At the beginning of the month, Andrew Li was not with the Jackets in his usual spot in the lineup as they squared off against Georgia State and Auburn. Rather, Li was fulfilling his obligations for his home country.

Li answered the call of Michael Walker, director of Player Development of the Hong Kong Tennis Association (HKTA). Walker informed Li that he had been selected as one of the four players who would represent Hong Kong in the Davis Cup.

For Li, who had grown up in Hong Kong, the opportunity to represent his country presented itself when he went back home a few months ago. He quickly accepted the chance.

“Over winter break, I went back home, and they had three futures, or pro circuit tournaments. The HKTA had three in Hong Kong. During that break, they looked at our results and decided who would be going. I did well in the fall season at Tech, and going back home to play the futures, I was confident. I knew I would have a good shot, and I did pretty well during those three weeks, so after that, I was told that I would be going,” Li said.

On Feb. 3, Li played in the second match of the second-round Asia/Oceania Zone Group II playoff tie against Vietnam. His opponent was former Wimbledon Boys’ Doubles champion Ly Hoang Nam. Asked how he approached the high pressure of the Davis Cup along with competing against top level competition, Li said he was unfazed.

“The pressure? I started off a little bit nervous, which I guess was expected, but the crowds there aren’t as brutal as college crowds, so it wasn’t very tough to get used to it. We did some research on the guy I was playing, but we’ve basically grown up playing against them as juniors, so we know them pretty well,” Li said.

Li did not get the result he wanted, losing 1-6, 2-6, 4-6. Despite this, he believes that being surrounded by different individuals and gaining unique perspectives about the game was an invaluable experience. Two of Li’s teammates are 18 and 21 years old, while another is 30 years old. His teammates guided him to make sure that the finer aspects of his game were preserved.

“One of the guys on my team used to be my coach, so he helped me with the small things like making sure I was getting the ball tossed higher so that my game continued to get better,” Li said.

The No. 85 Hong Kong team was ultimately able to pull off the upset against No. 57 Vietnam, propelling them to a stage of the Davis Cup that they have not reached since 2006. Up next is a fixture in the second round of Asia/Oceania Zone Group II play against Pakistan from April 7-9. Li would enjoy the opportunity to represent his country, but his focus is firmly on the Jackets’ season to come.

“It would be huge, but I don’t know if I would be able to do it because that is when our season really picks up. I think we’re playing Wake Forest that week, so I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to leave the team. Also, the next round will be on grass, and I’ve never played on grass before,” Li said.

Moving forward, Li has goals he is working hard to fulfill, for himself, for the Institute and for Hong Kong.

Last Saturday, the Ferst Center for the Arts hosted a friendly chat between conceptual director Natasha Tsakos, Director of Tech’s Office of the Arts Madison Cario and potential fans in the form of interested audience members.

“An Evening with Natasha Tsakos” was exactly that: Tsakos and Cario sat in comfortable armchairs and discussed her upcoming show, “Billion Billions.”

Despite being held in an auditorium capable of seating over a thousand people, the discussion did not feel impersonal. The audience, consisting of about 50 people, was brought onto the stage where tables and food had been set out.

While munching on cookies and cake, those present were invited to look out over the empty seats of the theater and marvel at the view performers witness during each and every show. As the discussion began, Cario described the view as magical. Through the evening, the idea of magic persisted as one of the most important overarching themes.

The rest of “An Evening with Natasha Tsakos” focused on “Billion Billions,” which is currently expected to be performed in March or April of 2018.

As with her other works, such as “Quarry” or “Face Forward,” Tsakos plans to incorporate technology into the upcoming performance. Since it is still in early development, the extent of incorporation as well as what type of technology is to be used have yet to be decided.

In an attempt to answer her own question of “Why couldn’t theatre change the world?,” the main idea of Tsakos’ newest performance is the story of the last brain.

Alien quantonauts, who look suspiciously like astronauts, are attempting to discover all of human history by mentally dissecting this odd thing which they have discovered.

When asked whose brain it is or why, Tsakos replied that she did not know, so perhaps it does not matter. What does matter is that Tsakos intends for each performance of her show to be unique. These differences, which she assured the audience will be decidedly more than subtle, will be accomplished through the use of real-time data.

Throughout the evening, several short videos were shown. Two videos were conceptual representations of next year’s show. Being so far from the actual performance, “Billion Billions” is by no means a complete work as of yet, but the videos did manage to convey a sense of exploration and potential.

