Bucket-List Bingo

April 5, 2011 By

School’s coming to an end and that means getting all the shenanigans that you can in before either your life as a real adult begins or you have to go home to your parent’s house. We here at The Slant believe everything’s better as a game, so Bingo fans, eat your heart out.
Seeing as seniors have had more time, the rules go as follows:

Freshmen: Just get a simple Bingo. We’ll let you start simple.
Sophomores: Postage Stamp: Cover the right or left hand corner of your Bingo card.
Juniors: X marks the spot: Plus sign or diagonals, you’ve had 3 years; get your shit together.
Seniors: Black-Out. That’s how we expect you to be on Friday nights and how your board
should look after you cover it in chips. That’s right, we expect you to have done all this shit.

Picture 1

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Llamapalooza

January 30, 2011 By

To the cheers of the student body, The Slant’s second annual Llamapalooza commences on Monday. For only $5, students are able to buy personal ads in the February 9 issue of the beloved humor and satire newspaper. Slant members will be on the wall and at The Commons from 12-1 PM Monday-Friday collecting ads and students will also be able to submit ads by contacting Slant staff at eic.theslant@gmail.com. Anyone is able to publish absolutely anything and feel good about it, as each ad acts as a donation to Heifer International, a non profit that provides third-world families with a source of income through livestock (like llamas).

To see what it looked like last year, click here and then click on the one with the Dalai Llama on the cover (yeah, we went there)

The Slant will accept checks (made out to Heifer International), cash, or credit card/paypal account donations which you can make right here (just forward us your receipt):

If your donation is made via paypal, please forward the paypal receipt to eic.theslant@gmail.com .

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The Hunt for Cold December: Meryem’s Theory-ems

December 4, 2010 By

Earlier in my semester abroad, I would have used all kinds of interesting adjectives to describe St. Petersburg, Russia: colorful, animated, vivacious, diverse, unflinching, exquisite. Now only one adjective is on my mind: cold. So fucking cold.
Nashvillians and Vanderbilters, love and treasure your weather. Write poems to it, bring it flowers on its birthday, tell it those jeans make it look great, and hold a radio over your head beneath its window when you’ve hurt its feelings. You are so lucky to have it.
Right now in St. Petersburg it is -6 degrees F. That is really flipping cold.
Luckily, Russians have perfected the art of bundling up. On any given day, one can only see between nose tip and brow line of anyone walking on the street. Otherwise, everything is covered. Now what material is it that Russians drape themselves with? Fur. Every day my ride on the metro is like going to the zoo. “Oh, look, 20 baby foxes! Oh a couple of chinchillas! Oh no!! Thumper!” My host mom has one of my favorite coats that I have seen thus far — fur hood and fur cuffs on a black leather coat that has fake leopard print panels across the body. Hot. Stereotyped ‘Vandy Girls’ that this newspaper likes to mock—take notes.
Other wonderful images: one woman had a fox complete with paws and head draped around her head, another donned a bright purple knee-length fur coat and lastly, the multi-animal coat, a long fur coat that was been clearly made from several different animals, each roughly patched together.
Luckily, the cold weather brings with it some perks. Most notably—SNOW! St. Petersburg has been covered in a sparkly white blanket of deceptively friendly-looking snow for a little over 2 weeks now. Although it is a pain to trudge through and Russians don’t seem to believe in shoveling sidewalks and plowing roads with as much vivacity as Americans do, I do love the snow. Mainly because it makes the days seem so much brighter. St. Petersburg is very far north and is famous for a week in the summer where the sun never sets and the whole city parties—appropriately named “White Nights.” Unfortunately, for a city to have “White Nights” at some point in the year it must also suffer through “Dark Days.” The year is drawing painfully near to this time and by the time I leave for the US the sun will already be rising at 10 am. As is, with 2 weeks still left, the sun rises at 9:30 A.M. and sets around 4 P.M.
Lastly, really cold temperatures mean really cold water—and that means ice. Every year, falling icicles kill people in St. Petersburg. Seriously. Luckily, the city has developed an ingenious way of dealing with the problem. Every day, teams of men go out, climb up on roofs, and knock down the icicles. Unfortunately for us below, this is only usually signaled by a thin bit of red tape that the workers drape across a far-too-small space around where they estimate the ice will fall. The only real indication that ice shanks are going to rain down on you are the ice shanks themselves—and by then it’s kind of late. Of course, since they are pretty good about getting icicles down before they get really big, it’s usually Swiss army knives raining down, not cleavers. Getting hit in the head with one would probably just cause a concussion—not death. The other day not only did icicles almost hit me, but then the contractor dropped the pick he was working with and that almost hit someone too. In general, people just learn to walk on the edge of the sidewalks, away from any overhangs.
So Nashvillians, rejoice. It may be rainy and chilly there, but an umbrella and a Northface pretty much suffice.

