Comrades, the long and dreary battle is upon us and it is time to draw arms and fight for what is ours: a good GPA.
The long-winded winter break is drawing its last breath and will no longer be able to provide the comfort and warmth of a mother’s teat. Nigh, it is time for us suckling babes to grow a pair and prepare for the return to the depths of hell from whence we came.
Winter break provided us ample time to build our reserves and strengthen our motivation. When the next battle draws to a close we will no longer have to cower in the bellows of fear and shame when a relative begs the question, “What were your grades this semester?”
No longer shall we be compared to a fellow comrade who attained glory and honor in the previous battle.
No more shall we hear, “Ashley got straight A’s this semester, what did you get?”
We shall not incur a ridiculous Amazon fee because we struggled last semester and forgot to return our rental books. Amazon can be our ally or foe, and next semester we shall remind our dear friend that it is wiser to be on our side — for it is only a student that would spend money on a “Government in America” textbook.
The next battle requires courage, preparation and dignity, fellow knights. We must ready our tools: our study guides, pens, pencils and energy drinks. Our laptops must be charged, study sessions attended and our questions fierce. No professor shall make mince meat of us, comrades. Not again.
Our enemies are powerful and strong but they will not smite us. Procrastination, the ruler of all that is evil, will do his best to destroy us. His strongest weapon is Netflix, and paired with mindless internet browsing and funny YouTube videos, Procrastination will be surely be a formidable foe.
Procrastination alone is fearsome, but he brings to the fore powerful allies. The siren wench of destruction, Partying, has the capability to render her victims incapacitated.
Once Partying has lured a poor soul in with her infectious beats, few survive what happens next. The drinking, the smoking: once begun it can be even harder to overcome.
The next day a soldier could wake up half-past noon, roiling from the gruesome side effects of Partying’s poisons. The poor victim may have no recollection of the past nights events, no pants and may have missed three classes that day. The horror.
Procrastination’s second ally and twin brother, Laziness, is arguably the most powerful of them all. Laziness’s effect seeps in slowly but steadily, tainting all it touches with sloth and lethargy.
Instead of completing homework or studying for a test, one may find themselves stuffing their face with Oreos watching “Maury.”
Instead of waking up on time for class, one may be influenced to ignore alarms and continue to sleep. Laziness’s power is sly yet all consuming, and once a glorious knight is ensnared, the chances for survival are slim.
However, we have an arsenal of our weapons. Coffee, sent from the heavens and gifted to us lowly humans, is the ultimate manna. Coffee is the Sorcerer’s Stone, the Holy Grail and the Ring. When used for evil it can destroy, but when used for good the bounty is endless.
Dare not insult coffee by tainting it with excessively sugary drinks and buying it at chain coffee shops. The only way to obtain the true power that coffee may bring, is to dig it with bare hands from the earth and devour it in this manner. There is no other way.
The Library provides all that is good in the world. She offers us a bevy of information, technology and study cubicles. She is the truth and the light, the beginning and the end.
When in the midst of the darkest hour, she brings puppies to pet for stress relief. The Library will give us the tools necessary to defeat Procrastination and his allies. Plus, printing is free and that’s tight.
Our final friend in the fight for a GPA we can be proud of is Microsoft Office. Though the trickster can be flighty and unreliable at times, he provides the perfect platform for writing spectacular essays and creating stupendous presentations. He is one of the single most important weapons in the arsenal of the young college knight.
It would be good and right to say that Microsoft Office has never been a disappointment, but that it not so. Many knights can testify to Word or PowerPoint crashing in the midst of last minute work, erasing all the effort put into not failing. As long as a young knight saves as they go, there will be no quandary with our dear friend Microsoft Office.
With our tools in our hands and our allies at our backs, there is certainty in my heart that we shall vanquish our foes. We will return from battle victorious, shining in a beacon of glory and hope.
The personal questions our family will ask regarding school will be inconsequential, because we will be triumphant. We will be able to say, with tears of pride shining in our eyes, “No, I don’t have a boyfriend but I do have a 4.0, so suck on that, Grandma.”
A beautiful GPA is something that everyone deserves, but it is up to us to make sure that dream comes true. Perseverance, courage, and faith in ourselves is all that we good knights need to come through this semester unfazed. This war will make adults out of us, and glorious adults we shall be.
When we look back at the war of college days, we will smile and shake our heads with the fond memories of crushing foes beneath the heels of our boots. We will gaze out at the spoils of war with satisfaction: a job, a mate and all the coffee our hearts desire. Victory is ours.
