Notes and Asides

Alright, who is the smart aleck who slipped the phrase “Black Out” past administrators in promoting the football game tomorrow?

For those of you keeping score on the Speaker’s Policy: things it’s OK to talk about at CUA - beastiality, porn, fellatio, homosexuality…Things it’s not okay to talk about: abortion.

So… next celebrity appearance on campus- Elderly Ghetto Gospel Choir! Loves it! Youtube immediately.

OMG! Twilight comes out next weekend! Vampires are way too hot for the big screen. This better not suck. I’m waiting another year for Harry Potter 5 for this, and there aren’t any more books to read in the meantime.

Just incase you needed another reason not to go to the Cardinal’s Nest, a bunch of people finally got what they asked for and got effed up! Ohhhh Snap!

Fall Crawl = best college parties ever that end at 8PM! Thanks for prolonging the festivies, ADG.

Ok, ok, ok. ‘That’s what she said’ jokes are okay, in moderation (cough cough BJ Novak cough cough).

Notes & Asides - November 7, 2008

Guys - it’s almost senior portrait time. Puh-leeze take advantage of this amazing opportunity to immortalize whatever egregious fashion sins you’re currently committing and provide fodder for those Classmates.com ads.

Did you know that the English Department is sponsoring Faust on Monday? Don’t get too excited - the Devil himself is not coming to campus. (Darn that pesky, slippery speaker policy!) This is actually a film screening of a puppet-show version of Goethe’s famous play. Cool …

OMG, BJ Novak is coming! There is going to be a collective bladder failure at CUA when this dude arrives at school on Tuesday. Hopefully he will bring some Jim cooties with him. Yum. Beer me, as Andy would say.

I wonder where we can find the seven percent of District residents that didn’t vote for Obama? Hmm… Anyone at Catholic registered to vote here?

The Hartke Declamation Prize is offering a $1,000 first prize for a winning oratory on this year’s theme: “The United States Presidency.” $1,000 for talking for five minutes straight? About my favorite new best friend? Where do I sign?

Notes & Asides: October 3rd, 2008

OMG HOMECOMING! We are so excited. There is a lot of fun stuff going on next week in honor of it – penny wars, a decorating contest, and of course, the electing of homecoming king and queen! YESYESYES! We’ve compiled a list of nominees that we would love to see wearing tiaras and crowns or whatever this year (were they CUA students).

 

Paul Newman for King

Why, why, why did Paul Newman have to shuffle off his mortal coil right before homecoming?! He would have made the best date. He was smart, handsome, popular, and polite – plus he ran a thriving non-profit which made delicious foodstuffs. Your friends would totally approve.

 

Isis from America’s Next Top Model for Queen

Tyra and the Js have evicted our beloved hometown hero from our favorite show on TV, which makes us sad. The good news is that she probably has some free time on her hands and would make the best homecoming queen ever! Did you know she was a fashion designer in a past life? I bet she would even make her own dress. And it would be - you guessed it - fierce!

 

John Slattery for King

Theoretically, this famous alumn us has already attended our homecoming. I’m sure it would be a delightful walk down memory lane. His nostalgic cuteness is available to cable subscribers every Sunday night, why not make it available for one night of homecoming?

 

Salin Palin for Queen

Um, duh! Did you really think I was going to leave her off this list? Her classic updos and high heels can go easily from day to night – all she would have to do is change her outfit. Would she wear Thakoon in an attempt to one-up Michelle Obama, or Oscar de la Renta like sweet Cindy McCain? .

 

Notes & Asides: September 26th, 2008

This is action packed weekend for Dining Services. Friday is National Pancake Day, Saturday is National Chocolate Milk Day, and Monday, the Student Restaurant hosts a celebration for September birthdays.

 

Is everyone registered to vote? You can do so in the registrar’s office! November will be upon us shortly, folks. As Scar said: “Be prepared.”

 

Father Bob has been a priest for 25 years. That’s longer than some of us have been alive. Other things that have been around for 25 years: Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the New Jersey Transit Police Department, Nintendo (then known at the Family Computer), Microsoft Word, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education).

