Editor’s note: This article is a humor column.
It’s official — trees all around Grounds are completely, utterly and totally barren. At this point in November, once it becomes too frigid to frequent outdoor study spots and McCormick Road becomes a sea of black puffer jackets, everyone knows what's coming — seasonal depression. At the University, seasonal depression is particularly nefarious. Because fall in Charlottesville is a kind, warm embrace, you are completely unaware of the kick in the nuts that winter brings with finals and nasty weather. With that in mind, here are five tips to stay joyous amid the oncoming Horrors.
1. Stay in your room all the time with the blinds closed
You may already be doing this, but here's a fun boost! Ideally, hide in your blankets, watch 40-plus-minute YouTube video essays about the detrimental effects of screen time and exclusively eat Twisted Tortilla cheese quesadillas — no MATTER how much they make your stomach hurt. Attend a few Zoom lectures here and there, and protect your peace by pretending you can’t hear when your professor calls on you. Occasionally jump up from your inanimate pile of blankets and scare your roommate half to death, and that’ll be all the excitement you need for the rest of the school year.
Results are not guaranteed in the slightest, but, as an added bonus, your roommate might slowly develop their own seasonal depression just from living with you!
2. Get really into betting on the Virginia men’s varsity squash team
Sometimes, a good hobby can help distract you from the fact that it’s freezing cold outside, the sun goes down at about 3 p.m. every day, and your best friend just got carried away by a particularly evil wind gust, never to be seen again. A quality pastime is obviously sports betting, but a fun and fresh take on this beloved — and not at all harmful — hobby is betting on your own school’s teams, and the squash team isn’t one to miss. And yes, the University does have a squash team — and if you didn’t know that, it’s safe to say many betters don’t either.
Learn all the players’ names and try really hard to befriend them to gain insider insight — creep on ALL of their matches. Bet purely on emotion and general vibes. Roll a dice and use that number to bet on the number of double bounces. Sob in devastation when your parlay doesn’t hit. Soon, you’ll be so entrenched in the team that you’ll forget what you were sad about in the first place — and you may have to drop out of college to pay off your gambling debts.
3. Leave the University and study abroad in Rjukan, Norway
In attempts to diversify student experience, the University’s Education Abroad Office has capitalized on the opportunity to offer programs in unique locations that are overly niche and difficult to locate on a map. Rjukan does not get any direct sunlight between September and March. This means it’s the perfect winter getaway for someone struggling with seasonal depression.
One of the most difficult aspects of the wintertime to grapple with is how little the sun is out during the day — a great solution is to be somewhere where there’s none at all. You can’t miss what’s never there. The program boasts improvements in mental health and a single three-credit class in religious studies, for some reason. What solves seasonal depression more than religious studies and a complete lack of sun?
4. Attempt to hibernate until Foxfield
Bears have perhaps already cracked the code to seasonal depression. Have you ever seen that Ukrainian bear who woke up from hibernation looking disheveled and disgruntled? That will be you, after you crack the code to hibernation and miss the months of December through March. Then, you can wake up right on time to drink copious amounts of alcohol in a field in the middle of nowhere and celebrate your mental health recovery. You can also mourn your academic failures that are nothing but a result of your quesadilla-eating, hobbit lifestyle.
Does this actually solve seasonal depression? Many experts might say no, but that’s because they lack the vision to understand the therapeutic value of being unconscious for four consecutive months. Some things never change — you’ll somehow still be sleep-deprived.
5. Befriend the squirrels on Grounds, and become one of them
Another creature that has it right? SQUIRRELS. Their joy isn’t season-dependent. They frolic no matter the weather or exams they may have coming up. Ignore your academic responsibilities, and DON’T let that stress you out further. Speak — I mean squeak — to them in Squirrelese. Learn their lessons. Attempt to get an internship in Squirrel. Fail. Settle for learning the lessons as an unpaid endeavor. Start scampering around and climbing trees. Be free…
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