The roadways of Tempe are clogged with confused out-of-state drivers, and I’m suffering mild whiplash from passing freshman girls on the sidewalk.

Fall semester has begun.

It’s odd walking past these newcomers with whom I used to feel so much in common. Today, I feel no more affinity towards them than I would to an aluminum-siding salesman (one of whom, incidentally, I shut the door on only yesterday).

But then, I think, “Kevin, you can help these little brats — and in many ways which don’t involve your libido one bit.”

After all, I figured, I have a column in the first newspaper issue of the year, and is anything more popular than the opinion page of The State Press?

And so it is here that I’d like to be a guide to those who have lost their way, or who never found it in the first place. There’s also plenty for those who have been here a bit longer.

The Memorial Union, for starters, has been redone after the inferno of last fall and is a mandatory hangout for anyone with half a brain and even less of an identity.

Those of you who were away during the summer missed a treat available to those of us with classes and campus jobs: the transition of the walkway between the MU and Hayden Library from a flat concrete area into … a flat concrete area with a raised concrete platform.

At least the sustainable restaurant on the second floor makes the reborn MU a masterpiece of irony.

Inside, you’ll notice that architects have accomplished the feat of raising the number of hallways without adding any square-footage whatsoever simply by placing doorways in the middle of what were once single, lonely, pitiful hallways. Through word of mouth, it has been explained to me that this was done in accordance with fire code, and I immediately wondered if ASU’s fire-safety plans are based on the flood-containment strategy written by the designers of the Titanic.

Furthermore, budget cuts have been on everyone’s lips of late, and, as a result, there are some new schools on campus — or, rather, old schools with different names and far fewer employees.

African-American studies has been combined with film, Asian Pacific American studies, women and gender studies, and the School of Justice and Social Inquiry to form the vague School of Social Transformation.

Meanwhile, nursing has been shoved against violin performance to create the School of Medicinal Aesthetics and Compositional Synergy. Public relations is moving from journalism to business, for obvious reasons.

So you see that there are a lot of new happenings on campus, whether you’re a freshman or Michael Crow himself. One thing that hasn’t changed is the limited word count for columnists, and with that, I depart for next Tuesday.

If you also love the MU’s new door collection, Kevin can be reached by e-mail at krking@asu.edu