Friday, February 3, 2006 Culture Week coming to Behrend CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Painter, singer-songwriter, speaker and performance artist Magdalen Hsu-Li will shuwease her talents February 7 during Culture Week. By Jennifer Haight news editor jah 1005 @ psu.ed u Painting, music, speakers, poetry, improv and more, these are some of the events going on the week of Feb. 6-11 that make up the Diversity Committee's Culture Week. Having a Culture Week is very important to Behrend. "Not enough attention is paid to diver sity on the campus and so hope fully a week dedicated to it might help open some people's eyes," said Seraina Naef, Director of the Diversity Committee. She added, "[The goal of Culture week] is to raise awareness about diversity." The Diversity Committee was reinstated this year and many would like it to be continued. Naef said, "Hopefully with the success of the next week, the committee will be a continued asset." There will be eight events throughout the week. Culture Rush is happening on Feb. 6 from 12 p.m.to 4 p.m. "Culture Rush is a club rush that spotlights Busy Bit Torrent? File-sharing questions answered By Logan Stack technology columnist IwsllB@psu.edu Dear ASCII, Why is BitToffent so slow in the dorms? Bit Torrent is a file-sharing protocol designed to make it easy to share your files with many people. Normally, when you share, files you must send a full copy of the file to everyone who is downloading it. Bit Torrent has everyone share what they've downloaded so far. When you upload half a file to one person, that person can then share his half with everyone else downloading it. This way someone with only a DSL or Cable Internet connection can give a huge file to thousands of people. Unfortunately for us at Penn State, the AD2O policy was revised last year. It states r' 1 r Multi Cultural Council organiza tions and issues concerning diversity. - said Naef. All of the MCC groups will be in the McGarvey Commons; they will have information about clubs and organizations and things you can do to help. Magdalen Hsu-Li is a singer/entertainer who will he speaking about diversity. She is an Asian-American who has overcome a lot of adversity in order to achieve success. She owns her own record label and is an "international success." She will be singing, speaking and possibly paying piano in the McGarvey Commons at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 7. Also on Feb. 7, there will be a blues band performing in Bruno's at 7:30 p.m. The band is com prised of a few Behrend students and, the atmosphere will be cof fee shop-like. Wacongo will be performing at the Music at Noon series on Feb. 8 in the Wintergarden. They are an African drum band that also dances; they will be performing at noon. "I'm really excited about Visual Impact because he [the that we are not allowed to run servers in the dorms and that housing should enforce this with a firewall. So, our computers cannot accept an incoming connection. We can only request connections from others. The way Bit Torrent is set up, the speed at which you get to download is determined by the speed at which you upload. This makes sure nobody "leaches" off the network; no one can take from the network without giving something in return. But the firewall prevents us from letting anyone connect to us, so we are inca pable of giving anything back to the people trying to download. Thus, the rest of the peo ple on the Torrent defend themselves auto matically and do not let us connect to them. We're stuck downloading it from a single source instead of everybody connected to the Torrent. You can get around this though! You can download Torrents fine in the labs, or by con necting to the wireless network. These don't have the same restrictions that the dorms rrr - rrri r ri - ni p artist) paints on an eight loot can vas in 10-15 minutes while he lis tens to music. - said Naef about the Visual Impact perf or mer. There will he a Diversity Luncheon on Feb. 10 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will he a slide show of the week's e‘ents and a professor. to he announced, will speak about di% ersity in the classroom. The Matchbox Players have also co-sponsored an Improv with Women Today. This will take place Feb. 10 at 7:30 p.n►. They plan to confront different stereotypes through improvisa tional games. "Sometimes you need to take a serious situation and lighten it a little," said Nile Finally, on Feb. I I at 7 p.m., Yellow Rage will be making their return to Behrend. "They are two Asian-Americans who recite poetry that's similar to slam poet ry; they sing, swear, hum, do just about anything to get their point across," Naef said. "Culture Week is intended for everyone, but specifically people who would not normally come in contact with other cultures' beliefs and attitudes," Naef said. "Research has shown that stu dents who are exposed to cultural diversity become better critical thinkers and even better prepared professionals. The idea is that you are able to better understand and relate to others of different cultures. You understand their different perspectives," said Andy Herrera, Director of Educational Equite and Diversity Programs responding to the importance of getting to know others of different cultural back- grounds. The Diversity Committee did not do this all on its own. "My committee is awesome," said Naef, adding that the committee had help from the Student Government Association, Student Activity Fee, Matchbox Players, Asian