January 30, 2006

January 30, 2006
The Undergraduate Magazine
Vol. VI, No. 11
College Sex Is Better
Shira, on why the College gets more
Page 3
Wharton’s Promo Video
A Picture of Wharton Egotism
Page 4
How Atheletes Wipe
Toilet paper kleptomania
exposed, by Danielle
Page 6
J.P. Stanley
Interviews Sebastian
Lauren and Anna expose the
ominous I-Banking interview.
THE
Page 8
GLEE
CLUB’S EXILE
FROM HARNWELL
BY ANNA STETSOVSKAYA
24: IT’S THE NUMBER of hours in a day, the title of some supposedly
good show I’ve never seen, and, until now, a floor in High Rise East that I
didn’t live on. The thing with the 24th floor is that until you live there, you
never actually conceive that real living breathing people actually live that
high up. It’s unthinkable to have to wait that long for an elevator, to make
that many stops on the way down (the average? Four stops). Do those
people have to leave earlier than 10:27 if they want to make it to a 10:30
class? You can imagine my surprise when, on coming back from studying
abroad, I was assigned to the 24th floor. Actually, to room 2403.
Yeah, that’s the closest thing that Penn has to a penthouse, or Pennthouse (oh, cheap shot). Yes, let it be known right here and now that room
2403 pimps it like no other. But as I found out, there was more to our
little (big) room than what meets the eye.
It has come to my attention that we are the first girls to live in Harnwell 2403 in ten years. That’s a decade of guys doing godknowswhat in
the bathroom, godknowswhat in the common room, and godknowswhat
in the bedrooms. For the duration of those ten years, these four rooms
were occupied by members of the Penn Glee Club.
The story of 2403 is one of songs sung, parties held, and from what I
can tell, some money paid under the table. While current members deny
the allegations, a little birdie told me it took some big bucks to be able
to keep this coveted room within the Glee Club crowd. My friend’s RA
told her that 2403 is the only reason Harnwell even instituted a housing lottery. This room was passed down from one Glee Club member to
the next, year after year, retaining and retaining, keeping the room under
Club control. When the House got wind of the bribes paid to keep this
room, they decided to do away with room retention altogether in favor of
a point system based on how long applicants have lived in the House. (For
anyone who’s ever watched Recess: “scan-da-lous.”)
The boys petitioned, pleaded, and met with the powers that be — all
to no avail. When the lottery came, the boys just didn’t have a high enough
score and my new roommates did. A semester later, Penn Housing finally
smiled on a schmuck who had just spent six months cuddling kangaroos
in Australia and put her here, too. For a few months, my roommates admit they feared retaliation in the form of egged doorways in fits of Gleeful
frustration. Hey, I’d be pissed too.
Why an entire group would devote so much of their culture and tradition to a dorm room is beyond me, but it’s true. A logical thought is to
invest in a house, maybe; a Glee House where the Gleeful meet to sing
and bond in privacy while sticking it to the Man. In the late ‘60s, when
the Castle went bankrupt, the Glee Club tried unsuccessfully to acquire
that house. Recently, when the McNeil Center for Early American Studies
relocated its bad self to Hill field, the Glee Club again expressed interest.
Unfortunately, the price of $12 on the walk, $15 at the door can’t cover a
$14 million price tag.
Today, my 2006 Penn mind can’t even understand what the Glee
Club really is: it’s just like an a capella group, right? Except without all
that snapping and beat boxing. They sing things to girls in class to “embarrass” (read: THRILL) them during Rush. It takes a real sicko to take
something as innocent as a dorm room from guys this wholesome. They
have nicknames like Dan “Shirley” Hoang, Benjamin “Girl Scout” Winter,
and John “Furby” Kneeland for crying out loud.
The Glee Club members who recall the carefree days of 2403 do so
with the melancholy of a five year old boy who has had his puppy taken
away from him, and it tugs at the heart. In reality I get dreadfully little
value from this room outside of a place to park my things and my self
at night, maybe the occasional affirmation that Locust really does run
into the horizon or that the sun really does set in the West. And don’t get
me wrong, the window stalking into Harrison and Hamilton rooms is
just superb. Taken all together, though, I can’t call this place “Home”, and
coming home to it is no more sentimental for me than to any of the other
lackluster dorm rooms I have inhabited at Penn over the years.
But once in a while when I go to sleep, I think for a moment of the
wealth of Glee Club memories this room has witnessed. I feel a twinge of
sadness for a tradition I didn’t know existed until it was too late, because
usually by that time, I’m out cold.
Wharton Merriment
Wharton Promotional Video, Shira Bender
Anna Stetsovskaya is a junior in Wharton. You can write to her at
astetsov@wharton.
J ANUARY 30, 2006 | FIRST CALL | V OL . VI N O .11
P AGE 2
Editorial
Vol. VI, No. 11 | January 30, 2006
The Undergraduate Magazine
Editor-in-Chief
Lauren Saul
Editors
Shira Bender
Anna Stetsovskaya
Assistant Editors
Adam Goodman
Joanne Yuan
Columnists
Shira Bender
Christine Chen
Adam Goodman
Mickey Jou
Liz Thomas
Writers
Ale Jackson
Danielle Rosenblatt
Adreyo Sen
Anna Stetsovskaya
Mike Weingarth
Joanne Yuan
Artists
Shira Bender
Stephanie Craven
Shelby Prindaville
Yue Wu
Photographers
Shira Bender
Layout Editor
Krystal Godines
Layout Assistants
Isaac Katz
Michael Sall
Business Managers
Alex Chacon
Greg Lysko
Marketing Manager
Leah Karasik
Advertising Staff
Ruchi Desai
Webmaster
Rachit Shukla
SOUND THE ALARMS
Stop, drop, and roll. This Friday, the residents of sixth floor Hamilton got
to practice their first grade fire safety skills in a real life emergency! In the few
moments before the House fire alarm rang, residents were fortunate enough
to see their rooms fill up with smoke and envision the fiery demise of their
worldly possessions. It isn’t everyday that a fire alarm actually erupts for a reason, and this week’s Hamilton snafu should be viewed as a lesson in fire safety
for all Penn students.
We imagine that the fire went a little something like this: an eager group
of Hillel buddies gathers together on Shobbos eve for some chicken, kugel,
stuffed cabbage, and kasha varnishkes. And we can’t forget the Zomick’s Challah. Add Kedem Grape Juice (purple, not white) as a chaser and the evening is
complete. The host suddenly begins to worry that the frantic game of Scrabble
going on in the common room will knock over the Shobbos candles and set
the place on fire, burning bush style. He leaves the oven to tend to the aforementioned G-rated madness but gets distracted by a friend’s most unlucky
Scrabble letters: X, Q, G, G, I, V, and Q. Before we know it, the friend leaps
up in frustration, knocking the candles on the carpet just as the host realizes
the flames erupting from the oven could mean his chicken will be a bit charred
this week.
What are we to make of such imagined negligence, such innocence that leads
to such calamity? It wasn’t just the running masses of students clutching laptops who were inconvenienced by the debacle— that fire truck had a bitch of
a time turning the corner under the Dueling Tampons to position itself neatly
next to the two fire trucks already in attention. Penn students need to learn a
little more about fire safety.
The U.S. Fire Administration has a few helpful tips to avoid setting your
home on fire. For one, don’t cook alone or without asking an adult. Also, don’t
play with electrical cords and if you see matches or lighters in a room, tell
an adult right away. “Fires are scary and very dangerous.” We couldn’t agree
more.
In the meantime, at least the pyros of floor six can proudly declare, “You
can call us Aaron Burr from the way we’re dropping Hamiltons.” You know, or
burning them.
Contact Information
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http://www.firstcallmagazine.com
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Students, please include your
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Editorial Policy
First Call is the undergraduate magazine of The University of Pennsylvania.
