Opinion

I read the articles last spring on police spying on student demonstrations with alarm. Rather than risk having current students end up like me, here's a tip and a tale:

I read the editorial on Sept. 22 titled "It's going to be a bumpy ride" with great emotion. The California Aggie asked readers whom we should blame for the rising cost of our education. Fortunately, I know who is to blame for the rising tuition rates, at least this year.

Within two months of learning that Netflix would be splitting its DVD mailing - now known as Qwikster - and streaming capabilities into two services, priced at $7.99 each or $15.98 for both, nearly one million Netflix customers cancelled their subscriptions.

As I mentioned last week, I'm a tall girl. I'm 5'11", in case you never finished reading my column like my friend Ben. In fact, my chem honors teacher in high school wrote, "You're hella tall and you can totally ball" in my yearbook -- apparently, I didn't make much of an impression in learning any chemistry (that should explain me being a poli sci major). There are definitely perks to being so high above the ground (I can reach the top shelf!) but as tall girls everywhere know, it's not easy being tall.

There are hierarchies here that go completely unobserved to the untrained eye. After three years of people watching, I have developed a keen sense of what lifestyle someone leads just by looking at them.

If you own a python that is getting a little too big, don't forget you can always let it go. Releasing large snakes is the newest alternative to putting them up for adoption, selling them, or turning them into boots, hat straps or belts.

We live among you. We take your money. We're so good at it you hardly even notice. We sit next to you in class, bike by you on the street and probably even live in your house. We are cashiers and you should be nice to us.

This is the story of an American in Paris.

Spend 24 hours with me and among the details you'll take away from what was certainly the best day of your life is that every drink I take is accompanied by a toast to Amy Winehouse, I have a cow-shaped tin full of popsicle stick jokes and I suffer from a crippling dependence on social networking - in particular, Tumblr.

On Tuesday, a six-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) belonging to NASA returned to earth. The Associated Press reported that chunks of the bus-sized object broke apart and landed over a 500-mile span in the southern Pacific Ocean, far away from land, despite NASA predictions that the UARS would land somewhere near western Canada.

The Davis City Council has tentatively approved hiking the water costs in order to find a better water supply. Though seeing yet another increasing expense is frustrating, the cost is necessary and reasonably small to ensure the safety of Davis water.

Hello there, fellow journalism junkies, wary readers, wandering eyes … I'm happy to see you here! Welcome to my incommodious two-dimensional domain, where words can seize your minds and whisk them to curious places concocted by the imagination of yours truly.

I was sitting in my political science class, playing Angry Birds, paying no attention whatsoever to what the professor had to say. The girl in front of me was browsing through blouses on Forever 21 and the guy beside me was watching videos on YouTube. Still, the professor passionately rambled on and on with dramatic hand motions. I never knew so much noise and visual movement could put a young and robust group of people to sleep.

Last Thursday was UC Berkeley's Day of Action. Approximately 150 students came out to protest against UC fee hikes and spent the day of school occupying buildings and expressing their opinions. The day of protest ended in two arrests.

For many, school began on a somber note last week with news of Troy Davis' execution the day prior. Wherever your opinion lies on the spectrum of state-sanctioned executions, death sentences are not cause for celebration.