When a good friend recommended that I read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, I didn’t know whether to be insulted that the dark half-moons under my eyes had tipped her off to my impending senior angst, or grateful that she too shared my terror and found solace in that innocent blue and yellow hardcover. As the full title of the work suggests, The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, recounts one woman’s year-long project to become happier. Unlike other more drastic undertakings, such as that chronicled in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, Rubin’s goal is not to find happiness by escaping the confines of a mundane life, but rather by enhancing the joys of everyday living.

­At 11:08 p.m. on September 21, the State of Georgia executed Troy Davis, even though the 11th Circuit court found the prosecution’s case “not ironclad.” With his death came the devastated cries of the more than 500 supporters huddled outside the prison walls, representing the more than 660,000 people, including Pope Benedict XVI and Jimmy Carter, who signed petitions asking that Davis be spared.

In the flurry of hastily written essays and meals eaten on-the-go between classes, I began to grow wary this week of the self-combusting I witnessed in many of my senior friends. As deadlines loom for theses, exams, and research projects, the bags under my cohorts’ eyes grow darker and the Rao’s espresso machine cranks late into the night. Amidst this rampant anxiety, a small sliver of this impending calamity wormed its way into my head. What I learned this week? I’m going to graduate.

When I found out from a very special Valentine that my gift for this year would be to attend a show at New York Fashion Week, I froze mid-sip of my caramel latte, mouth paralyzed in a little “O” of disbelief. Only one thought flashed through my excitement-numbed mind: “What the hell am I going to wear?”

On Saturday, November 6th, indie rock duo Matt and Kim performed at the Pearl Street Theatre in Northampton to an unruly crowd of entropic, sweat-drenched hipsters. The group, most famous for catchy pop number “Daylight, is comprised of Kim Schifino on drums and backup vocals and Matt Johnson on the keyboard and lead vocals.

This week, Sarah and Allie, Co-Managing Web Editors for The MHNews, each lost their OneCards and keys…multiple times. Maybe it was rushing to and from newspaper meetings, or maybe it was just an ordinary bout of forgetfulness. Either way, they each learned something about lost valuables and the campus community.

Perhaps the only topic more widely discussed than the Rocky Horror episode of Glee is the coming midterm elections to be held on Tuesday, November 2nd. According to a recent poll by the Washington Post and ABC news, the GOP stands to enjoy a landslide rivaling the 1994 congressional upset.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday on the perilous position of Greece as it stands on the precipice of financial disaster.

The BBC reported on Wednesday that about 80% of European flights were scheduled to resume after a weeklong flight ban spanning the continent.

The Christian Science Monitor reported on Tuesday about the ever-growing epidemic of marriages of convenience, called a xingshi marriage, for gays and lesbians in China.