It’s been an eventful semester, so to help you remember all the ups and downs of the last few months, we’ve put together a recap of the most important stories, scandals, and shitposts. Enjoy, and have a happy holiday season and break!

SEPTEMBER

Even a few days before the start of the first academic month, Bwog was bringing you hot reporting on the McBain facade, a guide to the best museums to visit for free with your CUID, and the developing lawsuit against a former GS dean for misconduct.

When the semester started in earnest, Barnard announced that JJ’s would no longer discriminate against Barnard students, the Lerner elevator became a lovely place to live, and a memorial service was held for the beloved bagel destination (and poor man’s Absolute) Nussbaum and Wu. Barnard literally suggested its students eat celery to cool down from the monstrous heat wave, so we came up with some other ideas.

While we found out what the ‘More’ in ‘Party and More’ on Broadway is and critically analyzed HamDel’s Twitter, and complained about the new Barnard washing machines, the Kingsmen released an album on Spotify with the shittiest cover (literally) known to a-cappella-kind. The Blue and White and Bwog had a conscious uncoupling, leaving scores of students to declare “who and what? huh?”

The mystery of Twitter user @dril’s identity was solved, as was the origin of those weird posters you saw around campus in September. Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio Cortez came to campus to speak, then got booted off campus (but still showed up to Riverside Church). Speaking of politics, Baeto O’Rourke went to Columbia, and we figured out what he (probably) got up to. We talked to up-and-coming Eighth Grade actress Emily Robinson and dished on our experiences with Tinder.

We closed out the month by eating Ferris biscuits for two weeks in a row, checking out Madeline Albright’s visit to campus, and fighting that kid in your discussion section. What a way to start the semester.

OCTOBER

Spooky season! We started October by spending 12 hours in the Milstein Center. Then we performed an exhaustive analysis of the best Joe’s Coffee on campus; PeopleHopped Kenny Ridwan CC’21, best known as an actor on ABC’s “The Goldbergs”; and compared Columbia fraternities to Juul pod flavors.

Brett Kavanaugh was appointed to the Supreme Court. Eric Holder, CC ‘73, Law ‘76, talked about it with the American Voter Project.

October was a big month for student theater: We reviewed NOMADS’ The Other Side, KCST’s Mourning Becomes Electra, Directing MFA Thesis LORDES, the Barnard Theater Department’s Peer Gynt, and CU Players’ The Great Gatsby.

We taught you to calculate Big Barnard Energy, Big SEAS Energy, Big CC Energy, and, of course, Big GS Energy. In our free time, we ate a lot of eggs and escaped CAVA. Oh, yeah, and homecoming happened. #yikes

Amigos who? We interrogated the management over at e’s bar, the newest threat to undergraduates’ livers (and dignities).  

Finally, before departing for break, we remembered Ntozake Shange, BC ‘70 and an acclaimed American playwright.

NOVEMBER

After a much-needed fall break, spring registration started and we kind of freaked out, bringing you classes to take as recommended by Senior Wisdoms.

We saw Emily Wilson, whose edition of The Odyssey was just added to the Literature Humanities syllabus, talk the art of translation. Then we got to actually talk to her and fangirled.

Bwog got #cultured: we reviewed The Pale Blue’s Once Upon a Fortnight and MoHi newcomer Atlas Kitchen. We also stopped by the Philolexian Society’s 33rd Annual Alfred Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest.

Big news for grad students! After years of hard work and protests, the university finally agreed to bargain with the grad students unions of Columbia, GWC (Graduate Workers of Columbia) and CPW (Columbia Post-Doctoral Workers). And the two unions voted yes on the university’s Framework Agreement, barring the possibility of a strike until April 6, 2020. In other organizing-related news, a group of Barnard and Columbia students let a boycott of Barnard dining to protest Aramark, Barnard’s food service provider.

Finally, we got a little festive: we compared campus figures to campus gourds and had a very intimate John Jay Thanksgiving Feast.

DECEMBER

Milly rang in December by extending its hours! And, despite the outrageous academic crimes waged upon us by our midterms on December 10, we still found the time to party sober and write an ethnography on it. Soon after, we continued to distract ourselves from our finals by attending the performances of Orchesis, CMTS’s Spring Awakening, and XMAS! We also went to Ferris to try every single dessert and review them, so you didn’t have to.

A few days later, outright displays of racism left campus shaken as a video circulated depicting a Columbia sophomore advocating racist beliefs in front of Butler Library. Barnard would later give him the boot.

Columbia and Barnard ED results came out! We got curious about Prezbo, and then Prezbo’s salary. After enjoying general merriment in our coverage of Orgo Night, we continued this merriment by covering Columbia’s first Naruto Run. Our mood was soon ruined, however, when we found out that Mediterranean restaurant and Columbia staple Amir’s had been shut down, at least temporarily.

Jenny Zhu is Bwog’s new Editor-in-Chief, joined by Managing Editor Zack Abrams and Internal Editor Zoe Sottile. New publishers Matt Wayland and Andrew Penn will be taking on the momentous task of funding our crazy Bwog shenanigans. Have an absolutely amazing break, Columbia, and please do take care of yourselves during this holiday season.