Greetings!

Hello and how are you? Please call me Ishmael. I hail from the magnificent and rolling countryside of Zembla of the former great Soviet Union, and I am so excited to be international student here at University of Duke. I come from such humble roots, you see. After crash of Soviet Union, my stoic father worked very, very hard to purchase every state-owned canned sardine factory in Zemblia. Soon he climbed ranks into prestigious Zemblian oligarchy and he purchased humble castle with seventeen humble servants for my beautiful mother. My mother, she is so happy to finally live in unpretentious fortress with three kitchens and charmeuse silk bed sheets to protect her from bitter cold.

Nine months later, I burst from mother onto scene and my father he tells me to study very, very hard at humble Zemblian international school. Well I do, I study even harder than my parents make the love. So hard that I never have time to find girls for myself! It is for this reason—and many, many seasons of revered American sitcom, "Co-ed Confidential"—that I dream of attending a lustful American university!

One day, with help of my small and humble team of college application assistants, all my hard works paid off! I am promised flight to American farmland and spot at magnificent castle-school of Duke University! My mother and father, they cry and we celebrate with luxurious feast of salted fish and performance by exotic Zemblian dancers. Together, we pin brochures from Duke on wall. I was so excited to walk through medieval land and meet the jolly African man, the ponderous Chinese boy, and innocent Arab girl that worship the Devil at Duke! But I was most excited about the hordes of wanton university females who I am told find great charm in men with sexy Northwest Caucasus accents!

Well, now that a semester has passed, I can say now that I too have truly become quite the Blue Devil-worshipper! While I am still fervent patriot to the People’s Republic of Zembla, I love now the Duke patriarchy also!

Speaking of which, I have even my first American hook-up. I take drunk girl from Shooters the Second and we French kiss for forty minutes. But I do not know what I did wrong because during the act of what we Zemblians adoringly call my?l d?ugo czy? pr?dko or, in English, act of catching fly with frog tongue, I tell her she reminds me of beautiful scent of my father’s factory and I tell her also that I will never love her—because of the hook-up culture. She cries and calls me jerk. I guess the columnists are right about the hook up culture!

I do make my mistakes and my friends laugh at me still. This one time, I trap Duke squirrel and prepare rotisserie squirrel for freshman-dorm-potluck-Thanksgiving-party. I feed it to the cute girl that I love and she spends night everywhere blowing chunks. I am sad that I made hot girl sick, but I am also sad that I wasted a half-sack of Zemblian paprika on girl who would not sleep with me.

To impress other girl, I take UNC rivalry too far. After I find out the UNC footballers trash Duke equipment, I become very angry on behalf of my team. So, while I am strolling in Gardens with Potential Wife number three, I see UNC man in UNC sweatshirt and I poke him in the eyes and tell him not to come back unless he wants to see Zemblian gulag! My love, she runs away and never comes back.

But now that I learned all my lessons, I feel truly one with the Dukie culture. I shall begin my second semester as new Ishmael. New Ishmael will work very hard in the engineering lab and then he will play very hard at the frat party.

This is Ishmael first time writing as Monday Monday. He has grand intentions to use his newfound journalistic fame and notoriety to find a beautiful Chronicle babe that will read him feminist op-eds each night until he falls asleep.