Well guys, it’s here. The day you wait for every week. It’s UPUA Recap Thursday, and let me preface this by saying that last night’s UPUA meeting was especially pointless.

It immediately started with Off-Campus Representative Anthony Christina motioning to adjourn the meeting before it even started because the agenda wasn’t made public at least one academic day before the meeting, which is a requirement according to the UPUA bylaws. Chair of the Assembly Spencer “Dream Crusher” Malloy asked the assembly to suspend the bylaw that Christina was talking about, thereby putting out the spark of hope I had to get out of the meeting.

On a related note, I’m now 90% positive that Anthony Christina has the UPUA constitution memorized, as this is at least the second time I’ve heard him cite it, even though I’ve only been the UPUA reporter for a month.

The meeting began with Dray Krishnan’s presentation of the proposed Election Code for the 2013 elections. He apologized in advance for the presentation being boring. Although not all members of the assembly agreed on the new Election Code (which I’ll get to in a minute), I think we could all agree that truer words had never been spoken. I think that part of the reason why there was such a negative reaction to the proposed Election Code was because there weren’t more jokes in the presentation (that’s not the actual reason).

Many members of the assembly were against the new Election Code because they felt as though it was rushed. Those people voiced that they couldn’t make an informed decision about the new Election Code because they weren’t given the old one in advance to compare the new one to. Unfortunately for those stalwarts, registration for the 2013 election begins in two weeks and they’re out of luck if a new code doesn’t get passed by then.

Anyway, the new UPUA Election Code is a lot like the post-weight loss Jonah Hill. It’s leaner, easier to look at, but not as well liked. The old UPUA Election Code is apparently 18 pages long, hard to read, and very specific — to the point of being nit-picky — about certain election codes. The new (and evidently not-so improved) Election Code is only eight pages, reader-friendly, and more vague in certain aspects of the code to allow for more campaigning freedom.

The proposal to adopt the new Election Codes as presented by Krishnan never reached the floor for a vote. Things are about to get a little bit confusing so get ready: The assembly voted in favor of an objection against bringing the adoption of the new Election Code to a vote during this meeting. I’m assuming that that type of confusing wording is what the old Election Code looked like. Because most of the assembly had not actually read the proposed elections code (despite Krishnan giving a presentation on it at the beginning of the meeting), it will need to be presented again next week before it can be potentially adopted. On the bright side, I’m sure the presentation will only be more exciting the second time I hear it…

Before you start panicking that there won’t be an Election Code in place before candidate registration starts in two weeks, you can be reassured that there is a bit of a safety net here so complete anarchy won’t ensue if a new code isn’t adopted. In that case, UPUA will use last year’s code. The old code is still functional, although there is a reason why they were trying to make a new one.

On a successful note, the UPUA Test Prep week went very well. All of the books that UPUA had were given out by the second day. I am impressed by both Penn State students’ hope to go to graduate schools and the fact that they knew about an event that UPUA sponsored.

In other news, President Courtney Lennartz, who was not present at the meeting, will be meeting with Damon Sims this week to discuss the CCSG budget. Damon Sims is the person who will ultimately approve or deny the CCSG budget, and President Lennartz is our last hope of persuading him otherwise. No pressure.

Tie Rating of the Week: Chief Justice Ryan Thomas (30/10)

You may be asking, why is Katie not doing tie wars? They were such a hit! Is it possible that she’s just too lazy to judge two ties? The answer is no. I’m a judgmental person and there is no limit to how many ties I can rate.

The reason there are no tie wars is because everybody in the assembly was dressed like it was casual Friday at work (you can blame “Dream Crusher” Malloy for that one). I mean I saw people wearing jeans. Do you know how hard it is to respect people who aren’t well dressed? If you’ve ever seen What Not to Wear then you know the answer is yes.

However, there is one ray of light in this dark tale. Ryan Thomas is the hero we all needed when he came dressed to impress, and impress he did.  I therefore give him a score of 30, despite the crooked knot and even though the scale is only out of 10. He has just earned the title of highest scoring tie to ever be judged by an Onward State reporter. Congratulations and be sure to thank your peers. You couldn’t have done it without them.