My friend lives in one of those dorms with an oversensitive fire alarm. If you fully shut the door while taking a steamy shower, you’ll force the whole building to evacuate.

Well, mysteriously, the fire alarm went off at two in the morning one night. It could’ve been investigated like a crime.

The crime scene: a steamy dorm room shower.

The evidence: pubes in the trash.

The culprit: my trimmed friend.

See, he shut the door and turned on the shower to avoid being walked in on. However, he met the rude interruption of the fire alarm and nicked himself in the process. Fortunately, for him, there were no crime scene investigators.

Besides a discrepancy in gender views on oral sex, there’s also a vast discrepancy for pubic hair. Guys expect girls to be as hairless as our pre-pubescent days, while letting themselves suffer from “ZOMG!” bush.

Then, if they do trim, they fully expect a favor for it.

For my latest fuck buddy disaster, he complained I didn’t give him head. First of all, let me say, as usual, there was no cunnilingus. I had spent the whole morning shopping in Newbury in uncomfortable flats, and I was exhausted. So, I collapsed on his bed, and somehow, in the course of the night, it turned into sex — well, actually, I’m not sure I can really call it that. (It was that bad.)

However, according to him, since he trimmed, I broke some sort of code. Supposedly, there’s some sort of law that states that if a person modifies their pubes, then there should be oral. Well, I shaved, and there was no oral.

Actually, I didn’t even know he trimmed. See, I have never encountered “ZOMG” bush — I’ve only heard legends of it. Before him, I’ve slept primarily with Asian guys who naturally met the stereotype of hairlessness (and another stereotype, but let’s not go there today). Actually, one “ex” complained during finals week when I forgot to shave that my legs were hairier than his. I am still mortified by this statement.

So, let me go to the central debate: what are people supposed to do with pubes? To answer this, I tried to find the scientific reasoning for these hairs. It seems there are two beliefs: 1. Increasing surface area for pheromones 2. A physical change to show sexual maturity. If it truly helps with pheromones, then it might be worth it to keep the hair. However, I’m not sure how much I buy into that — I mean, some “sexperts” claim that body odor helps with pheromones, and well, after being at MIT, I don’t believe this! I know of so many guys (*ahem* all in a certain major) who don’t shower that I don’t want to sleep with.

In the end, I think that the pubes debate becomes one of hygiene. So long as your bush doesn’t have stuff trapped in it, then it’s fine. See, people have such varying beliefs of it: some like it all gone, some like decorative patterns, and some like a forest. In the end, it should be somewhat equal. If a guy expects a girl to trim or shave, he should do something about his also.

Pubes are ultimately a hairy debate — and something that partners should talk about beforehand.

Want to use the software on Athena? Wondered what sorts of cool things you can do? In this column, we discuss some of the useful software you can find in Athena lockers.

Yes; the combo to the Athena clusters changes every October. To find the new combo, you can login to a quickstation or a dialup and type

athena% tellme combo

Other things tellme supports are tellme root, for the root password, and tellme why.

Lockers organize files and software on Athena, and allow them to be accessed more easily. They eliminate the need to use long pathnames like /afs/sipb.mit.edu/contrib/sipb, and allow you to quickly run programs without needing to know exactly where they are located.

The most common way to use a locker is through the add command. This will attach the locker — make it available through /mit/lockername — and add the locker to your path. For example, to run the mplayer program in the outland locker, type:

athena% add outland

athena% mplayer

You can put a line in a text file called .environment in your home directory to add lockers automatically when you log in. Programs such as pico (terminal-based) and gedit (GUI) allow you to edit text files. For example, you may add a line such as:

add 6.001 sipb outland matlab

The second way to use a locker is the attach command. This will make a locker accessible at /mit/lockername the same way add does, but will not add the locker to your path.

SIPB’s Debathena (http://debathena.mit.edu/) eliminates the need for attach -- whenever you try to access (cd, ls, etc.) a locker through /mit/lockername, it is automatically mounted there. Debathena is the basis for the upcoming Athena 10 release, and you can install it on your own Debian GNU/Linux or Ubuntu machine.

The whichlocker program, located in the outland locker, tells you where many programs are located, and what platforms they are available for.

athena% add outland

athena% whichlocker mmblanche

Locker software on Athena is maintained → by many different people.

Don't run this unless you know the → maintainer can be trusted.

"mmblanche" is in "consult" for linux, → NT, and sun4

For more information about most of these programs, you can type man programname after adding the appropriate locker.

¶ whats (sipb locker) — expands acronyms

athena% whats sb

SB - Science Baccalaureate (latin → form of "Bachelors of Science")

¶ rolodex (sipb locker) — phone number database

athena% rolodex olc

3-4435 Athena Consulting Office → (N42) (OLC)

athena% rolodex 3-7788

3-7788 Student Information → Processing Board (SIPB) Office

athena% rolodex pizza

617-577-0066 Domino's Pizza

617-523-5575 Bel Canto (Boston)

[...]

¶ dict (outland locker) — dictionary via dict.org

athena% dict frosh

1 definition found

From The Collaborative International → Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

frosh \frosh\, n.; pl. {frosh}. [from → freshman by shortening.]

a student during his first year in a → high school, college, or

university; a {freshman}. → [informal]

[PJC]

A similar program is thesaurus in the sipb locker.

¶ weather (weather locker) — weather conditions or forecast

athena% weather boston

Conditions at KBOS on 10/5/2008 at 2:54 PM EDT (18:54 UTC)

Weather: Cloudy

Temp: 55 F (13 C)

Humidity: 63% → Dewpoint: 43 F (6 C)

Visibility: 10 mi

Barometer: 30.25 inHg

Wind: S 5 mph

athena% weather -f bos

[...]

Wednesday and Wednesday night: Mostly → clear. Highs in the upper

60's. Lows in the upper 40's.

Thursday: Mostly sunny. Highs around → 70.

Thursday night: Cloudy. A chance of → showers after midnight.

Patchy fog after midnight. Lows in the → lower 50's. Chance of rain

30 percent.

[...]

¶ pdftops (outland locker) — converts PDF files to postscript (for printing)

athena% pdftops filename.pdf

athena% lpr -h -Zduplex -Pprintername → filename.ps

¶ barnowl (barnowl locker) — Zephyr and IM client

athena% barnowl

[launches barnowl]

To ask us a question, send email to sipb@mit.edu. We’ll try to answer you quickly, and we can address your question in our next column. You can also stop by our office in W20-557 or call us at x3-7788 if you need help. Copies of each column and pointers to additional information are posted on our website: http://www.mit.edu/~asksipb/

Idiosyncrasies in musical taste range across an enormous spectrum, with ye-olde-school classical on one end and throat-thrashing screams on the other. With a wide array of genres to choose from, you’d probably be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t like music at all. Some people enjoy country, either because they really like hearing songs about women wreaking felonious vengeance on their lecherous significant others (with the collateral damage being a poor, innocent 4x4), or because they’re just in an achy-breaky mood in general. Others like music they can swing glowsticks to or hop on arrows to, which is great for their cardiovascular health (in spite of the risk of broken light fixtures or ankles).

