The benefit of being so close to Boston is that if you’re looking for a fun night out, the city provides many options. Here are some events/things to do that might spark an interest:
Ice Skating – The Boston Common Frog Pond This is the perfect way to spend a cold afternoon. It’s a magical spot to train bae to be an Instagram boyfriend or girlfriend. And not to mention, easy on a college student’s bank account. Only $6 for admission and $12 for skate rentals. Open 7 days a week!
PHOTO BY BENOIT PRIEUR, Wikimedia Commons
Bruins and Celtics Games The sports environment is always electrifying, whether you’re a dedicated fan or not. The T brings you right to The Garden, and don’t forget about the Curry shuttle that will bring you to the station 6 days a week.
Some games are more expensive than others, but AceTicket.com seemed to have the best prices. And if you go often enough, you can look into their Loyalty Point Program to help yourself save a little dough!
Concerts for All Music Tastes People don’t realize how close we are to so many amazing music venues. The TD Garden. The House of Blues. Paradise Rock Club. Rockland Trust (formerly Blue Hills) Bank Pavilion. Brighton Music Hall. The Spotify app even has a feature that will give you personalized concert recommendations based on your location and the artists you listen to most frequently.
The New England Aquarium A great rainy or snowy day activity, the aquarium is home to 20,000 animals. They offer a student discount for admission to the Aquarium and its IMAX Theatre. Animal encounters are not eligible for a discount, but who wouldn’t pay a little extra money to snuggling up next to a harbor seal?
Even just walking around the city on a sunny day is something to experience. There are endless stores and cozy coffee shops to hang out in. Take advantage of what our campus location has to offer!
I have been a vegetarian for three years now. How I came to this lifestyle is a weird story, and I’ll spare you the details. Just know that I can’t eat any meat or I will get really sick. And I mean really sick.
At Curry College, my biggest concern is cross contamination in the preparation and serving of foods in the dining hall. If I eat a veggie burger at the Flame station, I worry about it being cooked on the same grill as the burgers, chicken and “Stu dogs.” If I get pasta at the Firzeni station, I’m worried that the spoons in the marinara and meat sauces may have been switched by accident, or that some of the meat sauce splashed into the marinara.
If I get a wrap at the Deli, I’m acutely aware of the fact that every sandwich is cut with the same knife. If I get an omelet, I’m worried about mine being cooked in the same pan as someone who ordered ham or bacon in theirs.
The food at Curry, as is the case at most colleges, will never compare to a homemade meal. But I’ve found it extremely difficult to eat in the Student Center dining hall the last three years.
I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I could stick to the salad bar, but sometimes the salads have bacon mixed in. I once accidentally got corn chowder without reading the ingredients, thinking it was a safe option. Turns out there was uncured bacon in it.
It got to the point where I wasn’t using my meal swipes at all because I was so afraid to take the risk of getting sick. I wasn’t eating, yet I was spending money on a meal plan that I wasn’t even using.
I met with Residence Life in December to cancel my meal plan for the spring. I explained how critical it was for my health that I not eat meat, and was told to reach out to a dean as they have more “power” when it comes to making these decisions.
I didn’t hear back for more than a month — even after three emails.
Finally, I was told this decision would have to go to Disability Services since it was a health issue. Keep in mind, we had already moved back in for the semester. After providing a doctor’s note and explaining how this has been an issue I’ve been dealing with for three years, I was finally granted the cancelation of my meal plan.
In the past three years, the workers in the dining hall have tried to be accommodating, which I greatly appreciate. But Curry needs to take into greater consideration the needs of their students. Not only those who are vegetarian, but those who are kosher, vegan, gluten free, or who have with any other dietary restrictions.
There is no lie that New England bleeds red, white and blue. There’s a winning culture here, and no one is shy about it.
As I walked from Bell Hall to the quad in early September, almost everyone was wearing their championship pride. The Patriots were entering the season coming off the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.
If it wasn’t a jersey it was a hat. If it wasn’t a hat, it was a variation of shirts. 28-3, Goodell with the clown nose, and of course the official Super Bowl LI Champions shirt. And then there was me. Walking to class in midnight green.
Sorry Dollar Beard Club, but I’m going to be taking this month off.
It’s about that time of year where I ditch my beard and embrace the same look my father has since he’s been in high school. I’m not looking forward to leaving my face subject to the elements with the New England weather coming up but this is more than about that 10-minute hike to the quad from the south side of campus.
For some, you kinda know what I’m getting at. For others, you may not know that Prostate Cancer runs in my family and this month I’m going to be raising funds for research that could stop my brother and me from going through the same process my father and his father went through.
Joe (right) and his father, Raymond (left), at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Newport, R.I. //image credit: Cole McNanna
It all started with a homework assignment for a public speaking class, so here’s the plug: school work can actually be beneficial sometimes (you’re welcome, professors). I was able to look into something that meant a lot to me and I found the dudes over at the Movember Foundation who have been doing some pretty cool work.
They have been sporting hairy upper lips for Mental Health and Suicide Awareness as well as Testicular and Prostate Cancer research.
But they’re doing a little more than just that. They’re helping men be confident in going to get themselves checked out for what could be a serious issue.
Most men, from day one are generally taught to be strong and to always protect the ones around them. But the Movember Foundation is trying to alter that perspective in order to protect the body they have been given.
We don’t have to be the brute strength that knocks down a door, but we can be sincere and talk about our feelings. We don’t have to just rub dirt on it, but we should be able to go have a conversation with a professional who knows what they’re talking about.
My dad doesn’t like to leave many things up to others. When it comes to work around the house, he doesn’t hire someone else. When a car has an issue, he gets on his back in the garage to see if he can fix it before talking to a mechanic. I mean, he barely even lets my brother and I help with some things because he is just has a particular way of doing things himself.
