V V w w V w I -0 _4v _w _W T _W -W .v 2B Wednesday, November 14, 2012 The Statement THE JUNK DRAWER I Wednesay, Noveber 14, 012 / heStteen BE The drunk diet: The science behind why you crave NYPD after a night of partying from last week: the new new left What are your thoughts on our generation compared to the one of the 60s? I think we face similar issues but are responding in a dissimilar way 73% random student interview by kaitlin williams /illustrations by megan mulholland Welcome to the Random Student Are you going to put out a top Interview, where you're always .f hat for tips? If I could play piano, our favorite person inthe whole that's what I'd do. wide world. No. I'd just do it for myself. So, let's go back to the basics. I'm What an artist. What if everyone talking what everybody used to boos you? What would you do? ask each other by the monkey I can accept criticism. bars in kindergarten. What's your favorite color? What if there's a round of Umm ... not really. applause? Would you consider dropping out and pursuing a Don't you feel like you could just career as a pianist? be buddies with anyone? No. Personally, I feel like Kid Cudi /p understands me. Have you ever listened to Kid Cudi? Purple. Not really. I've always considered it as like a backup career. No way! That's my favorite color! You're myfavorite person! Backup career? Most people are 0FA sy t r y AV' ""4 r L7. 0 vm - - z ; I We are nothing like the 60s, and I'm glad about that 18% I think'we face similar issues and are responding in a similar way 9% What do you think are our responsibilities toward enfranchising the low-income community members of Detroit? by Lucy Perkins I don't believe we should take an active role 25% I believe we should take an active role 75% Why purple? I don't know why. Well, purple is my favorite color because... It's pretty. Yeah. How did you know what I was going to say? This is freaky. Quick. Who's your favorite celebrity?- That's a hard one. It shouldn't be that hard. There's no wrong answer. I don't know. My favorite celebrity? I can't tell. Yeah. OK. Then you might know what I mean. I feel like hejust knows what my life is like and we could chill and it wouldn't be weird at all. I like The Fray. The Fray? Do you feel like their songs are about your life? No. Not like that. I just like their music. Iplay the piano and I really like their use of piano. Oh, nice. Do you ever playthe like "I'm goingto be a pianist or an actress or a painter, but if that doesn't work out I'll go to school." You're like "Meh, that's mybackup." Well, I just do it for myself, so it's not something I want to do for the world. Oh, OK. Well, my backup is wait- ressing and writing prose poetry on the sides of buildings. It's very down-to-Earth. Then again, you're a freshman, so you're full of hope and goals. Yeah. It's OK. You're still my favorite. -Vamika is an LSA freshman. Online comments Beautiful article, humble, self aware, extremely socially concerned like the Port Huron statement people. Honor the values, the important his- tory that it contains, make the values of participatory democracy an ongo- ing truism, an objective and bedrock to guide and edify minds and guide actions. True enough the "cluster fucking" still goes on and the forces at. issue are formidable and as the recent election revealed, all too grimly intent on continuing the violent, culturally vacant, winner take all society that has held them up all these years. The Blue and Gold, historicallyper- sonified by the SDS and all that engendered them and followed from them, is indeed a mighty force for the the right and true. -Anonymous, regarding "The Lost Generation, Part II" The flaw in this article is that it completely ignores conservative stu- dents. You want politically and socially active students? Turn to Students for Life. Love them or hate them, you can't ignore them, because they will not be silenced. Survivor of the Abortion Holocaust signing off -Andrew Patton, regarding "The Lost Generation, Part II" piano in the Union? You can't tell? Like it's a secret? Not yet. There's one in West Quad Or you held an election and it's I'm going to check out though. too close to call? very weekend night between11 p.m. and 4 a.m., BTB rings up more than 500 customers. "Our motto is fast, fresh and open late," General Manager Brent Hegwood said. "And I always tell my employees that 'fast' is the first part, so if we aren't fast, that's a problem." Hegwood, who is also the manager of BTB Cantina and Good Time Charley's on South University Avenue, says his favorite time of the year is Welcome Week, and it's obvious why: food sales increase astro- nomically when students have alcohol pumping in their systems. Like