And So, in Closing...

Since the dawn of time, Prestige and Mobility have spoken truth to power, power to truth, and Esperanto to the people of the world [1], meaning we’ve missed out on some of the spectacular Harvard social life. Since we’ve been exhausted from trying to catch up on four years of missed fun, we tried to use WolframAlpha.com to write this column, but he just gave us the weather on the day of David Ortiz’s birth. [2] So, inspired by Rocky Balb-onion, the Italian scallion, we return to the one thing that we all have in common: expos. In this paper we will argue that you should not be sad that you are leaving Harvard because you did not actually enjoy your time here, with special reference to the works of Virginia Woolf. [3]

Most of this column was originally our class day speech. We knew we didn’t have a shot in the male serious, male humor, female serious, or female humor [4] categories, so we submitted it under obese Latina in a Tweety bird t-shirt category. But Margaret M. Wang ’09 won again—some people are just naturals.

When we were but small freshmen, we lived, for a time, in a pre-Qdoba, post-Lamont Dessert Riot universe with antiquated institutions like solvent I-banking and the American car industry. Come back to that time with us for a moment.

I’m sure we all spent that summer before college the same way. You worried about whether you had enough pairs of cargo shorts to get you through first semester. (Answer: No, because you can never have too many pairs of cargo shorts.) Above all, you wondered: would college life really be as cool, chill, and homoerotic as membership in the Harvard ’09 Fellas Facebook group made it seem? (Answer: Yes.)

We all spent our college careers the same way: trying to record the perfect acappella cover of K-Ci and JoJo’s 1998 superhit “All my Life” to finally seduce Jessica S. Lin ’09. How tough is it to get the Fallen Angels in a recording studio? Those girls are always on the go!

But these next few years after graduation will be different. First off, you will be thrown a lot fewer Nerf Vortex footballs, Jock Jams will not be played when you enter a room, and business casual will no longer include Umbro shorts. Oh, sorry. This is about Harvard? That’s from our 1997 elementary school graduation Prestige and Mobility column.

The real world will be tougher than Harvard, though. Brain breaks will start at 11 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. Instead of having two free weeks to prepare before completing your most difficult tasks, you will have only 10 days, and all classes—not just language classes—will meet during reading period. Your first year at work, unlike your freshman seminar, will be graded. All police departments are not like HUPD. After you are caught breaking the law, they will not bring you back to your room to help destroy the evidence and smooth things out with the Ad Board. (Thanks, Officer Thompson. You were right: it was mostly placenta anyway.)

Still, it’s been a wild ride. Enriched by the core, we can now answer questions like, “Are numbers magical? Is this art and/or literature I’m encountering an A, B or C? What would this look like as a Japanese woodblock print?” No, we can’t figure out that tip, but we can detect it medically. Are those dinosaurs attacking our city? Let’s talk to their relatives and see if we can work something out.

Above all, we our indebted to our classes and professors. Justice: you taught me that everything that I needed to know about right and wrong would be sent to me in the form of a 500-page study guide two days before the final. Greg Mankiw: you taught me that you can still be listed as the instructor for a course while only giving three lectures a semester and selling each one of your students your $150 textbook—now that’s what I call cost/benefit analysis! To my expos class, you made me a better person. To my expos preceptor, you made me a man.

Who knows, if the economy recovers, some of us might even become rich, but what will you do with your mammon? Will you give back to those who need it most? For only $75 a day, the price of one Shaq rookie card, you can sponsor an Isis girl and supply her with all the Berryline toppings, Daedalus Appletinis and SlutGear® that she needs to bring together a diverse group of Harvard women for the purpose of building friendships and a strong system of support on campus and in the world beyond. [5]

In closing, it’s graduation. You have one final chance to hook up with that girl or guy that you’ve had a crush on since freshman year. And if your hook up says, “Sure, but the Tweety bird shirt stays on,” just roll with it. It’s worth it. ;^)

If only you had known that earlier, how much you would sing.



[1] It takes a global village.

[2] WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE COULD POSSIBLY DO WITH THIS.

[3] We might need to sharpen this. What is the effect? Does it at all relate to the rest of the paper?

[4] Wait, is that category the joke?

[5] http://theisisclub.org/donations.php. Dear Reader, this donations thing isn’t a joke. Dear Isis, Please direct all complaints to 925-876-3932. You thought we were scared, but we’ve just been waiting.