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By Amelia Gravagno, Staff Writer

So it’s a week into school and already I’ve noticed some of my favorite characters on campus. These are the people who so noticeably play into their stereotypes that they have provided hours of entertainment for me and my jaded friends, since we apparently have nothing better to do than mock perfect strangers.

The Fashionista.

Let me just preface by saying I am extremely jealous of these girls who come to class every day looking like they belong on a runway, making my own standard uniform of Converse and band t-shirts seem downright juvenile.

However, there are two trends that the more stylish set has been subscribing to recently that drive me crazy.

Number one: Why do girls insist on bringing their tiny dogs to school?

I have seen three in the last week and it just baffles me. Dogs are not fashion accessories. They are living, breathing animals that do not deserve to be carted around in a bag of their own crap.

One girl had her adorable puppy in the required designer carrier bag, but no books. Why is the dog more vital to academic success than say, a pen and paper?

Number two: Those stupid pants that seem to be everywhere. They’re the really baggy knee-length sweat pants that look like a skirt. These are just about the ugliest things I have ever seen. So many girls I’ve talked to agree they’re hideous, so who is buying them?

Maybe I’m just not cool enough to be friends with these uber-trendy people.

The Cigarette Hunter.

Now there have been days when I to have offered complete strangers a quarter to get my nicotine fix. But when I see the same people trying to bum cigarettes in the quad day after day (despite those oh-so-effective “no smoking” notices) I just have to laugh. Accept your addiction and buy your own damn pack.

The Old Person.

Every class I have ever had has at least one. The older student (and at my naïve age of 22, anything older than 30 is old) is the one who sits up front and constantly interrupts the professor to disagree or add their own opinion. This is the person who asks endless (often pointless) questions and speaks incessantly about their own lives, and usually has to be mercifully stopped by the instructor after noticing the glazed over looks in the eyes of the rest of the class. I realize the older generation has a lot of life experience to draw on; but the stories about your kids, jobs and interesting things that have happened to you over the years are not on the midterm. Please shut up and let the teacher tell us what is.

Quad Loungers.

I love watching the hippies in the quad. They make me smile with their dreadlocks and clothes straight out of the sixties, their games of hacky sack and that guy who appears to be surgically attached to his acoustic guitar. I always get nostalgic for an era I wasn’t even alive for when they congregate.

I don’t make the mistake of believing I am above ridicule. I’m sure I fall into some easily-identifiable stereotype of the bitter writer lashing out at the world who scorned me.

But that’s okay. I figure as long as I can take a bit of teasing, I’ll feel free to continue making fun of everyone else.