In a perfect world, everyone would wake up safe every morning in their own bed, with their keys, wallet, cell phone and dignity still intact. But this is Davis. That doesn’t always happen. In Chico, it probably never happens, but it’s best not to compare ourselves to a place where keg stands in your front yard at 11 a.m. on any given Sunday won’t elicit so much as a second glance.

Maybe you’ve woken up wondering where you are. Or why you’re nestled comfortably between a set of twin exchange students from Honduras. Or maybe why you’re in the bathroom of a frat house with some random dude taking a piss right in front of you while you frantically call everyone you were with five hours ago (been there).

On the flipside, maybe you’ve been the asshole calling out those Walk of Shamers with a megaphone out of boredom/lack of hangover. Even the corporates have started cashing in on drunken screw-ups and aftermaths. The Benefit cosmetics company has a “Walk of Shame” kit on the market – no joke. I’m also pretty sure I read an article once urging all professionals to leave an extra set of clothing in their offices to avoid being “unprofessional” and having a repeat outfit incident should they not make it home after leaving the office the night prior.

Everyone’s had the stormy cloud of a drunken night dangle over them. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but a hangover will follow you around and render you completely useless for varying amounts of time the next day. How long you’ll be wasting away in Hangoverville depends whether your roommate was nice enough to get you an artery bomb of a cheeseburger. It’s pretty hard to predict when one will set in. I’ve been just fine after nights that involved puking up half my body weight, yet unable to get out of bed until dark on some next-days.

Sometimes, though, a hangover is hardly the biggest of your worries. I have friends who’ve woken up with chipped teeth, passed multiple tours while Walk of Shaming it across campus all decked out in Studio 54 themed attire and discovered after the fact that the whiskey they’d been sipping on was actually laundry detergent.

“I just leaned out of the shower to puke into the toilet,” said Tut Forest as he recalled the time he felt a wave of emesis kick in during a morning shower.

As for the campus tour story, I can imagine the tour guide explaining the sight of the girls as though they were a landmark: “And as you can see, to our right, we have some skanks on their way back to the dorms. Everybody wave, now. Wave to the nice skanks.”

One thing I haven’t done in a while is woken up still drunk. It’s confusing as balls. It happened to me once back in the dormies – figuring out how to get down from the top bunk without ending up on crutches was something of a chore. If you wake up inebriated, you might consider taking it as a message from the man upstairs and turn your morning cup of Irish coffee in to combat an oncoming hangover. Just a thought.

I got a call from a friend once around eight in the morning, asking if I had an extra parking permit for my apartment complex. I ended up meeting her in my jammies at a guy’s apartment, where she was sporting an oversized t-shirt, sex hair and classic CapMo breath. She was presently intoxicated. After the parking permit changed hands, she went back to getting lucky while I skipped off to Poli Sci. Life is so unfair. Said friend also came up with the brilliant idea of having a party where all the girls wear various articles of clothing they’ve jacked from slumber parties with boys over the years.

One afternoon, my friend looked out the window and saw me randomly walking past her apartment on the sidewalk, barefoot, with some heels in one hand and a cowboy hat in the other. She invited me in for cookies and probably a recap of the prior night’s events.

In Davis, you always have to keep in mind that this is a super family-friendly town. I was definitely reminded of that on an occasion where I had managed to lose my keys and shoes and had nowhere to go until I located them – so I biked to the Farmer’s Market to get some breakfast. Walking around in that joint shoeless in a cocktail dress and smeared makeup had a lot of people asking me if I was okay.

“This guy handed me a bra in class to give back to my suitemate this one time,” my friend T-Bone Springer recalled.

That’s what I call a certified awkward turtle moment, brought to you by College.

MICHELLE RICK would like to thank Canon Inc. for helping college students everywhere remember what their brains cannot (no product placement is present within this column). Send your best stories to marick@ucdavis.edu. Sharing is caring.

Well, it was rainy as shit for a lot of last week, right after I wrote a column about how glorious the spring weather in Davis is. And, as you’re reading this, it’s probably really nice out. Or it’s not. I wrote this a few days ago. As Bob Dylan said, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

Unfortunately for all the innocent dames who depend on me for rescuing them from various train tracks and mustachioed villains, I have been sick with some kind of affliction the past couple of days. I haven’t been sick in a while, and I don’t remember it being such a total bummer.

My mom told me I got sick because I drink too much. I reminded her that if that were the case, I would have been in ICU for the past five years. Anyway, my face feels like the Lyndon B. Johnson mask from Point Break, some gland in my throat is really fucking up and I contemplate plucking my own eyeballs out to stop them from itching. (Oedipus must have had really bad allergies.)

