At least it’s Cudi
And not some nineties hacks like
Chumbawamba, meh.

At least it’s light rain
and not some torrential crap.
Sorry New Jersey.

At least it’s HUDS food
and not the scraps the dog gets.
Oh. My b, it is.*

At least it’s Harvard
and not yo’ mama.
Funny? Nope, I’m so serious I’m not even counting syllables right now.

*Just kidding. We love you HUDS staff. Stay classy.

Fatwa feminist + History hottie = <3

The Daily Mail reported Sunday that one of Harvard’s rock star faculty–History professor Niall Ferguson of The Ascent of Money fame–finally broke up with his wife of 16 years, Sue Douglas, to marry a Somalia-born bombshell, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I mean, dang. This lady is hot so we don’t really blame him. (Although Sue is not so bad herself.)

Here’s some obligatory commentary on the matter from Harvard FML:

“Niall Ferguson gets more action than most students on this campus. FML”

To which a commenter fitfully replies:

“well, he is more attractive than most students on this campus…”

Truth. Niall—call us.

Toofer: “You know, I went to school in Boston. Well, not in Boston, but nearby. No, not Tufts–”
Jenna: “Oh, shut up. It’s 14 degrees there.”
Toofer: “… Harvard.”

Yeah, it's really that cold here.

Conan just peaced, Toofs. The pressure’s all on you.

Miss you, Coco!

Have the name of a Greek god. This one’s pretty obvious. How many gold medalists do you know named Andy Stitzer? Partly the doing of NBC’s prescient obsession with him the year of the Salt Lake City Games, Apolo Ohno definitely benefited from his dad totally freeloading on a pompous and possibly super traumatic naming decision. It’s unsurprising that the Olympic Committee granted him the gold medal even though he finished one of his races second–the man can bend people at sheer will, especially with hair like that. And it doesn’t really matter that Ohno wasn’t named specifically after the god, because really, who can focus on that when your last name is an exclamation in itself? We can all only stop hating him for him winning the genetic lottery when we find out how many times he was beat up in grade school before he started working out for future retribution. (I hope it’s a lot.)

Be a super-dee-duper All-American do-gooder. Pie-eating nationalists will always be predictably easy to please–you give them a wholesome, hardworkin’ teenager from the midwest just hoping to bring some honor to the heartland and they’ll stop being pissed that “My Name is Earl” won’t be the regularly scheduled programming for two weeks. That’s why all of the blond, freckle-faced youngin’s from Texas get all the attention during these two weeks every single time. Shawn Johnson, Sasha Cohen, that one chick who was actually really crappy at diving and yet got more camera time than the non-American gold medalist–they all had one creepy thing in common, and that was America’s capitalization on their patriotic cuteness and absurdly happy-go-lucky cheeriness. With their scarily vehement “GO USA!” chants captured on film for eternity, they might as well have been wearing eagle-emblazoned letter jackets onto the podium. Can we please just lay it all out? Because basically, Paul and Morgan Hamm are just two short dudes in tights wearing some ugly-ass primary colors.

Double the trouble is too much to handle.

Read more qualifications (or maybe disqualifications) after the jump.

Use as many “stoked’s” and/or “brah’s” in your interviews as possible. “Any medal would be good. A big gold one even better.” “My goal that day was to get a sunburn. That’s all I wanted.” And the best one: “Where would one find a Fabio cutout?” Yes, these words were all physically spoken by Shaun White.

I love lamp!

Engage unabashedly in douchebaggery out of the arena. Learn the best from Michael Phelps for this one. To be fair (and generous), cocking a baseball cap sideways and being stupid enough to get caught with a bong is probably the best way he knew how to celebrate depleting the earth of gold for centuries to come. Congrats, Phelpers! You’ve won our hearts AND our respect!

Say nope to dope, kids.

Have great hair. Did I mention that Apolo Ohno has great hair?

Shaun! Over here! We've found Fabio.

Compete on Dancing With the Stars in between consecutive Olympics and dance a lot of tango in tight pants. I forget where I was going with this.

Oh, right.

I know I’m making it really vague who I’ll be rooting for this time around, but I like to keep things a surprise. GO CANADA!

*(you know, minus the whole being born, naturally endowed with the biceps of a raging roid abuser thing.)

Photos courtesy of The Evolution of Jeremiah, Athlebrities, Celebrity Justice, Detroit Buckeye, and TV Guide.

