The greatest health risk to us Cornellian’s is no longer over exhaustion from studying or extreme inebriation from Slope Day, but rather the Swine Flu which has led the World Health Organization to raise its global alert level and is sending the world into a panic. Mexico has shut down schools and museums, American health officials have declared a public health emergency and on Monday investors jumped heavily into drug stocks. So what is the swine flu? Is the country at risk of demise? What can we do here at Cornell to protect ourselves and survive?

The end of the school year is finally here and it’s time for your Sun final exam! Match each question to its correct answer. One quarter of a point will be deducted for wrong guesses. If the total number of correct answers falls on a prime number, 100 extra points will be awarded, unless that prime number is greater than 12. If you’ve laughed at one of my lame jokes in the past month, 5 pts will be deducted for shameless brown-nosing. Please DO NOT move on to the essay question until all your peers have finished this section, otherwise the smart kids practically obliterate the legacies on the essay section. Please use a No. 2 pencil; absolutely no answers written with ink or number 1 or 3 pencils we be graded. But other even numbered pencils will receive partial credit.

What’s been going on in this column? I have tried to make it a relatively ruthless criticism of everything existing, specifically in our culture. I have tried to get you thinking about how unsexy T-Pain is, how frats are undemocratic and why drinking underage is way better than drinking legally. Quite often, then, oppression, repression and resistance. So it is only fair, if I have ruthlessly critiqued things like my community’s sometimes blind support for Israeli policies, that the column now ruthlessly critique itself. If I have gone so far as to deconstruct, then this column will now deconstruct itself. Really, Marvin Gaye’s refrain “what’s going on,” might have been a better title.

I thought my legacy as a Sun columnist would be about something big. I thought it would be about God. In October, I wrote a column called “A is for Atheist” in which I took a giant step out of the religious closet, professing aloud my rejection of theism and distinguishing myself as a capital-A Atheist. I lay awake, eyes bloodshot, the night before publication. How would the campus react to my contention, phrased so starkly, that I do not believe in God? I played out scenes of apocalyptic fallout in my mind. Dawn broke. And emails started to float into my mailbox.

“What are you doing next year?” This time of year, many seniors have come to dread that inevitable — and daunting — question. People have all kinds of plans, and many of us legitimately do not know. Yet amidst all the uncertainty and confusion, nothing came close to what I was about to hear. Without even a twist of her comely, deceptively-innocent brow, she spoke with a voice full of the confidence of four years of liberal arts education and other worldly experience: “I’d like to do something good for humanity … or make a lot of money.” Or??

We were all in the bathroom when she said it. Each passive-aggressively vying for mirror time as we adjusted our matching neon green beanies and re-applied our Dr. Pepper Lipsmackers. “Ha ha ha, Shannan … you are so funny! I think that’s why I’m so skinny! You make me laugh so much. Ha ha ha! Do you know laughing burns calories? That’s why I’m SO skinny!” I relinquished my mirror space to the other vultures and peered down at my 13-year-old C cups desperately trying to escape the confines of my Limited Too top. My boat-feet, shoved into under-sized Mary Jane platforms, glowered back at me like black suns setting over my lady mountains. As I peeled apart the portions of my thighs left exposed over the sagging crotch of my 5, 7, 9 pantyhose, I realized that the only thing more ridiculous than what the third Kate in our group of future mean girls had just said was the fact that I had spent years pretending to be a better singer than weightlifter, brownie-baker than hot-dog-eating contestant, Spice Girls dance choreographer than Punisher. I had spent the majority of middle school feeling like I was wandering around a room full of Precious Moments, wearing rollerblades and a camping backpack. Yet there I was, an accomplice, a sister to the Slaves of the Comb and Mirror. I finished blow-drying my pits, and silently made my exit.

Today marks the 100th day of President Barack Obama’s current term in office. News media hype aside, the President’s 100th day is an important milestone for the American public’s perception of the Executive Branch and has served as a definite marker for policymaking decisions since the times of FDR. The actions taken by the president within his first five months are indicative both of his priorities and of his leadership style. Most importantly, however, the 100th day unofficially cements the tone the president wishes to set throughout the remaining three-plus year in office.

Life is strange. Last week, I participated in one of the most powerful demonstrations I’ve been a part of at Cornell. I found myself crying outside of the Chi Alpha meeting as Chris Donohoe ’09 and Jarrod Schaeffer ’09 stood on the steps of McGraw Hall, addressing the crowd of 200 people after we had stood for 20 minutes in reflective silence. I was there with my mother at my side, acknowledging faces I recognized from all over campus — from first-year fraternity members to Hillel friends to radical gay rights activists — in the physical center of what has been my academic locus at Cornell. It seemed to be almost too suiting of an end to my time here on the Hill. But there’s more to it. At the same time that we were standing outside, bonded together with one interpretation of what human dignity is, Chi Alpha was inside — bonding together over theirs. I could not disagree more with Chi Alpha’s stance on homosexuality’s immorality. However, what the demonstration did was reinforce the humanity of the “other” in the most respectful and conscientious way I could have imagined.

Feminism is not dead — it is part of a tradition. The tradition did not start in the 1960s, nor at the turn of the 20th century. It has been around for centuries, and it lives on. I know this because, quite simply, I can feel it. Some people don’t want to call it feminism, and maybe there’s a better name for it. But I haven’t found it yet. Certain works of art and literature have shaped my understanding of what feminism stands for, by bringing into focus what I always knew but somehow ignored. For my last column at Cornell, I’d like to share them with you, in neither chronological nor alphabetical order.

I hated beer, my jeans were too loose and I was scared of dancing in public. It’s hard to remember much else from four years ago because so much in my life has changed (e.g., I would now kill to be able to fit into those jeans). I arrived at Cornell with the self-image of a true high school nerd. I had been to band camp, five consecutive math fairs and every midnight Star Wars premier. Left to my own devices, I probably would have spent my freshman year hiding in my dorm room with my stuffed animals, leaving only for classes and my a cappella group’s rehearsals. Thankfully, two things saved me from this disturbing fate: a preference for really geeky guys shocked by the prospect of a girl noticing them let alone hooking up with them, and my incredible roommate.