First of all, I want to address the fact that I know my love and dating column is running on Valentine's Day for the first time in the three years that I've been writing it, but I also know that, for the first time, I want to write about something other than Valentine's Day.
College is a time of discovery, and in addition to worrying about classes and hanging out with friends, many students spend their four years of study contemplating what principles should govern their future lives.
With the second semester of the second year of premed underway, the time has come to think ahead. Really, really ahead.
My love affair with Panera started in high school. One of my good friends had an overprotective mother, so to hang out, we had to do so right after school.
Last weekend, citizens across the country paid tribute to Ronald Reagan for his 100th birthday. As celebrations took place, the former president's legacy took on new meaning for three University students.
I'll admit I am completely guilty of tuning out my parents the second they open their mouths to give me any kind of advice.
I cannot tell a lie. Trust me, I have tried many times. They were never big lies or dangerous lies or lies that could truly get me into trouble.
There is nothing like an overcrowded bookstore and several hundred dollars spent on textbooks to dull the excitement of a new semester.
John F. Kennedy challenged the American nation to do great things "not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." He uttered those words because the Soviet Union had launched its first satellite, Sputnik, into space, and the United States did not even have a space program in place.
Last fall, I recommended Green Mountain Coffee Roasters as a short because of the fact that it sold - and still sells - a fad product and the stock's price was much higher than warranted by the true value of the company.
You've heard them before: Treat others as you would like to be treated; be respectful of individuals and their differences; and if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. They're what I like to call "playground rules" - a few standards for good behavior that we all learned during our first days of elementary school.
When you were a kid, remember how cartoons always depicted your conscience as a little angel sitting on one shoulder and a little devil sitting on the other?
Flip through "University of Virginia: Off the Record" and you'll find the word "preppy" repeated throughout the sections describing the student body.
An early spring? Yes, we will most certainly have one. Because Phil said so, and he seems like a pretty dependable guy. The academics call it clairvoyance.
For a night of fun, University students won't say no to frat parties, apartment pre-games or dorm get-togethers, but when the clock strikes midnight the word "bars" seems to reverberate throughout Charlottesville.
I don't think this is on the list of 111 things to do before you graduate, but it should be, so I will add it here.
Never underestimate the power of good food. Sunday night, groups of people will gather around their TVs all across the country to watch the Super Bowl.
In light of the death of Yeardley Love last spring, relationship abuse has become a pressing issue at the University.
During the past two weeks you may have noticed some obnoxiously tall women carrying around obnoxiously bright blue and orange basketballs.
