sudoku much?

I JUST RAN INTO A GUY who I had a class with freshman year, and we started having the “just got back to Penn how are you!” conversation. After we went through the “how was your summer, what courses are you taking, I’m great” routine, he remembered that I was the one who introduced him to the facebook. Much to my surprise, he was grateful for the heads-up. As he put it, “The stalking is amazing!” So, I laughed my head off, and decided to write the sequel to my first facebook article.

About a year and a half ago, while I was still the naive fresh-man—just like the conspicuous 09ers—I wrote a little commen-

tary about facebook in First Call, just when the site took off at Penn. The article did have some wisdom, and I point this out not only because I’m biased, but also because it predicted many of the stumbling blocks people would face when posting personal information online. The face-book guys ended up making some of the changes mentioned in the little article—I’m sure these ideas were far from unique and were probably spam from hundreds of nosy college students with the same opinions.

Many things about facebook have changed since March 2004. However, facebook’s pur-pose is still the same. Facebook is still life’s great footnote. Any anecdote has a reference, and you can type the person into that little search box to get it. The template was switched not too long ago and, more importantly, every single university is on it.

This second fact has caused a significant wave of elitist hysteria. As one friend of mine recently said, “If your college is advertised on the radio, like DeVry, you shouldn’t be facebook-ing.” In a similar light, facebook groups like “Remember when the facebook was elite?!” have spawned. As far as I’m concerned, geeks should be grateful that facebook has expanded past the Ivy Tower schools. After all, now they can feel smug when they find the kid who beat them up at recess in elementary school. Not many bullies end up in West Philly, except for the ones who grew up around here.

Come to think of it, I could devote a whole article to facebook groups if I wanted, but face-book is simply too multi-faceted for such a narrow focus. Before I move on, however, I must mention one other eye-sore: the “Marginally a Virgin” group. I can’t see how this would be a fun group to join. It doesn’t quite have the appeal of, for example, the “I just tried to ford the river and my fuckin’ oxen died” concept. I could see why Jesus lovers would want to start an “I’m white and untouchable” group, or there could be an “I’m tired of sex like the Weezer song” group for needy frat boys, but why would someone want to advertise the fact that at some point in time they got some, but not anymore?

The Undergraduate MagazineVol. VI, No. 2 | September 19, 2005

ADRIAN PONSENSTOP FOR THE RED AND THE BLUE

Sleepless, With SubstancesWant to crack up?Liz reviews all the popular anti-sleep drugs. Page 3

To Love, or Not to Love?Shira dreams that someday her prince will come too.Page 4

Sudoku Much?The puzzle that has taken Penn by storm. It’s more addictive than coke.Page 7

Turn That Wardrobe OverBing dresses you up with his love all over.Page 8

Continued on PAGE 6Continued on PAGE 5

THE COLLEGE MANIFESTO

L A U R E N S A U L | W E E K LY S A U L U T A T I O N SWHEN I WAS GOING about the trying process of deciding whether to apply to the College of Arts and Sciences or Wharton, I scoured brochures and other campus literature, hoping that I would make some sort of monumental discovery to point me in the right direction. Everything I read sang the praises of the college. Consider an example from the 2005-2007 edition of The Practical Penn: “The College of Arts and Sciences remains the heart and the soul of the modern university.” I learned all about the incredible research opportunities and the fantastical merits of a liberal arts education. I was told time and again that the College is the “core” of Penn. If this is indeed the case, we’re a highly under-funded and unappreciated core. I have begun to believe our status is purely symbolic.

About a week ago somebody was complaining to me about the unfair perks Wharton stu-dents receive. “Have you seen their buildings?!” he demanded of me. “Who cares,” I naively responded, “they’re just buildings.” I dismissed his bitching as an example of the friendly Whar-ton-College rivalry I had heard so much about. In truth, I had not yet seen their buildings, but certain unfortunate circumstances in the past week brought me to their hallowed halls. I walked out of them in a daze, hypnotized by their architectural grandeur and beautiful sculp-tures, disillusioned with my own lowly status as a student of the College.

The classrooms are even worse. For those freshmen who haven’t yet wandered inside a Wharton building, imagine that you are a very important world leader attending a Middle East peace summit. This is roughly the experience of the Wharton undergraduate. The rooms are spacious with amphitheater style rows. The floor is lavishly carpeted, unaffected by the luxuri-ous swivel chairs which roll smoothly along its surface. The lighting is magnificent. The class-rooms truly seem to be modeled after the UN’s large assembly rooms. This is true of both the new and older Wharton buildings. I would not be surprised if the administration is currently in the process of commissioning famous artists to paint murals on the walls and ceilings of the classrooms. Compare Wharton’s quarters to the cramped, acoustically-challenged, and down-right ugly College classrooms that I’ve traversed and it’s enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Wharton students even get their own nickname: Whartonites (a term President Gutmann employed at Freshmen Convocation). What are the College students? Collegiates? Collegians? Sure, if we want to share our nickname with the other millions of college students across the English-speaking world. That includes Princeton. And the University of Montana. What about you, Engineering School? Engineers isn’t a slick nickname…it’s a profession. Nursing school? Nothing.

What can we do as College students to gain back our long-lost pride? Here’s an idea: Stop transferring to Wharton! I’m tired of the disloyal bastards who successfully circumvent the Penn admissions committee by applying to the college, padding their GPA freshman year, tak-

BY ADAM GOODMAN

FACEBOOKPart Deux

SEPTEMBER 19, 2005 | FIRST CALL | VOL. VI NO. 2PAGE 2

Editorial

THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSThursday night at 9 p.m., President Bush interrupted the major networks’ programming

to deliver a speech from New Orleans. I’ll concede a few things to help shape the context—I didn’t vote for him in November and I’ve never been even moderately impressed with Dubya’s speaking “skills”. I haven’t been paying attention to the Hurricane Katrina news footage. I know, I know, I’m a TV addict. But I remember 9/11. I remember sitting in front of a TV watching the destruction over and over again and thinking, “this isn’t helping”. This address, however, was absolutely the most crucial speech of Dubya’s two terms in office (at this juncture, anyway). You pretty much know what the content is going to be, even if you don’t know the details of the plan. After all it comes mere days off the “we screwed up” announcement. One minute in, I knew I wasn’t going to like it. So I began a play-by-play.

9:03: Bush speaks. Personifies storm as cruel. Rob wonders if Katrina is now in the Axis of Evil.

9:05: Name drop and personal story number six. I feel like this is the fourth debate, but Bush has no opponent to show him up.

9:07: Rob looks away from his Sudoku. Notices Bush reading from a teleprompter. The teleprompter is going a bit too fast. It makes me happy to know that UTV13 has instilled this knowledge in me forevermore.

9:09: $60 billion dollars in federal relief aid. That’s, what, 1.5 days of the War in Iraq? *clap* By the way, how will this $60 billion be financed? I’m pretty sure there are no tax hikes in store. Nevermind. We’re apparently moving on.

9:12: Finished my Sudoku. Next (note: First Call is having easy/medium/hard puzzles in each issue now and I was play-testing them). Is it just me or is Bush’s brow permanently furrowed?

9:13: Ah, here comes the race card. This seems... inappropriate. Shouldn’t there be something about why the minorities were left behind and an action plan to make sure nothing as despicable like that happens again, instead of this “let’s make sure minorities are running businesses” bullshit that, while a nice hope, is impossible as a federal mandate?

