This story is unpublished. It was written for a class while Molly was attending Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.

We called him Old Straightlace, and he was the toughest ref in town.

I spent every Thursday night with Straightlace, from September to January, four years in a row, as he officiated our high school basketball games. He was a ref that every teenage basketball player feared. He knew the rulebook, our tricks and had a sixth sense for trouble. His fairness and calm manner put shame in our adolescent hearts.

The closest I come to athletics now is wearing gym shorts while I do laundry. I loved my small career, but I’ve lost most of its details. I forget teammate’s names, coach’s mottos, what the small boxes in the paint are drawn for. Old Straightlace stays with me. Why?

Straightlace had iron-gray hair and a blue five o’clock shadow that never grew or receded. He ran with his whistle clamped between his teeth. Its strings hung like reins on a horse’s bit. He wasn’t tall or broad, but when he stood with his hands on his hips and his feet planted, he towered over every center in the league. His voice was deep and textured and tangible, like a thick line of alligator bark on an oak tree.

He silenced coaches with a slight raise of one eyebrow, he stopped hecklers with a quick glare; it took only his finger to his throat to quiet whining players.

Old Straightlace wasn’t a zebra – he was a dragon.

In a close game, I dove for a loose ball and tapped my head on the corner of the bleachers. I was knocked out. When I regained consciousness, the first thing I saw was Straightlace bent over me. He pushed my eyelids back with his thumbs. He looked at my pupils, then in my eyes, and walked away. Everyone else swarmed closer, and I was taken to a hospital where I was pronounced fine, save for a knot on my forehead. The experience left me with a temporary new nickname – Bleacher Face – and questioning the quick connection this mysterious man had made with me.

High school basketball officials are fascinating. The majority of them don’t work college games, though some top-level ones do. Not a single ref I’ve spoken with aspires to NBA stardom. Many officials work feeder games, which are fifth- and sixth-grade boys and girls, as well as reffing freshman A and B teams and junior varsity leagues. (These games are what’s called small potatoes.)

The officials use their own money to travel to and from games. The most dedicated also join refereeing associations, which provide extra training and background, along with safety in numbers.

All the effort, all the time and every referee said he feels underappreciated. So why keep going?

Jeff Curtin is a certified basketball official, the highest level a high school ref can achieve. (The ladder goes: registered, recognized, certified.) He has officiated Chicago high school basketball games for 26 years and will work 125 games this season. He said a referee can get paid up to $60 for working a varsity game.

“Each game is an hour and a half. Most good officials get there an hour before the game, and then an hour after the game they get home,” he said. “That’s three to four hours of work, so for $60, it’s more than just the money.”

The job is infinitely detail-oriented, repetitive and requires perfection. It’s data entry. In a uniform. Perfection is the whole point, but Curtin and other refs agree that it’s impossible to call a perfect game every time.

Moreover, the job of a high school referee is one of an active witness – he has total control over something that doesn’t affect anybody’s life that much. There are great games and memorable moments, but there are also blow-outs and double dribbles. Sure, sports are relevant to American society and they could teach morality and values, but we’re talking high school. This is about teenage testosterone and adolescent anguish. The heroes have braces and the villains have acne.

A ref has 100 percent of the power over something that everybody is happy to have an interest in, but most won’t remember. It’s like being president of a country made up of grandstand amnesiacs. With a few grudge-nursers thrown in.

Aside from the fact that the ref’s effect isn’t memorable, many officials want to be invisible themselves.

“The name of the game from a referee’s standpoint is to go by unscathed and unknown,” Curtin said. He said each ref wants to be forgotten; it shows their calls were true and their role was minimal. Why would anybody risk being torn limb from limb by an angry fan, just to be invisible?

I’ll be honest – when I played basketball, I liked the referees. That probably comes from the same gene that makes me return library books on time. Better yet, the refs liked me. I was always one of their favorites.

Perhaps it was my famed lack of ability. I didn’t have the hand strength to open a jar of marmalade. My vertical leap topped out when I stood still. When my coach told me to mix it up in the paint, I panicked and scored two points for the other side.

But how I loved the game, the practices, the teaminess of it. I liked the pressure, the responsibility, the ways to substitute something I could do for something I couldn’t. I loved the refs because they kept the playing field level, which helped showcase my hard work.

Always a rulebook kind of girl, I appreciated that there was someone who could give me a definitive answer. Yes or no. You’ve fouled or you haven’t. No either, no neither, no both. The officials were sure of themselves. They didn’t care how the game ended, just how it was played.

Here is another point to be made about officiating: an athlete’s goal is to win, to finish the game, while a referee’s goal is to observe the game and to have nothing to do with who triumphs.

“A player or coach or fan’s worst fear is to know that a referee changed the outcome of the game dramatically. We’re not there to determine who wins,” Curtin said.

Even though I appreciated their presence and thought most of the refs who worked my games had good judgment, I always wondered what type of person signed up to be a referee. Who thinks they can gauge the actions of ten basketball players perfectly every time?

In Illinois, all you have to do to become a high school basketball ref is register with the Illinois High School Association. You take an open book test on the rules, then you get a badge and hey presto, you’re registered. What keeps out the bad guys?

“It’s an individual thing,” Curtin said. “It’s like anyone’s own DNA makeup. What’s in their heart is what they’re going to do. If they’re going to be crooked, it’s going to come out. It weeds itself out.”

