“When do I get to be who I’m going to be?”

It’s a question that still perplexes Julie Buxbaum, nearly a decade after graduating from Penn.It’s a key dilemma for Emily Haxby, the central character of Julie’s debut novel, The Opposite of Love.

And I’d bet it’s a problem a lot of Penn students wrestle with, too.

You wouldn’t expect it from Julie, who’s already been a Harvard law student, corporate lawyer, and (at present) successful novelist. Shouldn’t she know by now?

Well… talk to her for a few minutes, and you’ll understand. Julie wishes she’d gone into public interest law; having majored in PPE over English, she’s got a stack of classics left to read; and so on. Like a lot of us, Julie’s still figuring it out.

A self-confessed Type A personality — tethered to her cell phone as we talk across three time zones — Julie’s touring to support The Opposite of Love (she’ll be at the Penn bookstore at 7:00 tonight, signing the book and taking questions). While the novel’s great, Julie’s own story is just as intriguing.

(more…)

Pardon my language… but today sucks. Tomorrow, too.

For the first time in four years — and only the third time in a decade — Penn missed the men’s NCAA basketball tournament.

Did I just lose your sympathy?

Look. Maybe you’re blasé about Penn athletics or sports-illiterate. But, with our basketball slide likely to continue, let me explain why a winning team benefits the school.

(And if the cost is our ethical standards? Meh.)

(more…)

David Lei might not sound concerned that The DP missed the boat on who’s performing at Spring Fling… but secretly, all of us on the Spin are seething because — again! — we’ve been beaten to a huge scoop by other, unnamed “blogs of the Ivy League.” Or something sort of like that. Anyway, if only we’d stop writing about politics for a minute and start snooping instead, maybe we could actually break some real news.

Luckily, as I checked my e-mail today — desperate to find something to write about — I found the following press flyer, from some student group no doubt familiar with my hard-hitting work and hoping I’d be their Boswell. I could check this with Mask & Wig, but… nah. This PhotoShop looks pretty legitimate to me!

So I’m please to share that — and hold on to your hats… (more…)

Penn students are a brave sort. We occupy buildings to fight for a living wage… oops, that was Harvard. We rally against controversial speakers like the Minutemen founder and Karl Rove… er, sorry, that was Columbia. And a prep school.

But making change by standing up for Barack Obama? That we can do.

According to Mara’s DP column yesterday, the campus is turning evangelical for Obama; Barack-oholics are selling shirts, wearing buttons, and redecorating Facebook pages in his honor.

And unless you flew Oceanic 815, you know that Obama’s kicking butt across the country. The man’s won 10 straight primaries; in Wisconsin, he took 70% of the under-30 Democractic vote (and probably an even greater share of college-age voters). Plus, he’s staying hip. Slate — which yesterday noted Obama’s five-point national lead over Clinton — last week unveiled its Encyclopedia Baracktannica. More importantly, he’s won the coveted endorsement of Lloyd from Dumb and Dumberer.

Despite securing the Lloyd vote, Barack’s fight for the Democratic nomination isn’t over. But on liberal campuses like Penn, it’s not a bold, underground move to support Obama — it’s increasingly the norm.

(more…)

Maybe it won’t be today. Or tomorrow, or next week.

But that Wharton kid in your Spanish class — the one in a polo shirt, with vague I-bank connections and a slightly funny smell — will get better-looking.

It may take five or ten years. Maybe it’s just a smidge better.

But it might be enough — for wedding bells.

Look, you’re probably more worried about Valentine’s Day 2008 than 2018. And who can blame you? Have a lovely day and avoid Rx.

Still, as an alum blogging from the future, here’s a different view of gold-digging than Kanye or Simeon.

Originally, I’d focused on the Ivy alumna’s plight. Entering my late 20s, many thriving female friends can’t find the ambitious, well-off partners they want. Take Miranda, dumped for being too successful…wait, I’m confusing reality with Sex and the City. Again.

Whatever. My Valentine’s Day post — “Wharton women: Prepare to be alone” — practically wrote itself.

… until I read about “boy toy” and “sugar mama” meet-and-greets. Or heard of a man getting divorced when grad school ended, after wifey paid his tuition.

