THE BELL LAP: Pacing Yourself
Before Steve Prefontaine lost his life in a horrific car crash, he was known to run “every lap like it was his last.” When he first arrived at University of Oregon, for example, he immediately became the number-one runner and juiced mad girls by giving them free Adidas kicks.
Unfortunately, not all of us can ball like Pre. For the vast majority, pacing is essential to a successful college career; in the words of college dropout Kanye West, “You need to pump your brakes and drive slow, homey.” So listen up, rubes, and heed the call of the Freshman Year Commandments. In the name of John Harvard’s bronzed testicles, amen!
1. Thou shalt not peak too early. This is the most important rule. That’s why we put it first. Other than one of those dogs that has a skateboard in place of its hind legs, there is nothing sadder than seeing someone who peaks too early. It’s hard to believe now, but no one will remember if your penis looked big at your first Primal Scream. Everyone loves an underdog, and underdogs never start on top. This begs just one question: Is a skateboard-legs dog an “underdog”?!?!
2. Thou shalt stop rocking lanyards. To be honest, those things are kind of convenient when you are doing mad moving and performing a high volume of swipe-ins. But there is really nothing about being a freshman that makes a lanyard any more useful than it would be to most human beings, and you don’t see the rest of us with them. Think on that, brosefs.
3. Thou shalt not comp things aggressively, if at all. Like talking in section, this behavior makes you seem mad thirsty, but in this case, the juice is not worth the squeeze. We didn’t even comp FM and now we have a column—back of the net! Like Farrah Gray, author of the nine-step self-help book “Reallionaire,” we “took real lemons and made some real lemonade.” The precocious Gray started out selling moisturizer on the streets and was a millionaire by the age of 14! In fact, if you do one thing this year, read “Reallionaire” (Health Communications, 2004). You will laugh, you will cry, but most of all, you will wonder, “Is this even true?”
4. Thou shalt spend most of your waking hours playing video games. Freshman year all we did was drink Busch Lights that we got from some kid’s older brother at a very uncompetitive rate and play “NBA Street” until we could actually feel the ambition dripping out of our bodies. (We’re not sure what girls did during these time periods, but we’re pretty sure they were having chats in their underwear and sowing seeds of mistrust. Either that or juicing older bros.)
5. This is not so much a commandment as a tidbit of insider information that I, Chris Schonberger, finally feel at liberty to disclose: From time to time, the vending machine in the Canaday Common Room magically opens. I have my suspicions that it coincides with the “Harvest Moon.” I can’t be totally sure. You sort of have to have a sixth sense for it. Lucky for me, my freshman year roommate had the sickest “sixth sense” I’ve ever encountered. One time he looked at me with an expression of utter lunacy and whispered, “Dude, I think it’s open.” We proceeded to stockpile almost every item in the snack machine. When we returned with another plastic bag to finish the job, we found these three douches getting nabbed by the 5-0. This was the closest I’ve ever been to feeling “untouchable.”
If you want to make it to the finish line without becoming a sick d-bag en route, lay your right hand on John Harvard’s sculpted junk and swear your allegiance to these commandments. If you are suspicious about taking our advice (fair point), consider the following: freshman year we were riding Mongoose BMX bikes through the Yard. Now we ride in a Ford Escape.
You do the math. [1]
[1]- If we were delivering this address in person, one of us would punctuate this comment by tossing keys in some kid’s face. If they started bleeding and crying we would say, “Shut up. Give me my keys back.” Then we would pause, soften our tone, and say, “I’m sorry. That was mostly unintentional.”