Non-Thesis-Writing Senior Experiences a Totally Normal Week

In the days following the first round of senior thesis deadlines, John experienced another totally normal week of college life. John, a senior Government concentrator in Eliot house, has been granted anonymity by The Crimson because his family doesn’t know he isn’t writing a thesis.

“It was a totally ordinary Tuesday night,” said John. “I was watching seasons two through five of ‘The Office’ on Netflix, and suddenly my roommates came in, all excited. They were way happier than I’ve seen them in months. It was weird.”

This past week, John had his usual lecture classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, with two Tuesday sections and a seminar on Thursday. Thursday was still his “bad day of the week.”

“I have a problem set due every Thursday, and this week I needed to catch up with some reading so I could write my response paper for my seminar due the same day,” he said.

As the week went on, however, John said he noticed an inexplicable change in his peers’ personalities. Friends who he hadn’t seen in months suddenly reappeared, and formerly filthy roommates began showering and feeding themselves again. “I mean, I’m not complaining. It’s just that now I can’t get away with using their fancy conditioners anymore,” he added.

John also noticed that he was not the only one drinking on weekdays recently. “I was having my usual Monday night beer, and my roommate Chris, whom I haven’t shared a Monday beer with in ages, comes in and asks me for one. He drank with me on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as well. We planned on taking Sunday off, but then Senior bar struck again,” said John.

John’s greatest contribution to his class, he said, will be a plaque on the wall of the Queen’s Head Pub, marking him as Last Senior Standing. “Makes you wonder what my blockmates have been doing all this time, that’s so meaningful to them that they’ve been missing senior bar,” he added.

As his peers celebrated their newfound liberty post-thesis meals at real restaurants and bottles of booze that cost more than $16, John treated himself to a reward as well. “I had just finished folding my laundry, and I was hungry, so I got myself some Noch’s,” he said. “Tomato basil. It was pretty good."