 

Notes and Asides has a few weekend picks for you. Saturday is Bike DC, a noncompetitive bike ride across the city. From the amount of bikes we’ve seen around campus this semester, we’re guessing this is a popular way to travel. Starting on Pennsylvania Ave., the 17-mile route includes famed spots like Embassy Row, the Naval Observatory, National Cathedral, RFK Stadium, and the Anacostia River. Go to www.bikedc.net for more information. (Registration is required.)

 

We recommend that you head to Adams Morgan on Sunday to check out Crafty Bastards, a renowned craft fair now in its seventh year. Sponsored by the Washington City Paper, it’s one of the weirdest, coolest events that DC has to offer. It takes place at the Marie Reed Learning Center on 18th Street. Shocking news: Adams Morgan during the day is just as much fun as Adams Morgan at night!

 

Page Two is always looking for submissions! Do you want to write the 5th Column, recommend someone for Student Spotlight, or have a Burning Question that you want answered? Send it our way. Help us help you. Pagetwo@cua

Notes and Asides October 24

Pro-life advocate and author Dawn Eden, who spoke at the University on Wednesday, cleverly named her book The Thrill of the Chaste. If we were to write a book advocating our lifestyles, we’d probably title it the The Thrill of (Getting) Faced, The Thrill of the Haste (of Writing an Eight-Page Paper in Thirty Minutes), or The Thrill of the Waste (of Time and Energy spent memorizing Nineteen Different Passwords for Blackboard, Cardinal Station, and Webmail).

It probably seems like Notes and Asides is obsessed with Dining Services, but their office is right down the hall from the Tower’s, so we can’t help but be hip to their comings and goings. We are please to announce that Chocolate Day is October 28th. All hail mighty chocolate!
So the fall season has officially begun! Candy corn has made its debut in the C-Store!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

About that whole going green thing? How is it that on   Campus Substainability Day the entire student body was/still is eating off of styrofoam?

Halloween is next week. Do you have your costume ready? If you don’t have any ideas yet, how about imitating your favorite CUA alumni. Why not be Antonella Barbara with a wet, white tee shirt and a CUA architecture notebook.?

Students will be surprised this Halloween when they hear a knock at their door. Instead of saying Trick or Treat, RAs will ask students to open their refrigerators.

Notes & Asides: September 19th, 2008

First Apple released an army of Geniuses upon the world; now, Microsoft is issuing a call for Gurus. (Haven’t you seen the Facebook ads? “Use your talents to help people discover how to use their PC.”) We think this is pretty – ahem – genius of Microsoft, a company whose PCs have been getting pooed upon in Mac commercials for their perceived ineptitude and bumbletry. Which would you rather have on your side – a cool, clean, hyper-intelligent Genius or an intuitive, emotional touchy-feely Guru? We say: let the ideological games begin!

 

Movies on the Mall is this Sunday. Someone will streak. We request that you jazz it up a bit this year. We refuse to be impressed unless you are running Indiana Jones style- naked wearing only a fedora and carrying a whip- away from a giant boulder. Should also take care of those people who insist upon sitting up during the movies.

 

If you’re interested in finding out more about “the truth,” as it were, you could go to today’s Biology Graduate Student Research Symposium’s keynote lecture, happening at 1:30 in 322B at the Pryz: “What is the FDA Doing to Protect the Food Supply,” delivered by David Acheson, the FDA’s assistant commissioner for food protection. Whatever they’re doing, we hope it’s sufficient. Otherwise, it’s off to Canada for us! (We’ll take any excuse to go to Canada, really.)

 

Okay, today is the Lost and Found Auction at Leahy. Only at CUA would students manage to lose 12 bikes, among many other things. How do you lose a bike? Did you not notice that you were now walking, whereas before you were not? Rock on CUA.

 

Constitution Day. This is the kind of holiday you only get when you do not change your system of government with every new year. Not that we don’t enjoy having an institutional history that rivals the French Republic System. RIP CSA.

