Author Archives: RotBot

Lunchbox + New Teen Force = So Chill


This just in from Elizabeth Litvitskiy ’15:

Hi Everyone. What’s up? Good. This friday there will be a Lunchbox show (Lunchbox is Wesleyan’s oldest and only SOLELY sketch comedy group, sketch comedy is like SNL, Lunchbox is better than SNL) and it’s the last one of the semester. New Teen Force will open with improv, but then there’s a whole bunch of new stuff that we’d love to share with you. Come on down, sweetbreads!

Date: Friday, December 07
Time: 9 pm
Place: Nics Lounge
Cost: Reasonably Cheap

Send Wesleying Pictures of Your Facial Hair

Don’t Be Shy. ;)

It’s that time of year. You’ve endured, you’ve prospered. You’ve sat through your grandmother’s complaints over Thanksgiving. It is time to reap what you hath sewed. Ye bearded men, ’tis the time to reflect upon what has grown upon your face. Snap a shot of your beard, ‘stache, fu manchu, or even neard (I myself won best neard two yeards in a row). The possibilities for categories are only limited by the possibility within your facial hair follicles. Help us make this roundup better than all the past years!

Before you shave, send your face to staff(at)wesleying(dot)org and put “NOVEMBEARD” in the subject line so we know what’s up. Also include a brief blurb or reflection on your beard, and specify if you want to be kept anonymous.

For past beard roundups, click here or here.

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Wes Compliments: The Feel-Good Facebook Profile of the Year

 Think the internet is full of anonymous hate? You’ve been spending too much time on the CollegeACB (or maybe just Wesleying) and not enough time on Wes Compliments, the new anonymous Facebook profile devoted to makin’ WesKids feel great!

According to the page’s About Me, Wes Compliment is a “social project” started in Canada (where else?) designed to “spread the joy.” The movement has spread to dozens of other colleges, including Williams, Macalester, Amherst, and now Wes. Here’s the blurb:

This is a social project that was originally started by students at Queen’s University and is also experiencing growing success with Ryerson University, Wilfrid Laurier University and Washington University in St Louis. With their success, we’re hoping to spread the joy to the Wesleyan campus.

Simply send us a compliment for a Wesleyan student and have it published here anonymously. Your name will be kept anonymous. Keep in mind that hateful or rude remarks will be completely disregarded.

Alls ya gotta do is message this page with your compliment and the Anonymous Pro-Bono Mastermind ’14? behind the site will tag your recipient in a post with the compliment.

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Psi Chi Honor Society

This just in from Eleanore Pankow ’13 (and that’s her correct class year, and you all better recognize that and hear up on what she has to say):

Eyoo Psych majors! Apply to be a member of Psi Chi: the International Honors Society in Psychology. Majors with an overall GPA of 3.0 or higher, in addition to a 3.0 average or higher within the Psych major, qualify for lifetime membership through the Wesleyan chapter. Juniors and seniors can apply (sophomores will qualify for spring inductions), and applicants must have taken at least three semesters of Psych classes. Apps are in the Psi Chi mailbox in Judd Hall and are due by 4 pm on November 1st. Contact Eleanore with any questions about membership or the Wesleyan Psi Chi chapter: epankow(at)wesleyan(dot)edu.

Deadline: November 1
Contact: epankow(at)wes

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Reviewing the Library Energy Pods: A Big Yawn

Don’t Believe Their Lies.

There is something faux-modern about the new Energy Pods recently installed in the quiet corners of Olin and SciLi. The spherical casing is flimsy and oversized, the control keys unintuitive, and the display screen primitive and weird. The only thing cool about the machine is the fancy pod-like look. But don’t be fooled by the chic exterior, the future of power napping is actually pretty bleak. For more useless ramblings about my experience, read on. It’s midterms, am I right? (Are people still saying that? There are always large assignments all semester; it’s college)

When I got into the SciLi pod this evening, I put my feet up and expected to be transported to a cosmic world of comfort previously unfathomable to current 21st-century earthlings.  But the chair goes back in a fixed position, so you can’t really lay your weary head to rest, and my neck felt propped up and stiff. Admittedly, I wasn’t actually looking for the prefab twenty-minute power nap, but I wouldn’t have stayed even if I was. Note: the button for the default nap has an upside down exclamation point, so that’s weird. As I rotated the casing to block out the light, I felt like I was in an outdated planetarium exhibit at a shitty science museum. I plugged my headphones in to hear an elderly British robot wishing me a pleasant snooze. That whole Judi Dench-James Bond bullshit just wasn’t going to cut it, though.

