The Final Farewell.

Story by Paige Mathew 

| Published Apr 27, 2010

The time has come. The time has finally come for my final DailyER column. All of my thoughts are an incomprehensible jumble, so this column will be the same.

The one thing I remember from PSYC 181 Keller plan was the definition of a word salad. This jumble of words is confused, often repetitious, and a sure sign of developing schizophasia, or, as I have recently learned, Senioritis.

When I sit in class every day, I find that I have a rapidly decreasing attention span. The following is a dialogue of what occurred in my head during class one day last week:

“The mechanism for translational kinetic energy depends only on temperature. I wonder what the mechanism is for Coors Light cold activated cans. The total number of collisions varies with the concentrations squared. Which location of De’leons will have the least amount of traffic at 1 A.M.? How can Balee 1 subs be so damn cheap but so good? How can Sbarro in the union be so expensive yet so damn good? I wonder if there is free food being handed out anywhere on campus today, and if so, how can I subtly work my way in to that event? Rain won’t fall until moisture droplets in clouds collide due to a substantial increase in free energy. Do they ship Third Stone Brown anywhere in Africa? Take a separate derivative of the numerator and denominator with respect to a variable. How many students would still attend UNL if there were no Husker football team?” All of this was transcribed over seconds 1:53-2:17 of the song "Bucky Done Gun."

Lincoln, Nebraska will be a foreign country to me in less than 3 weeks, so this, my friends, is a tribute. The following is a list of things that I will truly miss.

Student discounts at Green Gateau: My quality of life drastically increased when I found out about this. Five dollars off when you show your N-Card makes a $9 breakfast turn into a $4 one. A Sunday morning hung-over brunch has suddenly become a lot cheaper, and trust me, you will fit in well with all the nicely-dressed churchgoers when you come in wearing remnants of last night’s outfit, have sexed up hair, and have the inexplicable smell of DeLeon’s. Don’t ever go to Village Inn or IHOP in the daylight again.

La Mexicana margaritas: Lime flavored, on the rocks, salted. Three of those will undoubtedly lead to bad decisions. The waiters become VERY friendly, the saddle looks a lot more mountable, and leaving $20 tips seem like no big deal. Do not go there unattended.

Those god damn bike lanes downtown: Actually, I will not miss those. They make absolutely no sense. They might, in fact, be the one thing I hate about Lincoln. I will never understand the reasoning behind it, and I will never try to understand it either.

The 27th street bridge: The most beautiful piece of work in Lincoln. Sitting on that bridge on summer nights with a hookah and some music is by far the greatest thing one can do here. Yes, you are interrupting people on the MOPAC trail, but I can assure you that those bikers are not as intense as they try to appear. Besides, they probably prefer riding on those damn bike lanes.

My twin: After massive amounts of confusion, mistakes, and general disorder, I think it is time to finally clear something up; I do, in fact, have a twin. She attends UNL and is a warped copy of myself. We look, talk, act, dress, rage, dance, and drink in the same fashion. When in doubt, it is safe to assume that either we are actually the same person, or that it is M.I. A.

Sunday Funday: My partner-in-crime and I have singlehandedly stimulated the Sunday alcohol sales at Bisonwitches. I will miss spending 84 dollars on Sunday Bloody Mary’s, loving the rowdy Sunday Funday crew, and then trying to drunk-study afterwards. On every occasion this occurred, this was a good idea.

I will miss not being carded by seven bars downtown because they know me as a regular. I will miss those giant cookies sold in the Union that somehow you can never talk yourself out of buying. I will miss walking on campus and running into at least four boys that I’ve had a thing with… maybe. I will miss riding my golden bike and drinking YooHoo out of juice boxes. I will miss going to Bourbon, Bricktop, and The Q and dancing my face off- consequently concerning people that I am having a seizure. I will miss all the workers at the East Campus Union. I will miss hosting house parties and then drunk baking for the partygoers. I will miss waving at “Ali Baba” every time I walk by. I already miss no pants MYOP Mondays, 4:30 Jeopardy, and cuddle factories. From the BSEers I started college with, the NHRIers I spent it with, and the MBs I've finished with, I have loved them all. I will miss all of my friends, whether they be from the Greek scene, the GDI’s, the engineers, the crazy pre-meds, the O’Rourkes bearded and flannel crew, the party animals in Abel and the Neihardt nerds, the J-school, the random homeless guys I talk to on the street, and of course, the past and present DailyER staff. It’s been four life-changing years, and everyone I’ve met has impacted me much more than they would think. I’m shipping off real soon and I need to bring with me one item of nostalgia. As much as I will hate it, I might have to bite the bullet and buy an overpriced corn cob hat from the bookstore.

Damnit.

Note: This column was not based on true events. But chances are, it was. To be quite honest, it always is.