And how do they stay unbiased? Effort is apparent in high school basketball. A ref that sees a kid trying hard, battling, playing fair but losing because of someone else’s fault or maybe her own lack of ability… how could he not sympathize with the player? How could his heart not yearn to fly to her and help her along?

Push up her eyelids to see if she’s ok.

Fred Allman has been officiating games in the Chicago area for 21 years. He, like Curtin, is also at the highest level a high school referee can be.

“You have to take the floor with an attitude of you’re going to do the best job you possibly can,” he said. “And you honestly do not care who wins the game.”

I spoke with other referees about the process of remaining unbiased, and every one echoed Allman’s statement. They acknowledged that with sports comes emotion. They agreed that by officiating at the same high schools year after year, they get to know coaches and players, even troublesome fans.

“It’s mind over matter,” Curtin said. “When a referee takes the court, unbeknownst to a lot of parents and fans, they have no prejudged opinion or disposition against somebody, a coach, a player or a fan.”

Allman expressed feelings of exclusion, that he loves basketball as much as the players and coaches, yet he’s always seen as the bad guy.

“We are far more than the necessary evil that many people make us feel that we are,” he said.

The basic question then is why do refs ref?

“It’s my part-time job. This is for fun, for love of the game. It feels good to see and officiate a game that’s played well,” Curtin said.

For love of the game, Allman agreed.

I don’t know where Old Straightlace is now. I heard rumors that he died. As a player, I’d been close enough to feel the air expelled from his whistle and hear the ball rattling madly inside it. I’d looked at the knots in his shoelaces. I’d seen his sweat drip. I’d watched him guide us around the court like pieces of chess. I’d applauded his calls, protested them and grudgingly acknowledged his expertise.

I realized that I never doubted Straightlace’s calls. I objected to them when my team suffered, but I had never truly believed him wrong. I have yet to discover what quality he possessed that gave me, and everyone around him, faith in his judgment. Maybe it was that I knew he was an honest ref.

Old Straightlace’s legacy stays with me and perhaps a few other sentimental players. He put up with trash talking, cat calling and once I think someone threw a chili dog at him. He spent half his life standing in anonymous teacher’s workrooms, swigging red Gatorade and sweating in black sneakers.

I know other things in life are just as impermanent as a sports game. The jobs many of us work, the lives many of us lead. They’ll fade away, but it seems that the calls a referee makes fade just a little bit faster.

I can’t figure out why anyone would sign up to be a referee. It seems to be a thankless job that requires perfection – which is unattainable – and takes time, money and patience. You risk your dignity and personal safety to have a hand in meting out justice for high school students, many of whom play for reasons other than love of the game.

Still, there is something haunting in the image of a steely-eyed man jogging quietly up and down a basketball court, calling the world right or wrong as he sees it. Guiding the game and watching over its players, making sure things are fair.

This story is unpublished. It was written for a class while Molly was attending Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.

Business reporters like to talk about things called leading economic indicators. That’s because they allow us to write flashy headlines like this one from MarketWatch on May 1: “US weekly initial jobless claims surge 35000 to 380000.”

There are 345,000 more Americans unemployed than last week? Batten down the hatches! The whole nation’s going to be unemployed by mid-summer. Exciting stuff. Big news.

But is it really?

The leading economic indicators, such as initial jobless claims, show the country’s economic activity. They serve two purposes – tracking the history of the economy and allowing that data to be analyzed for trends. They’re released by the government on a regular basis and are ideal for scholars, economists and headline writers. Essentially, they take the economy’s temperature and tell experts if it’s healthy. They can also serve as a kind of alarm: If the index numbers swing downward, a recession may be around the corner.

“What the index of leading economic indicators is designed to do is predict what’s going to happen to the economy six to nine months out, but that’s mainly for policy purposes,” said Allen Sanderson, senior lecturer in the economics department of the University of Chicago.

The problem is that indicator figures are often more volatile than the economy itself because they revolve around quickly changing numbers like interest rates or retail sales.

So should typical Americans really base their economic decisions on these reports? Does up-to-date economic information make things seem worse than they actually are?

Are the leading economic indicators… misleading?

“I’ve been somewhat amused, bemused or bewildered by all the stories about foreclosures and defaults. One would get the impression from the headlines that half the people in the U.S. have lost their homes, but it’s just not true,” Sanderson said. “We say, ‘Well, gee home ownership rates dropped.’ Yes, it dropped from 69 percent to 68 percent, but it didn’t drop from 69 percent to 29 percent. These are really very small kinds of movements.”

Why are the indicators so fickle? They’re tied up with elements of the economy that move rapidly which lends a kind of amorphous quality to the reports. The same figure can be used to support differing opinions of the economy. One’s philosophy and scope of view (short-term or long-term) determines one’s resulting analysis.

If you’re looking for something negative, you can probably find it, no matter what state the economy’s in.

“There’s a lot of noise, but there’s also a lot of built-in stability” in the economy Sanderson said. “We’re not talking about some minor little fiefdom somewhere, we’re talking about a $13 or $14 trillion economy, and a lot of things in that economy are going to be very sluggish.”

Just as many investment experts warn people away from trading based on intraday stock fluctuations, Sanderson suggests zooming out. Historical trends and digging into real numbers – instead of percent change – can help keep things in perspective.

“I think the best thing to do in these types of situations is to take the Christian Science approach,” Sanderson said. “If the body is reasonably healthy, take two aspirin and go to bed.”

This story is unpublished. It was written for a class while Molly was attending Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.

