How to Enjoy Your Time At Vassar: A Guide for Blondes

Radar isn't the only place that reejed me. I guess this senior retrospective for the Misc was too hot to handle.



Arrive at freshman week with a handle of Bacardi Gold in your suitcase. Don’t forget to read section 3.02 of the Freshman Handbook, How to Be Ironic. Smoke a cigarette in the Mug and terrorize Betty. Don’t do the walk of shame, do the stride of pride. When someone compares you to Daisy Buchanan, don’t get upset. Embrace the comparison and run some bitch over. Start your weekend on Wednesday and nearly fail your Thursday 9 am English 170 with Wendy Graham. What the fuck is the mirror phase about anyway? You will only retain one memory of freshman year, so black out wisely.
Sophomore year, try to gain insight from your mistakes. Since you don’t remember the mistakes you made, invent them. Diversify the people you hook up with: otherwise you will have to avoid either the gym and get fat, or the library and get bad grades. Be the other woman. When his girlfriend slaps you at the Halloween party, remember to turn toward the slap. Write a villanelle about the experience. Josh Harmon will tell you it’s the best thing he’s ever read in 205.
Go JYA for the whole year. Break up with your boyfriend and date a 33-year-old native speaker; it’s the only way to become fluent. Never go to class. A year away will give you a clean slate, and most of the people you hooked up with will graduate, so you can go to the gym again.
Upon your return, discover that you can’t fulfill the requirements for your English major. You never got to take cool classes like Queer(y)[ing] the Postmodern Palimpsest, but you do speak Ye Olde Englishe and know “The Rape of the Lock” inside out. Win the superlative for Most Improved. Go to the Mug where Betty says, horrified, “You’re back?” Do not write a thesis. Instead, write a play based on your JYA romance. The whole thing takes place in bed. Make amends with everyone you vomited on. Stay single. You can’t be put in a cage – unless it’s a stripper cage. Don’t know what you’re doing after graduation. But the good news: you have a degree from Vassar. Hopefully the Old Girl Network will get you a job in publishing.

Dye your hair brown.