Opinion

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.

Well, this is it. After two years of recklessly spilling my ideas, beliefs and opinions all over the Tuesday edition of The California Aggie, I now find myself desperately trying to tie them all together for what will be my final statement to the UC Davis student population.

Some people might look at my last 60 or so columns and find inconsistencies, such as, "How can you support limited government intervention, and at the same time demand state and federal funding for higher education?" The answer to this question is simple, and if you really think about, probably the closest thing to a central theme you're likely to find in any of my writing.

As my time at UC Davis as an undergraduate and as the Aggie Pack emcee comes to a close, I thought it would be appropriate to say a formal and fond farewell to you, the students. After all, my undergraduate experience would not have been even close to what it was if it was not for the Aggie Pack you created. Together, we have successfully ushered in Division I, opened Aggie Stadium, beaten Stanford 11 times and have brought Aggie Pride to a new level. All in all, we have created a tremendous community of Aggies.

As much as I sometimes refuse to acknowledge it, I am graduating in a matter of weeks … days, really. Time seems to go faster every hour and I'm not sure there are enough days left to do and see all the things I will miss in Davis. I think that's a good thing, because it means I've found things I'm sad to leave behind.

Editor's Note: This column originally ran Oct. 27, 2008. When I wrote it my grandpa was dying and I wasn't sure what to do. I ended up writing this column, which helped. Many readers contacted me to tell me that they were touched by the column, so hopefully they won't mind reading it again. I feel like it still holds true.

Readers - as this is the last column the hard-working and parsimonious gang at The Aggie will let me publish this year, let me say its been one king-hell of a ride writing for you. My coverage of the obscure and important, I hope, has helped you to see more elephants in the room than a schizophrenic pachyderm.

This past Memorial Day weekend I did something I've never done before. And no, I didn't take three consecutive body shots of three different liquors off the bellies of three different sorority girls for three days straight; I wasn't on houseboats, sorry to disappoint.

Instead, I went to Raging Waters. But more on that later.

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2009 ... wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.

But I have a lot of column left, so I will offer you more. The rest of my advice, though, is a wholly owned subsidiary of my experience, and may or may not have any applicability to yours and may or may not get you into a lot of trouble.

America is a strange nation. She is a country that produces the very best and the very worst, whether in political, economic or cultural aspects. Everything and anything happens in America.

Take its politics. America's politics are bitterly partisan, often divided around staunch, sometimes less-clear, battle lines. Republicans and Democrats represent the dual extremes of two highly polar positions, but swing moderates, special interests groups and think tanks also exert influence. Thus the process to win votes are frequently organized and mechanized.