-How do people miss the last few questions on a test?  After every exam, when everyone is talking about what they thought about the test, there’s always that one kid who realizes that he missed the last five questions because he didn’t look on the last page.  How dumb are you?

-Why don’t I have any classes that have movies as assignments?  I have this friend who is never studying, never doing work, because he’s a Film Studies major and all he has to do is watch movies.  What kind of bullshit classes are these?  Hey, how about you give me an A for sitting on my ass and doing nothing all day?  Every time I see my friend is in his room watching TV I’m like, “What are you up to?”  And he’s like, “Not much, just doing homework.”  Ridiculous.

-I live with nine other guys in a four-story house and no one gets the door.  Ever.  The kids on the fourth floor claim that they’re too far away.  The kids on the second floor complain that they always have to get the door and now refuse to do it.  And the kids on the third floor are just plain lazy.  We hate getting the door so much that if anyone comes over more than once, we just make them a key.

-My house also has a bit of a mouse problem.  Seems that some of my housemates think that leaving food, trash, and human waste on the floor is OK.  Our rodents have so much to feed on that they have evolved into a species of super-mice.  Not only do they flip over traps and steal whole sandwiches, when we go to sleep at night they go to mouse school and have mouse parties.  There are police mice and teacher mice and even mice that drive around in little mouse cars.  I think they’re plotting to take over the house.  Now if only we could get them to answer the door…

-About once every two weeks, in colleges across the nation, kids come home to this message on their answering machine: “Hi, it’s Mom, just wanted to see how you were doing.  We haven’t heard your voice in a while.  Please call us.  Things are going well here at home.  Your sister got an A on her math test.  But we miss you.  If you can find the time, please give us a call.  Remember, Dad’s birthday is on Saturday.  Remember to call.  But please try to call before then.  Please.  We miss you.  Call us.  Love you, Mom.  And please call home.”

-My friend changed majors because the building where all his classes were was too far away.  So he switched to a major in a closer building.  It’s good to know that some of us are making the most of our education.

-In a lot of the classes here there is a listserv so that the teacher can send one email to the entire class.  Of course there’s always that one idiot who replies to the listserv and sends a stupid message to everyone, thinking it is just going to the teacher.  For instance, President Clinton was speaking here last week and my friend was going to have the chance to meet him.  So he sent a pathetic email to the teacher saying he wouldn’t be able to make it to class because he was meeting the President of the United States.  Of course, he accidentally sent it to everyone in the class.  What a name-dropping asshole.

-Have you ever woken up after a night of partying not knowing whether it’s AM or PM?

-I think there is a Golden Rule of TV-watching for guys.  If you’re flipping through the channels, no matter what, you will always stop on SportsCenter or The Simpsons.

-The Golden Rule for girls?  At some point in their lives every girl will cut their hair really short and then complain for the next two months that they look like a boy.  You knew what is was going to look like, so stop fucking whining!

-What is that crap that some people have following all their emails?  You know, it’s got their name and phone number and email address and school address and home address and instant messenger screen name and ICQ number and stupid-ass Dave Matthews song lyrics and pictures of their dog made with commas and exclamation points.  Thanks, but I don’t need your life story every time you send me an email.

-And, finally, why do people freak out when someone is wearing the same shirt as them?  I come downstairs wearing a red shirt and (uh oh!) my friend is wearing a red shirt too!  Here we go: “You can’t wear the same fucking shirt as me!  I’m not going out like this!  I was wearing the red shirt first, you have to change!”  Take it easy dude, we just won’t stand next to each other.  Fuck me!

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-Teaching Assistants. Now there’s a fucking joke. When was the last time a TA was actually helpful? Never! That’s because the only requirements to become one are that they took the class three years ago with a different professor and different material and didn’t fail. That and they don’t give a shit about the students that come to see them because they’re too busy studying for their own exams. One time, I went to see a TA and she actually charged me because I went to see her outside of office hours. What kind of bullshit is that?

-This ever happen to you? You’re wearing a bunch of layers because it’s pretty cold outside. You’re sitting in class and you start to get a little warm so you take off your sweatshirt – only the shirt you’re wearing underneath comes off as well so now your sitting in class half-naked and you can’t even tell that everyone is wondering what the fuck you’re doing because all your clothes are inside out around your head.

-Does anyone know how they come up with course numbers? Like how come Sociology 237 isn’t Sociology 238? Who decides that? Just curious.

-I love pre-med kids. They’re fucking nuts, especially when it comes to the MCATs. Those crazy bastards won’t go out for five months just to study for one test. I think I’m going to have to study medicine alongside my pre-med friend Shermdog, just so I’ll be able to administer first-aid when he gets bombed out of his mind right after the test is finally over.

-Don’t you love trying to sneak out of a class early? You gather all your books so they can be easily grabbed and you move to the edge of your seat. You scan the aisles to see if there are any backpacks or sleeping kids that might block your path to the exit. Then, you wait for just the right moment when the teacher turns his back and starts to write on the board. It’s your chance – you grab your shit and tiptoe to the door, making sure to close it very quietly so as not to get the professor’s attention. You made it! Freedom! On to Happy Hour at the bar! College, ya gotta love it.

-Isn’t it funny how you can’t show your parents any of the pictures that you took at school because you’re wasted in all of them? When my parents ask me I always have to be like, “Um, they’re not developed yet” or “Oh, I left them at school, but they weren’t good anyway.” Meanwhile you have a stack of panoramics depicting you funneling beers like it’s your job. I had a friend who needed a photo for a grad school application who had to cut out her head from a picture of her holding a drink in each hand because that’s the most sober picture she could find.

-Here at Penn it’s time for Rush and oh what a great time it is. The freshman girls are putting on their finest black pants and having fake conversations with sorority girls they will eventually backstab. Later, the sororities will utilize the accurate process of scantron bubble sheets to determine which girls are best suited for their house. Meanwhile, the freshman guys are realizing that free beer does taste better and getting so wasted they don’t even remember which frat boys they were talking to. Later, the frat boys will attempt to figure out which guys they want even though they were so wasted they didn’t even know Rush was going on in the first place. It sure is a good thing that the next three years of a person’s life are being determined in such an efficient manner.

