“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” & Clark Gable, “Gone With the Wind”

It’s 4:30 a.m. as I sit here in front of my computer screen and, after four unsuccessful attempts of writing this, I’ve just realized something: I don’t care anymore.

This column, school, graduation … it just doesn’t matter.

I realized about two weeks ago that until the end of this exhausting semester finally comes around, I am left with two choices: put on my best smile and jump through the last of my professors’ hoops or turn my back on NIU and live out the last of my days here in stress-free, hermit-like bliss.

Who am I kidding? Like there’s even a choice. That’s right, folks, put a fork in me, because I’m done. Finished. Through. I’m throwing in the towel, packing my bags and waiting to get the hell out of Dodge. If there was ever a time I felt guilty about giving up on school before it was officially over, it’s certainly not now.

Critics of our generation say we’re apathetic to the world around us. They scrunch up their brows and say we just don’t care. I would argue this, though, and suggest that it’s not a matter of not caring & we simply choose what’s worth caring about and are better for doing it.

After all, ignorance is bliss, right? Right?

Maybe you’ve been feeling something similar to this yourself. An unexplainable tug on your conscience, a growing desire to skip a class and go do something else &something fun. Admit it & it’s getting harder to put up with school, isn’t it?

Over the course of my academic career, I’ve noticed that as spring rolls around, I begin to care less about the things that stress me in life, (i.e. school, bills or family) and more about the things that make me happy: playing frisbee, taking a walk or reading a book outside. Don’t brand me a slacker yet, though, because I do actually make an effort. I’ll try to sit in front of my cold, impersonal desk and read Restoration literature for two hours, but the minute a ray of light breaks through my window shades or I hear people outside having the kind of fun I want to be having, that stuffy reading assignment is nothing more than a distant memory.

OK, so maybe it’s a sad effort on my part, but if I thought the effort was worth making in the first place, I would’ve sat there, despite the call of the great outdoors, and done it. But I haven’t done it yet, and have no intention of starting, because this semester has nothing left to offer, and my teachers know it.

I see it in their eyes and hear it in their lectures every mind-numbing day I drag my myself out of bed and into class. Like me, they’re tired and only are concerned with wrapping up any loose ends in their classes before summer. With the exception of my final papers and finals in general, for that matter, is anything I do at this point in the game really going to affect my grade enough to make me want to study harder, or be a better student?

I doubt it. Yeah, maybe I could give myself an ulcer stressing over every class or worrying needlessly over my GPA, but you know what? I’d rather not. Since the beginning of school, I’ve pushed myself to turn in the assignments, read the books and get to class on time, and for the most part, it’s paid off well. I don’t care about finishing this rat race, because it no longer interests me.

Take a look outside though … it’s beautiful day, isn’t it? Now that’s something worth caring about.