4a
Opinion
Tuesday, December 5, 2000
For comments, contact Ben Voosen Embry or Emily Hughey at 864-4924 or e-mail opinion@kansan.com
Perspective Seasoned KU student offers insight
I've been doing this college thing on and off for seven years. As you might imagine, I know a thing or two about procrastination
How a thing or two worthate preparation
As the stress of papers, tests and exams
build up, you will suddenly be energized to
clean out your closet or play the age-old "Six
Degrees of Kevin Bacon." These hazards are
especially dangerous for freshmen facing their
first series of college exams.
That's why I've put together a list of procrastination pitfalls that any student should avoid during these final weeks of school. Don't:
2. Play video games. It's not a good thing to try to go undefeated for a whole season of NFL2K, or whatever game your game system has, before letting yourself go to bed.
3. Decide now is a good time to watch the Godfather trilogy, the Star Wars trilogy, or any
other funogy that you haven't seen before. (If you do watch the Godfather trilogy, however, order a pizza with sausage and olives, drink Chianti and don't go for a car ride with any of your "brothers.")
4. Start dating anyone new. When you start a relationship, you want to spend lots of time with the new playtoy. It's hard to concentrate on studies. When you try to "study together" you usually end up studying
Ryan
Dolan
guest columnist
opinion@kansan.com
anatomy rather than your supply and demand curves ... er, you know what I mean. Not that this is a problem for me. Most of the co-eds around campus offer to walk me across Jayhawk Boulevard, I'm so old. (Let's just say I started high school before some of you were learning long division.)
The exception is the "lust and wait" routine. You lust after some cute girl/guy in your class, put him or her on a pedestal and stammer out unintelligent sentences to him or her every three weeks. You then wait until the last class, or better yet after the exam, to ask him or her "for coffee or whatever." She's leaving that night, so the best you can do is buy her a Diet Coke and walk her to her car. This way you can brag to your friends that you finally made the move on this chick they're sick of hearing abo
5. Teach yourself how to build in a Web page strictly with HTML.
6. Try to pick up women/men in chat rooms of any kind, i.e. "adult," "Joe C. Lives" or Dawson's Creek.
(Author's note: Joe C. is the vertically challenged man in Kid Rock's posse who died last week.)
7. Celebrate 21st birthdays. Although this might sound impractical to some, you're really saving two to three days by delaying your kidney failure until after exams. You lose half a day when you start drinking the night before you turn 21, after which you go out to the bars at midnight to drink legally for the first time. Your actual birthday is shot because you're recovering from the slight hangover, though all is well on your birthday night when you get blasted again. Finally, the third and following day you're too hungover to do anything but sleep and dry heave.
8. Write columns on how not to procrastinate
9. Decide you have to call up all six of your old high school buddies to "catch up."
10. Try to teach yourself how to draw political cartoons when you can't even draw a tie-tac toe board.
11. After months of eating cheesy puffs and 44 oz. Mountain Dews, decide to plan out a daily workout/diet regimen that lasts 'til June.
12. Rent High Fidelity. You'll want to call up all your all-time top five breakups (boyfriends/girlfriends). If you're from Johnson County, however, four out of five of them probably go to KU anyway.
13. Call home. If there's any chance you will get stressed out by it, delay the dysfunctional joy of your home until you leave for the holiday break.
14. "Experiment" with illicit drugs. That's what the first three months of school were for.
I hope bringing some of these hazards to light will help you end the semester on a productive and stress-free note. I gotta go write my three late papers, read four books, write two more papers due in the next three weeks and rearrange my room after reading Feng Shui for Dummies!
Dolan is a Lawrence junior in American Studies and Journism.
Chan Lowe / TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES
By the Numbers
28 Percentage increase in per capita U.S. sugar consumption since 1982
33 Percentage change since 1990 in the number of adult Americans with diabetes
21 Percentage of Americans who report being "regularly hored out of my mind"
17
Number of people killed by captive elephants in the United States since 1983
222. 505.049
Estimated number of hours of labor performed by African-American slaves between 1619 and 1865
Estimated value of that labor,compounded at 6 percent interest through 1993
$97.1trillion
Source: http://www.harpers.org
Perspective
Brazilian tennis star plays for love of game
Tennis has a new king. Gustavo Kueren claimed the 1. position in the sport last
Sunday by beating Andre Agassi at the Masters Cup, a tournament that pairs the top eight tennis players of the year and is held in Lisbon. Portugal.
Guga, as he is known in my country, joined the Brazilian Davis Cup team in 1997 and used to travel by bus to the most distant tournaments in Brazil — a country bigger than the contiguous United States.
Guga never went to college or received spons-
since he was a teenager. The boy from Florianopolis lost his father when he was 8, and since then had been supported by his mother and grandmother, who attend his most important tournaments. Guga is coached by the same coach he has had since he was 14.
But in 1997, the bus rides ended Kuerten became the lowest-ranked tennis player ever to win a Grand Slam, which entails winning the four most important tournaments in tennis; the
Cássio R.
