Alvin and the Chipmunks: better than studying

By Noelle Hancock

You know how it starts. You have a midterm coming up, but your roommate—who's taking the equivalent of "Intro to My Ass 101"— is spending her time kicking back and watching reruns of The Smurfs. But you're one of "those kids" who graduated from the antithesis of Andover. Your high school teachers showed reruns of Jenny Jones with titles like "I Used to be Fat and Now I'm Phat!" in government class, fronting as a lesson about the world. Until Yale, you'd always thought that finals and midterms were some kind of myth, like leprechauns or cool parents. Here, your task is to teach yourself how to study.

It soon becomes apparent that studying at Yale is as much of a myth as you thought tests were. After your roommate interrupts your attempts at studying with a few thought-provoking comments like "Say man, what's up with Smurfette? I mean, all those guys, one chick—you know she got around." Poor naïve soul—you've set out on a quest to "really get some work done" in a slightly more academic setting. This doomed quest begins at Cross Campus Library.

You soon discover, however, that CCL is the place to be. Forget the coffeeshop scene, forget the dance clubs—they're overrated. At Yale, if you want to pick up a hottie, it's all about the library. If you want to study, however, you're gonna have to ostracize yourself from the social scene and retreat to a weenie bins. At first you're shocked to find that there's actually a cubicle on campus smaller than your dorm room, but you're sure the claustrophobia will build character, or at least study habits.

Instead, you spend the next hour or so checking out Yale's version of graffiti. You find phrases like, "How can the world ever reach perfection when there are discontinuous functions?" Only at Yale. Since you're now at the point where you're actually tempted to respond to the wall's phrases (Your pen is poised to write, "Forget discontinuous functions, what's up with undefined points?!"), it's time for a change of scenery.

You head back to your room, hoping that your roommate has left for her funk aerobics class already. Unfortunately, she's decided to forego this week's class the special one-hour Alvin and the Chipmunks on the Cartoon Network. As you sprint for the safety of your room, you hear her shouting from the common room, "Hey, do you think all those chipmunks had to get rabies shots before they let 'em go to school with the human kids?" The bedroom door closes. Peace and quiet, finally.

You're actually making some headway when the door opens, and who should walk in, but that guy from downstairs—let's call him Mr. Questions. You know who I mean—that one fool who just asks you all sorts of questions that have really obvious answers. For instance, the first words out of his mouth when he walks in are, "Oh, are you studying?" Naw, buddy, don't be deceived by the calculus book in my lap, there's actually a raging party going on in here right now! He finally leaves, but not before asking, "Hey, are you gonna be here tomorrow?"

Instead of going back to work, your mind drifts. You start to think about all the people who will ruin and/or enhance the grade curve and whether the eventual outcome will help you or hurt you. Well, let's see—there's that one girl who hasn't taken a single note all year and spends the whole class checking her hair for split ends. But there's also that guy who brings his laptop—any time you glance over to double-check your spelling, he immediately turns his screen so you can't see it. But the tiebreaker is that one dude who spends half the class picking his nose and flicking the boogers on the guy with the laptop. That's it, one conscientious student versus two freaks: the odds are definitely in your favor.

At this point it's around midnight, and you finally decide to throw in the towel. You might as well say screw it and leave it up to fate and the curve, because Yale, for all its academic hype, is simply no place to study. And it's only 20 percent of your grade anyway, right? Besides, it's better to relax and get a good night's sleep so you'll be fresh tomorrow. At least you can still catch the end of the Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Noelle Hancock is a freshman in Saybrook.

Back to Opinion...