For one Northwestern sophomore, though, that’s exactly what happened. Maxine Christine (her chosen publishing name) is one of those typically over-involved Northwestern girls, active in Kappa Kappa Gamma, Boomshaka and Graffiti, while double-majoring in dance and Spanish.

Photo courtesy of Playboy Enterprises, Inc.

It’s no surprise, then, that when Playboy started looking for Northwestern girls to model in their Big Ten issue, Christine missed it. “I never saw the fliers or anything,” she said. But after an article about the search was published in The Daily, Christine felt she had missed a chance. “I heard about it and people in my dorm were talking about it, and I thought, ‘Oh, I missed this!’ And I thought it would be so much fun to just give it a shot.”

Although Playboy was only in town for a day and a half after Christine found out about the auditions, she e-mailed them immediately, and within an hour, she was at the Hilton Garden Inn for her audition. After she was chosen, they did a photo shoot that week in a house in Evanston in which she posed in a library with Northwestern paraphernalia. She was nervous at first, but the photographer quickly made her feel comfortable. “It was kind of like the photographer, George Georgiou, and I were having a conversation through the lens while the other people in the room made sure everything looked just right,” Christine said of the experience.

Posing topless in Playboy, however, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Her roommate, McCormick sophomore Andrea Vonk, respects Christine’s choice, though she wouldn’t want to emulate it. “It’s nothing I personally would do,” Vonk said, “but if she’s comfortable with her body, more power to her.”
Christine, however, had no reservations. There were opportunities to pose clothed, as some Big Ten models did, but she did not know about that until after the spots had filled up. And while she said she didn’t feel comfortable modeling fully nude, going topless didn’t seem like a big deal to Christine. After all, “boobs are boobs,” she said.

For Christine, the opportunity was too much to give up. She had always wanted to be a model, but at 5′4″, felt she was too short for most opportunities. “I’m in the entertainment industry and I always say there’s no such thing as bad advertising unless they spell your name wrong,” Christine said, “and this was just another way to get my name out there. It was just a unique opportunity that I’ve never come across before.”

Christine said she has met only positive reactions after her appearance in Playboy. Her family supported her, she said, throughout the entire process, and her friends’ reactions have ranged from simple enthusiasm to insisting on introducing her to others as, “Guess what? This is Maxine, she’s in Playboy, and you have to go buy the issue!”

She has, in fact, become a bit of a celebrity on campus. Her roommate, Vonk, said she’d already heard of Christine before she met her, and mentioning her elicits interesting reactions. “I would be out or something, and someone would ask, ‘Who’s your roommate?,’” she said. “I’ll say, and half the frat guys will have Playboy and they’ll ask, ‘Which one is she?’”

It may be surprising that no one has responded to her negatively, but she and her friends insist that everything they’ve heard has been supportive. “I think everyone thinks it’s cool and gives her credit for being brave enough to do that,” Vonk said, “and I think we’re all glad that she’s representing Northwestern well because people think we’re the dorky school in the Big Ten and don’t have anyone attractive here.”

Her male friends say they feel the same way. Communication senior Jake Herbert, a friend of Maxine’s, explained, “Everyone thinks it’s sweet. Obviously, if she’s in Playboy, it’s not something frowned upon in the guy world.”

If she could go back and do it again, she insists that she would. For now, though, she’s content to stick with her dancing and studies. “I had an amazing time,” Christine said, “but now I focus on school. But it would be hard for me to turn down another opportunity from them, just because they made it so easy and it was just a really great time.”

Now, we admit we’re not the first to sit down with Maxine Christine and ask her a few questions, but rather than be like Playboy and ask about what she looks for in guys, what her favorite position is, or whether she’d be in a threesome, we thought we’d find out a little more about the personality behind the looks. Here’s what we discovered, in Maxine’s own handwriting:

Wiesel — a Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, activist, and author of more than 40 books, most famously Night — was the highlighted speaker at the Israel @ 60 Gala, a sold-out commemoration of Israel’s independence. I and about 8,000 other people attended the event, which included music and speakers, including Wiesel, comedian Jeff Garlin and Barukh Binah, Consul General of Israel to the Midwest.

