Welcome back to The Rival Rundown! If you’ve always wanted to give props to your school on CC, now’s your chance! Shoot us an email explaining what’s awesome and unique about your school (or what stinks about Rival U) at rivalrundown@collegecandy.com!

Old Dominion fans, take note! This week our rivalry takes us to the fair state of Virginia, where the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech hope to take home top honors.

Quick Facts

Virginia: University of Virginia or UVA, a public research university in Charlottesville, VA with 13,000 undergraduates.  Mascot is the Cavalier (or Wahoo).
Virginia Tech: The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a public land grant polytech university in  Blacksburg, VA with 24,00 undergraduates. Mascot is the Hokie.

1. Commonwealth Cup / Rivalry Record

Virginia: 3 wins/ 37 wins (5 games tied)
Virginia Tech: 11 wins / 49 wins

Three credits to: No question, Virginia Tech! Good show!

2. Mascot Matchup

Virginia: Officially known as the UVA Cavaliers, for its historical significance, the ladies and gents of Virginia are also known as the Wahoos, for the school’s rallying cry (“wah-hoo-wah!”)
Virginia Tech: The Hokies are also known as the Fighting Gobblers, and are represented by a giant turkey!

Three credits to: Virginia. Amongst these multi-moniker’d rivals, “Wahoo” is just more fun to say.

3. Fun Facts

Virginia: Founded by Thomas Jefferson, UVA is the only university in the United States to be named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Virginia Tech: Was twice named by Princeton Review as #1 in the Best Campus Food category. No mystery meat here!

Three credits to:  A close one…but we’ll go with Virginia Tech. Never underestimate the value of good food on campus!

4. Ass-Kicking Alumni

Virginia: Katie Couric, Tina Fey, Tiki Barber, Ted Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy
Virginia Tech: Michael Vick, Nikki Giovanni (Professor)

Three credits to: Sorry, Virgina Tech, but Michael Vick is really not helping your case. Virginia knocks this one out of the park!

5. Acceptance Rate Agony

Virginia: 36.7%
Virginia Tech: 65.4%

Three credits to:  Absolutely Virginia.

And the diploma goes to: Virginia! Though the Hokies crush the Cavaliers in football, UVA gets a “wah-hoo-wah” in nearly everything else.

No one should be expected to sit in the library or stare at their dorm room walls every day of the week with their nose in a book. Everyone needs something that helps them unwind, especially on the weekends.

Sometimes finding something to do – especially on a campus where parties are a rare occasion -  is hard. I knew when I signed my life away as a Hollins woman, I was going to be living in Roanoke, Virginia,and that I wouldn’t have a big city as my playground on the weekend. I knew I wasn’t attending a huge state school where fraternity parties are the social factor and that club activities would be endless. As a prospective, I remember asking about the student life on the weekends only to hear the same fib that my fellow peers heard themselves as prospective students: “Don’t worry about it, you will always find something going on.”

Oh, but that is very far from the truth. Options on campus are very bleak. From the first weekend as a first year, I realized as no one was around on the weekends I would have to be entirely responsible for finding something to do Friday and Saturday nights. While not feeling bogged down by having too many social activities planned, I like that Hollins has a sleepy atmosphere (especially for those weekends I need to do a lot of work), but for the most part – I don’t understand why we can’t have some sort of decent entertainment when the weekend rolls around.

The social scene at Hollins on any given weekend can be summed up in three ways:

1) You leave on the weekends

2) You rely on an apartment party or a party hosted by NEFA (a specialty housing dorm)

3) You hope the Student Life/Activity Board has something planned

A huge chunk of the student body leaves on the weekend. Girls carpool for the entire weekend up to Hampden-Sydney, an all male college two hours away and sleep on random futons since making the drive back in one night is out of the question. If Hampden-Sydney isn’t someone’s bag, other colleges like Washington and Lee, Virginia Tech, and Roanoke College can be visited. However, if you don’t know someone who goes to those schools, good luck finding a party or meeting people. What does the rest of the student body do when they leave? They go home! Students who are from Virginia or even close cities in North Carolina find themselves frequently going home because of the lack of campus activities. The only time students make plans to stay is if a formal is happening, which only happens twice a year.

