TAS: A solution to all your woes

January 13, 1993

Have any of you noticed how people are walking around the school these first early days of winter quarter?

People are wandering from building to building with either a glazed-over look in their eyes or one of bewilderment and shock.

I like to call this syndrome Post Holiday Catharsis or, more commonly, Back-to-School Blues. This pitiable condition occurs when a test subject is inflicted with the mind-numbing drudgery and endless tedium of academic life after being given free reign for an entire month.

The sudden shock throws the mind into a holding pattern, reducing the individual to a mental state slightly higher than a hampster's.

I have often observed this phenomenon and pitied those inflicted with it, but I have hit upon a solution to the problem--a training camp of some sorts that serves to limber up the mind and ease students back into the daily grind.

Sure, why not? Athletes do it all the time.

All sports have camps to get the players back in shape before the season begins. It helps them avoid muscle cramps that might occur from pressing the body too much, too soon. It also allows the players to get themselves back into the rhythm of their sport and thinking with the proper frame of mind.

Let's look at an example. Since the Super Bowl is approaching, let's take football. Now consider what might have happened at the beginning of the season if Saints linebacker Rickey Jackson had been asked to perform his linebacking duties without the benefit of training camp.

He would probably find himself flat on his back while he wondered about his mortgage or anything else that occupied him during the off-season.

So I say, give students the same opportunities. Give us time to ease our way back into college life. Give us about a week to learn where our classes are, devise the best route through campus, and re-arm ourselves for the upcoming onslaught of books, syllabi, and homework.

Of course, as with any training camp, there will be rules.

Every day during that week, students must get up at eight a.m. to break the holiday habit of sleeping till eleven-thirty.

Also, everyone will be required to eat at Landrum to purge their bodies of any nourishing home-cooked food and to deaden their tastebuds. Even those in apartments must follow this rule. It is a necessary step towards accustoming the body to the Raman noodles that will nourish it throughout the quarter.

Given time, we may all slowly readjust to the rhythms of academic life and thereby avoid the dreaded Black-to-School Blues.

Now if we could only get them to pay us like they do professional athletes . . .