30 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(03/22/10 6:01am)
As I walk across Grounds on these wonderfully warm recent afternoons, I can't help but ... yawn. Here's a guy telling jokes to a girl sitting next to him in Economy of China. There's a frat star shining his Croakies and inviting a girl to his party. Boring.
(03/01/10 7:12am)
Phil McGraw, Maury Povich, Judy Sheindlin together seem to preach one thing: honesty. Honesty in work, honesty in relationships, honesty to ourselves. Considering the code that governs our University, honesty should be a value familiar to us all.
(02/15/10 6:38am)
OK, Don Juan. So you've just finished up a marathon of bringing the fire and showing your lady that she's the flyest bird in the air on one of the most important and tell-tale holidays of the year. Let's face it: If you mess up Valentine's Day, you've just messed up a lot more days while you try to make up for it. That's why you went out of your way to shower her with sugar and spice and everything nice.
(02/01/10 8:21am)
Top 20 ways to avoid thinking about what you are going to do for Valentine's Day:
(11/16/09 6:53am)
As a highly dedicated and studious economics major at the University, I can tell you firsthand that times are getting tough. Pennies have been pinched, wallets have been stretched thin and dollars have been exhausted. At the end of the day, I think plenty of guys are wondering how they can afford to court a hot babe when they have already had to cut into their grocery money to pay for beer and other necessities.
(11/02/09 6:54am)
I was writing like a bandit stealing through the night, like a dumpster-diving raccoon bathing in Crisco by moonlight, whose eyes - as sullen as Zeus's third wife, Tracy - peered through the dark like the wise glare of a mariner, hell-bent on seeing this thing out like Jesus did his fate. And I was like ... Oh ...
(10/12/09 6:39am)
From what I've gleaned about the dating atmosphere right now, the smoke finally has begun to dissipate, after a hectic coming of age story for first-year students and a nostalgic back to the grind reunion for upperclassmen. Short beginning-of-the-year flings are beginning to fall apart and non-committal hookups are starting to lose their zest. It seems, from this dating expert's careful analysis, that our quiet Academical Village has become ripe for some honest-to-TJ - and Facebook - relationship style romance this fall.
(09/28/09 5:38am)
For us young, single, college-attending males, tracking down our female counterparts can become quite a boring process. That is to say, the locations of such interactions become fairly monotonous after a while. There seem to be a set number of places one might be able to pick up a fine member of the opposite sex.
(09/14/09 5:31am)
While most of my columns are directed at my homies stuntin' with that Y chromosome, it has become time to address the ladies. Actually, I'd like to address a specific group of ladies. A very specific group of ladies. A group of young women who have the power to make a change for the better at U.Va. Beautiful, aspiring professional young women who I'm sure, if given the chance, would do their very best to ensure that the legacy of U.Va. remains as prominent and highly touted as it has been in years past.
(08/31/09 7:10am)
The birds are chirping. The breeze is blowing. The streams are trickling. All is well in the Academical Village save for an aggressive fox reported in the University area, which I do trust our heavily-armed and well-trained University police will quickly catch, despite their ever busy routine of writing people tickets.\nWhile to some students, the first few weeks of school might seem like a good time to relax, that could not be farther from the truth. The first few weeks are what we in the know call "Game Time" for meeting, impressing and wooing women.\nMost other dating experts may speculate about the most important aspect of meeting that special girl and making a move. I, however, can say, without a shred of doubt that, above all else, the key to being a Don Juan is not in your dress or looks or dance moves. The key, my friends, is location, location, location. You see, not every situation calls for the same Mac game when it comes to copping honnies, ya dig?\nAllow me to give you a basic rundown of how to act depending on the pretty lady and environment where you find yourself.
