Spring Preview Days

As an opinion columnist for the prestigious Middlebury Campus, I occasionally receive visions of the future. This week, I was fortunate enough to be granted, on the occasion of this, the week of Spring Preview Days, a scattered glimpse into the next four years of one anonymous young pre-student whose parents are about to commit to paying MC, like, $60,000 per year for the privilege of receiving Julie Hoyenski e-mails.

For those of you who aren’t counting, that’s, like, a dollar an e-mail, which is a huge rip-off considering that you can get the whole darn Internet for free at your public library.

Anyway, here’s what happens to you in the next four years, Anonymous Preview Days Student:

Upon arriving at Middlebury as a first-year, your first-year counselor (FYC) says, “Welcome, first-years!” before quickly digressing into a story about how Middlebury College had once referred to first-years as “freshmen.” He explains that the practice was discontinued after the Ad Hoc Committee on Attitude discovered that it made the entire WAGS department really, really sad.

Your FYC then outlines potentially hazardous behaviors lurking on campus, explaining what he considers to be the most dangerous addiction out there: “It happened to me. You just discover you’ve got this overwhelming need to take food from the dining hall back to your room. You think it’s justified, right, since you’re a hungry, just-about-done-growing Former-Preview-Student? But pretty soon you find yourself carrying plates and cups back to your room just for the sheer thrill of it — even though you know it’s very, very wrong. Tiger Woods started out just like this, you know? At first it’s great, ’cuz you’re married to a hot model and you bone hot chicks and you’re the best ever at hitting a small white ball into slightly-larger-but-still-pretty-small hole. But then everyone finds out! Or, in Tiger’s case, everyone found out and in my case with the dishes that didn’t happen, but… Did you know Tiger’s real first name is Eldrick?”

This addiction sounds terrible to you. You vow to eat only from MiddExpress and never use dining hall dishware. You also start to suspect your FYC has a drug problem and/or some type of dissociative disorder.

During sophomore year, you eschew your formerly monk-like existence in the basement computer lab of BiHall to venture out into the intimidating Middlebury social scene.

You discover that social life consists of trying to act out someone else’s fantasies about what college should be — and that these fantasies suspiciously resemble the thousands of “American Pie” straight-to-DVD sequels.

Countless older staff members in positions of authority attempt to thwart you with studies and facts claiming to empirically prove your fantasies are dangerous and deviant. They have designed all sorts of seminars and giveaways and other educational events you won’t attend, all in the hopes of nudging you a smidgen closer to “healthy choices.”

Sophomore year is sort of a blur.

Junior year is highlighted by your ascent to prominence on the Sexual Assault Oversight Committee. Not since the legendary Behind-the-Back Quaffle Happenstance of freshman (first-year) year have you felt so very distinguished!

It starts like this: since you are one of the reportedly 98.6 percent of students on campus who defecates, you inevitably encounter the bathroom stall telling you that “Rape is NEVER the survivor’s fault” as you are trying to go number two. Given your recent meditational insights, you’ve come to believe that everything you see is a sign from the universe, and so you wonder, did you, perhaps, ever say or even think it was sometimes the survivor’s fault? Have you done something wrong? Wait, have you been raped, or did you…? Oh Lord, you can’t remember — it was a particularly “American Pie Presents: Beta House” sort of night on Friday. So, in an attempt to assuage your guilt, you run to your computer to apply for the Sexual Assault Oversight Committee, figuring that if nothing else it’s more entertaining than the alternative plans for your free-time, which consist mainly of feeling intelligent and superior while watching a Jersey Shore-type reality show and eating your own delicious, homemade hummus.

During senior year, you ignore job-hunting in favor of an apprenticeship under campus celebrity Francois Clemmons — or “Clem,” as his friends call him. You worship at Clem’s shrine, for he is like Bill McKibben, Julia Alvarez and Ron Liebowitz combined — except, at the same time, not at all like them because he is black (African-American), and gay (homosexual) — and he sings wonderfully even without Auto-Tune.

He is also constantly referred to as the Alexander Twilight Memorial Scholar Combo Dr. 360° Sensation Artist-in-Residence. You covet this epithet. Girded by Francois’ example, you lead a vociferous march on Old Chapel with your closest friends challenging Liebowitz to deliver his next Distractingly Musical Budget Report without Auto-Tune.

His refusal reveals to the rest of the campus that he’s phonier than T-Pain, and it cements your growing reputation as a potential future honorary doctorate candidate.

And then you graduate, Anonymous Former-Preview-Days Student! Cut to the final scene of my vision. Your car’s packed full of your belongings, and you pull away from your parents’ house, grateful that Mom and Dad still don’t understand what marijuana smells like and therefore suspected a skunk as the source of the lingering smell around the car, rather than the two conspicuous surfboards tied to the roofrack. So then, that’s it. You’re easing onto the highway with nothing but a car full of junk, two surfboards of weed, and hope that the four year detour was worth the time. The Preview Days are about to begin once again.