When you go to another school for a weekend, going out is a LOT of fun. Just walk into any bar, walk over to anyone, and say "Hey, what's the scene at this bar usually like?" When they ask why you want to know, tell them you're from another school, and if that doesn't start a conversation, tell them that they're dumb and ugly. Either you'll have started a conversation, or you won't care because you'll never see them again. And you'll have a great story to start a conversation with when you get back to school.

How come when you visit other schools, you still look around for people you know?

It's annoying to have to compare stuff on other campuses to stuff at your own school. Almost annoying as walking around school with a friend as he compares everything to how it is at his campus.

Some schools are great. But face it - your school is not the best at everything. If you go to Harvard, you may like your social scene a lot. But telling a Florida State guy that he goes to a lamer party school is like someone from Nassau Community College bragging to you about their astrophysics department.

When you get to a new campus, everything looks strange. The buildings are arranged differently, the system of signing in guests is unusual (if it's even there), and the dining halls are so confusing that you can't even get a piece of pizza. But if you pay attention, everyone is still listening to Dave Matthews, everyone is still talking about hooking up, and everyone still has that Animal House poster of John Belushi where his shirt just says "College." Home, sweet drunken home.

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God had to know what he was doing when he made pot smell so strongly. Imagine if this were true for other illegal things. "Hey, do you smell armed robbery?" "Yeah. It's the guy at the end of the hall." "Man, I hate that guy. The least he can do when he's robbing a bank is close his damn door."

There's a difference between pot as a recreation and as a lifestyle. It's a recreation when you hear your friend mention it every few weeks. It's a lifestyle when people think your friend's first name is "do you smoke?"

Coffee shops sell magazines. Bagel stores sell orange juice. Shoe stores sell socks. Why don't drug dealers sell Doritos?

I once told a friend of mine he looked stoned, and he asked how I could tell. It wasn't the glassy eyes or the goofy expression on his face - it was the fact that he spent the last half hour saying "dude, I am so f-ing stoned!"

I guess pot makes people nicer. I'm constantly hearing people say "Hey, you want some pot?" Does this happen with anything else that expensive? "Hey, I just bought a bunch of caviar. You want some? If you like it, I know where you can get more."

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It's now been four days since my world was shattered, and like the past three, I have to decide how I'm going to act today.

Am I going to grieve? Can I help in any way? Is it possible to give blood? Should I go to ground zero and search through the rubble? Donate? Should I still eat and sleep and run my little errands as if nothing has happened?

Yes.

I'm going to grieve, and help, and give blood, and search through the rubble, and donate what I can, and eat and sleep, and run my little errands, and live my life.

Tuesday, someone tried to kill me. Someone tried to kill all of us, because those assholes who arranged a hijacking of both our planes and our freedom would have popped champagne if the whole city and whole country had gone up in one giant mushroom cloud. But we didn't. We're alive. And we have to act like it.

This week, I mourned. I mourned the people we lost. I mourned the clean air we lost. I mourned the skyline we lost. But I will not mourn my way of life. That, unlike the people who tried to take it from me, will remain very much alive.

I'll admit that I cried on Tuesday. At first, I was crying for the thousands of people killed in this horrible tragedy. Then, I cried because I, my family, and my close friends, were spared. At least physically.

It's going to take us time to get over this. But we've done it before. No one is scared to go to Hawaii because of Pearl Harbor, no one fears Oklahoma because of Timothy McVeigh, and despite what happened just 8 years ago, 50,000 people intended to go to work in the World Trade Center, not worried of what might happen. Fear is a weapon of cowards, and like every coward before them, the people who did this will be destroyed before they have a chance to reload.

I am proud to be a New Yorker. I am proud to be an American. I am proud to be a human with enough compassion to see that an unwarranted attack on any innocent person is wrong. And I am proud and thankful to be alive right now, and frankly, breathing is not enough.

I will not ignore what happened Tuesday, and I don't think anyone should. But I will infuse what happened into my daily life - the life that I will continue to lead. Some people have said that what happened makes you better understand the important things in life. But I think the little things are what's important - cooking a good meal, watching a game, reading to a child. These are the parts of our lives that we've fought so hard for, and we will continue to defend as long as there are people out there that don't understand why this is all so important to us.

We will sift through the wreckage and find survivors. We will clean up our streets and our skies so that New York and Washington DC are as strong and as vibrant as ever. And we will rebuild what was taken from us, both physically and emotionally, because New Yorkers, Americans, and humans are so much more resilient than those terrorist monsters would ever give us credit for.

Personally, I'd love to see five buildings built in the place of the World Trade Center. Four at the same height and one great tower in the middle - to stand for all time as a giant middle finger to whomever thought that they could bring us down.

So grieve. Help. Give blood. Search through the rubble. Donate. Eat. Sleep. Run your little errands. And live your life. It's the quickest way to beat those who tried to take it from you.

Sorority rush and Fraternity rush are completely different. Sorority rush involves visits to all the houses, and bid lists, and preferences, and complex rules about who you can and can't talk to and for how long. Fraternity rush involves nachos and college football.

Some sororities send clear messages during rush. They say, "we value you for who you are, we don't want to change you, we value your individuality, and we are all unique." And they say it with their 50 sisters all dressed in black pants, black sandals, and white baby tees.

I think its weird when everyone in a sorority dresses the same during rush as a symbol of unity. Unless they're wearing bikinis. Then it's pretty cool.

Even if you'd never go Greek, I don't understand why people don't rush. I mean, if there's one thing I hate, it's getting free stuff while meeting people.

Someone was trying to explain to me why rushing was a bad idea. Now this would be fine if I were thinking of rushing, but I'm RUNNING rush. Think about what you're saying. "I think anyone who buys a Dave Matthews CD is an idiot. By the way, Mr. Matthews, how are you?"�

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What do you get for the college student that has everything? More beer.

Someone once yelled at me to shut my music off, and said I had to listen to them because it was their birthday. Which was helpful, since I knew how old they were before I turned my music up and laughed.

Why do we still write people's names on the envelope of their birthday card? I guess it avoids confusion when roommates have the same birthday, since that happens all the time.

22 is such a let-down birthday. Now I know how New Year's felt.

Weekday birthdays are not bad because you can't go out - they're bad because you have classes. Nothing says "happy birthday" like 300 pages of reading and a two-hour lecture.

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In drinking games, one person wins and the other drinks. It's the only kind of game I've ever heard of that makes everybody happy.

I've always believed that a guy needs to be good at four things. The three standards are poker, pool, and darts. The fourth could either be drinking games or aiming your vomit, but you have to have talent at one of them.

My friends love drinking games. Some of them play beer pong, Beirut, quarters, baseball, buzz, chamber, burn out, or flip cup. But my favorite one is where you sit in your room writing a paper, taking a drink every time you hit the spacebar. I call it "Weekday."

Watching a baseball game and drinking whenever someone scores is okay. Doing it for a basketball game is not.

You know you're a regular at a bar when they pour you a drink before you order it. But when they set up your drinking game for you, I think it's time to take a night off.

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