here lies only a day between you, the dazed young Triton with the Guardian clutched greedily in your grimy little paws, and the single greatest day of the school year.
For 32 weeks and six days a year, this campus is a desolate, withered, soul-sucking waste of landscape; a tepid zone of brain-deadening tedium, bereft of any semblance of joy or smidgen of liveliness. But for one glorious afternoon each spring, this dormant hole undergoes a fantastical transformation, as study lounge dorks emerge from Geisel, blinking their dilated pupils in the harsh glare emanating from the foreign object high in the sky and, yes, breaking a smile.
This process is not at all unlike the beautiful butterfly emerging from its boring cocoon, and much as the butterfly heads straight to the nearest flower to suckle on its sweet nectar, the bookworms heads straight to the nearest tap to guzzle its fine brews.
Incidentally, it’s not just the library locals that shed the shackles of shame that cause their encumbrance day in and day out, but everyone on the whole bloody campus.
Hippies, grad students, Greek geeks, jocks, stoners, lobsters, student council kids, artists, disillusioned hobos, slougers, newspaper nerds, ravers, goths, punk rockers, Neil Dennis, tweekers, skaters, that guy from your physics section, that girl that lived by you in the dorms, the chick from that one party at that one dude’s house and all other assorted riffraff, all cheerfully gallivanting about the UCSD campus with a whimsical look in their eyes and a bottle upon their lips.
The Sun God Festival brings about a certain change in everyone. People ditch their usual apathetically bemused demeanors in favor of a care-free, “”I just don’t give a damn”” outlook.
I remember looking around at one of these Sun God celebrations and remarking to a group of friends that it would be great fun just to be in a completely drunken stupor at school every day. And it has been, and continues to be. Really, there is no better way to get through a completely stupefying day of boring lectures than by drinking seven or eight shots of scotch before heading off to class.
Likewise, there is no better way to get through an excruciatingly painful day in the workplace (like at the fine Guardian offices, for instance) than by drinking eight or so beers before, during and after the grueling experience.
But without the proper instruction, this sort of thing can easily go awry, so it is best to start with a day that will not be want for drunken companions with whom to blend in. Sun God is the call in this arena.
Sun God 2001 promises to bring with it a plethora of fine adventures and opportunities for drunken mischief. Now is the time to prepare thyself for it. The whole sordid mess will be rife with moments of imbibery, so that is what your first order of business should be: Get a bottle — a large bottle, a huge bottle, a bottle so big that finishing it off will only result in severe pain and agony. Then drink it; yes, drink it. Now!
Why, you ask? Why would I want to wake up on the most important day of the school year with a horrible hangover and a mouth that feels like your roommate slept with his or her feet in it? Because, silly, at that point you will have no choice but to go hair of the dog and get right back to the sauce. Unless you go all night (which is a very viable option), you will wake up feeling bad on the big day, but only for the most fleeting of moments. Once that sweet alcohol begins to flow through your veins, your body will remember that you are its friend and it will go back to feeling like a million bucks.
Getting drunk is much easier when the only thing in your system is liquor, so after a Bloody Mary or two, you will be ready to rock!
So put this paper down and get after that bottle. I’ll see you at the concert, or in detox, or in one of those wonderful, marvelous moments in between.