It is Halloween morning, and Kelly Kraft is dressed as a louse.

I, a reporter, am not dressed as anything (though I am dressed). I am standing on the stoop of Hair Fairies in Lincoln Park, and I have just realized my mouth is hanging open.

Kraft, 30, is the manager of Hair Fairies, a salon that manually removes head lice. As she guides me inside, I admire her brown boots, all the rage this fall, and a dress that might have looked nicer without the extra sets of arms pinned to it.

I am startled to discover another employee masquerading as a nit, with a white trash-bag body and aluminum foil “glue” to bind herself to a hair on some enormous unseen head. I am not sure if I should shake hands.

“It’s going to be a zoo today,” Kraft says happily. “We’ve got a group of five already in here.”

Hair Fairies Inc. is a privately held company, owned by Maria Botham.

After reading an article that named head lice as the top reason why children miss school, Botham, 38, spent two years working in physicians’ offices and researching lice shampoos. The first Hair Fairies salon opened in Los Angeles in 1999. The company has expanded into three other cities – New York, San Francisco and, in December 2008, Chicago.

“I wanted to have salons where we always place ourselves in the Beverly Hills of that city and make the salons really beautiful to break the stigma of head lice,” Botham says. “People think that it’s a problem with underserved communities, but really head lice don’t discriminate. We have every A-list celebrity go through our salons.”

The people I saw, aside from the bug and the nit, weren’t celebrities, but children. Surprisingly quiet children. All had a GameBoy, DVD player or other noise toy in their laps, and they sat calmly while Kraft and the five other Chicago employees combed through their hair.

Botham estimates the Chicago shop sees between 250 and 300 heads a week, and Kraft says they inspect at least 20 people a day. The process involves combing the hair when it’s dry, again when it’s wet, shampooing, applying an oil meant to prevent the lice from wanting to be on the hair and then blow-drying the client.

“I was a hair stylist for 11 years,” Kraft says. “I was doing high fashion! This is the whole other end of the spectrum and to be honest, it’s much more gratifying.”

Hair Fairies’ objective is to offer relief to parents who are too grossed out to do the work themselves and too stressed out to deal with their kids’ tears of shame. The Fairies, bearing brushes and tissues and toys, are there to do it for them.

“Most clients come in and they’ve already spent over $500 between dry cleaning, cleaning their homes, hair products, and they’ve missed a week and a half of school,” Botham says. “They are very distraught. They’re emotional, upset. They’re agitated. They’re usually exhausted.”

To be a Hair Fairy is to be a nanny, doctor and a therapist, one who can interact with children and adults. The Fairies soothe anguished parents – some of whom drop their children at the salon and speed away before anyone can see them.

They also explain and discuss the medical side of lice – like the fact that the bugs cannot fly, hop or jump. (Their ability to skip remains to be determined. It is thought unlikely.) They explain that the bugs go dormant when they’re exposed to extreme temperatures or if you hold your head under water. They explain that lice are asexual.

A Fairy would tell you that lice can only be transmitted through head-to-head contact and not through clothing or bedding. (Headbutt champions and Siamese twins: beware. Ladies of the night and hat models may breathe easy.)

Employees are trained for 90 days before they can start their Fairy duties. Kraft says she “had no less than six interviews” to land the job and Botham refers to a “three-inch thick manual” of conduct and information. Hair Fairies has roughly 60 employees between the four salons and Chicago will be hiring again next month.

A. Jae Matthews, 26, is a loud, cheery black man. He is a Hair Fairies employee, and today he’s wearing a sparkly black wig that makes him look rather like Rick James. Matthews was a promoter for a theater before he became a Fairy and tells me he dislikes insects.

“I don’t do well with bugs,” he says.

“Were you worried about that coming into this job?” I ask.

“I was apprehensive about a lot of aspects of this. It’s funny though, working here hasn’t helped me with bugs, but with people. I still have all my reservations about spiders, just not head lice or humans.”

Kraft says most clients take comfort in knowing that the salons are full of people who have lice, so everyone in the shop is tolerant. She suggests they feel a type of camaraderie. I almost suggest they form a street gang.

“People love that every other person in here has had lice or is not freaked out by lice,” she says. “The biggest thing is that parents aren’t educated on the subject, and they don’t have a clue how to make it better, and that’s their job as a parent. And so I get those mothers and fathers and then I get to give them the knowledge and calmness to feel like they’re in control again, all in an environment where they’re comfortable.”

The Hair Fairies shop has a wood-paneled floor with bright, overhead track lighting. Mirrors at each station are hemmed by thick wood frames carved to look as if the wood was woven. There is a waiting area in the front, filled with magazines like Cosmopolitan, Shape and Self.

“The salons are absolutely gorgeous,” Botham says. “They feel like mini spas!”

All the children are occupied with games or toys, and there’s a counter with snacks available for anyone who wants them. Occasionally a child – in a zombie-like trance, with eyes and thumbs still glued to whatever device he or she is holding – will stumble over and select a sweet. Everywhere there is the smell of toasting hair as clients are styled. It floats above the slight tang of Botham’s all-natural lice shampoo.

All the furniture is slick and cold to the touch. Most of the seating is wooden. As I look around, I realize the place – without the buzzing, happy Fairies – looks rather stiff and uncomfortable.

“The bugs can live for 24 to 48 hours and they need a fiber to travel, so everything is leather or vinyl or wood,” Kraft explains. “That’s so we’re not passing it back and forth through our environment.”

