It was during the second half at the women’s basketball game against Long Beach State on Thursday. Pulses were pounding. Tall girls were sweating. A “Go Ags!” chant echoed from the crowd. My friend and I were tastelessly screaming “free shit!” We’re cheapskates who will go well out of our way for pink shirts and tube socks. And I’m not gonna lie, since we got suckered into waiting an hour and a half for those shirts, we felt justified in going back to grab a second free pink Odwalla smoothie on our way out.

Before you judge, ask yourself if you’ve ever waited in a line around the block for free pancakes, ice cream or burritos. You know you have. If you sleep on a couch that’s mysteriously crusty and older than Joan Rivers, if you will eat a slice of pizza so long as it shows no visible signs of mold and if you can’t remember the last time you legitimately paid to see a movie, you’re probably either a college student or a recovering meth addict. But really, it’s kind of remarkable how often the traits of those two coincide.

Hey, the “starving student” spiel had to come from somewhere. We’re supposed to be sharp individuals with bright futures gleaming in the distance, dedicated to our craft and willing to sacrifice in the meantime. This means dignity has little place on this campus. Dumpster diving is a must if you wish to have more furniture in your apartment than just a bean bag and a sad little leg lamp like the one from A Christmas Story. The same goes for weekend field trips to Costco for food sampling buffets. And yes, unfortunately, the top shelf is completely off limits unless your parents were dumb enough to go away for the weekend and leave the liquor cabinet unlocked.

The funny part is most people I know drank better hooch in their jailbait days. If you’re a freshman and you don’t own a push-up bra, it’s Taaka and Keystone all the way. Patrón will only reappear in your life after you complete your first brain transplant/marry a Coppola/take over Belgium. When that happens, you can fill your swimming pool with Kellerweis, host the best pool party ever and live out your Almost Famous roof-jumping fantasy.

I don’t eat much Top Ramen because early in life, my mother somehow convinced me that I would contract every form of cancer there is and drop dead because of it. But I can see why it’s so prevalent in the average student’s life: it’s dirt-cheap. Sure, fast food dollar menus may kill us later, but by the time our diabetes becomes life-threatening, there will be cures and stuff for it. Man, the DC is sounding good right about now.

It’s a sign of the times when you and your friends have to call around just to look for a TV to watch your favorite primetime soap because no one has a TV that’s new and spiffy enough to actually get any form of reception. You know how it is – you buy the latest version of WoW or whatever it is nerds are into these days, then generously cut 10 copies for your besties. Because sharing is caring.

I admit it – we’ll stoop to some pretty low lows in order to save a few bucks. When someone gave me a free pizza coupon on the quad, you can bet your sweet cheeks I put my friend’s background as a former Kinko’s employee to good use and lived off free pizza until that expiration date popped up.

A friend of mine took it a step further for free pizza. He and his roommates signed up for an online membership to a local pizza joint to score a free pizza each time. Eventually they got red-flagged, so they had to alter the plan a bit – have the pizzas delivered to their next-door neighbors. Props to them for being true problem-solvers.

One of Davis’ best cheapskate treasures is the notorious Hunan lunch special. For five dolla or so you get enough food to satisfy Fat Bastard. It’s unfortunate that their DavisWiki page is filled with complaints about the service. Seriously, they feed obnoxious 20-year-olds and they do a damn good job at it, so STFU. Don’t let the fact that you’re super stingy give you an excuse to leave an undeserved crappy tip. That’s just mean, and it makes them hate us even more.

Looking back on it, it’s a wonder that as freshman we somehow – in our quiet desperation to get drunk – chugged enough Popov to knock a Tyrannosaurus Rex into next week. Hopefully someday I’ll view it as a fond right of passage, a hazing ritual to success, per say. Because a lifetime of Popov sounds just awful.

MICHELLE RICK learned from the best; she’s related to people who bring their own tea bags to restaurants. She can be reached at marick@ucdavis.edu – it’s free.

