Alicia Puglionesi is a College junior from Havertown, Pa. Her e-mail address is puglionesi@dailypennsylvanian.com.

When actor Kalpen Modi - more commonly known as Kal Penn - started teaching at Penn, students were bound to take notice. Now, his class has attracted interest in a smaller University department: Asian American Studies. Enrollment in ASAM classes has increased in number as a result of Modi's appointment to the department faculty, program administrator Fariha Khan said.

I'm going to admit it: Princeton was almost my first choice when I applied to college. And for my first few months at Penn - when things sometimes got a little overwhelming - I wondered what it would be like had I made my home-away-from-home patrician New Jersey.

By trying to hurriedly push through casino development, some state and local officials have been playing dice with Philadelphia's future. Thankfully, Mayor Nutter recently repealed the building license awarded to SugarHouse Casino, ensuring the city won't make a hasty decision when it comes to the location of its first two casinos.

'Inveniemus viam aut faciemus." For those of us who don't speak Latin, this phrase means "We'll find a way - or we'll make one," and it's a favorite of Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Dennis DeTurck. He believes it's an excellent motto for College graduates in finding a career.

While preliminary plans for a Philadelphia bicycle-sharing program are in the works, a more local plan is developing in Penn's own backyard. Engineering seniors David Gorski, Baris Seven and Gabriel Kaplan have put together a proposal for a program called PennBikeShare for their senior design project.

The Princeton Review's Best 366 Colleges: 2008 Edition aims to dish out the real deal with information from actual students - but schools have some say over which students fill out the surveys used to compile the book. This year, the Admissions Office asked members of the Kite and Key Society, a volunteer group of undergraduates who serve as ambassadors to the Penn community through tour guiding, overnight hosting and other outreach programs, to fill out the questionnaire.

In the wake of Super Tuesday, Senator John McCain surfaced from the quagmire that was the Republican field to seize the mantle of presumptive nominee. As for the Democrats, instead of easing anxiety and providing some hints about who might be the candidate with the edge, Feb.

With the presidential election fast approaching, College freshman Atlee Melillo thought it would be the perfect occasion for some wedding cake. Adorned with two grooms on one side and two brides on the other, Melillo said she hopes the white cake she passed out yesterday in Houston Hall will serve as an educational - and delicious - reminder that gay marriage is still very much an election issue, she said.

With the arrival of Philadelphia Runner, fans of locally owned businesses have a new place to turn to for their running needs. The store, located on Walnut Street between 36th and 37th streets, celebrated its grand opening last week. Philadelphia Runner's opening was the latest in a series of local businesses that have come to University City in the last several years, following student staples like The Last Word Bookshop, Pizza Rustica and Metropolitan Bakery.

A Delaware Superior Court judge has granted a change-of-venue request from lawyers for Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya should she be tried a fourth time. Malinovskaya, accused of killing her ex-boyfriend's then-girlfriend in December 2004, has been tried three times for murder, each time resulting in a hung jury.

Recently I was perusing the Web site "I can has cheezburger?" when I happened upon a Lolcat that is somewhat pertinent to this year's Penn-Princeton men's basketball contest. (If you don't know what this is, please Google.) The picture shows two cats wearing crab-shaped head coverings with the caption, "can't believe we both got crabs.

Noah Savage didn't belong on the bench. At least not the Noah Savage that was one of Princeton's top players in his freshman and sophomore seasons. The one that started 55 games in a row to begin his college career and averaged 6.4 points in his first season and 10 points in his second.

Amira Fawcett is an Engineering junior from Houston, TX. Her e-mail address is fawcett@dailypennsylvanian.com.

The last time Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) was in Houston Hall, he was a work-study student running the arcade next to Houston market. Yesterday, he returned to Penn's student union to give a speech honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. sponsored by the School of Nursing and the Office of Diversity and Cultural Affairs.

Relationship Status: It's Complicated. While Facebooking classmates during lectures, few students stop to consider the implications their involvement in social networking sites have on their daily lives. Facebookology: The Effects of Social Networking on Relationships, a Women's Week panel discussion, sought to explore the issue last night.

It certainly isn't the first time that Penn and Princeton will come into a game at the Palestra neck-and-neck in the Ivy League standings. And it certainly won't be the last. But in this new era of Ancient Eight basketball, the historic rivalry game won't be a battle for first place, or even for second.