Where are our skeleton parts? In the teacher's lounge.

Hi, I'm Jonah Ewell and I'd like to be your student body president for one reason: to get the goddamn skeletons fixed. It's beyond pitiful that we pay five thousand dollars per semester and our skeletons don't have ulnas or fibulas or skulls. It's embarrassing. The official line is that "students take the skeleton parts." Carl Miller told me this before he left, and it's been echoed by our new dean Beau Anderson. Does this even sound plausible? Why would a student go to the trouble of unscrewing a plastic bone, much less taking one home? THE TRUTH is truly disturbing: all the missing parts for our skeletons are on-site at PCOM. They are in the storage cabinet in the teacher's lounge (see photos above). WHY ARE WE BEING LIED TO? WHY CAN'T THE SKELETONS BE PUT BACK TOGETHER? Remember Bruce Lee in "Fists of Fury": WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY???

I'm a one-issue candidate, but I do have some other concerns. PCOM is pretty good. It could be better. There are some great teachers, teachers who really care about Chinese medicine, are highly qualified and enjoy being a part of the education process: Steve Jackowicz and John Pai come to mind. There are also teachers who are just collecting a paycheck and don't care about Chinese medicine - I'm sure you can all think of three or four off the top of your head. Then there are some teachers who know a lot about Chinese medicine but don't care about the students - they don't believe we'll ever be acupuncturists... seventy percent of the time, they're right, but maybe if they tried a little harder and believed in us, the 5-year employment rate would be higher.

Students should do their part too. Study hard. Find the good teachers and treat them well. Publicly shame the bad ones. Learn Chinese. Get as close to the classics as you can - find the best translations, read them in the original if at all possible. Practice taijiquan and qigong. Improve yourself. To paraphrase Jackowicz, the needle is a mirror. You must demonstrate zheng qi so that the xie qi knows how to behave. Experiment with herbs. Be fearless. Vote for me.