Drunk Monkeys... remind me of my friends

Happy 1st Snow Day UNH! I hope you're all celebrating the same way as me, recovering from last night, doing absolutely nothing and preparing for round two tonight. It's not going to be UNH's Greatest Semester Ever without a little effort.

I'm not going to lie, despite it being a really crappy winter, I'm not going to complain about waking up to this sight this morning:

For the first time since Halloween, it finally feels like winter at UNH.

Although, I am patiently awaiting a Union Leader editorial bashing UNH for cancelling classes because all of our liberal professors' hybrids can't drive in snow.

Like a Pro: It's not all that bad

Every time I try to have a conversation with a friend about UNH, talk with classmates in the hallways, scan fellow UNH students on Twitter, pick up a copy of local newspapers or even this very newspaper or my past posts, I cannot help but notice the pessimism cast towards UNH.

Our tuition is too high. Our hockey team never wins the big game. The state is cutting our funding and our budget is plummeting. My favorite bar unexpectedly closed. My professor has an accent. I got another parking ticket. No one talks about me on Like a Little. My advisor is useless. Our dining halls have some weird grudge against salt. I live in Stoke. (Okay, so that last complaint is acceptable.)

I will openly admit I am usually the first one to make complaints, or critique UNH for its shortcomings. I am jerk number one – the instigator of criticisms for UNH – but I usually try to make a point with my opinions. Or, at least I think I do. What I am trying to say is that UNH is not all bad, and when it comes down to it, I'm definitely happy I chose to come here.

I do not want to come off as "holier than thou" or some self-righteous preacher, but look around. Are you receiving a strong education? Have you made great friends who will stand by your side for years to come? And, most importantly, have you had fun along the way? If the answer to any of those questions is "no," then I feel sorry for you, because you are not taking advantage of everything UNH has to offer. The opportunities are there, but it takes an effort from the individual to take the next step.

If you are sitting reading this thinking that I am being way too contradictive of my past writings, I understand. But with those pieces, and I'm sure there will be many more to come, I am simply trying to point out problems that arise and how they affect the student body, but not necessarily make UNH a bad school by any means.

Most of the time I am just trying to reverse the damage done by the Union Leader (and, as of lately, Foster's Daily Democrat) whose sole mission seems to be to destroy UNH in any way, shape or form possible. If one were to read the dozens of front-page editorials and articles in the Union Leader about UNH, one would assume that UNH is a money-wasting, liberal propaganda machine whose only goal is to brainwash students and destroy the world. Because that, my friends, is what public education is all about!

And with that paragraph I can now cross off two more places I'll never work. I'm not saying that one opinion or side of the issue is better than the other, I'm just trying to be fair about it. If they get to print biased pieces towards the school, it's only fair that someone responds.

UNH is a strong, public school with a lot to offer. It has some of the most well-published professors in the country, with a wide variety of majors and fields of study, although with the looming budget cuts some of these may be eliminated. There are dozens of great student activity groups and the campus is one of a kind.

UNH provides great opportunities for students to perform original research, which makes our undergraduate programs that much better. For all the negative attention UNH receives from the local media, this school sure does a great job with the limited resources our state provides. So before you are quick to judge UNH as just an average state school, known for its party atmosphere, take a look around.

I'd like to see our state representatives and Union Leader editors tour UNH before they vote on or write on another issue that could determine the fate of UNH. Who knows, maybe they'll even learn a thing or two.

I'll be the first to admit that UNH is not perfect. It could be a lot worse. Just be thankful you don't wake up every morning and realize that you go to school in Orono, Maine. Like I said, it could be a lot worse.

Stay classy, not UMassy

Thanks, but no thanks.