The décor is not sterile, however. Perhaps it’s the glittered, brightly colored fairy art hanging between the mirrors. Could be the bustling workers or the happy (if technologically occupied) children. Or the moms who can snatch moments to themselves while their kids get colored gels slathered on their hair after a treatment.

Barbara Kizziah is one such mother. She is a 43-year-old blond who enters Hair Fairies clutching a Starbucks cup and a Chanel bag. Her pink cable-knit sweater has no pills, pulls or puckers. She is loud, tan and attaches herself to Lane, a bucktoothed nine-year-old getting green streaks.

“I didn’t find anything this time,” Kraft says.

“Yahoo!” Kizziah shouts, pumping her fists. It is their final visit in the Hair Fairies four-part treatment.

“She got it, we think, from her carpool,” Kizziah tells me, with one hand on my forearm. “My first thought was ‘Holy shit.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, you’ve got to be kidding me.’”

Kizziah said she didn’t think she had the time to comb through Lane’s hair and wasn’t sure which products would be most effective. She admits to being “slightly panicked,” but feels she is making the best of a lousy (louse-y) situation.

“I just didn’t want to do it, and I didn’t feel like I’d do an effective job,” she says. “The cocktail conversation is not bad, though. Last weekend I was like, ‘O.K. people, lice – can you stand it?’”

Botham says the company is healthy. Kraft says the Chicago shop is always busy. (It’s nice to know there are enough lice in Chicago to keep six people occupied.) But the social status of the clientele brings up an important question – how much does all this cost?

The number for the price depends on the number of the lice. There is a one-hour minimum per person per visit, which totals $95. After that, it’s $23.75 for every additional 15 minutes. Kraft estimates most people pay about $380.

Upon hearing that, I was ready to jump, hop, fly and maybe skip to the conclusion that Hair Fairies was entirely a luxury and only available to the solidly wealthy, or as we call them in America, the upper middle class. Not exactly so.

“We’re many times covered by medical insurance, which opens up the demographic,” Botham said. “We do get parents who are absolutely wearing a big hat and sunglasses and when they enter the door and they see it’s all their colleagues and see it’s the same kind of person that they are, that’s when they open up.”

Kraft says: “Our clients here are professionals, and they feel comfortable when they run into other professional-type people here.”

Hair Fairies is both notable and deplorable. It’s a wonderful concept – take something that icks people out and give them a 100 percent guarantee you’ll solve the problem. It’s hands-off, a sure thing. That’s also why I think it could be bad for us– it’s the Stepford way to do things. No matter how unpleasant, part of parenting should be to sit on the edge of the bathtub and scrape bugs off a child’s scalp. It tells the child they care enough to do something gross. (Better still if the father can contain his gagging noises at the smell of over-the-counter lice treatments and the mother can still her shivers when she sees a live bug.)

I got lice when I was in sixth grade. (We think it was from wearing hats during a school play. Even now that she knows this is highly unlikely, my mother still insists a traveling theater troupe gave us the bugs. “It was a rogue licing,” she says with great indignation.) When we consulted my aunt, an elementary school teacher well versed in the ways of lice, and I was pronounced bug-positive, I was grasped firmly about the shoulders and pressed into her breast for a big hug. It was the best way to cure my self-loathing. We then spent a month dousing my head in poisonous chemicals. My mother was behind me for the combing but beside me for the experience. And that counted. I remember that.

If I had instead been taken to Hair Fairies, I think I would have felt differently. She would have dropped me off and gone to run some errands. Maybe to meet a friend for lunch. Maybe to hit up a quick yoga class. Either way, she wouldn’t have been there. She wouldn’t have needed to be. I had friendly, cheery Fairies attending to me and some moving images to stare at.

Which is not to say the people that use Hair Fairies are bad parents. They aren’t. And Botham’s not a bad person either. She’s a rich person, or on her way.

“We’re trying to be the Starbucks of head lice removal,” she says. “We’re trying to build an empire here.” Botham is currently opening a store in Seattle and plans to be in all 50 states within five years. “Maybe less.

“When I told all my friends I was going to start this corporation, everyone laughed at me and told me I was nuts. But I really knew in my core that this was something people needed,” Botham says. “Head lice is like getting a cold, that’s how common it is. I knew I could create a brand that was massive.”

I have seen all I need to see at Hair Fairies. I collect my notebook and pen, wave goodbye to the people and bugs I’ve met, and step onto the crowded Lincoln Park street. My skin crawls a bit, but my scalp doesn’t itch. I am very, very glad.

This story is unpublished. It was written for a class while Molly was attending Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.

Nighttime at Crepe and Coffee Palace

It’s 11 p.m. and Crepe and Coffee Palace is packed. Every table is taken and the windows are fogged from the inside, a sign that winter is roosting in Chicago again. I look around.

The cafe is full of couples – young gay men, an older fellow and his wife, me and my notebook. I hear Hebrew, Korean, Spanish and French. It’s also full of empty stomachs, the universal language. I hope the Arabic music from the stereo will cover up mine’s audible complaints.

Every scrap of space is covered – the place has texture. Algerian rugs, some prayer, some not, are hung at angles on the walls, which are pumpkin orange. There are bright blue squares of color, outlined with a Byzantine-style bell shape. Inside the bell are paintings, candle holders, metal ornaments. I think I see an image of Mata Hari in a back corner.

