Of all the glorious facets that make up my Violet life, the one that garners the second most envy points is the three day weekend. C’est vrai, we don’t have Friday classes, and, as long as we stray away from those pesky chem labs and enormous, recitation-requiring lectures, we never will. Come Thursday at 3:15, our work week is over, but before you too get all green-eyed, we’d like to say that three successive responsibility-free nights come with varyingly heavy prices. We youngsters have yet to master the art of social drinking; imbibing is still a means, and the end is often ugly. Thursday night all is roses –double shots of Georgi all round! Friday night we’ve gotten over our a.m. declaration of abstinence, but did somebody bring the chasers? And Saturday night…Saturday night just hurts. More»

Well it’s been over 5 months since the inception of “APrivateClub.com“…I really have to admit I had no idea what this was and will be honest, I wasn’t that anxious in joining. Social networks are a really great way to stay connected and informed, they are also capable of making you feel like a brainwashed, over-dependent monkey. Last night, I decided to have a little “disconnected” time from my computer, but right before doing so, I joined APrivateClub and took a look around. For what it’s worth (little) here are my two cents:

First off, the description (direct from the website):

“APrivateClub.com is an interactive social and cultural guide to New York City. Invited members are able to access selected events, art exhibits, fashion, films, books and restaurants.

More»

A Violet nightlife bares little resemblance to the typical college student’s. Sure, there are smatterings of apartment parties, but for the most part, we’d rather leave the pouring to the professionals. For more than half us, this requires breaking at least two laws, one of which carries a hefty punishment. The number of establishments that don’t i.d. is a ever-dwindling one, though there is a liquor store down our street that wouldn’t card a brace-faced tween. Those who don’t want to spend every evening swigging Georgi with our roommate’s Wentworth Miller posters have little choice but to muddle with our identity. Good fakes, ones that scan, are hard to come by, but getting caught with a real one almost guarantees a court-filled future.

Unless you have a nearly identical older sibling or friend, you’re better off changing your b-day and finding bars whose bouncers, if they have them, are willing to exercise their imaginations. Sometimes you’ll hit pay dirt, more often you’ll be fending off the leers of the lecherous elderly, or spittle-flecked shot offers from just-released Goldman Sachers. The trash with cash tend to go the promoter route –three tables at Libation? Free bottles? Can the well-gelled thirty-somethings pour them straight into our hyper-glossed mouth? Our expat semester tricked us into thinking we were adults; the bouncers at Mansion made it clear we are not, yet. Fine, my underarmored musclemen, never again shall we lurk among the sunless-tanned stretch-satined hordes. Not even when we can.

Did high school leave a bad taste in your mouth? Is your transcript bedecked with A’s, 800’s, and 5’s, and your resume flecked with humanitarian aid? Something delightful your way comes… Princeton University has concocted a plan in which 10% of its incoming freshmeat will be spend a “bridge year” in disadvantaged nations to do social work. According to the University website, the aim of the program is to make Princeton “especially attractive to, and welcoming of, students who care about public service in an international context,” though evidently not a national one. Katrina who? The USA is nothing but soy milk and organic honey, y’all.

Princeton President Shirley Tilghman hopes that dirtying our Tiffany-ed hands, will “cleanse the palate of high school.” No mention was made as to who the little Mother Teresa’s would be, nor whether the choice will be voluntary. The U hopes the wee best and brightest will still be diamonds in the remote rough. At least the drinks will be cheap.

[Princeton.edu]
[New York Times]
[Image Source: gasolinealley.com]

[Image Courtesty of The Harvard Crimson]

On Wednesday Night, the Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret humor society (of which Conan O’Brien was a member), did indeed confer their “Harvard Lampoon’s Woman of the Year Award” on Paris Hilton. Paris made an appearance at the Boston nightclub Rumor at 1am, where the Lampooners and other fellow Harvard students were partying away.

At one point Paris addressed the crowd from the dj booth saying “I’m from L.A., but people party harder here than in Los Angeles, according to the Harvard Crimson. What Paris meant to say was, I’m from New York but I live in L.A., etc. But that is precisely why we love Paris and why she was winning this award in the first place.

More»

The latest Crimson article, entitled Lampoon Nails Paris, Dupes Press says it all. They got us, well actually they didn’t get us. We called this one a mile away. When Paris Hilton announced that she was going to get an award at Harvard, it seemed pretty obvious that this was the Lampoon up to their usual tricks. And did we say we were right? Ok, enough patting ourselves on the proverbial back. We have to hand it to The Crimson staff for their choice of the verb “nails”. Now the Lampoon can join the long and undistinguished list of those who have “nailed” Paris.

[A stylish affair aboard the N train]

It’s rare that I see such blatantly dressed WASPS on the subway, yet during rush hour last night I spotted these two (let’s call them Walton N. Peabody III and Hunter S. Greenwell Jr.). Ever the pragmatics, Wally and Hunter “get” that sometimes the train is just faster, though it still pains them to only be spending $2 on their journey from Cipriani’s uptown to that cocktail party of their at the Feinstein’s apartment in Soho. Their conversation went something like this:

More»

[Photo from NY Times]

No this is not the title of an adult movie. Its a reality. A reality for kids who go to private secondary schools such as Phillips Exeter in New Hampshire. And its not because they have swollen members, but rather the institutions they attend have gobs of money to throw at these little boys and little girls. More»

[John Harvard Statue in Harvard Yard]

Applicants to Harvard this year rose by 4,000, making the total number of rejectees hopefuls roughly 27,000, while incoming classes have remained the same size at 1,650. So some simple algebra shows that Harvard’s acceptance rate this year will be a mere 6%.

That means only 6% of those applying will eventually piss on John Harvard’s right foot, a rites of passage for all Freshman who hope to graduate.  Other rites include primal scream, as well as having sexual congress in the book stacks of Widner Library.  You’ll notice that the right foot is much brighter than the left.  This isn’t because of all the golden showers it receives, but rather from the hands of tourists who rub his foot for good luck when they take pictures in the Yard.

When Theodore Pak isn’t busy holed-up in Cabot Science Library, watching his friend play darts, or working at the Harvard Center for Systems Biology, he is busy making fake IDs and helping other underage bookworms get booze.

So Theodore, being a New York native, and obviously smart enough to get into Harvard, why didn’t you really put those brains to use and do this stuff in High School when it was needed at the age of 16 and 17? You could have made a killing at your school. We were desperate for one of these things, and had to settle for the crappy “government IDs” they make on 42nd Street, or brave the scary mid-20 year olds in Washington Square Park.

[Photo from Ivy Gate]

Last week, in an article titled:” The Yale Christmas Penis Brings Holdiay Cheer to All Who Cross Its Path” Ivy Gate shows the world just how clever those Ivy Leaguers can be when they put their minds to something. On the front of the Lawrance dorm, a massive penis was constructed out of christmas lights in response to the “JE SUX” written on the adjacent dorm of Farnum (which is a yearly tradition). The electric penis is about 100 feet long and has multi-colored, blinking ejaculate (genius). Whoever the masterminds behind this project were, they obviously belong at Yale. That kind of leadership you just don’t find at state schools.