Margaret Bauer1. Listen to more local music
This one ain’t difficult, folks. Just pick up your weekly concert calendar of choice and choose a show. There are plenty of options open to you. For instance, this Saturday at the Hi-Pointe you can catch local rockers Gassoff and the Dead Celebrities, perfect for fans of douse-yourself-in-beer rock ‘n’ roll. Other local favs include progressive metal band Riddle of Steel, Traindodge and the Maxtone Four. And don’t forget to support campus bands!
2. Grow a beard
St. Louis’s recent arctic blasts of cold air should encourage all you fellas out there to consider the safe, natural way to protect your face from the elements. Growing facial hair involves absolutely no active involvement, although you may feel the sting of social ostracism if your beard is unkempt or “patchy.” No worries, though, as increased hair length will cause the curls to grow over your unsightly bald spots. Plus, the many styles to choose from, such as the Grizzly Adams “mountain man” look or the ever-popular “pervy seventh grade gym coach stash,” only increase the fun. And ladies, don’t think we’ve forgotten you! For those who don’t or physically can’t do faces, there’s always the ability to sport shaggy, Hobbit-like, natural legwarmers around the feet and ankles. Now everybody stays warm.
3. Create a campus controversy
This one involves a bit more planning and motivation, but let’s face it: Why should Columbia and Harvard have all the fun with their on-campus quarrels? We are (were, at least) a top-ten school, according to U.S. News and World Report, so let’s start acting like one! And that means exacerbating student/faculty relations, accusing our professors of bias and hate speech and generally complaining about topics other than Bon Appetit and Student Union elections. How about picketing the next Wednesday Speaker Series, even if the topic is “The Ecological Systems of Indigenous South American Tree Frogs,” or demanding SU funding for groups like “Students for HATE (Harboring Animosity Towards Everyone).” It’s not hard, people! Harvard does this stuff daily.
4. Knit at least one article of your own clothing
Along with the beard resolution, this goal teaches you to be a more independent, complete individual. Why drop 30 dollars on a Gap scarf when you can create your own source of warmth out of a ball of yarn and two needles? Many are simply intimidated by this revered, ancient form of clothing manufacture, but it’s really quite easy. First, make a slip knot on one needle. Place this in your left hand. Insert your right-hand needle into the knot under the left needle. While holding both needles with your left hand, use your right index finger to bring the yarn under, then over, the right needle. Now, draw the yarn through the stitch with the right point. Then draw the point of the left needle through the new stitch, removing the right needle. Pull the yarn to tighten the stitch on the needle. Congratulations, you have made your first stitch! Now repeat this process 26 more times until you have a total of 28 stitches on the left needle. This completes the first cast-on row. You’re well on your way to a warm, luxurious garment! (Much thanks and credit to Howtoknit.com.)
5. Read less Pitchforkmedia.com
For those who haven’t noticed, this uber-hip indie music website is frequented on a quarter-hourly basis by kids at Olin Library. (Not to mention roughly 80 percent of the Cadenza staff.) It’s become the opiate of the hipster masses. Well, it’s time to tell the dictators of cool at Pitchfork that we don’t need their New York noise-rock bands or import-only Norwegian psychedelic pop records anymore! Why not try Metacritic, which links to dozens of other equally good music review sites? Or just good, old-fashioned Allmusic, which can be more fun than an hour playing connect-the-friends on the Facebook. In the words of the Who (and President Bush), “We won’t get fooled again!”
6. Privative your Social Security account
There is an imminent economic crisis facing the nation. Government-run Social Security will begin to pay out more benefits than it makes in revenues beginning in the year 2018. By 2042, the agency will be completely insolvent. Act now to guarantee your Social Security checks and those of our beloved senior citizens; campaign to create individual, privatized accounts that can benefit from our rapidly strengthening market economy. Don’t be misled by quack economic theorists. Avoid contradictory findings from supposed “experts” and just believe us. If we don’t act now, citizens young and old will run screaming through the scorched, blood-drenched streets, while impoverished mothers hold their sickly babes to their barren breasts and cry, “Why, why didn’t I privatize my account?!” The earth will grow dry and infertile and refuse to yield crops. A plague of locusts will descend upon the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Death to everyone!
7. Take up a quirky musical instrument like the theramin
Who needs another guitar player strumming John Mayer tunes? Why not try something with a little more originality, like the recorder, clavichord, didgeridoo, Jew’s harp or mellotron? But most of all, the theramin is the true instrument of the future. It makes those weird “ooh-wee-ooh” sounds from science fiction movies! You only need your hand to control it! And how many bands can boast of having a real theramin player on board? You can take 20-minute solos during your concerts. Fame and fortune are in your future.
8. Make iPod mixes for unconventional occasions
Sure, you’ve got your “rainy day mix” and your “workout mix” and your “romantic evening mix.” You and my grandmother both! What you need is some variety in your 40 gigabytes of superfluous hard drive space. How about a mix for the anniversaries of important political events? Nothing says “original” like a mix commemorating Azerbaijan’s Independence Day (Aug. 30). Or perhaps you would do well with a playlist for the day of your appendectomy or malignant mole removal. Better yet, create a collection of songs for those special times when you sit down to make a new mix on your iPod. It’s an infinite regress of fun!
9. Buy your Ph.D. from a bogus diploma mill
Here are your options. (1) Remain in school for another grueling decade, slavishly writing your pathetic doctoral dissertation while working a part-time job at Applebee’s. (2) Pay a measly $3,600 for a Ph.D. from prestigious Hamilton University, where you can work at a leisurely pace in one of their “self-based external programs.” All you need is the money, the time to take online courses and a 2,000-word thesis. Plenty of diploma mills, or “correspondence schools,” exist, ranging from Hamilton, a converted Motel 6 in Wyoming, to Adam Smith University, which operates out of a hostel in Monrovia, Liberia, to Stanford University (of Arkansas). Sure, many of these institutes of higher learning have been discredited as fraudulent, but hey, if you can pull the wool over the eyes of some corporate interviewer using a degree you purchased for three months’ pay at Blockbuster Video, what’s stopping you? Earn your Ph.D. in 2005!