The holidays are upon us once again. I'm a big fan of Christmas - I love the hushed beauty of a bright, snowy night, Claymation TV specials and Harpoon's delicious Winter Warmer ale. Here at Penn, we celebrate the winter solstice with the stars on Locust Walk, finals and gift drives.

A Penn Law student was accosted by two would-be robbers on Sunday near the corner of 36th and Lancaster streets, Philadelphia Police Lt. John Walker said. Eugenia Birman, 22, was walking on the street at about 11:25 a.m. when she was approached by two women.

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

Some coaches use an embarrassing loss as a motivator for a downtrodden squad. Other coaches scrutinize every last detail of the debacle on videotape to help discourage a repeat performance. Then there's selective amnesia. Following a thumping 66-26 defeat at Villanova on Saturday, Penn women's basketball seems to be leaning toward the latter option: removing the blowout from its mental filing system altogether.

Wayne Ellington needs no introduction. In his second season, the North Carolina shooting guard has emerged as one of the best players in the country and will almost certainly suit up for an NBA team in the future. And while Ellington has started to become a household name, tonight will mark his return to the very stage on which he introduced himself to the nation: the Palestra.

Edward Anderton, a 2005 Penn alumnus, was arrested on Friday for allegedly stealing his neighbors' identities and establishing lines of credit in his neighbors' names, Division of Public Safety officials said. Anderton, 25, and Drexel University student Jocelyn Kirsch, 22, burglarized at least two of their neighbors' apartments and created fake Georgia driver's licenses in order to open credit card accounts, the Philadelphia Daily News, reported yesterday.

It's that time of the year again. As classes wrap up, thousands of students will once again fill out bubble-forms to give feedback for their professors. And although students provide a fair amount of information on these forms, key portions of this data don't make it onto Penn Course Review.

Bio prof. sheds light on Lyme disease Recent research by Penn biology professor Dustin Brisson suggests that chipmunks and two shrew species account for nearly three-quarters of carriers of ticks infected with Lyme disease. The widely held belief was that mice were the main animal carriers of the disease.

Alex Buder Shapiro is approaching graduation - but her days of playtime, recess and cafeteria food are far from over. The College senior is taking a job in human resources at Google. There, her playtime will be a game of pool with colleagues, recess will be climbing up an indoor rock wall and cafeteria food will be tapas at Cafe Pintxo.

Sometimes, it pays to try something different. Since 2002, Arabic, Chinese and American Sign Language have become more popular than ever before as students have come to recognize their value in the job market. Meanwhile, student enrollment in traditional language programs such as French and Spanish has remained steady.

A new Web site is giving students an educational and charitable way to procrastinate. By playing vocabulary games on a new, non-profit Web site called Freerice.com, students can do community service from their computer. For every correct word in the game, twenty grains of rice are donated to help end world hunger through the site's partnership with the United Nations World Food Program.

It took some practice, but 2006 Penn alumnus Pierre Gooding has the essentials of being a teacher down pat. He's learned how to take attendance, field requests to go to the bathroom, write on the chalkboard like a pro, check-up on nightly homework assignments and, most importantly, teach his students the English skills they will need for life.

German professor Liliane Weissberg's class on Sigmund Freud is listed under the German department. It's also listed under the History and Sociology of Science department. It's in the English, Women's Studies and Comparative Literature departments, too.

College students are attempting to return to the past by morphing their campuses into hotbeds of political activity. At yesterday's Students for Human Rights and Democratic Education Conference, students from 8 different colleges and universities gathered in Logan Hall to hear Former U.

It was a miracle comeback that not even a Big 5 game could produce. Villanova's defensive intensity and fullcourt pressure in the opening minutes rattled the Quakers. By the time Penn finally settled down to outscore Villanova in the second half, the Wildcats had already removed their full-court press.

VILLANOVA, Pa. There are many different things that can explain the Quakers' early-season struggles - perimeter defense, rebounding and turnovers to name a few. But it's what happens before tipoff that's the real killer. "We came out, and we had some jitters in the first half," freshman starting point guard Harrison Gaines said.

Would you like some caviar on your latkes? How about chipotle mayonnaise? Those are just a few examples of the twists local restaurants put on the popular Hanukkah dish at the fifth-annual Latkepalooza, held yesterday afternoon at the Gershman branch of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Philadelphia.