NYU DC StoryCorps

Highlighting NYU Washington, DC students and their experiences!

Liberal Studies Program

NYU DC VIOLETS I NEWS I Impeachment

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By Jack F. 

As the impeachment inquiry moves into its public phase, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had choice words for describing the President’s actions. Specifically, she has gone so far as to call his actions “bribery.” As insignificant as a word may seem, it is the most specific crime for which someone can be impeached. Things like “high Crimes or Misdemeanors” have a less clear meaning as they are specific to the impeachment clause of the constitution. It is a clear sign that Democrats are getting ready to take this fight to the next level. 

The current round of congressional testimony has added a lot of context to the phone call made by President Trump to Ukrainian President Zelensky. However, senior White House officials, who were present at the time of the call, have refused to testify. Earlier this week, four White House officials ignored Congressional subpoenas, underscoring the White House’s legal defense, pretend nothing is wrong.

That seems to be a recurring theme for this administration. When the story first broke that President Trump had leveraged military aid to have a political opponent investigated to a foreign government, his response was to solicit more help from China on national television. It almost seems like Trump thinks confessing to a crime makes it ok. At the very least, this administration is consistent. In a press conference, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney was asked if the President had participated in any type of “quid pro quo.”

“We do that all the time with foreign policy,” he said.

He later walked that comment back, stating there was no wrongdoing. It always seems to be a similar story. The President does something bad. He lies about it to cover it up. He says there was nothing wrong, and then, he does it again. 

Earlier today, former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee. While testifying that she felt “intimidated” by the President’s comments that she was “going to go through some things,” the President tweeted a number of attacks against her. Despite the ominous threats and obvious witness tampering, the top US diplomat concluded her testimony and was applauded during the conclusion of the hearing.

NYU DC VIOLETS I NEWS I NYU DC’s World Tour Week

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By Abby Gweon

World Tour Week began at NYU DC this past Monday and will continue until Sunday. Each day of the week features an event involving different cultures from around the world. The week was organized by Hall Congress, the Students of Color Association, the International Student Group, and the Global Equity Fellow. The daily events expose students to foods, languages, and art from different cultures, creating a more inclusive environment at NYU DC. The more students know about other cultures, the more they can accept and embrace them.

Monday’s Food and Culture Fair was a potluck of student-made foods, introducing people to new cuisines. Tuesday was Cultural Collage Night, in which students created their own art pieces. On Wednesday, useful words and phrases were learned in different languages, taught by multilingual students. On Thursday, students were taught how to make dumplings, a food important to many countries and their longstanding traditions.

The events create a place for student expression—not only are people learning about other cultures, they are sharing their own. It is students that are passing on these skills, and at a place far away from home for many, seeing one’s culture understood by a welcoming group of people can make one feel more included and accepted, and can allow for a greater sense of community. Understanding what someone may have grown up eating or speaking can mean more than just learning about a new aspect of their life; it can mean understanding an essential part of their identity.

World Tour Week has brought students together through several nights of events, but is far from over. The events upcoming on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are Latin Food and Dance Night, Crab Boil, and Sushi Art Night. These events will take place in the reading room, lobby, and second floor conference room, and I highly recommend that you attend!

NYU DC VIOLETS I NEWS I Young Entrepeneur

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By Kristen Torres

Nine-year-old Moziah Bridges had always thought, “If you look good, you feel good,” which is why he started his company, Mo’s Bows. He always felt that he needed a fashion accessory to compliment his style and personality, but there was nothing on the market that appealed to him; they were all boring! With the help of his grandmother, he began making dapper & unique bow ties. His bow ties are funky and expressive, but also sharp and conservative. He wanted these bow ties to appeal to people of all genders and ages, who want to make a fashion statement that is both subtle and business-appropriate. Mo’s Bows consists of neckties, bow ties, and accessories like pocket squares; prices range between $15 and $50.

