I really don’t get why anyone would catch a round of senioritis in college. Sure, there was a moment when I was finishing out all-nighter No. 2 in the basement of Bainer Hall ’round 5 a.m. when I briefly entertained the notion of just becoming a stripper. Coincidentally, a few days later I would attend a party where I found being a stripper means letting strangers eat whipped cream out of your ass crack and, well, I’m just not comfortable with that yet.

I begrudgingly admit that if I stayed in college forever, I’d probably age like crap before succumbing to liver failure. This whole 10-weeks-till-the-end thing is pretty uncool, though. The end of life as we know it is disturbingly near. That’s why the capital “G” is scary – it’s like falling into a black abyss because we don’t know we’re getting into. Last week, my friend at USC told me her last foreseeable plan after graduation is houseboats, which is either awesome or pitiful depending how you look at it.

When it comes down to it, you’ve just gotta take that plunge, chief. As frightening as it is, the mystery of what lies ahead is part of life’s charm. As you venture on further down the road, you answer the questions you once had. Perhaps, as a child, you wondered what college you would go to or how hot you would grow up to be. By now you ought to know those things, and surely there’s more where that came from.

We used to have this really kickass rabbi drop in every once in awhile back in high school. One day he dropped the idea upon us that whomever we’ll marry is probably out there living their own life right now, possibly eating a sandwich (it was around lunchtime, as I recall). For some reason, everyone found that super trippy. Translation: Things reveal themselves when they’re meant to.

It’s all about bracing yourself and chasing down those dreams while learning to cope with potential setbacks – aka situations that just suck. There’s so much fear of failure in the air these days, but just remember that you’ve made it this far so you’re probably gonna be okay.

Think of all the little brats you shared a kindergarten classroom with and where they are today. One of my former classmates was identified by a former AYSO soccer teammate when the bandana covering his face slipped down while he was holding up a car. There’s the old sorting machine of society grinding its gears. If you’re fairly certain you would never end up in that situation, kudos. Be glad you’re not kicking it with him in San Quentin.

Looking onward leads me to that big, beautiful question: What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? I’m not saying you should go behind your parents’ back and sell their Palm Springs timeshare in order to finance a business venture selling ice over the Internet. But set your sights high. Work for it until you’re in a position to invite your friends to a house party at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Inevitably, things never end up the way you mean them to. Learn to roll with it. If you’re a perfectionist, I can promise you’ll be disappointed in what you get from life. Bender had it damn straight when he said, “Screws fall out all the time. The world is an imperfect place.” Even Jagger acknowledges that you can’t always get what you want, and it’s probably true since he probably gets what he wants more than just about everyone.

In any case, I’ll try my hand at tour guiding on the Jungle Cruise if it keeps me from eating Cheerios on my mom’s couch in my pajamas during one of those unemployment jams. I think I’d excel at the former before getting fired three days in for swearing too much.

The point is if you’re set to walk the plank in June, fear not about landing on your feet. If you’ve still got a couple of years to screw off, then by all means, screw off. Time flies like a mofo when times are good. Not so much when you’re doing something you detest. So take caution – don’t become a middle school PE teacher. Or a fluffer.

MICHELLE “TRICKY DICK” RICK felt too important to write this week, but her ghostwriter can be reached at marick@ucdavis.edu.

Winter often found me hiding away in the lonesome spires of my manor, looking out over dark seas on moonless nights. Winter is a time for reflection and the spinning of existential carousels, for drinking whiskey by the fireplace and whispering in low tones while hiding from rancorous storms and days that end too early.

But rejoice, for winter is dead. Spring has come to take her place.

I wanted to start it the right way, so as I approached spring break some week-and-a-half ago, I aimed to get into something gnarly so I could come back to Davis and tell you all about it. Maybe go to a dive bar in Hollywood, get in a brawl with Dennis Hopper and the cast of “Seinfeld” and wake up in Norway with a knife wound and armfuls of beautiful women. Obviously, that wasn’t likely to happen, because armfuls of babes are hard to come by.

Well, I went to a dive bar. Sure enough, the place sucked. I got a pint of Pabst Blue Ribbon and then bounced. Another guy at the bar kept insisting that Hopper was going to descend from Valhalla sitting on a throne of skulls, but – well, you know – he was a lunatic. (Which is mostly normal for Hollywood.)

No, the biggest adventure I got into over the break was introducing my mom to the game of beer pong – or ball-in-a-cup, as I like to call it. She wasn’t really into it.

Mom: “So you throw the ball into the cup?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Mom: “This is what you do at parties?”

Me: “Yeah. Or you can bounce the ball for two – “

Mom: “This is stupid. You do this for fun? Why can’t you just drink a beer and have a conversation like a normal person? Or dance with a pretty girl?”

Me: “Uh, well – “

Mom: “We had way more fun in the ’70s.”