“I was trying to make an Algerian atmosphere. You know, combining the Middle Ages and elements of Spain, Istanbul, other things from the Islamic world. I wanted a Moorish type of feeling,” says owner Belkacen Belmetdmnani. “You know, mosques. Casbah. You know.”

There are mirrors, and not only mirrors, but scraps of mirrors — tiny squares mosaicked together or placed at the edge of each table. They reflect light and open up the space, which is small. It is cramped but comfortable, like visiting your old bedroom after moving away from home.

Chandeliers dangle dangerously, cockeyed and tilted because there isn’t enough room for all to hang plumb to the floor. They remind me of jellyfish, hovering close to have a look at what I’m eating.

And, with the jellyfish encouraging me, I order a Crepe Amar. It combines Nutella and strawberries, which Belmetdmnani says is the menu’s most popular item.

“American tastes,” he says, shrugging, then tells me the café goes through 20 pounds of Nutella each week.

While I sip my water – with two cucumber slices bobbing in it – I look at the other wall decorations. Belmetdmnani, 50, was born in Icosium (also known as Algiers, also known as Alger, also known as Al-Jaza’ir), the capital of Algeria. He attended culinary school there and moved to the U.S. to study mechanical engineering. In 1988, he opened Mamacita’s, a Mexican restaurant two doors down and started Crepe and Coffee Palace in 2003.

I strike up a conversation with a pretty girl sitting near my left knee (quarters this close encourage chatting with strangers). Her name is Julie Tillinger. She is 29 and waiting for her date to arrive.
“It’s a blind date, so I won’t know when he’s here,” she says, flapping the menu around. A friend sent him a picture beforehand so he could recognize her.

“It’s nerve-wracking because the picture she sent is of me a few years ago, so I’m worried he’s going to sit down and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t expect you to be so wrinkly.’”

Suddenly, a crepe glides onto my table, like some kind of edible UFO. The waitress doesn’t have room to serve from the front, so she lands the crepe with her arm hooked around from behind me. Centered in the middle of a white plate at least 15 inches in diameter is the crepe, golden and roped and folded over itself. It is stuffed with sliced strawberries and oozing hazelnut goo. It’s circled with squiggles of raspberry and chocolate sauce, interspersed with big, fat, generous gobs of whipped cream. A scoop of green pistachio ice cream melts quietly in the corner. I melt noisily onto my table, a mess of oohs and aahs and mmms.

It is delicious, and Tillinger’s date arrives with flowers.

Daytime at Crepe and Coffee Palace

Felix looks out the window. He is a stubby Latino with thick curls, a red bandana and a very clean apron. Felix is the primary cook at Crepe and Coffee Palace, and he won’t give me his last name. Or answer any questions. He is very amiable about this. He shakes his head no, smiles, and begins to squirt whipped cream onto a bald and waiting crepe. Krghhhh, says the can, shouting down my follow-ups.

Whipped cream is not listed as an ingredient but is present in almost every dish. Hot drinks drown in it. The crepes come surrounded by mounds of whipped cream that stick to the plate like starfish.

It’s 10 a.m. and I order a hot chocolate. It arrives in a glass mug: thick, creamy, just warmer than the room and insulated by four inches of shiny, slippery whipped cream. Felix is not a man who diddles around with dollops. I give him a nod of respect.

“People like the whipped cream because it tastes good, so we keep putting it on,” says Bailey Bartes, the daytime waitress. “It’s just better that way.”

Bartes is 21 years old. She was born and raised in Lincoln Park, in a brick apartment building about three blocks from the café. She studied communications at Iowa Wesleyan College but dropped out to recover from foot surgery and picked up the waitressing job to fill the time.

“I’ve got two pins and a plate,” she says. “I can’t do much else. It’s small here, so I don’t have to do a lot of walking, and the people are nice. I like it enough.”

Bartes says the day shift can be slow, estimating that she might seat 10 tables working from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. She and Felix pass the time by bantering with the regulars and each other (Bartes chatters, Felix listens). While I’m in the café, a friend of Bartes drops by and gets a free Turkish coffee. The postman walks in and has a brief but fantastic conversation with Bartes, with Felix silently interrupting to pass over a cup of tea or piece of fruit.

“How come you never called me, Bailey-girl?” the postman jives.

“I lost your number.”

“And what, you couldn’t find it somehow else?”

“Nope. My dog ate my phone, so I had to wait five days for him to shit it out again.”

“Maybe next week, Bailey-girl?”

“Maybe next week,” she says.

I lean over the counter to watch Felix making my crepe. He pours thin ribbons of batter onto a flat griddle. The surface looks cool to the touch, serene and greased, but when the drip hits, it bubbles and sizzles and pops. I feel like a sailor, leaning over the edge of a boat, looking into a black sea that could swallow me whole. I will swallow it instead.

“Looks good, eh?” Felix says, his first words to me.

“Oh, yes,” I murmur. “It looks very good.”

And it is. I eat it at the counter, looking out the window like Felix. Bartes is laughing loudly in the back kitchen. A couple comes through the door, cheeks red with the new fall chill. I wave goodbye to Felix and leave behind the cozy little Algerian world in the middle of Chicago.

This story was published in 2007 for FastWeb, an online education resource and scholarship search engine.

When designing this column, I aim to relate the peaks and pitfalls of my experience as an undergraduate in a way that will make you think, feel and laugh. I hope the information I’ve shared has been a help. As a grand finale and because I love compilations, I created this: a list of the Top 10 Things I Wish I’d Known Four Years Ago.