First Call is published every Monday.
Our mission is to provide members of
the community an open forum for expressing ideas and opinions. We are
committed to a policy of non-censorship. Articles are provided by regular
columnists and writers and are chosen
for publication based on the quality of
writing. Outside of the weekly editorial,
no article represents the opinion of First
Call, its editorial board, or individual
members. No content in First Call unless
otherwise stated represents the official
position of the administration, faculty,
or student body at large of the Wharton
School or the University of Pennsylvania.
Shelby Prindaville is a sophomore in the College. You can write to her at shelbyp@sas.
JOIN IN ON THE FUN!
Writers, photographers, advertising gods, web designers and marketing mavens. Come to our meetings! You can play
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P AGE 3
J ANUARY 30, 2006 | FIRST CALL | V OL . VI N O .11
COLLEGE, PICASSO, SEX AND MORE SEX
SHIRA BENDER | IN ALL SHIRIOUSNESS
DID ANYONE
see that new
Wharton marketing video?
The one with
the dude spinning his briefcase
around
with glee, and
the eerie sci-fiesque soundbytes at the end
about success being in a Wharton student’s
DNA? Do they enjoy being ridiculed by the
rest of the Penn community? Perhaps.
In my time here at Penn, I’ve come to appreciate the College vs. Wharton rivalry for
what it is: absolutely ridiculous. Seriously.
How many times do I have to hear Collegers chuckle over their clever descriptions of
the cutthroat, soulless, devil’s pact dungeon
Huntsman Hall? How many times do I have
to defend the fact that yes, I do have to study
for a literature mid-term exam for more than
ten minutes? How long must all this go on before we all just sit down, shut up, and realize
that all we’re doing is trying to come up with
some kind of small talk to pass the time so that
we don’t have to succumb to talking about the
weather or how much we hate Frinceton? I’m
sick of it already. We get it. Wharton students
are evil money-hoarders. College students
are lazy bums with no direction. Engineering
students are either foreign or nerds. Nursing
students are inferior. Are we done now? Everybody feeling sufficiently stereotyped and
retaliated? Good. Let’s move on.
That being said, the College is better than
all y’all. Ooh, curveball, didn’t see that one comin, didja? Here I am sounding all self righteous, talking about how sick I am of all this
nonsensical and downright boring bickering,
and all of a sudden I’m off saying how much
better we literati are than you number demons. Yes, well, that’s my power as a columnist in a student-run publication. I get to be
contradictory, hypocritical, make absolutely
no sense whatsoever, and I still get to put this
gig on a resume! Anyway, I only put that first
paragraph in here to apologize for the rest of
this article. I really do hate this kind of thing,
and I really do want you all to stop it. Now.
But then again, you can’t come across an
article on CNN that says you’re great in bed
and just pass up the opportunity to publicize
that.
That’s right, you heard me. CNN says I’m
good at sex. And you know why? ‘Cuz I’m in
the College. OK, they didn’t actually say that,
but they did say creative people, and I don’t
think anyone is going to argue which of the
schools here houses the creative ones. That’s
right. Mine.
Pop quiz: What did Pablo Picasso, Lord
Byron, and Dylan Thomas all have in common? You guessed it: hot sex. I’m talking multiple partners, separate and simultaneous, positions you never dreamed of in your wildest
Playboy, (wait, wait, I have to say something
here real quick. I recently found an issue of
Playboy in the bathroom of a fraternity and
I took the liberty of flipping through it for a
moment, for purely anthropological purposes. And I must say, I expected more. I mean
We get it. Wharton students are evil moneyhorders. College students are lazy bums
with no direction.
Engineering students
are either foreign or
nerds. Nursing students are inferior.
honestly, here’s a medium where it’s actually
become acceptable, and I mean mainstream
acceptable, for men to look at naked pictures
of hot girls, and they only had like 5 pictures
in the whole thing! Yea, sure, the articles
were interesting and well written, but I never
thought that when you hear “I read it for the
articles” that that could actually be true. Men!
Take advantage of your accepted denigration
of the female, and put in at least a few more
photos. I mean, what is this country coming
to when the very foundation of Pornographic
freedom is mostly words? And not sexy words
either; I’m talking articles about Steve Carrell
here, not Pam Anderson’s latest breasts. Not
like I’m in favor of the whole thing, but from a
purely economical standpoint, wouldn’t those
who do enjoy that sort of thing rather enjoy
it on a grander scale? At least for the variety?
OK, and one more thing about the magazine.
They give a little bio about the playmate of the
month, and I swear, this girl said she’s wanted to be a playmate since she was four. Four
years old. Now there’s a nice career prospect.
“And what do you want to be when you grow
up, Debbie?” “I wanna pose naked so millions
of men can look at me while touching their
hoo-hoo’s!” And then she grew up and did all
of Dallas. Yikes. OK, I’m done with that, back
to the world outside the parentheses…see if
you can even remember what the first half of
the sentence was! I bet you’re gonna have to
go back and read it over again! Ha, I’m such
an evil Parenthesis abuser.) and dirty talk you
would rather die than have to hear in front of
your mother. As any good non-scientist would
do, I’ve tried to figure out what could be the
causation behind this correlation? Aha! Creativity! Art! Poetry! Sex! See, friends, it’s all
connected. I’m not making this up. Here, I’ll
even quote it for you. “Psychologists at the
University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the
Open University in Britain found that professional artists and poets have about twice as
many partners as other people.” See?? Toldya.
Oh, and there’s more. “The study also showed
that the average number of sexual partners
increased as creative output went up. What
the artists produce draw attention to them,
which seems to enhance their sexual allure.”
Fellow Collegiates, next time you’re slaving
away at that comparative literature paper on
post-modern moments in Dostoevsky and
Freud, just remember, this paper could be
your one-way ticket to an orgy. Now, for the
benefit of certain readers, who happen to be
my parents, I just want to say that I am not
personally in favor of this hectic and what I
assume to be tiring lifestyle of multiple sexual partners, serially or otherwise. I mean, to
each his own I guess, but my personal opinion
is that that would just end up with a bunch
of sore losers, in several ways. So don’t take
this article as my endorsement of such activities, but rather as my official rubbing it in yo’
face, Wharton, that, if I were to be so inclined,
I could be. Why? Because I am an artiste. I
write, I draw, I wax poetic at entirely inappropriate junctures, I even have been known to
stare up at the star-speckled sky while humming some unborn masterpiece of a tune to
myself, all the while considering the meaning
of the word “meaning.”
Could it be that this heightened sexual
prowess stems not from the creativity itself,
but rather from the whole try anything philosophy we hold so dear? Our nameless researchers say yes. “It could be that very creative types lead a bohemian lifestyle and tend
to act more on sexual impulses and opportunities, often purely for experience’s sake, than
the average person would.” Well, I mean, I do
wear a lot of Urban Outfitters and Birkenstock footwear. I guess that qualifies me as
nouveau-bohemian. Do I act more on sexual
impulses and opportunities? Please, I’m a
lady, I’m not about to discuss such things in
a publication reaching several thousand readers (or somewhere around that number,) not
to mention my parents. But I will say this:
we creative folk do like to have our experiences for experiences’ sake. Take for example
my recent walk through Harlem with a friend
from home. On our walk, we passed by a Pentecostal (I think that’s what it was, but honestly I can’t remember the difference between
the different churches. I wouldn’t expect a
non-Jew to be able to tell me the differences
between Reform and Reconstructionist, so I
think it’s only fair that I be pardoned for my
own ignorance in that department. Also, I
think this parenthetical space is the perfect
place to state my longstanding belief that
there should be a Jewish denomination of
Deconstructionists. It would kill two birds
with one stone. No, I’m not going to explain
it, you figure it out. Go ahead, deconstruct
that) Church. We heard some music and
some singing, so my friend’s new boyfriend
suggested we go in and soak up some good
old spirituality. Now that was an experience.
