I am always impressed by graduate students as they work through the final obstacle standing between them and the promised land of academia: the dissertation. The boundaries of human knowledge could not expand without many of these noble souls working away to discover the secrets of history, the workings of the human mind and the laws which govern the universe.
In the same spirit, I'd like to offer a few laws of my own to go along with the golden oldies (F=ma, G*m1*m2 equals something or other). I hope you will agree that these are no less valid.
Law #1: The Law of Universal Clarksonianism
I consider it to be established and verifiable fact that each and every living person enjoys the song "Since U Been Gone." Its intensity, most of which derives from Kelly Clarkson turning her volume switch to "freight train," never fails to captivate the human heart. The subject matter is such that almost all listeners can relate to the song -- who hasn't known someone, romantically or otherwise, who needed to be gone? For reasons that are hard to pin down, it doesn't feel like a particularly feminine tune, despite its pop roots, meaning that those men among us who suppress all signs of sensitivity still feel free to sing along. And, of course, the song's fundamental and flagrant disregard for English grammar only increases the artistry involved.
Law #2: The Law of Perpetual Transit Tardiness
When you are trying to use public transportation of any kind, from buses to subway trains, and go to the stop to wait for said transportation, you have arrived at that stop at the wrong time, no matter when you go. The bus/train has just left and you will have to wait the full 10 minutes for another one.
If you go to a bus stop and one actually arrives within a minute or two, you need to get yourself to a blackjack table before your luck runs out. This is a sign that the planets (minus Pluto) are aligned and today is your day.
Nowhere is this clearer than right here on Grounds with the UTS buses. This transit system is an excellent one for a university and its operators do their jobs more or less to the letter. But not once have I ever decided to wait for a UTS bus and magically had one appear. The buses run very regularly, but a linkup between the buses' schedule and mine is just not meant to be. I will take a bus if it just happens to be at a stop when I walk by. (As Benjamin Franklin once said, "When life hands you buses, make lemonade.") But I have frittered away far too many 10-minute increments of my life to argue against this law.
Law #3: The Law of Acronym-Gender Specificity
It is not possible for a male to use the acronym "BFF," even in a reasonable context, and get away with it. This may seem to be a statement of the obvious, but it bears repeating. It is not clear to the scientific community at this time how a simple expression of friendship acquired such a loaded context of use, but it decidedly has. Every time I have tried to use this acronym in the past, I have met with the kind of ridicule usually reserved for wedgie victims and poor performers in the school play.
Law #4: The Law of Conversational Time-Relativism
The little yellow man who is the symbol of AIM must represent Father Time, because this seemingly harmless piece of software sucks up one's time like a Hoover from hell. The pages of college lore are filled with stories of innocent first years (or freshmen, if we are thinking globally) who sat down for a few minutes of innocent AIM conversation and woke up, like Rip Van Winkle, in the future, with different roommates and having declared their majors. Compared to what it does on AIM, time walks on crutches when you're having fun.
There will be no test on the above material, but please memorize it as it is all useful information and can save you considerable time, energy and humiliation. And in case any reader was thinking of reading too far into this piece, I did quite well in the school play, although my monologue may or may not have contained the words "I can breathe for the first time."
Matt's column runs bi-weekly on Tuesdays. He can be reached at mwaring@cavalierdaily.com.
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