Opinion

The road from community college to university is a bumpy one, as many transfer students experience firsthand. Some may feel a greater challenge in adjusting to a new school, while others realize the actual process of getting there is full of hurdles.

Requirements for a major at a community college can vary drastically from requirements at a CSU or UC. Many students find themselves with several classes or units that do not transfer over or do not qualify for the same major. Students can be put back quarters, semesters, even years.

One of the most consistent messages from UC administrators since the budget crisis intensified has been the concept of "shared pain."

It's a good idea - students, faculty, administrators, even union members should all have to bear some of the burden of budget cuts. But it's an idea that can be taken too far, as it unquestionably has been with the furloughs that are being forced on Unitrans.

Physics professor Markus Luty said it best when he addressed students and faculty at Thursday's walkout rally.

"The problems [associated with budget cuts] did not start this year," he said. "Since the early 1980s, higher education funding has been cut by more than any other major sector of the state budget. It is the only sector that had a reduction in real per capita revenues between 1984 and 2004 … State support was cut by 25 percent this year."

Now here's a guy who really put some thought into this.

Man, this could get ugly. What kind of business cuts its budget nearly in half from one year to the next? Easy. One that's staring Chapter 11 square in the face. Bankruptcy, boys and girls. That's pretty much where this newspaper was heading not too long ago.

Circulation is down. You'll probably never see another color page in here again. (Unless, of course, you're an advertiser and you purchase a color ad, in which case, I love you.) Workers getting their pay cut by ridiculous percentages. Some getting their pay whacked out of the budget entirely. Even the water cooler had to go.

For my last column, I made a compilation of column ideas that didn't make the cut. In other words, they weren't good enough for their own feature-length column.

A girl's worst insult

Girls are insulted by many, many things, but the insult I would like to focus on is "slut." According to Urban Dictionary, "slut," means a dirty, nasty promiscuous woman that no one would even touch.

The columnist is a story of contradiction. At once he must act as the interlocutor of opined reason and customized analysis, yet by the sheer necessity for argument, he must take a stand. At times, these demands conflict; for a columnist, thus, the attainment of a perfect balance is a lasting achievement. Writing is about eloquence magnified by personal ambition. In the beginning, the columnist sees privilege. Like a child, he's afforded space and time to write whatever he desires. He is hence impressionable, wondrous, admiring the instant subject-connection he has established.

I was determined not to write a raging cheesefest of a final column, but in the interest of bidding you fine people adieu, some failbloggage may have gone down. The least I can do is promise that you will not be exposed to any inspirational Eleanor Roosevelt quotes. Only time will tell if I'll look back on this column with pride or disgust. The years will age and perhaps even mature me a little, but my intuition tells me that when I'm old and decrepit, that pervy ex-Catholic schoolgirl who grew up listening to Howard Stern over the breakfast table will continue to live on.

California State Senator Leland Yee thinks UC has a problem. The regents are out of control, he says, and their behavior is so bad it's time for the legislature to take over.

Last week Yee and several other co-sponsors proposed a constitutional amendment that would remove the near-absolute autonomy UC has enjoyed for its entire history and instead give control to California lawmakers. While we generally support efforts to make the UC regents and the university as a whole more accountable, this approach is foolish and should be rejected.

Tonight at 6:10, the ASUCD Senate will be discussing a resolution that reprimands BloodSource, a blood-donation organization, for not allowing the queer community to donate blood. This is in addition to the recent action taken by ASUCD at last week's budget hearings to withdraw approximately $1,000 of ASUCD funding and sponsorship of BloodSource's quarterly blood drives.

The legislation that is being introduced rests on two premises:

America's Greenest Campus competition

Dear editor,

Climate Culture is hosting a national competition, America's Greenest Campus, to see which college can get the most students, staff, faculty and alumni to sign up at americasgreenestcampus.com and complete a carbon footprint by Oct. 5. This website is a great way to see that when each person makes a small change, together it amounts to something substantial.

Unitrans will use $90,000 starting this summer to shuttle people from the center of campus to downtown in collaboration with the Davis Downtown Business Association.

Due to the closure of the ASUCD Coffee House, U-DASH's purpose is to get hungry students, faculty and staff quickly from campus to downtown for lunch.

Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven columns. Twenty-seven attempts to "change the world." Twenty-seven opportunities to represent the unrepresented. Twenty-seven chances to piss someone off. Twenty-seven chances to educate myself a little bit more. Twenty-seven.

This week started the same as every other. The inevitable traipse down the hall of my apartment, the soft rap on my roommate's door and my whining voice saying, "Emilyyyyy, I have no idea what I'm going to write for my column this week."

When I was a wee child, I desperately wanted a Power Rangers Megazord so, I asked for one for my birthday. I often couldn't sleep at night, imagining how happy I would be on the glorious day that transforming plastic robot of justice would finally be mine.

My birthday couldn't seem to arrive fast enough, so one day I decided to take a harmless peek in the back of my parents' closet where I knew they always hid our presents. Finding it almost immediately and not yet wrapped, I cradled my prize like Koko the gorilla might one of her kittens.

"You don't have enough experience." That's what the Sacramento Bee told me when I applied for an internship last summer. One of the editors told me that while having a column was good and all, I barely did any real journalism. He told me that if I ever wanted to work at a newspaper after college, I should maybe quit the column and try reporting.

Around this time, I also received a very livid piece of hate mail (I'm very fortunate to have only received a few throughout the years). You should have read the thing. It was just seething with absolute hatred.