It's a tossup really. Do I take the more public, better lit, yet longer route thereby giving myself greater exposure to drunken harassment, catcalls, etc? Or do I take the shorter, more desolate and dark route and minimize my exposure to such lovely campus behavior, yet almost certainly guarantee that should I meet any unsavories on my walk home, I will very likely be unable to identify them in the lineup the next morning?

I almost always choose the shorter route. But I practice using my Nalgene as a weapon in my head the whole way home. I think, in a pinch, it would function not unlike a nunchuck.