Make Yourself At Home: Find Your Very Own Emotional Support Building Today

By Sarah Yule

When I decided to come to Pitt during the winter of my senior year, I had one factor that made the decision easy: Pittsburgh is 9 hours away from my hometown in rural New York, making it the furthest college on my list.  So, after I got my acceptance, the choice was already made.  I figured that by moving far out of my farmtown bubble, I would make some lasting memories and friends in a new and exciting city.  Then, COVID happened, removing many aspects of a typical college experience.  But still, my hopes were high when I pulled up to move-in day this August.

    I met my roommate and we immediately became friends; I could not have been luckier in that respect.  However, the social scene at Pitt is definitely leaving much to be desired at the moment, and I found myself feeling more homesick than I could have anticipated.  And if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you might be feeling the same way.  And to you, I give you one piece of wisdom: people let you down.  Buildings never will.  Without further delay, I present: the emotional support building(ESB).  

    The ESB will serve as a little slice of paradise in the midst of whatever chaos your new environment brings.  No matter how hectic or gloomy your day, you can count on your ESB because it is only a couple of blocks away.  There, you can make yourself at home, and the longing for a move back to your cow town will disappear completely.  There is one structure that is taken, however: the Forbes Ave Dunkin Donuts.  I have dibs, and dibs are law.  Let me share a bit about how my life has changed since establishing my very own ESB.

    In the dark ages of mid-August, when I was still a Starbucks drinker, I felt the need to call my hometown friends on a daily basis.  Now, with my very own Dunkin Donuts to call home, I no longer count down the days until I see them again.  In fact, I’ve become something of an asshole; I cannot respond to a text to save my life now that I have a large iced pumpkin swirl with almond milk in each hand.  I make my trip to the Forbes Ave Dunkin on most mornings before my earliest class, ordering on the mobile app prior to my arrival.  And now, you may ask, “Sarah, why would you purposefully order online when lack of human interaction was what drew you to need an ESB in the first place?”  And to that I say, once you’ve felt the love of a chain fast food joint, people only serve as disappointment.  That is to say that the joy you gain from finding your own ESB comes not from the people within the structure, but from the structure itself.  I may never speak to another person again.  

    As I sit here writing this from my seat in the dining area of my Emotional Support Building, I begin to wonder why I wasted the first 18 years of life interacting with non-building entities.  You see, people lie, cheat, and commit heinous acts.  Not buildings, though.  Never buildings.  If you need a sign, this is it: quit people, find your ESB today.  You’ll never look back.  

Gallagator: ‘Anticipate’ Flex@Pitt, compressed schedule next semester (Updated with Information that we got from REDACTED REDACTED)

By the writers of the Pittiful News; original article: corrections made in bold

Chancellor Patrick Star Gallagator Jr. the Third said Thursday that he expects the Flex@Pitt model to continue into the spring semester due to the ongoing COVID-19 celebration. He also said it’s likely that next semester’s schedule will be compressed, stressed, but always well-dressed, similar to the fall semester so there aren’t vacations where people leave and come back. They just leave you. Forever. Without even a note or a goodbye kiss. 

“The planning context for the spring is that the virus is still with us in our hearts,” Gallagator said. “I don’t think we’re looking at a significant change in the mainframe, until there’s a significant change in the pandemic’s pandemic-ness.”

Gallagator and other University Authoritarians discussed Pitt’s future plans in response to the COVID-69 celebration (COVID@Pitt) as well as current statistics surrounding the virus and Microsoft outlook, at Thursday afternoon’s Galactic Senate meeting. 

This announcement comes in the wake of Pitt adding 22,000 new POVID-19 cases between last Friday and Monday continuing an upward trend in reported cases, though less than in previous case reports. Eight of the last seven days have seen sextuple-digit increases in student cases, according to data reported by that guy outside of the Forbes McDonald’s who asked me for a light.

The University has had a total of 221,420,069 students and 69,420 employees test positive since June 26, with 152 students and 27 employees recovered, unfortunately. 

Pitt has been using the new Flex@Pitt teaching model, which allows students to attend classes “remotely.” The fall semester began early on Aug. 19 with online-only classes, with exemptions made for: ASTRO 0069 Exploring Uranus, PEDC 0420 How To Orgy, and HINDI 1337 Kama Sutra; and classes will end on Nov. 20 for Thanksgiving break. Students will not return to campus after Thanksgiving, or ever, instead finishing classes remotely through the end of the world on Dec. 31.  

At the meeting, Elise Martin, a member of the COVID-19 Unit to Normalize Testing (CUNT), clarified many of Pitt’s current KOVID-19 case statistics. She said around 98% of infected students are undergraduates, and only 10% are human. She also screamed into a conveniently-placed bullhorn about how 80% of positive cases are among students on the extraterrestrial campuses (Space@Pitt).

