Senior English major
The first thing I ever learned in college was actually the only thing I ever learned in college. When I was a freshman at Anne Arundel Community College, my English professor, Mark Ripka, taught me the definition of “alma mater.” The phrase comes from the Latin for “nourishing mother,” and it basically indicates that your college is your origin — it’s the place that prepares you for the rest of the world. So my last column is a goodbye of sorts to my alma mater as well as an acknowledgment of what I will remember the most about it.
Goodbye, Department of Transportation Services.
Goodbye, guy who stole my debit card off of Turtle’s grimy floor and spent $400 on booze. At the time, I didn’t know Turtle was even worth $400, nor did I know I went to school with sociopaths. Thanks for the heads-up!
Goodbye, girls asking me to take their pictures every weekend and Thursday night.
Goodbye, commenters on The Diamondback’s website. It’s hilarious to me that you think your opinions matter.
Goodbye, R. J. Bentley’s dining room, which is a respectable place for lunch by day and a dance floor that houses a sloshy make-out fest for awkward dorks by night.
Goodbye, guys who took intramural sports way too seriously.
Goodbye, long line at Bentley’s, with the underage line-cutters and the of-age line-cutters and the decent people waiting their turn in the back.
Goodbye, crime alerts and University Police. I’m cool with letting the armed robbers and assailants get away as long as you manage to nab at least one 19-year-old on an alcohol citation or escort a student out of late-night McKeldin because he or she forgot an ID.
Goodbye, Testudo’s germ-ridden snout.
Goodbye, having to worry about spelling or grammer,
Goodbye, Greek versus independent debate. Riveting stuff.
Goodbye, beer pong, flip cup, kings or any other drinking game that brilliantly combines alcohol with male competitive streaks.
Goodbye, feminists.
Goodbye, paying a $5 cover just to stand in a place that plays awful music louder than a jet engine and has a stench that reminds me of the inside of a Bonnaroo Porta Potty, probably because people vomit and pee inside it as if they were inside a Bonnaroo Porta Potty.
Goodbye, students who are jobless yet still wear suits to class.
Goodbye, students who compare novels we had to read for class to movies.
Goodbye, professors who told me when I get to the essay portion of their exam, to remember there’s “no such thing as one right or wrong answer.” That’s a good thing to tell someone who’s been spoon-fed everything else in his life and is about to enter the real world.
Goodbye, Student Government Association. What you do is so important.
Goodbye, fellow English majors. When the apocalypse happens, I assume we will either be allowed to live as traveling minstrels or killed and eaten for our lean hipster meat.
Goodbye, science majors. I know it sucks that you to have to pay more than the rest of us, but that’s what you get for picking a degree that society won’t use, ever.
Goodbye, university President Wallace Loh. I hope you don’t lose sight of the student body from that ivory tower, I mean, new presidential mansion, I mean, fundraising project to help the school.
Goodbye, rioting whenever five of our fellow “students” manage to put an orange ball into an iron rim more times than five other “students” from a pretentious private school in the South.
Finally, and most importantly, goodbye to The Diamondback, which paid me to share my opinion every two weeks even though I turned in every column late and knew absolutely nothing important or useful.
Drew Farrell is a senior English major. He can be reached at dfarrell@terpmail.umd.edu.