Browse through the first page to see if anyone is professing his/her love to your oblivious “Hunky Australian philosopher” blockmate. A more interesting aspect of the site is the posted stats, collected from the submission demographics. Of all four classes, seniors are submitting the most sightings, perhaps in attempts to take advantage of the last opportunities to get to know the Serena van der Woodsen lookalike or the guy stuffing his face with pita chips at brain break. But most surprisingly, sightings occur more frequently at the 12 Houses than anywhere else on campus. Looks like more than a few people are too shy to chat even in the dining hall.

Read Noice’s favorite declarations of unrequited love after the jump.

Behind the counter at Lamont Cafe: “I saw you mixing it up at Lamont Cafe…I melted when you asked me ‘may I help you?’… I like a little milk in my coffee.”

On DeWolfe Street: “I saw you… walking with another boy while I was on a run. I ran as fast as I could directly in front of you both and I knew I looked good.”

Cabot Science Library: “I saw you…filling out transfer applications. Iowa State? Really?”

The cheese table: “I saw you… next to the cheese plate. Looking all hungry because you forgot dinner. What’s your name, delicate? Is it Yvonne? My little croissant. My little cheese.”

Lamont: “I saw you… And thought you were cute until…I realized you were watching Jersey Shore instead of working on your paper. In the first floor reading room no less! Get it together!”

Mather dining hall: “I saw you…reading Sex and the Ivy before frantically clicking a new tab as I walked by.”

Faculty Club: “I saw you… going directly from the tri-house formal back to Lamont to work on CS50.”

How appropriate.

What a sour puss. Get it? Aww.

Occasionally our inner nerds (aka “innerds“) get so excited over a class that we feel everyone must know about it. Presenting “A Slice of Class” in which we highlight a particularly revelatory/exciting/OMG/WTF class or section:

It’s not every science section at Harvard that has one class entirely dedicated to eating lemon wedges, Oreos, strawberries, goat’s cheese, and to drinking vinegar. However, this was exactly what this went on in section this afternoon for Science of Living Systems 11 “The Molecules of Life”. Read more about how after the jump.

The Miracle Berry, a West African fruit, finds it name from the astounding effects of a protein called miraculin contained within the tart and cranberry-like fruit. After eating the Miracle Berry, or the concentrated, freeze-dried pill form as eaten today, foods that are ordinarily very sour are miraculously rendered sweet. Very sweet!

The lemon wedges tasted like the most delicious and refreshing candy ever. The vinegar took on a taste similar to concentrated apple juice on the tongue, but on the throat it was clearly vinegar. The strawberries

It’s important to note that the effects of the Miracle Berry are contained largely to foods that are sour, rendering them sweet. In addition the composition of the foods is not altered, but rather our taste-buds are affected by the miraculin protein creating this Wonka-esque flavor!

Tasting parties or “Food Orgies” are held regularly in cities like New York, but why not host your own party and perhaps mix it is up a bit – what would dry wine or sour shots taste like under the influence? You can buy fresh Miracle Berries online, or the freeze-dried packet version from Japan (see image).

Hello, world.

Sure, Harvard’s still working on picking its broke ass off the floor, but as a cutting-edge research university, some expectations that it’ll keep updating according to the internet’s modern standards remain despite a total endowment fail. But after browsing through some webpages affiliated with FAS, we… well, we really wish we hadn’t. Luckily, Noice did all the dirty work to save all the Harvard kiddies some cyber-aesthetic pain.

THE BEST

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences: This one’s a no-brainer, what with all the hackers that the SEAS has on demand. With an exhaustive menu on the homepage, the site lets any idiot find anything, anywhere from research opportunities for undergraduate research as well as a complete census of the school’s demographics (74% male–again, no surprise there). Take a peek at the course website of CS50, maybe the only undergraduate class that doesn’t use a crappy my.harvard iSite (and also the only course page that embedded an LOLcat applet last year).

Anthropology: Links to sweet interviews with awesome faculty! Cool header! Sans serif font! Very noice indeed.

Literature: Shocker, right? But entering the Lit site proves to be a candied orgasm for the eyes with rainbow books as the background (gay pride, anyone?). Not only that, the department proves it’s not just about lofty and obscure theory and academia, as shown by its extremely functional, minimalist menu on the bottom, linking visitors to the department’s degree requirements easily and its Ph.D. dissertations pompously. But after seeing the quality of the site, we’ll forgive them.

See the sites for sore eyes after the jump.

