With the speedy rollout of mostly-safe vaccines to the population and the end of the pandemic finally within view, Stevens finds itself at a difficult position of actually having to function as a proper school for the first time in over a year. “It was so nice during online classes,” said one laid-back professor. “I could just roll out of bed and start the slideshow from the comfort of my own home. Sometimes I could even sneak in a few Z’s and the students wouldn’t even notice because no one was paying attention! It was paradise! Now we have hybrid classes and I have to get out of bed, get dressed, drive to school, deal with the parking meters, interact with Bill, it’s just unbearable! I have no idea how I used to do it every day! I don’t even know what I’m going to do once classes go back to normal. I haven’t taught anything in so long, I think I forgot how to. Quick, ask me a question about calculus! Oh, God, what was a derivative again? It’s on the tip of my tongue … Whatever, it’ll come to me.”
The administration is also feeling the impending post-pandemic stress. “It’s been so nice and quiet on campus while all the students were gone. I would put on some classical music and just relax without 17 people bursting into my office asking for their schedules. Just because I’m the Registrar, I have to deal with everyone’s problems? No thank you!” Officials are currently in talks to figure out how to justify keeping the online classes so they don’t have to start putting on pants during work again. “Do you think students would believe us if we told them campus burned down while they were gone?” said one administrator during a secret meeting while our reporter hid behind a conveniently-placed plant and recorded them. “What if we painted all the buildings black and poured ash everywhere? Then we could be all like ‘Ah, oh no, the fire destroyed everything! Guess we have no choice but to keep classes online. Uh oh!’ You think they’ll buy it?” All of the assembled officials approved the plan, commiserating on the unfathomable gullibility of the students. At this point our hidden reporter had the unlucky occurrence of a sneeze, causing the leaves of the plant to all comically fall to the floor. Our reporter and the officials looked at each other in shock for several awkward seconds until the reporter thought fast on their feet. “Oh, sorry, I’m just the plant repair guy,” the reporter said in a stilted voice. “This one is obviously defective. Let me just take this back to the plant factory. Don’t mind me!” Our reporter carried the wilted plant out of the room whistling while the officials nodded at the obvious explanation.
One of the major forces against reopening the school is none other than President Farvardin, who in our absence has completely redesigned Howe into a 15-story amusement park, complete with a carousel, bumper cars, a lazy river, and clowns that just honk around the place. Pierce Dining Hall has been completely transformed into an enormous ball pit, only slightly damaged by the fact that they forgot to take all of the food out before dumping the balls in, causing all of the little spheres of fun to be covered in a fine layer of strawberry yogurt and chicken parmesan. The bowling alley in the basement wasn’t changed, and I’d like to let all of our dear readers take a quick second to think about how weird the fact that there’s a bowling alley under the administration building is. I know it’s not new information, but I also feel like people haven’t fully realized the absurdity of its existence and so I invite everyone to just have a quick ponder over it. Farvardin, who was busy at the time having his face painted in Clown HQ, or what used to be the old Undergraduate Academics office, dismissed the concept of reopening. “What, and let the students use my laser tag arena? I suppose you want me to just open my skee ball machines to everyone, too! Clowns, take them away!” The President clapped and summoned two hulking behemoths wearing clown makeup and absolutely gigantic shoes, like these shoes had to be size 100 or something. Our reporter, intimidated by this display of comical athleticism and excessive footwear, promptly left the premises.
Personally, Off the Press cannot wait for Stevens to reopen so we can get back to all of the hard-hitting journalism that all of our fellow students expect, nay, require from one of the most highly-regarded and trustworthy news sources this side of The New York Times. We pray for the day to return when eyewitness reports are plentiful and we regularly get recognized by people who then extol our virtues and mention how attractive we are. Sadly, as long as officials keep their stranglehold on online schooling, those days may be gone forever.
Off The Press is a satirical Opinion column written and organized by Off Center, often used to joke about current Stevens issues and campus news.
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