Furtado
columnist
opinion@kansan.com
Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. He won the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris by beating the three previous tournament winners — Thomas Muster, Vegetygan Kafelnikov and Sergi Bruguera — improving his ranking from 66 to 15 in two magnificent weeks.
Since then, Guga has had to overcome many obstacles—a number of which were imposed by Brazilians themselves. For a country that has traditionally had the best soccer teams in the world, officially leading the world soccer rankings for seven straight years, a tennis player who wasn't even a top 10 player wasn't big deal at first.
Tennis was never a big sport in Brazil, and
Guga also overcame this hurdle en route to becoming No. 1. Every newspaper in Brazil now follows all his games, and some major newspapers send their own reporters all around the world to follow him. Guga's fans, like me, also travel to see some of his games. I have seen Guga in three Davis Cup games against Spain in 1990 and in the 1999 French Open in Paris, when he lost in the quarterfinals.
He deserves all the attention he gets from the media and fans, Guga, who is 24, already has won 17 ATP tournaments — both in singles and doubles, and also has won more than 60 games this year, which represents almost 80 percent of his matches. He came from being a member of a humble Brazilian family to becoming the highest-paid tennis player in the world, winning $3.45 million in 2000 alone.
Guga's accomplishments are outstanding, but if you take into consideration that he comes from a country that still doesn't give support to most of its athletes, his efforts should be considered heroic.
The Brazilian became the first tennis player since Michael Chang in 1990 to beat Sampras and Agassi en route to a championship. Guga has won the first Champions Race ever. He leads the ATP ranking.
All that has forced the ATP Tour to make Guga the focus of all its marketing campaigns — even in the United States and Europe. Guga already has two Grand Slams, and he has an incredible personality. In addition, he still can count on his youth — unlike Agassi and Sampras, the two dominant players from the past decade.
Guga, like most Brazilians, doesn't play for the money; for Guga, tennis is not a business. Tennis is a passion — and the king has come to stay.
Bellieve me.
So, in case you don't know who your favorite player will be when Agassi and Sampras retire in the next couple of years, put Guga at the top of your list.
Furtado is a Pelotas, Brazil, senior in political science and Journalism.
Editorial
Students should honor Lewis Hall service contracts
Performing community service would enrich the lives of residents.
Lewis Hall residents complaining about community service requirement should remember the conditions under which they were admitted to the residence hall.
Residents signed contracts in the fall, agreeing to complete one hour of community service a month and a reflective journal entry to accompany each hour.
Students under contract at Lewis Hall should embrace the opportunity to diversify their lives with service.
After its renovation in 1999, Lewis Hall began to emphasize student involvement in community and leadership events. As a result, the housing contract requires its residents to complete a service requirement.
Some students felt they were presented an ultimatum when asked to sign a contract that demanded community service participation. However, Lewis Hall should be supported for advocating public service.
Those unwilling to participate should forfeit their right to live in Lewis Hall. There is a waiting list of students who would be willing to do one hour of service a week to live in such a nice dorm. Approximately one third of the residents have not yet fulfilled the provisions.
One study shows increased service/involvement raises participants' grade point averages — one of the reasons Lewis added the requirement. Although this reasoning seems strong, it is inferior to the argument that serving the community is simply a good thing to do. Lewis Hall should promote its program with community and personal enrichment as the motivation. Becoming involved is a rewarding experience. Service and reflection can build a student's awareness of the broader community.
The unwillingness of Lewis Hall students to take personal responsibility for fulfilling their contracts should be denounced by the Lewis Hall review committee. One shouldn't need to force community service, but, at Lewis Hall, it is a requirement to which residents agreed. If a service program is established and agreed upon by contract, residents must follow through.
Tim Lang for the editorial board
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. The Kansan reserves the right to edit submissions, and not all of them will be published. Slanderous statements will not be printed. To read more, go to www.kansan.com.
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Thanks to the UDK for that article about different strokes. I've now completed my Christmas list.
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After reading the sex article in Jayplay, I've decided to install a motor in my penis so girls will never turn me down.
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I find it funny that I have to walk to my 6:30 p.m. test on Thursday from Illinois Street because there's a basketball game, and I can't park on campus.
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Snould I be terrified if I find my roommate's dirty underwear wadded up under my computer desk?
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I'd like to apologize for all the dumb people who call into the Free for All.
How many of KU's greek community can spot Greece on a map?
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I'm sick of the presidential election updates interrupting my shows.
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Was that a female or male nipple on the cover of Jayplay? Editor's note: It was a male nipple.
Am I a sissy if I cry at the end of every episode of Full House?
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There must be some sexually frustrated people on the Kansan staff.
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Instead of investing all the money into the National Merit Scholars, let's give some to minority students.
A woman's best friend is a vibrator.
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End racism. Poke out your eyes.
I hear Britney Spears and NSYNC are having a Christmas special. I bet Britney will get up on Santa, and NSYNC will get up on each other.
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KU Info needs a second line.
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