Hey Quakers, UTB here. Think we packed up and left with the rest of you for an impressive internship in New York or a backpacking trip through the Swiss Alps? Ha, think again. Our only plans include keeping you updated all summer long.
That’s right, we’re not going anywhere. So keep your eyes peeled for both Philly-centric summer features and all things Penn. Contrary to popular belief, life does go on on Locust even after the semester ends – though we’re not sure how Sweetgreen makes a profit without all you sorority betches around.
And with that, we wish you a relaxing and productive summer! Remember to keep our tip box full, and feel free to publicize every poor decision you make on Facebook so we can call you out on it. Ah, we’re missing you already.
From Amy G in a tweet from Arianna Huffington and the Engineering school’s scary acrobatic builder bots on Stephen Colbert’s ThreatDown, Penn has enjoyed quite a spell basking in the attention of the national media. But while Penn seems to be appropriately prominent in the realms of news and reality-based television, our alma mater remains relatively irrelevant to mainstream pop culture. Or, at least, until this past Monday.
Raina Thorpe, a brand new character revealed on this week’s “Gossip Girl,” went to Wharton. An inevitable love interest for Chuck Bass and the daughter of a billionaire being positioned to do financial battle with the Bass/Van Der Woodsen family — Raina is the kind of character that it isn’t hard to imagine prancing down Locust, having to make the impossible decision between Theta and Tabard and eventually being a shoe-in for Wharton’s notoriously Scene-y Lantern Senior Society. But what’s so great about that? Read the rest of this entry »
I came to Penn from a high school in New York called Fieldston. It was a little bit like Gossip Girl, but coed, and a greater proportion of the student body was stoned. College admissions was basically our religion from sophomore year on. By second semester of junior year, SATs and applications replaced the weather as the default small talk topic. One of my friends used to have panic attacks because she thought that Emma Watson was applying to Middlebury, thus leaving her with zero chance of being accepted. (She is currently at Wesleyan and couldn’t be happier.) While most people found watching the entire grade apply to the same 12 schools nerve-wracking, I saw it for what it truly was: thoroughly entertaining.
So imagine my delight when I discovered College Confidential, a site best known for its discussion boards and the stressed out 17-year-olds that haunt them. The posts range from questions about the quality of schools to personal stories about the admissions process. Read the rest of this entry »
Snow blanketed the eastern seaboard yesterday, and despite the picturesque quality it lent to our homecoming, today we find ourselves still snowed in and thus unable to partake in our favorite winter break activities: visiting the mall. Luckily, our internet connection is working and amazon.com is almost as good as the real thing. What follows is a last-minute holiday gift guide, conveniently featuring items that can be purchased online and shipped to you by December 24th. (We’re leaving out the gift suggestions that have already beenposted about. And if you’re wondering whether “holiday gift guide” is a label that’s being used to mask the fact that this is really just a list of stuff your editor wants, well…so be it.)
Lumping hundreds of years of a region or country’s history into a semester is probably the single greatest failure of modern educational institutions. It’s hard enough to remember everyone’s name in one recitation, let alone the date of every Ottoman Sultan or Spanish king (especially seven Fernandos and five Felipes later). Add to this the daunting of important years and the multitude of seemingly-pointless JSTOR articles to be read, and even the most minor History exam suddenly becomes an immeasurable burden.
Or so I thought, until I came up with an earth-shattering study technique that made life so much more enjoyable.
Even if you haven’t been reading this blog compulsively (and why the hell not?), you’ve likely picked up on the fact that most of us are huge Gossip Girl fans. Mondays at 8 p.m. are a sacred time during which we open our hearts to the Upper East Side in hopes that this week’s episode will focus entirely on a shirtless Chuck Bass. Unfortunately, I will have to skip my favorite hour of the week in order to study for midterms.
And in the middle of lamenting my fate, it hit me. The power politics of 20th-century Europe were almost as dramatic as the Serena/Blair struggle. What if I framed history as an episode of my favorite show? Read the rest of this entry »
Speaking of things that we’re over, on last night’s Gossip Girl, Blair spoke a truth that should ring out all down Locust Walk. Watch 5:16-5:46 for the very serious public service announcement, “Tights are not pants.”
The only thing we enjoy more than watching Gossip Girl is reading NY Mag’s Daily Intel reality index of each episode. They’re fucking brilliant. But now they’ve started to tally up commenters’ points at the end of every week. And we don’t like it. Especially not this one…
“The only Ivy League school this ragtag crew of friends and enemies would be accepted to, en masse, is Penn, not Yale. Minus 2.”
Ouch. We’re going to pretend it’s because they’re all just so beautiful.
We missed this week’s episode of Gossip Girl (do you have it on your TiVo? Call us!), but blogger Carlin Adelson watched it, and she has a few bones to pick. Herewith, a thesis on GG’s recent suckitude.
10. Josh Schwartz can’t carry a storyline–-or keep the suspense–-for two episodes. And I take Adderall.
9. The only one we’ve seen topless this season is the scrawny, whiny one. No distinction necessary.
8. The writing isn’t as sharp, thus relying on the cast’s physical humor.
7. There isn’t any.
6. Maybe it was their summer off, but the vast majority of the cast can’t act.
5. With Kati gone, Isabel looks racially imbalanced.
4. The clothes, though still adorable, can be found on shopbop.com and Intermixonline–bad for stylists’ reputation, great for us (plus Vanessa, the poor one, was wearing a Marc by Marc top at the coffee shop where she works instead of going to high school–-explain?!) Read the rest of this entry »
We were doing some important research on Seventeen magazine’s website (shut up) and we came across this item on Penn Badgley. Who is Penn Badgley, you ask? We wish we didn’t know! He plays pretentious emosogynist Dan on Gossip Girl, and we completely hate him for lots of reasons, not least of which is that his first name is Penn.
There are simply too many things on God’s green earth named Penn. Every few years, someone writes a DP column about how we should change our name to Franklin University blah blah blah…but no! It is all the other lame things that should change their names. Why should we change? They’re the ones that suck. So, Sean Penn (but not Kal Penn because we like him), Penn & Teller, other universities that happen to have the word “Penn” in them, and most of all, Penn Badgley: get new names. May we suggest Darmouth? Dartmouth Badgley has a nice ring to it.
Hey Quakers, UTB here. Think we packed up and left with the rest of you for an impressive internship in New York or a backpacking trip through the Swiss Alps? Ha, think again. Our only plans include keeping you updated all summer long.
I came to Penn from a high school in New York called Fieldston. It was a little bit like 
Snow blanketed the eastern seaboard yesterday, and despite the 
The only thing we enjoy more than watching Gossip Girl is reading NY Mag’s Daily Intel 
10. Josh Schwartz can’t carry a storyline–-or keep the suspense–-for two episodes. And I take Adderall.
We were doing some important research on Seventeen magazine’s website (shut up) and we came across this item on