About 30 people are in each PE class. On Monday during sports class, 11 students were on the court. About 20 other students sat in the bleachers doing homework.

Uni’s no-cut policy allows any student to play for a sports team without worrying about being cut. This year, it seems many more students have taken advantage of the rule, choosing to petition out of PE as well.

Every year is different. Every year is a new challenge. When I first got into Uni, I expected every school year to be more difficult than the previous one. After subbie year, I was ready to embrace the challenges of “real high school.”

Recently, in one of the many locker room conversations of the illustrious Uni High volleyball team, the topic of me and my lotion came up. Now, if you don't know, I'm lotion lady — I have A LOT of lotion, before PE, after PE, basically all throughout the day, because I don't want to get ashy.

I'm sure some of you know what "ashy" is, but for every person who does, there’s probably two more who don't. The Webster's New World College Dictionary defines it as "1. of, like, or covered with ashes 2. of ash color; pale; pallid."

Over the weekend, my grandma called and invited us to spend the winter holidays with her in South Africa. This was great news to me — I get to spend weeks lying in the sun, playing on the beach, having real fish & chips, seeing mountains all around me, experiencing an interesting and totally different culture, and of course, seeing my family.

On the other hand, it also means that I will miss some school. The trip to South Africa is expensive and it takes a long time to get there. So, to make it worthwhile, you have to go for at least three weeks.

Many Uni students probably already know about the boys cross country phenomenon known as "team justice," or formally known as the treat squad. While to most people, it may just look like fun and games, there is a deeper camaraderie involved.

First, let me list off a few nicknames: Turtle, Buck Wild, Nate Justice, Desert Eagle, and the Duke of Duty. While some nicknames are used more than others, a few have really stuck. During practice, I've rarely heard teammates not call Ziran Shang "Turtle" or Nathan Smith "Nate Justice."

Ah, yes. I have finally reached the pinnacle of the high school experience. It only took five long, long years.

From what I hear from the Class of ‘07 and the Fox network, senior year is nothing but nonstop fun, start to finish. And while there is still a very large amount of time left in the year (I think Joe Leigh has an exact countdown), it’s looking like that is probably not the case. It’s not that this year is so terrible per se, but it just seems like I’ve been through it all before.

[Note: By running this blog entry, the OG is not endorsing the practice of self-piercing. Students should be aware of the dangers of self-piercing, and we urge students to obtain parental permission for all piercings. This entry is a descriptive account of one student's experiences and should not be taken as anything beyond that.]

You are what you eat, as the saying goes. But do you know what you eat?

If someone handed you a bag containing a mixture of five to 10 chemicals with unfamiliar names, you probably wouldn’t think to eat from it — unless that bag was a bag of Doritos. As it were, I have looked at the ingredients list of such a bag. Besides the innocuous whole corn, corn oil, and salt, the list includes such esoteric items as disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate.

Auditions. That one word is enough to strike fear into the heart of any student who has to try out for a number of things at the beginning of the school year: Madrigals, or jazz band, or the fall play ("Anne Frank"). Because auditioning involves getting up in front of a bunch of other hopefuls and doing your best not to mess up.

I love auditions.

Today, I joined my parents in the Boulevard Lakefront Tour, an annual biking tour in Chicago.

The ride consists of a 15-, 35-, or 62-mile option and takes you around Chicago's surface streets and historic boulevards, from Hyde Park, to the downtown, to the lakefront, and back.

My parents and I opted for the 35-mile choice and hopped on our bikes at 7:30 this morning after driving to the starting line at Midway Plaisance.

With the beginning of a new school year everything always feels a little different. I've been back in school for a couple of weeks now, and there are still things I can't seem to get used to. Going to the same school with the same students for four years, it's not really the people or the place but more so the flow of it all.

This past Sunday, I came into the Mac lab with my fellow editors-in-chief, Shivani Khanna and Andrea Park. (I would like to note that we were the only editors who came in.)

Anyways, we were working on an audio slideshow meant to illustrate and describe the summer French trip, of which both Shivani and I were a part. The slideshow will be published soon, and all of you better appreciate it, because I am here to explain the process, just to enlighten you all to the hard work we editors do.

Monday afternoon, after school, I head with a group of my friends to Grainger Engineering Library, a short walk down Springfield Ave. After leaving my backpack and lunch box under their watch (remember that Grainger is a high theft area!), I head to the bathroom.

Upon walking in, I find that the first stall is occupied, and step into the second one. I promptly wince, and quickly backtrack. Toilet paper lines the bowl, and floats in a garish yellow liquid. I try hard not to vomit.

Come on, college students! I think. You ought to know how to do this by now!

Man, I know I can't expect everything to be easy or working exactly right so early in the game, but I had no idea getting one article published could be so frustrating and difficult (not to mention time-consuming). I'm glad Ben Hyman sent us those directions for the new OG, and Isaac Chambers has been a huge help to me today, but even despite their efforts, I continue to run into problem after problem with the formatting in the new OG.

It's pretty obvious, and understandable, that Uni students can't agree on what music to play at dances. At last year"s "Funk Dances" there was audible groaning in response to the somewhat foreign music selection. The year before last, a number of students opted out of attending dances due to the play list that only featured rap music.

The plain fact is the DJ, who is one of the four people in the entire school who knows how to work the stereo, and a couple of his or her buds have full control over the music.

Dilemma? I think not.