It’s Friday, Friday…

It’s funny, because I’m pretty sure the day before Friday has always been Thursday, Saturday is after Friday, and Sunday has always come afterwards. But somehow, some sketchy music company has auto-tuned a poor defenseless 13-year-old girl into re-teaching us this concept in what might be the worst video of all time. “Friday” by Rebecca Black had less than 10,000 hits on YouTube this past Monday – as I’m writing this, the count has escalated to more than 15 million. Why? Because it’s ridiculous. If you haven’t seen it, today would be a great day to join the bandwagon.

Where do I start? The video is a catastrophe. The song is unfortunately catchy (yes, I admitted it) and equally able of inducing lots of bleeding from the ears. If auto-tune can’t save someone, that’s where I draw the line. Anyway, pronouncing “Friday” as “FRY-E-DAY” isn’t enough. She has to make the hardest decision of her life…

Some of the toughest issues the world has ever faced are addressed in the video, such as waking up, and eating cereal. First of all, everyone else in the house is rushing by her, and it appears as if her mother is attacked by her brothers? By mother and brothers I mean poorly photoshopped, green-screened fake family. By the way, the phrasing of “I need to eat some cereal” is actually what to me (and a majority of the Facebook “fans” of her) sounded like a really awkward drug reference, but that’s neither here nor there. Right?
So the ever-mysterious Rebecca goes to the bus stop, to wait for her bus. She makes this very explicit, as does the poorly photoshopped bus stop sign behind her head. So, she heads down to the bus stop. To catch her bus. In case you forgot. Her friends, who appear to be even younger than her, drive up in a blue convertible with five seats. First of all, you’re all 13. Second of all, why?! There are four friends, and the back middle seat is quite empty. Rebecca looks at the car and serenades us all with a summary of her mind-numbing, soul-twisting, world-hunger-esque dilemma – which seat to take?

I can’t even.

First of all, nobody asked her to get in. Second of all, are you GOING TO SCHOOL? Is this what you do every Friday? Third of all, THERE IS NO CHOICE IN SEATS. It’s about 7:45 a.m. The next section of the video has it suddenly become around 7:00 at night, where Rebecca is in a different car (seated, albeit unsafely) on a highway somewhere, with different friends. “Kicking in the front seat, kicking in the back seat, gotta make my mind up, which seat can I take?” Uh, you’re already in the car. One of my favorite characters is in this part – the awkward girl with the braces to Rebecca’s right. She looks like she’s going to cry. Rebecca sings to us describing the situation, saying “I got this, you got this, my friend is by my right.” Want to laugh? There’s also a girl to her left. Are you two not friends? Cause that’s awkward.

 

It’s about 7:45 p.m., do you know where your children are? My brother pointed out that not only is their destination a 7:45 p.m. house party for 13-year-olds, the party is located in assumably the SAME cul-de-sac they sped out of just 12 hours before. What? These kids aren’t even old enough to watch a TV-14 show… but they go to house parties. In their Jeep Liberties. Cause every 13 year old has one of those, obviously.

Then Rebecca teaches us the days of the week, again. But don’t forget, every weekend her weak sense of self esteem is tortured by the idea of choosing which seat to put herself in, in already filled cars.
My favorite character is Patrice, aka Pato (which I think means duck in Spanish) – a random rapper signed by Ark Music Group (which, if I had to guess, is run by Satan). He’s chillin in his car, raps about Rebecca, talks about cars and school buses … wait, WHY do you know her and her friends? I won’t delve into that either.
So, Rebecca is creepily animated onto a calendar that pretty much only has 4 days, Monday- Wednesday being eliminated for nonsensical lack of important events (who needs to take tests, anyway, right Becky?)

Last note – the chorus repeats “we so excited” several times. Girl, if you went to school on Friday, you’d know grammar.

Rebecca’s name was trending on Twitter for over a day, and still is. Nobody can stop talking about the fact that today is Friday. There is an official Facebook event, just for today, with over 500,000 attendees. Rebecca’s twitter has absolutely increased attention, having even gotten a nod from Brendon Urie of Panic at the Disco (jealous? I am). My confusion at the fact that this girl has not tried to hide from the rest of the planet baffles me. Or maybe she’s too young to notice that Ark Music Group has given her a label for the rest of her life.

The saddest part? She probably already has more money from her iTunes profits today than we’ll all make in the next five years.

Remember everyone: choose your seat wisely. It could mean saving the planet. Or something like that. Oh, and tomorrow is Saturday! Don’t worry, I wasn’t sure either.

