A Letter From the Editor, Who is Completely Batshit Loony After Pulling Three Consecutive All-Nighters
Photo by Andrew
Andrew Collins
Dearest Reader,
I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself in a trite and narcissistic manner. Sleep deprivation, however, has previously insured that I will utterly fail at any such attempt, and so I plan on rambling like a complete lunatic for the estimated 520 words that it will take for me to fill the cavernous empty space I optimistically allotted for myself four days ago, when I still had a feeble grip on my sanity.
I am a third-year student. I am cynical, anal retentive, obscene, arrogant, and rude. I drove the MQ’s merry band of editors like a pack of malnourished sled dogs throughout the five days directly prior to the first day of classes so that we could distribute this paper during first week. Production of this fine paper normally takes two days, but a three-day internet outage courtesy of Academic Computing Services left us with our thumbs in our asses for a rather unbearable amount of time. I’d like to thank them for that, of course, and I’d like to thank our editorial staff even more for coping so well. Good job, troops. Special gratitude is also reserved for Patty Mahaffey and Jill Corrales for seeing to it that our network issues were not permanent. Muir is full of cool cats, I tell ya.
As a personal favor, I’d like to ask you to exercise a touch of patience while reading this, my first MQ issue. This was my practice run, and I assure you that things are only going to improve from here. I joined the MQ as a Freshman and quickly became an editor — they needed my skills and dirty sense of humor, and I needed abusive friends who could buy me liquor. This sort of thing is called a symbiotic relationship, and it quickly dawned on me that my life at UCSD without the MQ wouldn’t be much of a life at all. At this point, I’m sure you’re rolling your eyes and preparing to turn the page because I’ve gone all sentimental, but believe me when I say this is sound advice. You kids who just moved onto campus would be wise to get involved somehow — I know of no better way to create a circle of like-minded friends. That and there are always older students who can buy you booze.
Interestingly, my younger brother is just beginning his college career this week. Unfortunately, I don’t think I made it clear enough to him that he needs to get out and make the most of his time at UC Santa Cruz. Last I heard, he had downloaded 34 gigabytes of data during his first two days on the dorm’s network and promptly had his internet connection revoked by administration. Of course, it can be assumed that 95% of that data was hardcore pornography — I did the same thing when I first came to UCSD. My point is this: you either join the MQ or I guarantee you’ll spend the rest of your days locked in your room, furiously masturbating, more alone than you’ve ever been in your life.
Love and kisses, Andrew