In addition to his leadership roles as chair of Quincy HAND, a director of the Mission Hill after-school program and council president, Gabay tutors Boston Latin School 7th and 8th grade students and ekes out "10,000 Men" a few times a week as a member of the marching band.

"One of the things you learn quickly on this campus is that you have to choose one thing to commit yourself to," says council member Hassen A. Sayeed '96. "But Carey has this astonishing ability to do billions of things here and not be insane, while maintaining commitments to them all, and doing everything with extraordinary flair," Sayeed adds.

The council itself has noticably evolved during his tenure as a council representative, says Gabay. "The U.C. has at least moved away from the cookie parties of my freshman year," he says.

As a first-year, Gabay's first bid for a council seat--a "freshman joke candidacy"--was unsuccessful.

Sophomore year, Gabay ran for the Quincy House delegation on an anti-council platform. "I was a lot like [council presidential candidate] Anjalee Davis then," he says. "I just wanted to change things, but I didn't know how that needed to be done."

Gabay intends to make council meetings more accessible to students by rotating them throughout the campus, broadcasting minutes of council meetings over e-mail networks, and meeting with house committees to discuss funds the council will allocate for house projects.

"We're trying more ambitious things now, and while some people are upset by that, I think that we have a chance to be more inclusive in the activities we sponsor," Gabay asserts. "These are things that could really affect how the council is perceived on campus, if people actually know what we're doing and how we work."

Gabay's plans for his term also include challenging the "factions which erupted last year," and attempting to actively reform the council's image.

"Dumb things just came up way too often," Gabay says. "And no one really cared."

He says this year's council representatives are looking to "do something that's not about politics and resume padding."

Garza, who ran against Gabay for the presidency of the council, praises Gabay's success.

"He's done everything he set out to do so far," she says.

Gabay stresses that the council's function is to provide services to the student body. In keeping with the spirit of service, Gabay meticulously adheres to the tenets he preaches.

"It helps that I don't think factions exist the way they did last year," he says. Gabay says that he has carefully tried to engineer an executive board of council members who have traditionally disagreed.

"Last year we had an executive board of all Mike [Beys'] friends," Gabay says. Gabay was the council's treasurer last year and is, according to Beys, a friend.