Say goodbye to your personal lives, ladies and gentlemen.

It’s 1984.

A recent article by John Hechinger in the Wall Street Journal cites several disturbing studies that conclude that between 10 and 21 percent of the top 500 colleges in the United States

acknowledged looking at social-networking sites to evaluate applicants. Of those colleges making use of the online information, 38% said that what they saw “negatively affected” their views of the applicant.

What is more disturbing is that applicants have actually been rejected based upon photographs and information conveyed in their Facebook profiles.

In a related phenomenon, employers are also checking on prospective and current employees’ Facebook profiles to look for content that they believe would shed negative light on their company. Some companies (including the one I worked for this summer) actually require their employees to allow them full access to their profiles, and threaten dismissal upon seeing anything unrepresentative of the image they want to display.

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Wine. In Spain. For lunch.

You know what I can do now?

I can drink during lunchtime. Legally. At school. In the cafeteria.

Jealous much?

Probably very much indeed. Now every Penn student will want to work their way over to Spain for this opportunity. This semester, I’m studying abroad in Madrid, doing all the things you wish you could do.

Be prepared for a rude awakening. Students at my university, ICADE, have a cafeteria complete with a fully functional bar. That’s right — a beer tap and everything.

However, few students utilize this amenity in the capacity that American students might. We can all imagine a Penn student ordering beer after beer before heading off to their afternoon classes totally incapacitated. However, the native Spanish students usually just have a glass of wine to quietly accompany their lunches.

As you may guess, there is a very different attitude toward alcohol here (as opposed to the United States). People young and old take their alcohol as a means of quenching a social thirst rather than fulfilling an undying desire to get smashed.

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I am a huge fan of any sort of get-rich-quick scheme or other shrewd gimmick that is based on falsities or striking fear in consumers. My opinion is that if you can somehow coax someone into buying a ridiculous product, then you deserve their hard-earned $19.99.

In the past, these ploys were limited to getting paid to shop (after you pay $9.95 for membership), earning FREE MONEY, and buying the Hannah Montana 2: Non-Stop Dance Party CD for $20.

But lately ridiculous purchases have infiltrated the aisles of our precious pharmacies and are the basis for entire stores. Of course, I am referring to the lucrative vitamin and supplement industry.

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See how awkward long distance relationships can be?

After passing a steamy summer hooking up in your friends’ parents’ beds and taking photos of yourselves kissing, all you college-age couples are being forced to decide whether or not your bond is strong enough to graduate to a long distance relationship. I’ve compiled list of telltale signs that a fling is just a fling, with some tips I managed to pick up in all those US history classes.

1. Someone becomes too controlling. College is your time to be independent; don’t let anyone tell you what you can and can’t do. America didn’t stand for it when her first boyfriend, Great Britain, started to control her. Even though they had so much in common, she decided that she needed to break free and “just be single for a while.”

2. One partner develops a wandering eye. If your relationship isn’t strong to begin with, lusting after others in your area is almost inevitable. America first began eyeing her neighbor Louisiana while involved in a casual rebound with France after her messy split from England.

3. The relationship is one-sided. Don’t let yourself remain dedicated to a long distance partner if they won’t show you the same respect. After America dated hunky bad boy Vietnam, she was left feeling like she had given everything, and gotten very little in return.

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While I was dining at a restaurant not-to-be-named-on-this-blog, I couldn’t help but notice the sign in the bathroom proclaiming:

“Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work.”

I was going to spew off some commentary wondering why any restaurant would need to put up that sign in the first place, unless for some reason the management was exclusively hiring employees who had circled “I don’t know” in response to the question “What is soap?” on their application. And even if that was true, were the restaurants so desperate that they hired on-the-spot, expecting their new, untrained employees would independently figure out trivial issues like sanitation, through the form of signs?

Yes, I was going to do that, until I found out this person had already done so, and pretty humorously to boot.

So let me share with you another story I found during the course of my research involving a McDonald’s near my high school. The main point of this blog post, written by a Canadian political activist, Ezra Levant, is this:

“…the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that one of the employees there has a human right not to wash her hands when working in their kitchen.”