As you might expect, I have my own musical preferences, which tend to skip merrily across the spectrum landing where they may. I don’t really listen to classical, as it makes me drowsy, but I will gladly tell you that Franz Liszt is my favorite composer. Everyone’s always “Chopin this” and “Rachmaninoff that,” but I have to tell you, they doesn’t appeal to me nearly as much.

I like certain songs that fall under video game music, although this does not extend to the entirety of the Brawl soundtrack, because the songs from Tetris get old fast. I used to listen almost entirely to music made before 1980, in no small part influenced by rummaging through my parents’ CD collection because I wanted to spend my money on Pokémon cards instead of CDs. As time went on, my preferences shifted slightly to include early Michael Jackson and some of the best 80s soundtracks of all time. No points for guessing which Kenny Loggins song I like best, although it’s probably not the first one you think of.

Then I played the first Guitar Hero. The first thing I did was listen to “Sharp-Dressed Man” and “I Love Rock and Roll” repeatedly online, and the second thing I did was to wonder why on earth nobody ever told me about the awesomeness of the guitar solo. I mean, I’d already graduated from the Oldies School of Air Guitar, but I had no inkling whatsoever that the Master’s program even existed. I fixed that problem fairly quickly with an interest in Poison and Bon Jovi on top of Orleans and The Eagles. Oh, and obviously, all of the Weird Al Yankovic parodies thereof.

In a phenomenon that I seriously doubt is limited to me, almost every major rock-based rhythm game of the past several years has influenced the collection on my mp3 player in some way or another, simply because I have a weak spot for electric guitar. Mind you, I still have some tastes in music that I consider strange but probably aren’t — ask the average person on the street, and chances are high that they’ll tell you that their taste is “eclectic,” meaning that it dabbles in just about everything.

It’s been my experience that people generally don’t like to pigeonhole themselves nearly as much as they do others, and if you’re in a college environment where horizons get the living daylights broadened out of them, you’ve probably sampled new flavors of music whether you wanted to or not. Thankfully enough, the music-blaring residents of Bexley tend to exhibit astonishingly good taste, as least the times I’ve walked past the Mass. Ave. intersection.

With so many mixed musical tastes brought into close proximity, it’s something of a “Duh” moment to deduce that there will be some mingling amongst them. Some of the music I brought with me include songs from what is in my opinion the greatest foreign sports film known to man, which doesn’t even require that deep a knowledge of cricket to understand. In my time at MIT, I also discovered an acoustic guitar duo with some of the most wicked guitar solos I’ve ever seen in my life, and certainly the only ones I’ve ever seen live. Feel free to ask me about either of the above — there’s little I like better than inflicting my opinion on others.

As far as music is concerned, I’m more than happy to listen to what I have, occasionally hunting down any interesting songs I hear at dances or on television. Putting together a music collection this way tends to make for a pretty piecemeal library, but then, I’ve always been the kind to listen to music based on the merit of the song rather than the artist. I love the guitar solo in “Free Bird,” but having been raised in Pennsylvania, I don’t think I identify strongly enough as a Southerner to buy a Lynyrd Skynyrd album.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go see if I can hunt down the soundtrack to the motion picture *Hook* — because nothing reduces stress like pretending you can fly, and watching Niko Bellic sail off a motorcycle at high speeds in Grand Theft Auto IV just isn’t the same.

Sex is full of trial and error. No one will ever claim that the best sex they ever had was when they lost their virginity, well, unless that was the only sex they ever had. Each person is different, and it usually takes a lot of experimentation to figure out just what works. However, do we reach a point where we get too comfortable and cease to experiment?

I'm referring specifically to the notion of types — even more specifically genders. Lately, one of the top songs on iTunes is Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl," except she's publicly stated she's never even kissed a girl. How can you write about it if you've never done it? See, I've avoided the topic of experimentation for this reason — I've never tried the same gender.

However, I don't identify as purely heterosexual — I don't think anyone really does. We've all found members of the same gender attractive, it's just were told not to act on this attraction. The number one Facebook prank is to change someone's "Interested In" to the same gender. Except, is it really that funny? Honestly, it's just like the come back, "you're so gay." I thought that line was done after middle school.

Our society finds it sexy when a girl fools around with another girl, so long as she doesn't identify as purely a lesbian. Yet, if a guy fools around with another guy, he's considered gay, which is not considered "attractive." Maybe this can be justified by Darwinian principles that men just want to spread their sperm, and thus the more girls the merrier! Yet, women only have one egg — so, having multiple men isn't really going to do anything. Except, I don't want to justify this with evolution — I think it's because homophobia is ingrained from such a young age into children. Even during Sex Ed, you never heard about how to have gay sex.

Actually, Sex Ed will tell you that sex is love. Well, this might be a shock to you, but it's college. People get horny. You're not going to love everyone you sleep with, and you're not going to sleep with everyone you love. Plus, are you really going to fall in love at MIT? It seems like everyone's too damn busy relying on some sort of formula.

Love isn't about chemistry, but really math! You get A amount of points for this gender, B amount for this race, C amount for this socioeconomic background. Then, if you make it with one standard deviation, you get another function. You have to know someone for X amount of time, do Y amount of things together, and then, maybe, you can make it Facebook official.

Doesn't this all sound just a little ridiculous — relying on logic over feelings for love? What ever happened to just liking people — regardless of gender? Besides, don't we know our own gender the best when it comes to sex? Maybe. Maybe not. Since I haven't experimented, I can't say. However, I will say that by identifying as purely straight — or purely gay — you're closing off options. It's best to keep an open mind.

College is the perfect place to experiment. Conservatives will argue that it's better to identify as either straight or gay — nothing in the middle — however, it's that grey period where we really define ourselves. I'm not saying that I'm going to go out and sleep with a girl this weekend, but I'm saying if I met one that I really connected with, I wouldn't let my preconceptions control me. Sex is about experimenting, and college is the place to do it.

Curiosity killed the cat, but according to Schrödinger, the cat might already be dead.

I’ve always been of the school of thought that motion pictures are meant to be a communal experience. Watch Buster Keaton’s The General at home on your computer screen, and it’s pretty funny. Watch it on a large screen surrounded by dozens of other people, and it’s absolutely hysterical, especially on a first-time viewing. As far as serious cinema is concerned, being able to laugh or cry with others is perhaps the best way for people to grow closer with a group.

The multiplex is a space governed by its own rules and unspoken declarations. Hormonal teenage couples with no intention of watching the movie should choose seats that are out of the way where their escapades can be more easily ignored. Talking in the theater is an offense punishable by condemnation to a special level of hell. Bring a laser pointer only if you wish to have it illuminating surfaces that have never seen the light of day.

