While talking about sex with a friend of mine, I expressed my ambivalence toward shower sex and was met with a completely incredulous response. “Shower sex is the reason I believe in God,” he said. “Your partner is clearly not 11 inches taller than you,” I replied. It’s true. The most challenging thing aspect of my relationship isn’t that it’s long distance or that we both have incredibly full work schedules. The single most grating thing about my relationship is that my partner is 6’3”. Or maybe it is that I’m only 5’4”. What it amounts to is that being around him is like being around a giant. When I go to his house for dinner, I can’t help but think of Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk, feeling like I’m seeing everything from a much smaller perspective than everyone else.

If Jack had ever wanted to make out with one of those giants, he would have found it very difficult. Although an 11-inch height difference doesn’t quite compare to that between a human and a giant, I feel like Jack and
I would have shared the same pain. Making out cannot happen standing up. A peck on the lips involves tiptoes and craning my neck as far back as it’ll go, in one of the least comfortable positions I can imagine.
Eleven inches means I can step up two stairs and still be looking at his chin.

When you translate that into the shower, you get limited kissing because of the discomfort; and your face turned up like you’re watching fireworks on the fourth of July, which means you’re in the perfect position to swallow water. When it comes to the actual physical connection of sex, the fact is that parts just don’t fit together as well as they do in a bed. Dancing is hard enough. Grinding for the two of us means his knees are bent, practically to 90 degrees, like he’s sitting in a chair. There’s something innately unsexy about thinking about doing squats while your partner is rubbing her ass against your jeans. Sex in the shower is even more difficult than that. Picture someone bent at the waist, on his or her tiptoes, hands on the wet, slippery shower wall. Now picture someone behind that person, also bent at the waist, as well as at the knees. With no eyes at crotch level, getting the ball in the hole is hard enough. Add all the wet factors to it — the slippery wall, the slippery floor, the flowing water, and the fact that vaginal fluid is water soluble — and you’re basically looking at a circus. Picture clowns slipping on banana peels, trying not to land face first.

I imagine there are ways around this situation. But let me tell you the ways that are not. In order to navigate around the problem of height, do not attempt to stand on the edge of the tub. Your feet are slippery. The tub is slippery. There is very little to hold on to, besides the shower curtain rod, and that thing is not as stable as one might think. (Ditto the towel rack.) Laying down in the tub is out of the question as well. I have such fond memories of taking baths as a child, and even now, when I have a really stressful day, there’s nothing. I’d rather do than light some candles, pick up a book, and lay in the tub until every inch of my body is pruny.
Unfortunately, any normal sized bathtub is only going to fit one person and will not fit a person who is 6’3”.

Other things I don’t recommend: Getting fed up in the shower and deciding to have sex lying on the bathroom floor. It sounds like such a good idea, especially when your partner’s roommate is asleep three feet from your partner’s bed. Unfortunately, being slippery is still a problem on the tile floor. And truthfully, getting any leverage involves being on your knees, and in addition to the fact that it’s difficult to keep your balance, tile floors hurt. Also, the idea of lying on a bathroom floor does a lot to kill any sexy factor, unless you’re into the smell of cleaning products and urine. For some reason, trying not to hit my head on the receiving end of crap, pee and vomit, ruins the mood for me.

If bathroom sex is your only option and the shower isn’t doing it for you, my best bit of advice is to flip the toilet cover down and have one person sit there while the other straddles him or her. This is good, because it allows the person on top to get leverage and control the pace. But please be aware that toilet seat covers are not indestructible, and it’s pretty difficult to make up a convincing lie about how you snapped the toilet seat in two.

__Krystyna Holland is a Behind Closed Doors columnist and plans to stop by Target to purchase a non-slip bathing mat for her tub.__

Before she took an internship in the spring of her junior year, Wren Satterley ’12 had not even considered human resources as a possible career choice. Now, with the connections she has made, she is pursuing the field and hopes it will be her first job after graduation.

Satterley is just one of the students who has participated in and benefited from the local internships offered by the Sherman and Gloria H. Cohen Career Center. The program began in the late 1990s and gives students the opportunity to learn about their chosen field of employment firsthand.

Tiffanie Rosier, assistant director of the Cohen Career Center, took over the program in the fall of 2010 and claims that it is one of a kind.

“The really great part about the local internship program is that whether or not you’re looking for a really specific experience in a field you know you like, or if you’re just looking to explore, the employers are very aware of that and they are open to that. I think that’s what makes this program very unique,” Rosier said.

In Satterley’s case, exploration was one of the most important aspects of the program. She had the opportunity to learn about a variety of positions and, according to her, the ease of the application process made the experience that much more positive.

“I am the biggest advocate of this program, and I think the best thing about it is how easy it is to apply,” Satterley said. “You just need to get your resume approved by the Career Center, upload it online, and apply. I applied for ten positions and fell in love with the one I was offered.”

The internships offered are specifically designed for the college student’s schedule and do not demand more than 10 hours every week. The companies are told beforehand that students are not expected to work during breaks scheduled by the College.

The companies looking for student help vary from year to year, but in the past they have ranged from a position at a local radio station to a Herpetology internship at the Virginia Living Museum.

“We work throughout the year to create partnerships with local businesses, and then we allow the students to sign up for those positions,” Rosier said. “The companies are always really excited to work with William and Mary students.”

A majority of the internships available to students are within city limits, so transportation is rarely an issue. Even certain College departments have become involved in the program.

