If you ask me to reminisce on my first semester here on The Daily Tar Heel staff, I think "businesses opening." Renovated facilities. Summer housing options. A guy getting half-naked and harassing the Pit Preacher with a sex toy.
It was probably the second-weirdest thing I've ever talked to someone about in the DTH conference room. I'll truly remember my rendezvous with UNC Dildo Boy for the rest of my life. And whether the Pit Preacher knows it or not, that fateful day I texted my editor in the middle of Women's Studies 101 to volunteer to write that article was a special time in my journalistic career — and the exact moment my fondness of Gary Birdsong was forever cemented in my UNC experience. May Gary stay in this Carolina Blue purgatory until the end of time. Or whatever it is that Protestants believe.
- After 30 years, Chapel Hill's homeless shelter finally has a permanent residence on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
- Kalisher, a Carrboro-based company that provides fine art for other businesses, was named in the top 50 fastest-growing businesses in the Triangle.
- Recent survey results indicate almost one in four women — and 12.9 of people of all genders — have experienced a form of sexual assault since enrolling at UNC.
- Scott Dikkers, founding editor of The Onion, came to Durham for a talk. He, too, was once poor and lived out of his newsroom, so there's hope for us.
There's a new Pit Preacher in town, and it sounds like he's a lot friendlier than Gary. Call it coincidence. Call it the systematic coddling of young minds by the liberal agenda – Total Frat Move will. But personally, I hope Gary Birdsong and his colorful nicknames for me (sinner, homo, sodomite, love bug) will persevere at least until graduation.
IN SLIGHTLY ABOVE MEDIOCRE ADVICE
If you overslept and missed the job fair or are otherwise a failure as an adult, don't worry. Our satirical advice columnists/my favorite newsroom pets are here to offer you advice on landing a job — particularly as the new UNC-system president. As you'll find out, any position can be landed with a nice handshake and a Y chromosome.
If you're jaded from going out every weekend, here's a look at how the other (introverted) side lives. Channeling her inner Discovery Channel, one unfortunate staffer took one for the team and stayed in on Friday to document the life of an introvert firsthand. Her minute-by-minute diary includes movies, homework, cello-playing and other things my mom suggested I do instead of partying if I want to keep a man around.
We set out to discover what everyone, from first-years to seniors, listen to on the way to class. If you're anywhere near as nosy as I am, you've at some point (daily) wondered what the people walking by with headphones are listening to. Luckily for my social awkwardness, a staff writer went out and asked a bunch of people that exact question — and I stayed in the office listening to Kate Nash and not talking to anyone.
On a serious note: There's a common narrative that surviving sexual assault strengthens you — but that's not always true. Everyone's experience is different, and survivors' stories should be spared generalization and assumption. For some people, sexual violence has no "positive" effect. It's only a trauma that shouldn't have happened.
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