Occasionally an apartment party or a themed party through NEFA will happen, but the frequency of this is rare. Also, these parties aren’t for everyone. Many girls don’t feel comfortable going over to the campus apartments because they don’t fit the cliques that live in many of the apartments. NEFA, a housing dorm for the campus’ artsy folks, throws unique, unforgettable parties, but most of them are not for the faint of heart. What if you just want a small get together? What about a dorm room?

Parties in other dorms do not happen, whatsoever, which can be very frustrating. Say it’s 11pm on Friday and you want to “Just Dance” along with Lady Gaga and your two best friends? Good luck getting through the song before someone calls Campus Safety to complain and a knock from an officer interrupts you. Every hour in all the dorms seems to be quiet hour. Whenever students speak up about the lack of social atmospheres, the Activity Board usually says “We have monthly mixers with a DJ and we invite other schools” to combat the complaints, but it does not suffice when no one actually shows up to the poorly planned and advertised school sponsored parties.

For a small university, Hollins is very diverse in its beliefs and types of students. Regardless of the variety amongst us, I have heard over and over again that not enough is done on the weekends in order to give students something to do. Yes, Hollins shows a movie every weekend in the auditorium and they have a shuttle take students to the mall, movies, and Wal-Mart, but that is not enough. When over half of the campus departs on the weekend to other colleges or home, something more needs to be done. How can a campus have a close-knit community when everyone leaves by 2pm on Friday and returns by 6pm on Sunday?

I am not asking for endless activities on the weekend. I think that students should be responsible for coming up with something to do, but I do believe that the university should endorse a more sociable atmosphere. Whether that means allowing students to have dance parties at reasonable hours without getting campus officers sent up or providing well planned mixers with other colleges, something needs to happen in order to help the social scene from sinking even more than it continues to do so!

In asking for other opinions from students on campus, Hollins sophomore Jennifer Old sums up how actions should be taken on campus to improve the overall weekend situation: “I think people are hesitant about the parties and other social events held on campus. Parties are broken up much more quickly at Hollins and the threat of the Roanoke Police has become very real. As for the social scene outside of the party sphere, I think there should be a community forum every semester. HAB (The Activity Board) should hear the collective desires of the campus and cater to the diverse interests of Hollins women.”

Obviously a social environment is very important to college life. Now tell me, how do you spend your weekends? Do you think your college provides enough entertainment and amusement for students? What do you want more of in your school’s social scene? Dish – I want to hear what I’m missing!

And now, a year has nearly passed, and I am about to turn the big 2-1. It is the day I can not only legally buy alcohol, but the day that all college students look forward to as their last passage into adulthood on campus (at least before senior year). It is the day that I can no longer get sent to student conduct council for underage drinking. The day I can walk up to the bar and order a mojito, legally. I no longer will have to worry about being carded when trying to order a drink somewhere. The day that I turn into a real adult – whatever that means – as decided by the world.

But really, how do I spend this occasion?

In my dream world, I would hire Girl Talk to do live mash-ups of Elton John, Britney Spears, and Guns N Roses while I dance alongside my best friends in dresses that aren’t just from H&M and Forever 21 in some sparkly New York City bar where we throw back pink cocktails in between cupcakes. But I don’t live in a dream world. In fact, I live in Roanoke, Virginia – which is as far from my dream world as I can get for my birthday, especially since there isn’t even a Forever21 of H&M for 60+ miles.

Although the reality of my 21st birthday may not sparkle in a New York City kinda way (however, my nails probably will in a cheap-nailpolish-glittery-concoction type of way), I am not going to let that stop me from having one of the best nights of my college experience. The question of how to do it, though – and not just do it, but do it well – plagues me.

Where do I have my party? In the sketchy upstairs backstage area of my university’s recital hall where I got caught with not one, but two bottles of champagne enwrapped in my arms last year as my friends and I stomped around to Miley Cyrus? What about in my boyfriend’s cheerless off campus house with his awful roommates skipping around the scene? At the bar in a town where college hangs-outs don’t really exist? Or maybe I should just have my party on my computer, testing out Skype for the first time with my friend who went abroad to Argentina? Does location even matter anymore, or is the night just about getting drunk?

Who should come? My close friends or anyone who somehow decides my birthday is important enough via the joke of a Facebook event they received? Do I invite my 18 year old sister and her boyfriend up for the weekend to witness the madness and hope that I keep my dress down (or up) for the night? What if I just invite myself and call it a day? Spending a 21st birthday alone – now that would be interesting.

