I’m a pretty big deal on Reddit. I don’t know who that fucker on Georgetown Confessions was, but I have kind of a lot of karma (just saying). Anyway, I kind of want to tell my friends about my weird obsession, but I’m worried they’ll judge me. What should I do? Should I be embarrassed?
Thx, u/REDDIT4EVA
Hi u/REDDIT4EVA,
Helllll no, don’t be embarrassed at all. Your weird obsessions make you fascinating and therefore a gem of a friend. Wave that lil’ freak flag around in little circles like you’re in a parade. Sure, maybe spending hours a day on Reddit is, by societal standards, a little out of the ordinary. But if your friends are friends and not dicks, they should be psyched that you have something a little more off-color to talk about than the weather or the latest sale at Baublebar.
A dear friend of mine from home used to smoke one cigarette a month while driving in her car and listening to show tunes. Another friend once told me he used to paint his face, go to the park, and mime for a few hours just for kicks. WHAT. I’m sorry but how could I not want to talk with these people? What is their deal? This is my chance to learn more about the miming industry!!!!!
This, of course, all holds true if and only if your friends are friends and not dicks. If your friends turn out to be dicks and not friends, don’t worry about it too much. Because they are dicks. Hit them over the head with the internet or something.
The Georgetown forum, our favorite window into residents’ minds, is well-known for its diatribes against cat killers, newspaper thieves, and Republicans. But last weekend, it turned its critical eye towards the worst criminals of all: partying college students.
Robert Laycock, Citizens’ Association of Georgetown treasurer, got things started by complaining about an O Street party with “a couple of hundred very drunk and/or high kids.” Let’s break out the blockquote for the rest:
I called 911 around 11:30. The police arrive promptly and dispersed the crowd. The partygoers only walked a few hundred feet away, waited until the police were gone and then returned to the party house and make even more noise. I called 911 again, and again the police arrived promptly along with two GU police cars. The crowd continued to make noise as they left O street. They also harassed one neighbor who was walking her puppy threatening to defecate on her front stoop. There were drug deals going on the sidewalk, people were urinating and getting sick on the sidewalk.
Changes to the University’s notoriously lax computer usage policy, which once led Washington City Paper to name Lauinger Library as one of D.C.’s best places to mooch internet access, will make it more difficult for guests to use the library’s computers.
“The impetus for the Library’s new computer policy is to ensure that our services and spaces are readily accessible to members of the Georgetown University Community,” Jessica Pierce, Executive Assistant to University Librarian Artemis Kirk, wrote in an email. “Lauinger Library is a heavily used building and we are constantly challenged to ensure that our resources are available to our primary users.”
Under the new policy, which takes effect on August 5, only 12 computers in the library will remain available to guests: ten on the third floor between the circulation and reference desks, one next to the printer on the second floor, and one across from the elevator on the fifth floor.
When the City Paper article was written last February, University guests had access to nearly every computer in the library, save for the ones meant for specialized tasks, such as editing or scanning.
Although the new policy seems to force out guests, it simultaneously “encourage[s] guests to bring their own laptops to Lauinger Library and take advantage of the free wireless network available throughout the building.”
Vox doesn’t know what’s worse: the way this policy tiptoes around the fact that many of the library’s “guests” are homeless people, or how it suggests that every inch of Lau has wireless internet access.
In November, Mike Trummel (COL ’10) won a $3,000 Reimagine Georgetown Grant from The Corp, co-sponsored by GUAFSCU and The Hoya, to start DC Students Speak, a grassroots student advocacy group. “Because there is little interaction with other DC students, there is consequently little opportunity to organize and have DC students’ voices heard,” Trummel wrote in his original project proposal.
Now, DCSS has launched their website, which Trummel said is the first step to achieving their goal of better connecting D.C. college students to lobby for student interests, like addressing 61-D violations.
“Our vision of this website is that it can be used as a tool for students to better understand the challenges that students collectively face,” writes DCSS. “More than just raising awareness, DC Students Speaks also strives to be an advocacy organization, with the aim of mobilizing DC students to work together towards common goals.”
The site, which launched on Tuesday, aggregates content from student publications at five area schools, American, Catholic, Howard, George Washington, and Georgetown, and it is looking to expand to include Trinity and UDC. On their events page, you can join their listserv, become a student representative for your school, or look for information on how to get involved in their events, like their first annual conference of area students at Georgetown in September.
“If we work together, we can become a voice that students use to make sure their concerns are heard,” DCSS says. “It’s time to organize.”
Hoyas Anonymous (“Hoyas on the outside, Human on the inside”) has had plenty of boring phases since the Postsecret-style website started back in October of 2008. But oh how they’ve flourished in the past few weeks, with new scandalous, sad, and downright weird confessions appearing almost daily on their site.
