The Black Sheep
FR EE ... Lik at e m UTK ak ’s ing ex bu pe ns tt jo e! ke s
• a college newspaper that’s actually about college •
Volume 1, Issue 5 10/4/12 - 10/10/12
theblacksheeponline.com @blacksheepUVA
Take a Walk
Lauren Bryant wrote this
If someone said to me, “In one word, describe walking around Grounds as a first year,” I would say: Painful. I didn’t think to ask about this as an incoming first year. Like most people, I had never heard of the term, “sidewalk rage.” However, it is something that all of my Facebook friends have heard us complain about it. Now that we’re about a month into school and we’ve all experienced it, let’s commiserate: 10-15 minutes seem like it would be plenty of time to get from Bryan Hall to Gilmer right? Wrong. What most first years don’t anticipate when planning their schedule, is that everyone’s class ends at the same time as yours, and everyone is trying to go every which way, and be there at the same time you’re trying to get there. Sound hectic? It is. Then there’s the lack of sidewalk space coupled with tons of people. There are over 21,000 students at UVA. That’s a lot of people, and that’s not even considering faculty and visitors (we’ll cover visitors later). So picture yourself, walking as fast as you can in your boots on those small, uneven bricks, in a sea of bag-toting students and faculty, some walking in the same direction as you (but mostly not), and sweating in a rainy 34 degrees (which, let’s face it, was every day of the winter season last year). Excited to be a Wahoo yet? Let’s continue. Oh texting, Everything that’s good and evil about college. Everyone says texting and driving is dangerous, but let’s consider the perils of texting and speed-walking. These include, but are not limited to: puddles, inevitable head-on collisions with other textersand-walkers, stepping into busy streets, bigger puddles, etc. Is your monosyllabic text message really worth the risk? Who can forget awkward eye contact. When you’re passing so many people in one 10-15 minute interval, you’re bound to see several people that you know. Sometimes they’re caught up in a conversation, and the only person who hears your, “Hey!” is the other person in the conversation, who gives you an awkward look and continues walking. Also, most people walking to class are listening to something with earbuds, creating an odd visual. It resembles a thousand, tightly packed, traveling zombies wearing backpacks. To add to the awkwardness, there are those tables next to the sidewalks with people trying to get you to take a free sandwich. Don’t they know that we are way too serious about learning
getting the most out of your roadtrip
to stop for a sandwich?! Instead, the sandwich-pushers try yelling something about how their free sandwich helps some humanitarian cause, then awkwardly gauge your speed relative to their ability to hand out flyers. Visitors are the final obstacle that an unsuspecting first year must hurdle when walking to class: the prospective student tours. These groups of awed teenagers and their nervous wreck parents walk as slowly as possible and take up as much space as they can. If there’s one thing that will make you late to class, it’s getting stuck behind a
what’s inside qdoba vs. chipotle
there are just some things you have to leave c-ville for.
we tackle this age-old debate before those fat old bastards in the supreme court do.
page 4
page 5
tour group. We all were in those tour groups, we all made someone late to class, we all pay the price for it. Circle of life. At least when it comes time for Days on the Lawn, you’ll be such a pro at getting around tour groups that the only reason you’ll notice them is from the panicked shrieks of, “Old Dorms aren’t air conditioned?!” So, to best prepare for the hassles to come, we recommend getting a wristwatch, durable rain boots, dark sunglasses, an inhaler, and a new therapist.
the dangers of taking it up the butt utk made a real cognitive leap last week, we wonder how that’s going for them...
page 6