The first time I ever picked up a "Harry Potter" book was in fourth grade. It was library day for my class, and I had finished the series I'd been reading and needed something new.

Although I'd never heard of it before, I loved it from the moment I opened to page one of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I became the mega-fan: the girl who can quote whole chapters of the books and act out each movie without breaking a sweat. Imagine my joy when I was first told about Quidditch at TCU.

The preseason No. 1 ranked baseball team will trade in their Horned Frog purple for pink at TCU's second annual Frogs for the Cure baseball clinic for women Thursday.

Ann Louden, the chancellor's associate for external relations, said the event would focus on raising money for breast cancer research, but would also provide a way for women to enjoy an evening trying their hand at baseball.

Featured Thursday Events

International Student Volunteers Meetings

When: Meetings every hour from noon until 4 p.m.

Where: Moudy Building South Room 325

ISV is looking for students from TCU to travel overseas this summer with students from all around the world. Students can visit places like Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. Students will spend time volunteering on projects either in social community service or conservation of the environment.

For more information, contact Alexi O'Brien at 904-343-9133

An issue with TCU's domain name system Tuesday night caused the second outage this month for the university's e-mail server, a Technology Resources administrator wrote in an e-mail.

Bryan Lucas, executive director of Technology Resources, wrote that the DNS issue arose because of the flooding of the university's server room in Sid W. Richardson Building on Feb. 4, which caused the initial outage in e-mail and wireless internet.

The e-mail servers were down from approximately 8:30 p.m. until 12:10 a.m. Wednesday, he wrote.

Reading today's "Skiff View," I was a little surprised at the reasoning behind your dislike of Nerf guns. While I agree that children should not be allowed to bring Nerf guns to school, I also know that elementary school children don't live on campus, but at home, where their toys belong. It does not take a senior engineering student to recognize that a yellow pistol with a pullback plunger is not a lockdown threat. Someone who sees a Nerf fight between two students and mistakes it for a real threat needs to relax a little more because they are obviously very high-strung.

Local school districts are scrambling to catch up after the snowstorms that swept across most of the country the past two weeks caused numerous school cancellations.

TCU's campus closed for a total of five days. Public schools also were forced to shut down across North Texas, according to a Feb. 3 article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Although the yearly schedule already has two snow days built in, the weather required students to miss an additional three days, which has put many classes behind.

Let's face it: Giving blood isn't the most fun thing to do in the world. If people can avoid getting a needle stuck into a vein and removing that red liquid that helps keep a body functioning, they will generally do so.

But however unpleasant the experience may be, it can save lives. With the winter weather we recently endured, the blood shortage many hospitals and blood banks already face became even worse.

Carter BloodCare usually sees a decrease in donors around the holidays from December through February, but with the weather issues in previous weeks, the shortage has become more severe.

TCU students can help with the blood shortage by donating blood at the Carter Blood Drive at the Carter Technology Center between Carter and Samuelson halls from 3 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, a Carter BloodCare official said.

The TCU Horned Frog marching band kicked off Super Bowl week with an appearance on ESPN'S Mike and Mike in the Morning radio show Jan. 31 at Sundance Square.

The band performed several pieces for the live broadcast, including the fight song and other football game day favorites. The Showgirls also performed routines during the songs.

Assistant director of bands Jeremy Strickland said the band had been in high demand leading up to the big game.

Head football coach Gary Patterson announced the signing of 24 new players for next season, bring in the 26th ranked class in the country by Rivals.com.

This is the highest in TCU's history. It also marks the third year the Horned Frogs have had the highest rated class in the Mountain West Conference.

"This is a great group of people," Patterson said. "Not only is it good athletes that we feel like met our needs, but it's a great group of people ... they all came with the emphasis of understanding that they want to win a championship."

Was Charles Darwin right on evolution? Does it even matter? These questions remain a controversial topic to this day, and the third question of whether his theory on the question of how life began should...