"Hey girl, you want to go to the gym with me?" "You mean, 'Do I want to go to the gym and have my self-esteem reduced to -12 on a scale of 1 to 10 because that girl has been running for 40 minutes straight and I get winded walking up stairs?
It all started on a baseball field. Not a typical field with freshly trimmed grass and carefully drawn lines, but a field of solid blacktop with a skate park interrupting right field.
When one of my housemates mentioned a drive-in movie theater, all I could picture was John Travolta as Danny in "Grease" singing about how Sandy left him.
Practice makes perfect Let's be honest, everybody wants to show up to an interview with Northrop Grumman or Wachovia with a few tricks up their sleeves.
For most students, filing tax returns ranks right up there with taking the world’s worst take-home test. But for this exam, the score is measured in cash.
Hearing the unnerving sound of squish, squish, squish beneath my feet was not the triumphant return to Charlottesville I had imagined after last year's Winter Break.
It is not every day that a Nobel Prize winner comes to Charlottesville.
The one thing I have with me at all times isn't a notebook, or my laptop or underwear - it's my cell phone.
Guess who's legitimately 21? That's right, yours truly. I've been anxiously awaiting this day for a long time, for what feels like eons.
Gelato, 2 Euros; gondola ride in Venice, 70 Euros (divided among seven people); feeding a camel named Michael Jackson in Egypt, 2 Egyptian pounds; getting to watch the movie "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" in Turkey - absolutely priceless. By the time the 2009 Semester at Sea Cruise ship, the MV Explorer, set sail June 16, just about everyone I had spoken to about the trip already told me I was about have the "experience of a lifetime." But with eight different countries on the agenda and a ship full of college students from around the world, all I expected was something different.
I am currently writing to you, dear reader, from within a Windows screensaver. For the last six days, I have been languidly drifting through the Yasawa Islands of Fiji, drinking in the scenery with yet another pineapple cocktail.
After several disastrous encounters working as a camp counselor during the summer, I swore off any outdoorsy activities involving copious amounts of mud, bugs or giant rocks.
Corey Major? English Sexual Orientation? Straight What extracurriculars do you participate in? I write for The Declaration (hope that won't preclude me as a candidate), play intramurals, am a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and do canvassing for UDems. What do you like to do in your free time? I'm a big music fan, going to shows, creative writing, reading comics, going to art museums and I'm into tattoos. What are the physical and personality attributes you are looking for in a date? Normally I prefer girls on the petite side, but I'm 6-foot-1 so it doesn't really matter.
For us young, single, college-attending males, tracking down our female counterparts can become quite a boring process.
As I wrote in my last column, I have a wonderful boyfriend named Ryan. For the past few months, I've been diving deep into the world of meeting the parents, cooking dinners for two and shopping for couples' Halloween costumes - I'm still trying to convince him to wear a Speedo covered in leaves as the Adam to my Eve. Last weekend, I took Ryan home to spend time with my family in Virginia Beach.
[caption id="attachment_30572" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Members of the Blue Ridge Mountain Rescue Group practice erecting a radio tower.
To kick off my column, I thought it would be best to explain to you the significance and reasoning behind my choice for a title.
Some people climb Mount Everest. Some people climb the corporate ladder. Some people climb aboard pirate ships in search of gold only to find they've stumbled upon a seniors-only cruise.
"What is the essence of pig?" Virginia farmer Joel Salatin asked an audience of about 200 University students and Charlottesville residents last Thursday. Dubbed "high priest of the pasture" by The New York Times, Salatin said life for his pigs is a "Hog Heaven." His 550-acre farm, Polyface, Inc., is like an animal sanctuary, he said, created to produce high-quality pork, beef and poultry that his consumers can trust. The first of a series of lecturers that the Center for Christian Study will host at the University this fall, Salatin discussed the importance of buying organic, locally grown foods. As he describes in his latest book, "Holy Cows and Hog Heaven," Salatin believes that the journey "from farm to fork" is a sacred one.