As you may have discerned from reading any of my other columns, I like to think of myself as some kind of wild man geared for life on the frontier, in the land of big sky and setting suns. Well, like any sick gunslinger worth his salt, I grit my teeth, cleaned and loaded my Colt Peacemaker and rode out to the Student Health Center.

Before I go any further, I should tell you something about myself: I absolutely loathe doctor’s offices. I’m terrified of the smell, those biohazard containers and the plagued masses sitting near me reading magazines about bass fishing. To me, going to the doctor’s is like being in a George Romero flick, where one wrong move could leave you infected and eating brains in a gutter. I’d just as soon suffer at my house than go seek medical attention. I had like five different things wrong with me simultaneously, though, so I went with the lesser of the two evils.

The visit to the health center didn’t kill me. In fact, they really helped me. Who’d’ve thunk. I don’t want to bore anyone with my ailments because, well, they’re boring, but I will share one little story:

Recently, I was folding some shirts and putting them away. XXXtreme, right? Well, for some reason I was able to slam the drawer shut and catch my ring finger with tremendous force right on my nail. It really hurt. The nail was instantly black. It swelled up so much that touching any of my other fingers to anything else made the ring finger throb.

I was pretty sure I was going to lose the nail – which is gnarly – and I was pretty upset with myself. I could have at least injured myself in a knife fight or in a rockslide, but putting away laundry? How toolish.

Anyway, when I was in the health center, I showed them the finger and asked if there was anything I could do. Not really, they said. Wait it out.

As I was about to leave, one super cool nurse pulled me aside and took a look at the nail.

Nurse: “You know what you could do about this?”

Me: “Besides cry about it?”

Nurse: “Besides that. Take a paper clip and light it up over the stove. Then burn a hole through the nail. That will relieve the pressure.”

Me: “What?”

I was skeptical. I tend to avoid having searing hot pieces of metal anywhere near my fingernails. But I was intrigued – and my finger really, really hurt. When I got home, I clicked on the stove, unfolded a paper clip and got to work.

It was so awesome. You can melt through a fingernail like butter. Blood spurted everywhere. The best part was that my finger instantly felt a thousand times better.

Moral of the story: Doctor’s offices are not Turkish prisons or tiger pits with poisoned stakes. More often than not, they know what they’re doing and can help you feel better.

So the finger is cured. Now I just have to fix everything else so I can rage all over Picnic Day. Until next week, my friends. Long out.

WILL LONG will make this the most Wu-Tang Clan heavy edition of The Aggie there’s ever been. RIP ODB. Check out Will’s review of Meth, Ghost and Rae’s new album Wu-Massacre in MUSE. Then e-mail him your own thoughts at wclong@ucdavis.edu.

Editor’s note: The California Aggie has received an overwhelming number of letters urging the administration not to remove any of its 27 Intercollegiate Athletics teams. The following writings express the sentiments voiced in the majority of those submissions.

Swimming program shouldn’t be cut

At UC Davis, student-athletes strive for athletic excellence in the context of academic success. Primary focus is placed on the participants of sports programs in an effort to realize their fullest potential both academically and athletically. Intercollegiate Athletics attempts to strengthen the integration of its objectives with the academic and developmental objectives of the university while maintaining a program of academic and athletic excellence. This is the mission of UC Davis athletics.

My son Jacob signed a National Letter of Intent to compete at UC Davis in the sport of swimming. Jacob chose UC Davis because of the exemplary performance that UC Davis swimmers have demonstrated in the classroom and in the pool. I have followed the press releases carefully and read Athletics Director Greg Warzecka’s open letter to the student body. Rarely have I seen the demonstrated academic success of the program mentioned as a determining factor in choosing which sports will be discontinued. The student body and the residents of California should expect UC Davis to be true to its mission by keeping the sports that are producing the best student-athletes, and thus doing the best job of preparing young people for the challenges of life.

UC Davis swimming has proven itself as an asset to the institution. Men’s and women’s swimming and diving are two of only five teams to win a Division I conference championship. Academic accomplishments include 12 current Aggie swimmers named to the Academic All-Big West Conference team and multiple Scholar-Athlete of the Year award winners.

UC Davis is also attracting quality students to the university. Jacob was awarded the Regents’ Scholarship. Which sports have demonstrated this level of success in athletics and in the classroom? These are the questions I believe the athletics department should be asking as it goes through this process.

Swimmers have a history of giving back to their community. I could bore you with and endless list, but you don’t have to look far within your own program to see a great example.

