When I walked into my house for the first time after spending a week in Costa Rica, my mother was beaming at me. Had she simply missed me more than words can say? Was she just relieved that I was safe, given the "horribly realistic" dream she'd had about a rebel uprising of howler monkeys attacking me in my sleep? Nope. Instead, she joyously proclaimed:
"Emily! You didn't get tan at all!"
Andddd fail. While my mother may have thought she was complimenting me on how excellently I apply SPF (the few, the proud), she was really just reconfirming my paranoia that I'm going to be a horribly inadequate senior Spring-er.
What's the main cause of this fear? (Aside from arriving for the term as the Ghost of 11Whiteness Past.) I'm taking THREE, yes THREE, classes.
Remember when three classes was the norm? When your friends at schools with semesters would say, "You're only taking three?! I'm taking five!" and you'd laugh and laugh and laugh?
Well, guess what? Now you're the nerd with three classes. Because all of the other seniors are taking two. And they're NRO-ing one of them. And these aren't even the coolest kids. They're just the Karen Smiths who are popular enough to be in The Plastics but won't ever be voted prom queen.
No, the true elite, the crme de la slackreme, are the seniors taking no classes. You know, the people you wanted to punch at the end of finals in the Winter for making their statuses, "OMG DONE WITH COLLEGE!" Oh really? Fine. Then college is done with you.
I'm only jealous. In case that wasn't clear. I harbor (little to) no (explicit) animosity towards these lucky (asshole) friends of mine. I just want to make sure they fully appreciate these months of freedom. How would I spend my SeniorSpringNoClassesWoo? Well, first I'd give it an awesome name like that. Check. Now here are some other ideas:
1) Explore stereotypes.
Sit in Collis for the day and log the male to female and frisbee to football ratio of diners. Host an intervention for nicotine addiction in the 1902 room. Stand in a basement at 3 a.m. to uncover the truth about "scraping." Add MythBuster to your resume.
2) Finish EVERYTHING on the "101 Things to Do Before You Graduate Dartmouth" list.
This includes tracking down Jim Wright. Bet he's hiding somewhere on the Steam Tunnel Tour. Two birds!
3) Start a student health initiative.
Tie up the EBAs phone line every night from 1:58 to 2:08 a.m. Everyone will hate you but at least now there will be a reason.
4) Start a duel on FFB.
Hone your Farmville skills until you're ready to take on the Public Computer Predators. Three farmers enter, only one survives. (It'll probably be one of them. They're really dedicated.)
5) Start a riot in Novack.
Why isn't there more beef between bake sale tables? It's boring. Let's have some roofie rumors people.
6) Apply for jobs.
April Fools!
7) Take on an alter ego.
Now that the Sun God's found love (mazel tov), campus is devoid of a creepy stalker to scare away all students and small animals. This could be you.
8) Audit those hard classes you never took.
You'll feel good about it. For like a week.
9) Tweet @JustinBieber everyday until he responds.
Worth it.
10) Work pro-bono.
Be a placeholder in the Homeplate sandwich line. Or lay your body across a window table at 3FB. People will compensate. Other people will throw things.
11) Become a star.
Get your submission published in LavNotes. The world will know your name. (And potentially associate it with defecating. No such thing as bad publicity.)
12) Menace.
Take a tour of public computers on campus to see who is still logged in to Facebook or Blitz. Now destroy them.
13) Live by the motto "WWJD?"
Follow around Jack Stinson for the week, and then conduct a public seminar on how to be a boss. All he does is win.
14) Make fetch happen.
You won't.
