Abby Bernstein

s the daughter of two hardworking parents, I learned early that money is not an object. It is for things you need and only occasionally for things you want. For me, it is just as important to be physically fit and strong as it is to be well-nourished with a roof over my head.

To the majority of college students, summer is about getting laid. On a more refined level though, it is about sexual freedom thanks to the 1967 Summer of Love which went hand in hand with low-cost birth control and reproductive rights. So how did President George W. Bush mark the fortieth anniversary of free love?

"Ah, the joys of spring!" As I looked up from my book, I soon realized the guys sitting near me on Low steps were not referring to flowers or sunshine but a girl in a miniskirt and midriff-baring cami. I felt the wind blow on my own bare legs and blushed. In the cooler months, my sweaters and slacks had fit right in with the stereotypical "rah rah women" crowd.

To some, Barnard is simply Columbia's stupid younger sister-a pointless institution for Ivy League rejects that should have disappeared two decades ago. Admittedly, the first time I heard this, I flashed my impressive high school GPA, standardized test scores, and college resumé and pompously declared that I had applied early to Barnard.

At some point in her life, every girl wishes for a strange man's hand on her ass. Not a mere suggestion of touch, like a brush or sweep, but a firm, full-on grasp. His assertive action does not repulse her; rather, it empowers her. For the woman, this unexpected physical contact signals a desire for emotional love and attachment.

Last Tuesday morning, while most of you were sleeping soundly in your beds or sunbathing in Bermuda, I was driving to the Springfield, MA courthouse. No, I was not on trial-I was assigned to jury duty over spring break. As I walked down to the courtroom, I expected to be seated on a relatively innocuous and speedy trial-like a lawsuit or drug case involving one of the winners from my graduating class.

"Is it usually this cold in here?" Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life asked me in the bathroom prior to giving her talk two Thursdays ago. I decided against responding with a spiteful answer ("no, it's only your cold heart") for two reasons: one, I'm not that ballsy, and two, it didn't seem fair to knock her before hearing what she had to say.

If we can have a psychological term for the man who won't commit or the kid who cries over spilled milk, then surely we can diagnose a disorder for Americans' attitude toward powerful women: the Hillary Complex. The senator isn't just a person anymore; she's an idea and sometimes a metaphor.

Whenever I see the "dare to say the f word" t-shirt hanging in the window of Barnard Hall, my first instinct is to say "fuck." I'm not dense-it's the first word I don't get. I might have been "dared" to kiss Tony Rugani during 4th grade recess, but I've never needed any nudging to speak on behalf of women.

To non-natives, Massachusetts is a liberal haven of Birkenstock-clad hippies and married homosexual couples. While I won't deny these stereotypical images, or my own tree-hugging roots (my mom once stopped the car so that I could retrieve the gum I spit out the window), other areas of the state offer a different (read: conservative) demographic.

Tragedy in the life of a celebrity or public figure is to the media what a fresh corpse is to the vulture, or a soul to the grim reaper. When the superhuman sphere separating the untouchables of society from us regular folks suddenly disintegrates, photographers rush to capture that moment-a cry, a frown, a forceful toss of a Starbucks cup into a trash can-any slight sign of emotion that will reveal them to the public as real people.

A couple of weeks ago, lab rat #17 (affectionately known as Rosey) began to get on my nerves. It wasn't anything she was doing, but rather what she wasn't doing-moving. Any learning psychology student knows that it is pretty tricky to train a rat to press a bar when she sits and stares at you indifferently while you're freaking out (silently, of course) about the F that will make up 30% of your grade.

Even though I slept through most of my political philosophy class last semester (it was a 9 a.m. class-what would you expect?), I do recall being awake for the lecture on Kant's "What is Enlightenment?" In the essay, Kant encourages people to use public reason-stating their opinions as citizens as a means of effecting change-but prohibits the voicing of personal views while holding public office, as doing so may lead to dissent and social disorder.

When I run on the treadmill at Crunch gym, I occasionally indulge myself by watching trashy TV shows instead of, say, the CNN headline news channel. The other day, I flipped to VH1's Flavor of Love, a reality TV dating show similar to The Bachelor in which rapper Flavor Flav of Public Enemy invites 20 female contestants to live in his mansion and compete in various challenges to become his wife.