-In this new century, I think there is going to be a greater effort by schools to cut down on the amount of drinking done by their students. I also think these attempts will fail miserably. This is because administrators think that kids drink because there is nothing else to do. Therefore, they are trying to come up with more sober social options for students. The problem is, kids don’t drink because there’s nothing else do, they drink because they like getting bombed! If anything, we need more drinking options. If schools want to cut down on their students’ consumption of alcohol, they should try coming up with something else that makes you forget all your worries and makes ugly chicks look good.

-Quote of the Month. Here is a prime example of why alcohol education won’t work. I was listening to two University of Michigan girls talk about how one of them repeatedly gets absolutely trashed. One said, “Your problem is that you don’t know your limits.” The other girl responded, “I know my limits, I just choose to ignore them.” I thought that eloquently summed up the college experience.

-Perhaps the only thing that limits students’ drinking is the almighty hangover. Every college student will eventually experience the effects of a killer “morning after.” For those that haven’t, here are some of the common symptoms: the victim insisting, “I’m never drinking again.” This is of course a blatant lie. Then there is the repeated vomiting, sometimes consisting of things the victim didn’t even eat. This mystery has yet to be solved. After a few hours of these symptoms, the victim might even become religious, asking if there is a higher power, and if so, why did he create alcohol? Don’t worry, this is normal. The best medicine for a hangover is, of course, more drinking. This is known as “drinking through it” or “boot and rally” and works like a charm. Hey, maybe I should teach Hangovers 101. Or should it be Hangovers 102?

-At Penn, many kids go abroad first semester, so now they’ve all come back, which means the rest of us have to hear all their stories. After a while, you don’t even have to listen anymore, you can just fill in the blanks: “Yeah man, I just got back from [insert European city here] and it was fucking [insert foreign slang meaning “great” that the person is using to show off]! The beer there is so [insert “cheap” or “expensive”] and we got so wasted! And I hooked up with [insert blatantly untrue amount] girls there! I also met up with [insert name of other friend who already told you this story] in [insert Amsterdam/Oktoberfest/Prague] and we got bombed all weekend.”

-And now that everyone who was abroad came back, we can tell them about the fucking shady subletters we had to live with. What kind of fucked up tradition is that? You prance off to Europe for three months while I have to live with the first slob off the street you could find to give you 200 bucks a month? I was lucky because the subletters I lived with weren’t too bad. But I’ve heard some horror stories. My friend’s subletter made a list of every single piece of food of hers that the other people in the house ate, demanding compensation. The list included “3/4 jar of relish” and “2/3 brick of cheese.” I’m not making this up! Of course, I don’t know what’s scarier: that she kept a list like that, or that someone in the house actually ate 3/4 of a jar of relish!

-One problem I have is that, for some people, I have no idea if they were abroad or not. I’ll be like, “So, how was France?” And they respond, “Karo, I had a class with you last semester.” Oops.

-And, finally, this is a little embarrassing, but what the hell. At one point last semester I was feeling a bit, well, backed up. I emailed my mom to ask her what I should do. She replied with some advice as to how I could, well, get things flowing a little better. I’m reading the email and I start to notice that everyone in the computer lab is looking at me and snickering. And that’s when I looked up to see that my computer – and the embarrassing email – were being projected onto a huge screen in front of the entire lab. Fuck me!

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-Do you have that friend that still goes away to camp every summer?  What is wrong with these people?  At the end of every summer you have to hear from them about camp: “Oh, my bunk was so awesome!  And color war was great!  We won, but it was the closest score ever!”  Are you kidding me?  They say it was the closest score every year!  You’re twenty years old, get a damn job!

-In every graduating class from high school, there’s always like five couples that decide that they are staying together when they go away to college.  This always baffles me.  Of all the couples from your school who did this, how many are still together?  Zero!  That’s because it never works!  Who are you kidding?  Instead of talking to your boyfriend/girlfriend who is 500 miles away on the phone (“Oh, I can’t wait to see you over Thanksgiving”), get a clue and hook up with as many people as possible!

-Going out drinking with my friends is like being in the cartoon Snow White and the Seven Drunk Dwarfs.  There’s Sloppy: the kid that always pukes at some point in the night.  There’s Forgetful: the guy who wakes up in a ditch somewhere and can never remember how he got there.  There’s Angry: the one who gets drunk and tries to fight everyone, no matter how much bigger they are than him.  There’s Tipsy: the kid who’s wasted off two beers.  There’s Helpful: the kid who never really gets that drunk, so he’s always able to help the other Dwarfs when they get into trouble.  There’s Sneezy: the guy who’s on antibiotics but drinks anyway and ends up getting twice as fucked up as everyone else but can’t figure out why.  And, of course, there’s Horny, who has poor judgment when he drinks and thinks he’s going home with Snow White but ends up waking up next to a fat chick.

-I don’t understand why my professors still can’t work the audio-visual equipment in the classrooms.  Trying to watch a video becomes a half-hour ordeal because this jerk with seven Phds can’t figure out the VCR.  Just hit play you asshole!

-I always hear these stories about crazy shit happening in the library – guys getting head in the computer lounge from random girls, kids getting laid in the study lounge in the middle of the day.  Who are these people?  Why does this never happen to me?  Maybe I’m studying in the wrong place?

-This is pretty random, but it pisses me off anyway: when you’re getting information from someone over the phone, why do they always say, “C as in Charlie, E as in Elephant, P as in Paul…”  I’m like, how about S as in shut the fuck up I can understand you!

-It’s funny how much guys need alcohol in order to talk to girls.  My friend wanted to hit on this girl in our finance class, but could not bring himself to talk to her while sober.  So one day he made himself a big Jack and Coke and brought it to class.  This thing reeked, but he drank it anyway.  Only thing was, the girl didn’t come to class that day and he ended up passing out twenty minutes later.  It was a good idea, though.

-How about this one: you’re in the video store trying to pick out a movie.  You finally pick one out and someone says, “Oh, don’t get that, it was on TV last week.”  Who the fuck cares?  Is it on TV right now?  No?  Good, then all the more reason to rent it.

