“Two thousand ten” or “twenty ten?” Someone make a call on that one already, please. It’s the year Davis gives me the boot, so efemel. I made it through winter break without hitting a car or eloping with my cousin Ashley’s boyfriend. Oh karma, les jeux sont faits – your ass is mine. That was ’07 Michelle, and she’s very sorry about that.

Because no one ever wants to go into a new year thinking it will suck, the school of divine optimism teaches that you should concoct cheerful projections for the upcoming year. It’s imperative that you have a baller 2010, because it’s the start of a whole new decade full of skanky dance trends, heinous fashion errors and even skankier music videos.

I’m not really talking about resolutions. Those are pledges you make to better yourself despite the fact that those suckers who refer to themselves as “your loved ones” should just deal with it and accept you for being the overweight, chain-smoking shopaholic that you are.

Anyway, the likelihood of backsliding on your resolutions is fair. Even though I’m aware that it sounds very much like the kind of lame-ass excuse you used to give your parents when they asked you why you were storing napalm in the backyard tool shed.

I selflessly just want to see y’all have a fantabulous year, but if you see me at the bars and you’re not creepy, feel free to buy me a Midori sour. In exchange, here are a couple pearls of wisdom from someone whose wisdom is, at best, debatable.

Have more fun. Luckily, we’re just a week into this business, so it’s the perfect time to start petitioning your boss to fill the office water cooler with crème de menthe just like those crazies at Sterling Cooper on election night. If you see no results by August, you might want to step up the nagging. I’m not above blackmail. Nor should you be. Having fun will make you happy, and if you’re happy, your life will be better.

Get tasty washboard abs. Believe it or not, this falls into the “selfless acts” category. I once knew a guy with really nice abs and I asked him to show them to me all the time. It almost counts as public service. The recipe, of course, is a balanced diet and proper exercise.

Or you could:

1) Put “American Pie”/”Layla”/other miscellaneous and excessively long rock song on your iPod.

2) Imagine you’re being chased by a pack of wild dogs and run like hell down Russell for the duration of the song, then repeat repeatedly. I find that it helps to yelp and scream for your life. It adds realism and drama. Maybe it’s even good for your vocal cords.

3) Give up, trade in those sneakers for Spanx, and cheat it out like you’ve sunk to my level. Over break, I found out that contouring your flab with bronzer is also a nifty trick. And maybe do a couple of sit-ups if you can.

Once I got past writing about the having of the fun and the getting of the washboard abs, I confess that I was stuck because it would seem that everything falls into place after you have those two down. But, should the plan fail, you should also remember to…

Make the best of every situation. You’re walking home from a party with your ex. He decides it would be an opportune time to relieve himself on the nearest lawn. You realize that said lawn belongs to your old gym teacher. He comes out of the house really pissed (tee hee) about it. In situations like these, all you can do is laugh it off before you bounce ASAP.

Always try to cut awkward tension with laughter, because it really is the best medicine. Wrinkles can be temporarily erased with a needle, but memories of awkwardness last forever.

Get it done. Winter quarter is kind of weaksauce. It’s easily the weakest link in the academic year in most aspects. To be honest, it’s like ripping a Band-Aid off your crotch – no, it’s like a Brazilian wax. You just want to get it over with ASAP and medicate the pain with whatever they’ll sell you over the counter.

When it’s over, you can throw on that polka dot bikini, girl, and skip off to the pool. So here’s to ripping you know what off your … you know what and doin’ the damn thing.

MICHELLE RICK gently reminds you that 2010 means a fresh start and is also a perfect opportunity to update your hit list. She “knows a guy,” so shout out to marick@ucdavis.edu if you need to be steered toward a no-nonsense, reasonably-priced professional.

Hello again, my friends.

Over the break, I did a great many exciting and important things like drink PBR, play pool and watch the Ali G show (on New Year’s Eve). My mind was far from anything substantial like this quarter’s classes or what I’ll do when I graduate. I have never worried about that because I usually manage to persuade myself I’ll figure something out.

