Meredith Aska McBride

I know very few people who entered college particularly comfortable with their religious identity. I knew - and still know - disillusioned atheists: people who felt trapped in the tradition they grew up with and some who were engaged in a particular faith but still wanted to go deeper.

If you have time, head to Chinatown with your friends for dinner some time soon. Take a good look around over the next 12 months, because by December 2009, you'll see something very different: a casino in the Gallery. And once the casino shows up, it won't be long before crime and decay set in.

George Bush was inaugurated for the first time on my 11th birthday. I cried bitterly. A week ago tonight Barack Obama was elected president, to be inaugurated on my 19th birthday. I cried last week and I'm sure I'll cry again on Jan. 20, but this time with euphoria.

Judaism's got it right. As per the Fourth Commandment (of the most-famous 10), observant Jews don't work on Saturday, the Sabbath (Shabbat in Hebrew). "Work" doesn't just mean paid work; traditionally this prohibition extends to housework, driving, writing and many other things.

My refrigerator's not working. It's more like the outlet next to the refrigerator; for some reason it only works two days a week (seriously) and keeps blowing some circuit. The refrigerator before this made a lake on my floor every day for a month until it was replaced.

It might seem easy for a school located in a city surrounded by great farmland to source its food locally. I'm talking, of course, about Penn, located in Philadelphia, a fairly quick drive from Lancaster County, Bucks County and New Jersey. But try finding enough lettuce to feed thousands of salad-eaters several times a day, every day of the week, for eight and a half months of the year.

The other night, as I was walking home from rehearsal, I overheard a conversation that disturbed me more than anything I'd heard in a while (interviews with Sarah Palin notwithstanding). I was walking down 40th Street in front of a couple of guys, clearly Penn students, who were talking about a woman they knew.

uick, name an aspect of military policy that Obama and McCain agree on completely. It's not the war in Iraq or the best way to handle Iran. No, both candidates think Columbia University should bring back its ROTC program, as they both said earlier this month.

For a long time, we've taken it for granted that AlliedBarton management isn't receptive to its officers' concerns. In the next few months, that could all change. AlliedBarton security officers have been fighting for better working conditions and a union for years, and it's been a struggle as the company's upper management has consistently refused to talk with guards.

Like most people, I don't think I'm a racist. And until recently, I believed that the racism our country struggles with came from somewhere else - where, I didn't know, but certainly not from my own actions. I was wrong. Just under a year ago, I wrote a column about DuBois College House and what I then termed its false diversity: a column that was written essentially from the perspective of the dumb white Penn student, a perspective that too many of us white kids share.