Whew — I don’t know about you guys but after only a day of classes, I’m already exhausted. Maybe that’s because my PLAY crew and I have been working our asses off to get you several new items, a brand-spanking-new design and all the usual quality stories you have (hopefully) come to expect from us.

For those of you who are familiar with the endless tasks and long hoursassociated with putting out a publication, I’m sure you can imagine the glazed,deer-in-the-headlights look in my eyes at this very moment (yes, if you haven?tfigured it out yet, it’s about 10 p.m. on Wednesday and I am only now startingmy first letter from the editor — welcome to the world of deadlines). And thoseof you who’ve never experienced the sizzling tension of a newsroom hours pastits deadline, go have a few drinks with your friends and fully enjoy what wehave sacrificed on so many occasions.

Gee, it sort of sounds like I’m complaining, huh? That’s really not myintention. I merely think it’s important for you, our new as well as dedicatedreaders, to understand just how much effort everyone here at PLAY has put intoproviding you with the best version of this magazine yet.

And because we are so proud of all our bright ideas on page 3 you will find aguide to how we do things around here and what you can expect from us in thefuture. Highlights regular readers won’t want to miss, and new readers should know are new so they can pat us on the back for them: The panel album review on page 5 may look vaguely familiar to you Onion fans out there, but shhh, the last thingwe want is to get sued by our favorite news satirizers; a museum feature on page 10 posits Northwestern students are a) cultured enough to enjoy a good art opening or b) should be; and our Web-site-of-the-week thingy in the lower left corner of this page makes us at least look like we are technology literate.

Oh yeah, and this letter from me — that’s Ms. editor to you. Expect it to be alittle more collected in the future but always to keep you apprised of what?stop this week in PLAY, the world and my own frenetic mind.

Finally I just have to thank the droves of freshmen who expressed interest inworking for us and then *gasp* joined our listserv, came to meetings andeagerly took stories. You are forcing me to believe the hype that you are thehighest achievers NU has seen in a while.