I haven’t always been the millionaire playboy that I am today. No, there was a time when I was young, broke and bored to tears with only eight dollars to my name. That was last summer.

I spent that summer sitting around and sweating my balls off. Not because I was doing anything to inspire perspiration, but because it gets really hot here during the summer and I was too poor to run the AC. I remember being a kid in high school and thinking that nothing was better than three months in a row with nothing to do. That was the whole point of summer.

If you spend a summer in Davis with nothing to do, however, that act gets old real quick. There’s no one around, nothing to do on campus and like I mentioned before, it’s really fucking hot. That summer I got cabin fever like that Eli Roth movie Cabin Fever. Except for me there was no flesh-eating virus. (So I guess it was nothing like that movie.)

Anyway, what saved me from going completely insane was getting a job. I began working full-time, spending my days sweating outside so that when I came home and had a few beers, I could say that I earned them – both literally and figuratively.

I work two jobs now. (I’d have three if you count this unpaid column. I simply work for your love.) Having a steady paycheck is pretty great, but I think the most valuable aspect of having two jobs is being able to get out of the house and spend my time actually doing something.

One of the reasons I bring all this up is to try to speak some wisdom. If you’re going to be around in Davis this summer, and you’re thinking about supporting your drinking habits on your own, you need to start looking for a job now. The funny thing about a college town is that it empties like a keg at a frat party when there aren’t any students around. No students means less business, which means no one is going to be hiring come June.

Trust me, I learned this the hard way. I got real lucky with my summer job. I had spent a few weeks pounding the pavement passing out resumes and filing out applications only to be treated like an idiot pretty much everywhere I applied.

Me: “Hi, are you hiring?”

Them: “Hmm, you know, I don’t really know.”

I’d spend a few moments waiting for some helpful information.

Me: “Is … there anyone working who would know?”

Them: “Yeah, I’ll get the manager.”

I’d wait for a few minutes for a more helpful person.

Boss: “So you’re looking for work.”

Me: “I sure am.”

Boss: “Well, we’re always accepting applications.”

Me: “Wow, that’s amazing.”

If you’ve never heard that phrase, let me translate for you. “Always accepting applications” means “No, we’re not hiring, but I’d love to instill some false hope in you that all your efforts have not been in vain.”

The rule of thumb for job applications is to call them back every now and again to check the status of your application. Usually you’ll be told the schedule guy isn’t around. Or the moons of Saturn are out of alignment – something so they won’t be able to give you a straight answer. Call back in a week to check in about those moons. It’s a total drag. If you play that game, you’ll be strapped into a straight jacket taking sedatives before you get a job.

That’s why I’m here today, my friends. My last column was about learning from your mistakes. Maybe this week you’ll be able to learn from one of mine. Don’t wait until the last minute to get a summer job, because the closer the calendar gets to summer vacation, the drier the job market in Davis will get.

The wise man Notorious B.I.G. told us that mo money means mo problems. Maybe that only applies to having Biggie Smalls kind of money, because I’ll tell you this first hand: Having eight bucks in your bank account is fucking awful.

WILL LONG should practice what he preaches and start looking for something to do in L.A. for this coming summer. If you are Ridley Scott or Quentin Tarantino, hit him up with a job at wclong@ucdavis.edu.

The decision of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Feb. 8 to uphold the right to sue for three former UC Davis female student-athletes marks another legal victory for them and women’s wrestling. Fundamentally, this debate is about the free exercise of students’ rights and corporate politics in democratic education.

Former UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef – the one who was compelled to attend publicized meetings at the State Capitol regarding gender discrimination against women wrestlers, and, yes, the same person who was later widely reported to have made an unapproved payoff to a vice chancellor in 2005 to cover up another discrimination case against the university – was in charge when the women’s wrestling “controversy” began.

