It's time for another installment of Senior Wisdom as we check in with Rhodes Scholar and PBKer Jason Bello.

Name, School:

Jason Bello, CC 08

Claim to fame:

Almost burning down Hartley (several times) and getting my own CTV cooking show out of it ("The Careless Cook").

Post-grad plans:

I am leaving the US during the most exciting election in decades to study political science (thank goodness for comparative politics).

Preferred swim test stroke?

Synchronized swimming with Rahul Jain and Felipe Tarud.

What are three things you learned at Columbia?

1. If you're hosting a dinner gathering, a surefire way to get everybody to know each other is to come late to your own party :)
2. People who are balder than their opponents get on average between 3% and 6% less votes in open gubernatorial elections (original research from W4911).
3. It's okay to have a messy room (replies my suitemate: "that is what you think, not what you learned").

Justify your existence in 30 words or less.

3 pounds lamb

2 tablespoons oil

Onion

Celery stalk

Carrot

4 garlic cloves

4 oz tomato-paste

1/2 cup each: white wine, mushrooms

Can crushed tomatoes

Red pepper flakes

Salt/Pepper

What was your favorite controversy in your time at Columbia?

Oh man, I have to pick one? I'd go with the time Ann Coulter tried to bust the S&M club meeting in Hamilton.

What Columbia memory best exemplifies your college experience?

Me: [makes a Bush joke expecting everybody in New York to dislike Bush]

Girl: I'm a Republican.

Me: Oh, you see, I'm politically moderate, I love Republicans, just not the super-extremist kind, you know, like the ones who love George Bush.

Girl: I hate George Bush.

Me: See what I told you.

Girl: He's too liberal.

Which prof do you think would be the best kisser?

Wow, I don't think I'm going to even venture a guess here... He or she is definitely not in my beloved Political Science or Economics departments. If I were looking, I'd probably go to Anthro.

What percentage of seniors do you think are virgins?

So I took a look at the guesses from last year's responses, and the comments showed some dissatisfaction with the random speculation. I figured I could put my Poli-Sci Econ education to work by guessing the sexual histories of my first 100 friends (in alphabetical order) on Facebook. From that, my estimation of the 95% confidence interval for the percent of virgins (among my friends at least) is between 13% and 29%.

Would you rather permanently give up oral sex or cheese?

You're asking the Careless Cook? Oral sex, duh.

Days on Campus memory?

I was on waitlist and I hadn't heard yet, so I was back home in Massachusetts behaving like any other second semester senior.

Regrets?

Not to get all sappy, but none. It's easy to take it for granted (and I almost forgot to mention it) but this is a pretty cool place with a lot of really awesome people.