Charlotte Lewis is a staff writer for the Setonian. She can be reached at Charlotte.lewis@student.shu.edu.

 

What do I do with my life?

College is a stressful experience.  Between papers, exams, finances, attending events, socializing with friends and family responsibilities the majority of students have their plates filled.  To top it all off, college is a time in life where students are supposed to declare a certain major and have an idea of what profession they want to pursue or what they want to do after they walk across the stage and receive a diploma.

Students often choose majors based on personal interest and what they think they do best.  Besides choosing a major based on personal interest, a student also has to think about what they can do professionally with their major and whether they will be able to support themselves in the future.

Narrowing down a wide variety of interests to one specific major can be an extremely difficult task.  Added to that, Seton Hall is a liberal arts college that exposes its students to a wide array of academic subjects.  That can easily cause a student to find new interests and want to explore a different career path.

Many individuals in college that begin with one major go down a totally different path because of a course that they have found particular interesting.  College is a time to experiment with what you want to do with your life.  College maybe one of the last times in which an individual is able to be exposed to so many unique subjects.

Take advantage of it.

If you are a college student and are unsure about your career path, realize that you are not alone.  Over 50 percent of college students change at least once during their college career according to a recent statistic.  A major does not define who you are or where you will end up in the future.  Take classes that spark an interest inside of you even if you do not necessarily need it to fill a requirement.

If you are a business major, try play writing or an acting course and if you are a journalism major, step out of your comfort zone and try a philosophy course.  You never know what new interest you may find.

Brianna Knox is a staff writer for The Setonian. She can be reached at briana.knox@student.shu.edu

Spring Break in Jersey? Maybe it’s not as bad as you’d think.

As my newsfeed flooded with statuses about “never coming home from Florida” and “Cancun for a week!,” I started to feel jealous until I noticed some statuses claiming, “I’ve never been so bored,” doing homework, working, etc. I realized I was not the only person staying at home.

If you Google “spring break,” you are offered trips and packages to places like Cancun, Bahamas, Panama City—any place warmer than Jersey.

In 2002, statistics showed that in eight weeks in Cancun, there were two deaths, 360 arrests, four injuries that required medical evacuations, one rape, 495 reports of lost or stolen property and 504 “general welfare inquiries”—mostly parents worried where their kids were.

Kind of sounds like South Orange…

So why do thousands of college students venture to foreign countries for spring break?

The idea of spring break is attractive because many see it as a chance to drink and act in reckless behavior. According to an article in USA Today, one travel company sold trips to Mexico by saying the drinking age is 18 and is “rarely enforced” and another promised “50 hours of free drinking.”

The article also indicated that foreign countries are more appealing for spring break, because students can do what is considered illegal in the U.S., legally in a foreign city, such as underage drinking and doing drugs.

On the other hand, many college students will end up spending their break at home, because they have to work, study or can’t afford it. With the cost of school, books, meals and other expenses, students may find they can’t afford a vacation out of the country.

Although spring break is almost over, you can still have time to go on a day trip to the city with your friends, drive down to the shore, have a movie day or take a mini road trip all on a budget you can afford.

It might not be as hyped up as a cruise to the Bahamas, but can be a lot of fun without being over priced or potentially dangerous.

This blog post was written by Patrice Kubik, a staff writer for The Setonian. She can be reached at Patrice.kubik@student.shu.edu.

 

How far will the Pirates go?

Spring Break has arrived.  As students are out of classes, the basketball team is finishing up the season and getting ready for the Big East tournament.  On Saturday night the Hall defeated the Marquette Golden Eagles 85 to 72.  The team had a very good performance on the whole and really showed what they can do if they play their best.  Although the rest of the team did well, Jeremy Hazell was the leading scorer and the main factor in the win, which is not a good sign for next year, as Hazell is a senior.

On the bright side, though, all three freshmen had good games and showed what this team will look like over the next couple of years.  The team faces Rutgers on Tuesday in their first game in the Big East Tournament.  This is a winnable game for the Hall as long as they play the way they have been playing the past week.  If they beat Rutgers they will face St. John’s in the second round, which will be a very tough game.  Not only will St John’s be looking for revenge for the embarrassing loss last week, it is also at Madison Square Garden, which is sometimes used for St John’s home games and will probably be packed with St John’s fans.

Can they pull it out?

