For us seniors, death’s foul stench is becoming an increasingly pungent presence in our lives. It’s been seeping through the walls and will soon be taking us by the hand and leading us off to the underworld. You can see it taking the form of parents calling to set up graduation dinner reservations, or friends planning apartments, or that flock of crows that’s been following me around for the last two weeks.

But even worse than the cackle of the crows is the endless final moments everyone seems so keen on pointing out. Everywhere I turn I have to hear about how this is “the last Thursday class,” or “the last real weekend,” or “the last time doing the same thing you’ve done every day for the past four years.”

I say good riddance; don’t spare the old homestead and burn the place down. I’ve done just about everything there is to do here to the point that there are no stones left to turn over, no adventures left to be had.

Everywhere I look, it’s hard not to feel haunted by the ghosts of the past. All the buildings and the walkways and the streets have some memory attached to them, and to me they’re all still happening all the time. Looking around, I feel like I can see myself still crammed in a Vedder dorm room freshman year with my friends, thinking it’s a good idea to study together with a bottle of whiskey. I can see myself still standing in a basement on bid night sophomore year with a bunch of guys I barely knew. I’m still getting my face slapped on the porch of Fire Escape junior year and being forgiven later in the middle of Market Street. And I’m still being greeted on my first day by a bunch of cracked-out OAs and thinking what the hell kind of school is this.

So everywhere I look around this campus there’s another bunch of ghosts haunting me. Some I wish I never had to see again, some I’d like to go back and be one more time. But good or bad, for all of us the people who did all of those awesome/terrible things are gone. The point is, who cares if it’s the “last” time we’re doing something? If it happened once, that’s enough. You don’t have to live in the past and get all sentimental and nostalgic about leaving the University. Although you can’t be 20 on Sugar Mountain, you can take comfort in the fact that you’ve already done all there is to do here. And now, you’re free to go off and find new, colorful ways to get yourself slapped.