Why I Do NOT Read TSL
By Lauren Sauter
Contributing Writer

The title of this article is partially a lie. In fact, I read TSL religiously freshman year, but then again I did a lot of things then that I'm not proud of. In those days I never would have imagined submitting an article to TSL, too horrified by the possibility that the entire student body would be able to read my thoughts and even react to them. Now I like to think of myself as a little older, wiser, and more apathetic. After a few years hanging around here, the triviality of student publications finally hit me, and I now feel free to add my worthless two cents to this rotting pile of crap. My two cents consists of slightly unfriendly tendencies towards TSL and other 5-C publications, which I will explain should you choose to read on. You may be wondering why I would bother, and why TSL would print this.

When I pick up an issue of TSL, it makes me squirm. Every damn article is oozing with clever quips, worthless information, calculated weirdness and the general stench of superiority. For instance, the issue sitting on my desk that I just spent the last two hours greedily devouring. It's like a contest in each issue to see who can be more academic, eloquent, odd, journalistic, funny, interesting and write the damn paper already. I can just see you talking with your friends, "Man, I can't go Table Manners tonight. I have this deadline for my paper, The Student Life. It's really important." NO IT ISN'T. I'm not going to back any of this up with facts or dig up some sucker who will claim to agree with me, for the record. It's an opinion. This article is about me, anyway. Yeah, I read TSL. I read the digester, too and Neil Gerard's "hot" tips for the weekend. And now that my blasé, too-cool-for-school cover is blown, I'll let you in on the real reason I don't read TSL. It frightens me, and like all things that frighten me, I have no choice but to hate and deride them.

I guess my main issue with TSL is its groupiness (that's a technical term). A small group of people with the same talents and interests, and they're all so down with being TSL. That's my problem with this whole damn campus, and essentially the world in general. Individually I think they're all great, believe me. I consider myself on of the most caring and accepting people around. But you get a wonderful group of people together, with the same interests and things in common, and I want to puke all over them. I realize my hypocrisy throughout all this. It was supposed to be funny. I want to puke all over myself, too.

And the real reason I hate groups of people? Come on, I think its obvious and pretty cliché (french word number two)-I want to be part of them. The Glee Club, Women's Union, Mortar Board, OTL, Without a Box, student government, KSPC, Christian fellowship, every minority organization, artists, musicians, writers, athletes, the freaks and the cool kids, groups of boys, groups of girls, groups of friends. I want to be in all of them. Well, with the exception of Blue and White, no offense kids.

For me, TSL symbolizes all these groups and my exclusion from them. Every week they shove it in my face, working all night as I peer feverishly in the window. You think it is a coincidence that the walls of the TSL office are actually glass windows? No! It's for voyeurs like me, so we can fulfill our sick fantasies of being on the TSL staff without having to bother the precious, precious minds inside. Luckily, as time has passed I've become accepting of myself as a loner, a desperado, someone who doesn't fit in and doesn't want to! Groups are just a way to conform, really; and if there is one thing all the snobby pseudo-intellectuals have taught me, it's that we should all get together and hate conformity.

Like I said before, this article isn't about TSL, its about me. But I think there is one thing I haven't mentioned-you. Why shouldn't you read TSL? Listen, it will be great. I'm starting this group of people who don't read TSL, and I'd really like you to be a part of it....