The 2003-’04 academic year has been a lot of fun. I ran for Homecoming king and lost. NIU won just enough games to be known as the best team not to be in a bowl. Several school officials had one foot out the door and the other hanging over a ledge. I pitched a sitcom to FOX that didn’t get picked up. The residence halls now cost an arm and a leg and at least two vital organs. Altgeld Hall has become NIU’s very own Mark Prior. Wait a minute … this year blew! Let’s get out of this hellhole as fast as possible.

I guess this is where I am supposed to expound on everything that I learned and relate all of the personal growth I underwent this year. Well, I haven’t grown up one bit. The last useful thing I learned was that yellow urine means dehydration, and that was back in 11th grade.

So I won’t shed a tear that we are about a week away from the ultimate weekend — summer. My only regret is I won’t have an outlet to complain about the following:

— The July 23 premiere of “Catwoman.” Do you think Halle Berry woke up one morning and said to herself, “Hey, why don’t I try and ruin every major movie franchise?”

— The Democratic National Convention in Boston, also known as Dennis Kucinich’s last heroic stand against sanity. I hope John Kerry can attend after his likely June surgery to remove his foot from his mouth and his head from his … place where a head shouldn’t be. If he loves Ted “You Will Lose Votes by Associating with Me” Kennedy so much, he should just marry him. They’ll be in the right state. Otherwise, he might be better off if he ran as if he actually wanted to win.

— The Olympics. It’s time for America to stop being hated for acting like we rule the world and start being hated because our basketball team beats Portugal’s squad by 179 points

The sad thing is, about three weeks into summer, I will talk about how I can’t wait to get back here. Then three weeks into the school year, I will be talking about how I can’t wait for Winter Break. Such is the circle of life.

Perhaps next year will be different. Maybe I will find that life, liberty and pursuit of happiness I have been promised all of my life. In return, I’ll try and be a better columnist because I know this is not the greatest column in the world. No, this is just a tribute.

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff. Actually, that’s not really true at all. Before writing each week, I gather the 100 or so staffers of the Star, and we take a vote on what my opinion should be. Thank God for this disclaimer or we would be screwed and everyone would figure us out.

Anyway, it’s the end of year, and I would like to thank my readers. You’ve been great, as have the countless editors and cartoonists who have managed to obscure the fact that I am a complete and utter hack whose columns are now 70 percent disclaimer and 30 percent feeble attempts at insight.

There are a ton of other people behind the scenes here at the Star who make what I do possible, and they never get acknowledged. Make no mistake, I’m not going to acknowledge them here either because that might force my precious, ego-padding logo to be shrunk, but I assure you that they exist.

Seacrest out.