i can't find the words

At The Brown and White, we pride ourselves on being able to tell you what’s happening on campus, and, in our editorials, what you should think about what’s going on. But we’ve neglected the field of letting you know what’s going to happen in the near future. With the semester winding down, we’ve decided that we owe it to you to peer into our crystal ball and let you have a look at the future.

1. Firstly, we know that Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is moving into the Theta Delta Chi house. Unfortunately for the women of AOPi, their tenure at the mansion atop the never ending stairs will not be a long one. Following a rowdy party during which several male students are found passed out, the police will eject AOPi from the house. Student Senate’s new diner will be the next to fill the vacancy, but we’re not sure if its pancakes will be delicious enough to warrant a permanent residence.

2. Provost Ron Yoshida will crown himself Dean of Lehigh (à la Napoleon Bonaparte), but will step down after allegations of misconduct surface. He will then open a pizzeria in the South Side, setting tastebuds ablaze campus-wide.

3. An excited fan will run onto the stage during this spring’s commencement ceremony, asking Kurt Vonnegut to tell “that story about the war.”

4. In an attempt to enrich the minds of non-art majors, the Lehigh University Art Galleries will commission a sculpture of colossal proportions to be displayed on the Maginnes lawn. The sculpture — a nude bronze of President Gregory Farrington — will attract attention from critics across the globe, who will name it a wonder of the modern world.

5. Campus Square will join forces with the media wall in Packard Laboratory. This coupling of university superpowers will result in one behemoth interactive barrier separating Lehigh from South Bethlehem.

6. The presence of Quiznos Sub’s tasty, toasty sandwiches will take a toll on the rest of Bethlehem’s hoagie-producing population. Tony from Goosey Gander II will attempt to retain customers by adding yet another floor to his building and using it to house a gentlemen’s club.

7. Sundaze will finally cater to the musical tastes of the entire student body. Headlining artists will include Outkast, Dave Matthews Band, Britney Spears, Metallica, Foo Fighters and Eminem, among others.

8. With Linderman Library closed for renovations, Fairchild-Martindale Library will become overcrowded with students working on group projects at the last minute and will sink slowly into the Earth’s molten core.

9. At the urging of Police Chief Edward Shupp, criminals will begin to read newspapers and realize that they are, for the most part, really stupid. Most of them will learn police tactics from news articles, causing an all-time high in property stolen from Taylor Gymnasium.

10. Television entertainer Bill O’Reilly will donate $3 billion to the university, which will be renamed The O’Reilly Institute of No-Spinning. Joseph Perella, ’64, head hung in shame at the inadequacy of his donation, will write Lehigh a blank check (much like in the movie “Blank Check”) and we’ll all move to a castle and play with expensive toys and go-karts all day.

11. In a move not surprising to anyone who has kept up with The Brown and White’s internal feud, The Brown and White Online will secede from the print version of the paper. The online edition will merge with the DailyJolt to form a high-quality publication supported solely by banner ads from the Lehigh Valley’s finest establishment, Erv’s BYO.

12. Everyone will have a great summer and not come back to school.

Here is an update:

Media Ethics does not require that I pay attention, since I am a lowly teacher’s assistant, so I let my mind wander. Economics of the Sports Industry is boring (save for when I am stumbling through my presentation), so I let my mind wander. Spanish, well, I have no idea what’s going on in there, so I let my mind wander.

And I’ve had excessive alone time recently, so, as you can probably guess, I let my mind wander.

This shouldn’t be an awful thing, it really shouldn’t. But it is. The more time I spend thinking, the more worked up I get. This is wreaking havoc on my apprently stress-sensitive stomach, and it’s hard to force a good mood, because, if we’ve learned anything from Bling, it’s that my mind tends to wander in a negative direction.

There are some daydreams, too, whenever I get calmed down and stretch out on my bed. Sometimes they’re enjoyable and I smile the afternoon out of my pillow. But I often regret it later, as my “good” daydreams are all but unattainable.

So I end up thinking too much.

And the cycle repeats itself.

And Bling gets hungry and starts making a ruckus.

I feed him, but somehow even that pisses me off.

My glasses hit the floor, my head the pillow and my thoughts the bottom of ____

Fuck.

You could say it all started with a T-shirt. I have a fetish for esoteric clothing – brightly colored things with snappy text and confounding images (and the occasional stripe) – and my eyes lit up when I found perfection in a cotton-polyester blend online one afternoon. The olive lettering on a beige backdrop stated, “I got a turtle” above, appropriately, a sketch of a turtle.