(08/22/09 9:58am)
This one's for you, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, swing-music-bumpin', hula-hoop-totin' first-year students. This is your day. It was destined to be since the moment you received your acceptance letter, what now seems like oh-so-many months ago.\nNow that you've gone over all your outfits with fine-toothed combs and lint rollers, and now that your parents have bought you every even remotely useful item with dear-old blue and orange on it, it's finally your time to shine, to hit the ground runnin', to bring the fire, give 'em the cheese, and ... oh, you get the point.\nYet the question remains, how will YOU make your mark? Well, it just so happens that you have a seasoned veteran's advice before you today. I can tell you EXACTLY how to make this year count, so read carefully:\n1. Guys, go meet every girl in your building. Don't think. Just do it. Girls, pretend to have no interest in any of the guys meeting you. This will make them want you more. A little game of cat and mouse, you see? We guys love that. Thrill of the hunt and what not.\n2. Un-pop all your collars. We've got a reputation for that and I think we've really seen the numbers decline in recent years. Don't be a Judas Iscariot.\n3. Get your roommate's cell phone number. I really thought I had all of my bases covered and then this one came along and hit me square in the chest when we were halfway through second semester and had no means to contact each other. You might be thinking to yourselves that I must be an idiot for forgetting something so basic. So pivotal. So unforgettable. Go ahead and laugh. That's the ego talking. We'll see who's Bush League once the hands are dealt.\n4. This one was also meant to be part of number one but I've only just remembered it and so must say to immediately break up with your "high school sweetheart," should you have one. I know it's hard. They're just so darn cute. They will also bring the wildfires of disappointment upon when you realize you've been wasting precious weekend hours going long distance for someone who you've only just now realized doesn't really mean it when she says she loves the White Sox. Deal breaker city.\n5. Get a month membership to Sam's Club and clean every shelf they have that carries Chef Boyardee products. It might not be the tastiest food, but you can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you get what you need.\n6. Take a shower everyday. That might be one of the more important pieces of advice that you can take into your second, third, and even fourth years.\nWhile I've got a bushel full of other key points about how to have the greatest first year in the history of first years, I've got a word limit to work with and to be honest I'm just not all that sure I want to let you in on the most important parts.\nSo when all of the upperclassmen drive by and scream, "FIRST YEAARRRSSS" and the line at O-Hill gets far too long and your roommate strips down naked and sits on your bed next to you while he's sleepwalking, remember that every one of us would be a liar if we said we wouldn't kill to be in your shoes. So hold your chest a little higher, your collars a little lower and breathe easy knowing that you are about to be in for one of the best, craziest, wildest rides on which you have ever been. It only happens once in a lifetime.\n* Pledge: On my honor, I swear that every piece of advice is certified to definitely maybe be true and work flawlessly. Except the bit about you not being able to make mistakes. That's definitely not true. Take a law class for that.
(04/20/09 5:30am)
Usher’s “U Got it Bad,” J.T.’s “Lovestoned” and Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love” are just some of the songs that pay tribute to the power of attraction — the kind of attraction that causes you to put everything else in life on hold. The kind that stops you from operating normally and that makes you zone out every five minutes just to analyze that last encounter you had with the person you love or to plan the next one. The kind of attraction that, when left unattended to, can make all of the pastimes you once held dear into mere filler for the moments in which you can’t stand to think about your desire anymore. In simpler words: it’s the kind of attraction that no matter how hard you try, you can’t ignore.The question is: when you find yourself in the middle of such a scenario, what do you do? While people may typically define such a condition using music, poetry or books, I think it is high time that a lowly Life columnist like myself took up the task of addressing what it truly is to be “Lovestoned” and to provide a few words of commentary about its place in the college life — at least from a guy’s perspective.The symptoms are clear. You direct all of your senses to searching her out on a daily basis. As you walk to class, your eyes quickly scan the crowds in search of a tell-tale profile or style of dress. You can’t help but turn and look every time you see someone with the same hair color or similar height as hers. And the longer you go without seeing each other, the faster your senses slip into a state of constant misperception. Suddenly, you confuse her 5-foot-9 frame with anyone between 5-foot-6 and 6-foot and weight becomes inconsequential. Eventually, you start whirling your head around every time you catch sight of an object — animate or not. Your ears begin to lock on to every girl’s voice within a quarter mile radius and you listen to see if it’s her laugh or her words that are filling the air.Soon, you don’t even need to hear or see anything at all; just recall a memory so real that you think she’ll walk up behind you that very second with a sheepish grin and gleam in her eye and say, “It’s about time we were together again.” And all the while you are excited and anxious and torn and ready and disoriented at the same time so that you’re not sure if it’s pleasure or torture that’s been having its way with you since the day you met her.When you are without her, no laugh or smile is ever whole-hearted because a part of you can’t be fooled into forgetting that she’s not there and that she’s not yours. Every time you say that you are hungry or thirsty or sleepy or need a new pair of sunglasses, you know that you would gladly give up satisfying any of these