North-Pole

Are you tired of living in a city that smells like garbage, has the most fickle weather (literally, it’s sunny one day and snowing the next), is super crowded, loud, and (at least right now) overly depressing? Well, if you feel like you could use a break from being in NYC and, more importantly, a break from your dorm room, take a short vacation that’s a little more than a staycation. So, stop stressing out about midterms and go to one of these gorgeous locations for a weekend. It’ll be good for your mental health.

“The King of Free Speech would be absolutely cool as hell,” Prem Thakker, a first-year at Columbia College, says when asked whether he would like to interview Columbia University President Lee Bollinger.

Earlier this morning, Public Safety evacuated North Campus once a strong sulpher odour coming from Havemeyer was detected. FDNY reported to the scene, but the cause was quickly discovered to be just a lab accident in Havemeyer. Thankfully, it's now safe to reenter all buildings save for Havemeyer and Uris, and facilities is working on ventilating them.

Good morning, Columbia, and happy National Cream Cheese Brownie Day! Get your day off to a good start with your morning wake up call (then allow it to go downhill as you consume an unhealthy amount of cream cheese brownies).

Investigative journalist Suki Kim, a Barnard graduate, Guggenheim fellow, and Fulbright scholar, was able to spend six months teaching English at North Korea's Pyongyang University of Science and Technology in 2011. Her memoir, "Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite," now a New York Times best seller, is a rare glimpse into life in a country so secluded that she describes it as a "linguistic and cultural Galápagos." PUST is a place where students are bizarrely coddled yet trained to be unwavering soldiers of the regime, a confusing dichotomy skillfully highlighted by Kim.

Good morning Columbia! The tradition of bipolar weather will continue today, with a high of 62 degrees, but an 80 percent chance of rain at night. With finals around the corner, escape, for a second, into our morning news roundup. In Columbia news: