It's 11:11AM as I write this, so I'll take the liberty of wishing for a relaxing and successful semester for everyone. (But now that I've revealed what I'm wishing for, it probably won't come true.)

On the subject of school, HBO aired an amazing series from Australila during their fall lineup. It's called "Summer Heights High". I think y'all should check it out.

Shit, that was a fast break. Well, there's only one way to cope with the misery that is school: drink until we can't form any coherent thoughts.

Oh, and for those concerned, the FIJI Islander is coming up soon. It's going to be a shitshow/philanthropic event.

Spring break! I have friends going to the Bahamas, Cancun, and South Padre Island, but I will be spending my vacation time between Baltimore and Wayne, New Jersey. Yeah, New Jersey didn't come to mind for me either when considering spring break trips, but family obligations have forced me there. If anybody is in that tri-state area (which should be like 90% of the Johns Hopkins student body), drop me a line and we'll hang out. Enjoy your spring breaks all.

1 bedroom in Beautiful, sunny corner 3 bedroom rowhouse in Charles Village is available for rent from Mid Jan – June 1 (spring semester) Roommates are two female seniors (students) (and two indoor cats) seeking clean and laidback third roommate. Rent is $475/mo without utilities, which typically run between $60-120. Big kitchen, lots of light, basement storage, small fenced backyard, and good living mates. Walking distance to campus, 1 block from farmers market. Call or email Lauren if you are interested: 317-440-7861, Laurenelinks@gmail.com

1 br open in a 3br 1 ba rowhouse in Hampden.  Minutes away from Homewood campus. 

Located on Keswick Road at w. 34th street.

$600  a month.

interested?

jsmuli2@gmail.com

Housing or sublet needed for July and August 2009

Please E-mail to Brokerannlee@gmail.com

K.L.

I've neglected to update 'cause of finals and traveling and shit like that. If any of you are interested (or perhaps you're sharing in the suffering) the west coast has been inundated with snow and terrible weather. Life sucks over here as I'm buried inside due to an unprecedented two feet of snow.

Anyways, merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy holidays, or what have you. I'll see y'all during intersession.

It's almost that magical time of year: final exams/papers and a miserable week of cramming followed by the most effective catharsis of Christmas and New Year's. Good luck to y'all as your classes wrap up. Also,  I hope everyone's going to be here for Winter Break at JHU, also known as Intersession.

I've always wondered what international students do during Thanksgiving break. Well, I think I'm finding out since I'm staying at Hopkins for the weekend. I'll probably just hibernate for a few days straight, but to everyone else, I hope y'all have a great time at home and such. Oh, and sorry to be a buzzkill, but there's like one week of school left when we get back from Thanksgiving. Then, it's finals time (cue ominous music).

Registration started this week. I can't stress how important it is to get up at 7:00AM on the dot. I woke up at 7:03AM next to my computer, and when I clicked "register", about half of my classes were already full. And I'm a senior too! Goddamn it

I don't know if y'all saw the news bulletin, but there is a new safeguard in Baltimore. The city recently set up gunshot sensors in Charles Village. Yep, gunshot sensors--so if/when you're shot, the police will know about it. Anyway, the Baltimore PD were testing these sensors today by firing handguns in the streets at sand-filled dump trucks. I'm sure this is cutting edge technology, but I honestly don't know if I'm going to sleep any better at night.

Just F.Y.I., registration for the Spring 2009 semester begins next week. Hopefully you all have your classes picked out, and if anyone knows of little-work/high-grade classes, let me know.

We're also going to have a new president next semester (besides Barack Obama). I'm actually talking about Hopkins's next president, the man selected to replace William Brody. His name is Ronald J. Daniels, and he's a Canuck! I definitely wonder what kind of president this guy's going to be--President Brody was a cocky, self-assured d-bag, but he was a competent leader for our school and helped bring us all kinds of fame. I suppose a combination of less douche/more fame would be ideal.

