Three Things I Hate About You, Reading Period

Reading period? Drinking period? Catching up on Gossip Girl period?

No matter how you roll during these next couple of weeks, some things will undoubtedly happen. You’ll shower less. You’ll eat more. You’ll get a B+ in that core whose reading you’ve been ignoring.

And the most universal truth: everyone around you will become a little bit more irritating. So in my lifelong quest to make this campus less annoying, here are some ways to negotiate these stressful weeks:

1. If I’m working at a table in the d-hall, don’t convene a meeting of your fifty best friends next to me when there are several empty tables all around. When I’m frantically hunched over a computer, I’m probably not indicating a desire to hear about how drunk you got last night. The glares I am shooting you are not my ways of showing my disproval that you so texted him last night when you shouldn’t have.

2. Do not try to compete to show that you have more work than I do. I get that everyone wants to feel like a martyr. “You have two papers? Yeah, that’s rough. I have two papers due by lunchtime, after which I have five finals and seven summer applications. Oh, and all of my classes are still meeting.” Really? Well then stop chatting it up in the Lamont café and go do some work.

3. Don’t announce to the world when you finish your finals by changing your Gchat status to “DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-D” Here’s a shocker: some of the people on your contacts may actually still have finals (!!). So save your glee till after the last day. Except, even then, try not to brag about your summer employment—some of us will be using our reading periods to figure that one out.