Martin also said numbers for the next case report — which will be released yesterday — look “embarrassing” and do not include a “significant” increase in CHOVID-19 case numbers as of today. 

“We’re pleased that we’re starting to flatten that ass, which is really where we need to be to have a profitable semester,” Martin whispered into the deafening silence. Or perhaps she was never speaking to begin with. 

But when Tuesday’s case report was released, Pitt’s LOVID-19 Medical Response Office said the number of positive cases “remains high enough to satisfy the dark gods that dwell beneath the Cathedral of Learning.”

“While no new positive cases were reported on Sunday and Monday of this week, the positive case count on the Pittsburgh campus remains higher than a mf,” the office said, personified. “We need to bring this number down, and we can, through continued migration efforts such as flying south as the winter months approach. If we continue to engage in safe sex, the virus will continue to spread and disrupt our mass exodus.”

Martin added that the COVID-19 Unit to Normalize Testing has not found that in-person classes are a “significant source of transformers.”  She also said Pitt would continue its mass student surveillance program with the goal of testing about 25% of each student’s body every month. 

Pitt began moving classes in-person on Monday (School@Pitt). Provost Ann Cudd, First of Her Name, announced last week that faculty members can apply to teach their classes in-person if there is an “acceptable loss” for in-person instruction, and if an instructor’s dean or regional campus warlord approves teaching plans. Unfortunately, there are probably more YOVID-Yineteen cases at Pitt than people who actually read any email with the subject “A Message from Provost Ann E. Cudd.” 

Gallagator also announced that the strategic Plan for Pitt (or Plan@Pitt) 2049 will not be finalized until the next academic year to incorporate Pitt’s response to the ZOVID-19 pandemic, racial and social justice initiatives and environmental concerns. Gallagator said in June following George Floyd’s killing that it would be put on hold indefinitely to include strategies to increase racial equity on campus.

Gallagator also reported on the University’s current budget outlook. He said the situation is still “explosive” with concerns over future state funding, and he is once again asking for the support of viewers like you. The General Assembly passed a funding bill flatter than my ass for the University in May, providing some shmoney surety for Pitt, and Gallagator said enrollment rates remained relatively quirky. 

“The best case scenario is still a sticky pickle for the University. This wasn’t a difference between being in the black or in the red,” Gallagator shrieked in a tone so high only dogs could hear him. “We were always going to be in the red, the question is how deep I’m going to be in your mom.”

How the Pittiful News writes a Group Article

By The writers of The Pittiful News

 

1. Learn how to write
2. Acquire a group
   1. it is fine if you have to kidnap people
   2. groups can be made up of:

      1. Stuffed animals

      2. Real animals

• Imaginary friends

1. Manifestations of your exponentially increasing loneliness

2. People! (Minus babies. Abolish babies)

   1. agreed
3. Make sure the other group members know how to write
4. (Very hard) Come up with an idea for a group article.
   • For example: an article about how to write a group article
5. Always find a way to incorporate a dick joke. They just elevate
   the entire thing.
6. Overshare about your long and hard life story
7. Cry a little bit.
8. Control + Shift + 7
9. Make sure your glasses are clean. You need to be able to see the
   group article!
10. Make sure the camera on your laptop is clean. The group article
    needs to be able to see you!
11. Question your entire worth and ability to be funny. Have a crisis
    about the fact that you will be unemployed after college because you decided to
    major in English. You stupid piece of shit. Your sister goes to Johns Hopkins
    for chemical engineering. You’re paying thousands of dollars to analyze the
    green light in Great Gatsby. Who is gonna hire you for that? Nobody, you idiot.
12. Cry a little bit more.
13. Buy graph paper, you will need this later
14. Make a bunch of matching shirts for you and your group to
    establish to onlookers that you are all a part of the same group who is writing
    an article together.
15. Check twitter 13 times for inspiration
16. Challenge other members of your group to a joust and see who comes
    out victorious, this is how the Pittiful News does elections
17. Watch the entirety of the Bill and Ted’s Excellent Cinematic
    Universe to put yourself in the mood to write some jokes.
18. Drunk call someone you’re secretly in love with just to feel
    It’s great for inspiration.
19. Sleep with at least two people in said group to create some drama.
    • Write about said drama.

