Opinion

Admittedly, a few of the things on my Cap and Gown List were after-the-fact add-ons; they were things I did and only subsequently realized their importance. There are also things I wish I could put on my list but don't because writing about them seems a little too revealing (or perhaps like it would get me in too much trouble to be worth the 750 words).

Over the past few weeks I've tried to motivate those readers who still don't know what they're doing in college (read: undeclared majors) into becoming reporters. Really, no matter what happens to newspapers, there will still be a demand for people who can report the news, I swear.

Behind the veil of mainstream-media anonymity and the numbing distractions of whitewashed advertising culture, the Federal Reserve is guiding our nation to a condition of terminal debt. The United States was once the world's wealthiest and most productive state. Now, the U.S. is reduced to holding, strangely, only the title of "wealthiest." How is this possible?

I can't help but feel like I've gotten away with something.

I just graduated from the 12th ranked public university in the country with a BS in biological sciences and a 3.38 GPA, but I'm not sure I deserve it.

Because it was never supposed to be that easy. It was never supposed to be routine. It was never supposed to amount to intellectual bulimia (binge, purge, fast; cram, exam, nap).

Super Senior,

About two weeks ago I asked my girlfriend to give me a massage, and frankly it was a bit of a disappointment. But I told her it was great because I didn't want to make her feel bad, but now she's offering to give me another one. What should I do here?

- Suffering in Silence

We're approaching the final countdown, people: five weeks left in the quarter. That's five more weeks of cushy, "it's okay to be unemployed" college living, four more weeks of lecture and four more weeks of silly column mugs from yours truly.

More importantly: Only five more weeks I have left to use the Activities and Recreation Center, better known as the ARC.

The ARC has been sadly underutilized by me ever since I was a wee freshman. In fact, I didn't visit the ARC until midway through my first year, when I arrived in jeans, sandals and mascara. (I was one of those girls, I know.) Since then, my visits have been few and far between.

Most of you have heard the old adage: "Using swear words shows that you have a poor vocabulary." This is somewhat true - people with a poor vocabulary have to improvise with the smaller collection of words. When fueled with anger, their mind retrieves the most salient insults lying dormant in their mind. Taking note of their belligerent use of the language, you'll find the same insulting phrases being parroted over and over again.

A recent invention is threatening to become even more personal than Google. As The Independent reported, Wolfram Alpha promises access to a world designed uniquely to oneself: It "will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before." Alpha, in other words, delivers what humans always sought: immediate, accurate answers. This era is an era of looping, endless mass production and mass consumption. Products proliferate and advertisements abound. For many, this can be jarring as it can be disorienting - too much is also too little.

It's always good to get an outsider's opinion, because they can tell you things you may not realize. Like when Oreo cookies make your teeth look disgustingly brown or when you're just plain acting like an idiot. We Americans are pretty set in our ways; in general, we like action films, barbecuing and watching celebrities get DUIs. Other people may see us as more of the obese, stupidly conservative, pornophobic Evangelist bible-hugger type. I guess we kind of deserve it - we are the country responsible for the production of Eurotrip. But hey, it's all about perspective.

Public attention for the past week has been centered on the H1N1 swine flu virus and its potential pandemic effects. Despite what the ubiquitous news coverage and conversations would lead you to believe, many experts says the virus is currently no more dangerous than the regular flu virus.

While H1N1 may be unnerving because it emerged after flu season, scientists at a forum at UC Berkeley on Monday stressed that it is no more infectious than the regular flu and urged calm.

Dear Editor,

Your article titled "Time for a Newspeak checkup!" published on Apr. 10 is profoundly misinformed. The article asserts that "In the first months of the Obama administration, a disquieting trend has emerged: wrapping up ugly political truths in shiny new language to bury or beautify the negative connotations and public opinion they carry."

So I guess we're in some sort of digital revolution. Whatever. I like the Internet a lot, iPods are fun and so are microwaves and Bagel Bites. Way to go on those things, technology. But there are some ways in which technology makes me want to go Thoreau my cell phone into Walden Pond. One of those ways is Amazon's Kindle 2.0.

More like, I want to turn it into kindling for a fire and watch it burn! Forever.

A bunch of people out there owe me money, favors and commitments to serious dares. Because swine have finally flu.

Some right wing talk radio hosts have also "flu," over the cuckoo's nest.

I could do this all day.

If you're a senior right now, you're probably feeling pretty good. Aside from the senioritis that has left you with little to no motivation to do anything school-related, you're sitting pretty. You're (probably) graduating in June, which, in case you haven't realized it yet, is next month. There are only 20 school days left, and that's IF you have Friday classes. Pending the completion of this quarter's classes and barring some catastrophic clerical error, you are done with undergrad forever! Unless you're my boyfriend or another one of the unlucky few who have summer school classes.

UC Davis Police Officer Ralph Nuno began patrolling the campus from the back of his bicycle last week, putting a proverbial stick through the spokes of any would-be criminal's plans of running a stop sign or worse.