Student Reduced To Tears By Work They'd Describe In Two Months As “Literally no work, just reading"

Two months from this very Sunday, Frank Scotch ‘23 will nonchalantly tell his friends that his light weekend slate of four reading assignments and nothing else constitutes “what I’ve been looking forward to for weeks.” Scotch will skip out of his Friday afternoon class and pause to drink in one of the first warm afternoons of the year, tossing an apple up in the air as he explains that, with nothing to do this weekend but his standard readings assignments, he’s going to have “almost too much time” on his hands.

But this weekend, an identical workload has proven to be insurmountable.

“I can’t fucking do this—I can’t do this. I think I’m spiraling. Is this spiraling?” said Scotch, throwing onto the ground one slim book from which he was expected to read a single short story.

In four months, Scotch will click his heels as he leaps into the sweet Berkshire air, gallivanting through bustling Spring Street, hugging passersby.

“No, seriously,” he’ll say to friends struggling through PSets. “No work. None. Just reading. I know. It’s a joke.”

But Scotch was not laughing today.

“You know what the most fucked up thing is?” he announced, lying on his bed and staring up at the ceiling. “The font is miniscule.” Scotch turned to page four of his short story and let out an audible groan. “I can’t keep track of these characters. Who is Ben?”

Scotch’s mother told The Haystack she received four different phone calls from her son between 9 am and 1 am on Sunday night, each more distraught than the last, each including some not-so-subtle questions about how she would respond to him dropping out of school. “He tends to get nervous at the beginning of each semester,” she said. “Last semester, he called me in tears over his ‘Get to know you’ questionnaire. I think it’ll pass.”

In about four months, The Haystack is certain she will receive a call asking about the process of applying for a Rhodes scholarship as Scotch triumphantly struts out of his class and into his weekend of bliss.

“I’m thinking about going on a hike tomorrow,” Scotch will tell his friends.