I was, however, served a reality check when I attended an extravagant Hollywood party in the winding depths of Laurel Canyon. (Some nobodies named Will Ferrell and George Clooney live there.) I went with my mom, who happened to know the host – through a friend.

I felt like some farmhand who ain’t never seen no city lights ‘afore. I ate cheeses I can’t pronounce, saw cars as expensive as my education and drank some kind of alcohol that definitely isn’t champagne. How do I know it wasn’t champagne? It went a little something like this:

Me: “This champagne is great!”

The Elite: “Hmm, yes, that’s a good laugh. Quite rich, yes.”

Me: “What?”

The Elite: “Yes, well, it isn’t champagne, dear boy. Hmm.”

Me: “What is it?”

The Elite: “Oh! Oh yes, what fun. Hmm. No, no we cahn’t tell you. No, no. Perhaps we’ll tell you when you can afford it on your own.”

Me: “What?”

The Elite: “Yes, well, call us when you make your first million.”

Me: “Ghhuh.”

Granted, it wasn’t million-dollar alcohol and they didn’t really talk like that. They told me what it was, but I’d never heard of it and I probably can’t afford it. All I know is that it was golden and bubbly and strong. Eventually, they put me to work keeping the fireplace full of wood.

Don’t get the wrong impression. Most of the people were really nice and it was important for me to meet them because they work where I want to work: in the pictures (that’s what these folks call the film industry).

Take this column right here for example. I write it because they pay me I enjoy writing and having people read what I write. Ultimately, I want to create my own visions in film. Writing will be a big part of it. Hopefully, getting paid will be, too. I like to think I’m pretty good at writing, so I’ve convinced myself it’ll pan out.

What was great about meeting some of the elite people in Laurel Canyon was that they taught me two things: 1) It is possible to achieve this goal, and 2) it sure ain’t gonna be easy (Boy howdy, they said).

I heard stories about lunatic art directors, talent with no concept of reality and people who worked their way up from fetching coffee to ordering coffee through the boss of the coffee fetchers. Some of these elites offered me some real encouragement and some real advice for how a writer can get things done. (I’ll sell the advice for 20 bucks).

I figure it all comes down to paying your dues. Quentin Tarantino worked in a video store and his first film was destroyed in a fire. James Cameron was a truck driver and one of his first films was a movie about killer piranhas. Flying, killer piranhas. Jim Jarmusch got into the Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in English and no film experience. If you don’t know him, check out Ghost Dog or Dead Man.

Anyway, I’ll pay my dues and slog through mire of low-level Hollywood work. I’ve already worked a job where I had to clean up the shit of incontinent, transient drug-addicts at the Davis Food Co-op, and there aren’t many jobs worse than that.

But that’s the future.

For now, bust out the PBR and the pool cues. For the time being, I’ll just worry about slogging through my class on Chaucer, where my professor has already countered all my tricks to avoiding real work in an English class. Maybe they’d work for you; I’ll sell that advice for $10. (It has nothing to do with plagiarism, SJA).

WILL LONG will sign your copies of this newspaper for free so you can sell them for thousands of dollars once he’s famous. He also signs breasts. E-mail him at wclong@ucdavis.edu.

Student activists were outraged in December after ASUCD President Joe Chatham vetoed a senate resolution expressing a vote of no confidence in UC President Mark Yudof and the UC Regents.

The senate passed the resolution unanimously in an unprecedented November meeting in front of Mrak Hall while student occupiers protested inside and hundreds of onlookers cheered them on from behind a police blockade.

After much debate in December, senators deadlocked in a 6-6 vote, leaving Chatham’s veto intact.

Chatham’s decision to veto the resolution was appropriate, and the senators who supported him made the right move.

The original resolution included a line that said, “The ASUCD officially declares a vote of no confidence in the leadership of the UC.” Chatham argued that this could be construed too broadly to condemn the actions of many administrators who were not responsible for the fee increase that sparked the protests – a valid point.

