With their spring break trip to sunny California on the horizon, the men's tennis team only has to endure the frigid Philadelphia air for so much longer. Of course, the northeastern terrain - or rather, the indoor sanctuary - has served the team well thus far.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this year's Penn Reading Project is certainly the shortest work to date. Rather than reading (or, in most cases, not) a book, as entering freshman have done for the past 10 years, the class of 2013 will be asked to "read" The Gross Clinic - a painting by Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins.

Is Twitter a way to stay in contact with your buddies or a manifestation of the human poetic narrative? This question and others came up for discussion as Kelly Writers House Fellow Robert Coover concluded his two-day introduction to the Penn community with an interview yesterday at KWH.

Yesterday, 2,700 Africans died of malaria, 144 South African women were raped and 14,500 children under 15 were infected with AIDS. International development efforts need both more time and more money to help eliminate these tragedies. Thus the College Dean's Advisory Board announcement that it will be developing an international-development minor must be met with praise.

Theft Feb. 13 - A woman unaffiliated with the University reported at about 6 a.m. that an unknown suspect removed her unattended watch from a room at Presbyterian Hospital. Feb. 15 - Penn student Iris Braunstein, 19, of the 3800 bloc of Locust Walk, was arrested at about 10:45 a.

From historical notions of beauty to the racial segregation at Woody's, colorful conversation flew last night at the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center. As part of the Office of Health Education's Body Image Week, Queer People of Color hosted an event last night called "Who's Sexy: Plastic Surgery & Race," which focused on how issues of body image vary across races and sexuality.

Jeff Cellucci has got to feel old. It isn't the harsh reality of graduating from college that's making Penn's senior catcher feel less youthful. He's not freaking out about turning 22 next week, either. And although his knees might ache after a doubleheader or a long bullpen session, it's not that his body is giving out on him.

On Sunday, the Undergraduate Assembly mulled over a policy update addressing the exclusion of American Sign Language from the Wharton language requirement before moving to internal affairs. While both the College and Nursing recognize ASL as a valid language for the requirement, Wharton does not.

This month marked the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth, and he has been getting considerable attention. My subject here is not his work on evolution. No, as director of Career Services, I am interested in the beginnings of his career. How does one become a Charles Darwin? A doctor's son, Darwin was sent to the University of Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, but it did not sufficiently interest him.

In what may turn your friend, your mom or even you into a modern-day Big Brother, Google's newest application, Latitude, allows you to broadcast your exact location to your friends and family. Available for any computer and on certain smartphones that are GPS-enabled, the application utilizes information from GPS satellites and cell towers to pinpoint a user's location.

Senior leadership. Or the lack thereof. That's what all of the Penn men's basketball team's problems have boiled down to. At least that's the line coach Glen Miller continues to offer as an excuse after the Quakers dropped two games to Dartmouth and Harvard at the Palestra this weekend.

Pete Carril knows what he wants to do with the notorious basketball schema he devised. "I'm going to get a bunch of gravediggers and bring them up to Princeton and dig a big hole in the ground," the Hall of Fame coach told The New York Times in 2007. "And then bury the Princeton offense once and for all.

Freshman Matthew Sommer is the biggest Penn sports fan on campus, and he has the points to prove it. An enthusiastic participant in the Red and Blue Rewards program, Sommer has acquired 59 points - ten points more than the second-place contender. Having already amassed enough points to acquire a free Qdoba burrito, Famiglia pizza, Penn T-shirt and Penn hamper, Sommer is on the verge of redeeming the 60-point Penn pint-glass set.

For Engineering and Wharton sophomore Prateek Bhide, a day doesn't go by without hearing his classmates talk about grades. Though competition prepares students for future careers, he said, "most of the people I talk to in the workforce say GPA doesn't matter in the real world in getting

There's a light at the end of the reconstruction of South Street Bridge for the many students and city residents who have changed their commuting routines since the bridge's closure. When drafting the latest plans for the new bridge, developers opted for a pedestrian-friendly design, a fact that pleases many weary Penn commuters.

Although the Class of 2009 will graduate to a fiercely competitive job market, its Commencement speaker happens to head a company that annually tops Fortune magazine's "Best Places to Work" list. Eric Schmidt, Google chief executive officer and chairman, will speak at the 253rd Commencement Ceremonies on May 18 at Franklin Field.

In the face of the typical year-end onslaught of high-fat foods and rich holiday meals, some Penn employees left family gatherings lacking something - extra weight. The "Maintain, Don't Gain" program, run by the Health Promotion and Wellness division of Human Resources' Quality of Worklife Department , challenged participants to keep their weight after New Year's within two to three pounds of their starting weight as measured on the day before Thanksgiving.