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Lessons from Russia: Skip the Health center, bring on the Garlic

October 19, 2010 By

If there was one thing two years at Vanderbilt had taught me, it’s that you can never trust the Student Health Center. If there were two things that applying to study abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia for a semester taught me, it’s that you really can’t trust the Student Health Center and the Global Education Office leaves a lot to be desired as well. However, if there were three things about health that Russia has taught me so far, it’s that all you need is honey, garlic, and a good scarf to stay healthy.
I know a lot of people talk about their semester abroad like one describes an epic party. (“Yeah, I don’t remember exactly what happened in the middle, and at the end I’d lost a pair of pants, but, man, it was awesome.”) However, studying abroad in Russia is a little different.
I’m not living in a dorm with a bunch of party-minded college students; I’m at a home staying with a babushka. She cooks me delicious food, does the dishes and laundry, understands all the bus routes, is cool with me coming back at 2 AM (or 9 AM as is sometimes the case), talks to me in Russian (since that is why I’m in Russia) and even keeps me healthy with her wise Russian babushka tips. Unfortunately, I can’t share the good food or the free laundry with all of you, but I can certainly share some babushka wisdom. There are three rules of Russian babushka health: honey, garlic and a good scarf.
Before I came to Russia, I thought honey was okay. Like, you know, sometimes I’d use it in baking, I’d put it on toast occasionally, it’s a great not-too-sappy pet name for my boyfriend, it was an okay series of over-the-top movies (Honey, we shrunk ourselves…again!), but overall I didn’t think about it too much.
Russian honey is like a completely different substance. Russians may make inferior cars, inferior economic systems, inferior nuclear power plants, inferior democracy and inferior alcohol awareness videos, but, damn, they know something about honey that we don’t. Russian honey is “look up the amount of honey permitted in checked luggage heading for the United States” good. My babushka says a spoonful of honey a day keeps the doctor away, so at the rate I’m going, I will never have to pay a medical bill ever again in my life.
Next up: garlic. In Russia, moms hang garlic around their kids’ necks when flu season starts at school. My babushka says her kids never got the flu, because she would follow this practice. When I tried making a joke that this was probably on account of no one wanting to go near the kids that had smelly garlic around their necks, she didn’t laugh and instead gave me a really concerned look. When I had a cold myself (so much for the honey), she made me a drink of warm milk, honey, and garlic and stood over me while I drank the whole glass. I don’t know if it actually got rid of my cough or if after the garlic drink I willed myself to get better so I wouldn’t have to drink or eat any more raw garlic, but really I don’t care either way.
Lastly, wear a goddamn scarf! Russian women are known for their sex appeal, but if you’re on the streets of St. Petersburg, you’ll never see cleavage. Women will be wearing scraps of cloth for skirts with 7 inch heals, but will have no neck or chest exposed. In Russia, they still stick to the theory that you get chest colds from having a cold chest. Now, of course, obviously that’s not true, but I’ve been wearing scarves everyday regardless just because it’s not really worth the germ theory explanation (in Russian) to my babushka.
Now, I realize I’ve made jokes of the three cardinal rules of health in Russia. But at the same time, though I and most of my commrades in the Russian program have all gotten colds, I haven’t seen any Russians with runny noses. In fact, I pretty much never see a sick Russian. And besides, it can’t be worse than going to the health center, right?

