It's happening right now in front of Low. Clipse and Vampire Weekend! Go, go, go!

UPDATE, Sunday, 9:35 AM: See great photos of the concert here!

If you hurry you can catch Battles playing at the South Street Seaport. First-years: might be a nice alternative to open mic night in Lerner.

One of our favorites from Orientation 2006.

It's your first day at Columbia. Mom and Dad just drove back to New Jersey, and you are ready to celebrate your newfound freedom. But wait. Shit! You've heard that Columbia is an awful party school. They say the only fun thing to do here is cocaine, but you don't want to put anything in your nose. You're planning on being pre-med; noses are for sneezing.

You want to drink. Well never fear: did you know you can overcome homesickness by drinking? Bwog contributor Will Snider channels this spirit to conjure a typical first night out during Orientation Week. So sit back, relax, and forget everything you learned from alcohol.edu. Remember, you're pre-med. You know that shit.

10:30pm -- Your Floor Meeting just ended. After learning from your RA "what it means to be part of a vibrant campus community," you're ready to kill some brain cells. Rob, that sort of sketchy guy on your floor who wears way too much Axe deodorant and brags about being from Buffalo, pulls out a handle of Nikolai vodka and punches you in the stomach saying, "It was made in Kentucky, so you know it's good." Someone brings out four shot glasses, and you chase the drinks with the Gatorade your mother bought at Sam's Club for you. Everyone on your floor comes out to this makeshift party. Suddenly, you begin to think Columbia might not be so socially awkward after all.

10:45pm — Your floormates are now all passed out in the common room. By your seventh call to CAVA the dispatcher knows your name, and you begin to wonder why you didn't just go to Michigan. So what if it's a state school? You decide to venture beyond Carman Hall.

11:20pm — After your cousin's old fake ID is rejected by 1020, Nacho's, the Heights, and even the Abbey (despite seeing what appear to be 12-year-old girls being admitted), you give up and begin to walk back to Carman. Out of nowhere a guy in a polo shirt who reeks of cigarettes and jungle juice assaults you. He slaps you on the ass and tells you to rush Pike—even if you're a girl. Suddenly you find yourself in a dark room with a sticky floor, surrounded by sweaty men and girls in short skirts, and you realize you're in a frat house. You didn't even know Columbia had fraternities. How did all these people get into Columbia? (Hint: they were once just like you. Almost.) At the frat party you squint your eyes to find the keg in the dark.

Upon asking the program director (an assistant dean from the Office of Multicultural Affairs) if it was alright to sit in on a session, our correspondent was told that the program was already over-filled with participants, and that having a non-participating reporter in the room would violate the students' "safe space."

Bwog was told that a make-up session of Under1Roof will be held in late September, and that we are welcome to come then.

If orientation is just a little too lame for you (BLAZE... seriously?), check out these cultural events happening around the city. How would you like to remember your first week of Columbia? Pie eating or museums and films?

9/1 — 3 pm — P.S. 1 Warm Up
Twisted Ones hosts a Brooklyn/Pittsburgh Underground Rock Celebration with:
Oneida
Sightings
Ex-Models
Dirty Faces
DJ Knox Overstreet
DJ Weirds
DJs Fitz and Brad Truax
Mighty Robot AV Squad

Word of advice to the skinny-jean inclined, Columbia hates hipsters, find kindred spirits here.

9/10 - MoMa

Richard Serra

Metal has never looked so good.

9/16 — Whitney

Summer of Love

This exhibit is a little overdone, unless you're stoned.

Bwog overheard some OLs on the uptown 1 headed back from the Met excursion and decided to inquire about NSOP's first big event.

Bwog: Were you guys just at the Met?

Girl OL: Yeah! We left early.

Boy: I'm not even an OL! Or a freshman!

Girl: He's just my friend!

Bwog: So was it fun? Were there a lot of people there?

Girl: There were a lot of people there. The whole first floor of the Met was crowded.

Bwog: Did anything exciting happen?

Girl: We got Gummi Bears.

Boy: And these water bottles. I wasn't supposed to get one. But I did.