desires just to see her again, if only to ask how her week has been or to conjure up small talk about the weather or the annoyance of exams.When you are together, you view every aspect of her only in relation to yourself. You see her eyes not as an instrument that is used to see, but rather as something to be seen. Her hair gives you no impression of style or attitude, but appears to be there simply for you to brush out of her eyes when the wind blows across her face. Her hands are no longer only for holding books or paintbrushes, but are there so that you can hold them.And although I could go on, I think by now you understand what kind of attraction I’m talking about. It’s not the “We’ve been dancing with each other for a half an hour in a dark room so I guess we should hang out again” phenomenon, nor is it the “Whatever, we’re in college” relationship. Though these frames of mind have their place in every college student’s mind, they seem much less likely to produce the kind of relations that older generations tell us will be the real joys of our lives.We, however, are not part of an older generation. Sure, this is our youth and our time to make mistakes, but I think we must always be on the lookout for the kinds of people who do more than fill some void in our lives. In a climate defined largely by hookups and purely physical relationships, the question remains: what should we do to find that person who is worth building something more with?Assoc. Psychology Prof. Jonathan Haidt answers the question in this way: “Think of passionate love as a legal, wonderful, but potentially dangerous drug. Use it wisely. Go slow to lengthen the high.” While his psychological evaluations of love sometimes leave something to be desired with regard to romance, I think Haidt is right when he says that long-lasting love is something to be nurtured and cultivated, rather than sprang upon like all-you-can-eat sushi at China King Buffet.So, during the upcoming months of summer — known all too well as a time for flings and wandering emotions — I hope we will all keep our eyes peeled and our ears open for significant others worth more than a late night text or weekend meeting. And, if you’re lucky enough to find one, maybe pause to think if you should take things slowly this time around. With that, I wish you all the best of luck with exams, a wonderful summer vacation, faith, hope and love. Andy’s column runs biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at a.taylor@cavalierdaily.com.
(04/06/09 5:05am)
People’s attitudes toward dating are much like the “Power Rangers” — they keep changing and no one is really quite sure why.Take, for example, the Neanderthals. In their world, the guy with the biggest club got the girl. Then, there were the Dark Ages, when all men really needed to do to secure a woman’s heart was prove they hadn’t come down with the plague. And who could forget the Renaissance? During the Age of Reason, men took up an unprecedented interest in poetry and painting in hopes of catching the eye of a beautiful lady.What, then, is the defining ideal of our generation of courtship? Swagger. All I hear about these days is swagger. With a swagger swagger here and a swagger swagger there, here a swagger, there a swagger, everywhere a swagger swagger, it’s becoming clear that an excessive air of confidence is what it takes today. In an effort to catch up those who are a little slow on the swagger uptake, I feel it is necessary to review a few basic rules of how to make sure that no one on the Corner has swagger like you.First off, you must dress fashionably but at the same time seem like you do not care about what you are wearing. For instance, you could go buy a $100 Lacoste sweater and then sloppily cut the sleeves off. This says all kinds of things, but most of all, it says that you realized the sweater was fashionable by conventional standards but not by yours. If it makes you feel like you’ve wasted too much money, recycle those sleeves as socks. Hey, every little bit helps.Second, you must have a certain limp to your walk. While limps have been popularized by pimps in the past, the gait you’re going for is less of a “I’m going start choking people if I don’t get my money” and more of a “I’m here for the party” limp. Even when there is no party, like during your discussion section or while you are washing clothes. Be careful, however, to assert that this limp is in fact a “I’m here for the party” limp. If the washing machine gets out of line you’re going to have to show it — and every girl around you — exactly what kind of man you are.Tres, you must act as though nothing can negatively affect your attitude. While this seems easy enough when it comes to holding back tears during “A Walk to Remember” — until you’re alone with your pillow late at night — it becomes substantially more difficult if you, say, have your foot run over by a truck. This is probably going to cause you a lot of pain, but you are going to need to mask it somehow. The aforementioned limp is perfect for just such a time — not only are you hiding your true agony but you are also throwing a boost to your swagger-meter. Don’t be afraid to cry when you are alone, though. We can’t all be Clint Eastwood.Finally, make sure locking down a poker face doesn’t actually lead to you to stop having any emotions. If you fear you are drawing too close to having your swagger consume you in this way, just start listening to some Jewel. “My hands are small I know, but they’re not yours, they are my own...” I love that song.While these tips give you some pretty good parameters to work within, the vast majority of keeping your swagger is up to you, the individual. This is because the defining elements of “mean mugging” and “hardness” are how you incorporate them into a unique image for yourself. As much as it seems a little ridiculous that guys everywhere are portraying this image of being too cool for society, it’s pretty nice that we’ve begun advocating style that makes it cool to be different. So, while you’re out there on your grind showing all the ladies that you’ve just got that certain air about you, be sure to let your own light shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.Andy’s column runs biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at a.taylor@cavalierdaily.com.