Maybe to some of you it sounds like no big
deal, but for a JAP from the Upper East Side
of Manhattan who went to Yeshiva all her life,
walking into a little room where everyone’s
singing and clapping and convulsing in Spanish about Jesus-Christ-our-Lord-and-Saviormay-He-bless-and-save-the-three-Jewishkids-who-just-walked-through-our-doorsAmen-Hallelujah-praise-Jesus, is definitely
an experience. And one I enjoyed, by the way,
immensely. Those are some happy people
right there. Ok I totally drifted from the point
of this paragraph, which was that yes, us intellectualists really do love to experience new
things. And seeing as this is an article about
how the College has better sex, well, you can
all deduce what you will.
Is there a downside to all this? “The active sex lives of artists are often tolerated, even
by long-term partners who are less likely to
expect loyalty and fidelity from them, according to the researchers.” Now, that one I take
offense to. I would like to think that relationship loyalty is expected more from a reader of
Shakespeare than a follower of stocks. I mean
really, who’s more into the whole romantic
“love you forever” stuff, a poet or an accountant? I guess that’s really quite a sweeping
judgment there, I mean, I’m sure there are
tons of romantic accountants out there. But
I think I’m allowed to get defensive when
some CNN dude says my long-term partners
will be less likely to expect loyalty from me.
Sounds like those researchers all got cheated
on by painters or something. And if it’s really
true that artists are less faithful, well, at least
the sex was good in the meantime. Sorry did
I say good? I meant better than Wharton’s.
Booyah.
Shira Bender is a sophomore in the College. You
can write to her at shiratb@sas.
ON WOOKIES AND ORCHESTRAS
BY MIKE WEINGARTH
The following speech was delivered by John Williams to the
orchestra during the recording of the Star Wars: Episode III
score, on the third take of the “Wookie Battle Front/Jedi Death
Knell:”
OKAY, OBVIOUSLY PEOPLE just aren’t getting it. We
open with some nice legato notes; I want as much length
as you can give me, no more staccato. I mean you, second
flautists. These are Wookies, people, big, hairy yet majestic
creatures that are noble and dignified with a hint of silliness.
You can’t just play straightforward majestic-ness and expect
people not to notice.
Cellos, when you’re plucking, you’re giving it far too much
attack, this isn’t Looney Tunes. The plucking is supposed to
add some playfulness but you guys are already in the sandbox
playing tag and the piece clearly indicates that recess just got
out; you’re overdoing the playful way too much.
Coronets, I swear to God, if I hear a peep out of you for the
next five minutes, I’m going to send all of you home.
In general, I want everyone to just remember exactly
what this piece is, and the stages of development we’re going
through. In the first half, we’re watching the Wookies fight a
huge battle and Obi-Wan fight a smaller, but similarly huge
battle. In the second half, we kick into full throttle with good
ol’ fashioned Jedi Betrayal and evil Sith Lords taking over.
These are some quick-moving montages, so I want you guys
to really put as much appropriate emotion into each section as
you can, and I don’t mean just throw in some heart or intensity, because they already scored Rudy and that was second-rate
mock up of second-rate melodramatic crap. This is Star Wars,
people, real-life space-drama, made by a legend; we are not
selling Hallmark cards written by eight year olds with cancer,
so cut the saccharine nonsense.
Basses, no more vibrato, I don’t know what I was thinking
when I called for that. Just play it straight, long, sad notes,
you guys are doing great otherwise.
Okay choir, you still with me? We’re going from a magical
reverence to a mourning kind of funereal sadness, I want the
sopranos really covering that shift, the minute we go major to
minor, you guys dirge your hearts out. Pour everything you
can, I wanna know what those Jedi would feel like if emotions
became sound waves, I want to feel sonically back-stabbed
with a harmonic light-saber, okay?
Coronets, do not push me. You are on the rope bridge over
the Juilliard dropout chasm and I am about to cut those ropes.
You do not want to push me right now.
Percussion, you guys need to figure something out. The
tympanis are not working for me at all, can you guys swap
those out with some lower-register steel drums? Okay?
Thanks, we’ll give you five so you can make the switch, but
when you come back, I want less noise, more hits. You guys
aren’t punctuating here. Clean hits, you mute it after you hit
if you have to, but Anakin Skywalker is not going to fully commit to the Dark Side unless I get serious hits.
Alright, saxophones and French horns, you guys are fine,
for now. Trumpets, great job with the mutes. Really made me
feel like those robotic drones were in the room. Great.
Okay, is that everything? Any questions? Seriously, people, let’s just get this next take and go home. Really become
those Wookies and betrayed Jedi and Sith lords. Let’s make
some magic, okay?
Percussion set? Okay, let’s go, roll tape. Remember, comically majestic, nuance people, nuance.
Get those fucking coronets out of my sight, you’re all so
fired.
Mike Weingarth naturally occurs in gold deposits in certain Latin
American countries. You can email him at mweingar@sas.
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J ANUARY 30, 2006 | FIRST CALL | V OL . VI N O .11
PEOPLE WHO NEED TO CHILL THE FUCK OUT
LIZ THOMAS | THE HIT LIST
A N Y O N E
WHO’S SEEN
THAT TRIPPY
commercial
where the little
green butterfly
visits the beds
of people who
can’t
sleep,
and suddenly,
they’re zonked
out with creepy smiles on their faces – except
the butterfly is actually a pill! – knows that
when Americans freak out, little green things
from the FDA come to their rescue.
Wait, I’m having flashbacks to that night
in Amsterdam when…oh and then…right, it
was with the animal…okay, never mind. Forget I was saying that.
But all seriousness aside, the truth is that
we do live in a high pressure culture. People
have learned to deal with it in a myriad of
ways: writing novels, smoking crack, or going on a reality show (cough-Britney Spearscough). Perhaps these activities would benefit
the following annoyingly high strung individuals who, through their mention in the
news this week, have managed to piss me
off enough to make a list about it. To them I
say, for the lust of Hilton, Chill the Fuck Out
(CTFO)!
1. Kids touting guns: In Maryland last
Tuesday, a seven-year-old girl at a daycare
center was injured when her eight-year-old
classmate thought it would be fun to bring
his dad’s gun to school. Ok. Unless it’s 1776,
and your dad is Mel Gibson in stockings and
a funny hat, and the Redcoats are coming, it’s
generally not the best idea to bear arms when
you’re a kid. Kids touting guns, please CTFO.
2. Kanye West: Dear Kayne, I really, really
like you. You’re amazingly talented, and your
teeth are a dentist’s orgasm. But posing on the
cover of this month’s Rolling Stone dressed as
Jesus is a bit much. I know you had that song
about how you wish people would yell out
“Jesus” in clubs, but that wasn’t about you. It
was about Jesus. As much as you - and the
parents of Sean Preston Spears – wish you
– or in their case, Sean - was Jesus, that ship
has sailed. And sunk. Like a big stone brick.
The kind the Hebrews used to build pyramids
before they escaped Egypt.
3. Obesity Researchers: Scientists at
BY JOANNE YUAN
I SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING.
Google is taking over. Our digital lives revolve
around this brand and its spin-offs for research, e-mail, and amusement. C’mon people, it’s turned itself into a verb in the dictionary! “But nooo,” you say, “that benign combo
of blue, red, yellow and green letters! Those
cute holiday motifs they have! The ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button that no one ever uses!”
I wanted more facts behind the mysterious omniscient presence that was Google.
So I googled Google and got 1,020,000,000
results in 0.7 seconds. The first sponsored
link asked if I wanted to “Save Baby’s Stem
Cells: Enroll Online: Limited Time Offers!”
