We all know that classes can get a little boring sometimes. No Amherst student is immune to naptime in the Red Room or the sporadic yawn during lectures. Some residents of the College have even taken to wallowing in the occasional fantasy to pass the time. Unfortunately, professors' insistence on talking can sometimes mar these daydreams. But luckily for students who had class in Merrill on Monday, a mysterious bikini-clad sunbather on Merrill Beach helped keep even the sleepiest student up.

"We were in the lobby of Merrill and someone started screaming, 'Everyone come over here!'" said Lindsay Thomas '01. "I thought it was my roommate."

Too embarrassed to investigate, Thomas waited until after class to interrogate her roomie. "I asked her, 'So what did you do today? Did you lay out at all?' And she said no, and then I felt much better."

Not everyone thought that the idea of sunbathing was inherently shameful. "Lots of different people have different ways of enjoying their study breaks," said Eric Edelson '01. "Merrill Beach should be used more often-it's the only beach on campus."

A Mass Cleanup

Is there buried treasure in the Pioneer Valley? Well, not exactly. Still, Masspirg's environmental efforts on Sunday did turn up some interesting keepsakes.

"We went out to some creek off of the Connecticut river to pick up trash and ended up pulling out old mattresses and cars and fridges," said Masspirg Co-Chair Bob Razavi '03.

Approximately 25 students met to help clean the Connecticut river, much to the surprise of the organizers. "We definitely did not expect so many people," explained Lindsay Clark '03.

The group also did not anticipate the amount of trash that they found. Everything from old boots to sofa and car parts were buried deep in the mud. Seven large trash bags were fulled to the brim with junk.

Even so, there were some objects that had to be left behind. "We will have to go back sometime to get the larger items that could not fit into the cars," said Razavi.

"Apparently the place we cleaned was a gathering place for high school students," Clark explained. "It was filled with beer bottles and broken glass. It was disgusting."

The drive there was another surprise for the students: "It was a goofy ride though cornfields," Razavi said. "Our driver got us lost, and we ended up surrounded by corn for fifteen minutes."

Splashy Showdown

The constitution for PISEAS (Pacific Islander/Southeast Asian Students), a student-run club at Amherst, states that one of its goals is, "to facilitate communication among College groups and individual students."

And what better way to open a channel for communication than a gigantic water fight? The idea for a water fight came last year when the now mostly sophomore group lived in North and South. They decided to make the most of one of the token RC events that no one goes to, in this case a quad-wide water fight, and turn it into a tradition, playing out the second annual event Saturday on Webster Circle.

PISEAS co-chair Joann Nguyen '03 described it as a "small, fun event," characterized by its randomness and eerie similarity to "Survivor"-without the island or the people or the annoying host or the nudity or the metaphors between rat and snake but basically the same, as water was involved.

Alan Vazquez '03, another PISEAS member, observed the irony in this bonding event. "It's funny how the PISEAS members bonded by throwing objects at each other like enemies."

However, he seems to think that this epitomizes the spirit of the club, a loose and friendly atmosphere, open to anyone-who wants to get wet.