1. … that Barbaro was going to suffer a breakdown in the Preakness. That’s the last time I’ll put my money on a horse.
2. … not to take survey classes. A general education in a subject may sound like a good idea, but these types of courses are often lecture-based, over-populated and generally useless. Go for something more specialized, even if you don’t have a background in the area.
3. … that numbers don’t correspond with difficulty level. Unlike the gym’s RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) levels, course numbers don’t indicate how much effort you’ll put into the class. Higher numbers almost always mean smaller classes, which almost always work better for almost everyone.
4. … to spend time alone. I place a lot of emphasis on involvement in extracurricular activities, and the fuller my schedule is, the better I function. Yet, some of the moments I felt most at peace were when I was strolling through my neighborhood, baking, knitting, out for a drive… don’t be afraid to do things by yourself.
5. … to expect a change in outlook. I knew I’d be different after four years at U.Va., but I was thinking in terms of hair cuts and favorite colors. I didn’t foresee a huge change in my political opinions or which groups I identify myself with. Even my musical taste has altered. That’s right, folks. Now I only listen to the Beach Boys on special occasions.
6. … to figure out how you operate. It seems obvious, but learning what strategies work for you can simplify your life enormously. I like to study with music playing, but if there are lyrics, I can’t focus. I accomplish more if I do it early in the day, rather than late at night. Pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses early and learn to work with – not against – yourself.
7. … to take pictures. Like reality television, college is worth documenting.
8. … to enjoy your college. Go to sporting events, shows and class functions. You’ll feel tapped into the school. And there’s always free food.
9. … to cozy up to your city. Even if you live in a college town like Charlottesville, there are loads of local happenings that will appeal to you. It’s also important to remember that you aren’t living in a city created exclusively for students; imagine the town as a hotel that you’re staying in. Think town center, not self-centered.
10. … to choose teachers, not topics. A good professor is like a pair of galoshes. You can wear them in all weather and be pretty comfortable. A bad professor is like a pair of spiky stilettos. They look nice for a while, but it’s t-minus two minutes until your feet begin to hurt. Great teachers will make anything interesting and the opposite is true of bad ones.

This story was published in 2007 for FastWeb, an online education resource and scholarship search engine.

Seeing the University of Virginia’s men’s basketball team make it to the second round of the NCAA tournament brought me back my own basketball career. Though it was short-lived, I made good use of my two-inch vertical leap and attained virtual stardom in my 175-person high school. Oh yes, my fingers were like the jaws of steel traps. My speed was such that they called me Molly ”Mach 3” Seltzer.

My coaches stressed the benefits of visualization. They’d stand at my shoulder on the foul line and murmur in their most convincing disembodied-genie-in-the-magic-lamp voices, “Believe the ball’s going in … See yourself sinking the shot … Watch yourself score.” Being a snarky know-it-all who actually knew nothing, I’d chuck the ball too hard, too high, just to prove their Jedi mind trick tactics didn’t work. I was a fine player without visualization. I was above that. I was impervious.

I was stupid.

According to a special series on the brain in the January 29 issue of TIME Magazine, “The brain can change as a result of the thoughts we think.” This means that putting a spin on things in your head – “That test went terribly, I’m going to fail the class” versus “That test was pretty bad, but at least I know what to study for next time” – can not only make you happier and more satisfied with your life, but might also increase your chances of succeeding in the future.

So is the power of positive thinking a sure thing?
If we think positively, will we get good results … positively?

Is luck learned behavior? Can you think yourself successful?

I’m still waiting to hear from my first-choice graduate school and though I’m getting frustrated, I’m attempting to be firmly and unfailingly optimistic. But I can’t will things to happen. (A problem I would categorize as a “total bummer.”) Since there’s nothing I can do but wait, a cheerful outlook seems to be just the ticket. The view posited by bestselling self-help books and numerous alternative texts suggests that American culture’s obsessive nature has turned superstitious. This is nothing new, of course. After all, former Red Sox and Yankees player Wade Boggs ate chicken before every game, without fail. (One might say he was looking to avoid a fowl ball, har har.) You’d be hard pressed to find a person who isn’t aware of the rituals surrounding ladders, black cats, sidewalk cracks and the number 13.

The Law of Attraction says that the thoughts you think call similar thoughts to you. So if you’re worried that you’ll be late for class and you keep thinking about being late for class, you’ll probably be late for class. Most people have experienced this in terms of tripping or stumbling – if you think about falling down, you generally do. The principle works similarly with positive thoughts; if you envision, if you believe and feel that you’re achieving something, can you make it happen? Simply through the power of your thoughts?

There’s nascent scientific evidence that humans can somehow change the chemistry of their brain by repeatedly thinking certain thoughts. Where the Law of Attraction differs from science is that it takes this one step further and suggests that by changing your brain, you can also change what happens in your life.

I have a hard time grasping how my free throws affect the universe, but the point is that a positive outlook certainly changes how you perceive yourself, which changes what risks you take, what friends you have and other important aspects of your life. While optimism begets success, I believe in backing things up with hard work, perseverance and a little luck, though visualization couldn’t hurt.

Swish.

This story was published in 2007 for FastWeb, an online education resource and scholarship search engine.

Jim Davis, creator of the Garfield comic strip, once wrote, “I could wallpaper a room with my rejection slips.” From an interior-design standpoint, not such a great idea. In terms of maintaining an optimistic viewpoint, also not the best plan. Yet, I think Jim’s on to something.