For some, the multiplex is hallowed ground, where the progression of human culture is documented on celluloid and presented for all to view and judge. How philistine are they who believe that the Star Wars opening crawl is somehow equally epic on a 16-inch laptop screen as it is on a 40-inch television set or a 75-foot theater screen!

Of course, not all movies become better upon viewing in a public setting or on a larger screen in non-Grainy-Vision. I suspect that watching Ghost Rider again with a dozen of my friends as opposed to at home on television might not add to the experience as much as it subtracts from my pool of friends.

The same goes for any of a wide array of romantic comedies (like almost the entirety of Hugh Grant’s IMDB page), where expanding the image and adding surround sound would be like adding spoilers and racing stripes to a minivan. You could do it, and it would make for quite the spectacle, but you’d really only end up making it bigger rather than genuinely better. Even so, there’s something strangely appealing about the sticky floors — or, as has been the case more recently, shouting at the screen — that makes watching films alone and in private close to a non-option.

Adding to the enjoyment of communal film-watching is the shared language — film quotes. In spite of the fact that overuse can make even the pithiest film quote become trite and tiresome, used properly and in the appropriate context, their proper use allows for increasingly potent communication between those who understand them. Because each quote carries not only its superficial meaning but also an unspoken context, quotes have the potential to imply much more than they seem.

If your friend tells you more than you care to hear about their oh-so-fascinating venture into a public restroom, you could cover your ears and shout “TMI,” which could earn you a dirty look in exchange for the requested peace and quiet, or you could clench your fingers and exclaim, “Oh, GAWD!! I can’t know that!!”, and instead induce laughter. Perhaps you’re sitting in a delicatessen, and a lady at the next table are enjoying their meal a little too much or a little too loudly. When your server comes to you, you can either offer an overly-complicated order for apple pie a la mode (with liberal requests for things “on the side”), or you can simply tell him or her, “I’ll have what she’s having.” See? Easy as lyin’.

Using a quote tells the people around you something immediate and definite about something that you might have in common. And if nobody else understands it, you know something about them, and you have a new topic of conversation. Plus, using quotes doesn’t always have to be about conveying meaning - sometimes you can use one just to be funny. Just about anything can “go up to eleven,” if you really want it to.

There are few things in this ‘verse quite as special as a movie with an assemblage of strangers and friends. Maybe C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate, or the smell of napalm in the morning. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to track down some friends for my next movie night, perhaps for dinner as well. I could do with a Royale with cheese and a five dollar shake.

¶ For every mention of Scranton, Pennsylvania: Take a sip.

¶ When Biden begins the “I take the train home everyday story” being drinking. Don’t stop ’till he finishes.

¶ When Biden questions Palin’s inexperience: Drink something you’ve never had before

¶ When Biden makes an obvious gaffe: Spill your neighbor’s drink

¶ When Biden uses X words when Y will do: Drink X-Y seconds

¶ When Biden patronizes or self identifies with the working class: Down some brew (Bonus points if you use Miller Highlife)

¶ When Biden lambastes Washington Insiders: Make a toast to his 35 years of experience in the United States Senate

The Joe Biden checklist. If he mentions all of the following, finish your drinks: Blue Collar, Golden Parachute, Little Guy, Washington Insider, Working Class, Clean

¶ Every time Palin cites Alaska’s proximity to Russia as “foreign policy experience”: Take a shot of vodka

¶ When Palin claims she said “Thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere: Demand a new drink from your hosts, say “thanks but no thanks,” and then when no one’s looking, take it anyway, then claim you never wanted it.

¶ When Palin recounts putting the governor’s jet on eBay: Auction off a beer to your friends

¶ When Palin insists that governing a small town in Alaska is in fact experience: Give your friend a shot glass of beer when he/she asks for a pint and insist it’s the same thing.

¶ When Palin points out that Biden thought Obama was too inexperienced for the job: Finish your drink and say, “Oh Snap!” If you’re a democrat, follow this by crying.

¶ When Palin claims that Washington’s problems can be solved by small town know how and common sense: Drink a Labatt Blue as you read up on how to become a Canadian citizen.

¶ When Palin talks about being the most popular governor in the country: Go to a room by yourself, realize you’re the most popular person in the room, then finish your drink.

The Sarah Palin checklist. If she mentions all of the following, finish your drinks: Bush Doctrine, Snow Machine, Moose, Lipstick, Hockey Mom, Family Values

A fascinating creature lives in the glaciers and snowfields of the North American continent. Measuring less than an inch and long thought to be mythical creatures, ice worms not only survive in this harsh environment, but they have evolved to thrive in it. In fact, if an ice worm is warmed to even just 5 degrees Celsius (or about 40 degrees Fahrenheit), the proteins making up their membrane structures disassociate and they “melt.” As a result, while most of life on Earth seeks out the sun for sustenance, the sun is the ice worm’s mortal enemy. Ice worms have thus been scientifically dubbed “solifugus,” which is Latin for “sun-avoiding.”

During the warmer months of the year, ice worms swarm to the surface of glaciers at sunset to feed. In 2002, the mean recorded density of ice worms on the Suiattle Glacier in Washington state was approximately 2600 worms per square meter — meaning about 7 billion ice worms inhabit the 2.7 square kilometer glacier! And what exactly do all these creatures find to eat in this barren landscape? Snow algae.

To counter the nocturnal visual phenomena of a glacier practically pulsating with the bodies of billions of worms, summer days on these glaciers are the stage for yet another beautiful sight. For thousands of years, mountain climbers, naturalists, and explorers have been puzzled and fascinated by huge swaths of pink and red in the snow, sometimes called “red snow” or “watermelon snow.” Turns out, this colorful phenomena is due to another cold-loving organism that absolutely thrives in freezing conditions: a unicellular algal member of the division Chlorophyta, surnamed nivalis, which roughly translated means “of cold.”

In addition to chlorophyll, this snow algae contains a bright red carotenoid pigment similar to the pigment cells found in tomatoes, autumn leaves, and red peppers. They leach minerals and nutrients from boulders, the underlying soil, and decaying debris such as pollen that’s been blown up the glacier from below the tree line. Growing in highly concentrated “blooms” that can be up to 25 cm deep, they are the base of an incredible food network dominated by the ice worms.

And what does this have to do with Jules Verne? Considered by many to be the “Father of Science Fiction,” Jules Verne has been noted for making numerous predictions about the future of science and technology with startling accuracy. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea predicts submarines, From the Earth to the Moon predicts the Apollo program (even launching astronauts from “Tampa Town” on the Florida peninsula and returning them to Earth via a splash landing in the ocean), and Paris in the 20th Century predicts air-conditioning, the Internet, high-speed travel, and electric chairs.

