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In This Issue

• The Colombia Spectador... Online!
• President Bollinger Cancels Barnard
• Locals Don't Care About J.J. Food
• Allegations of Animal Intimidation Rock MEALAC Professors, Laboratories
• Six-Year Old Held in Terror Scare
• Saving the World, One iPod at a Time
• Letters to the Feditors
• A Slow Descent into Health
• Eat Shit and Die - or Learn to Love It
• Cholera Gives Me That Lovin' Feeling, Diarrhea
• An Open Letter to My Unborn Son
• Disorders to Earn You Psych Services' Lovin'
• On Dieting
• Bladder Stones and Other Terrors
• The Life and Times of Deranged Freak Babies
• Is It Abuse, or Is It Medical Care? See for Yourself!
• A Fed Tradition Continues Unfettered
• Johnny Cash Conquers the Martians
• Neverland Ranch v. Pleasure Island
• Marauding Interviewer
• THEY Watch
• The Staff of 20.7

College freshmen: your first year at an accredited Ivy League university is almost over. By now, you've been told, you should have a handle on Lit Hum, friends who don't live on your floor, and perhaps some semblance of a life. No, of course not. You don't. That's where counseling comes in. Columbia is chock full of services, but be forewarned: a lame problem like everyone hates me or I might fail out of school isn't likely to attract the attention you require. Threatening suicide will land you in St. Luke's, and all you really need is a friend who is paid to talk to you. And so, I've taken the liberty of listing all the mental diseases you can fake in order to make people start paying attention to you.

1. Anorexia. Not too original, but a classic. In the after-school specials, it was always the girl who was already hot, skinny, and perfect who went anors, so you've got that going for you! Getting attention from your fatter, and presumably less popular, floormates, and not bleeding out of your holiest of holes equals one tantalizing disorder. Keep in mind that to be anorexic, one has to weigh 85% of one's normal body weight. In other words: this one's hard to fake without actually losing weight. The good news is that you might actually come to like your sexy new underweight physique, and what started as an attention-getting ploy might turn into to an attention-getting serious disorder, thus making your life significantly easier.

2. Social Phobia. Do you find yourself not making eye contact when potential friends ask you to engage in fun social activities? Is the reason you don't have a fake ID that you're cowed by the possibility of leaving Morningside Heights? That pretty much describes all of us, but if you've got a cool sounding disorder, you at least have an excuse to ignore your R.A.'s encouragements to leave your room and go see The Gates. Really, you should count yourself lucky. "Um, I thought I might have a panic attack" is a much better reason for not attending that über cool kegger that everyone went to than "I got lost," or "No one signed me in and I spent all night in the lobby."

3. Schizophrenia. Why? Well, paranoid delusions are a common characteristic of schizophrenia. You'll be the life of any party if you decide you want to share what the voices in your head are saying. Making a few remarks about how you fear that your toaster's trying to devour your left kidney, or that the brightly colored rubber bracelets that everyone's wearing are really a sign of the impending race wars of the future will get you much more attention than downing a few shots.

4. Autism. Stay in your room a lot, flinch at the human touch, and find some idiot-savant-type ability (blurting out a random number when someone knocks over a box of toothpicks will do). Friends and therapists alike will probably marvel at your abilities to land a place in an Ivy League university in spite of your handicap, much as they might marvel at a diaper-clad chimp who has learned how to tie a shoelace.

5. Trichotillomania. A disorder where individuals compulsively pluck the hair from their scalp, eyebrows, or eyelashes. For those of you who think it's selling out to fake a disorder that they've already made a mainstream movie or an after school special about, this one's for you. Plus, think of all the money you'll save on razor blades.

So, kids, if you want Alice! or Well Woman to pay attention to you at a place like this, you've got to work at it. Even among the abnormal, mediocrity isn't good enough. Be imaginative, and they might name a disorder after you!