Stressed Out Whiners, Short-term Learners, and Ballpoint Stirrers
 >>> Points in Case


By staff writer Court Sullivan


Issue # 10 - May 2001

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-Most people end up getting sick at some point from being “too stressed out” during finals.  Personally, I’m going to
get sick and vomit on the next person who tells me they’re “so stressed out” during finals like it’s some rare disease and I should take massive
pity on them.

-Speaking of sickness, don’t you hate it when someone’s hanging out in your room or something and then all of a sudden
they’re like, “Man, this sucks, I’m sooo sick right now.”  And you’re thinking, greeeaatt, now get the fuck away from me and stop
breathing all over my room!

-The library printers are quite possibly the least reliable pieces of equipment ever.  At least half the time I go to print
something out, there's either a paper shortage or some weird error, other than the times I have no money on my Emorycard.  I think they should start selling "printer
plans."  When you sign up for a meal plan at the beginning of the semester, you would also choose which printer plan you want.  Plan A would be the most
expensive and have a 95% dependability rating, Plan B would cost a little less and have only like 75% dependability and so on.  I could just see some stingy parents
saying, "I'm sorry honey, but it's Plan E or nothing.  You're just gonna have to take your chances.”

-I love it when people ask me if I learned anything in a class.  Does learning necessarily involve retention?  I mean, I definitely
learned something for the tests, but I think that falls under the “short-term memorization” part of my brain, which directs all incoming information to the
“recycling bin,” where it is promptly emptied and made into useless and unintelligible bits of information like this.   

-You know what I really hate is when people write some really long reply to an email on a class conference and then say, “Well,
that’s just my 2 cents worth.”  Don’t act like you don’t give a shit after I just wasted my time reading your long-winded, opinionated
ass!  If you have something to say, at least act like it’s somewhat important.  That way I can get mad and act like you don’t know what the hell
you’re talking about and write you off as another warped “college activist.”

-College activists: people who try to accomplish things like clubs or political interest but haven’t realized yet that most college
students don’t give a damn about anything enough to volunteer their time, show up to meetings or even vote in a presidential election.  Just tell us when the
free food will be arriving.

-How come the only thing you can ever find to stir mixed drinks in your dorm room is a pen?  You might as well tell some random kid at
the party to stick his hand in your drink and stir for you, considering you probably found the pen on the floor after class or dropped it on the floor
yourself…numerous times.  Just another reason why college kids get sick all the time I’m sure. 

-But you know what’s worse is the fact that you will probably end up writing or stirring with this pen again.  Yes, the one
that’s been stuck to a piece of paper on the corner of your desk collecting dust and your sick friends’ germs for a week.

-On the same note, I find it ironic that half the pens I end up using have some prescription drug advertisement on them, because I’m
SURE the first thing Prozac wants you to do is mix in a little liquor. 

-One of the most unexpected things happened to me recently in my fraternity house.  One of the guys in my fraternity caught a random kid
in our house trying to open someone’s room.  He told the guy to leave and another guy started dialing 911.  As the kid was leaving, he turned around and
pulled up his shirt, revealing a semi-automatic gun in his pants!  My friend and I were like, “What the fuck?!!” and started running downstairs as he
pulled out his gun.  Somehow, my first reaction was to run into this room full of pledges downstairs.  I told them what was going on and one of them asked me why
the hell I ran in THEIR room.  I was like, “Uhh…I need 4 pledges to form a wall around me right now!  If you knew what brotherhood was, you would be
willing to take a bullet for me!!”  Good thing the intruder ran away because I don’t think any of them fully understood brotherhood yet. 

-Why is it that there is always one hanger on the floor in my dorm room that will get stepped on and mangled for two weeks before someone
picks it up and throws it away?

-Have you ever had a professor or someone call you by the wrong name on the first day of class and then call you that for the rest of the
year because you never corrected him?  It’s such a weird position because you don’t want to tell the professor after a couple of weeks because you might
embarrass him or just look like an idiot, but then you have to sit there and pretend to look natural while responding to some other name.  One time I was at a party
and this girl from my class comes up to me and calls me “Curt” with a German accent.  Eventually, this entire discussion class of 12 people knew my real
name and it became one big cover-up.  Every time the professor called on me, the room erupted in laughter.

-Well, I’ve been home for a couple of weeks already this summer, and I just realized that it sucks when you wanna call people randomly
at like midnight to go out, but you can’t call their house because their parents get mad.  This is where the “cell phone love/hate paradox” comes
in: when you’re at school, everyone with a cell phone really starts to annoy you, but as soon as you get home, everyone WITHOUT a cell phone annoys you because you
can’t ever get in touch with them.      

-Did you know that somehow we’re going to run out of phone number combinations in the next 10 years or something?  I was reading
this article about it, and some guy was saying how we’ll just have to add a number at the end to create oh, say, 13 quadrillion numbers.  But then I was
thinking, how the hell would your phone know if you wanted to dial an extra digit instead of ringing at the previous one?  I think this guy’s got his work cut
out for him.

-The other night I was watching MTV at 2AM (like every other college student doesn’t want to admit) and I was astonished, to say the
least, when I heard them saying the f-word over and over on this show called “Scared Straight” or something.  On national cable television!! 
Doesn’t it seem like just yesterday that you couldn’t say “damn” and stuff?  I mean, what the fuck is this country coming to?! 
Oops.

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