Ah, the site of a wild and untamed freshman with a map glued to his or her face and the smell of sweet, sweet dung around south campus. Both are sure signs another school year is commencing at MSU. But manure and maps aside, the other big annual change students notice is the influx of freshmen on the Capital Area Transportation Authority buses.
It’s the start of a the school year, and returning students are sure to notice some new things. But as the adage says, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The freshly renovated Shaw Hall is full of surprises.
“You are here.”The little red “X” on the map details your exact position on campus, yet everything surrounding that “X” looks foreign to you.
So, you’re in college. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to learn, expand your mind and go out into the world afterward a better person.
A short time ago (and now almost forgotten) in a suburb of Chicago two children were murdered by a handy man who had worked in their home for 10 years.
Summer is nearing its end, fall classes are beginning and thousands of new students will soon learn the joy of navigating campus with their AOP maps while languishing in the 90-degree heat. After almost four months of releasing my ever-accumulating rage, frustration, emotion and occasional coherence to a group of relaxed, subdued summer-school students, the time is approaching when The State News will resume circulation to the full student body, allowing me to advance my personal agenda through the media once again. For all of the new students arriving at MSU this fall, I would like to use this opportunity to offer advice. First, although this has been incessantly repeated at every step of your college preparation, I would like to emphasize the importance of learning to study and of not getting drunk every night. While I do not explicitly condone underage drinking (despite the glaring inconsistency of our drinking laws when compared with our voting age or the age for military service), many of you may choose to scoff at the drinking laws and consume alcohol this year. Please do not be stupid about it.
A reporter asked me the other day if I had found a note on my desk she had left about being reimbursed for mileage to cover a story. I looked at my desk, looked at the reporter and laughed.
So, you’re in college. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to learn, expand your mind and go out into the world afterward a better person.
Everyone remembers their first time. The fumbling fingers, the nervous sweat and the way you can barely blink as you watch every move that’s happening in front of you, trying to keep up and make a good showing.
A short time ago (and now almost forgotten) in a suburb of Chicago two children were murdered by a handy man who had worked in their home for 10 years.
Being yourself can be pretty tough these days. It’s hard when all you want is to just be - but certain things stop you from doing that.There’s nothing I want more than to lie my head down at night and know that in a year or so I won’t have to leave a place I love, am comfortable with and that’s a part of me.
The end of the summer is approaching, and with it, the end of an era. It’s time for some of us to leave.
On this page yesterday was a column written by my editor, Drew Harmon (“Time to let go of hopes for better things, let apathetic do as they please,” SN 8/7), in which he announced his surrender to the apathy that has devoured this university, this city and this country. The piece was well-written, funny and engaging, and Drew’s point couldn’t have been clearer.
I’m no stranger to the near-illicit thrill that is giving money away to already-rich establishments - I mean, gambling.
Everyone has that certain roommate. The one who doesn’t clean the bathroom, ever. The one who eats your food and drinks your beer.
As I sat in my office contemplating the conditions of the world and our country, thinking about the disasters occurring in the Middle East, children kidnapped from across the United States, terror continuously on our minds; I chanced to hear a radio commentator speaking of the horrible possibility of another professional baseball strike.
As a dope-fiend for information, I often find my eyes bleeding and my ears aching while desperately seeking grains of worthwhile information from all of the cable news channels.
As promised, this week I have composed a second and final part to my “Field Guide to Spartan Cliques.” The first part, published in these pages two weeks ago, stirred up a veritable hornet’s nest of indignant feedback, provided that those hornets are all dead and the nest is in the trash - in other words, nobody wrote me a damn thing.
With a lot of people I know, including myself, activism has been something we’ve sort of stumbled into - a direction we didn’t know we were going to choose until we were already smack in the middle of it. It starts off with something as simple as having an opinion, and the next thing you know, you’re picketing at the state Capitol, demanding some sort of change and the word “now” is usually nearby. People tend to be careful when identifying themselves or others as “activists.” The word has become synonymous with angry, disgruntled, often nonstraight, hippie types, who have nothing better to do than burn flags and chant, “Hell, no!
What would you do if I promised you a column about singing drunks, spaced-out radio station listeners and know-it-alls that would put Bullwinkle J.