However, a doctor’s visit in the fall of 2014 changed that hard-nosed approach. He had to take a step back and evaluate all of the options and how they were going to affect the ones around him. The same way he looks at the back of the house to figure out which piece of siding needs to be changed. But my dad knew he didn’t have to go at this job alone, and he called a huddle with those closest to him.
Mitch and I had just gotten back for Thanksgiving break, he was in his junior year of undergrad at Franklin Pierce and I was fresh off my first few months at Curry, finally back home with the three other people that have been there every step of the way in my life.
Joe with both sons; Mitchel in the middle and Cole in the air circa August 1996 // image credit: Cole McNanna
My dad started to talk about a little health scare he had and I knew this wasn’t going to be a lecture about keeping my grades up. He went on to say a lot of things and knowing my dad, I’m sure he spoke very eloquently, but honestly, I blacked out. I have no other memory than sitting on the couch and trying to listen to my dad’s words while all of these questions were swirling around my head.
What does this mean? What’s going to happen? Is he going to be okay?
After a while I came back and realized that they caught it early enough for there to be plenty of options for attack. Seemingly the best option was a surgery to remove the cancer from his body and then keep an eye on any returners.
In February of 2015, he went under robotic arms that performed the surgery while the actual Surgeon was sitting at a desk maneuvering the da Vinci System several feet away from the operating table.
Joe has made a full recovery since then and being laid up on the couch for a couple weeks allowed him the perspective to evaluate the whole house and he never missed a beat on what to get to next.
Now, he maintains his mustache just as precisely as the MG convertible that he’s also had since he’s been in high school. This month, I’ll ditch my beard and adopt the look my dad has made cool since the first second I laid eyes on him.
Joe’s mustache and his 1978 MG Convertible have been trademarks since graduating high school in 1983 // image credit: Cole McNanna
I won’t be able to deny any claims of “Wow you guys look alike,” now that my face is literally a clone of his. I haven’t shaped my beard since the middle of June and have accustomed to fixing it in class and having it be another thing I need to pay attention to when I roll out of bed trying not to be late for class.
I love my beard and I can’t see any reason as to why all men shouldn’t have one year round. I’ve enlisted in the Dollar Beard Club to receive shipments of beard oil to keep it maintained and growing to its potential.
But for the sake of my prostate, I’m going to be picking up a razor, for at least a couple weeks, and unveil the lower half of my face for the first time since I did this thing last year.
All the while I’ll be on social media and down in the Student Center, looking for donations to help excel cancer research and the overall conversation about Men’s Health.
You don’t have to donate your life savings. At the end of the day, I’m doing this to drive the conversation about Men’s Health and the fact that nobody, no matter how long and magnificent their beard may be, should hide serious health problems in the fear that you’ll be “less of a man” if you admit them.
How’s that saying go, “it’s okay to not be okay”? Well then yeah, it’s cool to tell the world that you’ve got cancer in your testicles. It’s okay to tell the world that you’re not always happy all of the time. You’re not alone. You aren’t the only one who feels that way and it’s okay to succumb to the realization that it’s okay to not be okay.
So, if any of this resonates with you and for some reason you’re still reading this (hey Linds) head over to mobro.co/colemcnanna and take a look at what it’s all about. Any retweet share or conversation started works for me so let’s change the face of Men’s Health.
As someone who loves Curry College and everything it has to offer, I have never been more ashamed and disappointed with what I have seen in a place that I trust.
In a place that I am supposed to call “home.”
I love our community and I care for all of us in it. These recent incidents have left me confused, frustrated and hurt, to say the least. I simply cannot understand how we are able to live in our world where cowardly acts of bias and hate exist.
In conversations with members of our community I have offered my support as a friend, and as a classmate. I have listened to their stories. They are hurting, they are scared, and they are afraid to be a member of the Curry College community.
When I hear these things, my love and spirit for Curry gets crushed and my heart hurts for them.
As a white cisgender female college student, I know I have tremendous privilege. I cannot possibly begin to understand how each member of our community individually feels and I will never be able to understand that. However, I do know that if anyone here at Curry doesn’t feel safe, that is something that reflects on all of us.
We shouldn’t need to help educate our community about how to treat each other with basic humanity. When our community is treated with cowardly disrespect and with hateful acts, we all feel that pain and we are all to blame that it has occurred. This is OUR school. OUR college. OUR space to be who we want to be.
In an ideal world, none of us would be writing pieces like these. In an ideal world, we would be able to come up with the right words to make our peers feel safe again.
This is clearly not an ideal world, and I don’t have any special words that will change it or magically make it better. While writing this, I still didn’t feel as if the words I was typing could come anywhere near the pain I feel inside for us all.
The only way we will make a change is if we work together. We must all come together and unite to make sure that NO ONE fears that they will be treated differently on our campus. We are supposed to be a community of care and love, and it is time we start acting like it.
We have to address the issues of privilege, bias, and unspoken acts on all levels and all around campus, including classrooms, residence halls, and even closed-door meetings. We must all stand together, as a community, and work to educate each other.
I challenge us all to move in a direction of more collaboration, communication, care, friendship, celebration, and love, rather than separating down paths that lead to disconnection from each other.
Some questions have presented themselves like, How do we move on from these difficult times? How do we share in a world of love, wisdom, and compassion?
I do not have one set of answers, a plan, or a program that will solve these issues. But we can start by having the power and the courage to stand up for our community, to work to unite each other.
I want to share a quote that has always resonated with me: “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
We will NOT let hate win. We WILL stand together. We WILL overcome this, and we will ALL rise together.
