I am going to relate to you the following anecdote -- it is heartbreaking, but true. Last weekend I called my family to see how they were doing.
Around this time last year, I was on the beach in Cape Town, South Africa. I actually got a tan, which, given my freckled Irish skin, is pretty miraculous. Now I'm wading through icy slush to class.
Recently, most of the world has come to a consensus on the fact that it is getting hot in here. And with global warming now fully accepted, scientists (or as I call them, smientists) are rehashing the same old solutions on how to fix it: alternative fuels, efficient machines, blah, blah, blah.
Over winter break I participated in the Impact Movement's National Conference in Atlanta, Ga. It seems that whenever I travel, everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
This is just getting ridiculous. I was leaving the Lawn on Tuesday night and looking around at the bizarre brilliance of the night as light exploded upwards from the unbroken ice.
Most students are currently immersed in the emotional aftermath of Valentine's Day and sloshing around Grounds in parkas and rain boots.
Unfortunately for Valentine's Day, the printing of my column fell on this coinciding date. I wouldn't label myself as a Valentine's Day "hater," because when I think of Valentine's Day haters I picture unfortunate-looking persons playing "Love Stinks" on repeat in the dark while sobbing.
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.
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.
Televisions across the country were tuned into news programs last Thursday as the biggest story of the week unfurled.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Students for Environmental Action hosted Energy Unplugged last weekend, a conference featuring local experts who discussed local and global environmental issues.
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.
