The following is a work of satire.
Hello, fellow Lawrentians. It is a cold and windy spring here in Appleton, but rumors of summer circulate. Meanwhile, the sky does not look quite as miserable as it did only a few weeks prior, and daylight savings is no more, which means campus will soon be bustling with life — students, river bugs, and so forth. As we emerge from our winter dwellings, it’s easy to get optimistic about the rest of the year, especially for all you seniors like me. So what is the best way to spend the rest of the academic year? Here are some helpful tips to guide you into spring:
1) Get kicked out of the VR. It doesn’t matter how you get yourself banned from the Viking Room, all that counts is that the last time you enter the establishment should be the last time you’re allowed to enter the establishment. At a place where carving your initials into the table is an encouraged practice, it may be difficult to find a way to make this divorce permanent. A few suggestions: if pool and darts are not to your fancy, come up with something more entertaining. Call the new sport “Extreme Darts” or “Hardcore Pool” and make up the rules as you go. Also, if you’re sober when you’re forcefully removed from the premises, you’re doing it wrong.
2) Impersonate a professor. So now that you’re no longer allowed in the campus hangout spot, it’s important that you make your presence known in the academic world as well. This one will be a little more tricky, but you can get creative with it. The best way to keep the professor from showing up during your lecture is to create a distraction. Find out what car your favorite professor drives, then tell them it’s being towed. While the professor is off chasing after their status symbol, take this opportunity to log into the classroom computer and put on your homemade PowerPoint presentation. If you’re in need of a good one, send me an email — I have a presentation on the importance of Minecraft YouTubers and their influence on the music industry. (You think I’m lying? Think again.)
3) Prank your roommate. We’re a little late for April Fools’, but that’s no biggie. That holiday is mainly reserved for cute little ticky-tacky stuff that everyone can giggle at afterwards. No, our motto is “Go big and get sent home.” Fill your roommate’s toothpaste bottle with Elmer’s glue and record the results. Or fill their water bottle with vinegar. A personal favorite of mine is to find a friend who owns a cat and borrow their litter box, then give your roommate a 4 a.m. wakeup call by tossing the contents on them. Be honest — you weren’t going to talk to them over the summer anyway.
4) Create the next spike in COVID cases. If you’ve gotten this far down the list, you’re probably a little bit afraid to go outside. Or maybe you’re no longer allowed to, depending on how successful your trials have been thus far, or how many incidents have been reported. But chances are the legal system at Lawrence has yet to process the issues that will lead to your expulsion, as long as you haven’t waited more than a month since your first formal complaint and haven’t reminded the administration that you’re due for a meeting about your academic status but have not yet received a time to be scolded. While you’re waiting for them to get back to you, you’ll likely have just enough time to contract and disperse COVID. How you get it is up to you, but once you have tested positive, the easiest place to start a spread is obviously in Andrew Commons. You’ll want to make sure you’re being very breathy when you walk up to random strangers and sit down with them to tell them about your senior capstone, and how they should come see it. If the strangers ask “Weren’t you suspended?”, or if Campus Safety interrupts your dinner so rudely, simply cough in their face and bolt. Running will be good training for my fifth and final tip for having a healthy Lawrence life.
5) Senior streak. Every year, hundreds of Lawrentians gather outside of Memorial Hall to participate in the country’s largest annual streaking event, or something like that. It doesn’t really matter about the specifics. Besides, do you want to be just another pair of cheeks in the crowd, or do you want to cause a real stir? All those posers will be streaking midway through the term, which is why the real play will be to do your senior streak at graduation. For added thrill, bring this all full circle by covering yourself in Elmer’s glue. See how far you can get before becoming stuck to something/someone or succumbing to the hardening of your sticky outer mold. Scream “Notice me!” into the crowd. Try not to cry. Cry a lot.
With that, you have successfully emerged from your college chrysalis and into the “real world” of post-Lawrence life. Your whole lives are in front of you, Lawrentians. Now that your four years here are done, it’s time to decide where your next four years will take you — or maybe a judge will decide that for you.