Page Two - 8/22 (Orientation 2008 Issue)

The 5th Column by Kyle O’Donnell

It’s 6:45 a.m. a month before the semester begins and you’re anxiously waiting for Cardinal Station to work so you can pick your classes. But there’s one problem- Cardinal Station is the worst website on the internet. I’d rather get a “this page cannot be displayed” than have to struggle with Cardinal Station.

After sprinting across campus because the internet has gone down in your residence hall, you join a mob of angry pajama clad students.

Finally at 7:00 a.m. when the cyberselection begins you pick all of your classes and click submit. Does it work? Of course not! The site completely overloads and displays an error message for 10 minutes until it starts working again. Some people are just frantically pressing refresh as if they are playing Tetris on crack. Others are just slamming the enter button as if pressing harder will get the site to work. The girls all start panicking, and then it’s REALLY a mess. When finished selecting classes you would think everyone would just get off the computer so others could use them. But not here- instead everyone checks there Yahoo mail, school mail, and then spends at least ten minutes on Facebook. Computer etiquette has never been a forte of a CUA student.

This scenario applies to many, but there are always those exciting mornings that you over sleep. Second semester of 2008 my roommate, Chris Pierno, and I wake up by the alarm clock at 9:00 a.m. and scramble to our computers only to find out that all of our classes we wanted are full.

Another unpleasant situation is when you look at your schedule on Cardinal Station in late summer and discover conflicting classes. When finding out from the architecture department that a class has been changed without notification on Cardinal Station, you realize just how user-unfriendly the site really is. Instead of working and getting paid a few hours a week, I can now read Aristotle and fail philosophy. Thank you Cardinal Station for making me broke.

We all appreciate the new Cardinal Station that miraculously appeared without warning a few weeks ago, but we are still waiting to find out if the site can handle the largest school population ever on the day of choosing second semester classes. During the 2007-2008 winter break, the Pryz put up flashy signs and added weird artwork throughout the room to try and make it seem new-and-improved, but we all know that the food is still just about as nutritious for you as eating raw sewage.

Cardinal Station has fun new features and a new color scheme, but can it handle this year’s students? For the sake of all of the CUA students, please work Cardinal Station!

REACH KYLE AT 26ODONNK@CUA.EDU

Notes & Asides

The University has decided to ditch the term “undecided major,” while instituting the term “exploratory student.” Administrators changed it because they were fed up with students who kept complaining about what they were referenced as. In today’s news, the same students are now complaining about the term being changed.

As part of the ongoing campaign to save energy at the University, The Tower would like to do its part by encouraging students to save water by showering together, conserve heat by cuddling up with a friend at night, lay off the AC and take off some clothing and go green by going with a keg instead of a 30 pack next time you’re at the liquor store.

Students now have more than eighty television stations to choose from. Among the new additions is Fox Business, BBC America and the Military Channel…but still no HBO. Apparently the University is not a fan of Real Sex or Cathouse.

Don’t you just love your Orientation Advisor? They’re the coolest kids at school. They have to be. Only cool kids come to school a week early to hang out with freshmen.

So how about all of those parents offering Orientation Advisors tips for helping their kids move into the dorms yesterday? It’s a shame they couldn’t accept them. If yours happened to though, you can be proud to know that there is a 90 perecent probability it went to support underage drinking. Thanks!

We’re launching a new website today at CUAtower.com. Make sure you check it out. If you don’t we’ll publish something bad about you. For a little motivation, we put some embarassing Youtube videos online for your enjoyment.

Student Spotlight: Dominic Decker

Perhaps a perfect representation of all the qualities that make Catholic University students unique, Dominic Decker takes pride in his accomplishments. A junior English major with a Pre Med concentration, Decker spends his time participating in various activities on and off campus. Hailing from St. Paul , Minnesota , Decker is truly unique.

He is a member of CUA’s Honors program, which he truly enjoys. As far as his on-campus activities, Decker is a Resident Assistant in South Neighborhood. Last year, he was a Resident Assistant in Centennial Village . Decker is also a Cardinal Ambassador, which he takes great pride in, and has been doing since his freshman year.