Should there be a theme? Perhaps College Trainwreck would be appropriate? Afterall, images of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears circa 2007 make great inspiration! Or should the theme simply be me making an ass out of myself, as if my last birthday wasn’t enough when I decided wearing hot pink tights with a black tunic that wasn’t long enough to stay down was a good idea?

But seriously, when it comes to the sport of turning 21, what is a girl supposed to do?

Should I run into the closest liquor store and declare that it is my birthday? Should I wear my driver’s license on my sleeve and shout out my birthdate: “02/24/1988″ over and over again? Do I wear a plastic tiara and carry in balloons with me just to pick up a bottle of rum or two (or three)?

Do I attempt taking 21 shots? Do I stick to one type of alcohol or jump around until the room spins and I call it a night? Do I invest in a blender to make cocktails, or should I just slap down the money on the bar and tell the bartender to pour me another?

Maybe I should keep it innocent and kick it old-school style. I’m sure I can find some clowns to come make balloon animals and paint butterflies and kittens on my friends’ faces for the same price I may spend on alcohol. Or maybe I could do an assortment of games, including pin the tail on the donkey and balloon races – bubbles and whoopee cushions can replace Jello shots as prizes! I’m sure that would make my mom proud!

I am the first of my friends to turn 21, and I feel that it is my contractual obligation as their friend to start the year off right, birthday-wise. 21 gives the impression of a college milestone, and another passage into adulthood. With so many options and so many high expectations, really … what am I supposed to do?

Now it’s your turn; tell me what you did to celebrate your 21st or how you plan to ring in your own birthday this year. I need ideas, people. Help!

I know I do some of those things. I am a huge supporter of animals’ rights, but even I think that PETA is a bit extreme when it comes to getting their point across. And it appears that some of their members are taking that extremism even further.

PETA intern, Jennifer Thornburg, Cutout Dissection.com convinced federal courts to change her name to support Cut Out Dissection Month in October.

Now, I don’t know if it’s fame, pure insanity, or a real dedication to the cause, but this girl is making a bold statement. This is originality and creativity at its finest. All in the “name” of community service!

So why did this 19 year old intern do this? She wanted to raise awareness about the six million animals that are killed for dissection each year. The animals suffer painful deaths. She hopes to raise awareness amongst students and teachers to say no to dissection, and yes to alternative ways of anatomy.

Around PETA and to her fellow interns, she is known as simply Cut Out, but her parents still call her Jenny. She loves introducing herself as Cutout Dissection.com because it engages people in conversation about dissection efforts, thus leading to ways they can get involved and help the cause.

Although, I can’t help but wonder what strangers think when she introduces herself at the bar:

“Hey, pretty lady. I’m Jon.”

“Hi Jon. I’m Cutout Dissection.com.”

“What?”

Tell me what do you think: is this amazing dedication or just plain crazy?

Virginia voters have definitely heard to the call to get up and out, as many registration booths have been “overwhelmed” by the amount of people trying to insure their say in this election.  According to the Los Angeles Times;

“Virginia has logged more than 300,000 new voters since the year began. The state does not record party affiliation, but it says that 41% of the new registrants are under the age of 25, and an additional 20% are between the ages of 25 and 34.

The influx of young voters, a core part of Obama’s voting coalition, is an encouraging sign for the Democratic nominee in a state that has not picked a Democrat for president in more than 40 years .”

It’s always encouraging when young people put down their ipods and blackberrys and decide to take responsibility for a nation they’ll soon be controlling, and it’s even more encouraging that a Democratic candidate unlike any other is the one that gets them fired up.

No matter what party you affiliate yourself with, it’s got to make you happy that someone has finally (seemingly) lit the fire under the ass of America’s youth.

I remember my first Phish concert.  It was a warm fall day during my high school years, and I drove up to what used to be called the Tweeter Center in Massachusetts with a bunch of tie-dye wearing friends.  Unbeknownced to me, I was the only one in my group not completely high off my ass on drugs, but the concert was awesome just the same — even if we paid like $50 for seats in the dirt.

Riding back at 2 AM that morning (because Phish played for 4 hours, obvi), I distinctly remember listening to the friend of mine who was driving yell at himself the entire way home in an attempt to stay awake.  I probably should have been scared then, but I wasn’t, because Phish had been so awesome.