9:17: How do churches bring humanity to reconstruction efforts? What the fuck is an Army of Compassion? Is it going to win the War in Iraq?

9:20: *points* War on Terror transition.9:22: I know I’m being cynical here. But this really is quite a bunch of nationalist hoo-hah.

The army is the group best suited to execute future efforts? Can we just install martial law, already?

9:23: God, mention 26.9:24: *dead from... just dead* Thank God—number 27—that speech is over.9:26: Finished Sudoku number two. Bring on number three (finished that 16 minutes later,

but we were already into news commentary).Don’t get me wrong. I am glad Dubya is pledging that the federal government will do

something about Katrina relief. But I am disappointed in the size of it and some of the news commentary comparing this to the New Deal. Dubya is not FDR and the current economic situation is not the Great Depression. Let’s not forget: the federal government dropped the ball big time. A parent of friend of mine will no longer vote Republican because of how this disaster was handled. This speech may have been trying to heal wounds, but all I felt was a rub of salt. Until words become actions, I’m not placated.

- Rob Forman, Editor-in-Chief

FirstCallVol. VI, No. 2 | September 19, 2005

The Undergraduate Magazine Editor-in-ChiefRobert Forman

EditorsAndrew Pederson

Lauren Saul

Assistant EditorsShira Bender

Anna Stetsovskaya

ColumnistsShira Bender

Christine ChenRobert Forman

Adam GoldsteinMickey Jou

Andrew PedersonLauren Saul

Thuy Tran

WritersAdam Goodman

Bing LiPauline Park

ArtistsShira Bender

Stephanie CravenJay Kim

Shelby Prindaville

PhotographersShira Bender

Adrian PonsenShelby Prindaville

Layout EditorKrystal Godines

Layout AssistantsMichael Sall

Heather SchwedelAmanda TayKathy Wang

Marketing ManagerLeah Karasik

Advertising ManagerRuchi Desai

WebmasterRachit Shukla

Contact Information330 Jon M. Huntsman Hall

3730 Walnut StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19104

(215) [email protected]

Web Siteclubs.wharton.upenn.edu/fcpaper

Bloghttp://fcpaper.blogspot.com

SubmissionsEmail letters to the editors and

guest submissions to [email protected].

Students, please include your school and class.

Editorial PolicyFirst Call is the undergraduate magazine of The University of Pennsylvania. First Call is published every Monday. Our mission is to provide members of the community an open forum for express-ing ideas and opinions. We are commit-ted to a policy of non-censorship. Articles are provided by regular columnists and writers. They are chosen for publication based on the quality of writing and of argumentation. Outside of the weekly editorial, no article represents the opin-ion of First Call, its editorial board, or individual members other than the author. No content in First Call unless otherwise stated represents the official position of the administration, faculty, or student body at large of the Wharton School or the University of Pennsylvania.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2005 | FIRST CALL | VOL. VI NO. 2 PAGE 3

TRUCKERS, COKE AND SLED DOGSThe Secrets of Staying Awake for Weeks

SOMETIMES WITH ALL the clubs, classes, workouts, hang-outs, parties, after parties, after-after parties, interviewing, writing, cramming, and schmoozing there is to do on campus, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. You get tired. And let’s face it: tired equals ugly - ‘Britney Spears on a hot day’ ugly. And nobody wants that. Luckily there are plenty of “little helpers” that strung out chemists all over the world have spent their lives designing so that you can stay awake far longer than nature ever intended.

High school student Randy Gardner set a record by staying awake for 264 hours straight, under the watchful supervision of Stanford researchers. That’s over eleven days. Even though doctors predict you’ll be seeing dead aunts and cartoon characters after only 72 hours without sleeping, Randy was fine. If someone with the name of Randy can do it, you can do it too. All you need is the aid of the following web-garnered remedies:

1. Red Bull: The stimulant 101 of wake-fulness. Apparently some Austrian derived Red Bull from a Thailand-native drink. From there it gained worldwide attention until it was shut down by Norway, Sweden, and France. They blamed it on people dying from something called ‘Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.’ My friend actually caught that disease from an oncoming green line trolley. Can we really trust a French ban anyway? Af-ter all, the French accused Lance Armstrong of using deodorant, which is apparently an ‘illegal substance’ during the Tour de France. Tasty!

2. Provigil: Let’s get legal! Don’t worry kids. You don’t need to take the Lindsey Lohan route to peace, love, and wired-out-of-your-skull happiness. The makers of Provigil, which plays games with your cortex, are ter-ribly concerned about the dangers of (get ready) ‘shift work sleep disorder.’ SWSD (yes, it’s real) occurs when you are unable to concentrate at your job, yawn a lot, and…what was I talk-ing about again?

3. Coffee: The age old solution. But beware of some very dour-looking old woman named Florence Cardinal detailing alternatives to drinking coffee. Among Florence’s tips are exercising, drinking decaf, and sucking on mints. I guess you have to amuse yourself when you’re old.

4. Speed: (aka whiz, billy, sulphate, etc.) Speed will keep you chugging along for hours and hours without an appetite. The downers: you’ll probably end up grinding laundry de-tergent in your teeth unless you have a good nose for the high-end stuff. And also, you’ll babble like an idiot for hours about yourself because you’ll be wired out of your mind. And you’ll think everyone cares. And then you’ll make a bad reality TV show about you and

your white-trash spouse, and it will be shown on UPN. And it will be called Chaos.

5. Coke: Remember the scene in Ameri-can Psycho where the I-bankers are all in this club, hanging out with coked-up models, and

one of the models asks Patrick Bateman where their friend went, and Bateman tells her that he is downstairs sign-ing a peace treaty with Gorbachev? And she believes him? And then they dance to New Or-der. Then I think later on he kills her.

6. Meth: Right now, there’s a huge meth ‘epi-demic’ in this country. More and more people are setting up home labs in their kitchens

and blowing themselves to pieces, or at least searing half their faces off. Another case of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome striking. But if you’re one of the lucky few who survive that little carnival, you’ll get to embrace what bik-ers and truckers have used for years to stay awake all night on the road. You might clean a lot too. Then you’d be a really peppy, germ-free trucker. Or biker. With burn marks on your face. Awesome!

7. Duromine: Some garment workers got busted in 2003 for using this little party-in-a-box to pull 72 hour shifts in the Philippines. It’s actually an appetite suppressant for obese

people. Hey, two birds with one stone, right? I guess you can cancel your plans to read that new Dr. Phil weight-loss book/morph into Britney Spears.

8. Adderall/Ritalin: People 12 and under, get ready to giggle. One person reported their hands turning blue and twitching after snort-ing ADHD meds. Another said she couldn’t shut up for a few hours. And some lucky people actually experience a problem called ‘formication.’ Haha! That means the feeling of bugs crawling under your skin. But it sounds like…! Don’t judge me.

9. Run alongside your sled team: That’s what participants in Alaska’s annual Iditarod – a longtime sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome – recommend if you get sleepy on the trail. If all else fails, you can always try in vain to light a fire for several hours before killing your head dog (Buck) and curling up inside his carcass for a quickie nap, then freezing to death. How anticlimactic is that?

10. Most creative online suggestion for staying awake: Someone actually said this: ‘If you have a beard, you can try pulling hairs out of it and looking at them.’ To be honest, I don’t even know how to make fun of that. And I’m wired senseless right now on Rock Star. That’s just sad. Time to go watch my Chaos DVDs.

