Before I arrived on campus last month, I thought I had a definite idea of what my life would be like during preseason and beyond. Not to say that I had rehearsed this new situation in my head over and over; rather, in the course of preparing myself for this new chapter — whether it [...]

Nine days. Nine days until the bookworm meets the science geek, the jock meets the prom queen, and things start all over again. Nine days until we see our new roommates, register for classes and say goodbye to our parents. And while nine days may seem like an eternity in the hands of excitement, to [...]

When I arrived at Northwestern last Wednesday, I felt like an eight-year-old on the first day of the third grade: runny nose, watery eyes (illness not sadness), and no idea as to what was going on. This wouldn’t have been much of a problem had I been back at home, watching the Olympics in my [...]

When I first heard about Northwestern, I have to admit I was a little (really) intimidated. As I sat in one of my most challenging classes and faced one of the most serious, albeit routine, inquisitions into my planned collegiate pursuits, I couldn’t even picture myself removed from the environment surrounding me. It’s not that [...]

After weeks of anticipation, I can finally rest easy knowing that I won’t be setting up camp in front of the library, making foil dinners and singing campfire songs. Thanks to the arrival of my housing assignment, I can return my tiki torches to Home Depot. But while I would like to say that my [...]

Normally my Webster’s New World Dictionary, circa 1984, best serves my needs by propping open my bedroom window. Rarely opened, its worn red binding and missing pages have become the reference reject of my house, phased out long ago by its Internet great-grandchild, dictionary.com. But when my laziness gets the best of me, and I [...]

Fake profiles are nothing new to Facebook, especially in the college world. After hearing about the infamous “Lauren Cohn” of yesteryear, it was little wonder to me (and many of my classmates) that Phaiye Blaount turned out to be a fake too. After getting numerous Northwestern students, primarily incoming freshmen, to believe that she was [...]

With the bed sheet dilemma taken care of, I figured that outside of finding a little money to fund my education, getting a few shots and reading about Darwin, there was little else I needed to worry about. Wrong (now, that’s a first)! It turns out that if I plan on making my dorm room [...]

I always love getting mail. Birthday cards, magazines, college brochures, hefty bills from big name universities; you know, the fun, feel-good sort of stuff. That’s why, upon returning home from a family vacation on Monday night, I was elated to find not one, not two, but three large envelopes from Northwestern, and a graduation card [...]

Back in elementary school, I was never able to fall asleep the night before the first day of school. I would race to the bus every morning, and once in class, I would thrust my hand up in the air and jolt it from left to right, up and down, whenever the teacher asked a [...]