(03/23/09 6:24am)
The student body, aside from being fairly attractive physically, provides us with the opportunity to meet hundreds of people with remarkable interests and talents, making it difficult to know when to pursue someone. If there’s one thing I’ve learned during the course of my brief stint here as an academic, it’s when is the right time to go after the person you are interested in — with more gusto than the Cookie Monster at the Keebler elf tree house, before he started eating all those vegetables.It is necessary to exercise some caution about when you pull out your A game, and it is with this in mind that I feel a list is in order to determine the acceptable and unacceptable times to hit on someone.1. While at a club meeting: acceptable. This might seem fairly obvious, given the fact that the two of you must already share some common ground if you are both involved in the same organization, but I think this is a good place to start when talking about nice, wholesome ways of meeting a potential significant other.2. While the object of your desire is streaking the Lawn: unacceptable-ish. Not the appropriate time to compliment someone on their exceptional form. The one time when this might be able to slide, however, is if he or she has injured themselves going down one of those cursed hills, in which case some polite conversation might naturally ensue once both of you are clothed ... Or not.3. While studying at the library: acceptable.Although this is a great place to have pleasant small talk, one must come prepared with topics beforehand. For example, it is difficult to begin a relationship with someone by telling them that it’s so cool that they’re reading and that you can read, too. Also, don’t try it on the first floor of Clemons. No one is more unapproachable or testy than a helpless college student on a caffeine binge shakily downing fruit snacks and Skittles.4. While in a moving vehicle: unacceptable. “No, I don’t want no scrub / A scrub is a guy who can’t get no love from me / Hangin’ out the passenger side / of his best friends ride / tryin’ to holla at me.” OK. So those lyrics are only loosely related, but I just really like TLC and any opportunity I have to give them some more play. But seriously ... What’s your game plan? You gonna ask them to pull into the gas station parking lot? You would. Sketchball.5. During a test: unacceptable. No one cares if you have a really witty joke you want to lay on the pretty girl sitting next to you about how question #11 relates back to “Family Guy.”6. While grinding: acceptable. I only say this because I feel this is where a vast majority of students meet people that they will make out with that same night. This is also a great time to acknowledge good rhythm and stamina. 7. While sunbathing: acceptable. I’ve never actually seen anyone try this, so if you introduce yourself to a young lady while she’s taking in the rays, please let me know how it works out. 8. While playing in a giant pile of leaves: acceptable. If you are crawling around in a pile of leaves and knock into someone you don’t know, you should hit on them, whether you’re attracted to them or not — even if they don’t match up with your sexual orientation.9. At a concert: unacceptable. You’re not even in it for the music. So not cool, brah. 10. In a tree: acceptable. About 30 percent of all mammals can trace their mating rituals back to a tree. I made that statistic up, but wouldn’t we all like to play just a small role in some imaginary figure floating around this crazy galaxy we call the Milky Way? Yeah, man ... Yeah. While I’m sure many of you are snickering and calling me a prude by now, I think this list provides some solid groundwork from which to build up your empire of Mack-dom. The key, however, is not to understand when a good time to flirt with someone would be, but rather to act on your feelings when you know the timing is right. So you know what? Forget about cultural norms and the possibilities they forbid. Decide when and where is a good time for you to make a move and go after it. After all, did Mariah Carey quit performing just because she couldn’t sing or dance or really bring anything fruitful to the table? No. No, she didn’t. And if a woman like that can sell millions of albums and have thousands of fans screaming her name on a daily basis, then you have to wonder if there are any limits at all on the ambitions of the fine students that grace these streets.Take some risks; fight the good fight, walk barefoot, blow bubbles in your milk, holla at a dime, throw a stanky leg or two down ... etc.No one can be blamed for trying. Except Mariah Carey. Andy’s column runs biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at a.hart@cavalierdaily.com.
