Goodbye, farewell and amen - One editor's valediction and fare-thee-well to the Johnny Hop

One of the most consistent themes from week to week in the opening paragraphs of this column has been my assertion that one or another aspect of life strikes me as strange. This week will be no exception. This is the last News-Letter of the year, and thus the last appearance of "Placebo Effect" in these pages. It's the last week in a four-year career in which the News-Letter has been a part of my routine almost every week, and for two of those years, "Placebo Effect" has been a frequent, if not always regular, part of that routine. And I have to say. it's been strange. Strange in how fast it's gone: After all, high school seemed to take forever, and that was only four years, too, but this flew by. Strange in how something that could be so stressful can also be so much fun. Strange that I've learned so much doing something for which I received no academic credit.

But learn I have, both from the N-L and from my classes, and most of all from my friends. So, in the spirit of end-of-the-year recap, here's a quick summary of the top five things I've learned here at the Johnny Hop.

5. Physics

The universe is made up of quarks. At least that's what I got out of Subatomic World. Apparently, if you keep taking particles apart into smaller and smaller particles, you eventually get these things called "quarks," which have interesting names like top quark, bottom quark, charm quark and strange quark. Sounds a little like The Smurfs to me, but what do I know? I'm a Writing Sems major. In any case, apparently these little things (named from a passage in Joyce's Finnegan's Wake) are the true building blocks of the universe. Not a bad payoff for spending most of the semester learning about ideas that turned out to be wrong.

4. Greek

That's right: I picked up a whole new language while I was here. The ancient and lofty tongue of the Greeks occupied six of my eight semesters here, and at the end of that time, I have almost become a semi-competent reader of very simple sentences. I owe any progress I have made to sheer bull-headed persistence and the patience and skill of my professors, and anything I am lacking (and in this I lack much) I owe to my own laziness and some lack of talent when it comes to memorization. The end result, however, is that I can tell you truly and honestly that to read the work of Homer in the original is nothing short of a joy.

3. Literature

OK. Let me get this out on the table right at the start. Flannery O'Connor sucks. It's not literature. It's trash. At its best, it's terribly condescending. At worst, it's a snuff film calling itself art. Oh, and I've read Chekhov's "Lady With a Lapdog" at least five times since I got here, and from one time to the next, I can never remember what it's about. That having been said, that's not the only literature I've picked up here at Hopkins. From the poetry of Ariosto and Milton to the prose of Joyce and La Mazi?re, I've been exposed to a lot of good stuff here, and I have my status as a Writing Sems major to thank for that.

2. Beer

Let me just say that when I got here, drinking was a relatively new world to me. My first experience had been with Mumm Cordon Rouge at an overpriced hotel bar in Cannes, and while it had been enjoyable, it didn't exactly prepare me for the preeminence that beer enjoys on the college campus. It took me some time to learn that beer was an acceptable alternative to harder, more expensive beverages, but once I learned, it was worth it. From my days haunting E-Level drinking Guinness as a freshman, to my days haunting the Owl Bar drinking Yuengling as a senior, beer has made my days here that much better. It sounds trivial, but it's true.

1. Journalism

In the words of that most estimable of gonzo journalists, Hunter S. Thompson: "Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy, piss-ridden hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo cage." Well, it may be that Hunter hit it right on the nose, but to tell true, I'm not really sure. After all, it's hard to tell through the drunken haze that I always seem to be in when I'm at the Gatehouse. But all that notwithstanding, it's been a hell of a ride, and I've learned more than I can say here. Thanks to my superiors through the years: Benn and Bryant, Sara and Amanda and Tom and Chris. Thanks to my co-editor Shannon, and thanks to all the editors and staff members wit whom I've had the pleasure and distinction of serving. Through all the late nights, bottles of Boone's, tiffs with the administration, irate readers, power-hungry Council members and an at-times uappreciative readership, we've perservered, and put out a damn fine product. All for a meager 30+ hours per week.

James M. Thompson and V. Edgeworth Smith are looking down and smiling at us all.