups, hopefully on a larger scale. Queer history is my history, and my future will be a queer one, which proves to me that such concepts are irreversibly connected.

So yes: “I am a friend of Dorothy,” I say, and I am proud.

northwestern supplemental

ryan stumacher

We want to be sure we’re considering your application in the context of your personal experiences: What aspects of your background (your identity, your school setting, your community, your household, etc.) have most shaped how you see yourself engaging in Northwestern’s community, be it academically, extracurricularly, culturally, politically, socially, or otherwise? (fewer than 300 words)

Sitting shoulder to shoulder with five hundred classmates in complete silence, I learned to appreciate the rare opportunity for introspection that Meeting for Worship provided. Though I am not a Quaker, my Quaker education profoundly shaped my sense of self and how I engage with others. Meeting for Worship was one expression of these values, but the Quaker principles of simplicity, peace, integrity, and community permeated my entire school experience.

Before attending Germantown Friends, education often felt like an exercise in memorization and performance, disconnected from any real meaning. At GFS, I was introduced to a more holistic approach that encouraged personal growth, critical thinking, and collaboration. I came to understand education not as a process of accumulating knowledge, but as one of becoming a more reflective, engaged thinker. Classroom discussions transformed from competitive exercises into shared intellectual experiences where different viewpoints enriched the learning process. This shift in perspective taught me that true progress happens through collaboration and mutual understanding, not individual achievement.

At Northwestern, I’m excited to carry these values with me into the Radio/Television/Film program. The coursework’s inherent emphasis on creativity and teamwork, and the department’s cross-disciplinary nature mirror the approach I valued at Germantown Friends, where learning was about shared growth and dependent upon listening to and working with diverse perspectives. Furthermore, Northwestern’s flexibility in taking classes across its undergraduate schools will allow me to explore a multitude of study areas, further enriching my understanding of the world and lending integrity to my storytelling. Ultimately, I see Northwestern as a place where I can deepen my commitment to reflective learning— the end product of pursuing the Quaker principles that have shaped my education – and use that commitment to create meaningful, collaborative work that will contribute to Northwestern’s vibrant, creative community.

three supplementals

rana roosevelt

What inspires you? [200 characters]

The effortless yet crucial geometry of human form. The infinite, ornate delicacy of fractals. Art’s intertwinement with STEM inspires my work in many fields—all I learn can be applied to all else.

If you could teach any college course, write a book, or create an original piece of art of any kind, what would it be? [200 characters]

Collaborating with engineers, scientists and designers, I’d hold an underwater fashion show—luminescent waterproof makeup and hair, stylized oxygen masks, and high heels that can walk the ocean floor.

Other than a family member, who is someone who has had a significant influence on you? What has been the impact of their influence? [200 characters] 

Miranda’s Hamilton liquifies vowels and consonants into their raw forms, transcending meaning and dancing into pure, rhythmic emotion. For years this has transfixed me, inspiring my slam poetry style.

brown supplemental

maisie quinn

Brown students care deeply about their work and the world around them. Students find contentment, satisfaction, and meaning in daily interactions and major discoveries. Whether big or small, mundane or spectacular, tell us about something that brings you joy. (200-250 words)

When the evening begins to settle on summer nights, I’ll sometimes step out of my window and onto the roof. I look first into my block’s backyards, maybe at my neighbors having a drink with their friends, maybe at the shapes the trees make against the sky. Sound carries well, and I can hear people laughing on the street. 

Then I look further, out and over Manayunk. My house is situated at the top of a hill, and my neighborhood clings to its side. When I walk the streets, there’s a sense that I’m not supposed to be there—nature still owns this place. Streets break in half, severed by cliffs, and I walk down graffitied staircases that feel makeshift and shoddy among the sheer power of these cliffs and the trees that cling to them. But when I’m on the roof, it all knits itself together into one strange yet beautiful picture, as if this synthesis of the urban and the natural was always meant to exist.

There’s something about the air and the dusky light that rarely fails to inspire me—many a poem has been born from these rooftop evenings. They don’t have to produce anything, though. Every once in a while, instead of observing all that’s around me, I lean back, stare at the sky and enjoy the warmth and beauty of it all. And that’s enough.

uchicago uncommon essay

william kessler

"Daddy-o", "Far Out", "Gnarly": the list of slang terms goes on and on. Sadly, most of these aren’t so "fly" anymore – “as if!” Name an outdated slang from any decade or language that you'd bring back and explain why you totally “dig it.”

It was once common, before television, radio, or cheap books, for an average person, seeking entertainment, to listen at length to oratory. The Gettysburg Address was only a short monologue preceded by the day’s main event, a two-hour-long speech heard by 15,000 people. The Lincoln-Douglas debates, which consisted of a 60-minute speech, a 90-minute rebuttal, and a 30-minute rejoinder, drew tens of thousands. But for every skilled orator, there were many more terrible ones. They rambled. They babbled. They droned. They even bloviated. It’s this word, “bloviate”, and its cousins – “absquatulate,” “confusticate,” and the celebrated “discombobulate” among them – that I’d bring back.

“Bloviate,” which one lexicographer defined as “to indulge in 'high falutin',” became uncool shortly after being coined in 1857 and passed out of usage. Later, however, “bloviation” was taken up to describe the speaking style of President Warren G. Harding, whom e e cummings called “the only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors.” (A sample Harding sentence: “Americanism really began when robed in nationality.”) After Harding died in office, the word again faded until its revival during the 2000 election.

“Absquatulate,” meaning to exit, was popular until the Civil War, when it was phased out in favor of “skedaddle.” “Discombobulate” won out over “discombobricate,” “discombobberate,” and “discomboomerate.” “Scrumplicate,” meaning to eat, never achieved the fame that “scrumptious” did.

One feature of the words is that many are autological, meaning that they describe themselves. Using “bloviate” or its adjective synonym “toploftical” without irony would be bloviating. Using “discombobulate” on someone unaware of its meaning would be discombobulating. So too with “confusticate” and “spifflicate.” The exception is “undercumstumble,” whose usage might lead to a failure of undercumstumbling.

Although these words seem Latinate, none of them have Latin etymologies. They’re not slang, exactly, but they weren’t “correct” when coined. Today they’re echoed by a slang subculture that ironically uses “antiquated” terms like “bamboozle” or “shenanigans” – which I enjoy less, since words like “bamboozle” have not yet been divorced from their original, straight meanings, especially among older speakers. But everyone can enjoy “bloviate” and kin. The mock-Latin words incarnate a distinct sense of humor. They manage to both represent and repudiate the characteristic bombast of a time since passed in a way unlike any other words I’ve heard.

In short, used tastefully, they can be very funny. And they’re singularly American.

I absquatulate.

Information sourced from Etymonline, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Merriam-Webster, and the OED.