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Student experiences the feared alone time

Look at you! Seriously! Look! What are you doing? You’re just sitting there in the atrium, doing nothing. Nothing! On this campus? I have two questions for you. How dare you? Who do you think you are?

I can’t add clapping hands emojis in between words to emphasize my point in a newspaper, but I am going to ask you to mentally add them in my next three sentences. If you aren’t in three extracurriculars and seven clubs you are a nobody on campus. If you don’t consider dropping out an average of once a day because of your overwhelming commitments, you’re doing college absolutely wrong. If you have not broken down crying in the stairwell of Old Main, please escort yourself off this campus.

Overinvolvement is a completely made up word. That word has no basis in English and it was made up by middle school counselors in the 60’s to sort out communists. My driver’s education teacher told me that, and he’s the president of his Flat Earth Society, so there’s no chance he’s wrong.

There are two words, when uttered, that send chills down Kernel Cobb’s spine. Wait, do cobs of corn even have spines? Fine, it sends chills down Kernel Cobb’s cob. No, that just sounds stupid. These two words give Kernel Cobb chills all over his corn. These two words are… I think I can only stomach saying them just once:

 

“Alone time.”

 

I feel dirty just saying the words.

No, no, no, I won’t allow you to think about doing any of that nonsense. Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, right? As far as it’s concerned, life is a simple two-step process: work your whole life and then die. That’s how it’s always been done, and that’s how it will always be done. Unless someone comes up with something better and healthier. But that’s ridiculously unlikely, so I wouldn’t worry about that ever happening.

We need to brainstorm things to keep you busy so you can finally not get a good night’s rest. You could start a club! No, that’s already been done. You could start a cult! No, that’s a bit of a moral gray area. You could write for The Concordian! Yes! Wait, unless you’re a better writer than me, in which case I will become enraged beyond control. You could dress up like a scarecrow and prop yourself up outside the library to ward off scavenger birds and evil spirits! No, your hay dealer is on vacation in Amsterdam this week. You could construct an intricate, campus-wide treasure hunt that leads to both Bishop and Whipple’s gold! No, everyone always knows the real treasure is the journey and the friends you make along the way and you can’t put that on a resume.

Fine, back to the club idea. Concordia can always use more clubs. What do people like? Dogs and Vines? Sure, but Vine died three years ago. Oh, you’ve got it. You could start a nap club! That’s a terrific idea. That way you can work through sleepless nights setting up times and places to sleep so you can catch up on the sleep you missed setting up a time and place to sleep! That’s genius!

The best thing you can do for yourself right now in life is drink six 5 Hour Energy drinks a day, never sleep and stress yourself out about laying the foundation for a nap club that will outlast your four years, outlast the college, outlast America as we know it and outlast the planet. How long do you think we have on this planet, anyway? A good ten, fifteen years? If you don’t start planning interplanetary nap club right now, there is not a doubt in my mind you will forever become a laughing-stock. Start sending emails!

Finally, it’s the day of the first meeting! And it’s fifteen minutes past the meeting time! And no one came. I guess you underestimated how creepy it is for adults to sleep together in their normal clothes in a classroom when a class isn’t happening. This is disappointing. Look at how comfortable the blankets you brought look! Wow, they look… so comfortable. Really, really comfortable. No, wait, you should be planning a nap club’s next meeting. But it couldn’t hurt if you just laid down, just… a bit…

Congratulations! You just took some alone time at Concordia.

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