This time tomorrow, I will be in the subcontinent of 1.2 billion people and my grandmother’s delicious homemade Indian food. That’s right friends, I’m going to India: the land of the Chicken Maharaja Mac, where potato chips become Masala Lays.

Owing to my absence, for the next couple weeks, Vox will be following a lighter posting schedule. But don’t worry your pretty little heads; former blog editor Leigh Finnegan will take over to bring you any breaking news and prefrosh previews will continue throughout August.

We may be approaching the tail end of summer lovin’, but it’s not too late to pull out your witches brew and throw a massive rave. So enjoy summer while it lasts and I’ll see you in a couple weeks.

Just kidding guys; no one really likes cats.

But seriously, this summer, Vox is going to be alive and well. I’ll be writing remotely from the Big Apple while fighting the good fight at a law firm, but we have a whole team of bloggers in D.C. to keep the ship afloat. With assistant blog editor Connor Jones as news beat reporter and sports editor Kevin Joseph on the latest sports happenings, Vox is in good hands. Don’t hesitate to contact us here or follow us here.

This summer we’re looking for new writers, and our features are wide open. If you’re interested in writing music reviews or covering free food and events in D.C., let us know!

So keep your commenting feisty and flourishing and look back here for what we can only hope will be fewer Catholic controversies and more on Georgetown models and “parties in big weathered barns.” Vox wishes you an excellent summer.

Disclaimer: I take full responsibility for the atrocious blingee.

Philip Tam has experienced the common problem of magically appearing clothes come move-out time. The storage companies are pleased.

We suppose Akhil Ramanadham opened and checked every black Samsonite that passed his way until he decided to take a random one and call it a day.

Read the rest of this entry »

Senioritis seems to have finally gotten the best of Eric Begoun. We just hope that the poetic license he exercised in his tweet didn’t make its way into his paper.

Emily Cahn has a message for all squirrels: you are a drain on society’s resources. Stop taking advantage of entitlement programs and get a job already!

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As finals wrap up and Hoyas head home, Vox will be taking a break for the holidays. We’ll still have sports coverage and coverage of any breaking news, and we will return to regular posting on January 9. Over the holiday, we will be designing new bits and pieces for the blog, as we continually try to improve the product we deliver to you.

But enough about the future. For now, let’s remember the semester that was.

It started in August with a benches-clearing game-ending brawl between the Hoyas and the Bayi Rockets during Georgetown’s “basketball diplomacy” tour of China.

Later in the month Irene visited, a massive hurricane that was supposedly going to destroy D.C. but ended up blowing down some trees and knocking a few tiles off the new science building.

Ann Coulter and Michael Moore graced Gaston Hall with their passionate, partisan book-hocking as liberal and conservative Hoyas huffed and puffed about the state of intellectual debate at Georgetown.

The Halloween festivities on M Street were marred this year by a shooting.

A Georgetown student studying abroad at the American University in Cairo was detained for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at government authorities in the midst of widespread protests there. He was released several days later, and told the world about his experience.

Georgetown’s hipster status was found out. Perhaps the Georgetown student who allegedly threw a brick through a neighbor’s car window earlier this month didn’t realize that Molotov cocktails are the new alleged projectile of choice. Bricks are so 2010.

Throughout the semester, the University made concessions on its 2010 Campus Plan proposal in an attempt to mollify the neighbors, but to no avail. This was the least surprising news of the semester.

Because the world will presumably end in 2012, let’s make it count.

Don’t worry gang—we’re not going anywhere. But it’s time to for Vox to wind the blog down a bit, hit the books, and salvage our tattered academic reputations. Okay, try to salvage them.

For the remainder of the semester, we’re scaling back the number of posts you’ll see in our little nook of the internet. We apologize to any readers who planned to use Vox as a distraction from their school work—ahem, Chad Kroeger—but we’ll do our best to keep things interesting around here.

It’s been fun so far. Here’s to finishing the semester strongly.

After Molly’s terrific reign ended yesterday, you might be asking yourself, “Who’s the fool dumb enough to think he can run Vox Populi?”

Well, I’m that fool. But please—call me Chris.

Taking over as blog editor, I feel a bit like a step-parent barging into a divorced family. Sure, I’ve visited from time to time, but now I’ll be hanging around on mornings, nights, and weekends. But unlike an overeager step-father, I’m not going to make this transition any more awkward than it needs to be. (Plus, I promise that you won’t have to call me “Dad,” unless you want to.) And if it helps, Molly might stop by once in a while when she gets nostalgic for all things GUSA, DPS, and ANC-related.

Riding shotgun are my lovely assistant editors, Geoffrey Bible and Julie Patterson. While you might recognize Julie, Geoffrey’s a bit new to the blogging game. They’re both well-versed in the wonderful world of Vox commenting, so I expect you all to keep up the good work. And by “keep up the good work,” I mean, “continue to anonymously rip us to shreds at your each and every whim.”

Anytime you’ve got a tip, question, complaint, or screed penned by the lead singer of a Canadian rock band, let us know in the comments. If you’re looking for something less public, I’m here, here, and here too. (But don’t forget about Vox‘s Twitter and e-mail accounts either.)

Enough of the small talk. Let’s get started.

I knew this day would come, but it still kind of blows my mind. My time as Vox Populi editor is up. That plane I just got on is taking me back to print journalism to be Managing Editor of Georgetown’s premier alternative newsrag. Because inside of us, we both know I belong with the print Voice.

I’m no good at being noble, and it doesn’t take much to see that the departure of one little person doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. But because I’m feeling maudlin, I want to look back on some of the times we had together:

• We went to the forum about the Georgetown Heckler when students condemned it as offensive

• Provost James O’Donnell and his “surprising pockets of failure” puzzled us during snow week

• CAG troubled us with its “Save Our Neighborhood” monetary campaign against the 2010 Campus Plan

• We watched, slightly flabbergasted, as members of Plan A Hoyas chained themselves to the statue of John Carroll

• Shit would not stop catching on fire

The keys to Vox Populi are being left in the very capable hands of former Leisure editor Chris Heller and two trusty assistants who he’ll introduce tomorrow. Thanks for a semester of thoughtful comments. And hilarious/Chad Kroeger/downright indecent/what?? comments, too. We’ll always have Philly Pizza.

[Wipes away a tear.]

Believe it or not, Vox Populi is finally past its terrible twos: today is Vox‘s third birthday!

Three years ago today, former Voice Editor in Chief Chris Norton described Vox‘s mission statement thusly:

We, the editors, have decided to launch Vox Populi as an official companion to our print and web editions to transcend our once-a-week publication schedule, to expand the scope of the Voice’s coverage and commentary upon campus, city and national affairs, and to provide a reader-friendly forum for issues that might not otherwise make it into the paper.

We’re always trying to live up to those goals, and we’d like to know how you all think we’re doing. In honor of our third anniversary we’ve designed the first ever readership survey to help us get some more insight into what we’re doing well, what we can approve on, and what you’d like to see more of on Vox. It’s a quick, ten question affair, and we really appreciate you taking a few minutes to fill it out—consider it your birthday present to us!