A message from your friendly neighborhood Facilities Department:
There are literally 8 of these in my hallway. I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve been scared straight.
Author Archives: Sarah Vitali
This will be my mantra, come April.
I don’t know about you all, but I had my first thesis stress dream two nights ago and I’m still shaking in my boots.
But with just over a week left until winter break and formals just around the corner, I’d like to think that things aren’t looking so bleak after all.
Just, please, no one tell Dean Malkiel about this…
I wish I looked that good in a cheerleading uniform...or in a tiger suit, for that matter.
In the distance, when the light is just right and the wind is tousling their bright blonde wigs, they really do kind of look like cheerleaders.
It also helps if you squint. A lot.
They are the men of Princeton University’s Triangle Club, and they are advertising their 120th annual original musical production by taking their playful crossdressing to the streets – and your classrooms.
According to the Triangle website, their current show, Family Feudalism, features “hot tunes, high kicks, and heraldic ha-ha’s [that] are sure to lay siege to your funny bone.”
The show is this Friday and Saturday evening at 8 p.m. at McCarter Theatre. Tickets are $10 each, unless you saved that handy 2-for-1 ticket you got in your Frist mailbox. Student Events Eligible.
If you play your cards right (and beat me to it), all this could be yours...
Over the next few days (November 11-13), the Liechtenstein Institute for Self-Determination of Princeton University will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary. We’ve come a long way, baby!
This unique institution is one of the few university organizations that can say that it was co-founded by a reigning monarch (…the Prince of Liechtenstein), and one of the even fewer university organizations that uses the phrase “geostrategic perspectives” in its mission statement.
According to the institute’s website, it concerns itself primarily with issues of self-determination, “especially pertaining to the state, self-governance, sovereignty, security, and boundaries with particular consideration of socio-cultural, ethnic, and religious issues involving state and non-state actors.”
This is particularly fitting for an institute founded by the rulers of a place so small that Snoop Dogg once tried to rent out the entire country for a video shoot.
Liechtenstein, referred to fondly by Wikipedia as Europe’s favorite doubly landlocked alpine microstate, is known for winter sports, tax scandals, and being the world’s largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units and false teeth.
The Liechtenstein Institute Colloquium’s scheduled events and highlights include panels on religion and diplomacy, self-determination and sovereignty, the state and the international system, and crisis diplomacy.
We will also be graced by the dreamy presence of the big man himself: His Serene Highness Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein (H.S.H.P.H.-A.I.I.o.L. for short).
No, he doesn’t have any eligible heirs apparent (believe me, I checked)
But if you’re interested in a little mercenary homewrecking, HSH is going to be giving a welcome speech in the University Chapel today at 4:30.
Dress to impress!
If you, like me, are a senior looking for an eleventh hour SA, might I suggest MUS 259/LAS 259: Caribbean Music from Contradanza to Reggae, Salsa and Beyond?
So, as most of you already know, today was the first day to cruise next semester’s course offerings.
Now you can stop focusing on those worn-out current courses and start looking ahead to the future!
6 weeks down, 6 to go.
You can do this, I swear.
Happy Fall Break!
…guess you’ll need a plan for after graduation!
An option to consider:
There’s also a law school version, if you’re so inclined.
P.S. For those of a creative bent, this site is great for making videos out of awkward e-mails from your professors.
P.P.S. Especially if they’re a little ESL…
Blei and Gerrish in their natural habitat...the Matrix. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)
Ever wonder just how influential a given document has been on THE ENTIRE COLLECTED HISTORY OF ACADEMIA?
Worry no more! Thanks to the Princeton dynamic duo of David Blei, assistant professor of Computer Science, and Sean Gerrish, a doctoral student in the same department, in a couple of years you, too, will be able to scientifically prove beyond a shadow of a doubt just how little influence your senior thesis has had on the world!
But seriously, folks.
Traditionally, a work’s influence has been charted by keeping track of how many other works cite it as a reference, or, in the case of a website, how many other websites provide links to it. This, however, can show faulty data that either over- or undervalue a work’s significance (We’ve all been there – citing for citation’s sake).
According to the Princeton University website, “[Blei and Gerrish's] method relies on computer algorithms to analyze how language morphs over time within a group of documents — whether they are research papers on quantum physics or blog posts about politics — and to determine which documents were the most influential.”
In other words, their method analyzed the text within documents, finds the first place that a particular word or phrase was used, and identifies it in later documents. This gives an approximate history of the term, and thus the idea.
