Printer-friendly version

Send to a friend

This Issue 04/02/2009

• Miss Philadelphia 2009
• If You Build It, Will They Come?
• The Best Coffee On Campus
• The Worst of Penn 2009

Street knows what's up. You know what’s up. And over 1,000 of you told us what’s up when you voted for Best of Penn 2009. Are the results scientific? We don’t know. We didn’t take STAT111. What we do know is that you have some strong opinions on the arbitrary categories we presented you with. Best drug front? Done. Best place for post-coital grubbin’? You got it. The results are in, so here we go.

...

Place to Feel Inadequate:
With Other Penn Students
Let’s face it: we were all overachievers once. In high school we were at the top of our classes, dubbed “most likely to succeed” in our yearbooks and, in a turn of events that was not at all surprising at the time, admitted to an Ivy League school. We were, in essence, the shit. But once we got to Penn, a school full of nauseatingly ambitious students, our delusions were violently shattered. Turns out, we’re a lot less awesome than we thought we were. While our classmates are getting fellowships and awards, we’re bragging about our record score in beer pong. They’ve published papers; the most prestigious thing to happen to us is the letter we got printed in People last year. That annoying kid who sat behind us in Chem I got into Harvard Med, but we still have no idea what we want to do with our lives. The upside? We’re a lot more fun to be around than those kids. So suck it.

...

Dorm for Hermits and Shut-ins:
Sansom Place West
Scratched into a bulletin board of a Sansom Place West elevator are the words “WHY GOD?” This is what happens to the sane people who live there. They share bathrooms with strangers. They deal with almost weekly fire alarms. They get fed up. However, for those among us who avoid human interaction at all costs — those who have grown tired of the sounds, the smells, the company of other people — Sansom Place West is a wonderful dorm. Most importantly, there’s an abundance of cramped single rooms ideal for decorating with unicorn posters and trapping in all your favorite odors, like Easy Mac and musk. And the location is prime — right next to the bookstore and a Wawa and far away from everything else. On a campus bubbling with activities and countless social opportunities, Sansom Place West stands alone as a perfect little misanthropic island of alienation and depression.

...

Form of Instant Communication:
Talking
Short conversations over coffee, long conversations over dinner, incoherent conversations over beer: this is the stuff college is made of. With the advent of texting, BBMing, IMing, Gchatting, blogging, Twittering and mind-reading (just kidding, but are we really that far off?) a lot of us seem to have forgotten the value of capital “T” Talking. Not that we don’t love some virtual communication every now and again, but we don’t want to be broken up with via text or reamed out via Gchat. Talking gets rid of all that awkward, “now what kind of intonation was he using in that e-mail?” nonsense and gets right down to business. Facial expression, inflection — these things are important, people! The difference between virtual conversation and the real deal is like having a blow-up doll instead of an actual girlfriend. It’s hugely unsatisfying, a tiny bit creepy and more than a little anti-social. So indulge yourself in some face-to-face verbalization: there’s no better way to get laid.