Opinion

It's hard not to get twitchy when all your jackass friends from high school are using the Internet to brag about the fact that they're a final away from escaping the tyrannical government/heathens/potato famine of academia and making it across to the sweet statue of summer liberty, but if you want to look on the flipside, once you finish your midterms you can use the final weeks of school to enjoy Davis at its peak. Those pretty water polo boys are cruisin' on their cruisers, so it must be springtime.

To the average Californian, the package of propositions on the May 19 special election ballot may seem like a jumbled mess of convoluted budget proposals.

That's because it is.

The propositions are the result of months of intricate negotiations between the governor and Republicans and Democrats in the legislature. They are an attempt to address the state's dire fiscal situation, and confusing as they may be, only the voters have the constitutional authority to approve these proposals.

At this point, California's future rests in the hands of voters. It is extremely important that voters not only vote, but take the time to research the potential impact of each of these proposals passing or failing.

Everyone welcome Linda Katehi, the first woman to hold the post as UC Davis' chancellor! I'm all for feminism, and I'm glad a woman is being recognized for the skills that she has, really. But what I'm not 'all for' is this lady being granted an $85,000 a year raise, that is $85,000 a year more than our current chancellor, literally within hours of deciding on a 9.7 percent increase in fees for undergraduates in the UC system.

I've always been a big believer in making lists. When I was deciding which college to go to, I made a list. When I broke up with my first boyfriend, I made a list. When I go to the store, I make a list - but that's just a given. Lists just make things so much more manageable. They add clarity to a situation that you just can't get from contemplating, discussing or even ranting. Which is why, with my graduation and leaving Davis approaching, I have made a list.

Last weekend, while reveling in the new Star Trek movie's general awesomeness vision of a unified, space-faring humanity, I realized how little we are currently doing to make this vision a reality.

My father used to tell me ridiculously inaccurate "factoids" when I was a kid. When the mood striketh him, he told me stuff like: the Native Americans built the Statue of Liberty to scare white people away from their land; that people had four toes because a powerful earthquake can fuse two random toes together; and that those huge white windmills on the hills were actually depressed airplane propellers that did not get to live out their dreams of being part of a plane. (He also told me that communism was the world's worst evil, but I don't think he was joking with that one.)

Part of growing up means coming to the inevitable realization that, sometimes, things will not go the way you had hoped. Unfortunately, for those of us currently doing our growing up here at the University of California, Davis, it would appear that these unfortunate times occur more often than not.

Proposition 1D is an attempt by state lawmakers to avoid cuts in general fund-supported state spending. It would overturn Proposition 10, passed in 1998, which earmarks tobacco tax revenue in California for First 5 early childhood programs throughout the state. Both proponents and opponents of Proposition 1D will tell you one thing - look at the facts. The proposition would divert $268 million in annual tobacco tax revenue and the $340 million First 5 has in reserve away from First 5 and into the state's general fund. The state will have to find $608 million from somewhere else if 1D does not pass.

One of President Obama's most popularly recognized speeches is on the topic of race - a subject that pits histories of injustice against the American promise of equality. Since the civil rights movement, strategies for overcoming social barriers have been as diverse as the groups they attempt to represent. And UC Davis students need not look far for a case in point.

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.