Though I penned a masterpiece of a paper last night, gentle reader, one that would make Socrates choke on his hemlock, I’ve yet another paper to craft tonight.
“Will it never end?” you wail in commiseration with me.
“It won’t,” I tell you with a pat on your shoulder and a sympathetic nod, “so cry with me, dear reader, and let those hot, sweet tears run down your cheeks.”
Done? Good.
Does it ever seem like Fate, or a council of professors, conspires against you? At least on the NU campus, I bet that the secret Brim-let’smakethestudentscry-stone Society meets in the basement of Kresge on Wednesday and Friday nights. During these meetings, professors multifarious (along with Willie the Groundskeeper) gather ‘round a scratched wooden table, collectively cackle, sacrifice the requisite amount of babies and hamsters, then proceed to line up their due dates one after the other. Sounds plausible, doesn’t it?
“Don’t you have an obligation to manage your schedule responsibly?” you interject with a schoolmarm look.
“How about fixing your heater, huh? Did you do that yet?” I respond in kind. “I’ve gotchur obligation RIGHT HERE.”
I have another theory, in case you’re still listening. It came to me while I did my laundry yesterday. Do you ever notice how mysterious piles of clothes STAY in your dorm laundry room, day after day, week after week? Don’t people need clothes anymore? What’s going on here? Why don’t people pick up their clothes?
I’ll tell you why, gentle reader. I picture a student reading deconstructionist literature in the laundry room. After getting to page four out of fifty, a lightbulb appears over her head and the notion of “clothes” seems outmoded. What are clothes, after all? Can we even define our coverings as “clothes”? Can we even call a lightbulb a “lightbulb”? I don’t know, but I sure hope she’s hot.
Join me tonight, gentle and scholarly reader, as I blithely ignore my “Renaissance Literature” paper and instead write a paper for you.
Whenever you sit yourself down for a good bout of bullsh— Wait, scratch that. Let me start over. Whenever you sit yourself down for a good bout of term paper crafting, do you ever notice how long it takes to complete the very first page? During that arduous hour, all sorts of wonky things take place: an urgent compulsion to reconfigure your room seizes you, a sudden hunger for the bane of the National Institute of Health overtakes you, and a burning desire to check the weather—for the next two weeks as well as for tomorrow, natch—washes over you.
Whom should you blame for this? Did Bill Gates’ typewriter become possessed? Perhaps the paper topic doesn’t “speak to you,” as an English student would tell you, Seattle’s Best in hand. Or perhaps the Muse is to blame.
“I’m going to show you the back of my HAND, Muse!” you say with a shake of your fist and with eyes afire.
“Hold on, gentle reader!” I implore, Cane of Good Behavior trained at your skull.
Back in my high school years, my favorite violin teacher—a delightful German woman who lived in a renovated chicken coop without television or radio—told me about her childhood one evening. Some nights, she told me, she would pay her sister some hush money, open the upstairs bathroom window, and shimmy through it to the ground below. The hush money, of course, would keep her sister from divulging all to her parents. And once free of hearth and home, she would run through the cold night air, meet up with some friends, and dance the night away in the basement of an abandoned apartment building.
Why don’t I have as much fire in me, I wonder? And what about you, gentle reader? Would you drop your studying now to run free in the cold night air? Probably not. I wouldn’t do so either. And yet, don’t you sometimes ask yourself, “What am I doing here?”
“What should I do?” you ask, mouth forming a perfect “O,” your question breaking the thoughtful silence.
Revolt, gentle revolutionary reader! Instead of handing in your paper tomorrow, give your professor a nice, thick piece of construction paper. Write “I LOVE YOU!” on this paper in crayon, making sure to form the O’s as little hearts. You’ll be the toast of the town, I guarantee it!
Evanston readers will fondly note how God smiled upon us yesterday by granting springtime weather in mid-February. Today, however, stands as incontrovertible evidence that human sin, at least in Evanston and the greater Chicago-Metro area, reached epic proportions on Friday night. For lo! Once again, Evanston is awash in dismal weather.
You see, Willie—not Willie the Wildcat, but Willie the Groundskeeper—cackled this morning, wrung his hands, and turned on the Evil NU Weather Machine™. In that order, mind you.
Whether you live in Evanston or not, gentle reader, fear not for I have sound advice for you. Though you walk in subzero temperatures, do not despair lest your tears freeze to your cheeks. When the local Evil Weather Machine™ turns on, and all that is good and green SCREAMS FOR MERCY, open your windows and sing!
“Why?” you ask in a wretched Tiny Tim voice, clutching your cold plywood crutches for warmth as the heating system in your apartment sputters and dies.
I will tell you why, wretched reader.
It has long been a theory of mine that eating citrus will not only prevent scurvy, but it will also make you globally-savvy like Thomas Friedman. He declares, after all, that he is “addicted to citrus.”
“Why don’t you think through your ‘theory’?!” you cry.
“Why don’t you fix your heater?” I reply.
By placing your oranges near open windows, you will cool them as God intended. Nature’s candy should be cooled naturally, so take that, Frigidaire! This also works well with pitchers of water. So that you don’t die, I would suggest opening your windows just a crack.
As an added incentive, readers who live in dorms should turn on their heat to complement Nature’s Fridge. The cold and the heat will mix, thereby creating a pleasant climate, and your oranges will remain at a delightful temperature (they’re sitting right in front of the window, remember). You will also get some return for your tuition, though I would suggest turning on all the faucets in your dorm to reap the full benefits of a liberal education.
“But it’s so COLD outside!” you whine.
Did you ever think that you were worth more than your oranges? What a preposterous conceit.