Around Campus
Summer memories
A meeting with Sonia
“Three years ago in late spring, I met an abandoned stray cat, who I would later name Sonia. She came to the place in Somerset County where I feed wild and abandoned animals. I usually take them to a veterinarian for medical care and try to find homes for those that can be adopted. Those too wild to adjust to domestic life, I release once they are spayed. I’ve probably trapped and arranged adoptions for more than 50 cats in just the past five years. Sonia was different. I could tell she had once been a domesticated cat that had either wandered away or been abandoned. She was very vocal – she almost talked to me. She was clearly very dissatisfied with her situation, and I realized it was important to make arrangements to get her out of there. But initially she didn’t trust me. It took weeks before I could get close enough to capture her. By midsummer, she let me catch her, and I knew I couldn’t let her be adopted. So I brought her home. She was very much like spring itself – she brought a whole new sense of energy into the house. Sonia is now one of seven cats in our household. She might venture into the yard once in a while but rarely goes any farther. My mission to help abandoned animals dates back to high school, when I saw a stray cat hit and killed by a car while running the track. Everyone has something to give back to the world and helping stray cats is now my mission.”
Al Nigrin
Executive Director and Curator of the New Jersey Film Festival, presented by Rutgers Film Co-op/
New Jersey Media Arts Center and the Rutgers Program in Cinema Studies
Wonder Woman to the rescue
“When I was a little kid, my folks had a place in Lake Geneva, Wis., an idyllic Midwestern lake town. It was quite a transition to go from our little, suburban town outside of Chicago to live on the lake every summer. It’s still not summer to me unless I’ve set foot in town. When I was about 4, my father wanted to take me fishing on the lake. My mother was hesitant to send me out with a man who can’t swim. My 8-year-old brother had to go with us so if something went wrong, he could take care of me. Of course I fell in. I’m in the water flapping away. My brother, who thinks he is strong, tried to lift his fat sister out of the water. I see my mother on the beach. She’s looking out one moment; the next moment, she’s got me under her arm and we’re swimming back. It was like a Wonder Woman moment – as if she flew out of the air and saved me and brought me back. At the time, my mom had to be four or five months pregnant. I’m pregnant now and I wonder: How did she get from the beach to the middle of the lake that quickly? I’m due in another two or three weeks; hopefully, this baby will make it to Lake Geneva this summer.”
Janine Jones Smith
Associate Dean for Academic Counseling and Student Affairs
School of Law-Camden
Payback summer
“When I was in college at Tulane University, I learned some hard lessons about credit card debt. I would spend on credit the entire year and work the entire summer to pay it off. In New Orleans, there are so many things to spend money on. Some I will leave to the imagination; but there are such great food options in New Orleans. As an undergraduate, you don’t have a steady stream of cash to pay for food but every place takes credit cards. I had several different jobs: I interned for a law firm, I worked for the Alexandria, La., parks and recreation department, I worked at a mental institution at a behavior modification clinic, I sold knives. I sold $15,000 worth of knives. That job paid pretty well. You would think I would have learned along the way, but I ran up my credit card all four years. The positive thing is every summer I managed to get it all paid off. Another good memory is the summer before I left for college. It was the last summer of league baseball, and I knew I wouldn’t get to play again. It was the camaraderie and the competitive nature of the game. It’s difficult to replace that formal organized competition. Probably the closest parallel I’ve found is the publication process in academia – it’s extremely competitive, not always fair, sometimes you feel like the refs are working against you, but it’s always incredibly gratifying.”
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