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“Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, 'This isn't supposed to be happening this way,' and trying harder to make it happen some other way.”
― Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

It’s even more evident now. Being an international student from Swaziland made me adjust to having two almost entirely separate lives when I became a student at Duke. It was a given, the knowledge that going home would mean returning to an entirely distinct lifestyle, with a different culture, different people and different habits. Still, nothing could have prepared me for returning from abroad in my second semester of my junior year and having to add a third life into the mix. Needless to say, these first weeks back have been a bit of a rollercoaster.

Dear PNMs,

“You can’t hate someone whose story you know,” wrote a Duke sophomore woman writing of her experience with being exposed to recent immigrants during an Alternative Fall Break experience she had last semester.  What she meant was that what she learned about these families who originated in countries other than the USA was that once you know their stories, you connect and you can longer live in the comfort of ignorance.

There are those who talk and there are those who do.  WHO (Women's Housing Option) does.  This living group has set themself apart as more than just a place for women to live.  Concepts like "safe space", "social advocacy" and "community efficacy" come to mind when looking at the stirring and dynamic new campaign that was launched last week.  Body image issues are a reality in many of our lives.  The statistics that support this truth are alarming as words are spoken with little or no thought given to the lasting psychological impact that is left in the wake of commentaries on women's bodies.  It is encouraging to see that, with the photo expertise of Ashley Tsai, this group of women has created space to invite conversation, expand thought provoking images and develop the tools to initiate positive change.  All of our lives are affected when even one life is disrupted by the inability

by Li-Chen Chin

To the CMA community,

As the Bryan Center transformation began, all of us in the Center for Multicultural Affairs were excited about our area getting a face-lift, which will include an expansion of meeting space for student organizations. We anticipated that we might have to vacate the premises at some point for a short period of time. However, we were very surprised when recently we were told that the CMA staff had to vacate from December 2012 to April 2013. There were and continued to be many questions.  What are we going to do during this extended period of time? How will our work be affected next semester? Will the students who hang out, study, or seek refuge in our Center find another place to go?

One of last year's seniors (and a former DUWELL intern), Rose O'Connor, was inspired to write this blog in the spring of 2012, her last semester at Duke.  As we approach Thanksgiving time, it seems especially appropriate to consider gratitude and how to appreciate the small things in life...

This blog was written by Ashley Taylor, a recently graduated Duke student.

Facebook boasts over 800 million active users, and more than 50% of them log in on any given day. Every single minute, over 48 hours of video is being uploaded to YouTube, and videos on the site are receiving more than two billion views daily! This year, the announcement of Beyoncé’s pregnancy sparked Twitter’s highest “tweets per second” rate at nearly 9,000 tweets. The bottom line is that lots of people are using social networking sites almost all of the time.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009:
    Today is the day of all days. Today is the day I find out if I got accepted into Duke University.     What a rush! It is 8 a.m., and I run to my computer. As I open my email, I see that I have ONE     message in my inbox: the sender—DUKE UNIVERSITY. Should I open it? I was bombarded     with a flux of emotions. I was torn between the possible excitement of being accepted and the     potential disappointment of being rejected. But I HAD to check. Here goes nothing: click...     YES!!!!!! The email read:

    "Dear Stephanie Amador,
    Congratulations! The Admissions Committee and I take great pleasure in offering you a place     in the Duke University Class of 2013…"

Hi! My name is Ayan and I am a rising senior. I am pre-law and majoring in Psychology and minoring in International Comparative studies with a focus on the Middle East. I was lucky enough to participate in the first ever Duke in the Arab World program and got to travel to Doha, Qatar and Cairo, Egypt this summer. It was HOT but I loved every second of my time abroad.

My Blue Right of Passage

Hello my name is Jessie Lu, and I am a junior from Guangzhou, China. I major in Public Policy, minor in Psychology and have a Market Management Study Certificate.