-A couple of weeks ago my fraternity had its annual Toga Party.  There’s nothing like a house full of freshmen, drunk out of their heads, wearing nothing but sheets.  It’s amazing how in college this kind of social behavior is not only condoned, but actually encouraged.  I was watching the party and thinking to myself, in four years all these people will graduate with Ivy League degrees, won’t know a Roman from a Greek, but will able to take a piss while wasted and wearing a toga.

-Why is it that when the fire alarm goes off in the dorm, everyone’s first reaction is always, “There’s no way there’s a fire, it must be a false alarm.”  That seems a little counterproductive to me.

-Why is it that when girls call you on the phone, you say hello, and they say, “Hi, do you know who this is?”  What the fuck is that?  Just tell me who you are like a normal person!  Why make me guess?

-Why does my girlfriend dry the flowers I give her immediately after I give them to her?  I’m like, “I got you these flowers today.”  And she’s like, “Oh, these are beautiful” and proceeds to unwrap them, take them out of the little water holder, and hang them upside- down to die.  At least give them a chance to live!  At least pretend like you are going to water them instead of murdering them right in front of me!

-Why does my dad insist on wearing Penn paraphernalia every time he comes to visit?  It’s Parent’s Weekend and my dad shows up wearing a Penn hat, a Penn shirt, a Penn jacket, etc.  Dad, everyone here goes to Penn!

-My mom’s response to every problem is always, “You drink too much.”  Mom, I’m not feeling well.  “You drink too much.”  Mom, I got a C on my last test.  “Maybe it’s because you drink too much.”  Mom, the football team lost.  “They drink too much.”

-How come no matter how much you pray when you first move into the dorm that a hot chick will move in next door who only wants to hook up with you, does it always turn out to be a fat dude that smells?

-Why do people try to pretend like their dogs aren’t shitting?  I’m walking on campus, I see a guy walking his dog on a leash.  The dog walks over to a tree, in broad daylight, and starts taking a shit.  This guy is standing there holding the leash, looking the other way, and whistling like nothing is going on.  I’m like, your dog is obviously taking a crap in the middle of the sidewalk, don’t act like nothing is going on and clean that up!  Who are you trying to fool here?

-And now, Ruminations goes abroad.  This summer I lived in London.  The hardest part about arranging the trip was calling over there with the time difference.  I had to call between like 4am and 11am.  Those are the worst times for a college student.  At 11am I’m sleeping, and at 4am I’m either drunk or sleeping, so it was kind of difficult.  I ended up just emailing instead.

-College life in England is a lot different than here in the States.  First of all, the drinking age is 18 and there was a bar in the dorm that I was staying in.  A bar in the dorm!  The British are obviously more responsible drinkers than us, because if there were bars in every dorm in America and the legal age was 18, we’d be the drunkest humans on earth!  No one would do work, no one would graduate.  Everyone would be wasted all the time.  It would be great.

-I had to fly home from London for a weekend because I had to go to a wedding.  I actually brought my laundry all the way home with me on the plane.  What can I say?  I really hate doing laundry!

-Quote of the Month: Jon D. from Penn, a lazy man himself, recently said, “I’m going to buy 365 pairs of underwear.”  I think he’s got me beat on that one.

-While in Amsterdam, my friends and I were watching an anti-NATO parade.  That was pretty entertaining until the protestors realized that I was wearing a t-shirt with an American flag on the back.  Then I ended up leading the parade – as they chased me through the streets!

-In some ways, the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City is a lot like the red light district in Amsterdam.  In the Sistine Chapel, everybody is always bumping into each other because they’re all looking up at the paintings on the ceiling.  In the red light district, everybody is always bumping into each other because they’re all looking at the hookers in the window.

-Since I lived in a dorm in London, of course there were RAs.  Whether in America or England, who would ever want to be an RA?  You live with a bunch of brats three years younger than you and get them in trouble if they drink in their rooms.  What kind of asshole would want to do that?  In London, my RA was particularly strict.  She once came to our room at 10:30pm on a Saturday night and asked us to turn down the music.  We were listening to a clock radio!  I’m was like, this shit doesn’t even wake me up when the alarm goes off in the morning!

-And, finally, the British have some very interesting slang.  They don’t get wasted, they get “pissed.”  Kids kept telling me how pissed they were – “I’m pissed, she’s pissed, he’s pissed.”  I always thought everyone was mad at me.  Turns out they were just drunk.  Fuck me.

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-It’s pretty difficult to become a college professor.  First, you have to get your Bachelor’s degree.  Then, you have to go back to school to get a Masters.  After that you have go to school for another couple of years, write a hundred-page thesis, and get your Phd.  Even then you still have to get your work published in order to get hired.  So what happens after these professors go through all those years of school and get all those degrees?  They lose the ability to realize that they have chalk all over their face, hands, and ass while lecturing in front of three hundred students.  You can tell every place your teacher scratches because he leaves a trail of chalk dust and doesn’t realize.  And of course, no student is going to stand up and tell the professor, so the chalkiness continues.

-Most college students rely on an ATM to get their money.  I think ATM fees are the biggest load of bullshit ever.  I love when it asks me, “There is a three dollar charge for this transaction, would you like to continue?’  Well what the fuck am I supposed to do, print the money myself?  Like I really have a choice.  I have one ATM in the whole world that doesn’t charge me fees and it’s 150 miles away in my hometown.  And did you ever notice that when you look at your receipt, your balance is never what you expected it to be?

-And what is with these credit card companies who hire people to stand outside and try to get you to give them your credit information in exchange for a free t-shirt.  Does anyone actually give them their real information?  How do they make money from this?  Meanwhile, I get a different “pre-approved” double platinum Visa card in the mail every day and I have never used a credit card in my life!

-It’s funny when you’re all out drinking and one of your friends hurts himself because you always ask the kid who is pre-med to take care of him.  Like this kid who took two biology classes knows what the fuck he’s doing.  If anything, the pre-med kids are even drunker because they’re so stressed with organic chemistry and MCATs.

-Because of recent events at the University of Pennsylvania, the administration has decided to make the campus dry indefinitely, meaning no parties with alcohol.  Now Penn is not a very politically active campus.  When a Chinese leader, accused of human rights violations, came to speak on campus, there was barely a peep from the students.  When it was discovered that clothing with the school logo on it might be made in sweatshops, no one really cared.  But when they tried to take our beer away, we fought like never before, marching one thousand strong to the center of campus for a protest rally that eventually ended the dry policy.  It just goes to show what college students really care about these days.

