I thought it was obvious

     A sufficiently unbearable amount of people repeatedly ask me the same questions each day, such as “How are you doing?” or “What’s up?” But there is a certain type of question that people seem to be asking more often now that I’m an RA. People would ask, “So, Simon,” while elbowing me painfully and repeatedly, “how are those chicks, huh?” I always return them with “the blank look”, where I stare them directly in the eye and blink 5 times quickly and consecutively. This question was certainly random, since the last time I even picked up a chick was back in grade school. Nevertheless, I try to appease my crowds by answering their questions. Apparently a lot of people either don’t know how to do some of these techniques, or have been doing them incorrectly. Hopefully the following tutorials will defog whatever turbid knowledge you had initially about chicks.

Picking up Chicks
The first thing to keep in mind is that chicks are very fragile. One blunder in your actions can send them running away, or worse, can permanently injure them. The stratagem is to put some chicken feed in your hand, and then hold your hands adjacent to each other so they form a bowl. When the chick is lured into your cupped hands, tighten your grip (only slightly), and lift slowly up until you are in the upright position. This is how you pick up a chick. Be cautious, chicks are timorous and will defecate when frightened.

Finding the Perfect Chick
I’m not sure what people mean by this question, as all chicks have both positive and negative aspects about them. The best way to find this chick that you want is to actually breed your own. Chickens, like many animals, reproduce sexually, so both a hen (female chicken) and a rooster (male chicken) are necessary for this operation. Since most of you have taken biology, you know that genes are transmitted from parents to their offspring, so choosing parents with ideal characteristics will produce chicks with similar ones. You can hatch the eggs using an incubator, or just have the hen sit on them. (Personally, I don’t trust the hen, and I prefer to have my eggs hatched 21st century style.)

How to “hitch-and-ditch” Chicks
If you only want to hang out with your chick for a short amount of time, and then continue on with your life, repeat the same process I went over for “Picking up Chicks”, except going backwards. Stoop down until your hand hits ground level, and then release your grip. Keep their fragility in mind, and be sure to return them to their parents. I hope you enjoyed this temporal pleasure.

     It is unfortunate that all my entries are thought out prior to the actual process of typing into this blog. This particular entry, as much as I wish I could say I came up with on the spot, was unsurprisingly preconceived as well, about half a week ago. Might I go into depth on how my fantastic art (or Fart, as I like to call it), came into conception? Yeah, I would.
     The birth of my brainchild occurred on one bright morning – nevermind, I misstated. On one EXTREMELY bright and hot morning, as I was getting an overdose of Vitamin D and wishing that I had chlorophyll instead of flesh for skin, I collected rush event calendars from the frat brothers stationed on Sproul (subsequently discarding the ones that did not offer the 4-letter F-word, Food). I could not help but think about the disappearance of stickers from today’s young adult society.
     Granted, there have been numerous things which we used to enjoy that we no longer enjoy. Besides Lunchables, Power Ranger figurines, and eating play-doh, I am surprised that stickers have slipped out of the college kids’ “cool list”. During Caltopia, I got a free collection of “Balls of Fury” stickers, including a picture of Christopher Walken with his best costume ever and a ping pong paddle with balls arranged in a sexually suggestive manner. However, I could not find a single place which I would want the stickers to be placed. But the urge to make use of my new Balls of Fury stickers was so strong. I HAD to stick it on something. I looked around, and when I saw a 6 foot something football player walk by, I knew what I had to do. I deftly peeled off the sticker of the blind bald Asian man, and stuck it on his back, grinning uncontrollably in the process, until he turned around. Now, my residents were with me at this point in time, and I could not afford to show them that I was weak.
     “What do you want?” He said, gruffly.
     Then, I came up with one of my best escape ideas. Remembering a song by Lil Mama, I asked, “What you know about me? What you what you know about me?” For some reason, this made him even more angry, and I was forced to summon my 2 year rusty cross country abilities.
     In a later meeting with my residents, I had a talk about safety in Berkeley. Stickers definitely have not found their place in the college world.