Digital Commons Network^™

Overworked. Underpaid., Lexus P. Davis

SURGE

I am two people right now.

Split between a constant feeling of having a deep pit in your stomach from fear of not having finished something. Until that pit is anxiousness and for a second you have to take a few deep breaths because you know yourself.

“Shit, I forgot to eat.”

And the anxious feeling is gone because you forgot something as little as eating.

My eyes are on fire. I rub them and take another sip of coffee. I heard my friends talking about how they took Adderall to finish their papers. I was desperate and so I …

Cheating The Textbook System, Hana Huskic

SURGE

The price of my German textbook is equal to three months of rent with utilities back home. My books for Introduction to Cultural Anthropology equal the cost of feeding my family for a whole month. But these aren’t news. American Enterprise Institute reports that the college textbook prices “are 812 percent higher than they were a little more than three decades ago.”

Some students came to Gettysburg aware of costs, so they moved into first year dorms armed with Amazon Prime memberships and accounts on sites for renting textbooks. Some looked for classes that offer cheaper (or no) textbooks in …

Caravan I Do Care, Melanie Pangol

SURGE

A pair of legs that breathe in

Strong feet that has cross endless borders

Hands that have cultivated millions of trees

For you to take away the fruit

Traveling on the path of the wind

Coming without warning

Each day had begun enthusiastically and happily

Even though they hate us because we represent dreams of aspiration

Of being something more than just work labor

Of daring to dream as brown and poor [excerpt]