-Speaking of the school logo, there is always that dilemma about when you can wear it.  It doesn’t really make sense to wear your college’s hat when you are actually at school, since everyone goes there.  But when I go home and wear a Penn hat, I kind of feel like I am showing off.  So basically I can’t wear anything with my school logo on it ever.  Well, who gives a fuck, they’re made in sweatshops anyway!

-At some point next year, I will be moving out of my frat house and into an off-campus apartment.  The apartments are about two or three blocks from the center of campus.  To me, it makes no sense to live off-campus – it’s a longer way to class and the houses are shittier.  It’s like, congratulations, you’re an upperclassman now, you get to walk farther and live dirtier.  Thanks a lot.

-This past weekend was Spring Fling at Penn, basically an enormous three-day party.  Despite the stupid dry policy, everyone pretty much managed to get shithoused anyway.  Spring Fling is the time when even those kids who haven’t been out all year get drunk.  You know that kid in English class who annoys you by asking all those stupid questions?  Well, now he is annoying you at a party and asking you all those stupid questions and telling you how wasted he is even though he’s only had one beer.  It’s times like those when I wish some people actually followed the dry policy.

-Quote of the Month: Jared C., from Penn.  On the Thursday of Spring Fling, I asked him what his plans were for the weekend.  He responded, “My only goal is to actually wake up Sunday morning.”  Obviously, this kid is one of the reasons why our campus went dry.

-Something that always happens to me: You’re walking with one of your friends and another kid, who only your friend knows, comes walking toward the two of you.  Your friend and the kid stop to talk.  Do you keep walking, do you stand a few feet away and look impatient, or do you stand right next to them and wait to be introduced?  It’s an awkward situation no matter what you do.

-Then you have those kids that are the first to wear shorts and a t-shirt when the weather starts to get warmer.  You know, on that day where it’s a little bit sunnier, but definitely still too cold to wear shorts, there is always that kid who has to wear sandals, shorts, a tank top, and sunglasses?  And they will never admit they’re cold when you know they’re fucking freezing.

-In a few weeks, I will be officially be a junior.  That scares the hell out of me.  Though, I take comfort in knowing that the last two years of my life were amazing.  But looking back on the good old days is kind of weird.  Did you know that now you can get your SAT scores back in ten days over the phone?  Achievement tests are now the “SAT II” and no one knows what it means to have your scores “re-centered.”  Going home is also surreal.  Grandma is still shrinking, my old room is so cheesy, I had to go to the public library to study, I can’t remember how to drive, and making plans involves a thousand phone calls and someone stupid enough to drive everyone around.  You can record CDs now on things called “burn drives.”  We had that back in the day – only it was called “high-speed dub.”  I guess one day people will be wondering what “beer pong” and “kegstands” are.  But that day is hopefully far away.  Still, I only have two more years to live the greatest life of all – college life.  Fuck me!

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-A few weeks ago, Penn beat Princeton in basketball to win the Ivy League Championship.  My friends and I traveled to Jersey to watch the game where Princeton graciously sat us so far from the court I couldn’t even tell which team was scoring.  However, upon winning the title we once again stormed the court.  Unfortunately, this time I lost my balance and was trampled by a few hundred people.  I hurt my shoulder pretty badly but my pain was lessened when I saw myself crushed on the lead story on SportsCenter.  One day I can tell my kids that my sophomore year at Penn I stormed two basketball courts and ripped down a pair of goalposts.  I fuckin’ love college!

-Because of my injuries I spent the next day in Student Health and therefore had a lot of time to think.  I realized that getting hurt isn’t glorious anymore like it was in high school.  In high school you either got hurt playing a sport or getting into a fight – and that was pretty cool.  But in college most people don’t play sports or fight that much anymore.  College kids only get hurt by falling when drunk, getting beat up by bouncers at a club, or like me – getting trampled at a basketball game.  Getting hurt used to be cool, but now it’s just kind of embarrassing.

-Student Health has got to be one of the biggest jokes on campus.  Kids would rather try to cure their illnesses on their own then wait in line all day to see a doctor.  When I went for my trampled shoulder they told me to come back in three weeks when I could see an orthopedist.  Thanks a lot, but by that time my arm will have either healed completely or fallen off.  My friend had minor surgery last month.  To test to see if his anesthesia had worn off, they asked him who the president of the school was.  He named his 10th grade chemistry teacher.  They gave him two painkillers and let him leave.

-Quote of the Month: Dan S., from Penn.  We were hanging out and I asked him if he was partying that weekend.  When he told me no, I called him a loser and asked him why.  He said, “I’m playing in the NCAA Tournament.”  I had totally forgotten he was on the basketball team and that has to go down as the best excuse ever for not going out.

-In a person’s life there are only four times when he or she can experience a week of zero responsibility and extreme drunkenness.  This ritual is called Spring Break and it happens once a year in college.  In keeping with this tradition, last week I traveled to Mexico for my second year in a row, this time to Acapulco, a magical place where the taxis have no meters, the natives don’t understand English only when it involves giving you the correct change back, and being told what you did last night because you can’t remember is more fun than the night itself.

-Acapulco is unique in that you can get bombed in all three states of nature.  In liquid: by drinking Coronas in the pool.  On a solid: by getting drunk at a club.  And in the air: by drinking on the plane ride to Mexico.  If only my high school physics teacher could see me now.

-On the plane they told us that we couldn’t use CD players because they mess with the plane’s frequencies or something.  The flight attendant actually told us that we could crash the plane if we turned a Discman on.  You’re telling me that my little CD player can damage the sophisticated circuitry of an airplane?  If my 2Pac CD could make the plane crash then I don’t think I’ll be taking this airline again!

-As usual, we ran into problems and couldn’t land right away.  Since it was a Mexican airline, the captain would make one announcement in Spanish and then one in English.  Except that the Spanish announcement was always about twice as long as the English one.  Either Mexicans are very verbose or they weren’t telling us everything.

