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Monday, Oct. 5, 2015

Letter from the Editor

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Meet your RA

Vaina Bista University

Freshman Year; Fall, 2008

idy ho, freshpersons. Allow me to be the first to welcome you to campus - the home of the Fightin' Wallabees. I hope you will have an excellent four years - and in your case, you there in the Nebraska Cornhuskers tee shirt. perhaps 12.5 years - here at our fine university.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am Trevor, your RA, which stands for Residence Advisor. No, the A DOES NOT also stand for that, young lady. That's not funny - shame on you.

As you proceed on your journey of maturation and academic discovery, you will have many questions. My door is always open. Literally, they've asked me to close it a million times. Do not hesitate to come to me, and if you should find me in a pink bunny suit a feather boa and spike heels, well, it's probably Wednesday and you will understand when you get to be a senior like me. Do not mention this to the uiiversity administration, as they do not like to be burdened with details.

Do not worry, I'm not here to impose a lot of rules on you. I will have to ask that if at all possible you do not duct tape me naked to the Victory Bell this January. Three straight years of that should be quite adequate, thank you.

Now the important thing here is to maintain a positive attitude. Despite the fact that you are living with 300 slovely sloths who all need to use the same toilet seat at the very same moment, and are confined in a living space the size of a gerbil cage with somone nicknamed "Bart the Fart" and you have a next-door neighbor who claims to be a vampire and plays hip hop at 3 a.m. so loud that the bass vibrates your bed across the floor, and you are an indentured servant to eight professors who each think you have eight free hours of your life each night to commit to only their sadistic homework assignments, it should be easy to stay positive. Especially when I will be poking my head into your room every so often just to make sure your experience is a pleasant one. I will be doing this especially often if, by some stretch of the imagination, you ever manage to achieve a romantic moment with a fellow student. Think of me as bitth control, if birth control were packaged in a bad Gap sweater.

Please come to me with any issues you may have, which I will respond to with long, windy stories of my own psychological neuroses, which I assure you, would curl your toenails.

Let's face it, kids, I'm here for the freebie room and board, and whatever remnants of Doritos and Corona I can scavenge from your rooms while you are down the hall in the shower. Don't ask me how to change a light bulb, do I look like an electrical engineering major? Do not ask me how to plunger a sink stopped up with your freshly-shaven chest hair. (Yes, miss, the exchange student from France, I am talking to you.) If your laptop crashes because you spilled your Sobe all over it, don't come crying to me. Call the university president at home. He is usually free from 2-4 a.m. on Saturdays and holidays.

And no, I won't be able to explain that stain you find in your dorm room that was hidden under that wrestler's mini fridge from last semester. Yes, I know it glows radioactive in the dark. Don't touch it, don't tell anyone about it. Let me know if it starts to grow or to speak with a North Korean accent.

If you should get lost trying to find a class on campus, don't worry. It is way easier to just change your major to whatever is in the building you have mistakenly wandered into than to worry about finding the right classroom. That's how we get all of our journalism majors here.

You have no doubt heard of the Freshman Fifteen. This is the amount of weight a new student will gain in a semester eating the Sodexho food we serve as opposed to the nutritious junk you got from your mom. Do not worry, the alternating constipation and diarrhea should just about even everything out nicely within three years or so.

You should know that it is campus tradition to put a small marker-board on your dorm room door, so your buds can write insightful messages to you. These usually run the range from "Hi!" (English major) to "Yo!" (Theater) to "Me mizz hugh." (Sports management). Sadly, you will probably sneak out at night and write messages on your board yourself to make it look like you are popular. You will work this out years later in therapy, It is also fine to tape some small items to your door that express your personality. For example, if you are studying to be a gym teacher, you might want to tape up a third grader. Pre-med, a nice spleen will work. If you are studying political science, go ahead and tape up your future confession speech and get it over with. And if you are planning to become a newspaper editor, put up a tin cup and a sign that says "Will Editorialize For Food."

What is the padlocked door, you ask? We don't speak of that. It is the former room of Hilbert "Huckleberry" Whifflebat, a sophomore transfer student who after being dumped by the winsome coed Tiffany "Topheavy" Rhinotoe, decided to attempt the world record for pizza and beer consumption. After the explosion, we moved what was left to the biology lab in Ziplock bags and sealed the room forever. Here's to you, Huckster.

I will be taking names of volunteers who will be available for tutoring in the lounge during scholars night each week - of course, no one has attended since 1863, when they invented nickle draws night and Facebook.

Welcome to VBU. Now move along, newbies, I see my next group is waiting for me.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am Trevor, your RA *sob* which stands for Residence Advisor. No, no, no, the A DOES NOT *sniffle* also stand for that...