Ariel Weiner loves stories and poetry, comic books and movies, fantasy and fairy tales.
“When you're having a bad day, I always think it's best to go to fairy tales; there's a happy ending,” says Weiner. “I try to stay away from books that are best sellers.”
This 18-year-old bibliophile from Montville, N.J., the daughter of a radiologist and a CPA, is a self-described eclectic who grew up dreaming of the scribe's life.
“I usually write short stories and poetry. I don't like rhyming poems; I always liked haiku. I write realistic fiction or fantasy,” she says. “I love correcting people's grammar. And punctuation matters.”
Weiner worked on her high school literary magazine and in a small New Jersey comic shop, Funny Books. “I was the Wednesday girl. Wednesday's new comic book day, the busiest day of the week. I'd get to meet the comic book and animation artists. It was so much fun.”
Her first term at Union, Weiner took anthropology, British lit and, her favorite, freshman preceptorial with Suzanne Benack, where she discussed everything from themes of justice in Plato's Republic to the origins of human violence. It was “the kind of class where you can go in and talk about anything, where you are not treated like a child, where your opinion matters,” Weiner says. “I like being able to be heard and to hear what others believe.”
This term, she's studying Spanish, European history and freshman precept. She sings second soprano in the Union choir.
Her initial visit to Union was love at first sight, her own happy ending. And the dream come true continues.
“Union's the kind of place where we are free to do pretty much anything,” she says. “Even when it's raining I like it. I like the Nott; I have a direct view of it from my room in West.”