-In Acapulco, most people try to stick by a schedule that is very unhealthy: During the day, you sit in the sun with no lotion and get drunk.  Then, take a one-hour nap, get up, shower, don’t eat, pre-game, then go out to a club.  Get wasted, come back at six in the morning, barely sleep, get up, and be at the pool by noon.  Then repeat.  I personally couldn’t deal with this system and responding by vomiting in the hotel lobby the first afternoon and then being the first person to be thrown out of a club not for being belligerent, but for actually passing out.  I guess I couldn’t deal with the whole not eating, not sleeping thing.

-Since I have a girlfriend now and therefore could not hook up, my female friends automatically enlisted me into the Rescue Squad.  As a member of the Rescue Squad, I was responsible for helping my friends when they were being hit on by guys they didn’t like.  It works like this: a guy comes and starts grinding with my girl friend.  She gives me a little eye roll which is the international signal for “come rescue me from this disgusting guy.”  At which point I have to swoop in and pretend to be the girl’s boyfriend, brother, or cousin, and make the guy leave.  The Rescue Squad is a thankless job, but somebody’s gotta do it!

-I noticed one distinct difference between guys and girls.  If a guy and girl go back together to hook up, the girl expects the room to be empty and won’t do anything if there are people around.  Guys on the other hand could care less.  Their roommates could be in the room playing poker and taking pictures and the guy would just be like, “Oh don’t worry, my roommates are asleep.”

-Going on Spring Break with a huge group of friends like I did presents two very annoying situations: splitting the check and taking pictures.  Whenever a couple of us were together, one of the girls would remark that the scene “would make a cute picture.”  This would result in every girl running for their cameras while we awkwardly tried to remain in our spontaneous pose.  Going out to dinner was even worse.  Trying to split the bill between 25 credit cards with a waiter who doesn’t even speak English is always a lot of fun.  And then there is always the eternal question: do you split the bill by what you ate, which is fairer, or do you divide it evenly, which is easier?  There is no right answer.

-I want to know who decides what club everyone will go to each night during Spring Break.  It seemed like every day I would come to the pool and someone would be like, “Everyone is going to so-and-so club tonight.”  Says who?  It’s gotta start somewhere.  Why can’t I be the guy who decides where everyone is going?

-Trying to communicate with the Spanish-speaking waiters was always an experience.  I think it’s funny that people think that if they speak in English but make hand gestures to try to describe what they want, the waiter will figure it out.  It’s like Spanish charades.  Imagine someone was speaking Spanish to you and tried to order a Long Island Iced Tea by using hand motions.  Would you know what the fuck they wanted?

-I love how the travel companies can basically control your vacation – they can change where you are staying and how you are getting there at the last minute.  Our company decided to fly us into Newark, New Jersey even though we live in Philly.  To make matters worse, it was snowing when we were landing at the airport.  So there I am, legitimately scared for my life, on a plane that can be crashed with a CD player, Mexican elevator music playing in the background, and trying to land in a blizzard into the armpit of America.  I just kept thinking, I’m never going on Spring Break again… until next year.  Fuck me.

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-In many ways, going to class is like Sea World.  If you choose to sit in the first two rows, you know you are going to get called on.  That’s the splash zone because you know you have to pay attention or else you’ll get soaked.  And everyone in the other rows is just sitting back and eating popcorn because they know they’ll never have to answer any questions.

-A lot of my friends have been celebrating their twentieth birthdays.  It’s kind of weird because its like they’re all men and I’m still just a kid.  It’s also kind of depressing.  Being a teenager is an excuse to do all kinds of dumb shit.  People in their twenties are like real people.  I don’t want to be real person!

-There are two kinds of kids who really annoy me.  The nodders and the flash-card-makers.  A nodder is that dork in the front of the class who doesn’t ever say anything but just nods his head in approval at whatever the teacher says.  Teachers like nodders because it gives them the impression that someone has a clue about what the fuck they are talking about.  Then there are the people who make flash cards before every single test.  Even math!  There are no fucking definitions, what the hell are you quizzing yourself on?  If the flash-card-makers would spend more time studying and less time making color-coded flash cards, they would do a lot better.  Obviously the nodders and the flash-card-makers sit in the splash zone.

-Women confuse me.  Everyone always makes fun of how they go to the bathroom in herds.  Did you ever notice that you never get a straight answer when you ask them why?  No one really knows.  What, do they hold each other up or something?  And they’re always giggling and chatting – just hurry the fuck up!  That’s one huge advantage guys have – they can piss anywhere.  Sometimes we will go on the floor even if there is a bathroom just because the floor is closer.  My friend once pissed out the window of a moving bus.  That was cool.

-It is also a given that girls take forever to get ready.  And I’m OK with that, they have a lot of washing and plucking and combing and shit to do.  But here is a simple request to the women of the world.  If you know it takes you so long, just fucking start getting ready sooner!  Is this not the most obvious thing to you?  That would eliminate us guys from having to wait at the door for ten minutes while you yell down, “I’ll be ready in a second!” which is obviously never true.

-Quote of the Month: Jeremy B., from Penn.  I asked him if he had ever brought a woman to climax, to which he responded, “Girls don’t have orgasms, it’s just a myth.”

-Then you have the big backpack people.  These are the kids who walk around hunched over because they have every single book with them at all times.  Sometimes their bags are so full the zipper can’t even stay shut.  The big backpack people don’t seem to be ever be reading their books, just carrying them around.  And what’s with these backpacks with 45 straps hanging off them in every direction.  Do they serve a purpose?  You’re going to class not climbing fucking Mt. Everest!

-Maybe the only thing worse than the big backpack people are the slow walkers.  The slow walkers like to stroll leisurely side-by-side up the stairs right in front of you.  Instead of walking by them you have to get up right behind them to try to get them to hurry up and are forced to listen to their stupid conversations about flash cards and big backpacks.  Leave a lane for passing you assholes!

-Since I go to school in the city, I always see skateboarders jumping off rails and shit in front of the classroom buildings.  Skateboarders are an odd bunch.  Do they ever land on the board?  I stood and watched them for a while and they all fell on their asses about fifty times, each time more painful then the next.  You’d think after flying face first down the fucking steps they’d just roll straight for a while.

