A warm welcome to new students
Going to university is like standing under a raging waterfall: exhausting and probably fruitless. The water represents the many pressures of academia and of virtuous living. Occasionally, trout and salmon representing your hopes and dreams smack you in the face as they whiz by. If you could only catch them, you could cram them in a bowl, give them names—“Law School,” “Happiness,” “Trevor”—and watch them slowly die. But you’re tired and the fish are slippery. “Screw the symbolic seafood,” you whimper, “I wish I went to trade school.” You should have thought of that forty thousand dollars ago.
On the riverbank, your parents, your professors, your past and present lovers, and your peers prod you with poles, hollering platitudes and waving their own ailing fish. But you just want to give up and let the current sweep you away like a forlorn autumn leaf or a battered tin can. Maybe you’ll start a comedy magazine.
Don’t give up so fast. You came prepared. You hold in your hands a flimsy pink plastic bucket. This represents your budding intellectual and emotional potential. Hold it out and close your eyes. Maybe you’ll catch something. Maybe.
Here’s to a great four years.
The Weekly Yank takes a satiric look at current events on and off campus…