Bonus observation: The lakefill looks like a man pooping on the library.
Nothing brings clarity to a Northwestern student quite like being home for the holidays with a refrigerator full of your parents finest beer. Here are the observations of one Wildcat on life on the outside.
1. Nobody will compliment you on how good you look ever again*
Maybe you’re like me and were in peak physical condition sophomore year of high school. Maybe you’re also like me and your body stopped changing for the better by the time Wildcat Welcome Week rolled around. Or maybe you’re like me and just not that good looking to begin with. Either way, you can kiss those “oh my god you look so great!”s and “wow, bro, you lift?”s and “hey, so the thing is, I never would have broken up with you outside of Six Flags Great America’s Raging Bull if you looked like that”s goodbye. Your physique has started what promises to be a decades-long decline, and all that you have to look forward to is people poking your love handles and observing how fat you’re getting. But hey, making donuts with your belly is pretty fun, right?
EVANSTON–Citing the highly publicized recent death of a Northwestern University sophomore’s social life, The Interfraternity Council has announced its intention to open an investigation into homework-related hazing at the hands of Northwestern University Chemistry Professors.
The announcement came as little surprise, as suspicions have long swirled that the Northwestern Chemistry Professors practice severe hazing. Rumored hazing rituals include depriving students of sleep, trapping students in an enclosed room and forcing them to memorize senseless facts, and even keeping pre-meds in Tech for days at a time.
So you’ve been accepted to Northwestern. Big fucking deal. So was just about everyone who writes for Sherman Ave AND Chet Haze (who may or may not also write for Sherman Ave). You have accomplished nothing of any difficulty and importance, and this school will spend the next four years reminding you of that fact. So now that you have a little perspective, it’s time to get you prepped on everything you’ll need to know to survive the gauntlet of purple and white!
Soon, the Daily Northwestern, NBN, your parents, and dozens of other sources will be filling you in on the best dining halls, the characteristics of the two sides of campus and what the party scene is like. Even The Flipside will take the opportunity to desperately grasp at readership by printing freshman-oriented pieces.
Since old Uncle Samwise can’t do a better job than the rest at giving you everything you’ll need to know, I’ll have to settle for giving everything else you’ll need to know.
Every sitcom and movie involving college students likes to portray them as rigidly focused students looking for their way in life during the day, and uncontrollable party animals at night. On Wednesday days at 3 A.M., they’re at the library struggling to stay awake – and on Saturday nights they’re at the bar struggling to stay standing. They’ll pull at least two all-nighters every week, eat ramen or fast food for every lunch and dinner, and get blackout drunk every weekend. Some people are like this for the first couple weeks of their freshman year – and others are this person for the entirety of their college lives; however, one thing is certain: you will come across someone like this at some point in college.
Mr. or Mrs. Pre-Professional
This person is always working towards some goal that they had in their childhood. They’re in the pre-med class, the pre-med fraternity, the pre-med club, and even the pre-med field hockey team. It’s impossible to talk to this person without eventually hearing “When I’m a doctor,” or “When I’m at Harvard Law.” The entirety of their life revolves around their future, and they won’t let you forget it.
Follow this list until the Catholic guilt is too much to handle.
1. Read an article about religious sectarian violence on JSTOR
Curse like an Irishman every time Northwestern logs you out.
2. Do an Econometrics problem set
Congratulations! You’re receiving the education that eluded the 1/8th of your ancestors who endured brutal ethnocentrism in the streets of America!
3. Work on your 25-page paper you should have started in mid-February for your research seminar, “Gender and Sexuality during the Irish Potato Famine”
It’s only a matter of time until “Irish Studies” becomes an official major.
I have recently discovered that BiC has been making pens tailored specifically for women. These pink-and-purple innovations, made for ladies’ dainty hands, have enabled women to learn their ABCs, make pretty cursive letters, and even write out recipes. Of course, I can’t wait to get my hands on one, but in the meantime I thought I’d meekly suggest other female-oriented products to make women’s lives easier.
1. Beer and Soda/pop cans
My delicate feminine lips have been having difficulties sipping from the harsh metallic holes on the cans. If the makers of Natty could only market some pink fuzzy lids (floral decorations optional; I don’t ask for much) containing fruity flavors and roofies already mixed in, it would be so much easier to inebriate and “surprise” me.
Ellie K’s best parking job.
2. Doors
I can’t open doors for myself! Not only is it indecent, but my womanly muscles simply cannot muster the strength to turn knobs or push frames. Sometimes when I’m driving with my boyfriend (don’t worry- he’s always behind the wheel), he forgets to open the car door and let me out, and I have to sit there until he finishes eating his Chipotle. If there isn’t a chivalrous young chap around to open the doors to the Bloomingdale’s building, I’m often in such a tizzy that I can’t decide which miniskirt to buy. And don’t even get me started on revolving doors – I can’t figure out how those things work. If we only had doors that opened for women.
3. Washing machines
Wait, never mind. Those are already only for women.
4. Bookshelves
Look, I can’t read or comprehend big words (like all Sherman Ave writers), but I do understand this: I’m too petite to reach the top shelves in the kitchen, rendering them unusable. The bookshelves in our immaculately vacuumed living room are currently occupied by dictionaries, Catcher in the Rye, Shakespeare, and other things that don’t contribute to the enrichment of humanity. So let’s get rid of those meaningless piles of ink and paper, paint those ugly planks a nice shade of mauve,* and I’ll store the waffle-maker where I don’t have to worry about it falling on my pretty face.
This was the best idea I’ve had all day. This was the only idea I’ve had all day. I really must phone the other ladies in the quilting circle.