In 1866, Verne wrote The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, a two-part novel: The English at the North Pole and The Desert of Ice. Not only does Verne write about traveling to the North Pole decades before such an expedition was possible, in The Desert of Ice he writes of a red snow effect caused by microscopic fungi. At that time, red snow was still attributed to meteoric iron deposits, and it wasn’t until the turn of the century that high concentrations of microscopic algae were finally given credit for the phenomenon.

These days, ice worms hold a fascination beyond their sheer oddity and curious connection to a boldly speculative writer. Study of the worm’s metabolic enzymes, which are catalyzed instead of frozen (pun intended) by sub-zero temperatures, might improve storage and transportation methods of harvested organs; also, NASA is curious to see whether these cold-loving creatures can tell us anything about the possibility of life on the frozen planets and moons of our solar system. And academic interest in ice worms and their fellow glacier-dwellers is increasing in the face of glacier shrinkage due to global warming. What other ridiculous curiosities might be gleaned from a habitat that could disappear in the next hundred years?

This episode brought to you by imagination.

As a graduate student at MIT, I am consistently amazed at the insight and intelligence of my classmates. Sadly, not a day goes by that I’m not simultaneously shocked by the cluelessness that my fellow males seem to have regarding basic fashion.

Now, I realize this is MIT, and I’m not expecting anyone here to be recruited to revive Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. But a basic knowledge of how to look good will do wonders to improve all aspects of your life: academic, professional, and social. So as a service to my colleagues, I’ve penned a short series of articles for a crash-course on fashion. Think of me as your TA for FASH.101.

Like any good syllabus, this piece starts with the basics. This series is written with no assumptions about prior knowledge, so if you already subscribe to GQ or own more pairs of shoes than you do pants, these articles probably aren’t for you. Likewise, most of my advice will be aimed at graduate students. That’s not to say that undergrads can’t use the tips here, but I’m not going to break into Simmons Hall and steal your MATLAB/Simulink t-shirts. Sidney-Pacific, on the other hand, is a different story. Older undergrads that are closer to the career world will likely find these beneficial, as well. If you’re unsure if this series is for you, check out my handy guide (inset).

The flow of this “course” is very straightforward. Today’s column will serve as a brief introduction to fashion in general and a list of the essentials that every man should own. Afterward, you’ll see me every other Tuesday for an in-depth study of shoes, pants, shirts, outerwear, and accessories. Finally, we’ll tie everything together with a shopping and outfit assembly guide.

Sound good? Then let’s dive in!

Why should you care about fashion? Because other people do, and those people very often fall into the category of “potentials”: potential employers, potential advisers, potential significant others, etc. Now I’m not going to tell you that you’ll become an auto-include for every lab on campus just because you look fabulous; if that were true, I’d already have a research adviser. I will tell you that the social scientists (see, they have their uses!) tell us that first impressions are formed in roughly 30 seconds, and appearance is a significant percentage of that impression. Who doesn’t like starting out on top?

Now we know that you should care about fashion, let’s look at the mechanics (don’t you just love that word?). What should you be wearing? The photo in the middle of this page is a prime example of an outfit that every guy should own. Period. What makes this outfit so essential? Modularity.

As engineers, we all understand the revolution ushered in by the concept of interchangeable parts. Fashion works the same way. By buying simple, timeless pieces in classic colors, you maximize your wardrobe options without minimizing your credit score. What are those pieces? Let’s go through …

1. A good pair of sleek, genuine leather shoes, in dark brown or black, will go with every pair of pants you own. Great fashion is a bottom-up process.

2. A pair of flat-front, slim-legged slacks in a neutral color (khaki, charcoal, gray, brown, etc.) can be dressed up to a 10 or down to a 3 (see Russell’s Equation).

3. A heavy cotton button-up shirt (known as an Oxford) in a catchy color (pink, light blue, and French blue are great first options, as is a bold stripe pattern) pairs with absolutely anything.

4. A dark skinny tie with a subtle pattern or texture is the perfect bridge between clubbing (slung loose and shoddy with the top button or two undone) and conferencing (tied higher with a symmetrical knot).

5. A dark blue or gray blazer (without the faux gold buttons) pulls together any outfit with a hint of pizzazz.

6. A slim watch, a dark leather belt, and one unique piece of “flair” (an earring, a bracelet, a necklace, etc.) — it’s like your signature for your outfit.

With only three or four pieces in each category, plus some miscellaneous items like t-shirts and sweaters, you can easily assemble >20 unique outfits. Of course, in fashion just like in transport phenomena, not everything is linear, and this many options can quickly become overwhelming when you’re running late for office hours (damn ambiguous p-sets…).

So, to streamline things, I’ve developed a simple formula called “Russell’s Equation”; it’s like one of Maxwell’s Equations with less s and more sexy. Clip it out and tape it on your mirror and you’ll never go wrong.

I’m going to call that a wrap for this week folks. I realize this is new and uncharted territory for many of you, and fashion can quickly become overwhelming (firehose syndrome affects us all). In the mean time, I urge all of you to head out to the mall this weekend and assemble the essential outfit, assuming you don’t already own it. See you all next time, looking fabulous I’m sure.

69 is a semiprime — a Blum integer — and, more importantly, the only way most guys propose cunnilingus. Out of the handful of times (trust me, I can count it on one hand) that I’ve had this done, over fifty percent have happened in this context. Now, it doesn’t take a Course 18’er to realize that men are getting lazy. Well, speaking of math, I’d like note that the most important part of this position is body proportions. At a mere five feet, I haven’t fooled around with a guy less than eight inches taller than me. This normally doesn’t pose a problem — except here.

However, I’m not sure if I dislike this entirely because of the awkward stretching it forces me to do. I partially blame my hatred of this position for its awkwardness in general. Your butt is in a guy’s face, and you’re thinking, “damn, I shouldn’t have had Anna’s for lunch.” Talking to my buddy list, I realized that many a man has been farted on during this — and exactly how do you handle that? Supposedly, it’s just like any awkward moment, you just laugh and keep going. Although, I’ve got to commend these guys for doing this, as I would imagine the taste to be almost as unappetizing as jizz, especially if it’s Anna’s.

Well, men, there’s much less of a chance of being flatulated on if you just perform cunnilingus correctly (not in the context of 69). However, I don’t think I’ve had this done properly — so, I could be wrong. See, I wanted to write a piece on the little black dress, but due to the magnitude of responses I got noting that I forgot a huge part of oral sex, I realized that I had to fix this. Then, it dawned on me — I left cunnilingus out for a reason: I don’t have much experience with it.

So, I gave in, turning to the experts in porn. (Investigative journalism, at its finest, *sighs* the things I do for MIT.) I quickly discovered that almost everything on cunnilingus is lesbian-based. The stuff I found with guys in it; well, they were bald, fat, tattooed, or just plain ugly. Maybe, I wasn’t looking hard enough, since we all know everything is on the internet. However, I quickly lost interest in cunnilingus again.

