Archive - 2005

By the time most students reach college, Web sites like SparkNotes.com and PinkMonkey.com are more familiar than family. Still, let’s face it: not everything students read is an academic classic. Where does one turn for information on the more obscure books?

In those ancient times, before Google and high-speed Internet, there were the good old days of library research. It sounds archaic, but there existed a time when research required a trip to the local public library to browse through the big, thick, leather-bound Encyclopedia Britannica for research.

Maybe some rivalries attract much more massive crowds, like Michigan-Ohio State. Maybe some rivalries have longer histories, such as Harvard-Yale. Maybe a few rivalries even have schools that are closer geographically than the mere nine miles that separate Duke and UNC.

"Ya'll," "you guys"; snow, no snow; liberal, conservative; "get in the car," "get in the cah"; there were lots of things I had to get used to when I came to college. A boy from a hot southern town certainly has a lot to take in the first time he sees dandruff from the sky and college club meetings concerning "Bush and the evil conservative social agenda." 

Over winter break, I had this little Starbucks epiphany. No, I didn't see the Virgin of Guadalupe in a chai latte. I was just sitting down with my coffee, surrounded by university students and it hit me.