Quantitative Reasoning and Ramen

The life of a college student sucks. No really, I’m serious. Don’t let parents or teachers fool you; these days are not the best of your life, unless you’ve found some magical potion I haven’t. In college, you get to choose between two of three things: 
Sleep

Grades

and Friends. 

If you choose sleep and grades, well congratulations, your geekiness shall follow you all the days of your life and you shall dwell in the house of the institution forever, amen. So obviously this isn’t the choice everyone is talking about. If you choose sleep and friends, well you’ll fail your classes, disgrace your parents, and go out of this world the same pink faced moron you were born as. College drop-out, yes that has got to be the worst choice you could make. So what’s left, grades and friends? No, you’ll die. Lack of sleep will kill you. There aren’t enough red-bulls in the world to save you from the hell that is a triple all-nighter.  Your savior shall be your bed and your demise shall be the accidental 72 hour “nap.”

In the end, you’ll make that choice that everyone eventually makes: an uncommitted cocktail of all three with a healthy dose of stress and moaning to turn the wheels.

You’ll wake up each morning saying, “Today I will not put off anything. I’ll do my laundry! I will find the source of that smell in my dorm. I’ll get an early start on that paper!” But you will still chuck homework under blankets, over clothes with stains, anywhere you can tuck it away and not think about it. I’ve been there, not done that, found the unwashed t-shirt. I have a “to-do” list the length of my arm. I know it’s that long because I wrote it there with a sharpie. You’ll make one too… You shouldn’t use a sharpie. 

I noticed the other day that when you enter college, you enter a series of expectation versus realities, as far as academics are concerned. You expect yourself to realize, "Self. This paper is due in 21 days. However, these days are full of sleepiness, friends, and Waffle House. Maybe 21 days is really not that much time at all." No. You do not do this naturally. You will literally check the calendar, lean over and tie your shoe, then find out you've been bent over for three weeks and that paper is due tomorrow. This is an actual measurable condition. Allow me to explain with a series of  equations. 

Example: Joe must write one 2,000 word essay on rainbows in 21 days, or, 504 hours. Assuming that the laws of college (procrastination/over-estimation of one’s skills) apply, how many red bulls and fervent prayers will Joe require in the last 6 hours of his allotted 504

 Oh, but it gets better. This rule of Time Evaporation also applies in the opposite direction. 10 days will easily disappear when writing a paper, but 10 minutes also has the ability to become ten days. I know that in this particular time warp,  10 minutes is long enough to check my bank account ($10 to my name), check my e-mail for last-minute rescheduling (please say class is canceled), and check my bank account again (Still $10). The rest of the ten will be spent gazing at the crack in my ceiling that bears an odd resemblance to my least favorite professor's face.

College is hard and the choices you make in college are even harder. I wish I hadn't skipped class that day. I wish I hadn't spent all that cash on vintage Anime. I wish I hadn’t eaten 6 packs of Ramen on a dare and caused that mini sodium induced stroke. The wishes keep piling up like papers that were once important, but now just serve as tissues. Well, bad tissues, but when you have a head cold courtesy of dorm living and no funds for the almighty Kleenex, what are you going to do?

What am I saying? Go to college, get an education. Just be warned, there will be days when you want to set the campus on fire and burn every syllabus, book report, essay, research paper, and literary analysis while righteously blaring We Are the Champions. I’m not saying it’s hell; I’m just saying you should bring a hose.