His desire for wanting something unique in the fashion industry sparked into an international business with over $600,000 in sales. Moziah’s business became very successful after grabbing the attention of The Steve Harvey Morning Show and Oprah Magazine. His business mainly skyrocketed after becoming the youngest entrepreneur to appear on Shark Tank. Although he did not get a deal, Daymond John offered to mentor him for free, instead. That relationship has opened several doors for Moziah, including getting his ties in Cole Haan and Neiman Marcus. Now sixteen-years-old, he recently made a licensing deal that will incorporate NBA logos in his designs. Additionally, Moziah’s collection is sold in shops and boutiques in six states, and also internationally through his online store.
Moziah’s dream is to become a fashion mogul and study fashion design in college, after he graduates high-school in 2020. Starting from his grandmother’s kitchen table in South Memphis, and now an internationally recognized brand, Moziah Bridges is proof that with dedication and passion, you can be anything you want at any age.

 

NYU DC VIOLETS I Fiction I Lost

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By Lucy Pham

There is a key to everything.
The key to success, the key to happiness, the key to life, you name it.
But what if, you lost it? What if one day, you woke up, and the key to your deepest secrets, was gone?
You panicked, frantically searched for just anything you could recall.
Anything.
Nothing.
You are now forced to ask yourself the age-old question.
Who am I?
Who am I without the verses, where shall I be without the imagery, what do I do now?
What happens if a poet forgets?
Will they remain a poet, trying to make sense of the world by piecing together any fragmented rhythm?
Or will they let go of what once was?
They could accept that the words they wrote would never make sense to them again. They will become a reader, consuming others’ work while attaching their own interpretation to them.
Why were you a poet in the first place? Why go the extra mile to hide behind words only you understand, why spend hours thinking of a metaphor that vaguely connects to you, why convince yourself to keep going? Because writing is your coping mechanism, you keep on going until everything makes sense.
Is it worth it, being a poet? Does all that make you a poet?
It might come back. The joy of it all, writing. You turn into a completely different person. You might be a little girl, a man, a demon, whatever you feel like. You never reside in one spot, you are constantly exploring.
What happens if a poet forgets?
I guess I’ll have to find out.

NYU DC VIOLETS I Nonfiction | Boxing

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By Candice Yang

Living in different places brings me various experiences and feelings. Studying in Washington, D.C. is definitely unlike my life in my hometown Nanjing. I can find new things in D.C. every day, but sometimes I miss the feeling of familiarity, and boxing returns this feeling to me. Boxing is one of my favorite sports. When I am in China, I usually go to these courses several times a week, and because of them, I make friends and become more confident. However, balance gym does not have the classes I want, and one suitable site has moved to other places. In the second semester, being more familiar with surrounding areas, I found a gym focusing on boxing. It is fantastic to have similar happy experiences again. I love this place, and I love boxing with people in that place. I usually go boxing four times a week by biking. On the bike ride, I find many interesting things which could not be brought by essays and readings. For instance, you suddenly see a lovely dog looking around curiously through car windows. When crossing a street, a man says to you “Hey, let’s go, cross the street,” pretending that you are close friends. You see sweet couples on scooters; you ride through a rain of cherry blossom petals, you open a bottle of Sprite when waiting for green lights but finding it begins to spray without control (maybe because of the uneven road) … All of these things were what I experienced before, and there is more waiting for me to discover. My life here in D.C. becomes more like home and more interesting because of boxing, which makes me love it more

NYU DC VIOLETS I Opinion I Lil Nas X is Killing Country Music. Thank God.

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By Charles Smith

Lil Nas X just released a remix of his hit song “Old Town Road,” now with Billy Ray Cyrus. Lil Nas X calls it “country trap,” mixing banjos and 808s, rap flows and country blues. A week ago, the original got kicked off its high perch on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Billboard decided it wasn’t country enough. The song’s still 7th on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop.

