(Fall) breaking up with Editorial Board

With the last midterms exams being administered and our peers spending their final hours camped out in Perkins finishing up essays—despite wasting most of their time complaining to whomever will listen about how busy they are or ordering a $300 dress off Net-A-Porter—a brief four-day repose is nearly upon us. And while the undergraduate body has been busy attending recruitment coffee chats, arguing with distant aunts about the Kavanaugh hearing and finding a jeweler willing to diamond-encrust Juuls, Editorial Board has generously spent painstakingly long hour(s) brainstorming recommendations for putting that mini-vacation to good use.

While mommy and daddy have already planned your extravagant fall break retreat to Palm Beach or Aspen through the personal travel concierge over at American Express, you, unfortunately, must take matters into your own hands for planning spring break—and now is the time to get started. Rightfully, you're conflicted about the $2,000 excursion to some exotic locale—re-colonized every year by drunk, vacationing white people—that you’re being forced to consider going on by your overbearing sorority superiors, because it simply won't be up to snuff. After all, the last time you went to Cabo, you had armed guards. God forbid this time around you end up on a one-way boat trip in steerage to have your organs harvested or, even worse, be forced to stay at some low-brow Hilton Hotel chain affiliate. Instead, Editorial Board suggests STINFing the trip, like you do the classes your parents are paying full price for, and spending the long weekend taking edibles in your family summer home and wondering why you always feel so alienated from your peers.

Even though not all of us can join the Brioche girls off to the Breakers this fall break, there are still plenty of fun things that the GDIs and financial aid kids can do on campus! While roving gangs of 20-somethings rumble off in their Range Rovers to RDU on Friday, you can do something to get back in touch with those middle-class suburban roots of yours. Perhaps re-watch last Saturday’s SNL and shotgun a Miller Lite every time Matt Damon yells “BEER!”, spend all your food points on wine like the alcoholic Chevy Chase housewife you’re destined to become or volunteer to mow your professor’s lawn in order to salvage your miserable organic chemistry grade. If you’re in a generous mood and feeling the call to give back to the community, you can go clean up all the dead bird carcasses that now adorn the Brodhead Center. Note: The Editorial Board has been urged by our editor to ask that you please refrain, however, from launching a full-scale assault on the Vineyard Vines whale or bringing Tallman Trask’s Porsche to a chop-shop.

Class divisions withstanding, we even have some great ideas that the entire Duke community can enjoy together. On Saturday, get the crew together to go to Shooters. On the Uber ride there, help each other find counseling services in Durham because none of you can manage to get an appointment with CAPS before Spring 2078. Then, in the morning, spend most of the day staring at your haggard, flushed face in your grimy bathroom mirror, contemplating the inconceivable amount of pain you have caused others and how your unresolved trauma lingers in every relationship you’ve ever had, dooming these fleeting moments of genuine human connection at their inception. Break up these periods of existential anguish with musings about if you would look good with bangs. We suggest setting aside Monday for drafting a text to your hookup from Friday night twelve times before just deciding on “hey lmao.” Then, on Tuesday, end your break with an act of charity by helping Larry Moneta spruce up his LinkedIn and explore some new career options (we heard there is a killing to be made in educational consulting). 

Regardless of how you ultimately decide to spend your time, Editorial Board wishes everyone a happy Fall Break. Personally, we're looking forward to a much deserved vacation from leering down at the University from our ivory tower pedestal.

In case you couldn’t tell, today’s editorial was a joke! Happy Fall Break from Editorial Board!