Tsakos herself described her upcoming work as a “real-time roller coaster” and hopes that it will live up to her intentions.

Another of the shorts shown was, of all things, a BMW commercial, which utilized body projection mapping. Using the commercial as a starting point, Tsakos and Cario discussed the possibilities opened by the use of such visuals in the upcoming performance.

Both seemed to be quite excited to announce that “Billion Billions” is intended to seamlessly merge the age-old customs of classic theatre with the brand new fields opening in the realm
of technology.

After their discussion was finished and the videos were shown, the structured nature of the event broke down into a more casual
atmosphere.

Tsakos and Cario began walking among the tables and talking with everyone, genuinely interested in the audience’s reactions and ideas concerning next year’s show.

While the nature of  “An Evening with Natasha Tsakos” was a bit unexpected, the performance that it heralds, “Billion Billions,” certainly shows potential and is worth keeping an eye on as
it develops.

On the surface, many factors seem to set apart Lupe Fiasco as a musician. Ever since Lupe stepped on to the scene, he has rapped about profound topics, collaborated with a diverse set of artists and continually ridden the line between being an independent artist and signing to a major
record label.

But going deeper past the facade of Lupe Fiasco, it is easy to see that his music is different from that of his contemporaries because he is different and always has been. Like many other rappers, Lupe is from the south side of Chicago and is all too familiar with its harsh realities.

The combination of a household that had deep devotion to education and culture, a father who is a member of the Black Panther Party and a fervent dedication to the Muslim faith inevitably resulted in a rapper who has something unconventional to say.

“Drogas Light,” Lupe’s sixth album, carries the same themes he has tackled before: American sociopolitical culture, perils of the black community and dedication to the teachings of Islam.

The album also introduces a few new themes and fresh sounds, allowing the listener to be part of an awakening foray into the mind of one of rap’s most interesting emcees.

After an initial listen, the first idea that the album brought to mind was the paradox of choice, which describes a situation in which people faced with many different options have a difficult time choosing what they want. Most assume that the more options one has, the more satisfied he will be with what he chose.

In reality, though, the person might be worse off because when there are many options, it is difficult to know whether the right choice was made. Some of the songs on “Drogas Light” seem to be missteps that could only have been a result of the paradox
of choice.

This concept surfaced within the context of the career of Lupe Fiasco. Characterizing his career are the many fights and tensions that Lupe vocalized about his previous label, Atlantic Records. They exercised unrelenting control over his rap career and are definitely partly to blame for the lackluster performance of  2011’s “Lasers.”

Now that Lupe has in-house handling for all of his production, marketing, distribution and management, listeners would hope that “Drogas Light” would be Lupe Fiasco unleashed and unfettered. He would finally be able to craft truly authentic works of art that would rival his first few albums in thematic complexity, musicality and sheer honesty.

Instead, the Lupe the listener hears is one who seems conflicted amidst the new level of independence that he has been afforded. Tracks like “NGL,” a lament for self-sabotaging behaviors within the black community, and “Tranquillo,” a testament to peace, positivity and tranquility, are definitely the tracks that long-time fans of Lupe will be happy to hear.

However, empty songs like “Wild Child” and “Pick Up the Phone” represent the type of work Lupe should have left behind at Atlantic Records. While these two songs, along with the other radio-friendly songs on the album, are not necessarily bad songs, their lyrical and thematic insignificance will leave listeners saddened simply because listeners have heard better from Lupe in the past.

Fortunately, the album overall still shines: by no means does it show a lack of the Lupe Fiasco that fans have come to know and love. The first nine tracks offer more than enough substance and enjoyable music.

Along with “NGL” and “Tranquillo,” highlights include “Dopamine Lit,” the requisitely hype album intro, and “Jump,” where Lupe puts to work his storytelling ability reminiscent of “Kick, Push” and the Grammy Award-winning “Daydreamin’.”

“Promise” is an interesting song that satirizes the sound of the recent new wave of rappers, such as Post Malone, Migos and Lil Yachty, with a remarkably similar style in its lazy delivery and song production. “Kill” is another standout song that has a groovy, calming beat behind the lyrics and features both a narrative and musical shift to keep the listener engaged and impressed.

