Rees’ Pieces: The Students We Are

Ben Rees, Columnist

This is the final column I will write for The Bucknellian before graduation. I started writing Rees’ Pieces during the summer after my sophomore year and have published a column bi-weekly ever since. Despite coming up with a few ideas for this last piece, I decided to recycle a column that I wrote for the first week of March 2013. This is my personal favorite, and it seems more appropriate at this point in time than at the end of my junior year. I made a couple tweaks to it over the last week, but it is much the same as it was last year.

I greatly appreciate all of those who read Rees’ Pieces. I really enjoy writing them, but having an audience makes it exponentially more satisfying. Thank you to everyone who laughed, cringed, or even put it down halfway through. I’ve had a blast with this, and it has been a fantastic opportunity.

Again, for your benefit, please read this aloud.

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I’m a registered undergraduate pursuing a baccalaureate. No B.S., but a B.A., in more ways than one. I’m dedicated, educated, and occasionally inebriated. I read for content without content, and I’m underwhelmed while overloaded. I manage 101 things, almost leased 700 Market, and it all took me 100 nights (I’m so old nobody gets this anymore). I brake for nobody, except gym rats, and I still don’t know who Dana is. I weather nor’easters, but somehow can’t figure out the campus climate. They stay low on the salt, and a wild ride is a slip and slide down the east side of the grove.

I drive a black Suburban through white suburbs, and my TAs care more about the Townie T than if I get an A on my T-cell lab. I’m career-centered, but can’t find the Career Center, as botany is not for me. My résumé will resume once I’m safely connected via SafeConnect, and Christy Mathewson didn’t even go here (entirely)–I guess he just has a lot of feelings. In the Bison the chicken is tender, and the squirrels outside are squirrely, perhaps these things are connected.

I lie low but have high-risk friends, and I don’t have a bank account so my parents pay for Bankers. People hook up, date down, stay in, and hang out. I pet therapy dogs and scream at tour guides. I’m on BSG, IFC, and just ACE’d one Panhell of an exam. I’ve been to Uptown, downtown, Academic West and Tungsten (bless you). I externed with a big firm, but my internship didn’t turn into shit, so now I’m soul-searching, cross-referencing, and brown-nosing to find a career (trust me, it works).

Yellow Wood is browning and Red Light’s burned out; Fire Escape is far from safe and Shark Tank sank a long time ago. I’d go to the KLARC, but there’s nowhere to park; the ellipticals are filled by those on the straight and very narrow. I want my Bull Run pronto, as my temperance is nonexistent, and I live my life like every night is wing night.

I’m an independent academic on supplements, and my ADD gets in the way of my … First Night commenced to Commencement, and my once-MIA OA is still far too excited to see me. I love this beautiful place filled with beautiful people, beautiful buildings, and stunning sunsets. An academic wonderland interspersed with personality, technicality, and the perfect dose of triviality. Four years move faster than the blink of an eye, so give everything a try before you say goodbye.

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Thank you again for your audience. Have a wonderful summer.

 

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