This past week has been pretty tough on a bunch of Lawrentians. Brett Favre retired, Obama lost Ohio and Texas, and Goldgar decided that he would give everyone in 18th Century Literature a D in the course.The Brett Favre blow was probably the worst. It broke the hearts of cheeseheads across the country, but I don’t really care because I’m from Minnesota and have “Purple Pride” or something like that. I understand the pain that the Packer backers are going through because Kirby Puckett died a couple of years ago. Some might say that having a childhood hero die is worse than having your quarterback retire, but I would never depreciate another’s mourning.
Packer fans might counter the above claim by saying that with Favre’s retirement, a little piece of them actually did die. To be precise, it was a little piece that thought we were only a few medical advancements away from making Favre immortal so that he could win the next 200 Super Bowls. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and so we must bid adieu to #4. It’s too bad, because I wanted to watch him play “Heads I Retire, Tails I Don’t” for at least another decade, distracting me during the regular season whenever the Pack is not making a championship run.
While Favre’s retirement is the worst thing to happen to Wisconsin since Evan Welo transferred, there is still a silver lining: Since he’s not playing football, he’ll have plenty of time to act as the state’s governor. I know that Favre has little political experience and no important campaign planks, but he is very popular and would be a breath of fresh air.
Speaking of Obama, his defeats in Ohio and Texas were kind of nice because I like it when excited little college students are disappointed. Hopefully Hillary will continue her rebound, win the nomination, and lose to McCain. That would upset a lot of Lawrentians, and then we could see some distraught Facebook statuses and maybe even a few taunting groups. While we’re at it, let’s get Downer to stop serving pizzas at Friday dinner.
The fight for the Democratic nomination is not over yet. Obama is still flying high, fueled by some pretty audacious hope. It will take some skillful shooting on Hillary’s part to bring him down, but I hope she can. A Clinton-McCain match-up would be a win-win situation, because if McCain loses to Clinton we get to hear the far right talk about how she is going to make Christianity illegal and force children to have abortions and be gay.
The elections are still a long way off, but we can see unhappy people pretty quickly, because next week is Tenth Week. People used to call it Hell Week, but stopped because that was giving eternal damnation a bad reputation. Every Tenth Week, I question the validity of higher education and stay enrolled only because I am too much of a chicken to drop out.
The worst part of Tenth Week is that it ends with an empty “Reading Period” that only taunts you with memories of the midterm Reading Period. While I am very grateful for not having class on the Saturday and Sunday before Final Exams, the two-day Reading Period could be better used. The administration should make the end of the term Reading Period a “flex period” that individual students could use at any time during the term.
Another way to improve Tenth Week would be to make it optional for seniors. I’ve been here for three and a half years; how much am I going to learn in a single week? Consider it time off for good behavior — something even convicts get.