The audience included prominent Illinois and Chicago politicians, as well as representatives and consul-generals from 20 nations, ranging from Bolivia to Jordan to Australia. Most received enthusiastic applause — except France and Germany, which were met with claps and boos. The event’s tone was congratulatory and hopeful, a celebration of Israel’s 60-year history as a nation and its longer history as a Jewish land.

Despite the hopeful overtones, many of the speakers’ messages were clearly political. Barukh Binah, in his opening remarks, praised Israel’s achievements in the arts and sciences. “I promise you today: We will never cease to astonish the world,” he said.

Nevertheless, he warned that those accomplishments would not come without a price. “I humbly suggest to you that Israel is unique in just about everything, but it is most unique in that it is a country that must still be fought for. We may take Israel for granted, but unfortunately, some of her neighbors do not.” And when Wiesel called for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of the most outspoken Holocaust deniers, to be thrown out of the United Nations, he was met with enthusiastic applause.

Optimism is to be expected at the birthday celebration of a nation that many fought so hard for. But the steady self-assurance troubled me slightly. In a video celebrating four Chicagoans who fought for Israel, one man, who was in the audience, spoke about learning to throw Molotov cocktails at tanks, and how it was the most exciting time in his life. And when the audience stood to clap for him, it did not seem to recognize that the tanks he destroyed were filled with people trying to regain the land that had been taken away from them.

I do not mean to make a political statement about Israel one way or the other — enough has already been said about the injustices and cruelties committed on both sides of the debate. But when Wiesel proudly stated, “Israel rejected hatred as a principle. Anger, sometimes, but hatred is on the other side,” I felt a stirring in my stomach that was not of pride, but of shame. If, 60 years later, young Americans can boo when Germany is mentioned as a supporter, but cheer for Turkey, which still denies the Armenian genocide, then perhaps hatred has not been rejected by all.

The creation of Israel was a major, long-fought-for accomplishment for the Jewish people, and I do not begrudge a celebration by a people whose history is full of such hardship and overwhelming resilience. But when, even at this occasion, that pride threatens to turn to arrogance, when that celebration loses sight of the complexities and contradictions that fill the history of Israel’s formation, we Jews momentarily lose sight of the reality of our position. We must keep in mind that although Israel came at a large price, that price was not paid only by Jews.

But in the end, I do say “we.” Because sitting in that audience, surrounded by people who look like me and share my past, there was no question that I was a Jew. In the middle of an audience dotted heavily with yarmulkes, waving white-and-blue glow sticks, and singing along to the Israeli national anthem, Wiesel’s words struck me: “We shall never speak of Israel as ‘them,’ but as we — for after all, we are one people.”

Evanston changed its curfew law for minors to 10 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, an hour earlier than it was. Pros: Fewer annoying high school kids at Kaffein! Cons: Young-looking students better start carrying ID as soon as the sun goes down.

Northwestern withdrew its offer of an honorary degree to Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, saying the controversy surrounding him would harm the celebratory mood of Commencement in June. As the school explains in the student handbook, “Northwestern University is committed to the principles of free inquiry and free expression.”

After weeks of judging, and being judged by, prospies, the incoming class of 2012 finally made its decision on whether or not to come to Northwestern. We’ll miss the little guys, and the sweetly satisfying (and/or ego-boosting) explanations that yes, that very large piece of curved metal is the Arch. Oh, ignorant prospies, soon to be ignorant freshmen: how we adore you!

The Feinberg School of Medicine has stepped boldly into the future this week as well. A study discovered that causes of high blood pressure can be predicted with a person’s unique “fingerprint” (urine). This bodes well for the future, since we’re hoping that soon we’ll be able to predict a person’s thoughts by measuring their “fingerprint,” making silent urinal conversations finally a reality.

Take Back the Night happened on Thursday. No, it wasn’t an emo band concert. The College Feminists put on a barbeque picnic and march to protest sexual assault. Nothing says “rape is whack” like free dessert.

