I spent my first night of college in my dorm room crying. It was a pansy moment, I know. I’m lucky to report that things have definitely looked up since then. I know now that there’s no real definition for college. Experiencing it is the only way to know what’s up. Definitions are overrated anyhow. It’s best sometimes to just know you had a good time and call it a day.

When I woke up the morning after I moved out of the dorms, the veil of dazed sleep still hanging around me, I looked around the bedroom I’d slept in my entire life. Everything was as it had been the previous September, forcing me to wonder, for a fleeting moment, if my balls-to-the-walls first year of college had just been a mere fragment of my runaway imagination.

There must have been a time in each of your lives when you woke up after having an epic night, and had the time of your life, and your bubble of elation just popped because you got that feeling in your gut as though you knew it would be awhile before you felt that great again. And there’s no reliving the moment, although I’m the kind of fool who always replays them in her head a million times over. But it’s such a bummer to move on from it. That’s what commencement seems like from where I stand. College will be a tough act to follow. Sometimes, even in the middle of something, you know it’ll be the kind of thing that stays embedded in your mind forever. Don’t leave these pieces of your youth behind or you’ll get old too damn fast.

Sunday night found me sprawled across an inner tube, lazily revolving in the dark as strobe lights danced across Lake Shasta and “Keg in the Closet,” a three-and-a-half-minute summary of college life, felicitously emanated from some monster speakers. That’s when I think I made peace with the fact that I won’t be back for another round next year. The time has come for me to put on my big girl pants and venture on to discover how far a keen sense of wit and totally sweet rack can get a girl through life.

Life in Davis will go on, of course. Kids are gonna wake up with the sunrise on Picnic Day, pray that malaria gets them before their finals do, and sing classic rock songs with their friends on their way home from the bars. Savor those WTF moments and shenanigans. Someday you’ll rock the cap and gown and part ways with this wicked little town too. It will be a good thing, even if doing so seems like blindly stumbling forward. Life seems to make more sense glancing backward, anyway.

Someday, I suspect, I’ll go on some spontaneous drive and end up cruising down Russell to revisit the times when I thought pickling my liver was a great idea. But it won’t be the same. Because the Davis I knew will exist only in the memories of myself and those I shared them with. Our own jukebox of memories is what we take with us when we leave something behind. It’s wrong to cling to something that wasn’t meant to last. I have to remind myself every now and then not to be sad that it’s over, but happy it happened in the first place.

It’s a trip to think of what the last four years could have been spent on. Maybe pool hustling in Waukesha or something. Things happened in the world outside of Aggietown. What I’m saying is, there’s no better thing I would have rather been doing than living it up here. I can only hope every graduate feels a smudge of that sentiment.

And despite the frivolous nature of these columns – bromance, Popov chugging and Catholic school antics – I cared tremendously about crafting a decent read. Writing this column has been nothing short of a privilege. I highly recommend scoring a column of your own if you have the means.

There’s no doubt that I’ll miss the people more than anything. I can only hope for the chance to say goodbye to certain folks, but if I don’t, it was nice just to know them. One of my ridiculous fantasies is to schmooze at the Kentucky Derby in a really big hat. Should this ever come true, and should you see me there, wave your overpriced mint julep in my direction. I’d like that.

This column’s gotta end at some point. It’s on that note that I’ll say so long, Thursday. You were good to me.

MICHELLE RICK would love an e-mail at marick@ucdavis.edu before she bikes out into that proverbial sunset. Thank you for reading.

As comedian Groucho Marx drew his final breath, his wife wept at his side, his pale hands clenched in hers. “Oh, Groucho,” she lamented, “Please don’t die!”

“Die, my dear?” He wheezed, as life escaped him. “Why, that’s the last thing I’ll do.”

As famed gunslinger, gambler and dentist Doc Holliday lay on his deathbed in a Colorado hospital, he looked down at his bare feet, asked for a sip of whiskey and said, “Well I’ll be damned. This is funny.” He had always figured he’d be shot dead in some dusty saloon or frontier brothel, and die with his boots on.

I don’t have any good quotes from Ol’ Dirty Bastard, so I’ll go with someone with a similar soul. When asked about his plans for the afterlife, rock and roll survivor Keith Richards said, “I’ll just take three slaves with me.” Make what you will out of that last one.

Well, I’m not dying (unless you’re into that existential shit,) but this is the final column I’ll be writing for The Aggie, and so in a sense these are the last words of the long-haired, long-winded Billy Christmas.

I set out some 30 weeks ago to use my column as a means to possibly get laid, as well to chronicle my good times as a lackluster in his fifth year at UC Davis. I didn’t get around to a whole bunch of that sex, but when I sat down this week to think about all the fun I’ve had this year, I realized that the chronicling of all my good times every Thursday was one of the best times in itself.

A while back columnists got paid in American currency, but that ain’t the case no more. Instead, I felt as if all the people who wrote me e-mails asking for taco truck locations or to simply tell me they’ve been reading my columns was the real reward. (Maybe Hallmark is hiring writers. Or alcoholics, or whatever they call the people responsible for those cards.)

Anyway, I’ve had a lot of fun doing the writing aspect of this column, and I hope it’s been good for you, too. I know I usually write about my fondness of libation and the Wu-Tang Clan, but along the way I’ve also tried to express some of the wisdom I’ve gleaned from, well, Wu-Tang albums and the backs of beer bottles.

I wish I could come through with a story from this past weekend to really blow you out of the water, but I didn’t get into any knife fights, or rob any stagecoaches or wrestle as many alligators as I might have liked. I didn’t go to Houseboats, either, because I figured I could just drink my regular amount and substantially lessen the chance that I drown. That would have been a hell of a last column. Writing it after having drowned, that is. Ghostwriting ghosts, or something. A dead fool would probably have a lot of fresh ideas, maybe some stories about those slaves Keith was talking about.