Watching porn got me more curious about blowjobs, Bukkake, cumshots, facials, face-fucking — there was a lot more material out there, and most of it was hetero. All of this porn watching gave me a midnight reminiscence. I had learned how to give head from porn. An ex suggested this after I called him out on faking. (Guys, just FYI, girls who to go MIT aren’t stupid. We realize there’s a difference between precum and jizz.) After our relationship failed, I took his advice. It’s gone to good use.

However, I don’t think this advice really works for cunnilingus. From porn, men might get this idea that all women have a Sapphic side and all women are shaved. They might also think that all women squirt and that all women love 69’ing. While these facts might be true for some, it’s certainly not true for all. So, how does a guy learn to perform cunnilingus properly?

Googling this, I found many guides written like erotica. To avoid all that fluff, I’ll summarize them: a.) find the clit b.) arouse her first by licking around c.) communication is essential, find out when you’re doing something right d.) your tongue is not your dick e.) don’t bite, it hurts more than being bitten on your balls. Don’t know where the clit is? Wikipedia has a great entry on it, complete with a diagram! (You have to realize my web history right now is so sketchy.)

However, I think many of the guides left out the most important rule, “don’t rush.” This is the real problem with 69’ing is you’re trying to do two “very enjoyable” things at once. As one of my friends put it, “it’s like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time.”

A good blowjob takes time, and I assume the same goes for cunnilingus. See, I think my biggest problem with cunnilingus in the past was the question, “are you close?”

This question forced me to master the five-minute fake. Up until now, I hated cunnilingus so much that the only reason I let it be done was as a false ego-booster for the guy. However, after hearing that I was an “antifeminist” for not writing about it, I’m realizing that girls take it very seriously. It’s probably not overrated — I just haven’t met a pussy-eating prince.

So, why aren’t guys performing this? The biggest complaint I’ve heard is pubes. While I’ve recently joined the pro-shaved camp, I don’t think all girls share my view. (However, no one wants to be reminded of carpet during oral.) That being said, if a girl can deal with the taste, guys should be able to handle a little bush. Guys, in general, you ought to realize that you should give back, because a real orgasm is much better than the five-minute fake.

So, guys, start giving back — she tastes better than you anyway.

I’m the sort of person who has difficulty clothes shopping unless I know exactly what I’m looking for, and it’s hard to know what to look for unless you have a reference source. Consequently, most of my thrift shopping is focused on completing costumes. You’d think it’d appeal to more people — it’s like piecing together a set of armor — only you don’t get “Level 20 Poison Nova upon Level Up” power ups. More practically, costume shopping gives me a goal for Halloween now that I can no longer justify trick-or-treating.

Now, I wouldn’t dare to consider myself in the same vein as the professional cosplayers — I don’t have that much dedication. Or, for that matter, that much money. I have a friend who routinely spends hundreds of dollars to make costumes for anime conventions. That was on top of the significant labor required in sewing and alterations. The overall effect of a well-made costume is generally worth it, but my inability to manipulate clothes in any way besides washing and drying them means that spending money on fabric would be akin to the Incredible Hulk spending money on a Total Gym. He’d have no idea how to use it, and he’d probably end up ruining it if he tried. As a result, I generally have to make do with existing clothes that resemble the costume I’m trying to make.

For most of the costumes I’m trying to get together, I could do with a good pair of tall, equestrian-style boots — comfortable rugged footwear for a variety of space smugglers and superheroes. Unfortunately, most of the boots in the thrift stores around here have those bordering-on-weaponized block heels that indicate undeniably that they are women’s shoes. Mind you, this is as uncomfortably close to enjoying shoe shopping as I’m willing to get.

In spite of the fact that I otherwise shop primarily by browsing, most of my clothes shopping is (as I said) done with a particular purpose in mind, and I simply lack the decisiveness to decide between more than two pairs of sneakers each morning. That’s another nice thing about a costume — if you put it together, you know what goes with what unquestionably, and you can gear up while listening to ZZ Top’s “Sharp-Dressed Man” without having to pause to pick a pair of cargoes, which tends to make one feel slightly less sharp.

Aside from shoes, there’s little that makes or breaks a costume quite like the right hat. Since people’s eyes tend to be closer to their heads than their feet, a good hat is usually noticed sooner and remembered longer than a good pair of shoes. I can’t even begin to describe the childlike giddiness in the store when I finally hunted down an Indiana Jones fedora, a hat that is as widely recognizable as it is simply wide. If the hat is distinctive enough — a propeller beanie, for example, or a red, orange, and yellow knit hat with ear flaps and an enormous pompom — the wearer may have little trouble being noticed by everyone within a two-block radius. What it tells them about you when you walk down the street wearing such a hat, however, is questionable.

Thankfully, my brown suede flight jacket finally came back from the dry cleaners after a year or so (long story), which means that my costume possibilities have opened up again, not including whatever it is I might come back with from my thrift store run later today. Now I just need to find a bullwhip to wield and a fridge to climb into, and I’ll be all set for Halloween. Hopefully. I still haven’t decided which rugged-action-hero-for-which-my-build-is-completely-unsuited I want to be this year.

I have been doing this thing for most of my adolescent and young adult life, and I only realized I was doing it about a week ago. It goes like this:

Act One: In which I spot a man who intrigues me. I spend days, maybe weeks, staring at him, wondering what kind of person he is. Is he funny or serious? Where did he grow up? Can he start a fire with two pieces of wood and no matches? Can he speak multiple languages?

Act Two: In which I continue to stare at him in class or in passing. He may or may not notice this.

Act Three: In which whatever has allowed us to remain in proximity (schedules that land us at the same restaurant for lunch, similar bike routes, a class) ends. We go our separate ways without exchanging names or even words.

I call them fascination boys. One of my friends calls them stranger crushes. They are people who I find not necessarily attractive, but interesting. It’s something in their manner that I notice, and then I fixate. Not in a creepy, I’m-thinking-about-weird-things kind of way, but in an I’d-like-to-learn-about-you kind of way.

This semester I have a new stranger crush. This is what I have noticed: he wears glasses. He seems quiet. He could use a new hairdo. He seems boring, but could possibly have a dry sense of humor.

When I look at people, my brain goes through a checklist of options: good person or bad person, friendly or unfriendly, quiet or loud, funny or boring. For fascination boys, my mind gets stuck right after the first option. I am left wondering.

This kind of thing has been described before by Jane Austen. In Pride and Prejudice, Austen segues Elizabeth Bennet’s initial dislike for Mr. Darcy into a defined intrigue for him that he shares for her, noticing small details like “the brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion.”

I notice details like this in my stranger crushes. I also imagine how they would act in all sorts of odd situations — walking through apple orchards, swimming in the ocean, standing on a bridge at midnight.

I never told anyone about these fascinations. Most of the time I assume I have unique experiences, that I am the only person in the world who thinks certain things or does certain things.

