Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

762 Words from a (Not So) Wisened Guy

By Matt North

When I remembered this afternoon that I had to write a senior viewpoint and hand it in tonight, the first thought that sprang to my mind was that my viewpoint as a senior, ultimately, is that I’m kind of hungry. Also, that I sure hope there’s a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer on tonight. And that the weather sucks.

But then I thought about senior viewpoints from years gone by, and the fact that I had to rattle on about something for 700 words. In past years, people have told moving stories, imparted hard-earned wisdom, expressed heartfelt thanks to all 33,538 of their friends and family members (whom they proceeded to list) … all kinds of impressive stuff.

And so, after at least three minutes of thought and a stop at The Tombs, I concluded that I didn’t feel like doing any of those things. The closest thing I have to a moving story involves a ballerina costume, a lot of cheap Scotch and some very patient Portuguese people. I’m not wise. Perhaps wisened, but not wise, and thus I have no hard-earned wisdom (though I could probably scrounge up some cheap, stolen wisdom) to impart. I’m utterly ungrateful, except to my parents for footing the bill, my brother and sister for going to cheaper schools and everybody I know for putting up with me, so I can’t really fill up the rest of this space with people I’m thanking, although it did occur to me that I could just start listing names out of the phone book and probably no one would be the wiser.

And I’m lazy as hell. I can’t seem to muster the energy to write something that would fit any of the usual categories. I don’t know how people in previous years went about writing these things. To be honest, I suspect they thought ahead and wrote them during their sophomore year, when they had lots of free time and more brain cells.

I thought about interpreting “senior viewpoint” a bit more loosely and giving you, oh lucky reader, a grizzled senior’s viewpoint on some serious Georgetown issue, like Ex Corde Ecclesiae, whose approach, in my head, is accompanied by the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars, but quickly nixed that idea. As a rule of thumb I don’t write about serious issues because that might require thought or inspire controversy, two things to which I am passionately opposed.

As far as writing about not-serious Georgetown issues, I believe I’ve exhausted every topic a college columnist can attempt to write something funny about. Food, dating, television, classes, procrastination, umbrellas, study abroad, my freshman year roommate (who I think has finally forgiven me), my current roommates, your mom, GUSA, the Little Miss G people and their beige book, the god of rain, Jeff DeMartino, alcohol, my McDonough School of Business roommate with a girlfriend, ballerina costumes, Portugal, bullfighting, small-town Spain, vulgarities, soccer, pre-registration, Valentine’s Day, jobs … hell, I’ve even written horoscopes. Which, by the way, I never made up; they were dictated to me by the stars. Anyway, like I said, I think I’ve covered everything.

So then I thought I could maybe focus this piece on my experience at The Hoya, but there’s simultaneously not enough and too much I could say about that. The short version is that there are three things, give or take, I have learned from working at The Hoya: (1) AP style’s rules for the use of commas in lists are the same as the Spanish rules, which is convenient if you’re a Spanish major and write for a newspaper. (2) People like it when you write about them. (2a) As a corollary to (2), people don’t like it when you write bad things about them. (3) Editorial board is fun, despite what people say. (3a) Same goes for copy editing. (3b) On an unrelated note: Exacto knives don’t cut hair real well. (3c) Semiformal does not mean semi-drunk.

See? Writing about my experience at The Hoya doesn’t fill up enough space, either. Word count, however, reveals that I am now within spitting distance of the end of the last article I’ll write for this newspaper, so I should probably do closing remarks now, if I have any. It occurs to me that this viewpoint is probably a sort of ironic parallel to much of what I’ve done during my college career – that is, kind of half-assed and markedly last-minute – but I’d rather not dwell on that. No, I think it’s important to end on a positive note. So, um … oh, look, 762 words. I bet there’s something good on TV …

Matt North is a former member of the editorial board, contributing editor and viewpoint editor for The Hoya.

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