When they broke up I was totally bummed, but now it seems like everyone’s favorite jam band is back for 3 concerts in March at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia.  General admission tickets go on sale October 1st, but if you can’t make it to these weed-filled soirees, don’t worry, sources are saying the band will announce additional tour dates soon.

Rewind to the end of senior year when a certain girl was debating between College A and College B. College A is the largest school in North Carolina, is very serious about their sports program (which means tons of fans to party with, plus I love college football) and just happens to be an hour from my boyfriend. College B is a smaller but well-known school located right in the middle of a booming city not to far from my home in Virginia that also happens to house an insane Arts/Fashion program.

Of course, naive senior Amber picked College A so she could get a degree in Fashion but still tailgate, party like crazy and spend time with her beau.

One cringe-worthy break up, one failed class, dozens of racial/socioeconomic clashes and too many drunken nights later I decided that it was time to transfer. My decision was a good one, but was made too late; by the time I submitted my application to another school (College C, I guess), it was impossible to receive housing and a decent financial aid package. Then I remembered good ol’ College B with the awesome Fashion program and decided going there was worth spending one semester at a sh*tty community college while having to obey Mom and Pop’s rules.

Some of you may have decided (or been forced) to stay at home too, or maybe I’m just hoping I’m not the only one that gets upset when I see those back to school commercials with all the cute dorm furniture and kids running through campus. Either way, there are pros and cons to movin’ back in with the rents and I know all about them:

Pros

-Saving money. At College A my room and board was about $6,000, not to mention all the sh*t i had to buy for my dorm and all the meals I wasted on my dining plan by not using them. Do you know what I could have done with that $6,000?!!

-Free (and good) meals. Mom’s baked macaroni and cheese? Dad’s fried turkey? ‘Nuff said.

-No roomate(s)/hallmates. No waking up to hearing some random drunk guy singing the fight song in front of your door. Naked.

-Spending time with the family. Sure I wasn’t very homesick at school, but I still missed my movie dates with mom and watching WWE with my dad, not to mention shopping trips with my sister.

Cons

-Lack of privacy. At College A I went out around 11 to party and came back around 5 or 6. Now I’m subjected to numerous questions about my whereabouts even if I’m just running to 7-11 for a slurpie.

-No more (heavy) partying. No more Thirsty Thursdays. No more late night beer runs. The one time I did drink while I’ve been home I was so afraid of coming home drunk that I drank about a quarter of what I usually consume. And left the party by 10.

-No more dorm fun. To make up for all the crappiness of dorm life, my friends and I would come up with all sorts of crazy things to do. Now I sit around and watch old episodes of Family Feud . Fun.

-Boys? What Boys? With the exception of myself, everyone in my neighborhood is either really old or really young, meaning NO eye candy whatsoever.

Deep down I know I really need this time to rethink my goals in life and get my priorities together, but I’m sure the next couple of months are going to be gruesome. Expect a full report at the end of the semester

This past week CC asked our readers whether or not racism was still an issue in the country. You all were pretty mixed in your responses—a third of you said that it was a major issue, another third said that we’d made progress but still need to work on it, and another third said that it wasn’t an issue anymore.

Probably a lot of the confusion comes from what we perceive to be racism.

For example, a male Caucasian clerk is friendly with a Caucasian female and then rude to an African American male—now this could be a clear cut case of sexism—clerk is hitting on the female and rude to the male, or a clear-cut case of racism.

The way in which you experience that scenario is really dependent on your previous life experiences.

During my childhood in Southern California, I understood racial tension to be part of a larger issue—i.e. gang violence or immigration. For me the civil rights movement was a thing of the past. In the scenario above, I definitely would have leaned towards the sexist explanation.

Then I moved to Washington, DC.

It’s an angry city with a massive history of racial tension.

Many of the people who work in DC in fact live in either Virginia or Maryland (during the work week the city’s population swells by 71.8%!), and those who live in DC (aside from college students) are either upper class or lower class. The majority of upper class reside in Northwest DC or Capital Hill. The rest live in Northeast and Southeast. (The Capital is the center of the grid).