All things considered, it seems that Lupe is approaching the tail-end of his career. About a year ago, he sent out a tweet saying “I get the hint God. Yo Lupe fans it’s been fun and I hope you’ve had fun. I’m officially not releasing anymore music. Albums cancelled.” The album he was referring to in that tweet was, in fact, “Drogas Light,” but fortunately for listeners, Lupe did not follow through on that promise.

According to the most recent rumors, this album is intended to be the first one in an album trilogy, supposedly being followed by “Drogas” and then “Skulls,” with many saying that “Skulls” will be Lupe’s last album.

If that is indeed the case, though very disheartening, the rap community can only offer Lupe Fiasco a sincere farewell.

For over a decade now, he has been pushing the anti-establishment political views and comprehensively unique music that it seems only Lupe can, and he has been trying to do it his own way ever since.

If “Drogas Light” is indeed the first installment of a final trilogy, it serves well as a primer to listeners, so that when he is ready Lupe Fiasco can go out with the bang that he owes both himself and his fans.

Given the modern diversity and uniqueness of America’s massive art industry, it is difficult to comprehend that until a century ago America lacked its own original art scene.

America’s artistic community largely depended on developments made in Europe. American artists simply mimicked European styles and content; European artists were regarded as superior to their American imitators.

A new exhibit at the High Museum of Art, “Cross Country: The Power of Place in American Art, 1915–1950,” presents the history of the artistic revolution that differentiated American art.

The exhibit is organized geographically, a format that highlights how this period saw a transformation in art from every part of the country.

This dramatic change in the early 20th century was particularly motivated by the onset of the Great Depression. The Depression created a distinctly American sense of collective suffering that artists sought to depict.

For the first time, artists linked the ideas they expressed with America itself; in order to highlight this link, they gravitated towards content inspired by the American landscape.

This revolution in the content of American art was paired with the rapid expansion of the art scene’s accessibility. Due to government grants distributed to artists through programs like the Works Progress Administration, ordinary Americans could, for the first time, afford to create art.

This early 20th century American artistic revolution truly constitutes the birth of all modern American art, from Norman Rockwell to Andy Warhol.

The exhibit was originally developed at the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Pennsylvania, but it was moved and expanded to occupy the larger High Museum. The collection includes works from some of the most iconic artists from the period, including Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams, as well as many from lesser known artists of the time.

The curators of the exhibit brought together a diverse collection of hundreds of works that vary in medium, style and content. The collection ranges from abstract pieces like magic realist Edmund Lewandowski’s industrial paintings to documentary photographer Dorothea Lange’s realistic photographs, including her iconic “Migrant Mother.”

In addition to varying in style and content between individual artists, the exhibit highlights the unique ways in which the art revolution manifested itself in different American regions.

Visitors to the exhibit travel through the different regions one by one, and the sections on each region were designed to feature the major themes on which artists from those regions focused.

The focus of the Western art section is the American landscape while that of the Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic sections is the homestead and the steady replacement of agriculture by industry.

With winter as a common motif, the section on the Northeast examines New England’s farms and villages, and the Southern section centers on race and poverty.

This regional format, while highlighting the differences in the art from America’s regions during the period, is essential to the unity of the exhibit’s central idea. The format allows visitors to appreciate the variety of the themes examined in the movement while making obvious the common focus of all art from the period.

In every region, artists rejected traditional styles from Europe and developed original American styles for the first time. Artists matched these new styles with a renewed interest in America’s unique natural and artificial landscapes.

The curators of the exhibit developed a design that effectively and powerfully demonstrates the unity of the focus of American artists working in a diverse array of styles and regions in the early twentieth century.

This central idea around which the curators construct the exhibit is perfectly embodied in Charles Demuth’s painting “From the Garden of the Chateau.”

Demuth depicts the industrial view from a humble American garden, juxtaposing the American simplicity of the painting’s content with the European grandeur evoked by its title.

This painting could serve as a thesis statement for the exhibit as a whole, showing how American artists during the period developed their own art tradition and challenged the European monopoly on art.

While the exhibit is quite educational, visitors do not need an art degree to enjoy it; those who miss its point can still enjoy the beautiful artwork.

“Cross Country” runs through May 7, and visitors can receive free entry to the High Museum on the second Sunday of every month.

An arts and food event in downtown Atlanta, “Pancakes and Booze” was meant to be a gathering of artists, art appreciators and maybe people who simply love pancakes or booze.

Unfortunately, the reality was that although there was something reminiscent to creative expression on display, it was mostly weak social critiques, lazily sexual non-art and bad photography.