Naturally, I couldn’t not buy the shirt, and I spent the next week hanging out at my mailbox anxiously awaiting its arrival. (This was during the summer, mind you, so I only had to walk to the end of the driveway. However, had I been at school, I’d have made the daily Ulrich hike in a heartbeat. Nothing stands between me and looking sharp).

The padded envelope came, and, as soon as I could put down the bubble wrap, I donned the long-awaited T-shirt. Birds sang, children did cute things and confetti fell from the sky: All was well with the world.

I came back to Lehigh in August and soon realized my life was lacking something. But instead of finding love or alcohol (or biased media outlets or not-sports or any other edit desk fodder), I went out in search of a turtle.

My shirt had turned me into a liar, of course, and I couldn’t bear to live the life of a pathetic turtleless fraud. “I got a turtle” – yeah right, who was I kidding? Not only did I not have a turtle, but I hadn’t gotten one in the past (childhood pets notwithstanding; my parents were the ones who got those turtles).

My quest for redemption took me to Angels R Us in Allentown, Lehigh Valley’s self-proclaimed reptile specialists as well as the sketchiest pet store in the tri-state area.

But they had turtles. Oh yes, they had turtles.

Too many turtles, in fact. There were eight or nine of the critters in various locations throughout the store, and I spent ample time debating the pros and cons of each one. I didn’t want one of the grandfatherly tortoises; I wanted something young and swimmy, something that would make the ladies say “Aww!” (Impressing the ladies is always an important consideration.)

At last, I found the perfect little turtle. It was a baby, only two months old, and was busying itself by trying to swim through a rock. I pointed it out to the salesman, eliciting (I assume) whimpers from the other turtles, who had no other option but to realize there was only room for one reptile in my heart, as well as my cramped Brodhead House single.

The unnamed turtle and I headed home, I in the passenger seat of a friend’s Mitsubishi and my pet in a Tupperware container with strategically placed air holes. Upon my return to the Brodhead, several people exclaimed that I was awesome, others said I was crazy, and all of them asked what the turtle’s name was.

It was then that I realized the error of my ways. Sure, I had put time and effort into purchasing the optimal turtle, but I didn’t go prepared with a name. Everyone I knew had suggestions and I shortly came up with a list of nearly 10 possibilities. I spent that night tossing and turning, comparing Donatello to Fido to Dorito. The next morning I christened my new turtle Bling, and kept Mr. Turtleface as an official nickname. Additionally, I determined that Bling was a male, a fact verified later when he tried to initiate sexual relations with a plastic toy.

In the eight months I’ve had Bling, we’ve gone through a lot. I’ve taught him tricks, including how to bite my finger. He’s performed daring feats such as climbing up the couch and hiccupping. We’ve had our share of fights, most of them stemming from his assessment of my bed as a toilet. We spent Winter Break apart, as Continental Airlines told me that he’d have to travel as cargo. And there was the frightening period when his water heater broke and I woke up every morning afraid to find him dead in 60-degree water.

Despite our hardships, Bling and I have an unbreakable bond. In return for me giving him “a food” (the preferred term for one of his fish-meal pellets) every time he pesters me, he swims around and keeps me relaxed when I’d rather be throwing things. In some ways, he makes a pretty good puppy, albeit a tiny green one with a shell. He may not bark, nor come when I call his name, but he eats from my hand and demands my attention when I let him out of the tank. Plus he’s clumsy and runs into things often.

Just the other day, I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous weather by taking Bling outside. I loaded him into a bucket (try as I might, I haven’t been able to find a turtle-sized leash, and I can’t trust him to cross the street on his own) and we headed over to the Maginnes lawn. I chose a spot beneath some crab apple trees and deposited Bling onto the grass. As he played, I assumed the role of a protective parent, watching him wander around but not letting him stray too far.

It was a joy to observe Bling explore those few square meters of unknown terrain. He’d be fascinated by a parade of ants one moment, and then startled by a wind-blown blade of grass the next. But he was doughty in his journeying and kept plodding along.

I always want to know what Bling is thinking. What could possibly be going on in that M&M-sized brain of his? What makes him incessantly try to dog-paddle his way through his aquarium wall every time he sees me? Why does he perform his mating dance whenever I give him a food?