The tension is palpable (check out my earlier rant over the Supreme Court handgun ban ruling). DC was the site of some of the worse race riots over the years. The city has the worst public school system and the 3rd highest poverty rate in the country as well as the highest child poverty rate. Its destiny is controlled by the US Congress—a group of mostly Caucasian elites overseeing a majority African-American city.

I worked for 3 ½ years at the B. Dalton at Union Station located directly behind the Capital and consequently the place where these two worlds met.

Certain memories are imprinted upon my mind. One Saturday afternoon, four people started yelling at each other outside the store—that was fairly typical. But then I heard two loud shots. We all hit the floor. Luckily the gunman fled the building—otherwise I might have been involved in a hostage situation.

The cops caught up with the shooter and the victim was taken to a nearby hospital—and that was the last I heard of it.

Sure it made local news that evening but when I scoured the Washington Post the next morning, the incident was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t news that an African-American shot another African American. That happens all the time. The cops never questioned my coworkers and I (despite the fact that we were eyewitnesses).

It seemed clear that there was no desire to put a case together concerning what had happened—they already knew. I’ve seen more concern over a car crash than that shooting.

It was just another day in DC.

I was 6 when the Rodney King riots occurred in Los Angeles, yet before I moved to DC I probably wouldn’t have factored racism into the way the shooting was handled. Yet now I am absolutely certain of it.

Racism is ugly; an issue that all of us (who can) would just as soon pretend is nonexistent. But let’s be honest—it’s not going anywhere.

The schisms between races in our country will only begin to be healed through massive national dialogue. For such a dialogue to take place, it is essential to understand that even if you yourself aren’t affected by racism (or don’t realize you are), others are. Racism is still an issue—and it must be dealt with.

[Images courtesy of wikipedia commons and Quaker House]

Hello! This is the inaugural article of the College Candy Kaleidoscope: a summary of the day’s news. I am your host (don’t laugh) Kandy Korrespondant! So, without further ado…

Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the now infamous pastor of Presidential contender Barack Obama, said on Monday that attacks on his fiery sermons represent a societal failure to understand black church traditions.

On Monday officials reported that a Drug Cartel war near the California-Mexico border town of Tijuana has resulted in at least fifteen deaths.

On Sunday, the New York Times exposed correspondence between the US Department of Justice and Congress stating that US intelligence officials working to stop terrorist attacks may use techniques banned under international law. This contradicts an Bush’s executive order last summer stating that the CIA would observe international law during detainee interrogations.

Three NYPD detectives on trial for the 2006 fatal shooting of 23 year old Sean Bell were acquitted on Friday. Bell died in a hail of bullets outside of a strip club hours before he was to marry Nicole Paultre. The detectives defended their actions saying that they thought Bell and his two friends were on their way perpetrate a drive-by shooting. None of the victims were armed and no gun was recovered from their car. Bell was shot 50 times.

During a rally following the verdict, Reverend Al Sharpton harshly criticized the judge’s decision and called for retribution.

“We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians [...] This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell.”

On Sunday, Chinese students attacked Pro-Tibet activists at the Olympic Torch relay in Seoul, South Korea as protesters attempted to prevent the torch from crossing one of the major rivers in the city.

A 73 year old man in Austria has admitted to imprisoning his daughter in his cellar and repeatedly impregnating her over the course of 24 years. The woman is now 42 years old and is being cared for by local authorities along with her six surviving children– the seventh died shortly after birth and the body was then burned by its’ monster of a sperm doner (you can’t call this man a father).

Move Over Finland! The residents of a Cairo slum, known as the Zableen, literally “garbage collectors”, are some of the most environmentally aware global inhabitants you’re ever likely to meet. The poor in countries such as Egypt are already facing the effects of environmental degradation and the Zableen have decided to do their part to stem the tide. The Zableen collect and recycle 80% of Cairo’s trash. Their work prompted UNESCO and Proctor & Gamble to create Mokattam Non-Formal Education Project– a school dedicated to educating the community about conservation and recycling. Local tradesmen are also working with the Solar Cities project to install solar water heaters throughout the community.

And now for something completely different

This past week, the Florida Senate passed a bill to emasculate all state vehicles. Yes… sadly, Floridians are now prohibited from placing those humorous fake bull testicles aka Truck Nutz, on their trailer hitches. A similar bill in Virginia was struck down this past January. And to think I used to believe state legislatures simply sat around wasting time and taxpayer money.

See ya tomorrow!