BY LIZ THOMAS

Sometimes with all there is to do on cam-pus, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. You get tired. And let’s face it: tired equals ugly - ‘Britney Spears on a hot day’ ugly. And nobody wants that.

Liz Thomas is a senior in the College. You can write to her at ecthomas@sas.

Shelby Prindaville is a sophomore in the College. You can write to her at shelbyp@sas.

Ji Hea is a senior in the College. You can write to her at jihea@sas.

go after the rest of your life right now, for fear of losing it? To hold off on growing up? To explore? To hold on for dear life to the things you’re sure of?

Can I just say right now to all of you who fit in that italics category back there—I don’t know what the right thing is. I never have. When I was in kindergarten, I chased the guy I had a crush on into the cubbies and kissed him on the cheek. That wasn’t the right thing. I got ridiculed until senior year of high school, which sounds weird and pathetic but that’s my grade for ya. That may sound relatively unimportant, but really, that’s my life. A great big chase around the cubbies. It hurts to finally land that kiss on that cheek, and then have to fear that it’ll only result in ridicule for years to come. Except kisses on the cheek have been escalated to much more meaningful

and intense things, and ridicul-ing has turned into fear of ruining the entire rest of my life, simply because I couldn’t stay away from the cubbies. I feel like the girl who gives love a bad name. I feel like Bon Jovi hates me. Actually, I feel like every single song on the radio is about me, and my situation. Is that self-centered, or insecure? Are those really opposites?

I do still believe in fairytales. I just can’t see myself being the star in one anymore. I’ll be one of the magical animals on the side who gets to frolic around the forest. Certainly not the princess

herself. Princesses never have to worry about whether or not to just be with the Prince. Princes and Princesses go together. No questions, no waiting, no trying out dukes and earls and court jesters. Just the Prince. Why isn’t it that simple for the rest of us? For me? Why can’t I be one of those

people I’ve always wanted to be, who meets the man of her dreams, and has no fear or doubt or angst whatsoever about what the rest of her life will be like, and who can just accept that now is the time, and there’s no point to holding off on it? Okay, so, yes, I’m way too confused and unsure of myself to trust myself in an actual relationship right now. But then what about my heart that won’t stop racing ahead toward that finish line, that won’t give me a chance to catch up, or even take a breather and wave at the crowds? It won’t stop running, chasing, holding on to things I know I’m terrified of losing. And of course that’s entirely unfair and wrong of me to do, my mind is scream-ing to my heart right now, but they’re so far apart from each other that the warnings are all in vain, I’m just not paying any attention to myself.

I’ll sum this up now, since, like I said last week, I could go on for quite some time and I guess I already have. Being in love is not always a fairytale. Feeling like I can see the rest of my life ahead of me in complete detail should make me feel comforted, but all it does is scare me right now. I’ve been through some stuff, had some things fall apart, lost some people, watched some oth-ers lose some people, and lost some hope. I have so much love in me; I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to be doing with it now. So, to elaborate on the “not following my heart” thing I mentioned last time—I guess I’m just a coward. Hopefully that’ll change, and hopefully soon. It’s getting to the point where I’m just kidding myself anyway. Af-ter all, I can’t go too much longer without being Sleeping Beauty again. The question is, how long can a princess survive all by herself?


LOVE, ACTUALLYI GOT QUITE a few responses to last week’s article. I guess people like to see others complain—is that why blogs are so suc-cessful? A few people even responded to the part about

my 50-page whining and bitching session on my love life, a response I find even more interesting. Does it really intrigue people to know that love can be entirely confusing? Is this really new information? Haven’t we all seen enough The OC episodes, read enough Shakespeare, listened to enough Emo to know how much it can hurt? Or do people really mean it when they tell me to write more on that subject?

To tell you the truth, I don’t even know if I can. I don’t even know if I know enough about my own opinions on love or my own sanity regarding it to be able to string together sentences that will make sense to the general public. I guess since I’m a couple of paragraphs into this pseudo-introduction, I may as well just keep going and see what hap-pens. See, many of you probably think I know what I’m going to say before I say it. Truth is I have no clue what this will be like by the end of my 1,000 words or so (editor’s note: 2,000). I hope it ends up somewhat truthful, if not coherent.

A disclaimer: This will have to be vague, and I apologize for that. Much as I love dis-playing my life in this awesomely fantastic publication for the entire world to read and ridicule, I have a thing about discussing the serious stuff in my life in too much detail, without at least some alcohol in me (no, dad, I don’t drink—ever). So, yes, I will say how I feel, but perhaps without some specific details on why, and for that, I am truly sorry. I’ve gotta know you all better first—maybe even be facebook friends with you. And to all those who know me well enough already to see through my façade of witticisms and vagaries—I apologize in advance, and I give you fair warning: don’t read into this. I’m just rambling, after all.

Okay. Enough nervous avoidance of the question at hand. Love. Love, love, love. I’m cringing right now. You should know I used to be the girl who figured her life would end up just like a Disney fairytale. I’m talking complete with falling asleep for a while until a prince kisses me to wake me up, with seven dwarves milling about and sweeping the floor beside my bed, a foolhardy blue genie whose alter-ego is a dirty-mouthed comedian whose best movie was Hook, a whole bunch of talking animals—mice with coats and hats, tigers only I can understand, parrots that bother everyone but who tell a damn good version of the Aristocrats—and general romance and background music written by Elton John and lots of sweet tongue-less kisses and flowers and random white bells ring-ing at weddings. Yes, that was going to be the life of young Shira Bender, growing up in a cottage a few miles away from the castle, meeting the man of her dreams while drawing water from the well to feed the cows. Or…whatever the right version of “drink” would be in that sentence, since you clearly can’t feed water to cows.

But alas, it was not meant to be. Any Debbie Friedman fans here? “As I grew up I came to learn that life was not a game, that heroes were just people who we called another name.” Pretty fitting. I’m not trying to say I had this really hard life and all. I’ve had my share of loves lost, but, not to brag, I’ve actually done pretty well in terms of finding guys who I can spend long amounts of time with, and click with, and see eye to eye with. Unfortunately, as soon as I lose something I thought I had, I pretty much

flip out over it. Like, think of the last movie you saw where the girl was eating tubs of ice cream and mascara running and all of that right after a breakup—that’s me. But substitute macaroni and cheese for ice cream and unwashed hair for mascara. I hate mascara. I wear it when my friends are wearing it, but let me just say right here and now, I hate mascara.

I’ve been told the breakup thing is be-cause I have a problem with dependency. I don’t know how to be all alone, how to find my way through the social spider webs without a guy by my side with his arm around me, telling me he only has eyes for me. That’s probably true. Is that such a bad thing? Doesn’t everybody just want to be loved? Or am I trying to make myself feel better about it when really I know that most girls are able to be single and happy,

and don’t need to pine after someone they have perfect memories with or perfect hopes for?

Basically, so far all I’ve told you is I used to believe in fairytale love, and I’m bad with breakups and being alone. What else do you need to know? I’m terrified of marriage. That’s not to say that I haven’t thought about it, imagined it, or hoped for it. But has anybody else noticed how quickly life went from marriage, kids, job, all that “adult” stuff being, like, 100 years away to only a few? Somehow every deci-sion I make now, every person I’m with, every class I take, and every name I like becomes my potential future husband, ca-reer, baby name. I don’t mean that literally. But it’s pretty freaky to think how little time we have left as stupid young kids. I like not having to think about consequences or the future or any of that. But when it comes to love—sorry to start the sentence like that, I sound like Carrie Bradshaw now—it seems that my heart is moving much faster than my mind. I pretty much have to shoot it with that stuff they shoot animals with to knock them out, just to give rationality a chance to catch up with it.

