It's been one hell of a year. As exams draw to a close and students' patience runs thin, it's important to remember all the highs and lows of this last earthly rotation around the sun.
Winner: Food truck vendors.
The great chicken–over–rice price–gouging controversy will go down in history as the defining economic moment of 2017. We’ll always have the one truck on 38th that refused to up its ask—we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Winner: Penn’s endowment.
Any of y’all hear about the Paradise Papers? No? Well, let us lay it out for you. Amy G and the Board of Trustees are treating Penn’s endowment like a hedge fund and investing it in offshore tax blocker corporations in Bermuda. But in our defense, dozens of other US colleges did it too! Hail to the wealth gap.
Winner: FroGro.
One of the biggest reckonings of this year came last semester, when the demise of Penn’s beloved Fresh Grocer seemed imminent. Fast–forward to December and our stalwart store stands strong, made even stronger by last year’s addition of a beer and wine section. #savepennfreshgrocer.
Winner: Event observers.
Ahhhh, EO’s. Everyone’s second–favorite big brother (after the Orwellian one, of course). These lucky ducks are making $35/hour strolling the off–campus streets in search of parties. And Penn kids do that every Thursday, but like, for free.
Loser: The ozone layer.
Fossil Free Penn organized sit–in after sit–in this year, but Penn still refuses to #divest. Between all of Penn’s fossil free investments and all the hairspray Amy Gutmann has been using this year, Penn may have just blown the biggest hole in the ozone layer since chlorofluorocarbons.
Loser: Sleep schedules.
Between the constant chiming of fire alarms in the High Rises and the Penn–sponsored research citing sleep deprivation as an actual way to treat depression, it’s seemed impossible to get a good night’s rest this year. Though the couches in VP are comfy, a three–minute power nap between classes isn’t going to cut it. We don’t know about you, but Street knows plenty of people who are sleep–deprived. Penn students can have it all!
Loser: University listservs.
You would have thought Penn’s IT department had figured out the perennial problem with reply–all after the Carlos Dos Santos incident of 2016. But another University–wide email regarding course selection quickly devolved this November, treating the whole of the Penn population to a back–and–forth featuring irate freshmen, meme–group wannabes, and people with far too much time on their hands.
Loser: Morally bereft men in their seventies.
Charlie Manson. Hugh Hefner. Roy Moore. The next domino to fall? We’ll have to wait and see (We have some guesses of our own.)