Can’t really argue with that. I reckon it’s because the ’70s had better tunes on the radio. They got Led Zeppelin while we’re stuck with silly bitches who spell their names with dollar signs.

Anyway, a light bulb popped to life over my head when my mom called me a tool. Sure, throwing a ping pong ball into a red cup is a blast, but this is my last spring quarter. Instead of spending my weekends cracking jokes around a 30 of Natty, I’m going to do what people from the ’70s would have done. (I can always drink Natty on the weekdays.)

First, I’d like to make sure we’re all on the same page. To all you freshman and social recluses, spring quarter isn’t really a quarter. It’s 10 weeks of fun with a few reminders from SISWEB that you’re missing a ton of schoolwork.

This spring, I pledge to do so little schoolwork that you’d think I graduated or dropped out of school. We have Picnic Day coming up, my birthday (April 20, a day I will celebrate with sobriety, responsibility and sarcasm) and the Whole Earth Festival, not to mention countless days of sun and warmth.

I’ll be floating on rivers this spring, sleeping on beaches, hiking through forests and calling out to the summer stars as they wheel in arcing constellations above my campfires. In a sense, you’ll be coming with me, because that is what I’m going to write about.

So pack those schoolbooks away, my friends. Now is the time for fine company and fine spirits. These are the days of adventure on the high streets of Davis and the outlying world – unless, of course, you made the mistake of having to cram all your required courses into this quarter. If that’s the case, well, I got nothing for you. Good luck with that.

WILL LONG wonders what the ’70s would have been like if Ol’ Dirty Bastard had been on the scene. “Brooklyn Zoo” featuring Led Zeppelin? “Tangled Up in Blue” featuring GZA? Oh man. There would have been a lot more drug use. Send Will your daydream remixes at wclong@ucdavis.edu.

Editor’s note: The following letter is in response to The Aggie’s Mar. 11 investigation titled “Budget cuts could mean loss of up to nine sports.” Peri is a junior civil engineering major.

The legacy of the UC Davis Athletics Department is that of a broad-based sports program. It was never intended to fit the Big 12 Conference model or that of the other major conferences. Instead, more teams were fielded to give student-athletes a wider variety of opportunities across the board.

In 1993, students voted on the Student Activities and Services Initiative, in which they agreed to pay more money in support of a 23-sport program as opposed to one with 17 sports. Then in 2003, when the university was contemplating moving from Division II to Division I, it made promises to student-athletes with the Campus Expansion Initiative. Note that the CEI promised – for the second time – a broad-based sport program.

UC Davis is not keeping those promises, with Athletics Director Greg Warzecka instead stating that up to nine sports could be cut.

Warzecka said that resources will be invested specifically into football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball because “the university can be very successful with those teams,” according to the March 11 article.

Women’s basketball isn’t the only team that’s won a Division I conference championship. What about the other UC Davis teams that have? Men’s golf won one. Men’s and women’s swimming and diving have all won championships as well. You don’t see Warzecka planning to invest in these successful teams. One argument against these teams is that they are not revenue-producing sports. But in the CEI, UC Davis promised not to base its financial survival on the money brought in by these teams.

And what about scholarship loss and student-athletes potentially having to transfer to other schools? Cutting a team in April does not give athletes time to look for other schools to transfer to. For some sports, there’s just not that many options. UC Davis provides an opportunity for many athletes that other schools cannot with its broad-based program.

When your team is cut, what happens to that money you were receiving with your scholarship? Many student-athletes cannot afford to go to UC Davis without their scholarships. I know of a student-athlete whose scholarship allowed him to go to UC Davis and become the first person in his family to attend a university. If his team gets cut and he loses his scholarship, he will be unable to finish college.

We just want to know if there’s anything we can do to avoid being cut. We’re ready to be proactive. We’re ready to fundraise. We’ll do anything to prevent our opportunity to compete at the collegiate level from being taken away.

After over a year of partisan back-and-forth, infighting and debate, President Barack Obama signed the final parts of the healthcare reform bill into law earlier this week.

While the ultimate success of the bill remains to be seen, one immediate benefit to the current generation of college students is undeniable – young people will be able to stay on their parents’ insurance until their 26th birthday.

The provision, which will take effect in six months, will go a long way in relieving some of the stress associated with graduation. Currently, the UC system provides a reasonably priced quality plan as an option for all students. Students are eligible to buy into this plan until a quarter after they graduate, then they are on their own. In a failing job market, the alternatives for receiving health coverage are scarce and expensive. Even the cheaper independent plans will still cost around $1,500 dollars a year, plus deductibles in the thousands and co-pays for doctor’s visit. It’s no wonder that 18 to 24 year olds are the least likely demographic to have health insurance, with nearly one in three having no coverage at all.

What’s worse is that recent graduates are expected to start paying back student loans only several months after finishing school. Higher tuition rates coupled with the weakening job market makes this a daunting prospect. For most former students, health insurance will be one less thing to worry about in six months.

