Vuvuzelas are already being heard all over campus as students gear up for the Game this weekend, much to the annoyance or amusement of everyone within a hundred-foot radius. The Branford College Council has been selling the noisemakers (or instruments, if you prefer), inscribed with the words “Harvard blows” over the past week; they are also being sold by TD freshmen.

Social life at Columbia takes a new turn as the university hosts a weeklong “Social Experiment” to encourage students to talk to new people. Each day, a group of students are chosen “password holders” with a new “prompt” posted on the Social Experiment website. If someone says the prompt to a password holder, they get a “password” which they type in the website for prizes, including a top prize of $500. The pan-Ivy blog IvyGate had harsh words for the project, devised by a group of Columbia RAs, as a sign that the college was now “paying its students to stop avoiding each other”.

Psychological effects of gaming? Rani Desai, associate professor of psychiatry and epidemiology and public health at Yale, and colleagues anonymously surveyed 4,028 adolescents about their gaming, problems associated with gaming and other health behaviors. They found that 51.2% of the teens played video games (76.3% of boys and 29.2% of girls). The study not only revealed that, overall, there were no negative health consequences of gaming in boys, but that gaming was linked to lower odds of smoking regularly. Among girls, however, gaming was associated with getting into serious fights and carrying a weapon to school. In other words, the studies show that girls maybe gaming for different reasons than boys.

The first snow of the season fell this morning, lightly dusting campus grounds in a faint whitish tinge. While marking winter’s increasingly imminence, the early November flurry caught most students off guard, coming much earlier than anyone had anticipated.

Yale hosted the third annual Henry Roe Cloud Conference last weekend to commemorate the first Native American who graduated Yale College a century ago. The conference hosted various panels on both the history and current situation of the the Native American community at Yale, including the need for a location separate from the Asian American Cultural Center. (The two cultural houses currently occupy the same building at 295 Crown St.)

This week is Trans/Gender Awareness Week! Events include a Femininitea and Pronoun Workshop by JAC Stringer on Tuesday, a YPU Debate on Wednesday, and a Q&A with Kimberly Pierce and a special screening of her Oscar winning film, Boys Don’t Cry on Saturday. For more information and a complete list of activities, talks, and workshops, visit http://sites.google.com/site/transweek/

Children as young as age 2 are seeing more fast food ads than ever before, and restaurants rarely offer parents the healthy kids’ meal choices, according to a new study from Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. The new evaluation, the most comprehensive study of fast food nutrition and marketing ever conducted, shows that fast food marketers target children across a variety of media and in restaurants. In addition, the study finds that restaurants provide largely unhealthy defaults for the side dishes and drinks that come with kids’ meals. The detailed findings of this study will be presented in Denver today during the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting.

Help for Indonesia and SE Asian Study Break. A few weeks ago, two volcanic eruptions in Indonesia killed hundreds and displaced 40,000 from their homes. The Alliance for Southeast Asian Students, ALSEAS, was collecting donations all this week.  You can still donate to the relief effort at: http://donate.ifrc.org/ If you are interested in member groups in the region, come to the SE Asia Study Break this Wednesday, Nov. 10 where Spring Rolls and authentic Thai food will be served.

This Saturday, Chinese children and their adopted families will descend upon WLH from across the tri-state area for the Chinese Adopted Siblings Program for Youth (CASPY). A semesterly affair, CASPY pairs adopted children with big sibs for a full day of cultural fun.

Only two more days of the American Red Cross November Blood Drive, currently happening in the AfAm House (211 Park Street). The blood drive ends on Wednesday, November 10. Sign up here to help save a life!

The San Francisco Giants beat the Texas Rangers on Monday, capturing their first World Series since 1954. They were powered by Tim Lincecum’s stellar performance on the mound, beating the Rangers 3 to 1 in Arlington, Tex. Taking the series four games to one, the Giants’ victory marked their first World Series title since the team moved to San Francisco for the 1958 season.