So, I get out of class today and open my Internet browser to see quite an interesting and surprising message in my inbox. It was from TNH's Executive Editor saying that the Union Leader called him and they wanted to rerun my last column. The catch was that they would only run the column with my real name. It was a tough call, but I decided that another year of blogging anonymity was more important to me than the UL running the column. Plus, there is a lot of stuff I've written in the past that I don't want my name to be connected with. When I started the blog I decided that being anonymous would allow me to write and say things I wouldn't necessarily want future employees finding out about. While it may hurt my reputation and ethos in some respects, I know that the blog is better for it. (Plus we all know the UL is super conservative and they only want to run it to point another finger at UNH's terrible liberalness in a way I didn't intend.) Also, Hunter S Thompson, one of my literary heros, once called the Union Leader the worst newspaper in America. While I'm not comparing myself to Thompson in any way, I can see where he came from. TNH and the blog are fine by me and anyone who wants to read what is really going on with UNH knows where to look.

For example, today the Union Leader ran an editorial called "Lunacy at UNH" how UNH professors are asking for way too much money. Meanwhile, President Huddleston makes well over $300,000, which is more than 10 times the lowest paid "professor" (read: lecturer). UNH has a recent trend of forcing, or strongly pushing, tenured (and great) professors into early retirement so they can hire lecturers on one year contracts and only pay them a highschool teacher's salary, or less (something like $28-32,000/year). (On that topic, everyone points fingers at Coach Umile for his $300,000+ salary, but in his defense, our hockey program makes this school a heck of a lot of money in more ways than you think.)

So you need to ask yourself, what is more important: Better professors or UNH saving more money?  Just like I said in that very column: "Universities have become giant machines like most of the corporations our professors tell us to watch out for." Better professors lead to smarter students who, in theory, will make more money. One of UNH's shortcomings is alumni donations.  One of New Hampshire's biggest shortcomings is funding for UNH. It's a vicious circle, huh?

Stay classy, not UMassy.

PS: Check out this new song written by a UNH student and blog reader:

John will be playing at The Knot tomorrow (Friday) night at 10 PM. If you're 21 be there.

Friday Finds

It's Friday! I'm tired and haven't had my afternoon coffee yet and I'm loving this weather so this is is gonna be quick. Check out the new image link on the right to vote for Paul Thompson everyday. He's had a great season and really deserves the Hobey Baker.

This is me owning the Union Leader:

This is a map I found to be entertaining:

And this is a video that my friend's roommate and his snowboarding team made. Never really liked this song too much, but as a skier/skateboarder and film enthusiast I love the filming style they use.

The other day someone found this blog by Google searching "Can you use purell on swamp ass?" I can't make that up... and it makes me question our content.

Party on! And stay classy, not UMassy.

The Union Leader knows what's up

Pop quiz: Who does the Union Leader turn to when looking for quotes for an article about partying at UNH? President Huddleston? Student President Richard Peyser? Top faculty members? Any other UNH representative, spokesman or media relations personnel? Nope. Me. That's right. The New Hampshirite. Bam. (Or at least I'm the only one who returned an email...)

The Union Leader obviously caught wind of my ground breaking journalistic work, probably through the Atlantic Wire, which also quoted me. Okay, seriously on a scale of 1 to 10, how ridiculous is it that a newspaper would quote an anonymous student blog? Like 11? I don't think it looks very good on their part. Whatever, I am pumped about it and it is pretty great publicity for the blog.

Here is the snippet of the front page article that quoted the blog:

Some students are apparently still having plenty of fun.

A blogger at UNH Blog, which is not affiliated with the school, still knows how to party.

"I know that I have fun when I go out at night, and that is all that really matters," a blogger posted. "We don't need outsiders ranking our parties, because we know that they are awesome and plentiful. Plus, we got lots of beer. That should be one of our tag lines."

That is right! According to the Union Leader, I still know how to party! Suck it! I'm not going to lie, the only way this could have been better would have been if the UNH spokesman returned the writer's calls so I could have been quoted in the same piece as them. Kind of lazy, and shoddy, journalism to just rely on an anonymous blogger, but it is awesome for us. But I think it also makes it that much more hilarious. He actually wanted to interview me, but we just exchanged a few emails anyway and he just took what I had wrote on the blog from Monday.

Stay classy, not UMassy.