Looking at “Pancakes and Booze” as a case study in sociology rather than as an arts and food event is more interesting. With a line a couple hundred feet long outside, one would expect some fantastic art.

However, heuristics failed to account for the fact that people are completely willing to stand in cold wind just because the event might look good on Snapchat.

What could possibly draw people toward something so dry and so uninspired? The name itself is perfect advertising: “Pancakes and Booze” is a novel pairing, undoubtedly.

Moreover, has anything with the word “booze” in the title ever been bad? Maybe not historically, but this event single-handedly proved that life will never be good as the expectation, even when evidence exists that it would.

As for the “pancakes” part, the minor social media flex it would have allowed was not worth the 20 minute wait time. In fact, a wiser move would have been taking an Uber to IHOP, eating pancakes there and appreciating the weird drawings of eggs hanging on the walls; those drawings are certainly of better quality than what was on display at “Pancakes and Booze.”

Art has always served an important role as social criticism. In 1937, after a small Basque town in Spain was bombed during Spain’s civil war, Picasso created one of the world’s greatest depictions of the chaos created by war.

In contrast, the one piece that truly encapsulated the lack of artistry at the event depicted a naked woman, covering herself while chained to that little orange notification box from Instagram.

Get it? She was trapped in the cycle that social media forces everyone into of needing strangers’ approval, how creative! Any of the 20 versions of that painting from the other artists who made their own negligibly different twists on it would also be good representations of the event’s uninspired artistic themes.

In business, the adoption life cycle essentially breaks down the creation and adoption of new technologies and trends by groups of people: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. Laggards is used to describe those who may as well have been in a coma until finally no longer being able to fight progress and acquiescing.

“Laggards” serves as a perfect description of the crowd at “Pancakes and Booze.” Millennials have an appreciation for the arts in a way previous American generations simply do not, but the millennials at “Pancakes and Booze” were the ones who truly wished they did not have to pretend to like art. However, social pressure is a strong force, so pretend they did. Surely many walked away with the perfect #artsy Instagram.

While this view may seem harsh and presumptive, the judgement came naturally after seeing grossly oversaturated photography sell like, well, hotcakes.

The event’s turnout defies any other explanation as to why they would support not just uncreative but low quality art. Imagining that these people have simply been misguided is a far more comforting thought; the alternative is just too disheartening to contemplate.

A pioneer in the field of digital naturalism, Andrew Quitmeyer received his masters and doctorate in Digital Media at Tech. He stars in the new Science channel show “Hacking the Wild,” which premiered on Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 10 p.m. on the Science channel. The Technique had the opportunity to talk with Quitmeyer, who is currently a professor in Singapore.

Technique: How did you become involved with the show?

Quitmeyer: I was kind of a rogue Ph.D. student, and I went off and joined with a bunch of field biologists working in the wild and running around places like Panama and Madagascar. I would build a lot of DIY electronics and scientific tools as well as interactive artwork with them.

I’m also coming from a documentary background, and so I document my stuff very heavily. Some Hollywood producers happened to see my weird videos I would put up, and I think they really fell in love with the aesthetic. … I think they thought I was charismatic and fun, and so they were like “oh hey, we want to do a show about your research,” but by the time it turned into a show it also became a survival show. …

It’s got a little bit of my core research ideas, like go build cool electronics in the wild, with a candy coating to try to get the general public to accept it. The general public seems to like survival shows of people just trying to make it out of the forest.

Technique: Besides the technology aspect, how is “Hacking the Wild” different than other survival shows? Do you have a camera crew with you, or how are the logistics set up?

Quitmeyer: In terms of comparing it towards other survival shows, the formula is maybe a bit like some other survival shows like Bear Grylls or Survivorman … and we have a camera crew like Bear Grylls. …

The difference is that I’m trying to bring a little bit of electrical engineering and design into the forest too, so I tend to have a backpack full of cool goodies. … I try to improvisationally make different interesting objects to get me out and survive.

Technique: What sort of stuff do you have in your backpack? How do you decide what to put in there? Is it based on what location you’re going to or more general?