This post was written by Brandon Biskobing, a staff writer for The Setonian. He can be reached at: brandon.biskobing@student.shu.edu

What TCU means for the Big East

In late November of 2010, the Big East announced they would be once again expanding the conference by adding Texas Christian University, which led to many questions from concerned basketball fans. How would the basketball tournament work with 17 teams? Would a school leave the conference to keep the balance? Would TCU make the conference better or hinder its progress?

Well, luckily for Setonian readers, I will answer the question of Texas Christian’s worth to the Big East and how I think the conference can realign itself in order to accommodate the new program.

Let’s begin with a little background of Texas Christian athletics. The private, Christian university is located in Fort Worth, Texas and boasts a student body of about 8,700 students, give or take. That will make TCU the 10^th largest student body in the Big East, just a few hundred students ahead of Notre Dame. It will also be one of the youngest schools in the Big East; specifically the sixth youngest, having opened in 1873, three years after both Syracuse and St. John’s opened their doors.

TCU has no trouble being one of the newer little guys in a big pond, as it’s already the second smallest school in the Mountain West Conference ahead of the United States Air Force Academy, and has only been a part of the Mountain West for six years.

What else should we know about the program? Since we are discussing its basketball worth, I will avoid discussing its football prowess (even though we all love TCU alumnus, LaDainian Tomlinson). Here are some TCU basketball vitals from the past five years.

W/L Records

2009-10: 13-19 overall, 5-11 conference

2008-09: 14-17 overall, 5-11 conference

2007-08: 16-16 overall, 6-10 conference

2006-07: 13-17 overall, 4-12 conference

2005-06: 6-25 overall, 2-14 conference

Offensive/Defensive Efficiency (national rank in parenthesis)

2009-10: 104.2 adjusted offense (134), 64.8 adjusted defense (277)

2008-09: 101.4 adjusted offense (168), 98.0 adjusted defense (108)

2007-08: 99.7 adjusted offense (195), 100.4 adjusted defense (146)

2006-07: 110.0 adjusted offense (253), 94.8 adjusted defense (67)

2005-06: 93.1 adjusted offense (288), 100.1 adjusted defense (145)

Based on the numbers, it’s painfully obvious that they are simply not a good basketball school. Sure they have seven appearances in the NCAA Tournament, but of those seven appearances they have never made it past the second round. Their last tournament appearances came in 1998, when they lost in the opening round to Florida State.

Will they contribute anything to the Big East?

Actually, I think they can. In fact, I would go as far as saying they could possibly contribute more to the conference in their first five years than what we have seen from the likes of South Florida. South Florida has the largest enrollment of any Big East program, yet they are bottoms in attendance, have only gone dancing twice and remain the only Big East University to never make it to a Final Four.

There is one thing Texas Christian has that I like: location.

Deep in the heart of Texas, football is still king of the college sporting world. However basketball in the Lone Star State is still quite popular and remains a hotbed for recruiting talented high school players. Texas is always well represented on the recruiting trail, as seen in the following breakdown from Scout.com’s Top 100 Recruits since 2005:

Number of Top 100 Recruits from Texas*

2010: 6 (Perry Jones III, Tony Mitchell, Cameron Clark, Phil Pressey, Michael Cobbins, Tobi Oyedeji)

2009: 6 (Tommy Mason-Griffin, Shawn Williams, Junior Cadougan, Nolan Dennis, Roger Franklin, Erik Williams)

2008: 5 (Willie Warren, J’Mison Morgan, Anthony Jones, J’Covan Brown, Philip McDonald)

2007: 4 (DeAndre Jordan, Anthony Randolph, Gary Johnson, Jai Lucas)

2006: 8 (Darrell Arthur, Damion James, DJ Augustin, Hasheem Thabeet, Bryan Davis, Michael Washington, Dexter Pittman, Nic Wise, Donald Sloan, Josh Lomers)

2005: 9 (Gerald Green, CJ Miles, Byron Eaton, Roderick Flemings Fendi Onobun, Kevin Rogers, Jovan Adams, Henry Dugat, Terrel Harris)

* – Not one of these recruits wound up at Texas Christian University

 

There are certainly some impressive names on those lists. What really interests me is the number of guys on that list who stayed close to home, and by close to home I mean in Texas or in a state which borders Texas (Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico). There are 38 guys on that list. Of those 38 players listed, 28 of them wound up at schools in Texas or a bordering state.

