In lieu of a typical Guide to the Weekend, Bwog has decided to poll its listservs and aggregate a more helpful list of activities. The following are answers to the question "What do you do to procrastinate?" We hope you'll try out one or two (or nine) of our ideas and use the comment thread to suggest your own. Happy weekend!

• Change the font and wording of my resume

• Decide to take up short story writing

• Even though I live in a dorm, check Craigslist for apartments

• Make new Gmail labels

• Paint with nail polish on Post-It notes

• Change my desktop background

• Translating Spanish philosophers

• Taking four hour midday naps

• Fixing my bike
  
  
  (Read more...)

From the deepest corner of our hearts, Bwog wishes underclassmen the best of luck on today's Lit Hum and CC exams. We'd wrap this post up with a classical reference, but Bwog is being edited by an engineer today, so we'll just allude to the Wretched of the Earth with a dash of übermenschen and leave it at that. Excelsior!

(Also, um, hopefully the exam stayed secret this year. Everyone hates make-ups in September.)

Name, School: Taylor Walsh, CC

Claim to fame: Founding Bwog editor—for the first year, if you wanted a comment about yourself removed, I was your girl

Post-grad plans: Research analyst for Ithaka (the non-profit that founded JSTOR)

Preferred swim test stroke?

Freestyle: simple, painless, in a bathing suit as briefly as possible

What are three things you learned at Columbia?

1. Four weeks of winter break is too long, one week of spring break is too short.

2. It's possible to both genuinely love Columbia and to recognize its many flaws.

3. Measure twice, cut once.

In which Bwog Daily Editor Zach van Schouwen gives in to the demands of anonymous commenters and buys a plastic bag full of curry powder.

In a previous edition of Cooking with Bwog, our high esteem for fried okra was called into question by a number of advocates of bhindi. Bhindi is the Hindi word for okra, but also refers to a particular way of cooking it, using curry, masala and yogurt.

Anyway, it wouldn't be cooking if we didn't get to act like imperialists. So I promptly co-opted the Indian tradition and made some bhindi myself. It was pretty damn good, anonymous Bwog commenters, I'll give you some props. My version of the recipe follows, with instructions and a backstory.

First, it's necessary to cobble together the necessary ingredients. Hopefully, you have a friend with a spice rack, because you're going to need (1) curry powder, (2) masala, (3) cumin, (4) turmeric, (5) red chili powder, (6) salt. You also need about 15 pieces of okra (go to West Side), peanut oil (vegetable is OK) and a cup or two of plain yogurt.

Curry and masala are hard to find (although you can probably get them at West Side). I couldn't find them at my neighborhood supermarket, so I took a nice 90-minute stroll to Jackson Heights and bought them at the Cash and Carry, which is probably the least organized supermarket in New York. But cheap! If you can find curry leaves, use them instead of the powder. I couldn't lay hands on any, because my Hindi is... not so great. (I only know the word for "okra." It's "bhindi.")

Bwogger and hawk fan Anna Corke lost her Lerner mail key yesterday - which wouldn't be that big of a deal if the keychains attached to it weren't of personal value.

One keychain is a surf board with the Brazilian flag on it (from Florianopolis, Brazil) and the other is a beaded Resplendent Quetzal (from San Andres, Guatemala).

Send any news of the keychains or key to bwog@columbia.edu

And if you've lost or found something yourself, send us a tip!

It was just 11:35 PM when studiers started drifting into Butler 209 and perching themselves on ledges and chairs. 209ers, futility be damned, started Shh-ing the newcomers. One such 209er was one-half of Chromeo (the half that attends Columbia), though he soon made a quick exit. At midnight exactly, the spirited Columbia University Marching Band made their entrance as they played the CU fight song. Butlerites, amazingly, not only knew the words, but sung along.

Bwog's favorite publication, the Spectator's poetry-and-photography spin-off, 116, is baaack! In case you haven't had enough of the "not quickspec" tag today, here are some more links to click.

Look at these people, they are hip!

And look at the things they do with their fancy cameras!

- Thing 1

- Thing 2

- Thing 3

Girls have feelings! Golf clap.

- Girl 1

- Girl 2

- Girl 3

...and Spec EIC avows, "but I am no poet."

Because we know how cramped and claustrophobic Butler is at the moment, Bwog would like to remind you that the lovely, large, (basically empty) classrooms in Hamilton are open and available and yours for the taking.

In fact, Bwog is sitting in a Hamilton classroom right now and the blackboard is filled with notes from some class' earlier CC review session. Helpful, eh?

And while the building technically closes around 10 PM, security is usually pretty lax about letting students occupy classrooms into the wee hours of the morning.

Bwog has been readying a list of procrastination tips, but an ambitious group of SEAS students has outdone every activity we Bwoggers suggested. James Williams reports that just outside of Butler stands--yes--a frisbee-throwing machine. And daily editor Justin Vlasits overheard a poetic passerby mutter "and my heart is like a frisbee flying onto the lawn." Bwog is mystified by this utterance, but that might just be because Bwog's heart and mind are like a squirrel's wrinkled corpse, sucked dry by a masterful hawk. Thank you, reading week, for your joys (see photo at right) and terrors (see previous sentence).

Yesterday, Daily Editor Pierce Stanley decided to sacrifice a day's work on a ten page paper in order to bring you this report on yesterday's academic affairs. He hopes you, and a sympathetic professor, will appreciate his efforts.

While most Columbia students were holed up all day in Butler yesterday in preparation for exams, academic life carried on in the outside world yesterday. Thankfully, outside Butler, these affairs carried on with a less perfunctory (and to be honest, less smelly) air than that which has pervaded among the poor and huddle masses of the library in recent days.

Join Bwog this morning in welcoming a new publication to the Quick process. The Columbia East Asia Review prints scholarly articles by undergrads on a myriad of East Asian topics. There's something for every Columbia type!

The kid who watches the NBA playoffs while you try to study!

The human rights crusader meddling in foreign arenas!

The comp lit hipster who's into translation theory and speaks fluent Norwegian and Chinese!

The history fiend who talks your ear off about bureaucracies of yore!

The Korea buff who uses the word "Korean" an average of 3 times per sentence!

The Japanese Christian?

Spectator's done but the rest of the world keeps spinning, so Bwog brings you links to Columbia related news. Today is unusually dry, so there will be a special emphasis on links to blogs, things only tangentially related to Columbia, and stories that have already been covered to death (no need to tip us on BlondMinkGate ever again, thank you).

Gas into stone? A Columbia professor invents the new alchemy.

Matt Sanchez (dreamy as ever) knocks the J-School and its limpwristed liberal "theory" (contrast with hard-earned, hard-abbed "experience").

For avid fans of campus poster culture, a preview of Friday's look. And for avid fans of Barack Obama, something to do on Friday.

Still more coverage (i.e. absolutely nothing new) on the most amazing scandal of reading week.

Name, School: Reim Salaheldin Atabani, BC

Claim to fame:

I don't make any claim to fame, but I'm a former MSA exec and RA. I've managed to know a lot of people without really being known. And I suppose I'm the last person you'd expect to be from Las Vegas who actually is.

Post-grad plans:

Self-actualization? I'm not sure. I'd like to work for a year. Then I'm convinced I'm going to take photographs and learn Arabic in Khartoum. Eventually, I'd love to practice urban planning in Muslim societies as I listen to the call to prayer five times a day and try to live a carbon neutral life.

Preferred swim test stroke?

I haven't stepped into a pool in over a decade, by choice, which is one more reason I appreciate Barnard (and swimmers!).