Sweet. But despite some questionable sponsored links that supposedly relate to what
we’re trying to find, Google can’t possibly be
in the same category as those evil multigazilliondollar giants of industry—Coke, McDonalds, Nike, Microsoft, and the like. It’s not off
enslaving Cambodian children in internet
sweatshops or giving us cyber-heart disease,
is it?
After all, Google’s search engine has propelled term paper research to new heights for
even the greatest procrastinator. Its image
search has saved projects and PowerPoint
presentations everywhere. Even as a search
engine, Google is amusing in itself. Have
you ever tried googling your own name? Or
the slightly more stalkerish version, googling
someone else’s? I found Joanne Yuans all over
the world thanks to Google—one of them
is a 6th grader who paints a lot better than I
do, another is a journalist for Arizona State
University. And it only took 0.08 seconds. In
similar speed and service, Google was also the
easiest and most comprehensive way to figure
Northwestern tracked over 17,000 (!) patients for 30 (!) years and discovered that
obese people, even those who start out with
normal cholesterol, have a greater risk for
heart disease in the end. Bang the gong!! But
seriously, let’s do the math on this little scientific shindig. Get out your TI-85s. (17,000
people) X (30 years) X (365 days/year) X
($20/day) = a buttload of someone’s money.
Yeah, maybe I should poll 89,000 birds for
rious as to the exact translation, but I don’t
care enough to do anything about it. In a recent poll, 99% of those who heard the track
– which features only about 1 minute of actual K-Fed rapping – compared the experience to making out with a West Philadelphia
sidewalk amidst mice and pigeons. And by “a
recent poll” I mean the things I scrawl on my
floor when I’m drunk.
6. Dead People of Leicester, UK, Found
fifty years and discover that most birds have
no clue what “poll” means, let alone how not
to shit on my car.
4. The Person Who Paid $12 Million for
www.sex.com: I can think of about infinity
better ways to spend $12 million than buying
sex.com. About half of them include talking
purple bears and lots of ice cream cake, but
that’s utterly beside the point…Umm. Can I
go home now?
5. Kevin Federline’s Single: Federline’s
new single, PopoZao, is taken from the Portuguese word (here I mean ‘word’ in the way
that Clinton meant ‘sex’) for “large ass” or
something along those lines. I’m mildly cu-
on the Site of a Future Mall: Maybe you died
in medieval times. You think you’re, like so
special. Why don’t you, like, for one second,
consider the lives of people who want a mall
built and who might not care that, like, your
smelly corpses were found in the parking lot.
HELLO. You’re dead, and that’s totally gross.
Please CTFO and move out of the way.
7. Disney: Please. Stop. Just. Stop. First it
was the monorail that moves at about 1 mile
per hour. Then there was the $8 bottle of water at Disneyworld with Mickey’s face on it, not
to mention that dreadful follow-up to Beauty
and the Beast, which featured some God-awful early computer graphics. And now you’re
set to buy Pixar for a cool $7.4 billion. Do you
really need more income and power? Do we
really need everything kids look at to say Disney on it? What’s next? Will Disney buy up
the company that makes those Handisnack
things too? The kind with the cheese dip that
isn’t really cheese??? Oh, the outrage!
8. Philly Weather This Winter: It’s like an
excitable schizophrenic man broke into the
great big weather control room in the sky and
started bouncing up and down, giggling, and
pressing all the buttons at once. One week it’s
65 degrees and the next week it’s 25. At first it
was a chuckle chanting global warming to my
roommate every morning, but I’ve since tired
of that. CTFO, weather. This has nothing to
do with the week’s news.
9. UPN & the WB: Well, it’s official, folks.
They’re getting married/merging assets.
Yawn. This is like when that annoying couple
from The Bachelorette (Trisha and that firefighter guy) tied the knot, and no one cared
because…And remember how she drank too
much and started crying about how the wedding wasn’t pink enough? Don’t pity him. He
actually said this: I feel like you should know
somebody before you get married. But, y’know,
that doesn’t have to be true if you don’t like me
saying it. Nice save, dude.
10. Coffee Drinkers: In yet another study
on the effects of caffeine, researchers have
determined that coffee drinkers can’t get as
much blood to their bodies when they exercise
after gulping down double lattes. The study
might also have shown that coffee drinkers
need to CTFO, but in the best possible way,
since coffee creates genius and various other
late-night accomplishments. In this case,
CTFO means “Bring it on home, winner!” It’s
like how feminists have reinvented the meaning of the word “bitch” to mean awesome
instead of the degrading former definition:
“female version of a puppy.”
So! I’m pretty jacked up on life right
now, and you’re waiting for a visit from the
little green fairy – I mean Absinthe – I mean
that sleeping pill from the commercial. 1. Go
lie down in bed. 2. Think pleasing thoughts
while you hum “PopoZao.” 3. When you subsequently vomit, use someone else’s shoes. 4.
Chillax.
Liz Thomas is a senior in the College. You can write
to her at ecthomas@sas.
GOOGLING LIFE
out your crush’s background prior to facebook. That is, unless there were thousands of
same-named counterparts roaming the digital highways.
There are even books and websites on
Googlewhacking, where the object is to enter a two-word search without quotations
and get back just a single result. I don’t know
what people actually do this in their spare
ing in “miserable failure” from the homepage
and hitting “I’m Feeling Lucky.” Go back to
the homepage. Type “French military victories” and hit “I’m Feeling Lucky” again.
Amused? Or maybe enraged? (You conservative Frenchie, you.)
And let’s not forget Gmail. I remember
back in the day when Gmail was pretty elite
and everyone and their mother wanted an
time, but they’ve yielded such amusing pairings as “mysterious narcotraffics”, “semiglossy
bimbo”, and “nearshores breast.” Great, druggies and perverts.
Then there are the little jokes Google users play through Google bombs. With its “I’m
Feeling Lucky” button, Google will take the
user to the most-linked website on the search
terms. Get enough of your friends to link to a
site using those search terms, and you could
be the number one result on Google. Try typ-
invitation. In fact, I still use it to email myself all the papers and PowerPoints for class,
since each user gets 2688MB of storage space.
That’s about 2935872035 times more than
Webmail.
Over the summer my friend introduced
me to Google Earth. It’s like the cooler cousin
of Mapquest, complete with 3D satellite pictures and the ability to zoom in from ridiculous heights. Great for that astronaut complex. And for MGMT 100 projects, if you saw
this year’s End of the Year event. Anyway, it
wasn’t long before I was using Google Earth
to locate every place I had ever lived, my town,
stalking those unfortunate friends whose addresses I knew, my dorm building, where all
the buildings I recognized on Penn’s campus
were, where my mom and dad worked, and
heck, even random cities and streets just so I
could see if there were buildings there (there
were).
I’m also a pretty proud user of the Google
personalized homepage. There I get to customize all my links, the news (NY Times,
WSJ, and tons more), the weather, and even
the option of an insightful quotation every
day. All with the Google search bar of course.
It’s just so user-friendly.
Some of Google’s new features are interesting; some, not so much. They just
launched some paid video site that seems
kind of sketchy. In specific, it’s sketchy that
Google seems to actually expect us to pay for
stuff. Most of Google’s revenues are brought
in through the sponsored links it shows on its
Search Results page, but now it wants to use
its brand name to branch out into the realm
of higher profit-margins. Which is okay by
me, as long as the cool stuff remains free. I’m
guessing that’s the apathetic stance that most
of you are taking, too. Hey, we’re college students.
So maybe I’m a pretty blatant embracer
of Google culture. Even still, sometimes I
do miss the days when Google was simply
a search tool, not a way of life. It’s okay, I’ll
make a facebook group and get over it.
Joanne Yuan is a freshman in the Huntsman Program. You can write to her at jyyuan@wharton.
