Sherman Ave Freshman Guide: Sobriety

You may have noticed that many of the articles in our award-winning* Freshman Guide series are related to alcohol. This is largely because all of the 21-year-olds on our staff enjoy imbibing with great fervor. However, we are fully aware that many freshmen are not yet 21 years of age, and that a large portion of freshmen and current students may choose not to puke all over themselves every Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. So, we take it upon ourselves to offer up a steaming hot plate of super sober funtivities:

1. Have actual accomplishments. Think of the average amount of time a typical person spends drinking alcohol in a day (23 hours). Now think if all that time was spent curing one cancer per hour. We’d cure all of the cancer in a matter of weeks or months probably, but I’m not Googling it because fuck cancer and I refuse to add to its search engine optimization. But the point is this: if you choose not to drink, feel free to spend your time doing generally well in life. I’m guessing that pays off at some point.
2. Enjoy campus entertainment. Northwestern’s theater program is top-notch, having cranked out Julia Louise-Dreyfus, David Schwimmer, Zach Braff, Charlton Heston and Ross Packingham. Don’t miss the opportunity to see the future Beyonces of the world while they’re still figuring out which octaves they can hit, get on out to the shows! And several campus organizations, most notably A&O and Mayfest, bring fantastic professional entertainment every year. Like, KENAN CAME AND MADE AN ORANGE SODA JOKE. So, yeah. Go to these things.

   

3. Catch up on television. Arrested Development season four is coming. This cannot be stressed enough. If you’re like the average college student (as determined by a random sample of people who are me), there are too many shows to keep up on. Yeah, NBC is helping out by canceling Community and CBS certainly frees up some time by allowing Two and a Half Men to exist, but it can still be difficult to watch all the great television being produced. But if you don’t have to block off 7pm-3am every night for the alkeehall, you might just have enough time to finally watch season five of Breaking Bad before Arrested returns.
4. Go to parties. Fun story: being sober at parties can be an absolute blast. You get all the fun of hanging out with friends, dancing like an asshat, making a fool of yourself and meeting new people, all without the crippling hangover the next day. As an added benefit, if you make too much of an asshat of yourself (think assbonnet) there’s a pretty good chance that no one will remember it because they were all blacked out. So rage on my sober friends, rage on.
5. Be not terrified of your CA. CA’s are actually nice people. In general, they are mildly responsible students who opted for some free housing on the condition that they try to keep any of their residents from dying. As a sober student, you’ve inherently made your CA’s life much easier. And since they don’t hate you for being loud and belligerent four nights each week, you don’t have to feel terrified every time they walk by your room. It’s really a win-win-win-no-matta-what-got-money-on-my-mind-I-can-neva-get-enough.
6. Find things in Tech. Literallyyy where the fuck is MP4031? Is it next to Einstein’s? In the upper balcony of Tech Auditorium? Not a fucking clue. But then, that’s probably because 90% of my time spent in Tech was while I was just wasteypants. If you’re sober, I’m told the numbers and letters go in order and there are mildly helpful touch screens to guide you. So if someone at NU would go ahead and stay sobskies so they can show me around Tech, that would be great.

   

7. Go to McDonald’s.  I know this may sound strange, but hear me out. McDonald’s is fucking delicious, right? Well the nearest one to campus is well out of walking range. In fact, the only fast food burger chain near NU is Burger King. And while BK is scrumdiddlyumptious to a belligerent sorostitute at 2am, if you’re sober you will probably want some better fast food. Enter McD’s. Find someone with a car and offer to drive them to McDonald’s. If they’re drunky, they should literally jump at this opportunity. If they’re sober, they should react with the appropriate amount of enthusiasm. And voila, you can have the deliciousness of the McChicken-McDouble $2 combo in just minutes, all because your sobriety allowed you to drive.

So there you have it. While we may have made it sound from time to time like Mr. Cuervo and el Capitan would be your only friends freshman year, the truth is that there are plenty of ways to enjoy your gen ed classes without the bottle. Now go have some good clean fun, kiddo. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*The Sherman Ave Freshman Guide has absolutely never won any sort of award, and any insinuation that we have should be met with the utmost of skepticism.