any self-respecting Wolverine, when I drink, I'm going to eat. The geog- raphy of Ann Arbor's campus confirms my desires. The warm lights of Pizza House beckon after a long night at Rick's, the gar- licky aroma luring in students like moths to a porch light. For LSA junior Alexa Shull, eating after- a night of partying is nearly guaranteed. Shull said her favorite place to crash is Pizza House - "feta bread and a peanut butter Oreo milkshake, definitely," she said. "I'd probably say three out of five times I go out, I'll get food." Shull's friend and LSA sophomore Fed- erica Jonas follows suit. Jonas goes out three or four nights a week and often stops at Jimmy John's or Pizza House afterward for a personal pizza or a Big John with cheese. "I'm just hungry, and I want to eat something that tastes good," Jonas said. "Jimmy John's and Pizza House are just what's open." There's actually a scientific explanation for this drink-and-eat behavior. Stuart Farrimond, a doctor and lecturer in food and health sciences at Wiltshire College in the United Kingdom, explained that alco- hol skews how the brain regulates caloric intake. "Alcohol can cause the blood sugar level to drop, which was presumed to be the reason for post-drink hunger-pangs," Far- rimond wrote in an e-mail interview. Recent research has shown that alco- hol directly affects the hypothalamus, the area of our brain that controls the appetite. So when alcohol binds to receptors on the brain, the hypothalamus is stimulated, and that's what causes us to get hungry. But that doesn't mean you'd want to eata salad after going out. When we're hungry, we want something fast and unhealthy. That's because when alcohol impairs the brain, our "primitive" survival drive kicks in and we instinctively want to eat high- calorie foods, according to Farrimond. This primitive drive Farrimond is talking about is the same thing that happens after a period of fasting, and this makes fatty foods seem infinitely more attractive. This makes sense, especially when you see ravenous students inhaling tacos at Panchero's at 2 a.m. And, if Welcome Week got you in the habit of eating drunk food, it will just get harder to avoid eating after a night out. Farrimond said that psychologically, we tend to repeat positive cycles. Meaning if you got cheesy bread on the way home after a lapse in judgment at Necto, you'll probably do it again. This isn't promising news, and it gets worse. "We can regulate our food intake up to about one shot of liquor - any more than that and the appetite goes AWOL," Farri- mond wrote. So basically, if you're drunk, there's little to no chance that your brain will tell you to control yourself when it comes to the greasy goodness of late night South University food. How to cure a hangover After a night of house parties or scur- rying between South U bars, many stu- dents feel the most common symptoms of a hangover: an overly achy body and nausea. For some, late night food stops serve as a precaution to ward off hangovers. Buy- ing a fishbowl can automatically mean a trip afterward to Jimmy John's. Others swear buy Backroom or the doughy masses of Pizza House's cheesy bread. "It tastes really good but it definitely soaks up the alcohol too," Shull said. But here's what's happening chemically as you watch "Friday Night Lights" in bed for three hours the next morning. When alcohol enters your body, it breaks down in several stages, but before it can be passed through your body, it is broken down into a highly toxic chemical sub- stance called acetaldehyde. Then, the liver processes the acetalde- hyde into acetic acid, a much less toxic sub- stance. But, if the liver is overloaded - aka one too many Jamaican Long Islands - it can't process everything at once and leads to that hungover feelingxye know and love. The rest of this article may contain infor- mation you wish wasn't true. Farrimond dismisses urban myths regarding legends of burrito-curing hang- overs - food doesn't do anything to sober you up. He added that even drinking water isn't going to prevent the impending doom of a hangover, though it may help relieve some symptoms - for instance, boosting the blood sugar level to reduce fatigue. But some lucky students never feel the effects, because the liver's ability to cope with alcohol is completely determined by our genes, Farrimond said. So, regardless of how many slices of NYPD students cram down their throats, there's not a whole lot they can do except let their liver slowly process everything. Cue, hangover. Though the magical and medicinal purposes of drunk food may have been expelled, it still tastes good, and no mat- ter what students think it's going to do for them, they'll still buy it.