THE REST

Visual & Environmental Studies: Always one-upping the academics who sit in Widener theorizing but never acting, those artsy-fartsy laborers in the Carpenter Center know how to combine pleasing color schemes, easy-to-browse organization, and plain and simple informational display into one straightforward site. With their front page constantly updated on upcoming exhibits and lectures given by visiting speakers, it’s easy to keep updated with departmental happenings. And if not for that reason, checking out some sweet art produced by resident professors isn’t a bad way to spend a night procrastinating on the internet. But surprisingly, VES’s web design skills weren’t as impressive as we expected. Two words: ARIAL BOLD. </vomit>

History of Art and Architecture: After a total revamp from last year’s arguably more modern, minimalist interface, the new HAA site appears too crowded according to a VES concentrator, not scarce enough by an economics concentrator, and not “philosophically stringent upon the work’s emotive display and discourse on contemporary aestheticism” by their own standards. In all seriousness, it seems bizarre that HAA would allow so much “anti” white space. But when in doubt, perceive it HAA-style–attribute it as an expression of pain.

THE GROTESQUE

Folklore & Mythology: Scroll all the way to the bottom to see the not-so-hidden Apple logo. Really? They couldn’t find anyone to design a website? And someone who didn’t think Microsoft Word clip art was legitimate graphic design? We’d say that’s completely heinous, but we didn’t mention yet that the front page consists only of American Heritage Dictionary definitions of the department’s title. The new FML: Folklore and Mythology is Lame.

Romance Languages and Literature: “Hey, Grandma Erma, want to make a website? What, you don’t know HTML? That’s OK, you can just draw something up on paper; we’ll scan it in.” At least it’s not as bad as the World’s Ugliest Webpage.

All of that in consideration, the November Glamour issue made a small Harvard shout-out that we felt we absolutely must share. Kate Dillon fans rejoice, they’ve done a whole spread on plus size women and she’s in it!

the very definition of "noice".

So, in light of the supposed “dust up” over another celebrity, we’d like to highlight a full-grown actual Harvard alum. Kate Dillon is a name known to some and a face known by many. But how many people know that this absolutely gorgeous top model went to Harvard? She graduated with a masters from the Kennedy School of Government after being accepted in 2007. Though (obviously) brilliant and beautiful, it’s safe to her path to come into her own wasn’t easy. She battled with anorexia for years until finally dropping out of the fashion industry, later becoming the full-blossomed woman that anyone can admire.

But here’s where Noice might get a little sentimental. It’s no secret that Harvard and the Ivy Leagues in general have a population outside the “norm” for the rest of America. And we’re not just talking about being incredibly fortunate and capable. Having grown up in the south, this author can relate that what she sees in magazines and what she sees on campus isn’t exactly what she remembers from back home. To put it more bluntly, there can be some real pressure for the Harvard lass to be skinny and impeccably beautiful at all times. Amidst an environment of neuroticism, eating disorders, and that blasted calorie counter that HUDS keeps on their website, a curvy girl (no, actually anyone) who is perfectly normal in every aspect, can sometimes get a little down on themselves. While we’re all for keeping healthy and eating sustainably, we also  have to remember to *think* healthy and that whatever shape we choose to be in, whatever shape we’re meant to be, is already as beautiful as can be. </sentimentality>

Big ups to Glamour for The Kate Dillon shoot, if we have to be inundated by impossibly gorgeous women, we prefer them to be well-fed. Plus, if we can’t love ourselves how will we ever muster the guts for Primal Scream? Srsly.

A resource- Please, use it!:

ECHO (Eating Concerns Hotline and Outreach)
Quincy House
F-entry basement
drop-ins: Sunday-Wednesday, 8-11 p.m.
hotline: daily, 8 p.m.-8 a.m.
495-8200

images courtesy, Glamour, Mode, and Blogger.

What’s that you say? “Honor Our Teachers Profs” doesn’t make any sense? Stop trying to defy the logic and just play along. Here at Noice we don’t hate…we appreciate. And this week we really appreciate:

Enough to consider switching concentrations?

Professor Yukio Lippit
History of Art and Architecture

This prof, some may describe as an Asian Richard Gere, deserves some serious appreciation as a bright spot in Harvard’s faculty. This semester he’s teaching the Core Lit-Arts B class on Japanese Woodblock Prints (but you lucky History of Art and Architecture concentrators can look forward to HAA 188j or 287k in the Spring). When he’s not adding his face and wonderfully soothing lecture voice to an already attractive set of course materials, he’s busy researching and writing some stellar books. We like Yukio ’cause he’s notoriously accessible to his students and sincerely devoted to what he teaches. We also dig that he’s an alum too (class of ’93!). Mad props, sir, mad props.

This song pretty much says it all. We love our profs!

Image courtesy of The East Asian Art History Program website