By Mohamad Elfakhani ----

In what has become a Biology Department tradition, the senior class of 2001 performed the annual Biogala play on Friday, May 11 at 6:30pm to a packed Science Lecture Hall. During a 20 minute wait for preparations to be finalized, students entertained themselves chanting songs and welcomes to biology professors as they entered the SLH. A group of enthusiastic students who had a drum kept the crowd going. The event began with a short slide show of students at the beach collecting samples for Dr. Sadek's ecology class. Senior Lama Chahine then welcomed the students and announced, to loud cheers from the crowd, the department's recent intramural victory. The last Biology Department gold medal was 18 years ago. The play began with four students sitting around reminiscing about their days as biology majors. Their memories were then acted out for the audience's benefit. Victims of the students imitations included biology chairman Drs. Rabih Talhouk, Charbel Tarraf, Khouzama Knio, Medhat Khattar, Nadine Darwiche, Bared Garabedian, the head MCAT administrator for the exam, and of course, the popular Dr. Elias Baydoun. The imitations, which were very well done, covered such things as pronunciation of the letter P, Dr.Khattar and Scotland, the importance of evaluations, and "Sexology" with Dr. Tarraf. One of the funnier scenes was a sketch in which the names of senior students were called out, followed by an imitation of the students by Charbel Salem and Wesam Halabi. After the play, two further slide shows were projected, one of which was by biology senior Karen Hawwa, who has been snapping pictures all year. The Biogala ended with Dr. Amal Kassis presenting the editor of the Biology Sstudent Society newsletter, Bits and Pieces of Science, Mazen Sidani, withj a plaque for his hard work in establishing and working on the newsletter since 1997. The biology students then proceeded to an evening at the Royal Plaza for the Bioprince and Bioprincess competition, won this year by Prince Tarek Sibai and Princess Karina Sawan.