Work is For Chumps
By Christopher Meyer
Opinions Editor

Friends, Pomonians, countrymen, lend me your ears. Whilst partaking in an extended viewing of contemporary films dealing with the college experience such as Road Trip and National Lampoon’s Animal House, I came to wonder why my own personal college experience (or those of any of my friends) came nowhere near those of Messrs. John Belushi, Breckin Meyer, Kevin Bacon et. al. After a few hours of mental mastication, however, I came at last upon the root of my (and indeed, dear reader, our) problem: our constant exposure to the cancerous problem of Homework.

Homework is a vile, slovenly morass that casts an ever-present shadow of doom over each and every student, an unstoppable force of evil that, much like Dracula or certain regional varieties of flesh-eating zombies, can be temporarily beaten back but never completely destroyed. As soon as one seemingly innocent “assignment” is finished, another one suddenly appears, oftentimes even larger and more complicated than the last!

Indeed, this spectre known as Homework is a devious harlot. It may coax you into a false sense of self-worth, promising “points” or “credit” upon completion of its multifarious tasks, but what truly benefits a “doer” of “homework”? I have suffered under this very burden for years, and I can assure you that endless hours of reading and studying have only weakened my eyes and atrophied my muscles; memorization of multiplication tables and U.S. geography have filled my brain to capacity, pushing out important childhood information such as the names of every M.U.S.C.L.E. Man and the theme song to “Captain Kangaroo.” The lovable scamps of Delta House, meanwhile, eschewed any kind of academic work and thrived; Belushi himself, according to the film, eventually became an elder statesman.

If media portrayal has any bearing on reality, the thankless mistress that is Homework clearly grants nothing—it only takes. Homework saps a bright-eyed young pupil’s raison d’être; it robs the poor thing of his or her energy, peace of mind, and worst of all, the invaluable commodity known as “free time.” Where the young student once had a bright future full of endless possibilities, he or she now has only bruised fingertips and a weary brain; scars of turmoil are the only signifiers of one’s precious time gone, long gone. I reject you, Homework, you thieving Jezebel; moreover, I implore the rest of the student body to throw down the chains of labor and to embrace sweet, sweet freedom, to make college the perfect four years it was so dearly meant to be.