-Parents always call at the worst times.  Two of my favorites: when you are in your dorm room pre-gaming with a bunch of people and everyone is loud and drinking.  The phone rings and when you find out who it is you have to say in a very loud voice, “HI MOM!” so that everyone in the rooms knows to shut the hell up.  Or, when you’re hooking up and you let the phone ring and then you have to hear your dad on the answering machine explaining how it’s your grandmother’s birthday.  Somehow I find it difficult to perform in bed while listening to my dad talk about my grandma.

-I know a place where there is no sexism or racism.  Where people are not judged by their appearance or religion or anything.  It is the world of finding subletters for your apartment to live there when you go abroad.  I see my friends looking for anyone with a pulse and a wallet to live in their room next year.  I think if everyone was looking for subletters this world would be a better place.

-The worst kids are the ones who change their answering machine message when they go away for the weekend or something.  And they leave the phone number and address of where they can be reached.  Don’t worry, I don’t need to speak to so badly that if you leave for two days I’m gonna write you a fucking letter or call long distance.  And then when they come back they forget to change the message back so you never know where the fuck they are.

-And, finally, who are these people who punctuate every sentence in an email with a 🙂 or 😮 ?  What the hell is that shit?  If you’re happy or excited, just fucking say it instead of making me decipher a goddamn semicolon face.  What are you, a fucking mime?  If only there was an emoticon for “Fuck me!”

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-Rush has just drawn to a close here at Penn and thank God!  If I have to spend one more night hanging out with a bunch of guys and no girls except a couple of skanky strippers, I think I’ll go crazy!

-Girl’s Rush is the most ridiculous thing of all, with all these nametags and scantron sheets where you have to bubble your choices in.  So basically if you forgot a number two pencil that day, you get cut – how dumb is that?

-I think you can sum up Greek life this way: sororities are a bunch of girls who hate each other, organized to travel in herds and fight over frat boys.  Fraternities are a bunch of guys who love each other, organized to get wasted faster and cheaper and hook up with sorority girls.

-And the weirdest shit happens during Rush.  Last week, ZBT made our annual trip to Atlantic City.  One rush freaked out and decided he needed to go home two hours early.  So he hops in a cab at the hotel and starts to make his way back to Philly.  Halfway there, the rush tells the cabby that he needs to stop at an ATM when they get there so he can take out more money.  So the cabby pulls over to the side of the highway and throws the kid out!  So now he is trying to hail a cab on the side of the expressway and ends up getting picked up by a state trooper who takes him back to Atlantic City, but not before giving him a ticket for hitchhiking.  Who the hell gets a ticket for hitchhiking?  Only during Rush!  Plus we had one kid swallow the coin during a game of quarters.  Where do we find these guys?

-Here is one conversation that always bothers me.  I’m talking to someone and they ask me what frat I’m in.  So I tell them ZBT.  Then they proceed to ask me if I know this brother, do I know that brother?  I know every brother you stupid fuck, I’m in the goddamn fraternity!

-Before I go on, I’d like to address some of the letters I have been getting telling me that it is disrespectful to refer to my fraternity as a “frat.”  Well, I have no idea what backwards school you go to, but I’m a frat boy, I live in a frat house, and I go to frat parties.  If you’re that politically correct, then your ‘fraternity’ is pretty lame.

-Quote of the Month: Jay R. from Penn, when asked by a friend who he should take to our date party, replied, “It’s not who you take, but who you take home with you that counts.”  Couldn’t have said it better myself.

-What bothers me is that frats get blamed whenever someone drinks at their house and then does something stupid.  If you drink at my house, then go home and fall down the stairs, who’s fucking fault is that?  Certainly not mine.  The only one who should get blamed for drinking too much is the person doing the drinking.  It’s not difficult to be responsible.  When I turn 21, I’m not going to do 21 shots.  You know why?  Because I’ll fucking die!

-A lot of frats get kicked off campus, and deservedly so, but for the most ridiculous reasons.  One frat here at Penn got kicked off a few years ago for kidnapping a brother in another fraternity and basically torturing the kid for a night!  How fucking dumb are these people?  What did you think was going to happen – the kid would just forget about it?  Obviously, they got kicked off in about 30 seconds.

-I have become one of those kids who never leave the house.  Why should I when I have everything I need – food, beer, and girls – right under one roof?  This place is like a supermarket, a bar, and a whorehouse all rolled into one.  So basically it’s Heaven.

-The other night one of my brothers went out and got raging drunk.  He woke up the next morning, naked, in a hospital with an IV in his arm.  And he has no idea how he got there.  Now I can party with the best of them, but I usually wake up in my own house knowing approximately where I was the previous night.  This kid is ridiculous.  The funniest part is that at some point in the night, a nurse asked him for ID.  He accidentally gave her his fake ID.  So his hospital tag had someone else’s name and birth date on it, the bill will be going to some fake address in New Jersey, and my friend’s parents will never find out about it!

-Another brother of mine is a great fencer.  But it’s not like he’s one of the best in our school or one of the top players in the state.  He ranked #1 in the fucking country!  Imagine you were the best fencer in America!  I’m still trying to figure out what the fuck fencing is in the first place.  How does one take up fencing?  All I know is that he poked me in the ribs with a pen the other day and it killed!

-Just a word about the beer games Beirut and Beer Pong, because some people seem to get them confused.  Beirut is when you line up many cups of beer on both sides of a table and try to throw a ping-pong ball into them.  I personally think this game is pretty fucking stupid.  Beer Pong uses ping-pong paddles and you actually try to hit the ball into two cups of beer on each side of the table.  Our house revolves around Beer Pong.  The best is when someone gets shut out 11-0 and has to run naked to the police station and back.  Even better when girls do it.

-Being a part of the Greek system means going to a lot of mixers, date parties, semi-formals, and formals.  And I can tell you that after a year, none of us have any idea what the fuck to wear.  We run around going, “Do I have to wear a tie?  Do we need a jacket?” and have to eventually call a sorority girl to find out we can’t wear jeans to the date party.

-One final note.  I love my frat brothers to death.  But when I look at my friend who is pre-med, I think, I saw this drunken fool throw up on himself last night, there is no way I would every let him operate on me!  I see my friend who is pre-law and think, this kid gets wasted and breaks shit every night, I would never let him represent me in court!  So I guess that is what fraternities are all about – getting fucked up and making friends for life – and knowing who you want to stay away from later in life when you need a doctor or a lawyer!  Fuck me.

