An anonymous tipster spotted the pictured stack of books in the Butler computer lab. "If only my finals were this interesting!" he laments. The books include:

Cannabis Culture
Marijuana
Marijuana-The New Prohibition
Sexual Power of Marijuana
Man and Marijuana
Marihuana Reconsidered
Marihuana Papers
Bitter Pill
Birth Control
From Private Vice to Public Virtue
New Concepts in Contraception
National Com. on Marijuana and Drug Abuse

It looks like there may be at least one student who's a little less stressed than the rest of us.

Bwog ventured into the dark heart of Butler to snap some photos of the most lived-in cubicles, desks, and chairs. Columbia, what we saw, it frightened us: A Red Bull bottle converted into a flower vase for a single dying rose, sheets and sheets of notebook paper used to spit out old gum onto, more of 212's salads than we'd ever cared to smell—we thought we had seen it all. But then a boy, having noticed our camera, went up Bwog and informed us that somewhere on the fourth floor, a creature was dwelling who had taped pictures of her family on the walls. While we weren't able to locate this girl, we encourage you to email us (bwog@columbia.edu) artifacts from your own Butler safari or photos of your workspace.

More photos after the jump.

In about a week, when we can barely even see the unfinished papers and problem sets behind the stacks of Redbull and tissues, Bwog will invite you to participate in the traditional finals week Primal Scream.

But this is not a time for that. This is a time to find great comfort in a class-free week. So tomorrow sleep in, cook brunch, read the morning paper. And tonight, at midnight, we invite you to pause from your evening of merriment or early studying and heave a Primal Sigh of Relief.

Sigh like you mean it!

A bit of belated news (as Bwog staff members also must make journeys to their respective motherlands), but it seems that there has been an accident! As for the "details to follow," as far as we know they haven't quite followed yet, although such incidents on the last day of finals do create potential imagined scenarios for themselves...

From: "McShane, James"

Dear Team,

At about 5:30 A.M., SEAS student at EC was found lying in the grass in the back of the bldg. He apparently jumped or fell out of his window. Broken left leg appears to be only injury. Taken to St. Luke's Hospital where he is in stable condition. Details to follow.

James F. McShane

Associate Vice President for

Public Safety

Columbia University

BWOG IS STRESSED

SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS

12:00 MIDNIGHT

ANIMAL NOISES WELCOME

Overheard in Butler:

Woman A, shaking an empty Red Bull can, to random stranger at our table: "Excuse me, how many of these can I drink before I die?"

Woman B: "I don't know, three or four?"

Woman A, still holding Red Bull can, to man next to woman B "Hey, how many of these can I drink?"

Man: "Umm, there's no limit, it's just like coffee...your hands may start shaking and your heart will beat a little faster..."

Woman A: "It's not working!"

Man: "So drink more."

Man, after Woman A's departure to buy another can, to Woman B: "Alternatively you could go home and sleep..."

Finals are officially over. You are done, done and done -- even those of you in Intro to Accounting & Finance, Jazz Improvisation, and one section of General Physics II (the only Thursday 7-10 exams).

Congrats. Go do something really fun.

UPDATE: Some SEAS finals tomorrow? Bwog is doubly sorry.

Last night, tipster Ryan Withall recommended checking out 317 Hamilton, where, he wrote, students had gone a bit crazy on the blackboard during what must have been an intense study session.
Curious, Bwog took a break from work and headed over, to find a creepy crop circle of chairs, arranged in the shape of a heart. On the board, someone had scrawled some puzzling aphorisms:

"Taste love right now because forever eats at the Olive Garden"

"Bravery thinks for no one, love the face you share with friends"

"Treat yourself, you never know when the ones you love will move to the center of the solar system"

"The Bouncing Baby drowns my sorrow"

"Safety approaches those who full heartedly bathe in sweet cookie batter, for thine is the Sophomoric help"

Also, Bwog heard that some charitable sophomores were wandering through Butler several hours ago, getting rid of their stash of 500 condoms by strewing them across desks ringed by toiling students, as if to say, study break!

Need a finals boost? Be adventurous. Bwog freelancer Armin Rosen explores your options.