Susan Mongold, director of training and development in the College’s office of human resources, has been utilizing student interns for the past two years, including Satterley.

“I really believe that at a college, you should find every way you can to involve students,” she said. “Just because I’m in administration doesn’t mean I can’t use the work I’m doing for employees to help out what students are doing. So it’s just a nice way to make a complete picture. My work is employee-driven; I’m here to serve the employees. When I involve the students, they have a different perspective, and it makes it very rich.”

It was Satterley’s experience with Mongold’s department that inspired her to pursue the field as a possible first job after graduation. She started in the spring of her junior year, then requested to stay on for the summer and her senior year.

“I loved the program,” Satterley said. “I would tell anyone to join it just because I decided to do it on a whim, and it ended up being applicable to my major. I was given projects that catered to the exact preferences that I requested in the interview ⎯ I could even pick my hours.”

One of the best aspects of the program for Satterley was its proximity, as it was on-campus. She claims that the overall experience she received was invaluable.

“I can’t speak for all the internships, but in my case at least, I was doing everything hands-on,” she said. “You’re not there to stuff envelopes ⎯ you’re able to gain real life experience that you wouldn’t get at other basic internships.”

Sophomores and juniors are the program’s most frequent applicants, but Rosier says it is open to all social classes. Oftentimes companies impressed with their interns will ask them to stay on for future semesters, sometimes advancing them to paid internships, which freshmen could potentially benefit from the most.
Rosier has also seen students offered employment after participating in an internship, which, without a doubt, would be motivation for a senior participant.

“One of my student interns used me as a reference for another job she was applying for,” Mongold said. “I was able to use examples from her time working with us, and I believe she got the job.”

Ultimately, the program aims to help students gain the experience necessary for making career decisions after college. And, according to Mongold, it succeeds.

“I think it gives you a taste of a real world job,” she said. “It lets you see the work environment. Maybe you don’t want to be in an office after you intern in one. You start realizing what you do and do not want to do. It helps you refine what your career goals are.”

The College of William and Mary: Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot. This weekend, Big Sean came to the College to perform the first concert of the semester sponsored by Alma Mater Productions, and despite all his efforts to get the crowed hyped the audience was little more than a dull mob.

The opening act, Nickelus F., an upcoming rapper from Richmond, attempted to raise the energy but both his set and his rap fell flat. While he was able to convince a few of the students close to the stage to bob their heads to the beat and wave their hands, most of the crowd complained about his lack of talent.

I polled the audience on thumbs up or down approval of Nick F.’s performance and the response was overwhelmingly negative. His lyrics were mediocre at best; rapping about weed, alcohol and sex isn’t anything I wouldn’t have anticipated from a hip-hop artist, but he could have approached the content in a more interesting way. His DJ played some nice beats, and I would have rather heard the instrumentals than the verses Nick F. spat.

When Sean finally came on I expected the crowd to erupt with excitement, run down from the steps of the amphitheatre, and rush the stage. I was shocked by the lack of the enthusiasm when I saw that people were not even budging from their seats and few were leaving the venue. Granted, Big Sean is not the biggest name in hip-hop at the moment and most of the people who I spoke with before and during the concert had no idea who he was, but I could never have imagined the lack of appreciation for such a popular contemporary artist.

I first heard of Big Sean in 2010 when Kanye West released G.O.O.D. Fridays, free songs available to download from his website every Friday as a countdown to the release of his fourth studio album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” Moreover, Sean is a member of West’s label G.O.O.D. Music, along with several other up and coming and already famous artists such as Common, Pusha T, John Legend and Kid Cudi. Sean was frequently featured in West’s weekly giveaways and his verses were always clever and witty.
When Big Sean finally released his first studio album “Finally Famous,” I was eager to see the evolution of his rhymes and progression under the mentorship of the Roc-Nation camp, which includes Kanye West, Jay-Z and Young-Joc, amongst others.

Although Big Sean has gained mainstream exposure only recently, he has a slew of mix-tapes from the years prior to his deal with G.O.O.D. Music, some of which he performed at Friday’s concert. He had his start on the west side of Detroit, and has proven that Midwestern rappers have the same amount of edge and integrity as rappers from New York, L.A. or the south. Even with his fame on a steady rise and a history that illustrates his passion for his craft, the majority of campus was unaware of his existence. AMP finally secured someone worth listening to; if anyone remembers the Eric Hutchinson concert from last fall, then you should recognize this as an extraordinary improvement. All I can do is groan and sigh heavily at this underappreciation for a decent artist.

Among the boring casual concertgoers were some fans that reciprocated the energy that Big Sean gave to the audience. They posed with him for his “Twitterpics” and crowdsurfed. The performance seemed a bit short, but Sean played a number of songs from both his mixtapes and his album. The song that got the crowd moving the most was a song from his CD called “Dance (Ass).” He should have started the show with that single, because it made the concert feel like a party and even the people who were just rocking to the music began to work to the beat. The couples on the floor really began to dance once he played his other dancefloor banger “Marvin Gaye and Chardonnay,” which features Kanye West and Roscoe Dash in the album version. He closed the concert with his most famous song “My Last,” which features Chris Brown in the chorus. By then most of the crowd was dancing and singing along, but the energy was too little, too late and the concert ended as the audience filtered out to the DJ’s final jams. After two hip-hop concerts, The Roots and Big Sean, it will be interesting to see who AMP finds to play at the homecoming show; I only hope the campus is more receptive to whomever it may be.