That act of gatekeeping lets us know something: This song is good.

Billboard has no idea what music is. For commercial purposes, they have to organize all the sound out there into digestible types. This method works great to understand where the common ear is right now, but it’s no art history.

Popular music genres aren’t separated by lyrics or composition, which is how Billboard divides its music. It’s a lot simpler than that—genre is a feeling. Rock critic Robert Christgau defined punk as any “short-fast guitar unit that gives me a thrill.” Sure, maybe that implies ragged yelps against power and a lotta distortion, but that’s not what punk is.

Punk is stripped back music. It noticeably withholds complexity to draw out strength; like Jonathan Richman sings, “Kind of far away, kind of dignified.” Hip-hop falls out of the punk tradition and retains that ethos. These guys aren’t just bad at their instruments—they don’t even play instruments (except the producers, bless them).

What hip-hop gives in return is commitment to fun and personality. They’re so done with live instruments that hip-hop started sampling old tracks. “Old Town Road” is sampled from the Nine Inch Nails song “34 Ghosts IV.” Yeah, punk, funk, jazz and rock are burnt. Why not pick among their ashes?

Since the beginning, it’s been obvious that hip-hop is an alloy. Tribe added a little jazz; Rage added a little funk. Ski Mask started by rapping on rock tracks; goofball outlaws like Lil Uzi have drawn out the punk again. Since the 90s, hip-hop has reformed pop.

Hip-hop absorbs genres and leaves them in the phase between sincerity and parody. Hip-hop’s sample aesthetic threatens to make a music world where genres fall together or cease to carry any meaning.

Country critic Grady Smith mourns that country is evolving towards other genres: “Pop, hip-hop, R&B and country are all almost going in the exact same direction. And that’s boring! Then we’re gonna lose all that beautiful variety that makes these distinct genres special.”

Nice ear, Grady! Sounds like country music has an identity problem. It’s called the changing color of the American consumer. That explains all their talk of tradition and purity. Doesn’t matter, we’ll leave country music out to dry.

In the meantime, the adults will be over here riding horses.

We have all the sound in the world at our fingertips. Why draw lines between it? The worst thing we could get is cooler music.

Now, Lil Nas X is swallowing country in hip-hop. Thank God.

NYU DC Violets I Nonfiction | The Oven

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By Michael Lee

I work at a bakery in Brooklyn. Everyday, I bake bread, watching it rise in the stone oven. I don’t get paid very much, and I barely get by on rent. But seeing the bread rise in the oven, I, too, can see myself rising from all my problems. And sometimes that means doing things you don’t want to do. I resort to trading – not trading stocks. I mean trading company information, as a middleman. Yes, it’s not legal. But it wasn’t me. It was my desperation.

Everyday, I bake bread, watching it rise in the stone oven. I see myself rising above my problems. I see myself with enough money to pay rent. I see myself happy.

Can you smell smoke in the air? Something’s burning.

I return home, a small apartment above the bakery. The front door closes behind me, and all of a sudden, there’s a knock. Opening it, I see badges and uniforms. Cops.

I didn’t mean to do it, I say. I needed the money, I cry out.

The cops ignore my pleas, placing cuffs on my wrists. They walk me out the door. And that’s when I realized. I left the oven on.

___

Birds whistle sweet harmonies from their nests. Cars honk in the rush hour traffic. Smoke fills the thick air. Flames roar from what was the bakery. And a few blocks away, a little girl says to her mom, “Something’s burning.”

NYU DC VIOLETS I Nonfiction | Interview with Professor Nancy Michael

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By Carol Wu

A singer. A designer. An author.

It often slips our minds of the fact that, outside of class, professors lead creative and thrilling lives. Take, for example, Professor Nancy Michael. She is an alto singer for two choirs, though she is a former soprano; a costume designer for musicals like White Christmas, Children of Eden, and The Secret Garden; and a contributing author for the soon-to-be published book Practical Approaches to Teaching Beowulf.

