That’s right – it’s that time again, kids! Time to trade in those Frisbees and beach balls for text books and number two pencils, say goodbye to lazy afternoons on the beach and summer nights that seem to last forever, and most important of all, time to find a pair of pants – we’re going back to school!

I remember those days like they were yesterday – three-hour blocks of listening to foreign professors babble on about the trajectory of rabid giraffes, finding yourself barely able to lift a beer bottle after the writer’s cramps from frantically scribbling down hundreds and hundreds of pages of notes that you’ll absolutely never look at again, and getting completely hammered the night before the test at your buddies’ frat house, only to wake up fifteen minutes before the test and nearly miss it anyways – yes, those were the days! I can’t count the number of times that I stumbled home at nine o’clock in the morning, just in time to curse myself out for scheduling classes that early in the morning – who really gets up before noon, anyways?!

Ok, so I’ll just confess it before those of you who actually did go to college with me spread the word – I wasn’t that guy in college…but I did pass many of them on the streets on my way to work in the morning! Very few things can bring the spirit up quite like passing someone who’s barely sober enough to walk on their way to a three-hour long lecture about calculating the surface area of a dodecahedron or analyzing the sociological impact of women’s sexuality in the eighteenth century – somehow it makes that fifteen minute marketing spiel seem a little more bearable, doesn’t it? Now mind you, there’s a good chance that he had a bit more fun than the rest of us did the night before, slamming back tequila shots and groping his fellow classmates as we watched reruns of Seinfeld and Home Improvement on digital cable, but fun really is subjective…isn’t it?

A lot of people I know get somewhat bent out of shape when I stereotype college students to be raving, party maniacs who thrive on pizza, cheap beer, and living off their parents’ college fund as long as humanly possible, as if there are other aspects to the lifestyle as well! I suppose when it all comes down to it, they must be out there somewhere because I was one of them, spending most of my time studying because frankly, I couldn’t afford to give it a second try…but then again, of course we don’t hear much about the rest because police reports are very rarely filed for those who spend the majority of their nights knee-deep in biological classifications and anatomical terminologies. Not to mention the fact that I just paid way too much money for the furniture in my living room to go throwing the sofa out the front window!

In all fairness, there probably are a few groups of college students at various universities around the country that have managed to break this intoxicated mold that I’ve cast, mixing a combination of strong study habits with discipline and determination to successfully overcome the challenges of higher education and enter into the working world a step above all the rest. Of course, with all due respect, these people are also undoubtedly dorks who also spent Friday nights at home watching TV and still get jittery when members of the opposite sex are around – we certainly won’t be seeing an Animal House 2 based on these exciting chaps! So what exactly is my point? Well, now that I’ve managed to alienate just about anyone who’s ever gone to college, no matter what their extracurriculars may have been, I have just one more thing to profess…

It’s ok if you were a dork in college, just like it’s ok if you were a dork in high school – there’s a very good chance that you may turn out to be a dork for the rest of your life as well, but as long as you had a good time, whether it be doing body shots with a blonde whom you’ve never met or memorizing the lines to every episode of The Simpsons ever, who can complain?

Besides me, of course! I reserve the right to complain, while the rest of you…shouldn’t you all be in class or something?! Shake it off and get in there – I hear the teacher’s got fungi on the agenda for today!