(02/16/09 7:32am)
Women. Sometimes I have a hard time believing I’ve grown up enough — in years anyway — to consider myself a “man” chasing after “women.” It wasn’t so long ago that I shuddered to ask these GIRLS to Homecoming or out to a movie some Friday night. I’m sure females as well view the change from “boyz II men” as one that took place seemingly overnight.This change is one that seems pretty confusing to most people, including me. Have we earned this upgrade in status? What kind of benefits do we get from being a man as opposed to being a boy? Does it come with a wife and two kids? How often are we still allowed to act like boys? All these questions plague me constantly, but I will not be writing about their answers today. Instead, I want to address an issue much more important in nature: gay marriage.In college, we all have our chances to go out and meet new people and develop the relationships we want to have and disregard the rest. After college, however, the goal of most people is to find someone they truly care about and whom they can settle down with for the rest of their lives. While the crazy world of dating is full of mistakes and hasty decisions, marriage is supposed to be a time when we can feel utterly certain that we are making the right choice about who and what is best for us in the long run — even though about half of these marriages fail to live up to our standards. It seems to me that part of becoming men and women is the ability to think in the long term about who will make us happy and to have enough faith in those people to make it a public display for our closest friends that this is THE one.In our country, however, there are millions of men and women unable to make this lifelong commitment under law. Let me say that again: There are millions of MEN and WOMEN in the United States who aren’t given the ability to choose for themselves what is in their own best interest. These people go to college, work jobs, pay car insurance, take walks in the park, etc., just like every average American straight person. Their responsibilities differ very little from anyone else who lives in 21st century America, and they have thus grown up to be mature enough to make their own decisions.Why, then, do we constantly question their ability to find love? As a whole, I think our generation is pretty horrible at finding love, though no more horrible than those that came before us. We bump into people in life, we are attracted to them and we say, “Hey, now that’s a person I could look at every morning for the rest of my life.” Heaven forbid the scoundrels open their mouths, but man, look at those baby blues! When we tell our friends that we are in love, the reaction is rarely one of questioning or disapproval, but rather a kind of pat on the back or “way to go,” even if your friends think that it is the dumbest thing you have ever gotten yourself into.What I’m getting at is this: If we care enough for our friends not to question their happiness on the issue of love, why would we question someone else’s? Do we not trust homosexuals to be competent enough to understand their own desires and wishes, and then to turn those dreams into realities that last a lifetime? I am proud to be on what I think is the path to becoming a good man in a world of compromise and moral laziness and I am equally as proud to see that most of my peers seem to be going down the same road, including you young ladies out there. If we all turn out half as good as we have the potential to be, this world could see changes we never dreamed of and that ever pleasant state of things: peace. In making the world a better place, however, it is necessary to trust that our neighbor is doing his best to make the world better as well. Otherwise, recycling one can or turning off one light might really be a fruitless venture. It is only with all of our minds working together that we can achieve our goals. Let us trust our peers, then, to make their own decisions about love. Let them carve out their dreams from the years we have ahead of us. Let them become the men and women we all set out to be when we were just children, and for God’s sake, legalize gay marriage. They should have never needed permission to seek love in the first place.Andy’s columns run biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at a.taylor@cavalierdaily.com.
