Early vandalismcaused by freshmenor phantomstudents Blackout blues seen first hand

CRISTIN MARCY FEATURESEDITOR CJH722@C.O,BRINI.EOU

There was way too much destruction the first weekend back to campus and can some of it be blamed on the new stuJients on campus-the freshmen? Sure it was the first time everyone was together in a long time, but does not give people the right to break windows or tear down decorations or have a Public Safety officer sent to the hospital.

Already the trust of the students is being destroyed before it is even established. One would think the upperclassman would have learned their lesson last year when the destruction happened all throughout campus.

I think it is important that students take responsibility for their actions. There are no excuses. Take drinking for instance, most of this campus drinks but not everyone goes around and breaks windows or even starts fights, no matter what year one is. But it seems in my experience in the past week that freshmen have caused many problems on campus.

I think one of the main problems right now are freshmen coming in and wanting to party with the upperclassmen. They do not know the unwritten rules of the campus and are doing things that are going to get the upperclassmen in trouble and revoke the

ROSIE GONZAI.EZ NEWS EDITOR GONZAI.EZROs@ CABRINI.EDU

rights of the people in the houses and POP! As the late afternoon sun the apartments. peered through my seventh floor

I got an answer from the operator say)ng, "We're sorry. All circuits are busy. Please try your call again. Goodbye."

I dido 't know what to do, so I tried calling my mother, but that didn't work either. I didn't hear any rowdy noises or anyone in the building rummaging around, so I was thinking that the power was out in our apartment only.

I had everything ready, but found that we had no matches to light our candles or stove with.

Our next door neighbors were nice enough to give us a whole box of them so that we were able to make a small meal. and with that being said, the highlight of my day was that I had some Chef Boyardee while listening to the play-by-play of the Yankee game on the radio.

ANNE MARIEWHITT PERSPECTIVESEorTOl\ AHW72-4@CABRINI. EDU

Never in my life did I think that I'd have to feel my way home. Guided only by the familiarity of my neighborhood, I walked in almost complete darkness, risking the probability of stepping in dog excrement. I gained total respect for the blind when I crept along the halls of my apartment building feeling for the entrance to my home and guessing which key to put in the lock.

I have this theory that electricity was restored to the more affluent areas of New York City before the poorer residential areas. My neighborhood was without electricity for 25 hours so I had a lot of time to formulate that idea.

I was watching Arthur on PBS that fateful Thursday when the TV screen, lights, and fans died in my apartment that afternoon. Immediately, my godfather yelled at me from his room blaming me for the power outage. We soon found out from a car outside blasting the AM radio station that the blackout had affected all of New York City and reached points as far west as Detroit, ML and as far north as Canada.

I was sent outside to buy candles and batteries in w~atever store was open at the time. After a long, dark wait to pay for my four huge candles and bunch of batteries at the 99 cents store, I went back home to grab a camera and see what I could find out from talking to people. I spoke to people who had walked at least IO miles by room eating with Xavier, my 9-yearold little brother, when suddenly there was no power in my father's apartment.

I think many of the freshmen on campus need to be put in their place. It is not the entire freshman class that is annoying. I have met a few that have been respectful. But someone needs to lock some of them up in Woodcrest and Xavier until they learn to hold their liquor and be more responsible.

Now, this was quite odd since the apartment building is fairly new. So I started thinking to myself, "what the hell is going on?"

Living in the apartments is a privi- apartment glass window, the television lege for juniors and seniors and set shut off. I was sitting in the living because of the irresponsibility of the new disrespectful freshmen, the rights of the people are going to be taken away. Many of the freshmen either walk right past security or do not sign in or they get there before the guard gets on duty, most of the time no one really wants them there; they just are.

I reached for my cell phone and dialed my father's work number, as I heard a constant beeping sound which came from my battery-operated computer.

As I waited for the call to go through, Xavier, being the typical little brother, kept asking me questions. "Whathappened? Why isn't anything on? What are we going to do?" Me, of course, being the typical older sister

As I continued to think of what to do, my mother got a hold of me on my cell phone and immediately asked, "Rosie, is everything OK on your end?"

I was so confused by her question until she filled me in on what was going on. We were in a blackout. Now, how bad could it be? But at the same time, how cool is that?

Needless to say, my mother and I didn't stay on the phone too long because we got cut off. Maybe by other cell phone users, or maybe because I was low on battery.

Either way, I still didn't know how long the power was going to be out for, and the apartment was starting to get dark because there are no windows in our hallway.

I started moving around the apart- replied, "shut-up."

With very low water pressure, I was able to shower in the pitch blackness of the night and hope not to slip and fall on my bar of soap. When I was done, there was nothing to do, but go to bed that's how boring it was.

I fell asleep thinking, "How did people survive when there was no electricity?"

BEEP! I woke up the next morning at 8: 16 a. m. to the sound of my cable box setting itself to the right time and the jibber jabber of the loud television set in the living room. It had been about 16 hours since I last had power and there were still people waiting for theirs to come back.

I'm just happy to say that I was lucky enough to be home at the time of the black-out, and not on the train or stuck in my elevator.

I grew impatient because I didn't know why my call was not going through, but after a long, silent pause,

By the time my father came home, ment to see if there were any batteries or candles that would come in handy for when it would turn pitch black. I I