A multi-part presentation of the laws of finding and receiving free food. Given by God himself to Bwogger Christopher Morris-Lent.

Today, commandments 1-3.

1. THOU SHALT WANDER CAMPUS AIMLESSLY

In those first few awkward weeks at college after you've severed the umbilicus connecting yourself to your parents but you have yet to carve a niche out for yourself in your new milieu, you might find yourself taking strolls around campus in the early evening, wondering what the point of it all is. At least this is what I did, because I was socially inept and slow to make new friends. These Kerouacesque mimi-odysseys of self-discovery ended up being good things, though, because in addition to finding existential solace, I also stumbled upon some free food. Free food is a prominent fixture of the Columbia experience. It is as ubiquitous as it is transitory. And if you find it, it is yours for the taking. Munching on some cornbread on the way back from the Amsterdam bridge one fair September afternoon, I said to myself: "Things are not so bad here. They will get better. Fortuna is spinning my wheel upwards." And surely enough, she was.

2. THOU SHALT STALK YOUR PEERS

Many of your fellow freshman will be wandering campus in the same lackadaisical and directionless way as you. Ignore them: they are either lost in their own existential quandaries or completely brain-dead. Only when you spot one of your "friends" from orientation walking with a sense of purpose should you follow them, as they may have discovered a free food treasure trove. Bonus points if your stalkee is an orientation hookup; extra bonus points if bases were rounded within the friendly confines of a frat house; still more bonus points if he or she discovers you, slaps you across the face, and runs away, and you still succeed in following them to the promised land and scoring a bagel with cream cheese or two, if not milk and honey.

3. THOUGH SHALT MASQUERADE AS A MEMBER OF [insert campus group here]

In which ex-freshman Parker Fishel imparts his first-year dorm wisdom.

Carman

There is a magnetism about Carman that tends to polarize its residents.

There are some that are fiercely loyal to the residence hall, almost to the point of confrontational. They will hear nothing of the overflowing trash bins and it's resulting stench, nor the overpowering debauched bacchanalia of the place. To them, this is just the ambiance and you couldn't get a better I'm in New York City! Freshman Year! No Parents! Let's Party! vibe anywhere else in the city (well, okay, probably at NYU, but those damn hipsters would never admit it).

The other sect of Carman's residents begin to reveal themselves progressively throughout the year, though never to fellow Carman-ites who would take the slightest hint of negativity as high treason. These are the kids who find the whole scene kind of, well, grotesque. You'll find them nesting in Butler, Lerner, anywhere that isn't Carman and when you ask them where they live they say "Carman" with reluctance.

But hey, to each their own.

I would, however, like to leave you with my favorite Carman anecdote. One Tuesday night, I was going up to a friend's on the 6^th floor to borrow an air mattress. In the elevator was a girl who looked a little weirded out; I soon found out why. On the floor of the elevator was a piece of toilet paper with smeared excrement on it (to put it nicely). I can't say whether this in particular was a common occurrence, but I can say that it was gross. Needless to say, I took the stairs back down.

After Barnard's Convocation, the OLs and RAs of BC led the 11s in a sing-a-long tribute to the musical stylings of Rihanna:

"When the sun shines we'll shine together

We will love Barnard forever

Columbia will always be our friend

Our partnership will go on till the end

2011 is better than ever

All the classes will stand together

You can stand under our umbrella

You can stand under our umbrella"

...ella, ella, ella, eh, eh!

In hopes of catching you before you make that final trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond (or before you trash the packaging and receipts), Bwog asks upperclassmen which items were the most useless? The most underused? That Dust-Buster you're going to use during downtime? The ironing board that totally fits between your bed and your desk? Perhaps they belong on this list, and not on Carman 6?