Today, they’ll be in Red Square from noon to 3 p.m. to collect students’ scribbled confidences. We encourage you to drop by their table. To inspire you, here are some of the more intriguing posts they’ve had this month:
Barring the D.C. Public Library system, which maintains about 600 free computers, or, not nearly enough to service the 40 percent of residents in City Wards 5, 7, and 8, WCP has put Georgetown’s Lauinger Library first in that guide:
“The best place in the area for virtually unlimited, unmonitored computer use. In what Georgetown officials say is ‘a conscious effort to reach out to the community and the city,’ the library is open daily from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. to anyone with a photo ID. On the main floor are 45 computers equipped with Windows Vista and available to anyone, though they tend to be for short-term use.
“The real sweet spot is downstairs. Open 24 hours most days (closed between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday nights), the basement’s Gelardin New Media Center has roughly 65 computers with a basic version of Windows; the chairs are soft, the lighting not too bright, and the computers all come with keyboard wrist pads.”
Flattering us further, reporter Amanda Abrams gives props to the Corp: “Best is the second-floor café, which is open until 2 a.m. many nights and offers dirt-cheap bagels with cream cheese,” she writes. While service can be notoriously slow at said café, Midnight Mug, we have to agree, those are some damn good, cheap bagels.
But a few points of information, D.C. residents: Not all 65 downstairs computers are available for anyone to use. Any computers that do extra stuff—video editing and scanning, for instance—required a Georgetown login that only students and employees have.
And Abrams incorrectly reports that through clever navigation of our “idiosyncratic entry scheme for outsiders,” you can enter the Library at 10:45 p.m., just before they start turning away outsiders, and “no one will care whether you’re a student or not.” In fact, the Department of Public Safety scours the Library almost every evening checking to see if you have a University ID once it’s time for outsiders to leave. If you don’t, adios.
Still, she closes with strong advice.
“[G]et ready for sensory deprivation—if you spend too much time in the windowless Gelardin Center, it will start to feel like a dungeon.”
While the kids at JHU assumed Hitler would be outraged by the cancellation of classes, the Georgetown version—created by Vox‘s favorite Tweeter, King Georgetown—takes the meme a different direction, showing the Fuhrer’s response to Provost James O’Donnell’s decision to hold classes on President’s Day:
Georgetown Provost Jim O’Donnell is ever diligent in his (rather unpopular) efforts to keep Georgetown despite the record snowfalls that have forced campus to close for three days in a row. In an e-mail he just sent to Georgetown faculty, he has provided a link to a website created by the Georgetown Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship that has information and suggestions about how to keep in touch with students—even hold classes—via the Internet.
“Make the Most of the Closure,” the website reads on its main page. While some of its suggestions are pretty basic—e-mail students to review what would have been covered in class—there are instructions on how to hold digital class using the electronic blackboard on Blackboard, how to arrange online quizzes and exams, how to use audio conferencing to hold remote office hours with students, or how to use it to hold class remotely.
In addition Diana Owen’s real-time blog class, the website reveals that other professors have been holding class, too: so far, it boasts the story of physics professor Earl Skelton, who has “held class” every session despite the snow over the last few days.
“It’s still snowing,” O’Donnell wrote in his e-mail, which he shared with the Voice. “We don’t yet know just how much of this week’s face-to-face instruction we will lose, but we’ve lost a lot already. We are focused on safety as first priority and academic progress a very close second.”
In the e-mail, he also says he hopes to have an announcement ready about “tomorrow’s plans” by early evening.
Is Vox‘s extensive blog roll not quite satisfying your Georgetown blogosphere needs? Well Laura Sortwell (MSB ’10) and Jessica Lioon (MSB ’10) are looking out for you. Sortwell and Lioon are starting up a Georgetown “blog hub” that will aggregate content from blogs run by Georgetown students, alums, and faculty.
We want to create a forum in which Hoyas can share their ideas, show their expertise on trends and topics in the industry, facilitate discussion, seek new career opportunities, establish business contacts, develop knowledge resources, showcase their work, seek advice, and meet other alumni/students with similar interests.
According to Sortwell, the website–inspired by the Mashable model—is their independent study project (both are studying marketing). The idea came to her after she took an advertising class that focused on marketing and social media.
“There aren’t many schools doing anything like this,” Sortwell said. “It would be a one-stop place to stay in touch with Georgetown. We kind of want it to be a continuation of the intellectual but fun conversations you have at Georgetown.”
Sortwell and Lioon wouldn’t say how many bloggers have approached them about participating, but Sortwell did say they have “gotten an even better response than we expected.” The two are still looking for a good name for the site–they’ve considered names like “Hoya Network,” “Red Square” and “The Front Gates”—but they hope to have it up and running within a month.
Last night, the tech doctors peeled back the bandages from the Voice‘s web facelift and were pleased to find that they had successfully given the Georgetown Voice:
A redesigned, more navigable website that lets you view more of what the Voice has to offer in each issue
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, Georgetown University's weekly newsmagazine. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
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