It was also Africa Awareness Week, which featured events ranging from dance performances to an African bake sale. While we were happy to learn more about Africa, we had to wonder, when was the last time it wasn’t an “Awareness Week,” but just a “week”?

At Northwestern, it never is just a “week,” because it’s always “midterm week.” It might be hard getting through the rest of the quarter avoiding calls from semester-system friends on the beach, but look on the bright side: At least once you earn your degree, Northwestern won’t snatch it away right before June.

Three weeks after the shootings at Northern Illinois University, it’s tempting to ask what could have been done to prevent it, and what can be done to prevent such things in the future. The same question was asked after Virginia Tech — to which NIU’s president wrote a response last April highlighting how the university was preparing for emergencies.

In reality, it’s unclear that much can be done at all. The blessing – or danger – of a place like Northwestern is that it is so open, bleeding into the surrounding town and remaining accessible to all. How can you keep unwanted intruders out when it’s so easy to get in? And if it were a question of sacrificing more freedom to do so, many Northwestern students said they would hesitate.

Bill Banis, vice president of student relations, said the answer lies in deterring would-be criminals.

“Much of our investment has been to help protect students from themselves,” Banis said. “Part of the philosophy isn’t so much to interfere with the freedom of our students, it’s to create deterrence for those who would do harm, those who don’t belong on campus.”

The most affected so far have been residence halls, where video cameras and security guards have helped increase dorm security. And despite students’ complaints about measures such as locking the side doors of dorms, Banis insisted that most intruders enter through those doors or by trailing after students who open the doors ahead of them.

The focus, then, is on daily security. Neither Banis nor students said that they think that one can account for tragedies like the ones at NIU or Virginia Tech.

“I think that no matter how many security measures are in place, those would help once the bad event had already started happening,” Medill junior Vinika Porwal said. “It wouldn’t prevent the event from happening. Things like lighting are much more important than scoping out potential shooters.”

As for prevention, more power may lie with CAPS than with NUPD. Much of the media focus following Virginia Tech and NIU was on the killers’ psychological histories and the roles that therapy and medication played in the events leading up to the shootings.

“Our counseling center does a lot of gatekeeper training… to identify individuals in distress,” Banis said. “We have a good safety net in place. [But] despite everything that we do and all the investments that we make, the world is a risky place, and an increasing percentage of college students come into higher education with emotional and psychological issues.”

A New York Times article in 2003 described the trend. The percentage of college students treated for depression doubled between 1989 and 2001, according to the article, and the number of suicidal students and students seeking counseling have increased significantly. Although the numbers may reflect more students seeking help, rather than more students needing it, 80 percent of surveyed counseling center directors said they thought that the previous five years had seen an increase in students with severe psychological issues.

But as Banis points out, better psychological services do not guarantee protection. What if the school did more, requiring a WildCARD to enter classroom buildings that were protected by security guards? Would students feel more at ease? Not necessarily, they said.

“I want to go to a university that doesn’t feel like a prison,” said Binoy Shah, a mechanical engineering graduate student. “If all of a sudden the security is heightened to a point that it’s so visible it comes to my mind every day, then I think I’ll just feel more insecure, feel like there’s something going on that I should be worried about or keep an eye out on.”

Even those who would be willing to give up some freedoms doubted how effective any measures could be.

“I would sacrifice anything. Part of me wants to say that if you’re worried about security cameras and policemen, you may be at fault here, you may be doing something wrong,” said Chris Riggs, a graduate student in music performance. “But at the same time, I don’t think more security cameras or more policemen would prevent something like the NIU thing. It could happen in a split-second before anyone could react — it just happens.”

And while recent college shootings have played a role in many universities creating emergency notification systems and promoting safety measures, NU’s administration has tried recognize the difficulties of securing this campus without oppressing it.

“After Virginia Tech… First we were doing too much, taking away freedom, then after, we weren’t doing enough,” Banis said. “We don’t look at this emotionally. We did a thorough audit and we made our decisions based on a very balanced approach in terms of maximum freedom for students and maximum safety for buildings. There’s a trade-off.”

