Miami Student

Spring is here again. The lawns are littered with sunbathers. The sidewalks are littered with people watching sunbathers. The bitter clothes-covered winter has given in to the drunken naked party of springtime. There's nothing else like springtime in Oxford. I remember when I first toured Miami back in high school. I had left a small farm town and stumbled onto the Mecca that is springtime in Oxford. I was amazed at what I had found. The quads were covered with attractive people. The women weren't chewing tobacco. I knew right then and there that I belonged at Miami. Spring is here and that means it's time for people to start dressing like idiots. …

My major beef with being a newspaper columnist is that there is just so much in this world that pisses me off, I sometimes find it difficult to focus on just one issue of mass cowardice and stupidity. In some cases I end up ignoring the larger world completely and writing perverse creeds about getting drunk and urinating on people's things. Not this week, though. This week, I'd really like to use this space for constructive social criticism. But then I turn on the news and see that House majority leader and all-around ass-tool, Tom Delay, wants to impeach judges who wouldn't stop Terri Schiavo's tube from being pulled and think, "Well, screw that." Week to week, it's always a question of what upsets me the most. One week it might be the asinine cartoon the editors have dumped next to my column (see right), the next it could be that state legislators want to pass bills saying professors can't be too "liberal" while at the same time defining as "liberal" pretty much any scientific theory with a mountain of evidence behind it (global warming, evolution). Pretty soon the only acceptable scientific theory allowed in our schools will be the postulation that Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ swept through the universe 6,000 years ago bringing flowers, sunshine and heterosexuals to populate the world with His earthly embodiment, George W. Bush, to lead them through the rapture. …

I am almost done with my sophomore year of college. Wow. Not only am I halfway through college and two years closer to getting a real job, but I have also acquired only half of the debt from numerous student loans that have been accumulating in my name since the day I signed my soul over to Miami. I'm suffering through the sophomore slump big time right now, and wondering how I'm going to make it through the next two years, especially if they continue at the lightning pace of this year. Despite my exhaustion from going strong for two semesters, I have to say that I think I have changed the most as a person this past year. I've learned a lot through the relationships I have formed, and perfected the arts of responsibility and perseverance. In addition to all that adult crap, I have started to drink bottled water and go to the Rec Center on a regular basis, two things I never thought I would do. I feel healthier and more active, and the best part is, I still get to eat! Screw the sophomore 20... it's a sad reality, but who really keeps track after freshmen year? I've learned how to run on five hours of sleep or less, and then take naps at any time during the day to get rid of the hallucinations that a person who runs on five hours of sleep for more than a month may begin to experience. I started dating a new guy at the beginning of this year, and I managed to trick him into being my boyfriend, using my dazzling smile and girl next door appeal. I've gotten kicked in the ass by love many times over this year, mostly by the boyfriend, but so far, we're still together. Someone really should have warned me how hard it is to maintain a relationship in college. I've learned how to stay in on the weekends and do my homework, not by choice, of course, but from the call of duty - literally. I am a resident assistant this year, which has also taught me another valuable lesson: once an RA, always an RA. I can't go anywhere without running into one of my residents drunk and shouting across the street uptown, "That's my RA!" …