I just realized I didn’t exactly explain my recent departure from Disney romance. Basically, I got burned. Don’t start sympa-thizing—I pretty much did the burning all by myself. It wasn’t so much a burning as a realization. It wasn’t so much a realization as a whirlwind of emotions and fears and hopes that entirely took me by surprise. I wasn’t happy, I changed my situation in a way that hurt people I love, I ended up con-fused and unhappy which is to be expected from major change, I got happy again for a time, I ended up even more confused and afraid, and here I am, happy most of the time but still confused, wondering where I’m going with all this, wanting something but not letting myself have it, fearing some-thing but not letting myself deal with it, waiting for something to happen without my having to make any actual decisions. All of that, on top of watching some people extremely close to me get more burned than they ever deserved to be, added up to nuclear warfare against Sleeping Beauty.

Does this make any sense to anyone other than me and the select few who reading this and thinking to themselves, Shira...stop using First Call to vent your frustrations, just do the right thing. The right thing. What is that? Ok, yeah, the right thing was to return the bookmark I stole from Ivana when I was eight. But what about in love? Is the right thing to

S H I R A B E N D E R | I N A L L S H I R I O U S N E S S

Shira Bender is a sophomore in the College. You can write to her at shiratb@sas. Photo by Tiffany Liu.

IKEA’S POSH cousin, Norway Says, features award-winning contemporary furniture; that is, if you can figure out two things: what it is exactly that you are looking at and if you are

not mistakenly sitting on what is supposed to be the headrest. A major obstacle, however, is that this functional art is only available in select countries that—surprise, sur-prise—disdainfully throw the United States back into its tacky plastic covered couches by consciously excluding us from the perfectly streamlined seating options Scandinavians do best. Marked by the use of bold colors, smooth lines, endless mix-and-match com-binations for couches that link together like puzzle pieces, capable of professional use or private residential leisure… the possibilities are endless. That is, of course, if you are will-ing to dish a few thousand English pounds at the very minimum, a minimum which rapidly skyrockets with the going exchange rate. A good rule of thumb in terms of what this amounts to in US dollars: double it. Who ever said insta-chic doesn’t come with a price tag?

The Oslo-based company’s innovative ideas are spun collectively from a close-knit group of three designers—Torbjern Aders-sen, Andreas Engesvik, and Espen Voll—all graduates from the National College of Art and Design in the 1970s and again in 2000. With names like those, it must be of authen-tic Norwegian design. The three friends are extremely self sufficient, running the business with an additional support staff of just two assistants. Norway Says originally started as just a showcase of a few design projects in 2000. Since then it has bloomed into a design firm located in the bohemian east side of Oslo, raking in honors and design

awards every year, compliments of everyone from the Norwegian Design Council to Elle Magazine.

If the firm sounds kind of exclusive, it is probably because it is. Never fear, the college student can snag the same look from the ever beloved Ikea. Ikea has an abundance of college-friendly furniture (see collapsible and wheeled) that have a quasi-permanent look upon first glance. The most expensive Ikea couch probably costs 1% of the price of a couch designed by Norway Says. You do the math. Ikea even has some little DIY num-bers that your resident engineer would enjoy putting together.

It is no secret that modern is the new classic and Penn has picked up on its stu-dents’ Ikea craze. Ready and willing to sink serious money into the seriously stylish dorm room cause, all three high rise dorms are fur-nished with boxy couches and dish-shaped chairs perfect for spooning the Penn student who likes to curl up with a good book, or more likely, a hefty textbook. The high rises have come a long way since they were erect-ed. I remember going on the campus tour having secretly decided that the high rises were the place to be, based on the housing brochure. On paper it makes a lot of sense. I mean, who can compete with a kitchen and non-communal bathroom? I think the room they showed us on the tour was in pre-renovation Harnwell, and it was frightening. It was dinghy, reeked of the seventies, and the stove top looked unreliable and down-right dangerous. Though I’m sure this was not the case in all the high rise rooms, first impressions are hard to nix. Now with the renovations in Harnwell finally complete, or rather incomplete, as some rooms are miss-ing light fixtures, bulbs, and Venetian blinds, the three H’s are finally presentable, and dare I say worthy of showing off? As a first year Harnwellian, I give it my stamp of approval.


THE ANDROGYNY OF PINK

BY PAULINE PARK

IF IT WERE A NUANCE that went more or less unnoticed, I would not have such a hissy-fit, but quite frankly the whole pink shirts on boys trend is not a forgiving and forgetting matter. Pink has remained more or less a girl color for all the right reasons. Pink is to convey sheer girliness and femininity, the freedom and right that every girl should have. It is equivalent to the right every girl has to dot lower case i’s with hearts up till the age of thirteen. We need only look into one specific demographic to get a sense of how simple de-fining colors for genders can be. Traditional-ly, baby girls are swathed from head to toe in pink clothes, blue bibs are for baby boys, and yellow is for the sick parents who like to pass their babies off as hermaphro-dites. This was the idea behind my mother’s coordination of my sophomore year dorm with pink-everything. I went through a brooding p u n k - p e r i o d my freshman year, where the moody black was my color of choice. But that changed quickly. Every-thing from my bed sheets to my loofa were pink by the time my mom got through with me. (Unfortunately, dying my hair pink was another story.) On the flip side, my mother’s sadistic experiment at feminiza-tion worked wonders. I now carry a pink bag, my pink flip flops are my shoe of choice, and guess what color iPod I have? Coincidence? I think not. Because I have developed a fond relationship with this color and have trans-formed my wardrobe, one pink garment at a time, I become territorial when I find that suddenly pink has became a product of mas-sive and unisexual consumption.

In this post-modern world, we have become too liberal and forgiving with our values. We no longer think twice if a guy in a pink shirt walks by us, and we do not even flinch a little or feel our stomachs giving way a bit. We should try to console him and say that there are numerous other colors that are flattering to him. “Salmon” is certainly not one of them, because, social conventions and gender roles, albeit not necessarily perfect, exist for a reason. For one to defy this role because it is simply trendy is disturbing at the least. Don’t act like you’ve just stepped off a Ralph Lauren catalog, because you didn’t. Prior to this trend, if one were to see a boy wearing pink it would have been equivalent to committing fashion heresy. In fact, males, were and are considered slackers when it comes to fashion. Despite the prevalence of male designers, girls have always been the

ones to step onto the platform with their expertise and gifted prowess in style, fashion, and beauty. This is where impressionistic no-tions of vanity and superficiality come from, a label hardly given to our male counterparts.

Why then this sudden uproar and rage over men being “inventive” with their ward-robe and experimentation in color coordina-tion? How is it that we have suddenly now adopted a more pro-friendly image to the male pink dresser? The androgynous under-ground scene culture may have had an influ-ence in acceptance of specific styles without regard to gender. This culture includes but is not limited to the infamously cute long, shaggy crop seen on both indie boys and

girls. A pink shirt into the mix would hardly lift an eye-brow, if these scene boys are masquer-ading in mascara and the whole kit and caboodle as we speak. This practiced behavior only promotes the notion that there is a crossing of lines in gendered behavior, and thus, making boys and girls of this type virtually indistinguishable. But where do we draw the line? It has never been wrong for boys and

girls to swap things, including but not limited to body fluids, but swapping wardrobes and make-up tips? Consider me a purist, but that’s just going a little too far.