But that’s not always the case. Over the summer, the Northwestern Class of 2011 Facebook group was alive and buzzing with freshmen using the site to actually meet new faces, arriving on Sept. 18 with hundreds of Northwestern “friends” who, by most standards, were still strangers. I also found myself “friending” dozens of fascinating people who had required no special interaction except a simple request, and I was interested in meeting them.

And then I got here. I would never actually meet most of them, though I’ll sometimes recognize a face in a lecture hall with a little uneasiness about where I’ve seen it before. Others – well, I wish they too were just strange faces passing by the Rock. Turns out some of those really interesting people weren’t so interesting once I got around to talking to them. I’d fallen for the simplest marketing trick: I’d believed what I’d read.

Each of us, from the moment we create an account, is consciously, constantly shaping a public image. We are asked to boil ourselves down to something categorical – our jobs and educations, our interests and favorite bands. As a result, we end up summarizing how we see ourselves and influencing how others look in our direction. Real-life acquaintances will catch the blatant lies, but sometimes subtle things make the biggest difference. One study found that people with more Facebook friends are seen as more popular and attractive than those with fewer. After about 800, though, those people are viewed as insecure.

Whether or not you spend hours Facebook stalking our friends’ profiles – “Did you see he removed his relationship status?!” - profiles are a great way to learn how a person sees himself, which is inadvertently a decent portal into who that person actually is. The trick is in distinguishing between what a person expects people to think about him, and what that actually means.

People who describe themselves as “quirky,” “intellectual,” or, God forbid, “non-conformist”… Usually aren’t. “Quirky” in this case translates to “socially incompetent,” “intellectual” means “pretentious and elitist,” and “non-conformist” is just delusional. These are the same people who, in middle school, wore those ridiculous pins that say, “You laugh because I’m different. I laugh because you’re all the same.”

I looked through the profiles of my friends whom I consider to actually be the most fascinating individuals, who lead the “quirkiest” lives, and most of them don’t bother to describe themselves at all. One girl I know who is one of those frightening, do-everything-well types, a scholar-athlete-volunteer who will probably be a senator and whom I’d love to hate if she weren’t so – well, quirky and intellectual. But the only thing you’d really learn about her in her profile is that she likes Oscar Wilde and takes mundane group photos. On the other hand, I know a guy whose About Me says, in total earnestness, “Just like Lord Byron, sums me up really.” Needless to say, well, he’s not.

People with more than three visible Facebook applications… Are just annoying. Who really cares about which Disney princess someone most resembles or how many pounds of carbon gas they’ve reduced? (Whatever that even means.) If the sheer number of Facebook applications makes finding someone’s Wall a real challenge, that person should consider switching to MySpace.

People who change their profile photos daily, or who have hundreds of photos of themselves, most of which they’ve posted… Are really into themselves. But if you couldn’t figure that out without my help, you’re probably one of those people with too many applications.

People with photo albums exclusively dedicated to illegal activities… Are in college (I hope) and still a little too excited about it. I highly recommend you friend these people, if only to feel better about yourself once you realize you fall under one of the other categories.

Finally, it seemed, the faculty and students were standing as one against Lavine. It wasn’t just the unattributed sources; if Lavine had been more popular, the reaction wouldn’t be so strong. In fact, there probably wouldn’t be anything to react to – there’s no story in a well-loved dean sharing glowing comments from his students.

The letter pokes at something deeper, though. In a twist of delicious irony, the journalism faculty granted Lavine’s wish of uniting with the Integrated Marketing Communications faculty and staff. It criticizes Lavine for insulting the IMC faculty and staff by claiming that a public relations document isn’t held to the same standards of journalistic integrity as any other work, and for shortchanging his own audience by failing to provide strenuous journalism.

And yet, after the euphoria wears off, the letter feels like it’s missing something. I appreciate the public statement as much as anyone, but what are the faculty actually asking of the dean? To those who’ve asked, Lavine has reiterated the same explanations: sources’ names are lost, but the quotes are fact and we should take him at his word. No amount of cajoling is going to make names reappear, if they are indeed lost to time and bad note-keeping.