5. Colleges
Sometimes having to interact with pre-med students and math majors makes my weensie brain feel justifiably inferior. But I bet if there were more schools like Barnard, we could focus on learning the things that really make the world run, like electric stoves and really good blowjobs. Why can’t I just major in ponies?
You miss 100% of the heinousness you don’t take. – Wayne Gretzky
_______
*Note to men: There are words – supposedly in English – that can only be identified or understood by women. They include mauve, ecru, duvet, lunula, flambé, macramé, purl, and selvedge. If anyone who claims to possess a penis can identify what these words mean, place a spider nearby and see if “he” can kill it on his own. If she cannot, do NOT under any circumstances give her power tools.
Hey Wildcat’s! It’s the fourth quarter. It’s time to finish! So let’s put your hands up in the air while we try and figure out what the hell this song is about!
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Danzel begins his anthem with an imperative. More command than mere request, Wildcat fans are instructed to throw their hands up in the air to start the fourth quarter off right with a communal movement that celebrates the fleeting temporal relationship between a television timeout and the Northwestern secondary’s imminent collapse.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
A reiteration of Danzel’s requisition, harkening back to the initial invocation presented to fans through the luminous jumbotron specter at Ryan Field. There are only so many permutations with which one can raise one’s hands up in the air, but such trifles are not of concern to men like Danzel or Kain Colter.
16x: Air
Bridging the gap between the transcendent heavens and the solid gridiron where mortals run the spread is air — surrounding us, within us, throughout us — air, the wind modern man has breathed for longer than approximately 3,174.60 NU bowl droughts. Like Pat Fitzgerald, we return to the essence that begot us with arms open wide to the infinite blue beyond.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
God, I could just do this shit all motherfucking day.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Are they flashing WNBA scores up on the scoreboard? Oh wait, that’s just the Indiana final.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Danzel utilizes repetition to depict the subtle interplay between the verticality of your limbs and your levels of ampitude. This is a complex relationship that the 20,000 or so Nebraska fans in the stadium will never quite appreciate.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Were the rights to Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” really that expensive?
Yo party people come out sayin’ yeah
Party people come out sayin’ yeah
Danzel rapidly changes perspectives, venturing into the mind of party people. Although a bold display of empathy, I have to admit that when party people normally come out to my ragers, they normally say things like “Oh, you were serious about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory theme?” or “Man, it’s been such a long time since I’ve drank anything cheaper than Sköl!” Maybe Belgian party people just rage a little… differently than we do here.
Feel the vibe
And it’s gettin’ stronger
After setting up his song with repeated exposition viz a viz our hands in the air, Danzel announces his intention to delve into the atmosphere he and his audience have mutually created, expounding upon the aura, or “vibe,” that his beats have created within Ryan Field.
Feel the vibe
And it’s gettin’ stronger
Taken out of context, this line sounds exactly as stupid and/or sexual as it does within the context of this song.
GET THOSE HANDS UP IN THE MOTHERFUCKING AIR!!!
Party people come out sayin’ yeah
Party people come out sayin’ yeah
If any party people have somehow avoided raising there hands up in the air, now is the time for them to come out like a Freshman during Wildcat Welcome Week.
Party people come out, come out..
yo, Dj turn it on
LET’S GO ROUND TWO!!!
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Oh God. There are only so many times I can put my hands up in the air… I think my forearms are more sore than Monica Lewinsky’s in the Oval Office. Must. Keep. Getting. Pumped.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
A bit of biographical information on Danzel. Born “Johan Waem,” the musician broke out of a perpetual cycle of chocolate addiction in the waffle house slums of Antwerp that plagues so many other young Belgians with his deep passion for house, techno, dance music, and getting you PUMPED for the fourth quarter of football games.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Surprisingly, this song peaked at Number 6 in the UK Dance Charts in 2005 but never garnered much interest anywhere else. How the hell it became an NU tradition is anyone’s guess.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Speaking of which, can something really be a “tradition” if it was instituted less than two years after we elected our current president? Looking at you, March Through the Arch.
[INSTRUMENTAL BREAK]
Danzel takes a quick break from pumping you up, providing ample time for the jumbotron to display pre-meds dancing more awkwardly than Mitt Romney at a RZA show.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
What Northwestern lacks in terms of facilities, season-ticket holders, or a pass rushing attack, it more than makes up for with its fan base’s threatening ability to raise its hands up in the air for extended periods of time.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
GET SOME, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA!!! Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
I assume this is also what House Republicans said when they held the government hostage this spring. On an unrelated note: I bet love to see Paul Ryan play running back. The dude makes social welfare cuts quicker than Venric Mark on a kick return.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
The strength of Danzel’s mantra lies in its specific spatial reference point. The bard is imploring his audience to place their hands — one of the most essential tools of the human body — in the very oxygen we breathe, interweaving the supple protoplasm of man with the zephyrous troposphere that sustains us.
[FADEOUT]
Wildcat fans are led to believe that Danzel’s jam will continue ad nauseam, a never ending ode to the power of triumphantly raising one’s hands in the air into perpetuity in order to raise stokeage levels at Ryan Field to near illegal levels in Evanston.
So apparently, Northwestern University is a pretty damn good school. But what should you do after you get in? Here at Sherman Ave, we have been painstakingly researching the answers to all the questions incoming freshman were always too afraid to ask, as well as the questions that we totally wished we had thought of before entering this bastion of academic integrity. Our first topic? How to navigate Northwestern’s sea of academic options to engineer the greatest education possible.
Sherman Ave 
