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INDEX
Vol. CIV, No. 21 © 2022, The Heights, Inc. www.bcheights.com Established 1919
THIS ISSUE
NEWS.............A2 ARTS...............A7 METRO...........A4 OPINIONS.....A9 MAGAZINE.....A5 SPORTS.......A11
www.bcheights.com
Monday, November 21, 2022
Chestnut Hill, Mass.
METRO
OPINIONS
Columnist Punnya Kalapurakkel discusses the fast-paced pressures of college and the value of rest.
Embrace the holiday season in Newton with this winter-themed event guide.
A4
A9
Dancing with the Scholars Showcases Cape Verdean Dance
ADITYA RAO / HEIGHTS STAFF
By Lyla Walsh For The Heights
Members of five of BC’s dance groups paired up with five non-dancer B oston College students to compete in the Dancing with the Scholars competition, hosted by the Cape Verdean Student Association (CVSA), on Friday night.
At the end of the event, after much anticipation, the judges voted Team Sexual Chocolate as the winner of Dancing with the Scholars. Team VIP took home the crowd-favorite title. Alexis Silva, MCAS ’24, and Anderson Da Rosa, CSOM ’25, hosted the event and introduced the four judges: Yvonne McBarnett, director of the Montserrat Coalition; Karl Bell,
News
associate director of TRIO Student Support Services; Grant Gosselin, director of undergraduate admissions at BC; and Jessica Andrade, former president of CVSA and BC ’21. The hosts also announced that each duo was required to incorporate a traditional Cape Verdean dance into their routines. A performance by four of CVSA’s executive board members, including co-captains Lenylse Ferreira, LSEHD ’23, and Jason Dias, CSOM ’23, kicked off the show. The dancers began with the traditional Cape Verdean dance pasada, an intimate partner dance, accompanied by the slow song “Bo Tem Mel” by Nelson Freitas featuring C4 Pedro. This mood changed quickly as the fast-paced song “Amizade” by Zé Espanhol heightened the energy both on stage and in the audience. With this song came new variations in the dance as partners broke apart, and each performer showcased their abilities.
See Dancing, A7
PHOTO COURTESY OF SYDNEY MOORE
Eagles for Equality Pushes for Change Student-athletes advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion at BC. See A11 and A12
Magazine
Lakhani Crafts Chemotherapy Relief Boxes with New Nonprofit
By Athena Vinch For The Heights
STEVE MOONEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR
An Inside Look at BC Dining
The final installments of this series examine dietary-restriction accomodations and the current meal plan model. See A3
Zarah Lakhani said her college experience changed dramatically after being diagnosed with lymphoma halfway through her freshman year. “When I got diagnosed … I got a call,” Lakhani, LSEHD ’24, said. “My dad [was] with me, and then I talked to my dad, and then like an hour later, I just went to class like right after I found out I got diagnosed. So, I was like 100 percent in shock and had no idea [what] was going on.” After receiving her diagnosis, Lakhani traveled back home to Dallas, Texas to begin chemotherapy. She said she felt unprepared for it, which resulted in a rough start to treatment. Due to the difficult beginning, she said she was grateful to hear advice from another cancer patient who told her about different care products to ease chemo side effects, such as nausea or dry mouth. “The thing with chemo is like, you can read all the side effects, you can
read that like you’re going to have a metallic taste in your mouth, or you can read that you’ll lose your eyelashes,” Lakhani said. “But until someone else experiences it you never fully understand the scope of the problem or the scope of how the other person feels.” Throughout her treatment, Lakhani said she came across many products that mitigated her side effects and that she wished she had known about them earlier. Inspired by how helpful those products were, Lakhani founded Care for Chemo, a nonprofit that crafts boxes of personal care products for chemo patients to ease the discomfort of treatment. Box contents listed on its website include Jolly Ranchers to alleviate nausea, blankets for chills, baby shampoo for scalp irritation, and other products. Lakhani said the idea for Care for Chemo came while she was in Dallas for treatment. During her fifth and sixth rounds of chemo, she began making boxes of products that helped alleviate her post-treatment symptoms
and handed them out at her doctor’s office. “I got just a bunch of like responses back from patients, and they were like, ‘Oh my god, we use everything in your box,’” she said. “And I was like, ‘Okay, so maybe it is actually being used.’ So, I went on to start that. I started delivering like one or two every week.” Lakhani initially covered the 75 to 80 dollars it costs to make a box with her own money. Sometimes, this meant she was only able to make and deliver about five boxes per week. This summer, though, she began to receive more funding from individual donations and from fundraising events in Dallas and New York in partnership with Kendra Scott among others. Care for Chemo conducts fundraising events, as it does not accept donations of items, Lakhani said. Instead, it prefers to buy new items for the boxes to ensure they are free of germs that might be harmful to those with weakened immune systems.
See Lakhani, A6