P AGE 5
J ANUARY 30, 2006 | FIRST CALL | V OL . VI N O .11
“EXCELLENCE IS A PART OF THE WHARTON DNA”
Snapshots from the Wharton Promotional Video
BY SHIRA BENDER
We can run to Paris without dropping our briefcases!
Even our pupils have business prowess.
Run for the money.
At Wharton, students use phones...
Today: a globe factory.
and computers.
Tomorrow: the world.
...because we fucking rock!
Fist-pounding results.
Whee! I’m high on corporate greed!
Shira Bender is a sophomore in the College. You can write to her at shiratb@sas.
Without spilling a drop.
VENUS IN FURS
CHRISTINE CHEN | TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT
THE INFAMOUS PHILADELPHIAN
winters will undoubtedly turn the sidewalkladen city into a maze of frozen tundra (that
is if the city would learn how to properly
plow and salt so one could actually find the
sidewalk), and I swear the ground is frozen
a good two and half feet below the concrete.
Subzero temperatures call for ice age survival tactics and that furry little pelt would keep
me a lot warmer than if it stayed on that unfortunate creature. Winter. Cold. Snow. It’s
time to dress the part with Eskimo kisses and boots and fur trimmed hoods.
And don’t think fur is just for girls, I definitely spotted a guy on Locust pulling it off. Forget animal rights! When Carolina Herrera says “fur,” fur it is.
And word on the street is the comeback of fur is irrevocable-able-able-able.
What was that? It was the echo heard ringing throughout the hollowed out
heart of humanity.
Soft furry animals, be afraid, be very afraid. The future looks bleak, but
never fear, your animal rights crusaders are seemingly everywhere!
Nice Girls Fake It: Home, one of the hottest new clubs in NYC, has a furfree policy at the door. If you are wearing even a trimming of fur, you will be
barred from entering. Home seems to be taking an active role in reproaching fur-wearing Manhattanites by implementing playground tactics. I like
it. And don’t forget the faux! Ostentatious offerings of the faux kind are
promoted by Marc Bouwer, who uses faux fur in his designs. Even nice girl
Sarah Jessica Parker was spotted sporting a few of his duds. The pros of faux:
All of the look with none of the animal cruelty. The cons: Faux can fake the
real deal from afar, but up close and personal the discrepancy is obvious,
and the touch test — forget about it.
It’s So Luxe: Fur costs a pretty penny, and that’s minus any design work
that may go into the final piece. It’s simply glamorous, and at the most base,
a sign of status. In recent past the fate of fur was up in the air. You may
recall an entire fur coat, from head to toe, was the item to aspire to for the
upper middle class woman in the 80s. Albeit, the fur coat trend in the 80s
was kind of atrocious, but then again, so was most everything in vogue in
the 80s. 2005, however, offers some surprisingly clever cuts and colors in
fur, tastefully and artfully done without the look of the excessive.
Clearly the decision is more difficult for some than others. Kudos to the
others. If only people demanded coats trimmed with chicken feathers. I’d
feel a bit better about that. I’m not saying that a chicken’s life is worth less
than a rabbit’s, but at least I know that the chicken is being put to good use,
i.e. in my Gia salad. I guess now is as good a time as any for me to lay it on
the line: I am not a vegetarian. Shocking, I know.
Though, I really must say, for the first time in a long while, I am confused, morally torn, trapped in a fashion revolving door. Fur is so soft, luxurious with a cursive “L” and, well, furry. But images of little chinchillas
huddling together bring me back to their reality, and it isn’t pretty. Fur is
a million times cuter on a living, breathing animal than it is on a coat. But
seeing as how I can’t have a pet fox, a little piece of fox fur on my coat can’t
hurt. Wait, that still sounded hopelessly and utterly wrong. Obviously I
have a few kinks to work out in the logic…Anyway there exists a crossroad,
and when it is reached we must decide: faux or fo’ real?
Christine Chen is a junior in Engineering. You can write to her at cachen@seas.
P AGE 6
J ANUARY 30, 2006 | FIRST CALL | V OL . VI N O .11
HARD DAY’S WORK
“Community Service”
not in Penn’s vocabulary
MICKEY JOU | SITES AND SOUND
TWO WEEKS AGO, a good number of people
showed up at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day volunteer pep rally/breakfast at Houston Hall. Considering the astonishing rise in crimes committed
in Philadelphia this winter, it was both surprising
and inspiring to find myself part of a large group of
people wanting to make a change in the community.
Maybe there was something to the notion of volunteer and community service. After the breakfast and
the speeches reiterating the importance of volunteer
service, twenty or so of us were transported to the
Community Education Center, one of the sites for the “Clean Up, Paint Up, Spruce
Up Project” in West Philadelphia. Our objective of the day: give the building a good
scrub and repaint the halls on the first floor. Everyone seemed to have arrived with
their sleeves rolled up – once we got our assignments, we grabbed brooms, rags, and
rollers and got straight to work.
As I dusted the windowsills and swept between the cracks on the floor, I thought
about Hegel and Marx (as an idealistic college student like me would do) and how they
believed that working was the only authentic way of making something your own. I
liked that idea: I was making myself a temporary member of the community because I
was “working” as a cleaner there. But the more I thought about the idea of a “community,” the more alienated I started to feel from this place that I was just getting to know.
By cleaning the building, I became more and more familiar with the old Quaker meetinghouse, dusting its nooks and crannies and taking care not to scratch its beautiful
wooden floor. But even though I was getting to know the building’s physical idiosyncrasies, I realized I really had no idea of its history, or its people. In all practicality, I
might as well have been a janitorial temp hired by the building’s manager.
This separation of “work” and “play” doesn’t exist only for those of us who give up
our free time to serve the community. Most people don’t seem to make the connection between the service in “community service” and those who serve us daily, such as
the facilities staff that clean and take care of Houston Hall – but it’s the same service.
Looking at places like Houston Hall, it is easy to see how convenient it is for students
and other “members of the community” to reserve rooms, order facilities services, and
In this whirl of modern conveniences and
the privilege of having others “do the dirty
work” for us, we seem to have forgotten that
building a community depends almost entirely on people’s relationship to a common
public space.
hire caterers for an event. But we lose something when we show up for a perfectly (almost miraculously) pre-arranged event. If all we ever do is to “show up,” how can we
truly appreciate the work and the services that are being provided for us? We miss out
on the fun of making something happen while the service staff miss out on the satisfaction of a job well-done. It’s not a crime to pay for services. But most students in the
Penn community seem to be completely oblivious of the work that goes into making
a place a functional and comfortable space. I am even less optimistic about whether
or not the same people can imagine all this work as a fun, worthwhile process towards
creating something meaningful.
In this whirl of modern conveniences and the privilege of having others “do the
dirty work” for us, we seem to have forgotten that building a community depends almost entirely on people’s relationship to a common public space. A community is a
living history, an ongoing story that happens at the same physical location. In order
to make that story happen, everyone has to put an effort into making that location
friendly and habitable. It’s hard work to become familiar with a place – you have to
use it to make things happen, to make memories; but you have to take care that you
don’t damage the physical space in the process. If communities are built on common
grounds (both literally and figuratively), then it should makes sense that a common
public space is pivotal in building that community. It should be a place you want to
live in.
The Community Education Center was a place that I would like to live in, but I
also knew that to become a part of a neighborhood demanded a loyalty and a commitment that I did not have. I felt a tremendous sense of satisfaction walking out of the
center at the end of MLK Day, knowing that I had made its windows brighter and its
floors almost spotless. But on that same day, I also found out what it felt like to be a
janitor, what it meant to take out the trash and to put the chairs back but not to be the
one who made memories inside the rooms. I hadn’t breathed life into the building at
all; someone else is going to do that. I just worked there.
