Forget Bio-terrorism (anthrax is so 2K2), or even avian flu -- there's a new pandemic hitting the streets, and no cure has been found. Senioritis, naturally. Now, senioritis in high school was pretty basic. Generally we were all just like, "Hey, we're going to college, we're sick of high school administration (and for some of us, uniforms -- yes my shirt is untucked! Ha!) and bullsht work, so fck school, let's blow off eigth period and go out and dome ourselves" (Except, of course, we didn't say dome ourselves back then; oh, simpler times...) College-itis is, however, a whole new kind of angst. And no one's immune.
I've known I was in trouble for a while. I find myself alone in my room, listening to sappy music and losing myself in nostalgia for something that has yet to end. The other day I got teary-eyed while listening to "Candle on the Water" (yes folks, that's the song from "Pete's Dragon"). And don't even get me started on the "Growing Pains" theme song; I just lose it completely. Point being, nostalgia's a b*tch. And try as I might to keep it together, I am so that girl, so I'll let you in on the symptoms of my ever-metastasizing senioritis.
Senioritis manifests itself in two major, distinct ways. The first is the sadness and desperation that comes with the knowledge that college -- and, by-in-large, our youth -- is coming to a rapid and decisive end. Said desperation makes us go to insane lengths to prolong and savor this Dionysian finale as much as possible. For instance, family friends at numerous Houston holiday bashes seemed intent to cast a pall over my entire break by commenting, "So, halfway done with senior year, eh eh?" (They may as well have said, "Hey, doesn't your terminally-ill puppy only have a few more weeks left til he kicks the bucket?").
Becoming suddenly quite huffy and irritated, I would reply "Um, actually (it helps to really enunciate that first "c") it's only one-third of the way done; we're on the quarter system." Booyah!
We don't want college to end, but what we want even less is to figure out what it is we will be doing post-graduation to fill the void of late night buffalo chicken pizza, drunken philosophizing and the incomparable Collis staff. Earlier this week, during an inspirational rush speech, Edy Wilson '06 echoed our collective anxiety by saying,"06? Um, Oh-screwed."
Based on how much it sucks to graduate, I feel like senior year should come with the perks that it did in high school (senior country, off-campus lunches, free periods), or at least a general feeling of entitlement and social domination. Not so. In fact, some things have gotten worse.
Amanda Dobbins '06's life has, she claims, reached new lows: "If '06s are at the top of the totem pole, then someone decapitated the totem pole over the summer and gave the severed head an incurable case of social anxiety disorder (SAD, Part II). Seniors are nowhere to be found in public -- not that I would know, since I never leave my house."
And for those of us 06 females who do choose to brave the hell that is other people, it's now harder to get a beer than ever before. I have little to no pull with the males of the underclasses, whose egos have, as a result of their control of Dartmouth's particular brand of Ambrosia (ah, the ole KL), risen to near-Herculean heights, and they can therefore now ignore me in favor of my smaller, cheerier, more appealing '09 counterparts, as I, thirsty and bored, stand idly by, wondering where it is all the cowboys have gone.
It may seem to some that I am exaggerating -- that the lives of freshman and seniors aren't that strikingly different, but Ann Scott '06 exposes the harsh disparity festering beneath the surface: "As a senior girl, you sometimes find yourself waking up in frat houses after a long night of partying. However, instead of your younger years when you found yourself lying next to a beer-soaked frat boy, you may instead awake to find yourself spooning with a fellow senior girl, as I recently have."
But fear not, folks, she reminds us that there are still some perks for the geriatric residents of this one-horse town: "The walk of shame is much easier when you have company to make it with."
I still cling to college for dear life, despite the challenges of my advancing age and declining sanity, but simultaneously I sense that, Keystone pounds aside, I am getting too big for my current britches. We're starting to feel old, even crotchety. An '08 recently blitzed Edy Wilson '06 and addressed her as Ms. Wilson. Are you kidding me? Looks like it's wrinkle-cream and EHarmony.com from here on out, kids, get your kicks while you still can.
Age also seems to have made me more intolerant. My ego RE: underclassman naivet has reached new heights. Sure, it was cute when '09 girls approached me at Psi U and asked where the girl's bathroom was; I could always muster an appreciative if sardonic chuckle in response.
But now, these freshman foibles are just getting plain irritating. Please, all of you '09s who blitzed out frantically on Saturday morning claiming to have lost your coat, cell phone, OMG your whole life at Trikap's dance party on Friday night, please tell me what thoughts were going through your Zhenka-addled brains as you tossed your coats onto a pile of 90 other black North Faces on Trikap's first floor. Furthermore, why would you blitz anyone not in the 09 class? We're not infants, we don't lose our coats and then take other peoples. Stay out of my inbox.
Others, it seems, are not so put off by the toddlers. Jen Kleinman '06 was overjoyed when a brother of Theta Delta Chi mistook her for a wee '08 or '09. And I can see its allure -- like your own little shot of Botox without the price tag. Griffin Gordon '06, despite the power, prestige, glory, and sex-symbol status that senior year and his presidency of Alpha Delta fraternity have afforded him, claims that he'd "give it all up the be a freshman again" -- sink from an Adonis to a sniveling rando, all for four more years of all-nighters and projectile vomiting.
Russell Lane '06, however (his insightfulness doubtlessly aided by his inspiring Palaeopitus sweatshirt) provides us with a light at the end of the tunnel: "College is an attitude, not a place. Wherever you go there will always be blacked out alums in dirty, frat-like dive bars keeping college alive."
And Forrest Hanson '06, in a never-ending quest to right the wrongs of facetime inequality ("But you shined Griffin?!" "Uh, that was sarcasm."), wishes to enlighten DM readers with his extremely original theory on graduation: "It's not a question, but an answer learned in time. It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right. I hope you had the time of your life."
We don't want to leave, but we can't stay. I feel simultaneously above, dependent on and rejected by Dartmouth culture. As you can see, we're all crazy and mixed-up inside. I'm hoping Dick's House will be able to give us a prescription for that; self-medication is so passe. (So, you're addicted to NyQuil, so what? Get an original vice for the love of God.)
So there you have it: I may have grown out of this enigmatic jewel of the Upper Valley, but that doesn't mean that I'm in any way ready to leave. I don't know why Third Eye Blind sound so fcking excited to graduate. Sht. Somebody hold me.
