After having a recurring observation or performing an inexplicable action, I often brood over the most pressing existential question to ever face teenage sit-com characters: am I weird?

Below are a few thoughts I have had over the past few weeks. Ideally, you, the reader, will comment and let me, the blogger, know if we have a shared musing or if I’m just weird. Let’s make this relationship work.

1. Shortly after I facebook stalk someone, they will inevitably appear in real life. I’ll see someone on Locust Walk, and their Facebook profile seems to appear over their heads, as I quietly judge them for their laughable music taste (Nickelback? For real?), embarrassingly contrived profile picture (your heavily-Photoshopped default with your eyes gazing to the far left is neither unique nor hip), or their “Hot or Not” application (if you have to ask, the answer’s “not”). Occasionally, I will meet someone for the first time in reality, even though I have already seen an entire album of their dog wearing clothes. I suspect that this new acquaintance remembers that “Dude, Where’s my Car?” is listed as one of my favorite movies. Neither of us mention anything.

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My experience in the Florida wetlands was anything but damp. It, being spring break, was actually quite dry — boozing wasn’t allowed.

Yes, it was an odd way to spend a vacation: sleeping in bunk beds, sharing a co-ed bathroom with seven others, and eating breakfast before the sun rose. Prison and Alternative Spring Break are the only institutions that could legally force such deprivations. I was captive in the latter.

I’m not really sure why I paid to volunteer. Picking up trash, carrying heavy fences, and painting Park Rangers’ houses was far from glamorous. But whatever, I’m glad that I went, because when I returned to Philadelphia, I felt fab. (And it wasn’t because I’m a community service whore like many ASBers. I don’t get off on giving. Like most people, I get off on getting.)

I just felt accomplished to have just spent an entire week with a group of my peers without the presence of illicit substances. We actually hung out — co-ed bonding, omg — and didn’t drink, smoke, do coke, or hook up for seven entire days. (God created Earth in seven days.) That doesn’t happen very often, especially at Penn. (I’m referring to sober boys and girls, not the story of creation.)

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On Friday afternoon, a text message (followed by an e-mail and a phone call) put my mind at ease. The UPenn Alert system was fully functioning.

The Penn Police have taken a giant leap into the 21st century. They plan to text us if there is a campus emergency. This is wise, as our generation invented the text message break-up. The new strategy is also convenient: now I don’t even have to take out my earphones to know that there’s a shooting rampage.

So, the new alert system got me thinking about all the ways my life at Penn would be easier if the University sent text notifications for more than just violent emergencies. Here are a few examples:

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Last Friday, The New York Times publicized some frightening information: 1 out of every 100 American adults is currently incarcerated.

The report, conducted by the Pew Center on the States, asserts that 1.6 million adults are in federal prisons and an additional 700,000 are thumb-twiddling in local jails. The United States boasts the largest population of imprisoned people worldwide; China is second on the list.

When did going to prison become as common as a trip to Acapulco?

But the more I thought about it, the easier it was to put these figures into context.

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Spring Break is just around the corner, and that means students have one thing on the mind: sex. At the University of Iowa, for example, sex classes are filling up like crazy. And here at Penn, this Thursday is yet another installment of Sex Camp on the Quad. (Also the unwritten theme of all my childhood Boy Scout retreats.)

But this season’s biggest sex star is John McCain, the 120-year-old presidential candidate who carried on an alleged affair with a lobbyist more than thirty years his junior. In that light, I’ve decided to ask Larry Craig — Idaho’s Republican sex scandal expert — for a few political sex tips, just to keep things fresh this spring. Below are some of his secrets (or at least what I’d expect him to say).

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I was having dinner last weekend at a friend’s place and, being seniors, our conversation turned to what we would do after May. Government and finance came up, but one person declared she would be volunteering to conserve giant pandas in China for six months.

Pandas? I’m pretty sure pandas are a huge cosmic joke. I think the whatever high on top of the thing wanted to see how long it would take for a useless animal to become extinct.

Recently the BBC reported on the naming ceremony for a bumper crop of panda cubs at Wolong Nature Reserve, China. They are, I admit, unbelievably cute.

But they are totally useless. They only eat one type of bamboo and they have to eat about thirty pounds of the stuff every day just to stay alive.

What if something came to hunt it? Let’s go through its thought process…

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When I was in eighth grade, my parents made me take a ballroom dancing class because everyone else was doing it. (For some reason, when I used that logic to defend many of my other adolescent actions, it didn’t fly.)

The class typically went as follows: 120 fourteen year-olds were crammed into a room built for 50; an underpaid, over-passionate instructor dressed like a Medieval balladeer yelled commands like “Swing your partner!” for two straight hours; and at the end of it all he played the “Cha Cha Slide” just to make us feel better (although I still have no idea how to do the Charlie Brown). Worse yet, there were slightly fewer girls than boys — so a few male stragglers were left dancing with each other (horrible) or one of the supervising moms (Oedipal).

Now, more than six years later, I barely know how to box step. So when I read stories about college students involved in ballroom dancing competitions, I get nostalgic and sad.

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All the hullabaloo about Philly being the sixth borough has mostly died down, but apparently there are still New Yorkers relocating to Philly in droves (including Pressler herself).

According to a recent article in The New York Observer, 8,334 New Yorkers have moved to Philly since 2001. Not including me, that’s still 8,333 southbound souls.

While that’s only about 0.1% of New York’s population overall, 8000+ transplants are more than enough to keep the “Chinese bus” in business and the demand for Tacconelli’s strong.

And to think, I fancied myself unique.

Why the mass migration? And — more importantly, for those of us who favor a little competition: which city wins?

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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?

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So, click on this link, and see how the month is spelt. Yes, Febuary. On the Penn Ice Rink calendar. Sad thing is, this is almost certainly not a typo. Somebody thinks this is how it is spelt. The mispronunciation of FebRuary has long been a pet peeve of mine. You may gather from this that I have many pet peeves of the rather odd variety. You would be correct.

But seriously, what does it show about the education system? Not very much, I guess. I mean, Americans can’t spell anyway, and spelling is at the centre of a lot of stuff. But still, this is ridiculous. I usually have a sense of humour about these things. Laughing brings colour to my cheeks (which, if you look at my picture, you will realise is rather hard to do), yet I cannot stomach this.

And see where this lack of spelling, this adoption of American “English”, as got you? Now you can’t spell February. What’s next, the University of Pencilvania? The Younited States of America? Defense? Plow?

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