• Bed Risers
• Shower caddy (rusty and grotesque after a year's tour of duty in Carman)
• Drug paraphernalia
• John Updike novels
• Ethernet cord
• Columbia sweatshirt
• One of those hanging shelf sets for the closet (it broke under the weight of 15 sweaters I never wore)
• Under the bed drawers
• Lap desk
• Pleasure reading
• Digital camcorder with all the cables, tapes and programs necessary to edit video
• All of the books I brought for reading
• A crate of paper which was like, 5 500-sheet stacks
• A suit and tie
• Windex
• Raincoat
• Bathrobe
• Slippers
• Duster
• Volumes 1-5 of Frederick Copleston's History of Philosophy
• My CD collection
• A TV
• Pencils
• Pajamas
• Plastic knives
• George Foreman mini-grill
• A printer
• A lamp that clips onto the frame of my bed
• Colored pencils
• Borges' short story collection, Labyrinths
• A coffee mug
• Binder
• A trash can
• Flash drive (thank god for gmail)
• Those stain stick things that you're supposed to carry around and rub on your shirt.

It seems that the Department of Student Affairs in conjunction with NSOP is holding UNDER1Roof sessions throughout the week. The purpose of these sessions is to:

"[Start] the important process of translating [The Community Principles Initiative] into action."

Oh?

"This session will provide the framework on how intergroup understanding and community building are achieved through continual engagement and education about the different social identities we all bring to campus."

Community building? Is that like, satellite-campus-building?

"One session is REQUIRED of all students."

Et tu, NSOP?

(Thanks to Zack Hoopes for the tip.)

Bwog's resident concert expert Justin Goncalves answers all your questions about the best venues, where to go when you've had it up to here with indie rock, and that elusive Brooklynite Todd P.

Do you like music? I like music. Do you know what the best thing about living in New York while someone else pays the rent? Spending all that extra cheese on concerts.

Before I hook all you freshies up with the best places to go for concert listings and reviews, let me tell you all a little story. Just two years ago, I was in your shoes (red Converse high-tops, anyone?). Sure, I might've spent my first week at Columbia in a serious delirium, but, once playing beer-pong at Pike gets old (one time is enough, believe you me), you've gotta branch out. People really throw around this phrase too much, but, in all honesty, New York is the mecca for all things music. Whether you want to catch JT share the bill with Good Charlotte (which I did, and it was doooope), sing along to some great Hank Williams and Johnny Cash tunes with Alex Battles, or see Clipse melt your face off with their rhymes of fury, you can do it all. First semester, I spent all money and at least one night a week seeing a concert. One weekend, and I'm still not so sure why I thought this would be a good idea, I saw four consecutive nights of live music. And, to be honest, I can only remember seeing Animal Collective on Thursday and Ted Leo on Sunday. So, the most important advice I can give you is to pace yourself.

Now I'll answer your questions:

Because Bwog knows you're not really going to Tom's with your OL group. (You know you don't have to, right?) Here, several upperclassmen recall what they did on their first night of college.

My best friend from high school arrived at NYU the day before and he had already made friends with Haley Joel Osment. I called my friend and met up with him, Haley, and Haley's entourage at a club in meatpacking where the 7 of us were given three bottles of vodka and an assortment of juices- all free. This was just after his DUI. --BC '10

I didn't have a computer that first night, so I was writing a letter by hand to a friend to tell her how college was going so far, when I looked out the window of my room in Wallach to see a bunch of freshmen from John Jay 5 staring back at me, motioning for me to come outside with them for a party on the lawn. I grabbed my suitemate and walked to the steps with our new friends. We were still wearing our pajamas. I thought "This is college -- wearing your pajamas outside." -- CC'09

Free Culture at Columbia--the group that showed you how to hide from CUIT--is now handing out another 250 of its high-price-defying flash drives loaded with public domain versions of all the Lit Hum and CC texts.

You're not going to miss this this one, 2011--thousands of dollars saved and a movement joined (although it's up to you whether or not to risk your teacher's ire for getting different translations). Get them Tuesday at 2:30 PM in Butler 203.

Meanwhile, anyone been studying up for Lit Hum final?

Ready or not, 2011 arrives on campus THIS MONDAY. An anonymous photobwogger chronicles the fits and starts of Columbia before the Deluge.

COOP and CUE take off Thursday morning, and were recently spotted doing COOP and CUE things on the lawns, which involve shouting "ROAR!" in an ephemeral expression of spirit.