UO (shiznatified) Survival Guide

So where the hell do you take a crap on campus? For the love of God you can look in the Emerald but they will just tell you where to buy cheap pumpkins. You can look in the Voice but all you will find iswell, nothing, they won't have an issue out until at least another Guns N' Roses album is produced (where's Izzy?). If there is one thing that is more ubiquitous on campus in the beginning of the year than the annual police sweeps, it is stupid, foolish, incompetent, inexcusable, incoherent Survival-Guides. You know what I am talking about, campus media's attempt at educating incoming students and block-headed returnees on the most exciting bars, favorite professors, popular classes, and most apparent loopholes at the University of Oregon. But do you really give a crap? And if you do, where the hell do you put it? Where the hell do you take a crap on campus?

That's all. That's all I plan on telling you. That's all you deserve to know.

While in the process of exiting a professor's office I had just shamelessly asked for a grade reevaluation form, I ran into a friendly acquaintance walking down the hall. After the initial hellos he asked me of my business in he PLC. Being that I was only three feet from the professor I had just expended a lifetime supply of sycophancy upon, I avoided the question.

I guess the first place I would suggest would be Straub Hall-home of the Psychology program. That field is full of so much crap anyway, no one would notice yours.

After he asked my business in the PLC again in several different ways, I answered-almost in a whisper-that I was visiting a professor. To this he responded with a hearty: "Nice! Kissing professor ass is the only way to succeed."

That is the single dumbest piece of advice I have ever received. It's not dumb because it's not true-it is true. It's not dumb because it's obvious.-it is not obvious. It's dumb because it was aid in the wrong place, at the wrong time. It's dumb because it negated the very truth it was trying to communicate.

Some might suggest using your carp as fertilizer for the University of Oregon Urban Farm, I disagree. If growth and profit are goals for your crap, just crap on newsprint bi-annually, name the pieces of stinky paper some sort of gernud (fart, belch, voice) and ask the Student Senate to fund it. Who knows, you may end up receiving a monthly stipend for your crap.

In an environment in which success is determined by how much more one person knows than another person, I refuse to supply a Survival Guide explaining how to get grades without lying, shots without limes, and books without lines to a group whose majority wear knowledge as a badge of honor for the world to see. That's outright ludicrous. That's flat out stupid.

If you're really looking for a good place to crap, try PLC 180. A room whose chairs consistently get smaller to accommodate more students. Why take a crap in PLC 180? Do it to show that you can. Crap in PLC 180 to show that although the chairs prevent you from taking notes or taking exams, the chairs in no way prevent you from taking a giant crap on the space-saving inconsiderate, administrative bastards who think that classrooms are the educational equivalent of high-density fee lots. Fatten 'em up for the kill Frohmayer!

I want to believe that in our darkest moments, all of us pray deeply for the demise of our fellow students. I want to believe that those of us succeeding through our own personal survival tools-gained by means of trail, error, and curiosity-securely lock that knowledge away in safes composed of pride, selfishness, and competition. But that's not what happens is it? Because there's always someone better looking, always someone more athletically gifted, always someone more pathetic. Because there's always someone, for whom, in your infinite jest or utter sympathy extend a piece of your coattail to ride on. Do yourself a favor, don't give anything away. Don't change the curve. Don't make it any more difficult to achieve success in the eternal classroom you dedicate your life to gaining an edge in.

Crap in Suite 4. Crap in Suite 4 because $400+ you pay them annually demands it. Crap in Suite 4 to help its inhabitants understand why you find is so unapproachable. Crap in Suite 4 because the urinal grate hanging on its window invites you to treat it a s the money sucking toilet it is.

I refuse to supply a Survival Guide for another reason: no to eveyrone is meant to survive (see Darwin). Some of you will be failing out of school this term or next term. Some of you will merely quit out of frustration. You all should thank me; I saved you a lot of money by quickening your death in the University. I saved you a lot of face and pride by letting you go down in a blaze of glorious stupidity, rather than in a flame of pathetic mediocrity.

But wherever you choose to crap, whether it be on Bill Miner's desk, in Ben Unger's inbox, in the Office of Student Life (drop one for Kevin), in the Student Senate Office, on the much anticipated amphitheater grounds, in the Office of the Registrar (mail it to them), or even in Oregon Commentator office, I want you to use this article as the paper that wipes your ass. After all, a Survival Guide has got to be good for something.

Oh Yeah.

1. Max's 2. Professor Boren 3. CRWR 410 4. Tell the security/candy provider that you need to buy something downstairs along with your course books-no lines. 5. If Elaine Green asks you to participate in an informal hearing, just say no.

Tamir Kriegel, a Junior majoring in English, is staff writer for the Oregon Commentator