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Sitting on a Step Outside, Wearing a Jacket Over a Hoodie While Rubbing Your Hands Together – This works best when you wear an expression that combines uncertainty with rugged inner-city toughness. After a few minutes of doing this alone you should invite your overweight and less attractive, but equally tough, pal to sit next to you and talk about the consequences of your life decisions. Smoking a cigarette is optional, but highly recommended.

Hypocrisy – It tends to get a bad rap, but we personally love hypocrisy like a small malformed rabbit we found in the backyard. Shamelessly saying one thing while doing the other is the best. It’s what separates us from savage animals.

A Gnawing Feeling of Dread – Waking up every morning with the terrifying certainty that everything is falling apart around you and that your world is one step away from total ruin is a good way to keep on your toes. So next time you wake up at 4 in the morning drenched in sweat, with your stomach in knots, remember that at least no one can call you apathetic.

Being Apathetic – Sometimes a casual shrug is the best way to confront a situation. When the world confronts you with responsibility just wave your arms in the air and sing “Where have all the flowers gone?” in the gentlest of gentle voices.

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Egoism- I think life should be all about other people. I know that it can be hard to get outside of yourself, but let me tell you, it’s important to care about others and learn to define yourself by your relation to them, just like I do. I also think that people who are self-centered are annoying. I, personally, being myself, can’t stand it.

Straying from the Syllabus – Whenever a professor proposes a change of readings or assignments, just grab the sides of your head, cross your eyes, and scream the lyrics to “Uptown Girl.” In this chaotic world of ever-changing circumstances, can’t we at least be able to rely on the infallible syllabus?

Hypocrisy – What a terrible thing! Emphatically waving our finger in the air with an expression of haughty indignance, we denounce hypocrisy and everything it represents.

Thin Walls- You’re lying in your bed trying to get some sleep, when you hear the first shriek. The laughter from the adjacent room rips through the wall like a chainsaw through a thinly stretched layer of cowhide. They have returned. “No,” you whisper, your voice quivering. “NO.” A conversation erupts in the room next door and within minutes you have heard an extremely detailed account of how that tramp Jill is going out with Dan just because his family has a summer home in Newport. She doesn’t even care about him! Standing up from your bed, your eyes red from lack of sleep, you sprint to the other side of the room and begin pounding your fists against the wall while screaming maniacally.

Featured Image by Alex Gaynor / Heights Archives