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-How funny are class readings?  At the beginning of the semester you’re like, I’m gonna do all the reading for all of my classes!  About two weeks in you’re like, ok, I’m gonna skim all the readings for half my classes.  By the end of the semester you’ve lost your notebook and you’re using your textbook to even out your coffee table.

-How come when I go home for Thanksgiving break suddenly I become “errand boy”?  It’s like my parents saved every single thing they had to do for when I came home.  My mom actually knocked the hubcap off my car a few weeks earlier and failed to mention it to me until I got home.  Now that’s just where I wanted to spend my break, in a fucking greasy hubcap store!

-You know what?  I just don’t like Dave Matthews.  Is it some kind of college entrance requirement that you have to love Dave Matthews?  Because it seems like no dorm room is complete without it playing constantly in the background.  And I love it when people say, “Oh, I love Dave!” Like they know him personally or something.

-I think there are two types of girls in the world.  The first kind will tell you honestly if their girl friend is hot.  The second kind will say, “Oh, she’s cute.” no matter how nasty the chick is.  Never let the second type set you up on a date.  Ever.

-I am always amazed by the fact that people go home right after their last final.  It absolutely blows my mind.  Why the hell would you want to go right home after you’ve been studying for two weeks straight?  What is there to do at home?  Nothing!  I always stay a minimum of two days after my last final and just get fucked up and I suggest you do it too.

-Isn’t it the worst when you drop your pen in class and it lands just out of reach?  First you try to stretch and reach it without getting up.  Then you try to drag it with your feet but that doesn’t work so you end up crawling on the floor like a fucking idiot while everyone in class is wondering what the hell you’re doing on the floor.

-We have the worst showers in my frat house.  If anyone in the whole house flushes, the shower begins to alternate from freezing cold to thermonuclear hot every 25 seconds.  And when it gets hot you have to do that little shower dance.  You know what I’m talking about – you arch your back to avoid the burning water and hop on the balls of your feet to the corner of the shower.  Then you have to acrobatically reach your hand around the scorching stream and try to get to the knob without burning off any necessary sexual organs!

-I love when kids brag about how high their school is ranked in the party school poll.  They’re like, “Yeah dude, West Virginia, #7 party school in that nation, up two spots from last year!”  First of all, no one cares.  Second of all, being a top-ranked party school is the easiest thing to do.  All that means is no one does any work and they have nothing better to do.  That’s real tough.  I’m surprised you can count all the way to 7 anyway.

-Pre-gaming is the best.  Pre-gaming is of course when you drink large quantities before you even go out to make sure you never go anywhere sober.  The funniest thing is that we will pre-game no matter what.  We could be going to a top-shelf open bar and still take a couple of shots before leaving!  The best is when you pre-game a little too hard and never make it out.  Those always turn out to be the most fun nights, although the post-game usually involves throwing up and passing out.

-Quote of the Month: Dave D. from Penn, a graduating senior discussing finishing his last requirements this semester, remarked to me, “If I get through these courses, I’m never trying again.”

-Things that piss me off:  people who call you up to ask you for a phone number, but when you start to give it to them, they don’t have a pen to write it down.  Also, people who show you their watch if you ask them what time it is.  If I wanted to look at a watch, I’d be wearing one, asshole!  And finally, people who call me and then ask if they’re interrupting me and a girl.  First of all, do you think I’d pick up the phone if I was with a girl?  Second of all, if you thought I was hooking up, why the fuck did you call me in the first place?

-When you’re drunk, it’s like you’re eight years old all over again.  You have no worries.  You tend to yell and laugh for no reason.  You take long naps.  It’s funny when you fall down and you throw up a lot.

-Well, it happened again.  Penn basketball beat Temple, the #6 team in the nation and when the game was over we stormed the court!  After ripping down the goalposts and throwing them in the river a couple of weeks ago and now storming the court, this is just about the most school spirit we’ve ever had.  I tried to stop my friend from being arrested and was subsequently beaten by security guards.  It was awesome!

-The other day I was talking to a friend of mine who is a grad student here at Penn.  I asked him if there were any hot girls in his classes, where most of the students are like 27 or 28 years old.  He told me that there is one really cute girl, but she’s married.  Married!?  I can’t even fathom that kind of commitment at this point!  I asked him if there was any chance he could hook me up with her.  He didn’t seem to think so.  Fuck me.

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-Does this happen to you?  You’re at a party, hanging out, drinking a few beers.  You sit down, put your half-full beer can on the table, and turn to talk to someone.  You look back a split-second later and notice that there are a thousand identical beer cans on the table and you have no idea which one is yours!  Then you start to pick each one up, because you think you know how heavy yours was, but they all feel the same and you can’t find yours.  Finally, you just give up and have to go fight your way to get another beer.   This always happens to me and it sucks!

-So two weeks ago was Halloween and my frat had a big costume party at the house.  I noticed that a lot of girls come to costume parties dressed as whores for no reason.  They wear these little tiny skirts and high heels and all this make-up and look just like hookers.  But they always say they’re dressed as something else: “I’m a French maid, I’m an exotic dancer.”  No you’re not, you’re dressed like a whore for absolutely no reason other than it’s Halloween!  Who are you kidding?

-Do you have friends that leave their phone number on your answering machine every time?  I have this one good friend from high school who I speak to every week or so.  And every time the kid calls me and leaves a message on my machine, he leaves his number.  I have your number already, what the hell is wrong with you?

-Doesn’t it suck how you’re always bragging to your friends at other colleges how awesome your school is and how much you party and when they finally come and visit, it’s the worst weekend ever?  And you try to explain to them that it’s not usually like this, but they totally don’t believe you.

-I hate when girls wear glitter on their eyes.  What the fuck is that all about?  Glitter was in when we were in nursery school and then maybe came back about two years ago, but now that stupid trend it done!  You guys look ridiculous with that shit on your face anyway – kind of reminds me of the Mother’s Day card I made in second grade!  Stop the glitter!