There are four major conference basketball schools in the state of Texas: Texas Longhorns, Texas Tech Red Raiders, Texas A&M Aggies, and Baylor Bears. Texas Christian, by joining the Big East, will become the fifth major conference college basketball program in the country.

Whether the program’s past has been shaky or not, this undoubtedly adds to their clout and adds yet another local program for Texas high school basketball players to consider. This gives student athletes in the state a legitimate fifth option to dwell on, especially given the quality opponents they will face in conference play. Texas basketball is currently centric to the Big 12 Conference, but by adding the Horned Frogs, the Big East puts itself in a position to grab southern recruits that would otherwise consider Big 12 programs.

All in all, I think the situation is not as terrible as everyone has made it out to be. Do I want to add another team to the Big East? Probably not, but this is definitely not going to be the worst thing that has ever happened to this conference. I think Texas Christian will struggled for a little bit, but in due time I have faith that their location and their resources will prevail, allowing them to float around the lower middle tier of Big East basketball.

While most people certainly don’t like expanding a conference that is already considered clogged up as it is, I think the situation is a bit overblown. I may not have all the answers (ie: how will the addition affect revenue and traveling?), however I do think I have a simple remedy for the Big East’s realignment and conference tournament issues.

It’s becoming pretty apparent that the Big East, despite being one of the premiere college basketball conferences in the nation, is a bit crowded. The addition of TCU just adds to the ongoing headache, which will surely be exacerbated by the thought of a 17 team conference tournament. Mind you, the Big East literally just changed its conference tournament strategy last year by allowing all 16 teams to participate instead of just the top 12 schools. So what do we do now?

I think the strategy for the future of the Big East is pretty simple: sort teams into two divisions based on geography.

The great thing about the Big East right now is there is actually a somewhat even split in regards to geographical location. Several other conferences are already using divisions to separate their teams, such as the Southland, Mid-American, and Sun Belt. The only major conference to currently divide its teams is the SEC.

Before we move on to what the divisions look like, let’s look at Big East representation by state (including TCU).

Schools in the Big East by state

Pennsylvania, 2

New Jersey, 2

New York, 2

Washington, D.C., 1

Indiana, 1

Wisconsin, 1

West Virginia, 1

Kentucky, 1

Florida, 1

Illinois, 1

Ohio, 1

Rhode Island, 1

Connecticut, 1

Texas, 1

Just by looking at it, it’s obvious how much disparity there is around the entire conference. No state has more than two Big East schools in it. One school isn’t even in a state! Most of the major conferences are like this, while the smaller conferences tend to occupy a smaller area of states, however the Big East seems to stand out more than any other due to the fact that by 2012 it will have 17 schools. No other conference comes close in that regard.

Going back to what I briefly mentioned before, the large geographical disparity helps the conference if they were to follow through on what I believe to be their best option, creating divisions. The transition would be pretty smooth. Basically, the divisions would be called “Atlantic” and “Central.” I chose the names because they make the most sense. The teams in the Atlantic division would be farther East, closer to the Atlantic Ocean, while the teams in the Central division would be closer to the Midwest or the center of the country. This is how I would split them up:

Atlantic

Syracuse

Villanova

Connecticut

Georgetown

Seton Hall

St. Johns

Rutgers

South Florida

Providence

Central

West Virginia

Pittsburgh

Marquette

Louisville

Notre Dame

Cincinnati

DePaul

TCU

That gives us nine teams in the Atlantic division and eight teams in the Central division. The best part about this is that neither division is top heavy by looking at the status of each program. Each division has four elite programs at the top, two teams which are typically conference bottom feeders, and a few solid programs in the middle.

Now that we have our divisions, how would the tournament work? This is also somewhat simple. If you have ever watched the SEC conference tournament, it’s pretty similar to that. The top six seeds from each division are allowed to play in the tournament, with the bottom two seeds in the Central and the bottom three seeds in the Atlantic missing out on the tournament. The top two seeds from each division would receive a first round bye.

The seeds would look like this, with the letter representing the first initial of the division and the number representing the seed of the team:

Credit John Lopiano

I think this format would work wonders, and an already competitive conference becomes even more competitive as teams vie for a spot in the Big East tournament. I was never a fan of all teams making the tournament despite the fact that it gave underdogs a chance for a glory. I think a 12 team tournament in this format is the best solution to having 17 teams and the easiest possible way to avoid a crowded conference tournament without having to sacrifice the excitement.

This blog post was written by Setonian Staff Writer John Lopiano. He can be reached at john.lopiano@student.shu.edu