This same chancellor, when asked in sworn deposition to explain his supervisory role of the UC Davis campus, stated, “This is a $2.3 billion operation. It’s larger than anything except state government in this entire region, and it really is the only way a CEO can run an operation like this.” His words speak volumes. Vanderhoef was a CEO of a corporation before he was a chancellor of university students. In my opinion, the public image of the corporation and its leadership has taken precedence over students’ civil rights.

The overwhelming voices support the women wrestlers over corporate policy, though. When women wrestlers defy certain gender boundaries in sport, they are supported first by the academic community on campuses around the country. For decades now, researchers have undermined old notions of women’s “nature” that socially constructed women as frail, weak, emotional and in need of male control. Such research has encouraged many women to challenge old stereotypes. Consequently, some women have chosen paths that many are still not completely comfortable with. We see women wrestlers, rugby players, racecar drivers, ultimate fighters and soldiers, all of whom may just be breaking down stereotypes that could make it possible for us to see a female Commander in Chief someday.

Let us also recall that UC Davis students in 2001 protested vigorously in favor of the women wrestlers. Over 1,000 students signed petitions in a 24-hour period asking for women to be allowed to remain on the team. Hundreds of students packed into a Memorial Union room for a student senate hearing called specifically to address the matter, and later that student senate voted in full support of the women wrestlers against the administrators. It was a voice that was heard at the State Capitol. It led to so much media inquiries that UC Davis finally relented and put the women back on the team – only to remove them again the next fall when things had quieted and students were unaware.

The significance of this event reached the East Coast, where it was covered in front page articles by the Boston Globe and part of a larger story on women’s wrestling on the front page of the New York Times. At the end of the 2001 calendar year, the Davis Enterprise selected it as the sports story of the year. It is not possible to play this conflict down. When the decision by the Appeals court was recently released, within two days it was being carried in numerous media outlets across the country, including the New York Times once again.

There are people all around this country who care about this case and support the women’s cause. I wouldn’t have thought as much at the time, but here we are nine years later. The women’s protest has produced one of the largest Title IX class action lawsuits since its inception in 1972. They have also been the force behind UC Davis adding two new women’s sports opportunities (golf and field hockey) since the first lawsuit was filed.

There is the thundering testimony of thousands upon thousands of female wrestlers in California and around the world now. Since 2001, the sport of women’s wrestling has grown tremendously – just as the women wrestlers predicted it would. We have seen broad international competition (85 countries now participate), leading to numerous world championships and two Olympics for women wrestlers. U.S. women have won World Championship and Olympic medals. Ironically, at Stanford University, a female wrestler, Patricia Miranda, who was allowed on their team at the same time UC Davis was eliminating women wrestlers, went on to win a medal in the 2004 Olympics. Even in the male-dominated collegiate wrestling world, which is mostly unaccommodating of female wrestlers, we have seen 10 smaller universities go against the tide to start fully funded varsity women’s wrestling programs, receiving little encouragement from the NCAA or the National Wrestling Coaches Association.

In the final analysis, the decision against the women wrestlers was made by the few against the opinions of the many – the community and the student body. Notwithstanding, one vision here says that UC Davis is or should be a safe haven for free intellectual pursuits and democratic engagement. The other vision is that of UC Davis the corporation, choosing to spend millions of dollars to avoid leading – focused more on protecting the image and leadership of the corporation who don’t seem to understand that women want and have a right to play varsity contact sports.

The vision I still support is that of a few dedicated young UC Davis women, now alumnae, who have demonstrated that equity in education starts with the voices of students, not the failed policies of a corporation. Will UC Davis prove otherwise? They can now have their day in court if they would like. Perhaps the former CEO and the director of athletics will have something to say.

Dear UC Davis community members,

Many of you are already aware of a series of distressing acts that have taken place on our campus and throughout the UC system in recent weeks, behavior that in at least one instance is likely criminal and in all cases reprehensible, inexcusable and an affront to our own campus’s Principles of Community.

