I spent much of my first day back in New York City pushing a ramshackle blue cart. Since you probably go to college, you probably know exactly what this cart looked like, and you probably know that the fackers have minds of their own--especially on uneven terrain, and especially when the person pushing them is in mortal combat with the New York City heat. Maybe you've had the experience of having to move all your stuff a block and a half in said heat using said cart. But if you haven't and plan on doing so, I recommend having baby powder handy. For obvious reasons. 

That reason being a mean case of chafing brought on by mind-boggling humidity. Now New York doesn’t have an LA-style gas cloud hovering over it, but we have something every bit as maddening: namely  a heat index that pushes into the low 110s, and the month of July, when the city turns into the East Coast‘s biggest open-air sauna. I can't imagine what that's gonna be like, even with a thick, post-rainstorm haze choking Manhattan Valley, even while sitting in a poorly-ventilated room in a dormitory that--and this is pretty flabbergasting, since, by my count, it's currently 2008--doesn't have any goddamn air conditioning.

Other problems with Goldsmith Hall: nonexistent wifi, singles the size of the back seat of a taxi cab, the ambient odor of rotting garbage, and a diversity of plumbing ailments. Indeed, my suite’s toilet is currently in a kind of perpetual swirl mode, in which it constantly rotates the water in its bowl in preparation for a flush that will never occur. The facker’s been at it for days, meaning my entire suite is blanketed in an unavoidable, disquieting hum (it kinda resembles the middle tracks of Music for Airports, come to think of it...). It’s the first thing I hear when I walk through the door, and it’s the last thing I hear when I nod off to sleep--granted, ol' swirlie does add an element of entertainment to tooth-brushing, as she gives you the chance to briefly wonder on the phenomena of a toilet locked in Sisyphean struggle with its own technological shortcomings. Fascinating as a philosophical set piece; somewhat ominous if treated as an indicator of what the rest of my summer could be like. I guess the message here is stay out of the bathroom. Or better still, stay out of Goldsmith Hall altogether.

Luckily New York has a few interesting places that aren’t in Goldsmith. Like bars! Everyone loves bars, right? Sure they offer terrifying glimpses of our future, 30-year old, overworked, undersexed, socially malnourished selves. But they also have beer, which helps with the last two. A quick personal top five, for all you Wednesday night drinkers in the Columbia/NYU metro area:

-Continental, Astor Place and St. Mark's: Five shots for ten bucks. And a bouncer with a funny straw hat.

-Clem’s, 264 Grand Street in Williamsburg: It has some of the cheapest drinks in the ’Burg, including a $5 shot-and-beer deal on weeknights.

-The Charleston, 174 Bedford Ave in Williamsburg: The best of the ‘Burg’s several free pizza bars. As in the bar will give you free pizza with any draught beer. As in, I'd be here every night if I lived anywhere near Williamsburg.

-1020, Amsterdam and 110th St: Columbia’s once and future campus bar, with a twist: it’s where all the grad students from France hang out. Which is prefect if you're into one-night stands with French grad students. And hey, who isn't?

-St. Nick’s Pub, 148th and St. Nick’s Avenue: This is literally the city’s last jazz dive, and the bartender is literally too drunk to charge you most of the time. But I recommend paying: once places like these are gone, the city’s can’t be too far behind.

And speaking of lists, my editor directed me to a particularly rankling one: UWIRE’s list of the top 100 college journalists in America. The news editor at Columbia’s hapless campus television outlet was Fair Alma’s only contribution to the list, which is whack: the Bwog editor wasn’t on it. Spectator’s dynamic editor in chief wasn’t on it. Joe Machlow--who runs the most intelligent college-themed blog in the country, I think--wasn’t on it. Hell, I wasn’t even on it.

A basic query: just what the hell is UWIRE, and what position are they in to be selecting the top 100 student journalists in the country (or, more accurately, and with due deference to the people talented enough to be on it, the "top 100 student journalists in the country")? Perhaps unsurprisingly, UWIRE is a networking website where “aspiring media talent” post their resumes and cyber-network with editors, journalists and like-minded anklebiters ("the competition" as I like to call 'em). As a serial networker myself, trust me when I say that the internet variety rarely yields fruit--and that the best way for websites I’ve never heard of to get me to spend a couple hundred words talking about them is by publishing a list that couldn’t possibly warrant the time or energy I just spent talking about it.

So there ya go: a website jockeying for credibility, (undoubtedly talented) student journalists jockeying for jobs in a field that's jettisoning more and more of them. Further proof that life really is just one long college application process.