Life

Life

Love is in the air

By Cavalier Daily Staff | February 14, 2007

Date Me With movies and magazines describing the ideal Valentine's Day date, students are often under a lot of pressure to make the day particularly special for loved ones. According to third-year College student Cameron Hill, Valentine's Day is "a chance for people to be creative and to show that they care." For one of his most memorable, and infamous, Valentine's Day dates, Hill said he created a marbled chocolate box and filled it with chocolates that he had seen made on the Food Network.

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Life

Breaking up is hard to do

By Marissa D'Orazio | February 14, 2007

Neil Sedaka was mostly right. I'm sure 97 percent of the people reading this don't know who Neil Sedaka is, but he's the guy who sings that 60s toe-tappin' hit "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do." Where Neil went wrong, however, was with this line: "Come on baby, let's start anew, 'cuz breakin' up is hard to do." Screw that.

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Life

Celebrity gossip overdose

By Lauren Caldwell | February 14, 2007

Televisions across the country were tuned into news programs last Thursday as the biggest story of the week unfurled.

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Life

Dear That Guy/That Girl

By Jim Russell | February 13, 2007

I see you walking around Grounds all the time, off in your own little world, oblivious to the dominant social norms and conventional definitions of the word "normal." Good for you!

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Life

Many Apologies

By Eric Ast | February 13, 2007

Before I launch into this week's diatribe, I must apologize to the good people at Fiji Water. In my last column I incorrectly stated that the company's product contains two to six milligrams of arsenic per liter.

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Life

Twelve miles of history

By Vinu Ilakkuvan | February 13, 2007

Thomas Jefferson's architectural drawings, William Faulkner's manuscripts, one of the very first printings of the Declaration of Independence (of which only 25 known copies exist) -- these are just some of the over 300,000 rare books, 12 million manuscripts, 4,000 maps, University archives, photographs and other materials housed in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. With over 12 miles of shelving, this 58,000-square-foot building is home not only to valuable and significant collections, but also to the security and behind-the-scenes work that come with such prominent materials. One major feature of all this work is the library staff of 18 people. Library Director Christian Dupont said it was the material itself that drew him to his current position. "The real attraction was that it is a premier library for the study of American history, literature and culture, now housed in a new state-of-the-art building, and U.Va.

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Life

Applied physics

By Vinu Ilakkuvan | February 13, 2007

Physics is often applied to real-life scenarios, such as the maximum distance a football can be thrown, the velocity of rockets and the torque of a merry-go-round.

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Life

Semester at Sea (for Google)

By Erik Silk | February 12, 2007

Hiya, sports fans. In case you haven't been keeping score, I'm on Semester at Sea and ran into some friction last week for things I wrote in this very column.

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Life

Are you there God? It's me, Brendan.

By Brendan Collins | February 12, 2007

It finally happened. I got hit by a car riding my bike to class. Maybe it was karma, for all those times I rode without a helmet.

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Life

Undecided

By Steve Austin | February 12, 2007

As the end of the semester approaches, time is running short for fourth-year students to get a job and second-year students to declare a major. "People ask all the time and I'm just like, 'I have no idea,'" second-year College student Erin Golden said.

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Life

Fellow gumshoes

By Erin Golden | February 9, 2007

While sifting through 268 e-mail offers of sex, drugs and online university degrees, I recently came across this overlooked, rather official-looking message in my "uva-potential-spam" mailbox: "This message is directed to all second-year students in the College of Arts & Sciences who have not yet declared a major.

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Life

Energy Unplugged

By Lauren Caldwell | February 9, 2007

Students for Environmental Action hosted Energy Unplugged last weekend, a conference featuring local experts who discussed local and global environmental issues.

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Life

Start getting real

By Laura Sisk | February 8, 2007

I've had a glimpse of the real world, and boy is it scary. To our MTV generation, "real world" is taken to mean one of two things: 1) that scary undeterminable expanse that confronts us after graduation, or 2) the supposed-reality show that airs every Wednesday night.

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Life

There and Back

By Ashley Simpson | February 8, 2007

The University community is really an academic bubble: We're all so engrossed in our own studies, activities and little clusters of friends that we rarely consider what is going on outside in the "real world." At our age, we tend to think that we are the centers of the universe, so if things begin to go awry, it literally feels like the Earth has stopped revolving around the sun.

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Life

Sometimes babies smell funny

By Winnie Chao | February 8, 2007

Japan's Health Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa joined the ranks of an elite political club Jan. 26, one dominated by Virginia politicians.

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Life

Results not typical

By Daniel McNally | February 7, 2007

It's spring semester now, meaning that every undergrad at the University has been given at least a few months to put on the "freshman 15." This is also known as the "freshman 50" to the overweight and/or hard-of-hearing population and the "first-year 15" to U.Va.

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Life

Murder, mayhem and mafiosos

By Lauren Caldwell | February 7, 2007

Blood. Love. Lust. Murder. Revenge. Such is the cheery tagline of "Her Infidel," a mafia miniseries produced by the self-described eccentrics of MiniSeries Productions. Second-year Engineering student Susanna Wong is the director of "Her Infidel" -- but not long ago, she said she had resolved to give up film completely. "I actually didn't intend to do any film," Wong said, noting the Engineering School's hefty workload.

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Life

Miscellany

By Dan Dooley | February 7, 2007

I'd like to begin with a brief message to a childhood friend, Ricky Guenette. Ricky, the following refers to an argument we had April 27, 1993.

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Life

International Insights

By Rachel Thompson | February 7, 2007

Discussions about differences in backgrounds and customs are common among the students at the International Residential College. "There are many representative cultures, and people can learn about many perspectives," said fifth-year Engineering student Lydia Abebe. Meeting and forming relationships with students from other parts of the globe is an experience a student can expect when living in an environment suited both to students from abroad and those simply interested in learning about other nations. First-year College student Bitania Ephrem, an international student from Ethiopia, commented on the welcoming and respectful environment she found living there. Third-year College student Mai El Gasim, a student of Sudanese heritage, said individuals at the IRC are "especially open to differences to things that are not of the American culture, like me wearing a hijab, [a traditional Muslim head-scarf]." Such perceptions help to make the IRC a comfortable environment. Abebe described the community as being engaging and interactive.

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Life

Proust and I "In search of lost time"

By Matthew Warring | February 6, 2007

Every day I seem to lose some of them. I don't know where they go; they just slip through the cracks, never to be seen again, and I'm a little poorer for it.