(02/02/09 10:26am)
Upon arriving at the University this past fall, fresh faces and seasoned scholars alike carried high hopes for what the year might bring. For some, it was something to be passionate about; for others, it was a mentally stable roommate, or at least one who didn’t sleep naked. Still others among us hoped Al Groh would find a way, while many were pleasantly surprised when their dream of a Singletary resurrection was granted (bless you, Sylven Landesberg). Some of us would rejoice in the promise of democratically elected change for tomorrow. No matter the importance or reach of these dreams, the inescapable side effect is a condition known as expectation.When we were young, our motto was to never let anyone stop us from achieving our dreams. Reach for the highest star, believe that it can happen. As we grow older, however, it seems the trend of society is to steadily instill in us that whatever our expectations may be, we will one day be let down. We will find ourselves in a moment where we finally fall and lose our innocence. And afterward, we will become a part of the cycle in which the world drains the dreams, or naivete, out of everyone.Many of us are old enough to have been already beaten down by just such a cycle and have the emotional scars to prove it. One of the strongest allies of this destruction, however, is the misconception that we are alone in our struggles. We meet and laugh and joke with others and believe ourselves to be the only ones in the room who feel like they are fighting demons even in the midst of joyous encounters, and we imprison ourselves by turning our disappointments inward.In dating, this leads to a sense of melancholy in which love doesn’t seem earned or reasonable. People see themselves as failures at whatever it is they’re supposed to be succeeding at — if you guys know what it is, hit me up via e-mail, because I’ve got no idea — and assume others can see only their greatest faults.What I have to say on the matter can be summed up by Thoreau: “What is needed for happiness... [is] the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them.” In the world of dating, we expect to have to censor ourselves, show others only what it is that they will find attractive and hide everything else. In doing so, however, we miss the point of love entirely. Instead of expecting others to want us because we have covered up the dark areas, we should expect others to want us because of exactly who we are and exactly what we have gone through. Our failures have made us capable of being loved. After all, who wants to be with someone who is perfect? Well, I guess I couldn’t possibly turn down Regina Spektor, but that’s an exception.Though the New Year has already come and gone, I’m a firm believer in the fact that real resolutions don’t need a specific time and place. Mine: expect to be loved, to be cared for, to be wanted and to stay naïve forever. Here’s to a great new year of love.Andy’s column runs biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at a.taylor@cavalierdaily.com.
(11/17/08 6:10am)
In the world of dating, emotions run high with the promise of finding that someone special to waste your time with. These emotions can lead to all sorts of crazy shenanigans, such as prematurely saying the ‘L’ word. These, in turn, could destroy any chance of this budding relationship turning into full bloom. Now, to tackle all of the horrible ideas to avoid when embarking on your first few dates would take way too much effort on my part. Instead, I will give you a brief account of what not to do during one of the most pivotal events: the first kiss.First off, never fist pump during the kiss. This might seem like a good idea at the time, but later you will realize that it had the stench of desperation written all over it, which is surely not your goal. Remember, you want passion, fire, magic ... not desperation.Secondly, don’t scream “BOOYAH” right after you stop kissing. This is often uncontrollable, so there may not be much that you can do about preventing such an outburst. To mitigate the effect, however, try spinning in a circle as you say it and cough a bit during the crucial part. How you might explain the spinning I’m not sure, but coughing is pretty normal so you should be good on that front. Whatever your excuse for the spin may be, I’m sure it will be better than giving your significant other a full-blown “BOOYAH” to the face.Finally, try to keep your cool with regards to post-kiss facial expressions. Though it may be difficult to keep yourself from smiling, try to keep it to a toothy grin instead of the full-face beam. This will let the other person know that, though enjoyable, it was not the highlight of your life, thus making you seem much cooler.Actually, I take all that back. The last three paragraphs were things you shouldn’t bother controlling during or after a first kiss. As a matter of fact, there should be nothing you bother controlling. We spend most of our time at this college wondering how to manage our time so as to do a lot of things we really don’t care about while we could be wasting it doing things with the people we hold dear. But when it comes to love, everyone seems to cramp up just when we should be ready to run the race of our lives.There are a lot of things in this life that can be imagined so vividly that it would almost seem as if they had happened. I, for example, have dunked on every member of the Virginia Tech basketball team no less than two dozen times. Love, however, is not a feeling that can be imagined or dreamed. It’s one of those things that each person has to live to know what it feels like. This is precisely why you shouldn’t hold back when getting excited about a kiss or a look or a hug or a nudge, or even when someone leans their head on your shoulder in that kind of awkward situation where you don’t know how to feel, because the prospect of love is something that no one can put a value on. It is a hope that what we are doing here is so much better than dreaming that we don’t ever want to go to sleep.So go ahead: fist pump, scream, yell, shout, smile, laugh, dance, hop, skip, run, jump, fly. Do whatever it is that makes you happy and don’t worry about the rest, because there are few moments out there where you really know what it means to be alive. So don’t waste them worrying about how to stay cool. Drink them in as if you’ll never taste living again, and hold on to them.Andy’s column runs biweekly Monday. He can be reached at a.taylor@cavalierdaily.com.