Quitmeyer: There’s definitely a general setup. My colleague Hannah Perner Wilson and I have been working on this concept for my research of a wearable studio: trying to take your regular electronics studio out into the wild and have something that you can wear on you always. …

She made me this beautiful backpack that turns into a hanging workshop. … It’s got some butane soldering irons, wires, conductive fabrics, different sensors, lots of different microcontrollers like Arduinos, some battery packs, lights, lots of prototyping materials, little bits of silicone, [etc.] …

Then I let the environment inspire me and work with it, or the environment is attacking me and I have to try to figure out how to deal with it. Basically, I have a lot of small scale industrial design and electronics engineering stuff all in one backpack and solar panels too. That’s been probably the most reliable way to recharge electrical things out in the wild. …

Technique: What was the biggest challenge during filming?

Quitmeyer: Weight is always a big challenge, and that’s true of either the filming or my workshop. I carry a lot of stuff because I never know exactly what I’m going to need, even like a laptop — I pretty much pull apart a laptop in every episode — but that gets heavy and I don’t have any room for food or water in the TV show. …

Dealing with differences in climates, you have all these tools and devices that are mostly engineered to be indoors kinds of things. It’s like bringing your indoor cat outside for the first time; it freaks out and doesn’t know what to do.

When my electronics get exposed to humidity in the jungle and then they get a bunch of fungus inside of them, I have to scrape it out to get them working again. Or when I bring them out to the desert, they get all dusty. Figuring out how to weatherproof these things in different climates has been really tough.

Technique: How did your experience at Tech contribute to this show? Besides your research, has anything else you’ve done at Tech informed the show?

Quitmeyer: It definitely came from my research, and the digital media program where I got to be a fun digital naturalist and develop all those concepts.

Then in terms of other ideas, the television show is a lot more broad and generalized than my research. My research would generally be about like art working with animals to try to do sensors specific to animals. The things that we built on the show ended up being a lot more general, like from building a head mounted navigation guide to a giant house or a boat, and that used a lot of different skills.

When I was at Tech, I would bounce around between colleges all the time. I would go over and work in robotics, or I’d go over to architecture and hang out with the designers, or I’d go up to HCI, … and I would go out to as many different talks as I could.

So, we bump into these challenges, and you just rack your brain for how do I build a boat — I’ve never really built a boat before — but maybe you think about working with some big architects that you’ve seen and how they’ve attached wood together.

If you want some kind of impeller device to charge batteries on the boat, you think about when you bumped into some electrical engineers at Tech. So I think that being at Tech and bumping around all the different resources they had available definitely contributed to the show.

Technique: Is there anything else that you would like to share?

Quitmeyer: I would just say that, in general, my goal of the show is to get the word out to people to really enjoy nature, to really empathize with it a lot more.

The show paints everything as like it’s dangerous and it’s scary, but it’s also really beautiful and cool. We can use technology not just to survive nature but also to thrive in it. So using technology to bring us closer to nature rather than trying to eradicate it is my big goal of all of this.

“Ideas worth spreading” — that is the motto of the world-renowned Technology, Entertainment and Design(TED) media organization. TED is a nonprofit with the mission of facilitating the spread of ideas, by giving short yet influential talks about issues facing all corners of the globe.

TEDx was created to support independent organizers, who feel that their community has ideas worth spreading.

Within TEDx, community sizes range from single streets to entire cities, with locations all over the globe. Since 2012, Tech has fostered a TEDx community, which has hosted speakers ranging from the director of the Georgia Tech Honeybee Project to the founder of Sweet Hut.

“TEDxGeorgiaTech is the chance for students to share their ideas and be a part of something that is in reality an international organization. We bring TED to the Georgia Tech level to give students topics to relate to that are relevant to their community,” said Yamini Nambiar, third-year CS/BA and co-director of TEDxGeorgiaTech.

What sets TEDxGeorgia Tech apart from other TEDx communities is that speakers are intimately connected to Atlanta and Tech. Talks, though ranging in topic, all tie together as they are relevant to citizens of Atlanta.

“Everyone has a story, and it is really cool to be able to learn about those stories and hear them through TEDx,” said Chloe Belangia, second-year CM and member of the organization’s media team.

Initially known for its annual conference of 100 attendees and speakers from the Atlanta area, TEDxGeorgiaTech has grown to host multiple events each year. The organization started with a group of students passionate about sharing creative ideas and has since grown to having an executive board and ambassador program.

Within the past year, the organization has seen significant change as the founding members graduated and a new executive board was installed.

“It was essentially people starting from scratch, having free reign but working within the box of TED,” Nambiar said. “We had a clear vision of what we wanted to do to improve the organization, but had to find people who were just as excited as we were.”

