For those who didn't get a chance to see, earlier this summer two Stanford students' essays were selected and published by the New York Times as part of their special college "The 'U' Issue."

The first, by Fatima Hassan '09, is called "Documenting Brutalities to Change the World" and is about her and her classmates' efforts to deal with violence and abuse against women in Africa.

And the second, on a much lighter note, is Atticus Lee's '10 "A Year Among the Naked, the Pagan and the Vegan," about Stanford's co-op Synergy, which happens to be my current residence. Subsequently, I made the mistake of showing this article to my father, who decided that he needed to acquire multiple copies and bring them with him wherever he went to show people where his son was living at college.

And if you're more into looking at pictures, a photo by Alex Greenburg '09 is part of the 'College Life' slideshow.

The Office of Student Activites (OSA), the oft-criticized (see this column by Darren Franich) administrative group responsible for student groups, parties, and everything in between, is no more.

Now, it has become Student Activities and Leadership, boasting a snazzy new web site [sal.stanford.edu].

No word yet on whether or not the "SAL" will be better than the OSA, or is just a superficial rebranding. Recently, it seems like the office, under whichever name, has improved in its attempts to help student groups and make the processes involved with setting up and organizing activities easier. For this, the office deserves major kudos, and I am very happy to see the progress being made.

However, there has been word about increasing stringency on party policies, and there was even--no joke--a news reporting vehicle camped outside of Sigma Chi on Friday night. Why anyone would want to report on a Sigma Chi party is beyond me, but the general thought of an increased crackdown on parties, especially after last year's Moonsplash debacle (in which the costs of hosting a party on campus became so extreme that Sigma Nu had to cancel their annual bash), is not a good sign for leniency on party regulations.

In light of the recent cancellation of Full Moon on the Quad, Franich's fears--see the article link in the first sentence--that the OSA would do something as drastic as cancel the traditional event seem to have come to fruition, further pushing the line as to what the OSA/SAL will do to attempt to shut down the party scene. We all know that FMOTQ is, to put it nicely, a strange event, but at what point can the administration use its power to shut down any and/or every party?

Also note the OSA/SAL's new 'statement of purpose,' which happens to be almost mind-boggling vague: We work to help students find and foster their passions while developing their life and leadership skills.

I'm interested in keeping tabs on the OSA/SAL and ensuring that they continue their efforts to help students and not shut down or impede campus activities. Send your OSA/SAL complaints, horror stories, or positive experiences to me at jbfreedman@stanford.edu or go ahead and blog about them on TUSB.

Without much fanfare, the Athletics department has added new sports to the intramural lineup and moved registration online, thus fixing the dreaded who-wants-to-get-up-at-7-am-and-sign-our-team-up-for-IMs problem that previously existed.

The fall lineup now includes 4v4 Indoor Soccer and 4v4 Wallyball in addition to previous sports Flag Football and Ultimate Frisbee. I have no idea what 'Wallyball' is, but I certainly hope it has something to do with the lovable trash-compacting Pixar robot. Budget cuts: make trash-compacting and janitorial services into an IM sport, save the school money.

The department is also bringing back Innertube Water Polo, a former intramural sport, in the form of an Intramural Water Polo tournament. This is great news from both a fun-ness perspective and an anti-risk-management one, since the original IM Innertube Water Polo--one of the more popular IM sports of its time--was canceled because it seemed like too big of a liability.

There are also new Racquetball and Golf tournaments for people who prefer hitting things, and a Cardinal Adventure Challenge for people who love running around like a maniac before a severely limiting deadline.

Check it all out at the web site [https://www.stanford.edu/dept/pe/cgi-bin/], and major kudos to the Athletic department for listening to feedback and making great changes.

Yeah, that's right--apparently Stanford is in the midst of something called 'Academic Campus Cleanup,' which is a euphemism for 'We're giving away stuff for free.'

How this has been going on for 16 years without me knowing--I love free stuff--is probably a testament to either my oblivion or the school's lack of publicizing this event.

If September 28 is Day 1, then today seems like Day 3, or the Bonair Siding/Janitorial Services/Fire Station etc. clean-up day. I'm actually in the market for a fire pole--used, like new--to speed up my descent from my room on the second floor to the ground so as to get to class more efficiently.

Check out the map on the site to see where the rest of the campus is throwing out perfectly good room decorations. I've heard that past cleanups have featured couches, chairs, and many more things that are appealing to a college student but not to an administrator.

Near the end of my workday today I gave my e-mail one final check and discovered that a, shall we say, “critical” review of Stanford Dining’s new pilot “trayless dining” policy had been published in the Daily. After muttering a few frustrated expletives to my co-worker, I soon resigned myself to the fact that if someone hates the idea of trayless dining then it is not their fault. If anything, it is a sign of my failure as someone fighting to increase the resilience and sustainability of our society in the face of, let’s be honest, some crazy environmental shit.

As such, here is my educational two cents about the infamous dining hall tray.

The facts about trayless dining at Stanford (and why not using trays is a good thing):

1) You can have a tray if you need one/want one/desire one/passionately lust for one in the fashion of the Stanford student who wrote the aforementioned article found here http://www.stanforddaily.com/cgi-bin/?p=1033368 .

2) Trayless dining is a pilot program of Stanford Dining based on a survey of approximately 500 Stanford students completed last spring. It’s part of their well-established Love Food, Hate Waste Campaign. It has been planned with rationality and care, and is not what I would define as a radical move.