(10/20/08 4:00am)
Though I have spent the past year dedicating 600 to 800 words on a biweekly basis to the subject of romantic love, it seems there is something to be said for the fact that love takes many forms. Love for one’s neighbor. Brotherly/sisterly love. Obsessive stalker love. Loud, drunken professions of love. There are so many ways to love someone that I’m not sure how we don’t, at least a little bit, love everyone. Instead of the world of blissful affection that would seem to come naturally, however, we are in the midst of the biggest hater parade ever. Barack Obama is a terrorist. Tom Cruise is crazy. Al Yankovic is weird. Sarah Palin is ... well ... not even haters can come up with a flaw in Palin, but you get the point. So what’s a little old piece of the world like U.Va. to do in such a time of hater crisis? Luckily I have just the remedy to inject this Academical Village with so much love that even Ty Pennington would blush from the corniness.The first step is to stop having opinions. If we all just let our ideas and decisions go out the window, none of us would ever have an argument. What’s more, we would also have no grounds for conversation, only enabling everyone to further soak in the presence of all the love that is brewing among us at this very second, being carefully stirred by none other than Chris Long. With all the free time produced by the lack of conversation and opinion-forming, we could also spend our days discovering different ways to put the word “Love” on T-shirts, posters, bumper stickers and bottle openers creatively, which would naturally all be distributed free of charge. The world is looking better already.The second step in the love saga is to phase out all color patterns slowly save tie-dye. Not only will this bring us together under a common bond of style, but it will also bring us back to a time when fashion was at its peak. Further, the inherent uniqueness of each tie-dyed garment would make it difficult for gangs to develop a uniform code for identifying each other. This is not to say all gangs are bad, but it seems that if we’re going for pure love, we might want to keep as few cliques from forming as possible.Thirdly, we should destroy all written record of our history. That way, it will be hard to remember if we were mad at each other prior to the love boat’s arrival. Hopefully this will keep past disagreements from coming up into present-day mindsets and ruining our whole gig.Finally, let’s just stop killing each other. I know that seems hard and you may be like, “Well, if I can’t kill anyone then what am I going to do with all these hours in the day?” Personally, I took up cross-stitching and it has been a blast, as well as a lot less bloody except when I forget that I can’t stitch “Love” into my chest without it hurting a lot. Sleeping is also a great option. Who doesn’t love a good dream? No matter what it is, I hope all of you out there at least try to replace your killing time with some love time.I’m feeling excited just now. And no, it’s not because it’s 4:19 in the morning, nor is it because I’m listening to “Peace Train” on repeat naked in my living room, though one or both of these may or may not be true. I’m excited because if this whole love gig works out, I might finally be able to stop hating Mariah Carey so much. That one hate alone is really taking up a lot of my time, what with the picketing outside her house and all the extra jobs I have to pick up so that I can keep buying more of her albums and burning them. So yeah, if there’s one thing to be gained from my plan, it’s a greater appreciation for Mariah Carey. See also: fewer murders.Andy’s column runs biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at a.taylor@cavalierdaily.com.
