Bottle of red, bottle of white

I like wine. Red wine goes well with meat and fills your throat with warm pleasure. White wine is more elegant, a delicate sigh that should be served for meals that linger on into the night. There's one other kind of wine to which I have grown accustomed in the past four years: The Duke Whine.

As far as I can tell, The Duke Whine, like normal wine, comes in two distinct varieties. First, there is the self-centered whine. This whine goes well with all meals that 99 percent of Americans couldn't afford to eat. It's best exemplified by the leaf-blower girl from last year (this is the girl who wanted the maintenance staff to use rakes in instead of leaf blowers so she could sleep more peacefully), quite possibly the dumbest creature to ever express herself through the written word. The premise here is that everyone should make their lives significantly more miserable so your life can be a tiny bit easier.

This brand of Duke Whine calls a parking crisis any situation in which you are forced to park more than 10 feet from the main quad, and walk-rather than be helicoptered-back to your dorm. It's the kind of whine that complains about the food on campus when all you consume everyday is a plain bagel and bottled water which officially makes you more malnourished than most of the population of a third world country. Finally, it's the sort of whine that allows you, when intoxicated, to go into the bathroom and get mad at the cleaning staff because it's such a mess, and then vomit on the floor and not clean it up because it's someone else's job to remove the examples of what an a--hole you are.

The other kind of Duke Whine is the self-righteous whine. This whine is best exemplified by people who consider themselves nicer, more moral than the rest of the world and can therefore be horribly insensitive and tell everyone else what to think. In case you haven't read The Chronicle this semester, my column would be a perfect example of this whine, and if you haven't realized by now that this column in particular is completely hypocritical then you should have a successful career in politics to look forward to.

Anyway, this whine can also be demonstrated through any of the Christian groups on campus who implore us to feel the light of God's love, and then make sure to let us know that we'll burn in hell if we don't believe in the existence of someone who was supposed to have lived 2,000 years ago. Another great example of this whine can be seen in administrators who urge students to be hardworking and responsible, and yet are so inefficient that they block half the senior class' registration for no connected reason, call in the militia to deal with bench burners and raise billions of dollars while students have to drop out of Duke because of decreased financial aid.

Quite simply, I'm tired of listening to my own whining. And I'm even sicker of listening to other peoples' complaints. As I get ready to fail in the real world, I'm becoming increasingly aware of one simple truth: It's never going to get better than this.

Duke is a great school. We are among the top 10 universities in academics. We have numerous top 10 sports teams, including a basketball team that is more fun to watch than any other team in the nation. The students here are smart and like to have fun. Many of them are even caring. Duke students raise thousands of dollars for people in need, and there are tons of organizations on campus whose specific purpose is to help the Durham community. We truly are the leaders of the future.

Yes, this school is too expensive. Yes some people are self-centered, self-righteous or just plain dumb. But don't whine about it. Don't, in a million small ways, create a cynical, bitter atmosphere on this campus when objectively, Duke really is a Gothic Wonderland.