Jook Songs, the Asian American Writing and Performance Workshop, will take over the Calhoun Cabaret for a night of truth– two nights of truth, on Friday and Saturday at 7:30. Founded eleven years ago, the unorthodox group is to creative nonfiction what spoken word is to poetry, performing autobiographical pieces that both speak to and transcend the concerns of the Asian Pacific American community. RSVP to http://www.jooksongs.com/rsvps

Screw Overload. This coming weekend has the potential to be a crazy two days of matchmaking and mayhem.  On Friday November 5, Pierson, Berkeley, and Trumbull will have their Screws in their respective dining halls. On Saturday, Davenporters will party it up at Thali Too.

AASA will stage a shock event protesting the Arizona anti-immigration law on Nov. 18. Students will don shirts asking “Do I look illegal?” on the front with “Stop racial profiling in Arizona” on the back. Currently, 25 other states are also considering passing a similar immigration law. Read about it at http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101028/us_yblog_upshot/report-25-states-are-considering-arizona-style-immigration-laws

Yale PostSecret: Confessions on Race, Culture, and Identity will be unveiled this Friday at 4 p.m. at Maya’s Room in Silliman College. Sponsored by AASA, Hillel, and BSAY, the  project encouraged students to submit anonymous art expressing various thoughts on cultural identity. You can still submit to the gallery by Oct. 27 – upload artwork online at http://www.yaleaasa.org/yalepostsecret.php or drop off your submissions at Commons during lunch and dinner this week.

This week is Intimate Partner Violence Awareness Week at Yale. Join the Women’s Center and other organizations on campus to learn about intimate partner violence, discuss how it impacts lives, and take action to end intimate partner violence. All are welcome to attend and participate in this week’s events, which include discussions, workshops, and a benefit show.

Iolanthe, the Yale Gilbert and Sullivan Society’s Fall 2010 Mainstage Production, will premier this week at the Saybrook Underbrook Theater. Free to the Yale public thanks to the JE Sudler Fund, this “fairy opera” will feature bulldog thespians as members of the House of Lords as well as the fair folk. Show times are Thursday at 8 PM, Friday at 6:30 PM and 9:30 PM, and Saturday at 8:30 PM.

“Like a G6″ Tops the Charts — The Far East Movement (FM), the Los Angeles native Asian American quartet, landed the #1 spot of the Billboard Hot 100 with its debut single “Like a G6,” pushing down down Bruno Mars with ”Just the Way You Are.” FM has set a historical precedent as the first Asian American group attaining such success, and the quartet may be starting a trend toward Asian-American mainstream music.

Samurai stopped serving sake, or any other alcohol for that matter after four underage students were caught drinking there last Thursday by police officers. Many claim that this bodes ill for Samurai’s future business, as their notoriously lax carding policy was one of their main sources of business in the past.

Things don’t bode well for Sharron Angle, candidate for Nevada Senator, after she commented that the members of the Hispanic Students’ Union at Rancho High School in Las Vegas looked Asian. When the group asked why she seemed to direct her anti-illegal immigration against Latinos, Angle replied, “I’m not sure that those are Latinos in that commercial…I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me.” See CNN coverage at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCI46nwzn7s

“The Cretaceous Quintet,” New Haven’s premiere dinosaur-themed children’s wind quintet, is performing on Saturday, October 23rd at the Peabody Museum in celebration of the Torosaurus’s 5th birthday. Formed in 2006, these musicians have played at nursery school fairs and are a regular part of the Yale Peabody Museum’s Dinosaur Days week every February.

On Sunday, the Yale Ambassadors program held their orientation in LC 102. The program hires Yale students to pitch Yale to promising high school students near their hometowns. Returning Yale ambassadors shared stories and tips, from making connections to dealing with annoying questions. One student described the disbelieving enthusiasm of a high school in South Dakota upon hearing that a Yale visitor was actually coming to their state!

Early Wednesday morning, the Pundits stole all the copies of the Yale Daily News from various dining halls and sent out a spurious email to the Yale community that began: “We at the Yale Daily News want to apologize for responding thoughtlessly and offensively to recent events on campus. The new editorial board is going to take time to respond and rectify our mistakes. To begin, and to show how seriously we take our role in the Yale community and the opinions of our readers, we are holding a “moment of silence” for journalism. Today we will not print.” The prank was done in retaliation to a controversial article that was published earlier last week.