1. This is a real occurrence, it happened 3 years ago

20. Read some of your favorite articles to remind yourself that you will never create anything as good and you will amount to nothing.
21. Eat lunch
22. Eat breakfast
23. Eat dinner
    • Please follow steps 21-23 in that exact order, otherwise there may
      be ill effects
24. Get baptized
25. Get circumsized
26. Get bar mitzvahed
27. Meet a nice Jewish boy, or nice Jewish girl, or nice Jewish enby.
28. Dump their ass
29. Leave town. Buy a new passport with a fake name from a man in a
    dark alleyway. Pack nothing but a cigarette and a pack of gum. Move to a remote
    island somewhere in vague Europe. You’re a new person now. Start over. Create a
    Fall in love with the store owner across the street but never reveal
    who you really are until it’s been 50 years and you’re on your deathbed. Make
    sure to take notes on what you observe during this to use for your article!
    Send the notes to your group. Die.
30. Buy a ticket for Israel, 2 bottles of water for the way, and you
    sure do have some sweet company oh were leaving next week what do you say, when
    we’re gone when we’re gone, your gonna miss us when we’re gone, you’re gonna
    miss us by our smiles you’re gonna every mile oh your gonna miss us when we’re
    gone
31. One hop this time, 2 hop this time, hands on ya knees hand on ya
    knees etc. https://www.wikihow.com/Do-the-Electric-Slide
32. Cry for the last time before you actually start writing something.
33. Actually start writing the group article.

How to make friends

By The Writers of the Pittiful news

1. Pizza
2. Steal cats
   1. Not from them
   2. Just bribe them with other people’s cats
3. Buy a plant, that is now your “friend”
4. Be the only girl in a men’s wrestling club
5. Write an ad on craigslist “man seeking man for a fun time” and meet a new buddy!
6. Pay them, because nobody would willingly spend time with you without gaining something in return. You absolute coffee filter of a man. 
7. Buy animal crossing and talk to your animated animal villagers. Trust me, it kind of feels like you’re talking to real people. It’s basically the same thing, right? 
8. Don’t. They are useless. You cannot take them with you to the beyond. 
   1. Well you can but that is frowned upon in most cultures
9. Profess your undying love to the person you made eye contact with on the bus
10. Just talk to people. Duh. 
11. Have a car.
12. Stop making jokes about your dad leaving when you were seven as an icebreaker. Try asking for their name first. 
13. Say “do you get any of this?” to the guy next to you in class, even though it actually makes perfect sense to you, but you know the guy next to you has been asleep for the past ten minutes. Score.
14. Ask the cute girl in your accounting class what her fursona is, rwar XD! *nuzzles* ensues 
15. Kidnap them beauty and the beast style, Stockholm syndrome creates the strongest of bonds!
16. Get pregnant and when you give birth boom instant friend. 
    1. First problem, i am boy
    2. A rebuttal: Society has progressed past the need for boys. Sucks to suck. 
17. Water (35 L), Carbon (20 kg), Ammonia (4 L), Lime (1.5 kg), Phosphorous (800 g), Salt (250 g), Saltpeter (100 g), Sulfur (80 g), Fluorine (7.5 g), Iron (5 g), Silicon (3 g) and trace amounts fifteen other elements.
18. When Heinz was younger, he performed magic tricks for the local kids. Heinz performed the pull-the-rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick, and instead of pulling out his rabbit companion, Bobo, he pulled out a skunk, which sprayed him. Next, he performed a card trick. A girl volunteered to pick one of Heinz’s cards, while he blindfolded himself. When Heinz uncovered his blindfold, he appeared to be holding the same skunk, who sprayed him again. Yet again, another trick went wrong, and while Heinz shouted for someone to help him get out of some chains, the skunk came along and sprayed him once more. 
19. Date a bunch of people then stick them all in the friendzone and never talk about it again
20. Come to a Pittiful News meeting. Please, dear god, we are so lonely. 
21. Have your boyband adopt a troubled orphan named Y/N with a heart of gold and wavy brown hair from her abusive alcoholic mother.
22. Leave the door to your shower stall open when you wash your hair in the dorm bathrooms
23. Make a fake twitter account and dox yourself. Lots of people will come over to hang!
24. Sit in the elevator for a few hours and ask people where they are headed 
25. Join a sorority/frat and pay $3000/semester to develop imposter syndrome and body image issues. 
26. OCxzDJK;HJLKAEWRFHJLKwfhjlkasfdhjlkasfdhjkl cult
27. Tell your RA that you and your roommate are having an existential disagreement
28. Whenever you find a person passed out drunk, sleep next to them. Automatic soul mates <3
29. Walk the streets of South Oakland and ask passersby if they have a light 
30. Eat them. Then you guys are forever connected.
31. Join volleyball games on the Pete lawn, and spike the ball onto the roof. That’ll be cool.  
32. Get really dressed up and go out to a quiet street at night. Stick your foot out to signal cars to come over to you. They will even offer you money for your company.  
33. Wear a fascinator to go out and use the ATM
34. Start singing Alexander Hamilton in the dining hall and see who joins in
35. Do your math homework in the bathtub
36. Challenge people to a duel, once you set a time and place, swap out the dueling portion with a friendly discussion about normal friend things, such as: favorite color, favorite shape, second favorite dinosaur, how to demolish capitalism, and most importantly favorite desserts. 
37. Talk about your cats a lot. It will NOT make people uncomfortable if you speak about them like they are your biological children. Being a crazy cat person is cool i promise.(see Sikov, Tyler)
38. Maybe try being likeable?
39. Join a group therapy session 
40. MagiKarp use drown, then save them, boom friends for life until you must betray the for they have stolen the love of your life, Maria
41. Ask if they want to go penguin sledding 
42. Anti-Antidisestablishmentarianism       
43. Wave someone over to sit next to you in a crowded cafe. When they do sit, introduce yourself and engage in some small talk. Then, when things are going good, look them right in the eyes for just a second. Slowly open your mouth and scream at the top of your lungs.   
44. Just kiss your Starbucks barista, or if you are the starbucks barista kiss clients until one of them kisses back    
45. Fall in love in a hopeless place
46. 
47. Go to a bar on saturday at 9 oclock, when the usual crowd shuffles in, be an old man sitting next to the piano just sipping on tonic and gin.
48. Press the blue light emergency buttons you find around campus. They deploy a helpful security friend directly to your location! 
49. Knock on your ra’s door at 2am to talk about how much you miss your mommy. 
50. Ggrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgr 
51. Yeah we should use the air ducts 

