College 101

As the light changes from red to green to yellow and back to red again I sit here, at the intersection of Lincoln Highway and Annie Glidden Road thinking about life.  Is it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling?  Sometimes it sure seems that way…

Ah, the start of another school semester, my last here at NIU.  What I’m going to leave this place with is a legacy of liver disease, enough credit card debt to make Paris Hilton’s slutty jaw drop, and a pretty thorough understanding of what makes college students tick.  I’ve made some amazing friends while meandering my way through the drunken corn-maze that is DeKalb, Illinois.  I intend to honor our bonds with a semester-long-Leaving-Las-Vegas-style booze binge which will leave me with memories to last a lifetime (if it doesn’t result in my vomit-related death).

One semester left.  That’s one hundred and two days for those of you that are counting and 2,448 hours for you nerds out there fingering your TI-83’s.  A mere 146,880 minutes left in this wonderfully unique environment where 4 am is considered early on weekends which last from 4:45 Pm on Wednesdays to approximately 6 pm on Sundays and you sober up to the grim reality of somehow being expected to function without Miller High Life.  But at this point, you’re no nubie.  You’re smart enough to schedule your classes around Rock of Love re-runs and your sloth-like sleeping habits.  By this time, you’ve opted to live with other pseudo-alcoholic-vampires who, like you , find it socially acceptable to skip a class located two blocks away, but willingly stumble over to a party two miles away in a blizzard wearing your favorite toe-mangling heels.

My time in college is always a time I’ll treasure.  As much as I want to punch people who say “College is the best years of your life” directly in the throat I have to admit that those cliche-ridden bastards are probably right.  If you’re like me and have spent a significant amount of time at your parents’ house over break, you’ve gained an appreciation for the freedom college has allotted us.  There’s just no way the type of behavior that we college kids routinely engage in away from our parents’ prying eyes would fly in the real world, a sad place where huge bong rips and foxy-boxing are looked down upon rather than celebrated in all their glory .   I mean, you should hear the slew of criticisms that I endure as I stumble up the stairs in my parents’ house at 4 am dressed like a cheap hooker while yelling out obscenities at the cat.

College is the only place where silly drunken behavior is truly appreciated so enjoy it while you can my fellow boozehounds.  Hopefully, the memories we create here can at least provide us with some entertaining stories we can tell each other while we pretend that we’re content with our mundane, middle-aged march towards inevitable death.