TAS will hold its classic Dumpling Night this Saturday from 5 – 7 p.m. in the AACC. This semester, the group plans to serve a total of 4000 handmade dumplings as well as boba tea. The cost is $5 a person with a portion of the profits going toward the Pakistan flood relief efforts. TAS also invites anyone interested in making dumplings to stop by on Friday from 5 – 9 p.m. at the AACC. If you want a visual guide on how to make dumplings, check out APA Blog pics from the previous Dumpling Night here!

This Thursday, eminent archaeologists will mingle with EAST-junkie undergrads in Luce Hall, as scholars from both sides of the Atlantic convene for the Perspective on Liao international conference. Bringing together thirty years of research on China’s Liao dynasty, the conference will move to the city on Saturday after new findings on Buddhist patronage and funereal rituals are aired in an unprecedentedly cosmopolitan setting.

Pakistan Relief Concert: Help Can’t Wait — To assist those ravaged by natural disaster in Pakistan, the Yale College Dean’s Office teamed up with Yalies for Pakistan, the Muslim Students Association, and various other student organization, to host the Pakistan Relief Concert in Woosley Hall on Saturday Night. The concert featured many Yale performance groups and raised an impressive $11,000 for the charity groups Karachi Relief, UNICEF, and the Red Cross.

Liberry is officially closed: Formerly New Haven’s only frozen yogurt establishment, Liberry has been replaced by what looks to be a new burger joint. Business at Liberry was never stellar, but was hurt significantly since last month’s opening of FroyoWorld across the street, which draws hundreds of customers everyday and remains packed even on weekdays.

An official overhaul of the International Studies major is currently underway, shortly following a $50 million donation from John Jackson ’67 this past April. The funds were used to build the new Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. The new major, “Global Affairs,” will be a standalone major, unlike IS, which could only be taken as a double major. Efforts to increase the prestige of the program and to make faculty resources more available to students may result in limited enrollment.

Opening the Gateway: Soon Yalies will have to share New Haven with approximately 14,000 new students with the completion of Gateway Community College in September 2012. Gateway’s soon-to-be 380,000-square-foot campus is currently under construction at 2-20 Church St.

The Taiwanese American Students (TAS) had their Family Wedding Night on Thursday September 16, in which TAS couples wrote mad-lib vows (I promise to tickle you with all my toes), exchanged Ring Pop rings, and took their first pictures as man and wife (sometimes woman and wife…). Afterwards, they embarked on a frenzied search for their children, compromising their dignity (eg, yelling Pikachu in the hopes of hearing an “I choose you”) in order to make their families complete.

Salad bars are back! After several complaints about the disappearance of salad bars as part of a pilot program in six dining halls this year, Yale Dining has reinstated salad bars in Commons and several residential colleges. The pre-made salads are still served as an option alongside the traditional salad bar. The Facebook event, “I would like a salad bar please!”, created by Maddie Oliver ES ’13, had 802 members as of Monday night.

The 10th Annual International Opportunities Fair will take place this Friday, September 24, from 1-3pm in Payne Whitney Gymnasium. Last year, over 600 Yalies attended the fair to explore their study abroad, internships and volunteer opportunities abroad, and Yale academic options.  A full list of participants is available on the CIE web site.

Early on Sunday morning, three men were involved in a shootout on the corner of College and Crown streets. There were two reported injuries, neither of them life threatening. One arrest was made (of the apparent victim), although the unidentified gunman has still not been found. As a response, police say they are tightening the security around Crown Street to prevent similar incidents from happening again.

College Days Multiple colleges celebrated their College Days last week, include Timothy Dwight, Trumbull, Berkeley, and Pierson. Students relived their childhood days with inflatable obstacles courses and slides, played games, and basked in the sun.  Pierson had an epic Jell-O Wrestling match, which started between Dean Fabbri and Master G and escalated to a free-for-all among Piersonites… and some people who weren’t in Pierson (ahem Trumbull crashers).

Controversial immigration bill passes in Arizona. In an effort to crack down on illegal immigration, the state of Arizona recently passed a bill that will require immigrants to carry documents at all times and allow police to request documentation on “reasonable” suspicion. President Obama has called the bill “misguided” and has asked the Justice Department to examine it. Read more at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100423/ap_on_re_us/us_immigration_enforcement.

