This is the first semester of school for about 4,000 students here on campus. Everything is new, walking around is still exciting or completely depressing, depending on how well you are doing with the adjustment to life aw

ay from your family, old friends and the sense of security developed out of experiences you had in your hometown. For some it’s time to drop out or, as we say with sterility, withdraw with plans to head back home or work for a little while before returnin

g to the joke of a higher education that we receive at this university. UT has a precariously high drop-out rate, something which I am not even going to make conclusions about, and this drop-out rate is one of the worst statistics we could have.

The transient nature of this University and the students living here has effects that reach into people’s lives that have nothing whatsoever to do with the university. Knoxville for the transient student is like rental property. You pay too much and get n

othing back aside from stasis. You deal with less than comforting surroundings. You make no improvements to the surroundings. It may be too much to ask students at this university to care about where they are going to be living, or have lived, for four ye

ars and then some, but it is the very thing that I am going to ask. One of the things that keeps people going to school is not school itself, but what the city itself has to offer as distraction, adventure and openness, and what the city has to offer is d

irectly related to what people create for it.

Before you have had a chance to explore this city it seems like a bubble, one or two square miles accounting for the land called campus and the foreign shores of The Strip. Rampant under-age drinking from Wednesday to Sunday everywhere within the aforemen

tioned radius, heads spinning and feet slipping on the steady ground that is more friendly to debauchery than any other city aside from Rio De Janeiro or possibly New Orleans. The primal showing that is The Strip pauses nightly and makes its call to you f

or your money, it is given gladly for the constant excessiveness to which all of us are conditioned. Beyond the bounds of campus and The Strip is an entirely different world. A newly prefabricated yet still abandoned downtown, for example, lies equidistan

t to Ayres Hall as does Andy Holt Apts. Up north on Broadway and northwest on Central provide some of the best thrift shopping in any little city I’ve been to, hours of fun digging through the detritus of a by-gone era. There are also bars in this town th

at are not on The Strip or in the Old City, many of which I would deem necessary watering holes for the thirsty. So when you say to yourself, “I am bored with this town,” you will be required to have lived here for the better part of ten years if you don’

t want to be disregarded altogether.

However, the most quintessential part of living in this town is adding something to it, rather than enjoying the unpleasant uniformity of one or two locations and leaving them as trashed as the football fans on Saturday. The Knoxville City Council primari

es were two weeks ago and I can count the number of students who voted with Chad’s toes. Whether or not your permanent residence is here or anywhere else in the country you should vote for this city’s council. These people make or break this town, and the

ir year of lame duck legislation proves that students don’t matter, and never will until we start voting in these elections and other state elections in the district where our school is located. These are the people that refuse to do what is needed to pro

perly fund this university and provide living wages to the staff, instructors and faculty.

But voting isn’t the only way to improve life here in this city. The last way I’ll mention here is creativity. Make something up. It only takes a small idea, one is most likely in your head already, and some effort to make yours and everyone else’s time i

n this city absolute amazing. You will be surprised at how many people can enjoy your ideas if they are true to a creative end rather than a monetary end; this town needs less people trying to make money off the students. Weasel your way into a vacant bui

lding downtown and turn it into to something enjoyable for you and others. But for however short or long your time is here, it will be exponentially more enjoyable if you put your ideas to work, along with your heart, and hey you might not have to get a r

eal job so soon.

– Jeff Slagg is building an empire in the sand – was that a fire or is that pollution?