As women increasingly take high-paying jobs, is gold-digging back — with men now chasing security?

(more…)

Employers look at Facebook and Google you, yadda yadda. It’s an old story. You know it, we do it, DP commenters want the paper to move on.

But if we all know this, why are Penn students so lazy about simple protective steps — and so slow to take advantage of us gullible bosses?

According to one estimate, more than 30,000 Penn students have their profiles open for any alum to browse around. Which we will. Because employers are immoral, awful people. (Unlike undergrads who Facebook freshmen rushing their fraternity, or look up their assigned roommates. But I digress.)

Of course, running scare stories — employers will use the Patriot Act to access Facebook! Your profile will be part of your job application! — is more fun for college newspapers than being frank: plenty of curious employers can’t get to your page unless they try really hard. Many Penn students won’t interview with alums who have Facebook, and a growing number of companies block social networking sites anyway.

But most importantly, there’s a big shift underway: as employees sign up for sites like Facebook and MySpace, embarassing personal details are increasingly accepted (and ignored) in the workplace. Not to mention that seeing revealing Halloween pictures of aging coworkers is a lot scarier than seeing college kids do college things.

(more…)

Recent findings by a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism study: Students with a history of binge drinking and who play drinking games tend to have higher blood-alcohol content at parties.

Well, duh.

Here’s something less obvious: not only is there more drinking at “themed parties,” but women actually out-drink men at such events.

The study, “Person and Environment Predictors of Blood Alcohol Concentrations: A Multi-Level Study of College Parties,” has been hailed because researchers actually ditched the office and, Dianne Fossey-style, tracked college students in their natural habitat: They followed 1,300 partygoers around 66 parties at San Diego State University, testing attendees’ blood-alcohol content on the spot. Assuming the researchers didn’t kill the mood with white coats and clipboards — unless it was a “dress like a scientist” theme party — it’s a stronger methodology than asking students to ‘fess up about their drinking habits days or weeks later (the traditional strategy).

One of the big conclusions: do away with drinking games, say the authors, since they cause dangerous amounts of alcohol to be consumed too quickly. The authors also claim to be testing “interventions” hosts can use to cut drinking games. Like… not having a party in the first place.

(more…)

Quick free association:
Rhodes scholar. Academic All-American. White House fellow. Miss America.

Looking at Ivy League graduates, who (usually) doesn’t belong?

Miss America might seem like the exception, but that could change this weekend as Lindsay Casmaer (College ‘05) attempts to bring the title to the Ancient Eight. The reigning Miss Missouri, she’s in Las Vegas right now, doing… pageant things… in advance of Saturday’s competition, televised at 8 p.m. on TLC (You can see a short video interview here, read Lindsay’s travelogue here, and vote for her here.)

Our school’s filled with diversity, but admit it: pageantry and Penn in the same sentence is a bit surprising. As it happens, Lindsay didn’t come to Penn as a pageanteer but began competing last year — hoping to pay back student loans — so if you doubted whether West Philly attracts former Little Miss Sunshine types, you’re probably right.

But why is it surprising to think Miss America could be a Quaker? Every few years, some Ivy Leaguer’s in the competition, and a parade of Harvard-associated women have walked across the stage in recent years.

Is it because we assume that pageantry is for the less studious… or because Ivy Leaguers are known for brains and ambition before beauty?

(more…)

Graduate and realize: Penn’s like a friendly panhandler. You don’t know if he needs the money, but he hits you up so nicely (and so often), eventually you just give in.

OK — nothing like an exaggerated metaphor to start my Spin blogging career. In truth, I only get a monthly Penn fund reminder, and projects like the Postal Lands or a new Hill Field College House are worthy investments.

But as a potential donor, I’ve got to be honest — reading the paper makes me put the checkbook away. Any given day last year, I’d hit up The DP front page and see a student arrested for theft. For cybercrime. For panty stealing.

Living in D.C., it seemed like The DP added a rotating “Student arrested for ____” Mad Libs feature, filling the blank with a new and more exotic crime every few weeks.

(more…)