Yet, life does have a way of making detours. For Professor Michael, it involves the rewarding, but patience-straining responsibility as a mother and doctorate candidate.

Currently, Professor Michael is working towards a PhD in English at Catholic University, where she’s teaching Intensive English in addition to her Cultural Foundations classes at NYU Washington, DC.

Michael never expected to pursue a path in education. As a child, Michael’s dream was to become a coroner. Later, in high school, she wanted to become a marine biologist, entering Boston University’s marine biology program. Along the way, her musical endeavors in vocals, as well as piano and wind instruments, made her a choral director hopeful. It was at Villanova University, where Michael completed her Masters in Theater, that she considered the possibility of becoming a professor. During an academic showcase, Michael presented on her research paper, and the faculty praised her for the potential she has as a professor. Her love for school and esteem for quality education only strengthened the decision for her to teach.

Michael has made her way along the east coast from her childhood home in the outskirts of Philadelphia to Boston for undergraduate, Pennsylvania for Villanova, and DC for Catholic University. At present, Michael lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia with her husband Jason and her five-year-old son John Adams, whose talkative and stubborn behavior is not so different from President John Adams. In six months, Professor Michael will defend her dissertation, and she is excited for the leisure time she’ll have, when she can spend more time reading fantasy novels like Stephen King’s.

And to her Cultural Foundations class, Professor Michael says, “If you don’t ask questions about [something], [then] you can’t figure out what you really believe about [in it]… All we can do is scratch the tip of the iceberg. Everything we do, there’s so much more going on underneath of that, in a 75-minute class, that you don’t get time to do.”

“So question everything.”

NYU DC Violets I Nonfiction | Interview with Dr. Tammy Krygier

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By Carol Wu

At the mere age of 5, Tammy Krygier fell in love with the mysterious wonders of the forgotten pharaoh Tutankhamun from the enchanting tales of a children’s book. Since then, her life would forever be linked to the sandy terrain and fertile river banks of Egypt.

Krygier’s thirst to learn about the Egyptian culture was insatiable. She absorbed every drop of information from the books she read, but soon, even that wasn’t enough. She had to see these stories come to life at museum exhibits. Still, children’s books and museum exhibits were just the foundation to the beginning of her education.

Krygier began her higher education in her hometown Buffalo, New York, where she attended SUNY Buffalo. Later, she studied at Johns Hopkins for her Master’s and PhD. While her general  interest is in Egyptology, she specializes in Egyptian art and archeology.

While studying at Johns Hopkins, Krygier began teaching. Originally, she had hoped to work in museums. However, she enjoyed teaching so much that she decided to pursue a career in education.

Krygier is a lecturer at NYU DC, teaching Cultural Foundations I. Krygier has previously taught at Hood College, McDaniel College, and her alma mater Johns Hopkins.

Krygier has gone on study abroad trips with her students, exploring Europe and Egypt. She finds it refreshing to see the looks on her students’ faces when they experience a place or object that they’ve only seen in a textbook.

“Their whole faces light up,” Krygier smiles.

One fond memory Krygier has is from a study abroad trip to Alexandria, Egypt. When her students learned that her birthday was coming up, they surprised Krygier with a birthday cake, and upon the cake stood a stylized statue of the goddess Sekhmet, looking on with intense eyes and daring lioness prowess. Krygier views Sekhmet, along with the cat goddess Bastet, as her alter ego.

When she isn’t reading historical fiction, Krygier pursues artistic endeavors, such as sketching or jewelry-making.

Although Krygier isn’t lecturing at NYU DC for the spring semester, she has some words of encouragement for her former Cultural Foundations students.

“I see my role, not so much as feeding you information, but helping you to realize how much you already know and how much more you can learn.”

Krygier lives in Baltimore with her husband, daughter, and five cats – Danny Blue, Bastet, Krinkle, Guinness, and Herbert.