It’s that time of year.

Need a study break? Like free food?

In case you haven’t been benefiting from the Blog meal credit cooperative yet — or even if you have — come on down to the libraries tonight and tomorrow for the semesterly tradition of Pizza Nite! If you haven’t been before, you really ought to check it out. It’s quite the scene.

TONIGHT (Tuesday): SciLi basement
Tomorrow (Wednesday): Rock lobby
Both at 9pm.

Expect crowds. (Also, apples.)

All for you. Those boxes are all for you.

After a brief decently-long hiatus, Ra Ra Brunonia is back and poised to drop some serious info about a quaint little spot known as FAVNCE HOVSE. While I may not take Latin, for me, Faunce House is associated with coffee chats, confusion over implied silence in the Leung Gallery, and overall great times. In winter, Faunce additionally serves as an oasis nestled within the frozen tundra that is the Main Green. Honestly, thank you Blue Room, thank you—you have saved more than a few fingers from the perils of frostbite.

Though most students at Brown are familiar with the ins and outs of the current Stephen Roberts (wait for it…) ’62 Campus Center, few recognize the long-standing history of the building and its progression over the 20^th Century. Faunce House was originally erected in 1904 and named Rockefeller Hall after the $75,000 benefactor John D. Rockefeller, Sr. The building included a large reading area, a smoking room and trophy gallery on the first floor, and a 400-seat auditorium on the second floor. Additionally, there existed numerous administrative offices, a barbershop, and rooms filled with f’real products (one day, one day…). [Read more →]

I’ve been here a full semester, and I still cannot gracefully enter or exit a building at this university. This could be a #freshmanproblem (#unncessaryhashtags) but I really don’t think it is. And I really don’t think it’s me. There are serious door problems at this school.

At least twice a day I encounter a door that seems to be “just for show” at this university. And it’s always at legitimately the most inconvenient time to be unable to enter a building.

First of all, the SciLi. This building has probably the most confusing door rules that a building could have. I don’t understand why the revolving doors are the ones you’re supposed to go for, because its obviously natural to want to use the push-y ones, which are just are quicker and simpler. But no, I see people every day go up to push, and then become confused and have to switch to the revolving door. I’ve also seen people get up and push these doors open for fellow Brown students. While that’s lovely, and shows how great we all are, it’s probably the most unnecessary good samaritan act ever. We could just have functioning doors. [Read more →]

Everyone knows college students, and Brown students in particular, love contradictory lifestyle choices. That’s why we gather wasteful amounts of food when we’re at the Ratty but the to-go section is “eco-to-go,” and why it’s not weird to hate on capitalism in your political science class and then take Principles of Economics to be “practical.”

So why not do yoga in the Rock during finals period? It may seem weird to stress detox in such a studious environment, but it’s also kind of awesome. Go study, then realize you didn’t do most readings, then worry about failing the class and potentially failing at life… and then go do some some yoga and tell yourself you don’t care about classes or grades anyway! The classes only last for 30 minutes and are taking place at the Rock every night this week at 9 p.m. Then, because you’ve been healthy and exercised, maybe you should go get some pizza. It makes sense…

Image via. 

It’s BAAACK!

Brown Dining Services has a few tricks up its sleeve to keep us chugging along through finals. We’ve learned that proper study fuel is extremely important, so seize every delicious opportunity and keep that brain working.

Working into the wee hours of the night? From now until the end of exams, the Rock and Friedman Cafés are offering free coffee at closing until it’s gone. The Rock Café will be open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m.–10 p.m., and Saturdays from 2–10 p.m. For those early risers during the exam period, both the Ratty and the Blue Room will be open at 7 a.m.

Stuffed French toast at Jo’s has made its epic return. Monday through Friday for the next two weeks, the Three Burner station at Jo’s is going to be serving up this campus favorite that’s “cooked in the pan with a lump of butter, the way French toast should be done,” according to Aaron Fitzsenry. If that doesn’t sound indulgent enough, assorted toppings like mango and white chocolate chips will be available to add as well.

