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The Tar HeelThursday, July 20, 1 98945 Opmion '' """" " """"" A. handy This column is intended as an' Indispensable Guide for Incoming Students at ihe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Freshmen and junior transfers, ihis column is your friend. College has its funny quirks, but there's absolutely nothing to be wor ried about. Upperclassmen probably won't beat you up for no reason. Freshman hazing isn't what it used to be ever since 1912, when I.W. Rand, a freshman from Smithfield, N.C., was killed by sophomores in a freak accident. No lie. Today, the worst thing you'll probably encoun ter is the food. See? Things aren't so different. As the last days of your precolle giate life fade in your mind like last year's senior English course, your thoughts may begin to turn toward this fall and that little ol' university you will be attending in a place called Chapel Hill. This is natural. By now, you may have begun to accept the fact that, yes indeed, you will be start ing all over again, that you will be enrolled in a far larger school filled with strange and intimidating people. Yes, Virginia, you are going to be a freshman at UNC. And this guide should give you some suggestions If we weren't crazy, w The other day I was sitting around sorting through all my death threats when I realized, "Hey, I'm sorting through death threats!," which, I don't know about you, can be pretty dis combobulating for me. It was at this point that I had a flash of under standing, a realization about the very essence of life. Either that or my toi let exploded. The first thing I realized was that the world is insane. The second thing I realized was that they've canceled "Dynasty." So this got me to thinking: If the world really is insane, how the hell do we cope? How can we live in an insane world? How can we go on living? How can we thrive in a world with absolutely no meaning? Does this mean we can get free auto insur ance? Even for Chryslers? I was still feeling discombobulated. (Damn, I love that word. It just rolls off the tongue, "Discombobulated, discombobulated.") (Editor's note: it takes so little to make this guy happy). Anyway, I took a walk down Fran klin Street, humming that rock V roll philosophical classic "Talk Dirty LETTERS POLICY The Tar Heel welcomes all reader comment. In exchange for access to the Reader's Forum, we ask that you follow a few simple rules: All letters and columns must be typed and double-spaced for ease of editing. All letters and columns must be signed by the authors), with a limit of two signatures per letter or column. Students should include name, year in school, major, phone number and home town. Other members of the University community should include similar information. The Tar Heel reserves the right to edit for space, clarity and vulgarity. Letters should be mailed to the editor or placed in the drop box outside The Tar Heel office. guide to life at Camp Carolimia Stuart Hathaway Guest Writer and tips as to what really goes on around UNC and how to keep your parents from finding out. First, college is really just like camp, only better. You don't have to make your bed. You don't have to mow the lawn. You don't have to be in by midnight. There are a lot of people your age. A lot of those are of the opposite sex. In other words, you're with a bunch of other rabbits getting their first real taste of free dom in the big breeding ground of college. It's your parents' worst night mare. There are a couple of other things to know, though. At C-TOPS (after which you don't remember anyone you met), there's a big assembly in Memorial Hall (which, you may re alize, is not air-conditioned). A lot of older people in robes will speak. They will be introduced as Dean so-and-so. They are not all named Dean. This is not a coincidence Dean is a title, like doctor. No one is really named Dean at Chapel Hill, except John Bland Less Filling To Me," feeling bluer than three-month-old milk, when I stumbled onto something; or, rather, into something. That something was the ghost of Mel Blanc. Actually it was a fire hydrant, but I could see Mel's ghost a few feet away. "Mel!" I shouted. He didn't say anything at first, just smiled a mischievous smile, and in my mind I saw the mischievous grin of Bugs Bunny, eyebrows raised, carrot poised, like the time he was about to shoot Yosemite Sam over the desert fortress' wall for the ump teenth time. And behind Mel was Groucho, Harpo and Chico Marx. And behind them the Three Stooges were slap ping each other around. And there was Jack Benny, and Spike Jones, Charlie Chaplin, Will Rogers. All the great comic ghosts of the past cen tury, gathered together on Franklin Dean Smith, who is not a doctor and will not speak at the assembly. Also, find out where Woollen Gym is before drop-add. You'll spend hours in line and rearrange your schedule like it's a Rubik's Cube and finally end up with Serbo-Croatian as a lan guage and advanced genetic engineer ing as a science. It's OK, it's only natural. But remember, always add before you drop. You'll live longer. Carolina is known for many achievements and distinguishing fea tures, and the Robert B. House Li brary is no exception. Better known as the Undergrad, it was rated in the top 10 places to pick-up and be picked up by Playboy magazine a few years ago. The Undergrad is your friend. It's open until 2 a.m. You can also study there. Time-Out is a fast-food place open all night and day and is known for its chicken biscuits. Time-Out is your friend. When you stagger in there at 4 a.m. smelling like Spuds McKen zie, you'll know what I mean. Ask for Billy. Second, it is always desirable to look like you know what you're doing. If you're like me, you'll carry around a map your first few days and ask fellow students where the SAC