What concerns us most, however, is the manner in which the original resolution was passed.

The idea was for the senate to hold its meeting in front of Mrak to support the students rallying inside. The sentiment behind this idea was sincere, but the reality of it was deeply problematic.

Plopping a deliberative body down into the middle of a heated demonstration is an unreasonable and inappropriate way to conduct serious business. Throngs of angry, roaring onlookers surrounded the senators, not to mention the dozens of police, several television news crews and a helicopter circling overhead.

The excitement of this environment must have been invigorating, but it was also stifling to anyone who may have had a dissenting opinion. It’s hard to imagine that any senator who disagreed with the resolution would have felt comfortable or even safe saying so in a setting dominated by a mob mentality.

The senate usually pores over the wording of its resolutions very carefully in a calm, professional setting. Back-and-forth discussions usually take hours. In the case of this resolution, however, there was almost no debate or fair opportunity for public comment. It’s difficult not to take that as a sign that something was wrong with the way things were done.

The best move would have been to adjourn the regularly scheduled senate meeting to allow the senators to go to Mrak and support the protestors if they chose to. The senate’s business could and should have been postponed to a safer and more impartial environment.

If you are a human being – or a just monster – then you love Lady Gaga. I love her, and I know you do, too. If you don’t, you just haven’t been brought around yet, or you’re too ironic to admit that she is awesome. But she is, so just admit it already.

Maybe you don’t want to because you don’t want to accept you’re that easy to please. I mean, we all want to be deep. We all want to love obscure, glitter-free music that doesn’t cater to the unwashed masses, music that has a uniquely artistic bent reliant on your particularly developed intellect.

Same here. And since I want my Gaga-love to have more to do with her aesthetic, and her feminism, than the obvious fabulosity of her clothes or the pitch-perfect poppiness of her music, I want to justify Lady Gaga as a legitimate artist. My conscience won’t let me sleep at night until I do.

To accomplish her coup of 2009, Lady Gaga used some of the same weapons as her predecessors: like Madonna, she wears sexy clothes and plays off of our culture’s prurient fascination with bisexuality; like Debbie Harry, she is retro-iconic and likes inserting French lyrics into her songs.

But the inevitable comparisons to other pop stars are mere attempts to pigeonhole her. The simplicity (or even inadequacy) of her lyrics, her platinum blond hair and the dry-humping are all they really have in common. These similarities are only superficial.

Thomas Mann says in Dr. Faustus, a novel about a histrionic and damned musician (Gagaesque, right?), that art always manages to throw off the appearance of art. What began as a hot chick with great wigs and a fetish for gothic decor has developed into something far more complex, interesting and culturally valuable. From a hopeful feminist’s perspective, it’s more than sex appeal that makes her special. I mean, she’s inspired by Cindy Sherman and Freddie Mercury!

What distinguishes Lady Gaga is an awareness of the artistic value of her exploitation and perversion – God bless her. Madonna was aware of this in the sense that a businessperson is aware of their product.

Gaga, taking her cue from the full-exposure culture of the naughty Noughties, pushes sexual and musical boundaries (as all good pop stars must) with her eye on post-modern artistry, with the hope of recreating pop by deconstructing the old standard first. She’s like the Apocalypse, only more interested in supporting LGBT and female communities.

Fire and blood and sparkles aside, want to know the real reason I’m allowing myself to go full Gaga? Her feminism. Earlier this year she said, “I find that men get away with saying a lot in this business, and that women get away with saying very little … In my opinion, women need and want someone to look up to that they feel have the full sense of who they are, and says, ‘I’m great.'”

Lady Gaga is great. She’s great for pop culture, she’s great for her fans and I don’t think it’s ridiculous to say she’s a symbol of feminism. It’s only ridiculous that we’ve gone so long without her.

HALEY DAVIS loves Lady Gaga almost as much as she loves Rachel Maddow. She can be reached at hrdavis@ucdavis.edu.