But last week roommate told me she had a fascination boy. “So there’s this guy in one of my classes,” she started.

“Yeah … what about this guy?”

“Well … that’s just it. I don’t know. He’s not necessarily attractive. I mean, he’s not ugly, but he’s not attractive. He doesn’t talk, but he’s interesting. I find myself staring at him for the whole hour and wondering what he’s like.” This is what started my sudden fascination with the idea of stranger crushes. I discovered last week (by polling several dozen friends and acquaintances) that this is actually a relatively common phenomenon.

My friend Cathy is actually the person who introduced me to the term “stranger crush.” Until I talked to her last Wednesday, I had been calling them “fascination boys.” Cathy says that she has always had stranger crushes and imagines all sorts of conversations with them in all sorts of odd places. “But you should never talk to your stranger crush,” she warned, “It ruins everything.”

When I asked a fellow chemistry major, Chris Kennedy, about whether or not he had stranger crushes on girls, he reasoned it this way: “I attribute it to the fact that everyone at this school has to be interesting in some way, or otherwise they wouldn’t be here. So yeah, I am intrigued.”

Which got me thinking … Would I still be intrigued if I talked to one of my stranger crushes?

My stranger crush #3 and I were both at Cafe 4 last Thursday morning. Stranger crush #3 is an interesting one. He is pensive, but seems happy all the time, as if he is constantly laughing to himself about an inside joke. I thought about how to start a conversation when I noticed that he put one and a half packets of sugar into his coffee. I tend to do this as well. “How interesting. I use one and a half packets of sugar too,” I said with a smile while we were both stirring. He looked at me like I was crazy. Then he walked away.

From now on, I will never talk to my stranger crush. It ruins everything.

In a way, it’s tragic. I have spent weeks (or months) fascinated with these people, and I will never even got to meet them. But I like to think of it as happily mysterious. I can imagine a man as anyone I want him to be — a humanitarian, a short story writer, a computer programmer by day and salsa dancer by night — but I never have to meet him and find out that he is none of those things.

He will forever be a stranger.

This week’s column covers e-mail and mailing lists at MIT.

Mailing lists are used for all sorts of things here, and IS&T has placed a large amount of control over mailing lists in the hands of students — we can even create our own mailing lists! Whether you want to get access to loads of free stuff (reuse@mit.edu and freefood@mit.edu), or want to follow the latest on your dorm’s discussion list (ask your neighbor if you don’t know already), you’ll need to deal with mailing lists in some form.

First, you have to know what type of mailing list it is. There are two types of mailing lists at MIT, Moira lists and Mailman lists. To test if a list is a Mailman list, try the command

athena% blanche LISTNAME -i

and see if it contains something like

LISTNAME is a Mailman list on server → PCH.MIT.EDU

If there is no mention of Mailman in the output, the list is a Moira list.

Moira lists (also known as traditional or Athena lists) can be used as mailing lists, as well as to give a group of people access to web pages and Athena (AFS) directories. From Athena, an easy way to access Moira lists is by using the mailmaint command, which gives you a menu you can navigate with the arrow keys. Type

athena% mailmaint

(If you don’t have an athena% terminal window open, click the button at the lower left labeled “Prompt”.)

Alternately, you can use the blanche command. To add yourself to the cluedump-announce list, if your username is “joeuser,” type:

athena% blanche cluedump-announce → -a joeuser

To delete yourself from the list, use -d instead of -a; to view the members of the list (if the list isn’t hidden), just type blanche cluedump-announce .

If you have a web browser and MIT certificates, a third way to manage your lists is by going to webmoira.mit.edu.

If you want to create your own list, you can do so online at wserv.mit.edu/lc. Fill out a form, and the list will be available immediately for use with commands such as blanche. You can also use this website to create Mailman lists (see below).

Note that changes to the mailing lists are only sent to the mail servers approximately every 3–4 hours. You can determine when the last mailing list update was by running the lastupd command (in the consult locker, so you may need to type add consult first). The command lastupd mailhub contains a bit more information about the mailhubs in particular.

Our November 22, 2002 column has much more detail on manipulating Moira lists; our website http://www.mit.edu/~asksipb/ has archives of old columns.

Mailman lists are an alternative to Moira lists. They’re less integrated with Athena, but they have a fancier web interface, including automatic list archives and the ability to hold messages for moderation. To subscribe or unsubscribe from a Mailman list, visit the website

http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/LISTNAME

(replacing LISTNAME with the name of the appropriate list, of course).

MIT runs two spam-filtering products: the open-source SpamAssassin, and its commercial cousin, the Barracuda Spam Firewall. These products assign a score ranging from -5.0 (or below, in rare cases) to beyond 25.0 (for particularly egregious spam specimens) to every e-mail. By default, if this score is at or above 7.5, the e-mail goes to your Spamscreen folder and is deleted after 10 days.

You can configure this threshold and delay, as well as set up blacklists and whitelists (to ensure that particular e-mail addresses are always or never filtered), at the following website:

http://nic.mit.edu/cgi-bin/spamscreen

To ask us a question, send e-mail to sipb@mit.edu. We’ll try to answer you quickly, and we can address your question in our next column. You can also stop by our office in W20-557 or call us at x3-7788 if you need help. Our volunteer staffers don’t keep regular hours, but afternoons and evenings (even on weekends) are usually good times. Copies of each column and pointers to additional information are posted on our website: http://www.mit.edu/~asksipb/

I never got the sex talk — my parents handed me a pamphlet, figuring that I’d learn what they considered my usual way; from literature and experts. Well, they were right, I did learn my usual way — the “hard” way. So, here’s some tips how to handle some common issues.

Problem: You get walked in on.

Solution: Invite the person to join — usually, that’s a great way to make the person run out of the room. Actually, this is the reason that I stopped going to one of the dorms (not saying which, but it’s easy to guess). Three’s company though, so if they agree, it could be fun. I don’t have any expertise in threesomes, sorry.

If you’re not that audacious, throw the covers over yourself, and the person should get the hint. If you don’t like that idea, put on a show. Exhibitionism can be fun. Also, if you walk in on someone, don’t gawk. Give the couple — err, sometimes couples — their privacy!

Problem: You wake up in bed with someone, and you have no recollection of the night before — including his/her name.

Solution: Go with Michael or Elizabeth! According to admissions statistics, those have been the most popular names for the last 2 years (3 for Elizabeth) in a row! (Ever wonder why they published that?) Actually, darling or sweetie is a better substitute. Do not use the word baby or honey — that reminds most of us of our parents or grandparents. You could always avoid using a name — I mean how much talking did you really do last night? Try to find an ID — most people keep their student ID close to them at all time. Along with seeing their cheesy senior picture, you’ll know their name, which allows you to do all the Facebook stalking you want.

Problem: He can’t get it up.

