Dear Penn,

I’ve missed you. We all have. My summer was awesome. How was yours? Did you travel to far away lands? Make lots of money on Wall Street? Finally beat Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time? (Editor’s note: the game should be called “Legend of Link,” not “Legend of Zelda” – the guy’s name is Link. No one cares about the princess.) Whatever you did, I hope it was fulfilling, or at least passed the time.

So now you’re back here, and you’re wondering whether you’re actually ready for the school year. Do you have all your posters from the bookstore sale up on your walls yet? Have you bought the binders and dividers and paper and hole-punchers and pens? Are you all set with your classes and recitations, which are hopefully not on Fridays? Lovely.

We here at First Call are quite excited to be back. Collectively, we were in: New York, Canada, Kentucky, Virginia, Rhode Island, Guatemala, Israel , Vegas, Seattle, Paris, Edinburgh, London, and good ‘ole Pennsylvania. We’ve traveled the world, and we’ve concluded that nothing compares to this grand University campus. Well, that might be a stretch, but we’re still glad to be back here, and ready to provide you with our usual insights, commentary, satire, and public displays of affection. 

If you’ve never read First Call before, you’re in for a world of wonder. Within these pages, we provide an outlet for Penn undergraduates to rant, rave, opine, and imagine. We offer our writers and artists the freedom to submit whatever they want, whenever they want. We don’t have breaking news, and we don’t make fun of Amy Guttman every other sentence— check out the DP and Punchbowl, respectively, for those—but we are committed to printing everything you have to say, as fast as you can say it.

In this issue, we’ve got a nice mix of summer and fall, past present and future, and of course, some haikus. It’s pretty much our best issue ever, which works, because we hear that this year’s freshman class is the best class ever. It’s funny how Amy said that to my class, too, three years ago. Oh, well, I guess we do make fun of her from time to time. Anyway, welcome back, and without any further ado, I present to you the first First Call of the year.

Enjoy.

Yours,

Shira Bender

Editor in Chief