The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: summer

  • My bikini is not an invitation

    My bikini is not an invitation

    by Ione Dellos

    Here’s how getting stared at on the beach usually happens for me: I’ll be minding my business at the beach, neither having a good time or a bad time, just a time. I get the familiar feeling that I’m being stared at, and after a quick look around, there it is, an ogling pair of eyes looking me over. Just because I’m wearing a bikini to the beach does not mean that I am inviting any sort of negative attention. I am wearing this bikini to the beach because I thought it was cute when I bought it. Now, I am no longer having a time, but a bad time, all because some man couldn’t keep his eyes anywhere else but my body.

    I shouldn’t have to flip off and swear at men just to get them to leave me alone at the beach. I will not fight for scraps of respect but expect it paid in full. My body and gender don’t make me less than, and they don’t make me an object either.

    Not counting the fact that ogling random strangers is incredibly rude, you never know what’s going on in someone’s mind. This could be their first time wearing a bikini on the beach in a long time, or they could simply be wearing it because they bought it and want to get their money’s worth. They could have insecurities about their body that can be exaggerated by excessive staring, or maybe they just don’t like getting stared at (like most sane individuals).

    Despite being attracted to women, I can comfortably go to the beach without ogling women with no effort on my part. Believe it or not, not staring at women on the beach is incredibly easy! As a gay woman who grew up with gym locker rooms and camp changing rooms, I snapped my eyes away every time my friends would get changed, and I was terrified to even go in a Victoria’s Secret for the longest time. I know I have a different relationship with how I view women than your typical straight man with male pattern baldness. Also, as someone who possesses a body that gets stared at frequently, I know what it’s like to be stared at. I don’t like to do it to other people.

    When spring break rolls around this semester, straight men, find it in your hearts to not obviously stare at every woman wearing a bikini at the beach (eyes on the road, please). There is a whole world of gender identity behind the pair of boobs you’re ogling, and every feminine-presenting person isn’t necessarily feeling feminine on the inside. If you find that you just have to choose objectifying women over all other activities, then do the women in your life a favor and don’t hit the beaches this spring.

  • Sweet as Honey

    Sweet as Honey

    Guest columnist and Elementary Education major Tim Rupiper waxes poetic about those perfect summer moments

    It’s 7 AM. The bags packed the night before wait restlessly by the door while you finish your morning coffee and watch as the world around you is blanketed with new light. You wash your mug in the sink, dry your hands and look to the street outside.

    With your friends in tow, the door to the apartment will shut, the car engine will ignite to life and you’ll be off.

    As an evergreen backdrop paints your drive, you barrel down the highway, occasionally pulling over to marvel at the vast beauty that is, simply, nature. Gaze upon it long enough and you become shockingly aware of just how microscopic you are in comparison to the trees, to the Earth and to the universe. Leave it to a tree or a mountain to put you in your place.

    You continue on past the tar and glass, shortening the distance between you and your destination. Once or twice you stop at an oasis on the highway where people just like you, from all over, stop to stretch their legs, use the restroom, and do so in comfortable silence. The deafening roar of the highway calls you back.

    You listen to your music, indulge in snacks, but something about driving long hours and far distances turns the playlist from the bops you and your friends bump, into the music that made you. It’s a calming background for the passing landscape.

    Along the journey, you may stop at a friend’s house to spend the night on a makeshift bed; an old couch or blankets piled on the floor. You breathe, brush your teeth and get ready for the next day’s adventures. Excited to find things to add to the books of your life and the stories yet to tell.

    The drive is exhausting—it tests your patience and the routes seem to blend into each other. Your wallet gasps for air and your body is exhausted. You long for some alone time. Your suitcase slowly eats away the clean clothes. The endless traveling is terrible but extremely rewarding and completely worth it.

    Once you’re home and back to real life, the routines you had before will start up again. All that’s happened will become memories, a distant object in your rearview. These memories will help pass the days and keep you humble while you build anticipation for your next journey.

    This is summer. A word dripping like honey from your lips each time it’s spoken. Its sweetness providing a canvas for the moments that last a lifetime.

  • Infrastructure Updates on Campus Continue

    Infrastructure Updates on Campus Continue

    And yes, you can walk between Laurel Dr. and the library again

    Lined with ground marks, gravel, orange fencing and machinery, the parking spots of Laurel Drive are no longer accessible to staff and students. Where a tree surrounded by brick once stood, now lies a sectioned-off zone where two workers constructed a new pathway.