Spring Fling is for Lovers: A Musical Alternative to the Ying Yang Twins, featuring music by Juliet Buesing, Tina Colon, and J Prophet, will take place in the Trumbull courtyard or the Af-Am House (rain) during and as a protest against the performance of the Ying Yang Twins at Spring Fling tomorrow. The inclusion of the Twins in the Spring Fling line-up sparked various degrees of outrage across campus due to their explicit, misogynistic and all-around offensive lyrics.

Numerous security guards were stationed at the entrances to old campus in preparation for Spring Fling to check people’s student ID’s when they entered and to ensure that no one was trying to smuggle in alcohol for the event. Various people report being accosted by security even though they were merely returning to their dorms on old campus. Entrances through LC and the post office, however, remained unguarded.

Relay for Life was on Saturday and went all through the night until Sunday morning.  Teams  from each residential college and students groups like Glee Club and MEChA, came out to honor the lives of cancer victims and survivors while enjoying live performances, movies, and a bounce house. The event has raised around $80,000 for the American Cancer Society.

YCC elections finally end After a heated runoff, Jeff Gordon ’12 won by a margin of 71 votes to claim his spot as the next president of the Yale College Council over Courtney Pannell ?11. You know what this means ? no more posters and Facebook spam! For the rest of the YCC election results, see http://www.yaledailynews.com/media/2010/04/14/election-results/

The KASY Brown Eyed Boys are back to perform their infamous spoof of “Abracadabra” at Flavors of AASA, the signature event for Asian American prefrosh during Bulldog Days. If you missed it at the KASY Cultural Show, be sure to check them out at 11 p.m. in LC 101. Come out and show your support for the prefrosh too!

The Yale Bone Marrow Drive is this Thursday, April 22, from 11 – 3 at Commons! Just fill out a form and get a simple check swab. Matches are rare (about one in a thousand), but if you are lucky enough to be a match, you will be notified. The process is painless, life-saving, takes 20 minutes to complete from start to finish including paperwork, and you will be registered for life! This event is sponsored by the Yale football team and Yale women’s ice hockey team.

It’s UNICEF’s annual Children’s Week! This year, “Children’s Week 2010: Childhood is Forever” will focus on five themes: Education, Advocacy, Trauma in Childhood, Diversity and the Global World, and Kids in the Spotlight. Events include: Teach for America Information Session (4/5, 8 pm, WLH 119), The Lion King Screening (4/7, 9 pm, Silliflicks), Conversation with Lee Norris (4/8, 4:30 pm, WLH 119) and Sing-a-long for Haiti (4/9, 9 pm, LC 201)

Spring CASPY The Chinese Adopted Sibling Program for Youth, which pairs Yale students with children who are their “little sibs” for the day, took place this Saturday.  The program consisted of fun and culturally-educational activities such as Tai Chi, a Night Market, and a talent show.  CASPY takes place once every semester and this year it was coordinated by Michelle Yu and Hana Omiya.  Yalies from various ASA clubs signed up to be Big Sibs for the children, many of whom are Chinese or Vietnamese children adopted by Caucasian families.

Yale Census is on Tuesday! Residential colleges have sent out information on where to pick up census forms. Every Yale student is required to fill one out if they are living in New Haven for the spring semester. For more information, check out http://www.yale.edu/census/Yale_Census/Welcome.html

For April Fools Day, the IvyGate Blog had uploaded a post stating that MGMT, currently the most popular Indie band on the music charts, would cancel their performance at Yale’s upcoming Spring Fling in order to protest misogynistic lyrics of the Ying-Yang twins, who are also scheduled to perform that day. Fortunatelyfor Yale, as YCC president Jon Wu confirmed, the post was only a prank and MGMT will still be performing as scheduled.

Welcome Class of 2014! — The acceptance rate for the class of 2014 remained at 7.9%, which is the same as last year’s acceptance rate. Yale was the only school of the Ivy League not to experience a decline in the admissions rate, with Harvard and Stanford at record lows of 6.9% and 7.2%, respectively. Yale admitted 1,940 of 25,869 applicants and waitlisted 932 students.