Places to go when you can’t study abroad

By Savannah Teman

Upper campus. The culture there is just so different. Like they like to brag about being up there and all and then complain about having to actually GO back up there.

Downtown. I know this doesn’t sound very fun or like you’ll get any new experiences, but just sit on any street, preferably on the ground, and ask people random questions to see how they react. Something like “Would you like to speak about our Lord?” or “You need drugs?” The people are completely different in this strange world. 

Back home. It already sounds like they don’t want us here, with them forcing us to literally stay home after our first break, so why not just get a head start and take up some studying there. I’m sure you can figure it out.

The O. If you just sit in it and pretend it’s still there, it’s almost like it never left.

Penn State. It’s like the Little Italy of Little Italy. They even have their own kind of gelato, but they call it “ice cream”. And Pizza. Very cultural. 

Just Outside of Philly.

The dean’s office. I’m sure Kenyon won’t mind. Just make sure you bring a sacrifice.

Kennywood. They literally close tomorrow.

The Pete. A socially distanced man gives you chicken through a window up there. Plus I hear exercise can improve memory and focus. Get moving.

Bigel — ohh. Nevermind.

ZoomZealand

ZoomTaly

ZoomPan

ZoomLlanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

A bunch of ways you could wear your mask if you want to let people know you are a jerk right off the bat

By The Writers of the Pittiful News

1. A sleep mask (over your eyes), for when you forget your curtains at home 
2. Over the shoulder 
3. As lesbian earrings 
4. Inside your mouth like an orange slice 
5. Fanny pack 
6. DIY Jockstrap 
7. The Guy Fieri 
8. As a condom 
9. Chinstrap for when you want to pretend you play the sportsball
10. A hammock for rats 
11. Use as open-sole shoes or very bad, very holey sock
12. Upon the posterior
13. As a cute bandeau!
14. Very small holster for very small gun
15. Put two across your chest: DIY bralette
16. One of those armbands for phones that joggers wear but bad
17. A reusable candy bag for on-the-go snacking
18. Wear a disney themed mask and be over the age of twenty (See Sikov, Tyler)
19. A muzzle
20. Between the eyes 
21. As a sanitary pad
22. Pasties 🤠
23. DIY blunt
24. Slingshot 
25. Super trendy headband 
26. Beach day made easy with the DIY Speedo
27. Two-face style where it covers half of your face 
28. Zuko Cosplay
29. As an umbrella for a very small rain storm
30. Following the directions in Mask off by Future
31. Phone case
32. Hippie bandana
33. DIY noose 
34. Drug balloon to swallow
35. As a purse to carry your miniature poodle
36. As a miniature poodle to carry in your purse 
37. Bikini top 
38. Bikini bottom 
39. Bikini vers
40. thong 
41. Sexy mask costume 
42. A shwallet
43. Handcuffs  
44. Wig
45. Beard wig
46. Sexy coronavirus costume
47. Hairnet
48. American girl doll clothes  
49. A sweat towel
50. Under the nose.