2
September 9, 1999
Opinions
yiew_pomt
Sweet mother of mercy am I ever old.
Strange for me to be saying that at the crusty old age of 20, but after
watching the masterful, overheated production number that was Fresh-
manMove-In Day on August 27,1 feel Hkelshouldbe sittingon the West
porch en^)hatica11y shaking my cane in no particular direction and
muttering dated obscenities about all the “young whippersnappers/'
Wandering through my hall, I would stop in doorways and observe
sweat-soaked parents heaving boxes across the room or assembling lofts
while their wide-eyed progeny looked oa helpfully^ perused the instruc
tion sheet and complained loudly about the heat. This was just too much
for my elderly junior's bones to handle,
“Look at *em, the punk kids/-1 would cackle. “My parents got my
loft up in 20 minutes, Iliese youngsters will probably still be on step two
when I wake up from my afternoon nap.”
At this point I would promptly forget why I came up to my hall in
die first place and then decide to seek out an upperclassman Bingo game.
Despite the fact that in my mattire years I can’t remember where I
pat my car keys, much less the majority of experiences I had my freshman
year, I do remember well the feelings I had my first few weeks at Elon,
I was lucky. There was no s^aration anxiety, very little homesick*
ness and my roommate and I got along famously. I had no boyfriend left
behind in Maryland to pine over and my pet geit>il always liked my mom
better anyway. Wh^ I do remember* however, is being a wee bit
overwhelmed.
Your first two weeks as an Blan College freshmuin (or rather, I
believe the current P.C. temj is “New Student*’) are spent having more
experiences, facts, dates, places and moronic^butnecessary,name games
than you can shake a processed schedule at shoved down yourthroat. The
only problem is that you never really have time to digest it all
So my ^ge-like junior advice to you as you come into your third
week at Blon is to mali time to reflect You've gone through a lot in a
short amount of time, so you need to step back and sort outall you^veseen
and done. Plus you have a helluva lot of names lo remember,
Icansympathize with that I’ve got a class full of fantastic Elon 101
students who expect their wise TA to know all their names by now.
But at least I can plead old age.
♦ Carrie Lancos Editor In Chief
New millennium, new Pendulum
Informing the Elon College Community
Editor in Chief
Carrie Lancos
Reporters
Josh Phoebus
Annie Reilly
Jessica VitaJc
The purpose of The
Pendulum shall be to inform
and entertain the Elon College
commiinity. The Pendulum
shall be a forum where all
members of the college
community are able to express
their ideas and opinions
Senior Editor
Chuck Buckley
Photographer
Meredith V
News Eklitor
Alan Medeiros
Columnist
Rich Blomquist
Opinions Editor
Chris Rash
Focus Editor
Tammy Tripp
A & E Editor
Lisa McChristian
Address all
correspondence to:
The Pendulum
7012 Campus Box
Elon College, N.C.
27244.
Sports Editor
Travis Suber
Photo Editor
Emily MacDonnell
Business Manager
Jenna Denton
Phone: (336) 584-2331
Fax; (336) 584-2467
E-mail
pendulum @ elon.edu
Web page:
http ://www.elon.edu/
pendulum
Office Manager
Carolyn Lampila
Onhne Director
Jeff Sanders
Onhne Editor
Bill Monken
Adviser
Byung Lee
To Our Readers:
Some of you may have no
ticed that the first issue of The Pen
dulum did not make an appearance
last Thursday. To some of you, this
may have been an earth-shattering
and horrific event, but for the most
part, I daresay your lives went on
without so much as a hiccup in your
Thursday routine.
It was a bit of a different story
in Moseley 233.
While most of the campus
was gearing up for the soaking rain
from Tropical Storm Dennis, we
were cleaning up shop after our
own personal Hurricane Macintosh.
The computer crashed, it is as
simple as that. Wednesday morning
we were preparing to print out the
last bit of our final copy, when our
overworked main server computer
decided it had lost the will to live,
promptly vomited up an error mes
sage and swallowed Sept. 2nd’s is
sue and every issue previous in the
gaping maw of a data netherworld.
The reaction to this meltdown
was a series of moans, whines, hisses
screechs and noisy, if ineffective,
burps. And the computer wasn’t
being very quiet either.
I give immense credit to our
adviser, Byung Lee, and to WSOE
adviser and resident Mac guru Mike
Foster for rescuing what little there
was to save from our flame-broiled
hard drive. Anyway, the option for
us then was to either redo all that we
had lost or not run a paper.
The Y2K bug, typical “Crap-
intosh” behavior, human stupidity,
an act of God (although as to whether
it was the act of merciful or wrath
ful God is still up for discussion in
any willing Religion 134 or JCM
425 class)... call it what you will.
Regardless, after 35 hours without
sleep and a soliloquy of every swear
word in every language I know, I
made the difficult decision not to
run the first issue.
After uttering more words that
shouldn’ t be repeated in polite soci
ety, the staff decided to use what
looked like a grade-A catastrophe
to our advantage.
This year is The Penduli^m's
25th anniversary. What better time
to give it a much needed facelift and
improve upon stuff that was not
working? With most of our stock
graphics gone, we had a clean slate
and fi’ee reign to give The Pendu
lum a look to take it into the next
millennium.
So we redesigned The Pen
dulum masthead on the front page
and the Elon Sports banner on the
back page. We changed the Letters
to the Editor and Organization Briefs
graphics to give them a more mod
ern appearance. In coming weeks,
we will add new graphics to the
Focus and A&E sections. I pass the
credit on to our Online Director Jeff
Sanders for actually building up
these graphics and making them
look so good.
In addition, we decided on
one major content change. After
being a Page Two staple for almost
four years, “Speaking Of’ was
dropped from the section. In its
place, we would like to present “Eye
on Elon,” a photo chosen each week
for its ability to capture attention
and tell a story. We hope that you
will find this to be a welcome addi
tion to The Pendulum.
We also welcome our new
Sports Editor, Travis Suber. His
sports expertise and positive atti
tude have already made him an in
valuable addition to our staff.
One thing that has not
changed in this newspaper is our
commitment to you. We plan to
enter the Year 2000 with a renewed
sense of journalistic responsibility
and of our importance as an open
and viable forum for the discussion
of ideas.
To the students, faculty and
staff of Elon College as well as our
subscribers and advertisers, thanks
for your understanding and ongo
ing support. We can only hope that
our next 25 years will be as fun,
exciting and productive as the first.
Sincerely,
Carrie Lancos
Editor In Chief
Elon piggy banks on support
Bob Orndorff, director
of Career Services,
treats his pig Rudy to
some grapes at College
Coffee Tuesday. Rudy
visited campus to help
kick off the United
Way Fund Drive. This
year’s theme for the
fund drive is piggy
banks, which will be
set up at various
locations around
campus.