I want to take naps

What do Leonardo da Vinci, P. Diddy and Bill Clinton all have in common? They have all been rumored to have "alternative sleeping habits." With papers galore, quizzes and exams, go ahead and add me to the list. I have always admired the few determined souls who are able to commit to a regular sleep pattern, especially one of a full eight hours' worth of beauty rest, each and every night.

A love of Frostys

Sometimes I think college students are too focused on the social scene near 14th Street and Rugby Road.

The power of rhetoric

You have seven minutes to prepare and present a speech based on Albert Einstein's saying, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Go. This is what students in the Impromptu category from the U.Va.

Study hall panic

One of things I have enjoyed most about my second year of being a student-athlete on the women's basketball team is the looming threat of study hall.

Things are not looking up

I am sitting in a booth in Clemons. I'm realizing that things are not looking up. It's not like I thought that they were looking up, or that they were going to start looking up pretty soon.

Bringing the beat to Grounds

KRS-One, an MC and pioneer in hip-hop music and culture, once proclaimed in his song "Hip-Hop Lives" that "Hip and hop is more than music - hip is the knowledge, hop is the movement." The Student Hip-Hop Organization at the University wants to educate the rest of the community about this culture. Although most members of the club learned to appreciate hip-hop during childhood, SHHO began with a midsummer trip to Richmond.

What do I have in common with both Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey? If you guessed that I am black and older than 40 years old with an uncanny ability to attract housewives, then obviously you know me very well.

Wanting

Someone once told me to count my blessings. It may or may not have been my mother, and she may or may not have been chastising me for being an obnoxiously spoiled middle-class American girl.

A Talking Point

Most students will participate in a seminar during their college careers to fulfill their graduation requirements.

No more drama

In August 2001, rhythm and blues superstar Mary J. Blige released the soulful classic, "No More Drama." About 6.5 million albums have been sold worldwide, earning triple-platinum status.

The etiquette of being in public

Have you ever been walking along, minding your own business and heard that familiar "hock puh" sound right beside you, and then looked to see a giant spit wad landing dangerously close to your shoes?

It's that time of year. The leaves are falling. The weather can't decide whether it wants to be 65 degrees and sunny or 45 degrees and miserable.

The reality of reality

I don't know what real is. Is it that which is actually experienced or seen or known? This question gets really messy, really quickly. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, reality is "the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them." But in light of the influence of mass media and networks that shape our views about what we might call reality, everything I know of current events is filtered through the scope of someone else, someone creating a "notional idea" of the state of things. So what is real? Contrary to popular - or more appropriately, pop cultural - belief, reality TV is not real.

Pre-medded

If you've ever watched "How I Met Your Mother," it's likely that you're familiar with the word "lawyered." For those who haven't seen the show, the study guide version is as follows - Marshall, a lawyer, uses simple lawyer's logic to win an argument.

College chores

Ah, Sunday - the day most of my roommates and I have standing dates with homework and migrate to Clemons Library or Lambeth Commons by noon.

Remembering Brian Gomez

Brian Gomez, the second-year College student who passed away last month after a year-long battle with a rare form of cancer, told his girlfriend, Morgan Watts, a line that has stuck with her ever since, as the two of them waited in a hospital while her sister underwent open heart surgery. "Life is like no limit," he said.

Love letter to my sister

I was going to write this column about how I have three papers due next Friday. It was going to be about how I'm foregoing the night life for the next week-and-a-half and buckling down and writing eloquent A-plus papers.