One last hurrah

Well, Johnny Lechner, the infamous 12-year undergrad at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is graduating this year, and sadly so am I.\nI'm not going to lie -- writing this is turning out to be an incredibly bittersweet experience. Honestly, despite being less than a week away, the word "graduation" has not yet entered my lexicon.\nSo now, without having yet come to terms with it, I'm faced with the task of saying goodbye to these last four years of my life in 500 words or less, and that, dear reader, is not easy.\nBeing the hard worker I am, I'm not going to. Instead, let me offer you that which I have learned in my four wonderful years. If I could suggest one piece of serious advice to those of you who will be staying on next year, it is this: think as much in class as you do when you are going to the bathroom.\nWhat never ceases to surprise me is the depth of the graffiti on the bathroom stalls, compared with the silence in the classroom when a professor asks an existential crisis.\nAny of you women who have utilized, for example, the first-floor women's bathroom, second stall on the left-hand side know what I'm talking about. \nNo matter how often the hard-working janitorial staff tries, the dialogue continues. It's amazing what people think about while they are emptying their bladders -- the existence or non-existence of God, the morality or immorality of abortion, the relevance of classic literature, etc.\nYet ironically, when many of my professors ask basic questions about the previous night's reading, oftentimes the class responds largely with blank stares. And these are -- let me emphasize -- basic questions.\nSo it struck me while I was emptying my bladder in this particular stall, for what could very well be my last time as an undergraduate, that we would all learn substantially more if classroom discussions were as animated as those that take place within the bathroom.\nGiven the monumental nature of the milestone that Saturday will mark in our lives, I wish I had something more substantial to contribute, but just about everything else has already been said (and, I must note, much more eloquently). \nReally, the most important thing to do while you're here is to simply take advantage of the time and resources you have here. If the real world is hell, college is a sort of happy limbo. Unfortunately, too many people (myself probably included) won't make that realization until it's too late.\nAfter all, it's easy to look at IU as one big logistical nightmare, especially in the first couple years. But, as time passes, without your ever noticing, it becomes so much more than that. IU will always be my first real intellectual home, and I want to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful professors who have given me guidance and encouragement, as well as my friends who have made the worst moments tolerable. \nGoodbye fellow students, faculty, and members of the Bloomington community. It's been real.