Earlier this week, UC Davis campus police reported that one of our Jewish students found a swastika carved into the door of her residence hall room, an act of thoughtless vandalism that is being investigated as a hate crime. Last week, members of the University of California community were distressed to learn that members of UC San Diego’s Greek fraternal community had allegedly organized an event called the “Compton Cookout.” The invitations to this event encouraged participants to mock Black History Month by promoting negative and offensive racial and gender stereotypes. And a couple of weeks ago at UC Irvine, a small group of students attempted to disrupt and shout down the Israeli Ambassador to the United States as he made remarks at a speaking event.

This sort of behavior cannot and should not be tolerated, on our campus or anywhere else. It should be condemned by all members of our campus and university community. We cannot ignore deliberate acts that demean and threaten others based on race, ethnicity, gender, national origin or any personal characteristics. When we see and hear such abhorrent language and behavior that is connected to current or historical acts of violence, hatred or abuse, our sense of community and shared respect is damaged. It’s hard to feel welcome or safe in a community where such language and behavior is considered acceptable or tolerated.

Building an academic community requires a careful balance of the rights and needs of many that are sometimes in conflict. But acts of free speech or freedom of expression are not protected when they prohibit or suppress the speech of others. Our campuses are special places for the pursuit of knowledge and exchange of ideas, views and differing opinions. It is critical that all members of our campus community conduct themselves with civility and respect for the dignity inherent in every member of our community.

Our Principles of Community (principles.ucdavis.edu) require each of us to recognize the obligation we have to our community to maintain a campus environment of civility and respect in which every student, faculty staff and group can thrive. We will begin our annual weeklong celebration of our Principles of Community next week (Mar. 1 to 4). The Feb. 26 issue of Dateline UC Davis (dateline.ucdavis.edu) will have an article on the 20th anniversary celebration of the principles as well as a new online training tool to help us live by these time-tested principles.

I invite you to participate in the various activities and events designed to promote diversity, foster an appreciation for differences and build a more inclusive campus community.

In October, Student Housing announced the potential Davis Student Cooperative closure in August 2010 due to a $7,000 budget deficit. Residents of the co-ops however, are currently accepting resident applications for next fall.

Director of Student Housing Emily Galindo said meetings between current residents are going well, although final word of keeping DSC open has not been released.

So why are current residents accepting applications for next year, when as far as they know, DSC will close?

Although applicants are optimistic about the situation, they also need to remain realistic. Letting students apply to live in DSC leaves a gray area for potential residents. They should approach the application process with caution and have alternative plans.

Current co-op residents are trying to determine how many applicants they can accept for fall that would fit into the other two houses, should DSC close. Representatives agree that applicants will not want to wait till say, June, to find out if they will have housing for next year.

Galindo, however, said she expects meetings between co-op representatives and Student Housing to end sometime in March, at which point a decision will be made.

Since Student Housing made the announcement and “final” decision in October, they have at least met with co-op representatives and seem willing to communicate. It is a positive step that these meetings could end sometime in March.

Although it is beneficial both parties are openly speaking, a definite deadline needs to be made for the peace of mind of current applicants to end the gray area of negotiations.

It is up to each individual applicant to decide whether or not to place so much hope on an uncertain decision.

This spring, several UC campuses, including UC Davis, will implement a waitlist system in the admissions process.

Waitlists will ultimately contribute to campus rankings nationwide. Our yield percentage, the number of accepted students who will actually attend UCD, will also increase since fewer students will be guaranteed admission. This will in turn improve campus rankings.

UC Davis has also had problems with over-enrollment in the past, but the waitlist program will help manage an overload of students. Waitlists will help alleviate other problems and costs associated with an excess of acceptances, such as limited on-campus housing, campus resources and services.

Furthermore, UC-qualified students will be accepted somewhere in the UC system regardless of whether they applied to that specific campus. Waitlisted or not, eligible students who want to attend a UC campus will be able to.

At many schools that already use waitlists, about a third of the list is ultimately accepted. Even if students’ stress levels increase as a result of having to wait longer, the waitlists provide another option for those planning their future in higher education.

