Freshmen Disorientation Parts I and II

     Here begins MY SOPHOMORE YEAR.  Also known as TOM'S WEEKLY YEAR.  Yes I had a column in every issue of the Collegian during the '07-'08 school year.  It was often tough to think of stuff to write.  In fact this first entry into my popular Freshmen Disorientation series is a two parter because I had already run out of ideas.  Luckily, lots of wacky shit happened during this year that I could then write about, as you shall soon see.     My new boss for this, my first year as a real columnist (not some no-name guest-writing schlub) was Noah Zaves.  He was a polarizing figure on the Willamette campus, but I liked him fine as an Opinions Editor because he let me use the "S" word.

Mysterious Disease Ravages Campus

    This would seem to be the first appearance of an Ackerman Acronym (trademark sign) in one of my columns.  I would go on to create many acronyms in my time as a columnist.  Partly so that I could meet my draconian word count constraints, but mostly because I just like acronyms.  This one I feel is very useful for students at all grade levels.  It's also pretty fun to yell.  Which is important.

I Miss Winter Already

     It seems I made a terrible error when I said that I only wrote three columns my Freshmen year.  Turns out there are a couple more!  How could I have forgotten about the spider column?  So great.  So timeless.  I even made a crappily photoshopped picture of me and a big spider for use as my author portrait in this one issue.

Visions of Grandeur

     A theme that would resurface several times over the years of Tom's Thoughts was what the hell to do after college.  Turns out this topic started very early, appearing right here in my third ever column.  

A Frightening Account Concerning Literacy

     My second column for the Collegian is one I still feel strongly about.  I don't read as much as some folks, but I still think that books are about the coolest shit around.  I'm pretty sure that at the Graduate School for Library and Information Science, everyone will probably read some books.  Though I might be wrong.  That'd be pretty wild.

Striving for Immortality

     Here it is folks, here it is, the very first column I ever wrote for the collegian (published late January 2007).  As you might expect, it took major cojones for a freshmen to even try to get his work published in a prestigious publication like The Collegian.  I admit I was mildly intimidated by Jade Olson the Opinions Editor who was a sophomore *gasp* who I assumed ruled the Opinions section with an iron fist.  I had visions of being savagely beaten for punctuation errors.  It turned out that Jade was quite nice, and, like all of my subsequent bosses, was completely content as long as I had assembled at least four complete sentences and had turned them in before the deadline.