But I’m more than satisfied with the way my final Davis Memorial Day weekend went down. Lots of fine wine, lots of fine music and lots of fine friends. There was also a poorly planned barbecue, a drunken soldier’s march under the blazing sun, and a makeshift campfire shared with a beautiful girl. Not bad at all.

It’s always kinda fun being in Davis on Memorial Day weekend because the place turns into a certifiable ghost town. As much as I appreciate a large crowd and a long line, it was refreshing to be able to go to a bar and actually get to the bar.

Well, thanks for cracking open the newspaper every Thursday, or venturing out onto that Internet to see what I’ve had to say. As you near the end of my final column, fear not. Stay thy hand, turn not that dagger against thy breast. Use the crossword in the back to dab those tears away. While this is my last appearance in the Aggie, if any of my plans go as I plan on them going, this will not be the last time you hear from Will Long.

I’m gonna use that little place at the end of the column for a shameless plug about my housing trouble (you can help!), so here’s something eccentric and possibly profound for you to marinate on as the figurative credits roll: As I’ve always said, December is September’s Wednesday. Well, this is it. Thanks for reading, friends.

WILL LONG desperately needs someone to sublet his room this summer. It’s in a good location, you’ll live with good folks, and the price is extremely negotiable. Plus, if you help Will out, he’ll pay for June’s rent and buy you a beer. Get the details at wclong@ucdavis.edu.

ASUCD senators are the voices of the student body and need to be accessible to students. By not holding office hours, it’s difficult for students to feel like they are a part of campus matters.

Senators have the duty to hold four office hours per week, but Student Government Administrative Office (SGAO) records show senators are not upholding this duty. This is an unacceptable situation that should not be taken lightly.

According to records of the first five weeks of this quarter, nine of the senators had at least one week without any office hours. Five senators – Levi Menovske, Liz Walz, Osahon Ekhator, Ozzy Arce and Selisa Romero – had multiple weeks with zero recorded office hours. In Arce’s case, he logged zero hours for the first half of the quarter – twenty less than the required amount.

Some senators claim they are holding office hours but are not recording them with SGAO. Ekhator said that he is available over six hours every week, but if SGAO doesn’t have a record of where these hours are held, then many students don’t know where to find him. Those office hours are rendered useless to them.

This negligence on behalf of many of the senators shows that they aren’t taking their jobs seriously. They were elected to represent students and they need to take the necessary steps to make sure they are accurately voicing student concerns – holding office hours are part of these essential actions. When senators say they don’t need to record office hours with SGAO, their actions suggest that they don’t care about representing their constituents.

However, the senatorial relationship is a two way street. If students do not show a desire to meet with their senators then there is no pressure on senators to perform their duties.

A public record of senatorial actions is needed to give students more access to their government. This could be in the form of a report card filled out by the vice president, which would force senators to execute their jobs better and hold senators who do not successfully fulfill their obligations accountable.

I think it goes without saying that I’m a pretty awesome person, but here goes: I’m a pretty awesome person. While I have always been an awesome person, I must admit my awesomeness is only apparent to all because of Prozac.

We’re more than a decade out from Elizabeth’s Wurtzel’s autobiography Prozac Nation, and the accompanying ’90s anxiety about a generation starting to pop psychiatric pills in earnest. Then, as now, the possible improvement of mental health was overshadowed by what antidepressants would mean for this generation of depressives. Would it make us zombies? Pervert our personalities? Were selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor actually effective but destined to be an easy way out, a cure with long-run moral implications that an Evangelical-leaning nation shouldn’t dabble in?

To many, especially those who are considering using antidepressants to treat their mental illness, these are valid questions. In my experience, however, I can comfortably say that Prozac has changed, and probably saved, my life. No exaggeration.

Making this column an advert for Big Pharma – not that they need any help – is not my intent. Neither do I want to paint Prozac as a universal panacea simply taken once a day, like a Flintstone vitamin. The truth is, it’s taken years of hard work, therapy and many psychiatrist-supervised med combinations to finally reach the stability that Prozac has given me.

It wouldn’t be true to my natural cynicism if I didn’t include the inevitable downsides that recovery from major depression and various anxiety disorders can bring. With the help of Prozac I can hold down a job, get passing grades, and not jump off a cliff; I can have relationships, maintain friendships, and get fewer panic attacks. However, this doesn’t mean there aren’t some gnarly side effects.

Having the capability to fulfill all my obligations is dampened a bit by constant exhaustion. I need at least nine or 10 hours of sleep per day to function, and if I let myself, I could sleep pretty much indefinitely. Needless to say, 12 hours of sleep isn’t in the cards for a busy student. I’ve resorted to caffeine and resourceful napping, though classes are still missed, and homework is still put off.

That’s not all in Prozac’s bag of tricks. I was prepared to deal with the anorgasmia, the asthenia, the occasional hand tremors. What I wasn’t expecting were the horrible, vivid nightmares. Not only are they awful, but I often can’t even recognize they aren’t real. Before I got on meds, I usually knew I was asleep when my grandma hit on me while wearing my boyfriend’s skin (WTF?).

Without getting into the very salient issues of mental health and what that means, the dangers posed by all-powerful pharmaceutical companies, and the fact that every person has different psychiatric needs, I wanted to use this space to say that antidepressants work for me. They may work for you and they may not. They may be temporary or perhaps require more consistent use. Personally, even with the side effects and the social stigmas surrounding both mental illness and its treatment, living with Prozac is exponentially better than being sick. It doesn’t look like much on paper, but sometimes I feel like the luckiest person alive.

HALEY DAVIS loves Kevin Corrigan. If you love Daddy, too, contact her at hrdavis@ucdavis.edu.