A secondary explanation to this pink phenomenon can be attributed to the me-trosexual culture that has evolved over the past few years, spitting out perfectly groomed males and passing them as objects of fascina-tion, envy, and desire. Males now have no qualms about being perfectly loyal to and branded as being clean-cut, consummating activities previously exclusive to women, such as pedicures, waxings, and facials, without the threat of stigma. While I applaud a well-dressed, sharp looking individual who has taken the time to properly invent himself and adopt a professional image, I can’t help but bemoan the fact, the insertion of a pink collared shirt puts the classy male back into cahoots with me — a girl. While I applaud confidence and the ability to defy norms, I am patently aware of the gender struggle as well. My gender struggle that is, one that involves reclaiming the color back to the right gender. I am running out of colors that can identify me, as a girl, and no one has yet to even think of the plight of fifteen-year-old female who enters a store to buy a pink shirt, only to have it snatched away by some preppy-fronting college boy.

Pauline Park is a senior in the College.

Let’s talk about the new and separate facebook universe for high schools. This is another thing that puzzles me. I can see how it might be helpful in a semi-similar way for people at huge high schools, but it must be-come pointless and just plain awkward in the small cushy private school atmosphere which I unhappily remember. It’s really hard for me to imagine going through high school again with a convenient tool like facebook. The drama in American high schools is about to increase exponentially. Before you know it, your little siblings are going to be trying to imagine worldly interests and type them into a little box.

Speaking of worldly interests, the “inter-ests” section, along with the “movies” and “books” sections, requires some comment. So many people try to establish the perfectly

eclectic mix of interests, books and movies on their profiles. They really want to seem inter-esting. And of course, that’s natural. But, it just doesn’t seem like something that anyone should have to work on for too long. Put up a good picture, and people will find out how interesting you are if they are really good at stalking.

Interesting fact about facebook: it runs into way more problems at night. Sometimes the pages load a bit slower, the site occasion-ally goes down, or the formatting is off-kilter. Of course, this makes perfect sense. The site has to be overworked from people catching up online with a day’s worth of human in-teraction. And, every once in awhile, there’s a bigger facebook mishap at 1 a.m. and the facebook makers are probably scratching their heads as college kids everywhere are impatiently tapping their mouse.

One night last year, the most amazing glitch of all happened. This story has be-come legendary though few believe it. In

fact, I have trouble believing it after awhile. One Wednesday night at about 2 a.m. I was still awake doing some horrible STAT 102 project that was due the next day. I logged on facebook as a “quick” diversion. After my usual routine I noticed that I was able to see all of my friends’ friends from other schools! I couldn’t believe it. Computer glitches rarely favor the end user in this way, so I spent a whole hour typing in names of people who I recalled from childhood. I found out ev-erything I wanted to know about every last friend from camp or elementary school, and I knew I had reached the pinnacle of stalking. I knew no future facebook usage could ever live up to that night, so I lost most of my interest in stalking afterward. As a matter of fact, it’s never quite been the same.

The final issue to comment on is the “Last Updated” feature. I get a real kick out of this little date. I feel that so many people are concerned with not updating too often, especially now that the “recently updated”

list of friends comes up before the entire list. Some of my friends have even let this concern slip. In my opinion it’s justified. The people who constantly update become an annoy-ance, because their faces constantly come up on that list. Everything in moderation! The same applies for friends. One friend of mine did a massive friend cut. He had 400 friends, or some similarly absurd number, and he cut it down to about 60 people. I have quite a deal of respect for that action. It’s something that the friend-mongers should think about, for like two seconds. Some of my friends with spare time actively look out for the people who have 40 or so friends. They think the small number has character. While I used to seek many friends, I’m starting to lean over to the sparse-friend side on facebook as well. They’ve convinced me. In fact, one day I just may make the leap and sift through my own list. Facebook friends, you shall see.

Lauren Saul is a junior in Wharton and the College. You can write to her at lcsaul@wharton.

Continued from PAGE 1FACEBOOK

C H R I S T I N E C H E N | T E M P E S T I N A T E A P O T

Christine Chen is a junior in Engineering. You can write to her at cachen@seas.

SIT ON THIS!

FRESHMEN GIRLS: BREAK IN THOSE SWEAT PANTS. LOOKING GOOD WON’T LAST MUCH LONGER.

firstcallismour dose of

weekly wisdom

ing a couple of intro to econ and math courses, and securing easy access to Wharton for their sophomore years. It seems like this is the plan of every other person I talk to. They speak with full confidence in their strategy; some already refer to themselves as Wharton students. In reality though, you can’t blame the myriad Benedict Arnolds who do this every year. Why trudge on as worthless College students when the tan-talizing option of being treated as Wharton royalty is in such close reach? The onus is on the College to curtail this practice. Here’s a hint: having a thriving economics department in the College makes it harder to figure out the true intentions of prospective economics majors.

I’m sure plenty of non-Wharton sophomores and up-perclassmen are accustomed to this miserable phenomenon. Perhaps this article makes you nostalgic for the time before your spirit was crushed. Maybe you are a sadistic jackass whose only solace is that 1500 new freshmen have to endure your pain every September. Either way, put yourself in my shoes. Attempt to recall that first moment when you realized that the university which you loved didn’t love you back quite as much.

I’ll let you in on a little writing process secret. I was not originally planning on capitalizing “Wharton” and the “Col-lege.” My Microsoft Word program would not allow me to use a lower-case “w” to describe Wharton. Evidently, this was deemed a ludicrous proposition by the Microsoft crew. Low-er-casing the “c” in “College” was perfectly acceptable to the taunting little paper-clip scurrying around my laptop screen, but I was compelled to capitalize it for obvious reasons. I have been reduced to being taunted by a digital paper clip.

In retrospect, I should have known when I was reading all about the greatness of the College that something was fishy. Why were they so pushy with this “heart and soul of the university” business? Why did they seem so desperate to con-vince? Alas, I am not a Wharton student. It is not in my nature to doubt and not take brochures with pretty pictures at their words. Although capable, I will steadfastly refuse to transfer to Wharton. I will proudly stay on at the College and fight this injustice. I call upon Engineering and Nursing students to join me in this battle! It is an arduous path ahead we must take, but a noble one.


A FRESHMAN’S

FOLLIES I’M NOT GONNA LIE. I’m gearing up for awkward eleva-tor confrontations with people in my dorm I probably met at some point during NSO, but don’t remember the name of. And, now that we’ve passed the two-weeks-on-campus benchmark it’s too late to ask for a name again without seeming like a complete idiot, a name-forgetting jerk, or some delightful combination of both. So, let me take some time to reflect upon NSO, that glorious honeymoon period during which I and fellow like-minded freshmen were fooled into thinking Penn would just be semesters of frathopping with friends in various stages of inebria-tion, socially absurd icebreaking events, overpriced trendy cereal, getting flyers stuffed in our faces walking down Locust by freshmen-targeting clubbers, engaging in shady hookups, doing seriously enthusiastic gymming, greasy food carting, and so on and so forth, without actual work or classes involved.