Ted and Rand Schaal provided the single largest gift in the athletic department’s history to help see to the completion of a new facility for swimming, diving and water polo. Only six years later, all but women’s water polo is marked for possible elimination.

It’s beyond my comprehension that any of the programs demonstrating these characteristics could be eliminated. I challenge the athletic department to review its mission and objectives. Upon doing so, I’m confident the leadership will recognize programs that exemplify characteristics consistent with your mission are invaluable assets that cannot be eliminated.

I agree that the intrinsic value and life’s lessons learned from varsity participation are not more valuable in one sport over another. However, it is my assertion that some sports are further along in achieving the department’s mission and should be recognized for doing so.

JOHN McGOUGH

Criteria for ICA cuts needs to be transparent

In 1993 and 1994, UC Davis experienced a financial crisis similar to the one we are experiencing today. Budgets were cut and jobs were eliminated. The university tried to solve this budgetary problem by cutting multiple sports teams. The students fought for their right to represent Aggie athletics, and now here we stand, 16 years later, 27 teams strong.

An announcement was made public on March 11 when The Aggie printed an article saying budget cuts could mean a loss of up to nine sports programs. The consensus among student-athletes is that the athletic department should not be immune from budget cuts. We do, however, believe that there are ways in which the budget can be balanced without the elimination of sports teams.

The coaches have put together a proposal that will allow all 27 sports to retain their varsity status. The athletic administrators have shown their unwillingness to compromise with us and rejected this plan. Therefore, a resolution was put forth to the ASUCD Senate to oppose the pending cuts, which was unanimously passed last Thursday.

This resolution essentially requests the athletic department allow a one-year transition period for threatened ICA teams for four main reasons:

1. Sports teams were informed of the proposed cuts approximately a month and a half ago, leaving little time for us to be proactive in trying to save our teams. With a one-year transition period, teams will be given the chance to increase fundraising efforts, and be given the chance to reach out and create a supportive alumnae network.

2. This one-year transition will also allow student-athletes the opportunity to transfer to another school so that they may continue to compete. The time frame at which this announcement was made is inopportune since most if not all schools’ transfer deadlines have passed.

3. In just one month, Greg Warzecka and his colleagues have been able to reduce the number of teams to be cut from nine to four. Mr. Warzecka himself thought that this task would be impossible. He claims this has been due to “some miracle.” However, the student-athletes realize that it is actually due to the hard work and perseverance of the workgroup faced with the challenging task of balancing the new budget. If this accomplishment has been made in a month’s time, think of what we could do in a year.

4. It was recently announced that the scholarships awarded to student-athletes would be honored for at least another year. Most sports that are on the “chopping block” have been fundraising to support their operating costs. If the sports are clearly able to cover these costs and scholarships are honored, it only seems logical that we should be given another year to continue to raise more funds and compete.

At the Athletics Administrative Advisory Committee meeting held April 6, one of the main agenda points was discussing statistical analysis of the academic success and graduation rates of UC Davis student-athletes in comparison to other universities of the same or higher caliber.

These stats show that UC Davis emphasizes the student first and athlete second method, creating a higher caliber athlete. An aspect that the AAAC was eager to share with the faculty and student body was that UC Davis accepts more student-athletes based on academics than it admits by exceptions, which is “a means to identify students who do not meet numerical requirements for eligibility, but who demonstrate strong likelihood of success at UC,” according to the AAAC.

If sports are cut, these data points will be negatively impacted. For example, take cutting the women’s rowing team. This team is comprised of 95 percent walk-on student-athletes who were admitted to the university based solely on their academic achievements.

Unfortunately, this whole process has been vague and mysterious. We have been told that the issues at hand reflect budgetary concerns and that it is fiscally irresponsible to keep all 27 sports at their current varsity status.

However, it was fiscally irresponsible for the university to add a 27th varsity sport this year when the administration has clearly been trying to make budgetary cuts without cutting the sports teams for years.

If this is really about budgetary issues, then we need to impact the least amount of student-athletes for the greatest amount of money saved. If teams really need to be cut, the criteria the administration is basing their cuts on should be transparent, allowing student-athletes and coaches alike to not only better understand the issues at hand, but to help with plausible solutions.

One such plausible solution is the aforementioned resolution allowing a one-year transition period for the affected student-athletes. Mr. Warzecka is too worried about the risk of this resolution and not worried enough about the welfare of student-athletes. If this requested transition year is unsuccessful, then yes, cut teams. But we deserve a decent amount of time to adjust to such a drastic and unexpected change.