Halloween is 'bout ten days away, and this year, that means partying AND voting. As for the former, there's obviously the massive Fell's Point party, an awesome place to go if you're "technically" 21 years of age. However, Bourbon Street bar and grill in Inner Harbor are supposed to have a pretty awesome party on Halloween night too. How do I know this? Some promoter dude approached my friend at uni-mini during a drunken Saturday night and told us to spread the word. Yeah, it was kind of sketchy.

As for the voting part, I recently received my absentee ballot. I hope you all are voting as well because this is the first election in which I've really felt compelled to vote. I know as college students you're all enundated with voter action/registration organizations, but I found one that's pretty cool: www.votergasm.org.

Voting and getting laid--sounds pretty sweet to me.

The third presidential debate is on tonight at 9pm which means this Saturday, SNL is going to have another hilarious sketch. I think both the College Dems and College Republicans are having debate watching parties; I know I saw signs up somewhere.

Also, there's a relatively new pastry shop in Hampden called Puffs and Pastries. Their website is www.puffsandpastries.com. I looked over the menu, and frankly, the items look delicious. If only Hampden was closer to Charles street...

I'm at the library during the day (first time this year), and I ran into a Trojan college tour on the Beach. This, of course, meaens a plethora of free condoms (and not the shitty lifestyles or durex ones). So if you were going to the library to do the D-level Challenge today, don't turn back because you forgot a condom.

FYI, the Trojan college tour also has comedians coming to our campus at 8PM tonight in Shriver Hall.

Lemme get back to the "library during the day" thing for a second: I don't recognize half the people here. Most of them look like they're in their late 20's or early 30's. I guess they're graduate students or maybe Baltimore locals. While walking down to B-level, I was wondering why I'd never seen them before, and I realized that it's because they're normal people. Normal people go to library at reasonable hours during the day. They go to the library to read and to be productive, not watch youtube videos and go on facebook. Normal people eat 3 meals a day, sleep before midnight, and wake up before 10AM the next day so they can resume their normal lives.

I, however, (along with 90% of Hopkins) I never go to the library before 9PM. When I am at the library, I spend a majority of my time talking to people and browsing facebook. Th I eat Subway at 3AM then wake up at noon the next day with a terrible stomachache.

School is an endurance event kind of like the Olympic marathon. And the "Fall Break" vacation day that we have coming up is a respite equivalent to, say, grabbing a paper cup full of water during the race. And school's also similar to the marathon in that the level of competition is high, internationals tend to fare a little better than the Americans, and no one really cheers you on.

Just FYI, tomorrow is the fall career fair at Hopkins. It's taking place in the rec center, so freshman who live in the AMR's have no excuse to not attend--you live 30 seconds away. But regardless of class year, I highly recommend you attend the fair. It's an ideal opportunity to hone your schmoozing skills, career fairs occur only once a semester, and you might get lucky. It's also an excuse to walk around campus dressed up, you know, just in case you're out of of clean clothes.

So the vicious cycle has begun: tiresome, repetitive, and sometimes useless lectures during the day; homework during the evening; and binge drinking in the evenings to forget the monotony of the previous twelve hours. It's not too different during the weekend either except the lectures during the day are replaced with actively trying to cure a hangover.

As for actually useful, school-related news:

- I saw on facebook earlier that JHU is on a gossip website called "Juicy Campus". I checked it out for a little bit, and I've concluded that it's merely a poor man's JHU Confessions. Since it's anonymous and seems to lack any kind of oversight, I'm pretty sure it's going to devolve into talking trash about people better looking than you.

- Why don't more people realize that Goodwill is an amazing store? It has brand name bargains, rare items, and a customer rewards punch card. On a sidenote, the father of my classmate in high school is the CEO of Goodwill, and he pulled in $500,000 last year. That's right, the son of a non-profit mogul drove a black BMW M3 to school everyday.

- I'm going to make a drinking game out of the debate - a drink for everytime Obama says "change" and you have to chug an entire bottle of wine if McCain falls asleep.

- Oh, and some indie bands I've never heard of are coming to Hopkins tomorrow. Sweet.