I didn’t read the Ben Franklin autobiography, but I figure I made up for it by going to the library social and participating in the scavenger hunt—never mind that I knew the ulterior motive was to get us acquainted with the library in the hopes that we would develop good study habits—I just took my free T-shirt and ran. As for the life of Ben Franklin, well, word on the street (and Sparknotes) is that he was quite the player-pimp, so what more do I need to know? I didn’t go on any of the offered guided tours, but I did try to walk home from the Philadelphia Museum of Art with a friend, and I ended up in “shady drug territory”, according to the cab driver who eventually rescued us. That pretty much scarred me for life, and from now on I’m going to do all my exercising in the comfort and safety of good ‘ol Pottruck. It’s the only place I can run on the treadmill and stare down unsuspecting people who just decided to grab something from the food carts. I get enough exercise anyway, running from Steinberg-Dietrich all the way to Rittenhouse and then back to Huntsman… it’s an eight-minute power walk, seven with good traffic lights or courageous jaywalking, six if you push the skinny engineering kids out of the way and use their momentum to propel you faster. As a result, I’ve stepped on the com-pass more times than I can count. We’ll see how that one goes.

Enough nostalgia. I’m psyched for this new era that dawns now that we’re officially convocated and classed and homeworked and placement tested up. For one, I’ve stopped carrying around the map of campus I was ready to whip out at any given moment. I’ve also decided to hold off on sporting the Penn or Wharton pants, shirts, sweat-shirts, hats, and lanyard sets my parents bought for me in an enthusiastic run through the apparel section of the Bookstore, casually ignoring the Penn Speedos, Penn tam-pons, and the indispensable Penn ping pong ball. Hey, my friends and I are almost cool enough to study in Hunts-man Hall with our shiny laptops and spiffy western busi-ness attire outfits. I’ve been to so many introductory club meetings, I’m beginning to feel like the guy in Fight Club, whoring myself out to groups. Hi, my name is Joanne and I am an overachiever.

I’m learning so much already. As a female Asian I will get bombarded with 34,097,334,598,702 flyers asking me to rush or join the 2,087,029,862 Asian clubs Penn seems to offer… and I’ll probably join 239,874 of them, because there’s only so much Asian propaganda one can take before one has an oriental overdose and starts spewing Mandarin out of one’s nose. I’ve also learned that anyone can look instantly better all dressed up in a power suit, even if it’s while he’s failing at using the waffle iron in Commons. And it’s okay to bursar ridiculous sums of money for Xeroxed sheets of paper under the guise of coursepacks. Hallcest makes for interesting drama—and ridiculous morning-af-ter confrontations in the coed bathroom. I now know there are streets with the names the likes of Sansom, Spruce, Walnut, Chestnut, Peanut, Almond, and Market — I just don’t know what order they go in.

It’s a start.

BEST BETS 9/19 - 9/25Rob’s TV picks for the weekMonday: Arrested Development “The Cabin Show” (FOX, 8 p.m.) The should-be double Emmy winner returns for it’s—thank the gods—third season. Oscar is still in jail, George Senior is on the run, Lucille is off her medication, To-bias and Kitty the Whore never made it to Vegas as planned, so the whole gang is headed out to Reno. Meanwhile, Gob (who, as my frat brothers are finally so fond of saying, is not on board) finds out some shocking information about… his son? Seriously, you all suck if you’re not watching this. Then stick around for Kitchen Confidential or switch the channel to How I Met Your Mother.

Tuesday: Nip/Tuck “Momma Boone” (FX, 10 p.m.) See the article. Dr. Christian Troy: dead or alive? The Carver’s identity: revealed or not? Joan Rivers and Famke Janssen: returning to the show? Most importantly… will useless son Matt ever ask his dad to make him look not-like Michael Jackson?

Wednesday: Lost “Man of Science, Man of Faith” (ABC, 9 p.m.) What the #$^@ is in that damned hatch? We’ve been waiting months to find out. And in the Jack-flashback episode… well, let’s just say we’re going to find out, but not really. What do the Others want with wunderkind Walt? Don’t you want to wait for the Locke-flashback episode in two weeks for full disclosure anyway? All I have to say is our little group on the island isn’t as alone as they thought, and if this doesn’t win the Best Drama Emmy I’m going to be very disappointed. Unless 24 wins, in which case I’ll be only slightly miffed. Oceanic Flight 815 had a lot of passengers…

Thursday: The OC “The End of Innocence” (FOX, 8 p.m.) Julie Cooper and the word bankrupt haven’t gone together for a long while. But after this episode, she better get used to it. Marissa’s fate is sealed, Caleb’s will is read, Charlotte seems to be even more of a Single White Female than we expected, and, yes, Summer gets to bitch out Taylor at Harbor. But most importantly: sex.

Friday: Battlestar Galactica “Pegasus” (SCI-FI, 10 p.m.) Summer season finale! The fleet has thought, ever since the destruction of the twelve colonies, that it was all for humanity. 47,000 or so survivors in search of a home called Earth. After the season’s events (and one hell of a guest starring bout by Lucy Lawless), things are only going to get more com-plicated. Could someone please tell Apollo to just get it over with and have a relationship with Starbuck? It’s freaking inevitable. Best science fiction show on television. Ever.

Saturday: College Football “USC at Oregon” (ABC, 7 p.m.) So this is the point in my best bets when things get strained. Yeah, I wanna see the Trojans kick some ass, but I really wish there was something on TV on Saturdays besides college football.

Sunday: Desperate Housewives “Next” (ABC, 9 p.m.) Good news! There’s hope for Mike and Susan after all. Which I guess means Zach/Dana, his possible son with Deirdre adopted by Mary Alice and part of the reason she killed herself and started this phenom and likely winner at the Emmys (note: I still think Arrested should win Best Comedy), didn’t shoot him in that cliffhanger. Right, because we all thought he was going to… The more interested stories concern Lynette at work, Gabrielle as dutiful wife, and Bree as grieving widow. Oh, yeah. What the hell is in the Applewhite’s (the new neighbors) basement? Mmm, guilty pleasure.

If You Can Only Watch One: Arrested Development.

Joanne Yuan is a freshman in Huntsman. You can write to her at jyyuan@wharton.

BY JOANNE YUAN

Continued from PAGE 1MANIFESTO

Adam Goodman is a freshman in the College (wishing he were in Wharton). You can write to him at adamlg@sas.

I did try to walk home from the Philadelphia Mu-seum of Art with a friend, and I ended up in “shady drug territory”, according to the cab driver who even-tually rescued us.

LAST WEEKEND was not kind to my fa-vorite football team. Amman Green, our starting running back, had 12 carries for a measly 58 yards. His offensive mate, Javon Walker, was equally ineffective, gaining only 27 yards after hauling in four catches. The only reason Walker made the Monday morning SportsCenter highlights was be-cause he tore his ACL in the third quarter, putting an end to his season not 45 minutes into the first game of the year. Unfortu-nately, these two players represented only a fraction of the team’s futility in this debut con-test. Wideout Nate Burleson and tight end Todd Heap, two of the game’s rising stars, com-bined for less than 90 yards receiving, and both failed to score any touch-downs. Willis McGahee rumbled for 117 yards, but also failed to find the end zone. Our kicker, Jason Elam, accounted for one lousy field goal, and the dynamic defen-sive duo of Vince Wilfork and Mike Vrabel allowed 20 points and recorded only two sacks. The lone bright spot on the squad was embattled quarterback Kerry Collins, whose heroic effort — 265 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions — was not enough to secure his team the victory, neither on the field nor on my computer screen.

