Oink oink oink. Cough.

Remember the days when swine flu used to be a big deal, and the mere mention of it was enough to make your little toes tremble in your socks? The way it was knocking people out in faraway lands made it seem dreadfully unknown and terrifying — like ebola, or Martians.

Nowadays, that’s not quite the case anymore. With Purell dispensers popping up everywhere and HUDS offering bagged meals to the swine flu afflicted — instead of just the academically overcommitted — the virus has lost most of its aura.

At Harvard, we now hear about swine flu taking students down left and right. So-and-so’s quarantined in her room, swinexiling her roommates to multifarious futons. So-and-so needs to borrow lecture notes because he had swine flu. So-and-so went home with the swine flu.

It’s scary stuff, but given that the vaccine for H1N1 isn’t set to arrive at UHS til October, we can pretty much predict that in a few more weeks, swine flu will tear its way through Harvard like a bear tears through a picnic basket. No amount of Purell is going to save you.

To get you pumped for what’s to come, here’s a true story of my own survival. Be prepared, it’s not for the faint of heart.

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Bruce Friedrich, PETA Vice President, thinks noshing on chickens is unethical. Do you?

Upon first glance, it was apparent that the people attending the PETA debate last weekend were an crunchy bunch. The scent of patchouli wafted out from Science Center D, and inside the blue double doors, debate snacks of the spinach tortilla-and-hummus variety were eagerly gobbled up by Birkenstocks- and corduroy-clad attendees.

All mocking aside, though, the audience was, on the whole, unrepresentative of your typical Harvard kid. Firstly, they had trekked out to the Science Center (Good lord!) on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Secondly, they did this for the express purpose of listening to Bruce Friedrich, PETA vice president, argue that people should ethically treat animals (duh), while Harvard Speech and Parliamentary Debate Society member Wesley Hopkin counter-argued that people can ethically taste animals.

So, how’d it turn out? Was it super-intense, resulting in hummus and all-natural tortilla chips splattering the walls? Was everyone so persuaded by Friedrich that, the moment the debate concluded, they immediately rushed out to CVS to stock up on Odwalla bars and Soyjoy? All that and more, after the jump.

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