If that wasn’t enough to send you running down Thayer Street to Jo’s, here are some other fancy, new specials to look out for: [Read more →]

This is no ordinary water fountain.

If you like carrying around a water bottle, then you probably like hydration stations, or other similar devices that allow you to fill up your bottle without getting your hand wet.

Maybe you thought they were restricted to new and renovated buildings on campus, but some oldies — like the Rock — have them too. See that little button in the upper-right corner of the water fountain? Indeed, that’s an old-school hydration station. There’s no motion sensor or anything fancy like that, but it does the job well.

Needed: a water bottle to fill.

As of my last observation, the ones on the third and fourth floors work. Sadly, the basement one does not. File a Facilities service request?

Many students at Brown, regardless of their present concentration, grew up reading fabulous literature — classics such as Frog and Toad, In the Night Kitchen, and Shel Silverstein’s various nightmare visions of poetry.

Shel took all his classes S/NC, and look where HE went

When we grew older, we learned of the glories of science fiction, that magical realm where galactic empires rose and fell, robots battled from dusk til dawn, and farm boys from desert planets made out with their sisters. Truly, those were the boldest visions of the imagination.

Occupying one of the loftiest positions in the genre was, is, and forever shall be Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card’s classic novel of youth-turned-soldier in the service of humanity. Without giving too much away, at one point in the novel a group of child-commanders are controlling a computer simulation of a space battle. Their ships are equipped with an amazing weapon that, when detonated, forms an ever-expanding sphere of energy that basically turns whatever matter is around it into space dust. Every time the wave of destruction hits a new thing, it grows more powerful until it finally eats up all it can and then dissipates.

The aliens in the simulation start out ignorant of the weapon’s power. The children fire it into the tightly-packed ships and the cosmic death sphere expands rapidly, eating them all up. Easy victory. In later computer battles, though, the enemy’s AI gradually realizes that if the ships spread themselves out and avoid bunching up, the explosion of one won’t allow the wave of destruction to reach the whole fleet. They become harder to eradicate and better equipped for revenge.

All of which is to say: don’t take the carrel right next to someone in the library.

[Read more →]

Everyone loves free pizza.

If you’re in the library and are looking for a little more free food than was what was handed to you last night, head on down to Pizza Nite, taking place at 9 p.m. tonight at the SciLi and at the same time tomorrow at the Rock.

Pizza Nite, a semesterly tradition, is a night unlike all others: Friendly library workers bring out boxes and boxes of pizza by the stack, feeding the hungry masses. Depending on the crowds, it can one of the more epic free pizza events out there.

Brown students aren’t known for being particularly religious (although students definitely adhere to the Church of Whisko or the Gospel of CFF). But as finals come upon us, and we rummage up those crumpled notes beneath the Natty cans, Brunonians become downright spiritual.

How does reading period bring out the convert in all of us? Let me count the ways:

1. Everyone says that they “observe reading period.”

There are many things we can observe in life. Stars. A drunken brawl. That cute boy in class through binoculars from behind the bushes at midnight. But there are only two ways to observe an extended period of time: Do it religiously, or transcend time and space (in which case, you might stand a chance in PHYS0160. Maybe).

[Read more →]

Get it before it's gone!

Last night, masses of hungry students at the SciLi were fed at Pizza Nite, courtesy Campus Life and the University Library.

Tonight, the awesomeness repeats itself at the Rock at 9 pm. I was chatting with one of the librarians, and he mentioned that they order 90 pizzas for the SciLi’s Pizza Nite and 80 pizzas for the Rock’s. Last night, the pizza was almost all gone in a little over five minutes.

While everyone was waiting for the pizza, they were greeted with a surprise: a cappella caroling. Check out photos from last night after the jump. [Read more →]