In a recent poll, students listed the top three things which they thought were most stressful about Amherst. Number one was classes, number two was room draw and number three was explaining to friends why they got the baked scrod at Valentine.

That's a lie. However, if there were such a poll, that would no doubt be the outcome. Now, something is threatening to disrupt these carefully tallied results, and that something is online room draw.

Online room draw aims to relocate the action and suspense of the Frontroom to the Internet. With this move, the room draw would hopefully become, in the process, a less stressful event. This would obliterate the huddled throngs in the Frontroom of cool, single-guaranteed juniors; frantic, social-dorm craving sophomores; and desperately optimistic, but basically screwed, freshmen, who are destined for Pratt and Morrow if they're lucky.

Is such a move wise? Dare we risk losing years of tradition, which include on-site intimidation and stress-related epileptic fits? SHAC member Meg Martin '02 thinks that online room draw will modernize the process, enabling students to choose their new living spaces from the comfort of their current rooms. However. this new technology may intimidate some further.

"Just watching rooms disappear in front of your face on your computer screen will not help the process," said Martin.

Pretty funny, huh? Actually, no. As Martin put it, "I don't think that it is possible to be funny about room draw."

But not all students take room draw seriously. Online or in the Frontroom, it's still just room draw. "Online room draw makes no difference to me because I don't deal with it," said Jake Kahn '03. "It's not going to be the worst thing if we are forced to opt out again-we were paid nicely in Sugar Jones for our misery."

Salsa Setback

It was supposed to be a raging, Friday night two-floor party with hip-hop, R&B and reggae in the basement and salsa and merengue on the first floor. Devoted partygoers trekked through a raging nor'easter to one of the most remote dorms on campus only to find that the advertised two dance floors had shrunk to one.

The disappointments amounted to more than the lack of a promised dance floor. One distraught freshman, Lawren Love '04, said, "I was disappointed that the salsa turntable broke and that were not enough sexy men to dance with."

The twin-themed event was sponsored by La Causa and members of the Witness For Peace (WFP) delegation, who will be traveling to Cuba over spring break. Donations from the event will be used toward that trip.

The party built on the lecture held earlier that night, "Do platanos go wit' collard greens?", an examination of the melding of Latino and black cultures in America.

Simply because of equipment failure, however, in the minds of many party-goers the memory of the party will conjure up little emotion past frustration at the condensed dance space.

"It seemed like there was a group of people there who pretty much stood idly by when music in Spanish was played, and then jumped in when the hip-hop started, and vice versa," said Dan Murillo '03. "I blame this on the fact that the basement was closed; what a failure."

Despite this setback, the party attracted a sizeable crowd, estimated at about 250 total. At 1:00 a.m. there were still about 50 partygoers dancing and chatting.

Sparsely attended dance lessons preceded the party for those who were new to the salsa and merengue dance scene. "I couldn't go to the dance lesson, but I danced the night away," said Isuru Seneviratne '04.

Simply stated, those who weren't afraid to swing their hips to both the upbeat hip-hop and the sultry salsa were those that had the most fun.