Adieu, Duke

In the days of yore, the final Monday, Monday column always involved the dramatic unmasking of the anonymous authors. The relatively bored could spend the entire semester guessing the identity of the mystery writers, and worrying whether they would end up being mocked in print.

And how close some of you came to ending up in print! We originally planned to publish phrases overheard in and around Duke, but after a while it became too painful. Seriously, if we overhear one more conversation that contains both "Dude!" and "Big beers at Sati's!" then we might weep from the intellectual anguish. And we are NOT the kind of girls who weep easily.

Alas, the anonymity does not exist anymore. For the entire semester our names have been printed at the bottom of the page, typically describing something stupid or ridiculous that we managed to do in the previous week. Yet somehow people continue to ask us with a look of bewilderment: "You're Monday, Monday?! Don't worry, I won't tell anyone!" Thanks, people, we appreciate your ability to keep a secret.

We set out to write this column for many reasons, all selfish, but mainly to force us to pay closer attention to what's happening at Duke and the various dynamics within. We discovered the thrills of Sati's, the comforts of The Joyce, the plays, the parties, monster trucks and more than we ever wanted to know about Elliott's social life. And we've loved every second of it, save perhaps the moments of intense self-loathing that inevitably accompanied the writing process each and every Saturday. Luckily, these feelings were soothed by Bollywood, with its innate ability to anaesthetize all of life's disappointments, plus Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Wait Wait.. Don't Tell Me! on NPR, McSweeney's and Slate. Creating and perusing Facebook albums helps too, but the rush they give is temporary.

This sense of frustration is not unique to our column-writing endeavor; rather it has plagued both of us throughout the past four years. With the exception of the few who enjoy an exceptionally healthy ego, it seems that pretty much everyone at Duke thinks that everyone else is smarter/hotter/better than they are. Consequently, self-esteem plummets and the work ethic increases exponentially until complete and total burnout. We endearingly refer to this state of mind as "sophomore year."

But, in the words of Praha graffiti: Chilly says "Chill!" Duke students need to invoke the spirit of Chilly and, for lack of a better phrase, chill out. Good things happen when you're not tweaking on Red Bull or in constant panic mode. We know that it's exam week and 80 percent of the campus won't actually read this, but if you are among the few who realize that college life is really about the learning, then consider yourself enlightened.

There are other forms of enlightenment that we've acquired while at Duke. Never consume beer before liquor. Never test the "beer before liquor" rule on Franklin Street at Halloween. Don't ruin your favorite drinking hole by getting on awkward terms with the staff. And don't be surprised when a close friend changes his major junior year and moves to a Brazilian commune. Additionally, the administration will install statues with glowing crotches on the Plaza, but not restrooms by the Loop and the Great Hall. The Bella Union thinks that it's a good idea to sell food from Tommy's, but if we wanted Tommy's-which we don't-then we would go downstairs. People will kill for free T-shirts. Cosmic is sublime. Duke really does resemble Hogwarts. (And sometimes Jessica wishes that she were an engineer. Suparna, however, does not.)

During our last class, our professor said that if college didn't prepare us for a crazy, chaotic, messed-up world then we really didn't learn anything. It's true that Duke coddles and spoils us, but if we haven't developed the tools to navigate and confront its challenges then what have we really been doing all this time?