Happy New Year...

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Summer Wildcat Brad Wallace

Ah, the timeless rhythms of humanity. Since time immemorial, people have labored to nature's cycle, planting and reaping in the fullness of time. We, as proud members of academia, have luckily severed those ridiculous bonds to the soil, and live our lives around the Sacred Wheel of the School Year. By my reckoning of this calendar, it's just about time for the new year.

New Year celebrations are traditional ways of celebrating the survival of the clan through another year of hardship and turmoil. Anyone who has ever taken organic chemistry can certainly appreciate this. In most societies, the new year is marked by a large sacrifice. I look forward to going to the bookstore in a few weeks and giving a rueful chuckle as I write an enormous check for books that will probably be only read once, if they're lucky. On a side note, hats off to the bookstore people for giving us consistent value and quality, and for the amazing way they keep a straight face selling 50 page pamphlets for $35.

One part of the New Year celebration I enjoy is the first awkward reunions with friends:

"Hey! How was your summer?"

"Good. How was yours?"

"Good."

Mind numbing silence.

"Let's go buy something at the bookstore!"

Then there's the first day of class, during which I collect many pieces of paper with words like "Final Exam Date" or "Homework Assignments" and conveniently file them in a brand-new notebook that is lost within hours.

We also participate in a ritual New Year's dance called Finding A Seat. I'm sure you're familiar with it, when you walk into a classroom, frantically scan for a familiar face, and end up sitting in a rickety chair next to a social deviant on the run from campus security officers. The best part of the ritual is that it happens once, and that's it - pick a good chair, because that's where you're going to be stuck for the next 18 weeks unless someone dies.

I have a private tradition of setting unrealistic goals at the start of a new year. Every August, I convince myself that this semester is going to be the one that I earn a 4.0, stop smoking, find true love, write the Great American Screenplay and take up a healthy, invigorating hobby like sailing. Of course, by the third week of the semester, I'm smoking over a Big Mac at McDonalds after getting a 50 percent on a quiz, completely embittered with the opposite sex, creatively bankrupt and looking for a stiff drink. Disillusionment and cynicism are a key part of any ritual.

It's also good fun to start thinking about what outrageous scandals the occupants of the Administration building are cooking up for the next year. The whole CatCard-Social Security number-Train Robbery of 1997 was a real gem. I can't wait to see what's coming for 1998. I predict something involving mandatory plasma donations for all students, with said plasma being sold top-dollar to illicit clinics in Nicaragua. Tuition will increase. I can't wait to see what you're going to come up with this year, Seö#241;or Likins!

Lest I err toward too much cynicism at this time of festivity, I am looking forward to getting this year off and running. It really is amazing those first few weeks, when you look around and see 35,000 other people, all scrambling desperately toward some future goal. Truth be told, I miss the excitement of living in absolute fear from test to test and the rush of remembering homework due the next day at 1 a.m. on a Sunday. Nonetheless, there's guaranteed to be some pleasant surprises, unexpected friends and rewarding classes, all underneath the gorgeous autumn skies of Tucson.

My best wishes to all for the new year! And I'll see you in the bookstore, no doubt.

Brad Wallace is a molecular and cellular biology and creative writing senior.