It’s fairly rare that young adults see a piece of legislation from the federal government that benefits us immediately and positively. We see a lot of campaign promises, pandering about tuition and abstract ideas meant only to placate our frustration. But this is real. This will help many of us in a way that is quantifiable and direct.

Why am I not rejoicing over what happened last week? No matter where you were over spring break, you surely heard about the major health care reform that finally went down in Washington. Despite the Tea Party protests, national ambivalence and congressional gridlock, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on Mar. 23, 2010.

Pelosi, Obama, et al., were understandably self-congratulatory about their accomplishment. For the past months, the media had been carrying on as if the election of Scott Brown was going to be the bill’s death-knell, and Republicans in Congress have reminded us constantly that their new modus operandi is saying no to everything. That the bill actually made it through while we were all away (hopefully) enjoying our spring breaks seems almost like a miracle.

So why am I not happy? While the arduously achieved health care reform has accomplished many things for American citizens – no more pre-existing conditions, no more denying children insurance for any reason, and a host of others – it has done so at women’s expense.

The easiest thing to do would be to accept the small advantages the act will eventually provide. At least now I won’t be charged more for insurance because I’m a woman, right? According to The New York Times in their article “Overhaul will lower the costs of being a woman,” insurance companies are no longer allowed to discriminate based on sex (because for some reason, it was legal until just a few days ago). When a friend sent me the article, I was more incensed by these reminders of institutional injustice than relieved at the strides forward it documents.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy that Caesarean sections and domestic violence are no longer viable bases to deny a woman health insurance. Because, you know, having a medically mandated procedure or getting beaten up by your spouse makes you a sort of risky client. What’s terrifying is the fact that it took until 2010 to fix these problems, and despite these long-awaited amendments, there is still a lot wrong with the health care women have access to.

By agreeing to reaffirm that federal funds will not be used to pay for abortions (something already ensured by the Hyde Amendment, which has been annually updated since 1977) – which are, by the way, legal medical procedures meant to be available to all women of all income levels if they so choose – Obama has thrown women under the bus.

Aimée Thorne-Thomsen, of the Pro-Choice Public Education Project, guest-blogged at Feministing about her unhappiness with the reform.

“As often is the case, women’s bodies and health, was the ultimate battleground [of health care reform],” she blogged. Although there is more than enough legislation, such as the Hyde Amendment, preventing lower-income women from getting abortions, “the President agreed to sign an executive order barring public funding of abortion in return for their support for the overall bill.” To appease Stupak, his ilk, and the Republican Party, “Women’s health was traded away for a handful of votes.”

But what else is new? Women were sacrificed to the need for political deception from the Republican Party. Faced with Roe v. Wade, anti-choice activists began finding indirect ways to prevent reproductive choice. By reaffirming the validity of legislation like the Hyde Amendment, they’re ensuring that abortions remain unattainable to women who don’t have the funds. While abortion may still be technically legal in the United States, those women who can’t afford them will not get them.

Instead of protecting our rights, as he promised to during his campaign, President Obama chose not to stand tall on his values and promises. As much as I respect the work he has put into this legislation, and as much as I appreciate the change it portends, we were surrendered to the factions chipping away at our constitutional right to reproductive choice. This must be rectified.

HALEY DAVIS is overwhelmed and can be reached at hrdavis@ucdavis.edu.

The UC Commission on the Future revealed several strategies to cope with budget cuts and student fee increases at last month’s regent’s meeting. Some ideas are drastic, while others are vague in their predicted success.

Although these strategies are not yet fully fleshed out, it is better for the five groups under the commission to assume the worst than to be surprised. The current economic climate does not ensure stability.

One idea that poses practical promise is a multi-year fee increase schedule, establishing that fees for incoming undergraduate and transfer students will rise at a fixed rate or according to inflation for the duration of their enrollment. A fixed-rate plan offers predictability for students and their parents, along with time to plan for increasing fees.

If the regents believe increasing fees is the only way to combat the budget dilemma, this is the fairest of the proposed plans. An alternative plan, called “aggressive” increases, would result in a wide range of possible funding. This plan does not make fee increases constant and would raise fees close to amounts comparable private schools.

A fixed rate plan ensures fees will rise, for example, 5 percent annually over the course of enrollment as opposed to 5 percent one year, 10 percent the next and 15 percent the year after. This plan’s ideology also coincides with Sen. Jeff Denham’s (R-Merced) Student Protection Act, which would require the UC and CSU systems to provide a 180-day waiting period prior to implementing fee increases and cap the amount of fee hikes at 10 percent.

The commission’s other ideas, such as more non-resident students and online courses, should also be encouraged and supported as money-savers.

The recent 32 percent fee increase was a shock to many students, who scrambled to find ways to come up with the money. With a well laid out plan, students will be better prepared to focus on the benefits of higher education, instead of panicking over payments. Increases should stay consistent if they must be implement at all. Regents should explore this particular option further.