As far as his off-campus activities, Decker spends his free time as a patient care volunteer at Children’s National Medical Center , in preparation for his future aspirations to pursue a medical career. Decker himself declares “I really busy myself with things!”

His journey to Catholic began in his freshman year of high school, during a visit with his father. “It happened just by chance. We were clearly lost, and we didn’t know where we were going, and a group of students approached us and asked us where we needed to be. They gave us directions on campus. That was my first impression of Catholic. The students were so friendly and willing to help and I just knew that it felt right here.”

Page Two - 4/25

Jacob Gallay is Graduating

Well folks, it’s been a wild ride, but this is it: my final 5th Column. I’m doing this thing called “graduating,” where a college student wakes up one day and realizes that all their stuff, (including their bed, which they are still in) are sitting out on the curb in front of the house while their parents stand waving, saying “Bye Jacob!” Yes, it’s that magical time of a college student’s life where he must face the music and go into the world with nothing but a Bachelors degree and student debts to keep them warm at night.

For those of you who have been reading since my first article sophomore year, thank you for the compliments, comments, and death threats. Seriously, that letter-bomb I got junior year tugged at the heart-strings.

Senior year has been rough on me. It’s not the normal everyday things that have been getting me down, like senior comprehensives, work, and the ever-looming fear of “reality.” No, it’s the fact that I’ve had more things stolen from me this year than any other year past. Come on, my laundry hamper? Are you serious??? I mean, the plastic electric menorah someone stole from inside my window, that sucks, but COME ON! I actually USE that hamper!

The most pressing concern on my mind is; what am I doing after college? How many of you, years ago, were asked by random relatives “which college are you going to?” And now, four years later, I’m being asked by random people in the elevator, what am I doing after college? Look delivery man, I don’t know you and that’s none of your business.

It just sucks when people ask me what I’m doing after college. I mean, it was bad enough telling people four years ago that I was going to THE Catholic University of America.

Aw come on now, Catholic, I didn’t mean it like that. No, it’s not you, it’s me. I’m just saying, we should start seeing other people. That and you got kind of fat after the whole Opus and Pope thing.

I guess we’re not all as lucky as my brother, who was able to score an internship that turned into a job working for the WWE, which he likes to inform me is a rather large corporation and is always hiring. However, I don’t have the desire to watch large, sweaty men in spandex jumping on top of each other.

Before I bid adieu, I would like to leave these two important tips for CUA. The first is that, there needs to be more diversity on this campus. And by more diversity, I mean less people from Jersey. Please. For your sake.

Second, drop the whole “Catholic” thing. Seriously, guys, this just isn’t working. Four years I’ve been here and let me tell you, it’s not catching on. Maybe something else? I don’t know, ask your marketing department. Here’s to making fun of classics majors and avoiding conversion.

- Jacob Gallay

Student Spotlight on Lindsay Fisher

Lindsay Fisher is certainly a recognizable figure on campus.  Most know her as a member of Redline A Cappella, others by her job as a Resident Assistant.  Nonetheless, this senior Music Education major from Cranford, NJ is getting ready to graduate, and she is one face that CUA will definitely miss.

Originally, Fisher auditioned for the musical theater program, but she did not get in.    “I was like let me think of a practical option that I can do but still do music, because I love music and it has to be part of my life.”  So, Fisher auditioned for Musical Education and got in the program.

Bashfully, Fisher admits she came to CUA because it was one of the few schools that accepted her.  However, Fisher laughs it off declaring, “When I came to visit, the deciding factor was that everyone was so nice, and the campus had a really big family feel, so had to go with my gut and I went here.”

Fisher seems pretty happy with her choice, and love the atmosphere at Catholic. “I love everyone’s openness because everyone knows everybody, because it’s not a huge campus.everyone’s kind of familiar,” said Fisher.