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Why I can’t understand how Russians could ever be good spies

September 5, 2010 By

A good spy should be believable as a member of a society other than theirs. They should be inconspicuous, incognito and inconceivably handsome (if you go by James Bond movies). There are a lot of differences between Americans and Russians, but there are three that I believe to be particularly detrimental to a Russian entering official spydom: sour cream, high heels and “th.” This may sound strange, but let me explain.
There is only one thing that Russians like more than severe rulers and long winters: sour cream (Smetana, сметана). They put it in or eat it on everything: soup, pancakes (blinii), chopped cabbage, potato salad, assorted breaded meats, toast, and the list goes on. Russian spies would never be able to successfully infiltrate the United States, because all one would have to do is look in their fridge and it would be immediately obvious they’re not American: “No American needs that much sour cream, get him out of here!” Besides that the spies shopping cart would give them away (that’s probably how they discovered the identity of those spies a couple months ago), I just don’t think that if there were a bunch of spies in the U.S., our sour cream industry could keep up with demand. However much Daisy tries, Americans will never learn to love sour cream the way that Russians do, and they shouldn’t. Next time you decide to get the cheese-flavored chips over the sour cream and onion, you’re not choosing orange fingers over whitish fingers, you’re helping keep the differences between Americans and Russians distinct. You’re being fuckin’ patriotic.
Next up, Russian women could never make successful spies. This isn’t me being sexist (I am a girl, so duh, I can’t be sexist); it’s just true. Russian women wear heels like Sue Sylvester wears tracksuits – it’s an every day, all the time kind of thing. It’s unnatural. At home, Russians wear slippers called “tariyelki” (that’s Cyrillic), and that’s probably the only time that Russian women wear flats. Not only is the excessive heal wearing a dead giveaway in that American women wear a lot more flats, but it’s just impractical when you’re trying to be sneaky. Can you imagine? “Have you noticed that clicking sound that’s been following us for the last ¼ mile?” Not so sneaky.
Lastly, in Russian there is no ‘th’ sound, making it difficult for most Russians to pronounce the sound when they speak English. Russians have tons of funky stuff that we have trouble saying: “shhh,” “sshhe,” jshe,” “chha,” and “tsssa” (ш, щ, ж, ч, ц) all come to mind as being particularly strange letters and thus popular sounds in Russian. So one would think that with a language that’s so shh-chaa-tssa-y, they would be better equipped to prounounce our funky “th.” But no. “Nathan” becomes “Nate-on,” “Heather” becomes “Hee-ter,” and “Mathew” becomes “Matt-eww” (especially if Matt hasn’t showered lately) when Russians are in charge of pronunciations. Russian spies must have to be vague all the time: “I would like one.” “Which one?” “…one.”
So, Vandy kids, next time you’re talking to the cute new freshman, and you notice she is eating a shit-ton of sour cream, talking vaguely, and wearing heels, be sure to call the CIA, because that’s a Russky! You can thank me later.

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Melodores Embark on Grandiose Quest

April 25, 2010 By

Today, April 21, the Melodores are having their final concert of the year, “The Meloship of the Ring.” To prepare, members have decided to forgo shaving and wearing shoes up to and throughout the duration of the concert. Throughout the year, the group has had many issues on campus with other a cappella groups, and the Meloship of the Ring is only one in an epic series of performances the group hopes to hold to honor their journey as a new performance group on campus.
“At the beginning of the year, we stumbled upon an old songbook of the Dodecs, and after seeing their bad tonal constructions we, of course, decided to burn it,” Sam Fortenberry said, describing the catalyst that sparked the adventure the group embarked on throughout the year.
After finding the songbook, Fortenberry describes how Concert Choir, wanting to steal the songbook for their director, swarmed the Melodores, battling for the music. “After the battle, we finally thought we got away from the Concert Choir, but then we found ourselves in MRB3 with no way to escape…” fellow Melodore Frodo Baunach said.
Barricaded within MRB3 with Concert Choir bearing down upon them, all hope seemed lost until fellow a cappella group Variations came to their aid, helping to push back the Concert Choir onslaught whilst escaping from the building.
“Man, I don’t know what we would have done without them. In the past, the Melodores and Variations didn’t really work well together, so it was great for them to come to our aid,” Baunach said.
Finally on their own, the Melodores found the nearest barbeque grill on campus and fired up some charcoal. Throwing the songbook into the fire, the Melodores finally felt like they had completed their journey in establishing themselves as an a cappella group on campus.
After the conclusion of their concert series, the Melodores feel as if they will never be able to return to a truly normal life.
“You know, I really think that kind of journey just changes a person, whether he be hobbit, human, or harmonic singer,” Fortenberry said.

