Let's be honest.
We make fun of their sky high heels, their loud declarations of how drunk they are, the wristbands they feel so cool wearing the next day (or the X's on their hands that aren't even faded).
We ridicule how early they go out.
But first-years are innovators.
Okay, maybe not regarding the heels and the X's. But we need to get behind the hours they keep.
What are upperclassmen really doing between 7 and 9 p.m. besides waiting to go to a pregame? Let's move the night up. Let's order a pizza. Let's go back past our first year of college, back to the parties we had when we were nine years old. Because, let's be honest, we're all at an age where we are far more likely to go somewhere where there is food.
If you go out earlier and grab dinner, you'll have more food in your stomach, so you'll have to work extra hard to get alcohol poisoning. The first-year way could save you a trip to McCullough-Hyde.
I guess the big question is, why do we criticize them in the first place? What is so bad about going out at 9p.m.?
Why are we so obsessed with going out at 10 or 11 p.m.? What's the difference between three hours in a sweaty bar now or later?
Seriously, if you know, tell me. I've been thinking about this for the last three years and have come up with nothing.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we're conditioned to associate staying up late with being cool. We all remember a time when we felt just a little bit superior to our friends when we learned that our bedtime was a half-hour after theirs.
Maybe we've carried this sense of superiority and coolness with us. We think, I'm old now, no one can tell me what to do. I can stay out as late as I want. In fact, I can go out as late as I want. No one controls me.
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What we don't think about are the times we stayed up late and were crabby and a mess the next day.
The way I see it, getting on a modified first-year schedule goes like this: You get dinner, pregame, go to the bars, drink, dance, whatever you want to do, then peace out at midnight for a nice, seemingly full night of sleep.
I know some people who actually go to science classes and know more than me about the human body who tell me that when you're drunk, you can't sleep well.
But, personally, I think that getting more hours of bad sleep are better than getting less hours of bad sleep.
I know there are some people who like going to bars later exactly because there are less first-years. Well, I have news for you. Give it a week, and they'll still be there.
A first-year has more energy in one day than I have in a month-and-a-half. I can't bounce back like I used to when I was 18. It's sad, but true.
So maybe we should switch. Maybe upperclassmen should roll into Brick at 9 p.m. and be out by midnight. We have things to do in the morning -- interviews, work, capstones. Things.
The first-year way is just a better use of time.
burnskl2@miamioh.edu
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