We’re dreaming of a white Christmas weeknight bootycall library that hasn’t reached maximum occupancy this week. Despite Fisher’s current lack of seats (bitter), we’re glad the setup has changed significantly since 1900, when this photo was taken. Looks like a perfect place to cram for Intro to Claustrophobia or cry about that last BYO/mixer/shitshow you’re missing. Don’t fret honey child, you’re evidently amongst friends, and there’s always next year.
We’re done! We’re done we’re doneeee!
Congratulations to everyone who made it out of finals alive. And to those few kids accidentally still asleep in Van Pelt, it’s cool! You can go home now.
The end of the semester means two things: holidays are officially in full swing, and UTB is taking a breather until the new year. Since this is the first time you won’t have to spend all your break refreshing PennInTouch, we promise we’ll find things to post every now and then, but on the whole we’re gonna be a bit lighter. As always, there’s more to read if you send in tips to tips[at]underthebutton.com!
Peace, love, and fruitcakes– seeya in 2011!
Feast your eyes on this year’s list of prize winners and honors society inductees, which can be found in the print edition of today’s DP and conveniently reproduced below (click to enlarge). Some highlights: senior honor awards went to Drew Feith Tye, Rahima Dosani, Erica Evans, Mia Kumagai, Brett Perlmutter, Jamie McCarthy, Noah Apektar and Wilson Tong, all of whom are either Sphinx, Friars, Cultural Elite or Ego’s of the Week. Street sure can pick ‘em! Also listed are this year’s Phi Beta Kappa inductees and a bunch of other honors. Congratulations to everyone!
Before Beyonce and Obama took over this blog, there was another important celebrity in our hearts. I’m speaking, of course, of Tina Fey. Indeed, we championed her virtues as an important mentor to today’s students, prattled on about her stint as Palin (which might have saved SNL from the same fate as Mad TV) and showed you the glory of 30 Rock.
Yes, we here at UTB just love Tina Fey. And apparently we are not alone: the Associated Press just voted her as their Entertainer of the Year.
While it may not be the Time magazine cover she truly deserves (but really, tick tock), we’re proud of you, Tina. Just keep the jokes comin’.
You may or may not have noticed that your UTB editor has been slightly less, well, around lately. We apologize–it’s the last week of classes and we have been forced to redirect our ADD away from this blog and towards our coursework. It effing sucks. But you know what else sucks? The fact that, no matter whether we’re in an advanced 20th century poetry seminar or some crappy intro course to fulfill the society requirement, our classmates never fail to pepper our professors with the exact same series of inane questions about final papers. Herewith, a field guide:
Is it ok if we write in the first person?
Welcome to college! Now that high school is over, you really need to look beyond the whole first person/third person dichotomy, because it’s actually more or less irrelevant. Your papers should be formal and should (in most cases) not contain personal anecdotes about your good times at summer camp, nor should they contain that superfluous little phrase “I think” (or the more pernicious “I feel like,” which, much to our consternation, is sweeping the Penn community). Ergo, you probably never need to use “I,” and if you think you do, you can probably get around it by saying something like “the author.” However, if you’re really struggling with how to cut the “I”‘s out of your paper, just stop. Because it doesn’t matter. Too many “I”s may be a symptom of unsophisticated writing, but not the cause. Unless your professor is a complete idiot, he or she will care much more about the bigger picture than the occasional slip into third person. And while we’ve had a few annoying profs here at Penn, we’ve found that “complete idiots” are way more likely to be found at the high school level.
Should our papers be double spaced?
Yes. And you should also number the pages. And put your name on the first one. This is Mickey Mouse stuff, guys. Read the rest of this entry »
Here at UTB, we’ve been suffering from a collective denial of the upcoming end of the semester. It seems that only mere days ago we were a just a fledgling baby blog, with only a handful of readers (mostly our parents).
To make matters worse, publications have started to do the usual end-of-the-year round-up of bests, worsts, mosts, etc. Blender magazine has just released its list of the top albums of 2008. After the jump, check out their list–and our comments, of course.