Zoë Lance.

  • A Wild World of Words: Epiphenomena

    A new weekly installation on the blog, in which I share a word for the week.  This week’s word is epiphenomena. Epiphenomena, the plural form of the word epiphenomenon, are secondary phenomena that appear in addition to separate phenomena. A mouthful, right? So for example,  your ideas and emotions are epiphenomena of the physical activity…

  • Link Party: 10/27-10/31

    Happy Halloween! Here’s what I read this week: 1. Sweden has its own national font now, which I think is creepy and a bad idea. The Blackletter font became synonymous with the Third Reich, and I don’t think that’s a good thing to follow up on. 2. I’m not part of a sorority, but this…

  • Think Tank: Instagram Likes

    As part of my duties as student assistant extraordinaire, I help run Cal Poly Pomona’s Instagram. On my way into the office at 1 p.m., I snapped a photo of the CLA Building, edited it a little bit, and posted it to the account. By 5 p.m., it had nearly 400 likes. While I was…

  • Gold Star for the Internet: Serial Podcast

    I’ve always wanted to be a podcast or books-on-tape person. I’ve tried to find  programs and become a regular listener, but they don’t keep my attention for long periods of time like a physical book does (I’d love to discuss that, but that’s another post for another day!) When I listen to music, I’m usually writing, reading or working…

  • Undergraduate Adventures: 7 Seinfeldian Moments

    It’s not that big of a secret that Seinfeld is one of my favorite shows of all time. I’m essentially Elaine Benes, but this quarter especially, there have been a couple of times where I’ve wondered if I’m in the middle of an episode. 1. There’s this running joke on The Poly Post editorial staff…

  • Link Party: 10/20-10/24

    Here’s what I read this week: 1. Rei Kawakubo is fascinating. 2. Apparently, the oceans could lose $1 trillion in value because of acidification. I don’t really understand how they quantified that, but maybe if we attach a financial cost to something like this, people will pay more attention to what we’re doing to something we can’t…

  • Culture Connoisseur: Joan Didion

    As an English major, I’ve read a lot of books. There have been books I thoroughly enjoyed (Infinite Jest or Absalom, Absalom! for example), books I thought were just okay (Animal Farm and Of Mice and Men) and books I really really really really disliked (Huckleberry Finn and The Fault in Our Stars). And although I can…

  • Undergraduate Adventures: Style Guide

    For the academic year, I’m the student newspaper’s copy editor. It’s actually quite a bit of work: after the editors take a look at submitted stories, I comb them over for inaccuracies and grammar errors. When the editors lay out the pages, I look at proofs to catch any last errors before the paper goes to print.…

  • Link Party: 10/13-10/17

    Here are some of the things I read this week: 1. This personal essay by Kiese Laymon on Kanye West and being a male feminist is old but incredible. 2. Maybe my undergraduate thesis will be as forward-thinking as George Gallup’s. 3. There’s this thing called Whiteness Project that you should probably be aware of.…

  • Think Tank: Halloween Necklaces and Life Minutiae

    Every year for Halloween, the kids at the children’s center at school come around to offices and go trick-or-treating. Candy isn’t allowed, so we try to get them other goodies like stickers, pretzels or activity packs. This year, my office bought stickers, pretzels and plastic necklaces on a thin string. Because they came in a…