As I lay in the shade and studied the clouds, Bling crawling somewhere nearby, I knew I’d never be able to answer these questions. Bling can make me laugh or cry, cheer me up or get me irate; yet, I’ll never understand the motivations behind his actions. I’m sad to say this mirrors every friendship I’ve had – the good times and the struggles, the bliss and the heartache, and my complete confoundedness at it all.

Maybe I just need to stop thinking.

Many of you are going to Sayre Field tomorrow.

Some of you are going to listen to Less Than Jake, Rahzel, The Recipe and Fail Me Not.

Some of you are going to play on those awesome inflatable toys.

All of you (we hope) are going to patronize The Brown and White’s kissing booth. (Several choice B&W hotties will be on hand to deal out pecks on the cheek (and possibly the lips, but only if we like you) for a reasonable fee.)

A few of you are going to be brave and eat meat products from the concession stands.

Most of you are going to enjoy warm, sunny, cloudless weather in the company of your friends.

A lot of you are going to be drunk.

If you’re confused, don’t be: Sundaze is tomorrow. You should go and have fun. There will be beach balls, sunburns and cold beverages — all the makings of a magnificent spring day.

It’s a great way to wind down Greek Week, and we’re glad University Productions puts so much effort into it every year. Everyone can leave behind their worries about upcoming finals and worship what it means to be a young adult.

Unfortunately, though, not everyone gets to go.

Greek Week always seems to coincide with group-project season, that awful time of the school year in which hundreds of students pass every night in the bowels of the Fairchild-Martindale Library. There’s always the chance of stumbling over words during the presentation, so these people spend every waking moment studying their slides and rehearsing their speeches. Their voices eventually go hoarse, but they have to keep practicing until they can thoroughly explain the economics of the tobacco industry in eight minutes flat.

So what of these students, these unsung heroes of academia?

The academic portion of their grades depends on their group members not slacking off, while the individual grading is based on their ability to speak to a room of uninterested students. If they screw up, everyone’s going to make snide remarks, so they forgo traditional college fun and talk to themselves and gesture while looking at either a mirror or a clock. These poor souls can’t have fun at Sundaze.

And what about us?

As Brown and Whiters, we give up our Wednesdays and Sundays to put out a semiweekly newspaper. The homework piles up quickly and we often spend our Fridays and Saturdays trying to catch up. Sure, we really want to go outside and lie on the grass all day, but we’ll never be able to justify the wasted time, not with papers to write and foreign languages to study.

And let’s not forget the scholar-athletes. The baseball team has a doubleheader, there’s a track and field meet in New Jersey and the golf, lacrosse and softball teams have games as well.

So those of you who can go enjoy the festivities should definitely do so (and make sure you pay for some hot kissing action), but please don’t take the free time for granted. Many students have to utilize their weekends for productive purposes, and you can be sure that they’re writhing in jealousy.

Also: UP, maybe you should change the name of the event. We get it, but we think the freshmen are confused.

It was a hot and sunny day, and were approximately ten and the average one in the morning. Not much wind ago, but there was a slight breeze. I was in Nassau, the Bahamas islands, with my friends in one vacation.

My friends Kristen and Rachel, who had vouchers for tickets of the airline, had already decided to go to a trip when they found very low prices in the Network. Therefore, they could invite to me, also to Alon and Trey, friends of Rachel, to go to beautiful beaches and to take the sun with them. (To intention, Kristen is my better friend and Rachel is its roommate.)

After going in taxi from the airport to a hotel, we unpacked the suitcases and soon we decided what to do later. Although we spent the night in candle the night previous, we went it go to the beach. Kristen and I read while all the others took the sun. Soon they swam, but I remained underneath the great umbrella.

After few minutes, Alon left the water and it invited to me to that it go to swim. I did not want to swim (I did not want to take to the sun and to obtain a burn of the sun), thus it ran towards the clear water of the Caribbean Sea. The beach was divided in two rows, and Alon jumped stupidly from the highest level at the lowest level. Alon thought that he was jumping in the sand, but in fact that was sandstone. Ouch!

After Alon ended up shouting, we hurried to help it. Rachel accompanied it by the hospital. While Kristen and I hoped that both they returned, we walked around the island, but then we decided that it was too much warm and we returned to the hotel.

In the end, Alon poor man had to buy crutches and he did not amuse himself by the rest of the week.