Dinner.....with my Professor?

This Sunday I had dinner at my psychology professor's house. She invited the whole class of 50 students to come over at 6:30pm to have dinner. She made chili, chile con queso, and cookies. Only 10 students showed up, but we got to sit outside on her back porch, eat chili, and talk to her about whatever we wanted. At first, we all felt extremely awkward about the whole situation. You should have seen everybody waiting for food. Nobody wanted to grab food first, so I decided to take the plunge. And, of course, that's after I tripped in my heels while heading towards the food. But, actually, it was so much fun. We talked to my professor about our psychology class, her love for bugs, and even our own pets. It was such a great way to sit down informally with some of my classmates and professor and just chat about everyday things that we experience.

I know this all sounds ridiculous and crazy, but I hope every college student gets to experience what I did on Sunday. SMU is always trying to break the barrier between the students and faculty. The school wants us to see our professors as not only educators but as normal people. I'd have to say that having dinner at your professor's house is the best way to see your professor as a normal person.

Battle for the Iron Skillet Gone Too Far?

Everyone knows of SMU's rivalry with the TCU Horned Frogs. Well this Saturday marked the 87th Battle for the Iron Skillet. And if anybody drove down to Fort Worth and paid around $30 for tickets, or if you're me and my friends get 4 tickets for $90 from scalpers, you would know that we lost 21 to 7. Yes, the fact that we lost is very saddening, but the thing that gets me the most is the sort of rivalry this has all become. Thursday night between midnight and 1am, a group of TCU students came to SMU to pull some pranks on our campus. As I eventually found out Friday afternoon when going to my friend's car in Moody garage, the TCU students wrote on several cars saying "TCU", "Go Frogs", or something of that caliber. Harmless, right? Then we come to find, as we started to back out of the parking space, that they also decided to let out the air of some tires. Try to imagine my friend's face when we saw his deflated back tire, in the middle of Moody parking garage, making him late for his Baylor departure. We tracked down some Park N' Pony officials who called in the vandalism over the dispatcher. They told us the vandalism has already been reported for over 30 cars from Moody. It amazes me that a simple football rivalry has grown over this past century into destroying others property. What has become of college rivalries? Why have they gotten so out of hand?