When looking towards members of the organization, the executive board did not set limits on age, majors, or interests.

In fact, as long as one proves passionate about the mission of TED, he or she is welcomed into the community with open arms. Members are given the opportunity to work in finance, programming, media, or technology depending on their interests within the organization.

“TEDx has grown into an organization full of leaders who really want to make TEDx more of a community on campus,” Belangia said.

Once a team of students passionate about the organization was built, TEDxGeorgiaTech hit the ground running and started to look for more ways to engage students at Tech with the innovative ideas floating throughout the Atlanta area. Their biggest project this year has been planning the annual TEDxGeorgiaTech 2017 Conference, which is a full-day event, filled with influential speakers and a wide audience packed with attendees who paid for a coveted seat at the event.

This year’s conference will be on April 22 at the Historic Academy of Medicine.

“It [The conference] isn’t just to hear speakers,” Nambiar said. “We show videos of other relevant Talks, host a networking luncheon, and allow the opportunity for attendees connect with each other and share ideas.”

Though continually hosting the TEDx Georgia Tech Conference, TEDx Georgia Tech has been seeking ways to further engage students who may not have the time or other resources to attend the full-day conference.

Since last year, the organization has begun to host TedX Salons, which are smaller-scaled, more casual TEDx events with one or two speakers. These events are free to students at Tech.

“We started hosting salons to give more intimate, smaller events to encourage students to participate,” Nambiar said.

The next salon event will be a Student Speaker salon, with four Georgia Tech student speakers sharing their innovative ideas and arising projects. The event will be on March 6, in the Student Center Ballroom.

Whether it is taking the first steps to learn about TEDxGeorgiaTech through attending a salon event or exchanging ideas with Atlanta professionals at the TEDx Conference, there are plenty of ways for students to get involved with the organization.

I was raised to be a very polite child. If a guest needed a glass of water, I would run and go get it. If anyone in my immediate vicinity sneezed, I would bless him or her. That is pretty standard as far as I know though, but I will say that this politeness ingrained in my early childhood definitely led into my turning into a complete pushover in later stages of my life.

I was a pushover for most of my life and was completely unaware of it. Somehow, I had slipped down a slippery slope of politeness, quietness and a worrying habit of micromanaging. If people needed something, they knew that asking me was a surefire way to get it.

If people wanted me to do something with them, they knew that when I said “maybe,” I was really saying “I’m either going to cancel on you or the other plans I made, and you won’t know until I let you know at the last minute.” When I took leadership positions, I never delegated a thing. I told myself it was because I didn’t trust anyone else to do the job. However, that was only partly true; I just didn’t want to inconvenience anyone else. It was starting to have a harmful effect on my day to day life, especially when I started attending college.

I was actively involved in three or four clubs, taking a full course load and cramming in time to meet up with friends, all of which added up to me not getting any work done and performing poorly in school. Freshman-year-me decided that this was because of my involvement in too many extracurriculars, and I wisely made the decision to quit some.

To my chagrin, I was still somehow just as busy, and just as unhappy. At that point I started reflecting on the decisions I was making and if I actually wanted to be involved with all the things that I was. Did I really want to go get fro-yo that day? Or did I just feel guilty because this fro-yo-friend and I had not seen each other in about a week?

At that point, I started saying no to things, slowly, but surely. I wouldn’t outright say no to certain roles, but I would make decisions on what I would and wouldn’t do. For example, if in an organization, a certain activity wasn’t my responsibility and someone else asked me to do it, I would refuse unless it was a matter of extreme urgency. I started avoiding more people I didn’t want to interact with and being with more people whose company I actively enjoyed.

At some point along the way, the idea came to me that maybe I was being a little too harsh and judgmental, but I shut that idea down. I was happier with my decisions, and no one’s feelings were getting hurt. I still do overcommit to plans and responsibilities, but I say no when it’s simply not feasible for me or if it just isn’t something exciting to me.

So try it yourself if you feel like you have been too much of a pushover lately. Go from being the doormat to closing the door in people’s faces. I promise you will love the results.

In these last few years, there’s been a movement in journalism that’s recently been spiraling into some rather ridiculous extremes: the open letter. Now I’m not insulting open letters, there are some pretty well-written ones, such as “An Open Letter To Lil Wayne’s Laugh”, a thought-provoking piece accusing the rapper of having sold out and turning his laugh into a gimmick to sell more records.

