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LCs con artistry detected by control P

BY CASSIE BISHOP
Opinions Editor

The Pioneer Log OPINION

February 3, 2012

Five classes. Five classes, allsave mi clase de Espaol heavy on reading. Now when I say heavy, I dont mean spotting-through-a-tampon heavy, I mean hemorrhaging-rightafter-you-step-out-of-the-bathroom heavy. Enough crisp white printed sheets to build life-size paper mche trees by the dozen, and thats including root structures. Anyway, four classes that are all heavy on the reading. Seeing as it was my rst semester in college, I took the common nosedive from platinum ambition to sleepless slacker. One of the ways I did this was to read the articles online for my classes rather than taking the time to go to Watzek and print them out and then annotate those beautiful stark white sheets with my painstaking, color-coordinated notes. (If youre going to do it, youve gotta do it all the way, right? Blue pen corresponds with blue highlighter, which focuses on sexism; green pen corresponds withoh shit. I never seem to be able to get my hands on a green goddamned highlighter. Wait, thank you elementary school doodling and color wheels: blue and yellow highlighter hybrid baby does the trick just ne.) So, four classes responsible for the deforestation of several hundred acres. ats problematic. I could play the hippy card and get all, I couldnt use the spirits of my tree-brothers and -sisters for things as lowly as Descartes, but that would be a lie. A white one because I do care about trees, but a lie nonetheless. e entire purpose of this intimate exposure of my study habits in fall 2011 is to let you all in on the fact that probably double...okay, triple the amount of paper I printed was what was expected for daily participation. I used 309 pages of my print balance last semester. Were deviating for a moment, but dont worry, itll come back around.

As the semester wound down, my roommates and I were discussing our print balances and what to do with the remaining paper. We all had a fair number of sheets left over and were bouncing ideas o of each other for what to do with the remaining balance: print interesting facts, print photographs to plaster our walls with, print pretty much anything because heypart of the $49,000 a year we pay to go here is invested in those attened, bleached tree carcasses. (Isnt it astounding how quickly we get sucked into the mindset of corporate America and choose money over nearly everything else? And were at a small liberal arts

ILLUSTRATION BY CAITLIN DEGNON

college in Portland. Id hate to see what kids at LSU do with their print balances during Louisiana nals week.) Anyway, luckily our green thumbs pressed cancel instead of print. So, I came back to school feeling hopeful that the school had rolled my pages over from last semester. I clicked print on Monday and, to my horror, the box did not read, Your current balance before printing is 691 pages. It didnt even read, Your current balance before printing is 500 pages. Nope. Your current balance before printing is 191 pages. You can imagine my shock. I asked and the answer I met was not, Oh, dont worry, they havent reset them yet. Oh, no. Let me divulge this information top secret, I assume, since this was not mentioned, referenced or in any medium expressed to me in my near four months making my home herewhich was so cruelly kept from me. e print balance we receive is 500 pages. Not for the semester, but for the entire year. Its not Watergate, administration; you really couldnt have clued us in? I am sorry for having to break this news to you so harshly and I understand your anger. Take consolation in the fact that if you did print for the hell of printing and cover your walls with Aubreys sheets, then at least your room is better decorated than those peoples who didnt undergo intense overstimulation during the nal days on campus. Take solace in that.

LC bids adieu to webmail and welcomes new and improved Gmail.

BY JORDAN ANDERSON
Staff Writer

To switch or not to switch?

99 Problems
One of my 99 problems isand I know it sounds like a stereotype, but its truethat my boyfriend and my roommate do not get along. It isnt a little under-the-covers (pun intended) thing its a fully fledged war for my soul. I love my roommate, and when my boyfriend isnt around, she always is, but I really like this guy. What do I do? How do I choose?

People dont like change. But more often than not, change has a reason to it. In this case, the change comes in an all-too-sacred part of our college experience: our college email accounts. Recently, the school announced that, eventually, everyone will have to shift to the new Gmail system by Google. is came as a surprise to me, as I had no problem with the old webmail. But after putting it o for a while, I decided to bite the bullet and switch over. I know some people will disagree with me, but now that Ive gotten used to the new system, Im into it! Google doesnt give their yuppie employees high salaries, foosball tables and Razor scooters for nothing. eyre actually pretty good at making internet stu people will like. e Google mail server has a lot more exibility. You can arrange your messages in a number of ways, mark them as important or unimportant and label/group them however you see t. Whats more, you can change the visual layout of your inbox, giving it whatever crazy aesthetic you want. Back-andforth email conversations are now laid out like Facebook messages, so you can see the entire conversation while writing a reply, saving a lot of inbox-digging. ese are all great things, but I havent even mentioned my favorite feature by far: the system remembers you and will keep you logged in! I love not having to type in my name and password every time, I just click on my bookmark and Im there. Now maybe you arent as lazy as I am, but I still think that a lot of people will appreciate this feature, not to mention that warm, loved feeling that comes from knowing that your email remembers you. Im sure there are many other great features of the Google mail server that I havent utilized yet. eres some kind of chat function as well as a weird calling feature Im too scared to try. Im sure that it will also sync up nicely with Googles Android phones as well as with Google calendar or Google docs. And who knows what other hidden gems Gmails virtual post o ce has in store? While all your old messages can be automatically transferred into the new Gmail inbox, you can still log into the old server and see them. e only difference is that any new messages wont show up there and will be sent only to the Google account. e old webmail is pretty much just an archive, but its good to know that its still there. So in short, the mail switch is coming! You might as well do it now so that youll feel like its your own decision and not just an inevitable wave of change. But as far as waves of change go, this one is a change for the better. My advice is to wave goodbye to the old webmail and let yourself enjoy being further absorbed into Googles web of world domination.

e bottom line is, you have a great roommate and a great boyfriend. Dont overthink it. You have two reasonable options: Im sure you have already, but try to make some peace between them. Do they like the same bands, movies or unconventional ethnic food? Do they have anything in common besides you? If theres any way to reconcile them, see if you can inspire a truce. If theres really no way to get them on the same page, you can plan the time you spend with your boyfriend so that youre in his room or elsewhere when your roommate is around, and make sure your roommate can give you and your man some space when youre in your room.