The date to submit an intent to register decision for California State University as well as UCs is May 1, but waitlist decisions will not be available until May 17. This time period poses a conflict.

For applicants who are willing to wait, however, the outcome may be well worth it. For example, if a student gets into a certain school after being on the waitlist, he or she may be able to attend one of their top choice schools, when that would not have been possible in the past.

UC waitlists can also pose an opportunity for those students considering community colleges. If they are dropped from the waitlist, they can still attend a community college or another UC.

Waiting is a gamble, but the system can work out in the best interest of the student in the end.

It’s that time of the year again!

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week means you’re going to be seeing a lot of depressing statistics about people struggling with diseases such as anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder.

A statement on The National Eating Disorders Organization website encapsulates its goal of awareness: “Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses – not choices.”

Recognition of eating disorders as legitimate will open more doors for people who are in desperate need of treatment. Currently, many insurance companies don’t have sufficient coverage for mental illnesses, including eating disorders (and I’m making the silly assumption that you even have insurance). But awareness is not enough.

We can’t reduce the prevalence of eating disorders until we change the messages that are propagated in the media about our bodies, and specifically, the bodies of women.

Even when the media touts the importance of self-acceptance and body diversity, it echoes institutional misogyny by continuing to criticize the appearances of women politicians and professionals, blaming victims for their sexual assault, and marginalizing women who do not adhere to the (culturally white and heteronormative) accepted standards of beauty.

Remember the brouhaha over Sonia Sotomayor and whether she was too heavy to serve as a Supreme Court Justice? Hear about that “Compton Cookout” hosted at UC San Diego that asked attendees to mock women of color by dressing as “ghetto chicks,” and “wear gold teeth, start fights and drama and wear cheap clothes?” The sexism and racism of these incidents remind us that for all of its annual lip service to the importance of mental health, our culture is a hothouse for eating disorders. But how?

The answer lies at the intersection of such complex issues as misogyny, capitalism and control. It’s not really about our bodies, or fat or beauty, and it never has been.

Let me explain by using a Glamour article from last year as an example. Entitled “These Bodies are Beautiful at Every Size,” one would imagine it was written to discourage the kinds of thinking that contribute to eating disorders. But author Genevieve Field writes, “Let’s envision a world where women of more body types do get glamorous work in magazines and ad campaigns. Would female readers, viewers and buyers want it?”

Notice how Field reframes the issue. Would readers, viewers and buyers want body diversity? Why, if they didn’t want to buy merchandise that wasn’t only for “self-improvement,” what would they buy? How would the $40 billion diet industry (with its insidious cohorts, the beauty and fitness industries) support itself?

The malaise afflicting people, driving some of them to eating disorders, is all about power and, secondarily, money. If you can convince people they are inferior because of something that has nothing to do with anything and, to boot, can’t ever be substantially changed, but offer a solution – for a price – then you have them in your control.

If you convince women that the most important aspect of their lives is their appearance and dangle the carrot of glossy magazines and unattainable “beauty” in front of them, then they will invest their energy and capital in getting that carrot.

And who benefits? Not you. Not the consumer. The patriarchy that has convinced you of this bullshit because it is making profits from the misogyny it’s been imposing for centuries!

I hate to be that feminist, but we need to think more critically about what these capitalist complexes are feeding us, what we’re paying for, and what we’re training ourselves to feel and think. It’s hard not to feel hypocritical when I point it out, even though I do adhere to the bullshit that defines what “feminine” is, but the vast majority of us struggle against it.

What is healthy about obsessing over weight, crunching numbers and stressing out about your appearance? Nothing is, but we are all inundated with pressures and cues to do so. If they keep you focused on your fat, you have less energy to do other, more important, things. As women we are expected to reconcile these contradictions of appearance, our least important characteristic, to salvage our self-worth. At what point will enough be enough?

HALEY DAVIS may have just talked herself into being a socialist. Good gravy. She can be reached at hrdavis@ucdavis.edu.