Editor’s Note: This article is a humor column
Ah, the spring semester. Or, as I like to call it, the stress semester. So many discoveries are made during this time of year. You can smell the anxious sweat of first years realizing they can no longer employ the “I’m new to college” excuse. You can spot second years staring at a blank bullet list of majors they want to declare and a three-page list of majors they despise. There is also, of course, the sound of third years muttering about approaching their last year. And finally, operating on a completely different stress level, there are the fourth years who are losing their absolute minds over having only one, yes one, semester left of their undergraduate degree.
Such a time as this has an impact on almost everyone, even threatening the most skilled experts of procrastination. So if you are a fourth year — coincidentally, I am — this stress semester is a bit more taxing than one may want to admit. Do not worry friends, you are not alone and this article is exactly what you need to move forward.
Us fourth years have a boulder-sized stress knot with a highly specific source. Do you feel that concentration of muscle in a tight bundle under your right shoulder? There is a name for it. No, not the graduation knot, that is the one under your left shoulder. This one is called “adulthood.” And while you technically have been an adult for a while, a good chunk of us can agree that sh-t gets tough post-graduation — there are student loans to pay, graduate schools to consider and job applications to fruitlessly fill out. These things like to make persistent visits into your train of thought during every waking moment. Speaking of applications, why do companies want you to have years of experience when you are literally applying for a job to get the experience in the first place? Don’t even get me started on this paradoxical bull.
Now, if you are somehow a responsible individual, you may already have a handle on one or all of these things. But if you are in a perpetual state of denial, like some people — not me — then you might be a bit more behind. In fact, you might be totally freaking out about all the things you have to do. Maybe you even know what you have to do, but told yourself you would complete it all during winter break. Maybe you bought 50 Celsius drinks and three packs of Liquid Death to fuel your preparations. Maybe you turned into a burnt-out pile of debris from the fall semester’s punches as soon as those last final grades came in. Maybe you spent your time making up a secret squirrel society that never existed and tricked a bunch of U.Va. leadership into joining it, including a man whose name sounds like Gim Lyan. I would like to specify here that these incredibly precise examples are all fake, and not of my own experience. If they were, I would be in quite a pickle. Obviously.
If any of these very fictional examples describe you, there may be a lot of things you need to get into motion — like a couple hundred more brain cells. However, I bet the one major thing you need is a push. This column is that push. Not a push into the sand pit habitat of a sarlacc, but a tiny push to remind you that you are a few feet away from it. That sarlacc is called reality, and it is hungry. So while this may not necessarily be the gentlest push, it is one. One in the direction of disbanding that secret squirrel society because it is becoming too powerful. One in the direction of completing those secret graduation requirements. One in the direction of unsubscribing from those job posting websites. One in the direction of defeating CavMan in a duel, finally.
I suppose you could do other things like enlist a family member or friend that can pester you about completing that single application, make a physical list of what you have to do or visit the U.Va. Career Center. But who has the time for any of those?
For those who are already at it, congrats again on being a semi-functional human being. For those who aren't, good luck to you. Not me — oh, who am I kidding? We all need a push.
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