The start of senior year is a hackneyed topic, so I’m going to avoid it. Besides, everyone’s got something to say about it. It’s old.
First-years were annoying for the last two years, are annoying this year and will probably continue to be annoying when I’m a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas. Note how I conveniently forget that I too was once one of them. This topic, too, is displeasing to me.
I didn’t go abroad junior year, so I have no angst regarding changes at Georgetown, nor do I have any ludicrous amounts of praise (all involving the word “amazing”) for study-abroad programs. We’ll move on.
Now if only I had something to move on to… Walking back across Healy lawn tonight, I considered venting about asinine rooftop keg parties where drunken students play the same bloody song over and over, but I didn’t think that it was worth the time to sit down and explain at length why I found their behavior so ludicrous. Then, I wondered why Georgetown bothers to have one-and-a-half days of classes at the beginning of the semester, since we all wind up doing nothing for a long weekend and it would be much nicer to have a full week off, instead of this half-hearted attempt at piquing academic desires. At that point, I lit a cigarette, watched a squirrel chase another squirrel around a tree (much like a senior running after newbies at a Village A rooftop party) and pondered the Office of Housing and Conference Service’s policy on not allowing students to keep pets such as cats and dogs in apartments. Speaking of which, I think that everyone should go out to watch Cats & Dogs, since I find the idea of talking animals immensely entertaining.
Right around then, I had to fling myself to the ground to avoid a bunch of budding alcoholics who had somehow managed to hot-wire one of the golf carts outside of the library and were joyriding around campus on it . So I lost my train of thought and now I’m back to square one … what pressing issues are waiting for my voice to utter them?
And what’s all this about Dean & Deluca being the new “hip” place to hang out? What drugs are people on and what possessed the management of D&D to start hiring jazz bands to play there at noon on weekends? Blues Alley is two streets down. Walk it.
I have to express myself and I hate dispensing sage advice but I can’t stop myself. Why? Well, because for various reasons, I don’t have much time left, and it’s important to me to share what I have accomplished thus far with everyone else. Those of you whom I know?don’t bring this up in any depth without asking me, and especially not in any details. Everyone deserves his or her own privacy, don’t you agree? There’s no good way to work that into an article, and I don’t really give a flying fuck about how stylistically inappropriate it may be at this point. Voices carry?here’s mine:
Life is too short, and every day could be your last. Don’t waste it … I wish I had more days. The minutes you spend worshipping the porcelain god, bemoaning your life and being whiny are incalculably valuable, because you’ll never see them again.
Take a class that you normally wouldn’t. Take a chance on someone who’s “out of your league” (it can happen, I assure you). Have a summer romance?it’s great for your self-esteem. Get rip-roaring, shitfaced, utterly wasted and otherwise inebriated and lie on your back in the observatory garden under a full moon. Dress up during Halloween and dance “The Time Warp” with the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Don’t get restaurants shut down, managers fired and waiters and waitresses laid off because you’re under 21 and feel like you just have to have a Bud Light?use the fake ID somewhere where it won’t hurt someone else’s life or career. Or cocktease a senior into buying it for you (which is really surprisingly easy to do?seniors get stupid at the prospect of having to go out into the real world).
If you can possibly avoid it, don’t graduate early. You’ll have the rest of your life to be an adult, and these four years can be more full of life and meaning than you can possibly imagine. Always ask a roommate before you eat or drink his or her food and drink. The ensuing drama can never really be justified by claiming a craving. Don’t think that because a professor is “easy,” you won’t learn anything. By the same token, most of the “hard” professors will teach you in ways incomprehensible, yet incredibly rewarding. Your friends will change. The real ones, though, will change with you and not make you feel bad about evolving. I use the word deliberately. Fucking with people’s heads is something you will grow out of, so save yourself some time and energy and don’t do it. A word to the bitchy ones amongst you: It only takes a few seconds to destroy something that took a lifetime to build. Suppress your urges. It’s much less fun when it happens to you and believe me, it will.
It may be $120,000 of your parents’ money, but it’s going to be a good 80-odd years of your life. Keep that in mind when you decide you want to be pre-med or pre-law or a Goldman Sachs embryo. Living for yourself is all that matters in the end?everything else is just so many words. Study art at least once while you’re here?you’ll be surprised at whom and what you find in the AMTH department.
Remember to cry. It’s conducive to a long and healthy life.
I think I’m done. It’s been a good four years.