Student Organization, Multi Cultural Council, Women Today and Trigon. For more information, you can contact Seraina Naef at snn 108 @psu.edu or Andy Herrera at Andy Herrera @ psu.edu. have, so you can give back to the Torrent. If you don't know anything about Torrents, here's how you can get started. First you need a Torrent client. The official one is available at bittorrent.com, for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. There are many other clients though, so if you don't like this one you can just search online for another. Once you have your client, you need to download a .torrent file. This file tells your client where to look for its initial source, from there your client will find other sources. You can search for these .torrent files at bittorrent.com, google, or anywhere else. Once you download the .torrent file, open it with your client; it will start downloading the files from other people connected to the .tor rent and it will start uploading what you have downloaded so far to other people connecting to the same .torrent file. The more people downloading, the faster it goes! Ask ASCII! E-mail him: ASCll@psu.edu. Healthy Habits By Greg Lanich staff writer gdl 118@psu.edu Behrend's on-campus Health and Wellness Center may offer more than you know. You may have seen the signs in bathroom stalls that state the new vaccinations or disease prevention methods are available. These signs are put out by the Health and Wellness Center, to give stu dents something to read while using campus facilities. These "Stall Stories" can teach students new facts from "sleeping can boost your immune system" to "seasonal immunization available now." In addition to immu nizations, the Health and Wellness Center also offers physical exams for sports, driver's licenses, employ ment and women's care. Educational programs, including exercise, nutrition, stress management, substance abuse and sexuality are also affected. Patty Pasky-McMahon, Director of Health and Wellness at Penn State Erie, said to beware the coming allergy season, especially with Erie's characteristically spontaneous climate. The rapid changes in weather lead to fungi and other allergens ready to take a toll on your sinuses. "Humidify, humidi fy, humidify," says McMahon on trying to prevent sinus problems. "Allowing your sinuses to dry can cause them to work overtime, causing sinus infections and other compli cations...try instead of drying your heavy clothes in a dryer, to hang dry them in your room. The extra water vapor that evaporates can really help with sinus problems." Another simple method to stay healthy is to get enough rest. According to a CNN interview with Dr. William Collinge, "Good-quality sleep goes far and beyond [medicines] when it comes to restoring your health." He added, "quantity doesn't nec essarily equal quality: You may sleep for many hours, but if your sleep isn't deep enough, or if your sleep cycle is disturbed, you may still be at greater risk for illness." McMahon agrees with this philosophy and says that not enough sleep can lower your immune system down to 50 percent maximum efficiency. Collinge also gives some tips on getting the proper Do you write fiction, poetry, The Creative Writer's Corner is coming to the Student Life page! you are interested in having your work pub lished, please email SLEditor@psu.edu for consideration. The Behrend Beacon I 7 amount of sleep. First, rise and shine. Spending a few minutes in the early morning sun helps your biological clock align itself with the cycles of nature. Second, have your evening meal early. Finish your evening meal by 6:00 or 6:30 p.m. so your body's digestive processes can be at . rest when you go to bed. Third, Go to bed at 10 p.m. Your body was designed to sync with the cycles of nature, including daylight and darkness, with the opti mal time for sleep falling between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Fouth, reduce stimulants. If you find it difficult to get to sleep around 10 p.m., try cut ting stimulants out of your diet, particularly caffeine products like coffee, choco late and black tea, even in the morning. Lastly, quiet your mind. If your body is tired but your mind is active, try meditation or prayer. In addition to the common malady treatment and infor mation, McMahon also requested to note the special services the Health and Wellness center offers: "Free HIV testing and counseling, pregnancy testing, STD test ing and treatment, and post sexual assault treatment," She added, "We also offer the Plan-B morning after pill to Penn State females as well as. the female partners of Penn State males. Some peo ple believe the morning after pill is the abortion pill, which is incorrect. The morning after pill (Plan-B) is a pre ventative contraceptive." According to McMahon, the Family Planning section has researched that in areas where the morning after pill was available, there was a 75 percent decline in pregnancy and a 90 percent decrease in abortions Behrend also offers sexual assault treatment to anyone nearby who has been victim ized in a sexual attack. Penn State incurs all charges involved in a sexual assault, including medical charges at a hospital, follow-up exams and transportation in a taxi or ambulance. A very detailed "Guide for Sexual Assault Victims," along with infor mation on all Health and Wellness services and contact numbers is available at the Health and Wellness Center or call 898-6217. or non-fiction?
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