Solution: This is the number one reason why sex and alcohol do not mix well. Sometimes, guys start crying when this happens. (Once again, not that I know from past experience …) From talking to others on this, I realize there are typically three ways girls handle this: They 1. Do it themselves 2. Point and laugh 3. Give into a sexless night and then tell all their friends about it later. I suggest either the first or second option. Ok. So, I’m not a total bitch, and I’m too self-conscious to actually laugh. So, it’s safer to go with the first, for some reason beyond me, guys tend to get hard by watching a girl pleasure herself. If not, at least you got off.

Problem: She goes dry.

Solution: Lube! Do not just keep thrusting, didn’t you learn about friction in physics class? Well, friction is bad here! Ok, some people don’t keep lube with them at all times — actually, the only time I think of lube is when some mentions anal (Astroglide, anyone?). Safe lubes to use are water based, so they dry up quickly. Thus, you’re usually reapplying it in the middle of sex. Honestly, it’d be better to stop the sex and have more foreplay, since drying up usually means there wasn’t enough time spent on arousing her. So, perform oral on her. For the amount of reply I got on my piece about oral (and the lack of cunnilingus), I guess my simple guidelines weren’t enough. I suppose people wanted a rule of thumb for tongue. Well, that’ll come next week.

Problem: You left your iTunes on shuffle and Zelda music came on.

Solution: Do not stop kissing, and ask the girl, “how far do you want to go?” First of all, I thought guys stopped asking that question in high school. I mean, I thought guys asked, “are you sure?” in college, cause they’re running under the assumption that they’re going to get laid. “Err, we can go to base 3.14,” is probably how you should respond if you’re faced with this question. (Maybe, that means 69-ing … I mean you’re kind of in a circle.) Also, did he totally miss the fact that the music came on?! The smoothest way to handle it is to shut off your music. Joke about it. She probably found it comical, hey, she might even mention it in a column!

Whatever you do though, do not to throw the girl off your futon after she changes her mind about it. Trust me on this one; she doesn’t want an unnecessary bruise to remind her of the fuck buddy that wasn’t. Lesson to be learned here: don’t leave iTunes on shuffle — unless you have a playlist made.

Problem: The guy is into [insert fetish here.]

Solution: College is where you’re supposed to explore. You might just find you like whatever kink it is he has. Although, if you’re really uncomfortable, don’t give in to the pressure. However, you should be open minded. Maybe, I give off a kinky vibe. Little “adorable” Asian girl? (I suppose you never do know with the “quiet” types.) I haven’t met a guy who didn’t propose some light BDSM, so handcuffs don’t seem like such a big deal. People need to stop acting like they’re so taboo. Have a good safe word — do not choose anything impossible to pronounce (under three syllables is always good and in English) or something you might say anyway (*coughs* the guy’s name.)

Problem: The shirt comes off and you notice a foul smell.

Solution: Occupational hazard of being an MIT student — specifically in certain majors. I suggest taking a shower together, because if the sex is good, you’re going to be taking deep breaths. When I say taking a shower, I literally mean taking a shower. It’s good foreplay. Do not have sex in the dorm showers. First of all, sex with water is something that’s much more difficult than it looks. You’d think water would add lube — well, it doesn’t. Water and water-based lubes are two different things. Also, most of the showers here are too small, and I don’t think you’re going to want your body rubbing up against fungus — you were probably better off plugging your nose during sex in the first place.

Problem: You haven’t had sex in months or you’ve never had sex.

Solution: Join the club. This might come as a shock, but I haven’t had sex in months. (No, I’m not advertising this for Facebook messages proposing one night stands.) Not having sex isn’t the end of the world — it’s usually less complicated. I mean, sex can get messy, literally. Also, I’m convinced that shopping can be better than sex — I mean, I remember most of my shopping experiences better than my sexual encounters and the physical reminder isn’t a bruise! Before I get messages telling me that, “you haven’t had good sex,” I’ll just say that you haven’t had good shopping! I am human, though, so to deal with my libido, I realized that like most things, I was better off doing it myself.

Most importantly, I have to put in the word for responsible sex. Yes, I understand its college, how responsible can sex be? Well, there are certain situations that should be avoided: rape, pregnancy, and STDs. No means no, stop means stop, unless this has been discussed beforehand as some sort of kinky roleplay (importance of a safeword, once again). Communication is essential — don’t ever just assume the other person wants it, even if you’ve slept together before. There are many methods of birth control out there: IUD’s, pills, shots. MIT Medical has all of these available, including the morning after pill, should an accident arise. Also, for extra precaution, keep a condom with you at all times. Personally, I keep a Marc Jacobs one. It’s proof you can be stylish when it comes to sex, or that I’m a shopaholic. Remember, sex has responsibilities, ranging from infection to insemination, and these problems don’t have easy solutions.

This will be the first year in over a decade to not have a new Harry Potter book or movie released. If you’re suffering from Harry withdrawal, this election season has the perfect fix for you. You thought the magical world was the only one with a young hero who must save the world from an evil Dark Lord; a failed lame duck Minister of Magic; an old, grizzled Auror promising to make a clean break from said Minister; a pretty blonde reporter with a penchant for stretching the truth; and a Defense Against the Dark Arts (DADA) professor with a “personality like poisoned honey”? We muggles are not to be so easily outdone. Enter Sarah Palin who quite nicely completes this Harry Potter Election cycle.

Remember when you were reading Goblet of Fire and you thought there couldn’t be anyone more infuriating than Rita Skeeter? And then how Dolores Jane Umbridge became DADA professor in Order of the Phoenix and redefined infuriating? Well no longer do Harry Potter fans have to decide who they’d like to strangle more, for in Palin we have a brunette Skeeter (seriously, compare their hair-dos and glasses) with all the “lovable” personality quirks of an Umbridge. Not convinced? Let’s compare.

“The evidence that the Dark Lord has returned is incontrovertible,” Professor Albus Dumbledore tells a disbelieving Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. The Minister reacts by instating Umbridge as the DADA professor, who, by the way, won’t be teaching any practical magic in DADA. After all, “who would you imagine would want to attack children like yourself?” says Umbridge. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe Lord Voldemort?” counters Harry. No, no, Umbridge won’t have any of that: “You have been told that a certain Dark Wizard is at large once again. This is a lie.”

Back in the muggle world, Professor Al Gore tells us an inconvenient truth: “We are facing a global climate crisis.” But there’s good news: “We have everything we need now to respond to the challenge of global warming.” Huh, perhaps we should do something about it? No, no, says Palin: “I’m not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity.” Translation: “You have been told that a certain climate phenomena known as global warming is man-made. This is a lie.” Since joining John McCain’s ticket, she has apparently changed tack as she responded to Charlie Gibson’s suggestion in their interview that she didn’t believe global warming was man-made with flat denials (read: lies) that she’d ever made such statements.

