Who doesn’t love returning to Malibu at the start of each spring semester? The bitter reality of an inevitably anti-climactic winter break barely has time to settle into a dull nausea before “syllabus week” renders students incapable of experiencing anything other than an acute dread of the academic torture to come in the following three months.
The excitement of returning to campus and seeing old friends is quickly overshadowed as test dates are penciled in, essays assigned, projects explained and lives begin to unravel once more under the stress of relentless schoolwork. The thrill of fall semester has vanished. Winter break has merely succeeded in offering students a false sense of security before doing it all over again.
Here at the Graphic, we understand. We understand just how strenuous life here in Malibu can be. The embarrassment of realizing that you’re one of two students in a class who hasn’t founded your own non-profit. The irksome inconvenience of having to look up from your latest Tweet to avoid tripping up the 73 stairs that separate you from the SAC. The outrageous injustice of professors expecting you to get off Pinterest during a lecture, as if “History and Religion of Early Christianity” is somehow more pressing than compiling an extensive online recipe catalogue.
The unbearable pressure of parallel parking on Seaver Drive between a Porsche and a G Wagon with a line of Range Rovers waiting behind you, and the shame of realizing defeat as you drive away from the perfect spot having failed to back into it in fewer than 10 turns. The stress of searching for to-go boxes in the Caf, having to sneak behind the salad bar and disarm a small, vicious lunch lady in order to smuggle lunch into the Plaza classrooms. The sinking feeling prompted by a Facebook newsfeed filled entirely with little pink hearts as “ring by spring” becomes a reality for everyone you never even knew was dating.
While I acknowledge the likelihood that these issues exist solely in my own mind, I must insist that these #pepperdinegirlproblems are no joke. Few understand the extreme difficulty of going to school in one of the most beautiful settings in the world. Seriously, though, I couldn’t write my article today because the glare from the sun was too bright on my computer screen. Like, it’s not easy being a Wave.
Thus, I implore you (but really though I’m begging you) to join with me in a social study of those issues deemed unbearably Pepperdine and write to me recounting the agonizing struggles of life here at 24255 Pacific Coast Highway. Tell me a story, ask me a question and do half the work for me as I put together a Perspectives advice column. Your participation is crucial in preventing me from writing imaginary letters to myself and publishing them for no one to read.
What qualifies me to advise you, you ask? Not impressed with my three quarters of an English degree? To those of you raising an eyebrow at my desperate plea for emails in doubt of my capabilities as a psychologist, you make an excellent point! Those of you who know me personally will most likely only exult in the obvious comedy of this column, and no doubt endorse the argument that my own life experience hardly lends to assisting others. I implore you, write anyway. I will strive to, if not actually assist you in your problems, at least to make you laugh in the realization that my life is vastly more pathetic than yours will ever be.
