>>> Points in Case
By staff writer Court Sullivan
Issue #4 – March 2000
-Is there some kind of requirement that English has to be your second language to teach math in college? I guess they figure that math is some kind of universal language so it doesn’t matter how thick the accent is. That might work except in Europe 7’s look like 1’s, 4’s look like 9’s, and the Greek alphabet goes to hell…I could have sworn my statistics teacher drew a small monkey instead of a B. This guy was apparently imported from the Ukraine for a semester to teach us. He would stop in the middle of writing formulas on the board and ask us what random English words mean. This crazy bastard actually asked us what “hooking up” meant one time!
-Have you ever noticed how when you only have like 30 minutes to do some homework assignment your brain goes into rapid-thought-mode? Why can’t I ever access this mode ahead of time?!
-Sometimes I think how much better I could have written some essay “if only I had one more day to work on it.” But it’s not true. The funniest thing though is when you bring it to class thinking it’s due, and the teacher extends the deadline for some fucked-up reason. You get all excited like you’re gonna make the paper perfect now, but it never happens! You’re just glad to be finished ahead of time and it sits in your notebook 'til next class.
-Thanks to college, the words drunk and vomit now have the most synonyms in the thesaurus. I actually pause in my speech while my mind scans the list of choices. Everyone always has to be creative and make up imaginary words too. Now I just look for common context clues such as “Last night I was so ___,” and “I was ___ing all morning.”
-Have you ever noticed how it’s easier to get someone’s attention when they’re on the phone by whispering at them?
-Our library has three main levels: level 1 is noisy and social, level 2 is quieter but distracting, and level 3 is dead silent where they have desks lining the walls. Every time I go to the library, I have to decide how much I want to get done. Level 1 you can stare at hotter chicks, level 2 you might get distracted and go check your email, and level 3 you’ll probably get some sleep. It’s a tough choice, but they’ve never made libraries very simple.
-But really, who the hell are these idiots who go to level 1 and pretend like they’re trying to study? Then they act like they’re annoyed when the floor gets loud. Why the fuck would you walk all the way to the library to WORK and go to the noisy, social floor?! You’re ruining the atmosphere—leave!
-I think one of my friends gets the award for “most insightful drunk” for his comment, “It’s such a nice night…if only the sun were out!” Too bad he didn’t get to see much more of that night.
-I don’t understand this first name phenomenon. People find out my first name and they say, “Oh, so you’re real name is William?” Yeah, Court’s just a fake middle name that I made up as an infant to confuse everyone. What the fuck? Why is your first name the only “real” name?
-Have you ever gotten one of those retarded emails that tells you to make sure you send it back to the person who sent it to YOU? How much sense does that make? People complain about junk mail, but how about getting 25 of the same goddamn email sent back to you!! For the love of God, when will annoying emails stop!
-Somehow I wound up in a mostly upperclass philosophy class this semester. Me, being a freshman, I am still wondering what philosophy is and how it relates to hooking up with girls. But the rest of the class seems to have their own philosophies already mapped out. There’s always one guy who brings up God and the Bible no matter what and refuses to stop arguing unless Jesus would agree. OK, the theology department is next door. Someone else always asks, “Yeah, but how can you prove it?” as if there were some book of philosophy formulas that you could derive proofs from. Then there’s the “ambitious freshman” who arrives on full scholarship thinking he is now entitled to enlighten the professor. The funniest person is the one who always raises his hand to answer a question, and then takes 10 minutes stumbling over words to try and explain something the professor could have said in one sentence.
-A lot of times my friends from home will ask me how I like Atlanta. I’m just like, “Yeah, there’s a lot to do there…” When I first came to college I thought being 10 minutes from downtown would be great, but now I realize that I go there as much as I go to my Astronomy class: they’re both right nearby, but you only end up making it there about twice a semester. But at least you get to make fun of your friends that are at colleges at least an hour from civilization.
-Emory had its semiformal at a hotel downtown recently. Eight of us got a room, but of course it ended up accommodating about 25. I’ve decided that I’m never paying for a room again. It’s so much cheaper and easier to be one of those drunken nomads that wanders the hall looking for empty floor space in someone’s room. The thing that sucks though is when you wake up early in the morning a little more sober and realize that the floor isn’t so comfortable after all. That’s when you either remove the crushed beer cans from under your back or attempt to turn the double bed into a quadruple king.
-At some time late in the night, one of my friends started showing signs of alcohol poisoning. Another guy (also drunk, but with detectable vital signs) called the ambulance saying there was a very sick kid in room 522. Can you imagine the EMT’s face when he walked into the room?! It looked like the aftermath of a small Civil War battle! There were passed out drunks strewn across the room, empty beer cans and trash littering any free space, and overturned furniture trapping helpless drunks from getting to the bathroom. The EMT’s had no idea which guy was the really sick one, so they just took the person with the slowest pulse. Do they get trained for these kind of situations?!
-When I first came to college, I thought they said that the dorm-cleaning people come around and vacuum the floors in our rooms. Apparently it’s just the floor in the hall though, because our floor is the dirtiest damn surface I’ve ever had to walk on barefoot. And now it’s impossible to vacuum because there are clothes everywhere, besides the fact that I would probably suck up homework and money.
-The only thing filthier than the floor are the trash cans. We’re too lazy to empty the trash, so even when it overflows we just keep stuffing things in. I think we spend more time balancing trash on top of the pile than it would take to just empty the fucking can. What a mess.
– The only thing I respect enough to keep clean is my bed because it is the God of Sleep. I think beds should have one of those foot trays with water that beach hotels have to remove sand. Beds are definitely underrated by the administration. If anything, put more money into REAL mattresses, not Styrofoam/shredded plastic rectangles! Then maybe I would stay awake AND participate in class!
-Have you ever noticed how each day there’s a different smell in your dorm room? Every time I come in from my first class I try tofigure out what it smells like and how to get rid of it. Then I end up suffocating my roommate with air fresheners and neutralizers.
-Well, the end of first semester is just over a month away and I still have no clue what I will major in, how one goes about maintaining a girlfriend, how to wake up more than 10 minutes before class starts, what breakfast tastes like at the cafeteria, or what the meaning of “rough draft” is. I’ve heard that there comes a time when one has to focus on his future…thank God I haven’t reached that stage yet!