Fisher is also involved in several campus activities.  She is resident assistant in Ryan Hall.  Fisher also had the honor of singing in the papal choir.  Finally, Fisher is the co-president of Homecoming Committing.  “Basically, we make the schedule for the week and try to get people’s spirits riled up.  We have fun with it.”

Most notably, Fisher is known as the co-president of Redline, CUA’s first a cappella group.  “We love doing the invitational, and we love performing for people.  It’s just a great thing to bring the campus together to listen to a cappella music, and it’s kind of cool because we are the starting point.”

As the school year comes to a close, Fisher finds that all her stresses have passed.  “Senioritis has kind of hit me and I’m kind of emotional.”  Although Fisher is sad to leave Catholic, she declared, “It’s important to move on and it’s a new door that’s opening, and that’s exciting.  But it’s going to be weird to not be able to walk to the Pryz and have somebody cook food for me.”

As for her plans after graduation, Fisher will be working at a Broadway Tour Company in New York City as an administrative assistant.  “It’s called the Road Company, it is pretty cool.”  It is quite strange for Fisher that her college experience is over.  She wanted to provide some advice for the younger members of campus, and a goodbye to the seniors.

“I know you feel stressed out right now and you hate work but enjoy it; because the more you hate it the less you’re going to enjoy the things that are going on outside of school.  I don’t care how tired you are, go out; I don’t care, just go see the city, hang out with your friends, because you’re never going to get this back, ever.  I love you Class of 2008, and I wish you all the best of luck!”

Notes & Asides

THE TOWER thanks Mother Nature, the Kane Fitness Center, and the Grounds- keeping staff for providing the essential elements that allow CUA’s fine females to sunbathe on the lawn. Keep up the good work, we salute you.

This Sunday, Students For Life is hosting a BBQ Baby Shower to celebrate life. However, we were unaware that barbequing babies qualified as celebrating life in any way, shape, or form.

As per usual, the annual Movies on the Mall is scheduled for this Sunday. We would like to gently remind anyone who is considering streaking across the lawn to note that there may be a few remaining snipers on top of the basilica. You’ve been warned. Not that we’re discouraging you in any way, because here at the Tower, we appreciate all expressions of image.

It has been rumored that Jon Voight may be this year’s commencement speaker. Now, based on precedent set by our last speaker, we expect to have Jon Voight prayer vigils, an immense Rock the Voight rally complete with Jumbo-Tron and of course the Voight mobile. He may not be the pope, but he did play one.

Notes and Asides

THE TOWER thanks Mother Nature, the Kane Fitness Center, and the Grounds- keeping staff for providing the essential elements that allow CUA's fine females to sunbathe on the lawn. Keep up the good work, we salute you.

This Sunday, Students For Life is hosting a BBQ Baby Shower to celebrate life. However, we were unaware that barbequing babies qualified as celebrating life in any way, shape, or form.

As per usual, the annual Movies on the Mall is scheduled for this Sunday. We would like to gently remind anyone who is considering streaking across the lawn to note that there may be a few remaining snipers on top of the basilica. You've been warned. Not that we're discouraging you in any way, because here at the Tower, we appreciate all expressions of image.

It has been rumored that Jon Voight may be this year's commencement speaker. Now, based on precedent set by our last speaker, we expect to have Jon Voight prayer vigils, an immense Rock the Voight rally complete with Jumbo-Tron and of course the Voight mobile. He may not be the pope, but he did play one.

Notes & Asides

The Tower would like to thank Pope Benedict XVI for visiting our fine institution yesterday, and in doing so, providing us with an endless black hole of articles to write for the past five months. Same time next year?

Pictures speak a thousand words. By that standard, this paper has approximately one million words. For more words visit our papal visit blog online at www.popeatcua.com.

The Department of Public Safety had to respond to a situation on campus yesterday when they heard reports of a bearded man on the mall of the Basilica. He apparently believed that the mall was a "situation room."

Guys who designed the papal chair: if you're not doing anything with it, we could use an extra seat in the office.

Note to self: while you can say "bitching" on satellite radio, it may raise a few eyebrows over on the Catholic channel.

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