Homecoming Week is over, so the cynic within some of us would argue that we should buckle up and prepare for misery. Standing tall and proud, the cynic proclaims that the next few weeks of school are as empty as the PBR cans left in your recycling bin. There is nothing left to look forward to until Thanksgiving break, so get ready to be swamped with studying and eviscerated by exams.

If you are as wise and as learned as I am, you realize that what this cynic says is untrue. I am often asked how I continue to find meaning in my infinite life and not be crushed by an existential dread. The answer, dear readers, is that I live each day without anxiously waiting to reap the fruits of my actions. My actions are the fruits themselves.

At this point of the semester, it may seem that there is no incentive to work because there isn’t some lavish concert on the horizon to dissipate the stress you’ve accumulated from studying. Dearest readers, if you are truly enjoying yourself, then there is no difference between the time you spend admiring Post Malone singing Nirvana’s “All Apologies” and the time you spend playing Mario Kart with your friends at Clairmont campus. Every second of your life can be your own Homecoming concert if you don the proper perspective. Live life as if you’re skating around an ice rink — don’t fixate on reaching a particular point but relish the very act of movement.

Dear Doolino,

I went to the wrong McDonough on Friday night.

After I ate a brownie given to me by my roommate — who I add for no particular reason likes to listen to The Rolling Stones, wears tie-dye and has reddish eyes — I decided to search for this “McDonough Field” on Google Maps on my phone. (As a transfer student, I still do not have a solid grasp of Emory’s geography.)

One thing led to another and my Uber driver took me to the McDonough Center for Family Dentistry in McDonough, Ga. Since I do not listen to much modern music, I mistakenly assumed that the routine root canal procedure performed by the dentist on the screaming 5-year-old patient was some form of an avant-garde performance by Post Malone. I watched the dentist — who, in hindsight, probably was not Post Malone — do this for many hours before he told me to go home because I made some patients feel uncomfortable.

Is there any way I can make up for the Homecoming experience I lost?

From Kief Richards

Dear Kief Richards,

What do you mean “lost” Homecoming experience? You now officially have more pre-health experience than the average Emory student. That’s more valuable than any Post Malone concert.

Sincerely,

Doolino

Dear Doolino,

Can you recommend easy electives for me to take? This whole pre-med thing is tanking my GPA, so I would appreciate some advice. What about one of those sociology classes on happiness, or whatever it is? I need a class that requires me only to memorize a couple of textbook pages for the midterms.

Easy A

Dear Easy A,

The average human lifespan is 79 years. Of those 79 years, there are only four years that you can dedicate to studying literally whatever you want. For heaven’s sake, there’s a Lusophone studies minor in this school and, until a few hours ago, I thought that a Lusophone was some sort of brass instrument. (It isn’t.)

I don’t know why you are pre-med but let me tell you this: Academic freedom dies in medical school. When you go to medical school, you will be forced to take a rigid collection of oddly specific biological sciences classes that you’ll need to understand fully. If you don’t, you will probably kill someone. When you are in medical school, the difficulty spikes to a level that if you don’t truly enjoy what you are studying, then you will do poorly.

Nobody will die if you receive a B in a 100-level philosophy class.

Use these precious undergraduate years to cultivate real interests. Do not let the fear of failing hold you back because, although it is disappointing for your GPA to face a hit, it is far more tragic to never truly understand what you are genuinely passionate about.

Screw the easy and embrace the interesting. Also, please do not sue me if you don’t get into medical school.

Sincerely,

Doolino

P.S. Hope we are clear on the whole don’t sue me thing. I can’t go back to jail.

For your day-to-day qualms and minor life crises, send anonymous questions to doolino.emory@gmail.com

 

Doolino
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