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EVENT
First Lunchbox Show of the Year

This just in from Lunchbox peeps:

Lunchbox is Wesleyan’s only sketch comedy group! It’s like SNL circa 1991! We have three new frosh (GTFI frosh!) and a whole bunch of new material and we are so super duper pumped to perform! Bring your parents if they have an extreme tolerance for lude and offensive material. Bring them if they don’t and you want to hear them cringe.

Date: Saturday, October 20
Time: 9:30 PM (Don’t confuse us with other comedy shows, this shit’s the real deal)
Place: Nics Lounge Always n Forever <3
Why: Why not? Take a crazy chance.

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On a Different ‘LE7ELS’: Avicii at Cornell Causes Hospitalization, Public Defecation

 And you thought Cornell couldn’t get any more lame?

In possibly the most embarrassing story to come out of Cornell since the hilarious 2009 administrative email chain sex scandal, six people were hospitalized at a recent Avicii show on the campus. The Swedish DJ played a set for Cornell’s homecoming weekend, which turned into a drunken, ecstasy-filled shitshow. Literally, someone apparently “defecated in the bleachers” while another girl was “grabbed under her skirt twice while she was waiting in line.” Anyone who is familiar with the culture surrounding Avicii’s music probably has a high school friend that goes to Syracuse or Indiana and maybe studied abroad in Barcelona. Seriously, the music is not terribly popular on Wesleyan’s campus, which is not to say we don’t have some passionate outliers fighting for their cause. But most of our rowdy ‘n out of line behavior is usually reserved for more ironic and cool acts (read: cool is an objective and absolute term determined by the author of this post).

Most of the students were either rolling face or apparently very drunk, but according to student testimonials, “That just made things better.”

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Wes(hare)Boxes: An Investigation

Want to know what your mom thinks about sharing WesBoxes? Scroll on.

Last week I squeezed my hand into my narrow postal cubicle and found a pretty standard assortment of Wesleyan junk mail: some coupons for Dominos, a direct deposit receipt, some CFA flyers about the so-called “arts.” At the end of the slot was a nondescript envelope. It didn’t belong to me.

If you’ve read Friday’s Argus, you know already that shared mailboxes were a thing before Usdan came along and that they’ve made a comeback due to increasing class sizes. The incoming class gets the outgoing class’s block, which can no longer accommodate the number of students, so recent freshmen have begun to share. But why do upperclassmen who formerly had their own mailbox get subjected to sharing? Any number of reasons: either they went abroad and a dissatisfied student hijacked their spot, or they were simply on the border of two class blocks (read: I don’t fully understand the ins and outs of this process or how these upperclassmen are subjected to sharing later in the Wes game). I was abroad last Spring, so I am now sharing a Wesbox. But nobody told me.

What I wanted to talk about was the pervasive vibes of culpability I got throughout the workings of WesStation. When I went over to ask them about the things in my slot, I started innocently asking about the whys and hows of this system.

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New Teen Force Auditions, Second Chance

Does anyone even remember that dude Stephan Stansfield ’13, the pride of Lowell, MA? Anyway, this cat just sent this this in and it sounds like a purrfect opportunity if you missed the comedy boat. While we’re on that subject, we won’t change the subject now: 

Holy fuck, guys! New Teen Force needs new members to join the worst kept secrety-secret society on campus, New Teen Force! They do long-form improv comedy, a la free form, or, in other words, whatever. You don’t needa prepare NOTHIN for auditions, just come willing to free associate and release your inhibitions. The rest is still unwritten.

Date: 9/21/2012. That’s friday the 21st, Spookfest!
Time: 3:00 PM. In army time, that’s 15:00, the ides of March
Place: Fayerweather Theatre Rehearsal Room, Room 106
Cost: Free (form)

Come make some Fayerweather friends! They won’t stick around when your cat dies, but they’ll probably make fun of you!

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US News and Stupid Farts Report: Wes Plummets to #17

Why so serious, USNWR?

Not that anyone cares, because these things don’t mean anything, and they’re all just so arbitrary, and because rankings do not even matter unless Wesleyan scores high, in which case it’s super-exciting and you can disregard all that other stuff, but…

Unfortunately, it’s just not our year. The U.S. News and World Report—which by the way, has ranked as the #1 most useless publication three years in a row in this list I keep in the top drawer of my desk—had the gall to rank the prestigious Wellesleyan College at #17, down five slots from last year (or really up, does anyone else ever think about that, because 17 is actually a greater number than 12, mathematically speaking?).

Here’s the list, but instead of focusing on why or how we dropped this year (cough overenrollment cough endowment-per-student figure), I thought instead I’d focus instead on what it means to be number 17. I didn’t get very far, so instead I thought about what it might mean to be a liberal arts college (not in like a 21st century-cost-efficient-MRoth sort of way).

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