Hey everybody!

Did you see that really awesome part of last night’s thing? You know, the one with the three guys at a table talking about stuff? Apparently one guy got a little angry, which then caused the other, skinnier guy to force himself to sit on his hands a bit and then that third guy, the TV guy, changed the subject.

Yeah, pretty typical.

You know what isn’t typical, folks? Going to the World Series for the first time in fifteen years. That ain’t small beans. So, you’ll have to forgive me if I have no idea what John McCain said about the most character-assassinated man in the world, William Ayers, or what Barack Obama offered us about this mythical “Main Street.”

No, siree, last night’s debate did not happen to me, my family, or the city of Philadelphia. (Which, in case you forgot, is the city in which Penn resides. What? Yeah, I know you complain about it like Russell Martin after a called third strike. Oh well, a lot of my fellow Philadelphians aren’t too fond of you, either.)

Last night was devoted to watching the Phillies jump out to an early lead and then sitting back to enjoy Cole Hamels’ pitching masterpiece. We were celebrating by the time this “debate” you speak of even started.

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“Um… uh… er… yes…? Well… uh… uh… you, uh, see…”

I was weeping with shame. I had been called on without warning, without exactly having “done” the reading. All I could do was sputter nonsense.

I hoped that by sputtering enough nonsense, my professor would understand that I had either been put under a petrificus totalus curse or hadn’t done the reading and she would then permit me the mercy of moving on to a better student.

No diggity.

And so I did something I rarely do: I told the truth.

“I, uh… I didn’t get, um… as thoroughly as I, uh…” I whimpered. So, I suppose I did lie a little. By “thoroughly” I meant “at all.”

It had been eons since I last felt that guilty. I didn’t intentionally flake out; midterm season is rough. And really, it only hurts me as the class in question is my favorite.

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Maureen Dowd is a crazy motherfucker.

C-R-A-Z-Y. Legit. (I’d use the term “bitch” here but (1) that’s the term those nasty nasty conservatives use to describe her and (2) some of my feminist fans might be get offended. I hate offending people.)

She’s also one of the country’s most high-profile journalist-commentators. And this past week, she was barred “for the foreseeable future” from John McCain’s campaign.

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Who are we?

Hundreds and thousands of miles from our respective homes — separated from friends, families, neighborhoods and often nations —how do we remember who we were when we got here?

It’s true that many of us choose to throw our first eighteen years out the window and start over drunker, thinner, blonder, or dumber. But the rest of us face a real challenge.

I thought about this as I sat in Citizens Bank Park in South Philadelphia on Saturday watching the man I love most in this world, Jimmy Rollins, stretch further than anatomically possible to start The Double Play and send my Philadelphia Phillies into the playoffs. In that instant, absolutely everything was perfect.

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A week or so ago, The Daily Pennsylvanian told us about how the University selects its highly prestigious Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) professors. PIKs, after all, hold appointments in two University schools.

I’d like to nominate a few individuals who, while eminently qualified, may be overlooked by the archly conservative bastions of academia here at Penn. I urge the University to closely vet these individuals and make one of them the next Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor.

1. The criminology department could use a lift from Professor Suge Knight. Professor Knight would hold a joint appointment in Wharton, where he would teach the future leaders of Wall Street about business ethics and which federal prisons are coziest. Professor Knight is a great choice to educate the Whartonites as his personality makeup is pleasantly similar to theirs.

2. Last year, someone was apparently hired for his “real world experience.” With that in mind, I think actor Paul Giamatti would be an excellent choice to teach us about the life and times of John Adams in the history department. He did, after all, star in a miniseries on the second president. Let Giamatti teach “blah blah blah on the media” in the Annenberg School and wa-la!, a PIK professor is born.

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Some things about Penn are rough. Elevators are suspect. Libraries open and close willy-nilly. Ron Daniels appears and disappears. And finally, it’s hard to kill yourself here.

Like, really damn hard to kill yourself. (In fact, one might argue that’s a good thing. Meh. Also, stop reading somewhere around HERE if you get all uppity with sensitive things. My editor would like me to link to ponies and rainbows at this point in the post.) 

So what do you do at Penn if you just, you know, need to kill yourself?

