Posts Tagged ‘butler’
A water-fearing underworld community with an old friend and research librarians
Hello and a very warm welcome to the sixth installment of Senior in the Springtime. This week I continued the journey of completing the traditions that remained on my list. I was able to complete five more, as best as I could, and I’m confident that the other 28 will be conquered in due time.
Again, the numbers alongside the tradition reflect their placement in the original list. My five for the week:
19. Explore the tunnels. More »
Timeline of writing that paper
Everybody’s heard this phrase from his professor at some point: “You cannot finish this assignment the night before. Start early.”
And while most students heed the prof’s advice, there’s always that kid in Butler frantically bashing at his keyboard while chugging energy drinks as if heart disease didn’t exist. In case you couldn’t already guess, this is what that kid‘s last month looked like: More »
Maybe, just maybe, don’t hate on Butler Reserves
Short attention spans tend to preoccupy people who write about “our generation.” We’ve grown up with pop songs that rarely last longer than 4 minutes (not something to emulate, gentlemen), movies that are almost always shorter than 90 minutes (at which point, while watching on your laptop, you should probably take a break), and most of our reading is online.
We have iPads and smartphones, Netflix and Hulu, Google and Wikipedia—and we’re often using all of them at once. I actually even watched an episode of Arrested Development in between writing the sentences of this paragraph. More »
The journey with traditions continues: Butler, Flex, Manhattanville, and more
Hello and a very warm welcome to the fifth installment of Senior in the Springtime. This week I continued the journey of completing the traditions that remained on my list. I was able to complete six more, as best as I could, and I’m confident that the other 33 will be conquered in due time.
Again, the numbers alongside the tradition reflect their placement in the original list. My six for the week:
9. Avoid Uni Café like the plague. You might catch it there. More »
Butler Popcorn: Cinema Paradiso
Each week, Spectator associate A&E editor and film buff Stefan Countryman recommends and reviews a favorite pre-2000 movie for your viewing pleasure. Each film is available for checkout from our very own Butler Media Reserves, so distant cinemas and tight budgets won’t hold you back from enjoying these classics. Stefan advocates sneaking into an unused lecture hall to turn on the projector and watch a great flick on a big screen—all without leaving campus or spending a dime! (Popcorn optional.)
After much deliberation, I chose Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1988 classic, Cinema Paradiso, for the first installation of this series. Paradiso (circulating call number: DVD17362; non-circulating call number: DVD0177) is a movie about why we love cinema, what movies mean to us, and why cinema is worthwhile. In some sense, explaining why I love this movie explains what this whole series is about.
The story follows Salvatore, affectionately called “Toto,” through his childhood in the Sicilian village of Giancaldo. He spends every night in the local theater (the titular Cinema Paradiso) watching movies and bothering the projectionist, Alfredo. The two become best friends, and Toto goes on to become a famous director. More »
Alternative study spots
It’s the second day of classes. You’re just collecting syllabi and books galore. There may be a few readings, but you don’t really have any work. You’re in an optimistic daze, telling yourself that this semester, you’re going to be on top of deadlines and your overall schedule.
And that’s all well and good, but let’s be serious—by some time next week, many of us are already going to start tearing our hair out. It’s a fact of Columbia life that we be in an almost-constant state of elevated stress. And you know what? That’s ok. We can hack it. We’ve done it before.
But what isn’t ok is having part of that anxiety be over finding somewhere decent to study. Even during non-finals season, Butler proves for many to be a source of stress, not study solace. It’s already a pretty miserable atmosphere—add limited seating, cutthroat outlet hunters, and questionable smells and it’s downright dismal.
Don’t worry, though. There are alternatives. There’s no need to be a slave to Butler.
Santa Claus drops by Butler
It’s late. You’re up. It is now officially Dec. 22, which means that the day after tomorrow is Christmas Eve. So although exams suck, things are about to get a lot better. More »
How to avoid the Butler crawl
You walk around and around Butler, searching for a seat. You finally see an empty desk in the catalog room and you sprint up the stairs so fast you nearly fall on your face, only to find a pile of papers previously hidden from view. You keep wandering and wandering, until you find yourself in some room on the sixth floor that’s part of a major you didn’t even know existed. You’ve just done what I like to call the Butler Crawl.
So how to avoid it, you ask? Find out after the jump! More »
The Columbia University Libraries Preservation Committee (it exists!) has a message for you this time of year
First some terrible, terrible news: a bookcase in Butler 209 was in fact slightly cracked after yesterday’s 69th semi-annual rampage to get the hell out of Butler, despite the Marching Band’s …earnest pleas not to break any bookcases.
So we at Spectrum would like to spread gospel of the Columbia University Libraries Preservation Committee’s message, “preservation is the 100th percent solution.”
Enjoy the video below (starring Sherlock Holmes!), check out a random rap we made ages ago about Butler (we really like this place), and remember that as Columbians, it is your duty to preserve the stacks.