New York. New York City is home to nearly as many fads and trends as its West Coast counterpart. Last year the rage was sucking subway tokens out of the turnstiles. This year, apparently, it's hustling long-distance phone calls made with stolen access codes. In the Big Apple, creativity is king.

Features: knowledge of English can be handy.

Houston. News item: A 10 year-old boy shot his mother and father with a .38 pistol because "they refused to let him go outside to play."

Features: Rich people wearing cowboy hats.

Although this guide is not intended as a complete description of urban living in America, it does try to portray the general feeling. Life, as Hobbes once put it, is "nasty, brutish, short, and the rent's way too high"--a statement even truer today, since the invention of carcinogens and condos.

However daunting the task of working for an entire summer may be, though, remember that after graduation the scene will be even bleaker. For the time being, one must make the best of a bad situation.

Personally, I'm heading south for fall semester at Bolivia U.

Rutger Fury, formerly chief political writer for The Miami Herald, is a close friend of Jeffrey J. Wise.