While the average sports fan knows that these athletes play for several different NFL teams, the members of the Phi Delt fan-tasy football league know that these players compose my own roto team, TheSchwab-FearsMe, named in deference to ESPN’s portly trivia star. And if you have played fantasy football before, you know that a stunning fantasy defeat on opening day can be as heartbreaking and terrifying as watching your favorite pro team go down in flames on that first critical weekend — Jets fans, I’m looking at you.

At this point you would have to lack all internet access, news paper service, and most likely human contact to have never heard of fantasy football. The premise is simple: you and your friends enter into a league, draft players, and assign them points based on their weekly performance. How you score those fantasy points, whether you play on a head-to-head or total points basis, and the amount of profanity you allow during owner trash talking ses-sions, is all up to you.

The uninitiated may look upon fan-tasy sports with a wary eye, declaring it a worthless activity carried out by dorky, undersexed, sports-obsessed 20 and 30 something males. To this, I would respond, yeah, you’re probably right. But that in no way undermines the effect that fantasy games have had on the landscape of pro-fessional sports. Look at your daily sports page, or watch NFL Tonight, and you’re bound to see a reference to fantasy football. The individual stats you see scrolling by on the bottom of your television Sunday after-

noons is there because fantasy owners have demanded it. ESPN has multiple “fantasy experts” who get face time on ESPN News and there are countless internet sites where you can actually pay for fantasy advice. And I’m willing to bet that the majority of the $178 billion lost in employee productiv-ity because of internet misuse is due to all those fantasy managers looking to unload Eddie George or Fred Taylor on some un-suspecting owner.

In that vein, is it possible that fantasy football participation is having a negative effect on our ability to be good football fans? At first glance, the opposite seems true. After all, roto leagues are designed to bring people together in order to bicker about the value of various players. To be an adept owner, it is mandatory to scour player stats and team histories and to watch as many games as possible. Perhaps most fun-damentally, it injects a level of excitement into games in which our roto players are

starring, and in which otherwise we would have no interest. This is especially important for people like me, who are not aligned with a par-ticular team and have no reason to care about the standings, and for Arizona Cardinals fans, who are aligned with a particular team and have no reason to care about the standings.

With all that said, I would argue that the rise in popularity of fantasy football is a po-tentially ominous sign. After all, the explosion in fantasy league play has to in part be at-tributed to the fact that following one’s favorite NFL team is no longer

sufficient entertainment for many football fans. In an era of free agency, expansion, rising salaries, and egomaniacs like Terrell Owens, it has become increasingly difficult to cultivate an intimate relationship with one’s preferred team. Take, for example, my hometown team, the Washington Redskins. How is it possible to experience a dynamic with your team and its players when the head coach decides to replace the starting quarterback before halftime of the first game of the season? Aside from the fact that Joe Gibbs ought to be in a retirement home worrying about hip replacements rather than quarterback replacements, there is no question that it is more com-forting and satisfying to put together and manage your own team on your computer than to watch from afar as some stranger dismantles your beloved NFL squad. It is no longer considered a rarity, or sacrilege, for a supposed diehard Eagles fan, sporting his game-worn McNabb jersey, to let out a muted cheer during a late Falcons touch-down, “because, you know, Alge Crumpler starts for my fantasy team”. While pres-ently there is no sign of waning pro team support, the balance between NFL and roto team fandom is becoming uneven, and that may be an inauspicious signal.

With all that said, there is no doubt that each year more and more people will join the millions who already own fantasy squads. And as for me? I’ll be glued to the screen this Sunday, wearing my homemade “Schwabs” jersey, rooting simultaneously for the Patriots defense and the Raiders offense, and wondering why a certain 36 year old Green Bay Packer won’t hand off the damn ball.


A D A M G O L D S T E I N | N O J O Y I N M U D V I L L E

THE FANTASY FETISH

Adam Goldstein is a senior in the College. You can write to him at adamsg@sas.

� � � � � � � � ��

� � � � � � � � ��

� � � � � � � � ��

� � � � � � � ��

� � � � � � � � ��

� � � � � � � � ��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��DO YOU SUDOKU?

LAST WEEK’SSOLUTION:

��

��

��

��

��

� � � � � � � � �

� � � � � � � � �

� � � � � � � � �

� � � � � � � � �

� � � � � � � � �

� � � � � � � � �

� � � � � � � � �

� � � � � � � � �

� � � � � � � � �

� � ��

� � � ��

� � � ��

��

� � � � �

PLASTIC SURGERY. God’s gift—granting the tragically disfigured hope—or the devil’s device—giving the naturally ugly a place to pour money for a temporary fix on their superficial insecurity? We could debate the finer points of nose jobs and liposuction here. After all, who better to

argue for or against it than someone who has never gone un-der the knife for cosmetic surgery? I, however, have only one request: Tell me what you don’t like about yourself. And so begins every episode of Nip/Tuck, television’s coolest show.

Like Six Feet Under before it, Nip/Tuck brings soap opera to the world of a somewhat obscure—at the very least misun-derstood—profession. Instead of the thankfully deceased de-pressing antics that might be found at a family-owned funeral home, Nip/Tuck takes viewers into a the slick, sexy, modern, and often morally ambiguous world of two plastic surgeons who couldn’t be more dissimilar—at least toward the begin-ning of the series.

On one hand, we have Dr. Sean McNamara. He’s a family man with a wife and two kids. He’s also a surgeon extraordi-naire who welcomes the challenge of complicated procedures, and is always compelled to do more pro bono work, since he sees his profession as capable of much more than doing a tenth face lift on a 58 year old woman trying to fake 40.

Sean’s foil is his partner, Dr. Christian Troy, a man-boy if there ever was one. The show takes place near South Beach, and frankly I’d be surprised if Christian hasn’t slept with half the population of this section of Miami—all while telling them how he could elevate them from an eight to a ten. Christian is a much less talented surgeon, but he’s certainly the “hot” factor of McNamara/Troy.

As I said, every episode—okay, almost every episode—be-gins with Sean and Christian in their office doing an initial interview with a prospective patient. The client has a problem they want taken care of. Said problem could be Joan Rivers curious what she’d look like if all her years of surgery were

reversed, or two adult twins conjoined at the head desiring a separation. Naturally, the nature of the patient’s problem res-onates on a deeper level with the soap opera occurring behind the scenes. For instance, Sean and Christian were at odds with each other for reasons I won’t get into and the practice itself was in danger. They were called in to do the surgery on the twins, and one died on the operating table. The metaphor, of course, was that apart Sean and Christian could not survive.

That was probably the most heavy-handed and obvious of the series’ many metaphors. But they’re always there, and very fun to watch.

I’ll be honest with you: the plastic surgery elements of this fantastic drama are the least interesting parts. Sure, you get some cool music while the doctors do their thing in what seem to be increasingly graphic and almost regurgitation-inducing montages. But that, like plastic surgery, is just the surface. It’s a bit of pizzazz and glamour. And, in case I didn’t imply it well enough above, you shouldn’t eat during the show be-cause chances are it might come back up if you’re even slightly squeamish. The real action is going on in the oh-so-twisted and amusing family-and-sex lives of the two doctors.

