This party of a lifetime is not to be missed. Natalia Fallas '14 reviews Project X.

Sometimes nature becomes your own personal restroom when there's no other option.

Unofficial student organization, The Gay Mafia, has been staging parties and events to make its presence felt at Cornell. Julia Fulop writes about what goes on, and how members feel about the group's activity.

As part of an ongoing effort to increase the safety of open fraternity parties, the Interfraternity Council passed two resolutions at the beginning of the semester that further regulate how fraternities operate their social events. As a result of this legislation, all fraternities can only hire security companies that are licensed and bonded by the State of New York. Furthermore, fraternities must clearly mark the party’s sober monitors.

A few weeks ago I went to a party. Actually, this is highly newsworthy all in itself and I half-expect it to be panelized and editorialized. No, I jest, I jest. Seriously though, I was at a party. Proved all the naysayers wrong, didn’t I?

This was a pretty typical college party: slippery dance floor, frat boys who don’t know how to drink, and girls who don’t recognize me from this primo column space and therefore react negatively when I ask them what they think of my column. Oh, and of course there was a DJ, to spin the hottest tunes.

Little known fact: Cornellians receive two diplomas at graduation. The first can be proudly displayed in a Target frame your mom had engraved at the mall, congratulating you on your satisfactory performance in the fields of academia, P.E. and B.S. (English majors, holler back! No? Too early?). The second, we can tuck away in that drawer of folded panties that I assume all adults have — “Congratulations! You are now slightly less socially maladjusted than you were in high school.”

This year, I rang in the New Year by myself. Okay, that’s not really true. Did I have you worried? This year, I rang in the New Year with my dogs. Still worried? Let me explain. This was not my choice (although I am slightly obsessed with my dogs). Actually, I had a pretty rockin’ new year planned. Three of my friends from high school were going to visit me in Vermont where I was spending the week with my family.

Hoards of students returned to Ithaca in waves last Monday, a full week before the scheduled start of classes, in order to rush sororities and fraternities. While sorority rush is strictly dry and confined to the daytime, men rushing the Greek system are encouraged to attend late-night beer-soaked parties at prospective houses.

The Inter Fraternity Council points to statistics suggesting that evening events are only of secondary importance to students who consider joining a house; the fraternities themselves, however, continue to lavish outlandish sums of money on rush week parties, and it is not uncommon, as a result, for a house’s rush budget to run in the tens of thousands of dollars.