There are always going to be times when things are … stacked against the punter. (The punter being you.) You can’t always get the gig, the job, the girl (or boy). What’s to be done? Embrace disappointment as a part of life, just the way successes are. Right now, students are applying to and hearing from colleges and graduate schools; it’s the time when seniors interview for jobs. My own collegiate stress was weighing me down, so my resolution this year was to be ok with disappointment. This column describes my quest to figure out how.

I’m not exactly swimming in a sea of condolences when something goes awry. This has become particularly pronounced in my time at the University of Virginia. The atmosphere here is one of stifling successes. When people do poorly, their failure is locked in the closet and the key swallowed – gulp – before the world hears about it. I wonder, in a world of winners, are those who succeed the real losers? Why do we focus on self-help more than self-health? What should you do when something doesn’t go your way?

I studied greeting cards. If you ever need a query answered (What’s the meaning of life? Will Troy Polamalu ever cut his hair? Is it true that humans share more genetic code with sea urchins than dogs?), locate your nearest Hallmark store. Greeting cards synthesize everything the average American wants to say into three-line quips, some with sound. There wasn’t much solace in condolence, however. One rose-covered fold-out drooled, “Sorry for your loss.” Generic, geriatric communiqués wouldn’t help me get over a disappointment.

Still not having an all-purpose answer, I did something rash. I asked myself. “Self,” I said, “What do you do when you’re disappointed about something?” My first thought was of a cheesy mantra written on my high-school math teacher’s wall. It asked which angle was the most successful, and the answer was the “try-angle.” After discarding that as utterly useless, I thought of my mother’s catch phrase: Rise above it. This too, failed me. There’s something about the brusqueness, the aggression of that mandate that doesn’t make me feel better. (It’s more salvo than salve.) So I went deeper into my memory, trying to locate the spark that keeps me going when I’ve been disappointed.

There isn’t a spark. There’s a brushing off of the hands, a readjusting of the glasses and then I just keep going. That’s all. And I think that’s all anybody does. You can’t let a disappointment end your goals. (Any good sports movie will tell you that.) Furthermore, since American culture supports the view that your worth is dictated by your success – a problem, since everyone can’t succeed all of the time – it’s hard to remember that failure is healthy. You don’t have to bounce back immediately, either. Kate Hudson lost her baby weight an unprecedented three minutes after giving birth and look what happened to her! Bad example. The point is, it’s ok to not succeed. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not, so keep your chin up and don’t let failure make you quit. Keep going because it’s the only thing to do. That, and change the wallpaper.

This story was published in 2007 for FastWeb, an online education resource and scholarship search engine.

I love the term “common courtesy,” particularly because we use the phrase when we want to note there’s been a lack of it. Nobody mentions common courtesy when it’s there; they lament its absence and from the number of times we use the phrase, it seems courtesy is actually rather elusive. Rules of etiquette can be daunting, particularly for those unaccustomed to reading the syndicated “Miss Manners” column (unlike me and everyone’s grandparents). In fact, I suggest you examine your own life and habits to be sure you aren’t offending any passersby when you pass the salt before the pepper.

There are an equal number of rules when it comes to applying for jobs. The only time I hear these rules talked about, however, is when fellow undergraduates poll each other to see what’s expected. It’s the rude leading the rude. I don’t have the 20 years experience to match Miss Manners’, but I do have Appalachian charm and a great record with old men and cats, which makes me well-qualified to talk about formal politeness.

The consensus on thank-you notes firmly says one should send a letter post-interview, pre-hire. After your interview, whether it’s on the phone or in person, jot down a quick thank you. This sounds daunting: What do you really have to say to that person when you’ve only known them for an hour? It also seems cheesy and a little… suck up-ish. Don’t think like that. Just show your appreciation that the interviewer took the time to speak to you and hear your thoughts. Try to insert something from the conversation that they’ll remember, maybe a shared interest you discussed. Be sure to write cleanly, but do not type the letter. Make it personal and snappy.

When being interviewed on the phone, go where it’s secluded and indoors. (The talking-in-a-wind-tunnel effect can happen even if it doesn’t seem breezy on your end.) Don’t mumble if you’re nervous or screech if you’re accepted. It may be a fabulous job, but nobody wants to be the kid who blew the boss’ eardrums when they got hired.

For all other things, be as conservative as you can. Dress nicely and neatly; be on time and cheerful. It’s also important to Google the person who you’ll speak to: See their history and give yourself some talking points.

After advising you to be conservative, I’m going to do the opposite. I’d like to remind those employers who might be reading that they also have an obligation. This year, as I applied for graduate schools and summer internships, I was appalled at how rudely business was conducted. Graduate schools were late on their deadlines to announce acceptances. One school pushed the deadline back three times, missed it by two days on their last attempt, sent my letter to the wrong address, and failed entirely to send the email they promised was coming after that. Summer internships say that due to the number of applicants, they are unable to contact people not selected. They are apparently also unable to give applicants a time frame to let them know when they should be taking no news to mean bad news. How long does it take to send a form email?

We, as applicants, are willing to do almost anything to get these gigs. We want to give them our unpaid summer labor, we want to fork over enormous amounts of cash for tuition, we want to move to cities where we don’t know anyone.

The least we can ask in return is a little common courtesy.

This story was published in 2007 for FastWeb, an online education resource and scholarship search engine.