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What a Glorious Year

April 9, 2010 By

I can’t believe it’s already here—this is my last issue as editor-in-chief of The Slant. It’s the end of an era… well, it’s at least the end of my reign. Every year, it’s tradition for the next year’s editor-in-chief to put together the last issue of the current year. Thus, in two weeks time, the last issue of The Slant for this year will publish, but you won’t see my beautiful face in this spot. You won’t even see the beautiful partly obscured top-half of my face. However, with any luck, next year’s EIC will look just as stunning.
This past year has been absolutely amazing. From Llamapalooza and sustainable development plans for third-world countries to having a staff writer pose in a speedo for our Halloween cover, the year has been full of awesome. We raised almost $300 for Heifer International, we published an image of a middle finger coming from a grave, we pushed our own personal agendas (well, I did), and we had fun. I can’t imagine a better sophomore year, and although I’m sad that it’s over, I also think it is time to pass on the torch.
EIC is a lot of work, and the reason for having next year’s EIC put out this year’s last issue is only about 25% that I can help the new EIC dip his/her toes in the water, and 75% that after putting out a new issue every 2-3 weeks, I need a break.
Next semester, I will be studying abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia as The Slant’s new Foreign Correspondent, so don’t fear that I am leaving forever. Next year, I will be hanging with the Communists and the spies (that’s what Russia’s like, right?). In many ways, it’ll be very appropriate after having spent a year with The Slant, as in Russia they have a tendency for false reporting as well. But don’t worry; although Pravda has its perks, my heart will always remain with The Slant. So here’s to a terrific year ahead (although, not as good as mine, no one likes to be outshone). HUZZAH!

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Campus Organizations and Offices at the Top of their Game

March 30, 2010 By

The three best O’s on campus (organizations/offices):

Vanderbilt Global Education Office (GEO):

Here at Vanderbilt we are all smart(ish). Because we are smart (or like to think we are), we appreciate puzzles. Sudoku lovers and completers of crosswords in the middle of Economics lectures, look no further for your next riddle fix than the Global Education Office (GEO). These guys love to perplex, baffle and stump the international-minded students of Vanderbilt. Unlike a Sudoku where one fills in numbers, at GEO you fill in your name, financial information, social security number, dog’s name, mother’s grandmother’s cousin’s place of birth and everything else about yourself. After you have completed the forms there are whole new series of hoops (and not the delicious fruity kinds) to jump through before finally you are ready to turn in your application. Even this process can be baffling, as there are multiple due dates (and the secretary at the front tends to get them confused). Now what makes this better than just doing a jigsaw puzzle? At the completion of a jig saw you get a short surge of pride before you realize you haven’t been outside in 3 days. At the completion of your GEO application, you get to go to Hondorus! ¡Buena suerte!

Vanderbilt Commodore Card Office:

One of my favorite things about Vandy is the obvious socio-economic superiority that all of us have. However, every now and then someone of a lesser caliber gets in. The Commodore Card Office is one of the best establishments on campus for then crushing them. Want to wash your clothes? Swipe. Want to print your paper? Swipe. OMG, you’re out of meal money? SWIPE. When students don’t have automatic monies added to their Commodore Card from their parent’s bank accounts, the only way to add Commodore Cash is to go to the card office, itself (which has inconvenient times). Unlike richer students who can add online, automatically and conveniently charging student accounts or credit cards. To make matters better, the CCO doesn’t accept credit cards or debit cards from poor students and limits people to $20 a day. Thus, the less fortunate of our community are forced to wear dirty clothes (there are no change machines by any of the laundry facilities on campus and most Munchie Marts have stopped accepting cash, thus making them also unavailable for change), and pay more for printing (commodore cash payments for printing are several cents cheaper than using cash). Thus, the divide in socio-economic levels prevalent in our community is thankfully maintained. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and smellier.

Vandy Fanatics Student Organization:

The point of this club is to increase Vanderbilt student attendance and enthusiasm at sports events. What makes them awesome is that instead of “Fanatics,” they should really change their name to “Free stuff.” At a recent Vanderbilt Baseball game, Fanatics gave out free Snuggies at a tailgate that was scheduled to start 30 minutes before the game. Fanatics then let people get tickets claiming their spot to get a Snuggie over 2 hours before the game. The students thus left and then came back at the appointed tailgate time to grab their Snuggie only to once again leave. The 5 people who actually went to the baseball game sat uncomfortably in the bleachers, Snuggie-less. As someone who just isn’t that into sports, I can’t think of a better dynamic. Vandy Fanatics are fanatical; but about free t-shirts, Snuggies, beer coozies and jerseys. Go ‘Dores!

