2 OPINION '1'“th | Tuesday, September 1 7, 2013 STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYSINCE 1928 McCormick Tribune Campus Center Room 221 3201 South State Street Chicago, Illinois 60616 E-mail: editor@technewsiit.com Website: http://www.technewsiit.com '1":th STAFF Editor-in-Chief Ryan Kamphuis Assistant Editor Hannah Larson Campus Editor Utsav Gandhi AEtE Editor Matti Scannell , Business Manager Kori Bowns IT Manager Pranava Teja Surukuchi Copy Editors Travon Cooman Kristal Copeland Shireen Gul Anoopa Sundararajan Layout Editors Rachael Affenit Swasti Khuntia Pranava Teja Surukuchi Distribution Manager Emilie Woog Financial Advisor Vickie Tolbert Faculty Advisor Gregory Pulliam MISSION STATEMENT Our mission is to promote student discussion and bolster the IIT community by providing a newspaper that is highly accessible, a stalwart of journalistic integrity, and a student forum. 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TechNews does not accept or publish anonymous letters or sto ADVERTISING Legitimate paid advertisements, from within or outside the IIT community, which serve to produce income for the paper, are accommodated. TechNews holds the right to deny any advertisement unsuitable for publication. Media Kits are available upon request. Ad space is limited and is taken on a first-come, first-serve basis. Contact the Business Manager at blisiness@ technewsiit.com for more information. LOCAL 8 NATIONAL ADVERTISERS~ To place an ad, contact us via email at business@technewsiit.com. Remembering 9/11 victims with tributes, actions Liang Hou TECHNEWS WRITER As mid-September rolls around, the eleventh day of the month is marked with solemn remembrance for the valor of our servicemen and citizens who passed on September 11, 2001. It’s diffith to believe that twelve years have gone by, yet the memories of suddenly being told to gather during free time on a seemingly typical second grade morning while the teacher attempts to explain the terrorist attacks to a group of perplexed second graders remains crisp in mind. I cannot begin to fathom the difliculty this day brings to the families and friends, of those who have unfairly died, and Peter Jennings, late news anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight poignantly stated, , “9/ 11 was a reminder that the bonds of family can be severed in an instant. They are essential, crucial, valuable, fragile.” IIT’s Better Together organization has decided to pay tribute to the heroes of 9/ I I by setting up a “Chain of Good Deeds,” where our community can create a tangible piece of proactive promises and positive thoughts to honor the unity felt by the nation after the attacks and breathe to life our collaborative unnerving commitment to a brighter future. 9/11, is no longer marked by fear and uncertainty, it has instead transformed into a day of memorial and service, where determination is integral to fuel powerful and welcoming changes to present circumstances. I challenge every single one of you skimming through this newspaper mid-bite, mid-day, mid-mind numbing boredom right now to pay a good deed forward, and participate in a random act of kindness, however you believe your impact to be small. Offer a stranger a smile, give your dorm neighbor a helping hand, or perhaps offer the most value component known to college students, time itself, and push your own tasks aside to make someone else feel absolutely fantastic. You know what? Maybe, just maybe, well, okay, most likely, your optimism outwards will reflect back inwards and unveil a welcome point of view for your own battles or catalyze ideas for improvement within the community. For the fiber that binds us all together; humankind in its most pure form resides within relentless compassion. Photos courtesy of II T Office of Spiritual Life & Service Learning Kitchen-Use rare for undergrads in MSV Shireen Gul TECHNEWS WRITER Leaving your home and coming this far just to achieve your goals and fulfill your parents dream is not an easy task. Trust me, it’s not. What makes it worse is not being able to eat your own nation’s food. The food they you. have been eating since your childhood. I might be sounding like a crying baby right now, but that’s the bitter truth for all the international students who are living in McCormick Student Village. I come from a big joint Baluch fam- ily where proper and healthy food is given a lot of importance. If you ever see me walking around on campus, you will learn what healthy food I am talking about. I have been craving some good Pakistani food since I arrived. I was really excited when I received admission to Illinois Institute of Technology and got a chance to live on campus with other students because I love to socialize. I applied for Carman Hall, but I couldn’t get a place so I was assigned a room in Graduate Hall. It was my very first experience of living on campus so I had no idea what was coming my way. After a long 18 hour bus drive from DC to Chicago, I finally reached IIT. Let’s not talk about my travelling time from Pakistan to USA. 50 when I arrived here in IIT, I got a series of cultural shocks. The first shock for me was when I found out that I didn’t have an attached bathroom. It took me quite a while to digest this fact, but what surprised me even more was that I couldn’t access the kitchen in MSV. Now, why is that? Maybe just because I am an undergraduate student and I don’t have the rights to use a kitchen, because it’s only for the graduate students. I thought the rule was the same for all the undergraduate students living on cam- pus, but later on I found out that undergradu- ate students who are living in other dorms do have their own personal kitchens and bath- rooms. It’s only us, the poor undergraduate students who live in MSV, who can’t use their kitchens and don’t have the luxury of an at- tached bathroom. Atfirst I thought I was the only one who was suffering, but I later met many stu- dents in MSV who also did not like this rule. “It feels like being a little child who is not able to cook and to take care of him/herself,” Verena, a German friend of mine shared her thoughts with me. “My suggestion is to give the access Photo courtesy of II T Office ofAdmissians to the kitchen to the people that apply first, not because of their graduation status,” which I personally believe is fair enough. . Now my question is this that why only the undergrad students in MSV can’t use the kitchen? Are we too naive to use it or we are not qualified enough to cook food for our— selves. Why do we have to eat The Commons food every week, which is totally different from the food which we used to have back home. I won’t say that it’s not healthy but it doesn’t taste like food to me. . I heard about Devon Street, where they have many Indian/Pakistani foods, but it is so expensive that I can’t afford to eat it every day. Apart from this, it is so far that I need an entire day to go there. So if after reading this you feel that I am sad then you’re right, this ~ really makes me sad and homesick. I miss my home and food more than anything.