    Over the summer, Humboldt State staff and students received several updates about on-campus infrastructure arrangements including general maintenance, building renovations and repaved roads. Humboldt State Project Manager Michael Fisher said these updates are part of a large list of planned and required maintenance.

    The pathway from the library to Laurel Drive is open as of August 20. | Photo by Michael Weber

    Parts of Laurel Drive are now closed off for this construction. On the bright side, the Theatre Arts building is now open since its closure in 2018 and will hold classes this semester. The pathway from the Library to Laurel Drive is now open as well. Gist Hall is also open as of August 12 after the asbestos contamination discovered last Spring.

    Starting this semester until December 2019, Laurel Drive and Library handicap parking spaces, as well as pathways, will be redone to provide a path of travel to the Theater Arts Building and Library, respectively. The new path for wheelchair access from Laurel Drive will start at new handicap spaces and lead to the elevator in the Theatre Arts Building.

    Notable projects finished over the summer include Wildlife and Fisheries Building roof replacements, repaving of the Library Circle and LK Wood Boulevard left turn, six HVAC control replacements, housing maintenance, refurbished lecture halls, a new elevator in the Natural Resources Building and the near-completion of the Theatre Arts and Library seismic retrofits.

    Part of Laurel Drive’s parking lot is excavated for updated handicap spots. | Photo by Michael Weber

    Fisher also said portables in the Campus Events Field, which previously held the tutoring center and other facilities temporarily, are being moved out as the relocated tenants return home to the library.

    One of the most visible changes to returning students is the repaved library circle and left turn lane on LK Wood Blvd. Fisher said this new turning lane, built in partnership with the City of Arcata, helps ease congestion and improve bus route times.

    Less noticeable improvements are general “building system” updates in HVAC, electrical, plumbing and structural.

    “Every component of our built environment has a life cycle,” Fisher said. “That includes streets, roads, sidewalks, our buildings, and our building’s infrastructure.”

  • Hot Girl Summer is a State of Mind

    Hot Girl Summer is a State of Mind

    Seasons may change, but your confidence levels don’t have to

    Rapper Megan Thee Stallion dropped her album “Fever” back in May and it instantly went viral, marking 2019 as the year of the ‘Hot Girl Summer’.

    One of her songs, “Cash Shit,” begins with the opening lyrics, “Real hot girl shit.” This along with the album cover, which reads “She’s Thee Hot Girl and She’s Bringing Thee Heat,” sparked the catchy phrase “Hot Girl Summer” among her fans. The phrase soon went viral, trending on social media sites like Twitter and Instagram.

    What is Hot Girl Summer? Well, according to Megan Thee Stallion in an interview with The Root, “It’s just basically about women — and men — just being unapologetically them, just having a good-ass time, hyping up your friends, doing you, not giving a damn about what nobody got to say about it. You definitely have to be a person that can be the life of the party, and, y’know, just a bad bitch.”

    #HotGirlSummer started as attractive women posting photos on Instagram, but became a mental state of being or feeling to share online. Women, men and non-binary folks started using the hashtag to describe their fun summer moments with family, friends or by themselves.

    The internet took the phrase and turned it into a meme. Ironically people would use the hashtag to share not-so-great moments of summer, like staying indoors for days without seeing another living soul.

    Ultimately, the 2019 summer phrase is sage advice that should be lived by. Megan Thee Stallion, the OG hot girl, is someone to aspire to be.

    The hot girl knows she’s hot because she’s confident in who she is and knows how to enjoy herself without worrying about what others around her think. Anyone, be it man, woman or non-binary folks should embody the tenets of a hot girl.

    Whether it’s bravery, confidence, fun or just living in the moment, the phrase encourages us to enjoy times like taking naps, planning protests, laying by the beach, cuddling with your significant other or even hooking up with that one cutie from the bar last night.

    Any moment, any outfit, any body can be a part of a hot girl summer, as long as you have the mindset to go along with it.

    So be the hottie that Megan Thee Stallion knows you are and don’t forget to share the attitude, because it’s meant for everybody.

  • It’s hot in Arcata

    It’s hot in Arcata

    By|Ian Benjamin Finnegan Thompson

    Last Saturday was the hottest day in Arcata since 1983 according to intellicast.com. Dozens of residents flocked to the Mad River to escape the heat. The immense heat and smoke from the inland wildfires didn’t stop people from enjoying the outdoors.