Volume 4
The Black Sheep
FR PRO EE! LI BAB KE A LY S TAT HOU TOO L D N YO U ’T G ET.
The College Newspaper That's Actually About College
Issue1
Bussing Blues: A K-Lot Catastrophe Shekinah Alfaro wrote this The new semester is finally underway. Our bank accounts have already felt the impact of $400 text books and $150 lab fees and now the days have come where over 27,000 students are forced to wait an unscheduled and absurd amount of time for the LexTran Commonwealth Stadium Bus to pack us in to the point where sardines would feel sorry for us. It’s time to get friendly with your neighbors, guys, and hope the person you are pressed unorthodoxly close to put on deodorant this morning. In theory, the busses pick up and drop off students in a timely manner, with the max wait being 5 minutes, saving those among us who WANT to gain the freshman 15, a 1.5-mile, 23-minute walk from K-Lot to White Hall. Yes, in theory. In practice, busses run on their own schedule, sometimes appearing in a fleet of three at a time, in rapid succession, with the first one packed to the brim and the latter two empty and cruising along with the ghosts of our hopes and dreams of ever making to class on time, and the occasional lingering spirit of the students left behind to terrorize the terrible transit. This leaves a slew of un-serviced and steadily filling bus stops in their wake. Experience tells us that busses take an average of 10-15 minutes. The dead eyes and smug smile of the drivers show they simple don’t care that you are bogged down with 20-pound backpack and the fear of being late again. And what’s worse, the officials don’t even know how often the busses are supposed to run, and all these panicked early mornings are severely cutting into our masturbation time. The LexTran website says the University of Kentucky busses run every 5-8 minutes, but the UK Transportation website says the busses run in 5-minute intervals during some parts of the day, and 10 minutes during the others. A clear definition could at least tell us how many levels of Flappy Bird rip-offs we could play while waiting. Plus, it’s not like classes end when the busses stop running. This semester has BCH 401g classes that end at 9p.m., and buses stop running at roughly 6p.m. Remember that 23-minute walk? How about taking it alone, in the dark, with a backpack pull of electronics and hundreds of dollars in text books? The frequent emails about robberies and attacks on campus remind us that we are one ill-timed trek across a dark campus from being another midnight message from UKAlert. Our suggestion: Rock the all-nighter-during-finals look. Because what criminal wants to tango with a college student with tangled hair, crazed eyes, and the ability to remind anyone of the dangers of combining caffeine and desperation. (Freshmen: you will understand this by the end of the semester.)
The University of Kentucky can do better. Mere yards from one of the LexTran student routes is the university-run HealthCare Route, which shuttles employees from the E-Lot to the medical centers. The longest they have to wait is 5 minutes – and that’s on a bad day. You’d think that with the $9,800 each of us shell out a year we could get busses with jacuzzis and minibars (minibars would make 8a.m. classes so much better, can we get a hell yeah?).
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FRESHMAN “HELLA STOKED” FOR $40 FIGHT CLUB POSTER
STUDENT WHO BROUGHT GUITAR TO PARTY DIES FROM TOO MUCH SEX
SHOULD LOOK REEEALLL NICE NEXT TO HIS V FOR VENDETTA POSTER.
AND AFTER ALL, YOU’RE MY WONDERWALL.
Or, since UK is technically a dry campus, they could do the logical thing, such as getting more busses and a more structured schedule. UK does listen to us occasionally, and the extended hours at Willy T prove it. We can take a stand. We can say “no” to hour-long rides next to the creepy dude that’s looking at porn on his iPhone. We can start a riot! …Or we can just get to the bus stop earlier. Bye bye beauty sleep and masturbation time.
PAGES 12-13 WE INTERVIEW: MIKE BIRBIGLIA OUR CHAT WITH THE COMEDIAN AND STAR OF SLEEPWALK WITH ME.
FOLLOW US @UKBLACKSHEEP SEPTEMBER 11th, 2014 - SEPTEMBER 17th, 2014 THEBLACKSHEEPONLINE.COM