If having to wake up at 8:30 in the morning four days a week for the past three months has taught me anything, it's that getting through college is going to require some serious drug abuse. And if this fairly commonsensical realization has taught me anything, it's that drugs are freakin' expensive: a can of Red Bull is a marauding $3.00, while a decent-sized tablet of Adderall sinks me $8-10. Speed, despite its alleged efficacy, is more expensive than both and, it appears, extremely dangerous. Bummer.

I needed options, and found them across the street. With an inventory that boasts everything from beef tripe to squid jerky, M2M is the best place for crazy culinary shit this side of JasMart, and the array of Asian boosters is encouraging. Here's a quick guide to help you navigate.

Ssang Hwa Drink: At $.99, the medicinal-looking Ssang Hwa comes off as a bargain. Its label tags it a "refreshing drink," but a choking whiff of the liquid within proves this to be bullshit. Those depraved individuals who find refreshment in vegemite, wheatgrass shots, Georgi or any combination thereof have reason to rejoice. Those with an overactive gag reflex do not--the unpleasant visceral churn of the Ssang Hwa will have you on the floor in no time. Tasting vaguely like olive juice spiked with Red Bull, and counts such ominously-named plants as Rhemmania root among its active ingredients. And I still fell asleep in the middle of Asian Humanities.

Seeking answers, I showed the bottle to preeminent East Asia scholar William Theodore de Bary, C'41, who identified the bottle's characters as the Koreanization of the names and numerals on the label. However, he said his knowledge of Korea focused on Confucianism and Buddhism, and that he was unfamiliar with "the more ridiculous aspects of the culture." I then turned to Gun Yung Lee, a student in the American Language Program, who immediately recognized Ssang Hwa as a renowned herbal remedy used to fight fatigue or mild illness. Apparently Ssang Hwa is about popular as Coca Cola--those especially weak in body or spirit will drink between three and five Ssang Hwa-hot water mixtures in a single day.

Bottom line: Frat pledges, if you're ever forced to drink this stuff, it's hazing, plain and simple. Also the "refreshing drink" tag vindicates the cultural relativists out there.

This week on Cooking with Bwog we bring you a special two-week grocery list and meal plan. Use it well. If you have ideas to add variety, please add them to the comment thread.

The Menu

Breakfast

Oatmeal with raisins, brown sugar, milk, fresh fruit
Cereal with milk and bananas
Toast with peanut butter and a glass of milk

Lunch

Salads: lettuce, broccoli, carrots, celery, raisins, nuts, other veggies, articoke hearts
Dressing (if you don't have it)

Pasta: get two textures so you don't get bored, red sauce, and parmesan cheese.

Sandwiches: wheat bread, deli meats, lettuce, tomato, cheese, tuna, portobello mushrooms, and roasted bell peppers. Try doing a grilled cheese sandwich: butter the outsides of the bread and put the cheese on the inside. Cook in a skillet with a lid on it on medium heat.

Omelets: see here for ideas

The rest of the menu and a comprehensive grocery list after the jump....

Bwog isn't sure whether Barnard kids are all in Butler or whether they just don't study, but it's empty as a crypt over at Barnard's Lehman library, and Bwog is lonely. Having trouble finding a seat for finals? Take a walk across the street! Not as many hook up nooks, but also not as many creepy grad students--a worthy tradeoff.

- LBD

For those of you who get caught plagiarizing on your finals or otherwise, here are some essays you can write about why plagiarism is bad.

The one Bwog used:

Plagiarism
(missing works cited)
By Bwog

Plagiarism is a distinguished sounding word. One would almost think that it sounds like some lofty philosophical ideal named for the great Greek teacher Plagiarus, something to be aspired to. This is not so. Plagiarism is in fact a moral misdemeanor, and an academic felony. By definition, plagiarism is "a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work." Socrates, Plato and Aristotle would have frowned on such a practice, and "Plagiarus" would have been kicked out of the academy. Such is the fate of many college students today.

This year's second crop of freshmen should be finishing up their Frontiers of Science exam right about now, which Bwog learned was administered on 18 single-sided pages per test taker (not including Blue Books). Those familiar with Frontiers will bear with us for a little back of the envelope calculation:

There are approximately 1,000 students in the freshman class, so figure 500 taking the exam. 18 pages apiece = 9,000 total sheets of paper. At 8,333 sheets of paper per 40-foot, 7-inch diameter tree, that exam by itself took the life of a larger-than-average lodgepole pine. Pretty great for a course that talks so much about how global warming will see us underwater in a few centuries.