Tragically, the answer may be nothing.

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I know that we here at The Daily Pennsylvanian typically publish the crime log on Wednesdays, but last night I finally got the balls to break into the office of the DP’s executive editor, David Lei, and steal the log. (The weekly crime log is, after all, the single most closely guarded secret at the DP.)

After incapacitating him with my Undertaker’s chokeslam, I ransacked his desk and shelves. (I tried the Stone Cold Stunner, but Mr. Lei is a surprisingly flexible young man. He wiggled out of my grasp.) Still, I found no crime log.

I was panicked, ready to give up my search. Then, through the corner of my eye, I spotted it! Sitting at the bottom of a recently-emptied bottle of Jack Daniels was the crime log. I had found it at last.

After retrieving the log from the bottle of Jack with my tongue and deciphering the vaguely Farsi code in which it was written, I can finally share it with you. I just hope I’m not too late to save you.

Sept. 17 — A female student, 22, reported that an unidentified person entered her unsecured house on the 4000 block of Baltimore Avenue at about noon and took her Tiffany’s necklace and iPhone. Police were unable to find any fingerprints as the house’s front door had been left open.

Sept. 18 — A female University employee, age 58, reportedly stole $1.4 million from College Hall’s President’s Office at around 5 p.m. No one is investigating. 

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Have you always had a sneaky feeling that there was a violent, apocalyptic underside to Princeton? Now there’s proof!

Meet the new Princeton-themed blog, Underside of Paradise. It’s great because it manages to skewer Princetonion pomposity by being, you know, pompous.

Princeton really did kill Lincoln, fund secret monies to the Viet Cong, and cozy up to James Dobson. After all, it’s on the Internet!

For example, were you aware that Princeton president Shirley Tilghman reads the Facebook page of every incoming student? (Of course there is a downside, the blog tells us: “Shirley’s scouring of Facebook message boards brings to mind Public Safety’s continued use of Facebook for investigations into student misdeeds.”)

God, I hope that Dr. Gutmann does the same thing; my profile picture is a photo of Big Amy herself. If I were ever to find out that our fair president had been so intimate with me as to see my Facebook profile, I’d be unable to walk for days.

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There’s a pretty little lady here on campus I’d like to blog about.

Her name is Lady Commons, and we’ve been together since late last August. She is always open and takes care of me almost as well as my mother does.

Sitting here with Lady Commons, there is no war, no genocide, no Lifetime Network. My dutiful research assistant, Chris DiFeliciantonio, and I are in perfect company.

You see, the Man likes to give Commons a hard time, but 1920 Commons is an underappreciated beacon of hope on this overworked campus of ours. Commons looks the Man in the eye and says “Fuck you, Man.”

Mainly, Commons cares. Commons cares about me more than any professor ever will. At Commons, I am actually greeted with excitement (“How you doin’ baby?”) and sent home with a smile. If my professors showed as much enthusiasm for their subjects as Commons does for its noble calling, I’d attend my lectures. And Commons is more popular than any professor; people don’t wait in lines as long as the one at the stir fry station for anyone’s office hours.

Plus, Commons has more personality than the average Penn professor.

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Ah, off-campus housing. It is perhaps the minimal definition of “cool” here at Penn. I remember the excitement of signing my lease way back in November. Everything was perfect. I was taller, braver.

Fast forward ten months and I’m moving in. YES!!

Unforeseen blessings discovered upon move-in included… The mold on my ceiling! The lack of central air! The spiders! Oh, yes, the spiders were so happy to have me. I was in store for many precious gifts.

The first gift I received was that of familial harmony. Yes, my parents and I were afforded the opportunity to spend twenty-six consecutive hours together in a small, sweaty bedroom. Parental involvement is at best a mixed bag.

Beware: your parents will absolutely love hating everything about your new digs. Nothing brings a family closer together than 1000 variations on “What was wrong with the high rises, William?”

My parents and I also really bonded over the little surprises in my new home, like cleaning the shovel-loads of mouse crap off my windowsill and taking bets on when in October I’d die of asbestos poisoning. (My dad said the 20th. I said I wouldn’t make it to Yom Kippur.)

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