Mickey Jou is a senior in the College. You can write to her at myjou@sas.
m
s
i
l
l
a
our dose of
c
t
s
weekly wisdom
r
i
f FIRST CALL REDESIGNED:
PREPARE FOR AN ISSUEGASM
WIPING FOR FREE
Take one for the team
BY DANIELLE ROSENBLATT
NINE GIRLS USE A LOT OF TOILET PAPER. Maybe that is why we never have any. I live in a house
with eight girls; two are senior varsity [insert sport here] players—both captains. Thus, we are the
“[insert same sport here] Team House.” So if you consider toilet paper usage in terms of tenants
and teammates, you can understand the shortage. Hence, our house motto: take one for the team!
We used to steal it from everywhere—restaurant and movie theater bathrooms, coffee shops, café’s,
the doctor’s office, Houston Hall. But the best is BYO restaurants. Lucky for us the policy isn’t bring
your own toilet paper (we wouldn’t have any to bring). Instead, we bring a couple of bottles of wine
and take home a couple of rolls of toilet paper (each). It is especially convenient when they have extra
storage cabinets—we take advantage of the surplus. Seems fair, right? Wrong. This is stealing of the
very worst kind. It is unethical to steal from strangers—public places with which we have no affiliation. We should be ashamed of ourselves. Thus, we must find a more ethical way to obtain toilet
paper—that is, to take our fair share of the communal toilet paper at our own university.
Many would argue that stealing is stealing. It is a misdemeanor—a violation of the law—be it a
pack of gum, a roll of toilet paper, or a brand new i-pod mini. Nor does it matter who you steal from:
the mall, the supermarket, or your grandmother. We have been taught not to steal. We should never
do it. Never.
I contend that there are exceptions. One exception—Club Pottruck, the Penn gym. Stealing toilet
paper from Pottruck is not stealing, but taking that which is rightfully our own and relocating it to a
place where we will more conveniently use it. Each semester our parents pay a required, non-optional
Stealing toilet paper from Pottruck has been her
greatest motivation in sticking to her New Year’s
resolution: to go to the gym more often.
gym fee. Thus, each Penn student is a Club Pottruck investor and owns a portion of the gym’s assets
(toilet paper included). Out of the nine girls who live in my house, only four of us use the gym, and
only two of the four use it on a regular basis. So that leaves seven paying Penn students who almost
never use the gym. Yet, their parents are required—forced to pay a gym fee each semester. For gym
users, toilet paper is complementary, an all you can use buffet so to speak. So what about the paid
members who elect not to use the gym? Is it complementary for them as well? Well? Why shouldn’t it
be? They paid for it. So it’s theirs! Technically speaking, the gym owes us each a treadmill, a bike, and
an elliptical for four years of involuntary gym fees. Lucky for Pottruck we only want toilet paper!
At a university with great minds full of rationality and reason, it is surprising that no one has
raised this issue sooner. In the words of Ben Franklin: So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable
Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for every thing one has a mind to do. To reaffirm the rationality of our case I have asked a few of the housemates in question to comment. When
asked to discuss the greatest benefit of obtaining toilet paper from Pottruck, Housemate X answered
that the rolls there are at least twice the size of regular rolls. Stealing “in bulk,” she said, is much more
cost effective (even though we aren’t paying) and time effective than stealing a regular sized roll.
Housemate Y answered that stealing toilet paper from Pottruck has been her greatest motivation in
sticking to her New Years resolution: to go to the gym more often. She says that it has also taught her
to multi-task. She figures, “While I’m there, I might as well work out.” Housemate Y has started to see
results already! On the contrary, two of the other housemates (let’s call them Housemates X Squared)
like to get a smoothie and some soy chips while they’re there. Housemate Z declared that stealing toilet paper from Pottruck is a great social outlet. It’s an opportunity to catch up with the Pottruck staff,
to scope out the prospects in the weight room, to small talk with all of her friends and acquaintances
that are reading a book on the elliptical. “And (she exclaims) last time I was there I saw 2 other people
in the stalls next to me doing the exact same thing!”
Ladies and gentlemen, hold onto your toilet seats. The word is out. The probability that increased
rates of toilet paper theft will occur is quite likely. At the risk of sounding like I’m in junior high
school, everybody’s doing it! But beware: word has it that toilet paper theft from Pottruck is punishable by 23 laps around the building…for each roll you steal. So don’t get caught! Act fast before they
run out! (Just think: WWBD? What would Ben [Franklin] do?)
Danielle Rosenblatt is a senior in the College. You can write to her at dmrosenb@sas.
Critically Inform.
Signed up for too many activities and wound up doing nothing?
Wanted to get involved in a campus publication,
but didn’t know how?
It’s never too late.
First Call, the Undergraduate Magazine, is always looking for
new members:
• Writers
• Artists
• Photographers
• Advertising Staff
• Marketing / Sponsorship
Meetings Every Other Tuesday, JMHH F94
Submissions due Wednesdays at midnight.
No application or experience necessary.
fcpaper@gmail.com
J ANUARY 30, 2006 | FIRST CALL | V OL . VI N O .11
THE NOT SO
CORRECT ENID
BLYTON
Medium
ZEN AND ART OF
FACEBOOK
MESAGING
BY ALE JACKSON
BY ADREYO SEN
AT ONE STAGE of my dubious reading life, I
was an avid pursuer of the Blyton School stories. Not because I was feminine, but because
I was a boarding school student myself and
believed the experiences enmeshed in those
stories would tally with the ones I faced (I
hope that sounds convincing.) This pursuit
was all the more difficult because the later
volumes in both the Malory Towers and the
St. Claire’s stories were hardly ever stocked in
bookstores and libraries; I had to persuade a
procession of tolerant English teachers to let
me borrow their copies.
Reading them again now (yes, I know),
the same scenarios I had loved then seem
slightly implausible. Blyton’s girls spend six
years in a world, albeit divorced from reality, violent toward the emerging notions of
equality in the 1900s.
The ‘other’ in the school stories is marginalized and made the butt of ridicule.
The French girl Claudine is unscrupulous
and deceitful, she understands not the delicate English sense of honor. She is allowed
to redeem herself, however, by drenching a
lady who makes fun of her aunt, the school’s
French teacher, or Mademoiselle. She moves
towards acceptance by her admission that the
English sense of honor is not a bad thing after all. Her cousin, Antoinette, has a similar
lack of understanding of this honor, which is
markedly foreign.
Both the Mademoiselles of St. Claire’s as
well as the Mademoiselle of Malory Towers
are caricatures. The beloved Mademoiselle
Dupont in St. Claire’s is an interesting study.
She is voluble and emotional, in striking contrast to the more proper English teachers. Indeed, she falls into her native language when
excited. Her gullibility makes her a ripe target for the girl’s pranks. She is to be laughed
at and condescended to, but not respected.
The American Sadie fares no better. She
is regarded as mercenary and trite, only interested in clothes and cosmetics. This is, of
course, in contrast to the blissfully innocent
English girls who live for sports and even
at the age of seventeen are oblivious of the
changes in their body and beckoning womanhood. Much is made of her drawl, just as
much is made of the Scottish Jean’s accent in
Malory Towers.
Indeed there is not one positive representation of a foreign girl in either school series.
The English boarding school story – the
norms of which Blyton follows faithfully
– were constructed in a patriarchal society where the role of women in the public
sphere was still not fully acceptable. Hence
the ambition of the girls in Malory Towers
P AGE 7
are toward suitably cautious professions.
Mary Lou wants to become a nurse, Darrell
and Sally are amongst the few who will go to
university – to become teachers, of course.
Miss Grayling, in her talk with the new girls,
emphasizes that the aim of the school is to
produce model young women, good mothers and caring wives. The St. Claire’s series
rather neatly dodges this question by ending
with the Sullivan twins being appointed joint
School Captains.