Lavine’s options are limited. He can stay silent and wait for the whole thing to blow over. He can admit that the quotes are fabricated, if they are. Or he can pull a Nixon and resign, essentially making the same admission. My guess is that he will remain silent, perhaps releasing a smug apology that says little more than, “Oops, my bad.”

But equally disappointing, Dean Lavine, head of the self-proclaimed best journalism school in the country, is a bad journalist. Less than a year after his letter was published, he can offer no record for his sources and doesn’t even remember where his quotes came from, exactly. And instead of apologizing at least for his unattributed sources, he is asking an entire journalism school to do what journalists should never do: just trust him.

But it’s not just Lavine who has failed us. I would hope that in response to this ludicrous display of journalism I would discover more rigorous coverage from the media. Instead, we find the Chicago Sun-Times misspelling Lavine’s name, the Chicago Tribune’s failure to quote a single student in its most recent coverage of the story, and a student letter that does nothing but stand behind the faculty, adding nothing to the debate. Even David Spett’s article, which started the whole debate, relied entirely on anonymous sourcing, a point Assistant Professor Michele Weldon made while defending her decision not to sign the faculty letter.

Admittedly, Weldon was right when she reinforced that a core tenet of journalism is to “assume nothing,” including that Lavine fabricated his quotes. (Unfortunately, she then argued that Medill’s faculty had not been too scared to speak out in the past. But Spett wrote about at least one Medill professor who “insisted upon remaining anonymous for fear of retaliation.”)

The greatest shame in all this is that in an act of (I’d argue) well-deserved uproar against the dean, Medill has dug its own grave. Rather than consciously going after Lavine’s policies and the perceived harms he was causing Medill before now, faculty and journalists have latched onto one case of poor reporting and used it as a stand-in for the bigger picture, still failing to attack Lavine for the real issues at stake: the quality of the school’s journalism education.

Now, the national media has caught on to a story that highlights the internal strife that has long been obvious to those associated with Medill. And though we may point our fingers at one man, we cannot lose sight of what Lavine stands for and how his actions reflect on the reputation of our entire school.

This, I believe, is the point the 16 faculty members were trying to get at by distancing themselves from Lavine and calling for higher standards. The problem is that it came too late, too loudly, and now we all must suffer the consequences.

”I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You” by Colin Hay
This beautiful song of love had and lost remains poignantly perfect, even if way too many hopeless romantics did start humming it after Garden State came out.

“Untouchable Face” by Ani DiFranco
This isn’t just another mopey diatribe on being unloved. Ani, in her fiery feminism, gets mad at the guy for existing and mad at herself for being in love with him in the first place, which is incredibly powerful, in a sadly weak sort of way.

“I Don’t Really Love You Anymore” by The Magnetic Fields
As you may guess by the song’s inclusion on this list, “don’t” should not be taken literally here. The singer’s attempt to convince himself otherwise is touching, maybe a tad pathetic, but totally relatable.

“Layla” by Eric Clapton
Although the lyrics are not explicitly about unrequited love, this song (and most of the album it’s from) was written as a testament of love to a woman who was crazy enough to turn Clapton down. The woman, Pattie Boyd, was George Harrison’s wife, who later relented and married Clapton. That only goes to show that not all cases of unrequited love end badly* (except maybe for George Harrison.)
*This one did anyway, technically. Pattie Boyd gave up on famous rock stars and divorced Clapton in 1989. Thinking a little bit about your unrequited love yet?

“I Know It’s Over” by The Smiths
No one in the world has ever been as adept at hating himself as Morrissey of The Smiths – which would probably be why The Smiths have the market covered on sad songs about how much life sucks. This one takes the cake for sheer desperation and anguish, though, in case you were looking for an upper.

