Five interesting ways to improve Santa Clara

By David Wonpu

Being a self-absorbed and pretentious complainer with delusions of grandeur and a raging Christ complex, I am frequently accused of not having enough Bronco pride. I'm often asked, "Will you ever stop criticizing AS?" as well as, "Don't you think some people don't care about racial issues?"

Upon further reflection, blaming Associated Students for all of Santa Clara's problems is juvenile and unfair -- any self-respecting writer should have more than one area of interest. The truth is, my heart pumps truckloads of Bronco love to my central nervous system daily, and I can often be found posing in front of my bathroom mirror while wearing my Steve Nash replica jersey. And it is with this love that I present five ways to change Santa Clara for the better.

* Either ban people from referencing the term "emo" or teach them what it actually means. We've all done it. Perhaps some of our friends bombed a final and discovered their significant other deleted them off their Facebook friends list. Maybe the aforementioned friends were inches away from plopping face-first into a delectable panini press sandwich. And that's when we say it: "That was so emo!" Laughter often ensues.

Let's be honest. We have no idea what the term emo really means. We don't even know what it really is. Is it a verb or a noun? A social movement or a musical genre?

Let's engage in an activity. Put this paper down, find a mirror, look yourself in the eyes and say, "I don't know what emo is, and it's quite pathetic to denigrate something I don't actually understand."

Perhaps the idea of talking to yourself is just a little bit creepy. Maybe you fancy yourself a database of useless knowledge and desperately want to know what emo really is (or was). No problem. Just Google Sunny Day Real Estate, and watch as your indie credibility skyrockets.

* Hold competitive drinking contests against University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University. If you've ever met a Golden Bear, you'll know that, at the mere mention of being a Santa Clara student, a diametrically-opposed string theory equation proving you are the missing link in the evolutionary chain will materialize.

Any true constituent of the Cardinal also has a specific greeting for Santa Clara students: former provost and current Bush administration foot soldier Condoleeza Rice paying a visit to your home, and giving you a headbutt with her unbelievably large forehead.

So what if the academic excellence of Berkeley students proves that the U.C. system is one of the best public education systems? Who cares if Stanford students are perhaps richer than us? Broncos still excel at the only thing a college student needs to know how to do: drink. From off-campus parties to happy hour at The Hut, Santa Clara students have proven we can chug finely brewed hops and barley with unabashed aplomb.

It is in that spirit of achievement that I suggest we challenge our neighbors in the bay to an annual drinking contest. Not only are we sure to win, but it will also be payback for not having a football team. Of course, the competition must be held on a Wednesday.

* Force everyone to watch MCTV at least twice a week. If you haven't yet experienced the sheer virtuosity and transcendent brilliance of junior communications major Richard Jao, you're missing out.

* Exploit the freshmen for personal enrichment. They back up lines in Benson and make eating a more arduous task than it needs to be. They clog up walkways and are too imperceptive to shift, forcing you to walk through the just-watered grass in your sandals. They upset your ornery professor by forgetting to turn off their cell phones, ensuring a revision to the syllabus in the form of a comprehensive final exam. They've made our lives unbearable. That is why, in the spirit of our self-centered, consumerist culture, we must put them to work. They could do our laundry, write our papers and open our beers. The possibilities are virtually endless.

* Ban Facebook. You know why everyone's so up in arms about the new mini-feed feature? It's not because it encourages stalking, but because it exposes all Facebook users as stalkers.

You know you stalk people on Facebook, and that's why it's so addicting. You probably request people you've walked past once to be your friends just so you can have access to their profiles. You'll sit at your computer for hours at a time picking apart someone's favorite music or shallowly rating how they look in all 317 of their tagged pictures.

I honestly don't know why people aren't celebrating the mini-feed feature because it greatly simplifies the obsessive habits all Facebook users have developed.

This unwarranted uproar over the feature proves why Facebook should be banned. The popularity of Facebook reflects the narcissistic nature of our generation. It's disheartening to think that what we are most interested in is ourselves, yet this increasingly seems to be the disturbing truth.

Facebook also encourages unfair judgments of other people. When someone's profile says they have conservative political views, you can't help but think they're a completely hopeless, brainwashed tool of the right with a huge swastika tattoo on their chest.

I was a member of Facebook for about five minutes last year, but canceled my account after I realized just how much time I was wasting. However, for all its uselessness, I do applaud such efforts as the "For every 1,000 people who join this I will donate $1 to Darfur" group. It shows that Facebook has the potential to be much more than just something you log onto when you're bored. On second thought, maybe I will join again.

David Wonpu is a senior English major.