So here we are, back safe and sound at home sweet Guilco . . . All around me are lil’ sunburned faces, people with hangovers so severe that they’ll last ‘til April. And you know what? I am not one of those people, and I have approximately zero sympathy for those of you who are.You see, I did not go to the beach for spring break. I did not spend the week “laying out” or “catching rays.” I did not engage in any overblown bacchanalias, nor did I spend the majority of my week plastered out of my brains.
No, I was one of the oh-so-lucky ones who spent the majority of the week in front of a computer, doing homework.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not as if I desperately yearned to do papers all week. Not in the slightest. I would infinitely prefer to be engaging in more mind-altering activities, but I didn’t really have that choice. As always, I had work to do.

You see, I have some sort of internal paradox. I am, at heart, a slacker. I really don’t give a d*mn about doing work. I don’t want to do it, and I don’t really care about it in the least.

But I have this weird, overactive conscience that screams like a menopausal woman suffering from chocolate withdrawal when I don’t do my work. And even if that weren’t the case, I have a scholarship that I really have to keep if I plan to stay at Guilford. (And god knows, you wouldn’t want me to leave Guilford. . . Whose rants and raves would you read then?)
So I’m an overachiever slacker, which means I go home on spring break and desperately struggle to finish my two articles, paper, project, and study for an exam and complain about it all the while. And you are the lucky one who gets to read the my whining.
My, my . . . Life doesn’t get better than this, now does it?

I’m not telling you this because I expect any sympathy. Far from it. I’m telling you all this simply because I do not want anyone to mistakenly think that I will offer them sympathy when they come to me, crying about the homework they didn’t do, their oh-so-painful sunburn, their woe-is-them alcohol poisoning.

Sorry, dude. I really couldn’t care less.

So don’t come crying to me. If you ask me for headache medicine to ease the agony of your hangover, I will probably laugh in your face and hand you some of my homework to edit. If you whine about your sunburn, odds are I’ll make some snide remark about what a cute lobster you’d make as I search for some nice aloe vera to shove down your throat.

Perhaps you’re now thinking, ‘Wow, that girl’s really mean.’ Nope, I’m not terribly nice, and moreover, I’m bitter. But I’m not as bad as you might think. They are times when I am the most sympathetic person you’ll ever meet. (Ask my roommate — I played mommy for a week when she was sick. I even walked her to the bathroom when she couldn’t get out of bed.) This just doesn’t happen to be one of those times.

Try me later though. Really. Come tell me your problems. Pour out your heart. Bare your soul. As long as it’s not about your fantastic spring break, I’ll probably listen, maybe even offer some advice from the depths of my vast wisdom.

And you never know — if your life’s woes are up to a nice Jerry Springer, soap opera-esque par, they might even appear here in this weekly column-thing. I can always use “scintillating new material,” to use professor Jeff Jeske’s words. So really, if you want a sympathetic ear and public ridicule, do tell me. And meanwhile, here’s some aloe vera. I hear it tastes good.