The honeymoon is officially over, and it's back to three-hour labs, 10-page essays and writing this column every other week. I've already started to wear sweaters and hats thanks to the glorious New England weather. Coming back as an upperclassman-finally a junior-is a little mind boggling. "We're halfway through our college career," my friend said, and I still feel like I just graduated from high school. I mentioned this to a mother of a visiting high school senior, and she said, "High school goes by really slowly, but college really goes by in a flash."

I couldn't agree more. We're trying to act like we know what we're going to do with our lives, what paths we're going to take and where we're going to be three years from now, but we don't know whether we'll be the one living with our parents completely broke or the one with the killer apartment in the city. In two years, I'm actually going to have to make important decisions. I mean, I don't even know if I'm studying abroad next semester.

But enough of my whining. What everyone's really talking about, of course, is Facebook's new News Feed. Whenever Facebook adds a new feature, it instantly becomes the hot conversation topic for the next day. At first, everyone seems to hate it and the conversation always revolves around how "ridiculous" Facebook is getting or how Facebook is taking over your life.

And yet, however much you complain about how horrible Facebook is now, how it was so much better when it was exclusive and just limited to "smart" schools and when you could tell when people wrote on your wall and then erased it, all of Facebook's new features have made it even more addictive. Facebook albums were the first feature to dramatically change the Facebook we'd all known and loved, and now, we can't imagine Facebook without them. The newest feature that Facebook put in, though, is perhaps its most invasive yet. One of my friends was so shocked at the new News Feed that she deactivated her account. I am a self-avowed Facebook addict, but even I didn't want to know everything that was popping up on the News Feed.

I could not care less that a guy I hadn't talked to since we had physics together junior year in high school thought some girl looked hot in her new profile picture. I really didn't want to know that the guy I had a crush on in high school just joined two Facebook groups on how the News Feed is "messing up his game." But what bothered me the most were the relationship "stories," as Facebook calls them, telling me things like "So and So are no longer in a relationship" with a little broken heart icon next to the comment.

I love Facebook gossip as much (probably more) as the next person, but the News Feed made me feel criminal for finding out this way. It's like telling everyone on campus that someone broke up with her boyfriend with a loudspeaker. If I found out that a girl I knew from chorus in high school broke up with her boyfriend of four years on the old Facebook, I'd feel as if I'd just been let in on a secret. The new Facebook just makes me feel guilty.

The News Feed is also incredibly embarrassing. I really don't want people to know that I care enough about my profile to add or take off one movie from my favorite movies list, or that I joined some new Facebook group that points out even more just how geeky I am. Facebook is supposed to be a place where I can show off how awesome I am. It's where I'm always witty, where my friends always say the stupidest things, where I only listen to the coolest music and only like the best movies and where, of course, every picture of me either tells everyone how popular I am or how attractive I am.

The News Feed is so, so ruining this. You are not supposed to know that I changed my profile 20 times in one day. You are not supposed to know that I friended the guy in my bio class because I thought he was cute. Everything on Facebook is supposed to be nonchalant, as if we came up with our beautiful, witty selves in five minutes flat, even if we do meticulously plan out how to present ourselves on Facebook-or any social networking site, for that matter. It's like the ugly secret that everyone knows but acts like they don't.

On a more serious note, however, the issue that the new News Feed really highlights is that of privacy online. Some of my more paranoid friends talk about Facebook taking over the world, Big Brother-style, because it can hold so much information about you-what dorm you live in, who your friends are, even what you're doing right now. There is a privacy issue with Facebook, with so much personal information and potentially reputation damaging material available out there. Although I do agree that it's a serious issue, I think that the dangers that Facebook poses are over-exaggerated. There are quite a few people who seem lulled into the false sense of privacy that Facebook creates. It's easy to believe that only your closest friends or people from your college can see your cell phone number or the photos you put up of your friends doing body shots half-naked and completely wasted, but that's never the case.

Facebook is an online community. It's a place to showcase yourself. Anything you put up there can-and will-have a chance of leaking out to a place you don't want them to go. It's really just a matter of common sense. Don't friend anyone you don't know (especially if they go to Williams). Use the privacy controls that Mark Zuckerberg put in place. Don't put up anything that you would be uncomfortable with your parents seeing-and untag really unattractive pictures of yourself. Because really, if you can't be perfect on Facebook, you can't be perfect anywhere else.