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Free Food: a McTyeire survival guide

March 28, 2010 By

With my sophomore year about ¾ of the way through and my editorship wrapping up fairly soon, I have to say I have learnt a lot. I have discovered that buying more underwear when you should really just do laundry is only hurting yourself, Easy Mac doesn’t have the actual word “cheese” in its name for a reason and most importantly, I have learned the fine art of food scavenging.

Last year, my meal plan was a glorious 28 meals a week. I’ll be the first to admit that as a freshman, I lived like a queen. Not only did I feed myself and supplement my upperclassmen friends’ diets off of this plan, but when I went home for the summer I brought a rather large bag of Easy Macs and Izze sodas with me. Foolish in my youth, I donated this food. As Cat Stevens said, I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger.

This year I am living in McTyeire. This decision has improved my Russian, gotten me really close with my Russian peers and half-starved me. McTyeire’s inflexible meal plan has caused me to take up an interesting life of conservation (always carry Tupperware, you don’t want to eat the second sweet potato now, but you will later), begging (making those favors from last year pay off) and scavenging. It is this last point that has really gotten me through those particularly meal-sparse weeks. Scavenging, or the art of free food, is one of the untapped secrets of this beautiful Acfee-indulgent campus.

Like a vulture to a dead-caribou carcass, a raccoon to a garbage can, or a leech to an artery, I attend a superfluous amount of free food events on campus, talk to alumni over dinner, schmooze to the chancellor over ice cream, or salsa over chips. Student organizations, the Admissions Office, the Office of Housing, the Engineering Departments—all have tons of events geared towards networking, looking fly and feeding me.

It’s funny how life works—two years into college and one year with an inadequate meal plan, and I have learned to scavenge well but not to cook any better. However, one very important lesson that I have learned: not that many people read this far down on my column, and of the few who do, most know me personally. Hey Mom!

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Counterpoint: ASB- Why do nothing when you can do everything?

March 22, 2010 By

ASB is a beautiful mix of uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, forced group bonding and service.  What people don’t always realize from outside the ASBubble is that sleeping on the ground can be really good for your back, raspberry jelly can spice up an otherwise tired sandwich, mandatory bonding can be marvelous, and the memories from the lives you touch over the week of ASB are irreplaceable. This year I spent my Spring break in beautiful Beaufort, South Carolina, surrounded by adorable children and the ocean. I got to swing from monkey bars, read children’s books and enjoy the gorgeous palmetto-covered scenery of a state I had never been to before. Besides the fact that one of the students I was working with called me “Meredith” the entire week, it was a great experience. So why do anything else??

Staying at home is for Frosh who miss their Moms or upperclassmen who miss their Mom’s cooking. We get it, the world is scary and returning home makes everything seem smaller and less threatening, but while your friends gain wait over break from their gross overconsumption of beer, you add the extra 5 pounds from cornbread, homemade macaroni and cheese and hours and hours of watching House re-runs. If your response when people ask you what you did over your entire week off of school is “nothing” or “just, you know… hung around,” then you don’t need me to tell you that next year you need to look into better options.

The opposite of staying home, some Spring breakers take the school-free week as an excuse to party on a beach. While fun at the time, it is difficult to deny that the “traditional” Spring break is a really expensive way to only patchily remember a week. Some people think the alcohol and drug-free mantra of ASB is a big ASBummer, but in fact, it’s only the true partiers that take up the ASB challenge. After an entire year’s worth of intense drinking, one’s tolerance reaches a point where it is just too goddamn expense to get drunk anymore. ASB not only lessons the expense of your habit as your body gets to reset, but it proves to your friends every year that you’re not an alcoholic. The rule is not ridiculous it’s refreshing.

Then there are those that stay in Nashville. Visitors to Nashville refer lovingly to the city as Music City, USA, NashVegas, the Athens of the South, Ca$hville, or even the belt buckle of the Bible belt. You know what native Nashvillians call it? Boring. Be more creative with your Spring break next year.

Lastly, there are those that do their own thing. Okay, that’s kind of legit.

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