Blyton also imposes her set of social values on the events of the series. A person’s
character is pretty much the key to her destiny – and most characters are built along the
line of a stereotype. Gwendoline and Angela
come from rich families and are spoilt, as opposed to staunchly middle class girls. Angela’s
similarly spoilt mother is given her comeuppance by a schoolgirl who drenches her for
insulting her aunt. It is interesting that it is
the plain Pauline Bingham who boasts about
her family’s wealth is revealed to be an impostor – rather than anyone attractive.
Blyton also seems to find it unnecessary
to bring in the outsider and make her an integral part of a group. This would have been
advisable given the popularity of her books.
Instead, the fat Alma Pudden is a thief and a
scholarship girl in Malory Towers is a cheat.
So much for preaching tolerance and understanding!
In both school stories, the talented are
liked and loved, but represented as being
unable to deal with the real world. Irene,
Belinda and Felicity are good at either music or drawing but belovedly harum scarum
and unable to cope with the routine rigors
of boarding school life. For Blyton, it is the
plodding and exceptionally average schoolgirl who must be admired by her peers.
However, there is a lot to love about the
school stories. The English sense of honor,
albeit ridiculous to an unapologetic Oriental
like me, is very admirable. The development
of Darrell Rivers, Alicia, Sally, Harriet and
the Sullivans’ and their growth towards maturity is well drawn. The series boasts various
poignant themes, Jane Teal’s hero worship of
the equally undeserving Mirabel and Angela,
Angela’s jolting into responsibility, Bobby’s
reformation and the temporary harsh matron whose daughter’s plight makes her a
more understanding person.
If anyone finds the sixth book in the Malory Towers series, do let me know!
Adreyo Sen is a sophomore in the College. You can
write to him at nexus16@lycos.com.
Sudoku #18
Yo, what’s up? No. Too casual. And anyway,
who actually talks like that? Hi, how are ya?
Too perky. What am I, five? Hello there…Ew.
Forty year old stalker much? Hey. That’s it…
perfect…
If you’re a typical girl like myself (or a
particularly sensitive/paranoid guy; I suppose they might be out there), you recognize
what the above is: the greeting/introduction of your carefully constructed, just casual
enough that he’s not freaked out, just interesting enough that he’s intrigued, just funny
enough that he starts to like you Facebook
message. In the interest of time, I’ve omitted the fifty other options that normally run
through my head when engineering one of
these masterpieces; I think you get the idea.
The point is that the perfectly crafted Facebook message is a weapon that every self-respecting, boy-hopeful girl should have in her
up two steps and try again. But it doesn’t hurt
to hide it a little bit. If you can come up with a
reason (again, reason is key) that you need to
hang out, so much the better. A good strategy
is to appeal to his competitive streak. I just so
happen to have a Nintendo 64 in my dorm
room…“bet I could kick your butt in Mariokart…” inevitably leads to “Ha! Over my dead
body! When are we facing off?” Figure out
what works for you. A quick side note here:
I have now revealed my best-kept get-himin-my-room secret…you better be happy. I’m
sacrificing my success for journalism.
Rule #4: Be flirtatious/inappropriate…
and follow it up with a “jk”
This is the best way to feel out the waters.
One actual message sent to a close friend of
mine read, “So how are the beds over there in
Kings Court? (possible vested interest…haha
jk)” This pretty much puts the ball in his
arsenal. How does one go about creating such
a work of art, you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you
in five easy steps guaranteed to leave him begging for more…and maybe even your phone
number. Read on…and be enlightened.
Rule #1: Have a reason
Now, this may seem obvious, but you
would be surprised at the number of times
people (ok, fine, myself included) have used
the phrase “I was totally bored and thought
I’d send a message,” or “I’m bored so I’m messaging all my friends.” Yeah, right. No one
believes you, least of all the person you’re
sending it to. Having a reason saves all sorts
of “well, ok, you could have messaged anyone
to cure your boredom; why me?” embarrassment. Plus, do you really want someone to
think you’re that bored? I thought not. This
reason can be anything from, “did you understand a word that professor said today?” to,
“so I ran into someone who knows you” to the
admittedly weak, “I saw an (insert random
object you may have talked about here) and
thought I’d message you.” Go wild.
Rule #2: Be funny.
Not overly funny. This isn’t a stand-up
routine. But in general, if he’s laughing, he’s
not thinking about your pathetic attempt to
get him to notice you. Unless, of course, he’s
laughing at you. Then you’ve lost all hope. Go
for inside jokes here. Is there a TV show you
both like? A professor with a funny accent?
Even some well-placed self-deprecating humor will do. This is, in fact, a personal favorite of mine; when in doubt, refer to the idiocy
that caused you to throw away your notes or
the hilariously stupid way you tripped and
fell over yourself in front of him. Whatever
you decide to write, just inject some comedy
into it. I promise it will go a lot less painfully.
Rule #3: Make an indirect reference to
hanging out
Don’t get me wrong; he’s going to know
that you want to hang out with him. If he
doesn’t, you’re being entirely too subtle. Back
court; if he’s interested, he can respond with
an equally playful remark. If not, you were
just kidding, right? In my experience, “jk”
means “half-k”. In other words, if you’re into
me, cool; if not, JUST KIDDING!!! (Insert
giggle).
Rule #5 (and possibly the most trustworthy): Ask a question
If you’re worried that he might not respond, the best thing to do is end your message with a question. You can really put the
question anywhere in the message, but if
you’ve followed my instructions closely he’ll
be laughing so hard that he’ll forget you asked
it. The question can be whatever you want, so
long as it compels an answer. This way, unless he’s rude or your question is weird, he’ll
answer you. Note: Rule #5 has a risky but
potentially beneficial alternative: don’t ask
a question. Now, you’re probably thinking,
“great rule this is: you can ask a question…
or not. Thanks a lot.” But hear me out for a
second. Asking a question is great because it
almost ensures a response. However, if you
want to test if he actually wants to respond,
you can leave it question-less. Granted, the
material of your message should warrant a
response on its own, but it doesn’t necessitate
one. Decide what’s better for you.
So, congratulations! You’ve successfully
written the perfect Facebook message. These
5 rules will deliver you a witty, intriguing
message somewhat guaranteed to make him
think only of you. A quick note on length:
we’re not writing the next great American
novel here, people. A short paragraph will do.
So, go. Write. Make merry. And the next time
you meet a cute new boy in econ class, fear
not! Bust out the rules and he’ll come running.
Ale Jackson is a freshamn in Huntsman. You can
write to her at jacksn@wharton.
LASTCALL
THE UNDERGRADUATE MAGAZINE | J ANUARY 30, 2006 V OL . VI N O . 11
SEBASTIAN JONATHAN CRAWFORD
III GETS AN INTERVIEW
BY LAUREN SAUL AND ANNA STETSOVSKAYA
SEBASTIAN ENTERED the On Campus Recruiting suite,
Waiting Area B, still wearing his Burberry three-piece suit and
an inebriated smile. His Nalgene was filled with Gatorade,
which his Wheaties box had told him is the drink of corporate champions (and the best way to cure his Smoke’s-induced
stupor). He found his name on the sign-in sheet and scowled
because Career Services failed to include the III. Writing it in
with a red Sharpie, he looked around the room at his competition.
He took the available seat next to the
most sorry, sweating
excuse for an investment banking intern
applicant you’ve ever
seen this side of Connecticut.
Sebastian
ignored the puddle
forming to his left and
took out The 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People. Any minute
now, the corporate
representative of the
Human
Resources
Department of J.P.
Stanley investments
would open that cage
door and beckon our
hero to the Promised
Land.
“Sebastian?”
“Shitface Hussla!”
