Answering questions at Boston College O’Neill Library
Sigh… I’m not really in the prognostication game, though I wish I had that kind of foresight. You might consult the prognosticators at FiveThirtyEight.com (bit.ly/45-approval), keeping in mind that their bets on the 2016 election were off the mark. You might do just as well with the online Magic 8-ball: www.indra.com/8ball. (BTW, walls don’t get to vote. Can you do something about that before this November?)
It seems to be the way with the college bookstores The Wall knows of. The best advice seems to be to wait for the end-of-season sales.
You can’t use your BU ID to sign on our computers, but you are welcome to use the guest computers (right behind the Reference Desk) with the guest login. And you can use your BU ID to check out books in the BC Libraries – you don’t even need a Boston Library Consortium card to do that.
🙁 Venezuela certainly seems to be having a tough time of it right now. Unfortunately, the US doesn’t have the best reputation for “helping” in Latin and South American countries. If you want to help, Buzzfeed (of all sites) has put together a list of organizations you can donate to: bit.ly/helpVenezuela
Making friends is very hard – so many things have to go right. As you grow older, you spend less time with a given group of people, and that makes it even harder to find friends. In high school, there’s tons of opportunity to make friends since you’re with (mostly) the same people for hours a day. In college, that’s less true. All you can do is continue to join clubs and put yourself out there. If you’re feeling lonely or depressed, you can also reach out to Counseling Services which might be able to give you more personal advice: bit.ly/BC-counseling.
Many people (including Bill and Hillary Clinton) have found love in a library, so you’re choice of location has promise. Otherwise, picking up someone in a library doesn’t differ much from anywhere else. Make eye contact and determine if the other person is interested in you. If they might be, start a conversation with some general questions to see how interested they really are. Leave the area if you make them uncomfortable (you don’t want to become a stalker). And if you’re trying to pick up a librarian, here are some lines that don’t work (bit.ly/pickup-librarian)
Of all the things to love about Philips Exeter – a long history, many notable alumni, graduates going to ivy league schools, the Harkness system – this Wall most loves the response of the principal to a group of white students objecting (during the Civil War) to the presence of a black student: “The boy is to stay; you may do as you please.”
Admissions does not confer with The Wall on their decisions, but I sure hope they accept you! BC’s acceptance rate of 27% (chosen from an outstanding applicant pool) means that many qualified, fantastic people will not be offered spaces in the class of 2023. If that happens to you, please don’t take it as a reflection on you. While I am super-attached to BC (um… literally), I firmly believe there are many places you where could thrive. Keep your options open.
I have faith in you! You get to define what “make it in life” means for you, so take time to discover your values and goals. Don’t fall into the trap of letting other folks’ idea of success make you feel inadequate. If you are struggling to just get by, though, you may want to get some guidance and reassurance. Counseling Services (bit.ly/BC-counseling) or Pastoral Counseling (bit.ly/bc-campus-ministry) are good places to start.
I’m sorry you’ve had a bad experience with printing. My Library and ITS colleagues are working on a solution with BCE to make printing during the rest of your experience less troublesome.
It will certainly improve your odds. Don’t forget to take breaks to stretch, eat, drink and visit me. Wishing you the best of luck!
Sorry for your trouble! Our staplers do seem to grow legs of their own, and have been found all over the library during round-ups. I will have my assistants speak with the stapler wranglers about increasing the frequency of round-ups and stapler refills. In the meantime, you can also find staplers at the reference and circulation desks.
Flatbread is unleavened, right? (More seriously, thinking of God in human terms is called anthropomorphism and it’s an interesting theological problem. More discussion here: bit.ly/bc-flatbread).
You’re in luck: a language purpose-built for a potential world government has already been invented: Esperanto. (bit.ly/guardian-esperanto) The trouble is, not many people speak it. Another solution might be to examine regions of the world with single governments and a lot of languages. In India, there are 17 official languages; these are languages into which all government documents & forms must be translated. In the EU, where legal & trade agreements proliferate, there are 24 official languages. Hm. Seems inefficient, but then again, it also seems to work. For an interesting article on the efficiency or inefficiency of various languages, see this one from The Atlantic: bit.ly/efficient-language.
This is another great question for the BC Fact Book (bit.ly/BC-FactBook)! According to the 2017-2018 edition, the total number of students enrolled at Boston College in fall of 2017 across all programs was 14,419. However the book does note that this number included students who were studying abroad, so the total number actually at Boston College was 14,165.
954,044 as of this morning. We have a similar number of ebooks, but most of those do not live here, coming only when called upon by you from the vast and mysterious Cloud.
It is true that being prepared comes with experience. All of my helpers have an array of fleeces and sweaters and such in their offices.
According to the 2017-2018 BC Fact Book (a scintillating treasure trove of data, http://bit.ly/BC-FactBook), it’s about 3500.
The 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia is in the midst of the knockout round of 16. Half the games have been completed with Uruguay facing France, and Russia facing Croatia in the quarter-finals. The other two quarter-final matches will be determined with games today and tomorrow. Watching the competition so far, it has been exciting to see some of the underdogs finding success where Messi (Argentina) and Ronaldo (Portugal) have failed. France, Uruguay, and Croatia have been playing fast, high-energy, creative games – any of these three could be taking home the World Cup this year!
Taking up a new hobby or learning a new skill together can be very refreshing. Maybe try salsa dancing? Learning Icelandic? Also recognizing that while there will always be some fresh things, because we grow and change, constant novelty is not necessarily key to maintaining a relationship; on the flip side you get the richness of shared experience as time goes by.
