How Humor Kept Me Sane In College

Starting to go a little crazy with stress this semester?  The best medicine to restore your sanity is humor. Using this meme-filled poem here is how I laughed my way through the ups and downs of my college student experience at Rutgers.

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I could eat cake, I could sleep late,

Live life on my terms, it was going to be great!

It was Freshman year of university,

Just how hard could it really be?

Then came the assignments and readings, quizzes and projects

Exams more frequent than letters to Harry Potter

The teaching styles were different, the courses went faster

And it didn’t help, to say the least, that I was an unfailing procrastinator

 

My grades started slipping, I was quiet a lot more,

My clumsiness shone a lot more than before.

According to the news, the future wasn’t bright,

Nothing was really wrong, but nothing was right

The world seemed uncaring, I felt powerless,

And I could only read memes, posts and take Buzzfeed quizzes

My insecurities mounted, I can’t overstate,

Most days my hairstyle was the casual Hornet’s Nest

If I went to classes, I went to them late,

Closely resembling a panda in distress.

 

Watching Tim Minchin, it hit me one day

It really didn’t have to be this way

If he could do bits on poverty and crime

Still getting laughs all of the time

Then why should I be any more solemn

Why couldn’t I enjoy ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’?

I got out of my head, I pondered less,

I decided to laugh myself out of this mess

Life was life, and that was that,

If anyone cared they could eat their hat.

I chuckled and chortled at Charlie Sheen,

At bad puns and funny stories, at Trump as queen

I snickered at Harambe memes and sniggered at Kermit too,

I used Arthur’s fist for election news

 

Conversations were rife with misadventure

Getting drenched in the rain and then getting drencher

Lagging laptops, crawling buses, and goose escapades

Cooking skills that comprised of creating ice cubes (homemade!)

 

 

My worries became jokes, I’d start to tell

“My GPA is so low, it’s waiting for me in hell!”

And the exams, the stress, the unbalanced meals,

Slowly they became easier to deal

Instead of presenting experiences like 3 day-old pesto,

I regaled to all with zest and gusto!

“Last night on the bus there was an unexpected bump

I tripped and tumbled with a discernable thump

People didn’t laugh as I slowly got up,

but I could swear the floor was cracking up!”

The truth is no one’s life is like their Instagram,

It’s never a constant euphoria,

So you failed an exam, or can’t draw a histogram,

At least you never ran over Oprah!

Really what I’m saying is since it doesn’t really matter

If you’re as dour as a doornail or as mad as a hatter

Don’t worry about being the talk of the town,

Turn your perspective upside down,

And soon one day instead of a boring frown,

you’ll find that you are…a well-rounded individual with a decent sense of humor!

 

Mrudula is a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She is studying Biomedical Engineering and loves reading, sleeping, and playing with puppies. 

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