Darn, Sebastian’s Tourette’s always picks
the worst times to act
up. “Yes, I’m Sebastian Jonathan Crawford III,” he stammered
as he tripped over his $22.95 black leather UNIVERSITY
OF PENNSYLVANIA portfolio. Four cover letters for Baing
& Company, Morgan Muckfeld, McTopsy & Turvy, and the
Boston Financial Group (the BFG) littered the floor. Becca
Bickfeld, Sebastian’s Quad neighbor and freshman year friend
with nightly benefits, leaned over her Longchamp handbag
and picked up Sebastian’s cover letter, version 3.0, a’la BFG.
She examined the watermark with her newly manicured four
inch nails, rolled her eyes, and shook her head, white pearl
earrings bobbing from side to side.
Sebastian scrambled into the room, ripped off his multicolored Burberry overcoat, and flipped his hair.
“So Sebastian, why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself? I’m Reginald Stanfy and I read your cover letter with a
tear in my eye, because I hadn’t slept in 86 hours.”
“Well, I’m a 22 year old single male with big dreams to
be an investment banker for you! I’ve got the excellence, the
humility and the grit to make your office a hopping place.” He
paused and flipped his hair, took a big sip of his Gatorade, and
exhaled melodramatically.
“We take grit very seriously around here. What’s 2 to the
16th?”
Sebastian bent down, opened his bag and pulled out his
snazzy, silver Dell. “As I wrote on my resume, I’m proficient in
Excel. Let me show you my proficiency levels by typing =2ˆ16
in cell A1.” He paused and
said, “32!”
“While I liked the grit
you showed in finding that
answer, it’s incorrect. Tell
me why manhole covers are
round, in haiku form.”
“Can I have a minute to
collect my thoughts?” Sebastian shifted his thousand dollar suit in the leather chair,
inadvertently kicking the
table with his leather shoes.
“No! If your slogan has
the word “excellence,” I want
to see some damned excellence! Don’t waste J.P. Stanley’s time. The company bills
my time for $500 an hour.
Time is money, adjusted for
inflation, of course. Money is
time, Sebastian!”
Sebastian realized he
needed to go to the bathroom. He crossed his legs
again. “I believe manhole
covers are round because,
ready, here’s the haiku: That
is how workers / Dig ‘em up dig ‘em up round/ Waterfalls
cascade.” He lifted his Gatorade triumphantly and, holding it
over his mouth, let the fluorescent blue toxins tumble into his
greedy, greedy mouth.
Reginald’s JP StanleyTM Coercion Implant, buried deep
within his brain stem, compelled him to stiffen up. “I see. Let’s
say the CEO, Lord Stanley H*mself, calls you into his jewelencrusted Corner Office. He tells you that due to your negligence, the Firm has just lost a $4.9 billion account. How do
you respond?”
“Hmm. As my boss at Hemo’s Lunch Truck once said, “If
the bread falls on the floor, you bend over, spit on it, pick it
up and just give it to the next client in line who wants your
sandwich.” Sebastian took another swig of Gatorade, swishing it around his mouth for emphasis. “Actually, on that note,
I need to take a leak.” He jumped up and ran out the room,
returning way too quickly to have washed his hands or done
anything remotely hygienic.
“Is this going to take much longer?” Sebastian whined, as
he sat down. “I have to go to the gym and work on my abs
before the DU formal later.”
“Sebastian, I’m not going to dignify that with a response.
“If my daughter was a 15-year
old convertible bond with
0.001% interest rate, and your
client was desperate, would
you date her?”
Moving on, how much do you know about Bangalore?” Reginald leaned back in his chair.
“Cheap labor, cheap women, a big tidal wave and 18,000
new JP Stanley employees being paid fifteen cents a day without benefits. Overall, a solid investment.” Sebastian sniffed
loudly, wondering when his next coke shipment would be delivered. He knew what “early adopter” meant way before he
took Marketing 101. Sebastian was no laggard.
The money signs in the recruiter’s pupils twinkled in the
light, and he threw down his Blackberry. Finally, he asked,
“If my daughter was a 15-year convertible bond with 0.001%
interest rate, and your client was desperate, would you date
her?”
Sebastian rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair. “I’d
have to see a picture of the bond at every angle to answer that
question. I’d want to know details about its maturity status,
desirability among other investors, and, how do I say this,
whether other investors are all over it, all the time. Do you
know what I mean?” His eyes were filled with intensity, as he
thought about his glazed, golden abs.
“Yes, I certainly do,” Reginald sniffed loudly, wondering
when his next coke shipment would be delivered. “Now, do
you have any questions for me?”
“Um, did you go to Penn?”
“No, you knave, Princeton. I needed a more gentile establishment,” Stanfy snorted.
“True dat, double true.”
“Thank you for your interest in J.P. Stanley Investments,
we may or may not call you to ask about Discount Cash Flow
Analysis at 2AM.”
Sebastian shook Stanfy’s hand vigorously, cursed his
mother, squealed, and walked out with the anticipated satisfaction of a soon-to-be-emptied bladder. Gatorade just does
that to a man.
Lauren Saul and Anna Stetsovskaya are juniors in the School of If
I Don’t Get Any Interviews I Will Freak. You can write to them at
fcpaper@gmail.com with lucrative job offers.
THE CASE OF THE FLIPPY T.A.
ADAM GOODMAN | ONE LAST GOOD MAN
WHEN I WAS A JUNIOR in
high school, the “other” math
class was the cause of much
angst and controversy in my
own math class. There were
two pre-calculus honors sections: one with my teacher
Mr. Edman, and another with
a new teacher, Mr. Schall.
Edman was a good teacher,
but the difference in difficulty between the two classes
was ludicrous. My class had more homework, more quizzes, and harder tests. We were not allowed to make up our
tests while Schall’s class was given multiple opportunities
to do so. Edman would generally dismiss our complaints
by claiming that he and Schall made every effort to standardize the two sections. Still, with the college applications
process looming, such claims were little comfort when our
section’s average grade was far lower than Schall’s class.
We probably all experienced this irksome academic reality in one way or another at some point in our high school
tenures. I naively thought, however, that the madness
would finally come to an end once I reached Penn. I figured
that since almost all courses (with the exception of the languages) were taught by only one professor, the issue simply
wouldn’t arise. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20.
Last semester I took a large introductory course with
around 300 to 350 students. There were six TA’s. There
might as well have been in six separate courses. We had a
great real professor, but to my knowledge he saw none of
any of the students’ work. He certainly saw none of mine.
Our grades were based on participation in recitation, a
midterm, a final, and a term paper. All of the grades for
these factors were determined by the TA. There’s not much
that the university can do about this—it’s simply unrealistic
and impractical to expect one person to be able to grade
350 students.
But our TA’s didn’t even pretend to make an effort to
standardize the grading and workload. One section had to
write five essays. Others, none. As far as the written work
went (essays on the mid-term and final, and the term paper), all six of the TAs had varying expectations and standards for what was good writing and what wasn’t. Most flagrantly, different TAs administered their own curves to the
midterm and the final, basing them on how their sections
did. This meant that a student in one recitation could have
done objectively better on the midterm than his peer in another recitation (not even accounting for subjective essay
grading), and ended up with a lower grade than said peer.
This is a widespread problem across the university.
While upperclassmen may view such disparity across recitation sections as a reality of the academy, it doesn’t have
to be so. TAs should be urged to standardize their grading
procedures. They should go to great lengths to make their
personal biases invisible in the grading process. The purpose of a recitation is to review lecture material in a smaller setting, not to skew a student’s grade in relation to his
classmates’. As it would be difficult to force reform within
the TA system, it must be a sense of fair play and intellectual honesty among the TAs which drives these changes.
They owe it to us.
It is not my wish to have to long for the days of Edman
and Schall.
Adam Goodman is a freshman in the College. You can write to him
at adamlg@sas.