“ On My Own” from Les Misérables
This might actually be the saddest unrequited love song ever written in one of the most tragic musicals you could ever sit through. (Come on now, just look at the title.) It’s pretty much impossible to watch this performed live and not burst into tears. And unlike most of the other songs on this list, this is legitimately about a love that is unacknowledged and unknown, making it all the more pitiful.

“ Love Fool” by The Cardigans
Here, however, the singer probably just has bad taste in men. Which is pretty much what makes this song so great – it’s a case of unrequited love sung with such cheer it almost seems desirable.

A power outage caused blackouts and flickering lights across campus Tuesday night, mostly affecting Norris and the University Library for about half an hour.

At 7:12 p.m., the main lights went out in the library, causing the emergency lights to come on, according to exit attendant Jennifer Kerbs. The library staff continued to let students in for a few minutes, expecting the lights to come back on shortly, but were then told by Security Coordinator John Brdecka not to let anyone else in.

University and Evanston police declined to comment on the source of the outage. Com Edison, the local power provider, was unavailable for comment.

Students were evacuated from the library towers, but were allowed to stay in the entrance. Later on, the library closed for Tuesday night.

“I have a paper due tomorrow so I was going to be here until it closed tonight,” said Weinberg junior Ann Schraufnagel. “Now I have to wait for my friend to pick me up.”

Communication senior Cynthia Degros came to the library after the lights went out in Norris.

“I was in Norris and I was watching the primaries and they were about to get to the juicy parts, and then the lights went out,” she said. “Starbucks went completely postal and people started leaving in droves.”

The lights returned at 7:41 p.m., a welcome surprise for many students.

“I came all the way from Hinman-Lincoln to go to the library, and then the lights were out,” said Weinberg freshman Nicole Tilley.

According to Liora Sion, every state, community and culture has a narrative, a story that tells “where we came from, where are we going, who are we.” In Israel’s narrative, the Holocaust is crucial.

Sion, a post-doctoral fellow sponsored by the Jewish Federation to teach and conduct research at Northwestern for two years, spoke to about 25 people Thursday night in Swift Hall. Her speech focused on the Holocaust’s role in the formation of a Jewish state.

Two Hillel groups, Students Helping to Organize Awareness of the Holocaust (SHOAH) and Students for Israel (SFI) organized the lecture in hopes of “dispelling the myths and theories that exist regarding the role of the Holocaust in the formation of Israel,” said Medill junior Shari Weiss, the vice president of SHOAH.

Although Sion addressed arguments concerning whether Israel would have formed without the Holocaust, she focused on how attitudes toward the Holocaust have shifted in Israel. Before the 1960s, Sion said, Jews viewed the Holocaust with shame.

“The Holocaust unfortunately was perceived in Israel as six million people who didn’t fight,” said Sion, who quoted a Hebrew phrase meaning, “They went as sheep to the slaughterhouse.” Holocaust victims were even referred to as “human dust” or “soap.”

In 1965, information released in the Auschwitz trials helped change attitudes and open discussion.

“We know now that it’s not true, that people did fight in many ways,” said Sion. “If a mother takes her baby and tries to calm him before they’re both shot or sent to the gas chamber, that is also a form of bravery. What else could she do?”

This shift in attitude, Sion explained, can be seen in the way the Holocaust is remembered in Israel. Although in 2006 the United Nations General Assembly declared Jan. 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, an international day of Holocaust commemoration, Israel still observes Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, in April, near the time of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

“Auschwitz doesn’t fit in the picture, if you want to emphasize bravery in the Holocaust,” explained Sion. “Auschwitz is about gas chambers.”

Attitudes, however, continue to change. “For our generation, it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said. “We don’t need [the survivors] to be brave. Just surviving is a huge heroism.”

Several audience members said they appreciated Sion’s explanations and views. The President of SFI, Weinberg sophomore Ian Sobel, stressed the importance of speakers like Sion.

“It’s very important to have lectures like this, especially when you have people like the president of Iran, Ahmadinejad, who denies the Holocaust and the right of the state of Israel to exist,” Sobel said. “At the same time, [he's] creating a nuclear arsenal to potentially create a second Holocaust and wipe Israel off the map.”