Metro map with proposed silver and purple lines

University of Maryland-College Park students have formed a new campus organization in hopes of drumming up support for the Purple Line, a proposed Metro line that would connect the Red, Green, and Orange Lines and keep suburbanites from ever having to enter the dirty District:

Student government president Jonathan S. Sachs, said the “Terps for the Purple Line” coalition is “one of the broadest we’ve seen.” It includes the campus NAACP chapter, Black Student Union, Latino Student Union, Hispanic Heritage Coalition, Graduate Student Government and the campus chapter of the Maryland Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).

It’s not surprising that such a diverse array of student groups has signed on (who wouldn’t want to cut down on travel time?), but it’s a strange cause for short-sighted college students in general, since the Maryland Transit Administration fact sheet (PDF) says that the construction would begin at the absolute earliest in 2012 (between friends: 2020.)

Metro map by Eric Fidler

Hey, class of 2012. If you’re hungry for any information you can get about Georgetown, this is your blog.

Vox Populi is the next evolutionary stage of Georgetown’s weekly paper, the Voice. We’ll be having a big freshman week of posts with more detailed advice (alcohol, sex) during orientation. Until then, though, this post should save you some time over the summer and some hassles during your first semester.

Ask any other questions you have in the comments and we’ll help you out. Also, keep checking the blog this summer for more posts about Georgetown and DC.

Q: Do I have to read Before the Frost and write the response paper?

A: No. If that’s your thing, go for it, but nothing bad will happen to you if you don’t. My orientation adviser said that people who don’t do the papers get bad housing lottery numbers for sophomore housing, but the idea that Housing could coordinate that with New Student Orientation is prima facie ridiculous.

This brings up a useful thing to know about NSO and Georgetown life in general: unless alcohol, drugs, criminal activity, or something truly outrageous is involved, Georgetown doesn’t have many ways to punish you for not doing what it wants. This means that you can skip book stuff, convocation, or any other NSO event with impunity.

After the jump, 10 more, plus a bonus.

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If long treks on the subway in $2 flip-flops haven’t been kind to your feet, consider indulging in the latest beauty trend: the fish pedicure.

At Yvonne Hair and Nails salon in Alexandria, Va., customers can soak their feet in a bath of warm water and carp. The tiny, toothless fish feed on dead cells, eliminating unsightly rough patches. As customers relax, the carp chow down, leaving feet soft and smooth.

If the idea of willingly feeding your own flesh to fish creeps you out, there’s always pumice stone. Or you could just, you know, wear real shoes.

Via Salon. Photo from Yvonne’s Hair and Nails  

Tuesday I wrote about a delicious set of Facebook messages between two GW students that discussed, among other things, who they were leading on . My source, The Colonialist, took down the messages. I can understand that–they have to go to school with these people, after all.

I have no such problem, and no one likes it when things disappear from the internet. Full exchange, Taming of the Shrew style, after the jump.

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After seeing Stuff White People Like’s Christian Lander read from his new book, I’m still not sold on his writing, but I have to admit that the guy is a little funnier and more chill than I would have expected. Reading aloud from his gifted children post, he interrupted himself to say, “Just so you know, I picked Reseda, California because of the Karate Kid. That’s where the Karate Kid was from. But his girlfriend was from Encino, she was like rich or something.”

Lander responded to the criticism that his blog is actually about yuppies, rather than white people, by saying that while in grad school he noticed that “These people weren’t just in urban centers. They were in college towns, and they were hating everyone around them.”

But being a transplanted yuppie who ends up in the Midwest for school doesn’t make you not a yuppie (not to be confused with a coastie).

The book contains new material, so I felt a little scammed that he read all old posts: gifted children, awareness, having two last names, knowing what’s best for poor people, and unpaid internships (which got one of the evening’s biggest laughs) Another, more surprising big laugh was his admission that SWPL got slammed by The New Republic. I’m sure this left a lot of Timbuktu-carrying, Nalgene-swilling people in the room confused about which side to root for.