BRITTANI DeRIEMER

DARCY WARD

DANIELLE LONG

TARA TRAKIN

UC Davis rowing team

Students convicted of drug offenses were again left behind last month when Congress passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The act overhauled the student loan system to the benefit of students, but it failed to repeal the unjust Aid Elimination Penalty. Under current law, if a college student receiving financial aid is convicted of a drug offense, they automatically lose their financial aid package and are required to pay back any aid received in the past.

Since this rule took effect 10 years ago more than 200,000 students have lost their financial aid. Countless others have not even applied for fear they would be denied.

The Aid Elimination Penalty is wrong and unfair.

First, by stripping convicted students of aid, the government is penalizing people who have already faced criminal punishment for their actions. The American Civil Liberties Union has noted that this is unconstitutional as the Fifth Amendment prohibits people from being punished twice for the same offense.

Moreover, all students deserve an education regardless of the mistakes they’ve made in the past. If a former drug offender wants to advance their education, as a society we should support them. Blocking their financial aid only makes it more likely that they will continue to offend and not become more productive citizens.

The only legitimate reason to deny a student financial aid is if they fail to meet minimum academic standards. If a student convicted of a felony drug offense is succeeding academically, there is no reason to deny them aid.

Congress must take up this issue again. Education is a crucial, life-changing opportunity that must be made available to as many people as possible, regardless of their criminal history.

The problem with leaving religion behind is that your family usually doesn’t do it with you. This Easter, as with every Easter, I went home in honor of a resurrection I don’t believe in. Although I’m an atheist, my mom still made me a basket lined with candy and filled with things like face-wash and socks, my relatives still greeted me with variations of “He is risen!” and there was still an Easter egg hunt for people under four feet tall.

Even though I no longer believe in my family’s god[cq], my behavior at these kinds of functions isn’t much different than it was when I did. I exchange gifts at Christmas, and if someone forces me, I’ll help decorate the tree, or put antlers on the dog. The same goes with Easter – I still participate in the traditional activities (most of which have been comfortably secularized), but diplomatically avoid the religious aspects.

My own spiritual beliefs aren’t something with which I’m overly occupied, so holidays have a way of reminding me of how much I’ve changed since I was a Christian. To me, marriage is not a requisite for sex; secular feminism is not a bad thing, and neither is homosexuality; abortion should be legal; any crimes committed by members of any church, including the Catholic church, should be subject to prosecution by the law.

Holidays also remind me that I sometimes miss the experiences religion can offer. Although I rejected my parent’s Protestantism in college – yeah, I know, everyone finds themselves when they go away to school, but I think of it as the culmination of years of doubt – there were, and still are, a lot of habits yet to be broken.

I still, for example, catch myself singing the Ten Commandments Song; Protestantism’s pragmatic DIY dogma has made for tunes that teach lessons and glorify god at the same time. My baptism certificate, nearly 15 years old, is still in its frame, somewhere, and my mushy feelings for it haven’t abated. And even if I don’t buy into what they say about atheists in foxholes, I still have to repress the impulse to fling out prayers, impulses that spasm like spiritual muscle memory, during moments of fear or worry.

Holidays also present the pressure of being the only open atheist at a religious gathering that includes people who’ve been going to church since before the Depression. It’s one thing to have a series of intellectual arguments about the failings of organized religion, and another entirely to confront someone’s faith with your own lack of it. Metaphysics, by its very nature, cannot be argued on any intellectual level, extant as it is on a plane apart from empiricism. As a person who at one point couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t believe in Jesus Christ, I can see why the faithful of any religion have difficulty accepting those who leave the flock, as it were.

These misunderstandings happen on the other side of the fence, as well. As much as I vehemently disagree with the patriarchal structures of most mainstream religions, falling into the trap of being the atheist who thinks theists are unenlightened is a huge mistake. Individuals practicing the ethical parts of religion are what redeem it (I’m definitely not going to get into the definition of ethics here).

My personal bitterness against a faith that construes women as lesser than men and is led by an anthropomorphized being in the sky, should have nothing to do with my opinion of the people who are charitable, compassionate and self-sacrificing in the name of that faith, or any other.

That said, accepting others’ beliefs is still something I struggle with. As many religions teach, we humans are imperfect. But there is room for moral growth in the secular-minded. The reasons for my family’s Easter gathering, to express gratitude and love, are universals that work just as well with a deity as without one.

HALEY DAVIS apologizes for all the kumbaya stuff and can be reached at hrdavis@ucdavis.edu.