The approach can also be used to track the history of a word…I personally am looking forward to finding out where the word “metrosexual” came from.
Now, I’m not taking “E-mails for Females” to knock out my QR requirement for nothing…I really don’t understand how this kind of thing works.
But I do know one thing: David Blei looks a lot more like Will Ferrell than Sean Gerrish looks like Yul Brenner.
Am I right?
This is how I like to imagine all of Princeton's religious scholars...
When I saw an article saying that Princeton’s acclaimed religious scholar Elaine Pagels was preparing to give a speech in Transylvania, I got excited.
When I saw that the first sentence of this article was, “Elaine Pagels was in a dark period of her life when she began researching Satan,” I could hardly contain myself.
But when I realized that I could read said article (i.e., that this article was not written in Romanian), I got suspicious.
When I noticed that I was on the Lexington Herald-Leader’s website, I was only upset for about a fraction of a second.
Because this means that America has within her broad lands an institute of higher learning called Transylvania University. I kid you not.
This sweatshirt was the result of a 1988 Halloween marketing ploy by Hallmark Cards...needless to say, an awkward apology was quickly issued. (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)
Transylvania University, which those in the know refer to fondly as “Transy”, is a Kentucky institution with a rich history that includes surprisingly few references to Dracula. Arguably its most famous graduate was Jefferson Davis, the president of the short-lived Confederate States of America.
So, he was kind of like Vlad the Impaler, right? Nowadays Transy tries to downplay any association with the undead. This is probably the right thing to do from a PR standpoint.
But if I were Elaine Pagels, I would still take along some garlic with me on this trip, just to be safe…
See? Doesn't he just look like a literary titan?
Sorry, Spencer…you put your money on the wrong Princetonian.
This year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for literature is Peruvian-born author Mario Vargas Llosa, who is currently serving as the 2010 Distinguished Visitor in Princeton’s Program in Latin American Studies.
According to nobelprize.org, Vargas Llosa’s selection was based on “his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.”
A talented journalist and critic as well as author, Vargas Llosa’s more famous works include “The Green House” (1968), “Conversation in the Cathedral,” (1969) and “The Feast of the Goat” (2000).
His better-known exploits include running for the Peruvian presidency, being made a member of the Spanish Royal Academy, and punching Gabriel Garcia-Marquez in the face.
Click here for an interview with Vargas Llosa immediately following the news of his win.
Or, alternatively, click here for a New York Times article on the subject and, as an added bonus, another really intense headshot.
Don't be afraid, little guy!
Seniors, rejoice! As the economic climate continues to worsen and Princeton in Asia begins to look like an increasingly viable career move, the powers that be are making it even easier to apply to (or, at the very least, research) graduate programs.
This Tuesday, the National Research Council released an exhaustive and long-awaited report comparing a number of doctoral programs in the United States, including data from over 5,000 graduate programs at 212 universities.
One of our very own, Dr. Jeremiah P. Ostriker, a professor of astrophysics at Princeton, chaired the committee; though he might have been able to put in a good word for the old orange and black, it was, in all likelihood, not a very specific one.
The Chronicle of Higher Education quotes Dr. Ostriker as saying, “There are many different sources of uncertainty in the data…We put them together as well as we could…. That means that we can’t say that this is the 10th-best program by such-and-such criteria. Instead, we can say that it’s between fifth and 20th, where that range includes a 90-percent confidence level. It’s a little unsatisfactory, but at least it’s honest.”
Words to live by.
To download the full report, click here.
Or, if you’re not in the mood to read 264 pages of pure statistical lovin’, you can use this snappy tool created by the Chronicle of Higher Education to find the real world evasion module that best suits you!
This could be you at your next study break!
Princeton University commands an incredible set of resources. As an independent student/borderline freegan, I have discovered the fun way that most of them are edible.
Free food is all around you, just waiting to be discovered and scoopsed. With a little ingenuity and a total lack of shame, you, too, can survive at a first-rate university on third world personal resources!
A Few Helpful Tips For Releasing the Hunter Within
–Have diverse friends!
This is rule number one of the Ivy League hunter-gatherer: almost every ethnicity has its own cuisine, and, to go along with it, their own student group. Coincidence? I think not.
–Sign up for EVERYTHING.
Remember when you went a little crazy at the Student Activities Fair freshman year? Still receiving 30 e-mails a day from organizations that you have no intention of joining? Ever? Don’t despair! Those e-mails are a veritable crib sheet of potential raids. With a little insincerity and/or a lot of eye contact avoidance, you, too, can use people you peripherally know for the calories that you so desperately crave.