Apart from gems like that though are the hundreds of open letters that now flood my Facebook feed, with overly specific titles like “An Open Letter To The Girl I Got Coffee With During My Study Abroad” that end up being an ode to one person the author found a fleeting connection with.

Despite the incredible specificity of these articles, I’m rather fond of them. The rise of many journalism websites is an incredible opportunity for new writers who want to flex their writing muscle. Add the rise of list journalism and other things drawing people to these websites like fun quizzes, and you’ve got a whole new way people consume media.

In the past, these written things could only be released in magazines or small publications, but the Internet is making it possible for people to broadcast their thoughts on literally any topic. But what I find lovely about these open letters, in particular, is how varied they can be. One can be calling someone out in the most incredibly passive aggressive way, while yet another by the exact same author can be them declaring the incredible amount of affection they have for something.

People who dislike the open letter will often say that there are hundreds of the same letter, and that’s true. Just search for an open letter to a roommate and you’ll see several right there on the first page. Sure, some of the ideas get a little repetitive, but the emotion behind these letters is genuine.

People can now write these lists or letters to people they care about, and put them somewhere the entire world can see them. Yes, it is a bit showy, but it is how some people express their affection or distaste for someone, and to each their own. If someone wants to write a heartfelt piece about deep dish pizza, let them; its just as valid as someone writing an open letter to the first person they loved.

At the end of the day, while I may not write an open letter, I’ll read the occasional one. They’re a powerful tool to send a message, or just a sweet gesture towards someone who means a great deal, and you know that whatever that person wrote about inspired a lot of passion in them. And really, as long as someone’s reading the letter, it is not just a sad obsessed person broadcasting their opinions into the void.

They’re creating something to show their dedication to something, and I think in a world that seems to esteem apathy greatly, it is a lovely thing to be so unabashedly passionate about something.

For the first time, Tech’s Student Center Program’s Council (SCPC) has invited a female comedian, Nasim Pedrad, to their annual comedy show.

Nasim Pedrad was recently on “Mulaney” and is better known for her five seasons on “Saturday Night Live.” She was recently allowed to shoot a pilot for her show: “Chad: An American Boy,” a story about a young Iranian American boy, to be played by Pedrad herself, balancing his two lives and finding his identity.

Even with these other endeavors, Nasim Pedrad found time to grace the stage of Tech’s Ferst Center for the Arts on Tuesday, Feb. 16. The show started at 8 p.m. with two hilarious opening acts, Ali Foreman, a student from Tech, and Maggie Maye, a comedian from Austin, Texas.

After these two comedians invited the audience to laugh with their acts, the star of the show, Nasim Pedrad, came up on stage. Her show consisted of a walk through her life rather than a typical stand up set.

With an accompanying slideshow on display to emphasize a few points such as a childhood passion for visors and a particularly tragic Dora the Explorer costume, Pedrad talked about her experiences as a young comic and her years on “Saturday Night Live,” which was full interesting anecdotes of late nights and interactions with celebrities.

The comedian then told the audience about one particularly memorable night of filming when she ended up chipping Justin Timberlake’s tooth and another day when she did her Kim Kardashian impression in front of the socialite herself.

Towards the end of her set, Nasim Pedrad brought six stools onto the stage as well as a set of scripts for a sketch that had never made it into an actual “Saturday Night Live” show.

She then selected six students from the audience to play these roles. In an interesting twist not only were those selected going to portray the characters of the actual sketch, but also the personas of the comedians who would have portrayed those characters.

The students read off of the script and brought a sketch which included Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and two extremely bored adults to life, complete with the appropriate acting and some stunning prop work.

At the very end of her set, Pedrad opened the floor to questions from the audience, and a few students asked her about her experience as a comedian who started her career in Los Angeles.

At another point, one student asked Pedrad how her parents reacted to their daughter choosing to go into comedy, and another asked how to go about becoming a comedy writer. In response, Pedrad emphasized the importance of hard work and stated that if someone really wants to do something, they have to go for it with all they have.

They have to practice whenever they can, and when others see that passion and hard work paying off, they will respect you for it.

Overall, SCPC’s spring comedy show was a success for women on campus. All three acts were women, which is a rare occurrence in this genre of performing art. This refreshing aspect brought together a fresh young crowd.

Their comedy was a blend of the everyday experiences of women, and for Maggie Maye and Nasim Pedrad, their experiences as women of color in the entertainment field.