-This past weekend, Penn beat Harvard in football to capture the Ivy League championship and it was one of the best days of my college career.  Because here at Penn, we have a tradition that goes beyond the usual tearing down of the goalposts.  After we tear them down, we are supposed to carry them out of the stadium – only this year they locked the stadium gates.  So we used the uprights as a battering ram to knock down the gate, carried the goalposts through campus, out into Philadelphia, onto the expressway, and then threw them in the river.  I almost got trampled to death in the midst of all this – and have the cuts and bruises to prove it, but it definitely ranks as one of the best college traditions ever.  In fact, I think whenever your team wins anything, you should tear something down and throw it in the nearest river.

-Quote of the Month: Jason S., Cornell.  After being initiated into his fraternity, he said, “I’ll never pledge a fraternity again.”  I don’t think you have to worry about that you fucking idiot.

-I hate those kids who overreact in class when the teacher accidentally makes that screeching sound on the blackboard.  Does it really bother you that goddamn much?  These girls are screaming and whining and running out of the room.  What the hell is wrong with you?  It’s just a sound, quit acting like it’s the end of the world!

-Why do people feel the need to take their shoes off while taking a test or studying?

-Before college had you ever heard of Yaffa Blocks?

-Why do girls send the dumbest forwards ever?  Just when I think that I’ve seen them all, another one of my girl friends sends me a good luck tiger or a magical turtle.  And other times it’s the biggest hoaxes ever – Bill Gates is giving money away, some dude in Texas needs a liver.  And people actually believe they’re true!  My friend comes running into my room the other day saying that he got an email that Disney is giving away money.  I’m like, it’s fake, how dumb are you?  I’m sick of these idiots.  The only forwards you should be getting are mine.

-How about when you’re in a friend’s room and he calls you over to look at something he has on his computer – and then proceeds to read it out loud while you’re looking at it.  I’m right fucking next to you – I can read it myself!

-Ever notice than when you’re really drunk and you hurt yourself really badly, it’s the funniest thing in the world?  You’ll be stumbling along and fall, and you’ll be like, “Oh my God, I think I broke my ankle, how funny is this, I’m hurt really bad!”  And you can’t stop laughing but the next morning your ankle is so swollen you need to get crutches.

-My mom doesn’t understand how I go out on Thursday nights – she can’t comprehend going out on school nights.  I try to explain that it’s not really a school night, but she doesn’t get it.  Moms are weird like that.

-Why is it so hard to raise your GPA?  I think they make it so it’s mathematically impossible to raise it after freshman year.  Ever sit down and figure out what you need to get in order to raise your GPA to a certain number?  It always comes out that you need like a 4.6 in every class until you graduate – and you think to yourself, fuck me!

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-Do you have that one poster in your room that has fallen down every single day so far? And it’s always right over your bed so it falls on you in the middle of the night and scares the shit out of you? And the funny thing is you’re too lazy to put any extra tape on it to make it stick so you put it back up knowing full well that it’s going to fall down again in about twelve hours.

-You ever notice that when you’re falling asleep in class, there is absolutely nothing that can keep you awake? You’re sitting in the most uncomfortable chair with the teacher blabbing on and on and you’re using your books as a pillow and the one thing in the whole world you want to do right then is go to sleep. But when class is finally over, you go home and lay in your bed and you can’t fucking fall asleep!

-The other day my friends and I got fucked up and pranked our old rooms from last year and asked for ourselves. Trust me, it was hilarious at the time.

-You know what really pisses me off? Kids who highlight everything in the reading for a class. First of all, it’s like bragging to anyone within a two-mile radius that you were dorky enough to analyze the entire reading. Second of all, what the fuck is the point of doing it if you are just going to highlight every other word!? That’s completely useless you assholes!

-I noticed something weird the other night. As far as our fraternity house goes, girls always get freaked out and start to leave around midnight. It’s like they’re afraid something bad will happen after midnight – like in Gremlins. And speaking of Gremlins, if you can’t feed them after midnight, then when the fuck can you feed them?

-Quote of the Month: Justin C. from Penn. When told that yet another Penn freshman went to the hospital with alcohol poisoning, he said, “Thank God I drank in high school!” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

-I figured out the essential different between high school and college. In high school, if you had to get up really early the next morning, you just went to bed early. But in college, if you have to get up really early the next morning, you stay up all night… and get wasted!

-How funny is taking classes pass/fail? Why don’t they just call it, “doing as poorly as possible without actually getting an F,” because that’s what everyone does anyway!

-The worst is Friday morning classes, of which I am lucky enough to have two this semester. You can just feel the collective hangover in the air. No one speaks, everyone is yawning. Occasionally you see that guy in the back shaking his head and muttering to himself, probably remembering something dumb thing he did last night when he was bombed.

-Do you have that friend who always asks what is going on that night… at like 11am? I just fucking woke up, I haven’t spoken to anybody yet, how the fuck would I know? There should be some type of restriction on how early you can ask about that night.

-Why the fuck does the teacher hand out a syllabus on the first day of class that already has reading assigned for that day. Need I even say more?

-I know this kid who is so lazy, he ordered the laundry service last year. But that’s not the bad part. He was too lazy to bring his bag over to the drop-off point, so he ended up doing his own laundry anyway. Who does that? Of course this is the same kid who stayed summer session and took a cab to class and back… every day!

-By the way, I finally did my own laundry the other day. It’s really not that bad! It’s almost kind of fun. I don’t know why I made such a big deal out of it

-I assume that most dorms in the country have extra-long twin size beds. How the fuck are you supposed to hook up on one of these things? You roll over once and you’re on the ground! Of course now that I have a full-size bed in the frat house, what do I do? I sleep only on one side!

-And speaking of beds. Why the fuck do girls have so many goddamn pillows? Is this normal? Did you have that many pillows at home or are you just showing off how many fucking Polo Sport pillow cases you have?

-Guys, have you ever noticed that if a girl is really cute and she says hello to you in a high-pitched voice, you answer back in a high-pitched voice without even realizing it?

-Living in the fraternity house does have its luxuries. For instance, we have our own cook and all the bathrooms are men’s. It occurred to me that this may be the only time in my life where I will be able to have bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches on demand and also piss in urinals. Yes, this is what I spend my time thinking about. Fuck me.

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