We've made it to the last Miscellany News issue of the year. It seems like just yesterday that we were collectively succumbing to the Back-rage, also known as the Back(page)lash of 2010, also known as the Great Fear. But since then, we've come a long way.
Yesterday's Convocation confirmed it: the year is basically over. Seniors, in three short weeks the following people will descend upon us and ask what we're doing next year: Nana and Pa, Auntie Maggs, Mom and Dad, and your annoyingly successful sister who went to Yale and is now like, Sasha and Malia Obama's nanny/Michelle's BFF. I wouldn't be shocked if my bizarrely-successful-in-their-fields dogs showed up for graduation, judging me for my lack of direction.
But first comes Saturday's Founder's Day, an opportunity to thank Matty V. for all he did for us 149 years ago, try some psychedelic drugs (because, c'mon man, when else are you gonna have the chance, man?) and take stock of all the wonderful times we've had this year. As a Vassar student who loves to condense complex situations into binaries (JK, LOL) and reads The Week, it's time for a very specific kind of over-simplifying review.
It's been a good Year For:
Athletes who only want to take 3 credits of actual academic work next semester. If I can get credit for intro modern dance and the tennis players can't get anything for playing varsity tennis, then I suppose this is a good idea. Still, I'm loath to think dropping and giving anyone twenty is in the same league as a nice, hearty discussion of the simulacrum.
The orange couch in my TH. We all thought it took a permanent beating after our make-your-own-smoothies blowout that went awry in March. But hooray! It made it through another year without dry cleaning—or any cleaning for that matter!—and will live to see another TH living room. To the house that gets it at the SWAPR: Avoid the right-most cushion. Don't worry about why.
Feminine products. The Apple iPad's inadvertently hygiene-based ad campaign may not have increased the number of actual iPads on campus, but we ladies were quick to turn in the Tampax for an alternative model.
Not being in the job market yet. This one probably goes without saying—not that we're not all looking forward to using our Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature to make sandwiches at Subway after graduation.
The tulips in Main Circle. But honestly, it's always a good year for them. I think we're all sort of waiting for it to be a bad year for those annoyingly chipper/muy expensivo plants.
Freshmen boys. Hello, heterosexual males of the class of 2013. Welcome to girls.
Pig jokes. Swine flu may be totally passé by now (all the cool kids have had it already and are now part of the swine flu avant-garde), but "One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest" still slays me.
The crew team's Spandex. What with the crew team's discontinuation this year, the flashy neon shorts saw less action than a first-semester junior living in Strong, but that meant that they wore out way less quickly!
Mad-libs comebacks. Baby, are you _____, ______, _______, _______?
It's been a bad Year For:
Keeping your job if your salary is paid by Vassar College. Unless you're a tenured professor of economics or have sacrificed a goat in Cappy's honor and are affiliated with varsity sports in some capacity, times were tough this year, and next year promises to be no better. Literally the only funny thing about this is the number of "town hall" meetings that these firings spawned, and how little the pastel colors of Dean Roellke's oxford shirts changed from meeting to meeting.
Deers. After the Great Cull of 2010, Bambi and his buddies are few and far between. This has not, however, kept the surviving deers from making passive-aggressive comments on the Miscellany News website about the hegemony of biodiversity and how the plural of "deer" is actually "deers."
Your love life. I mean, I don't know this one for sure. But if you go here, it's probably true, right?
The International Phonetic Alphabet. Despite the noble attempts of pronunciation guides worldwide and in the Vassar Earth Science Department, Iceland's testy Eyjafjallajokull is actually best pronounced by English speakers with a short inhalation, followed by three clicks of the tongue and a burp.
Lil Wayne. Not only did "Free Weezy: A Mug Night," elicit a ton of controversy/dumb comments from entitled white boys, it failed to free Weezy.
ACDC trays. This notable cut saves water in the short run, but the amount of water we've all had to drink to make up for our dehydration due to tears shed for missing "tray-fitti" has just about evened it out.
Solidarity. Not that the chants of "Cappy needs a pay cut" and the subsequent condescension from the administration weren't fun for everyone involved, but a new year is almost upon us, and it will be exciting to see how the terms of debate shift to deconstruct the power/knowledge relationship running rampant in College structures. Wait, what did I just write?
Ah, yes. Happy Founder's Day to all.
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