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I hardly recognize the Dartmouth campus anymore. It has changed so much in the three years I've been here. The road connecting to frat row is gone. McLaughlin Cluster has sprouted up. The greasy old gym has been replaced by a futuristic fitness advancement center complete with ergonomically designed medicine balls (who knew a ball whose sole purpose is to be heavy could be improved upon). You can even watch cable television on your laptop at the library. I have no doubt that the '10s are going to take all of these changes completely for granted.

However, there still is room to make Dartmouth even better. Should I happen to ever be a write-in nomination for the Board of Trustees in the next election, here is a list of nine basic improvements I would propose:

1. A hot tub in every cluster. For real. I'm sure Hanover's icy-cold weather deters quite a number of gifted Southerners -- ahem, that is reasonably intelligent Southerners -- from even applying to Dartmouth. Well here's the solution: If a couple hotties in a jacuzzi can sell a music video on MTV, it's got to work for a highly-esteemed Ivy League institution.

Last winter I suggested this to a Student Assembly representative who immediately shot it down as unsafe and impractical. The SA instead purchased 50 awkward one-speed bicycles in their highly unsuccessful Big Green Bike program. Within the first two weeks of their use, most of these bikes had broken handlebars and were missing seats. Many were even missing frames. That doesn't sound safe to me. Sure, hot tubs have some safety concerns (getting extreme prune fingers, chlorine in the eyes, or urinators with hepatitis-B), but the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

Still worried about safety? This brings us to my second improvement for Dartmouth:

1. Mandatory arm floaties. For all students, all the time. Not only would this help out with the hot tubs, Tubestock and the swim test, but our water polo teams would go undefeated. Kappas would need only wear one.

2. Campus-wide paintball games that take place once a week at an undisclosed time. This is a must have for Dartmouth to stay atop the Ivy League. This would not be your weak-ass Collis Up All Night laser tag. Students would carry a paintball gun with them at all times and constantly be on the watch for snipers on the rooftops. You'd be along the green sipping your Ethiopian Yirgacheffe from the Dirt Cowboy on your way to Statistics when -- BAM! -- the freshman squash player in front of you drops like a rock. As he slowly gets up from the ground, he gets smacked again in the side by another ball of paint. You dive behind a bench for cover not knowing from which direction the shots came. All of a sudden you see the shooter: Dean Carol Folt in the clock tower with her paint gun aimed right at you. At that moment you realize that Dartmouth was, without a doubt, the best choice you've ever made. Then she snipes you down.

3. Pavilion cookies and milk accessible 24/7. I see no reason why the best tasting food item on campus is only offered weekdays for short periods of time. Is it too much to ask for freshly-made cookies at all hours of the day? I think not. At a minimum, they should be at Food Court during its normal hours. Ideally, there would be an emergency cookie and milk station at every blue safety light on campus. If one of these stations ran out of milk, Safety & Security would rush to the scene wearing French Maid outfits and pour you a fresh cold glass. The Food Court idea would work as well.

4. No more sloppy burritos at the Hop. They fall apart and get all over your hands. I think it's because the DDS employees making them are unhappy and are just going through the motions. My solution: require deli line employees to do a shot of jger before every sandwich they make. That's why Food Court Larry is always so chipper.

5. Connect the elevator floors in the library. When you are working on the fourth floor, it sucks having to descend seven flights of stairs to print out a paper. Why aren't we allowed to take the elevator directly down to the bottom underground level? What are they hiding on those restricted floors anyways? Maybe it's a vault of an unreleased series of pornographic Dr. Seuss books that have been censored since the McCarthyism years? (I would do it in a box, I would do it with a fox...) Maybe it's a five-star day spa for the Dartmouth custodial staff. We need to find out. I'm tired of walking.

6. Open access to the steam tunnels. We got 'em. Why can't we use them? I'd never be late to class if all I needed to do was strap on some roller blades and pop down the Mid-Fayer Launching Ramp that would send me flying over to Silsby. The cool kids wouldn't even wear helmets.

7. Turn the Blitzmail notification ding into a loud fart noise. There are two reasons for this: 1) It'd be really funny. 2) It would discourage people from wasting all their time in the library on blitz. This would give us more time to focus on more scholarly things -- like taking study breaks at Novack. The fart notification would discourage a number of technological mishaps of our school. Blitzdating would be replaced by actual conversations after the first "pfffflarp, ooh I bet that's Sally blitzing me back about dinner." Also, checking blitz in class could only be done if you held your nose and pointed to the girl in front of you.

8. Uh Oh! messages for everything. I feel that there are a lot of people like me who could use reminders for more than just deadlines for selecting classes or withdrawing from a class. For example: "Uh Oh!, it's time to do your laundry." "Uh Oh!, it's your girlfriend's birthday tomorrow." "Uh Oh!, it's been three days and you haven't showered and you are starting to smell really bad. You have until 4 p.m. to put on another layer of deodorant."

This, Dartmouth, is your future if you stick with me.