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My beloved friends and acquaintances of this wonderful campus: I’m sorry, I don’t know your names.

If you’re wondering, I’m not addressing random people I met that one time at a loud party my freshman year I keep seeing around campus. I’m referring to people with whom I have definitely had meaningful conversations and shared significant memories, whose names I — no excuses — should fondly remember.

I understand this may happen freshman year, where everyone is always new, but unfortunately, I’m a senior. Sure, it’s easy to ridicule freshmen for innocent questions like “What’s a Logan Hall?” or “Were you the one who took my virginity during NSO?”, but nothing beats not remembering a friend’s name after knowing them for the past three years of your life, and then having to rely on Facebook to refresh your Alzheimer’s-like memory.

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Sousaphone

There is no greater torture in the world than having to sit through a SAC meeting.

Student Activities Council (or SAC, if you like to talk dirty) exists to apportion funds amongst all of the student activities at Penn. How much money each group gets depends on the SAC Constitution outlines and the judgment of SAC-Exec, the 9-member student board.

Every month, I am forced to sit in on the SAC General Body Meeting. Upon entry, one representative from each group on campus is given a magical pink sheet with their group’s name on it. His or her job is to hold the sheet up when the general body is asked to vote on whatever issue is at hand. Hundreds of students fill in the seats of Cohen Hall or the Chem building, and for many, sleep ensues.

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Good luck, freshmen

This semester, I will be coming to you from Spain as I trek around Europe looking for good places to eat and think about doing my homework.

As a result, I’m missing out on what is arguably the most (im)memorable event of the fall semester, New Student Orientation. This cherished time of year involves many a frat party and drunken foray into quasi-philosophical nonsense.

Freshmen attempt to display their mental chops and often get roasted for it, and a new class of Penn students discovers the mysteries of dining hall cuisine. (”Is that really what I think it is? Isn’t that only eaten in rural Kazakhstan?”)

Personally, I have different ties to NSO. Anyone that knows me even remotely will tell you that I got my party out of my system a very, very long time ago. Like before I was born.

I have no regrets about missing out on the festivities as 17- and 18-year-olds taste their first floor-and-ping-pong ball-flavored light beer. No amount of “I’m Bringing Sexy Back” repetition could compel me to step into those dens of vice known as frat houses.

Nevertheless, I will miss many parts of NSO. (more…)

Dear white people: I like you guys.

Seriously, in high school, I was made fun of by the other Asian kids for having no Asian friends. I don’t know why, but it sure wasn’t because of a meager talent pool; I hail from Vancouver, BC, which, according to some sources, is 30% Asian. But I digress.

As much as I like you guys, I’ve come to realize that sometimes I really feel sorry for you. I most recently had this revelation as I strolled through (okay, elbowed through at a sloth’s pace) the NSO Activities Fair on Tuesday.

Bombarded with pamphlets (I guess I look young) and later, out of curiosity, browsing through the OSL Cultural and Support Organization list, I was elated that I, at this moment, technically have the option of joining the Asian Student Union, Asian Pacific Student Coalition, Canadians at Penn, and the Korean Student Association. In fact, if you are a minority student, you are free to dabble in the veritable potpourri of Penn’s available cultural groups.

But what do you have if you’re one of them simple, good ol’ WASP-y American types?

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Mom jeans. They’ve been joked on by Saturday Night Live and banished by fashion magazines, and yet they continue to be sold by such fine establishments as JCPenney. These high-waisted, butt-enlargingly tapered creations are usually only seen in elementary school car lines — unfortunately, mom jeans’ little sister, denim leggings, have been getting a little bit more exposure than they deserve recently.

My first encounter with denim leggings began when my own mother bought me a pair in 1997. She was fascinated by the comfortable, stretchy fabric, and I wore them because I had them.

I seriously thought the last time I would see denim leggings was when I put them in a trash bag to take to Goodwill, but, to my surprise, one night when I was watching television with my family, there they were wrapped around the legs of Mischa Barton on my own TV screen, on a fashion show no less (check it out around 3:30). 

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