For the first time this semester I decided to stop by the Ivy Room for lunch on a Friday. I wasn’t too impressed. Rather, my spinner needed some serious work to be remotely what it was last year. Has it ever happened that you get in a bad mood if you don’t eat what you expected? I’m sure you’ve had the feeling before. And the tables, though more practical, gave the place the look of a school cafeteria more than its old medieval bar look. All in all, I would not take visitors down there anymore. Tsk, tsk.

Anyway, apart from my big spinner disillusionment, the journey to the Ivy Room was intercepted by the highest number of flyer-giving people I have seen on Ho Plaza in a long time. In about the span of 30 seconds, I was full of flyers for random things in my hands: a Bo Burham concert, a trio concert, soap from Gannett (WTF?) and a charity dinner in Duffield. There were a couple more flyer-giving people, but I don’t know if I missed any. My point being, I got home with a lot of multicolored quarter cards I can probably use for a collage … or something.

In an economic climate in which the University is undergoing budget-cutting mania, where the Financial Aid office decided not to print out financial aid awards to save money on paper, why in hell are people spending their student association budgets on f**ing pieces of paper? I want someone to take a poll: who actually attends these things because of the little quarter cards? I got the ones the Hangovers did last year for the sudokus, but, honest as hell, I didn’t go (thanks for the Sudoku, though. I recall one boring class it entertained me in).

Bulletin board flyers are more effective, if at all (though you can’t read anything on them these days — did the budget cuts also stop people from cleaning up the bulletin boards? Seriously. Get the people giving out soap at Gannett to clean them up. It’s more useful). Still, posters are a relatively idiotic expense. Want some PR? Play loud music on Ho Plaza, write the dates on people’s agendas and take at least 40 seconds to speak to the person. Yes, people, I’m sorry — if you don’t care who I am, why should I care who you are? If you want to have the little quarter cards over by the end of your “shift,” print out fewer, and save the planet.

Make passersby feel there’s something fun going on they should be a part of, not that they are doing you a favor by taking the colorful piece of paper you’ll give them … and that they will most surely throw out (or use for a collage). There’s already too much going on at Cornell anyway. If I went to half of all the events on campus, I would need every second of my after 4:30 p.m. student life, every day until 9:00 p.m., and several days a week I would have to choose between two or more events — some even from the same organizations. Don’t believe me? Do a couple searches. I am absolutely serious. Which means, you gotta have a lot going for you if I’m going to spend my time at your event (or, I have to be either blind or not interested in the world not to notice that there’s something else going on the afternoon/night of your event). A quarter card doesn’t do the trick.

But a webpage might. An e-mail might. A Facebook group might. If you’re a performance troupe, little performances here and there might. Going to announce yourself in classes that are pertinent to your group might. And all these things are free.

We should have an event calendar instead of that lousy “student” tab on uPortal (oh, yeah, right. I haven’t opened c-mail yet, but we could have it there instead) where people post their events. That way, just like Schedulizer, I can look up a time and day when I want to do something and get options, times, places. I would get out more often that way, and have a lot, lot, lot less recycling to do. And, it would also mean all you student groups need at least one person willing to learn to post things up on the internet, which might do us a lot of good to learn. It might even mean those computer workshops at the library have some turnout.

I appreciate the fact that people are trying to diffuse their events, really. But if all this saving creatively thing that Skorton and Co. have been talking about is true, we are all responsible for it. Let’s get creative, let’s start believing we don’t need budgets to get people together. Because we don’t. Hey, the best events I have ever been to have been free. And haven’t been here. Let’s see if that can change.

Florencia Ulloa is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She may be reached at fulloa@cornellsun.com. Innocent Bystander appears alternate Tuesdays this semester.