Anna CampbellMidterms are upon us again, and the effect throughout campus is obvious. Students are binge-watching that hot new show on Netflix, grabbing a nap wherever they can and hanging out with friends as stress relief. But wait a second: wouldn’t the biggest stress relief be buckling down and, you know, doing some schoolwork?
The time to get blackout drunk with your friends is over. “Relaxation” is a word you should’ve forgotten in kindergarten. You paid how much money to be here and you think you get to have fun? Post-secondary isn’t an everyone-gets-a-participation-sticker primary school. This is the real world.
Do you think you’re going to have free time when you get out of post secondary? Get real. You’re going to have a boss demanding your attention while you sleep, a nagging significant other, and a dozen kids that always need something. Don’t want kids? Don’t want a relationship? Too bad. Training for the work-a-day office life is the point of post-secondary. This is Canada, and you’d better be dreaming about your white picket house in the suburbs and a commute to an office job.
So yeah, you’d better be volunteering, and it’s easy for everyone to work their way up a club to get that coveted leadership experience for the endless scholarships that no one applies to. You have a job because school is just too expensive? This isn’t a communist society, we believe in social Darwinism here. If you can’t compete, you hate capitalism and you’re spitting on the graves of all your ancestors who fought in the Cold War.
But some people really can’t keep up, they’re “mentally ill!” My parents called that “lazy people making excuses.” There’s no reason to listen to these “mentally ill” people when they complain about having panic attacks and suicidal ideation. These people obviously just haven’t tried to be happy. And if trying hard is just too much work, they can go to the Counselling and Clinical Services in SUB, where the power of psychology will fix them. They’ll be completely cured in seconds and can run straight back to their essay/exam/lecture triathlon. So listen up teachers, don’t let your students use this as an excuse to get out of assignments any longer!
But you have all these resources and you still can’t keep up. You’re working right up to the deadlines, constantly studying, and you still can’t get everything done in time. No wonder this generation’s going down the toilet. Look, the answer is simple: stop sleeping. Why else do you think they invented coffee and energy drinks? While we’re at it, stop eating too. Grab some instant noodles and eat them raw out of the bag, you’ll save time cooking and you can eat while you’re studying. Plus, it’s the cheapest food money can buy, so now you can cut back on those pesky job hours. The only exercise you need is walking to your classes. Sure, you’ll have health problems in a few decades, but do you really want to live in this mean, oppressive world that you keep whining about? I didn’t think so.
Now that I think about it, what makes you think you have the right to stop and read this? The previous, less entitled generations were too busy walking uphill both ways in the snow, and if you don’t think that makes logical sense you need to put away this article and pull out a textbook.
