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In This Issue

• Lie-Hum: A Columbia-to-English Dictionary
• Dear Class Of 2011: Get Down And Get With It.
• Letter from the Editor
• Seven Days in New York
• Magna Carta Libertatum
• Portrait of a Columbia Hipster
• No Man Is An Island
• The Good Life, The Hard Life, The Drunk Life: A Guide To Columbia
• Facebook: The Great Relationship Historical Archive
• SEXILED! -- The Board Game
• Harry Potter And The Spoiled Finale
• What Goes on in my Head While I Get Paid to Pick Pine Needles out of the Gravel at my Local Country Club
• The Hierarchy of Columbia
• Tales of the Inexpressible
• I Love Global Warming
• THEY Watch

Rich Barzaga recaps an orientation week that’s 2 kool 4 skool.

Dear diary,

Okay, I am totally in college right now, living on my own, completely UNSUPERVISED in New York Friggin’ City, capital of the whole wide world!!! I’m not going to start out partying and getting “all wasted and shit,” like those other nimrods. I’m like, way above that. Instead, I am going to spend my first week in the City exploring; finding what it means to be a true New Yorker. I live in the Big Apple, and I intend to find out just how big that fruit can be.

Day 1 - Dearest diary,

First stop, TIMES SQUARE! Oh man, this is totally the main place for hip New Yorkers to hang out. There’s MTV right over there, oh, and Virgin Megastore. OMG! This is so awesome. I can’t stop looking at all these lights and stuff – it’s all so much cooler in real life than on TV. I could totally spend my entire day here, looking up at the tall buildings. And the steaming cup of soup is probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. I mean, WHO came up with that? Brilliant!

I will say one thing: I didn’t realize that most New Yorkers had fanny packs and cameras. And were Japanese. NBD, I’ll get used to it. I could see myself going here every day. You know, I’ll be that hip guy who’s like “Hey, I heard there’s this cool show down in TIMES SQUARE tonight, think you and your hot roommates wanna come with?” I cannot wait for what’s in store for the rest of the week.

Day 2 - Dearest diarino,

So today, I think I am going to ride the subway all the way down to the single digit street numbers. This is going to be fun. I mean I go to school at 116th street. That’s like sooooooo far uptown. But it’s fine, because even all the way up here I can see the eclectic and diverse mix of characters that make up the entire population of N-Y-C.

Now I’m on the train, baby! This subway thing is totally friggin’ bangin’. There’s a smelly, older gentleman holding a brown paper bag and whistling the theme to “Welcome Back, Kotter” (an underrated show!) right next to me. This is so real: so real life.

Well, that was an interesting day. I didn’t realize that “downtown” entailed New York University… And that’s about it. It’s all midtown for me, baby. That’s where the scene is. That’s where the party is at.

Day 3 - Salutations personal journal (thought I’d change it up a bit today!),

Museum of Modern Art! Or what the locals call MOMMY. I saw all this art like, Da Vinci and Picasso… all the greats. WOW! I couldn’t take enough pictures. Good thing I brought that big flash my mom gave me! Some old dude with a blazer on told me to “step away” from the paintings. He said something about blocking the view of others, and being respectful, and not breathing heavily. What does he know about appreciating art? Geez louise.

Also, I didn’t understand why everyone was so quiet. I was so excited to be running through the museum, like they did in Ferris Bueller (OMG such an awesome film) but there were all these h8ers with black rimmed glasses giving me dirty looks. NERDS!!!!! Guess they don’t know what it’s like to have FUN! Whatevs…

Day 4 - Ni hao diary,

Down to Chinatown baby! Talk about an experience. It totally made me realize that I was right about what I said before. Prez Bo did such a good job accurately representing the ethnic diversity of New York on campus. It’s exactly like Columbia down here!

Anywho, I marveled at the sights and sounds and icky, icky smells. I couldn’t believe that they actually hung ducks in their windows! Cooked ducks! I had someone take a picture of me in front of the “cooked ducks” doing a crazy pose. (Watch out Facebook!!!) And, I’m not one to brag or anything, but I’m rockin’ a shiny Rolex and Oakleys now. Bling, bling!

Day 5 - My diary, ‘tis of thee,

Give me your tired, your poor, your totally kickass statue. Of Liberty! Man, that thing is taller than they let on in Ghostbusters. It was an awesome sight, knowing that this was the first thing a lot of the immigrants on the planes saw when they first landed in JFK. The gateway to freedom!

I won’t lie though, I was sort of disappointed by the fact that the welcoming committee to the United States of America, the greatest country on earth, consisted of Jorge and Miguel on their morning mop rounds.

Day 6 - Beat the ‘Sox diary, Go Yankees! I headed up to the Bronx today, and saw the house that Baby Ruth built (why a chocolate bar has so much to do with a baseball team is beyond me. This corporate machine is getting out of hand). I got everything a “real” fan should have, a souvenir program, hot dogs, and ice cream in a helmet. Tickets were sort of expensive though. Thankfully one of my floormates had the orange and blue Yankees hat! It was great, saved me like 35 dollars!

Everyone was really nice to me and I learned some real New Yorker greetings. Apparently, the word “fuck” has a very different connotation here. I heard, “Hey, fuck you buddy!” and “Yo asshole, nice fucking hat!” and “Fuck the Mets!” and “ Hey motherfucker, do you realize you are wearing the baseball cap of a team from another part of the city? We’re not in fucking Queens! Does this look like Queens? Fuck!” He was probably making some joke about The King of Queens (Kevin James = LOL. Leah Remini = HAWT.) He could probably tell I love that show. So I smiled at him, and gave him a quick wink. People are so nice here!

Day 7 - What’s the shizzle diary,

Finally, my first week in the city was over. And it was a real adventure fo’ sho’! (I picked that last thing up when I was in Harlem.) So, I figured I could just spend the day in Central Park, relaxing and taking everything in. I was there for hours. I didn’t realize it had gotten so late – I must have dozed off for a bit. I woke up and it was 1 am, but I could still hear the hustle and bustle of traffic. I love this city.

(I almost forgot. Shhh, I wasn’t going to put this here in case my mom reads it, but this is news is waaaayy too big. I lost my virginity today! It was so sweet, like a religious experience or something. She was on top, facing the other way, but it felt so good! She was kind of big, I could tell. But her sexy, deep moans and grunts made me think she must have been beautiful… though I never did see her face. What an amazing day.)