(09/22/08 4:00am)
Though the cycle of college dating often seems to blur together into one grossly tangled mess, it is up to dating professionals not to forget that this flurry of madness is, at its core, nothing more than a series of predictable stages. For example, there is the dinner and a movie stage, the lay around and do nothing stage and, my personal favorite, the “Wanna just rent a movie?” stage. As much as I would love to describe these stages in detail, it seems time for me to address the 900-pound gorilla that is currently weighing down this article. And so, without further ado, I will now dive into my first and last article on the topic of one of the most emotionally charged stages in a relationship: that of breaking up.As much as we would all like to ignore the prospect of heartbreak, it happens to the best of us. (Don’t think you’re safe if you’re among the worst of us.) We find ourselves in these situations of heartbreak where the decisions are not our own, where we are forced to chase, rather than fall into, our future. Using poker terms, we essentially go on tilt.It’s a bit weird — for most of our lives we’ve been told that if something is too good to be true, it probably is. For some reason though, everyone takes their guards down when there is a chance for love in the mix. For you college students out there to chase romance with reckless abandon, it’s hard to trash such a reflex too harshly. Though this lack of defense is the cause of all bad breakups, it is also what gives me the opportunity to write a dating column.You might be asking yourselves, who is left to take the blame? Was it short-sightedness? Was I too overbearing? Was it that time she caught me watching “Pokemon?” Such questions are always the natural result of a breakup, but they will neither be answered nor be of any help. This is because the truth of the matter is that there is no thing, no one and no event to blame. There is only the fact that at one moment in time at least one piece of the puzzle went missing, and now it’s nowhere to be found.It can drive a person mad trying to figure out the problem, trying to find the fatal flaw — and it doesn’t help that every time you allow yourself to forget you end up finding something of theirs, or something belonging to both of you. Every time you get a free moment you think in the back of your mind you should call your ex, but then you remember that he or she no longer wants to hear your voice. That person no longer cares when you go to bed or when you head out with friends. There is no one there who wants to hear about every moment of your day, no matter how boring or ridiculous it has been. And, probably worst of all, there is no one on the other line who needs you to do nothing more than care about what his or her day has been like. Breaking up, in summary, is a pretty big downer. But to borrow a quote from one of my favorite movies “Blow:” “Sometimes you’re flush and sometimes you’re bust, and when you’re flush it’s never as good as it seems, and when you’re down you never think you’ll be up again, but life goes on.” Because you see, at the end of the day, there will always be at least as many ups as there are downs in the world of dating, and for some there will be one more up that carries them for the rest of their lives. But even if every triumph is followed shortly by a pitfall, at least we can say we weren’t afraid to play the game. And, if we’re all being honest, I think it’s everyone’s deepest desire to just be a baller. Ballin’! Andy’s column runs biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at a.taylor@cavalierdaily.com.
(09/08/08 9:32am)
Fashion. It’s the cat’s meow. The peanut butter to celery. The sick beat to Lil Wayne. The funnel cake to the theme park. It is the jam. What I mean to say is that fashion makes all great things that much greater, and for all of you fresh-from-summer college ruffians out there, it can make or break dating opportunities.You might be thinking, “I can dress. It’s not like it’s that hard.” Well, to use a well-crafted simile, dressing yourself is like cooking: Everyone can do it, only some can do it well. Furthermore, few fail to see that stylistic change is necessary in order to improve dating opportunities. But luckily for all of you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed college ruffians out there, I’ve got just the formula for a great wardrobe and a good impression come this fall.Fierce. The No. 1 adjective that you want to exemplify is fierce. Though tattoos are generally accepted as the premier symbol of fierceness, they also tend to be very permanent, so choose wisely should you go that route. (My general rule is no words, birds or unicorns.) A close second to getting ink done is wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves torn (not cut) as well as a tear straight down the middle in the front. This shows everyone you are not afraid of letting it all show, as well as the fact that you make your own rules. Next on our list of adjectives to exemplify is the age-old, time-tested “saucy.” In the winter this is easily accomplished with a simple fire patterned silk scarf and a puffy vest with fur around the collar. During the first few months of the semester, however, this will be difficult to pull off because of the extremely high temperatures. Ergo, I instead urge a general attitude of sauciness as opposed to dress. For example, if someone tries to mooch a fry off of your plate, smile and then slap them twice on the same cheek and follow it with, “Next time I’ll put you in the oven and forget about you.” If someone uses your towel after showering, take that person’s towels outside and burn them, since he or she obviously don’t need them anymore now that he or she has found your towels. In summary, establish yourself as the diva in all situations. This is pivotal.Finally, I want all of you out there to do what I call “bringing the heat.” There are several ways that you can bring the heat in your dating fashion, but the premier way is through wildly flamboyant shoes. Crocs have made this even easier than before by introducing those cool buttons you can put in your already obnoxiously bright garden shoes. Also, if you get yourself a fresh new pair of tulip patterned rain boots, you’ll be set for rain or shine.Though I fear many of you will disregard this article as mere humor, I hope you have found at least a bit of insight from my well- researched and well-thought-out study in the art of fashion. One of those insights may have been the fact that I have no business writing a dating column, or even that I may have spent one too many days by myself with no TV or Internet this summer. Or maybe you’ve found that never again will you take the advice of someone else regarding your style because it is, after all, your style. If nothing else I hope it’s the latter, because that means you’re already on the path to becoming saucy. Welcome back everybody. Let’s do work this semester.Andy’s column runs biweekly Mondays. He can be reached at a.taylor@cavalierdaily.com.