is, Street, gathered together to tell me something, the vast secret of life it self, the deep, bright shaft which erupts from the darkness of eternal ignorance, the sword of Truth in the rock of Evil, the quested spring of all that is right with the world. Do you want to know what that secret is? So do I, because they wouldn't tell me, the bastards. All they did all night long was torment me. Mel Blanc kept repeating "Eh, what's up, doc?" in my left ear. Moe kept slapping the crap out of me. Spike Jones played Beethoven's Fifth on the slide whistle. Jack Benny told the same lame joke about a chimpanzee in a bar: "Chimpanzee goes into a bar, y'see," he would start out and mug to the camera, "orders a martini and lays down a ten dollar bill. The bar tender, see, doesn't know what to make of this, see, so he takes the bill over to the manager, see. He shows the ten dollar bill to the manager and says, 'Oh Rochester ." 0 with this permanent expression of bewilderment on your face. You don't want to do this. You tend to run into people, and upperclassmen have the nasty habit of directing freshman in the opposite direction of their desti nation. This can be avoided. Put a map discreetly in your notebook, on the inside lenses of your glasses or - the best way drawing a map of the campus on the top of your hand so you can look like you're waving to someone you know as you take a quick look at where Dey Hall is. And because of some cosmic joke, it's pronounced die Hall, not day Hall. And don't ask anyone why that's a Definite Freshman Move. If you can find your way to classes, you may be surprised to find some of them larger than your high school no lie. Don't despair, though: If you're in the infamous Hamilton 100, the chairs are a tad less comfortable than your bed, but the professor will never see you sleep. Take turns sleeping and taking notes with a friend. If you have been put on South Campus, don't worry about it. First of all, North Campus isn't air-condi-tioned either. Carmichael Dorm (and no matter what certain people think, they're dorms, not residence halls) is He never finished the damn joke! He kept calling for Rochester! I wanted to know the punchline! I wanted to know why the chimpanzee ordered a martini and not a Manhat tan, which is what most chimpanzees order when they go out for the evening! needed to know the punch line! Then it hit me. It hit me in the form of a rubber chicken in the hand of Harpo Marx. It was the punchline, the ultimate punchline. It was all absurd. It was insane! Life was nuts! It was one big joke! GET IT! Fortunately about this time I woke up. It seems when I tripped over that hydrant I'd whammed my noggin up against a large, immovable brick wall. I'd never seen those ghosts, never been hit by a rubber chicken. Or had I? Face it gang, we're living in an insane world, and the only way we can get through it is through laugh ter. That's why I write this column, Editor Dave Glenn Assistant Editor Sarah Cagle Assistant Editor John Bland Staff Reggie Alston, Amy Andrews, Randy Basinger, Maddie Bauman, Beth Boorman, Paul Boyd, Paul Bredderman, Richard Broadwell, George Brooks, Jennifer Brunnemer, Chris Chalfant, Eric Chasse, Joanna Davis, Susan Dellinger, Dawn Delvecchio, Stacia Fairchild, Kelly Ferrell, Natalie Godwin, Jim Greenhill, Jada Harris, Johanna Henderson, David Hildreth, Gary Jacobs, Jason James, Susan Jensen, Sheila Johnston, Jim Justice, Gray Kelly, Jeff Kiel, Ramesh Krishnaraj, Elizabeth Murray, Mike Partridge, Al Ripley, Erik Rogers, Jason Sanford, Theresa Seastrom, Donna Sell ers, Elizabeth Sherrod, Brian Springer, Barbie Stuckey, Cameron Tew, John Voncannon. air-conditioned, so hate people in Carmichael. Second, everyone does a lot of walking on campus, and if you have to do a little more, you'll work off that Freshman 50 increase that much faster. This is just what I've heard I lived on North Cam pus. And about walking: Don't pay attention to those little green and red men in traffic signs at intersections. That's stupid, and no one does it. You're in college now: If there are no cars coming, go. Now about the social life at Chapel Hill. It's 60-40 girls, so naturally guys are pretty much treated like slabs of meat, and all the women run around with spatulas. Drinking goes on here at Chapel Hill; after all, there are students over 21. "And I feel com pelled to tell you that underage drink ing does happen. Do birds fly? Par ents, wake up and smell the coffee. Everyone in college is a neolithic bipedal simian living for the next Keg-o-rama Festival. It's natural. Finally, no one here really knows more than you do. They've just been here longer. See you in the fall. Stuart Hathaway is a senior po litical science major from Charlotte. Dimsainie to give people a chance to laugh. There's enough bad news in the world, enough insanity. For only a couple of stupid, meaningless paragraphs I give those who choose to read them a reason to smile and forget. I'm not aiming to reason with the world, I'm only providing a means for coping with it, a basic human need. I don't think there's a thing wrong with that. Of course, a lot of you don't find what I write funny, and that's fine. It doesn't mean you don't have a sense of humor, it just means you don't have the same sense of humor as me. And if you really don't like it, don't read it. But hey, stop with the death threats, OK? I just saw "Lethal Weapon 2" and I'm starting to get a little paranoid around my toilet. John Bland is a senior English major from Charlotte who really thinks the secret of life is the punch line to that Jack Benny joke, which he believes is, "Nine bucks a mar tini, I'm not surprised."
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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July 20, 1989, edition 1
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