Many American families have been hit by hard financial times in recent years, and being fashionable in these times can be tough. Welcome to the “Recessionista Era,” where fashionable young women are using entrepreneurial skills and killer instincts to not only purchase high style items on the cheap, but start their own designer lines as well.

Northern Virginia Community College is offering a new course at the Annandale campus. Introduction to Conservation and Energy Efficiency in Commercial Buildings (EGR 295) is a course that will help students gain hands-on experience with commercial building energy efficiency. The U.S Energy Protection Agency (EPA) designed the course and based it on the approach recommended by ENERGY STAR, the nation’s largest and most recognizable energy efficiency program.

Walking around on our planet today, there are approximately 681,630,000 people of European descent who are either immune or have an abnormally high resistance to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. What makes these people unable to be infected by one of the worst diseases currently known to mankind? Superpowers? Lots of orange juice? Maybe they pray a lot? Nope.

You’ve probably visited the library on your campus. NOVA’s libraries have resources to help students succeed in research, to study, work on group projects and more. Studies show that students who make use of their campus libraries get better grades, are more likely to graduate and have better love lives (well, maybe not the last one – but you never know what could happen).

Since the last newspaper report, the NOVA ice hockey team has played four games, winning one. Against Atlantic Division rivals, it was 0-2, dropping to a 2-2 record in the division, tied for sixth among the eight teams.

With an all new team from last year except for one player, the Northern Virginia Community College men’s basketball team could have been expected to start out slowly, but such was not the case. Its first two games saw NOVA almost break the century mark both times in winning.

With no returning players from last year, six freshmen out of nine players and most of its early games on the road, this year’s women’s basketball team seemed likely to have a tough time during its early schedule. And so it has.

As a writer, I enjoy many forms of written expression including poetry, essays and obviously journalism. They each bring me a level of satisfaction, a feeling of a job well done and sometimes the delight in creating something of which I am truly proud. However, one form of expression gives me such a feeling of excitement, pride and creative satisfaction that participating in it is a joy to rival all others, and that is singing with the NOVA Community Chorus.

NOVA received an A+ in a recent survey of community colleges’ use of technology to enhance the student experience and increase educator effectiveness.