Thumbs Up
The New Stairs – An entire year passed, a year that will live in legend, when students hoping to cross from McElroy Commons to McGuinn Hall had to descend rickety, temporary stairs. The herds of students were uncertain, and their future looked grim. Will there ever be real stairs on this small hill again? Will we forever live in this terrible limbo? But finally, with the dawn of the new semester comes a new set of completed stairs. They’re bigger, they’re better, and they’re steeper. They almost make you want to act absurdly excited and devote an entire paragraph to their existence. So next time you walk up those freshly constructed stepping stones of freedom, take a moment to recognize what you’re standing on: a monument to victory.
Grilled Cheese – A little cheese, a little bread, a whole lot of tasty.
Saving Money on Textbooks – Whenever you manage to subvert the textbook racket, you always feel like a winner. However you pulled it off, congratulations. The academic establishment can’t hold you down. Now go spend those $60 on some well-earned victory cheese. I recommend muenster.
Thumbs Down
Paying Exorbitant Amounts of Money for Textbooks – There is no way around it. You absolutely need 17 gigantic tomes for each of your classes or you wouldn’t be able to do any of the homework, and then you would fail, and your life would be down the toilet. The bill comes to a total of $7,942.17. You’ve been beaten down and forced to shell out cash for a bunch of stinking wordy-bookers. You’re ready to turn it in, admit defeat, and go home, but you still have an entire semester ahead of you. Oh, joy.
Inexplicable Smells – You’re sitting in class, listening to your professor emphatically declare the importance of neo-romantic tooth-cleaning supplies in relation to existential cartography, when a strange and unexpected odor hits your nostrils. An odd mixture: something chemical to it, maybe chlorine, an odd dose of spoiled milk, a pinch of fish entrails, and, of course, the required cherry-on-top—fecal matter. You wonder what this smell could possibly be. Your nose twitches like a thing that is very twitchy. You subtly sniff at your armpits, filled with paranoia. OH, THE STANK! It just grows worse and you sink lower in your seat, positive that everyone thinks it is coming from you. And there is no relief for the next 30 minutes of class, only you and the stench until the bitter end.
Featured Image by The Associated Press