College is like a colander — it strains things. Mostly relationships. Mostly relationships with your parents. The way I see it, there are two types of parental predicaments. The first is when you fight over issues that hadn’t surfaced when everyone was living together during high school. The second is when kids begin to see their moms and dads as people instead of parents — faults, flaws and all.

Many students parent-proof their dorm rooms before a visit from the folks. They remove curse words, references to drugs or alcohol, and they Febreze the living daylights out of soft surfaces to remove the scent of the opposite sex. This struck me as a little paranoid when I first witnessed it, but I’ve seen this frantic overhauling so many times since that it’s about as surprising as watching a stoplight change colors.

Not only is this ritual strange, but it’s unproductive. If you and your parents disagree, tell them your thoughts and reasoning, then reaffirm your love for each other. Part of being a family is making each other feel loved, no matter what kinds of decisions anybody makes. It is unconditional love which allows growth and expansion, allows the creation of character. No matter the issue — politics, pre-marital sex, drinking, sexual orientation, study habits — it isn’t important enough for you to lose your family.

One way of dealing with this type of situation is to talk more often. Whenever I feel threatened or uncomfortable in a situation, I try to ignore it. This is not the right way to handle things. Not only has it caused unnecessarily long-term discomfort, but it often prompts the nickname “Sulky Seltzer.” I’d recommend that you make chatting with the ‘rents a pleasant experience. Furthermore, take it upon yourself to be responsible. If they call too much, tell them you’re busy and you’ll give them a ring tomorrow. Then do it. Believe it or not, there are things you have in common — the least of them being the houseplants and the most being you.

The second common problem I see between kids and their family stems from the shifting of power that often occurs during the college years. Teenagers are flung into this situation with radically different types of people — living together, eating together, getting the flu together — and we have to adjust quickly and figure out how to understand each other. All this analysis of character is bound to rub off. As you gain more independence and authority (even if it’s just legally, with your 18th and 21st birthdays), that means your parents have to relinquish their vice-like grip; when things are about even steven, you’ll start viewing your family objectively. My most important piece of advice is: have patience.

As you begin picking them apart, as you inevitably will, remember that a large part of you is them. Their habits and preferences shaped and guided your entire life. Even if you swear you’ll never be like your dad, it’s from him that you learned what you didn’t like. I got lucky; since I’ve gone away I’ve discovered that I like my mom and dad as people as well as bill-payers. (Phew.)

Think of how much is illuminated when you put a light source farther away from an object; you can see more. The same is true with people. Physical distance acts like a lamp and often sheds light on things you didn’t notice when you were close to the situation. College is that light — behave with patience and grace, and your relationship with your parents will be sunny, no clouds in the sky.

This story was published in 2007 for FastWeb, an online education resource and scholarship search engine.

I’m a good person. I’m nice to children and old ladies; I don’t kick dogs or cats. I try to eat right and exercise. I always use the correct amount of postage. I don’t pay taxes, but if I did, I’d pay them on time. No, ahead of time!

All of this serves to highlight the absurd fact of the matter – I can’t get a job. I’m not talking about internships or career opportunities. No, I’ve had more of those than you can shake a résumé at. I’m talking about good, ole, retail, waitressing, babysitting jobs. It seems I have to live my college life entirely unhirably.

Many college students view breaks from school as money-earning periods along with relief from homework. This sounds great, especially to your tired, professional wage-earning parents. The problem arises when high school whippersnappers sneak in and steal our jobs before we get home from school! Yes, my collegiate friends. We are being stabbed in the back by our younger brethren! Stab, stab, they go, until every last paying place is taken.

Fine. That’s not how it happens. But kids who worked jobs during the year stay on, and every parent in their right mind shouts at their offspring to sign themselves up before the college kids get home. It makes us sound like the plague.

I have never held a part-time summer job, but the summer two years ago was my worst experience yet. I was interning as a reporter for Richmond.com, an online newspaper based out of – you guessed it – Richmond, Virginia. I worked from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. five days a week, and during those steamy late afternoons, I was bored out of my gourd.

I went to every place I’d like to work and applied for a part-time job. No dice. The next week, I applied to places I didn’t think I was right for. I remember one store devoted entirely to vintage Christmas décor. It was August, but I rosy-ed my sweaty cheeks and ho ho hoped to get the job. Needless to say, by the time I reached my third round of applications, I was getting desperate.

“I want to work long hours,” I yelled. “Pay me badly! I beg you!”

Then I, a 15-year vegetarian, decided to work at a fast-food joint. I shuffled into a Burger King, Wendy’s, Hardees, three different McDonald’s and an Arby’s. I filled out the paper saying I was free on weekends and the late shift July 4th. I shuffled out of a Burger King, Wendy’s, Hardees, three different McDonald’s and an Arby’s. I was a little dissatisfied, but I knew I’d soon be getting a paycheck.

No one ever called. I was not hired at any of the fast-food places. Now, I’m a U.Va. student with a 3.4 GPA, two majors and a minor and … well, it’s unimportant. The real message I’m trying to convey is that just because you’re qualified, doesn’t mean you’ll get the gig.

The way to prevent this situation is to get the ball rolling early – we’re talking April – and you’ll save yourself rejection later. Take a spring weekend and go home to beat the rush. Tell them you’re coming and have your stuff together. Also, send word through your friends and family that you’re looking for a job. At least if none of them have an offer, they can keep their eyes open on your behalf. Look for seasonal jobs as well – winter-time ones would be things like stacking wood and summery stints include mowing lawns or washing cars.

Finally, just try to be a good person. And prepare for the worst.