Which brings us to the events of last season that came to a head in the season two finale—a full year of pain, anticipation, and withdrawal ago. Guest star Famke Janssen (who is com-ing back for at least one episode!) played Ava, a transsexual who finally got her wish as her surgery was completed and she is now, finally, a whole woman after years of having something not quite right with her vaginal wall (or something like that). She skipped town without her son Adrian, an emotional and tortured wreck if television has every shown one.

The closure of Ava’s story was accompanied by some closure of the family turmoil surrounding Sean—reconcilia-tion with his wife and forgiving his wayward son—and a so-lidification of the incredible maturation Christian’s character underwent during the season. Sean was recovering from an attack by The Carver—a serial rapist in an amusing and cheesy mask who is out on an anti-cosmetic surgery spree (it’s a much more eloquent philosophy, please allow me some brevity) who marks his beautiful male and female victims by paralyzing them with drugs, raping them, then slashing their checks open—who had warned Sean to not undo his work by healing his victims’ faces.

The Carver threatened to kill everyone Sean loves if he helped another victim recover, then he slashed one side of Sean’s face. Sean wasn’t about to give in, though, and set a trap for The Carver. As Sean waited in bed with a knife, ready to attack The Carver, Christian returned home from wishing his partner good luck in the trap. Only Christian was the next victim. The final shot of the season had Christian lying on his back, paralyzed with the drug, a tear streaming down his face as The Carver slashed down.

It’s been one hell of a year of waiting. And Tuesday, at 10 p.m., we’ll finally find out just how much permanent damage was done. Viewers can be sure of several things: it will be sexy, often disturbing, and always enjoyable. Before anyone brings it up, yes, I’m aware that people on campus don’t have FX. Take it up with the Penn Video Network.

THE UNDERGRADUATE MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 19, 2005 VOL. VI NO. 2

MAKE ME BEAUTIFUL

BEAUTY AND THE CREASE

R O B F O R M A N | M Y 1 3 - I N C H B O X

Rob Forman is a senior in Wharton. You can write to him at robertf@wharton.

SINCE EVERYONE from my mom to my dishwashing boss, to the people on my hall think I am gay, I might as well play along with the charade and pretend I am Carson Kressley, perfect his patented wrist-flapping motion, and preach the gospel of Manolo Blahnik. While I am not a fashionable man by any means, I am truly interested in fashion. I have a knack for detail and I can tell you about the latest Vera Bradley or LeSportSac lines if you wish. But today, I wish to present some general ruminations on couture. So yes, take off all your prep-py clothes, because you’re not really too busy to FCUK, or CK-ate at the Greek Lady, or die-sel in Finance 101 (Note: for real fashion advice, please consult college senior Pauline Park).

1. To sunglass or to pangloss: Everyone has a pair of shades it seems. The medical evidence is great, but a good pair of shades should block out more than UV rays or your own insecurities. Your face shape should dictate your choice in frames. If you have a round face like me, avoid aviators at all costs. They will make you look like a bad oompa-loompa. A good rule of thumb: get frames in opposition to your face. Round faces deserve sharper frames and vice versa. Secondly, and this is obvious, buy the real thing. An Oakley knock-off is lamer than your own fart joke. But one caveat here, you don’t need to go knock yourself out with Christian Dior’s latest 300 dollar model. The fact is, most fashion houses do not produce their sunglasses in-house. Like many denim-makers, they send them out of house for production. It’s a fact that brands from trusty Ray-Ban to upscale brands like Versace and Bvl-gari contact the Luxottica group to produce their frames. Re-alize this, and save yourself some money, while getting pretty much the same product. Thirdly, and most importantly, don’t overcool the mode. It’s okay if you can’t rock Oakleys like Tom Cruise. Life is like that at times. But please don’t be one of the other yuppies to wear Oakleys in fluorescent green. Especially not with your suit and tie. Please, I am disgusted, next sub-ject.

2. Footwear: This is a wide-ranging subject. It is a mel-ancholy state when even your grandmother on The OC is wearing Uggs. Uggs are not functional. They are meant for cold weather, but are not water-proof. Crucially, they will make your legs look like andouille sausages. Flip flops are another footwear scourge. They are so overdone. They fact is that everyone is trying to be so casual and Hawaiian, it simply

cannot be. Save flips flops for the shower or actually going to the beach. Buy yourself some real sandals from Reef or Teva. Avoid Birkenstocks at all costs. Another petty thing: shoes should be comfortable first. I am really appalled by the recent retro craze and all the bad shoes associated with it. Let’s face it, why are you paying today’s money for yesterday’s footware technology? Anyone who has tried Converse all-stars, Vans slip-ons, or Adidas superstars knows they cannot be comfort-

able. They are like standing on a piece of brick. Seriously, get some Air Maxes, or SAS comfort shoes. But leave the stockpile of Puma speed cats for the real racers out there. Overall, let comfort be your guide.

3. Band T-shirts etc.: Before the advent of Hot Topic, band-shirt wearers were like totally rad! Nowadays, anyone from your local Fender god to everyone’s scene kid can rock a Led Zeppelin shirt. Therefore, I would emphasize strict caution. There are other ways to show you are in the loop. But if you must do it, ask yourself these questions. Do you know the artist’s important innovations and career arc? (i.e. the new electronica on Kid A, 3rd relationships on Giant

steps ... etc.) Two, can you do more than hum the band’s most popular tune? Three, how did the artist’s music reload your life-arc? Stuff like that. If you wear Bob Marley T-shirt, please be able to locate Trenchtown. Eating jerk chicken is not good enough.

4. Polo shirts and the state of mankind: The polo shirt is a confused shirt. It wants to be a casual Hanes white t-shirt. And then it wants to be upscale and work-like. Which one are you, polo shirt? I see no reason to teeter on the edge of this ideological crevasse. Avoid the polo shirt altogether, and do two things: Buy some real t-shirts from Hanes (cheaper than chips, and in all styles and colors). And two, buy some real dress shirts. Once again, I would avoid the tacky shirts pro-duced by Quicksilver especially. Buy a shirt with a classic de-sign like stripes, or a non-lumberjack flannel. For the ultimate in flexibility, choose a non-starched spread collar shirt for anytime wear ... preferably from a couture house like Facon-nable. You’ll be happy with this purchase, and you’ll resist the god-awful need to pop your collar!

5. Jeans are for cowboys: I have no problem with denim per se. But I feel like such a poser when I wear them. Jeans are like the ultimate symbol of a counterculture symbol seamed into the mainstream. We all know jeans were the sturdy clothes of miners, and then dustbowlers and then motorcycle bad-asses. I am okay with jeans. But I hate all the dumb varia-tions these days. Vintage burnt siena, yadda ya, ripped kneed, boo-hooo, and all the stupid things like that. These used to be looks that could only be earned by years of wear on jeans. Today’s jeans make it too easy to achieve the look of labor. We are such lazy asses. Of particular note, I think intentionally ripping your jeans, is the most poser-like thing in the world. When we were kids we used to get rips in our pants because we played around on the floor too much. Our moms would patch them with those Prussian Blue trouser patches at Wal-Mart. I don’t know what message people are trying to send with ripped jeans that are really not ripped. Maybe they are saying, “I like it when my cock gets some extra ventilation.” I dunno, people are so confusing these days.Until next time,Mister Bingli.

BY BING LI

Bing Li is a junior in the College. You can write to him at bing@sas.

sudoku much?

Documents