Seriously, we should have drawn the line when she went after the polar bears in a New York Times op-ed: “The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, has argued that global warming and the reduction of polar ice severely threatens the bears’ habitat and their existence. In fact, there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future.” If the polar bears are anything like the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest, she may want to reconsider getting on their bad side.

Palin may not like Gibson (or most journalists for that matter) after their interview exposed many of her weaknesses, but she’d probably warm up to Skeeter. Quick-quotes quill in hand, Skeeter regaled Witch Weekly and The Daily Prophet readers with concoctions about a juicy Harry-Hermione-Krum love triangle, how Hagrid being a half-giant makes him extremely dangerous, and how Harry’s lightning-bolt scar has left him emotionally disturbed.

Hockey-stick in hand (not too much to imagine is it?), Palin told voters she said “thanks, but no thanks” to that Bridge to Nowhere. But as the Associated Press reported, “Palin was for the infamous bridge before she was against it.” Far from being a heroic symbol of her committed battle against “Congressional earmarks” (the name of McCain’s pet hamster), the bridge was just one of the $750 million worth of earmarks she aggressively fought for as Governor of Alaska, earning her state the dubious distinction of requesting the most federal tax dollars per person of any state, according to the AP.

Worried about getting detention from Umbridge where she’ll make you write lines in your own blood for disagreeing with her? After all, even Professor Snape got a probation for being “unhelpful”, i.e. not having enough Veritaserum for her to force feed students while illegally interrogating them. Try not firing Palin’s ex-brother-in-law and you might just find yourself wishing your punishment was just writing lines.

Instead, as Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan found out, you can expect to be fired and then discredited. At first, Palin said “never was there any pressure put on Commissioner Monegan to hire or fire anybody.” Later she backtracked as it was revealed there were over “two dozen contacts with Monegan about Wooten” according to Time.

Before becoming McCain’s running mate, Palin said she would cooperate fully with any investigation. Now her lawyer wants it to be discontinued or at the very least postponed. Of course the jury is still out and Palin denies any involvement in “Troopergate,” but then again so did Nixon when asked about Watergate. I guess, we’ll just have to wait and see.

But if Palin gets her way and has the investigation delayed past November, it might not even matter anymore. Palin, who throughout her political career, reports The New York Times, “has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance” may actually make Umbridge look like a saint.

But this election was a Harry Potter remake long before Palin entered the scene. Minister Fudge is a failed Wizarding leader; President Bush is a failed Muggle leader. Rufus Scrimgeour is a grizzy, old Auror who put away some Death Eaters in his day and takes over from a failed Minister; McCain is a greying, old war-hero who fought some really bad guys in his time and wants to take over from his failed President. Professor McGonagall is a stern, but kind member of the old guard who never lets her hair down and who didn’t always agree with Dumbledore’s trust in Harry’s ability; Hillary Clinton is a sometimes dour member of the old Democratic guard who wears pantsuits and didn’t always agree with American’s trust in Barry’s experience. Professor Snape is a hook-nosed git with greasy hair and you can never tell if he’s in the Order or with the Death Eaters; Joe Lieberman is a balding git and you can never tell if he’s a Democrat or a Republican.

Harry is just a boy with the fate of the magical world on his shoulders; Barry (O’Bomber) is just a second-term United States senator with the fate of health care, the economy, and other such Muggle concerns on his shoulders. Palin just gave the Harry Potter Election Sundae a cherry on top. The downside is that she could be just an Avada Kedavra away from the White House if the fate of poor Rufus is any indication, a thought that might just be more chilling than a Dementor’s Kiss. In any case, we may not get to see the Half-Blood Prince this year, but at least we still have Harry Potter and the Hockey Mom. I just hope you’ve been practicing your Patronus.

P.S. Did you know the root of Umbridge’s first name Dolores, in Spanish, means pain, kind of like what you get when you try to say Palin very fast and drop the ‘l’?

Last Wednesday my poetry professor gave me an assignment: Keep a poetry journal, write a poem a day, or write poems at different times of the day. See what happens in the pages over seven days.

This assignment was inspired by the Hotel Wentley poems written by John Wieners over the course of a week in a rundown San Francisco hotel. I read them before I started my journal. He’s deep. And talented. He wrote things like “I held love once in the palm of my hand. / See the lines there.” Seriously. This guy had soul.

I signed up for Writing and Reading Poems (21W.756) because I thought my writing skills could carry over to all genres. This is embarrassing to admit, but sometimes I write poems. Most of them are awful. Sometimes, however, I hit the literary nail on the head and produce something good. I know this because last semester I showed one to my poetry professor and he said “It’s good.”

I took this class to help me home in on my inner poet. I imagined that by the end of the semester I would be sitting in coffee houses with a French beret, smoking a cigarette, and arguing with other budding poets about the last line of Sylvia Plath’s “Medusa.”

Organic Chemistry II made me better at organic chemistry. Differential equations improved my math skills. Poetry class turned me into the worst poet ever.

The Wednesday I received the poetry journal assignment, I left campus ready to become one with my feelings. As I biked over the Harvard Bridge, I noticed that the sunset was quite exhilarating. I called The Tech to tell them to send a photographer out. While the office phone rang, I thought of how to describe the light to whomever answered the phone.

“Hello, The Tech,” they answered.

“Hi guys, it’s Sarah. Send out a photographer RIGHT NOW. The light is …” I searched for the perfect literary phrase, but couldn’t find it. “Beautiful!” was all I could come up with. I wasn’t off to a good start.

When I got back to my apartment, I penned the most awful poem that has ever been written. It included the line: “The sun set / a large tangerine / over _______ buildings.” I left the blank there because I couldn’t think of a word that I wanted. If I had been Sylvia Plath’s daughter and she hadn’t asphyxiated herself at the age of thirty, she would have after reading that poem.

I asked my roommate to read it. She is never harsh, and I figured she would reassure me that I did have literary talent.

“It’s a little rough around the edges.” Ouch.

I was inspired the next day by the streetlights shining in through my window. I got excited because I imagined that for the next week my motif would be light. I would write about darkness, sunsets, natural light, and ambient light. Literary critics would be talking about my fascination with light for the latter half of the twentieth century.

The second one was more awful than the first. I ripped it out and threw it away, but I remember an awful line about lurking streetlights. I shiver just thinking about it.

I graduated high school thinking I was good at science and math. MIT made me rethink those talents.

It would have been nice to still be confident in my writing skills. But I guess the point of MIT is to make you realize that in every subject there are people who are smarter than you. After three years here, it seems my value stands at about one share of Lehman Brothers.

My downfall started with MIT taking away time for romance. Easily accessible french fries at Cambridge Grill took away my beauty. Stress took away my youth.

Now, I have lost my penchant for language.

Romance, beauty, youth, language. I’m pretty sure those have been the four main subjects of poetry throughout history.

And that,

ladies and gentlemen, is how

I discovered that I am not a poet.

For a poet would end

with food for thought.

But my verse

is for naught.